by C. R. Jane
"You came back for me," I sob. He's wearing a look of love that's so different from the usual guard he has up.
"I took one step away from the castle and knew I had made the biggest mistake that I could ever make. I didn't want to come back and face you until I had something to offer. I guess I couldn't offer much," he says wryly, his breath coming out in gasps.
I look down at my hand and see that the blood is still freely flowing. My efforts don't seem to be doing anything. I cry harder.
"Don't cry, my love. You've given me the happiest moments that I've ever had in my life. To know that some part of me was able to capture even a piece of your heart, that's more than anyone could hope for their lives."
"Stop talking like that," I sob, putting both hands over his wound and continuing to pour my magic into him.
"I want to tell you something," he says, a faint line of blood dribbling out of his mouth as he speaks. He holds eye contact with me. "My name is Mason," he whispers as his eyes flutter closed.
I repeat his name softly but I don't think he hears it as he takes one last breath before he becomes perfectly still.
"No!" I cry out, shaking him and trying every spell I know to wake him up. There's no change in his silent body, and after several more minutes of trying, my hands slide off the blood-soaked wound. I lay my head in his chest, hoping for any sign of life, but there's nothing.
I must lay there for several minutes because there's a soft touch to my shoulder that forces me to lift my head off of Mason.
"Your Majesty, please let me get you cleaned up," comes a soft voice.
It's Gwenny, one of the kitchen staff. She's been one of the only kind faces I've experienced during my time in this hell.
"I can't leave him," I sob.
"I'll make sure that he is cleaned up and prepared for a proper burial, My Queen. I promise," she says, and there's something about her tone that makes me trust her.
Her promise at least allows me to be led numbly back to my room, I'm sure scaring everyone that I pass by since I'm soaked in blood. Gwenny's soft hands gently wipe the blood off of me. I don't even think about having modesty when she draws me a bath and helps me in, getting off the rest of Mason's blood. Throughout her ministrations, my numbness turns to rage until there's little room for rational thought. It incinerates all the carefully laid plans I've had to save Fairie and leaves me only with the burning need for vengeance.
He will be punished.
I wake up hours later with inexplicable tears on my face, and a feeling of deep loss permeating through my body. It's a long time before I can get out of bed and rejoin the living.
Chapter 16
It's been a few days since the ball and Aiden has spent as little time with me as possible, even making excuses not to eat dinner with me. I know that his feelings are hurt, I saw it in his eyes when I didn't return his advances. It's a strange thing, but somehow this situation with Aiden does feel familiar. This blend of anger and sadness over my failure to return his affections doesn't feel new. And it makes me truly wonder, what was our relationship really like before?
I'm currently waiting outside of his office to talk to him. Complicated or not, a part of me has missed him, especially since he's my only friend in this place. I want to somehow mend this breach between us, but I'm not sure how. I also have decided that it's time for him to start including me in the kingdom's affairs. If I'm just a figurehead expected to stand still and look pretty next to him, I would like to know. All of this training seems worthless if that's the case.
I knock on the door and wait for him to respond.
"Come in," he says after a beat. I'm sure he can sense me, just like I've begun to be able to sense him.
I walk into his cavernous office. He's sitting at an ornately carved wooden desk that takes up half the room with its breadth. He doesn't look at me when I stop in front of the desk.
"What can I help you with Eva?" he says with a annoyed tone that makes me angry.
"You can help me by stopping acting like a child," I snap at him.
He sets his papers down and looks at me impatiently.
"Whatever are you talking about?" he asks.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've been ignoring me for days."
He stands up, cutting a formidable figure behind his desk.
"Ignoring you or giving you the space you obviously desperately want, Eva," he says, anger finally dripping into his voice.
His words make me take a step back.
"What do you mean?" I ask, my voice calmer.
"You made pretty clear how little you are willing to try in this relationship the morning after the ball," he answers.
"Oh, you mean the relationship you never asked me if I wanted?" I say sarcastically.
His anger is replaced by hurt and I immediately regret my words.
"That didn't come out right. I just mean that we seem to be on unequal grounds right now. You say that you want to know the new me, but you're still carrying the ghosts of whatever happened between you and the old me," I say softly. "I think everything feels so strange to me because I feel like you're keeping things from me, things about our relationship. If you could just open up…"
He interrupts me. "I'm not hiding anything. I have been trying to get to know the new you, but you fight me at every turn. You can't have it both ways. You can't have me talk about her…about the old you, but also have me move on from those memories."
His words make sense, but I'm at a loss of what to say. He gives a sigh and then suddenly walks towards me, wrapping me up in his enormous arms.
"I've missed you," he admits into my hair where he's buried his face.
"I've missed you too," I admit. I pull back from him, determined to remedy this situation. I hold out a hand to him. He looks at me quizzically.
"What are you…?"
"I'm Eva," I tell him, still holding out my hand.
He is now looking at me like I'm crazy.
"I'm new here. What's your name?" I ask him with a grin.
He finally catches on and smiles back at me.
"I'm Aiden. It's a pleasure to meet you," he answers.
We spend the rest of the afternoon curled up on his office couch, asking all those get to know you questions that we kind of skipped when I arrived here so abruptly. He seems intrigued by this fresh start I'm proposing, intrigued and cautious at the same time.
I learn that his favorite color is black (big surprise), and he learns that I hate the taste of bananas. The time spent is just what we needed and despite my misgivings after the ball when he was kissing me, I feel again like we could have a chance.
I'm laughing about a story he's telling me about Gwenny when I hear a faint, unfamiliar noise outside of the office door that kind of sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Aiden had been in the midst of laughing at something I said but he stops when he notices the perplexed look on my face. The sound builds in volume until I finally have to cover my ears.
Aiden gets off the couch suddenly and goes behind his desk to get a long broadsword, a sword that for some reason looks familiar to me. I'm up off the couch now, his actions, along with the intensely worried look on his face now worrying me.
"What is it?" I ask, having to talk loud to be heard over the shrieking that sounds like it's getting even closer. Aiden holds up a hand to silence me as he puts his ear to the door. He jumps back in surprise when the door starts shaking. Something, or a bunch of somethings, start pounding all over the door.
Aiden comes to stand in front of me now, the sword outstretched, never taking his eyes off of the door. The door gives one last shudder before it crashes open and what seems like a million creatures, the size of giant rats, come streaming through the door.
They begin to fill the room, so numerous that they look lik
e one entity as they get nearer to us. Aiden is still standing in front of me. He has one of my hands in his hand behind his back, and he's squeezing it tightly.
"Any ideas?" I yell at him, the screeching of the creatures so loud that it's hard to hear anything over it. I wonder where Nicolas, Romulus, and Madoc are. Since I've been here my bodyguards have never been farther away from me than the next room unless instructed otherwise by Aiden. But the squall of these creatures was so loud that it would have alerted people in the next village, and yet they are nowhere to be found. A little shiver of dread passes over me thinking that these creatures have already done something to them.
"You haven't mentioned these creatures," I yell out over the din, trying to bring some levity to the situation. It must work because Aiden gives me a wry grin that quickly turns serious after a particularly loud screech from one of the creatures.
"They're kaches," he tells me in a tone that's the most worried I've ever heard from him.
"Today would be a very good day for your powers to work," he tells me.
I silently pray to whoever up there is listening that my powers will actually work. One brave, particularly ugly creature approaches Aiden. Its sharp teeth resemble giant knives, with the exception that they are covered in copious amounts of green goo that appears to be actually steaming.
"Is there something I should know about their teeth?" I ask, gesturing frantically to the green drool that just dropped to the floor, promptly creating a hole in the floor.
"Yes, don't let them bite you," he tells me simply, concentrating on slicing the head off of the creature in front of him. "Their bite is poison, it eventually spreads throughout your entire body, even if it's just one tooth that nicks you."
I move my hand quickly away from one of the little beasts that's approaching from the side of us. They've now filled the room completely, and Aiden and I are having to stand back to back in order to keep them in our sight.
I shoot a volt of electricity at the one approaching, and it disappears in a cloud of ash. This doesn't seem to deter any of the others. In fact, it seems to inflame them at the audacity we have to dare to kill one of them. The screeching grows into a crescendo, almost like they are giving a war cry before attacking.
Attack us they do, suddenly, and all at once. Aiden's movements are practically a blur as he cuts through them with his broadsword while somehow simultaneously shooting black ropes into others. I'm using my lightning to defend the masses in front of me, creating dark black spots where nothing is left of the creatures but a black mark on the floor. The room smells of burnt flesh and I try not to gag even as my eyes water from the horrendous smell.
Despite the hundreds I know we have slain, the room doesn't seem to be clearing. If anything, it looks fuller than it did before as thousands of the creatures, which oddly resemble the Gemlins from the movie I watched as a child, continue to stream into the room.
A sense of the inevitable settles upon me as I see that we have become separated, and Aiden has become surrounded a few feet away from me. I continue to shoot electricity in a circle around me, beginning to get dizzy from the movement and the overpowering, horrendous smell of their fried carcasses.
The creatures somehow become even more confident, and I'm horrified to find out that they can jump when one jumps onto my leg, opening its mouth to take a giant bite of it. Not thinking, I grab it by its large ear and toss it against the wall where it hits with a loud thud.
They begin to jump more in earnest until I'm having to try and zap them out of the air before they can land on me. I can't take my eyes away from the mass that's continuing to surround me, so I can't check to see if Aiden's making any progress. Attempting to hear anything through the din of the creatures' screeching, I'm relieved to hear the swish of Aiden's blade signaling that he's still alive.
I hear him suddenly roar out and then increased squeals from the creatures as he assumedly begins to wade his way through them.
"Eva, above you!" he yells.
I must have lost my concentration for a moment trying to check on Aiden, because when I look up, I see that a few of the creatures have been climbing across the huge wooden beams that frame the top of the room as decoration. They begin to drop from the ceiling, like dive bombers honing in on their target, in this case the target being me.
I hit a few of them, but the distraction of having to defend myself from above now too is just the opening the ones surrounding me on the floor have been looking for. I can't defend myself from all sides, and Aiden is still trying to cut his way through the hundreds that have surrounded him.
"Evaaaa," he cries as I feel the first sharp bite break the skin on my leg. A burning heat stems from the bite. I can feel it rapidly making its way up my leg. I throw the offender off of me, but there's ten more that jump on me from below. At the same time, a few others land on my shoulders from where they've continued to fall from the ceiling. At least five manage to bite me before I can blast or shake them off, and I feel my movements becoming sluggish. The burning heat seems to be coursing through my entire body, and I can feel my heartbeat beating hard to try and overcome the poison. It feels like my heart's ferocity is actually making the poison spread faster though.
My wounds are leaking the green goo from the creatures' mouths, and I can feel the same burning on the outside of my skin where the goo has dripped, as I do on the inside where the poison continues to circulate through my body. My heart seems to be giving up the fight as it has dramatically slowed from its frantic pace and is now struggling to keep any blood pumping at all. I'm too weak to burst out any meaningful strikes and my sluggish movements do nothing to help toss the creatures off of me who are now freely swarming me.
"Eva," Aiden cries, and in my haze I realize that he peculiarly sounds more angry than he does sorrowful at what is happening to me. Maybe he's angry at himself for not being able to protect me like he promised.
I sink to my knees. My whole body feels like fire. I almost expect to burst into flames. I can't help but scream as the pain builds until I feel myself losing consciousness as my body tries to protect itself. The sound of my heartbeat finally fading, along with Aiden's snarl is the last thing I hear before everything goes dark.
Chapter 17
Mason
I've been down here for what I think amounts to a couple of weeks. It's hard to tell since the meager amount of light that finds its ways through the bars that cover the small windows in this hellhole never seems to change much thanks to how heavy the cloud cover must be outside.
It's a strange thing, but my body is actually feeling better than it has in months despite the regular, daily beatings that I receive from the prison guards. Because I'm finally with her.
After having a little fun getting high off of my incubus blood, the Jiangshi must have been under His instructions to carry me to the prison where I've been languishing ever since. Thankfully, the idiots put me in a cell near Eva, and my healing abilities have slowly returned as I regain my energy from finally being near her. Every day four or five guards come and beat the living shit out of me, and the next morning when they return, the bruises have perfectly healed.
My body may be healing, but my heart feels worse than ever. Although Eva could stop traffic on her worst day, right now may be her worst day. She's thin, so thin that I'm not sure if she's been fed since disappearing. Her skin is pale and covered in dirt and grime. Her hair hangs in strings down her back, a much darker shade than usual due to the filth she's been forced to live in.
A guard comes in twice a day to tube some kind of potion down her throat. He doesn't send a Jiangshi, but some other kind of supernatural creature. I'm guessing Fae due to the similar energy readings I'm getting between him and Beckham, and I guess Eva, although her readings are far stronger than both even in her current state.
He never comes in to check on her.
I hate that I still don't have a better way to identify Him beyond fucker, asshole, etc. I've tried charming the guard, but after he failed to even look at me I saw that he was wearing some sort of earplug. He must know what I am then.
My strength builds every day, and although they aren't feeding me at all, the energy that Eva has given me has allowed me to slowly regain my strength enough to start plotting our escape. Hopefully the incalculable age of this pit of misery has weakened the chains I'm bound up in enough that when I'm full I can break them and get us both out of here. I'm just not quite there yet. I've tested the chains every day and they haven't even cracked a bit.
It's agony to see Eva like this. I feel more helpless now than I have at any other time in my life. I keep praying that she will somehow wake up, but most of the time she doesn't even appear to be alive. I just have to assume that because the guard continues to come and put the potion down her throat, she's still with me. I can't comprehend a world without her. I knew I was in love, but it wasn't until she disappeared that I realized that it's far deeper than love. Billions of people have fallen in love over the course of the world's existence. What I feel for her can't be tied down by such an ordinary term. I haven't said anything to the others, but I've come to the conclusion that she's my fated mate. Lexi's witch prophecy be-damned. You don't feel this overwhelming obsession, this I can't exist without this person, if it's just ordinary love.
I think of the tattoo that I had changed on my chest. I know that the significance of it means far more to me than it ever will to her, but I'm proud to have a reminder of her marked on my body. Especially if she…No, I refuse to think of her not making it through this.
I pass the time talking to her. I'm sure anyone possibly listening thinks it's the ravings of a mad man but I keep talking. I tell her all of the things I always thought I had eternity to tell her. I tell her stories about the life I've lived, the adventures I've had, about my memories with Damon and Beckham and how I met them. It's my every wish that I'll be able tell her all of this again when she wakes up, that we all will be able to tell her stories about our past lives when she wakes up.