Forbidden Law (An Alien Love #1)

Chapter Twenty

Jace stiffened. Rayne kept her hands over her mouth, but her worried eyes darted to me and then back to Ariss. The only noise in the cavern was the crackle of flames and the rush of the waterfall. Ariss sipped her teacup and watched in satisfied silence, her eyes dancing over the rim as she lazily scanned the dark room. I couldn't seem to catch my breath past the pressure that hovered over my chest. My mind buzzed with tea as my hands automatically brought it to my lips, taking in the warm brew. Jace pushed out a heavy breath and replied.

"What do you want with her? She is a human."

"Oh, dear, you are oblivious. But I will not spoil the surprise." She threw her head back and chortled. I suspected she had a screw loose from one too many lonely years here. I felt a spasm of sympathy shot through with dread and anger. "If you are worried for her well being, you need not. She will come to no harm from me, but it is you you must protect her from."

Jace stiffened. "You don't know what will happen. Unless of course you have a Psychic power, which is required to be reported to the Council..." He clapped his hand over his mouth, attempting to catch his words as more muffled in his palm. "Dammit!" he roared. "Leave your Truth to yourself." Horror overcame the anger in his facial features.

Silence fell. I held my breath as Ariss studied his face with no emotion of her own. Her hands had gone still along with her rocking. The teacup that steamed in the cool subterranean air was gripped and overlapped by her fingers. The little hairs on the back of my arms rose.

"You will not speak of rules or my inability to use my power on you, do you understand?" She was suddenly towering over us, her eyes glazed and empty as they shifted from face to face in calculating malice. Her breath smelled like smoke, and it filled me with nothing else. The energy that had coiled around us tightened its grip in suffocating intensity, and I could tell Rayne and Jace felt it as they straightened against it. Jace's muscles strained and bulged. Terror squeezed inside my chest. I had never been so cornered. I could tell they hadn't either. She could do anything with us. The endless possibilities crossed my mind, and the knowledge of it was obvious as she smiled, knowing what I must've thought.

"Yes, Miss Dayze. You have just begun to learn the social order of our people. You will come to see and interact with more, but this is your first lesson: do not overstep where you were already on rocky ground." She cupped Jace's cheek. He winced. Light glowed from her hand, leaving red burns along his jawline and cheekbone. I couldn't help the breath of air that gasped between my lips. It bounced on the light already emanating from his furious eyes. "I could have you on the other end of reality, youngling. Tear you from the inside out. I once was a Council member, did you know? I know what they do to Law breakers. But you have not seen all of what they are capable. Do not prance like a proud lion in my domain and expect compliance like it is a right," she continued in a whisper. Her breath rustled a strand of hair that fell over his brow.

"Now," she stood up straight again. "Do I have your pledge? If not, you will not be welcomed back here, and the task you have been assigned will be a long one. No other Morfilians have witnessed what I have through the years and millennia, just as none have been able to find me for over half a century besides this one." She gestured to Rayne. "Speak."

We all gasped. I just noticed that we had been unable to speak, our voices stolen as easily as a breath of air. Rayne scowled and snatched up her cup of tea from the coffee table. Jace sat still, brows drawn together, then he looked at me for my opinion.

"It is up to you, but know I will be with you no matter what. Do not feel forced to anything you do not want to do. If you did not agree to this, then I would find my information elsewhere." He squeezed my hand and watched my face closely. I shifted uncomfortably under all of their scrutiny. The cup in my hands felt like a heavy stone as the buzzing in my ears intensified, a swarm of trapped bees in my head. The pounding in my head happily hammered away.