Page 91 of The Blood Witch

Chapter 40

KELLOS

Traitor…

Kellos woke slowly. His eyelids were like lead weights, fighting to stay closed. The painless comfort of sleep awaited him, and he wanted to return to that blissful realm.

What time was it? He wondered, looking around his room. It was dark, his room pitch black and empty. No Med Witch in sight. Late then, he reasoned. Groaning, he forced himself to sit up in bed. His joints hurt. Everything hurt.

After this latest bout of pneumonia, it was finally time to admit he was too old to keep up with the others. He would need to abdicate his role on the council, and soon. He was too old, too weak to keep making the trek to the palace every other day in the middle of the night. And the stress of his position was slowly killing him. But Sam and the others hadn’t settled on a permanent replacement yet. Silas was a little too young, a little too rash to be a permanent representative. The Shifters needed someone with more experience, more foresight.

Looking around the dark room, Kellos frowned. What had woken him up? Had there been a noise? Something moving?—

Traitor…

Kellos blinked. Was that a voice? Where had that come from? The room was empty; he was sure of it. And… It didn’t sound like a voice, not really. It was more like a thought… something loud inside his own mind.

Traitor…

Kellos winced. It was louder this time. A sound rattling in his skull. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the voice.

It sounded…

It sounded likehisvoice.

Get up.

His legs stiffened, and reflexively he stood, lurching from the bed and to his feet. The muscles in his legs quaked and shook from the effort, and the pain in his joints flared into an inferno.

Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Kellos’s heart was pounding like a drum. He had to get to someone, had to get some help. Where was his sister? Maybe she could?—

Walk.

He was nothing but a puppet. Kellos hissed in fear and horror as his body disobeyed his own commands to stumble forward.

No, no, no.

He needed to yell for help, needed his pride of Lions to hear him and come to his aid. Needed them to know something was very wrong.

Walk.

He stumbled forward, his atrophied legs barely able to hold his weight. Something inexplicable pulled him forward, yanked him toward the bathroom.

Even in the dark, he could see the fear in his eyes as he looked in the bathroom mirror. Abject terror.

Something roared in his mind, and he fought against it with what little strength he had, but it was like fighting the tide. He had no defenses against this, no walls to protect him from this force. The world around him darkened and swayed, as a body no longer his own jerked and twisted, caught between obeying commands not his own and collapsing under his own weight.

He’d been too sick for too long. He shouldn’t be standing like this, shouldn’t be…

Traitor.

Rage filled his mind. Rage… at himself. He was a traitor, wasn’t he? He’d joined the Witches on their stupid council, he’d abandoned his own kind, he’d betrayed them, betrayed them all. They had a chance to take the throne, and he’d thrown it all away. He’d gone to the Witches like a kitten, mewing for its mother, begging for a saucer of milk. He was a traitor to his own kind, a worthless, irredeemable traitor?—

No… No, that's not right. Kellos shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He was no traitor. His spot on the council was a win for Shifters everywhere. Already they had seen some remarkable changes in the city, shifts in the poverty, shifts in the regulations that favored one faction over all others?—

TRAITOR.

The voice screamed inside his head so loud that Kellos briefly lost consciousness, waking a few seconds later on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. Goddess, he hurt. His body, his mind, everything hurt.

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