Prologue - The Inevitable
The night air blew a cool whisper across my pale, freckled, flesh and bit at the hundreds of deep slices drawn over my body.
The thin cotton shift I had been forced to wear was shredded and bloody. It clung to me, I could feel the saturation, slick and thick and uncomfortable. The moon’s face was hidden behind the eclipse. There would be no help from my Goddess tonight, no matter how much she may want to. I wondered if she even knew what was happening, I wondered if she'd do anything at all, even if she did. It was getting colder, a deep, everlasting ice was settling itself into my bones. It would be over soon. But even without her pale, watchful face, above me were still a thousand stars, their blinking eyes unmoved by my steadily flowing tears.
I could feel my heart trying to hammer it’s panic, but it was slowing, bit by bit, each beat taking slightly longer to come. I could hear them all chanting in some unknown language around me, the electric hum of their evil craft hung heavy in the air. Their words snapped, it made the air crackle, and I felt them leech the life out of me.
But up there, the sky was alive and bright, so I chose to focus on the stars, and the beautiful, vibrant colours of midnight. The swirling of the purples and blues amongst the cold white of those unfeeling diamonds calmed me, their indifference settled the panic of what would happen when this was over. If the stars didn’t care, then their plan had to fail. Surely if their plan would succeed, if the Blood Alpha was really about to return, then the stars would at least quiver?
No, even when I died here, even when they stole every last drop of blood in my body, they couldn’t really bring him back. This hope, foolish and misguided though it undoubtedly was, was enough to bring me a strange kind of comfort. I smiled. Or tried to, my blueing lips felt heavy as I tried to lift their corners.
I shivered. The grey granite slab I was strapped to was cold and hard and entirely unforgiving. I could no longer feel the burning of the silver shackles that bound me, but I also no longer had the energy to fight against their hold. I thought I would at least feel uncomfortable, but I found that I didn’t have the energy for discomfort. All I felt was the bone deep cold. My body convulsed, the shivers turning violent as my blood drained. I was so close, so close to being free of everything. Free of the cold, the pain, the fear.
Was it wrong that this thought brought me relief?
Guilt crept in at the corners of my fading consciousness as a pair of storm grey eyes flashed through my mind’s eye. The fear in them ate at me, but even so, I was amazed at the sheer beauty he could bring to grey. For a moment, I found myself lost in those eyes again, as I was every time I saw them, even if they were only in my mind.
He wouldn’t come; how could he? He didn’t know where I was. As it turned out, even after all this time, I had never known where this place was either. Everything I thought I knew, it was all a lie.
Evelyn!
I heard his voice, deep in my mind, calling my name. But though I could feel the urgency in it, it was barely more than a whisper. There was a new panic settling in me, but this was foreign. It wasn’t coming from me.
Evelyn! Please hold on. I’m almost there! We’re coming for you! We’re all coming for you!
But how could he be coming? He didn’t know where I was! He couldn’t know. It wasn’t fair to make me hope. Not now.
Even so, hearing his voice again, drenched in fear that it was, was a music that ignited a small warmth within me. I could feel it blanketing me, I could see, vividly see and feel the two of us, lying side by side in our bed, twisted in it's sheets, tangled in each other. I could almost hear his heartbeat in his chest under my head... at least now, if nothing else, I wouldn’t die cold.
You’re not going to die! I’m coming for you, please, hold on for me!
The stars were fading. The colours of midnight were dulling. I was so, so tired. I could just go to sleep. I wanted to go to sleep, to turn it all off and hope that I would soon wake up from this nightmare. Sleep now, and it would all be over.
I was only sorry that I would never feel his arms around me again. I’d never be lost in those stormy eyes again.
I was so, so very tired.
"No Evie! No! Stay awake! Please! Evie you have to stay awake!"
