by Leyton, Bisi
“Lluc lets this happen. If he’s that possessive of you to the point he locks you down here, how can he accept that you’re being hit?”
“I don’t bother him with that. Plus, she regenerate me when I get hurt.” She tried to smile.
“But?” Wisteria sensed there was more.
“Did Coia really kill Oleander?” Frieda hugged Lleo tightly. “And she sent you the body?”
“Yeah,” Wisteria responded and paused. “She did.”
“Then you see why I can’t tell him.”
“She’s threatened to hurt Lleo if you tell Lluc.”
“Or if I can’t make him happy.”
“I’m sorry.”
Putting Lleo back to bed, Frieda brought out some bandages and cotton wool to treat Wisteria’s cuts and bruises. Once done, she settled in front of the television with a bowl of soup. Frieda seemed oblivious to what was going on as she fixated on the old movies she was watching. There was something to be said about trying to block out the madness of their situation. Like Wisteria, Frieda had too much on her mind. She chose to deal with everything by not thinking about it.
Wisteria wished she’d possessed the luxury to block it all out.
The building rattled as thunder sounded, strong winds shook the castle, as a violent storm seemed to move in.
Frieda laughed at something she’d seen on television.
Abruptly, the door burst open and Lluc appeared, dressed in a long black coat like the Dy’obeths preferred. “Why is she still here?”
Frieda jumped up as if she was a child caught stealing by her father. “Lluc, I—I—you said she could stay with me, so I won’t be alone. Remember?”
“She should have been gone before I got here.” He scowled.
“I’m leaving.” Wisteria hurried to the door.
“You didn’t have to be—unkind—rude,” Frieda stuttered.
Lluc gave her a deep disturbing look.
“She was—I’m sorry.” Frieda backed away from her seething spouse. “Wisteria, please leave.”
“Are you—?” Wisteria couldn’t leave her when she might get hurt.
“Please.” Racing to the door, Frieda pushed her out. “I’m fine.” She closed the door in Wisteria’s face.
Through the door, she heard Lluc shouting. “What happened to Lleo? How did you do this? What have you done to him?”
“He’s fine and still perfect. The color in his eyes will come back in time—it’s because he’s a baby,” Frieda cried.
“You will tell me what you did to my child or I will make you. And woman, you do not want me to make you,” he threatened.
“He had a fever. The color will come back. Please, don’t—” Frieda wept. “Where are you taking him? Lluc, do not take my baby?”
Quickly, Wisteria opened the door. To her dismay, she saw Frieda on her knees begging he for the child.
He stood with his back to Wisteria chastising his wife. “Clearly, you are not prepared to be a mother.”
Creeping up to the pair, Wisteria placed her hands on his temples, her purple pulse bombarding his mind.
“Get off me,” he shouted as he fought her, but his ability to stop her was limited because he was holding Lleo.
Wisteria’s pulse started turning dark when Frieda snatched Lleo from Lluc and raced out of the room.
This meant Lluc could fling her off him like a rag doll, which he did.
Wisteria’s body smashed into a small table as she crashed to the ground. Crying out, she tried to rise, but found she was in too much pain. It felt like she’d broken her leg.
Lluc stood over her with a menacing glare. “Wisteria—”
“Eminent Lluc.” Blai marched in dragging Frieda by her arm. “She was trying to escape.”
Lluc turned to the Drone. “Get her in here.”
Blai obeyed by shoving Frieda forward.
“Lluc, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was scared. I won’t leave again,” Frieda babbled. “Please don’t punish me. I’ll be better, I can be better for you Lluc.”
“Go.” His expression didn’t change as he instructed the Drones to leave. Slamming the door shut, Lluc bolted it.
“I’m not going to let you hurt her.” Wisteria struggled to sit up.
“Are you hurt?” He turned to Wisteria.
“Of course I’m hurt. That was what you were trying to do.” Wisteria shot back.
Walking past Frieda, he knelt by Wisteria and placed one hand on her twisted knee and a light blue light emanated. “This will regenerate your knee.”
Wisteria screamed in pain as he pressed on her wounded leg. She felt a tingling heat run through her body. After he let go, she found she could move her foot without any pain. “Thank you.”
“She won’t tell Bach. I promise she won’t—will you?” Frieda pleaded.
“If Wisteria tells him I injured his mate, Bach will kill me, but maybe I deserve that.” Lluc’s looked down at Wisteria with piercing green eyes. Returning to Frieda, he dropped on his knees in front of her. “Frieda. Peeka, forgive me. I am sorry for everything I have done to you.”
Frieda watched him speechlessly.
Wisteria scratched her head. “The darkness that was controlling him is gone.”
Suspiciously, Frieda glanced at him and then Wisteria. “Lluc, are you back?”
“Maybe, it is like I have been walking in a dream for so long. A dream where I was almost like an animal. D’cara! I was so horrible to everyone, especially you.” He reached out to his wife, but she moved away. “It took everything I had not to hurt you more than I did. I will find a way to make this right. Just let me try. Give me a chance to earn your love again?”
Still holding her baby tight, Frieda shook her head. “I’ve always loved you Lluc, but...”
The room fell silent as they waited for Frieda’s final words, but none came.
“I understand.” He frowned.
“She’s still scared,” Wisteria suggested.
“I’ll put Lleo down and we can discuss what’s going to happen.” Frieda moved to the crib.
“We cannot stay here,” he decided. “Not with the others.”
“Do you think we can leave?” Wisteria asked.
“Yes.” He watched his wife place their son in his cradle.
“How?” Wisteria enquired.
“You can leave anytime you want. It’s simply a matter of figuring out where we are going and making sure the Dy’obeths do not go after you,” he said.
“I don’t have a threshold or dark glass. Even if we did, the vial I brought, Coia took it—” Wisteria said.
“She is going to use it to destroy High Father and the rest of the Dy’obeths, but she also has got something brutal in store for the Family,” he answered.
“The reapers?”
“No the draug. The reapers were sent to keep everyone busy. Just like the purification camps. In the meantime, she had been creating thousands of draug that she will to release into the home realm. Effectively turning us into deranged biters.”
“Why would she do that?” Wisteria asked. “Why kill everyone? She could simply get her revenge on High Father and Sen Aleix.”
“You have seen the start of Bach’s madness being bonded to you and the darkness. Imagine having that after losing a Mosroc? You get a person who has lost all connection with everything, but hatred and vengeance. That was why she kept Frieda here, as a way to keep me tethered. If anything had happened to her, I would have killed my mother.”
“When is she going to do this?” Wisteria asked.
“Soon, now that Beraz suspects Bach has a human mate. Mother will want to act before that news gets to High Father,” he replied.
“So, how do I get out of here?” Wisteria asked again. “Where’s your threshold—?”
“Yordi?” He realized. “D’cara, I watched Malcolm murder my brother and I did nothing.”
“Yordi’s death wasn’t your fault,” Wisteria told him.
“Yes it wa
s. Jason fought the perfection and escaped. I did not. Instead, I stood by and watched as my brother was gutted.” He ran his hands through his hair. “He was my bloodline. I should have stopped it. I should have done more to protect Frieda.”
“Lluc, this is a lot to take in, but right now, we’ve got to get the hell out of here. You said I could’ve left any time I wanted,” she said.
“How?” Frieda asked from the other side of the room.
“Wisteria, remember you and Bach escaped from Triad Hall and returned to your island,” Lluc noted. “You can simply do that again.”
After Bach had been tortured and stabbed at his father’s command, she’d somehow opened a threshold. “I don’t understand how I did that.” She remembered wanting to protect Bach and then the threshold formed, enveloped them and deposited them in Smythe.
“Are you sure?” he questioned. “You can do it by instinct. Try”
“Don’t you think if I would do it if I could?” Wisteria replied. “I wouldn’t be here.”
“I thought you were here because you wanted to be with Bach,” he answered.
“He isn’t the center of my life.” Wisteria seethed. “But I’d never be anyone’s prisoner if I had a chance to escape.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Then I will get some dark glass. Get Frieda and Lleo someplace safe and—”
“You’re not coming with us?” Frieda exclaimed, approaching him.
“I have to finish this,” he told her.
“No, you don’t. You’ve got to be with your family. You can’t go back to Coia.” Frieda gripped his arms and turned him to face her. “I’m not going to lose you to her again.”
“Maybe Frieda’s right. If the draug are going to be released you should get away while you can and take care of your bloodline,” Wisteria admitted.
A loud knock pounded at the door. “I want to see Wisteria now,” Bach demanded from the other side.
Wisteria hesitated; hearing how brutal Bach sounded made her afraid.
“If you don’t go, he’ll come inside and see Lluc’s changed,” Frieda implored,
“Now.” Bach turned the handle of the old door, but it didn’t open because Lluc had bolted it.
“You will be able to help Bach—like me right?” Lluc noted.
She nodded, but all she wanted to do was run from him.
“He will not harm her, not until he has taken his first blood.”
Lluc’s assurance provided no comfort for Wisteria. “Yeah,” Wisteria frowned staring at the door. “If he doesn’t—”
The door shattered into pieces and Bach stormed in. “Come.” Raising a hand, he signaled to Wisteria.
She noticed Lluc stepped back into the dark. “No,” Wisteria heard herself say.
“Please,” Frieda whispered. “Help him.”
“Help me?” Bach squinted at Frieda. “Help me how?”
“Nothing.” Frieda scurried back behind her husband.
“Bach, do not even think of touching Frieda.” Lluc warned from the shadows, hiding his emerald eyes.
“Stop me.” Bach moved toward his brother.
“Okay, fine. I’m coming.” Wisteria capitulated.
She doubted Lluc could hold his own against Bach since he was no longer a Dy’obeth. Plus, Lluc could be her last chance of escape and she couldn’t risk anything happening to him.
“What do you want from me?” She walked up to him.
“Follow,” he ordered.
Chapter Twenty
I blame him too
In silence, Bach led Wisteria back to the smaller room she’d been in previously.
Her permanent chambers wouldn’t be ready for days, so this would have to do. Which didn’t bother him much as she was safe her. This stronghold was buried deep beneath Mirrin Castle and even High Father wasn’t aware of its existence.
Once Wisteria went inside, he closed and bolted the door. He then approached her, needing to be closer. Stopping inches behind her, he took in her scent.
She smelled so ripe and sweet.
She is a fruit that needs to be plucked and devoured, the darkness said greedily. He let the darkness stay as he stared at her dark flesh. “You need me to finally make you a woman.”
“Yes…” she whispered. “No, I mean the Bach I loved—not you.”
“We are the one you loved.” He stroked her waist. His hands ran down her curves. Slowly, he drew up her dress. “We are simply stronger than before.”
“You are?” Turning to him, her eyes lit up and the tips of her mouth curved in a sexy smile.
“Yes.”
“They keep saying I’m in prime condition to have a baby. Do you want to try?”
Careful, the darkness warned him. “I do.”
“And you’ll be gentle with me?”
“We are not gentle.”
“Please?” Placing her fingers on his biceps, her dark eyes searched his.
If he’d been more feebleminded, her tenderness would've touched him, but all he felt was power. “It will not hurt much—this time.” He acquiesced.
Putting, her hands on each side of his face, her thick eye lashes fluttering as she took one quick peek at him before shutting her eyes. Standing on her tiptoes, she stretched up to kissed him.
Bending down, Bach gripped her hard and pulled her tightly against him. She felt so soft, warm and in need of protection. “D’cara.” An odd sensation pulsed through his head. Pushing her back onto the bed, he saw her hands were glowing like a Famila. He staggered away. “What are you doing?”
“I was helping you. You’re now free of Coia’s control.” Hurrying up to him, she threw her arms round his neck. “The darkness is gone now.”
She is trying to destroy us, the dark voice revealed. He squinted at her. “Nothing has changed.” He unpeeled her hands from his neck and tossed her onto the bed.
“No, you’re supposed to be better. That’s got to be what you want?”
“Your games cannot stop me from reaching my destiny or collecting what you freely offered me.”
“Bach, stop, the nightmare’s over.”
He knelt over her. “I control my darkness, like I will you.”
“Stop.” She scratched him across the face. “I’m done.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are.” She kicked him in the stomach and tried ran to the door.
He reached the door before she did.
“Please.” She waved him away. “Stop. Colista-Bren-Navida-Dor-Elson—”
“Do not call my name or you will be sorry.” Do what we need.
“What do you want?” she demanded angrily.
We do not care if she hates us. We only care that she is ours, the darkness mused.
“Answer me,” she yelled. “Am I supposed to be afraid of you?”
Watching her, he licked his lips. He liked her angry, because anger was an emotion he understood. He examined her curves.
They’d grown a lot over the years. He liked that too, but not what she was wearing, green, the color of Aleix’s Pillar. It reminded him of how powerless he’d been as a Sen-Son. How he’d allowed his flesh and blood to die.
“Change that dress and never wear that color again,” he commanded. He’d been going crazy sensing she was in Mirrin Castle with him and he couldn’t be with her. Start this and finish this, the darkness within him pleaded, but Bach forced the voice to be quiet. He wanted to savor this moment. “Sing to me.”
“No.”
“You cannot refuse me anything. You belong to me and you will do whatever I command you…human.” He wanted to flare up, but forced himself to remain cool. “You will sing, but do not even try to sing my name.”
Biting her lip, she shook her head. “I’m not your dancing monkey.”
“I said—”
“Then beat it out of me, but that’s the only way you’re going to get me to do anything.”
“Brave words Peeka.”
“You either let me go or take
out your aggression on me. I’m not your pet.”
“You should be more scared of me Peeka, because I can hurt you in ways you cannot imagine.”
Standing completely still, she stared at him. “Have you actually killed anyone?”
He smirked. “I have been meaning to settle my score with your lover Steven Hindle. Perhaps, I will let you see me kill him.”
She chuckled weakly. “You can’t hurt Steven now.”
“Wisteria, you cannot protect your lover. I will find him and you will watch him die and then it will be clear exactly what I can do.” Bach laughed. “I promise boating will be a very entertaining way to suffer.”
“Boating?”
“He will be stripped, covered in burnfruit juice and force fed milk and honey until he develops diarrhea. Then we put him in a hollowed tree trunk and leave him in the Mirrin Forrest. His crap will attract all kinds of insects. Have you seen how large the bugs in Mirrin are? Some are the size of your fist. They will eat him alive and lay their eggs in his pasty body.”
She inched away from him.
“He will be fed every day, so he does not die too quickly. You see, after a couple of days, delirium sets in and he will completely lose touch with reality as he screams day and night in pain. What will you think of him then?”
“You don’t scare me?” Her lips trembled.
“Oh Peeka, I can tell I do.”
“Steven’s dead,” she uttered as her head dropped. “He died to save me.” Smiling coldly, she said, “There’s nothing you can do to him now.”
“You’re not denying he was your lover?” He raged.
“Lover? Does it matter now?”
“It matters to me.”
“He’s gone and I’m your prisoner.” She shook her head. “There’s nothing else to say.”
“Answer me!” Standing, he picked up a chair and flung it in her direction, narrowly missing her head.
The chair hit the wall and smashed into pieces.
“I did not miss,” he informed her. “The next time it may be different.”
Closing her eyes, she mumbled something to herself.
“Look at me. You do not want—” he told her.
“Don’t waste your time threatening me. You don’t have it in you to hurt me.”
