The four o’clock hour had passed. Phoenix and Zephyr had left about an hour ago, the plan set and ready to go for the night of the Pruitt Ball in less than two weeks’ time. Baby Beck sat on the other side of the swaying fire as it roasted us from the front, October temperatures freezing our backs. There was something about the flames that rendered us without smiles, yet content, the echoes of the fireside perhaps. And the fire bowed and swayed between us as Beck mumbled as if hypnotized by the flames.
I’d tuned him out a while ago, leaning back in the wooden chair, waiting for him to pass out or leave so I could run back to the girl.My girl. The girl who held more possibilities than a midnight sky.
Branches swayed overhead as the wind hissed, an angry breeze sweeping through the forest. To my right, a grave caw of a raven cut through winds, and my head cocked to the sound. With grievous eyes and ink-stained wings, the bird floated over me with a swift flight. It landed on the low hanging branch at the start of where the forest ran deep, and cawed once again. It pulled me from my chair, and I walked to it, unable to ignore its tell.
I could feel it boring its eyes straight through me and tap along my spine as if it knew I was listening. Then another raven came. Then another.
An orchestra of wings flapped around me, surrounded me. A flock of them. The skeleton-like branches were weighed down with birds so black they looked more like shadows, or perhaps silhouettes cut from something more sinister. They lined the branches like deformed leaves of darkest ink drops.
My breath turned shallow, and I stumbled backward when a hand landed on my shoulder. I twisted in place, and Beck’s glazed and blank expression shoved into me.
“Go to her,” he stated, his usually luminous arctic-blue eyes swirling with life now dim and dazed. “Fallon, it’s Fallon.”
My chest caved, and I gripped his shoulders, shaking him awake. “Beck! What is it? What’s wrong?!”
Beck’s expression did not change as he stood vacant. Empty. There was only one other time I’d seen him this inscrutable, this beyond reach, for he was far away, nobody home. My heart pounded in my ears as the ravens screamed around me.
Desperate and out of my mind, I pulled him close to my chest and pulled back my arm, punching a right-handed hook into his gut. Beck doubled back, but I kept him close, grabbed his masked face, and trained his eyes on mine.
“What did you see?! Beck, tell me what you saw!” Beck looked around in a daze in my firm grip, and I patted his cheek, snapped my fingers. “Right here, Beck. What is it? Where’s Fallon?”
He pinched his eyes closed and opened them big, coming to. My heart slammed in every wasted second.
“In the ground,” he mumbled and shook his head as if it wasn’t making sense to him. “She’s in the ground. Trapped.” His eyes dragged to mine, and he clutched his side and gasped for air. “She can’t breathe. Time’s running out!”
The Consequence of Betrayal
“The rainy night had brought in a misty morning as Bellamy sat opposite his father from inside the cabin. ‘We are to be together, whether it be here or somewhere else, it all depends on the coven and your ability to accept that I have chosen her. You cannot keep her locked away,’ said Bellamy. The faint dawn of his father’s smile crawled over his flesh with caution. The warring of his gaze turned to despair. ‘What will you do to her?’ asked Bellamy, pounding his fist over the wooden table before the fire. ‘If you hurt her—’
“‘Oh, it must be a dark, carnal creature. You cannot see what the thing has done to you! It has seduced you in more ways than one, and how long has this been going on for? How long has it tampered with your creed? We must cleanse your soul at once!’ Horace held Bellamy’s arm in a tight grip and dragged him from the table. The chair tumbled backward with the commotion as he brought him out into the morning.
“Once outside the cabin, Horace shoved his arm into the back of Bellamy’s neck against a tree.
“‘Do what you must to me but not to her,’ pleaded Bellamy, his cheek pressed against the trunk of a birch tree.
“‘The creature of the night will get what is coming to it,’ Horace seethed into his son’s ear. ‘Goody will strip the thing of all its lewdness to make sure it can never seduce another again. Could you love her then?’
“For hours, Bellamy was beaten by his father. He endured the pain with a held tongue and gritted teeth, grasping the pendent in his fist, knowing whatever punishment he was receiving could not be worse than what would come upon Sirius. And the days following, Bellamy searched the Norse Woods for his love, Siri. No weather held him back. The nights were so cold, as cold as ice! but he refused to give up, clutching on to the silver chain his love left him with. The promise of forever. The woods had become his bed where he slept, and depression had taken him until he was physically sick with suffering and misery.
“Still, Bellamy waited for her.
“Weeks had come and gone by this time. It was a bone-chilling night when Sirius escaped the cottage and made it to Bellamy, who was found shivering under the tree they had spent so many nights. Bellamy kissed her with blue lips and his words lost on him. He touched every inch of her body as if he could not breathe without knowing she had not been harmed. His fingers ran across a deep scar on her hip, and tears pushed out with striking force from his eyes.
“‘I am all okay,’ assured Siri, cradling his head in her hands. ‘It is healed, see?’ Vehemently, Bellamy shook his head before throwing his face into her chest, gripped her upper arms as she stroked his unruly, dark hair. ‘I am to have a baby,’ she whispered as she continued to comfort him with a gentle touch.
“Bellamy looked up at Siri and examined her expression. ‘We are to have a baby,’ Bellamy corrected her.
“Siri’s face fell under his hopeful eyes.
“‘It is not yours,’ she whispered again until she found herself crying too.
“Bellamy held her cheeks and rubbed his thumb across her tears to wipe them away. ‘What did they do to you?’ He paused after seeing the frightened look in her eyes, and he dragged his palm over her white hair, trying to find the right words because it was then he knew. In his gut and his heart, Bellamy knew of the things they had done. He pulled her into his neck as the two cried. ‘If it is yours, it is mine. I will love the child as I love you, and my father and Goody will pay for what they did to you!’
“‘Bellamy, no! You will only make it worse!’ All her words muffled as she clung to him as he stood, his body visibly shaking with the utmost rage.
“‘I must! I will murder him,’ he spat. ‘I will murder both of them, and after I do, I will come back for you.’”
Chapter 36
