Page 14 of Stolen Oath
I didn't see her take it from her tote so in a knee-jerk reaction I tried to recoil from it but was too weak to move. Bitter fluid filled my mouth and I gagged on it hoping to spit it out. My friend grabbed my mouth so I had to swallow the potion. The last thing I remembered was giving her a look of betrayal clear enough that it made her flinch.
Good. Because the moment I woke up, we were going to have some words after I made sure the two hyenas were removed from our bathroom so I could hug the toilet for a few days.
Then my consciousness took a nosedive into a kaleidoscope of colors.
When I finally regained some sense of awareness, I found myself in an unfamiliar place that seemed like a portal between this world and another. Everything around me looked surreal and strange, like something out of a dream or nightmare; trees with trunks made of rubies, creatures with wings made of silver and gold, distant hills that moved ever so slightly like living beings beneath the night sky. It was all too much for me to comprehend and so I just stood there in shock as I tried to make sense of what was going on.
Dimitri's voice broke through the stillness and made me jump because I didn't notice anyone else with me. He explained that this place -this portal-was created by Zin using his magic and connected both, him and me, with some magical bond. From here we would be able to access secrets from my grimoire, secrets which might help us understand more about what exactly brought the alpha into my life in such an inexplicable way, and why.
With these words ringing in my ears I watched Dimitri disappear into thin air and was left to stand in the strange place all alone.
"Hello?" The moment I whispered it a hand wrapped around my neck and I passed out with my own scream echoing in my head.
CHAPTER8
“What in all the worlds did I drink last night?” Groaning I pressed the heel of my palm to my sweaty forehead over the plastered strands of hair that were practically glued to the skin there.
There was a war drum pounding behind my eyeballs; some tribal call for blood or something. My eyes were watering badly, so I had to keep them barely open. Everything was too bright.
My own voice made me flinch because it sounded like I was screaming the words from the top of my lungs, as well, even though I barely whispered them. The hangover sucked big time, so I made a mental note to never,ever,touch whatever alcohol I had the night before. If it was alcohol at all, since Char had these crazy ideas occasionally to mix up a fun, aka not so fun afterwards, potions that were better than anything the humans could come up with. When we had them, it felt like everything was perfect and happiness was all we knew while we walked on air, until it wore off and we crashed hard enough to be miserable close to forty-eight hours afterwords.
“Take it easy.” Speaking of my friend, Char was there the second I attempted to move, brushing my soaking wet hair off my face and helping me lift myself up higher on the bed. “Here, relax into them… there you go.” After fluffing the pillows, she leaned back and eyed me critically.
The fog replacing my brain lifted minutely, my mind perking up at the unusual behavior Char was displaying. She was smiling indulgently, maybe even woodenly, at me, like a doctor doing their best not to show that the patient had less than a week to live. With that thought, my heart jumped then skipped a beat before stuttering like an old Buick doing its best to get moving with a fifty-year-old rusted engine.
“I’m dying, aren’t I?” I rasped through dry, numbed lips. Cold sweat trickled down my spine as I fought to remember anything that could’ve happened the night before. Did I get ambushed and hurt without seeing it coming? I came up blank apart from my weird dreams, which I’d rather forget.
“What?” Char recoiled in a way someone would flinch back from a leper diseased person. “Of course, you’re not dying. Seriously Allie, don’t be daft. I wonder sometimes how you can be considered an adult with an imagination like that.”
Holy stars, I called bull-crap on everything.
I narrowed my eyes at her, lips pressed in a firm line. My heartbeat picked up pace.
“You’re not dying?” My eyebrows hit my hairline when she phrased that as a question I should know the answer to. Deflating like a balloon, she buried her face in her hands. “I hope you’re not dying, Allie, because if you do I’m going to find a way to bring you back so I can kill you myself, just so you know.”
“That’s necromancy, and you’re a sorceress not a necromancer.” I pointed out before frowning at her, which made my head pound worse. There was a tension at the back of my skull like some giant hand was doing its best to squeeze my head and pop it like a grape.
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.” She challenged indignantly.
“As a matter of fact, I do. That’s what makes me your best friend, but you’re deflecting. What is going on?” Stabbing a finger in the air between us I pointed it at her nose. “And don’t you dare lie, Charmaine Marietti. I feel like I got hit by a truck which went back and forward a few times before I tripped and fell down a damned ravine. I’m feeling murderous.”
“What do you remember?” Sighing and tucking one leg under her, she perched on the bed next to my legs fussing and rearranging her dress in a poor attempt to avoid eye contact.
“How long was I asleep?” For the first time I glanced at the window to check if it was light or dark outside. “Is that plywood? What happened to the window?” Because she ducked her head to hide deeper in the mess of curls falling over her face, I waved a hand at her although she couldn’t see me. “Actually, you know what? Forget I asked, I really don’t think I want to know. What day is it?”
“Wednesday.” Char mumbled smoothing the fabric over her bent knee.
“Hump day. Yay! It means we survived half of the week.” When my feeble stab at humor failed I nudged her with my hip. “We were nearly drowned on the beach in the middle of the day not long ago, Char. It can’t be much worse. Tell me what happened and I might remember something. My head is killing me though. Let me grab an aspirin or something first.”
“Stay.” She barked when I tried to roll out of bed. “I’ll bring whatever you need. I actually have the perfect potion for a headache.”
Something about the idea of Char giving me a potion to drink tapped my brain but I felt horrible enough to ignore it. Breathing through my nose to avoid project vomiting all over the bed and myself .I burrowed deeper into the pillows so I could relax. Until a frosty breeze grazed my cheekbone feather-soft but with purpose, and a chill passed through me with such a forbidding vibe I shot up in bed like a slingshot.
“Who’s there?” I rubbernecked in search of whatever it was that touched me, forgetting all about my poor head. The pain stabbed me with a vengeance for daring to ignore it out of survival instincts.
“I told you to lay back.” Char mumbled disapprovingly as she returned into my room, and out of fear I’d sound like a lunatic I said nothing about ghost-fingers floating in the room with us. Chances were, I could’ve imagined it. “It won’t kill you to listen on occasion, Allie.”
After searching her face for any indication that she knew we have some invisible entities in the apartment or maybe we have a reason to worry about such things, and finding nothing, I leaned back gingerly on the pile of pillows.
