Page 21 of Life Blood
I felt him brush a hand over the top of my head and another hand rub the center of my back. “I wish I could wake you up from this. In fact, it was my idea to hold out on telling you, to save you from learning the truth…that the supernatural exists around you,” I heard him let out a labored sigh, “andbecauseof you.”
Those were the last words I heard before I felt my ears start to ring and blackness wash over my vision.
Chapter Seven
As I floated through the darkness, I was comforted by a mysterious presence. The next thing I knew, my feet were planted on the ground, and I could see women who looked like they were straight out of the dark ages.
They were bound with ropes, being marched in a single-file line, chanting something I couldn’t understand. It was dark, and they were led by men wearing robes and carrying torches.
“Burn them all!” a raspy voice shouted from behind me.
I turned and realized I was standing in the midst of a crowd of people who were urging these robed men on.
“Burn the witches!” a woman’s voice screeched over the shouting.
“The witches?” I questioned, turning my head to the people standing at my sides. It was like I was a ghost. They couldn’t see me, but this felt so real. It was like I had been transported back in time to this place.
I looked at the people next to me, asking again about the witches. No response, no one even looked at me. No one except the woman with brown hair and wide, chocolate-brown eyes who craned her head in my direction as she marched in line with the witches. Her eyes zeroed in on mine, feeling a connection straight to my soul.
“You will understand if you open your mind,”I heard a voice echo in my head. Her voice.
I stumbled backward as the woman stretched a smile across her face that made me shiver and immediately turn to bolt out of the crowd. Where the hell was I? Did Braden do something to me?
The next thing I knew, I was strapped to a pole, wood and straw piled up all around me. I fought against the thick ropes that bound me there, my bare feet picking up splinters with each desperate swipe of my feet. Despite the pain of the wooden fragments gouging into the bottom of my feet, I kept digging them into the platform, trying to get myself free.
“Leave this one,” a sinister-looking bald man in a red cloak said to the group who was about to torch the platform I was on. “She’s special, and she’s going to help our people live on.”
His voice was oppressive, and his black eyes reflected the flicker of the orange flames from the torch the man next to him was holding.
“Master, you know the witches are the reason your people are becoming extinct.”
“No!” I screamed. “I’m not a witch!”
The man looked like he was hypnotized by the cloaked freak, and he didn’t budge as I screamed and writhed around, trying to free myself.
“Do as I say!” the cloaked man screamed at the man before he looked back at me, “Let her live, and I’ll continue to let your people live.”
“Who thefuckare you?” I screamed at the man in red.
“Elle!” Braden’s voice brought me back to the present.
I felt his arms swallow me up as he pulled me into his chest. I was completely laid out on the sandy beach with my upper body in Braden’s arms. Instead of naturally fighting him, I allowed the comfort of his embrace to keep me in his arms.
“What happened to me?” I asked, trying to get my bearings.
“I need to know what you saw.”
“What I saw?”
“Yes, Elle. What did you see?”
I pulled myself up and faced him. “I don’t know if it was a vision or what it was, but I was in a crowd—seemed like it was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. There was a line of women, and the crowd was shouting to burn the witches,” I sucked in a breath, trying to organize my thoughts. “The next thing I know, I’m strapped to a pole, standing on a pyre ready to be burned at the fucking stake! A creepy looking bald guy in a red cloak told another man to spare me because I could help him. I was shouting at him, but then I suddenly woke up and heard your voice. It seemed so real.”
“Shit!” Braden stood and grabbed my hands, helping me get to my feet.
Not the response I expected from him. I collapsed into him, not able to keep my balance on my own.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” he said, running a hand over the top of my head.
