Fifty. Girl Talk and Guilt Trips

Like hell am I staying here in this obvious trap. I’ve already abandoned my kitten form and returned to pure, untouchable shadow. Ravenna turns her eyes up to the ceiling in exasperation.

It is utterly infuriating to see her lounging there, in Jase’s bed, wearing nothing but a satin nightgown. I throw my voice into the wind. “You want to talk, really? Then why are you dressed like a freaking Playboy model while waiting in my boyfriend’s bed?! The brother of your supposed husband by the way!”

“He will not be coming back tonight, Cassandra. I thought I made that clear. And this outfit is nothing lewd. It is sleeping attire suitable for a sleepover. So come on back up here.” She pats the spot beside her on the bed. “And we can do some girl talk, chat about our feelings and boys, the boys you’re selfishly dooming...”

“As if you care! You don’t have any feelings,” I deny. “You gave your soul to Proteus!”

“So did you,” she returns. “And yet you still feel empathy. You still feel pain and pleasure… And fear.” She grins. “You can feel him closing in on you, now can’t you, Cassandra? It’s only a matter of time until he drags you back into the deep. I thought the men who first stole my virginity was the worst experience I would endure, but being claimed by Proteus… It is far from a loving embrace, don’t you agree?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember, not any of it.” I confess. I’ve blacked it all out I guess.

I remember that boy at the seaside with the dark, dark eyes. I remember wanting to kiss him, and I think he did kiss me, while I was drowning. He did it to take my breath away, and then he did much more… But I don’t want to remember it, and I don’t need to.

Jase can be my first and only, and I could have stayed with him forever, safe and loved, if Ravenna hadn’t gone and set fire to that relationship! “You took it all away.”

“I took away nothing, Cassandra. I simply told that boy the truth.”

“No you didn’t,” I deny. “You told him I was evil and painted yourself as some savior. But even if you did save Jase’s life, you didn’t tell him the true cost of that resurrection.” And I remember that price. You cannot bring a soul back from the afterlife without trading a soul in exchange. “Jase still has his soul, clearly, so who did you trade into hell? I already know the answer.

“Your husband, Mike, is a monster, Ravenna. Just like you, he feels no remorse for anything, and it’s because you told him that day in the alley, let me guess, that you could undo his horrible sin and bring back his brother, but only in exchange for his soul.”

“That was the unavoidable payment,” she confesses. “Michael couldn’t live with what he’d done anyhow, so yes, I took away his pain and regret--”

“You hollowed him out and made him your thrall!”

“You could call any man committed to serving his woman that,” she excuses. “I did not force him into marriage. I just flashed him some skin, and he made me a happy outlet for his animal urges. Just as Jason did with you.”

“And you called it a love spell! You lied to him and made me look like some twisted--”

“It is a kind of love spell, the pheromone you give off through every body you make into your own,” Ravenna corrects me, and my wailing words become a timid squeak of breeze.

“What do you mean?”

“You are Proteus’s siren, remember? You lure in women with sympathy, mirroring their feelings and pretending friendship, but you lure in men with a far more basic draw. Walk the street as cute little ‘Cassi’ and you’d have any one of them you locked eyes with. So no, Jason Galanis is not in love with you, Cassandra, he’s just like a fish with a hook in his lip being reeled in helplessly.”

“That can’t be true,” I insist. “He is not my slave… Just look at today, he sent me away. I was never controlling him, not the way you are Mike!”

“I can command my husband to do anything I wish,” she smugly admits. “But I allow him his free will and rarely order him anything, because I love him dearly.”

“Bullshit--”

“Such an aggressive hypocrite, Cassandra. Five years together is far more of a foundation than your fleeting infatuation with Jase.”

“It is not fleeting. I was going to stay with him forever--”

“It never would have worked out like that,” she crushes me. “But it can work out for Michael and I. We are committed to our future, and we have a son together, a son I wish to save from a horrible fate.”

That might be true, but even if it is… “Well that has nothing to do with me. You told everyone I’m this all-powerful witch, but I’m not--”

“You are,” Ravenna insists, sitting up and staring me down intently as she finally finds the spot of floor where I’ve been cowering, right underneath the windowsill. “You have Proteus’s stolen powers at your disposal. Every time you leave his watery prison, you steal away those powers and carry them with you, to slow him down and keep him from recapturing you. That is the power I need to conduct this ritual on the next full moon and cure Michael and Jason, along with every one of their descendants. But you are so disgustingly selfish, you will not allow me to do it!”

I cringe. “I can’t trust you. You’re dangerous.”

“I can’t even touch you unless you willingly give yourself over!” she snaps in retort. “You are clearly the one in control here, Cassandra, and you are the one who needs to atone for her crimes. You died centuries ago. Accept it. Let go of this stolen life, and save the man you claim to love--”

“The man you love is a soulless psychopath you let loose to murder young women every month! Women whose souls you give right over to Proteus, am I right?”

“No. Those souls are the power I needed to cure Jason’s father. See, I would sacrifice anything for the ones I care about. Whereas you will never give anything at all--”

“Certainly not to the woman who wants to cut out my heart and eat it whole and raw!” I storm out the window in a surge of wind before she can say anything further to try and manipulate me.

I need to see Jase, but Ravenna had better be gone from his freaking bed by the time we get back to that apartment, or else I will all-out attack her. She deserves nothing less. She’s an evil manipulator.

I have to keep believing that she’s evil, and that this feeling in my gut is a sense I should trust and not just the selfish compulsion toward self-preservation.