A Beautiful Sacrifice

Chapter Eighteen

The night was risen; she knew that because she woke up. After so long with Perttu she had finally changed her sleeping and waking pattern to fit in with him. Puzzled she also noticed that her shoulder felt warm. Her mark felt warm, snug, as though a blanket was laid just lightly over her skin - brushing against it ever so subtly. She smiled at the feel but then took in her surroundings. Chained in a dark place with an unknown creature about to do the unthinkable to her she was apprehensive again, to say the least.

                Lily did not remember last night when she was afraid, to her it was a dream, a dream she forgot, and that was a good thing. The cold was biting at her skin and she shivered. Only her shoulder was warm and that only highlighted the mark.

                Footsteps could be heard walking down the stone steps. The rhythmic and slow procession towards her little cell had her holding her breath. She tensed preparing for whatever may come to her. A high pitched scratching sound grated on her ears. Sharp nails were being dragged down the metal of her thick and heavy door. The design of the underground chamber she was in made the sound echo loudly and it went through her at the screeching noise the nails caused.

“Just checking your awake.”

                The voice sent extra chills down her spine. In her mind she thought back to Perttu, to Adon and to Berneice. She would remember their smiling faces so as to get through whatever may be done to her.

                She expected fear. She expected pain. Her door was pushed open and it erupted in a loud thundering sound on the stone floor as it opened. The man stood there was tall, the same one who had taken her and he had on the same smirk she remembered from his talking the previous night. But the glint in his eye was different. It was the glint that sent a spark of fear. It was her shoulder that reminded her that this would not last forever. She trusted Perttu to come for her and she stopped that fear taking a hold. The pain came however it was not physical. The man did not approach her. Instead he stood looking at her, from the very door frame.

                He blocked from view even the slightest hint of light that might have shown through that doorway. His body was unmoving; still and rigid like a statue. His back was straight and his height only seemed increased as he was frame as such.

“Are you afraid?” He asked.

“No.”

“Funny that, you weren’t last night either. It isn’t often someone requires me to push my limits and that only angers me.”

                Not knowing what he meant by last night she stared at him.

“So, the dark does not scared you. The chains and my appearance do not frighten you. My power does not intimidate you. I think you insane for that. I’m going to show you why you should be afraid of me. I am a master of the mind. I can make you fear for no reason, I can make you angry. I can make you sad. And you will soon fear me. You will beg for your sanity as I take it from you. Prepare yourself unmated one. If fear doesn’t work then let’s try grief.”

                Her heart stopped, as if it knew before her mind did, what was going to happen. The cell she was in disappeared, the stone walls and the curve of said walls all vanished from her sight. The doorframe and her kidnapper were no longer in her sights. Instead it was replaced with the face of Perttu. His beautiful eyes stared at her, pierced her and looked at her very soul – it seemed. His strong jaw was however slack. His eyes glazing with every second she looked at them. His mouth was gaping open as though he was trying to speak to her and then she saw it; the trickle of blood at the side of his lips. Not someone else’s blood, he had not fed. It was his blood. He was dying in her arms. She felt the weight – the muscles of her arms were straining to hold up her mate, to keep his head tilted so he was looking at her in his last moment.

“I can make you see things.” She heard in the distance. So quiet and muffled it was as if cloth was covering the mouth that was speaking. She couldn’t make sense of the words, not with Perttu dead in her arms. “I can make you feel things. I am an illusionist and I’ll break you this way. I take images already in your mind and twist them. I make them dark; I show you what you fear. Dear, dear Perttu can not come for you if he is dead. So what hope have you left?”     

                The piercing eyes looking into her soul closed, slowly, blinking twice before closing for the last time not opening again. His open mouth moved once, and his fingers tightened around her arm, “Love.” Was the only whispered breath he managed and his hand loosened. His head dropped backwards in a sudden move that told her he had lost the use of his muscles. He had gone. His fingers no longer clutched at her arm and his beautiful face was no longer strained but relaxed in his death. Then it hit her she as alone.

                She thought for a instant of Adon and what he, as Perttu’s father, would think but that was a bad move. To think of Adon was to give her kidnaper another player in his twisted game as – in her mind – she lay Perttu out properly on the floor and saw another body. It was the polished brown shoes with his neatly tied laces that caught her attention. She recognised that shoe. Travelling up the legs she picked up on the expensive suit and finally the aged but more than capable body of Adon. She cried out in despair as her new family lay around her dead. She rocked and clutched her head. It couldn’t be real, she didn’t know how they died. She couldn’t understand why they were suddenly around her, there was no backstory to their death only the appearance.

                Her reasoning was warring with her strong emotions. Somewhere deep in her mind was the knowledge that this was a simple image. This was a master playing with her mind and twisting the images. But they were so terrible to her and it hit her nerves drastically because it was her mate that was dead; that took her senses were away. Her grief rose and blossomed and rose further until she was crying and rocking. He was supposed to come for her. She was supposed to join his family. She berated herself for all the resistance she had put up. All the times she had ignored him or been afraid or shouted at him when, instead, she should have embraced him the second he told her she was his Bride. She should have reached for him and held him so that she could have had a least a little time with him before he died.

                The pain that came with the grief was a pain in the middle of her chest. It was purely emotional but again she couldn’t decipher that. She knew only her regrets, only her loss. Her fragmented mind was warring with itself; logic and irrationality. She placed a hand over her shoulder to scratch at the mark there. She touched the heat of it and finally started to hit at herself, at the mark, as she cursed its very existence. If she hadn’t had the mark she would never have been taken away from her own mother in the first place.

                She screamed, in despair and anger and frustration. She screamed in pain - the pain in her chest and the pain she was causing to her shoulder. She let the tears roll down her face, down her soft skin and onto the stone floor where it didn’t soak in. It made little droplets on the flags and dripped loudly in the chamber. Drip, drip, drip. Like a stream she cried continuously and he stood above her watching with glee as finally his power was working.

                The night was dark and he expected no company. He had all night to use this image against her. He laughed at the sight infront of him. A weak, pathetic woman! He hated them all. He took pleasure in seeing the tears on the floor. Hearing the dripping of salt water only encouraged him and he twisted her mind further putting emphasis on the graphic details.

“See him dead. See what you have lost.” He muttered. “Feel alone. Feel grief. Succumb to my power… and fear it!”

                She writhed on the floor. In her distress she couldn’t stay still and he watched as her ankles rubbed against the shackles. He laughed harder. Her hair was wild around her face and matting as tears fell into the flyaway strands. Her little fists beat at herself and he did not restrain her. He simply made her images worse. He made her mind war harder. He slowly sent her into the pits of insanity.