9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

M y eyes cracked open slightly. It was still nighttime, but I was no longer in the woods I had been in when I lost consciousness. It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Minutes? Hours? I closed my eyes tightly as I lay bound on the hard ground. I didn’t want to tip off the men that I was coming out of whatever they had drugged me with.

“This is not a good idea,” one of them said in a panic. “What if Cassius sees us? He will rip our limbs from our bodies.” The mention of Cassius’ name had my heart pounding instantly.

“He won’t see us. It’s the middle of the night.” The one who picked me up in the woods sighed, annoyed.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this. Thea was never cruel to us,” the first man spoke again.

“Get a grip on yourself. We’ve already done it. It’s too late.”

I held my breath as I waited for them to keep talking, but they didn’t for a while. I could hear them walking around as if they were looking for something.

“How are they going to think we're Falgon guards if they don’t see us kill her?”

“Because your dead body will be lying next to hers, and you’ll be in Falgon colors,” the one in charge laughed, but a moment later I heard a dagger ripping through flesh. The sound of the man’s dead body hitting the ground close to me made my magic simmer.

“What the fuck?” another guard questioned.

“Someone had to be sacrificed. Besides, it was clear he felt bad for the Crimson whore.”

My heart hammered in my chest, but I did not dare move. My magic was starting to come back slowly; I just needed a few minutes for it to get stronger.

“Drag her over here,” the one in charge ordered.

Someone grabbed my arms and started dragging me across the hard ground, but dropped me abruptly. I almost opened my eyes to see why, but I got my answer a moment later.

“What do we have here?” Cassius’ voice was undeniable.

It had felt like a lifetime since I heard his deep voice. I had forgotten how it instantly soothed me and made me feel warm all over. My eyes closed tightly, remembering the last time I heard him was when he was so cruel to me. It made my insides burn with both anger and sadness. But more than that, it was comforting, and that pissed me off more.

“We were just leaving you a little gift,” the Falgon guard sneered, then sighed in mock sadness. "Now you can watch us kill your whore.”

I had to fight my instincts to lash out and keep him from killing me, but something held me there. I didn’t dare move. My need to understand why Cassius was here overcame my need to live for a moment. My breathing froze completely as I waited to hear what Cassius would say. It felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.

“You aren’t Falgon guards,” Cassius accused. “I know every Falgon guard, and you do not belong to them. So what kingdom are you from?”

“Falgon,” the man declared, but less confidently this time.

Cassius spoke. “I know you aren’t from Falgon. Valor would never betray me like this.” He paused for a moment. “Let me rephrase that. Valor knows I would rip his body into tiny pieces and feed them to his own mother if he were to ever harm Thea. So, try again.”

The guard scoffed in indignation. My insides twisted at Cassius’ words.

“It doesn’t matter. Are you going to come over here and stop us?” the guard laughed. “You can’t cross the border into Cerithia until the curse is broken, you start a war, or you are invited by the royal family.”

Cassius didn’t say anything, but I could hear enough movement that I knew he was doing something. The crunching of the dirt beneath the guards' shoes let me know that they had moved in front of me, toward Cassius’ voice.

“I do not need to cross the boundary to kill all of you,” his voice dripped with hatred. “Let Thea go.”

I opened my eyes, and they adjusted to the darkness quickly. I could see Cassius’ own golden eyes watching me, and I saw relief take over his features when I slowly started standing. Gods, he looked better than I remembered.

“You would die before you could kill all of us; she is ours now,” the same guard snarled, not letting any of the other guards get a word in. Suddenly, my darkness surged forward, my magic returning to full strength. Not only could I feel it was upset that I had been taken, but I could also feel it was upset because Cassius was being threatened. I chose to ignore that hard truth for now.

Cassius smiled so brightly at me that it actually made the confusion in my mind lift for a moment. Gods, I hadn’t felt anything other than anger, hurt, and betrayal in so long that this new feeling felt so foreign yet so good.

More than anything, pain clung to me. It radiated from me because I didn’t know if he was only pretending to care for me. Was he trying to trick me again?

“Don’t worry, it’s not me you have to worry about,” he frowned at whatever he saw in my eyes. Suddenly, Wisp was there. She twirled around him, her color a vibrant green. “Thea has always been strong enough to save herself.”

It took the five guards only a moment for Cassius’ words to sink in. They all turned, and their fear instantly wrapped around me, sweeter than anything I had tasted in a while. It made my darkness hum with anticipation. They reached for their weapons, but before they could even grasp the handles, my fire exploded out of me. Maybe because Cassius was here, or maybe I had lost my mind, but with the release of my magic, I let my darkness take over.

Like the blood in my veins, it coursed through every inch of me, seeping completely into my bones and flesh. It dug its claws into me with such a beautiful pain that I knew it wouldn’t let me go for a long time, if ever at all. The marks on my skin glowed brightly, and my vision pulsed red as I stared down the men. All of them shrank away from me, and I chuckled softly. This only made their fear worse.

“You really shouldn’t have done this,” I said softly. My own voice sounded somehow off—somehow not myself. “Who sent you?”

“Fuck you, Crimson whore,” the blonde one spit at me.

I moved so fast that he didn’t even have a chance to blink before I was in front of him, driving his own dagger into his stomach. Our faces were only a foot apart as I smiled and ripped my dagger upward through his flesh. The light vanished from his eyes as soon as my blade pierced his heart.

“I don’t care much for that nickname,” I smirked as he fell over, but another guard was already running at me before the first guard had even hit the ground.

I turned and ducked from his violent swing, plunging my dagger into his throat. The gurgling sound he made had my darkness happy. As his body slid off my blade, I turned to face the last three men, covered in the blood of their comrades. One of them took a step backwards at the sight of me. Smart move, but it was too late to let them go. My darkness wanted vengeance for what they did to me. With a single thought, my fire mist exploded from me and wrapped up the one that tried to run. Then my darkness stepped in and took hold of my fire magic, tightening the grip I had on him until his body exploded from the pressure.

“For the love of the gods!” one of the men cried out at the sight of me as I slowly turned my red eyes toward him. Blood dripped from me, but it wasn’t mine. I was bored of fighting them, so I flicked my hand and watched their bodies instantly evaporate from my fire. Once they were dead, I took a deep breath and tried to gain control of myself. I felt a strong resistance as my darkness refused to yield.

It dug itself even deeper into me as I felt it frantically looking for something. As soon as I turned and saw Cassius staring at me, my darkness calmed a bit and hummed in satisfaction, like it had found what it had been searching for. Seeing him was like a fever dream—unreal and delirious. As I stalked slowly toward him, he didn’t even flinch at the sight of me. My darkness suddenly lashed out of me and wrapped Cassius tightly in the dark tendrils of its magic.

I stared at him, hating the fact that he wasn’t showing any fear that I would kill him, yet confused by the absolute joy in his eyes as he looked at me. My head cocked to the side as he watched me, like I was the best thing he could be looking at right now.

“Aren’t you scared?” I asked him.

He watched me for a silent moment. It was then that I realized my darkness was not angry. It was not wanting to hurt him at all, and that fucked with my mind. My darkness was happy to see him. It almost felt relieved at the sight of him.

“Of you?” His voice broke through the confusion of my darkness. My eyes stared into his. “You terrify the fuck out of me, little viper.”

His words were not full of hate or worry.

“Why can’t I feel your fear?”

“You won’t kill me, Thea. Your mind might not remember us, but your heart and soul do, and they would never allow you to do it.” Wisp appeared in a dark green flame as she saw Cassius.

“Unfortunately for you, I no longer possess a heart.”

His handsome face frowned at my words, but they were true. I was empty. Inside of me was dark, tainted, and destroyed by what he did.

A noise in the distance caught my attention. Cassius seemed to hear it too, because his eyes shifted to the tree line where horses were approaching us quickly.

“Looks like your kingdom has come to rescue you,” he spoke with venom. When I glanced over my shoulder, I could see both Cerithia and Kizar guards coming. “Let me guess, you are hopelessly in love with Jesper now.”

For reasons unknown to me, my anger expanded at the sight of them. I ignored his jab and turned to focus on him again. I willed my darkness to hurt him, but it refused, just like he had said it would. I tried again, harder this time, but nothing happened. With irritation, I let him go. He fell to the ground and looked at me.

“You didn’t kill me.”

“No, but make no mistake—I will the next time we cross paths. I want to take my time with you, Cassius. I want to elicit the same pain you did in me, and that will take hours.”

The horses were getting closer to us. He stared at me with his bright golden eyes and his chaotic dark hair. I didn’t want him to mistake this for me giving a fuck about him.

“Consider this a promise of what’s to come,” I snapped as I gripped my viper-handled dagger and flung it at him. Cassius didn’t move. He didn’t try to stop the blade like I knew he could have. He grunted harshly when it hit his shoulder. He fell to one knee, his breathing coming out in short, choppy gasps as he grabbed the blade and pulled it from himself.

“You can cross over and come back to Crimson,” he spoke in an exhausted voice as he tossed my dagger back to this side of the boundary. “I will let you do whatever you need to if you come back with me. I will take your anger. I will take your hatred. Yell at me, curse me, or stab me if you want, but do not close me out anymore. This is the worst torture you could give me, my love. Being so close to you without being able to have you.”

“Crimson is not my home, and I will not believe a word from your mouth ever again.”

His golden eyes dimmed. My heart was pounding out of control in my chest. I needed to be away from him before I fell for his pretty lies again.

“Did you do this? Did you have them kidnap me and bring me to you?”

“No.”

“How did you know we’d be here?”

“A friend tipped me off, and I came as fast as I could.”

A frown tilted his handsome face as I stared. My mind was trying to understand why we, my darkness and I, didn’t kill him when we had a chance.

“Why bother coming here?” I hissed.

“Because I am a moth, and you are my flame. I cannot stay away.”

I scoffed.

The sound of men talking in the distance had me glancing over my shoulder. The Cerithian guards were almost here.

“I’m sorry to do this to you, little viper.”

His warning was too late for me to do anything. As I turned, he wrapped his shadows around me and yanked me over the border with him. Cassius held out his hand in front of me before blowing powder into my face.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” I promised as my eyes struggled to stay open. Cassius’ shadows swarmed around us. His golden eyes stared into mine without failure. He brushed my braid over my shoulder before his shadows disappeared. A moment later, we were inside the Crimson Castle.

“What did you do?” The king’s voice sounded panicked when he saw me. “Cassius, have you lost your fucking mind?”

Cassius scoffed.

“I couldn’t stop myself,” he sighed as my eyes finally closed, and I passed out.