Chapter 12 (Part 2)

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My feet carried me forward in a trance that had everything around me fading away until all that was left in my sights was the swinging crystal that had lured me back to the man who had been my savior before becoming my prison guard. My hand entered my line of sight, reaching for it, but before my fingers could curl around it, Rowan lifted it out of my reach. Chasing after it, I pumped up against his chest in my pursuit.

Flinching back at the unexpected contact, he returned to fill my sight as his words replayed in my head as I reeled in the desperation that was clawing at my insides to jump up and steal the key. But as they registered, I was convinced I must have misheard him.

"W-what d-did you say?" I stuttered out as I moved back. My steps shook as much as my voice, not able to handle the cruel joke he was playing at.

Hope was a hell of a drug, dangling it in front of a desperate addict's face wouldn't end well...

For me.

It never did.

Hope always made a fool out of little girls who didn't know better. But I wasn't little anymore. I hadn't been for a long time.

Yet fear never failed to make me feel small. In a world where the only value I held warmed my chest and chased after me as an unknown threat, all I was, was small and pathetic. The foolish human too weak and stupid to do anything but hope and fail and then... repeat the same mistake all over again.

Rowan stepped forward, his eyes parting with the distrust in mine to lower to the key in his hand. "You want to save the friend you left behind. I have what you need and you... you have something I want. I'm sure we can both come to an amicable agreement that gets us both what we want."

"And what exactly is it that you want?" I questioned, my voice laced with inquiry and distrust instead of disbelief this time. I would trade anything for the chance to save Ash, but if life had taught me anything, it was that if something seemed too good to be true, it was.

"The Blood Stone," he said, cutting straight to the chase as he met my eyes just in time to see them go wide in fear. "I want the power that it's pumping through your veins."

Although a part of me expected his answer, it still had me taking another step back as my trembling hands rose to my chest protectively as though he was about to reach into it to rip the stone warming it out. As though I could do anything to stop him if he wanted to.

I opened my mouth to deny and lie like Hilda had insisted I should if the Blood Mark was ever discovered, but Ash's gaunt features popped into my head, stopping the lies from making it past my lips. She and Silas had stressed how important it was to never let anyone discover the mark, but...

They didn't understand how important Ash was to me.

They never did, otherwise, they wouldn't have been so quick to dismiss my desperation to return and would have told me how unlikely the chances of making it back in time to save him were.

But no, they kept their mouths shut and let me... hope. Aside from the lack of choice for the most what, what had me me taking up their secret as my own and hiding the Blood Stone and its mark was the fear of knowing that I would never make it back to Ash if it was discovered. But now that it was and the one who had found it was offering me the one thing that I wanted the most...

I was too selfish to sacrifice the only man I loved for a realm I felt nothing but fear and hate for.

"How?" I asked, my voice sounding as small as I felt under his gaze.

Surprisingly, he didn't light up in victory as I had expected at the question. Instead, his features hardened as all traces of emotion vanished from his features. "Through a soul bond."

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