?Why is everything getting complicated now? Why is the universe being an even bigger bitch to me now? What kind of monster was I in a previous life to have been given all of this?
?“Mavyllora,” Nana gently calls but I flinch again and dig my nails into my palms.
?Mavyllora, he would whisper. His empathic magic roving through my system, twisting my emotions and feelings, before his venom would.Mavyllora, my sweet little thing. Are you going to be a good girl for me? Can you feel me? Can you feel what being a good little girl does to me?
?I’m going to throw up. I’m heaving and I’m going to throw up because I can imagine it so perfectly. I can still feel his rough fingers digging into my small body and scraping over my smooth and scarred, cursed flesh. The burning had been so constant from the skin on skin contact that it sometimes no longer felt like pain.
?I would crave his constant touch because when he would stop for a time only to touch me again the burning was always worse.
?“What is happening,” a voice demands.
?I’m in a nightmare.
?I was wrong before. This isn’t a dream or real life with everyone else dreaming. This is a nightmare. Because that voice. . .
?Mavyllora. Mavyllora my sweet little thing.
?I wish he had just killed me all those years ago.
?I wish I had stopped my own heart instead of his.
Three
Varian – Novam 11
She had been hyperventilating after Esmirra said her name. Something triggering her, but now she’s as still as the gargoyle statues around the school.
?She’s bracing, Callahan murmurs in our minds. I had linked me, him, Castiel, Thorne, Darian, and their fathers. After it became apparent that she didn’t remember the battle on the eastern field and select events before that, I linked mine, Callahan’s, Thorne’s, and Darian’s. Telling them not to mention my brother before I linked their fathers as well.
?But Jerusil hadn’t initially been in the room after we learned Mavyn was awake. He had been with the Dean before making his way here, so Mavyn didn’t see him.
?She doesn’t remember, Callahan says in our minds. His face twisted in pain and looking like he wants to comfort Mavyn but doesn’t know how. She had shoved his hand off her.She doesn’t remember meeting Uncle Jerusil on the terrace and is bracing because she only sees that devil who hurt her.
?My brother, the gentlest devil I’ve ever met says,I can’t even imagine what he’s done to the poor girl.
?Callahan shifts in front of her, though her eyes are emotionless on the sheet covering her legs.
?“Mavyn,” he whispers. Tenderly, because she looks like she’s about to break. “Mavyn, can you look at me?”
?She was about to kill Kolasi when not even I and Hecia together could even slow him down, Aslan flutters through our minds. Mentioning the demigod councilwoman, her and Aslan being the most powerful races on the Mage Board as a demigod and a devil.She was about to wipe them all out with a power more dominant than a true form devil. . . and yet now she is as weak as a newborn human.
?Callahan whips his head to his father and seethes.How dare you!
?His aura blasting through the room with embers and cedar as the black ringing his eyes fluctuates.
?Aslan immediately takes a step back and slowly dips his head.I meant no disrespect, son, he adds cautiously.I only mean the Sun Devil of Miy must have truly tortured her for her to be like this only hearing Jerusil speak.
?Mavyn’s eyelids flutter as Callahan’s power pulses again and Jerusil speaks to us.
?Lyalthil may have been my brother and my twin, but I had wished you both had sentenced him to death instead of allowing him and his fated to leave Miy. Speaking to Aslan and Thorne’s father, Edmond.His mind was twisted in a way that would have been better laid to rest instead of continuing to live. He and that water mage.
?Darian cocks his head as his intrigued but frowned expression doesn’t waver. Despite having his psychotic moments and demented nature, I sometimes think he may be even more calculating and intelligent than Thorne.
?She can’t drink water mage blood, he adds.Castiel said after she drank from him and Thorne asked why she wouldn’t drink from me or Callahan it was because she wouldn’t drink devil blood. Because he would try to force her to drink his. She wasn’t human then, isn’t a vampire now but still needs blood, so I think she did drink from him. And I think she was forced to drink from the mage as well.
?I’m about to respond to that when Mavyn’s head lifts and she glares pale pink eyes at Callahan.
?“I thought I told you to keep a lock on your devil,” she snaps. Which shocks all of us and jolts Callahan. His aura dissipating and he leans back to fully look at her.
