by Fawn Atondo
“The girl is where she needs to be right now. She needs to face this.” The faint figure of the Wicca faded in and out.
“I am not leaving her there!” Alex informed him.
“Then she will die,” the Witch stated simply.
“Why should I believe you?” Alex wanted to know.
“I have been sent to help her. She is one of our people, even if it is an old tie,” the Wiccan said.
“How is a fucking ghost going to help her?” Alex demanded to know.
“Death will not come, even when she refuses to help them in their plot. It is not her death they want –they need her power,” he assured Alex.
“I won’t let them hurt her!” Alex whispered.
“Then heed my words, Vampire, and let her face what is coming.” His voice faded with the light.
Alex stood there awhile, staring at the spot the shimmering figure had been. Could he trust anything in this world? Hadn’t this same being warned him to be wary of the people in this world? Yet, he had told him the truth last time. He couldn’t simply leave Falyn to her fate.
“Are you going to listen to our ghost?” Lark asked him.
“Yes, but we go on alone. The Binder can go her own way.” Alex’s tone was soft but firm.
“You are going to let the Binder leave… alone?”
“I don’t care about her. She has power enough to keep herself alive,” Alex pointed out.
“He’s right,” Luria said from the shadow of a tree. “I can watch myself.”
“I’d advise you not to cross our path again.” Alex didn’t even look at her when he spoke.
When Luria was gone, Alex turned to Lark.
“I find it hard to buy the girl is now free of whatever is controlling her,” Alex muttered.
“Then we carry on following her,” Lark stated.
Alex was not going to trust a damn soul in this godforsaken world! The little redhead was clearly infected with the Dark sickness. It took over and left nothing but a perfect robot to carry out the demands of the Dark Druid. It was a weapon that was highly easy to employ: once a Dark Druid got into your head, he simply passed along the poison that worked on the mind.
Alex hoped Falyn’s Light side would keep her from being infected with the Dark sickness long enough for her mind to fight back.
Chapter seventeen: Only Me
Falyn awoke in pain, her face resting on something hard and cold. She forced her eyes to open. It took a lot of effort but she finally managed. She saw only darkness, and the hard cement she was laying on told her she was in a cell of some kind.
Her body ached but with a few tries she was able to get to her feet. Listening to the sounds around her, Falyn knew no one else was nearby. Inside her mind the battle went on – one part trying to convince her that she had nothing to fear, that she was powerful, but a smaller voice kept fighting to be heard and it knew something was wrong!
Then she heard footsteps approaching. A man in dark clothes came into sight, pulling a man’s body with him. He opened the door and threw the body at her. Making her fall back with a hard thud. The body landed on top of her. Falyn shoved the man away, then knelt over him trying to see his face. She was indeed shocked to see who it was: her own grandfather! The last time she’d seen him was on the beach, and he was dead.
“Grandpa,” she whispered.
She’d never called him that before, but for some reason it seemed right to do it now. He let out a groan. His eyes opened and he looked at her before he shut them again. She saw the pain in them.
“I was hoping they did not have you,” he sighed.
“But how come they have you?” Falyn asked, knowing she had talked to his ghost in the other world.
“A long story. Too long for in here.”
“It’s okay. I’m strong enough to free us!” Falyn soothed him.
“Are you now?” He sat up.
“Yes, I can use my power now,” Falyn informed him.
“I think not, Granddaughter,” he chuckled.
“I know I can. I feel the power!” she insisted.
“No. The power you feel now is a lie – a drug working through your blood.”
“That’s not true!” she cried.
“Let me look at you,” he demanded.
She came closer to him so he could see her better. He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes for a long time. It made her uneasy.
“What are you doing?” she finally asked him.
“Seeing if you’re sick, and you are. Your eyes are yellow and not from your wolf sight, meaning you have poison in your blood. That is why you think as you do.”
“It’s my power,” she corrected him.
“No, it isn’t,” he said firmly.
Deep inside she knew he was right, but the power – or poison, whichever it was – had worked fast to convince her the strange feeling was because of becoming The One. Yet her soul knew this was not the truth.
In a moment of clarity, before her mind could be clouded again, she asked how they could fix it – if it was fixable.
“I will bleed you to rid it from your body.”
Her grandfather’s words were not very comforting but she was willing to give it a try.
“I don’t know what is wrong with me, but I can feel this sickness in my head once in a while,” Falyn whispered, clutching her grandfather’s hand.
“We have all been fooled, but you most of all. Relax and I will help you become yourself again.”
Falyn nodded and laid on her cot. She knew her grandfather was going to cut her, but she couldn’t watch. Instead she closed her eyes. She was using all her willpower to force the other voice from her mind.
She let out a cry as the knife sliced through the blood vessel in her wrist. Then she bit her lip to keep quiet. She felt him cut her other wrist too. She held her breath but he told her to breathe normally and she did what she was told.
“Now keep still and fight the other voice in your head until the poison leaves your body,” he commanded her.
That voice in her head told her he was trying to kill her, and a few times she came close to trying to fight back. But each time her common sense reminded her she needed to do this. And the more blood she lost, the less the troublesome voice was heard.
She could feel she was going to pass out but she struggled to stay awake. Her grandfather rested his hand on her head.
“Let the sleep come, child, it will heal you.”
Falyn woke to the sounds of coughing. She sat up quickly – maybe a little too quickly. The room spun! With a moan she slumped back down on the bed.
“Easy, you lost a lot of blood.” A hoarse voice she didn’t recognize came from the other side of the cell.
“Grandfather?” she asked.
“I am sorry, child, but I let you see me as your grandfather so you would listen to me. I am the leader of the Wiccans, maybe the last of my clan left,” a man said.
Looking at him now, he looked much like the old man she had seen that night in the forest – the leader of the Wiccan. Falyn felt shocked. At that moment it all came rushing back to her: the Witches in the woods, the unreal power of the moon and the crazy sense she was now omnipotent.
“What was all that?” Falyn wondered out loud.
“That, my child, was a powerful mind trip,” the Wiccan said.
“Was everything out there a lie?” Falyn asked, wondering if Lark, and Luria, and even Alex were all just an illusion.
“Not all of it, but the part of you being able to use your Druid magic was,” the Witch informed her.
“How can you be the last Wiccan? I swear I saw a whole coven of them!” Falyn told him.
“Sadly those were Dark Druids. They use their Dark sickness to overtake others!” he said. “Those you saw in the woods were empty shells, nothing more than spirits of what my people were.”
“Then why am I here at all? Why did the ghost of
my grandfather tell me I would be able to fix my spell here and free my two bloodlines?” Falyn hoped the cure was here.
“Your grandfather is still alive and still among your father’s pack. Everything that happened to you was brought on by the Dark Druids’ magic. They seep into the minds of other races and take over until there is nothing left but darkness.”
“Why do they want me?” Falyn asked.
“They want the power that runs in your veins.” His voice was getting rougher.
“Who leads the Dark Druids?” Falyn whispered.
“Your father.”
Falyn would not put it past him, but how could it be?
“How is that possible, when he’s not even in this world?” Falyn demanded to know.
“Even with the Gate keeping the Immortal world separate from the Mortal world, there are ways for people in each to communicate.”
Falyn did not answer. Instead she lay on the cool stone floor and tried to process this mess that was her life.
“Your fate led you here for a reason, but it’s not your only path.” His voice was growing weaker.
“I am bound by my bloodlines: I am not allowed to love whom I wish because I am a werewolf and they have rules… Then I am the last Druid of Light and have a whole other set of obligations… I don’t know how to go forward from here,” Falyn told him honestly.
“You can only control what is yours,” he told her.
“And what is mine?” Falyn wanted to know.
If fate was leading her on some sort of trip of enlightenment, it was doing a piss poor job!
“The wolf.” His voice breaking sounding like shattered glass to her ears.
“The Lycan bloodline may be mine but there are many divided wolf clans now,” Falyn said.
“Yes, but it is your job to bring them to order. The pure and the mixed, the Shadow and the Bitten – all of them come from the House of Lycan,” he reminded her.
“Sounds rather simple, but I assure you it is not,” Falyn stated.
“They will follow you… Maybe not without a fight at first, but they will, because it’s your fate to lead them.” The man squeezed her hand.
“Well, first I need to get us out of here and find the Gate…” But before she could finish, the Wiccan cut in.
“No Falyn, I will not be leaving this cell, but you will. The Gate will call you; trust your instinct this time. The poison is out of your system now. And Falyn?” he added.
“Yes?” she whispered
“In order to defeat your enemies, you need to be willing to embrace the darkness because you are born of the moon and of the night. You were never meant to be in the light.”
He never said anything more.
Falyn let go of the now limp hand and rested her head on the wall behind her. She was too drained of strength to escape right now. His words replayed in her head. Never meant to be among the light? A Druid’s power was from the Light. What was he talking about? Another mystery she would have no answer too!
The sound of footsteps echoed back to her. Two men came to the cell and brought her food. As they removed the man’s body, she watched them with new eyes: with the eyes of a wolf. They did not seem very alert. Either they missed the massive amount of blood on the cell floor or imagined it had come from the man, and they never gave her as much as a glance.
At first she was wary of eating something made by the enemy, but without food she would not have any energy to leave or to heal. The food tasted like dirt but that did stop her from eating it. The hard chunk of bread was like a rock but she ate this too. Once more she slept, giving her body a chance to recover.
Waking at dawn, she knew she was back to normal. She no longer felt weak. Sitting on the cot, she watched the cell door for hours. Then finally the guards came back, but this time they had no food with them. They dragged her outside. They did not speak to her, so she said nothing either. She went along with them quietly, waiting to see where they were taking her before she tried to escape. She hoped they would go outside somewhere. But no such luck. They went down directly into some sort of underground chamber. It was not too deep, but it gave no hope of an easy exit.
The cave was eerily lit with candles. It was like someone was trying to make it home... and they were. There was a man dressed in a long black robe, his hair all but gone. Not a pretty sight, Falyn thought, as she looked him over. She did not miss he too was looking her over and then it dawned on her: this must be the guy her dad all but sold her too. Great pick, Dad. She looked him in his dark, sunken eyes.
“Ah, Gatekeeper,” he oozed as he stood to greet her.
“Don’t call me that!” she hissed.
“Why, rub you the wrong way?” he sneered.
“Something like that!”
“Well, what is a name anyway? What I call you matters not to me as long as you know you’re mine!” He oozed glee.
“I am not anyone’s!” Falyn stated.
“Easy now, doll face, no need to go all she-wolf!” He laughed at his own joke.
“Be careful what you wish for!” Falyn informed him in a near growl.
She was unsure if she would be able to change. Last time he’d held her cuff and she’d crumbled, but she could feel the wolf in her now. Perhaps because of the blood draining, the power he had over her from that charm was gone.
“Oh, but I am careful, and look at what it got me… You!” he smirked. “Daddy sure did hold up to his end of the deal.”
“I hate to inform you but my dad had no right to give me to anyone!” Falyn let her disgust show.
“You have no say in the matter, little girl. You have something of ours!”
“I am not going to give you my blood to share with your demented buddies, so you can forget that idea right now,” Falyn told him.
“Who said anything about giving me your blood? That’s not what I want at the moment.” His voice was so soft it made her skin crawl.
“Then what do you want?”
“You. After I am done planting my seed in your belly, then you will pass the gift of your blood to my children, and they and I will be leaders of the first pure blood of my kind,” he assured her with an evil glint in his pale brown eyes.
“Satan’s spawn!” Falyn choked out.
“Why, how intuitive of you, my dear, because you’re close… but my kind enjoy being called Demon,” he said with a dark smile.
Falyn felt her heart falter as he watched her. He called himself a demon! If that was what he truly was, then the Lord help her!
“Speechless, I see. Good, now you can show me some respect!” He grabbed her chin. “I am going to have such fun breaking you in… and once I claim you, your ability to work the Gate will be mine. I can return to the other world with your father’s payment,” he declared.
Falyn wisely chose not to answer. Instead she watched him walk around her and it made her stomach hurt that the little Demon pervert intended to bed her. Like hell!
Literally it would be like hell too. She could only guess how a Dark Druid, who preferred to be called a Demon, would like to spend his wedding night. And while she was a kinky girl, she was surely not down with anything that involved “breaking her in”.
“I have no intention to sleep with you so you might as well write that off right now!” Falyn informed him.
“Your opinion on the matter truly does not matter, my dear.” He leaned in close to her face.
As Falyn turned away, his lips smeared along her cheek, making her skin crawl and her stomach heave.
“Naughty girl!” he breathed in her ear, as his hand came up again to jerk her face to his.
She could not break the hold he had and before she could think how to get free, his lips came down on hers. Her will was gone; her mind was fully there but her body could not move. She felt panic as his mouth kept up its assault on hers. After what seemed like a lifetime, he released her and she could once more move. The first thing she
did was bring her hand to her mouth to wipe away the feel of his lips.
“See why I am not too worried about your unwillingness?” he taunted her. “Once I touch you, I control your every move… Lovely thought, is it not?”
“No, it’s not, and if you ever do that again I will rip you apart!” Falyn yelled.
He only laughed as he began pacing around her again.
Falyn was truly feeling horrified now. It was one thing to fight off a kiss, but quite another to be helpless to one. And the idea of him being able to make her do what he wished sent chills down her spine.
“The wedding will take place once you find something more appealing to wear,” he sneered and snapped his fingers.
A thin dark-haired woman came in and took Falyn by the hand. As she led her away, Falyn looked back at the Demon and, sure enough, he was watching her.
“Make sure she is dressed to my liking,” he warned the woman.
She merely nodded and kept dragging Falyn along with her.
Soon Falyn found herself in another part of the underground cave. There were a few more women here and each took turns fussing over Falyn. Falyn tried to talk to them but none would look at her, let alone speak. She gave up, letting them go about their work while she took the time to think of how she was going to escape. If it took only his touch to keep her from moving, it was going to take perfect timing to get out of this place. But she had no plans to marry the creepy Demon so she had to think of something – and quick!
Falyn was so lost in her thoughts she had not been taking any notice of what the women were dressing her in. So when she did look up into the full length mirror, she almost fainted. She was dressed in white, however nothing about it was wedding like. It was lace – see through lace – and it showed everything!
“I am not wearing this!” Falyn hissed at the women.
They still said nothing but kept picking at her hair. One slipped another white lace gown over her it helped hide her a little, but still left very little to the imagination.
The woman who’d brought her here once more took her hand and led her back through the cave. This time, though, Falyn tried to pull loose but found she couldn’t. Were these women controlled by the demon too? Made sense; why else was she not able to pull away?
