This chapter was weird to write, but I couldn't find a way to write it better, so sorry it's not so good. Hopefully the next chapter will be better!
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I looked around to find out where I was, and, to my dismay, found myself to be back on the tower of my dreams.
Correction; Nightmares.
As if the word 'Nightmares' had summoned him, Kalona was suddenly beside me.
I immediately tensed up, not knowing what to expect.
He didn't look at me, but instead stared at the wonderful sunset, his expression unreadable. I just stood there, wanting to leave, but not knowing how to. After countless minutes, he finally spoke in a very calm voice.
"I can save you, Zoey. I can bring you back to your body."
For a moment I didn't know how to respond to the powerful emotion he spoke with. He seemed sincere, but with him you could never tell. I gathered myself and looked at him from the corner of my eye.
"How could you possibly save me, if I can't even save myself?"
His eyes finally met mine, and I could see strong emotions seething in the amber depths. I couldn't quite place them, though.
"I am a being that walks the Otherworld as well as the real world. I could save you."
"Why would you even bother? Now that I'm out of the way, you can carry on with your, your fantastic plan to take over the world!" The venom in my words surprised even me, and I looked at my bare feet when his eyes flooded with pain.
"Because it's the most I could to do make up for how much I've hurt you," he muttered after a few moments.
These words filled me with a sudden fury. Hurt me? Hurt me? Oh, he'd done much more than 'hurt me'. He'd almost killed my grandma, actually killed Heath, destroyed my life, and haunted my dreams. I ground my teeth and clenched my fists, and also closed my eyes in an attempt to control my rage.
When I opened them again, Kalona had moved and was standing uncomfortably close to me, but he kept his hands to himself. For now.
"Zoey…" The use of my real name extinguished the rage and stirred an immense emotion in me. "I just want you to be with me."
He suddenly took my hand, which I tried—albeit unsuccessfully—to wrench from his firm grip, and held my gaze. My eyes narrowed, and I tried again to pull my hand from his. Dang, he was strong!
I finally sighed impatiently, and called fire to me. As my hand grew white hot, but I could feel only the gentle warmth of the sun on my skin, Kalona's eyes grew wide; first in surprise, then in frustration. He let go, and shook his hand as if it had actually been burned.
"A-ya, you make this very…difficult," he growled, this time using the name of the earthen maiden that was made to trap him in the earth, and that I just happened to be a reincarnation of. Lucky me.
"Yeah, and it's just gonna get more difficult if you don't leave me the heck alone!" I growled back, before stomping away and wishing with all of my brain power that I could get away from here. I heard quick footsteps behind me, and Kalona kept talking to me, even though I was walking away.
"You don't understand, Zoey," he said sharply. "I am bound to Neferet. Since it was she that saved me from my prison, I am connected to her in a way unimaginable, and unbreakable, unless one of us was to die. And, seeing as she is evil, I am evil too. Just as you know you love me, I know I should be good. But just as you willingly ignore your love for me because you believe you should, I cannot ignore that I know I should be good, but I am forced to, through our bond. I am compelled to be…bad, because of her wickedness. Do you understand? But I could change for you."
I rolled my eyes at him, though he couldn't see, because I was walking away from him.
"Yeah, right, and you also said that right before you killed Heath. Who are you going to kill next?" My eyes stung when I remembered Heath, but I held my head high anyways. I didn't know where I was heading, but I didn't feel like dealing with Kalona right now. A warm hand laid itself on my shoulder. I halted and looked at it blankly, and one traitor tear welled out of my eye as I saw the blank skin on my shoulder.
I shrugged out from under his hand, and he said my name in a mix of anger and frustration. I looked at my shoulder again, and I saw what looked like the faint outline of his fingers still on my skin. Except it was darker and bluer…
My heart leapt in joy as I realized what it was. Right where his hand had lain, the gentle curvature of my expanded mark was just visible. It was extremely faded, and almost impossible to see unless looked at closely, but it was there. And not just where Kalona's hand had been, but it appeared as if all my marks were coming back! I almost wept in happiness, but he was right there, so instead I started walking faster, wishing myself away with a new fervor.
He caught up with me, and grabbed my hand to stop me. He was doing a lot of that lately.
"Let go!" I fumed after a few unsuccessful shakes. "Just leave me alone! There's no way you could ever change, no matter what you say. And blaming it on Neferet— that's low, even for you."
Even as I spoke, the hand that clutched my own grew colder, and colder, until it burned with a familiar desire. I used fire again to make him let go, and immediately took off.
"A-ya! You will be mine!"
His footsteps could be heard behind me as I ran. I didn't really know where I was going, but then I saw the door to the inside of the castle that Kalona had carried me through before I had known who he was. I darted inside and ran towards the door I found inside on the right wall. I slammed into it and tried to tug it open, before realizing it was locked. I sighed in exasperation and looked for another way out just as Kalona entered the room, looking incredibly vexed. He headed in my direction, and I went in the opposite, having seen a second door in a corner of the room hidden by a jutting-out wall. Luckily this one was unlocked.
I dashed outside into a strangely wide hallway before slamming the door shut, and using fire for the third time that…uh, dream, to melt the doorknob and hinges together as I ran. I heard him slam into the door, and I reached an intersection of hallways. A loud, threatening crunch came from the door Kalona was trying to open, and I followed my intuition and went left. It led me down a wide, long, dark corridor, and I was quickly met with another intersection, except at the end of each of these short but spacious hallways, stood a door. I trusted my gut again, and went straight. And…the door was locked. I heard a loud, shattering crack echoing down the corridor, and then a bizarre fluttering noise.
I pursued my intuition and used fire to burn the door. As the ash crumbled in front of me, I looked behind me just in time to see Kalona flying gracefully with his large, beautiful, black wings. He came to a halt and landed elegantly on his feet. This was when I booked it through the doorway to get a head start.
It turned out to lead to what looked like a large, open ballroom, with one large, attractively carved throne and seven less ornately carved thrones on either side of it at the head of the room. I paused for what I imagined was only a few seconds, but it was a few seconds too long. A few rustling noises behind me was all the warning I had before being swept up in a pair of muscular arms.
"A-ya, I told you that you would be mine," Kalona whispered in my ear after he'd perched upon a huge chandelier that felt like it was fifty feet above the hard, stone floor. I reflexively held onto him with all my might as the fragile structure swayed from it's sudden disturbance. Kalona seemed to find this funny, and chuckled a little. This, of course, made me want to let go. And I stupidly and stubbornly did so. And then I began to slip from his seemingly iron embrace, and towards the impending doom of the floor. I grabbed onto the thin metal frame of the chandelier to keep from splatting on the ground.
Kalona jerked forward, and this sudden movement caused me to lose my grip and slip a little, and also caused some of the glass pieces of it to fall to the hard floor and shatter. I shrieked, and he reached down for me, but just missed me. My hands were becoming sweaty fast, and suddenly I was falling, for what felt like forever, but must have been only a few seconds. The floor was only a few yards beneath me when Kalona flew out beneath me, caught me and we both crashed to the floor in a heap, Kalona' body breaking my fall. I noticed distractedly that he was warm to the touch again.
My body hurt, but I scrambled to get off him. He sat up slowly, and I noticed with revulsion that the whole arm that he'd—well, we'd— landed on looked like a collage of shattered glass pieces. He rolled his shoulder and most of the pieces fell away without even a mark, because they hadn't penetrated the skin, only stuck to it. But there was one large piece that had punctured his skin, and it looked like it was stuck about half an inch deep. With one swift movement, Kalona yanked the large shard out of his bicep. He made no other sound than a sharp intake of breath as the small bead of blood around the wound grew into a fat drop and began falling down his arm.
He glanced at his wings, I assumed to make sure they weren't damaged, and tested them out. He flapped them gently a few times, and the sudden breeze wafted it towards me. An astonishing smell, the most overpowering, enticing, tempting aroma you could imagine; and better. I wanted it more than anything in the world, but I had to force my thoughts elsewhere as they zeroed in on that single abrasion, where a well of blood had begun. My mouth watered as I intently watched the viscous liquid run down his arm. Kalona, not noticing where my attention was, brusquely wiped away the red stream with his hand. He started talking to me, but I couldn't hear what he said. I was concentrating too hard on not jumping towards him and drinking his inviting, enchanting blood. I watched his wound and grew dizzy with the effort of keeping away. I wanted it so badly.
I hadn't realized I had fallen to my knees until Kalona glanced at me worriedly, and started to rise to his feet. He offered me his hand to help me up, him not realizing that it was the bloody hand. I took it shakily, and stared at our joined hands. Kalona spoke again, but again I couldn't hear him due to my extreme concentration. He let go of my hand after I was standing, and I just stood there, staring at it, covered in his blood. I wanted more than anything to lick the delicious substance from it, but I refrained from doing so. I couldn't think, I couldn't breathe, all I could do was stand there and stare at his blood.
My head was unexpectedly jerked upwards by a hand pulling my chin up. It was, luckily, not bloody. Kalona's worried amber eyes met my own bewildered ones, and he looked at me staring as if in a trance at my bloody hand, and promptly wiped the red liquid away. He spoke again, but this time I faintly heard.
"Zoey? What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
He's so bipolar… I thought absentmindedly as I began to recover from the shock of his blood's strength. I glanced at his arm, and my gaze was frozen once again by the still flowing blood. Kalona looked where I was looking, and it seemed to register all at once as to why and where my gaze was caught. He looked at me, slowly placed one finger over his wound, and pulled it away again to reveal a drop of blood clinging to it. I had to stop myself from licking my lips in longing.
Oh, Goddess, please help me! I silently begged as Kalona moved the finger towards me. I subconsciously noted that I seemed to be glowing again as the finger drew nearer, the alluring drop of blood dangling from the end. My eyes widened, and I just couldn't help myself; I licked it.
My mouth exploded with flavor as my body exploded into pieces again, and I couldn't tell which caused me to go temporarily blind with an overwhelming and unidentified sensation. I floated along, not knowing where I was going, but knowing I never wanted to return to where I had come.
Hey guys, trivia question!
How long does it take to write a review?
Hey, maybe you should write one, time yourself, and tell me!
How 'bout that?
Your Pal,
ll SuperOreoMan ll
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