by West, Sinden
Chapter Twelve
I did not sleep. I heard their voices and the chime of the elevator, which presumably indicated that Michael had left. Maybe an hour passed after that, and I heard footsteps outside my room and my door swung open. A weight sunk down on my bed, and I struggled to sit up, switching on the lamp beside me. Lake sat there, staring at me and holding a glass of scotch in his hand.
He was drunk; his eyes not as alert as normal, and his customary grace was lacking.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You.” His voice was serious. He reached out to touch my hair, winding a tendril gently around his finger. “I’ve always loved your hair. It’s so wild…the first time that I saw you, you had it braided and tame. It seemed so wrong, and I didn’t even know you.”
“When was that?”
He moved his dark eyes to mine. “At my grandfather’s funeral. You were so young; so beautiful even then.”
“You said that you didn’t know who I was when we met at the riverbank.” I held my breath for another disappointment, another lie.
“I didn’t. It wasn’t until later that I remembered where I’d seen you before, but by then, it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“It was too late to walk away and too late to come clean with you. You have no idea how infatuated I was with you…”
“That didn’t get in the way of you using me though,” I said sharply.
“It was the stupidest, most selfish thing that I have ever done in my life. Well, except for when I just stood by and let Michael have you at the ritual.” He hung his head down. “Why won’t you tell me what I need to do for you to forgive me?”
I stared at him, desperately wanting to cup his face in my hands and make him look at me, to make him kiss me. But I didn’t. To love him would make me weak. Still…
“Lake—”
But the loud cracking sound of a gunshot rung through the apartment, and his head snapped up. “What the hell? Stay here, Ivy.”
He lurched for the door, grabbing the handle and swinging it open. But as he did so, the butt of a shotgun propelled forward to ram into his face. He fell backwards and instantly a man began to hammer at him with heavy black boots.
“Lake!” I jumped from the bed, taking all my momentum and throwing my weight at Lake’s attacker. His fist struck me across the face, throwing me to the floor.
“Ivy,” Lake choked out, his face near mine and streaked with blood. The man delivered another boot into his stomach, and I screamed and tried to reach him, but my hair was grabbed painfully and I was pulled to my feet.
“Don’t hurt her,” Lake said through clenched teeth, doubled over in pain.
“I don’t think that you’re in any position to give orders, do you?” An older man stepped into the room, and for some reason he looked slightly familiar. A smile spread over his face. “I have to say, this was ridiculously easy. I would expect better from a Corin. You didn’t have half of the man power that I thought you would.”
Lake struggled to his knees, staring up at the intruder defiantly. “That’s ‘cos I can take care of myself.”
The man looked amused. “Really? But can you take care of her?”
He nodded in my direction and Lake’s eyes quickly flicked across to where I was held painfully in the grip of the large man who had just beaten the crap out of him. I saw pain in his eyes as he looked at me. I must have looked a sight as I felt the blood leak from my nose.
His gaze hardened, and he looked back to the leader, managing to get to his feet with difficulty. “If you have me, then you don’t need her. Let her go. She despises me and will probably be glad to see me dead, so just let her go.”
The man let out a peal of laughter, and suddenly I knew who he was. It was Caleb’s father; the leader of their coven. “I don’t think so. I have no love for scryers.” And with that he turned to me and punched me with a closed fist. My head snapped to the side, and I would have fallen if not for the horrible grip on my hair that felt like my scalp was being pulled from my head.
I let out a wail of pain, just as Lake lunged for Caleb’s father. But it was futile; another one of the witches appeared and raised a hand. Lake clutched at his head, his face twisting in pain.
“Careful. It is so easy for us to turn that pain that you feel into something that can do so much more damage to your brain, so I suggest that you behave.”
“Stop it! Stop hurting him,” I cried out, tears forming in my eyes as if I could feel his pain. Lake collapsed to his knees, his fingernails digging into the skin of his temple. And then all of him collapsed and fell with a thud to the floor.
I looked down at Lake’s lifeless body and wanted to cry. One of the men bent down and pulled a black hood over Lake’s beautiful face.
“Don’t. He won’t be able to breathe. Please don’t,” I begged.
The cool eyes of the leader looked over to me. They were much like Caleb’s, except with none of the humor or warmth. “You just worry about yourself, scryer.”
I let out a scream as my fear turned to anger and then to a pure, white-hot rage. I started to channel that rage like it was a fuse, with the flame starting in my core and rising up through my body to my brain.
“Silence. He’s not dead, yet.” The leader’s awful smile turned to me. “We still have a little sacrifice to take part in to remedy all the bad that you two and your kind have inflicted on the earth. It’s just the beginning, of course, but there will be more of you to come.”
My scream stopped, and I stared at him as that small flame in me started to burn into something else, I could almost smell the smoke.
The leader’s smile faded. “No.” He stepped forward and slapped my already bruised face, the impact snapping my face to one side, and I felt that flame fade away by the shock and the pain. I fought to get it back as Caleb’s father reached for my hands and leaned in close.
“I’ve gone up against far worse than you in my time,” he said in a low voice. “Your little party trick doesn’t impress me.” I held his eyes and saw the hatred there. Right at that moment, I wished that I really were as evil as he made out; that I could kill and destroy my enemies without remorse. He held out his spare hand and in it one of the other men placed several cuts of what looked like twigs with vicious thorns erupting along its length. I struggled again but was held firm as he smiled and the man holding me from behind took one arm and twisted it behind my back so I cried out in even more pain. I tried to focus my brain anyway, willing that flame to build again; to burn them all.
But a strong hand on my jaw wrenched open my mouth and the twigs were shoved inside and pressed down so the barbs dug into my tongue, and I let out a gasp of horror. That hand on my jaw forced my mouth closed, and I moaned as the barbs bit into the roof of my mouth as well. Blood welled, filling my mouth and trickling down my throat so I choked.
“Careful now, you don’t want to swallow any of that. It’s best that you stay still.”
The horror and the fear: they were the perfect building blocks for the fire that I was desperate to conjure. But it was like there was a wall in my brain; a constant torrent of water that doused anything that resembled fire in me.
The leader smiled down at me. “Moiraine thorns in your blood won’t let you make fire. If you were a proper witch, you would know that.”
I stayed still; despair washed over me. I was too scared to move in case I dug the thorny barbs deeper into my flesh. I wanted to look away from him but couldn’t tear my eyes away from his awful smile.
“I could have been nicer to you,” he continued. “But the moment that you made the choice to burn one of us, you rid us of all mercy. So, you’re going to suffer, you scryer bitch.”
The excruciating hold on my hair was released, but I had just a mere second of freedom before a dark hood was roughly pulled down over my head. I struggled, scared that I would suffocate, but my wrists were pulled behind my back and bound tightly. Then I was pushed forward, a har
sh grip on my arm guiding me down numerous steps, tugging me up violently each time I stumbled.
Where was Lake? What were they doing with him?
My trapped mouth burned to ask these questions as I struggled to breathe through my nose in the hood. Finally, I heard the roar of an engine and smelled fumes. We must have been in the garage. A hand pushed my head down as I was shoved onto something soft and cold. A car seat? I smelled leather. Then a door slammed shut and we began to move. No one spoke, and it felt like hours that we travelled. At first the car seemed to stop frequently, probably at traffic lights, and then the journey went smoothly. We must have been out of the city, on long open roads unimpeded by traffic stops. This realization killed any hope for me of rescue.
My thoughts turned to the Circle. Lake’s disappearance wouldn’t go unnoticed. Not to mention that they had slaughtered his men. Those bodies would soon be discovered, and when they were…
I imagined Michael’s fury and his desire for vengeance. For once, the thought of him warmed my heart. I wanted vengeance as well. I wanted a bloody, torture filled revenge every time the image of Lake’s beaten body came to me. My jaw shifted involuntarily as tears of rage began to well in my eyes, but all it served to do was let the barbs rip at my flesh and fresh blood filled my mouth. My lips opened, and the blood dribbled out over my chin, gluing the hood to my face. The metallic scent of my blood overpowered the leather of the car seats, and I hoped that it would stain and leave a lasting impression of myself on it.
I sucked in a desperate breath. I would not cry. I would not be weak. That wasn’t me. If I wanted to survive this then I had to be strong. Crying for Lake would serve no purpose, and I would not let my love for him be my weakness.
My love…
That had never changed even after his betrayal. I just had never let myself admit it. And I was not about to let them kill him.
The slope of the car shifted. We were going up some steep incline, and I was tossed from side to side as the car sped around corners. The mountains? Why were we going there?
Sickness from the idea of the heights that we were at and my own blood came over me in waves. Oh God, I couldn’t vomit. I would suffocate swiftly and die, here, alone. And I desperately didn’t want to be alone anymore.
But the car jerked to a stop and the door swung open, letting in cool fresh mountain air that I could sense even with the hood covering me. Hands reached in and grabbed me, pulling me roughly out. I was half dragged over the ground as I struggled to find my footing, and then I was propelled up steps. I fell, and no hand caught me, instead my jaw landed with a thud on the edge of a step, driving the barbs in deeper and sending a low, animal like sound from my throat. I sounded like a wounded animal, but managed to fight the tears that wanted to form.
I was yanked up again and brought onto a flat floor. We were inside now. I could feel the warmth of being indoors and protected from the wind. Without warning I was thrown to the floor, to land on something that felt like a rug, but it wasn’t enough to cushion me from the impact of the hard floor below, and fresh blood started to run in my mouth, trickling down my throat and causing me to choke.
“She can’t breathe. Let her go!”
The voice was muffled through the hood, but I recognized it all the same. It was Lake, and he was okay. Everything lifted in me then, until I heard a thud noise and I did not hear him anymore. They wouldn’t kill him straight away, I reasoned, trying to stem the panic rising inside of me. The witches needed him for a ceremony. I found a wall and leaned against it. My arm muscles ached with the pressure of my wrists being bound behind my back.
Without warning my hood was snatched from my head before being thrown to the side and the man stalked over to a couch and sat down. It was still night and a fire had been started in the stone fireplace—a very familiar looking fireplace.
I twisted my head to take in my surroundings. I had been here before. It was the cabin that Penzance had brought me to. It was where I had seduced Caleb, or he had seduced me. Whatever happened, letting him into my world had undoubtedly saved my life the first time. But I didn’t think that anyone would save me now…
Lake lay next to me. His hood had been removed as well and his face was a mess of swelling and blood. He groggily opened his eyes and when he saw me, he struggled to sit.
“You’re hurt. You’ve got blood on your face.”
I tried to respond, but every time I tried to move my jaw and make a sound, the vicious barbed gag made me wince in pain, and more blood flowed. I managed to open my lips and show the terrible gag. More blood escaped out.
I saw pain his eyes. “It’ll be okay, Ivy. I promise you. I’ll get you out of here, and I’ll make them pay for ever hurting you. I’ll make everyone who ever hurt you pay.”
In spite of everything, I managed to have my lips curve up into the slightest of smiles for him, even as the air felt heavy with sadness and the scent of blood. For the first time, I yearned for my scrying talents to tell him what would become of the future. But there was only one way to do that for Circle members, and these witches would never allow that, plus, there was no way that I could speak anyway.
When he saw my smile, he gave a slight laugh and blood showed on his teeth. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he whispered as he leaned his head against the wall beside me. Then he inched forward so that his forehead touched mine, and I closed my eyes, wanting to keep him there like that forever. Our blood must have mingled, transferring from one to the other. I liked that. I liked the idea of me carrying his blood upon my face and that he carried mine. It cemented us together somehow, even if for just this moment.
I wanted to respond with so many things. I wanted to let my guard down now because I didn’t think that we would live much longer. My eyes began to water at the thought of watching him die.
Or would it be me that would perish first? Watching the anguish on his face would be just as painful.
Caleb’s father walked in, and automatically the witches deferred to him. They stood as if in the presence of someone to be revered.
“Start making the preparations. We’ll do it here,” he ordered. Then he cast his eyes in our direction and gave a small, smug smile. It made me want to claw his eyes out and my fingers automatically curved inward.
A rug in the center of the room was rolled up to reveal a pattern beneath it. Branded onto the floorboards like a blackened scar was a circle with curved lines protruding out for its entire circumference, forming a sun. Within the circle, was undoubtedly a star, and within that a tree with a thick trunk and bare branches. It encompassed the nature that the witches worshipped or drew their strength from.
I had sat above that symbol at the party, drinking and ignorant of those plotting my fate. Two of the witches stepped forward toward us. Lake moved from me to look at them squarely, his eyes defiant and showing no fear. They grabbed his arms and pulled him to his feet. When he struggled, they sent that shooting pain into his head again. He cried out as he bent over in pain and lost his footing, but they dragged him, anyway.
I winced as they dropped him in the center of the sun burnt into the floor. Quickly, they arranged his limp body so that he laid on his back, pulling his arms out so he was spread-eagled, his wrists and ankles pinned with wooden spikes that were driven into the floorboards.
I let out a low moan as they stepped forward with knives, obscuring my view of him. But I figured out quickly what they were doing. They cut at his clothing and stripped him bare. As they finished, the shredded clothing was tossed to the side and they moved so I had a clear view of him again. He was groggily coming back to consciousness just as they finished securing him. My eyes travelled over his naked body, over every exquisite dip and curve of his muscle as he flexed, testing his bindings. I looked to his face and saw no fear there. If he could show no weakness when at his most vulnerable, then I could mirror that action.
Caleb’s father’s eyes scanned over his prisoner and there was something of satisfaction o
n his face. He indicated with his head to his men, and that’s when they came for me. I didn’t struggle. It would be pointless. I stood still while they cut at my own garment. It fell silently to my feet, fluttering down like this was some sensual moment and as I stepped out of the pool of silk, I cast my eyes at my attackers. There was no lust at my nudity; all I saw was hatred.
I lifted my chin and stepped forward when pulled, keeping my footing and maintaining all the grace that I could muster.
“Down,” came the grunt, and a hand pointed toward next to where Lake lay. His place was in the circle, and mine was to be at his side. Slowly, I crouched down beside him, but swiftly my arms were uncut from behind me and I was pulled down onto the floor and arranged on my side, facing Lake. My legs and arms were pinned with the same wooden pegs, and I couldn’t help but jump as they were driven deep into the floorboards on which I lay.
Lake turned his head to face me, and we kept our eyes solely on each other, even as Caleb’s father stood over us so we lay in his shadow. We heard footsteps as every witch in the room stepped forward, surrounding us in a circle. I should have felt more fear than I did, but with my eyes glued to Lake’s, I felt like I gained strength from him. He smiled at me and I saw the love shine in his eyes. My own mouth moved to make a smile, and for that instant, I didn’t care about the pain.
“Look at this,” Caleb’s father spoke, “the killer of our earth and his handmaiden, right by his side. It’s only fitting that the one who has helped them in their destruction, join him in undoing the damage.” He crouched down beside us and pulled something from a leather sheath, which was then cast aside while he held up a shining, lethal blade. Could he see his reflection in it? Did he like the cruelty that he saw? I imagined that he did. “When your blood slowly drains from your body, it will reunite with the earth and begin to renew and replenish nature from the destruction that your kind have caused.”
