Blood & Lust [Book Two of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

2.21: Inexorable

It had gone quiet suddenly. 

As my eyes focused on the towering figure above me, the world had stilled, life coming to a brief halt.

Though, what I thought had been an immediate hush had turned out to have just been me - I had been so out of my element that my body had disregarded the sense of hearing it relied on so heavily. Eventually the canvas of sounds that often occurred in Southern reappeared; the gentle calls of birds, the heavy footsteps, and the slamming of doors. What was once a comforting array of musical interludes had come crashing back at once and left me dizzy and unprepared.

I would have sat and let myself adjust to the noise and the blaring ringing in my ears but those things had been harshly interrupted by laughter. Not a distant off-beat laugh from a child who knew nothing of the pain being caused today, or a laugh from someone defiant going against the predators roaming.

No.

This was a proud laugh. A laugh that had emerged from the mouth of the man standing above me and holding the head of a young girl. A young girl that he'd pulled apart without a second thought.

It took me a few moments to realise who was basking in the moonlight above me, the darkness shrouding his face. That was, of course, until he looked down at me with a lopsided smile and caused my breath to hitch.

Almost instinctively I had backed up from him, my feet tracing my steps backwards before I could consider the implications. Those implications, I had found, left me on the ground.

It wasn't until I'd raised a bloody hand from the dust-covered ground had I realised what had occurred - while the head of the little girl was firmly in Dom's hands, her body, now headless, was thrown behind me. Her lifeless corpse had been abandoned without regard.

The ground was now being soaked by what little blood was contained in that little girl, the liquid expanding around the body and leaving its mark; a clear sign of what had happened. Whether the body stayed or not, there could be no doubt that this little girl had been murdered and abandoned.

By the man in front of me.

I found myself stuttering over words I wasn't trying to form, every inch of my body shaking as I peeled myself away from the body that had cushioned my fall. I shuffled onto my knees, beginning to crawl away from the object of my fear, only to be stopped by the person who created that fear.

He'd leaned down slightly, tilting my chin to look at him. I realised pretty quickly I needed to say something, otherwise, he'd take his own stride and sweep me along.

But what do I say to the man who is such a threat to me?

"Dom - you..." I begin to say, the fear trapping the rest of the words in my throat. Despite the absence of real meaning in my words, Dom looked mildly amused.

The wind whipped his hair as he knelt in front of me. It was hard to believe that this delicately crafted individual had just committed one of the worst atrocities humans held others accountable for. With every passing second, the image I had held for Dom was becoming tainted by violent, emotionless shades of red. What was once a perfectly balanced canvas of kind blues and lustful pinks was now tarnished by dark streaks.