Charmed

Chapter Twenty Four

My head was pounding. It felt like I had the world's worst hangover, yet I hadn't drunk a drop of alcohol. Just like when I had woken up in the barn, I realised that my ankles and wrists were shackled to a metal slab. Unlike the barn, however, sunlight streamed through a large window that was directly above me, built into the ceiling.

I groaned, turning my head to the right. My heart almost leapt out of my chest. Darius was led on a metal slab, his wrists and ankles shacked identically to mine. We were both still dressed in what we had been wearing when we were attacked, which meant that Kane probably hadn't had a lot of time to prepare.

"Darius?" I whispered. I willed for him to open his eyes, but his mouth remained slack with unconsciousness and his eyes stayed shut. "Dar, please. Wake up!" I turned my head to the left and gasped. Claude and Joyce were also shackled down like me and Darius, both of them still unconscious. "Oh, my God."

"Gwen?" Darius' voice was croaky and confused, but it was his. I whipped my head to face him with a bright smile. "Are you okay?"

"You're okay," I breathed. "That means I'm okay."

He smiled softly at me, our fight earlier seeming to be forgotten. He pulled at his wrists and ankles, but everything refused to budge. "What the hell is this?"

"It's Kane," I told him. "Before I found you knocked out in the courtyard, Heather told me that she had been told that Kane was coming. The poor girl didn't know the power of the message she'd been given."

"That son of a bitch," Darius snarled. I knew without asking that he wasn't talking about his younger sister. "How did he even get out of the dungeon?"

"I'm quicker and sneakier than you people give me credit for." Taylor's voice floated eerily throughout the room, and my hands clenched into fists. She jumped down from a windowsill and sauntered over to Darius, running her fingertip over his face.

"Get off of him," I growled, pulling fruitlessly at my restraints with all the energy I had.

"Why?" Taylor grinned. "He's mine."

Darius snatched his head away from her touch and glared at her. His emerald eyes didn't sparkle when they focused on her. "You're insane."

Taylor shrugged one of her shoulders. "Maybe. But I'm going to get what I want." When Darius and I stared at her incredulously, she sighed. We still had no real idea of what it was she was after. "I want Darius, you imbeciles."

My wedding rings clinked against the metal slab as I fought against my restraints, my breaths coming out in pants. Taylor smirked as she watched me struggle, knowing she had the upper hand yet again. "I will never let you have him."

"You don't need to let me," Taylor grinned, swinging around to land above my head. Her brown hair tickled my nose. "Darius is going to choose me over you."

"Why the fuck would I do that?" Darius hissed acidly. 

Taylor licked her lips and moved to stand above his head. "Once I realised that you really couldn't transfer magic from one person to another, Kane and I had to change tactic. That's when I decided that we should kill Gwen, effectively making Darius a widow. I would marry Darius, and he would make me the Queen of Glydale. Then Kane would be free to kill Darius in his sleep, and I would make Kane the king."

"You're insane," I chuckled, shaking my head. Darius remained silent, staring at Taylor with a look so intense that she should have dropped dead in front of us. "As if Claude or Joyce would let you do that."

"Why do you think they're here with you?" Taylor sneered. She turned and strutted from the building, slamming the door loudly behind her. I heard several locks turn, and even a padlock clink into place. She was taking no risks on us being able to escape this time. Due to the fact of how much she guarded the door, I presumed that Kane was not in the room with us.