Chapter 94 Untitled Chapter

Chapter 94 Untitled Chapter
Frieda flicked her an impatient frown. “Of course not. I’m not the sorceress. I’m the assassin.”

Rina’s eyes widened. “You… you’re the assassin?” She repeated, her mind blank.

In all of her imaginations about who the assassin could be, she just never guessed that it could be the brooding, silent female she’d barely exchanged a few words with.

It didn’t make any sense. Frieda had always kept to herself, and her only friend seemed to have been an animal, but Rina had thought her to have a streak of good in her.

Could she have been wrong?

Then she started to remember. That night when Elder Henry had been murdered, when she had stumbled into the garden, the first person she had seen was Frieda and thinking back, though her memories were hazy, she recalled seeing blood on Frieda’s fingers but had thought that she must have gotten it through her training.

Samorah’s smile widened as she saw the truth begin to dawn on Rina. “I can see you’re finally putting the pieces together,” she said with great relish.

“I should have known,” Rina murmured almost to herself. “I’ve been blind all this time. Who else would have made a better assassin than you. You are a trained warrior, reside within the inner palace, and somehow mastered how to disappear in a room full of people.”

Samorah laughed out loud like this was all a big joke to her. “That’s right. People do tend to overlook things they think are ugly.” She flung her arm around Frieda who flinched at the contact. “But my dear friend here used it to her advantage, right?”

She squeezed Frieda in the arm when she refused to speak. “Right, Frieda?”

“Yes.”

Rina eyed the unlikely duo, wondering what the link was that connected them. Was it the sorceress? Was Frieda being blackmailed? 

Samorah shot her an irritated look. “It’s more complicated than that, dimwit. Elder Collins, well he was getting too cocky for his own good, and Elder Henry, well, he had something we wanted.”

Rina remembered the vision that had appeared in the scrying pool back at the dancing beauty tavern before Tabitha  Samorah had appeared. Elder Henry had been clutching on to something before Frieda had struck him.

“What?” She locked her lips. “What are you looking for that warrants so many loss of life?”

The dark witch sneered. “You would never be able to understand. Besides, instead of worrying about things you can’t change, why don’t you start worrying about your future?”

She snapped her fingers and another hidden door opened right in front of them. At first, Rina squinted, unable to see anything until one by one the candles were lit and the darkness began to recede until she could see clearly the figure in the wall and couldn't hold back the gasp that escaped her.

A figure stood chained to the wall by heavy silver chains, arms and legs shackled at their sides. And even though the lightning was poor, Rina could see the red welts already forming in the wrists and the ankles of the person.

Just as the thought came of who the identity of the person that was treated so inhumanely, the figure raised their head up and their hair parted to reveal a face as familiar as her own.

Because it was hers.

“My hybrid?” Rina stumbled back, hardly believing what she was seeing in front of her. But it was indeed true.

Undoubtedly, it was her face and body staring back at her but different, more toned in limbs and beaten up.

Rina kicked the bars so hard it rattled shakily..

“What did you do to her?” She asked, her voice trembling. 

“I see you’ve finally noticed our guest. But I didn’t do anything to her, if that’s what you’re asking. At least not yet,” Samorah finished slyly.

“Are you out of your mind? Let her out of those chains, it’s hurting her!”

Just then hybrid Rina let out a shrill scream, her eyes rolling backwards in pain.

“Yes, it’s crazy isn’t it? What silver mixed with a little aconite into the blood stream can do, isn’t it?”

Rina stared at her aghast. “You’re killing her.”

She slid her a look. “She’s a hybrid. She’ll survive. We just need her to be a little… incapacitated.”

Rina’s heart beat fast. “Incapacitated for what?”

Whatever Samorah and the sorceress were planning, for Rina had no doubt that that was who they were working for, it couldn’t be good. 

Another shrill scream, more intense than before, and tore right at her. How could Frieda or the rest of the men not feel any sympathy?

“Please,” Rina tried pleading with her. “Let her go. Isn’t it me you want? Use me instead!”

Samorah lifted one haughty brow. “And what would I use you to do? You're virtually powerless. Without your hybrid and your wolf, you’re practically nothing. Just a hollow shell of yourself. As I’m sure you’re already aware.”

The words hit right at the heart of her, fueling every single doubt she had had about herself for years.

Was she really nothing without her wolf and hybrid?

The witch continued without waiting for an answer. “You shouldn’t try to be more than you are, Rina. You and I know very well that the only reason why you’re standing here today is luck. Nothing but pure luck. It wasn’t your skills or how smart you are. But pure simple luck.”

She stepped closer, her eyes searching into Rina’s. “If it hadn’t been for that bitch Tabitha, I would have felled you back in that tavern.”

Just then, her eyes changed color and she released her aura, so dark, so powerful, Rina stumbled back and promptly fell on her ass.

What… What was that power? Rina wondered as she looked at Samorah and Frieda’s retreating back, rubbing her bottom.

She suddenly had the terrifying notion that there was a lot she didn’t know and if she wasn’t careful, it was going to be the end of her.

She scrambled up as the door closed and peered through the bars at her hybrid. She was silent now. Maybe she had fallen unconscious. But she looked weak, defeated.

Was this the picture of how they were going to look in the end? With the sorcereress standing triumphantly over them?

She opened her mouth. Then paused. What would she refer to her as? Rina Two? Rina the second?

Finally she settled for, “Pssst.”

But the figure on the other side made no movement.  She remained as still as she was.

From over here she could smell the smell of burning flesh as the silver ate into her skin.

Rina could hardly imagine the pain she was going through. And yes, even though the hybrid had tried to lock her in the spiritual realm and even tried to sleep with her mate, that didn’t mean that Rina couldn’t have sympathy for what she was enduring now.

No one deserved this.

“Hybrid, if you can hear me, I’m … I’m sorry,” she released the words slowly. “I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this.”

Slowly, the chains rattling with her slightest movement, the hybrid looked and Rina could see one eye swelling. However they had captured her, it hadn’t been without a fight.

As the hybrid continued staring at her blankly, Rina asked, “can you hear me?”

Then the hybrid asked a question that Rina never expected, saying hoarsely, “Who are you and why do you have my face?”