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There was no one he could kill, and no one he could maim. Truly for the second time he felt powerless.
“Night after night I was laid on a slab of metal as they stabbed me over and over again. Filling me with iron, steel and aluminum.” She twitched, her eyes seeing far off. “At some point, the pain wasn’t pain but a welcomed reminder that I was still alive, still here.”
“How long did it go on?” he asked softly, trying to control the violent urges running through his body.
She glanced at him. “Time was different there. We marked it by the bodies of girls being pulled out of the dark cells they kept us in. I can remember the minute I was free; it was raining that day. They gathered us all atop a magic transport circle and in a flash I was choking on dirt, my arms and legs locked in place. I think I went into shock. I couldn’t really hear, but at the same time my head was filled with screaming, so many voices crying out for help and then…nothing.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, she felt like she was there again. Buried alive, her mouth and nose blocked. She was suffocating again as the slick slide of mud rubbed against her ankles. Oye remembered she tried to move over and over again to free herself. And then rain suddenly fell on her face and she found herself staring up at an empty night sky. The rush of air into her lungs, caused her to cough.
“That night, Lanias saved us. I don’t know how, but she saved us all.”
Castian took this in, imagining the woman who sat beside him being a little girl, alone and scared. It galled him that someone had done such terrible things to her. Someone had taken her, destroyed her spirit and then attempted to toss her and the others away like trash.
“How did you get back to your mother’s side?” he asked, trying to move the conversation forward. If he got distracted he didn’t know where he’d send his golem. Maybe, to take a chunk out of those greedy council men who’d allowed something like this to happen.
She looked at him then, and smiled. “A lot of us who survived went to the human authorities. It was good for us that they planned to bury us alive in the human world. It would have appeared a tragic accident to the humans, and the case would’ve quickly been handed over to the Veil City council to fix. We were found by police who handed us over to social workers. People like Lanias, and Sabina who knew who’d sold them out decided to remain there till they could leave on their own. Lanias got out before Sabina, and took guardianship of her sister once she could. I won’t lie and say she didn’t use a bit of witch trickery.”
She chuckled. “I, on the other hand, was handed over to my mother. She had been looking for me since the day my human father sold me off for my weirdness.”
Castian skin turned cold. “Your father sold you?”
Oye shrugged as if the fact wasn’t all that shocking. “My father had never been a good man, not to me or my mother. Sort of like Sabina, my mother wanted a normal life and thought marrying him would give her that. Then I was born, and while he stayed he treated her like shit and eventually she kicked him out. I guess he was approached by one of the council men when they were hunting for our kind and thought I fit the bill. He handed me over and never looked back.”
“I love you.”
Oye was startled by his sudden confession.
“I-I—okay,” she lamely said.
He smiled at her, his eyes bright with rage. “I love you enough, not to lie about my intentions.” His expression turned dark as his eyes turned black. “And when I kill your father I would like you to know.”
“You don’t have to do anything like that,” she said, lifting his hand so that his knuckles pressed against her cheek. “It’s over and I moved on.”
He didn’t confirm whether or not he agreed with her. If there came a time where he could “Accidently” take that man’s life, he would.
“So, you returned to your mother’s side and then what? How did you meet Nathan?”
She leaned over, laying her chin against his shoulder. “I was your typical angsty teen, who wasn’t able to confide in her mother. I went to a human school, and no one there could really understand me or my way of thinking. I couldn’t really say, ‘I’m a witch who was held in captivity and tortured.” She shifted, so that more of her body was pressed to his. “He was like me, different, interesting and a warlock. So, I found myself falling for him and one thing led to another, and he attempted to tie my soul to a higher being.”
Castian gave her a side eye, “You know when I was a teenager, I was busy trying to get one of the girls from my school to let me kiss her. And trying to figure out how to break the hex on my father's whiskey cabinet. Not trying to summon a higher being or thinking about how I could tie my soul to one for more power.”
She shot him a mischievous look. “I’ve always been a bit extreme, and wild.”
The playful look died, and Castian turned, letting her head fall against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.
“My mother caught on to something not being right, and followed me on the day we were to perform our experiment. I remember pain, Nathan’s face as he realized it wasn’t going his way and the sound of my mother’s voice as she—” Oye paused as her throat was clogged by the tears that slowly slid down her cheek, she forced herself to continue. “She stopped it, the backlash was too strong for her to contain, and she died to save me.”
Her hands curled into his shirt and for the first time Oye allowed herself to mourn her mother. Her long-drawn-out cries filled the room and as much as she wept Castian felt his heart break. Feeling useless as the woman he’d chosen to love and protect, fought off something unseen.
He couldn’t go back in time and save her mother.
Nor could he save the little girl from following her father.
He could only hold her.
If Oye knew what he was thinking she would have told him that was all she needed. Castian just holding her and letting cry was more than enough for her. She let herself grow weak, and rested in his arms.
The two remained entwined like that, till a nurse entered.
