Chapter 8
Your Real Self
Cedar
When I woke, there was another cup of blood by my feet.
I’d say this was becoming quite the routine, but this one contained that off smell again, so I tossed it across the room, letting it spill across the icy stone floor.
I felt as if I’d now lost all sense of time.
The torture sessions with Keres and Voss had gone on often enough that my body tensed whenever anyone walked past my door, but I still hadn’t revealed shit to anyone.
As I pushed myself to my feet and tried to stretch my body out, the door rushed open, three guards coming in—one of which was Rusor, but now dressed in the official garb tonight.
The thick black leather with blue accents along with the Court of Ice sigil across their chest. It was a snowflake, but each major line that made up the symbol was a different weapon.
A sword and a spear were larger and the smaller ones were an arrow and a dagger.
Rusor carried a chair with him, which he set in the middle of the room, while the other two stepped towards me.
This felt different than it normally did.
Typically it was just Keres, Voss, and Rusor.
Rusor would throw my ass into a chair, link my cuffs, and they’d carry on.
I didn’t waste time fighting it because Rusor was incredibly strong and I didn’t see the point.
It wasn’t as if I was at my strongest, or anywhere near it.
The effects of Cora’s blood had worn off fast after the meetings with Keres and Voss.
“Hello. Can I help you?” I questioned, refusing to take a step backward until I figured out what the switch-up was about tonight.
“We’ve been told to ask you to sit,” one replied.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then we’ve been told to seat you ourselves,” the other said.
I nodded my head, weighing my options. Deciding I didn’t exactly have the energy to fight all three of them, I stepped forward and sat myself down.
“So what are we up to this fine evening? More knives? Fire again?” I asked no one in particular.
The first one smirked. “Some fun I’m sure you’ll love, shifter.”
“Sounds promising,” I muttered.
Rusor was suddenly behind me, pulling my hands behind the back of the chair with a substantial amount of force—again, not even close to how he normally acted around Voss and Keres.
It was as if he wanted to be a show of force.
He connected the shadow stone cuffs around my wrists and a sharp prick hit me in the side of the neck before I could blink.
“Fuck!” I pulled away from the pain. “What the fuck is that?”
“Well, you didn’t drink the blood. Had to go down other avenues,” Rusor muttered.
I didn’t have much time to freak out, because a slight female with pale skin, blonde hair, full lips, and a square chin walked into the room.
She had light caramel-colored eyes and her hair stopped just below her chin.
Dressed in tight black leggings and an equally tight long-sleeved top that resembled the guards with the Court of Ice sigil on the front.
Anyone without a brain cell would think she was an innocent little thing, but when you’d been through the shit I had?
Well, I knew better. Power radiated from her in waves.
This wasn’t who I wanted to see. I knew in my gut that this was Voss’s sister.
“Did he give you any problems?” she asked Rusor. Her voice was distinct, and what it lacked in femininity it made up for in authority.
“No, Vega. A little mouthy once he got pricked, but I told him if he’d drank his nightly blood like a good prisoner, we wouldn’t need to resort to such measures.”
A smile curved along her face, but it wasn’t one of happiness. No, it was one that said she enjoyed my pain. There was nothing kind about this female.
“Good. That’ll be all for the rest of you, you can wait outside. Rusor, you can stand by the door.” She motioned for the other two guards to leave and Rusor to back away from me.
As I watched them chat, I realized they were waiting for the venom to kick in.
Only they wouldn’t have to wait long, because it was already beginning to work.
Everything around me was starting to blur and my body started to feel somewhat numb.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Looking around the room, I tried to focus on something to keep me grounded.
Instead, I found her in the far corner sitting on my cot.
She was in a short white dressing gown like she had been the night I’d hallucinated her after Voss’s first rounds of treatment, her hair half pulled back and the rest in the loose curls around her face. Seated on her knees, she was watching me intently.
“For fuck’s sake, of course you’re here with them,” I muttered, but she ignored me as usual.
“He’s ready,” Vega said plainly.
She walked behind me and I felt her hands set firmly on my shoulders. I tried to use the pressure to ground myself instead of the image of Cora, but before I could grab ahold of anything else that was real, a splitting pain went up my spine into the back of my head.
I squeezed my eyes closed, my teeth grinding together as I tried not to scream, but the effort was wasted.
Memories flipped through my head—things I knew and remembered, but they were all blurry.
Silvana laughing, Dryden down on the docks with his children, random faces I’d met over the years on my long search for the one who turned me.
Suddenly the pain stopped, and I sat in the chair gasping for air. As if the oxygen would soothe the aching feeling throughout my bones right now. I had no idea how much time had passed.
“What’s wrong?” Rusor asked.
“It’s… odd. His memories are… almost jumbled? Blurry? I can’t make out any faces or what’s happening in any of them,” Vega said.
“Do you think it’s the venom?” Rusor said after a moment.
“I’m not sure. It hasn’t been an issue for the others.
I’ll try again, but here’s to hoping it doesn’t kill him.
I’ve never had to dive this deep before, and we all know how they appear on a normal day with me.
” She released a breath as she leaned down to whisper in my ear, “Hold on, love, this is going to hurt.”
I didn’t even have time to reply before my entire body was lit up in excruciating pain.
My spine, my fingertips, down to my toes felt like I was on fire.
The last thing I saw was Cora’s wide ocean blue eyes in the corner of my room, and I swear I could see her reach for me before the world went dark, but internally it was alit and bathed in blood.
Nothing had detail, all a makeshift blur of shapes and shadows. It looked like we could’ve been in the streets of Darkmoor, but I wasn’t sure. A streak of silver ran in front of me, down the dark street, blood coating her entire body.
“Silv?” I screamed her name over and over as I chased after her. The farther I ran, the further she fell from my grasp, until my foot hit a loose stone, and I fell.
Down. Down. Down.
As if the street turned into a hole, I fell for what felt like mere moments, or ages, all at once, only to find myself on the ground, grass poking my bare back as my eyes stared up into the dark night sky. Slowly pushing myself up, trying to take in my surroundings.
Endless hills that I used to play on as a child.
“Enjoy this, shifter. The view is just for you,” a masculine voice growled from beside me. My head snapped to the side to see Keres holding a torch in his hand, a malevolent grin across his face.
The view?
My eyes scanned the darkening space again, only to find Silvana a full twenty paces from me, her wrists bound behind her back, her body pressed against a tall wooden pole, and what looked to be shadow stone chains around her midsection.
She shook her head, her icy blue eyes glancing up to look at me, but she said nothing.
The sky rapidly began getting brighter, the sun rising at an increased pace.
“Silvana!” I screamed, as I tried to move and rush to her, but a chain wrapped around my ankle had me falling to my knees.
“Not so fast, bird. You have many friends to watch this morning,” Keres muttered darkly from beside me.
My eyes were drawn back to the field where Silv was being held to find Raiden on a similar pole next to her, Micah on his other side. Bastian. Allie. Everyone I’d come to ever hold dear were there, trapped in the upcoming sun.
My gaze bounced between them all, my throat straining as I screamed, my muscles aching as I pulled against the chains that held me back.
The sun rose full in the sky and every one of them began to burn.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot that little one needed some extra help. Cora, if you would, please?” Keres asked. I wasn’t sure where she came from, but I felt her presence the moment he said her name.
“Of course, Master,” she said, her voice back in that docile tone I hated.
I could do nothing but watch as Cora crossed the space between my family and me.
“What are you—” I began, but stopped when I saw her.
There, tied in the midst of them all, was the only woman I’d ever loved.
All I could do was watch as Cora dropped the torch below her restrained body and her screams filled the air.
The only solace I found was knowing I wouldn’t be far behind them.
The sun was rising, and it would soon take me as well.
Only it didn’t. The sun rose, touched my skin, and a slight burn sank into my bones, only for the world to once again go dark.
Damp straw from my cot dug into my back. The world going in and out in distorted waves of nausea and pain. It took me moments to realize where I was. That none of it had been real. I had no idea what the bitch did to me, but I wasn’t interested in having it happen to me again.