A Spiritual's Mark

Chapter 10: A Need For Her

-Phoenix-

I can’t take my eyes off her. She is just so beautiful and smiling at me too. I can see her laughing, yet I hear nothing. I want to know her real laughter. I even crave it, just like I crave to hear her words, but every time she opens her mouth, no sound reaches my ears. I don’t know her laughter. I don’t even know the sound of her voice. It’s okay though, I can see her. I feel her hand touching my skin as I lay there looking up at her. My head is in her lap, and her long hair is cloaking us from the rest of the world.

Just her and me. Like it should be. No one needs to bathe in the light that shines from her, except me. I reach up, placing my hand on her neck and pull her down. She doesn’t fight me. She just lets me bring her to me, letting me kiss her. Our lips are just barely touching. I want more! I want...

“Phoenix!”

I opened my eyes, my whole body jumping as if I had been shocked back to life. I looked around and saw I was in my cell again.

“Sh*t, I thought you were dead for a second there,” Chris stated.

I turned to look at him. He was leaning against the bars, barely keeping himself up. His face was bloody and bruised. One of his eyes looked like it could barely open, and it seemed like his nose had been broken. He looked terrible, so I could only imagine I looked just as bad.

“How long have I been out?” I asked and tried to move. But it was too painful, and I just slumped against the wall behind me.

“I’m not sure. I only woke a few minutes ago,” he informed me.

“Those bastards,” I groaned. My body slowly woke up as well, telling me how much pain I was in.

“Yeah, they broke my leg.”

I glanced down, but I couldn’t see much. He was wearing a pair of dirty pants like me.

“That’s all?” I questioned.

He chuckled.

“No, they did that to knock me out in the end,” he disclosed.

“Guess you aren’t running any marathons anytime soon,” I remarked.

That just made him smile as he shook his head. “I don’t think either of us are.”

He was right about that, but we still needed to find a way out of here. I tried placing my hand on the wall beside me, but my arm felt funny, and I couldn’t move it.

“F*cking jerks, they dislocated my shoulder,” I stated and grabbed my injured one.

“You should probably wait before—"

“Crap!” I exclaimed as I popped it back into place.

“Or just do it right away and say screw the potential damage of doing so,” Chris mocked, shaking his head.

“We need to figure out a way to get out of here,” I declared.

“Did you forget?” Chris asked and pointed to the ceiling. “We aren’t going anywhere, my friend.”

“Don’t call me your friend,” I retorted.

He held up his hands.

“Okay, but that doesn’t change the fact, we are screwed,” he remarked.

Yeah, it certainly didn’t look good, but I was not just waving the white flag around. If I could survive this kind of sh*t once, I could do it again. But of course, the last time, they let me out because they were able to break me. I feared it wasn’t going to be so different this time.

“There has to be a way,” I asserted as I somehow found myself standing, yet the whole room spun around. And as I pushed away from the wall I was leaning against, I stumbled a few steps forward, only to fall back down on the ground.

“Well, that was pathetic,” Chris remarked.

“Shut up!” I retorted as I crawled over to the cell door.

“We aren’t leaving, Phoenix,” he declared. “So whatever it is that drives you, just... just say goodbye to it. We are going to be my father’s spies.”

“You are really giving up?” I inquired.

He looked so f*cking tired as he met my eyes. I understood. I did. He had been here longer than I had. He had to survive not just their torture but also listening to the queen. It was like she never stopped screaming, and I was unsure if they were even hurting her.

Maybe the things they had put her through had already driven her insane, or maybe she was just screaming all the time because there was nothing else left for her to do, and I didn’t blame her. Yet it was agonizing for most people to listen to others’ pain. I didn’t really care, but I bet it had taken its toll on Chris.

“What do you want me to do?” he questioned.

“Something,” I hissed.

“What?! Look around, there is nothing here to help us. Even our healing abilities have been slowed down. It can’t keep up with what they put us through,” he stated. “We are screwed. Just accept it.”

“When the f*ck did you turn into such a wimp?!” I questioned him.

“Go f*ck yourself!”

“Not into dudes,” I informed him.

He shot me a glare before he started to shake his head.

“Don’t you see that fighting is just pointless and it is draining us of our last energy?” he inquired.

“Well, I am not about to do nothing.”

“Why not?” he challenged.

Why not? I echoed internally. Besides the fact that I did owe Hunter, I shouldn’t be fighting as hard as I did, but I couldn’t lie and say there wasn’t something else that drove me. Something that made me fight back. Even though I didn’t want to feel this way, I couldn’t help it.

Everything in me just screamed that I had to get out of here and find her because if Connor was close to breaking the queen, that meant everyone was in danger. Including her. I needed to be there to protect her. I needed to be the one to guard her and make sure there was nothing that could ever harm her. She was too good to be put through crap like this.

“Oh sh*t,” Chris exclaimed. I saw he wasn’t looking me in the eyes anymore, but at the mark on my shoulder. I had completely forgotten my t-shirt had been cut and taken off me, so now there was no hiding it.

"You got someone waiting for you," he remarked.

I sighed, sitting up straighter and leaning against the wall just beside the cell door. I couldn’t say yes. I had left without as much as saying a word. She wasn’t waiting, and still, I wanted to go out there and find her, make her mine, and ensure no one else ever got a chance to lay their filthy hands on her.

Right now, she was still considered an unmarked female, which meant she was fair game, and because of how beautiful she was, it would be hard for any male to keep their hands to themselves. The thought only angered me more and pulled on my instincts, telling me I had to get to her.

Mate! We need to get mate. Now! my wolf growled.

"Not really," I replied.

"Dead?" he questioned.

I shook my head. "I hope not."

"But you don’t know?" he inquired.

"Last time I saw her, she was with Hunter and the others, so I believe she is all right."

"But why aren’t you there?" he questioned.

"Why aren’t you with your mate and son?" I retorted.

"You know why I left. Oh... "

I didn’t say anything as he pieced everything together himself.

"You left too?" he asked.

I looked away, not wanting to tell him anything. But then I changed my mind. He was probably right that we weren’t getting out of here, so what did it matter if he knew how I truly felt?

"I think we have already established that I am not a good person," I stated.

"Not arguing with that, mother killer," he replied.

I turned my head and glared at him, but he just gave me a small smile. How he found the time to joke, I had no idea. He just did. It was his shield, while silence was usually mine.

"She deserves better," I remarked.

"She marked you."

"Only to save me. I was in a coma after saving your sister. She brought me out of it," I informed him.

"Sh*t," he muttered.

"After that, I just took off. It was better that way."

"Are you sure?" he questioned, then looked around his cell. "I mean, you could have been home with her right now instead of being stuck here with me."

He had a point. I would much rather be with her, having her in my bed, having her around me all the time, but I was here instead. For months, I had tried to feed the monster inside me with anything but her because I knew I would break her. I knew my appetite was too great and too depraved. I couldn’t do that to her.

"It’s better this way," I insisted.

"I never thought I deserved Kate either," he confided. "I am still not sure I do, or the family she has given me. But the mate bond messes with your head, and once you give in, once you let go of all the fears and worries, suddenly you can’t remember why you fought it to begin with."

I merely listened to him without saying anything. Maybe he was right, but he and I were also very different people. He might have a messed-up dad, but he wasn’t screwed up in the same way I was. I was a killer.

"So if you get out of here, Phoenix, don’t waste your time. Make her yours," he urged. "Before someone else does."

If I did get out of here, I would find her. Not to make her mine, but I sure as hell was going to make sure no one else made her theirs!