Page 24 of Traithorn

I’mfucked.

The next second, she’s gone, as if she was never there to begin with.

I don’t even think she was.

Stepping through the snow tentatively, I make my way to my car and drive home, done with the church and the odd atmosphere for now. It takes longer to get home with how much more snow has fallen, but I eventually make it.

As I enter my apartment thirty minutes later, I make sure to lock all doors and windows before heading to bed.

I ignored their invitation, but that doesn’t mean they won’t come for me.

Chapter 11

UNDER THEIR SPELL

Isolde

Something is wrong.

Very fucking wrong.

One second, I’m wistfully asleep in dreamland, but not for long. There’s this aching cold seeping into my bones, tugging and gnawing at my wrists and ankles. It’s rendering me immobile.

I try to move, but it’s futile against whatever is keeping me captive.

It feels like I’m hurtling over the edge of a lethal cliff, wind slamming against my face—only to be swallowed by something thicker than air, a blindness that weighs down on me like fog turned to stone.

My eyes won’t open at first. The cold clamps them shut, but it’s not just the cold. Something is holding me in that limbo, a suffocating and angry grip that tugs at the skin on my wrists with each breath I take.

I realize my hands are bound behind my back.

What the hell is going on?

Eyes opening as the grogginess of sleep seeps away, I manage to squint through a darkness that has succumbed over my surroundings.

Panic fills my chest, like someone struck a flare right into my ribs. I stare at an unknown wall made of black concrete, elegant and sleek yet weathered by decades, signifying a dignity in time. This isn’t my room. It’s not even my apartment.

I jerk forward instinctively, but I can’t move. I shift just enough to catch a glimpse of what it is.

Silk.

Fucking silk is wrapped around my legs, intricately woven from my feet up to my knees, then thighs, covering my high-laced boots. I don’t remember going to sleep with my shoes on. The silk is tangled with the threaded laces running up the front, crisscrossing their way up, which only adds the feeling of being suffocated, walls closing in on me until I feel claustrophobic. Where am I?

My arms are tied behind my back, with what I presume is the same silk.

Fear slowly creeps in as the pressure of the ribbons is snug against my skin. The terror gives way to panic, leaving my heart hammering and my limbs trying to twitch with the rush of adrenaline, and the desperate need to fight my way out of here.

But it’s as if the silk is unbreakable. Unstoppable.

There’s no getting out of them.

Trying to pry away the silken ribbons from my wrists only seems to make everything worse as the bindings pull tighter against my skin. Cutting into me with their sharp edge. If I’m not careful, they might tear into my flesh.

Like the devil from hell stepping through my front door, I hear the faint click of heels against marble. Measured and calm, coming all the closer.

It’s too dark to make out much, but I can see a flickering stone hearth behind me, its flames lapping up the cold. It’s enough to make the cold a little more bearable. I need my head clear.

Slivers of moonlight sneak in through a high window, but the rays only amplify the dread mounting within me.

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