4. Trent Phoebe{ManxMan}

•CHAPTER 10

For better part of his birthday he was smiling, glancing at the ring I'd made him which he put on his third finger, he admired it like it was gold or something which made me feel bad even though it was all I could do for him.

His boss had been around earlier to collect the earnings owed, which he made sure to mention better be the three initial days plus the days he gave him time to make up for it. It had managed to just sate him enough to give my dad his earnings which wasn't much but soon as I stood with him in his room I found was alot because he had been stashing his earning for three months.

"You are rich." I told him and he looked at it as he hid it back in its place.

"No."

"Yes," I chuckled. "How haven't you spent it? You could, I don't know, decorate," I said looking around, "get yourself new clothes," he looked at himself and pouted. "And still have change." He shrugged.

"Non of that really matters."

He said down and I inched close to him. "Then what are you going to do with it?"

He shrugged warming his hands by the fire. "Haven't thought about it, actually."

"Let me know if you want to, I've got ideas." He chuckled.

"Don't rob me, please." I pushed his shoulder at the insult and he laughed which I found very adorable.

We hung out for a bit and as I kept glancing at him, his shy smile, the happier glow about him, I couldn't help have a burning desire to know everything about this man. This man whose existence without I would not be. This man who was taken from me before I knew him.

The fire was dim by his fireplace. The candles around shortening and I couldn't think of a better chance.

"I have a question."

"Don't we all." He was smiling as he spoke, the dim light casting shadows on his face.

"Why don't you want to practice magic?"

He blinked, his smile slipping off his face slowly and he sat up and looked towards me. "Why?" He echoed and his gaze tore from me to the ground. "Why else would I?"

"I mean, it can protect you, make your life a little easier."

"Magic is evil." He stated looking down at his ring. "It should not exist in this world and I do not wish to wield it."

As long as I stared, I caught the haunted gleam in his eyes. "Why?"

"Because of magic, I didn't get to have a normal life." He sniffed and leaned back. "My whole life was taken from me because of it." He flexed his hand on his leg and shook his head. "I want no part of it. Not now, not ever."

And yet you do. I thought painfully.

"May I ask what happened?"

"It's a long story."

"Well, I've got time. If you feel like sharing." He looked at me, his eyes tracing over my face and tilted his head before releasing a soft sigh.

"My mother was taken from me because of magic." He began lowly staring at the dimming fire. "I was only 4 years old and all my life I'd never known a home for longer than a day or two. It didn't matter though, I had my mom, she was my home." There was a fondness in his gaze, a gleam of light as he thought of her. I wondered what she looked like, my grandmother, if she would have liked me and shook my head because those thoughts had no right to exist. They were seeds of depression waiting to happen.

"My aunt killed her in front of me and took me away, locked me up for years. I grew around no one, I barely ate, barely moved. I was barley alive. Years went by with each day the same as the last. Alone, cold and so quiet." His eyes trailed up his wall as though he were seeing it all again, reliving it and I wondered if I should stop him. He sighed. "I don't even know how it happened, how I got out, but I did. Nearly drowned but I didn't, I struggled to even walk, days I was out there, in the wild and it was the most happy I'd ever been." His brows furrowed. "I like trees," he told me. "I like them alot."

I smiled at his words and he grinned. "But then, he found me, took me in, cleaned me, and taught me all the things I didn't know, I started to feel ...human, just a little, I start to live. He was kind at first,then he told me we were mates, that that was why I searched for him when he wasn't around, why I thought of him so often." He pinched his finger and his jaw ticked. "But then he knew what I was, he felt it and he used me."

"Did he hurt you?"

Elijah moved the collar of his shirt and a burn like scar was left there. "He bit me, and then it hurt me. That's when I found out that he was working with another like me, trying to harvest my power, this magic I don't even understand and it nearly killed me."

My brows furrowed and I hadn't realised how I was at the edge of my seat. "How did you survive."

"I don't know." He blinked into the fire. "I felt angry and betrayed, I just wanted to be loved... To be cared for, and he knew that, they all did." He whispered his eyes wide and I took his hand.

I gasped as suddenly my mind wasn't my own and I held my breathe as feelings suffocated me. I felt his pain in the moment of passion as he was bitten, the eruption of dangerous flames over skin. I felt and heard the sizzling and the popping when-

"What, what is this?" The door burst open and a woman, her eyes wide and deranged, she hissed and grabbed the wolf by his neck.

"What have you done!?"

"Exactly what you told me!" He growled, his claws dug into the hand that held his neck and the woman screamed.

Why was this happening? What is this? No, not her! Elijah stood from the bed, gasping and gagging and spitting out blood. His entire being felt off, his insides turned and his eyes blurred. "Plea-" he gasped and his back arched, his bones cracked and snapped and then he gave a great loud roar.

"What!" He gasped. "What did you do?" He fell to his side and curled into himself. His neck hurt, he touched the tender area, blood oozing and he screamed and cried. He didn't want to die. He didn't want this pain. "No!"

A wave of power came off him, it blew the two people in the room away, it caused the earth beneath them to shake and he screamed again. He felt better after, like a weight was lifted as he did and the pain was subsiding. "What did you do!?"

The wolf growled, ready to attack Elijah whose frail body was on the ground staring up at them. "You're pow-

His hand snapped away from mine and I gasped. I blinked rapidly and saw that I was kneeling on the ground before him.

"What did you do? What was that?" He asked me, his eyes hard as stone and glaring.

"I don't- that wasn't me." He stood and held his hand.

"Get out."

"Eli-"

"Get Out!" He screamed, my body moved on its own, force took my body in a grasp I couldn't fight and I pleaded with him. The force moved me out his door which slammed without so much as a movement from him and suddenly I was outside, in the cold darkness and dropped onto mud.

I cursed at the wet filth seeping through my pants and sighed. So much he had endured, so much he had seen and done and now he hated himself, hated his magic because all it ever did was bring him pain.

My heart squeezed painfully in my chest and I wondered what I could do to ease him of his guilt, his dread and hatred, all of which I had felt so strongly.

Could I save him from himself?

A\N
Written: 5 April 2022

Y'all better not come at me😭 because at the end of caster council we can all agree there was the whole explanation on how everything was a little staged, okay? It wasn't 120% accurate to begin with but this is. Time travel is nice because it just is.