Time ✔️

Chapter Forty Four

Word Count: 1721

¬Rosie

Nothing. For three days.

I've spent each passing moment wondering whether my inability to contact Thought is due to his lack of desire to save me, or because my brothers technology is far more developed than I've realised, and I can't contact any immortal, at least in any conventional manner. Maybe it's a far stretch to call out to Thought and assume he would be listening.

But I had hoped.

Lying on my bed, I stare at the ceiling. Over these past few days, I've done everything I can think of to get out of here. My door is constantly locked, there's no windows, and I have no way of contacting anyone. Especially not Time.

I can only imagine how he is dealing with this right now. Surely he is spending every waking minute trying to find me. I just hope he doesn't.

The door opens, forcing me into a sitting position. Seeing it's Altin, I roll my eyes, and lay back down on the bed. He's brought me my food ever since I arrived, not saying much more than that he loves me, he's missed me, and that he hopes I will come around to what Harlen and him have been saying. Yet despite this, they haven't put much effort in.

Clearly they are waiting for something.

"You're not doing a good thing by locking me up here," I mutter. It's been a similar mantra with small adapation's each time. I'm hoping to hit Altin right where he feels his guilt the most. He's more sensitive than Harlen, and will be more likely to take what I say into account.

"Settle down," he murmurs, closing the door tightly behind him. He never locks it, like he knows I'm not going to try to fight back. "Harlen doesn't know I'm here."

I sit up again, swinging my legs from the bed. Altin doesn't come close. He quickly learned his proximity to me makes me extremely uncomfortable, even if he is my brother. He lost that right when he threw me into this room.

"Finally have a conscience?" I question, tilting my head.

"We didn't do this to hurt you. We did this to protect you," he explains, as if I haven't heard that multiple times already. "Here, you're safe."

I watch him sit down on the desk chair before me, feeling brave enough to move it slightly closer to me than I would usually allow. I could protest, but instead, I keep myself calm. I'm curious about why he is in here, when he hasn't made any effort to speak to me outside of bringing me my food. This time, he has come here on his own volition, and I want to know why.

"Please, let me go. I know that as my brother, you know holding someone back from their mate is the wrong thing to do. I can make my own decisions-"

He holds his hand up. "But you can't. Time is manipulating you, and you have no idea."

"He's my mate, Altin," I say softly. The Altin I knew deeply desired a mate, even when he was younger. He was always a romantic, doting on girls who he never had a chance with. He was always on a pursuit for true love, not just something fleeting, and when he found out about the prospect of a mate, he was endlessly overjoyed.

"Harlen did it. He rejected his pure-blood mate," Altin reveals, making me flinch. Harlen was different to Altin in the romantic department, more interested in girls for a night. But I never could have predicted he would reject a mate.

"Wait, seriously? He's mated to a pure-blood?"

Altin nods grimly, an unknown emotion glittering in his eyes. "One of the Virtues. He was disgusted when he found out, rejected her without a single thought."