Page 108 of Gift from the Nexus

“Then I’d advise you to pick a suitable female companion and stop this pointless argument every time I come here.”

“I do not wish for a companion.”

“Fine. Creatures,” the Summum-Master calls, waving Keeper off as though he’s nothing more than a pesky bug.

Finally turning my attention around, I suck in a struggling breath at the sight. Five women are chained together on theirknees with a burlap sack over their heads and are stripped to absolutely nothing. There’re Mastery guards surrounding them, and vampires standing just mere feet behind them. Waiting, watching.

“Back off,” Keeper demands, shooting his glaring eyes at the creatures beginning to make their way closer. “I will choose one and the others are to be let go. I will escort them out.”

“Sensitive as always, vampire.” The Summum-Master sighs. “Do as you please if this is the last of this argument. I tire of this tantrum.”

“Fine.”

Keeper stomps over to the females, all of whom shiver and cry at his approach. All but one. She’ll be the one he picks. She doesn’t quiver or shake. She’s statue still, ready to hold her own until the very end.

I like her.

And just as I predicted, he reaches down, grips her by her elbow, and pulls her up. She attempts once to snatch her arm from him, but whatever he leans in and whispers halts any more attempts.

True to his word, he leads the others to the ward, somehow keeping the other vampires away with just a glare. He even stands there and watches the Mastery members remove their chains and order them to run. He holds his position right there until the women are no longer in his sight.

“Until next time, vampire. Do keep an eye out for your pet,” the Summum-Master taunts, chuckling as he runs his finger sickeningly over the woman’s stomach, then exits the ward.

Again, Keeper stands there, sneering at his back as he goes.

“Come,” he commands to the woman, even though he’s already pulling her in the opposite direction.

They walk in tense silence through the woods, and I follow along like a creepy stalker ghost. They don’t speak to oneanother whatsoever. The only sound she makes is a muttered shit every now and then when she steps on something sharp.

Finally, we approach a house, and I’m shocked still for a moment. I don’t know what I’d been thinking, but I guess in my mind, I’d just believed there were no dwellings here. Since the vampires have no elemental gifts, they wouldn’t have built houses. But I guess they could be resourceful enough to do it the incredibly hard way.

“Can you breathe and see through that sack?” Keeper asks once he slams through the door, his door, I suppose.

“Well, I made it here in one piece, nor have I suffocated yet.”

A surprised laugh bursts out of me at her sass, and I cut it off quickly before remembering they can’t hear me, so it’s okay. Her sweet voice just caught me off guard and it was paired with such attitude, I wasn’t expecting that pleasant surprise.

“Yet being the key word. Do not make me ask again,” Keeper says sternly, spearing her in her place with a deadly glare.

“I can see and breathe just fine,” she grits out.

With a nod, he faces her fully, crossing his arms. “You will follow these two rules. Aside from that, you are free to do as you please. Firstly, you are to always keep that sack on if I am here. I do not wish to see your face, know your name, or speak to you unless necessary. Two and most important, if you value your life, do not run. You will not survive once you’re out of my perimeter.”

“Why did you even keep me? You could’ve let me go with the others,” she says accusingly after she shakes herself out of her stunned silence.

“If I continued to refuse his offer, he would’ve given you all to the vampires just to teach me a lesson. He only allowed them to leave because I gave in to this nonsense, so he got his way. Now leave me. You may take the room down the hall and on the left,”Keeper grumbles, waving her off as he plops down in a chair and leans his head back.

Of course my curiosity gets the best of me, and instead of standing here staring at Keeper, I follow the woman, who also seems to have a curious nature. She bypasses the door on the left and continues to open every other door she comes to, slinging them open as if she owns this place.

There’re three bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, and the living room where Keeper is sitting. One of the bedrooms has seemed to be made into a small lounge, and I’m surprised to find books that are familiar to me. Obviously over the centuries, the Summum-Master or others in the Mastery have been supplying him with things from the realm.

The all-familiar pull of the sight doing as it pleases grips my mind, and despite my protest, time speeds ahead. Not all is lost to me, though, as I get to witness everything, just at an accelerated rate.

Over days, weeks maybe, I watch Keeper and the woman ignore one another like the plague. Then they fight over the simplest of things, like the way she prepares food. Countless times I’ve watched him complain over her cooking and she throws his whole-ass plate away every time, telling him to feed himself.

Time slows again in an incredibly tense moment, and I feel secondhand awkwardness for sitting here watching this because they’re in the middle of a screaming match.

“Let me go. I’m over this fucking prison,” she yells.

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