Callie
Music suggestion for chapter:
Reach by Eternal Eclipse
Inferia by Eternal Eclipse
I stood in a small, poorly lit room outside the giant colosseum. Like every other time I had been outside in the Unseelie realm, the sky was set at dusk, only light enough to see with the help of the leftover sun and moon that shone down and illuminated everything like a blue stadium light.
When I woke up that morning alone in Mendax’s bed, I had a split second of disappointment. When I looked over to his empty spot, the bed still made with crisp dark linens, I immediately felt like something was missing. It was for the best, but I couldn’t help but hate it.
I had never felt more confused about what I wanted than when I had watched Mendax walk out that door.
Part of me—the part that was left yearning—felt so angry and frustrated I had let myself fall under his spell. Another, much less intelligent, part of me felt a pang of sadness that he wasn’t sleeping next to me on our last night together. It would be the last time I ever saw him.
The last time I would probably ever have someone look at me the way he did. Like I was everything to him. Like he . . . loved me.
I couldn’t stay. That would be insane. Wrong.
It had taken me ages to fall asleep, completely engulfed with his amber spice lingering decadently on the sheets of his bed. I tossed and turned all night, filled with nerves and confusion. My body felt great though. Every wound, even the deep acid burns from the first trial, had healed completely. It was incredible.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to choose the right door, the door without a human-eating beast behind it.
The queen was the only one who knew what was behind the two doors, and I had no faith in deciphering her facial tells. Besides that, I wasn’t sure if she would take pity on me and rather I return to the humans or have me dead. I had a pretty good feeling it would be the latter, and that was what I would bank on if I was left with no other options.
I paced the small square room as the four guards watched me. I could probably take them out somehow and run, but that’s not what I was here for, and I wouldn’t know where to find a portal anyway. It had taken me a decade to find the one that had sent me here.
I hadn’t seen Mendax at all today, and my gut clenched at the feeling that I was making a huge mistake. I grabbed handfuls of hair on either side of my head and pulled, begging to feel something that would ground me—something that would keep my mind on track with why I was here.
This was it.
I would leave one way or another, and I would never see him again. He would be gone forever.
A small scream shot from my chest that startled the iron-clad guards as I pulled at my hair.
I would not let him get to me like this. He didn’t love me, he was just infatuated and mad.
I loathed him.
Didn’t I?
I couldn’t do this.
Yes, I could. I had family and friends I missed dearly—that I would do anything to be with again.
I sat in a rickety-looking wood chair and held my head in my palms.
Nothing in the Unseelie court was like I had initially thought. Even the weather. This morning I had been unable to sleep and rose extra early. My door was locked, so I tried the balcony. It was locked as well, but when I pulled back the heavy velvet curtains, I was able to see a bit of sun for the first time since being here. It seemed filtered and somehow more gray than what I was used to, but my skin sang at not having seen it in so long. The distant village looked . . . almost like a normal village. I could see shops and vendors, and they all looked shockingly normal.
The maids and the people I had met that hadn’t tried to kill me had all been surprisingly kind and sweet. Sure many of them seemed to favor a bit of darkness, but that wasn’t so different from the humans. The only ones that seemed to really hate humans were the queen and the army controlled by the queen. Even Mendax wasn’t the evil brute I had been told he was. Maybe—
I stood up and shook myself out of it just in time to hear a roar of something large and horrible a short distance away. The sound sent a shiver up my spine.
The beast.
If I chose the door with the beast behind it, I was as good as dead. I would have no weapons, no reaction time, and no advantage.
Mendax wouldn’t let me die, right? He wouldn’t.
I could see it in his eyes. He truly thought he loved me. Not just a faint dribble of love either. An all-consuming, soul-drowning love. I huffed, suddenly feeling trapped and frustrated.
He didn’t even know me.
But it felt like he did. I wanted to hide in his giant menacing arms until this entire thing no longer existed. But of course, I couldn’t do that.
I also couldn’t go in there blind. I needed a plan.
I had no other options. I had to hope Mendax wouldn’t choose the beast, still hoping to kill me. I wasn’t so sure though. He had tried to kill me multiple times before. Whether or not it was because he was fighting his urge for me or not, he still very much had wanted me dead and hadn’t succeeded. What better way than to lure me into a false sense of security? Could I be so sure now that he wouldn’t rather me dead than leave him? He definitely seemed the type that would rather kill even his bonded love instead of setting her free.
No, he would never set me free. I could see that in his beautiful eyes when he watched me. He would die before he’d let me go home.
A loud roar and applause from a crowd in the distance, somewhere past my confines, elicited a string of curses from my mouth. It was almost time.
He was arrogant. He would be confident in thinking he could stop me before I was actually set free.
He would tell me the door with my freedom and then stop me before I could leave.
Right?
A knock at the door sounded, and my chest leaped with the hope that it was Mendax. I told myself it was simply to find out what door to choose, but I knew better.
A short man with a brown bowl cut motioned for the guards to collect me.
It was time.
I wiped away the tear that fell from my eye. My legs shook like a branch in a rainstorm as the guards led me out of the small room and guided me to a giant iron door clad with large bolts and a humongous circular knob. It took two men to open it and one to shove me in.
I took a few steps and gasped at the giant colosseum surrounding me. It was huge. Rows and rows of stands all filled with excited, shouting Fae.
My feet faltered as I walked on the rusty-brown dirt toward the center of the arena. I felt like a tiny ant in the center of the vast structure. The crowd shouted and cheered loudly at my entrance, and I spun to take in the scene that surrounded me as it blurred.
Like an electric shock to the back of my head, I felt his eyes on me. I spun to the right to see the queen and prince in their ornate black thrones sitting on the lowest level above the arena’s stands. Our eyes snagged each other’s like barbed hooks as we silently communicated in a way only those with an unspoken connection could.
I’m so scared.
I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe.
The queen looked a little perplexed herself, but I couldn’t understand why. Would she take pity on me because her son loved me? No . . . no, I knew she wanted me dead. She wouldn’t risk having a human in her bloodline, even though that would never happen. At least not by me.
She rose from her throne, and the crowd silenced with eerie quickness.
“Callie Peterson, your mortal fate is no longer in the hands of the Unseelie court.” Her voice echoed through the stands as every person hung on her smoothly spoken words. “The fates will decide if you are truly good and deserve to be spared,” she coughed out under her breath. “Or if your human soul deserves to die a most painful death.”
The crowd lost it. Cheers echoed, but I also noticed a few that looked angry at the sound of my death speckled throughout the crowd.
“Behind one door lies a monster, hungry and starved for human blood, created specifically to hunt the humans. Behind the other door lies a portal that waits in anticipation to take you back to the human realm.”
The people went crazy with applause.
My hands trembled as I stared up at the Unseelie queen. My nervous fingers found the V-shaped scar on my finger. My toe dug into the sandy dirt, unsure of how to steady myself for what was about to happen.
She waved her graceful arm out to the right, and the black shimmer of her twig-like crown and dress caught the moonlight at just the right angle to sparkle like it was alive. I looked in the direction she pointed to see two giant arched doors made of iron, one next to the other at the end of the arena. They were huge, easily twenty feet tall. My breath caught at the thought of how large the monster was that would be on the other side. My eyes shot to Mendax in panic.
His calm, confident expression told me everything I needed.
He knew exactly which door held the beast and which held my freedom.
I wiped my sweaty hands on the brown pants I wore and nervously patted at the folds of fabric until I felt the dagger I had swiped from one of the guards as we had walked here.
I cracked my neck to each side with a deep breath. This would all be over soon. All of it.
“Choose your fate, human,” the queen bellowed with a smile before she sat down in her thrown to the wild chanting of the loud crowd.
I stole a look to Mendax in a silent plea.
Which door do I choose?
His face was calm, his breathing steady. I watched as the onyx leather draped over him lifted and dropped with somewhat calm breaths. His steely eyes took me in as a muscle in his jaw clenched and his hands gripped the armrests of the black throne tightly.
His head nodded, so slight a movement I wouldn’t have caught it had it not been for his glittering black crown catching the moonlight. He nodded at the door to the right, and his eyes clung to mine.
Would he send me to the beast or the portal? That was the real question. I stared at each door for several moments, trying to listen for noises from the beast or anything that would help me decipher which door held my freedom. The crowd jeered impatiently, hungry for a massacre.
I stood between the two doors, my eyes trained on the right one.
What if it was my freedom?
What if it wasn’t?
Warm tears fell from my eyes. No matter how hard I bit the inside of my mouth, I couldn’t seem to stop them.
This had to happen. All of it.
I stole a glance back to Mendax on his throne.
His body was tense now. Was that a tell of some kind? His full brows creased slightly as he ran a pale hand over his face. He was nervous.
Worry and adoration poured through his stare. I could feel his anxiety through the bond.
Maybe it would be better if the beast did devour me.
I walked in front of the large door to the right before thinking better of it and stepping back a few feet.
As soon as the door opened, I would run to the portal and leave before Mendax could get to me. He would never just let me leave; he would be at the portal to try and stop me. But I had to leave—this was the only way.
I would have to be fast. One last goodbye.
“I choose this door,” I said with a tremble in my voice.
The queen nodded, and a vile smile slowly painted her lips.
The look made my stomach drop to the floor.
Thuds and creaks sounded as the door slowly rose.
I didn’t hesitate. The second I saw her face, I began to run toward the opposite side of the arena, slowing my pace only enough to rip the dagger free from my pants.
I turned back, and my face paled.
Its red back brushed the top of the opening door as its huge body pounded in.
It was the wrong door—Mendax had told me the door with the beast.
He wanted me dead after all.
I readied my stance against the ground as every step of the creature’s enormous feet sent earthquake-like shivers into the stadium floor.
It had the body of something between a T. rex and a snake. Was it a dragon? It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen before.
The crowd gasped in loud waves as the beast sauntered in angrily.
What appeared to be the color of old blood covered its large body, and it had larger legs in the front with an odd bend to the elbow. In the front, a barrel-like chest seemed to protrude out a bit. Sharp thorn-like scales stuck out at least three inches and lined the beast’s chest. Several of the thorns were also on the razor-sharp ridge of his back and down every leg.
The blood fell from my face as its eyes locked onto mine and it began to pick up speed, running straight at me. A loud snarl and high-pitched cry made my bones recoil as the sound shot forth from its hideous mouth. The bellow allowed me to see the two rows of razor-sharp fangs that lined its gigantic dinosaur-like mouth. Everything about it reminded me of a dinosaur wrapped in lethal thorns. The same sharp spikes framed its face and hooked backward from its long nose to the back of its head. From there, it formed a thickly scaled neck. Snake-like black eyes glistened hungrily at me, daring me to move.
I was backed up to the doors I had entered from on the opposite end of the colosseum when a deep crocodile-like rumble sounded from the creature’s chest, and it raised its hackles, readying itself for attack.
I raised the dagger, upset that my animal gift hadn’t worked on it. It didn’t seem to hold the same weight here as it did in the human realm for whatever reason. Nothing seemed to like me here.
Not even Mendax apparently.
Its body tensed, and I flinched as I waited for the strike, wondering how fast it would take to eat me. I steeled my nerves as I firmly squeezed the smooth gold handle of the dagger. The familiar feeling of a blade coating me like a forgotten shadow.
The beast went for me.
My eyes flinched tightly closed as my body tensed so hard I heard a crack at the back of my jaw. I waited to feel the first sting of pain that would come from its warped talons or needle-sharp teeth.
I opened my eyes in horror to see Mendax’s large back suddenly in front of me—wings spread the widest I’d ever seen them—as he snarled back at the beast with a sound that rivaled the beast’s gruesome noises.
My breath threatened to fail me at the sight.
No! God no!
Everything inside my soul died and reincarnated, feeling his smoke push me gently back, away from the beast.
He had shadowed in front of me, taking the attack—saving my damned life.
I stole a quick look at the queen who screamed and pounded her now inky black hands and arms against an invisible barrier into the arena. Black smoke billowed angrily from her, threatening to choke out the shadow guards that surrounded the entire first level as she screamed for her son. She looked at me with a stare that could have killed me all by itself.
He had put up some kind of shield to keep her and everyone else from entering.
She had known her son would find out about the beast and tell me which door would keep me alive.
Queen Tenebris had switched them again. Much more the diabolical queen than I had given her credit for.
I should have never, ever doubted what my family told me about them.
Loud screams and bellows from the crowd blended with snarls and growls as the beast swiped abnormally dexterous claws at Mendax. The prince blocked each strike easily with the help of his now firm smoke. The dark prince sent a sharp stab of what looked like black lightning into the monster’s chest with a simple flick of his hand. Tension and rage poured from his black armor-clad body. The look on his face was nothing short of white-hot wrath. The red-scaled beast began to flinch backward from Mendax’s strikes. The small action brought a further onslaught of violence from Mendax. The warrior bent his head down a fraction and eyed the enormous beast in front of him like his gaze alone could cause the heathen to combust. The insanely intimidating Fae looked at the monster in the most horrifyingly nightmarish way possible as a corner of his mouth pulled into an eerie smirk, and it dawned on me that Mendax hadn’t even been trying to hurt the beast yet. He had been playing with it, letting out a bit of his anger. The hair on the back of my neck rose at the sight before me.
Dark, evil magic crackled in the air like lightning.
My eyes caught the still-open door where the beast had entered, and like the coward I was, I ran for it.
I couldn’t do this—I couldn’t—even if it meant I could no longer go home, that I left half of my heart—I couldn’t do this.
Gods, why hadn’t he just let me die! It would have solved everything.
I spared a last look at Mendax and the beast. Tears streamed down my face, hot with terror and sadness, as brown dust from the arena flew around us like a tornado. Mendax’s eyes happened to catch mine at the last second. His sharp eyes hardened with an edge of pain as he took in my tears, my stance.
Do. Not. Follow me. My eyes pleaded with his as I tattooed every feature of his beautiful face into my memory and prayed with everything I had that he stayed where he was.
I took off like a cannon. This was the only way to truly save us both.
Cold air shredded my lungs in deep gasps as my legs pumped harder with each stride that hit the dusty brown floor. With every hard slam to the ground, the open door drew closer. The deep blue of night had settled outside of the gridiron’s lights. The ominous moonlit freedom beckoned me through the other side of the large door frame. I would run out this door and to the portal of the door to the left and be free forever. The guards were behind the barrier Mendax had put up so they wouldn’t stop me.
Tangled blonde hair whipped across my face blocking my vision as my side slammed into the ground with the force of a bus. I was grabbed around the waist and lifted with such force my bladder let loose a little. Unmerciful claws dug their harsh tips into my skin. The monster had apparently realized I was the only real prey inside the arena and had given up on Mendax.
Blood-red scales and thorns on the beast’s face were so close I could smell the musty reptilian-like odor emanating from its mouth as it squeezed me painfully in front of its face. Black eyes as empty as a puddle sparkled in front of me with hunger. The heat of its open mouth hit my legs as I whimpered out what would have been a scream of terror had my lungs not been crushed in its massive grip.
With haste, it shoved my legs in its gaping mouth, the fabric of my pants tearing and slicing alongside the flesh of my leg as it slid across the beast’s sharp teeth.
The red devil stilled with half of my body already in its mouth. I felt it slowly grab me again and pull me out, and the action caused another rip of skin and fabric on my right leg as I was pulled free from its damp mouth.
I tried and tried to loosen the beast’s grip. It pulled me out of its jaw before setting me on the ground so gently that I thought I must have already been dead and dreaming.
As I looked into its black eyes, I saw a smokey-looking sheen. As soon as I was set safely on the ground, it stepped away from me as if hypnotized.
I glanced to the right to see Mendax, only a few feet from me, as still as a statue staring wickedly at the beast.
Mendax looked to me, and for the first time since I’d met him, he looked terrified as his blue eyes trembled full of emotion. His gaze quickly changed as his pupils grew somehow darker. He looked back to the beast and thundered a war cry that made a vein protrude in his neck and forehead, his face now contorted into undiluted rage.
The creature stared unfazed at the prince, his face expressionless as if he were some kind of zombie. He deftly lifted his sharp claw as if he were a puppet being commanded and—
He was a puppet being commanded.
Mendax was impelling his mind.
It was unfathomable to see someone hold such control over anything, but to see him so effortlessly inside the mind of a beast the size of a house felt incomprehensible. The prince’s body was tight with furious tension. I watched, terrified, as his muscular shoulders settled ever so slightly. The beast held up his giant claws before digging his talons deep into his chest with a sickening crack, tearing through its rib cage to pull out a present for his puppet master.
Without so much as a whimper, the zombie-like monster dropped to its knees, a cavernous hole that leaked inky black gore now resting in the middle of its protruding chest. Its hand opened to dump its beating heart onto the ground as it slumped to the ground in a lifeless heap of red scales and black blood-coated claws.
The wet heart shuddered once more before going as still as its owner that lay next to it.
I couldn’t believe it. My human brain fought to block out the information.
“She switched the doors at the last minute, Callie. I-I almost lost you,” he shouted at me. “Everyone of them will pay for it, that I promise. I will never be without you, Callie, never.” Fear snaked through his tender voice, cracking it.
The amber lights of the stadium flickered across us, and the open night air tossed our hair gently in different directions as silent muffled sounds from the audience and queen still trying to get passed the shield echoed against the still night.
I shuddered, the taste of rancid betrayal on my tongue. Tears streamed down my face as salty reminders of corruption, trailing into the corners of my mouth before running off my chin in a waterfall of deceit.
God, why had he followed me!
I studied the door before I readied myself. I knew I couldn’t outrun him.
“I’m so sorry, Malum,” I whimpered softly as the tears blurred my vision.
Our eyes locked, and he ran to me, his face wrinkled with anxiety as he pulled me against his chest. The tears fell harder at the deep swell of comfort I felt pressed tightly against him.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to do what I had been sent here to do this whole time.
