Page 18 of The Dark Rising
Drax soon reminded me of how I felt for her after I whipped her. After she was dragged away, still bleeding and dripping red. I ported out of there and bellowed my rage to the lands, remembering the look on her face when she realized that I wouldn’t listen to her, that she wouldn’t get through to me. Her eyes turned dead, resignation and sadness in them. And when Charles ordered Danny and Josie to be killed? I felt her grief as my own. I felt like she was inside of me, and I felt everything she was feeling.
I shake myself. I’ll find her and get my answers. She doesn’t deserve any leeway after what she has done with cursing the lands, but I can’t help it. And I won’t stand for her being raped. Not. A. Fucking. Chance. Everything within me rallies against it, and Drax is so close to coming out I can’t barely speak, barely contain him. I will cut off Charles’s hands and bleed him dry and then feed him to the rogures piece by piece.
Leo takes one look at me as do the others. Taking in my rage, they soon become alert. “Vokheim?” he asks, and I grunt. He pulls out a port stone, ready to go home.
“Hey!” a castle guard shouts, rushing over to us. “You can’t use that in—“ I grab him by the throat and slam him against the wall, headbutting him again and again, unable to stop until blood trickles down my face and he slumps to the floor.
“Well shit,” Damian mutters as I move back to them. “We better get going before he has two hundred castle guards on his ass.”
“Would be good exercise,” Jerrod says, resting his hand on Leo’s shoulder.
“Or a death sentence if the Highers intervene,” Zaide mumbles.
“Darius can just use his black tentacles and wipe them out,” Damian wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“They are not fucking tentacles,” I growl at him, staring him down. The fucker just grins. Leo shoves the port stone in my hand.
“Might be useful in the bedroom,” Damian smirks, and just before I’m about to lift my fist, we port out.
Eight
Rhea
“Isthisthetown?,”I ask Anna, peeking out from behind a tree and looking at the people mulling around.
“Yeah, we just need to go to the market and then we can port out,” she replies, her hair covered by the hood of her cloak. We are all wearing them, Josh, Taylor, and I. We can’t be spotted, especially with the Elites hunting us.
I look out toward the town, the sun high in the sky as I take in the farm animals out in their enclosures. Children in rugged clothes feed them, their skinny frames carrying buckets of water. Glancing toward the pathway that will lead us to the center, the homes look well built, their thatched roofs and stone walls seemingly in good condition. Unlike its inhabitants.
“Will there be guards here?” I ask her and she shrugs.
“I can’t see any, but you can never know. The Highers usually have some guards posted at every town, making sure no one steals or smuggles. They also collect taxes for the Highers, but that is on any given day they see fit.”
I nod and look over to Josh, his eyes hard as he scans the town. He doesn’t look at me, he hasn’t done so since I finally told him about Sarah. It took a while for him to calm down, he was angry, rightfully so, because I kept it hidden from him in fear of him running off without thinking. Josh wanted to leave straight away. He did try to, just like I knew he would, but Belldame managed to convince him that I needed to heal fully and try to get at least some grasp on my Heir magic. He agreed, but he wasn’t happy about it, he’s still not happy about it.
“Do you want to see if we can get some clothes while we are here?” I ask him. Belldame gave us coins that have the Highers symbol on them, a howling wolf face with two daggers resting on either side of it. Josh shakes his head. I reach out a hand to him. “We could get some thicker pants—“ He shrugs off my hand, a growl coming from him.
“I want what you can’t give me,” he replies harshly, moving out of the tree line and making his way toward the town.
I swallow roughly, feeling a stab of pain in my chest at his rejection. I reach out through the link in my desperation, but it’s like I’m hitting a brick wall. A whimper escapes me.
It’s okay, Rhea, it will take time, shove it down.
Kade is with the Highers or his family, your pack is Gods knows where, Josie and Danny were killed and your brother, the only one that is left of your little family, barely even speaks to you. But it’s fine, you will be okay.
Shove it down.
I clear my throat, ignoring the pitiful looks from Taylor and Anna and follow him to the town.
I pull my hood further down on my face, making sure all of my hair is hidden, placing the mask I have on the bottom half of my face, so only my eyes are visible. We walk down the dirt path toward the center, our booted feet sinking slightly with every step. People scatter around, busy with their day, and the closer we get to the stalls I can’t help but marvel over all that they are selling. Wares, jewelry, furs, and clothes. Fruit and vegetables. I bump into someone, a hard-faced man with a few teeth missing.
“Watch it, bitch,” he mumbles as he stumbles away, and I pull my cloak tighter around me.
“There is the stall I need,” Anna says under her breath, and I look toward the long line that stands in front of it. Crystals and herbs dangle on straps from the top of the wooden plank that runs over the stall. A woman with graying hair shuffles around, grabbing items and wrapping them in some sort of paper as she talks to her customer.
“I’ll wait here, you and Taylor go and get what you need.”
“Is that wise?” Taylor grunts, and I nod.
