My Love, My Bonded

Chapter Forty Eight

Rey couldn't breathe. Her lungs constricted and withheld the air she needed but she couldn't allow herself to take another breath. Her vision blurred and she forced her eyes to stare at the floor as the world around her crumbled.

This information was too much, too overbearing. The darkness it held found her all too quickly and latched onto her, dragging her into the depths of the horror it had created. That her bloodline had created.

She had heard of Palpatine before, of his Force-driven powers and of his intellect, the same one that manipulated thousands into creating an empire to destroy the safe world the Jedi had made. And he dragged the Chosen One with him, making the impossible possible. And oh how she longed to be in her beat up AT-AT, still believing he was a fabricated myth that was used to haunt people. But instead, he was a real life ghoul.

And Rey was related to him. His blood coursed through her veins, meaning those threatening powers so many feared were a mere touch away.

Her eyes began to well up and she shook her head. Her voice shook as she spoke, a tiny whisper yet it was there.

"No."

"Dearie, that's not how that works," Priscilla cooned. Rey felt the tears stream down her face. Her eyes were still fixated on the floor and she felt her blood boil at the mockery that was being thrown at her.

"I said no. No, I will not let you use me or my genetics, no matter how powerful you seem to think they are, my answer is no," her voice shook once more but it was not from the tears that still dribbled down her face. She was angry.

"Funny," her capturer drawled and Rey could hear her began to shuffle about the room but she didn't look up. "Last time I recalled, I'm the one who has you tied up like the bitch you are."

Ben practically howled his disdain for Priscilla, pulling at his restraints. "What a despicable piece of human waste you are. I should've killed you while I had the chance."

"That you should have," she gleamed.

Rey heard them as they continued to talk, her assuming it to be Priscilla taunting and teasing as Ben spat and swore. But she wasn't listening. Their words morphed to just the sound of their voices bellowing at one another but that too morphed until the sound trickled into nothingness.

The silence was almost as loud as their bickering. It sunk her into her anger more than she already was. Each muscle in her body began to slowly burn, starting in her chest and bleeding down her limbs. When it reached her neck, she twitched against the unfamiliar feeling, it's warmth startling her. She felt herself roll her head around, stretching the inner workings of her neck until the hot fire sunk into her brain, making it all she could think about.

Warmth. Intense warmth. Heat, even. The heat worsened her symptoms. Her vision nearly blacked out, her breathing staggered except for deep breaths that she took only a couple times and her hearing dull. And her anger. It grew.

Had she ever felt such anger before? Absentmindedly, she let her brain explore her past angers and she felt the current one growing.

She was angry with her parents. How dare they abandon a child, one who clearly had a bright future ahead of her considering her genetics and yet they left her to be raised by Unkar Plutt, the greediest creature she had yet to encounter.

She was angry with that foul thing. The amount of times he asked her to do favors that regarded shedding her innocence in multiple ways. She was a child.

She was angry with Finn, who brought her along the Millennium Falcon and brought her into this mess.

She was angry with Han and Leia for bringing a son into this world that they couldn't care for and then Han had to die at his hand.