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“You’re sick!” I yelled, yanking my arms against the men holding them.
“You shouldn’t have interfered.” He grinned, using a clawed finger to tear open Will’s shirt.
His eyes started to glow again, and his face almost bubbled. His teeth elongated and fur appeared in patches. With a growl that sent spit flying, he knelt, sinking his teeth into Will’s shoulder.
Will’s eyes flew open, and he screamed when Captain Rekker tore at his skin, blood welling up and flowing. Rekker lapped at the wound with his tongue, eliciting another scream from Will. My own screams erupted into the air, my throat becoming hoarse.
Once Rekker stepped back, blood dripping down his chin, Will’s eyes rolled back up into his head again, and he stilled while blood continued to seep from the wound Rekker’s teeth had made.
“What have you done?!” I yelled, straining against the men holding me.
“Depends on how you see it. I’ve either blessed him or cursed him,” he shrugged. The bastard shrugged!
“You bastard!” I seethed, then did what every simpering lady would do. I slumped, becoming boneless in defeat.
The men holding me loosened their grips on my arms, which gave me an opportunity to slip from their grasps. Bringing my elbow up I caught the man on my left in the throat before whirling, but the other man’s fist struck my chin.
The force knocked me away from him and toward my dagger, that had been tossed away. My body rolled on the ground, and I managed to grasp the hilt in my hand. Blood filled my mouth and I spat it out, then straightened, ready to do whatever I needed to do to protect myself and Will. Even kill.. again.
The next second, something hard smashed into the back of my head so harshly that I collapsed, stars bursting behind my eyelids. I blinked my eyes open, needing to know what had become of Will and saw a man standing between me and Captain Rekker, his face scrunched with anger.
Rekker launched himself toward the stranger, and when I blinked again, I saw someone else dragging Will away. Two more men stood over me, one looking suspiciously like Tuck, while the other was tall with silver eyes that seemed to pulse with the pounding in my head.
He leaned down, his face becoming clearer, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
It’s a funny thing, dreams. Sometimes even in the middle of a dream I’m aware that I’m dreaming, and other times it seems so real that when I wake up, it takes a little while to realize it’s not a dream. Often the weirder the dream, the easier it is to determine between reality and dream. Last night’s dreams were very weird.
I rolled onto my back and stretched my hands above my head as I woke up, or at least I tried to. My hands didn’t seem to quite want to obey. I must have slept on them wrong. I rested an extra minute, allowing my hands time to wake up, and I heard a scuffle to the right of me, then feet pattering away.
“Brex?” I asked blearily. I turned to look for her, but instead saw … that I was in a cave? I looked at my hands and realized they were cuffed together. with my eyes I followed the chain connected them to a ring driven into the rock beside where I lay on the ground. What the…?
I sat up quickly, heart pounding, taking stock of my surroundings and trying to remember what had happened last night. I gasped, and like an arrow to the heart realized that my dreams last night were – reality. Not dreams.
“No!” I cried, heart breaking as I remembered everything that happened. My memories pummeled me from every side. “William!” He wasn’t in the cave with me.
I relived the excruciating moment when that monster bit into him, tearing at his flesh. I knew what it meant. He was now a beast - infected by Captain Rekker, and I hadn’t been able to stop it. I rubbed my chest, trying to stop the ache in my heart.
I failed.
I failed to protect him, and now we were both in the hands of Captain Rekker and his pack of wild creatures. I grabbed at my chest, trying to press against the gaping hole that used to be my heart as heaving sobs threatened to tear my body apart. I felt a chasm where my heart was, and with each memory from last night, the chasm grew wider. I knew I needed to be strong, but the chasm was too deep. Just for this moment, this one small moment, I needed to let loose the emotions that were destroying my soul before I fell into the depth of nothingness at my feet. I needed to break. And then I could be strong again.
After several moments that could have been minutes, I took a deep breath and curled my fists. I had my cry, now I needed a plan to get out of here, starting with my cuffs. Next, I’d find Will and get us out of here.
“Arrow.”
I turned to the deep voice of Little John as shock stilled my body. “Little John? How are you here?”
“Tuck and I followed you from the Inn,” he said brusquely. “Are you alright? I had a lad fetch me the moment you woke up.”
I held up my chains mutely and watched as a muscle in his jaw ticked. “Little John, what is going on? Where’s Will?”
He began pacing, flexing and clenching his fist as he went. “We found you bloody and unconscious. Einri said to bring you here, that you would be safe.” He glanced at my chains again and seethed.
Who’s Einri?
“We’re in the Greenwood?” I could feel my anger rise like a serpent seeking its prey as I recalled that Einri was the leader here. “I thought you said this would be a safe place for us?”
“That was my understanding.” He gritted out.
