Page 24 of Voices in the Stars (The Lost Witch #1)

“You say that as if it’s important,” it growled back at him.

I could feel their unease in their hold. Their claws faltered, loosening and tightening as they flexed. The body I was pressed against shifted as they rocked their weight.

“I promise you now. If you don’t return her, I will be back.

I will burn everything you know and love.

I will hunt down every last one of your kind until you have nothing.

You will be nothing. Just a sad being left to roam ashes for the rest of their pathetic lives.

I will show you the true meaning of being alone. ”

I froze as he spoke. The creature dragging me suddenly stopped. The way he spoke left no room for doubt. With what little I knew of him, he meant every word. Atlas showed little emotion aside from pure power. He was a cold statue that refused to break.

The hands holding me tightened. I winced with the few muscles I still had control over. We were stuck in their stare down before I was thrown. I braced myself for the impact that didn’t come. Instead, I was surrounded by warmth. The smell of leather and citrus embraced me.

Atlas wrapped his arms around me, rubbing the warmth back into my body as we kneeled on the ground. I closed my eyes, accepting the safety that was blanketing over me. It was going to be short lived. Any moment now, he was going to take that dagger and plunge it into my back.

As I regained control, Atlas pulled away from me. I opened my mouth to apologize, but was stopped short by the smoldering rage in his brown eyes.

“Are you really this much of an idiot, or do you want to die?”

“What?” I questioned, taken aback by him.

“One thing!” he yelled, holding one finger up to my face. “I told you to do one thing and you couldn’t even manage that.”

I pushed away from him, standing above him. My hands shook at my sides as the ember in my chest sparked to life alongside the anger coursing through me.

“You left me!” I yelled down at where he was still sitting. “For hours, might I add. What did you expect me to do? Slowly freeze while I prayed to the stars that my murderous kidnapper would find a shred of kindness in his small heart to come back for me?”

Satisfaction filled me as I watched the hurt radiate across his face as he then stood in front of me. I hated the fact that my heart clenched at the anguish that twisted his features. My fingers tightly gripped the edge of my shirt so I didn’t do something foolish like reach out to him.

“I never planned on leaving you.” His words were kinder than I expected.

That did little to extinguish the fire I felt burning throughout my body.

If anything, it just made it burn hotter.

I wanted to fight now. It didn’t matter that he had come back to me.

That he saved me from the Fae. My words were fueled by the burning heat that was causing sweat to break across my forehead.

This felt like my moment to strike back at him.

“How was I supposed to know that?” I kept yelling, even as Atlas cursed at me. “All I know is that I’ve been ripped away from my home and almost killed several times. Several times just from you alone, and you expect trust? That is not?—”

“Calm down!” Atlas finally yelled, reaching out a hand to tug me closer to him.

The movement felt like a bucket of water was thrown over me. My anger sputtered out as I watched Atlas rush past me, stomping out the small flames that had started to spread across the grass.

That was the second time a fire had started in the meadow. Did the Fae have control over the elements like they did over my mind? That was a sad attempt at scaring us after what Atlas had said to them.

Silence stretched between us now. Our ragged breaths broke the quiet of the meadow.

Even the animals I had grown so accustomed to had vanished.

I rubbed my chest. The ember hadn’t fully vanished like it did before.

Instead, it felt like smoldering coals sitting like bricks in my chest, waiting for the smallest thing to set them ablaze again.

“We were being followed.” Atlas broke the silence, for once avoiding my gaze.

“I thought it was a coincidence, but they never left. They were hunting us. You were already freaked out. So, I figured it would just be easier to leave you and take care of it myself. I know you don’t trust me, and you have every right not to. I still never planned on leaving you.”

I watched him as he walked over to our things before glancing over to the blackened grass. The more things here that tried to kill me, the realer everything was starting to feel. Atlas handed my cloak over to me without another word. As soon as I grabbed it, he turned, walking back into the forest.

It turned out I did end up going the right way.

Mostly. I was sure whatever path Atlas had planned would’ve completely avoided the Fae.

After only a few hours of walking, we were faced with the ocean.

Our actual destination was the wooden dock stretched out in front of us.

I couldn’t have cared less about it. My only focus was the endless water spread out in front of us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Other side of Feycrest.”

“Where?” I questioned again, not seeing any other land between us.

“This is just a river separating the land in two. We’ll take a boat to a dock closer to Kilrest.”

I nodded along, acting like I knew where these places where or what they meant as we stepped onto the dock. Our steps echoed against the wood as we made our way to the end of it. I leaned over the edge, glancing both ways. A salty breeze greeted me.

“There’s no boat,” I pointed out.

Atlas just nodded before sitting down. His arms were braced behind him, legs dangling over the edge. The water lapped at the bottoms of them as his face was turned up toward the night sky.

Day was bound to break soon. The colors were changing on the horizon.

I stifled a yawn as sleep tugged at me. It was easy to fight off while we were moving, but the day was catching up to me quickly.

I sat down, leaning against one of the large posts.

I was tempted to let sleep lull me away, but I was having a hard time tearing my gaze away from the man next to me.

So little about him made sense. He showed kindness to the woman in the shop before beating her husband.

Almost killed me yet saved me from the Fae.

It was hard to fight off the idea that somewhere buried deep down inside him, he cared a small bit about what happened to me.

Whether that was because of wherever he was dragging me to or something else was another question. As if sensing my thoughts, he spoke up.

“That was very stupid of you earlier,” he commented again, “taking on a Fae like that.”

I rolled my eyes before looking up at the sky as well. Thousands of stars were illuminated above us still. I lowered myself onto the cool dock next to him.

“I didn’t take on anything. I got myself stuck in a trap. Because I thought you left me to die.” There wasn’t any anger in my voice this time. I felt too exhausted to start fighting over this again. We were both alive. That’s all that mattered now.

“I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Why not?” I asked, questioning his motives. This was the first time he had wanted to keep me alive. That he had fought for me instead of just fighting me.

There was a lull in our conversation. Beating waves hammered against the wood underneath us. Somewhere to the side of us, birds were calling to each other. My head sagged to the side as my eyelids slipped closed. I almost missed Atlas shifting to sit closer.

“You remind me of someone” was all he said.

I tried to fight my eyes open once again, to ask him who that someone was.

My entire body was fighting my wishes. There was a tug at my side, making me slump over.

My head came to rest against soft leathers.

Warmth seeped into my side as the scent of Atlas flooded me.

Something brushed the hair off my forehead.

“What was that thing?” My words were mumbled as the question fought against my tired mind. I was over only knowing the names of all of these creatures that wanted me dead.

“Fae. The forest used to be filled with those creatures until people stopped traveling through them so much. So, the creatures started eating each other, and ones like the Fae started getting killed off.” His voice was a soft rumble above me. The vibrations of his words tried to lull me to sleep.

“How?” I fought against the urge though my words were almost nonsensical mumbles. “They seemed untouchable.”

“They hunt by confusing their prey. Their words are whispered into others minds as the Fae manipulate how the world works. This makes going against something like the Kabora almost impossible since their minds are linked together. Kabora simply work together to find what is true and what the Fae is lying about.”

“Where they talking to you, too?”

His chin rubbed against the top of my head in a nod.

“What were they saying?”

My question was met with the sound of his hammering heartbeat against my ear and the crashing of waves underneath us .

“That I went the wrong way.” I could barely hear his hushed words. “You were being dragged off somewhere behind me meeting your end.”

My mouth opened and shut several times. Questions raced around my mind faster than I could grasp them.

“How did you fight them off?” I threw out the first question my tired mind could cling to.

“Training mostly. All I needed was to keep following your footsteps and I would eventually find you.” My head slid further across his chest as Atlas’ arm wrapped around me.

His hand was warm as it grabbed onto my side, fingers digging in like he was worried I would vanish.

“Every instinct I had screamed at me to turn around every step I took. That losing you would hurt more than I was prepared for.”

I tried to sit up, to look at Atlas after his confession.

His fingers dug harder into my side, keeping me sitting next to him.

I needed to say something, but I was at a loss for what?

This wasn’t the same man who had first stolen me away in Klyn’s house, but I wasn’t sure if his actions since then were forgivable.

Yes, he saved my life with the Fae, but he also threatened to be the one to kill me.

My mind demanded more than his pretty words even as they made my heart clench.

“Sleep, witch,” he whispered against the top of my head, saving me from finding a way to respond.

His words acted like a trigger, shutting out the world as his rapid heartbeat lulled my mind into silence.