Unprotected

‘December 25th, 2017’

‘Lumen’

Reyna

I eyed the man standing in the middle of the room. “You’re a hard queen to catch,” he told me, and I sensed how evil he was.

He gave me the same chills that the guy in the dressing room at school had, the kind of chills that told me I was in danger.

Not that normal-teenage danger, the ~I drank too much cheap beer and my dad’s going to find out danger~.

No, this was real danger. Like, ~I’m about to get murdered for my mom’s fortune~ danger.

“Don’t come any closer,” Jed said to the man, his tone threatening.

I’d never seen him mad before, but he was enraged now. His face had gone pale, and he was rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt up.

Jed looked like he was ready to fight.

Even though my life was in jeopardy, even though I knew I should be focused on finding a way out of the situation, I couldn’t help but admire how good he looked.

How strong he looked.

~God, Reyna, what is wrong with you?!~

But I didn’t have time to keep scolding myself because the man in the middle of the room was walking closer to me.

He was taking step after step, and it was causing my pulse to race.

Now I was scared. Terrified.

I felt my breathing hitch. It was ragged, I was taking fast breaths and then slow breaths. It was like I couldn’t control any part of my body.

“Breathe,” Jed instructed me, even though he was standing in front of me. He could probably hear me hyperventilating.

I tried to control my breath, I did. But then the man grabbed onto Jed’s shoulders and locked eyes with him, the same way that the creepy guy in the dressing room had locked eyes with me.

And then it was like… Jed was frozen.

I ran around him, away from him, and was about to make it out the door when the strange man lifted a finger, pointing it at the door. The door slammed shut.

I shrieked. And when I did, Jed seemed to break free of whatever hold the man had on him.

Immediately he leapt toward the man, trying to tackle him, but the man barely flinched. Neither of them hit the floor.

And then, I watched as the man pointed his finger at Jed.

“No!” I screamed, but it was too late.

Jed went flying backwards into the wall, hitting his head hard.

He lifted a hand to the back of his head, and when he brought it to his eyes, there was dark red blood all over it.

“JED!” I cried, running toward him. I didn’t care that the crazy man was here to kill me. I couldn’t leave Jed alone, bleeding from his head.

When I reached him, I knelt beside him, using my shawl to apply pressure to his head.

I turned my head for an instant, just to see where the man was. And I saw he was close. Like two-feet-away close.

I shrieked. Jed screamed, “Stay away from her!”

But it was no use. He was coming closer.

Eve

I was storming through the Pack House halls, headed straight for my bedroom. I needed to be alone, to have zero interruption from my own thoughts.

I was seething, more angry than I ever remember being.

The nerve of Raphael.

I had made myself clear. I’d told him ~exactly~ what I did not want from him. And what did he do? He demanded it!

All the things I didn’t want were the things he expected. And not just expected but thought he deserved.

~What an arrogant motherfu—~

“AHHH!” The female shriek stopped me in my tracks. I was almost at the staircase, but the shriek had come from near the front of the Pack House. Near the front door.

I turned and started running.

I was peering in rooms, trying to find the source, but they were all empty. Everyone was at the Yule Ball.

“Stay away from her!” I heard a male voice shout, and it sounded familiar. I ran toward the voice, tearing into the library.

That was when I saw them: Jed, sitting against the wall, injured. And Reyna, crouched beside him, holding something to his head. And some other guy, not more than a step away from her.

I couldn’t believe it. These scumbags were persistent.

“Who are you?” I demanded, walking into the room.

I didn’t have time to play games. My rage was already at its max capacity, and all I had time for were answers.

I threw my scythe ring into the air, and it transformed. I grabbed the handle, walking toward the man. “I said, ~who are you?~”

“Trevor Whitethorn. And you’re the Devil, I presume? You killed my brother.”

“He said he was the last of you.”

“He lied.”

“Well, you’re about to pay for his sins.”

“I don’t think so.”

And then, before I could plunge my scythe into him, Trevor Whitethorn grabbed my shoulders and locked his eyes on mine.

We were in the same position that I’d seen his brother and Reyna in when I’d walked into the high school dressing room.

But this time, I was the one who was frozen.

And then, before I could make sense of it, I was transported somewhere else.

The only thing I saw in front of me was a snowy forest, sun glinting off every surface. It was beautiful.

Then I heard laughter, a baby’s laughter.

I looked down and saw Snow in my arms.

~How can it be?~

It couldn’t. I knew that. I knew it wasn’t real. I knew it deep in my core.

~But God do I want it to be.~

I wanted it so badly I was willing to... to what? To let the Whitethorn win? To let him defeat me and kill Reyna, to take the Morgan fortune?

~Eve, come on. Focus. He’s a Fear Creator. That’s his power. He forces you through your own memories, reminds you of your deepest fears. And then destroys you, using them as his weapons.~

As soon as I thought that, the memory was gone.

I was in darkness. Pitch-black darkness. And still… it wasn’t real.

I looked around me.

I was in a basement cellar.

There was a cage.

I blinked, adjusting to the darkness. It was a steel cage, dirty, jagged. Cramped. And it wasn’t empty.

There was a girl inside.

A blonde girl, young. Maybe seven or eight.

She looked up at me. Her skin so pale it glistened in the darkness. Her eyes so wide that I couldn’t unsee them. I couldn’t unsee her.

“SNOW!” I cried out. “NO!” I shouted. “NO! NO NO NO NO NO!”

She was locked in the cage. I knew just by looking at her that she’d been there a long time. An unfathomably long time.

Centuries.

I dropped to my knees. It was too much. My heart, my mind couldn’t take it. I was on the verge of giving in, letting my fear consume me. Letting Whitethorn win.

But then I stopped myself.

It was just a projection of my own worst nightmare, based on nothing more than my imagination.

Maybe Snow wasn’t trapped in a cell, in a cage. But even if she were, I had to find out myself.

I couldn’t lose like this. I had to know the truth.

But first, I had to save Reyna. I got to my feet, shaking my head clear. “I’m coming for you,” I whispered to Snow, her eyes still on me from inside the cage.

And then I focused.

The reality before me didn’t scare me. Not anymore. It wasn’t real.

And that was enough to unlock my mind from Whitethorn’s reins, to bring me back to the Pack House.

Back to my body.

And then I was there, my eyes open, staring back at the last remaining Whitethorn brother.

His eyes went wide when he saw I was back in my conscious. I’d been able to withstand his power, and I knew not many people could do that.

His gaze no longer having any effect on me, I immediately lunged at him, plunging the scythe into his heart without giving him any time to react.

“Gah!” he gasped as blood started pouring out from the point of contact.

I pulled the scythe out cleanly, watching as the life drained from his eyes.

“Eve!” Reyna cried, running toward me. But this time I stopped her, holding my hand out.

I looked behind her, to where Jed was still sitting on the floor. A good amount of his blood had dripped onto the hardwood.

“He needs you,” I told her, and I left the queen alone to help her man.

I needed to be alone, even more now.

My rage wasn’t gone. In fact, killing Whitethorn only made it stronger. All I ever did was defend and defeat. It was endless.

But the one person I needed to defend, and the one man I needed to defeat, they were out of my reach.

I pushed the door to my room open, flicking the light switch on.

“Hello, Eve,” Llinos said from the chair in the corner of the room. “It’s been a while.”