Blood Vengeance [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty-Six - Forgotten Truth

Eventually, as it always had before, the pain began to subside, and Selene no longer felt the need to scream. Her body was shaking, her clothes wet where the heat of her skin had caused the snow to melt.

Hector stood over her, Cecily's body once more over his shoulder.

"Get up," he said.

"I can't."

"Try. You've summoned every creature in the forest with your distressed wails. They're coming to prey on your dying body. Get up."

"Am I dying?"

"Not yet."

Selene struggled to her feet, a dizziness still present behind her eyes, making the darkness whirl about before her.

"Follow me. We're not far now."

As she forced her feet to move, one in front of the other, grabbing onto branches with her bare hands to steady herself, she realised that steam was rising from her clothes. Her body was so hot that the snow-soaked fabric was beginning to dry.

She tried to reflect on what she had felt when Hector had stared into her eyes, seeing deep into her soul. Or her souls. She had felt he had seen everything that she was made of, known everything she felt.

And she in turn had recognised the depth of his feeling for her, and the hurt she had caused him. The knowledge which she had tried to shut out still pounded at the door of her conscious mind: she had been fated for Hector, made for him, created only for him. Their destinies were intertwined, inextricably linked, and she had pushed past all restraints to confound fate.

She had ruptured whatever love had been between them, ripping it open, leaving it torn at the edges, like a knife wound in virgin flesh.

But still there was something ineluctable that bound them together, like an invisible thread, sewn through his body and into hers.

Arthur may have laid claim to her body, and may have taken control of the soul, but Hector would always be its rightful owner. A deep certainty settled within Selene, and she knew the truth of it. Arthur had tricked her, manipulated her. He had tortured her and, because the soul reacted to him, convinced her that she desired him with an unfathomable intensity.

She felt violated and angry.

Soon Hector slowed his pace, and just ahead of them Selene saw a small brick-built building, barely more than a shed.

"Is this it?" she asked.

Hector grunted, reaching out and twisting the door handle.

He pushed open the unlocked door, and the inside of the dark hut gaped like a hungry mouth, eager to swallow them up.

"Go in," he said, pushing the door open with his foot to allow Selene to pass in front. "Pull the shutters closed," he ordered, and she obliged. The task was easy enough as the hut was only two rooms, with four windows.

Hector switched on a light by the door and kicked the door shut.

Selene blinked in the brightness and watched as Hector lay Cecily's body down on the floor. The place was dank, and it smelt as though no one had been there for a long time.

"Where are we?"

"Checkpoint one."

"What?"

"This is why we send word that we're coming to meet the witch. She sends a servant, who confirms that we're who we say we are, and then we can proceed."

Selene sat down on old wooden chair, which creaked as she let it hold her weight.

For a while they stared at one another, trying to gauge how the other felt. Selene felt her breathing become shallow, the air only filling the very top of her lungs.

"Would you like to be immortal?" he asked, sitting down on a chair nearby, pulling it closer to her.

"I don't want to be a Vampire."

"But would you want to be immortal?"

"I suppose so. Being put to death at forty never really appealed."

"I would have asked for a special dispensation for you. I wouldn't have let them kill you like all the other women."

"There's no point talking of what you would have done. We're not at Cadogan Place any more."

"Do you miss it?"

Selene hung her head, unable to keep looking at him. A wave of nostalgia rose up and washed over her, causing a dull ache in her chest.

"I do. I miss Stanley Hall. I miss dancing."

He allowed a pause to hold her eyes with his own dark pools, pulling her in, before he spoke.

"I missed you."

Selene let his words hang in the air between them, unwilling to wipe them out with other words. If she could have died in this moment, she would have known there had been a sweetness to what he said.

"I miss how we were," she said, finally, looking up at him.

She felt her skin burning, and she broke his gaze to take off her jumper.

"It's hot?" he asked, his brow furrowed.

"Yes."

"We're running out of time. But we can't do anything until nightfall now."

"Will I -"

"You'll be fine. You should rest. Sleep." He brushed his forehead with a flattened palm, pushing his dark hair from his face. "There's a bed through in the next room," he said, nodding his head in that direction.

Selene stood, but she paused when she reached his chair, desperate to reach out and touch him. To make contact in some way. But instead she ran her fingers over the strip of wood at the back of his chair, quickened her step and passed into the small back bedroom, closing the door behind her.

When she had closed him out she leant her forehead and fists against the door and cursed under her breath.

She had felt it, unmistakably, as she had walked by his seated form. Desire. But not purely sexual. It was a desire that was filled with love; a deep love that twisted and turned within her, rising up from where it had been pounded down by Arthur and Epershand.

Out here, in the dark and the snow, in the isolation of the forest, she felt free. Epershand no longer imprisoned her and Arthur was not yet strong enough to compel or control her. He was not yet ready to break through her skin and take over her body.

But he might, and it could happen at any moment. She could lose control of her body. But that wasn't all. She could lose her body entirely. And her mind.

And with that realisation came the knowledge that if she had her body only for one more day, then there was something she wanted to do before she died. There was someone she wanted.

Someone who had called her 'a worthless whore' not long ago.

Someone she had hurt and betrayed.

Someone she had denied.

Someone she had forgotten.

Someone she loved more than life itself.

Someone who might never forgive her for what she had done.