The Healer and the General

Part 12

Eric was nervous. He was also in the dark and really hated it. He had gotten no closer to why Demi had been chained with the magic draining metal and was very close to outright asking her. He was nervous because if tonight went badly Demi would either hate him or he would find that she was loyal to Ura.

Eric didn't like doing this, but he needed to make sure his camp and people were safe. And that their new healer was loyal. So he had brought in Elena to see how Demi might react. It killed him to see the fear in her eyes when she first came into the tent. But Eric managed to keep his cool and just calmly gestured towards the chief of the Ura clan.

He watched her eyes widen, and a look of, what he thought was satisfaction, crossed her face, before expertly hiding it behind a neutral mask. Elena stared at his mate with disgust and hatred, and he saw that Demi's hands shook lightly, but her eyes were no longer filled with fear.

He knew at that moment that she wasn't loyal to the Ura clan in the slightest and would've taken her out of the tent if she had not started to speak, "What's she doing here?" Demi's voice was quiet, but not weak.

"What am I doing here?" Elena laughed, "What are you doing here." The look of disgust again came over her face.

Demi took a breath and stepped closer to her, "I am here because I wish to be."

Again Elena laughed, "Because you wish to be? You are nothing more than a slave, my slave actually. So be a good little girl and release me." Eric stepped forward to smack her for the accusation, but Demi put her hand up to stop him.

"Not anymore. Under the laws of the fae, I now belong to him, seeing as he took over your clan, and he has set me free." She smiled, stepped closer, and dropped her voice to a whisper, "And I just wanted to let you know that you are nothing, nothing to me or anyone else. You have tortured and beaten me for eight years, but once you are dead or worse, I will move past you and the pain you caused. You will be but a nightmare until one day I forget entirely about you. Then you'll be nothing but a speck of dust. And nobody will remember you, nobody will care." Demi stepped back still smiling and Elena had gone pale.

"These people will not accept you, Demetria," Elena started, "Once they learn what you really are." Before she could continue Eric took his sword and plunged it into Elena's heart. He didn't want to hear her horrible voice anymore, and he doubted Demi wanted to either.

Right before the light left her eyes Demi whispered so quietly Eric could barely tell what she said, "I'll see you in hell." and walked out of the tent.

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Demi walked out of the tent and then started sprinting. She needed to breathe in the smell of the earth, it would calm her. It always did. When she got to the edge of the forest she didn't slow. Figuring somebody would follow her Demi just kept ongoing.

When she felt like she couldn't run anymore, she plopped down onto the forest floor, her thoughts racing. Demi heard rather than saw Eric come sprinting past her. He stopped when he realized that she was sitting down behind him.

"Why?" Demi asked. Why would they put her through that, not even a full day after she'd been freed. Demi liked to think of herself as strong, liked to think that she'd move past everything she'd been though the past years, with her head held high. But that's not how it worked.

"We needed to see how you'd react, to see where your loyalties truly lie," Eric explained.

"Eric, look at me. Look at my scars. Why would I be loyal to Ura, when for eight years they beat me and then expected me to keep on healing them? Why would I be loyal to somebody who enslaved me?" Tired from everything, Demi couldn't even manage to yell, to show her frustration and hurt. Not that would it matter. The only thing showing her emotions ever got Demi was a beating.