BLOODLUST - DARK SOULS (THE CURSE OF THE BLOOD SERIES #1)

part four

After the battle, her eyes darkened. She didn't know how long she stayed that way but as soon as she woke up, she felt her body aching when she found herself chained. A thick, shiny metal sealed her neck and molded it to an enormous chain on the wall. She could still move not more than several inches. She knew they wouldn't let her die easily, but it didn't mean she had a chance to get out of there alive. Even if her every bone yearned for freedom, she had nowhere else to go, no one to find. Aida disappeared. Daye was a pile of ashes. The war had taken everything from her before she even had something, to begin with.

Breath in. Breath out.

That was the only gift she knew she could control. The spell-she cast to stay alive after an army from the north slaughtered and captured every single Ivera that stood in Daye. Vengeance remained unspoken, hanging in the air. Because no matter how unfair she felt her life was, there was nothing she could do. If it weren't for him that asked her to stay in this nightmare, she would've taken her own life.

"How convenient it is to think about death right now." A voice bounced to her room. Husky, but firm. Laith gritted her teeth, annoyed. But no response echoed back from her trembling lips.

The metal clanked as he slowly leaned closer to the clear wall. "Couldn't help it. Your thoughts. They were too loud."

Laith crept nearer, too, glinting at the sight of him leaning through the opposite side of the wall, hugging his both knees at the corner of her eyes. His injured shoulder was already treated and wrapped in, but the blood still bloomed on the white cloth. He was hurt.

"You can hear my thoughts?"

"Yes."

"Can't you control it?" She sneered. It was already a disaster not to be completely private that she had a psychic companion that could invade her mind.

"When I'm not in good shape, no." Rhys turned to his side. "How's your head?"

Laith didn't think he would concern about her yet she still ran her fingers through the thin bandage that wrapped on her scalp. "I'll be fine."

He nodded and sat straight back again, and they both went silent. A moment later, Laith sensed his heat spreading across the glass, seeping through her tingling skin. He knew she was freezing to death. The very floor was already made from ice, so it did make sense to share some heat this time. Somehow, his warmth soothed her coiled thoughts inside, calming her mind though it was the same heat that tried to kill her two days ago.

Laith turned to him, "Why did you save me?" her shoulder pressed against the transparent boundary between them.

"It doesn't matter."

Not a surprise. "Sure," she replied.

She heard a heavy sigh before he turned and faced her, his eyes narrowed. "You remember what happened." He pursed his lips. "You said you can get us out of here."

The nightmare beamed into her eyes unwelcomely. Laith turned numb. That thing. It controlled her body completely after she turned manic thanks to his mind-bending power. Everything was hazy after that incident. She could only shake the demon off as she heard a voice. A familiar one.

But she could barely recall it. "I didn't."

Laith realized the disappointment in that black pool of gaze before it turned cold and numb again. " Sure you can't. You're just The Vessel." He murmured, closing his eyes.

Please don't call her that.

After everything she went through, she still couldn't accept that her living was only meant for carrying the dark souls. Whatever they called it, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to care. Her head spun. Her body felt like being slit by the dagger into every inch of her bone, every knuckle.

Suddenly her veins softened, and her tight lungs widened. Silk-smooth calmness greeted her thirsty tongue, and she tasted them greedily. She took the deepest breath she ever had. The calmness. She thought she'd never felt it especially now. Laith turned again when Rhys was already waiting for her gaze first while giving a wry smile.

"Relax. That might be helpful."

She was shocked by his sudden-switched mood, but she liked it, in a way. "I would. If you promised to stay out of my head."

"I never peek at your thoughts, Laith."

Laith's brow rose.

Rhys chuckled, softly. "I won't do it again. I promise." Then, he sighed. "I shouldn't call you that, since most vessels won't accept the consequences they had to pay for the gift they're born with. But it might be unfair to you for not knowing what the hell will happen to your life."

Laith narrowed her eyes. His words somehow broke something inside her. "I won't regret it. Tell me."

"I would if I were you." Rhys smiled; his breath blew regret. "The only kind that is immune to the influence of the Varynx-The Vessel. How tempting it sounds, no one survived for more than three days after being possessed. The longest for someone might be a week, but that is rare." He paused, searching for Laith's gaze along the way. "Until now."

"But I've been here for two days. Five days left, maybe lesser, until I lost my mind completely."

"Laith," Rhys's brows almost met. "We're trapped here for almost half a year."

What in the blaze of-"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know how long you're here, since I came here after you but we've been trapped here for almost six months."

"Six months?" That couldn't be true. "No," She wasn't wrong. He lied to her.

"You don't remember." Rhys placed his head against the glass and sighed. "Do you?"

Laith bent her spine forward. Half a year? Her hands ran through her scalp, squeezing her golden-brown hair tightly. That was absurd. She remembered it was the past two days after they captured her.

"I need to get outta here," Laith grunted.

"That's what you said before. How did I fall for that." Rez sighed.

"What are they gonna do to me?" Laith smashed the wall, yet Rhys remained still. She whimpered in agony, her hands slipping through the glass. There was no way out. She would be trapped here until they killed her.

Footsteps suddenly clanked their way through her space as she and Rez immediately crept apart, wearing hopeless faces so they wouldn't suspect anything. Laith bit her lower lip as she tried to grab any sense of someone as the cold whisper shook harder. Must be the guards.

A guard paced to the hall beside her room. He wasn't alone. He grabbed a hand that was with him. A girl, with long, ivory-white hair struggled between his arms. But her strength was jeopardized when a slap landed on her pretty face.

Laith jerked a little but kept calm as her eyes pierced their way through the iron bar, watching the guard push her inside.

"In!"

Another Forbiddenchild. Rez's voice suddenly echoed through her mind, making her flinch. Another forbidden-gifted child? But she couldn't sense her heat. If she wasn't an Invera-

She's a For.

How irritating she felt about Rez, somehow he helped her clear up her curiosity. But she was more concerned about the girl, who seemingly fainted the second the guard left.

'What's her gift?'

I don't know. I couldn't read her mind anymore. They've drugged her.

Was the drug blocking his gift in some way? She wanted to ask more when a familiar sense whipped past her face. She and Rhys turned to each other.