by King Ellie
I sighed hoping to God that he wouldn’t kick me back out there. Xáne eyed me from the top of my head to the dirty shoes on my feet, and he scowled. I don’t remember the last time I bathed, cut my hair, or even ate. I could feel his disgust, and it made me want to cower away from him. He once thought of me as beautiful, and right now, I knew he didn’t believe that. Before anything else could transpire, a female stepped even closer to him, and I blinked. Did I not notice her this whole time? She was hard to miss. She was huge, much taller than my five-foot-two self. She looked ready to eat me alive from her toned arms to her toned legs as she pulled off her sentinel outfit well.
When my eyes followed her hand that was in Xáne’s, I forgot that I was the reason for this and flipped the fuck out. I heard as the sentinels who were holding me tight shrieked. I knew my body came alive with the flames that licked my skin. I couldn’t see or think straight, all I knew was that my mate was being touched by someone else. I was selfish, I know, but to see someone else touching him and him allowing it, I couldn’t breathe correctly.
Everything in me was losing all the fake calm resolve I had when I got caught. It was all unleashing, and I felt like a wounded bird that got kicked some more instead of being helped.
“Enough!” I heard Xáne, but he didn’t get it.
His tether was making me break out into hives. I felt how he wanted to protect her from me. He wasn’t in love with her, but he deeply liked her. I went down to my knees. I couldn’t breathe as I felt my flames expand. This couldn’t be happening. He was mine!
“Mine!” I screeched out like a wounded animal. This entire side and the abandoned side of the world could hear my claim on this man, and I didn’t care.
I am not yours anymore. He spoke to me telepathically through our bond.
That increased my flames causing my insides to feel the lick of the flames, then there was this twisting in my gut as I felt Xáne close himself off to me. No, he didn’t break the tether, but the humming suddenly stopped and what I felt as comfort all along, was him, and now, I was empty.
Everything stopped, as I dropped to the ground everything became blurry. I couldn’t see anything right, but what was clear was that I was going to kill the girl, whether she was the sweetest girl ever or not because no matter what, Xáne belonged to me.
****
When I woke up, I was trapped, naked in a glass box barely able to stand. I couldn’t place anything. Had things changed that much since I’d been gone? Didn’t they keep the supes that couldn’t be controlled in boxes like these? There were so many questions going through my mind, yet none of them could be answered because I was alone. I checked out the room they kept me in, no this wasn’t a room, it was a prison within a prison. There were no doors. The walls were painted all white with the padding making it look like this was a room for those who were insane. I wanted to stand but sitting was for the best, they knew what they were doing.
“Let me out of here!!” I yelled… and yelled for hours on end, yet no one came in.
I didn’t want to be in here. This wasn’t fair. What was going on and why were they doing this to me? As if someone heard me, there was an opening that I hadn’t spotted before.
“Shut up!”
“Xáne,” I said his name as though it was a prayer on my lips and the only way to get into heaven was to say it over and over again.
I was afraid to gaze up into his face as he came closer, the lights turned off, and the room became pitch black. I shuddered, he knew how much I didn’t like the dark. I was afraid of it much more than anything else in the world.
His voice traveled to my left ear,
“You don’t have a right to say my name like that? Did you think you could just sneak back in and all would be alright?” Each word was laced with venom.
I wouldn’t cry or break my resolve again. I shut my eyes as I called on my fire. I had to see where I was. I didn’t like this. When I called to my fire, the temperature dropped significantly. I had never felt this kind of cold before, but now, it ran through my veins dwindling my fire. I opened my eyes staring down at my fingertips as the sparks died out there, too. How could he take this from me?
“I’m sorry,” this is what I needed to tell him.
“I don’t want your sorry bit-,” Xáne stopped. He didn’t say it.
He was right to want to call me that, I was a bitch but to know that he couldn’t utter those words through his lips made me smile. That expression didn’t stay on my face too long as he appeared in front of me in the blink of an eye, and I made the mistake of turning his way. I knew better than to gaze into those eyes, yet the willpower that I thought I had was being the bitch right now as it cowered away in the corner of the room. I didn’t even notice that the glass box was gone, what was that?
“Xánur…” I called his name out, and the next thing I knew, his hand wrapped around my throat.
“What did I just say?” He asked me as he got all up in my face. “Don’t utter my name. It isn’t yours to say.”
The flames seemed to ignite again. This was always the problem, Xáne knew how to call them out without my permission. It was the skin to skin contact. I was pissed. I apologized, what more could I do? I reached out to his chest and tried to push him off me.
“What am I supposed to address you as… huh! I said I was fucking sorry! What the fuck!” At that moment, I forgot that I was the one who wronged him. I got all up in his face, “You want to kill me Xánur?” I gritted my teeth.
His big, black wings expanded filling up half of the room. No matter what, I was always fascinated by them. I didn’t need the tether to know that his next words were the truth.
“You always thought you could one-up me, don’t you?” I noticed he hadn’t called out my name. I wanted to hear him say it, but I knew he wouldn’t give me that. Xáne gave me a million-dollar smile, the one he gave those that he would rip their heads from the bodies. I felt the chill that passed in the room. “You’ll wish you were dead instead of coming back here.”
He let me go standing as though he hadn’t just threatened me. He turned away to leave, and my mouth spoke faster than my brain could process, “If you think I’m going to go down easily, then you’ve got another thing coming. You’re mine, Xáne.”
He threw his head back laughing as though I was a goddamn comedian, “You’re going to wish I was never yours, mate.” He said it as though it was an insult even to be his mate.
The hatred hummed through the tether knocking me to my back. I guess the tether controlled us, instead of the other way around. The glass box appeared again before I could even sit up.
“Fuck!” I banged on the glass door not letting up even as my fists began bleeding from the impact, “Let me out of here!”
Chapter 2
Xánur
Didn’t I deserve a fucking break from this bullshit? My body was on fire as if she had touched me from the moment I wrapped my hand around her throat. I always knew I could conjure up her flames, she was my human flame, but I wanted her to feel what it felt like to have something that was a part of you dwindle down and die. Usually, if any of my friends came up to me and said this, I would call them pussies but fuck that. Cin didn’t deserve anything but this hatred from me. I didn’t give two shits what her excuses were for this mess. All I knew was that she was not going to stomp her little ass around telling me I was hers when that was over and done with.
I knew deep down that I would never stop loving this girl, but she wasn’t mine anymore. I wanted nothing to do with her, and she needed to know that much.
“Xánur!” I heard my name being called out. I turned from staring into nothingness instead of the perfect view of the night sky in my office.
There, Jaya was still in her black on black sentinel outfit. Why was she still here?
“You’re not done working yet?”
She cleared her throat as I noticed she was with the trainee.
“Well, Captain Helson, I was showing Marla
how things went around here. Shouldn’t you be gone for the day?” Jaya watched me.
I knew what she was trying to say. It had been two weeks since I last went down there to see Cin, and I knew she was going crazy because our tether didn’t shut off as I wanted it to. It was driving me insane, all her emotions were driving me up the wall. Her flames felt like they were licking my skin and touching me in every way trying to caress it. This had never happened before when we were together, but this time around, seeing each other again must’ve sparked something else because ever since I touched her, I couldn’t get her flames off my skin.
“I’ll be going in a bit, I jus-,” I threw my head back as my wings spread so violently as if they were being ripped from my body.
My fangs protruded, and I was so sure that my pale blue eyes were no longer there and that my eyeballs were all black.
“Xánur! What is it?” I could hear Jaya moving closer, but she couldn’t come near me like this. If she touched me, I would kill her. This always happened.
“Don’t!” I stumbled back as my wings tried to fly away.
My wings were flapping, knocking everything off my desk. Papers were flying around, and I knew where they were trying to go. I didn’t stop to hear anyone as I ran out of my office at full force. Neither Marla or Jaya could keep up, but they would catch up when they figured out where I was headed. Something was wrong with Cin, and my instincts screamed louder than anything else. I tried to resist, but my wings pushed me to keep going or else everything in this damn building would come down.
I heard Cin’s screams, and I lost it. I roared like a wounded beast as I got to the door of where she was kept in, in less than a minute. I’ve never used my teleportation here before this moment and I had taken a moment to realize why things could go differently, but this wasn’t the time. I ripped the door open searching around for her. Someone had turned the lights on, dropped the temperature lower than I had it when I saw two of my biggest sentinels holding her down as another reared his fist back and struck her. The side of my face stung, and I gritted my teeth. The moment I levitated shouldn’t have ever been witnessed by so many people, but they pushed me.
The reason I was a Helson, death’s son, came to pass in this very room. The sentinels weren’t weak men either. They were strong, trained Lycans, but compared to me, a vamp who has lived for years yet looked so young, they thought I was inexperienced even as their boss. I inhaled, shutting my eyes as I triggered them to shift. They didn’t know I could do this, well now was a good of a time as any other.
All three Lycans screamed as they shifted. I made sure that they felt each bone breaking and reshaping as though it was their first time shifting. They sounded like wounded animals, and I didn’t give two shits. I heard Jaya and Marla as they made it to the door, but they both stopped in their steps. I shifted my gaze towards Jaya, the shock was there as I saw my reflection in her eyes. I had completely shed my human skin, and I resembled Hel. I was the color of my black wings; black from head to toe, there was nothing that looked human on me. Not the large talons that replaced my hands and feet, nor the velvety skin that took over. My fangs were proud to make an appearance at this moment. I faced the Lycans as their transformation was complete, and I landed on the ground with a thud that shook the building.
I lifted a talon beckoning the first one to come and charge me. The fear was in his eyes, so before he could even think about running out, I charged him. Everyone would know never to touch Cin. She was mine to torture and to kill when I was good and ready to do so. Time slowed for me as I broke each Lycan’s bones one by one. I didn’t stop until each body part was pulled from them and their blood coated every part of this white room. This is what they wanted to do to Cin, and these were the consequences. I laughed wholeheartedly as the last Lycan tried to stand tall with half of his limbs missing.
“Tonight, you served your purpose. Let this be an example for those who think they could touch what doesn’t belong to them,” I know what my voice sounded like at this moment.
It was sinister, and it was down-right terrifying. I’ve made grown supes cry with the simple threat that came with this voice when I was like this. This was a warning to each and every one on this side of the world. If I had to lay waste to it so that no one touched her, then so be it.
As everything stopped, I made my way towards Cin. She laid there on the ground, naked as ever. I watched her, something was different about her, off even. Her body was painted with scars that seemed to have healed over time, she was much shapelier than I remembered. My eyes spotted a long scar on her lower abdomen. Who did that to her? Before I could stop myself, I was on my knees, my fingers itching to touch the scar. I shouldn’t have done that, but the moment I traced the scar, memories flooded my mind, exploding with images of Cin pregnant as she walked around. Sick humans grabbed her ankles trying to get her to help them up, others yelled at her as green spit flew everywhere out of their mouths, and she ran. Then, the next scene, someone who remained faceless cut her open delivering a baby, yet when Cin held it, I knew there was no life there. She mourned that baby, our baby, and I snatched my fingers away from her scar.
I stumbled back, not stopping until I was on the other end of the room away from a passed out Cin. Everything in me went rigid. What the fuck happened to her in the last three years?
****
Lucinda
When I woke up, it took me a while to remember what happened. I opened my eyes looking around. I wasn’t in that white room anymore or in that glass cell. My eyes took the room in. It looked like a regular hospital room, but I knew better. There was no way Xáne was going to let me go anywhere he couldn’t find and threaten me. What was going on with me? My memories were all jumbled up. When I left, I didn’t think that Xáne would be this mad at me. I figured he’d cool down and eventually understand that I had to, but at this moment, I knew how much of a grudge he could keep. If he wanted to hate you, he could forever hate you, and there was nothing you could do to rectify that situation. So, then why did I leave like that?
As I thought of why I would ever do such a thing, a buzzing sound rang deep and high in my head. I gritted my teeth through the pain. Something wasn’t right, and I could feel it. I would never leave Xáne like that, I didn’t even leave a note or something. I couldn’t remember the couple of days before I left, nothing was coming to me. All I remembered was leaving Xáne as he slept with a strong determination that he couldn’t know and that he would forgive me.
The pain in my head passed, giving me a chance to breathe properly again. I shut my eyes. The brightness of the lights and the room brought the headache back. I heard footsteps but didn’t make a sound as they got closer to my bedside.
“Mrs. Helson? Mrs. Helson?” At first, I didn’t think he was talking to me, but then I remembered that Xáne and I were mated and married.
No one had called me by that last name in a long time that I didn’t even notice when the sentinels called me by my former last name, Howell, but now, the reality of this situation came crashing hard on me. I didn’t just leave some man, I left the love of my life, my mate, my husband behind. No wonder why he wants to kill me. We were supes, and I knew better, yet I didn’t have a clue as to why I didn’t do better.
The man’s palm touched my bare arm. It was warm to the touch, but I refused to move, “Mrs. Helson, I know you’re awake. I’m a vamp. I can hear your heart beating a mile a minute. Now, can you open your eyes and look at me?” He pleaded with me, and slowly, I opened my eyes.
When I opened my eyes, I almost cried tears of joy. I gasped as my best friend, Xáne’s cousin, Asar Ragna was in front of me. He smiled. He was still beautiful. His midnight blue hair still French-braided down to his waist. Eyes, the color of the night sky when it is full of stars, the sharpest jawline, one that rivaled Xáne’s, the body of a soldier, and almost the same height as his cousin. All the royals were taller than ever.
“Asar…” I was so sorry to him, too. I didn’t eve
n say goodbye to my best friend. He had been there for me through everything.
“My poor little flame,” His fingers reached out caressing my cheek. “You’ve been missed,” his accent was like Xáne’s, unable to be placed.
I sighed knowing that there was someone who wanted to speak to me.
“I’m so sorry,” tears ran down my cheeks without my consent.
Asar didn’t even think twice about it as he pulled me up for a hug. My body wasn’t in as much pain as I thought it would be. Someone healed me, and it was probably Asar, the only person who truly wanted me alive.
“Oh, you little cry baby, it’s alright. You’ve missed so much, but nothing between us changes. You are my best friend and I, yours. You’re coming home with me,” he stated.
I pulled out of the hug, stunned that Xáne would ever let me go after he promised to kill me.
“He’s letting me go?”
Asar eyed me up and down,
“Will he ever let you go Cin? Just know I struck up a deal to keep you with me and you can never leave this side of the earth again.”
I narrowed my eyes, there was no way he was letting me go so easily, and as if he heard me summon him, Xáne’s footsteps alerted me that he was in the room. My eyes followed wherever he was, as they always did.
“You’re letting me go Xáne?” He flinched at his name being said on my lips.
A couple of other footsteps joined his side, and I looked up to see a few sentinels and that girl. I gritted my teeth trying to stay neutral for fear he’d lock me up in that box again and keep me in the dark.
