Fake Mate of the Enemy Shifter (Red Oak Shifters #2)

10. Cassia

Chapter ten

Cassia

D arkness surrounds me on all sides.

My breath hitches as I spin around, trying to see through the dark as it consumes me whole. My ears strain as hard as my eyes, but all I hear is a light breeze and the rustling of grass.

“Hello?” I call out, my voice echoing all around me. My heartbeat picks up, thumping heavily in my chest as I whirl around again.

Did I just hear footsteps? Or is it my imagination?

My own questioning threatens to send me into a panicked spiral, my muscles locking up as I stare into nothingness. What the hell is going on? Where am I?

My breathing quickens, pressure forming in my head to the point of nearly making me dizzy. Wherever I am, there has to be a way out, but I need to move to reach it. I lift my foot, preparing to step forward, but an unintelligible whisper breaks through the breeze.

Fire roars around me, forming a circle until I’m completely trapped inside the flames. Loud snapping and crackling fill my ears, the heat of the blaze burning my skin. A dark field looms around me, and an even darker moon-less sky hangs above me.

“What…” I breathe out in shock.

I spin around, trying to find a way out of the fire, but it continues lashing at me. The heat seeps into my skin, warming my blood and singeing my veins.

“Isn’t that a familiar feeling? Fire in your veins?” a woman’s voice echoes from somewhere in the field.

My eyes widen as my head snaps left to right, attempting to seek out the owner of the voice, but all I see is the silhouette of wispy grass and fire. “Who are you? Show yourself!”

“Feel the fire. Consume its power,” the voice urges me. “It’s already in your blood.”

My stomach drops as I look down at my hands, remembering the moments when my emotions would run rampant. When my blood would run hot. When my veins felt like they were full of darkness and fire.

Is that what she’s talking about?

“I don’t know what you mean. I don’t even know who you are!” I shout, raising my voice above the crackle of the flames.

“You’re looking in the wrong place. You will find me within,” the voice replies in a borderline teasing tone. “But you must stop shying away from the power within you. Embrace it. Harness it!”

The flames creep closer and closer to me as the circle slowly starts to grow smaller. Fire laps at my ankles, burning my skin and making me wince and stumble.

“Power is not your enemy,” the voice warns me. “It can give you everything you want.”

Sweat glistens on my forehead as the air around me grows heavier and hotter. My lungs strain from the smoke, my eyes starting to sting. “Stop this! Let me go!”

“Stop fighting! Feel what’s around you! The fire! The darkness!”

I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling heaviness settle in my chest. That familiar darkness. “No…”

“Embrace it!”

I grimace, no longer feeling the pain of fire burning my skin. Instead, I feel the rush of heat firing through my veins. Invading my bloodstream. Eating away at all the good energy that I was raised to harness.

“This is your true nature. This is what you’re meant to be.”

Her words ring in my ears, dizzying me to the point of my legs giving out. I collapse among the flames and look up just as the dark sky falls down on me.

My eyes fly open, blinding morning sunlight flooding my vision. I grimace as I slap my hand over my eyes, shielding myself from the light spilling in through the bedroom that Gliselle and I are sharing at Everblade’s castle. My heart continues to pound as I reel from the intensity of my dream.

My really weird dream.

Who did that voice belong to? And what was she talking about regarding my true nature? What does that even mean?

I bury my face in my hands, subtly shaking my head as I ground myself. Ever since we came to the Land of Aragay, it feels like I’ve been slowly losing my mind. Is this karma? Or is it some sort of weird effect from the forest?

There has to be an explanation for why I’ve been feeling so off lately.

Maybe it’s Morgana and Lucian. Despite Gliselle trying to raise me as a good witch, I’ve been tasked to do awful things under Morgana and Lucian’s leadership. What if they’re corrupting me?

That’s how bad witches become who they are.

Eventually, I’m going to become as twisted and broken as them, and there’s not much I can do about it. I’m trapped.

I chew on my bottom lip as I lower my hands, feeling too weighed down to get out of bed just yet. For once, I want to do something good for others. I want to help like I always watched Gliselle doing while growing up and even now.

I want to be good.

My mind drifts to Grey. The biggest source of my guilt. Of course, I feel awful for all of Everblade, but the emotions between me and Grey are… personal. Intimate. Vulnerable.

I hurt him the most, and I just want him to know that it wasn’t a personal attack. I didn’t single him out to hurt or anything of the sort, even if my job was to distract him. What we did out in the hills wasn’t part of that plan.

That was just me trying to find some peace among the chaos, and he grounded me.

If I try to talk to him, will he even listen?

I breathe in deeply and swing my legs out of bed, getting dressed for the day in a dark blue dress with a matching cloak. My fingers drift through my hair, untangling the dark waves. I haven’t been given any duties for the day yet, and as long as I avoid Morgana and Lucian, I may be able to have an easy day.

If possible.

I glance over at Gliselle’s bed, seeing that it has already been neatly made. She must be collecting herbs or vegetables from the garden or healing anyone who’s still injured from the battle. Eventually, we’ll cross paths today.

Gathering my breath, I step out of the room and look down the hallway where there are numerous bedrooms. Some Moonveil witches linger out in the hallways, while others continue getting dressed in their rooms.

Temporary rooms for most.

When we take over territory, the coven becomes more and more spread out and divided so that we can maintain our home land and conquered lands. Only the most trusted are allowed to stay behind and hold down land, while the rest must constantly travel to take over more clans.

I’m among the unlucky ones.

I make my way down the hallway and then down the stairs, mindlessly heading right to the dungeon. I shouldn’t even be going down here, but I need to say something to Grey, and I know that the guards are about to switch shifts. I’ll have a few minutes of time alone with him.

I just don’t know what I’m going to do with those minutes.

My head remains ducked as I head down the stairs, passing by the guards as they head up to the main floor to be relieved. The last time I saw Grey, he looked like he was ready to tear me to pieces, so I can only hope that his thoughts are a little less violent today.

To my surprise, I already see him standing at the bars. Almost like he was expecting me.

Grey narrows his eyes at me as I slowly approach him. “You have a lot of nerve coming down here. I saw you the other night. Too scared to face me after what you did?”

His aggression hits me like a wave, nearly making me head right back up the stairs. Is he really going to listen to anything that I have to say? It doesn’t help that I feel the eyes of the other awake Everblade wolves and witches on me.

“Are you fed and watered enough?” I ask him, fighting to keep my voice steady. I know he’s pissed, and he has every right to be, but I also have to look out for myself.

He doesn’t understand what’s at risk for me if I defy orders. All he sees is what Morgana and Lucian want him to see, and that’s how they get what they want. It’s all an act. A manipulative, deceptive act.

Grey’s jaw tenses. “Don’t ask like you care.”

A sigh drifts from me as I dare a step closer to him. “I don’t want you to suffer or anything like that. We’re not trying to torture you.”

Grey lets out a cold laugh. “Seriously? You’re going to defend what your coven has done? If you were in my shoes, how would you feel?”

As angry as he is. As defeated and hurt as the others in the cells. I wish I could sympathize with him more out loud, but if Morgana or Lucian overhear me saying anything that goes against them, I… I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do to me. Or to Gliselle.

The twins love psychological torture over physical torture. They could easily hurt all of the Everblade wolves and witches, but being stuck in cells without basic necessities for days without sunlight and fresh air is torture in itself.

“All I’m saying is this isn’t personal,” I tell him. “That night in the hills… it wasn’t part of this plan.”

Grey’s expression wavers a little as his eyes dart away from me. Whether he verbally admits it or not, it stung when he realized I was actually the enemy all along. He believed I was someone he could trust, and I proved to be the exact opposite.

“I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth. You deceived me. Did you know I would follow you out of the castle?” he questions me.

I shake my head and move even closer to the bars. “I didn’t. I didn’t even know you saw me!”

Grey slams his hands against the bars, making me stumble away from him. “Liar! You took me away from my kingdom when they needed me the most!”

I didn’t mean for things to line up that way, but even if he was fast asleep in his own bed, the outcome wouldn’t have changed. He would’ve been overwhelmed by all the Moonveil witches who found his room, and he would’ve ended up even more injured than he is now.

But he won’t listen to me. Morgana and Lucian spoke for me, and their voices are the only ones he can hear.

“You barely know anything!” I bite out, heat burning through me. “You don’t know anything about me or my involvement in this.”

That same fire that consumed me in my dream.

Grey glares at me, tension filling the air between us. He doesn’t say anything, but what is left to say at this point when he doesn’t trust me?

Despite the frustration blazing through me, there’s a small part of me deep down that wishes I could get closer to him. That I could take his face in my hands like I did the other night and really speak to him.

But that’s the last thing I need to do, and he would slash me to ribbons if I tried.

I rip my eyes away from him and head back up the stairs to the main floor, feeling even worse than I did when I first came down here. Seeking any sort of forgiveness or understanding from him seems like an impossible uphill battle. In his eyes, I’m the enemy through and through.

Wishing for anything other than that is naive of me, and all I want to do now is leave this territory as soon as possible. Being here just reminds me of all the wrongs that I’ve done in my life, and my dream last night proved to me that I’m on a dark, twisted path.

If I don’t change things, who knows how far I’ll go? Where is the line when I’ll finally stop and say enough is enough?

Given the devastation of all that has happened to the Everblade Kingdom, I fear that I’m nearing the point of no return.