Page 81 of Seized to Sacrifice
‘I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Elle.’
He hugged her to him, and she couldn't bring herself to make him let her go despite the anger she was feeling towards them all.
He lay on the bed with her and fell into an exhausted sleep, her head practically pulsating from the sheer amount that had been forced into it.
She woke to a clanking of the bell outside and heard things falling off the table. It was another quake. Although this one seemed quite a lot smaller than the others that she’d experienced so far. She could see the tent rocking and feel the bed shaking, but that was all.
Thorne grumbled in the bed next to her. ‘Fucking tremors,’ he muttered, pulling her closer to him and leaning over her in case anything should fall.
The tent jolted but stayed upright and the shaking ended as quickly as it had begun amid the screams and shouts coming from outside. The Camp was justifiably in uproar, but it soon quieted. Everyone here was used to calamity in some form or another after all, she thought, as she closed her eyes and fell back to sleep.
In the morning when she woke and thought about the night’s events, she realized that there were now more answers in her mind that hadn’t been there before.
Thorne was still lying next to her, one arm draped around her middle. His eyes were open and fixed on her. How long had he been watching her?
‘Gaila was gone from this place a long time,’ she muttered, trying to break the tension she felt between them.
‘Aye,’ Thorne said, ‘a very long time.’
His arm tightened around her, and she tensed, her eyes darting over his face.
‘Too long,’ she said, trying to move her body away. ‘Ceres always wanted to destroy the seat of her power, but he was never able to.’
Thorne’s body shifted and he was suddenly even closer to her.
‘So he weakened her,’ he said. ‘The quakes, the Dark Realm creatures coming here to wreak havoc, the wards and the portals failing. This is all his doing in some way or another.’
Thorne leant over her, and Elle was acutely aware of his body pressed against hers. Before the vessel, he’d have been casting her away from him right about now, not pulling himself closer. The thought brought a frown to her face.
‘This realm is heading for disaster. I need to destroy Ceres first.’
‘We'll find a way,’ Thorne promised and then he leant down and kissed her gently on the lips.
Elle froze, turned away from him with a small intake of breath as pleasure at his touch washed over her.
‘Please don't,’ she whispered, not sure what she wanted now with everything that had happened but knowing that this was not the time to be blinded by passion.
Elle needed her head clear.
He let her go and got out of the bed without a word. Elle wanted to call him back, everything in her begged for it, but she resisted, ignoring the attraction she felt towards him as best she could.
She heard a snigger and noticed that Rye and Nyx were at the table watching them.
She swallowed hard and ignored Thorne as he sat with them, his countenance shuttered. Now that they were all here, she needed to tell them something else that she’d remembered. She had to get it out. It was eating at her worse than the memories of loneliness were.
‘There's something else I need to say. To all of you,’ she began. She pressed her hand to her flat abdomen, wondering how she was going to say this to them.
‘There was a child,’ she said softly. ‘A babe.’
All three men's eyes snapped to hers and she flinched at their intense stares.
‘Gaila was afraid for its life. She knew that Ceres would take it from her, and she was already too weak to stop him by the time she put you here. I … it was early on, and she was going to tell you, but Ceres came for you so suddenly, and then it was too late.’
‘What happened to the babe, Elle?’ Nyx asked slowly.
Elle looked down at her hands that were absently twisting at the coverlet. ‘I don’t understand, but … she did something so it wouldn't come.’
All three of their faces twisted in anguish.
