Bound By Desire

Chapter 10: Pain

Rosalia’s POV:

Red. All I see is red. The red of pain. That's all I feel. Pain. My whole world. I can feel the slow licks of fire up my exposed legs and the agony it brings is tormenting. Make it stop. Please.

“Stop..” I almost beg, but hold my tongue. I won’t let them degrade me that far. Switching tactics, I ask a different question. “What do you want from me?”

“To play a game, little one. Just like we practised.” I can’t see the owner of the voice but I know who it is. Master Orion. My first Master. I had only been as little as 7 but he still found it fun to kidnap me on the way home from school and bribe someone to let him keep me.

“Leave me alone.” I moan, hanging my head to hide the tears of relief when the fire stopped. Looking at my feet, I see I’m still chained in the basement he keeps me in and that the fire was all in my mind. “I have nothing to offer you. Please just let me go.” My arms feel limp and heavy from being chained above my head for so long. Trying to move my shoulder, a sickening twinge of pain shoots along my arms and I scream, seeing Master Orion’s smirk from within the shadows of the room.

He stays silent and for a moment I think he’s left. Sobbing to myself, I try to move either my arms or legs, but both have been chained for so long in these positions that I have lost all feeling. I couldn’t escape. He’d made sure of that.

Screaming, I suddenly notice his pale grey eyes shining from the wall to my left. Trying to scramble away, I hear my leg break as the bone snaps and I scream again. Still, I keep trying to move away until I also hear my shoulder dislocate and my will to fight seems to evaporate. “Let me go, please.” I whimper, but all he does is laugh.

“Scream again for me.” I shake my head so fast that my tangled hair blurs my vision of him for a moment. “Come on, lark, you have such a pretty voice and I wanna hear it.” He moves closer so his mouth rests above my ear. “I want to hear you scream.” He tightens his grip on my left arm until I hear the delicate bones in my wrist snap. I fight back a scream but a low keening sound escapes my lips. “Next time I won’t be so nice.” He moves so he is facing me.

“Scream.” He fixes his gaze on me and I feel the phantom fire ignite inside me, expanding until it fills my whole body. I hold back a scream as long as I can, feeling the heat switch up a notch each time I try to resist. Pain rips through my whole body and I can feel it building with every second that passes. Eventually, my will to resist leaves me breathing heavily and trying to drown out the pain. But Master Orion isn’t having that. He keeps slowly increasing the pain level until I scream just to release the pent up agony of the pain.

“Scream,” he commands, his icy grey eyes boring into me. And I do. I do. Again and again. Until the memory fades.

Hunter’s POV:

Rosalia’s screams bounce off the walls and echo out through the palace with deafening clarity. Outwardly, I try to remain calm, but each time she screams her pain cuts through me violently, leaving me reeling. True to her word, Eris’s light step can be heard ascending the spiral staircase about ten minutes later. Just after Rosalia’s screaming calms. I’m not a fool, I know she’ll have heard the screaming on her way into the palace and I brace myself for the flood of questions that will undoubtedly come my way.

However, all she asks is: “Are you okay?”. Her gold eyes search my face and I nod and try to smile, though the action seems forced. Even to me.

“Yeah, it’s her I’m worried about.” I glance at Rosalia again but she remains silent, save for a small whimper now and again. “I don’t know what he did to her, Eris, but it’s bad.” I sigh, a strange feeling of protectiveness washing through me when I glance at her face again. “He virtually left her on death’s door.” I eventually mutter and glance up at Eris when she shoots a curious glance at the girl between us. Catching onto her frown, I shoot her a questioning look. “What?”

Eris pushes a lock of her fiery hair behind her ear and focuses on Rosalia’s limp form, appraising her once before she turns back to me. “All things considered, she should be dead, Hunter. Dead.” She glances back at me. “What did you do?”

Confusion swirls around inside me but I answer her question with a calm voice. “Nothing. I found her, called you and brought her here. Why?” I can feel the heat of Eris’s gaze and stand my ground. Her brow furrows for a second before a mixture of shock and resignation flashes across her eyes.

“You’re not lying.” She seems at a loss. “But then how…” She turns back to Rosalia and checks her again before letting out a dry chuckle. “That explains it.” She mutters softly to herself, oblivious to my presence until I tap her shoulder.

“Explains what?”

“How she’s still alive.” She laughs softly and I frown in confusion. “You didn’t tell me she was under the protection of a witch.” Her golden eyes fix on mine and I scan my memory to try and find the identity of our mysterious friend. “Yeah, I know her. The name’s Mara. Mara Harper.” Eris gives me a lopsided grin and I can tell she was reading my mind.

“How’d you know her?”

“She reached out to hopefully join my coven after hers was destroyed a few months ago. She had been part of one of the more eastern covens but when she heard about mine and lost hers, she reached out and I had agreed to meet her. I guess that she had been travelling to meet me and vanished, got lost or kidnapped, and didn’t manage to make it.”

I nod and keep listening to Eris whilst my mind returns to the girl Rosa had been standing with when she had walked into me earlier. Average height, hazel eyes and sandy brown hair. Nothing remarkably unusual but…

“Yeah, that’s her.” Eris’s voice snaps me out of my own head and I turn to face her. “Where’ve you seen her?”

“Here. She was brought by Raphael a few days ago.” I give a humourless laugh. “I guess that solves the mystery of why she didn’t manage to meet you, Eris. Her travels must’ve coincided with the Hunt and one of my siblings grabbed her.” I glance back at Rosalia without meaning to. “Just like they got her.” My voice is soft as I glance towards the sleeping girl and Eris shoots me a look. “What?”

“You haven’t fallen for her have you?” Her voice is equally soft and I shake my head, though for some reason the action feels like a lie. “Cause you know what Ash’ll do to you if you do.” I glower darkly at the mention of my brother and stare off into the distance for a moment.

“Don’t give me another reason to hate him, Eris. I already want to kill him for what he did to her.” My tone is icy and I know I’m being unfair to her, but I can’t find it in myself to apologise at the moment, my rage still burning too hot for me to think clearly. Once I manage to calm down, I turn back to my friend and find her watching me with an analytical gaze. “Sorry, I don’t know why I exploded like that at you, Eris, it’s not you, I’m angry with. It’s him.”

Her expression morphs from analytical to one of someone with a secret. “It’s alright. I’m sure you’ll work it out.” I’m about to ask her what she meant when Rosalia screams again. A blood-curdling scream of agony that once again rips through me and leaves me breathless. Again and again, until her anguish explodes and seems to saturate the whole room. With each scream, I feel my own breath hitch as her pain seems to attack me.

When they finally fade into quieter moans and whimpers, I feel some of my own pain fade. Weird. Shooting a quick look in Eris’s direction, her face is pale. “Jesus. Poor kid.” She whispers.

“Tell me about it.” I sigh, trying to fight the dull pain racing through me each time Rosalia utters a soft cry. “I don’t know what to do. Please help, Eris. I need you.” I see her glance at me and I know when my appearance clocks with her as her gold eyes become closed off in thought. “Eris? What is it?”

“Are you linked to her, Hunter? What is she to you?” Her questions are abrupt and leave my head spinning. I think for a few minutes, battling the pain before I eventually reach my answer. “I don’t know.” I take a deep breath as Rosalia’s screams cut through the silence and I almost double over in pain. Eris looks thoughtfully between the two of us before she speaks again. “She should be okay. The spell her friend cast was strong enough to protect her from death, which was probably the reason he left her. The injuries are healing faster than normal – again thanks to the spell placed on her – but most will leave scars. Both mental and emotional. As for speeding it up, you could give her some blood which would kick-start her healing, but other than that, just sleep and someone looking after her is all I can suggest.”

“Can’t you use magic to help?” I blurt out, seeing Eris’s eyes flash with an unreadable emotion before she gives me another lopsided smile.

“Sure, I can place another protective spell over her if it’ll make you feel better, but other than that, no. It’s up to her.” I nod and Eris motions for me to step back. I do as she asks and listen to the soothing sound of a sudden rain outside in an attempt to drown out the swirling pain I feel inside. After a while, I think it starts to work and am about to brush it off as a weird coincidence when Eris appears at my shoulder. “It’s done. She’ll be better now.” I sigh, feeling the pain dull inside, and see Eris once again glancing at me with an unreadable expression rooted in the back of her gaze. I shoot her a puzzled look but she smiles knowingly and slips past me out into the rain. “Goodbye, Hunter.” She calls as she vanishes down the steps and is swallowed by the inky blackness of the night before I have a chance to thank her or say goodbye. Thinking them to myself, I can almost see her psychic smile as she catches the words.

I stay that way for a while, letting a sense of calm wash through me, strengthened by the knowledge that Rosalia would be okay. As that thought crosses my mind, I sigh to myself. Christ. What’s that girl doing to me? I closed myself off for a reason, not even letting my family in. Eris managed it through years of sheer persistence and company but this wild, dark-haired gypsy of a girl can do it effortlessly. Simply by existing. She can somehow bring a light into my world that I believed had been lost forever with… no. I won’t go back down that memory again. It’s too painful to remember the incident that shaped me and resulted in the closed-off person I am today, but I guess I learned my lesson. Emotion is okay in moderation, but too much of one, like love, can only end in pain that even now, years later, I’m still attempting to heal from.

Rosalia is bright and bubbly, but I can’t let myself fall for her. Not again. I can’t go through what happened last time again. I know it’s selfish, but I can’t go through that pain. Especially not with her. She deserves so much better. Better than broken or damaged. She deserves more than my seemingly eternally damaged soul and a broken heart.