Chapter seven
Delphini
Ican’tsee.
The thin slit of light coming from the door isn’t enough to illuminate anything in this space. My hands move across the scarred walls, trying to find anything to give me more light. With each new mark I find on the cold stone, my heart rattles harder in my chest.
Terror swells in me like waves and with each crash my breathing gets harder. I’m trapped. This is where I will die again. Staring into the dark, nothing until I don’t wake up again. The pain of my nails cracking against the floor isn’t even enough to calm me. Trapped. Caged. Monster.
What the fuck used to be in here?
“Her name was Lyra.”
Voices echo deep in my head, and I scream. Once the sound is out of my mouth, I can’t stop it. My throat burns as the fear turns to anger at that woman and at myself. I collapse onto the stone floor as my lungs finally empty. The cold digs into my back.Theyare speaking to me.
“Hello?” I call out. “Please, this isn’t what you said would happen.”
“Sweet one, no one has ever said this life would be easy.”
“You said she was my soulmate.”
“As you are the one, so is she,”they explain.“But she will not simply bow to fate when it has been so cruel.”
I don’t know if I want to fight her locking me up or hold her until that fear behind her stare melts away. Both would be good, I suppose, thinking harder about her as a whole. The vision of her murdering that shadow surfaces, and I wonder if that was a metaphorical murder or a real one.
She is handsome, either way. Sharp features with a scattering of dark spots from sun damage. My soulmate has led a hard life if the way she paced around her room tells me anything. She hasn’t known true peace.
I knew when I woke up that she would be watching over me, waiting for me. They hadn’t said anything about being thrown in jail for being fucking honest or how her touch would set my insides ablaze. It was bad enough to wake up naked and then get angry with her, but then she grabbed me like that, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t…
My chest constricts and tears spring to my eyes. I can’t let what Miles and Audrey did haunt me. They think they have beaten me, but they haven’t. Crying won’t get me revenge, even as my throat constricts anyway.
“Breathe, sweet one. It’s only you and us in this room now. You are safe.”
“No,” I hiss, voice straining for control. “I am trapped in a fucking cage.”
“She is doing what she believes is best.”
“Best for who?” I demand. “I went through hell, and now she intends to do it again herself.”
“She is scared for you.”The words slip through the ether with such softness I don’t want to believe them.“She has been waiting centuries for you, but she reacted rashly. Do not think this won’t have repercussions.”
I fall back onto the floor and let this harsh, new reality seep into my bones like the cold. Rejected. The one person in the universe that some ancient god decreed would choose me ended up throwing me away. I was assaulted, drugged, sexually assaulted, murdered, and then tossed into some sort of fucking stone cell meant for scary monsters. As if I am the damn monster here.
The fear in her gaze had been so real. The fire in her eyes froze over, and her tiny mouth trembled. My soulmate is terrified of me.
Maybe I am the monster?
I don’t even know her name, but already I am desperate to feel her, to witness any emotion she can offer me again. They were so palpable, a raging storm that I am lost in. All the red sirens in my head are screaming that this is dangerous territory, but even from this cell, they only look like a lovely shade of pink.
If only I can find the eye of it, find a way to make her see that I was brought here for a reason.
I force myself to think of other things when I feel more tears drip down into my hair. Thoughts of my family drift through my mind. I don’t wantYiayiato worry about me, but I don’t think I could hold it together over a phone call. Will my parents have seen the pictures? Will they be concerned when I don’t answer their phone calls like I always have?
I’m sure Miles shared them with every rag newspaper he could think of. Everyone at the party will have heard the story from Audrey’s big mouth about the position she ‘caught’ me in. My entire reputation has been dragged to the bottom of the ocean like my body.
A shiver courses through me at the thought of those hands, and I wrap the blanket tighter around me.
She will have made sure to spin a great tale, convincing everyone in attendance that once they docked again at the end of the party, that’s when she caught me. Maybe she’ll be bold and tell them I fled the scene once I realised my secret was out, and seen with more than one man as well. She’ll claim I ran off with them.
