The Angelus Brothers Chronicles - The Golden Hind

CHAPTER NINE

Kaia heard the witch shiver and her teeth chatter. 

"You should get up and move; it will warm you up and stop your muscles seizing up." 

"I don't feel well, and I'm too hungry."She remembered well what it had been like before her body grew accustomed to hardly ever eating. The hunger pangs and the sickness, but she had long ago grown used to the hollow feeling in her belly and could easily ignore it. 

"I know, but moving will at least warm you up and keep your muscles from being eaten away by your body." She wondered how many times they would have this conversation and how many times Rouge would ignore her.  

"What's the point?" Sobbed the witch. 

"Don't you dare!" Kaia was getting angry. "You've been here a short time compared to my thousands of years if you're right about how long I've been here. If I haven't given up, you don't get to." Rouge let out a sob.

"I spent my life hiding from Mab, and she got me anyway. What's the point?" Kaia moved back to the rocks they spent most of their time on and put her arms around the crying witch. she felt hot and clammy to the touch. She felt her way to the witches' forehead; she was on fire.

"You're very warm." 

"I feel so cold, and my arms hurt." Kaia groped in the darkness and felt one of the witch's arms; it was swollen and roasting hot, a sickening feeling filled the hind. Could witches die of infections? She didn't know she had never met a witch before Rouge.

"Have you hurt your arm?" 

"They were both sliced up when I woke up here." All Kaia could do was take the witches' minds off how poorly she felt and hope she would recover naturally. There was literally nothing the hind could do in the dark dank hole. She pulled the witch into her arms and stroked her head. 

"What about your vampire and his brothers? If what you've said about them is true, they will be searching for you."

"Doesn't mean they will find me." Wailed Rouge as sobs wracked her body.

"They know Mab has been after you. That gives them a good starting point to search for you. Keep faith in your fated one. The fates will have given you him for a reason." Rubbing the sobbing witches back, she remembered how it had been for her when she first found herself here. She was so sure her sisters would be searching for her and would come for her or that her goddess would appear before her at any moment and pull her from this god's forsaken hell hole. As the centuries passed, she refused to believe this would be her end. The fates had a plan for her; she was sure, if not surely, Artemis did. She'd appeared before her too many times to believe she was nothing to the goddess; surely, one day, she would come and take her to join her, pulling her chariot. While Rouge was in despair, Kaia was finding her faith in the fates, and her goddess renewed since the witches' arrival. The fates always had a plan; her sisters always said that.

"I want Raphael." The witch's sobbed call was pitiful and heartbreaking as over and over she called his name until she finally cried herself into an exhausted fever-driven sleep. Kaia laid her gently down on the rocks and covered her as best she could with the tattered rags that had been her only form of comfort for thousands of years. Sighing heavily and worrying about the witch's health, she returned to the workout that she did religiously every time the darkness was barely broken up with the dim glow from above that she took as daylight. No matter how hungry or tired she was, she wouldn't allow her muscles to decay. If ever a chance arose, she wanted to be able to run from here with all the speed her brass hooves could manage. Stretching she shifted from her human form into her hind form and stretched some more, since the witch's arrival she'd barely spent any time as a doe which was so much warmer and more comfortable with her once shiny coat in the icy dank hell they were in.

Kaia woke with a start and listened intently, her ears twitching as she heard loud noises outside, there was never noise outside, it was always silent like the grave except for the odd murmured word and shuffled footsteps. Shifting back to her human form and nudged Rouge. 

    "There's a lot of noise outside." The witch didn't stir; the sick feeling returned to Kaia's stomach. "Rouge?" Shaking the unresponsive witch she felt panic grip her, had she died? Finally, she murmured something incoherent under her breath. 

    "Rouge? Can you hear me?" Again, the witch mumbled inaudibly, but she was responding. "Rouge, I need you to wake up, don't you give up witch. Your vampire will come for you. You just have to hold on." She wanted to add he was here already, but she couldn't be sure. But there was never so much noise outside, not in all the centuries she'd been in that squalled place, but suddenly they take her blood, then send the witch. Things were happening. It had to be the witch's vampire coming for her it had to be. A cold feeling of dread crept up her spine. What if it was the vampire? and he had only come for the witch? Would he leave Kaia here to more centuries of isolation? She couldn't go back to being alone in this darkness; she couldn't. Tears pricked at her eyes as she mentally prepared for what might come. If he didn't take her or let her follow, she would make a run for it and escape by herself or die trying. Whatever happened, she wouldn't remain alone here any longer. Death or escape were her only options. 

Her mind began to wonder about the world outside. What would she do without her sisters? She had no place in the world without them. Shaking her head, she took a breath; she needed to stop. There was no saying the disturbance was the witch's vampire. The chances of Kaia's situation changing were remote, and death was probably the only chance of release; now, her sisters were gone. How did an immortal go about dying?

Silently, she listened to the bangs and crashes outside her prison and tried to decide if those were shouts in this English language Rouge spoke or if she just wanted them to be.