Page 140 of Gift from the Nexus

Why are you doing this to me?

Frustrated and fearful tears alike pour from the corner of my eyes and her mocking laugh spears me right in the heart. She runs her fingernails across my cheek and pushes my hair away from my forehead. Although pointless, I try to command my body to obey me. Fight. A lump of cold realization gets lodged in my throat as the scent of her perfume engulfs me. The smell, once sweet, is now tainted as she leans forward and lays her sticky, wet lips to mine.

She’s…she’s going to bond me. Bond us.

I…I don’t want that.

I want to go home.

Please stop.

I don’t feel her weight as she pushes herself up, using my chest for balance.

I don’t feel it when she wraps her hand around me.

I don’t feel her sit on me.

When her body begins to move, I seal my lids shut and block out everything going on around me.

This isn’t happening.

Nothing is happening.

There’s nothing going on. You can’t see, you can’t feel.

You’re just trapped in darkness, that’s all. Nothing can hurt me in here.

My eyes fly open against my will as a scream gets stuck in my lungs, and the vampire turns my head so all I see is him. There’re tears in his eyes and that for some reason calms my erratic heart.

If he’s crying, it’s okay for me to cry too.

That still doesn’t stop him from dragging what feels like a sword of fire across my heart and my internal screaming drowns out the sounds of the noises leaving Silvia.

“What are you doing, creature?” a dark, cold voice asks, causing my element to turn to ice in my veins.

“The same as I always would, but he…the rune will not stay on him. It will not bind these two, nor can I bind him to you.”

“And why is that?”

“I do not know. He is too powerful. Or there is a powerful presence protecting him. One far greater than you or me.” The vampire or creature, whatever he is, doesn’t look at who’s talking and he smiles faintly at me.

“You’re going to be okay, my boy,” he whispers quietly to me.

I don’t know how that is even a possibility.

I’ll never be okay after this.

I want to go home.

“No, we’ll go again. He just needs to be worn down a little,” Silvia says happily and I seal my eyes back closed.

A feral sound leaves the vampire’s mouth and Silvia’s shriek follows me into the darkness as my body and mind finally declare enough is enough.

A slap across my face has my eyes flying open and a gasp has my lungs sucking in too much air at one time. When my frantic eyes meet those of Silvia’s, they narrow, and I run my tongue across the blood dripping from my lip.

“You’re ruining everything I’ve worked for, Caspian,” she says low and deadly.

“You…you’re a liar and an ol-old bitch,” I slur, my mouth moving slower than the angry thoughts running through my confused and muddled mind.

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