Page 92 of The Rat King
Chapter 63
Avery
Whiletheafternoonhadbeen fun, and my freshly makeup face looked amazing considering how red and puffy it was, my situation felt endlessly hopeless. I spent my days beside him and my nights dreaming of smiting that bitch mother of his. How could she do this to her only remaining son for finding a love she never dreamed possible for herself? He was wild, frightening and had done some unspeakable things, but was so much better than her. And he was mine.
A fresh round of tears welled, and I doubled over with the weight of it. I couldn’t get the cycle of repetitive thoughts out of my head. The dwelling was going to kill me. I should be stronger and have faith like Link. But I didn’t. My chest ached like nothing I’d ever felt before, and when that sensation wasn’t threatening to tear me in two, a murderous rage hijacked my thoughts.
Footsteps sounded. The clicks of a pair of high heels approached me. Jetta. I’d played along this afternoon, and even ate dinner. What did these people want from me? She wanted to help, but I wasn’t in the mood.
Without looking up, I said, “Go away.”
“If you insist,” said the witch, whose voice I’d recognize anywhere. My head snapped up to take her in. Samara Wrede was here in my fucking castle. Again.Howdareshe?
“You better explain to me what you’re doing here before I have every warlock in this plane hunt you down and end you.” I was growling, gnashing my teeth as I shot to my feet.
Samara murmured a few words, and her power halted me. “You do not wish for my help?”
I was too lost in a rage filled stupor to consider what she was saying. “I think you’ve already helped enough,” I hissed. “If I could, I would draw a lightning bolt from the sky and roast you like you did their father,” I said, pointing to where Nighval laid prone carefully tucked beneath a blanket on the small bed he occupied. “Actually,” I continued, “I would seize you, and tie you to a spit and roast you like the animal you are and warm my hands by the fire as you screamed.”
Something about speaking the imagery made me feel the slightest bit better.
“So, based on your garish comments, am I to understand that you do not want the gift I’m here to offer you?”
“What do you have that I could possibly want?” I asked.
Before I could spit anymore vitriol, she said, simply, “Life.”
I glanced from Nighval to Samara. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged nonchalantly, as if we were about to bargain over a sack of grain. “I spoke with him earlier,” she said, and for a second, I thought she had fully lost it.
“You did what?” I stuttered.
“When I came here earlier, we spoke. He has been conscious this entire time, aware, listening.” She smiled as she stepped toward him, and I moved to step between them, but her magic still had ahold of me. I sent a shocked glance in his direction. His eyes were closed. Ever since she had put him in stasis, they had been open and distant. Fear gripped my throat, and it squeezed so hard I could barely swallow.
“What did you do to him?” I demanded.
“I didn’t want him to hear this conversation—”
“He deserves to hear every bit of this conversation. And you mean to tell me his mind has been fully active, but he has been unable to move or communicate?” I asked, sure the dumbfounded expression was apparent on my face.
She nodded, and guilt banged through me like a gong. That meant he had heard every bit of my pain. Knowing him, unable to do anything, unable to comfort me, it must be slowly killing him.
“You are a massive bitch,” I said, gnashing my teeth at her.
“I don’t expect you to understand my choices, but I would have expected you to be intelligent enough to realize that if I had not done what I had done, his heart would not be beating right now. Furthermore, I wasn’t strong enough then to finish bringing him back from the brink. I am now,” she said, pushing the sleeves of her black gown up her arms.
“You’re insane. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you. He never would have been in that alleyway if it weren’t for you,” I said.
“And he wouldn’t have met you if it weren’t for me.” Her smile was self-satisfied as she breezed over to him, rendering me unable to move. She touched his chest, smoothing the fabric. “One day, when you have children, you will understand.”
Samara Wrede was totally off her rocker if she thought in any way anything she had done made her a good mother. I was readying myself to send another verbal lash her way when electricity crackled through the air, drawing toward her.
“What are you doing?” I asked. Panic clawed down my chest as I struggled against the magical hold she me in.
“As I said, he would have been dead if it weren’t for me. And now he will live because of me.” Power shimmered in the air, continuing to ripple toward her as she placed her other hand on top of his chest and began chanting. The lights flickered, some of them went out while others popped and flared as their glass bulbs broke.
With the last pop, the room went dark and the light from where her palms touched Nighval flared, and her chanting stopped. Her eyes flashed to mine for a brief second and she said, “Take care of my son.”
