I slowly rise to my feet and walk next to him. We leave the dining room not saying a word to each other; a few guards salute when Jorgen passes them. We don’t go outside and move past the long corridor behind the exit, finally stopping in front of a wooden door leading to another chamber. He opens the door to my right and I step inside, while my heart keeps pounding in my chest.
“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks, looking at me. I’m trying to ease the tension in my arms and shoulders, but a tendril of unease is still stuck in my core.
“No,” I reply, my voice hoarse.
“Astri, about yesterday. I have no idea what got into me, but you saved my skin. If it wasn’t for you, everyone would’ve learned my secret,” Jorgen says with a heavy voice, taking a step towards me. His presence is suffocating me, and I need to wipe that kiss out of my memory forever. The smell of his cologne is divine–driving me insane, it’s heavy and sensual. “And I kissed you… it was wrong because of Cassandra. I have no choice but to be with her. Our countries are allies and I can’t risk a war.”
“I was shocked, I mean it was unexpected. Falcon shifted and it was going to be too late, because everyone expected you to change into your dragon,” I say, aware that I’m mumbling, still avoiding his eyes, my palms are damp with sweat. His words seem empty and have no meaning. I can’t believe that he’s even trying to justify what he’s done.
I feel Jorgen staring at me intensely, as if he’s aware what’s going on with my body. Emotions swell inside me, and the disappointment’s greater than I imagined. I shouldn’t be surprised, he probably did this to hurt me, to see how far I would go. Why else would he kiss me and run away, knowing full well he’s to be with Cassandra anyway?
I feel so stupid now, cheated and betrayed but there’s no way I’m going to show him how much his words affect me.
“Astri, I’m sorry about what happened. It wasn’t planned and I feel awful. I’m so lucky to have you–you’re so loyal. Let’s forget about the kiss and move forward. Do you think you can do that for me?”
Silence.
And I wait–wait for him to tell me that our kiss was great and that I’m beautiful, but he doesn’t.
“Yes … you don’t have to worry. Lucas and I had a great time the other night and I think it’s unfair to him. We’re going out again at some point,” I say, forcing myself to look at him, putting a light smile on my face. A new wave of anger rushes through me, and it’s mostly directed at myself. I shouldn’t have pretended he would treat me any other way. I’m always going to be his assistant, not a friend or a lover.
A dark shadow passes over his face and a muscle thrums along his jaw. He doesn’t want to hear about me dating someone else. Well, that’s just too bad. It’s time to forget about the sentiments and move forward.
“Right, of course, just be careful. You don’t know that mage at all. You’re a Wyvern after all,” he adds in a less than thrilled voice.
“Is that all?” I ask with a raised brow and he nods. The atmosphere’s turning frosty and all of a sudden and I can’t stand to be in the same room with him any longer. Seconds later, I walk through the door and breathe until those ugly emotions fade away, until I don’t have to feel this enormous pain anymore.
Chapter 22
Trap.
I don’t know how I get back to my chamber after that, my vision’s blurry and the world keeps spinning away. Jorgen’s hurtful words are ringing in my ears. Thankfully, Lenin and Jetli aren’t around, so I slip into my bed, still wearing my clothes and cry for a bit. The pain in my chest begins to paralyse me slowly and I hear the mocking voice of my aunt.
He’s a duke and he would never want an ugly and hideous girl like you.
I don’t want to break, especially not now. Jorgen was just honest with me; he forgot who he was during that moment in the tent. It doesn’t matter if I enjoyed what happened between us, because we were never going to end up together. Everything and everyone is against us, besides an ordinary shifter like me doesn’t get involved with superior breeds of mages. Our worlds clash and I need to focus on finding other members of my family.
More tears fall over my face and eventually I manage to drift away, falling asleep while the sun’s still shining outside. At some point I wake up, hearing my Pixies flying into the room through the window. Lenin’s telling Jetli to be quiet, asking her what’s wrong with me, because I’ve never missed an entire day by falling asleep. Then there’s more silence, and I drift away into my dreams.
I get up later when the sun’s hiding behind the horizon, feeling as if someone punched me. Dark thoughts start piling up, and I can’t seem to deal with the numbness in my chest. My chamber’s empty, and sometime later I hear voices outside my door in the corridor.
Once I’m up and ready, I take my knives, bow, arrows and head outside to get some fresh air, using my invisibility charm. The Pixies aren’t around, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone. Pain dulls to a steady ache. I keep moving, telling myself that it’ll get better at some point. I spot Jorgen talking to his father, and instant anger envelopes my system. He just stands there, smiling, like nothing happened. The invisibility spell is my solitude and I’m glad no one can see me.
I run down the stairs, moving through the corridors. Outside, I nearly bump into Lucas standing in the courtyard, staring down at a piece of paper. He’s probably come over to talk to me because he hasn’t heard from me since our date. My stomach twists uncomfortably, and I tell myself that it’s better if he doesn’t see me. He may notice the pain in my eyes and I wouldn’t be able to stop the tears from falling, completely unable to control myself or my emotions. Shortly after, I disappear through the gate leading to the castle grounds. The heaviness in my heart shatters my soul, and I can’t bear the fact that the duke humiliated me in such a cruel way.
The veil of darkness begins to shade the world around me, and I start jogging towards the forest, shortly disappearing in the gloom. The tiny voice inside my head reminds me that I’m still strong, I won the contest and beat Sebastian at his own game. I won’t allow myself to fall into a pit of despair–not again.
Jorgen’s voice echoes in my head … I don’t know what’s gotten into me … you should forget about the kiss.
My eyes burn as I squeeze them shut for a second, refusing to let more tears fall over my cheeks. But moments later, I’m sobbing hard, knowing I’m behaving stupidly. Jorgen’s never going to see past his relationship with Cassandra. This whole relationship beyond duke and assistant was doomed from the start.
I pick up the pace, and start speeding between the trees, trying to break free from the pain. The image of his face is beginning to blur, but the pain isn’t lessening. The ache inside me is tormenting my already wounded heart. I feel so used, as if everything about our relationship–our friendship–up to this point meant nothing to him.
The silence in the forest is unnerving, and a thick mist starts to drift around the trees. I feel the temperature dropping. An hour, maybe two passes and I finally stop somewhere on the edge, my muscles are burning and my breathing is laboured.
Anger resurfaces, and I kneel down to rest for a bit. The tension in my body builds to the point that it’s almost painful.
I grip my bow tighter, and stand up, taking a few steps down the path. Suddenly, something crawls around my foot and I’m lifted right from the ground in one swift movement. Blood rushes to my ears, and several seconds later, I realise I’m hanging above the ground upside down. I take a few whizzed breaths, noticing I’m no longer invisible. Someone must have set a trap out here, and I walked right into it. Just great…
I try to lift myself up a few times, but I can’t seem to reach my foot. I’ve been running in the forest for a few hours and now I’m exhausted. This position becomes uncomfortable, and I feel the blood rushing to my head, making me dizzy. My magic’s churning inside me and I should be able to shift, but for some reason I can’t focus enough to wake my beast. After several long moments, I h
ear something, but I feel drunk and unfocused–I can’t get a feel for my surroundings. Then someone hits me hard on the back of my head, and darkness swallows my consciousness.
“Quickly, put the potion into her mouth before she wakes up. It would’ve been so much easier if we just injected her with this crap,” the raspy voices says, standing somewhere close to me, but I can’t seem to open my eyes. The pain in my head’s unbearable, and it feels like something hot’s being pressed over my skull.
“But what if she dies out here? Maybe we should wait until she’s conscious again. It’s powerful stuff,” answers another voice sounding vaguely familiar.
“She’s Wyvern you idiot, and they’re made from steel. What if she uses her magic against us? If she escapes, we lose all the gold, and the mage will cut our heads off,” answers the other voice.
Someone’s holding me down, touching my face. I want to wake up, but my limbs are so heavy and red hot pain sears through my skin, as if thousands of tiny needles are being inserted inside my body at the same time.
A pair of hands tighten around my jaw, opening my mouth and an icy cold liquid’s poured down my throat. I swallow it and feel at peace–the pain finally eases off.
I start asking myself who these shifters are and what could they possibly be doing to me?
“Good, it’s inside her system. Now the blood, cut her,” the other male shifter urges. I want to scream at them, but I can’t move. Then I feel warm fingers on my arm, and something sharp cuts through the skin in the centre of my palm. Several minutes later I drift away yet again, feeling trapped in my own mind.
When I wake up, I’m certain I’m back in my chamber and I must have slept for hours. Last night I had terrible nightmares, dreaming someone had poisoned me while I was unconscious.
Moonlight surrounds me and I shiver with cold. My head keeps throbbing with pain and my muscles are sore. My mind’s so fuzzy, I’m not sure where I am or what’s going on now.
Suddenly, I remember that I can’t be in my chamber–I was in the Black Forest, trying to deal with my emotions after Jorgen crushed me this morning. I ran for hours, trying to shake off the misery.
I rub my eyes, realising that it’s still dark outside, and I’m in some kind of cage-type carriage, tied to two horses. The floor’s covered with straw. What the hell? Straw? I feel like some kind of caged animal. This is insane.
I must still be somewhere in the Black Forest. I have no idea how much time has passed, but I remember earlier on I stepped into a trap, and for a long time I was hanging upside down, until someone hit me.
The smell of burning fire wafts through the air as I move around the cage, trying to find a way out.
Horror strikes me when I remember some kind of cold liquid was forced into my mouth. Two male shifters were talking to each other, arguing over how to get the potion into me.
Unexpected fear slices through me when my magic fails to come forth. My beast is silent, and a thread of panic soon seizes my chest. I look around, but there’s no sign of anyone, just trees and dead silence. I shake the cage, breathing hard, but the wooden bars are strong and there’s a lock behind me. The potion those scumbags forced me to drink must have disabled my magic and now I can’t even shift.
Did they create a trap, looking for an easy catch or was I the target all along?
Questions are tangling in my mind while I try to find a way out of here.
“She should be still asleep, we gave her a pretty huge doze.”
My captors are coming back to the camp, and I lay down quickly, trying to pretend I’m still out. I hear heavy footsteps, and my pulse starts racing away. Hopefully, they’ll think I’m still sleeping.
“You’ve given her too much. I know what she’s capable of, only one drop was necessary,” the other voice responds and I think there must be something wrong with my hearing. He can’t be … no, no, no.
I stop breathing for several moments, trying to listen while my heart’s pounding in my ears.
“Well you had plenty of opportunities to carry out our plan, but you chose to wait around. I bet you enjoyed playing up this little romance of yours,” the other voice chuckles and I clench my fists so hard that I pierce the skin with my nails.
“She’s a nice girl, but not my type. Very inexperienced and has no idea about anything,” the same familiar voice adds, and in that moment I know it’s Lucas.
Deep inside, I’m ready to unleash my deadly fire and kill him, but that hollow feeling inside reminds me I can’t even defend myself.
Is it possible Lucas has been playing me and everyone in the castle this entire time?
I don’t want to believe it, he arrived in Rivenna to help with the investigation. We’ve never met before, so why the hell has he kidnapped me?
Piece of shit, arsehole! No wonder Lenin turned against him–he sensed something off about him. I should’ve known, but I was too wrapped up in going on my first date–my first kiss. Agh! How many more times am I going to be betrayed by a man before I learn?
Soft waves of energy are beginning to flicker over my skin, but nothing happens. I’m a giant mass of nothing, and the emptiness inside me is starting to freak me out.
Lucas is nothing but scum and a traitor. He fed me with lies, and I believed he was genuinely interested in me. Pure rage… that’s what I feel.
“Wyvern virgin … that’s funny. I wonder how long she’s been hiding in the city. Ruscal assured me countless times all the Wyverns in the Eastern World were slaughtered. He murdered them all. I tell you what, I wouldn’t want to cross paths with him,” adds the other voice, sounding a bit older.
Who are they talking about? Ruscal, that name doesn’t ring any bells. I keep breathing through my nose, trying to deal with the pain and concentrating on their conversation at the same time. I feel weak, and my limbs feel so heavy. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t fight them right now.
I have no idea how much time has passed since I vanished from my chamber, maybe hours or days. Maybe Jorgen’s looking for me already, he can’t be the one who arranged this, otherwise Lucas would’ve said something by now. Oh bloody hell, I know Jorgen didn’t arrange this–that’s my broken heart speaking out loud. When Jorgen finds out, he’ll try to kill Lucas. He tried to warn me off Lucas several times. The other shifter just confirmed that this mage, Ruscal’s been killing Wyvern dragon shifters for years, so this means …
“Ruscal’s filled with resentment and anger towards the Lindworm clan. He truly detests them. I have no idea what happened between him and Hans all those years ago.”
“Apparently, this was all Hans’ fault. A few years ago, Jorgen somehow found out he had a twin brother. He set off and travelled for miles in order to meet with him. That’s what other shifters have been telling me anyway. I have no idea if that meeting ever took place, but those two have been at war ever since this whole scandal was revealed,” Lucas explains and a whole different kind of terror is suddenly filling every cell in my body.
No … no … Jorgen can’t have a twin brother. Throughout the years I’ve never heard of him, and no one ever mentioned him. I’m choking on my own vengeance and everything I’ve done in the past several weeks slowly flashes in front of my eyes. Me joining the contest to get close to him, me going through all the tasks and standing by, watching how the leader of the wild shifters performed the cutting of the mage. I’ve never been wrong about my visions. The unicorn showed me the truth, because it was Jorgen’s twin brother who I’d been seeing. He was the one who murdered my parents and scarred me. For Hommis, I’d been convinced it was the truth for so long and I wasn’t completely wrong–except it was is his brother–the same face. What have I done?
Nausea rolls over my stomach as that scene from the mountains keeps moving in, playing on repeat.
“Yes, he wants her badly. She has a lot of magic and he believes she’s too dangerous to be left alive. And all this time his own twin brother’s been protecting the last Wyvern,” the other shifter says, an
d I feel like I’m going to vomit. My breathing suddenly comes in short, ragged pants. I keep telling myself that once I get out of this cage, I’ll head back to the castle and find a way to bring Jorgen’s beast back. I don’t care what I have to do – I’ll do anything to make things right. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.
Those two guards I overheard in the corridor were right. Jorgen had nothing to do with what happened to me all those years ago. I knew it…
I made the biggest mistake of my life, nearly destroying a mage who had been innocent all along. A new-found, putrid guilt washes over me. I’ve been back and forth, over and over this in my mind so many times–I was right in trusting my gut, Jorgen didn’t do it. Why? Why did I just stand there, going against my own moral code?
Chapter 23
Werewolves.
I’m shaking with rage and resentment, finally standing up, seeing Lucas and the other shifter in the distance.
My chest rises and falls in rapid movements as my eyes meet the eyes of the shifter who betrayed my trust.
“You’re scum Lucas! I can’t believe I trusted you. You have no idea what I’m going do to you, once I get my hands on you,” I say loudly enough from them to hear me. They need to realise that whatever magic they fed me is not holding me unconscious any longer.
The burning in my chest is making me slightly lightheaded, a fresh dose of guilt spreads throughout my system. The voices in my head remind me that I destroyed the future of the only mage who had ever been kind to me; the man who gave me a roof over my head and always tried to protect me. The truth can fix things, but if he finds out what I’ve done, he’ll never forgive me. The mage who murdered my parents, Jorgen’s twin brother, is going to pay. I don’t know how or when, but I’ll figure it out somehow.
Lucas flinches, the gloom surrounds us and their fire’s almost gone. The moon comes out from behind the clouds and now I finally see their faces clearly. The other shifter’s actually a mage, and he’s much older than Lucas. He’s wearing a heavy leather coat, and has long, shaggy brown hair. There’s a long, silver sword hanging on his side. I don’t recognise him from anywhere and his slightly darkened skin reminds me of the shifters who live on the other side of the Eastern World.
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