Page 10

SERAPHINA

I 'm late. I'm never late.

I break into a swift run as I note the darkness through the windows. Mother always keeps the lights on. She hates the dark, makes her see things that aren't there.

My fingers tighten around the parcel in my grasp until I can't feel them anymore.

I should've been back hours ago, but working an extra shift was the only way to complete the cash for the meds.

She's gone too long without them because I couldn't find a better job and the pharmacist couldn't give me anymore on credit without paying off the debt I already owed.

" Mom?" I call out, feet shuffling around the porch as I search for the damned switch, only to find it already flipped.

Great. The electricity is out, too.

My throat clogs as an emotion that feels too much like fatigue overwhelms me, but I shake it off. No. I can't afford to be tired. Can't afford to hate all of this or my life. Not one damn moment of reprieve ? —

Sudden movement in the back room Mother prefers makes my ears perk and I start towards there. "I'll just light the candles. I got the tablets and ? —"

The wind carries a sharp foreign scent towards me. It stinks of stale breath and copper. Lots of it. It settles in the back of my throat and my heart stops when I realize what it is.

Blood.

The parcel falls from my hands as I break into a run, my hurting calves screaming at me to stop. "Mom!" I cry, bursting into the room.

The splintered door knocks into my shoulder and I barely register the ache as I fall to my knees. She's lying face down, her black hair scattered around her. A wrecked sob spills from my lips. Liquid trails from the strands—too dark to be anything but blood.

I grab her shoulders, twisting her, and her eyes...they're vacant and there's so much blood on the side of her face and she isn't breathing and... I can't... can't breathe either.

Something rustles behind me and my head snaps back. The sharp glint of a knife is all I see in the moonlight before my instincts kick in and I stumble back, barely missing being stabbed. Hungry golden eyes flash in the dark. "Money? You got any?"

My eyes dart from the man to my mother's unmoving form, to her vacant eyes that stare listlessly at the caving ceiling.

Tears blur my vision making it harder to see a thing, and a snarl rumbles through the room.

A drunk slur. "The bitch wouldn't stop rambling.

Pushed her." A distressed sound. "Give me anything you've got and I won't harm you. "

He kicks at my old bag in the corner, uncaring. "Empty it out."

I don't move, can't move. I should have been home earlier. Had I been, she wouldn't...she wouldn't be...oh gods. I lunge for her, and at the sudden movement, the male moves, his boots kicking into my side.

The scene distorts slightly, and for a moment, I'm somewhere else...on a road, and someone's smile flashes in my face before a fist rams into my stomach.

But I'm suddenly hurled back in my mother's bedroom, screaming as hands I can't see grapple for me.

My feet kick, my fists fly. I am hurled into the wall, a hot stinking breath so close to my face.

The rogue snarls again and I gag as his hands grope for my flesh, searching for the pockets in my pants and jacket.

Mine grapple for purchase and close around what feels like a pen dangling out of his pocket and I stab blindly, the sharp end breaking the flesh of his neck and there's so much blood running down my hands, I can't tell if it's his, or mother's ? —

Another distortion and I'm back on that damn road.

" Persistent little thing, isn't she?"

Every bone in my body wails in pain and I'm suddenly falling, black and white staining my vision as faces haze, trees blur ? —

My head slams against something hard and the crack I hear comes from somewhere inside.

And for a moment, there is only silence.

The world bleeds in and out, and a figure that hazes around the edges stands in front of me protectively.

I see a halo of silky blonde hair. I see warm brown eyes filled with panic and concern.

And so much love, my heart aches. I try to reach up to tell him I'm okay, that our child will be fine, but his eyes swiftly change from those beautiful depths to an ominous red.

And when I blink he's no longer standing, but kneeling before me, canines elongated.

"You shouldn't have run, Fina." His voice is layered, distorted.

And then, he pounces and tears into my throat ? —

I scream, jolting upright from the bed. Darkness bleeds into the atmosphere, so thick, the moonlight pouring through the window does nothing to aid my vision.

My surroundings bleed in and out of focus and I don't realize I am running, or that I have moved at all until I'm across the room, jamming my fists into the door, a small sob ripping from my throat. "Please," I croak.

The door opens only a heartbeat later. Soren's face comes to view and his sleepy gaze disappears as he tracks the tears that roll down my cheeks, my fast, panicked breaths and the sweat that sticks against my skin.

"T-the..." My lungs ice over. My shoulders shake. "The l-lights...h-he...I c-can't..."

Warm hands grab my cheeks, forcing my head up. Hypnotic, black-green eyes latch onto mine, devouring the darkness of the room behind me. "Breathe."

His voice is nothing soft. It is hard, domineering, like he expects that because he speaks, everything must bend to his will.

But it is an order I can't obey. I don't even remember how to breathe.

My body trembles, limbs locking in place.

My teeth grit as I push back against his hold, despising how vulnerable I feel.

"D-don't order me around." It's a garbled slur, but he seems to understand me because his warm, minty breath warms my lips as he huffs an amused breath.

"You're shaking worse than a trapped mouse and you're more worried about being ordered around?"

I glare at him, or try to, but I can barely make out his features through my doubled sight. Shit, if I don't get air down soon, I'll pass out.

" Breathe ." The layered command cuts through the haze, slicing through the darkness curling around my mind.

I suck in a breath—ragged, shallow. Then another. And another. Until, finally, the tight band around my chest loosens.

Soren watches me closely and his hands linger, their warmth soothing the last of my panicked sobs away before he drops them. He doesn't speak as he turns, walking back into his dimly lit bedroom without shutting the door behind him.

My feet do the thinking for me, following him without hesitation. Anything to not return to the darkness in my bedroom. Anything to not...be alone enough to think, to break, again.

His bedroom is large and spacious, taking up a quarter of the top floor. A massive bed, dressed in silky dark sheets and cashmere, sits at the center against a mahogany frame. Floor-to-ceiling windows without curtains or drapes overlook the sprawling estate and the packs beyond.

A sleek fireplace crackles in the corner, its warmth melting the chill that had been lodged in my bones, and I am surrounded by the scent of him and age-old whiskey from the small bar cart by the dark grey wall.

"Do you drink often?" I ask, voice hoarse.

Soren walks into his closet—it's a walk-in large enough to be another bedroom—and reappears almost immediately with a blue robe covering his previously naked torso. "Only when I need to." He is quiet for a moment and the sound of snow falling outside fills the silence. "The dark frightens you."

I look down, toying with the hem of my nightdress. "It's not the dark that frightens me." Gods, why can't I look him in the eye? He's just seen me vulnerable in a way no one else has. Why can't I hold his piercing, intense gaze? "It is what resides in it."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I look up. Wrong decision. His hair is sticking up this way and that, his expression more relaxed than earlier, and something about seeing him disrobed and comfortable in his own space does something strange to me inside. It's a little flip in my belly. A very tiny, insignificant flip. "What?"

He leans back against the closet's door frame and I have no idea why it takes me this long to realize we're on opposite ends of the bedroom. He's placing distance between us. An odd thing to do, especially since he basically forced his tongue down my throat earlier.

"The nightmare," he says, a little strain added to his voice.

I think of the first nightmare that plagued me for the nights that followed my mother's death and I look out the window at the stormy clouds.

It's been four years since then, but for me, it feels like it was just last week and the grief feels like a black hole waiting to swallow me whole.

I push it aside the best I can, and the other part of my nightmare comes to me.

I still hear the crack, still feel the longing, the heartache.

And all of it confuses me. Who was that man?

The harder I try to remember his features, the more it slips from my grasp.

Were his eyes brown, or were they black?

I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. "No. It was nothing."

I feel, rather than see him nod. "I'll get you tea. For your nerves." He nods towards the mattress. "You can have the bed. I'll take the couch."

I should refuse. I want to refuse. But the thought of returning to my room, to the dark pressing in on all sides, makes my stomach turn.

"I just need a light on," I mutter. "That's all."

He doesn't acknowledge my excuse, just turns and disappears into the hallway. I don't let out a breath until he's gone.