Mother stands before me, tears glistening in her eyes.
Eryk rests his bow against the trunk of a nearby tree."Are you hurt?" he breathes, kneeling down in front of me, looking at a spot on my forehead. Reaching up to touch it, I wince, pulling back to see my fingertips covered in my blood. At this point, I can't tell if it's my blood or the girls.Looking over at the body, I see the arrow coming out of her dead body, and suddenly the world is spinning, the reality that I just watched someone die hitting me square in the stomach.
~AvenI still don’t trust Eryk, but right now, Lei and I don’t stand a chance out in this weather with Lei’s car half submerged in the ditch, so I agree to let him drive us to the nearest hotel.There is a tense silence between us as Eryk drives. He;s decided to not share any more information with me until we are in a safer position. My fingers keep glancing back at his hand, where he purposefully cut himself to show me the colour of his blood. Even though he’s since healed himself with whatever inexplicable power he has, I can still see a smear of drying blood across the back of his hand.Shivering, I turn back to look ou
The moment the door closes behind him, my gaze drifts to the keys lying on the floor which must have fallen from Eryk’s pocket. Leaning down, I grab them, tucking them into my own pocket."What are you doing?" Lei hisses."Quiet," I respond, my voice barely above a whisper. Lei’s gaze tracks me all the way to the window, which I slide open, a light spray of rain blowing in with the wind. "He's insane if he thinks I'm staying here. That man has something seriously wrong with him."Lei and
The moment the group is gone, I fall to the floor in front of my mother, tugging at her binds."You're okay," I breathe, pulling the rope away from her wrists, wincing at the red marks that tarnish her skin. She’s shaking, although there is a steadiness in her gaze. "You're safe now."I’m not sure who those people were, and why they thought to tie my mother up like that, but if they thought I would come willingly with them, they are insane. At first I could have convinced myself that they are people breaking in for mother’s money, but their strange ramblings matched up with Eryk’s too perfectly, and now he is here, saving me once again.
An overwhelming feeling encompasses me.A feeling of falling has my eyes squeezing shut tighter, my heart nearly stopping as a sense of tension wraps around me, pushing my limbs closer to my body as I fall through a tunnel of darkness. Not once do I feel Eryk’s grasp leave my body, his finger’s only tightening on me as terrifying silence builds in my ears.And then, the tension releases, and my feet are touching the hard ground. I stumble forward a step, but Eryk pulls me back up against him, stopping me from hurtling face first into the ground.Rubbing my eyes, I push off him, looking around.
¬AvenThe air in the room goes ice cold."He's here already?" mother whispers. For someone she is telling me to trust, her face loses all it’s colour awfully quickly at the mention of this man’s name. My heart flutters in my chest as I grip Lei’s hand, glancing at her. She doesn’t look as petrified as me, but I suppose this man isn’t here to see her, but me.Eryk’s hand slips off the door knob as he faces my mother, looking grim. "Yes, and he is going to want to see Aven right away."
~AvenMy feet touch solid ground almost immediately after everything around me transformed into a vortex of darkness.I gasp, bright shining light assaulting my vision for a moment. When I am finally able to open my eyes, I realise I’m staring at the large expanse of an ocean, the dark blues in the distance framed by a sky of orange, sapphire and violet melting together as the sun sinks below.Yelping, I stumble back, my lowered gaze discovering I’m inches away from falling down a sprawling cliff and onto the pale sands below. A hand still grips me - Eryk - who stops me from tripping over my own feet.
¬AvenAn unbearable amount of thoughts flood my mind.There is no doubting a mate bond, the spark that we just shared. Stace is my mate...This complete stranger, a man who I have just met is my mate, and there is nothing that I can do to change that. Many in my position would rejoice, would be overwhelmingly pleased that a man as powerful, as undeniably attractive is their mate. But right now, I can’t feel joy, I can feel sadness or feel.I just feel numb.Stace watches me, careful not to speak while I process this. I can’t keep up w