My Wee Mate

46 - Shattering Now

Ailsa

     I've never woken up so cold as I do today. My teeth chatter so hard my jaw might shatter. I clutch my dress to my legs. It's dark, and the hard stone beneath me provides no comfort or warmth.

      At first, I believe that this freezing cold is just because of where I am. Then I realize.

     It takes me a small while to dawn on me where it is that I am. I take a deep whiff in and it clicks, the sun rising over my dark, clouded brain to shine some like on the situation.

    The dungeons and their filthy, musty stench.

     "Fraser?" I call out the one and only word on my mind, but all that responds is the trickling drip of water from the ceilings. I feel out in the harsh, pitch black, finding nothing but cold bars that keep me pinned in.

     "Fraser..." My voice breaks, tears in my voice as they get clogged in my throat.

     He couldn't possibly be gone? Could he? That's not possible. He left me here? No. No, not my Fraser. He wouldn't, couldn't.

     My hand goes to my neck as my memories flash, brushing the gouge of a wound staining my skin at the smooth juncture of my shoulder. A sharp pain echoes down my spine.

      So, it would seem I hadn't imagined that. I fed him, brought him back from the brink.

     I gulp, the motion causing sheer agony.

    He couldn't have left me, he would never abandon me here. I shake my head, sure there must be a mistake.

    Fraser told me he loved me. He tried to save me from my father's men. Why would he do that if he planned on abandoning me the first chance he got?

    There's a sound that breaks the silence, an opening of the dreaded door from above, the door that leads to my clan. That door that I once used every night. I'm all too familiar with it and it's signature unbearable noise that it makes when it scratches against the stony ground. I wince, my head panging.

    Footsteps and a flickering light rumble down the stairs, illuminating the dank dungeons and making me reassess exactly where I am. Sure enough, I'm locked up like a prisoner.

     More footsteps and soon I'm looking at the sneering face of my father. The Laird. Our blessed leader. His eyes shoot sharp stones at my heart and he glares down his nose at me, eyebrows bunched and lip curled. He's looking as if I was a mess he stepped in rather than his own offspring.

      You would assume that I was used to that look by now, but it never ceases to choke me as I drown in his disappointment.

    As he nears, his swinging lantern allows me to see the inside of my cell, realizing that this is the same cell that my vampire was kept in for all those months and weeks we spent together. The bars have been replaced, and there is no way I will be able to shatter them as Fraser did with ease.

    "I hope you have come to know and understand what it is that you've done, lass. What you've done to me, what you've done to this clan, and maybe you're ready to see what the consequences for your betrayal will be." He says slowly, and I stare at him, letting the implications wash over me.

    My father found me here, found that his vampire prisoner was gone, and locked me up like the traitor that he believes I am.

    This cannot be good. No, in fact, this is a very, very grave situation I have found myself in. There might not be any squirming out of trouble now. I've gone too far this time, and worse, I've been doing it. And even worse than that, I have no handsome lover to kiss away my troubles and fight my battles for me.