Chapter 18
Eighteen
W hile enticed by and drawn to the brothers, Ren had forgotten that she was their captive. She felt comfortable in their presence. She walked amongst them every day without fear, without chains to bind her—without a want to escape.
Their world was one of blood and darkness, a stark contrast to her past life. They needed to hunt, to take life in order to keep their own existence. She knew that now, and it didn’t frighten her, or deter her from wanting to be there. To be with them.
When she cracked her eyes open from her slumber, Ren felt a sense of confusion fall over her. She closed her eyes again and attempted to shake off the feeling.
When she opened them, she was in another place entirely. Standing not lying in a bed.
Though she had instances of forgetfulness and feelings of being in one room but finding herself in another, she had somehow grown accustomed to these things in the short time she had been in the mansion.
When she opened her eyes she almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She had never seen this room before. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands to try and scrub the insane image from them.
Yet it still remained when she opened them again.
Bastian sat on a throne with a framework of bones and skulls with red leather cushions, but she missed what was in the shadows as she dropped her robe. She hadn’t even wanted to, it was like her body was moving without her own permission.
Despite the allure of Bastian’s touch and the intoxicating scent of his presence, a sense of dread always lingered at the back of Ren’s mind.
The reality of her situation was lost on Ren, until the moment when Bastian clapped his powerful hands together. A hot gust of wind blasted Ren backwards as candles lit up the shadows in the room. She found herself crouched on the floor with the light fabric of her robe gripped in her hands covering her mouth and nose from the dust that still floated in the stagnant room.
In a previously darkened corner of the room, a leathery cloak of wings unfolded revealing Grayson hanging upside down from the ceiling. He hissed loudly then finished with a sound that was barely audible to her ears. With the ease of an acrobat, flipped down from the ceiling landing deftly on light feet. Standing to his full height in this gargoyle-esque shape he was actually taller than she remembered.
Grayson had transformed into a monstrous bat-like creature. His wings spread and stretched. The membrane between his long finger-like appendages was thin enough to see the candlelight between them. The veins of blood were woven through like spider webs feeding all the way to the tips.
The brothers, in their turn, continued to watch her with a predatory interest, their centuries of existence clearly desensitizing them to her fear. She stood before them, and watched them watching her.
The power they held over her life was absolute. It was a truth Ren hadn’t had to face daily, but was now made terrifyingly clear.
She tried to move as the brothers closed in on her. She was stuck to the spot though, unable to move her feet. She closed her eyes, but found herself opening them no matter the urge to squeeze them shut further.
Huge fangs behind snarling lips, thick strands of saliva dripping to the floor from their snarling maw.
She screamed in terror as Grayson’s wings ensnared her and began to tighten around her. He was stealing the air from her lungs with each moment that passed.
When she felt her eyes bulge and tears stain her cheeks from what surely would be her death by suffocation…she woke with a shriek loud enough to wake the dead, or maybe the undead in this case.
“A dream?” she whispered softly to herself, recognizing she was in Callum’s bed.
It felt so real to her. Had it all been a dream?
She sat up slightly to try and determine what had really happened. Looking at her arms, feeling around on her body for any signs that any of that had happened.
Nothing.
She decided to assume it was just a nightmare as she saw Callum calmly sleeping in the bed beside her.
Had she truly tried to sneak out, he surely would have startled awake and followed. Right?
The brothers did have superhuman senses after all and she had seen it first hand the night Callum took her.
But she couldn’t shake the sinister feeling that she was in serious trouble. There was a certain unease that settled in her core. A niggle of fear that wouldn’t let go.
As Ren found herself slipping further into the brothers’ world, she began to question whether she could maintain the delicate balance between her desires and her survival.