Page 12

Well, I had to say, I felt a lot better knowing I was protected.

As even when having a nightmare, this time I had someone there to wake me from it. Only unlike last time, this wasn’t under the guise of the life I craved. Back to the normality of living with Jared, whether it be in my tiny trailer or in Jared’s cabin. No, there was no temptations to lure me in.

There had been nothing but horror…

“Ella… My sweet human, Ella.”

I heard the name he only just started to call me this last six months, which had me wondering whether he never knew that I was mortal before. In fact, the more I looked back on my nightmares, it was only recently that he knew more about me. Before, he would always ask me where I was hiding. Of course, I never told him, but now it made sense.

“Oh, but how close I am to finally getting you back to where you belong.”

The chilling voice spoke from the shadows. It’s strange tenderness was one shrouded in darkness, for there was always an edge to his kindness. The feeling of something more he wanted from me. But, back to all those years of his nightly stalking, I hadn’t known what I knew now.

Exactly what he had wanted with me.

To use me in the worst way.

“No,”I managed to utter, barely above a frightened whisper.

“Bolvaðe, but why do you fight it so?”he said, snapping a foreign word at the beginning of his question, one I didn’t understand.

That haunting voice of Garmr’s rolled across my skin, making it want to crawl off my body just to be far away from him. We stood in the broken remains of a castle. The courtyard with its cracked marble floor, littered with large chunks of broken pieces of the wall that once surrounded it. The barren wasteland was beyond, scattered with snowy mountains and dead trees. But as for where I was standing, all I could focus on was the large hole in the dirt. One that looked to have once been this garden’s feature. Making me question what had been removed? A fountain or statue perhaps? Whatever it was it looked like it had been removed a long time ago.

“Why fight your destiny, human Ella?” I shook my head in response to the dark looming figure I knew was behind me. As I didn’t need to look at him to know he was there, not when I could feel him approach.

“Why run when you know I will only find you?”

I closed my eyes, as if this would help in blocking him out. I shivered violently when I finally felt his touch at my shoulders.

“Why must we play this game of cat and mouse with one another?” he asked and, again, I shook my head, trying to wake myself up.

“We were happy once, you and I,” he said, and this time I did make a sound, as the uncontrollable scoff of disbelief came out of me.

“No, you don’t think so?” His smug question started to caress my anger, slowly but surely taking over the fear I always had of him.

“We were so close to our goal, so close to achieving all we dreamed together, to rule as King and Queen, for you once welcomed my touch,my caress…”he said as his hands ran gently up my neck, collaring it from each side, and linking his fingers from my chin to the base.

“You welcomed standing by my side, until those that dare take you from me came and stole you away!” he snarled, his hold on my neck slipping down back to my shoulders, then tightening before moving down closer to my breasts. And this was when I finally reacted… my fear evaporating!

“NO!” I screamed, pulling myself from his hold and turning around to face him. His looming dark figure was always so large in my dreams, but now that I had seen him in person, I knew the truth. He was no taller than Tyr, in reality. Not the whole two foot taller than me that he was now. Meaning he purposely did this to try to use fear to control me.

Ominous shadows took shape of a man with glowing eyes of red burning brighter from the cloak of darkness. The only features I had ever seen on him were the silhouette of two massive horns and long, large hands always veiled under moving black shadows. Just like I saw now.

“I was never yours to take…uncle!”I sneered this word like it was something vile.

“Ah, so finally you step from the shadows of your mortal mind and have discovered who I really am to you.”

“Kidnapper, torturer…”I bit out through gritted teeth.

“Master?” he finished as he moved around the courtyard, and I moved with him, not trusting to take my eyes off him for even a second. He shrugged his large shoulders, the cloak like a living entity around him as if they were one and the same.

“I go by many different terms, my dear, but none of those apply to you.”

“No?” I questioned, the single world dripping with loathing.

“No, for I only ever wished to be your equal, so as we can rule together, just like we set out to do from the start.”

I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest, my disbelief and contempt easy to see.