29. Lorraine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lorraine

I slowly blinked my eyes open. The light in the room was strange, and I frowned, trying to shake off the dregs of sleep. I felt like I’d slept for a long time. A century, like Sleeping Beauty. A prince hadn’t woken me up. In fact, my prince had given me an ultimatum, and now it was over between us. As the reality hit me, my stomach sank and tears welled in my eyes. What the hell was I still doing here? I was stuck in this alternate realm and I couldn’t go home. I was bound to Ash for another week or so, which kept me here in this magical realm, and there was no way for me to get out of here. Not even after we weren’t together anymore. Not even after he’d been completely unreasonable. It seemed so damn unfair.

I lay in bed, my sadness turning into anger as I thought about Ash and how ridiculous he’d been. How could he have done that to me? What had made him think that pushing me into a corner was a good idea? The anger grounded me. I could deal with anger—it was so much easier to handle than sadness. I’d dealt with loss so many times in my life, and I still wasn’t that great at handling it. I could do anger. Anger was familiar. Anger fueled me, pushed me forward, when sadness dragged me down and held me back. The more I thought about Ash and how he’d acted, the more furious I became. He’d come to have sex with me, and it had been incredible, the most emotionally connected we’d ever been. His magic had done something—the bond between us had been ramped up more than ever… and then this. If I hadn’t been willing to give it all up right away, then I couldn’t have what we shared at all. He hadn’t even been willing to give me a chance to think about it. I got out of bed, showered, and got dressed, my anger propelling me forward. I had no idea what I would do until I could go back home. I would keep myself busy somehow and count the days, the hours, the minutes until I could go back to my sister and the life I understood. That life had never been something I’d been very attached to. Everything I’d done after my parents’ deaths had been to take care of Cat, to try to right the wrong where I’d been responsible for my parents’ deaths. None of that had been because it was what I wanted. Now, it was all I wanted again. It was the life I’d left behind, a life I understood. I missed my sister; I missed the normal problems I’d had, not the problems that had been all about magic and sacrifices and ultimatums. “Not that things were all that much easier,” I reminded myself out loud while I brushed out my hair and braided it. After all, I’d had problems with Oscar, who in the end had sold me to get rid of his gambling debt. No matter how many times I said it, it would always be a shock, something that sounded so bizarre. How could one person be so evil? I guessed there was a lot more darkness in the world than I’d always been aware of, and losing my parents had been scratching the surface, no matter how terrible it had been. I sighed when I finished braiding my hair and walked to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and eat something. When I turned into the small open-plan kitchen, Oscar was leaning against the counter, hands curled around the countertop, attitude casual as if he’d always been there. “What the fuck!?” I cried out and bounced away from him. “Is that how you greet a lover?” Oscar asked coolly. “What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded, trying to catch my breath. My heart hammered against my chest, and I swallowed hard. My mouth had run dry, but my palms were clammy. I wiped them on the leggings I’d put on. “I’m here for you, babe,” Oscar said. I looked around, looking for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing but a dirty coffee cup on the coffee table. Oscar was too close to the drawer with the knives in it. I took a few quick steps to get to the coffee table and picked up the mug, holding it out as if it were a knife. Oscar looked at the cup, confused, before he chuckled, his face breaking into the grin I knew so well. “What are you planning to do with that?” he asked. I shook my head. Maybe he was just an apparition, some kind of dream. Or a nightmare. That’s where I’d been seeing him all this time.

This couldn’t be real—Oscar couldn’t be in this realm. And yet…

“Come on, babe, don’t be like that,” Oscar said. “Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “I thought you’d be glad to see me.”

“Why the fuck would I be glad to see you?” I sneered at him. “You sold me.”

“I know,” Oscar said, and his face fell. “I’m so sorry. I know it was fucked up of me to do it, but I… I just didn’t know what else to do, babe. Lorraine.” It looked like it pained him to say my actual name. He’d called me babe since we’d started dating years ago. I shook my head. “So, what, I’m just supposed to forgive and forget, is that what you want?”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Oscar said. He held out his hands in defense and slowly came out of the kitchen, moving toward me. “A mistake!?” I gaped at him in disbelief. “A mistake is forgetting my birthday or our anniversary. It’s booking hotel tickets for the wrong dates. It’s not selling your girlfriend to pay off your gambling debts!”

Oscar nodded. “Okay, okay, it sounds a lot worse when you say it like that. But it’s not like I put you down as collateral the way people put down the deed of the house or a car or whatever. I didn’t mean for it to go this far.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then how did it happen, exactly?”

“You know how these things go, babe,” Oscar said with a shrug. He’d stopped halfway to me and jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, looking hurt and dejected. As if he had anything to look hurt about. He wasn’t the one who’d been through hell and back because of the person he should have been able to trust. “That’s not an answer,” I said. I shrugged. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“How did you get here?” I asked, changing the topic. Right now, I didn’t need him to explain how he’d fucked up and sold me. I needed to know how he was here. “I told you, I’m here for you,” he said. “I miss you. I want to try again. You have no idea how shit life’s been without you.”

I ignored that and thought back to what Cat had said about Oscar being in jail. “How did you get out of jail?”

Oscar grinned at me, his eyes turning into thin slits that looked like the eyes of a snake and were just as sly. “Come now, you know that shit like that is all about having the right friends.”

I shook my head, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Who the hell did he know who could get him out of jail? I’d thought I’d known all his friends. Then again, there had been a lot about him I’d thought I’d known, and it turned out I’d been very, very wrong. “How are you here?” I demanded again, my voice harder this time. “You shouldn’t be able to be here.”

“Neither should you.”

I didn’t respond to that. He wasn’t wrong—I was here because of Ash and the magic he’d protected me with, and then the bond he’d created by sleeping with me. “What did you do to get here?” I asked, suspicious now. I didn’t know what other ways there were for a human to get here. “I made a friend who happened to know about this alternate world that no one even believes in anymore. I thought it was all bullshit at first until this guy came to me and showed me the place, you know, giving me a tour.”

“What guy?” I asked. Oscar shrugged again. With his hands in his pockets, he almost looked like a child. I wasn’t going to let his pseudo-innocence fool me. I knew who and what he was. I knew what he was capable of. “He always wears black,” Oscar said. “Huge smile, so it looks like it cuts his face in two.”

Sly eyes, and he uses magic to get whatever he wants. Dolus, or something.”

I frowned. Had I heard the name somewhere? It had to be someone here. It had to be a god or another enchanted being if he’d allowed Oscar to be here. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. “You should go.” Oscar hadn’t tried anything yet, and I had lowered my guard just a bit. “I’m not leaving without you,” Oscar said. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said coldly. “We’re not a thing anymore.”

“Come on, babe, don’t do that to me. You can’t cut me like that. You and me, we’re meant to be. You never even broke up with me.”

“My mistake,” I said sarcastically. “I didn’t realize being sold wasn’t grounds for a breakup.”

Oscar groaned and rolled his eyes. “You can’t hold that against me forever, sweetheart.”

I glared at him. “Try me.”

Oscar shook his head, but he laughed. “I’ve always loved your spunk, you know that? I hate it when we fight, but God, you’re so beautiful when you’re angry.”

I bristled. “Just what a woman wants to hear. Get the hell out of my cabin and don’t come back.”

“Last I heard, it’s not your cabin,” Oscar said and took a step closer. “And you’re not his property, either.”

“I’m not going with you!” I shouted. “You don’t have much of a choice.”

Oscar was moving closer and closer to me while he tried to sweet-talk me, but I wasn’t buying it. When he was within reach, I suddenly raised the cup and brought it down hard. I struck him against the side of his face, and his eyebrow split, pouring blood. He pressed his hand against the cut, and when his fingers came away with blood, he scowled. “Bitch,” he spat. I stared at him. The blood stayed on his skin, but as I watched, the wound closed up again. “What the hell?!” I cried out. “What… how are you doing that?”

Oscar laughed. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? That Dolus guy gave me some magic, too.”

Oscar grabbed my wrist so fast I couldn’t pull back, and he jerked my arm so that I lost my grip on the cup. It fell to the ground and splintered. “Let me go!” I screamed, hitting him, but my fists did nothing as I rained down punches on his face. Oscar looked at me as if I wasn’t doing anything at all. Shit. I was in trouble. “You’re coming home with me,” he said, walking to the door. His grip on my wrist was an iron vise, and I couldn’t get out of it no matter how hard I fought and twisted. “I can’t!” I screamed. “I can’t come with you, I’m bound to Ash, and that keeps me here.”

At those words, Oscar froze. “What?” he asked, and his words were cold as ice. “Who’s Ash?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. Maybe it had mattered before he’d been a dick and broke things off with me for no good reason. Now, it really didn’t matter at all. He was gone, and soon, I would leave, too. But that didn’t take away from the fact that I was still bound to him and this place. “Who is he?” Oscar asked, spinning to face me. His face had suddenly morphed into the stuff of nightmares. His eyes were dark, rimmed with red, and his skin was covered with blue veins, mapping out his rage. I’d never seen him this angry, but his anger wasn’t normal. It wasn’t human. Whatever magic he’d gotten was doing awful things to him. From the looks of it, he was going to do awful things to me. “Lorraine,” he said, his voice hard. “Tell me who he is.”

I didn’t answer him. Oscar’s face twisted into an ugly scowl, and he grabbed me and flung me across the room.

He threw me with so much strength I hit the wall and crumpled to the ground, moaning. My whole body ached. “I asked you a question!” Oscar shouted. He came at me, but I scrambled away. Oscar was strong, but weirdly, something slowed him down, and I realized I could get away from him as long as I kept moving. When he grabbed for me, I ducked and jumped to the side. My body hit the floor, but I ignored the pain and made a break for the door. I yanked it open and ran. Oscar barreled after me, grunting and growling like some kind of ogre. I ran into the sunlight, my legs pumping as I covered the clearing with ease. My muscles ached and my body screamed at me as I ran, but I didn’t care. I had to keep going. Ash. I had to find Ash. I didn’t care that we were apart right now. Oscar was coming after me, and I needed help. I needed Ash to save me. It seemed like it was all he’d been doing, but I needed him to be there for me, at least one more time.