Chapter 136 – The Caged Soul
Chapter 136 – The Caged Soul
Trinity’s POV
It was like being buried alive and I could see and feel everything, the cold night air against my skin, the heat of Nasir’s grip still burning on my arms and the ragged breaths tearing through my lungs but I wasn't the one moving. My body belonged to someone else now...Morgana.
Her laughter rippled through my chest, spilling from my lips, it wasn’t my voice anymore as it carried a richness, a venom that wasn’t human.
Nasir staggered to his feet, his chest heaving, blood dripping from a wound across his ribs. His eyes glowed like molten amber, fixed on me with disbelief and dread “Trinity” His voice cracked on my name.
My lips curled into a smile. I didn't choose “Not anymore” Morgana purred, stepping toward him and each stride was mine but not mine “You’re staring at the end of your world Alpha.”
No, I screamed inside, beating against the walls of my mind. Don’t listen to her Nasir. It’s me and I'm still here but he couldn’t hear me.
Nasir’s jaw clenched, fury sparking in his gaze “Get out of her, witch. You’re not welcome in her body.”
Morgana tilted my head, savoring his rage “You think you can command me like one of your pack dogs? Sweet boy, i was ancient before your bloodline learned to walk on four legs”
Inside, I clawed at the bars she’d locked around my spirit and it felt like a cage of shadows, chains coiled tight around my soul and every time I pushed, the chains seared hotter, branding me with her power.
You can’t hold me forever, I spat at her in my thoughts. This is my body not yours.
Her laugh echoed cruelly in my skull. Oh darling, you’ve been broken since birth. Wolfless, abandoned and you’ve been begging for someone stronger to take control and I'm simply granting your wish.
“No” I whispered, though my lips didn’t move and the sound was swallowed in the prison of my mind.
Nasir’s voice thundered outside “Fight her, Trinity! I know you can hear me and don’t let her take you from me!”
Something in me trembled at his words and my heart still beat for him, even if Morgana wore my skin but she twisted it, cruel and sharp. Oh, he’s so desperate. I’ll make him kneel and you’ll watch, helpless as I break him using your face, your voice and your touch.
She turned my hand palm-up, summoning a surge of black fire that coiled like smoke. It burned but not on the outside...inside, in the marrow of my bones. Nasir’s eyes widened and his wolf bristling under his skin “You’ll hurt her if you use that power!” he roared. “She won’t survive it.”
Morgana only smiled with my lips “Perhaps or perhaps she’ll be the perfect vessel, remade in my image.”
I fought harder, slamming against the walls of her cage until sparks of light flickered in the darkness and Nasir’s face burned in my mind and his wild eyes, the way he had whispered my name like it mattered more than his own life then I clung to that.
“Trinity” Nasir growled, his voice dropping to a vow “I swear, I’ll tear this curse out with my own claws if I have to.”
The bond between us thrummed faintly and I could feel a thread of warmth trying to pierce the darkness. Morgana sneered at it.
Pathetic, do you think love saves souls? Love is a leash and I will use it against him.
She moved my body closer, circling Nasir like a predator. “Look at him” she crooned, speaking through my tongue “So strong and so broken and wouldn’t you like to know what it feels like when he gives up on you, when he realizes you’re gone forever?”
Nasir’s chest rose and fell violently, his claws half-shifted, teeth bared “You don’t know me witch.”
“Oh but I do,” Morgana purred. She lifted my hand and traced the air just inches from his chest. “I can feel his heartbeat through you, little vessel and do you know how much he aches for you and how much he fears losing you?” he asked.
Her words cut deep, twisting like knives. Inside the prison of my mind, I doubled over clutching my chest and I wanted to scream, to reach him and to tell him she was lying but then she did the unthinkable.
She tilted my face toward him, softened my features into something vulnerable and whispered with my voice breathy, broken and pleading.
“Nasir, help me”
His entire body jolted. Pain flashed across his face, his wolf snarling in anguish “Trinity!” He took a step forward, shaking and torn between rage and desperate love and I realized what she was doing.
She was going to use me to break him.
No! I shrieked inside, slamming my fists into the walls of her cage until blood, mental, spiritual and I didn't know I splattered across the shadows. Don’t believe her Nasir. Don’t!
But I could already see the doubt tearing at him. The bond flickered wildly and strained.
Morgana laughed through my mouth, low and triumphant “Ah, yes. He’ll crumble and when he does, his wolf will be mine to leash. The Alpha of Alphas, bound by his own weakness”
“Over my dead body” Nasir snarled, his wolf’s voice rumbling beneath his own.
Morgana leaned in closer, my body trembling with power not my own “Oh, darling. That’s precisely the plan”
And with a flick of her wrist, the black fire roared to life, aimed straight at him as the black fire erupted, hissing like venomous serpents as it spiraled from my palm. Heat licked at my skin, searing in a way that wasn’t just physical, it gnawed at the edges of my soul and Morgana reveled in it, her laughter vibrating through my chest, while I screamed inside, clawing at the shadows of her cage.
Nasir’s eyes widened but he didn’t retreat and he planted his feet, muscles coiled and ready to take the full brunt of the strike if it meant sparing me. His wolf’s growl rolled out, low and feral and shaking the air between us.
“Don’t you dare touch her with that” he warned but his voice cracked with pain.
Morgana only smirked with my lips “That’s the beauty of it, Alpha. Every flame will taste like her and you’ll never know if you’re destroying me or saving her”
The fire flared brighter and a living storm of shadows and light. Nasir bared his teeth, torn between charging forward or holding back.
And me, I slammed my fists again and again against the bars of her prison, my throat raw from silent screams, until just for a moment a crack split open in the darkness.
Light seeped through hope but it came the same instant Morgana thrust my hand forward, releasing the torrent of fire straight at him.