Chapter 45 The Storm Captain pt1
I’m with Oberon, in fact, I never left.
He whispers in my ear as he holds me in his arms that he loves me. I feel fulfilled and happy. His body moves against mine in ways I could have never imagined. We’re making love, sweet, passionate love.
Sensations flood over me, a feeling of fullness I’ve never experienced before. Pure lust has taken over me from head to toe and I can’t get enough of feeling his body move against mine.
It’s more than physical, it’s emotional. He knows me for who I am, for what I’ve done. I told him everything. Oberon doesn’t care. He wants to be my lover, my husband, my everything. For the first time in my life, I know what I want and I know I deserve it. I deserve these long kisses, the sharp and sweet sensations as his body lies over mine in the darkness.
Darkness…
It’s so dark in the shadow barracks, and whether my eyes are open or closed, it seems to be getting darker—colder.
Suddenly the bed is no longer soft, but icy and hard and stabbing into my back.
There’s screaming, it’s growling louder…
Am I back in the cave?
Terror flies through me and I try to sit up, but I can’t. Oberon’s body is still over mine, holding me down. He’s like dead weight. I can’t move him at all. Doesn’t he know we’re still in the cave? Doesn’t he know our training hasn’t ended?
“Oberon? Obie! We’re in the cave! We have to fight!” I cry.
But he doesn’t move.
His body, so recently hot and slick with sweat, has gone ice cold. Rigid. Too rigid.
Almost like…
“No!” I shove him off me, desperately searching his face with my hands in the darkness. There’s no life there, no movement. His flesh is hard and frozen, his body well into the stages of rigor.
“Gods no, please! Please! Someone help me!” I scream, but only my voice echoes back at me.
Sobbing, I lie on the icy floor and hold Oberon close. This isn’t fair, this isn’t right! I finally found happiness! I finally let myself let go of the past!
“You forgot me…” a small voice says. Feminine, familiar.
“Hello?” I whisper, sitting up and trying to see through the opaque blackness.
“You were my best friend, you were like my sister… Ana…”
My heart drops into my stomach as bile rises in my throat. “Elysandra?” I choke, disbelieving.
“You forgot about me, Ana. You forgot what you did.”
“No! No, Elsie, I didn’t forget! I tried to avenge you, I did!” I wail, my fingers scratching against the ice in desperation to find where she is. Except her voice seems to be coming from everywhere at once.
“You got to live, you got to grow up… And me? I got to watch you…”
“Elsie, I’m so sorry! I never meant—”
“Help me! Ana, please! Save me!”
Elysandra’s cries from the day she died bounce off the walls in the cave, threatening to burst my eardrums. Hot, shameful tears stream down my face, scalding me.
When Elsie speaks again, her voice is more similar to the girl who liked to torture small animals, not the sweet girl I knew and loved so much.
“You think you deserve love? Happiness?” she snarls. “Do you truly think I want to watch you rut against my cousin like a cat in heat when you should be slaying the dragon who killed me? How dare you, Anara!”
“I—” My voice breaks, sobs coming in earnest now. My shoulders tremble in shame, in heartbreak. I don’t deserve this happiness, I don’t deserve to feel pleasure. I deserved to die that day instead of Elysandra, that's what I deserve.
“Yes, that’s right. You should be dead. I should be a queen by now, ruling next to Zaries with children playing at our feet. And yet…” Her voice goes cold. I sense her move close, too close, and then I can feel her rotting breath against my skin. “You bed my cousin, and lust after my prince?”
“No! Elsie, I—”
“He’ll never love you, Anara. Neither of them ever will.” She laughs, and I listen to the scrape of her slippers on the ice as she circles me. “I’m going to watch you suffer…watch you die… I’ll never let you live in peace as long as that dragon still roams the land. And if you do manage to kill it? I hope he burns you as he burned me. I hope your skin melts from your bones.”
“I’m so sorry, Elysandra.”
I feel her in front of me, listening to her skirts rustle as she kneels. Her cold hands cup my face as she leans in until our noses touch. “Better yet, I bet Zaries will be the one to kill you for what you did. I bet he drives his blade through your stomach and splits you down the middle. I bet he laughs while he does it, bathing himself in your blood. The blood of a traitor!”
Her hands pull away and come back, slapping my face over and over, snapping my head back and forth with each impact.
“You don’t deserve to be happy!” she shrieks.