I was in someplace beneath ground level. I was in a fucking prison cell? There was a pail in the corner, still holding urine and excrements from the last inhabitant. A single crusty blood-covered, blanket sat beneath me, and as I peered down as something rushed over my foot, and I screamed, standing up to hug the claw-ridden prison wall. Where the fuck was I? My ears heard very little over the sound of my racing heart, and I turned as something in the cell across from me, moaned loudly before whimpering in pain.
I shook my head to rid my mind of the fear-gripping icy claws trying to sink into it. I closed my eyes, seeing the last thing I remembered. Knox’s panic eyes filled my mind, and I frowned, recalling the icy cold grip of death that had pulled me through some type of vortex that had felt like I was being torn to pieces. I’d blacked out after being tossed into some kind of cart and ended up barfing everywhere the moment I’d started waking up. I had felt the cold chill once more. The fear that had slammed against my mind had knocked me out cold, as if someone had spelled me to remain asleep.
The sound of feet moving over stone echoed loudly, pulling me from my memories. My heart beat wildly at the voice coming closer to my cell. I’d have known that singsong voice from anywhere. Moving closer, I approached the bars and peered through them, angling my head to stare down the dark hallway. It was filled with cells and cries of people. No, not people; women sobbed and cried for help from each of the cells lining the hall.
A masculine voice crooned to the singsong voice, and I narrowed my gaze. I watched my sister as she stood on tiptoes, kissing a large male before turning to look down the hallway in my direction.
“Amara,” I whispered.
They started walking again, and I sagged in relief as she came into view, only to drop it as her angry glare held mine. There was madness in her blue eyes as she let it slide over my crumpled frame.
“Aria,” she smirked triumphantly.
My stomach rolled, flipping until I thought I would be sick again as she smiled cruelly at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here, this is my home. Here, I am treated like the queen I am and don’t have to compete with you or the others anymore.” She neared the bars, touching my hands as she smiled at me coldly. “Oh my, you thought they had taken me, didn’t you? You stupid, naïve little bitch,” she chuckled as the male next to her studied me, letting his lewd gaze linger on my top a little too long. “I thought my letters were pretty convincing, but you didn’t bite. You just went about your day, didn’t you? This would have been so much easier had you just followed my instructions and met me at the old oak tree. Now I have to make certain you hurt so much more.”
“What the hell do you mean, Amara? You’re my sister.”
“What the hell do I mean? You are a selfish little bitch, Aria. You’re miserable and insufferable to be around, and I hated every moment of being forced to endure your pathetic crying. You were everyone’s favorite, and why? Because poor Aria was promised to the darkness, but you weren’t, were you? No, you were just some miserable fucking bitch who acted terrified so that everyone would feel sorry for you. I am the darkness and was all along. I had it inside of me, hidden from everyone. I watched our mother try to murder you over and over again, but she couldn’t. I held the darkness, and you held the light. But then you got stronger, more powerful than I was.
“You hid it from everyone at first, but I exposed you to Aurora. Everyone babied poor Aria, and no one paid any attention to me or my needs. Not until I started coming here, and they worshipped me. I searched for our father at first, and discovered so much more about our mother, and who could potentially be our father, but that doesn’t matter now, does it? You took everything from me, and I know you ended up with something inside of you, but you can’t access it, can you? You’re too weak to control your own emotions, let alone what lives within you. It’s okay, sister mine, you won’t live long enough to worry about it here.”
“You brought me here, why? Because you’re fucking jealous? You had everything, Amara. You took everything from me, right down to the boys I liked. I never complained, never begrudged you what you did. I hid and protected your secrets. I did it because I am your sister, your twin sister.”
“No, you didn’t. You were the selfish one. Always poor Aria this, or poor Aria that. We moved away from my home because of you! We left everyone because you couldn’t get over, almost being murdered. I lost my mother because of you, you selfish whore. I thought I was weak because we were the last twins born to Freya, but then I heard Aurora arguing with our mother, telling her what would happen to you if she brought us back here together. You took everything, Aria. You stole the power that should have been mine. I was born weak, without magic rushing through my veins because of you. I had to fight to wield it because, for me, it wasn’t easy. I was a Hecate bloodline born witch with no fucking magic because of you!” Spittle sprinkled my hands, and I pulled them back, glaring at her.
“In every birth one is born weaker than the other. It is a failsafe to protect the bloodline in case one goes insane or makes a move against the coven. You could cast magic, Amara, but you never fucking cared to study it. Just because you’re born with it doesn’t make it yours. I earned it through learning and mastering my magic, which you refused to even try to do. I begged you to learn, but you couldn’t be bothered to even crack open a grimoire. I did all of your homework for you. I warned you that if you didn’t learn, you wouldn’t grow stronger. Just because you carry the last name doesn’t make you powerful. You have to learn to use magic and how to control it. You refused because you were lazy and thought everything should be handed to you. No one owed you anything, and neither does the realms. It gives you what you earn as everything in life does.”
“I shouldn’t have to learn it. I am Hecate’s granddaughter. It is in my blood to be powerful,” she shouted, causing the other people in the cells to groan louder. “It matters little, considering your fate.”
“Amara, I am your sister. You cannot gift me to anyone. That isn’t how it works. If you do this, they will send you to the Void of Nothingness once they capture you.”
“They’ll never find my beautiful bride,” the male crooned, touching her midnight-colored curls while still eye-fucking me.
“You’re so strong and handsome,” she whispered, bringing his hand to her breast with the invitation.
I exhaled and shook my head as bile stung the back of my throat. If this was a nightmare, it was currently in the running for the most fucked-up dream in history. Her husband’s eyes never moved from me, which was freaking me out, and creepy as fuck. He breathed heavily through a nose that looked as if it had taken a sword to it at one time or another.
“She is exquisite.” He let his eyes move to the saturated joggers I wore and then up further to my breasts as he smashed hers in his hand.
“If you like plain bitches that can’t suck cock.” She glared at me as if it was my fault he was staring. “Aria wouldn’t know how to please anyone but herself.”
“She isn’t plain. She will look so good tied up and mutilated.”
I stared at him, noting the thick tattoos that covered his arms and the discoloration of his fingertips. He wasn’t ugly, far from it. He had deep sea-green eyes, midnight-colored hair, and he wore a gold crown encrusted with fingertip-sized diamonds. The only visible deformity was his nose, which held an angry scar across it.