My Mate, The Crow

Chapter Twenty-Three

March 5th, 2020
—
Alcina
—

    I drove my sword deep into the head of the snake. So hard and deep that the snake didn't even know what had hit it before it died.

    It's blood sprayed out and cover my body as well as Ozul's cloak. I flopped forward, down onto the back of the serpent. I didn't have the strength to pull myself back up again. I wanted to take another nap. I hoped that the snake was dead under me, because if he wasn't... I let out a chuckle at the thought.

The key around my neck burned. What did it want? I wish all of this could just leave me alone. I closed my eyes on top of they grey snake. I didn't like the feeling of the scales underneath my skin. I cringed at the touch.

The key just got hotter and hotter. I wanted to shift and just be over with it. I pushed myself up on shaky legs and opened my eyes. Two feet in front of me was a glowing key hole in the nape of the snakes neck. How did I not notice it before. Slowly I crawled over to it. The blood on my face and body had already dried, making my skin crinkle under every movement.

"Umph," I slumped down again, now only a foot away from the key hole. I reached up to my neck, and tugged on the chain. It just made my neck hurt more. I wanted to break the keys off of its chain and just leave the gods-forsaken things here. I curled up into a ball, my wounded leg still sticking out.

"I won't die." I told myself, shivering in the cold. I was never cold. "I won't die. I've lived through worse." Anna had died for me. Sheila needs me. My mate needs me. I can't die. I opened my eyes that I didn't even notice were closed.

The key hole was so close, almost there. I gripped the now loose snake skin in my hands and pulled it towards me. I pulled myself all the way up there, close enough that I shoved the Immortal Realm key into it.

But it didn't fit.

No. No. No. I started to panic. I grasped the new purple key, the Underworld key, with shaky hands. I hoped that this would work. Or I was hopeless, and I would die down here.

Die down here. In the darkness. I felt tears start to drip down my face. Die alone. With nobody here but myself and my thoughts. Hopeless and helpless.

I shoved the key into the hole. I heard it click. Then I turned with all my might.

In the distance I saw light fill the cave from the floor up. I rolled my body over to look at the hole in the ground. It was a lot brighter than I thought it would be. Maybe this was the end. I felt my body fill up with hope.

I shifted into my werewolf form, a form I despised using. I crawled all the way to the hole in the ground. It was so different from the last latch. It was filled with so much light that I couldn't see anything but white. "Please be the end." I don't know if I could deal with any more.

I felt a shadowless hand push me into the void and I closed my eyes and braces myself.

—

When I opened my eyes I was no longer in my wolf form, but my human one. I was standing in a room that was white on all sides. I didn't know where one wall stopped and another began.

I looked down at my hands to see them as their pale ones. I was wearing a white dress, my cloak was nowhere to be seen. "Where am I?" There was no answer. I stood there for a little while, thinking that something would come to me.

Nothing happened.

So, not knowing what else to do. I started walking. Walking into the unknown once more. The silk was so smooth on my once blood dried skin. I raised my hand to my chest, in hope that the keys were gone. My heart dropped once I felt the stone cold objects. I looked down to see them pressed between my breasts.