|40|
By the time I finished catching Zac up on all the recent events that he had missed during his time asleep, my mate was trembling in anger. His eyes were pitch black, his fingers fisted at his side, his lips curled up in a snarl.
"She was here?! In your room?" I couldn't help but flinch at his icy tone. It was obvious even a month of being unconscious couldn't prevent Zac's Alpha instincts from surfacing and from the way all his muscles tightened I could see he was barely holding himself back.
"She said she had come back to finish what she started." Now that Zac was awake, I felt relieved that I finally had someone again that I could tell all my fears to.
A growl passed Zac's lips, "How did my guards not sense her?"
I sigh, "She's the one who cast the barrier around the border, I'm sure it was a piece of cake for her to break it."
He closes his eyes and then leans back against the headboard. "It's too dangerous," he says, eyes still closed, "we need to get rid of the barrier."
I nod in reply, "After the rogue attack I had managed to learn a spell to cast a new one... I just haven't had the chance yet." Not with Emma's critical condition and Demelza waltzing around, trying to kill me.
"That's the first thing we need to do then," Zac says, his grey eyes fixed on me, "and then we'll focus on your vision."
I felt a cold chill pass through my body at the mention of the vision. Death. Destruction. Chaos.
Reaching over I grasp Zacs thin long fingers in mine and squeeze them tightly, my eyes roaming over his face, memorizing every single detail.
"You have no idea how happy I am that you are awake," I say, knowing I didn't have to say anything more, I knew he could see it in my eyes.
He leans over and cups my face in his hand, stroking my cheek gently.
"I missed you." He says and those three words are filled with so much sadness that it makes my heart break.
I don't hesitate to bring him close to me, just reveling in the fact that I have him in my arms again. I push aside all thoughts of rogues, visions and evil birth mothers and just focus on the one thing that mattered the most to me. Him.
"Kate told me everything-" Zac's voice makes me open my eyes and pull away from our embrace.
"She told me how amazing you were whilst I was gone. How you took charge, how you protected."
"I didn't, Emm-"
Zac shook his head and instead silenced me by placing a gentle kiss on my forehead.
"I." He places another kiss on my left cheek, "am so." on my right cheek, "proud of you." He finally kissed me on my lips and it's so gentle and soft that I melt against him, tears pricking at my eyes when I hear the emotion in his words.
"Thank you for being here," his voice breaks, "thank you for being mine."
I leaned my forehead against his, our lips so close that when I spoke they brushed against each other.
"I love you."
★★
"I heard she was here."
I turn to the door of the medical room where Demarcus was standing, arms crossed over his chest, a strange intense look in his eyes.
"If you are talking about Demezla, then you would be correct." I say not bothering to hide the disgust in my voice.
"And I see that she gave you a little gift to remember her by." Demarcus steps into the bright lights of the room, his eyes pointed at the back of my head which was currently being examined by Taliya.
I winced in pain as the Doctor wiped my scalp with alcohol to disinfect.
"Unfortunately," I grit out through clenched teeth as Taliya wipes again, the cold liquid stinging at the healing wound. But I smirk widely as I look up to meet Demarcus's eyes, "But not as big as the present I gave her."
There's no amusement in his eyes however and the smirk quickly falls from my face when I notice the stoic look on his.
Taliya thankfully manages to finish disinfecting and explains the wound was already healing so she wasn't too concerned. I thanked her and realising that Demarcus was still waiting, I bid the Doctor goodbye and quickly followed my mentor out of the room.
There was silence for a few moments as I walked beside the brooding man and finally once we reached the library and the doors closed behind us, he spoke up for the first time since we had left the medical room.
"She will be back." Is all he said and it wasn't a warning or a threat, it was more of a promise.
"Then we'll be ready." I retort without hesitation.
Demeracus watches me carefully, his eyes flickering across my face and then he sighs deeply.
"I still don't think you get it Eve."
I'm surprised for a second, purely because he had called me by my name. This was only the second time he hadn't referred by title, the first time being when he was stopping me from the revival spell.
"What don't-"
"Demelza is not someone you can ever be ready for!" He snaps suddenly, his eyes igniting with hidden fire, "she is unpredictable and powerful and what's more, she is crazy for more."
I watch him with wide eyes as he takes a step towards me.
"She will not stop until she believes she is the most powerful. She will stop at nothing, not even you."
Silence booms in the room and I watch intently as Demarcus's face twitches violently in anger. His chest heaving, his cheeks red and a dangerous glare in his eyes.
He was hiding something.
"How exactly do you know so much about Demelza?" I question, my eyes narrowing in suspicion. Even from the beginning Demarcus had been on edge about Demelza, warning me over and over about the powerful witch.
At my words, surprise appears on his face and he quickly takes a step back, desperate to avert this conversation but I keep pushing.
"Did you know?" I ask him a sharp bite in my voice, "Did you know off my relation to her?"
Again Demarcus looks anywhere but me and takes another step back, furthering the distance between us.
"Demarcus!" I growl and eventually the man stops, his eyes snapping to my face. All the colour had drained from him and he gulped as his eyes locked with mine.
He stammers at first and blinks rapidly, his eyes quickly dropping to the floor and then he nods his head in answer to me.
"Yes- Yes I knew."
I'm stuck for a second, unsure of what to say.
"For how long?" I ask finally.
He sighs, his guilty eyes trailing back to mine. "From the moment I saw you for the first time in Alpha Stones office. It was hard not to recognise your striking similarity to her. "
My heart thumps in my chest.
"You speak as if you know her well." I add, my hands curling slightly into a fist. There was pure tension in the room as he looks at me with his intense eyes, the silver in them glowing more obviously than usual.
"Of course I do," he says with great heaviness in his voice.
"She is my only sister."
★★
"S-ister?" I stuttered, my eyes blinking rapidly. My mouth had suddenly turned dry and my face paled abruptly.
"You are saying Demelza is your sister?" I asked once again after my voice had returned to me.
"Twin actually." He answers, though his eyes turn away from me as he walks over to a chair and seats himself.
Twin? Demelza is his twin?
"That would make you my-"
"Uncle." He finishes quickly, his face remains emotionless.
I stand by for a few moments trying to gain control of everything again. Only hours ago had I found out that the evil witch adamant to end my life was my birth mother but now I had just been told that my mentor and the witch who I greatly respected was my uncle.
Could things get anymore complicated?
"How can this be?" I stammer out in the end, following my mentors lead and taking a seat on the chair opposite him. Mentor- or should I call him uncle now?
"Exactly my thought too," Demarcus says, "I always knew my sister was reckless but never would I have thought her to be careless enough to bring a child into this god forsaken world," His tone barely contains his annoyance and distaste of his blood relative, but his eyes fix on me with sadness, "and then to abandon it." His eyes turn gentle again.
"If I had known of your existence.." his voice trails off and I know what he is trying to say. If he had known that I was alive, he would have come for me before.
I wrap my arms around my body, this new realization that I had an uncle and more importantly that he was sat in front of me, filled me with a weird mix of emotions. It was getting too much for me now. All I wanted was simplicity and clearly there was nothing straightforward about this.
"You don't look like her." I finally blurt out when the pressure of his eyes on me gets too much.
His eyes don't move from me and I can see his hesitation in answering but then abruptly he tenses and with a new determination in his eyes, he sits forward.
"You want to know why I am so against Demelza? You want to know why I hid the fact that you were my niece?" Any gentleness that was in Demarcus had vanished and instead all that was left was a cold intensity.
I hesitated when I heard his words. Was I really ready to hear what he had to say? I had no doubt that the woman who had given birth to me was a monster, but was I truly ready to find out exactly how much of a monster she was?
"Tell me." I say quickly, giving myself no chance to back out.
Demarcus nods his head with a solemn look.
"Fine," he begins, "then I should begin by being honest. This-" he suddenly gestures to the length of his body, from his head to his feet, "this isn't my actual body."
I cocked an eyebrow. What is he talking about?
"You just told me that I don't look like Demelza, correct?" he questions and I nodded in reply, still unsure about where this line of conversation was going.
Sure both Demelza and Demarcus shared the similarity of dark hair and eyes but that was about it. One look at either of them and no one could tell they were even related, let alone twins.
"Well that's because this body is of a young man named Kevin Harper. He used to help collect herbs for potions in our coven. He was very gentle man and had his whole life ahead of him until Demelza killed me and then switched my soul into his body."
"Wait what?"
I was following well until the whole soul switching. My eyebrows scrunched together and I made a face at the witch in front of me.
"Demarcus, what on earth are you talking about?"
He leaned forward, "Demelza. Killed. Me."
Silence.
More silence.
Finally, "Why?"
He scoffs, his thin shoulders moving up. "Why does Demelza do anything? She's fucking demented thats why!"
Once again I flinch at his words. The whole time I had spent with Demarcus, the only words I could use to describe him would be; calm, collected and patient. However the man sat in front of me, seething through his clenched teeth, his eyes glowing in fury, could hardly be described by those same words.
"She wants power and the glory that comes with it. She wants to trample on people and crush them beneath her feet. She wants everything and anything that will make her feared by everyone. That's what Demelza wants..." Demarcus breaks off, his eyes glazing over, probably thinking about the past, about his twin, "and what Demelza wants, she always gets."
I reach over unconsciously, my hands gently gripping his. I can see it in his eyes, he needed someone to be on his side.
"How could she have killed you, I mean you're sat right in front of me- sure in another person's body," I purse my lips still feeling dubious, "but you're still technically alive, right?"
His lips tilt slightly but not in humour.
"Like I said, Demelza had this big plan for world domination and usually she gets what she wants, but I tried to stop her." His hand tightens around mine as he speaks, "And well, let's just say she wasn't too pleased." Demarcus forces a smile at me.
"So she killed you?" I ask.
He shakes his head, "Killing is far too easy for my dear sister. She likes to torture her victims first." I suddenly felt queasy, not completely sure I wanted to hear anymore, but Demarcus didn't stop. He was on a mission to make me recognise the real Demelza.
"First, she broke every single bone in my body," my eyes shot up to meet his in shock and I can see the pain still within those silver flickered eyes, "and then she burned me alive, so much that all my skin had burnt off and then-then..." he closed his eyes, inwardly struggling to get the words out. I held on tighter to his hands, watching as his skin blanched under my strong
force and for a split second I wondered if I was hurting them, before quickly realising this man had gone through more pain in his life than I could ever inflict.
"And then she took control of my mind and made me snap my own neck."
I gasp, my hands leaving his hands to cover my mouth. She hadn't actually killed him with her own hands, instead she had made him do it himself.
"Why?" I whisper, tears rolling down my cheek when Demarcus looks away, his eyes pained and tortured. "Why do all that to you if in the end she didn't want to kill you with her own hands?"
He doesn't look at me again, but instead clasps his fingers together and closes his eyes, looking every bit resigned and defeated as his next words sounded.
"Because she could." He says simply, "Because she wanted to show me how powerful she was and how there was nothing I do anything to her."
I wipe away my tears and sit up straight, eager to find out how he was still alive.
"So what happened? Why are you still alive?"
"Like I said, Demelza wanted to make it clear how much control she had over everything, including me. She wanted me to know that she could both kill me and keep me alive, that she could do whatever she wanted with no consequence."
I listen closely.
"So just before I crossed the threshold into the afterlife she revived me again, bringing me back to life. Of course my original body was completely burnt to a crisp and useless, so she killed Kevin Harper and switched our souls."
He shrugs his shoulder almost carelessly, "And that is what I am, a dead man's soul in another dead man's body."
I watch him carefully, wondering how on earth he was sitting so still, so peacefully. He had been tortured and killed by his own twin and then brought back to life to live in another mans body. How could he be so nonchalant?
"Do you hate her?" I ask, more to ease my curiosity. The woman had abandoned me and cast death spells on me, but it almost didn't matter, because I didn't know her, I didn't spend all my life with her. But that wasn't the same for Demarcus, I mean the man shared the same womb as her. They had spent their whole life together and in the end she still turned on him, torturing him even till today. Surely he must hate her.
He is quiet for a moment, considering my question and then answers, "Hate isn't a strong enough word to describe what I feel for her." He finally says, but then goes on to add, "However there is another emotion I always feel when I think of Demelza."
"What is it?" I wonder what emotion could possibly be stronger than hate.
"Pity," he explains, "I feel pity for her."
I shake my head, hardly hiding my disbelief. "You feel pity for the woman who burnt you alive and made you kill yourself?"
"I feel pity for her because no matter how hard she tries to gain all this power, to live up to this ridiculous idea of being better than everyone, at the end of it she is just desperate and unfortunately that is exactly what makes her so unpredictably dangerous." His eyes lock with mine and they stare into my soul with great intensity. It was a warning.
"After all, desperate people do desperate things... no matter what the cost."