Chapter Sixteen:

Charlotte walked towards the various knives, blades, and other torture instruments, some use frequently by Dominus on me, others too playful and child-like for Dominus to even consider as torture instruments. She regarded each one with a mild dislike and her ever-present respectful glare of sorts.

"Or is it Charlotte's turn?" My voice rose with excitement and she gave me a questioning and slightly bewildered glare.

She lightly balanced a lightweight silver bleed ten-inch blade in her delicate hands as she stepped forward to me "Would you like to live?"

My eyes hardened, my voice dropped, and my fingers flexed instinctively "Watch how you word your questions Ma'am."

Will tensed sensing the change in the air, Charlotte smiled, almost fondly, "I wonder." She twirled her blade between her fingers carefully but with much experience. "Is she a screamer Will?"

My lips twitched as I let my head lull back against the stonewall. "Not a sound."

"Not surprising." She seemed just slightly disappointed. "You know Luscious can be quite informative, when he," she tapped her chin lightly with the tip of the blade and a dark cloud passed over her face, a sick, admiration for the job she was about to perform. "Feels trapped."

I didn't move, I closed my eyes and felt the complexities of each stone the brought her closer to me, I wonder if I could rematerialize into someone else. Design myself into another person, become someone else. I breathed in deeply, her footsteps echoing in my mind as I pictured the man she cared for, the one she regarded fondly, her husband. I felt it then, like a shredding of my own skin, as if a hellhound was ripping off my flesh piece by piece, savoring the agony it inflicted in every one of my senses.

Charlotte's footsteps faltered and my eyes snapped open and as much precision as there was excitement. I clambered to my feet still with the grace of my extensive trainings. My eyes blazed into Charlotte's placid face and my lips quirked up in a way that made her heart race just slightly.

Her breath hitched but her face remained ever-persistently devoid of any emotion, her eyes revealed everything. "Something wrong my dear?" I pushing her perfectly sculpted buttons, yes, but I had to admit, being able to be someone else would prove to be very useful. I wonder if Dominus can do this also?

A brief memory flitted into my mind, a dream of my brother moving away to London, I had at first thought it was a vision because that was what Dominus had told me it was. Anger, pain, and extreme sorrow welled up inside me clinging to any nerve cell it could as I tried to push it down deep where the rest of my unwanted emotions stay carefully wrapped away in silk bows.

I shook my head and let Charlotte husband's body slip off of my like running lava. I shook my head again at the revelation I had just been thrust upon, Dominus knows the only thing more important to me is keeping my family safe; my family is Nate.

What better way to get me to subdue, to get me to cooperate than to tell me I was a danger to him and that he hadn't even blinked an eye when I went missing, instead he left Grandma in the hands of a elders home and took off the London. I should have known!

The vision didn't hurt, not as much as the pain of betrayal and loneliness did, I didn't question anything Dominus did after that, I lost everything that had kept me mortal. I was a faithful and perfect subject, I worked hard and long to get everything right to please Dominus until he I learned he would never be pleased until I was awaken and restored to what I once was. And he hated that I could never understand what that meant.

My eyes blazed with newfound fury towards Dominus. I dragged my eyes from the floor, the temperature rising in a noticeable uncomfortable way that edged into your bones and set lit a fire inside you, boiling your sense alive.

My glare sunk into Charlotte and she withered under it "It is time to take my leave Madam." My voice had dropped cold and sent chills that seemed to sizzle in this tiny oven of a room.

"I-You are a prisoner of the Enclave." Her voice strained to maintain authority under my dark and dangerous glare.

I stepped closer, he feet twitched as to step back but I kept them in place by dragging the elements of the stones up and around Charlottes feet and casing her in a invisible stone force field. I breathed in to calm myself slightly, redirecting my flaring energy around different over-heated parts of my body. I desperately need the cold city smog-filled air to sooth me, to re-gain control over my emotions.

"Charlotte you need to listen very carefully." I paused to steady her heart rate as he leaped with every word, in a rather unhealthy and un-stable way. "I will hurt you." Each word was punctured with a fierce determination that made my inside rationality flinch at the harsh unyielding and unforgiving fury of my voice. "Far worse that you can possibly imagine, I am not a fan of mind compulsion so please do not test my temper."

Will moved seeming to snap out of the hazy daze of the heat on the room. He unsheathed his knife and faster than any human could reattach he lunged towards me.

However, I am no human, never have been, never will be.

That is an unfortunate mistake they seem to continually make, and even more the mistake will cost a life.