Kairos (23 page)

He stands up and looks to his leader. “She smells like a ripe field ready for plucking. Do I get to have her?”

“In time. But now I need answers.” His eyes meet mine. “If you comply I’ll make it easy on you. If you choose to be difficult…well, that won’t go so good for your little friend.” My eyes widen in alarm as I take in his meaning to torture Ailis for my refusal to tell him what he wants to know. I swallow the ball of lead in my throat and nod in understanding.

He offers a maniacal smile. “I thought you would see things my way. Now, tell me where the orb, or as you call it, the seeing stone, is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” My voice comes out dry and shaky.

A loud scream echoes down the hall and filters through the cracks around my door. I stiffen and look from the leader over to the man awaiting his orders, my eyes racing back and forth between them.

“I swear. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The leader places his index finger to his temple, and an ear-splitting scream rents through the air.

“I want the orb, and I want it now. I’ve no time for games girl.” Spittle spews from his lips as he yells at me.

I panic. “Stop, please stop. I told you the fucking truth, asshole. I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re so goddamn smart, read my mind, limp dick. You’ll see I’m telling the truth. Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with any of it.”

“I know the Templar’s protect the orb. I know you’re the druid they need to strengthen the Great Barrier, and my master wants to use your power to help bring it down, but I’ve no time for that business. I simply need the orb. I could care less if you live or die.” He paces across the floor and then stops abruptly to look me in the eye. “Maybe you need more convincing. Yes, I do believe some convincing is definitely in order.

He barks out a twisted laugh and then sneers down at me. “We’ll see how tough you are when Vanos is through with you. In the meantime, I think I’ll go and quench my thirst with a pretty little redhead down the hall.” He turns and strides toward the door.

My mind snaps, and rage floods through my body. My back bows up off the mattress, and my arms pull tight on their bindings. “You sick fuck. I’ll kill you. I’ll kill every damn one of you.”

The door slams behind him, and my eyes turn to the bastard now rummaging through his bag. He pulls out a cat-o’-nine-tails tipped with silver stones on the end of each leather strap. I brace myself. This is going to be bad. Really bad.

He turns toward me and grins. “I’m going to love this. You, not so much. Anything you want to tell me?”

“Your father should have shot you into a towel!”

He shakes his head and runs the leather strands through his left hand. “You’ll save yourself a lot of pain if you tell us where the seeing stone is. That’s all he wants.” He pauses as if reflecting on something. “Well, that and the location of the Templars’ little hideout.” He approaches the bed and lays his weapon of torture down on the mattress. His hands slide under my back, and then he flips me over onto my stomach.

“Aah!” I yelp. The restraints have twisted my wrists and tightened painfully around my ankles. He doesn’t move to adjust them. I turn my head to the side so I can see him. My face is pressed down into the mattress when he mounts the bed and pulls a knife from his thigh. I start to shake as fear consumes me.

I can’t see him now. His jeans rub against the inside of my thighs as he spreads my legs wider and tightens the straps down harder so I can’t move at all without causing injury.

The cold tip of a blade touches the back of my left knee and then moves slowly up the back of my thigh. I involuntarily whimper. His throaty chuckle tells me this is what he wants. He feeds off my fear. I clench my eyes shut and bite my lip to keep any noise from escaping.

Think of summer on the beach. The humid air. The seagulls flying.

The knife rips up the back of my gown and bares me to his eyes.

I bite down hard on my lip and taste the blood as it runs into my mouth.
Think of Logan. Think of Logan making love to me.
I keep repeating this mantra, trying to escape inside my own mind, but when I feel the bed shift and the first strike of the whip on my back…I scream.

He runs his spindly fingers over my back and moans in delight at his handiwork. The bed dips again as he rears back and then a whishing sound right before the
snap
as the whip cracks against my flesh with brutal force. The silver bits of metal dig into my flesh and break through the skin.

Oh God! Oh God! I can’t take this. Oh God!
Crack! Crack! Crack
!

I’m whimpering now, and tears are streaming down my cheeks uncontrollably.
Whoosh
!
Crack
!

I cry out, “Aah! Please stop. Please,” I yell for mercy. My back is a bloody mess. I can feel the warm, wet trails of crimson streaming down my sides and onto the mattress.

Crack!

Crack!

Crack…

He stands up from the mattress, and I hear him shuffling around in the bag again. My eyes are clenched so tight I’m seeing white spots. I don’t want to know what comes next. The pain from my back is nearly enough to make me faint. It’s like having strips of fire licking my flesh repeatedly. It doesn’t ease and only intensifies if I try to move.

He loosens the straps around my ankles, reaches under my stomach, and flips me back over. I scream as the weight of my body falls on my chewed-up back. He proceeds as if he’s in a trance, pulling at the strips of the gown and cutting it at the neck, then pulling it free of my body. This leaves me in nothing but my panties. I open my eyes and watch him rake his eyes over my body and linger on my exposed breasts. I shudder at the thought of him touching me, which is exactly what he’s about to do. He reaches down and grabs my right breast roughly with one hand while he grabs himself through his jeans with the other.

I close my eyes again. I can’t watch his face while he pleasures himself at my expense. He squeezes my nipples and roughly handles each breast. I can hear his breathing picking up, and I fear what’s coming next more than I have ever feared anything in my life.

I have never been violated by a man and know that this is something most women never recover from. The fear of losing a piece of me to this monster is almost as great as the fear of being invaded by him. My nails dig into the palms of my hand, and I begin to chant inside my head.

Logan’s face flashes through my mind. Him smiling down at me as he makes love to me. Our day at Busch Gardens when we rode roller coasters, and he laughed the whole time. Sharing funnel cakes with him smearing strawberry filling on my mouth and then licking it off.

His pants hit the floor, and the bed dips in the next instant. The heat of his body presses in on mine. The hairs on his chest brush up against my breasts, and I feel a dam break inside of me. The tears flow like rivers down my cheeks. A rough tug and my panties are ripped from my body. His hardness now presses at my entrance, and I begin to fight my restraints with renewed vigor. The wounds on my back light up like a fire the more I thrash around.

“That’s it, little hellcat. Fight me.” He presses in against my entrance and enters a little bit.

“
No!
Stop!
Stop!
Stop!
” I scream.

The door crashes against the wall, and I open my eyes to see Ailis standing there with fire dripping from her fingertips. I’m not metaphorically speaking—literally fire dripping from her fingers.

She raises her hands, sending a burst of fire at the man on top of me, the force of which throws him clean off the bed and slams him into the wall. He screams out as his body bursts into flames. I turn wide eyes to Ailis as she approaches the bed. She stops at the side table and grabs a white gown and tucks it beneath her arm.

The picture of perfect calm. She acts as if the room doesn’t reek of burning flesh and there isn’t a man writhing on the floor while his body burns to ash.

My restraints are quickly removed, and she pulls me up into a sitting position. My back screams in protest, but I remain silent as I put the gown on that she hands me.

I stand and follow Ailis as she runs to the door.

“Quickly, Sulwen. We don’t have much time,” she calls over her shoulder as we run down the long corridor. I pass doors that are open to rooms that look exactly like mine. This place is a prison. We reach the end of the hall and a set of stone steps leading down. Ailis doesn’t hesitate as she takes off down them, but my legs are shaking; the shock from my near rape and my beating has my body wanting to just shut down. I stumble and fall into her back. She turns and grips my shoulders to keep me upright and pulls me up and under her arm as we continue to make our way down the stairs.

Her arm is wrapped around my shoulder as we make it to the bottom of the stairs and to an open room with windowless concrete walls. I stumble but quickly catch myself as we near the big metal door. That’s when all hell breaks loose.

An explosion causes the structure to visibly shake. Yelling voices can be heard after the series of loud booms, followed by what sounds like hundreds of people fighting. I look up at Ailis and see my fear mirrored back at me. We’re just two women against I don’t know how many of these monsters. She must see my desperation because she says exactly what I need to hear to keep going.

“Och, get yourself together, girl. We’re stronger together than we are apart.” She grabs my chin with her free hand. “We’re going to make it. I have a truck hidden just outside.” She pulls me through the door and out into a barren yard.

I pull away from her and try to stand up straight. The pain is unbearable, but I grit my teeth and take off in a run behind her. Just a few feet ahead is a little wooden shack. Ailis reaches the door and shoves it open. The rusty hinges groan in protest.

Inside is a two-door green pickup truck. She follows me over to the passenger side and helps me up. I close the door and watch her run around the hood and hop into the driver’s seat. She fires up the engine and starts to pull out when three guys step in front of the truck. One has a handgun aimed directly at Ailis. The other two are bearing swords raised and ready to fight.

Their bodies are cast in the shadow of the overhang, so I can’t make out their faces, but a flicker of light reflects off a head of dirty blond hair. I narrow my eyes and try to focus in.

“Eli.”

Ailis turns toward me. “You know them?”

“Yes.” I reach for the door handle and climb out of the truck. Recognition dawns on his worried face, and he scrambles to catch me before I collapse.

Warm arms wrap securely around me and draw me into a broad chest. I hear muffled voices in the background, but only one person is on my mind. I look up into Eli’s baby blue eyes and ask, “Where’s Logan? I need Logan.”

A shadow falls over his face, and his pained expression causes my heart to stutter to a stop. He shakes his head and looks over to the others. My eyes dart from their miserable expressions to his, and I know something horrible has happened.

“No, no, no!” I shake my head frantically. “Please, Eli. Tell me where Logan is.” A tear falls down my cheek as I look up into his moist eyes. My body falls limp in his arms, and blackness seeps in.

Epilogue

Asgard

“A
h, the favorite son has deemed me worthy of a visit.” She pulls back from watering her flowers and turns to take him in.

She scans his human form with a disapproving eye.
Always hiding his true form from those that need to see it the most
, she thinks to herself.
What would they do if they knew divinity walked among them
?

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this most unexpected occurrence?” She raises a brow in question.

He strides across the marble floor and stops directly in front of her. His closeness makes her uneasy so she takes a step back and turns to place her watering pail down and then takes a seat on a bench.

He remains standing there with a scowl on his handsome face. “You know why I’m here Lilleth.” Her name comes out like a curse on his tongue. “You were not supposed to interfere in the lives of the humans. Their fate is not yours to weave and you well know it.”

She pulls her long red hair over her shoulder and casually plucks at the ends of the thick curls. Winding and unwinding them around her finger, she ignores him completely. “I think I rather like my hair this long. What do you think Sammael?” Her golden eyes look up to him in question.

His fists clench tight at his sides, and his teeth grind together in agitation. “I do not have time for your games woman. Need I remind you that I alone hold the key to any happiness you have felt over the years? Need I…Lilleth?” His brow raises and a smirk encompasses his face. He knows he’s won this match. Everything with Lilleth is a dual of wits and patience. Both of which he is running in short supply of at the moment.

She drops her hair and looks up to him with burning rage. “Tis not the fault of I that I play this role in your mortals’ lives. Need I remind you dear Sammael that this fate is not of my making, nor my liking?”

Lilleth stands abruptly and walks to her pond a short distance away. A light glows beneath the surface as she strokes her fingers gently across, leaving tiny ripples in their wake. “Tis said a great battle is waging.” She looks up at him. “Have you heard?” He nods. She looks back down into her pond and calls her powers forth.

Only she can see what the pond of foretelling shows her, and only she can choose whether those fates are set into motion, or prevented by the actions of another.

She goes into a trancelike state as she transitions into The Fate. “I see death and destruction lies in wait for your mortals. Evil builds an army such as we have never seen. The Great Barrier weakens. Destiny is afoot. The next Ragnarök approaches.” She looks over to him with such pain in her eyes that it causes him to reach out to offer comfort. She shakes her head, and he withdraws his hand. “My pain is not meant to discomfort you my friend. In all the years I have been held against my will, it is your friendship and kindness that has helped to ease my burden.” She runs her finger over the pond’s surface again causing a deeper ripple to cascade outward.

With Lilleth you never know which side of the coin you’re going to get.
Her moods are as diverse and many as the feathers of a bird
, he thinks to himself. Sammael has long befriended this woman and truly holds a soft spot for her, although he’d never admit it to her nor himself. He remains detached from his emotions, so long as the power to do so is within him.

“One of sun and one of moon. Do you know of what it is I speak?” He gasps and takes an involuntary step back. “It cannot be.”

Resolved to her task, she sets fate into motion. “It has already begun. Go, your duty calls. He nods and then with a bright flash of light disappears.

Lilleth gathers the bottom of her long flowing white gown in her hand and lifts it so she walks unencumbered to her room. All the while her thoughts are with Sammael and the trials that he will soon face—on both sides of the Great Barrier.