Chapter 46: Chapter 46

A R Y A

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My feet were still dangling in the air, my dress and hair, now loose from the updo, blowing in the wind while some of my fingers around his arm loosened from exhaustion. "Please," I stared up at him, praying he'd found his way back, "help me."

"“Arya”." he gasped again, blinking. Wolf eyes turned into blue seas. Then his eyes darted to his hand gripping my arm and then back to me hanging in the air, dangerously close to falling. From there everything went very quickly. He grabbed my arm with both hands, pulled me up, and lifted me over the ledge into the cave. Echinda screeched angrily, but that didn't stop him.

Strong arms pressed me against him and he turned me away from the canyon into the cave. Trembling hands wandered over my body. He didn't say anything, just mumbled my name over and over again.

My hands clawed at his bare back and I breathed a sigh of relief, “Thank Gaia! “

“"“Arya”." “Trembling hands clasped my face, and his eyes darted to my chin in an unfamiliar acquaintance with his fist.” “His face slipped as he seemed to remember. "“No”."

"It's okay," I assured him, my whole being convulsing painfully at the sight of his broken heart. I didn't mind the punch, really. There were other things I couldn't forgive him for. Things I didn't know if it was him or not. I put my hands over his. "It wasn't you."

But the expression on his face didn't change and he suddenly pulled his one hand out from under mine and leaned on the floor as if he couldn't hold himself up anymore. He shook his head and just looked at me. raw desperation. "I hurt you."

The urge to deny it was great, but that would be a lie. So I said nothing and wished he would explain. Explain to me why he did all the terrible things. Why he had left me alone. Why he thought I wasn't worthy of his attention. Why he hadn't been for me. Why didn't he believe in me?

"ENOUGH!"

I saw the black, long, slippery tentacles before I heard her shrill voice. They burrowed into his back, bit into his skin, and then pulled him away from me with one punch. All I could see was how he smashed against the wall before he was on the floor and his whole body began to twitch uncontrollably.

“Oh God. “

"What have you done to him?!" I yelled, already on my feet to get to him. "Xenos!" Kneeling beside him, I cupped his face in my hands, trying to steady him, but his body kept jerking. "Make it stop!"

"I can not do that. He's about to break your bond."

My hands fell limp from his body. I turned to her. "What?"

"You heard me right." She sighed in irritation, as if she didn't want to explain everything to me. ““My” band is urging him to do it. My band and the pain.”

My throat went bone dry. "Since when?"

She leaned on the altar. "Since your failed burglary."

"It didn't fail!" I exclaimed.

"Oh yeah?" She tilted her head. "So you really think you could have escaped me if it hadn't been my whole intention?"

"Why should that be in your interest?"

"It's very simple," she said calmly, a calculating smile gracing her lips. "Because I needed him."

Everything in me refused to ask any more questions. "Why?"

She looked at me almost disappointed. "Are you still asking that, child?"

Of course I knew why she wanted him. Why she needed him. After all, he brought her his entire kingdom. Still, I needed to hear it from her. "So all his actions from then on were directed by you?"

'No, of course not, my bond cannot stand if another claims its soul. Still, I needed access to his position of power. And of course I was just curious to see if it would work to sever the indestructible mate band.” She looked thoughtfully at Xenos. "It took some time to program it."

I followed her gaze, seeing him still shaking like crazy. "What do you mean programming?"

“We all associate a stimulus with a response. You embodied everything good for him, so I had to countercondition him.” she replied, her narrow eyes sparkling. 'It's interesting what pain can do to people; how it can change someone.”

Her chest opened again and the tentacles snapped at me, biting into my skin. "Ahhh!" Everything went white, a blinding, bright flash that shot through my body, searing everything inside me. It was like someone was burning me with icy hellfire, turning my body inside out and skinning me. I cried out like crazy. “Holy Gaia,” this was the worst agony I have ever experienced!

Her voice came out in a whoosh, so far away, while everything around me vanished in the glare of the lightning bolts coursing through my body. “I have coupled you and your touches with pain. Every time you touched him, the agony struck.”

Electrocuted again and I cried out, curling up on the floor hoping the lightning wouldn't tear me apart. Horror gripped me. So that's what he felt when I touched him?

“He should associate everything that had to do with you with suffering and hatred. And you should perish from it. You and your band.”

I tried to open my eyes and swallow the tears. "Our bond is holding," I ground out as my eyelids fluttered open and I saw Xenos twitch beside me. His claws were extended, his fangs and his gray wolf fur covered his skin, mixed with the beads of blood on it. I reached out to him as another jolt of electricity hit my limbs and I could do nothing but scream.

"Not for long. He couldn't have taken your death at first, but now, with the progress we'd made, he might be able to."

Again, I forced myself to open my eyes, squint against the morning light that was now shining into the cave, and look at him. His prominent chin, his tousled brown hair; such a beautiful face. I might not know which of his actions were controlled by Echinda, but I couldn't just give up on him like that. Couldn't let our bond break. Not since it was my home.

I gritted my teeth, waiting for the icy fire to subside. Only then did I snarl, "Unless I kill you first." Then I grabbed one of her vile tentacles, bellowing out the pain defiantly as I pulled her to me with all the strength left in my trembling limbs .

I would argue later that it was thanks to my iron will and strength that I was able to grab her, but in truth it was much more the element of surprise that she hadn't seen coming and so hadn't kept her vigilance had.

Either way, she finally lay on top of me, and when I should have been at her mercy, I grabbed the dagger I'd ripped from my holster not even seconds earlier and pressed the knife point against her pale, scaly skin.

"No, don't you dare!" She was about to wrestle the knife out of my hand when she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

At first I didn't understand the reason for her suffering until I saw her glowing red skin. “Sunlight”.

She started to back away, but I held her in place with one hand while I placed the knife tip against her cleavage again with the other and began carving the rune, repeating the ritual words in my tongue over and over.

The last dash. Black blood oozed from the delicate wound as the rune lit up brightly against her red, burning skin.

"NOOO!" Her hands clasped my neck, squeezing, but the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, reaching more and more of her skin, allowing me to push her hands away from me with ease.

"Say your last words, Echinda," I blurted out as the bright flickering rune seemed to reach its climax and I suddenly caught sight of Xenos sagging.

“Please, please, please let it work out!”

One second. Two. Then he gasped for air and his chest heaved. I saw his eyes widen, then his head snapped towards me. A bright stunning blue.

I snatched my arrow from the quiver. "Well then, don't." With that, I rammed the arrow into her chest. Without mercy, without hesitation.

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