Page 10

Witch Way to Go

Jared

I don’t know why I tortured myself coming back here.

Back to where Dariush had brought me after my brother had sacrificed himself to save me.

Perhaps because it allowed me space to think.

To replay all the things that went wrong over and over again, and to do so away from all those that would tell me I wasn’t at fault.

Yet despite their words, I would still ask myself how I could have handled it all differently.

And not just since our time in Hell, but all of it.

I had made so many mistakes when it came to Ella, and I felt like the biggest fool when I thought back to all the times I had tried to deny myself of her.

How I had been lying to myself for far longer than just when she had first turned up at my club in Germany.

Lies told for over the decade, because I had kept my mind tethered to her life.

Ever since she had first danced at Devil’s.

I knew every milestone of her life after that.

When she had graduated college, her first job, her second job, the last one when she packed up her newly acquired trailer and moved to Nelson.

And with each morsal of new information I received, I remember feeling the ache in my chest as I turned the page.

Each labored breath taken as I saw what I hoped would be new pictures of her.

A breath that left me on a relieved sigh when seeing no mention of a man in her life.

Of course, I questioned why I felt this way, but before delving deep enough to search for an answer, I would push it down like a stubborn float I could never hope to fully sink.

One that kept popping up throughout my life without her.

Every red-head that walked through the cave of Devil’s had my heart hammering in hopes that it would be her.

I remember once, my irrational temper, when a show on the stage reenacted Red Riding Hood once more.

My anger at someone playing her part had me roaring out mid-performance, before threatening Marcus by fisting a hand in his jacket and dragging him closer, warning in a dark tone,

“Unless you intend for someone to die in that red cloak, then never again, do you understand me?!”

But of course, he had understood. After all, it was why the bastard had done it. To push me towards what he had always known was my destiny. Well, he wasn’t laughing now, because that destiny wasn’t speaking to him anymore and I knew why.

One more fuck up from me was all it would take.

One chance in a million to get this right.

Just one.

The odds were not exactly in our favor here, and I still didn’t know how I was going to get her out of that damn fortress. Because the only way this was going to work was to get her as far away from that fucker Garmr and his dark, sadistic influence. But that was easier said than done.

“They told me I would find you up here.”

So much for my solitude.

At the sound of Lerna’s voice I closed my eyes and sighed. This, despite no longer holding any ill will towards her. Not now I knew why she had done the things she had.

The knowledge of such now felt like a three-hundred-year-old burden that had been lifted from my shoulders… finally.

I didn’t respond, other than to pat the grass next to me, telling her silently she was welcome to join me. And if anyone ever told me all those years ago that I would be here, sitting like this with all we now faced, I wouldn’t have believed them.

We both looked out to the destructive evidence of the battle that had happened not that long ago, one that had laid waste to the once peaceful landscape.

The crumbled face of the father neither of them had ever truly known was like a mocking reminder of how pointless finding him had been.

A sight that no doubt prompted her to say,

“For so long I buried my anger toward him.”

I turned towards her, my arms still resting at my bent knees, and her own were huddled toward her chest, reminding me of a child.

Even after all she had been through, all she had witnessed, she still seemed so innocent to me.

She didn’t seem jaded by all that life had thrown at her and her sister.

All that life had continued to take from she had never given up.

I couldn’t help but admire her for that.

“Buried it a lot better than my sister ever did,” she added with a laugh, no doubt touched by a particular memory, making me ask,

“What was she like?”

Lerna laughed and told me,

“Would you believe me if I told you exactly like she is now?”

I grinned, preferring that answer over all others she could have said. Because I struggled believing her as someone else. Like two people, one born to love the beast in me and another the man I still was at my core.

“But she was restless, always wanted more than the confines our father had set against us. She always believed it nothing more than a pretty cage, one she dreamed of breaking free from.”

“And was it?” I asked, giving her cause to sigh before admitting,

“It was. Knowledge that I buried deep but she never could. Like our mother, she lived in hope that our father would one day return and set us all free but when our mother died, we finally were forced to admit the truth to ourselves.”

“And what was that?”

She gave me a sad smile, as if to ease my own pain rather than focusing on her own.

“That we had been forgotten.”

I winced, hating how that must have felt like for them. To just be cast aside as if only ever existing for a short moment of Hades’ life. A living memory lost to the years that followed in the wake of them being born.

“The forsaken daughters, she used to call us, and she had been right.”

“So, she broke free,” I said, already knowing this but saying it anyway. She nodded before telling me,

“I guess it was always supposed to be this way, because had we remained, we would be safe, yes, but at what cost?”

I frowned before asking,

“What do you mean?”

“Our mother died of a broken heart, but at least before she died, she knew what it was like to love. And in the end, I too learned what it meant.” The face of the man flashed in my mind and a flickering of what I had seen so far of the two of them together.

“Koro,” I said, making her eyes light up and, no doubt, in the same way my own did whenever speaking of Ella.

“Yes, which was why I always made excuses for my sister after that.”

“Excuses?”

She sighed again before explaining,

“I should have told you everything but, as always, I wanted to protect her.” Her answer surprised me enough to push for more.

“Protect her how?”

“Heartbroken people can do stupid things. Cling to those who are not what they truly are.”

At this I felt my body tense after turning to face her again, the scattered remains of Gods long forgotten.

“What are you trying to tell me here, Lerna?” I asked, bracing myself for what I knew was most likely to be a bitter pill she was going to force me to swallow.

“Anástasi fell in love with Garmr.”

I sucked in a quick breath and shook my head.

“No… he was manipulating her… he was…”

“He was there for her during her heartbreak, the one that your HellBeast caused when he left her. Of course, Garmr didn’t tell her the truth behind it.

Didn’t tell her that he had been the cause, instead telling her that her precious Cerberus was now dead, warping her mind against her reasons for loving him in the first place. ”

My whole body felt tight enough to split skin as my muscles grew in my anger. My hatred growing for the fucker even more than I thought possible.

“He offered comfort in his arms and manipulated her to love him. Made her feel things, see things that weren’t real.”

I frowned. “Made her feel things?”

“I tried to tell her, to reason with her. He told her he had me taken so as to protect me, that I wasn’t a prisoner at all, but it wasn’t true.

I saw so much more than her, and Koro only confirmed my suspicions.

He was only using her as weapon, to grow his army, to increase his power,” she said, but even I could see there was more.

As if she kept trying to gauge my reactions.

As if to assess on how much more she could tell me before I lost my shit to the point of no return. So, once more, I pushed for it.

“Why do I get the feeling there is more you’re not saying?”

“I believe he loves her, in his own crazed way, but it wasn’t enough to choose her.”

I gritted my teeth, forcing myself not to snap and point out that someone without a heart can’t love shit! But in the end I kept a lid on it and instead admitted,

“I don’t understand.”

“As their relationship developed, my sister wanted more… sexually.”

This time I gritted my teeth hard enough that I was surprised they didn’t shatter.

So close to begging her to stop to save myself the pain.

But I was glad I didn’t, as she had much more to reveal.

Because in truth, this had been another bitter and twisted thought that plagued me.

The thought of him touching her, making love to her and now that I knew she would not fight him, I was torn.

I was happy that she wouldn’t be sexually attacked that way, but the thought burned like acid in my gut at the idea of her willingly becoming his.

The painful thoughts warred inside of me, with neither side winning.

“Go on,” I forced myself to say, and I swear that it took everything in me to do so.

“For the longest time, he told her that she wasn’t ready for that step in their relationship, but my sister grew restless.

She wanted to feel something more growing between them, something more than just his flowery words of love.

I guess, in the end, she was looking for what she had with you, or should I say, with Cerberus,” Lerna said, and I couldn’t help but shiver.