Chapter 14: Chapter 14

SILVER

~“I have many choices to regain my bloodline’s balance. A balance of justice that has been lost for seven hundred years. I require one of these things, perhaps your heart… Maybe Storm’s eyes…~

~“Or perhaps a coat of your two babies’ brilliant silver scales…hmmm… Or the life of every Gypsy in the Lost Horde?~

~“It was a great mistake, you know, coming to Water Fallen Lakeside…and settling here…the portal between realms.~

~“Tonight, I reap what my bloodline is owed without traveling for months to obtain it.~”

“Storm, don’t you see or hear it? It’s a trap.” I reach for his arm, and Storm simply raises a hand that collides with my chest, sending me backward in a defensive move to keep me distant.

“Do not touch me.” Storm turns to me, his eyes golden and furious…and ~changed~.

I watch in horror as the spirit leaves Drax and momentarily floods into Storm’s body so his golden eyes now flash red.

~“Or perhaps I will just coerce him to kill his beloved again,”~ the female laughs haughtily through my mind, and I watch as Storm’s eyes spark with a brighter crimson glow.

He takes a threatening step toward me as if he is about to rip me apart…but then the spirit dances from his body back into Drax.

Storm almost collapses to his knees as the spirit leaves him.

I turn to Drax to see him standing to his full height once more.

“What trick is this?” Storm turns to Drax, looking for an explanation and sounding far more out of control.

“~Take me!~ Please,” I yell out and drop to my knees, looking into Drax’s eyes, hoping the spirit believes me. “You will leave them alone. ~I~ am ready to pay the price. Just don’t hurt them.”

I lower my head, and a deathly silence surrounds us as Drax keeps his mouth shut, and Storm slowly turns to me, taking in my unexpected offer.

“Pipsqueak?” he asks, a slight tone of worry seeping through his fury.

“Take me,” I whisper again as I bow my head, submitting myself to the Blood Raven inhabiting Drax.

A bit more silence passes, and then I look up…and all the visions and magic are gone.

The smoky and red portal isn’t there anymore. Drax looks normal, but has blood dripping from his forehead.

Storm is looking at me, shaking blood off his fist.

“Pipsqueak, so you are now insane as well?” Storm asks me, ~mocking~ me.

“Silver, did anyone give you some wild mushrooms or something?” Drax asks, laughing as he catches Storm’s attention, and then Storm is swinging at him again.

I stand and watch as Storm grabs Drax by the throat and then lifts him off the ground.

“You will serve the camp by cleaning its shit and piss for the whole month. Warrior? No. Scout? Too easy. Sewage collector? Oh yes, boy… That’s exactly what you were born to do.”

Storm shoves Drax away, and Drax puts up both hands in surrender.

“I wasn’t actually going to let her touch me like that,” Drax laughs and runs both hands through his ashy black hair.

“Seriously, Storm, believe me. ~Believe~ me. It was all her idea. I just wanted to see how crazy she was…you know…to test her…” Drax seems pretty convincing, and Storm slowly turns to watch me.

But I am not just pale from Drax’s quick betrayal of our agreement… I am pale because they have no idea what just happened. What I saw and experienced…never occurred to them. Only I saw it.

A Blood Raven, coming for revenge. Through a portal. My heart, Storm’s eyes, my babies’ scales, or the life of every Gypsy…or perhaps even being ripped to shreds by my mate.

Drax and Storm were possessed, and the Blood Raven was teasing me the whole time. She filled me with complete fear and dread, showing me her true power.

“Your aura speaks for itself, ~pipsqueak~,” Storm growls. “You do not deny Drax’s accusations. You planned all of this?”

“I planned all of this,” I agree, simply to say the first thing that comes to mind, ~the first thing~ that will get us back to camp as soon as possible.

“Take me. Punish me. Let’s go back, now,” I beg Storm, bowing my head and dropping to my knees again. “Please. Let us go back.”

“Finally some sense,” Storm growls at Drax, who runs off back to camp…while I feel a hand bunch in my hair and drag me up to my feet.

“Get moving, pipsqueak. And count your blessings if I ever let you out of my cabin again…

So you wish to have your fill of another Dragon’s cock?” Storm growls into my ear and pushes me forward, shoving me and making me jerk in surprise.

The fury in his tone is too closely matched to the way it was when the spirit took hold of him.

I turn to Storm, but his eyes are a burned golden, so I let out an exhale of relief. He is not possessed, but I am already traumatized.

I tremble as I stumble ahead, my head bowed as I hurry back to camp with Storm in close pursuit.

“I only wished for vengeance,” I whisper as I hurry along the moonlit path.

“How many times do I have to call you ill-advised? I can barely decide between collaring you permanently or lashing you with chains. Disrespectful, disloyal, and crazy.

“How could I have ended up with a mate as stupid as you?”

Storm is letting out his full-blown fury with his meanest insults, and I take the full lash of them while I try to distract my worrisome state of mind.

Was it all a trick?

No.

What I saw… It was real.

But bringing Storm back to that pain? I can’t do it… I can’t possibly tell him…so I have to distract him. I can’t burden him, as mean as he is. I can’t burden ~him~ with the promise of a fresh curse.

I have to destroy it myself.

I have to—

“I asked you a question, pipsqueak.” I cry out as his hand slips into my hair once more. I zoned out so much I didn’t hear the question.

I jerk away and manage to slip out of his grasp for a split second. In that time, I dissolve into my mist and fly into the night.

I fly through the air, back to Storm’s cabin, where I see my babies, Rawk and Zoraul, bathing in the lake, snapping at each other as they fish together under the moon.

I solidify, naked, at the entrance of his cabin door, but Storm is already there.

He is clothed, and he is still full of fury. He grabs my elbow and jerks me inside as I cry out in fear.

I fall to my knees as he slams the door shut, and I tremble and find tears leaking through my eyes…uncontrollably and undeniably.

“What is the matter with you?” Storm snarls at me. “You were begging for this to happen. Like a little child, hurting yourself for my attention. Betraying me for my attention. What is wrong with you?”

Usually I would answer with “You deserved it,” “You brought this upon yourself,” or “You are the one with the issues.”

But now I stay silent, and I wait for his punishment as I try to put the images out of my mind before he catches onto my thoughts with Heart Knowledge, where he may see what I have seen and what I can’t stop seeing.

“Pipsqueak?” Storm’s tone suddenly changes.

He’s caught onto my fear.

He knows I’m desperately trying to hide something.

“Don’t look,” I beg, gazing up at him. “Don’t look, Storm; I beg you; do not look—”

“You are hiding something ~again~ from me? How many more stupid attempts to grab my attention have you been plotting, Silver?”

Storm has no idea what the truth is as he smirks…and his eyes glaze over…to delve into my own mind and my emotion.

“Please! ~Don’t look!~” I scream at him one last time as I jump to my feet and slap him as hard as I can. “Don’t—”

Storm jerks back to reality with my slap. He slams his palm around my raised fist.

“The same one,” Storm murmurs, looking down into my eyes. “The same Blood Raven who—”

“I told you,” I whisper. “I told you not to look.”

“What does this mean?” Storm asks me, looking completely open and vulnerable for the first time in his life. ~“What does this mean for me?”~

“She possessed Drax; she possessed you. Jinx spoke to me, o—on the full moon a month ago. One more death is owed, or something.

“And she said she loved you and… I don’t know what it all means. I just want to protect you,” I beg of him to understand my own confusion.

However, Storm pauses and takes in my vision and my words.

I wait, and his palm holding mine tightens as a tear leaks from his eye.

“In a way, I had seven hundred years of peace,” he says almost insanely, and this worries me to my core.

Storm’s golden eyes devour me until I feel consumed by his own insane rage. “Then I find…~you~… insolent, stupid, ill-advised…and a bringer of curses.

“Now ~she~ is back. Perhaps to make me kill everyone I loved…again? I didn’t live seven hundred years to have a disobedient mate bring me to death’s door twice.

“To shove everyone I ever knew into the pits of hell after I murder them. All because the mates I was cursed with were naughty, jealous, lying, little whoring ~idiots~.

“This is why love is poison… This is why you’re the real curse… I have been cursed by the mates I was partnered with…

“Always I have been cursed…by you and your darn twin sister… But at least you have one friend here.” Storm narrows his eyes, and I can barely comprehend his words.

“Perhaps a second pole will do. Next to the Rogue. The filth of this camp. You will be punished, Silver… You will be punished.”

I gulp, feeling momentarily numb as I process his accusations.

I have a feeling this type of punishment…isn’t the good kind.

Storm has gone insane with fear and memories from seven hundred years ago.

And now ~I~ will be punished?

My heart is filled with fury.

A Blood Fury, which consequentially dulls the fear, the pain, and the temporary numbness.

But oddly… The Blood Fury is ~not~ for Storm.

It is for the Blood Raven.

She has done this to him, and I already have my mind firmly set.

I vow to pull through whatever it is that comes next. I will survive anything Storm hands to me, simply to spit in the face of the Blood Raven’s plot…

And then I will hunt her down and kill her myself.