Page 16 of Bleeding Love

“Run!” Eela shrieked before her husband backhanded her so hard that she fell and didn’t rise.

I ran for the village.

I had to get help. They killed my mother. They were going to kill Eela and the others too, especially after they helped me escape. They were all monsters.

By the time I got there, I was gasping for air so hard, I couldn’t even speak. I started slamming my fists on every door I passed. Several rooms lit up, but it wasn’t until I had reached the middle of the village that a door finally opened. A man in his night clothes walked out, glaring at me. More people piled outside, the villagers poking their heads out their windows to see what the ruckus was all about.

“Please!” I panted. “Help me! They…they killed my mother and they…they will kill the women and… please! You have to help!” I begged, trying to catch my breath so I could run back with them. The man standing in front of me, I couldn’t remember his name, but we had built him a barn a few years back, frowned. “Please!”

His glare lessened, and he shifted from one leg to the other.

“You are Janus’s youngest, aren’t you?” he asked, and despite the disgust I felt for the blood running through my veins, I nodded. “I…I’m sorry. We can’t help you.”

He took a step back, and I instinctively reached out, catching his elbow. He stiffened under my fingers, face going white.

“Please, there are too many of them! You have to help me! They killed her! They killed my mother!”

The man’s throat bobbed as he covered my hand with his and carefully broke my grip. I was shaking so much, I couldn’t even stop him.

“I have a family. I can’t make an enemy of your father,” he said, retreating to his house. “You are better off running, young man. Your father will kill you if he catches up to you. Or anyone who stands with you.”

He glanced toward the others who had walked outside and, before long, they were all closing their doors and dimming the lights. I stared with my mouth open, refusing to accept what had just happened. They were ready to turn a blind eye out of fear! They didn’t care that he murdered a person as long as they weren’t next! They…

Something hit my face, and I looked up just as another raindrop landed on my cheek. I stared at the angry sky while more and more clouds rolled in, the drizzle turning into a downpour in a heartbeat.

I could do nothing. I could go nowhere. The only person I ever cared for was dead. I couldn’t even give her justice.

I took a couple of unsteady steps before my knees buckled and I sunk into the mud. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe anymore. What was the point? My life had been a nightmare without a single ray of sunshine in it.

“Oh, you poor thing,” someone said from above me, but I didn’t even bother to raise my head. The voice sounded female, smooth and cool, with a distinctive accent I couldn’t recognize. Dark skirts brushed over the muck, stopping so close I could touch them. “I couldn’t help but overhear. To be treated like that by your own family, it must be devastating.”

I didn’t reply. I had nothing to say to her, to anyone. I was just going to sit and wait for my father and my brothers to come kill me. There was no point in fighting. I was weak, just like my mother said. I could never win against them.

The rain stopped—or rather, it stopped falling on me—so I looked up. The strange woman had moved her umbrella to cover me, exposing her own back to the elements. It was too dark to see her features under the bonnet that shadowed her face, but I could distinguish her pale skin and delicate neck adorned with a big ruby necklace. Her clothes were too expensive for anyone in the village to afford, and the way she carried herself screamed authority and power.

“It doesn’t matter.” I rasped, my voice sounding pathetic even in my own ears. “They won’t help.”

“Because…you are weak?” Her voice was quiet and full of pity, but even though she phrased it as a question, it sounded more like a statement. I nodded just the same. “But what if you weren’t?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. A flash of lightning lit up the sky, illuminating the side of her face just as her lips curved into a smile. “What if you were stronger than your father, stronger than your brothers, stronger than any human? What if you had the power to hurt them back? To kill them even? Would you do it?”

I stared at her with an empty look, wondering why she was being cruel by saying those impossible things. She didn’t even know me. Not that it mattered. Life was always cruel.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I would kill them all.”

Her smile widened as she reached out a gloved hand. Her fingers trailed my jaw, sliding under my chin and lifting it up.

“I cannot give you justice,” she said softly, “but I can give you the power to take your revenge. Do you want it?”

I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant, what kind of power, and how she would give it to me. To ask what she wanted in return. The words refused to come. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. If I could have my revenge, it didn’t matter what the price would be.

“Yes,” I breathed.

Her hand slid to my throat. Slowly, she kneeled in front of me until her face was at the same level as my own. She pushed her hat back and for a moment, I just stared.

She was by far the most enchanting woman I had ever seen. Her hair was the darkest shade of black, and her eyes were as red as her ruby necklace. She smiled and a pair of canines protruded over her upper lips, shining brightly as another bolt of lightning illuminated the sky. I knew I should be afraid, but I no longer felt anything. My mind was consumed by the promise she had made.

She let the umbrella drop to the ground before leaning closer to me.

“Then I shall give you the power to destroy your enemies, my sweet child,” she whispered as her breath tickled the column of my neck. “It will hurt and it will haunt you, but it will give you what you seek.”

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