Taken [Zayn Malik]

ch.15- The Pearl

"Madame Linelle was my wet nurse so she was already destined to raise me. But she was all alone, the sole adult survivor in the entire island" Zayn mumbled softly.

I swallowed hard. I couldn't imagine being completely alone my entire life, not seeing anyone but one older, motherly woman for my entire life.

No wonder Zayn had been so determined to keep with him. He wasn't a raging slave owner who enjoyed possessing me and trying to touch me; he was just outright lonely and delusional by his loneliness.

“Or so she thought” Zayn grinned briefly.

I hadn't realized, but I was gripping his hand quite tightly. He looked down at my hand and smiled momentarily, finally having gotten a human emotion out of me.

He grinned.

I let go of his hand.

“Inside the little cottage lived a decrepit old woman whose entire shack housed every kind of potion and herbs” he shook his head slowly and played with my fingers.

I swallowed hard. Zayn has other-worldly powers. Maybe he was born with them. Or, maybe he was cursed...

“Tar, the volcanic eruption was no accident. It was a curse. The woman in the cottage whom Madame Linelle had no other choice but to go to had cursed my father’s throne. She was a treacherous and jealous old woman who had once loved my father and was therefore jealous of my mother and the fact that I was born” he explained slowly.

Tar? He's never called me 'Tar' before...

I reached for Zayn's hand again and touched it softly. He took my hand and held it between both of his.

“She told Madame Linelle that the only way I would survive was if she gave me a gift, the gift of ‘reception’ or ‘getting in your head’ as you call it” Zayn grinned.

I shifted slightly.

Zayn patted my hands.

“But there was a catch” he winked.

I nodded, urging him to continue.

“She declared that I would be a slave to this island and a prisoner to my heart” he shook his head and laughed lightly. I blinked. He had been cursed? Legitimately cursed, but he was laughing about it?

Maybe he was so overwhelmed by it that it didn’t bother him, just like how I don’t fight him anymore and just let him have his way even though I’m still desperate to leave.

And not just cursed, but slave? Prisoner? That’s what he kept me as. Was he trying to project his own torture onto me?

"Did she say how to break the curse?" I asked hesitantly. What if he needed blood to break it? W-what if that's why he 'needed' me for?

Zayn unbuttoned the rest of his shirt.

I scooted back uneasily.

“When she gave me the gift, she left a scar on my chest, over my heart” he told me as he leaned closer and showed me his chest.

I took a deep breath. When he was more or less stripping off only minutes ago, he hadn’t been getting ready to touch me; he had been trying to show me his scar...

I looked closely at the scar that I had previously thought was one of his many tattoos. It was like a jagged swirl, a chain over his heart.

"You can touch it" he told me. 

I looked into his eyes and nearly scooted back a bit as I realized how close I was to him.

He didn't mind the closeness, if anything, he tugged carefully at my waist until I was practically in his lap. I didn't protest, I sort of wanted to comfort him.