Chapter 41
Lost
Iran with a wild intensity through the dark forest, not daring to stop even as my lungs burned.
My feet ached from my heels, and I cursed through my gritted teeth as I finally felt the excruciating pain of blisters forming behind the straps with each movement forward.
Although my immortal healing sealed them quickly, they tore back open only seconds later.
Now that I could feel proper emotions, it was quite painful.
But nothing was more agonizing than the feeling shooting through the void in my chest—
Could I even call it a void anymore?
It felt like my entire soul flooded back into my body the moment Landon spat such volatile words at me.
I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t.
He only dared to speak the truth.
I was a monster.
I was a monster.
I was a monster.
That last word echoed through my head, but I tried to let the sounds of the forest drown out my hateful thoughts.
Birds sang, snakes hissed, and the leaves rustled from the monkeys swinging from branch to branch high above me.
Monster.
Monster.
Monster.
I squeezed my hands against my ears, willing the agony in my chest and head to cease.
What was I thinking, that I could handle this mission?
Now that my soul was returning, I was not as strong as I pretended to be. I couldn’t handle this, no matter what Alaric said about me being the strongest woman he knew, because I didn’t believe him.
I was not strong.
I was weak, and I was rapidly losing the never-ending internal battle I fought every day with each pump of my legs.
Even after years of ruling as the Serpent Queen, I so easily crumbled into the girl I had tried incredibly hard to run from.
Sobs wracked through my chest, but I didn’t try to muffle the anguished cries rattling out of my mouth, for they quickly got swallowed in the solitude of the darkness surrounding me. I had no idea where I was running to, growing lost a while back when a fork in the pathway had appeared.
So, I kept sprinting as my one true friend—the darkness—wrapped around me in a comforting hug.
I was about to round another shadowy curve of trees, when my heel snagged onto something and my world flipped upside down.
I yelped as I tumbled, quickly rolling to the side so as not to smack my face straight into the dirt ground.
A pop sounded, followed by blaring pain shooting through my shoulder right as I hit the ground.
I groaned, rolling onto my back, still breathing hard from all my running.
After gulping down mouthfuls of air, I slightly leaned up to see what I tripped over—a gnarled tree root stared back at me, and I moaned again while collapsing against the cold dirt.
Of course a fucking tree attempted to kill me, what’s new?
I laid there, gazing up at the lush canopy and feeling a glimmer of satisfaction that I could see through the sheet of darkness.
It was like a light shining down a dim tunnel as I watched the creatures of the forest happily moving about in the treetops, plus a few stars winked at me through the holes between the dense leaves.
I was ending my time in the Emerald Glades exactly as it started.
On the damp, dirt ground with a tree root digging into my ass.
With the jungle as my only witness, I barked a rough fit of laughter into the night.
I laughed until my ribs hurt—it was either that or I would cry.
Although both emotions were foreign for me, I’d much prefer the former right now.
I most definitely needed a good laugh more than anything, so I cackled at absolutely nothing and everything.
My life was a complete and utter mess, and I had no idea how to fix it.
My laughter ceased the moment the hair on the back of my neck rose, a feeling of unease creeping over me. I glanced sideways, only to see a tree root writhing toward me.
So, I wasn’t imagining things when I landed in this realm.
The root slithered like a serpent, and I watched with a mixture of horror and awe as it went behind me to press underneath my back.
Oh, For Serpent’s Sake, was I about to be strangled to death by a fucking tree root?!
I was pleasantly surprised, however, when its sharp edge poked into my back instead of wrapping around my neck, and it gently lifted me forward into a seated position.
It was helping me up . . . but why?
Maybe this was a lesson—that the first step to finding my will to live again was getting back up, no matter how many times I fell flat on my face.
I planted my feet firmly on the ground, doing my best to rise on shaky legs.
After what felt like an astronomical amount of effort, I stood all on my own.
The tree root rose with me, almost like it was looking at me.
“Thank you for the push,” I whispered.
Its response was to wrap its gnarled self around my shoulders, almost like its version of an embrace, before slithering back to its home at the base of a nearby tree.
A sliver of hope burst through my chest . . . maybe I could do this. Maybe I could change my life for the better.
As I took a step forward, a step toward a new life not full of tortured screams and executions, a snap tore through the air—and then I was free falling.
This time, my face crashed straight into the ground, agony swiftly slicing through my already injured shoulder as I slowly rolled onto my side.
“What the fuck,” I groaned, glancing down to see that my heel snapped.
My beloved choice of footwear decided to fail me during my time of need—if this wasn’t a sign to completely give up on any prospect of living a worthy life, I didn’t know what was.
“Seera!” someone shouted from far away.
On instinct, I opened my mouth to alert whoever it was to my presence, but then I let my jaw close as all hope died in my chest like a fire being doused with a bucket of water.
I didn’t care to do anything—I didn’t care to be saved, so I laid on the forest floor alone in not only physical agony, but emotional turmoil as well.
But then, he was here.
Alaric was with me.
He jogged into sight, stopping right before my feet. The king wasn’t panting for breath like I was mere moments ago—in fact, I don’t think he even broke a sweat.
Curse this perfect near-god behemoth of a man.
“For Serpent’s Sake,” Alaric muttered as he looked down at me. “Are you alright? What happened?”
“A fucking tree branch is what happened,” I moaned, right as a shooting pain went through my shoulder.
Alaric regarded me, his lips tugging into a frown. “You’re hurt.”
He moved with a swift grace, dropping onto a knee to examine my shoulder. I knew I was in trouble when a grimace flickered over his features. “This is going to hurt, and for that I apologize.”
“What is going to—” I gasped, pain tearing through my ever fiber, making me arch upward and howl like a wolf into the night sky.
It felt as if my shoulder was lit on fire as a loud pop rattled through my bones. I panted through the pain, but whatever Alaric did helped ease the agony within moments.
“Ah, that’s better. Thank you,” I sighed, melting further into the ground.
“I don’t know if I will ever get used to you acquiring such proper manners.” Alaric tossed me a cheeky smile as he lowered himself onto his back to lay beside me.
“You’re insufferable,” I muttered.
He chuckled, and we laid there together, letting the melodies of the jungle do any further talking for us. It could have been minutes, or hours, where we just laid in silence, enjoying the stars shining high above us.
When I was with Alaric, everything felt better, like he was a breath of fresh air right after a rainstorm. He cleansed my worries from my head, more so than any useless prayers ever did.
He simply allowed me to just be.
I didn’t feel the need to wear the mask I wore as the Serpent Queen around him.
“This is nice,” I whispered into the darkness.
“It is,” he softly said back, his pinky latching onto mine.
I sucked in a sharp breath at his cold touch, but I returned the motion, wrapping my pinky around his.
“Seera, you are not a monster.”
I glanced sideways at the king, his words taking me by surprise. “You talked to Landon?”
“Something like that.” His tone was sharp, annoyance creeping between his features.
I scoffed while I imagined the Serpent King roughing up my bodyguard—it was inevitable—and it quickly turned into a full on laugh as I pictured the scene in my mind. As tough as my bodyguard was, I bet he nearly wet himself from the behemoth beside me interrogating him.
Alaric glanced at me with amusement lighting his bright eyes. “What is so funny over there?”
“I’m imagining you giving Landon a proper shakedown,” I said through spurts of laughter.
He joined in, a few of his own wheezy, hissing chuckles bubbling from his lips. “He fucking deserved more than a shakedown.”
His words made me fall into another fit of hilarity, and I shook my head as I swiped at my eyes, tears of joy lining the corners of them. But when I glanced down at the liquid coating my fingertips, my mood flipped like a switch, Landon’s parting words echoing through my head.
She doesn’t try to turn me into a monster.
I watched the stars burning high above while my world collapsed around me yet again. Warmth flooded my cheeks, but I had no energy left to care that I was crying for what felt like the billionth time.
“Hey,” Alaric breathed, releasing my pinky to drag his thumb across my cheek.
He rolled to the side, propping himself onto an elbow while swiping away my tears with a surprising gentleness.
And just like that, I was transported back to the night under the stars with Landon, when he kissed away my tears.
A fresh wave of sadness washed over me—that fragile moment with my bodyguard feeling like a lifetime ago, even though it was less than a week prior.
I feared our relationship was forever changed, if not completely irreparable.
We would never be the same . . . we would never go back to the people we were before this journey.