Rejection on the Alpha #1
08

CHAPTER 8: Drawing Blood

My eyes ventured down to the page as I stilled, his words not quite meeting the area in which information should be processed in the brain, given the shocking revelation, especially of the date stamped like a blaring bold alarm on the page his fingers end on, the image of Artemis, “That King has been dead for centuries. And he’s no vampire, that kind of eternal life would be more troubling than a soul of the elements.” The way Martin explains it has me looking up into his silver eyes.

I felt a connection with the picture.

He turns the page, three pages ahead and shows me something even more troubling, “That’s the brother the notes have already explained, the jealous older one who should have gotten everything and yet nothing at all.” There’s a bitterness in his voice, like he can relate in some way. Something flashes, it’s set in motion in his eyes, but I wasn’t so swayed by emotion in a man’s eyes, and the rarity of it.

“The brother’s name was Alastair Ares Fawn, a head warrior to a ancient power collected from the Icelandic Kingdoms, or so it was told. A bitter match to no one, he was far more aggressive, too much so to be a King of anything. But a warrior, that was no problem.” He shrugs, leaning back, “I came across these books when we took over the Julius clan.”

I stare at the muscular back of the so-called villain Martin describes, no more than the side of a high, strong cheekbone, eyes that I couldn’t see, a form that looked like a god, “What did they have to do with the Darkling Clan?” I ask him, just to lead the conversation elsewhere, but I was curious.

“It’s not only them.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask him, looking through the pages.

“You believe the elementals are the only species the Darkling clan are involved with, the reason why the Darkling clan fully separated themselves from so many others, from a council you truly believe is worthy to be a council in the first place.” He tells me, grabbing the book and turning the page, he taps his thigh.

“What?” I ask.

“Let me give you a massage while I tell you a story.”

I almost blanch at him, “Did you lose a particular memory of recent events or are you just choosing to ignore the fact you’re a moronic, abusive son of a bitch?” I ask him.

He grabs my legs roughly and almost breaks the chair I’m on, “Do not test me, Celestine. You will not like the result, if you need another run through of the cage, I am happy to oblige.” His voice slithers down me like a snake, I still, tensing where I am. He begins rubbing my leg.

“Long ago, there were once two brothers, the youngest son had the blood of a witch and the blood of an Ice King, the oldest son was purely an elemental of the water lineage. The first Queen, mother to the eldest boy, was an elemental of the water lineage, a warrior herself, she won the position of Queen...it’s quite a tragedy...” He looks over to me, I felt my arm burn, the inked one pattern he placed upon me looked like one, until he rolled my arm over and showed me the scar I never saw get made, or even healed. A bite mark, fangs that tore into flesh but never broke bone.

I still with a sharp inhale, “It’s not just a binding, but my mate mark.” His sharp voice echoes.

I try to rip my arm away, glistening eyes that look up to his impenetrable ones, “You marked me without consent? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU?!” I roar, standing but I’m ripped against his chest and he digs my back into the wooden table. I yelp at the horrendous sting it jabs into me. He tilts his head at me, the other hand leaves the book and brushes my hair from my face.

“One day, you will see and you will accept.” He whispers down to me.

The anger I had diminished when I felt the barrier I keep around my mind shudder by an outside, he scratches and smashes with fangs and claws in my thoughts, and then he floods in, crashing into me like a bloody cyclone.

MINE.

MINE.

MINE.

It chants, like a zombified choir, it taunts and reminds me over and over again like some sort of chain of lyrics, songs, riddles and a possessiveness that sharpens my blood, thinning it and running it whichever way it wishes. I gulp with the brush of daunting lips along my collarbone, only to find no hands weighing me down and stopping him, they were around his neck, my own body betraying me, “Stop.” I whisper.

He does.

Thank goddess, he does.

His silver eyes rise to my emerald green ones and the promise in them could knock a girl off balance, “Repeat after me,” He whispers, slithering his nose down mine, “I, Celestine Colton, accept you Nicolai Martin Darkling as my lawfully wedded mate, in sickness and in health, till death parts us.” An ancient way of claiming another, using human terms because of their luscious design on a man’s lips. I stare at him, he had my mind in his grasp, I couldn’t understand what I was saying, not really. His power strong enough to whiten the sharp edges of my thoughts and wipe them of memory.

I repeat after him.

Monotonically.

He smiles a fanged smile, “Good girl. Very good girl. Now drink.” He whispers to me, before holding his wrist firmly against my lips, I scream and shudder, trying to stop it as he grabs mine and bites into the same mark, his silver eyes swirling and swivelling with a power I could not name. I begged him with my eyes, whatever he was doing, whatever he was chanting in his mind, I was scared of it, I didn’t want it, not now, not ever. It was forced. It was a painstakingly heated feeling that was choking me whilst stroking the membranes of my mind as he formulates one entity.

Two bonders as one.

I pull away with a slap against his cheek, dropping off his lap with a snap to the floor, his blood drips from my lips, that metallic taste, like swallowing coins from a well. I spat and choked, crawling for an escape I couldn’t find, he stands above me hand against the small of my back as he pushes me down, “You must learn to obey, sweetheart.” He says behind me, hand against my scalp, he strokes my hair gently. Before that hand moves around and clamps against my lips, forcing me to swallow.

I writhe against him.

Struggling.

He quiets me with a voice of power, infused and laced with a rawness that was slicing into my mind like swords cutting into flesh and bone. My eyes stung with tears as I shake against him, I didn’t want this, “NO! NO! NO!” He removed his hand, I backhand him, swinging to face him, I wanted to claw his eyes out when I see the tattoo, the ink dissolve and die from my skin, burning away, turning to ashes on the floor, it was gone.

And the bite remained.

I cry out, “What have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” I sob, he holds my elbows like manacles weighing me to the floor, biting and tearing into skin and bone. I look at him with a blurred view, shaking my head at him. His face is set in stone. I watch his animalistic side rush back into his mind, he embraces me with closed eyes. His expression masked as he cradles me.

“It’s the only way.” He murmurs down to my hairline.

I rip away from him and spring for the doors, that was it. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I pump with an adrenaline rush like no other, my arms and legs bent and working overtime as I run down the corridors, down the stairs, he’s standing right there between both stairs, arms dangling at his sides, his face set with a picture of the reality in his eyes, “You’re mine now, Celestine.”

“YOU CRAZY, PSYCHOTIC BASTARD! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME?”

“You mean what have I done for you?! This will stop his outbursts. He did that—I did that because you will not cooperate and this is the only way I know how to control myself from hurting you! I may be selfish, I may be a bad fucking man in your white-picket-fence world, Celestine, but I’m tired of not being able to have my mate with me for the goddess’s sake!” He roars, lips rippling with flesh parting and sharp teeth that spit out saliva with that wolffish roar.

I stare at him.

I’m trembling.

Breaths visible to the eye, I was exerting the adrenaline I had before, it was dying out.

“How could you do this to me?” I whisper, that breath felt so hard to let out.

“How could I do this for you, not to you. We are plunged in a never-ending cycle of hate. You are my true bonder, my true mate and you keep defying me, this will end that pain, this will move that anger and hate past us, you have to understand, Celestine. I am yours, just as you are mine. That’s enough, we are enough.” He whispers, reaching for me, grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me in, rubbing my back, “There will be no more pain, you will not fight with me anymore, my darling, we will not fight each other, but for each other.” He breathes out against me.

I felt so drained, physically and mentally, but grabbing the weapon on the side table next to us, I plunge it deep into his intestines, he gasps above me.

I cry out, blood from my own body spurts.

He rips it out of him, I felt it. His wound was mine.

His blood oozed out of it, so did mine.

He kneels just as I do, cupping my cheek with a bloodied set of fingers, he shakes his head at me, “If you kill me, you will only kill yourself.” He whispers, before changing something else under his breath and I drop against the floor, he was healing us both, but not long after was he wiping the memory I had of a name he used.

Of the family name he made me say when he made me accept him, a forced acceptance and a great rejection so fully, so inescapably denied. I’d never heard of someone strong enough to defy a rejection and overcome it the way he has forced upon us both.

He presses his fingers against my wound that slowly heals, my blood only dampening the shirt I wore and tensing the air I breathe. He curls me in against him, those blood red lips press against mine and the more I blindly struggle against his lips, the harder it hurts, the more pain blurring my vision and wiping the memory of what I heard, of what I saw and it crushes down like a thousand ship anchors chaining me by the neck, wrists, waist and ankles. I was damned to nothing in the space of a few minutes.

His fist drops to the wooden flooring under me, he puffs out a breath and stares at the butter knife I stabbed him with, his eyes trail back to me, back to mine. I could barely creak open a slit of vision, he stares me down, exerted, but not powerless.

“You’ll pay for that.”

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