Page 32 of Contract Marked (Interdimensional Beings #1)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Erin

N o matter how much I argued, Cal didn’t let me leave his bedroom until the day my trial resumed—four days later. I got what I wanted: Cal’s dagger currently strapped to my thigh and his new contract mark branding my inner leg, but the cost … I didn’t want to think about it. I’d figure a way out of it, but first, I needed to follow through and make my sacrifice worth it.

As soon as Cal teleported us back to the foyer of The Council’s Sanctuary, I stormed off (my ankle had made a full recovery) toward our private trial room. Llewyn greeted me when I walked inside, slamming the door shut behind me.

Like last time, Llewyn wore an array of robes in varying patterns. Today’s were of a forest and birds.

“I’m glad you’re here.” I sighed, running my hand through my disheveled brown locks. I purposely chose a long-sleeved black dress with easier access to Cal’s dagger strapped underneath, but neglected the other important parts, my mind too focused on Saya.

“The Council released me from my cell as soon as news was delivered of the trial resuming. We have some time before we go back on stage, but I see you have other things on your mind. So, it begs the question: What is it you want to do, Erin?”

Again, those all-too-knowing eyes looked at me, as if seeing all of my past and present. “I think you already know the answer.”

Llewyn’s gaze became unfocused. “The branches of your life come to a big parting here, as they did when you chose to accept Dezmandaro’s contract. Depending on the decisions you make here, things will play out very differently. Some not so pleasant.”

I nodded. Even if I knew the consequences of all the actions I’ve made up to this point and will continue to make, I’d still stand true to my convictions. “Please, can you take me to Saya?”

“We do not have permission to enter Wyllhelmin’s dimension.”

My shoulders sagged.

“But, you are able to pass through Dezmandaro’s dimension.”

I frowned. Why would I want to go back to Dez’s? Then it dawned on me.

Llewyn nodded at our unspoken understanding. “If I do this for you, the Council will sense my flare of power here so close to their source. It’ll be only a matter of time until they figure out Cal didn’t strip me of my energy like every other prisoner. He’ll be punished and then sent to execute me.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Llewyn held up his hand. “In exchange for this. I have a request.”

His feet whispered against the checkered floor, close enough I could hear his hushed voice brush my ear.

I gaped at him. “Will that work? What about Megan?”

Llewyn took my hand in his, slipping a piece of paper into my palm. “I’ll handle things here. Promise me, Erin.”

“As in a contract?”

He shook his head. “From one soul to another, promise me.”

I took a deep breath. “I promise.”

He smiled and took my hand, the world blinking out of existence around us.

Llewyn teleported me just outside of Dez’s estate. Or what was left of it. The estate still laid in shambles, the land ripped and fractured. All of the beautiful autumn leaves had finally fallen leaving everything bare and foreboding. The only thing that was repaired was the stone and glass wall surrounding the grounds.

When the face appeared in the gate, I didn’t scream. “Welcome home,” it said before the glass faded away, letting me walk through. This place was far from home. Still, it was sad to see the sunroom in ruins where I held fond memories of gossiping with Rowan, Saya, and Lucille. The lake and sailboat had sunk to the pits of a dark hole, and rocks and chunks of land were still falling into the abyss below without a sound. This place was now downright terrifying, but it also felt … lonely. Sad.

I dodged pockets where the land had collapsed, careful not to fall to my death. It was hard to remember exactly where Dez almost strangled me as I had been a little preoccupied at the time. My long-sleeved dress didn’t do much to block out the cold, and I shivered at a gust of cool air and … something else.

It almost felt like fingers were reaching for the nape of my neck, eyes watching me from afar. I glanced around. The air shimmered in parts but was normal in others. It was as if the world itself was trapped inside a snow globe, and the sky had started to crack, revealing another layer.

“My love,” Dez’s voice called out behind me. I whirled, but no one was there.

“You’ve kept me waiting, Dez.” A feminine voice chuckled. “That’s going to cost you.”

I looked around again until a pocket of air shifted, revealing a moment in time—a memory.

Angelica laid on Dez’s bed wearing lavender silk pajamas—knowing Dez dressed me, in the same manner, made me feel hot all over in a bizarre mix of jealousy and rage. She was laid on her side, augmenting her curves, with her brown hair splayed out behind her. Dez unbuttoned his shirt, showcasing lean muscle that rippled as he picked her up in his arms.

“Gladly,” Dez’s tone turned husky. I glanced away as the two voices devolved into moans. I covered my ears and it faded as I walked closer toward the side of the estate.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Cal,” Dez said. Another memory pocket. This time Dez and Angelica were on the deck of a sailboat.

Angelica was naked, and her head leaned back to absorb the sun grazing her golden skin while Dez steered the boat shirtless in a pair of board shorts. He only had eyes for her.

“Jealous?” she teased.

“Yes.”

Angelica didn’t turn to see Dez’s expression raw with longing. Vulnerable. It almost made me feel bad for him, but that wasn’t right. Dez was the last person that deserved pity.

“What can I say? You’re both amazing lovers. I just can’t choose.” She shrugged.

Dez’s jaw tightened. “He doesn’t care for you. Not like … not like I do, Angelica.” The last bit was almost a whisper. It was odd seeing Dez like this. So different from the arrogant, shielded man I’d come to know.

It was quick, but Angelica’s lips curled into a sneer before vanishing. “You don’t know that.”

His laugh was hollow. “Cal’s been my closest friend longer than you’ve been alive. I know him a lot more than you do, love.”

A dangerous glint emerged in her eyes. “We’ll see about that.”

I lost my footing, my feet dangling awfully close to the edge of the sinkhole. My heart slammed against its ribcage, my hands clenched and swamped in sweat. Maybe this was all for nothing, that Llewyn was a little too optimistic. It wasn’t until the clouds rolled overhead, a ray of sunshine beaming down like a spotlight, that I saw it. The Sylvain Silver gleamed at me like a quest item in a video game.

Of course, it had to be a couple of feet down the sinkhole on a ledge the size of my foot. Things couldn’t be that easy.

I lay on my belly, inching closer to the edge, when another pocket of memory emerged, but this time, it was of Cal and Dez—transformed.

“I’m going to kill you!“ Dez looked as I last remembered him outside this crumbling estate dripping in silver and blue scales. They glinted like the sharp tips of his talons that extended toward Cal. His eyes glowed, similar to when he burst from the estate roaring my name, but the pure hatred and loathing in Dez’s eyes was nowhere close to what I personally witnessed.

Cal stood across from him in the center of a room made of concrete, like a warehouse. He matched Dez in height, half his skin covered in black and silver scales, his horns branching out in similar size on either side of his temple that looked more lethal than decorative with the promise to rip his enemies apart that stood too close. His dark hair was loose around him, framing his bared fangs, his liquid steel gaze aimed at Dez. “She brought this on herself, and you know it.”

Dez launched himself at Cal. The windows in the warehouse cracked, the ground rumbling. Dez’s talons brushed Cal’s shoulder before he disappeared and reappeared behind him.

Dez spun around, his tail pounding the floor, the sharp tip drilling into the concrete. “I loved her, Cal! After all we’ve been through, and you …“ Dez roared, his movements blurred until his talons clashed against Cal’s silver blade, their faces inches from one another. “You slaughtered her like she was just another one of your targets!”

My eyes widened, feeling the heat of their battle as if I were witnessing it in person. Cal killed Angelica. Why? Was he truly that heartless? Was there something missing here?

My fingers stretched toward the coin, sweat now beading down my brow despite the freezing wind. Almost there.

Metal rang in my ears as Cal’s blade stood at the tip of Dez’s throat.

“Go ahead, kill me.” Dez walked a step closer, his blood dripping down his neck, staining his scales and the ground. “Kill me, and there will be no one left who gives a single fuck about you.”

Cal kicked him square in the chest. Dez slammed backward, shattering the wall, rock, and falling debris, trapping Dez’s body behind a cloud of dust.

“I don’t need anyone to give a fuck about me, Dez. You forget who I am.” Cal’s voice was a half growl.

Dez emerged from the debris, looking better than expected, aside from a few scuffled scales and a bleeding lip and neck. “Oh, I won’t ever forget now.” His smile was as ice-cold as his eyes. “You really are just the Council’s dog, obeying its Master like a good little servant.”

Cal shot his blade so quickly that I barely caught it. It pierced the chunk of concrete where Dez had just been.

Dez materialized behind him. “Maybe it would be worth taking that Council seat. Then it’ll be me holding that leash of yours, Cal,” he snarled. “And trust me, I’ll hold it so tight it’ll be suffocating. ”

For the first time, Cal’s mask slipped, a hint of true fear sneaking through.

The ridges of the coin brushed my fingertips as I struggled to get a grip, balancing my body closer and closer over the cliff. Closer and closer.

Got it!

The ledge gave out on me, and I screamed. Saya, Saya, Saya! Get me to Saya! I thought frantically while clutching the coin.

I was slammed on my back with the air knocked from my lungs. Everything was dark. I couldn’t see. I clawed at my throat until oxygen rushed back in with a loud gasp.

“Erin,” a familiar voice whispered.

Pain radiated through my back, and I slowly rolled over onto all fours, my eyes not adjusting fast enough to the darkness. Vague outlines in the dark showed me boxes—no, cages around the room, stacked like kennels. It reeked like it, too, of unwashed bodies, urine, and sickness. I wanted to vomit.

“Erin,” the voice whispered again. Saya.

The source came from past the kennels to a hunched form on the floor. A stray of light flickered in from the gap in the door to the right of her, showing her barefooted and in the same dress from four days prior. Her hand looked healed, the bruises on her arms gone, but new ones marred her face, and her right leg looked swollen.

I crawled to her, feeling eyes on me. The cages. Not all of them were empty like I thought.

“Saya,” I whispered, my eyes wide, my gaze shifting between her, the door, and the cages. “I’m here to get you out.”

Her face looked empty as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Please, leave.”

I shook my head. “I have a plan.”

Her head bowed into her arms. “You’ll only make it worse. Please, Erin. Don’t get my hopes up again.”

My heart squeezed. “No, I’m getting you out. I swear it. Even if it kills me.” I’m ending this once and for all. No longer will he torment your heart and soul.

I reached into the pocket of my dress. I pulled out the coin and Llewyn’s slip of paper. A glimmer of hope shone in Saya’s eyes at the coin, knowing what it could do. “I have an idea, but I’ll need your help.”

Reluctantly, she nodded as I told her what I had in mind.

“If I don’t return, I want you to use this coin. Go …” I almost said to go to Cal’s dimension, but that was no longer an option, and Dez’s wasn’t safe either. “Go find Rowan. It should take you back to Earth.”

Her eyes widened, a protest on her lips when footsteps shuffled.

“Please, Saya.”

She squeezed my hands, hers so small and frail in comparison. Together, we gripped the coin, and I felt myself morph and change before Saya’s now-invisible hands slid from mine. The door swung open.

Light flooded the room, making me squint. Wyll stood in the frame, his dark eyes glaring down at me with a wide smile. “Come, Saya, it’s your turn.”

I hung my head, black hair falling over my face. Wyll yanked me up by the arm, and it took all of me not to snatch it back as he dragged me out of the room.

The hallway looked like we’d just exited a mad scientist’s lair and took a turn into my city’s hospital. The speckled white floor was glaringly bright against the overhead lighting, the pale blue walls looking sinister here in the empty, painfully quiet hallways, unlike a real hospital.

My hand started to tingle, going numb where Wyll still gripped it, pulling me through a pair of double doors. Behind a plain white door, an operating table with a small caddy of needles, syringes, and tools I couldn’t label sat waiting to be used. It was a surgery room and I had a feeling I was the patient. I lost some of my nerve.

The door locked behind us. As soon as it clicked, I spun, reaching for Cal’s dagger holstered beneath my dress when Wyll slammed me back against the operating table. My head smacked into the metal, pressure building in my skull as I focused on grasping the dagger’s handle.

“You think I didn’t notice it was you?” Wyll smiled as the table shifted, chains clinking.

I gripped the ruby-encrusted hilt and moved to plunge it straight into his heart when something clasped my wrists, jerking me back. The dagger clattered to the ground.

“No!” I shouted as the chains wrapped tighter around my wrists and ankles, then bound me to the operating table.

Wyll picked up the dagger, admiring it in his hands. “Were you trying to kill me?”

His head tilted back as he laughed. The overhead light flickered, and the walls shifted as if they were laughing alongside their Master. Fear slid down my spine, and my breathing became uneven. Cal was right. What on Earth could someone like me do against a being like Wyll?

“How delicious.” He grinned, sliding the blade against his cheek as if testing its sharpness.

He then plunged it into my thigh.

“ Ahh! “ I thrashed against the chains as blinding white-hot pain seared through me.

His laugh continued to swirl around me like some waking nightmare. “And here I was going to hunt you down, but you came to me. Alone and with no one to protect you.” His smile was wiped clean. “No one embarrasses me like that. No one .”

He ripped out the dagger, and I choked on a sob. Hot blood poured out of my leg, and my stomach started to heave.

“You have to be one of the most idiotic Lower Realms’ beings I’ve met.” He spanned his arms, holding the bloody dagger. “Dezmandaro and Caliphiste can’t reach you here.”

“You’ll pay for this,” I gasped.

“No, Erin , you’ll be the one feeling my wrath.“ The blade dragged up my arm, a line of blood welling from the cut. I bit my lip so hard it split open. “All for what? A pathetic slip of a girl? You didn’t make it very far. Did Saya let you in? Tried to sneak you into my dimension as if you could save her or any of these pathetic test subjects? I don’t know how you used realm manipulation, but I’ll find out.”

The blade’s tip paused at the top of my finger. My body tensed, my mouth open to protest when the blade slid beneath the nail. I screamed until my voice went raw.

He sighed. “My precious Saya was wonderfully broken and obeyed my every whim. She was such an obedient servant in administering the poison, the incisions, and removing the things that make you humans tick. So much wasted crying and screaming in the beginning, until it was either her or her friends. Then she didn’t hesitate to rip out their eyeballs or saw off their limbs. It seems survival is your strongest instinct. Very interesting. Maybe we should test that theory again, shall we?” He tapped his chin, flicking back his doctor robes, now stained with spots of blood. “Hold this for me.”

When the blade reentered the flesh wound on my thigh, I passed out.

I came too when the shaking started. The sound first came from the chains rattling, then from the operating table sliding back and forth against the speckled floor.

“Fuck!” I sucked in a breath through gritted teeth as my body thrummed in more pain than I had ever experienced. Focus on Saya. I have to save Saya. She’s in danger.

The room shook again, and this time, I heard Wyll's shouts. Saya was gone. I sighed in relief, knowing she’d taken the coin and left. At least this way, she was safe.

I gritted my teeth as I rocked my body back and forth, the operating table sliding, uprooted from the floor. Tears sprang to my eyes, blood dripping from my leg, splattering along the ground. I gagged.

The overhead light swung, sweat beaded on my face, my breaths shallow. I was so scared. So fucking scared. Who the hell do I think I am? That I could go up against a supernatural being? It didn’t matter how smart I thought I was. It didn’t mean shit if I was strapped to a table.

Focus, Erin, focus. I took the pain, boxing it and removing it like my therapist had taught me. Granted, we had practiced on doing that with mental emotions, not physical pain, but it doesn’t hurt to try that, right?

I kept rocking the table until it tipped, jostling the dagger in my thigh. I clenched my teeth, fire rattling my bones. At this angle, the chains loosened where they had looped around the operating lamp attached to the metal bed. I maneuvered my hand until I could reach the dagger. I sucked in a deep breath and then ripped it out.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I was hyperventilating, and blood was rushing out so fast. “Chains, Erin, the chains!”

Clenching the dagger, I sawed back and forth at the chains, the blade cutting through the metal like butter, like it had my flesh.

I turned away as I lost the contents of my stomach.

I had to continue, Wyll could be back any minute.

I was on the last chain at my left leg when Wyll burst into the door, his face mottled red. “Where is she?”

He yanked the dagger from my hands, shoving me against the wall. The blade was at my throat. “If you took her away from me …” His eyes grew wide and distant. “Not again. She is my assistant. My assistant!”

Wyll slammed me against the wall again when he yelped, clasping his head as if struck. He dropped me, and I landed with a whimper. Spinning around, he reached out, grabbing something I couldn’t see. A familiar scream pierced my ears as Saya reappeared before Wyll, his hand gripping a clot of her hair.

“My girl! You came back!” He held the dagger up to her ear. “You should know better, Saya. Now, you and your friend must pay the price.” Her eyes widened, her mind already starting to retreat to a place deep in her thoughts.

“Let her go, you fucking psycho!” I grabbed a handful of medical tools, chucking them at his back. They froze midair before turning and darting back toward me. I yelped and dodged last minute, my leg burning, blood slicking the floor. A familiar lightheadedness crept in.

“Fight him, Saya! You’re stronger than this!” I gripped the table, howling as the pain begged me to stay down, but I couldn’t. I had to save Saya.

Wyll held her up higher, the blade digging into her bruised cheek. “Strong? Don’t be absurd. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. Isn’t that right, Saya?”

I shoved the operating table into his side. He didn’t even flinch except frowning in annoyance. Without releasing her, he shoved a foot against the table and slammed it into me, pinning me against the wall. Dots gathered on the edges of my vision.

“Erin, no! No !”

“Fight, Saya,” I whispered as I sank back to the floor, my vision fading.

The floor shook again, metal clanging, but instead of Wyll shouting, it was Saya.

“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I hate you! “ Saya screamed and screamed until I could hear nothing else.

For a frozen moment, the world became still. Quiet. My vision solidified, and my eyes widened at Wyll. He was still alive, his eyes blazing with fury at Saya, who’d melted half his body to the ground, his skin sagging like a melted icicle, his lips dripping down to his stomach, his nose not far behind. Only his eyes and the upper half of his body remained intact as he tried to fight back, but it was too late.

“Do it, Erin!” Saya shouted, her hands locked in Wyll’s, the Sylvain Silver clenched in her fist, and the dagger laying on the ground by Wyll’s melted skin.

Despite his figure, Wyll laughed. “You … can’t kill me … you’ll regret—“

Blood squirted where I picked up and sank Cal’s silver dagger into his throat. Wyll gurgled, his eyes wide. Wide with terror.

I retracted the blade and stabbed him again in what I thought was his heart. He released his hold on Saya, who shoved away from him. She snatched Cal’s dagger from my hands and continued to stab the melting flesh, blood spraying all over the two of us. I couldn’t take it and turned, vomiting again.

When the sickening sounds of flesh being ripped apart faded, I risked peeking at Saya, who looked like she had just walked straight out of a horror film. She was drenched in Wyll’s blood, smiling. His body started to disintegrate into ashes made of gems, an array of colors crumbling into the ground.

The dimension started to collapse.

“The others, we have to save the others!” Saya shouted.

I nodded, barely coherent, as I took Cal’s dagger from her bloody hands and re-holstered it. Saya helped me back to the room we started in. She propped me against the wall, unlocking the cages as the room shook. Parts of the ceiling started to collapse like they had in Dez’s dimension. The wound on my thigh stopped bleeding, preventing me from dying right then and there. Twice now, Dez and Cal’s blood had saved me.

A single purple-haired girl stood with Saya. The cages were empty of any other humans; either they had run, or a worse fate had befallen them.

The coin shone in Saya’s hand as she reached for me. “Let’s go.”

I grabbed her hand, the coin clasped between all three of us. “Let’s go home.”