“More.”
“Lucius, no, you need your strength too and I am feeling better.” His snarled response told me I wouldn’t win.
“More, Amelia, now do as you’re told.” I rolled my eyes at him before going back to sucking more, grinning around his flesh when he said,
“My itchy palm will owe you for that one, my sassy girl.”
After this I didn’t know how much farther we ended up going but I must have fallen asleep at some point with my face nestled against Lucius’ chest, one that had healed long ago.
“I think this is close enough!” The witch’s voice startled me awake and I quickly opened my eyes to see where we were.
I gasped in horror as we had now been plummeted right into my nightmares.
A single dead tree.
A missing bloodied noose.
A body no longer swaying at the end of it.
The place where Lucius first died.
Chapter 28
Born A Key
Lucius felt me tense so hard it felt like my bones would snap and the pain in my shoulder intensified.
“Easy, sweetheart,” he told me, making me grab onto his t-shirt, bunching it in my fist as I whispered,
“But this place…it’s…it’s,”
“I know where it is, love,” he told me stopping me from saying it and I looked to see if there was any pain in his eyes, where there seemed to be only deep rooted anger that was desperate to break free.
“Now put her down!” the witch demanded, and I looked over his shoulder to find a large arc of rogues all stood like silent sentinels, making me feel as if something wasn’t right with them.
“Lucius, all the Vampires, they seem…”
“I know,” he said with a tense lock of his jaw. Because it was as if he already knew where my thoughts were headed, and he shook his head telling me not to speak of it now.
“Put her down, Vampire!” the witch ordered again.
“No!” he snapped back on a growl, but then she started to raise her hand and said,
“Very well, another arrow should do it.” Layla clapped her hands as if this was the most fun she’d had in years…Gods, the bitch clearly needed to get laid if that was the case!
“NO! DON’T!” Lucius roared making the witch fold her arms and say expectantly,
“Well…”
“Fuck! Alright, alright just don’t fucking hurt her!” Lucius said, his panic clear to see as he started to lower my feet to the ground. Then he held me steady until I was able to stand on my own, something that made me feel lightheaded again.
“Now move away from her.”
“If I do that, she will fucking fall!” he snapped.
“Then she will fucking crawl to it! Now move it!” the witch demanded making him do as she ordered for fear I would get hurt again. He mouthed down at me,
‘It will be alright.’
“Now, walk towards the tree!” The witch ordered me this time and I had to say, I really didn’t fucking want to. The image of my nightmares coming back to me was enough to make me terrified to go anywhere near it. Lucius took one look at me and knew it. Which was why he started to argue,
“I fail to see the fucking point of all of this!”
“The Tree of Souls will show itself…you will see,” the witch replied in a certain tone.
“The Tree of Souls is a fucking Vampires’ fairy tale, it doesn’t fucking exist!” he snapped but I could see the witch’s grin from here, a flash of white beneath the hood.
“Don’t be so sure.”
“I have had my people searching for it for centuries, and nothing…trust me, I am fucking sure!” he snarled back folding his arms across his chest and looking as if he was close to splitting his t-shirt! He looked fit for murder and rage and total demonic execution. Meanwhile, I was left with no other option but to continue trying to make my way towards the tree I knew had taken Lucius’ human life. It was a haunting sight, that single dead tree all twisted and bare, looking more like the sun bleached bones of what used to be some Hellish beast reaching up out of the earth trying to escape damnation.
“Perhaps you weren’t looking in the right place,” Layla said getting in on the action.
“You think the first fucking place I looked wasn’t the place I fucking died and was resurrected…It’s. Not. Fucking. Here!” He growled forcing out each word and trying to make his point when releasing his wings as more of his demon erupted to the surface.
“Then, if you are right, no harm will come to her…now walk the rest of the way, Princess,” the witch told me, and I snarled myself at the name and cursed myself for stumbling as I did as I was told.
“Don’t you fucking move, Luc!” Layla snarled in warning as Lucius struggled to watch me trying to stay on my feet.
“Fucking foolish beliefs!” he snapped making her tell him,
“Or just the lack in them, for you will see, lover.” Now hearing her calling him this made me close to saying to hell with the rain of arrows, I wanted to rip her head off!
“The tree is nothing but a fucking relic!” Lucius’ demon was the one to respond this time.
“Then why is it still here, dead as it may be, but it is still here… even after all your attempts at destroying it…still here it stands,” the witch reminded him, letting me know just how Lucius had felt about it remaining after all this time. And he didn’t respond other than to growl at her because of it.
“No, it is your lack of faith that forced you to turn your back on your own past, and now you will see, all you needed was the right key…the blood of…”
“Shut the fuck up!” Lucius shouted, making the witch chuckle.
“What is she talking about?” I asked still making my way towards it and only a few feet away now.
“Nothing, she knows fucking nothing but lies!” he snarled, referring to the witch, but his tone suggested more panic than anger.
“My lies, oh Vampire…she has no idea the fucking lies you have told her…the same ones you have since the day she was born!” The witch snapped back making me frown in question just as I had no choice but to reach out for the tree trunk, as I fell into it.
“Lucius?” I whispered his name before asking,
“What is she…” suddenly I was cut off when he roared back at the cause of all our problems,
“SILENCE!”
But through his roar I stumbled back, falling further back against the tree, and looking up in horror as its large branches loomed above me, like twisted limbs of some monster trying to grab me, ready to tear out my soul and drag me back down to Hell. They were moving, swaying…or was that just me,
“Amelia?” I heard my name being called through the darkness of my nightmare, but I couldn’t see it. I continued to move, trying to free myself from whatever gripped me now, but it seemed useless!
“Amelia!” Lucius shouted my name this time, done so in panic and the second a blinding light erupted from beneath me, I screamed as suddenly I started to fall…no, not fall, but just like my fears, I was being dragged. Like the earth beneath my feet had started to crumble away, giving way to the roots of this tree that was pulling me under. They were like the hands of death wanting to claim its next victim and I was powerless to stop them.