Rebirth (Lost Souls #1)

Chapter 11

M y neck hurts, and my heart beats like a drum. I desperately try to rub the pain away with my hands, to no avail. I hate the idea that he seemingly thinks of me as his property. My previous life was wasted trying to please a man; I don’t plan on spending this new one doing the exact same thing, despite what a part of me is pushing me to do against my will. All that I need is a way out. Between my magic allowing me to leave for a limited time and Sophia confessing to me that he can leave, I know that it’s possible, one way or another. The only question is what the price will be.

Upon entering the library, I’m greeted by an eerie silence. Tension hangs in the air as only a few books in the back dare to call out to me. I walk toward them, but something feels off as I look at their spines. It’s as if they are warning me instead of calling for me, which they never did before. So, I find myself worrying.

Between two thick books is a thinner one that almost screams at me to stay away. I take it in my hands and open it, its screams growing louder and louder while I flip the pages. Halfway through the book, I find an antique gold coin.

When I remove the coin from the book, it abruptly falls silent, like I have taken away its magic. I lift the disc up to get a closer look, turning it over between my fingers. One side shows the emblem of a snake with a moon. On the other side is a raven with spread wings and a rose clutched in its talons.

With the coin in my hand, I return to my room where I put it in the drawer of my nightstand, next to the feather. What am I supposed to do with these things? It’s most definitely starting to look like some kind of weird collection. A sigh leaves me as I bury my hands in my hair—my white hair, one of so many strange things that I’m accepting as normal for lack of an explanation.

Pacing the room, my eyes land on my desk, and I notice that some of my notes are missing. Everything is as I had left it, except the notes on the spell that I used to visit Henry. I was going to use those as a base for another spell to get me out of here. The fruit bowl, I realize, is placed in the exact spot where I left the papers.

He took them. It has to be him, and I want them—need them—back. I’ll never be able to recall each and every detail of the spell, and starting from scratch will take forever. Not only that, but it’s also the principle. He can’t just come in here and take things that don’t belong to him. Even if I belong to him…

No, no I do not. He may have spirited me away and locked me up here, but that doesn’t make me his property. He allowed me to do as I pleased earlier, so why would he start meddling now? Besides, I need to get away from here and return home. Even though the place I once knew as home is gone, that doesn’t mean that my will to leave is gone as well.

My feet guide me out of my room, and even though part of me knows that this isn’t a good idea, my mind is nevertheless clouded by anger. Grinding my teeth, I come to a standstill in front of those black wooden doors. That familiar pull tells me that I’ll be able to find him in his quarters. Yet, I hesitate with my hand already on the rough dark wood.

Biting at my lips, I wonder if this is even a good idea. If he took my notes, then he certainly isn’t just going to give them back. It’s not as if I can fight him for them. Well, I could try, but that’s one fight that I’m definitely not going to win.

Sure, starting over will be a pain, but confronting him is likely going to be literal pain. A lot of it. It’s also about not wanting to be owned by him, or by anyone for that matter, ever again.

Pushing against the door, I find it to be locked, which comes as no surprise. “Time to find out what this eye can do,” I mumble while closing my right eye.

A black shimmer clings to the coarse wood and, upon closer inspection, there are flecks of red intertwined within it. Magic and blood: the key needed to open the door. It takes just a little bit of magic to extend my fingers into sharp claws, formed in translucent ice-blue magic. They cut through my wrist like a knife to butter. When the blood wells up, I have to fight against the memories that come rushing back to me. Memories that he so crudely threw in my face earlier.

With a swift movement, I smear the blood over the door. I add my magic to it while I do so, then quickly heal the wound. The door hums in appreciation, absorbing both the blood and the magic. There’s a click, and then it swings open. Behind it looms nothing but darkness, and my eye only barely manages to show me the contours of more doors inside.

Before I can decide that this is a really bad idea after all, I step over the threshold and conjure a small blue flame in my hand to light the way. It has the same ice-blue color as my magic and, despite creating plenty of light, it brings forth no heat, only a cold glow that spreads across my fingers and arm. The flame floats above the outstretched palm of my hand, giving me just enough light to not trip over my own feet .

The walls on both sides of the hallway hold multiple doors in the same dark wood as the front door. All are closed, and something about them warns me off. Biting my lip, I decide that I better heed this warning.

Following the guidance of that pull inside me, I walk toward a door at the end of the hallway. A sigh of relief escapes me when I find it unlocked. Behind it is a set of stairs that descends into even more darkness. I take a deep breath and cautiously take them one at a time, fingering the necklace around my neck with every step that I take.

At the bottom of the stairs, another door opens, and I find myself in a spacious, round, dark-red room. I hesitate momentarily at the unsettling familiarity of the place, even though I can’t put my finger on why it seems familiar. Lined up along the walls are wrought-iron floor candelabras holding multiple burning candles. The flickering flames cast eerie shadows that dance on the walls and floor.

He stands in the middle of the empty room, holding the pages in his hands, as if waiting for me. He wears his usual black three-piece suit that fits him like a second skin. I can’t help but take a fraction of a second to appreciate the sight of him. The way he radiates power manages to feed that kernel of fear in me with a single look of his yellow eyes. Yellow eyes that reflect the flames from the candles as he looks me over. The moving shadows on his face make him look even more menacing. His whole demeanor does something to me that I’m desperately trying not to acknowledge.

“Give them back,” I demand, holding my hand out to him even from across the room. Then I reluctantly add, “Please.”

“These?” he asks, holding up my notes, a devious gleam lighting up his eyes even more.

He utters a few words, and the pages go up in black flames. I’m about to boil over, my hands clamped into fists and my nails biting into my palms in an attempt to not give in to his antagonizing .

“You seem to have forgotten that you have no right to any of this. The only reason you’re even here, why you’re even still alive, is because I want you to be. Don’t make me change my mind.”

“Then why?”

“Telling you wouldn’t be any fun, now would it?” His lips tip up in a smile, and I hear myself growl in response.

It’s clear that he’s attempting to rouse me for a reaction, and I hate that holding back takes so much out of me. My magic already crackles at the tips of my fingers, not sharing my need to remain in control. That is exactly what makes me snap mere seconds later—when the call of my magic threatens to become more than I can handle. So, I react in the only way that I can think of.

“Micalzo vonpho abramg sro gah tibibp.”

The strains of magic coil and turn faster than what I’m used to, urged on by my anger. It’s on him in mere seconds, caging him in and rapidly closing.

He flicks the spell away with a single gesture.

I panic, my control starting to slip away from me while I conjure spell after spell as I weave multiple into each other in my haste.

“I was going easy on you before.” He approaches me while he casually blocks every single one of my attacks. “But it looks like it’s time to start showing you what real magic is.”

He constructs a circle with both hands and a string of rapidly spoken words. Energy sizzles in the air. The candles that surround us seem to lose some of their brightness as a heavy darkness settles itself in the room. His black magic forms a circle that twists and turns in on itself, as if it’s barely able to contain the energy that it holds. I feel it from where I stand, the promise of certain death if that spell hits me head on. He’s fast, and I can only hope that I’m just that little bit faster.

Deciding I need to add blood to my spell, I do the only thing that I can think of: I bite my tongue until I taste copper in my mouth. I run my fingers over my bloody tongue and rapidly cast a protection, using the blood to add an extra defensive layer. It’s just an assumption, but if an offensive spell can gain more power from adding a sacrifice, why would it not be the same for defensive ones?

My protection is up a split second before his attack reaches me. The sheer force of the collision is astounding. It knocks over the candelabras and swipes me off my feet. My protection shatters under the impact and, even though I try to stop it, a scream escapes me when the spell hits me. It cuts my flesh as if with a thousand knives, over and over again while holding me in its grip. The pain takes over my mind until my own blood is all that I see. Then the spell disappears, and I collapse on my stomach on the floor. A puddle of red forms under me, dripping from hundreds upon hundreds of tiny cuts.

My head spins from the blood loss, and my body is paralyzed from the pain. My vision is blurry, and his approaching footsteps sound distorted in my ears. His shoes appear in my periphery, but I can’t even lift my head or crane my neck to look at him.

“Good thinking,” he says. “You managed to remove the fatality from the spell. Your defense was weak, but at least you managed to survive.”

The cuts make my whole body sting, and I cough up blood, frustrated by my inability to move even a single finger. I’m furious that he beat me down so quickly and effortlessly. I don’t care that our skill levels are incomparable; not even being able to give him a single mark hurts as much as the ones that he gave me.

“Looks like this might not be such a waste of my time after all.”

Blood starts to color my sight red as it drips in my eyes from the cuts on my face. I’m not even certain through which one of my eyes I see him, but I don’t like the look that he gives me. It’s something that I recognize all too well from those last years of my life, a kind of hunger that was one of the many things that drove me to my final act of desperation.

As quickly as I saw it, it vanishes. Then there is only an icy cold in his gaze. “Now hurry up and heal. This is getting tedious.”

He turns and walks away. Or, at least, I assume so, for so much blood had started to pool in front of my eyes that I have to close them. The sound of his receding footsteps is all that I have to go by. He stops somewhere, then he sits down on what I assume is a piece of furniture that wasn’t there earlier. He picks something up, and moments later there is the sound of rustling paper. My body screams at me as my stomach hardens, and my throat closes up. And he sits there reading. It makes me want to scream, and I wish I could. But my body physically isn’t letting me do anything beyond lie here. And thus, I wait while I start to heal.

My flesh slowly knits itself back together, itching as the cuts close up and smooth themselves over. It’s a special kind of torture all of its own. Minutes, then hours, go by of careful, tedious healing. A curse leaves my lips as I still can’t even lift my arm to wipe the blood from my eyes. I roll myself onto my back and wait for it to drip away, streaking my cheeks red.

Every passing moment has me getting more annoyed with the situation, my attention straying until eventually I open my eyes and find that my sight has cleared up. I roll my head to the side and see him sitting there. In an armchair, casually reading a book. I lie on the floor and glare at him with hard eyes, wishing to be stronger, to be able to take him on. It has me seething and, while I’m capable enough now to speed up the process with a healing spell, I refuse to do so just to spite him. If he thinks that I’m a waste of his time, then he can wait until my body heals by itself.

It takes even longer before I have the strength to sit up. Even then I don’t have it in me to move myself away from the puddle of blood. Not that it would make much of a difference, seeing as I’m literally soaked in red. He looks up from his book and clicks his tongue at the sight of me. I want to throw him a snarky remark, but instead I give him the nastiest look I can muster. His yellow eyes pierce my own in warning, but I don’t back down.

Feeling starts to return to my limbs, and that’s when I finally look away to concentrate on standing up, my legs shaking under my own weight. Distracted by the effort it takes for me to do this, I almost miss the sound of him putting down the book and coming toward me.

“Your anger is wonderful, but you should learn to pick your battles.” He comes to a stop in front of me. Refusing to show any more weakness, I hold back a pained groan while straightening my back.

Despite my best effort, he looks right through me and pushes an apple into my hands. “Eat.”

“Why? I know that I don’t need food anymore.”

He shoves me, and I fall down, right back in the puddle of blood. The apple flies out of my hand, and he effortlessly catches it before it hits the ground.

“Because it’s still the fastest way to regain your energy,” he snarls.

I open my mouth to snap back at him. Before a single word comes out, he shoves the apple in my face, almost breaking my teeth in the process.

“Don’t. You. Even. Dare.”

It’s like I’m a child getting put in her place, and I despise it.

Somehow, I manage to swallow down every nasty thing that I want to spit at him and take a bite from the apple instead. It’s plump and juicy and tastes better than any apple I’ve ever had before. It’s slightly unnerving to sit in a puddle of my own blood, my whole body and clothes coated in it, while eating and having him look down on me at the same time.

I continue eating in silence, the crunching of the apple the only sound in the room. Even though I don’t want to admit it, it does help. Every bite that I swallow returns some energy to me. When I’m finished, he takes the core from me and has it consumed by black flames. My mouth twitches at this, and I’m certain that he notices. Yet, unexpectedly, he extends a hand. Seeing how he reacted to me refusing the piece of fruit earlier, I accept the offer and allow him to help me to my feet. His touch is warm, almost comforting. For a brief moment, I wonder what it would be like to have those hands all over my body.

Our eyes meet, and he gives me a look that I can’t place. As if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. Then he notices that my bloody hand has smeared both his own hand and the sleeve of his suit. His look turns to one of disgust, and a sneer of loathing curls his lips.

Forgetting his composure, he grabs me by my wrist and pulls me closer. I practically fall into his arms, but before that happens, he sweeps me off my feet and throws me over his shoulder like I’m nothing. Barely registering what’s happening, I curse while he carries me out of the room like I’m some idiot that doesn’t know how to walk. Joke’s on him though, because I’m pretty sure that his clothes are now completely ruined.

When he makes to carry me up the stairs, I start to struggle.

“Put me down! I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own, you asshole.”

Instead of gracing me with an answer, his magic wraps itself around me in smoke-like strands of black rope that constrict my movements.

“What in—” His magic proceeds to gag me, keeping the rest of the sentence from leaving my lips.

We’re halfway up the stairs, and I continue to struggle, or rather wiggle, against the magical constraints. Not a single sound or movement makes him acknowledge my actions, his grip on me firm and unwavering.

From the dark hallway, we enter a room that I barely make out to be a bedroom. He swiftly crosses it and opens a second door. He removes one arm to touch something on the wall, and a light snaps on, illuminating the bathroom. I see the floor and walls done in white tiles and cabinets from dark wood as he hauls me inside. Then he removes the constraints and gag and puts me down before I get the chance to start kicking and screaming at him. He spins me around with a single hand so that I’m facing a weird contraption of glass and steel, then he stalks back to the door.

“Wh-what is this?” I ask, my voice shaking with confusion.

“It’s a shower. Figure it out.” He slams the door shut behind him without sparing me a single glance.

My whole body starts to tremble as a wave of cold hits me at the loss of his touch. I run some magic over my skin to alleviate the worst of it and turn my attention to the shower in front of me. It looks nothing like how I heard people describe it. This thing looks like something from the future. It makes me wonder: How exactly does time work here?

Uncertainty keeps me rooted in place while I warily run my eyes over the strange contraption, trying to figure it out from a safe distance. After a few moments, I drop my magic and take off my filthy, blood-soaked clothes. My legs are still unsteady, and I take small, wobbly steps forward and into the open glass cage.

I take my time to study the handle up close, but it’s a safe bet that red means hot and blue means cold. After I place the handle between the two colors, I lift it up. A yelp escapes me when cold water hits me from above, drenching me. Thankfully, it quickly becomes hotter, and I adjust the handle until the temperature feels just right.

The hot water feels amazing on my skin, the pressure of the spray massaging my muscles just where I need it. No wonder the rich are seemingly so obsessed with this thing. For a few minutes, I squeeze my eyes shut and lean my forehead against the cool tiles as I try to get my breathing to even out. But panic relentlessly continues to claw at me, right under my skin.

Once I’m slightly calmer, I open my eyes and see that there is still blood being washed away. The water turns red at my feet as it disappears down the drain. Lifting my head, I find a bar of soap in a tray, greedily picking it up and rubbing it all over my body. It easily removes the last traces of red, and I rinse it away in a stream of bubbly pink foam.

My hands find a bottle of shampoo next, and I carefully lather my hair, massaging my scalp with circular motions. After rinsing, I repeat this process to make sure that I get everything out. Seeing the white color of my hair still weirds me out, so I close my eyes once more while I rinse out the second batch of shampoo. I remain like that for a few moments longer, soaking in the hot water.

The door clicks open behind me, and the sound immediately puts me on edge. My body tenses as he enters the bathroom. He puts something down, and then there is nothing but a long stretch of silence. My back is turned toward him, but I feel him look at me… and my naked body.

The seconds tick away while he stands there, his eyes unwavering as he takes in every inch of me. I can feel it and, even though it most definitely shouldn’t, it has heat pooling between my legs. I dare to look at him over my shoulder, just a glance through the water of the shower that continues to pour down on me. It catches me by surprise, the way that he stands near the door, his hands balled into fists, his whole body straining against the need to move. Toward me or away from me, I can’t tell.

Then I see the way his yellow eyes darken as they meet my mismatched pair, and I almost shudder from the force of it. It feels wrong, so wrong. It is wrong. Yet when was the last time someone looked at me with such hunger in their gaze? The longer it lasts, the more I start to tremble under the intensity of it, dread and an unfamiliar hint of need clashing inside of me.

I shouldn’t want this… My head snaps back, away from him, as a twinge of anxiety settles itself deep in my stomach. It freezes me in place, making me unable to utter a single word. Only allowing me to look at the tiles in front of me, avoiding his burning gaze that I continue to feel against my flesh.

I know what’s going to happen, and I know that there’s nothing that I can do to stop it. But do I even want to stop it?

The clinking of his belt buckle fills the bathroom, the sound painfully loud as my whole consciousness seems to be drawn to it. My heartbeat rings in my ears, close to deafening but not nearly enough to drown out the sound of him undressing. He comes toward me, and I try to hold my shoulders tight, not wanting to show that perhaps fear might win out after all. Memories flood my mind, making me clench and unclench my fists as images flash before my eyes. My breathing becomes quick and shallow until the wall in front of me is all there is.

He places his hands on my hips, and I start to hyperventilate. Black dots dance in the corner of my eyes, and my breathing becomes more and more uneven with every pounding beat of my heart. His hand moves to the front of my neck, grabbing my throat and forcing me to look at him again, straight into those smoldering, all-devouring orbs. His rough, borderline painful hold on me somehow grounds me. The memory-induced panic attack that threatened to overtake me ebbs away, leaving only heat and a burning desire in its wake.

He squeezes my throat, and I can’t help but gasp. Before I know what’s happening, his lips crash down on my own. My moment of surprise allows his tongue to slip inside my mouth, into an all-consuming, soul-wrecking kiss that makes my knees weak for an entirely different reason. I melt into his touch, whimpering softly, despite how he still has my neck in a painful grip in his hand. But what started as passionately burning, quickly turns rough and violent. Fear returns to me as he starts to nip, then bite, at my lips and tongue, groaning in my mouth as he does.

When he eventually breaks the kiss, the hand still on my hip tightens its grip and I become acutely aware of how hard his fingers dig into my flesh. Before I know it, he kicks my legs apart and steps between them, making sure that I can’t get away. Panic flares inside me, telling me that perhaps I don’t want this after all. I struggle against his hold on me. His magic creeps up my legs and arms, hot and stinging against my skin. It wrenches my arms out in front of me and secures my hands against the tiles. It has me bend forward slightly, and I shudder at the realization that this serves to give him better access.

I open my mouth to say… I don’t know what. Before I can utter a single word, he moves his hand to silence me, his breath hot against my skin as he leans over me. His voice is smooth and cruel when he whispers, “Behave.” I feel the head of his cock against my entrance, and panic flashes before my eyes. So, I bite down on his hand.

My teeth break his skin, and his blood coats my lips. He curses before his hand drops away. Before I’m able to do anything else, his hand is back at my throat, this time cutting off my air supply and allowing me only enough circulation to not pass out. He bends over me and wipes my wet hair over my shoulder, the touch almost loving. His skin is hot against my back, and I hate how it makes me feel. How I like his heat against me in this moment where I’m utterly defenseless.

Tears stream down my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut when he’s between my legs once more. I can’t stop it from happening, and I can’t stop myself from wanting it and despising it at the same time. I can’t stop my body and mind practically begging him for it, something that I’ll never admit to out loud. Not even to myself.

He slowly pushes inside me a few inches and then pulls back out. A small gasp escapes me through his tight grip on my throat. He chuckles, then slams inside me, bottoming out. I scream as he fills me, the sound muffled by the water streaming down on my face. He starts to move in and out of me, not giving me a single second to adjust to his size. My body is clenched tightly around him, almost painfully so, until the pain from the forced intrusion starts to fade away and is replaced by something else entirely. Something that fills me with a different kind of dread as heat spreads through me.

Every one of his thrusts, every snap of his hips, has electricity running through me. It does something to me that I don’t want to acknowledge. That I won’t acknowledge.

He bites my shoulder as if to ground himself while he continues to ruthlessly take me. He groans against my skin, deep and guttural, and the sound makes my chest clench. One of his hands snakes between my legs to tease my clit, his fingers gradually pushing my pleasure higher and higher. Every stroke against the sensitive nub drives me closer to the edge until whimpers start to fall from my lips.

He lets go of my throat then, and his other hand moves to the back of my neck to better hold me in place against the wall. Despite his painful grip, my breathing starts to become labored, my whole body ablaze with sensation, with pleasure, that clouds my mind. My whimpers turn into moans, escaping me even though I don’t want them to. They urge him on and, through the lust that starts to take me over, I can tell that it’s not leaving him unaffected either. He pounds into me with reckless abandon, his movements turning erratic as his heavy breathing breaks through the sound of the water still coming down on us.

His fingers continue their skillful ministrations on my clit until I’m so close to orgasm that it actually scares me. My neck cranes back against his hand as I gasp for breath, stars dancing in the corners of my eyes. And then I shatter, breaking into a million pieces under his touch. The stars take over for a blissful moment, pleasure crashing through my body in a way that I’ve never experienced before.

Yet at the same time, disgust already starts to creep in. Disgust for how I was able to enjoy this—how I let myself enjoy it. He finds his own release moments later, spilling deep inside me as a throaty moan escapes him. He stills behind me and, after a few seconds, he steps away completely, taking his magic with him. I unceremoniously crumple to the floor, the tiles cold against my skin. My body is completely drained, spent in every possible way. Satisfied , I barely dare to think. My mind is utterly confused by what happened and all the things it makes me feel. I realize that part of me wanted this, but even if I didn’t, I wasn’t given much of a choice.

Would I have been able to deny him?

He wraps a towel around his waist and leaves the bathroom without uttering a single word. Remembering Sophia’s warning about him being a monster, something inside of me cracks. Tears break free, and I cry and wail through the soreness in my throat from where his hand was clenched around it. My body convulses with the force of my sobs. My hands and arms wrapped around my head as I curl into myself. The water from the shower continues to pour over me, though the heat no longer calms me. I was such a fool to believe this whole situation wouldn’t turn into this at some point. The way he looked at me… of course it was only a matter of time.

It takes a while before I regain some of my senses, and I try to stand up. My legs shake and my head hurts, my body once more ready to give out on me. My hands find the tiles once more, splayed against them to keep myself steady. My fingers close around the bar of soap, and I frantically wash every inch of my body with even more vigor than before. Hoping to wash away his touch, though I quickly realize it’s useless. I turn the shower off, and my shaking hands find a towel to dry myself with. After a few seconds, the trembling spreads to the rest of my body, warning me that I’m on the verge of shattering completely. Unwilling to do so, I block it all out and put on the clean clothes that he left for me. I refuse to think about it.

But my hands still shake, and my mind is still fragmented by all the memories that try to force themselves back in. Memories that didn’t return with the rest of them.

I don’t want to remember, though, not that part. Henry was bad enough. The man that sold me afterward was bad enough, but the many afterward… No, those memories can stay buried. Even seeing and feeling mere fractions of them creates a violent headache between my eyes.

Upon leaving the bathroom and entering the dark bedroom, I find myself hesitating. My eyes search the room, looking for him, every bone in my body knowing, sensing, that he’s still very much here.

“Out.” His voice is a low growl, and his yellow eyes light up in the dark. I almost trip over my own feet as I hurry to do what he demands of me.

Back in my room, I undress, crawl in bed, and hide myself under the sheets.

I still feel his touch on my skin, and it repulses me. Confuses me. Back when I got married, I was so sure that Henry would be both my first and last partner—my only partner. How wrong I was. How na?ve.

M y body is stiff and spent, and I am utterly exhausted, unable to completely relax when I’m in my favorite spot in the garden. What happened in his quarters returned an all-too-familiar feeling of disgust. I hope that this time it will be possible to get through it, because I never really did before. It only got worse, day by day, up to the point that I couldn’t handle it anymore. Until I couldn’t stand looking at myself, living with myself. I look at my wrists, and my mind still sees blood dripping from those cuts.

From one moment to the next, darkness falls and my heart falls even further. It’s as if out of nowhere, the lurking shadows expand and become thicker until they envelop everything around me. The sound of beating wings in the distance reaches me and instantly, I start running for cover. The wings are everywhere around me before I’m able to reach my hallway. They turn everything black, and the shadows move around aggressively, more viciously, in their wake.

The feathers beat against my skin, cutting my flesh much like his spell did. My hands quickly weave a protection that surrounds me like a cage. Caught up in their fury, I notice for the first time that the feathers aren’t attached to anything. It’s a literal storm of feathers, thrashing against my spell.

The sound that they create chills me to the bone and when they make contact, they sizzle as if burned, yet the onslaught continues. The sounds quickly become too much, and I drop to the ground, pulling my legs against my chest and covering my head with my arms in an attempt to block it all out.

After a few more minutes, the beating of the wings calms down, and I dare to look up from my huddled position. A powerful surge of magic cuts through the air, through my protection that fractures upon impact, catching me off guard as I carefully get up. In the distance, he swiftly descends in a whirlwind of dark feathers. His back is turned to me, so he thankfully doesn’t spot me.

My left eye shows me shadows that spring out of his back. When I close my right eye, I clearly see a pair of dark feathery wings sticking out of his shoulder blades. Feathers fall to the ground and turn to dust when he spreads them wide. But even from where I’m hiding, it’s clear that something isn’t quite right about them.

With a shake, the wings retract into his shoulders. He casually looks back, and I catch a brief glimpse of his face. His skin is the same bloodred as I saw on his hand earlier. His yellow eyes are shining brighter and more viciously. Despite the fact that it’s slightly unsettling, I also find myself fascinated by it. Perhaps even more than anything else, that red skin draws me in like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The idea of those red hands on my pale flesh…

I snap out of my thoughts, disgusted with myself. How can I want him to touch me again after what he did to me? Yet despite knowing how wrong it is, the idea has my pulse quickening. He turns around then and, before I can move a finger, he stands in front of me. A squeal escapes me, and I shuffle back a few steps, tripping and falling on my ass. He looks down on me with those yellow eyes, judging me. His whole demeanor tells me that he knows what I saw and that he can’t appreciate it.

After what happened, fear lingers inside of me. I don’t feel like testing him, yet at the same time I know that I won’t get anywhere if I go and behave like a beaten dog.

I look up at him and meet his gaze head-on. Whatever I felt and thought earlier melts away. All that remains is anger, so much anger. Anger for what he did to me, and for the fact that I want him to do it again. I return his gaze, steadfast and sure, and I know that he can see my thoughts reflected in my eyes. It changes something in his.

Without looking away, I get back on my feet and let my magic crackle as a warning to back off. My protection from earlier mends itself and the cracks smooth themselves over. With a single gesture, I change it from a cage to a second skin, the ice-blue energy lighting up my flesh. It heals the wounds that the feathers inflicted on me, a small trail of smoke coming off my body.

He looks me over, assessing me, and I know that I have to act quickly. Using a single fingernail, I cut deep into one of the healing wounds to make it bleed again. When it does, the dark-red liquid is greedily absorbed by my magic.

“Lrasd amma mir butmoni parm zumvi cnila.” The ice-blue magic that makes up the circle has a bloody shine to it. With a single gesture of my hand, I throw the spell toward him.

To my distress, he casually flicks it away. He smirks at me in response, and then notices the cut that appears on his cheek. A dollop of blood wells up and trickles down his cheek, creating a trail of red on his warm, honey skin.

I hurt him. The realization fills me with a weird kind of joy while he touches the already healing cut. He quizzically looks at the blood on his finger for a moment, then licks it off.

He lowers his hand, and his eyes snap back to me. “You’re a quick study.” There’s approval in his tone, which I did not expect. “But you still have a long way to go.”

Recognizing his words for the warning they are, I scramble away from him. He grins at me, and I know that he’s giving me a head start. It’s only a few seconds, though, and then he casts his counter spell. He constructs it so fast that it takes me a moment before I recognize it as one that he used before.

I swiftly adjust the protection that still lingers around me. Drawing more blood, I use keywords from his spell to put up a second layer. Doing so should allow for my protection to better counter his attack.

Only a second later, his spell makes contact with mine. The impact knocks me back against a tree, my eyes going wide as I gasp for air. My defense did hold up, meaning that thankfully the attack only landed a few scratches. That in itself is a lot better than I had dared to hope for.

Nevertheless, pain shoots through me, and my knees buckle. I gasp as I fall and scrape my back against the rough bark of the tree on my way down. Gritting my teeth, I look up, expecting him to finish me off. Instead, he stands in front of me and offers me his hand. I look at the gesture, but can’t bring myself to accept it .

“Get over yourself,” he says while he grabs my wrist and forcefully hauls me up.

The feeling of his fingers around my wrist sets me on fire. His face is so close to mine that I feel his hot breath against my skin. His piercing yellow eyes seem to stare right into my soul. His scent of fire and brimstone makes my head swim.

It’s too much. He ’s too much.

He abruptly releases me and takes a step back. “Either get used to it, or become strong enough to actually defend yourself against me.”

“Then teach me.” The words slip out of my mouth before I fully realize what I’m asking, my mouth running off without me. But it’s out now; there’s no taking it back.

“Excuse me?” There is genuine surprise in his voice.

“Teach me so that I can become strong enough to stand against you.”

He looks at me in silence for a few moments, his face utterly unreadable. “Fine,” he finally answers. “Let me start by giving you a piece of advice. Don’t go recklessly spilling your own blood when you don’t actually know what you’re doing.”

He tracks his eyes up and down my body, grimacing. “Get cleaned up and meet me in the library when you’re ready. You look like shit.”

I sure as hell didn’t expect him to agree. But perhaps this is the best way, the only way, for me to become strong enough to stand a chance against him. If he teaches me how he uses magic, then I’ll be able to use that against him. Then I can figure out how he’s able to leave so I can break out of this place and go home.

Even if his lessons mean being in the same room as him. I tremble at the thought, fear knotting my stomach. It’s a bad idea, but the best idea at the same time. How horribly conflicted this makes me feel.