Desire To Love (#2 in The Hybrid Wars series)

Chapter 18 ~ Engagements

© 2017 by Authorninja. All rights reserved.

Chapter 18 ~ Engagements

  The next thing I remember I was waking up in a king sized bed with my head still aching, but nothing close to the pain I endured earlier. I shut my eyes, wondering how much I was going to be hurt into unconsciousness in my time here.

I opened my eyes, it was a neat bedroom. I was laying on a deep red bed, and the room was otherwise white and pristine. There wasn't much decoration, but I didn't expect that much in a guest room made for prisoners. I looked down at my arms, they were bandaged and cared for. My superhuman healing would hopefully fix it in a couple of hours, but I doubted the severe torture wouldn't leave a scar.

There was a sound of running water coming from the door beside the bed, where I assumed the bathroom was. The door opened, making me sit up in fear but my body relaxed when I saw it was Eli.

"Thank God you're awake," he said as he ran to sit beside me on the bed. Eli put a worried hand on my forehead, and he handed me a glass of water from the bedside table. "I was so worried, what did they do to you?"

I groaned, not exactly in the mood for story time but I was thankful that I had him to care for me. Any cruelty my uncle put on me in this re-education would've been much worse if I was alone.

"I think it was spellbinding," I muttered after taking gulps of water. "But it was like nothing I've ever seen or felt, it was torture. I don't understand how they would do this to everyone?"

"I'm not sure," Eli shook his head. "When my mother was doing this she never explained anything about hurting shifters, but she never re-educated people. Apparently, it was something not many witches could handle."

"You're telling me," I huffed as I began to explain what happened. I wasn't usually an open book with people I barely knew, but something told me Eli was going to be the only person I could trust right now, so I needed him.

"Gods," he put a hand through his dark hair and he furrowed his eyebrows. "That's awful, I'm so sorry, Blaire. Do you feel any different?"

I shook my head, I didn't. I felt the same, if not more angry towards my uncle and his people for what they were doing.

"The picture just unsettled me," I explained. "I was so confused, but it's like they waited until I was at my worst point before she put a picture of the vampire on a screen. It's the last thing I remember."

"They carried you in here unconscious and when I saw the bandages I knew my mother was right," Eli sighed. "This is too far, putting a spell on shifters so they grow up hating vampires is one thing, but torturing their people so that they go against people they care about is even worse. Your people can't be okay with this."

I wasn't so sure anymore. No one seemed to defend me apart from Eli, everyone I had seen so far either wanted me gone or were all for me getting re-educated. "I don't know, I think Chris has been fuelling some shit into their brains so they're just going along with everything he says. He's good when it comes to making himself sound like he's doing the right thing."

"Then we need to give you a voice," he nodded. "We weren't sure in Nos what part you would play in this, and I honestly thought this would end in fighting no matter what. But you can influence these people, your their Empress."

"I'm not," I shook my head. 

"You should be."

We both sat in silence as we thought about that before there was tapping on the window. I looked over, to see a small blue bird tapping its beak on the glass. It held an envelope tied around its beak in the string, and I stood up to open it.