Pine Needles (Veil Realms Series) (8 page)

Puffing out a sigh of easement as I find I’m still all in one piece, but it doesn’t answer the perplexing question grating my mind.
My coarse voice repeats his name, “Sirius…
Sirius
?” Only silence sweeps an answer back to me. Twisting my head to the side, trying to get a grasp on where I am. I see a distinct darkened shadow dominate the doorway before me.

“Selene, I have sent out a command for Nevaeh to come prepare for the conversion.”  His heavy footsteps edge closer to where I lay
. Kneeling down, his molten gold irises scorch into my fearful eyes. “Your fortunate escape from the Carvi has left you broken, Selene. I never intended to do this so soon, I wanted to give you time… time to choose. Now, this has to be done in order for you to survive.”  

He starts to rise when another shaded hulking figure approaches the doorway
of the hemmed-in hut. Before he steps away I implore him, “Sirius, please…don’t do this.” Fighting inside myself, willing my hands to reach him, to beg, to reason with him that there must be another way than to change me, but my damnable disobeying hands refuse to move. 

I begin compiling the strands of my sketchy realism that I’m now forced to deal with
. I am paralyzed from the fall and now physically incapable of running the hell out of here. He walks away with disregard and his action reduces me to out right demand for his vanishing attention, “Sirius, please…Sirius!” Begging him to listen to me as he dispassionately drops his head down to avoid the low-hanging doorway as he steps out. 

Before I can shout another foul word Nevaeh steps through escorted by a warrior and an
other woman. Quickly she steadies her stance beside me and squats down, folding an array of fur-lined blankets under my head. She calmingly says, “Selene, I know you’re afraid, but I can assure you Sirius will not let anything happen to you.”

Driving back the tears that want to overflow, my words rush out, “I don’t want to be one of them Nevaeh. Please, you have to stop this.”

Her rough governing hands place mine over my stomach as she fiercely studies my face. Her next words come out blunt and hard, “Do you wish to be left like this?” She gestures down unflinchingly at my crippled body. “To what good would you be, to Sirius, and to yourself? The other warlords as well as the queen will seek a pitiless end for you and what would be gained, Selene? You can make it through this, if only you allow it and become stronger than before. Sirius wants you, because you are a fighter…so fight to stay alive.”  

She heaves up my head once again and
tucks away every fine wayward hair from my face. Wooden bowls of clarion liquids are passed back and forth busily between Nevaeh and the other younger woman. The warrior that arrived with them never speaks just simply stands coldly, stationary by the entrance, guarding it.

An unattached voice from outside speaks to Sirius as he strides
back inside. The nameless voice certifies the area is watched over. A sharp motion with his hand reminds me of a king shoeing away a pestering scribe as he stands beside Nevaeh.

“It is time.”

Duly she prompts the other woman back and swiftly leans over me whispering under her breath, “Moments will pass and will be very confusing, try to stay calm and do whatever you must not to fight it and focus.” Rising from me I watch her noble compassionate eyes drift from me as Sirius’s assertive body finally blocks my view of her.

Sirius positions my body in his lap
with no difficulty and supports my head. If it were possible I would be quivering with uncertainty and cowardliness. But instead I rest quietly in his domineering embrace, because of the unguarded expression he exposes to me. Tenderly, his hand tilts my chin upward and he leans in pressing his mouth to mine. Thoughts diffuse with wondering if this is a kiss of death or something entirely different. As his mouth spreads open, so does mine, waiting, lingering for his next response.

The once dark pupils in his eyes contract
reducing the size and making them into impermeable golden orbs. I feel as if I’m looking straight into the center of the universe, lost in the unknown I can see my reflection shining back at me. I feel him reinforcing his grip on me his fingers slide along the nape of my neck and crush our lips together. And that’s when I hear a bizarre humming sound droning louder and a myriad of sensations surface. Sirius’s dark hair whips back with an airless breeze that brushes by as he breathes in another stellar breath into me.

The small enclosed hut beams with su
ch resplendence I want to squeeze my eyes closed, but I’m caught in his cryogenic state, locked into this strange fanatical sensation. As if I’m drinking in a vital life-force aiding my most needed thirst, aching for more.  Taking in the increasing flow of the rarefied substance, my throat begins to sear in pain, and my flesh to my gut begins to blister with an engraving internal burn.

Pools of tears formulate within my eyes as the
scorching stream intensifies dissolving and evolving the delicate humanistic tissue, bones, and marrow.  I can feel every last servile reformation.

Sirius’s guiding gaze keeps me somewhat centered, but then as if all my nerves are unleash
ed my eyes begin to follow the illusions of rain-drops crawling along the thatched leafy rooftop, slipping through the minuscule cracks of the small hut.

I become
strongly focused on the droplets of rain seeping inside and watch as each drop skids down growing larger, clustering together more and enhancing into a stupendous heart-beating blob. Throbbing and pulsating to my own harmonious rhythm of my sprightly heart, rippling into the native wooden-wall causing it to bend and bow earthward. I’m habitually hooked.

The buoyant drop
sags and caresses the floor yearningly and eventually claims a submissive path to Sirius, conjoining below his feet, compelling me to a new absolution that is now upon me, to submerge myself in the nth degree. Free of suffering, and despair.  Fondled with so many vulnerabilities I break down my barriers and finally accept my turning fate. Awkwardly, I gloriously explore Sirius’s mouth, tasting the sweet divine essence of him.

Siphoning any and all
of the last lusting resources he has, implausible thoughts accrue with a building passion. Remarkably my hands scandalously tour his silken hair, making no detours attaining every fiber of him. “Selene…” Not caring who is speaking to me or even who is watching us, I reside in my own intimate bubble of drug induced entrancement.

“Selene,
hear me
… my thoughts intermingle with your own now, you must
hear me
. I’m pleased with your... acceptance, but we must refrain until you have acquired more physical endurance.”

Starving like an outcast I contest his meaningless words, basking in the undiluted succulent investment of him, overdosing each vein as I swallow all that can. Our lips are dead-bolted down, making any articulation inaccessible, but all too soon the
supernatural moment separates, and he gently moves our mouths apart. A puzzling breath retreats from my simmering lips. Gasping for air I find my hands entangled in his hair, and I can feel my entire body strumming with more life than ever before.

“Rest Selene,” his ordering thought infiltrates my mind and I fully attain that not only I am able to move, but I can hear his unspoken words. Nevaeh looms over
me, placing a frayed blanket and then another on me. Sirius’s voice vibrates through my mind receptively, “Selene, your body temperature will drop as your current body balances and adapts from the primitive state to my own cellular structure.”

Try
ing to clutch to his every word but I’m racking my brain to remember, his thoughts start to blend together to me. Confused and growing sapped from my strength, my memory slips as I shiver violently. Over the chattering of my own teeth I hear them talking, “Sirius, do you wish for me to provide a cell guard or another warrior to stay with her?”

He lays me down on top of the rudimentary mohair pallet and shelters his secured arms around me, the heat from his body seeps into my pores keeping me warm.

“No, bring more blankets for her. Her levels are dropping too quickly. I do not plan to leave.” Another woman emerges passing fawn-colored brown blankets to Nevaeh.

“As you wish, Si
rius,” she says softly to him and she shakes the blanket out and drapes it along my now convulsing form.

The young woman standing beside Nevaeh peers down to me, her skin
is pale as the purest snow and eyes as dark as an onyx stone. Abominating lips grossly sealed with thick numerous stitching. Nevaeh clasps a hand on her frail shoulder and directs her, “Nina, go prepare the viand for Selene, once she awakes she will need the nourishment.” A slight nod and a glance back down to me as she steps back, not sure if my mind is deceiving me or if it’s real, but Nina’s mouth blurs within my sight as if she had no mouth at all.

Faces become disturbingly distorted, blank figures stand around me
and I mumble, “W-
What’s
happening to me?” My jittery tone doesn’t make any sense and no one answers, Sirius’s form still holds the same features, as his discerning eyes carefully monitor me. “Sirius, can you hear me?” I wonder if he can hear my scouting thoughts back to him, but the results are the same as if I had physically spoken a few seconds ago. He can’t hear me. No one can, oh my God what’s happening? Is this a dream? Am I frozen in some kind of comatose state?

The drumming of the metrical rain tapers and humanistic outlines emit a radiating thermal type image.
I can see through the walls. Narrowing my unbelieving eyes I focus on the ingrained walls, watching the movements of the warriors just outside the hut. 

Seeing the lambent heat branching out through their bodies, giving me a unique sense
of their presence, I become even more honed-in to the hypnotic beating of their hearts. Pulsating a subduing melody, I slowly watch as my vision tunnels and narrows to absolute nothingness.

Chapter Nine

Reborn

“Selene…” indolently I rub
my sore wrist, stirring myself awake. A light flutters through the fissures of the wooden planks. Reminding me I’m still inside the hut, I prop myself up against the wall. Nevaeh readily slopes a bowl to my lips she commands, “Drink.”

A repelling smell overwhelms me and I attempt to shove the bowl away
as I groan out, “I can’t, it’s making me feel nauseous with just the scent of it.” Ignoring my words the brimming bowl sloshes its contents down my lips, I cringe for the rancid liquid to bring bile to my mouth but the taste is shockingly null. No taste aversion arises as the liquid slides down my throat until the bowl is empty. My hand outstretches giving the bowl back to Nevaeh. I see a glimmer of something embedded in my wrist, the reason for the tenderness. An inflamed redden cog looking mark rises on my skin, and one of my tear-shaped diamonds twinkles itself back and forth to me as I twist my arm.

“Nevaeh…what’s this?” Turning my wrist around I hold it out f
or her to see. Both of her firm but affable hands hold my clearly marked wrist as she clarifies, “It is the claim of Sirius, his forewarning to all others that you are his.” With dark solemnizing eyes she sends me a comforting smile and she adds, “You are and will be protected by Sirius, Selene. It is something we all wish we could say for ourselves.” She pats my leg before she stands.

Shaking my head in wariness
, trying to comprehend everything, I spew out out, “So, he brands me like I’m some kind of animal?” My abrading tone wafts through the isolated hut. Fuzzy, dull memories from last night begin to swim through my clustered mind, making me remember vague uncanny images of the brute warriors just outside the hut. I could see them through the cracks.

Sitting upright I rub my eyes.
“It is not as bad as you may think, Selene. You have been chosen. A blessing in disguise… now just lay back and rest. Sirius will return shortly.”

I clasp
my hand on hers as she walks by. “I think I need to sit up for a moment… I…I saw the strangest things last night Nevaeh.”

“Your body underwent a traumatic injury, and I’m sure after the transformation things may
be different for you now.” I watch her gather several bowls of unusual off-beat multi-colored fruit, which appear much like miniature grapes and berries. She mixes and combines them into some kind of thin dark liquid.

“Here drink this…” Unsure if it’s the same repelling substance as before I take a daring sniff, and
I’m quickly conquered with welcoming scents of roses, violets, mint, and even parsley. I cup the boorish bowl with both hands and take a good hearty drink.

“I see you like the natal Alltrite and Sispin fruit Nina collected while you slept. Sirius says this will give you some nourishment and strength, but…”

Wiping the juices from my mouth with the back of my hand, I turn to ask her, “But what?” 

“This is a subject Sirius should be speaking to you ab
out, not from someone like me. All I can tell you is the conversion changes everyone in some way or another, most of the human males seems to be very receptive.” Intently she picks up the wooden containers, maintaining a guarded visage she angles her back to me.