Grey IV - Chains

Chapter 49 - Worship

Until I wake, I dine on old encounters.
There's something in the way you lay.
Enough to make the dead switch graves.
You taste like new flesh.
Say my name again.
///
My hands are not worthy.

Jericho - Sleep Token

The grin he gave already had my skin prickling and spine tingling. Then his eyes blacked out and he spoke in his smooth voice, and I worried my heart would burst from my chest.

"I thought you'd never ask."

His teeth flashed as he spoke, and though some part of me was afraid, or was trying to remind myself that I should be afraid, I only felt the thrill. My own Shift was begging to be let out, to share this space with his, and I let it. To hell with caution, there was no point now anyway, not with what I was about to do, not when it was by him.

"You're nervous?" He asked quietly, still not making a move toward me.

I swallowed and almost nodded, but changed to a shake halfway through. I wasn't actually sure if my lightheadedness or the sweat coating my skin was from fear or something very different.

"Why?"

"It's been awhile," I smirked and he chuckled, the sound so low it tickled the base of my stomach and I shivered.

He wrapped a hand just above my knee and delicious heat spread from it. It reminded me of all the times I had fallen into fitful sleep with my hand on Malachi's shoulder as he fought off the cold that seemed to always follow me in the first few weeks after James' 'death'. I buried my Shift, my eyes searching his new face.

"I was cold after you died, so cold I thought I was dying at times too. Or, that I was feeling what you were, a punishment in the afterlife or your body buried in the ground somewhere. But I wasn't, I couldn't have been. You weren't really even dead."

"You were feeling what I was, just not in death. Ambriel kept me freezing in a stone cell for...I don't know how long, however long it took before she broke me, before whatever magics and the spelled chains and her insidious Gift made me follow her, made me one with her. Then she offered me warmth, comfort, to be her pet instead of prisoner and I said yes. I imagine that is when you stopped being cold, because I did too."

His words left me feeling hollow at first, but then an anger grew, raging in my chest and up my throat, hot tears burned behind my eyes threatening to spill out. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to stop them.

"I felt you at times, heard you, even smelled you. Was that all real too?" My voice was small as the memories played in my mind. I dreaded that I already knew the answer.

"What did you hear?"

"Chains. Screams. Begging."

Cold washed down from my neck as James' hand squeezed my leg painfully, his jaw tight and eyes hard as he waited for the collar's warning to pass. It chased my fire away, the boiling anger inside of me, cooling me in an almost pleasant way.

"You will never hear me beg again. That much I can promise you."

His voice was as icy as the feelings the collar gave, his words as hard as the stone itself. He paused for a long time, his grip on my leg slowly loosening before he continued.

"Usually she ordered me to watch her, to not move or speak, unless she wanted me to scream for her. But near the end, once I was already...too deeply connected with her, she let me - and I would ask her to kill me, beg it. She never allowed me to sleep or rest, no unconsciousness, no end or hope, just the dread of waiting for her to return. I began to lose my mind, I think, or maybe I truly did. I lost time, hours or days or weeks all felt the same. I couldn't Shift, couldn't escape. She was all there was. Her power whittles you away like that. She's the slow drip that cuts through limestone, she creates valleys of mountains, given enough time. And all we had was time. She told me it was forever, that we were forever, and eventually I believed her."