Crow of Flame

Chapter 35

The next day Ambrose came into my room and found me sitting with my back against the head of my bed. I had my knees pulled into my chest and I was curled into myself. I had had nightmares all night. They ranged from Eboni torturing me to, Poseidon assaulting me, and even a new one where Selene had me bound and gagged as she tortured my friends in front of me. I couldn't shake the images. They were there every time I closed my eyes to blink. Tears stained my cheeks. I wasn't exactly plagued with images of Selene running the edge of a glistening silver knife along Ambroses throat until he stopped fighting.

As selfish as it felt, I wasn't seeing Selene slice Eliot's ear from his head slowly. I wasn't haunted by the cries that howled from Cadmus when Selene had pulled out his finger and toenails one by one. The images of poor Nicholas having pictures drawn on his skin with a knife, the pretty pictures of blood that covered his chest hardly clogged my mind. I wasn't sure if they were nightmares, or visions.

I was too used to Eboni plaguing my dreams to be scared of her after I awoke. I was too used to the feeling of her drinking my blood, and I was utterly unafraid of the knife she used to harvest my power.

No. I was plagued by images of Poseidon. He haunted my every waking moment. I could feel his touch searing into my skin like pokers that had just been pulled from flames. I could feel his words slithering through my ears like worms that ate away at my brain. And in the silence of my room, when no one was there to distract me, when Cletus had pulled shut the curtains and it was dark... I could feel the brush of his hateful lips on my skin and I could feel the greed in his soul. Greed to want to take what wasn't given or deserved.

So Ambrose found me in my room, no light to be found save the comforting purple flames that heated the room from my fireplace. I couldn't bare to move, I couldn't bare to use the body that my mind had been taken prisoner in. Ambrose muttered nothing but a small greeting as he sat on the edge of my bed. He didn't stare at me, he read a book. He didn't touch me, he was simply support. And I loved him so much more for it.

It took nearly an hour of daunting silence for me to get out strangled words. "I still feel him." A quiet sob tore from me as tears streamed down my face. "I can't sleep, I still see him every time I close my eyes." The words were barely a whisper but as soon as the first sound left my mouth I had Ambroses full attention. "If feels like there are claws burning into my flesh, and I don't want it anymore."

"Don't want what?"

"My skin." I laughed. "I wish I could trade it for a new set. One that wasn't so used." I could barely breathe let alone speak. "Did you know that every seven years your body will completely regenerate itself?"

Ambrose shifted so he was sitting cross legged and facing me. He shook his head, "I didn't know that."

"I keep thinking that if I can hold on seven years, then I won't have to feel like this because my body will have never been touched by him." I sobbed again, "but seven years of hopeless feels like a lot." I was gasping and I buried my face in my arms. "Maybe I wasn't meant to be..."

"What do you think you aren't meant to be?"

"Anything." I could barely make sound. I looked into his purple eyes and I took a deep breath, "I can't take being in this body right now. My skin feels like it's crawling, and I know it's selfish, with everything that's going on, to feel this way. I know I should focus on preventing war rather than what my body feels like but—"

"You are allowed to feel, Crow. It's not a bad thing, if anything it's the best thing you can do. You should allow yourself to heal. What Poseidon did to you was inexcusable and unacceptable and you've been so damn brave about it. You haven't let it show, but I know you're hurting. I know you don't want to worry us, that you think you can do this on your own, but you don't have to."