Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4)(25)

He had found me.

He would hurt me.

I could hear him walk toward me, his steps slow as the nightmares began to infiltrate my soul, my scream fading into a whimper. The cold, painful surge of what I now knew to be his magic flared next to me again, and I pushed myself into the wall as if it would give way and let me meld into it.

Let me get away.

“No, no-no-no-no-no,” I moaned, my fingers moving from the wall to knot through my hair. My chest pulsed angrily as it prepared for the bruises to come, for the bones to break.

“Jos, baby,” Ryland said from over me, my mind distorting the sound into a menacing laugh, into the drip of blood.

His footsteps echoed in my ears and I jumped, my fingers pulling at my hair with hard, little tugs that part of me hoped would wake me from this nightmare, convince me I was still safe. I pulled until I could barely handle the pain, until the soft touch of his hand against the skin of my arm made my magic explode.

I jerked as the icy touch reacted with my magic in an explosion of white light and wind that rocked the ancient stone on which I sat. Strands of hair that I had pulled from my braid lashed around my face as I screamed in fear. Ryland’s angry yell was drowned by the crash of stone as the explosion pushed him through the wall across from me.

I screamed at the sound, my voice breaking in sobs as my stomach knotted in fear. I moved forward on my hands and knees, desperate to get away from the yells, the explosions. To get away from Ryland, to get back to Ilyan.

“You don’t need to be scared of me, baby.” His voice was rancid honey as it echoed through the hallway from behind me.

I crawled faster, my frightened sobs covering the sound of his steps as he advanced on me. I wasn’t fast enough to escape him, though; I never could be.

I screamed as I felt his fingers wrap around my ankle, my nails digging into the floor as he pulled me back, the fragile slivers of bone cracking under the pressure.

“Help!” I screamed as hand over hand he pulled me toward him. My scream drowned into blackness as Ryland laughed deep and loud. He pulled me around to face him as his eyes flashed blue, his lips stretching into a smile. I tried to move away, to fight against him, but I was trapped; trapped underneath Ryland with nothing but my sobs.

My mind spun at having him so close, my vision swaying and whirling as I continued to scream. I knew at once that it was not only fear that was making the world turn. I could feel my Drak blood flare in preparation.

“No, no, no.” I gasped as blackness blurred the edges of my vision, part of me willing the red burn that preceded my sight to take me away from the horror I faced. I saw the tinge of scarlet in a flash of flame before the warm sting of Ryland’s hand against my cheek pulled me from the sight. I inhaled sharply at the pain, at the lost vision, when Ryland’s now disgusted face swam back into view. The knowledge of what I had done, of what Ryland now knew, sliced like a hot knife to the gut.

“You’re nothing but a pathetic Drak!” he screamed as he moved away from me in disgust, leaving me clutching my swelling jaw in the dark. “All the power in the world and you waste it on that. It’s disgusting!”

A sob broke from my lips as he yelled, the weak sound drowned by the repulsion in his voice, hearing what he thought of me. It was something that I had come to treasure about myself, and to hear it spoken about with such hostility—the words tore me apart, bit by bit.

“Disgusting!” He screamed again, a sob ripping from my chest as I stretched my shaking fingers away from me, dragging myself away from him.

“That’s okay.” The revulsion in his voice lessoned like he had flicked a switch, his hands pulling me back from what little progress I had made in my escape. “I can make you strong again.”

His nails dug into my arms as he held me beneath him. The boy I had once loved glared down into me with more hatred, more disgust, than I had ever seen while his hand moved to press against the mark on my neck. Ice shot through me at the contact, the sensation painful and caustic as my magic rebelled against me, his hand jerking away as he felt the same reaction.

“What did you do?” he roared, the ebony hatred of his eyes snaking up my spine, and I cringed, fighting for a desperate escape, even though I couldn’t move an inch.

“I did nothing other than what you begged me to do!” I screamed, my magic flaring in distress, sending one strong pulse into Ryland, knocking him off his feet and to the ground right next to me.

I turned and crawled away as fast as I could, my sweaty hands slipping against the stone before I was able to stumble to my feet and run away from him, find someplace to hide.

“Jos, don’t leave me,” Ryland pleaded through the dark, his voice sounding so normal that I almost turned back. Almost, if it hadn’t been for the clanging of the pipes that filled my ears; if it hadn’t been for the memory of each and every one of his attacks. “Don’t leave me… don’t leave me… leave me. Leave me.”

His words echoed through the halls that had become a labyrinth to me, his voice breaking in tears before his agonizing screams reverberated through the dark. I jumped at the noise, the fading sound replaced by the frantic pulse of my heart, by the agitated breaths that thundered from my chest.

My hands guided me down the crumbling halls as I tried to fight the fears of the haunted torments that I had been infused with, but they were too strong. I could no longer find the line of reality, the line of what was safe and what was not. The world I had so recently escaped became the only world I knew, the hallucination taking over.