The Demon’s Savior

Chapter 5. Rituals

It was not true that Skaris had forgotten how to feel. It was more that he didn’t want to feel anymore. Feelings made him remember and remembering made him suffocate in the trap of his own mind. Of course, he wanted to escape, but the only way to escape was to actually end it for good. He never had the chance back in the cage, too helpless to even deny the forced feedings, too weak to smash his own head in the walls behind him. But now, a new hope had risen from the hands of this stubborn elven savior. The large male with his barely contained rage and conflicting emotions would bring his salvation once and for all.

So, this time Skaris fed willingly. He accepted the water and food and the unusual company of the nameless elf, and listened to his stories about human damsels in distress, and never opened his mouth to express his sacred wish aloud again.

Time passed, days, maybe weeks of the same monotonous existence, hours measured by the times the three guards at the door changed; at the appearances of the elf with his herbs and root food, while Skaris was getting stronger and stronger by the day. There was a time when he was the strongest among his kind. His ability to heal faster, to run faster, to punch harder than any of them had almost made him their king. It was his love for the others that prevailed it from ever happening. Now he was just a prisoner, a plaything for a pretentious queen. He did not even have his warrior long hair anymore and his ears had been shamefully cut to resemble the humans’ – a punishment for his devotion to the lower species. Yet, his muscles were gaining strength again, the sun burns didn’t even leave any scars on his pale flesh and the bruises had faded long ago. And soon there would come the time when he would break his chains and end it for good. 

“You know, maybe it’s time you moved some?” The elf said bringing Skaris back from his thoughts. “C’mon, Red, don’t look at me like this, you can’t spend all your days in the bed, can you?”

Skaris stared back at him, at his lopsided smile and sad eyes, suddenly filled with mischief, feeling some unfamiliar lightness in his chest. He could barely remember when was the last time he was allowed to stand on his feet, or was able to, suddenly not able to think of anything else but do so.

“It will be a little hard to do it, being tied to a bed and all…” Skaris said, not able to contain himself when he brought his chained wrist up in the air. 

“Is this a joke that I am hearing from you, oh, so broody master?” The elf teased approaching him, his smile actually reaching his gleaming grey eyes and suddenly Skaris felt that he didn’t want to be brooding anymore. 

“Unless tied to a bed is where you want me, elf?” Skaris added, raising himself on his elbows as the lightness spread like a fire inside him. And when the cheeks of the male actually turned red and he didn’t know where to pin his gaze, laughter built up in Skaris’ chest in the same place where darkness usually loomed.

“Come on, you need the walk.” The elf unfastened the chains at Skaris’ feet, then reached for the ones around his writs. “Do you promise to behave?”

“I always behave”.

Free. For the first time in years, Skaris was finally free of his restraints. He was sitting in the small bed, on his own, not able to believe it was true, while the stupid uninvited hope was carving its way through the numbness. He pressed his hands across each other, feasting on the forgotten feeling to be whole again, yet still not able to forget how easily it could be taken away from him. Suddenly filled with dread, Skaris lifted his gaze to the elf who silently observed each of his moves, all traces of smile long gone from his guarded posture. 

When their gazes met, the light grey of the male opposed to the scorching blue in Skaris’ eyes, Skaris didn’t know how to look away. He had spent more time with this elf in the last decade compared to any other of his own kind. This stranger who had given him so much but was yet to ask for something in return. And when the elf bent towards him, Skaris knew that nothing came without a price, and there was and would never going to be anyone in his life who didn’t want something from him. 

For some time, the elf didn’t say a word, just stared at him, his attention divided between Skaris and something else, which remained hidden from Skaris himself. Then he heard it – the noise outside the door, the guards changing for the night. Using the cover of the outside’s turmoil, the elf finally spoke. 

“I will help you walk, but you need to listen to me very carefully, Red. They already suspect you are not so broken anymore, they can’t know you walk, do you hear me?” he whispered in Skaris’ ear, his face so close, Skaris could feel the warm breath on his skin. 

“Why are you doing this?” Skaris asked in the same low voice, not daring to bring his eyes to meet the other male's. “Why are you helping me?”

“I already told you…”

“No, you told me why you agreed to heal me” Skaris interrupted. “You didn’t tell me why you don’t want them to find out I am healing. Why?”

A long pause followed, a pause in which the elf just stared at Skaris, failing to hide the internal battle behind his diamond grey eyes.

“Tell me, or they find out now.” Skaris threatened, no trace of his previous lightness in his low voice. 

The elf put his hands on Skaris’ shoulders, pushing him back, rage flooded his pale gaze in an instant. “Do you really value your freedom so little?” He asked in a low voice and when Skaris tried to look away, the male held his chin in place, not allowing him the easy way out. “Answer me.”

There was a new pause and when Skaris spoke, the sudden realization made the remaining parts of his heart shatter to pieces.

“Nothing in this world holds any value for me anymore.” He admitted in a low voice, shame choking his every word. 

The male looked at him with a strange mixture of pity and anger before he spoke again. “If they find out, they will force me to join with you and carve your secrets out of your deranged brain.”

“No…”

“Yes, Red. I can stall them this far, not beyond. Soon I will run out of excuses why it is too early to do it.”

“But… why would you do something like this? You belong to the skilled folk, you… you join for life and you… you know it is a rape, right?” He was spiraling, Skaris knew it.

With every second when the elf held his chin, he felt how he was losing the ground underneath him, his legs failing him even though he hadn’t even tried to stand on them. He could barely take another breath, everything in him telling him to pull free and run as far as possible, yet there was no place for him to run to. He believed he could finally end it all, his secret buried with him, his soul finally joined with the ones he lost. But if this joining ever happened…

“Listen to me!” The firm voice of the elf came to him from beneath the fogs of his own mind. “Listen to me, I am not doing it. I am not, to hell with it all.”

Skaris could only look at him in the dim light of the fading candle, not able to understand anything at all, terrified to the bottom of his ragged soul. He barely registered he was still on the bed, half-naked with this stranger from a rival tribe almost covering his entire body with his own, telling him things that brought back horrors beyond his own imagination. 

“Stay away from me!” Skaris could not believe the voice that came out of his mouth was his own, it sounded so broken, so tortured, so shaken it could easily belong to some trapped animal outside in the woods. 

“Red, please, I…”

“No, stay away!” 

Finally, Skaris managed to break free from the male’s grip, crawling to the far end of the bed and hiding his head between his elbows. 

“Just stay away from me!” He begged weakly, not able to even look at the elf.