Before Jackson knew what was happening, I jerked my wrists together, squeezing so that the chain constricted around his neck while wrapping my legs around his waist to hold myself to him. The man's hand shot to his throat and pried at the cold metal of the chain as the realization of what I was doing to him dawned on him. Growling, he broke the kiss with me and began fighting, slamming me against the stone before raising his fist and ramming it into my face. Pain blossomed behind my eye, but still I held tight to him, twisting the chain as Jackson's violent, wild struggle grew weaker.
Through half-lidded eyes, Jackson glared at me with enough hatred that I nearly pulled back. His was a look that threatened to kill me, a glare that made my stomach constrict in fear and my heart ache from terror. It was a look that spoke of violence, of hatred and malice so pure that it could rip my soul apart, but even while staring into the vitriol-filled eyes of my former fiancé, I held onto his body, even squeezing the chain tighter.
Because if I pulled back and gave him a chance to breathe, then he would gain the upper hand. He was stronger than me. More powerful. More hate filled. If he got the upper hand, I'd be dead. It didn't matter if they had some grand plans for me. That manic look in his eyes told me Jackson would murder me if given the chance.
So, even with him thrashing about, I held tight. Somehow, his body still supported me against the wall, his moving and trying to throw me off causing the rough stones at my back to dig through the back of my dress and into my skin. Miraculously, I held on for several minutes. When Jackson's lips began turning blue and his fingers ceased their grasping at the chain, he also lost the strength to stand, and we both tumbled to the floor.
Jackson's eyes fluttered closed, and for a moment I thought I'd killed him until I felt the weak rise and fall of his chest beneath me. He was alive, but my chain was still wrapped around his neck.
All it would take was a little more sustained pressure. A little tighter twist of the chain. Then he'd be gone...
With this soft noise of pain, I tore myself away from the man before I could do it, unwrapping the chain and tumbling back and off the man's body. Logic told me I should have killed him, but I couldn't. Not even after everything he'd done to me. If I killed him, then I would be just like them. Just like my grandfather. I wasn't a monster, even if that's what they wanted me to be.
Sniffling and praying he wouldn't wake up until I was long gone, I fished through his robes for the keys to my shackles. The frigid metal of the keys burned me when I touched them, but I fought through the pain and grabbed them then set to work freeing myself. After several seconds of struggle, my limbs were no longer held by restraints, though I gasped when I looked down to see my white stockings soaked in blood from where the ankle restraints had destroyed my skin. It looked worse than I'd expected, but I didn't have time to gawk. I needed to leave before anyone noticed something amiss.
Gathering myself, I stood, dropping the keys on top of the restraints and lifting my skirts and sprinting up the stairs and out into the dark, chilly night. Once my stockinged feet hit the soil, I tried to access my powers, wincing as the residual binding magic from the restraints slithered through my body and scalded me. I wanted to stand there and ponder this lack of access to my powers while I formulated a plan, yet in the distance, I heard people chatting casually as they walked along the path from the house.
Biting back my whispered curse, I melted into the forest, not really knowing what I was doing other than struggling to get away. My face throbbed. My ankles burned. And the wind carried with it a bone chilling cold and the promise of rain. I couldn't survive long out here, not without risking hypothermia.
But dying from hypothermia in nature would be far better than dying as a sacrifice to bring about the apocalypse.
I ran blindly for hours deeper into the darkness, tripping over sticks and stones and logs in a night so black that I felt smothered. There wasn't even a moon to guide me. Whenever I tried to access my powers, pain had me recoiling, though I didn't have time to worry about whether my powers would ever come back as my mind was consumed with the fight for survival. Whenever I fell on a rock or a stone or a bit of uneven earth, I'd peel myself off the ground and keep walking because that's the only thing I could do.
I knew that I'd wandered into the massive state park bordering my grandfather's property, but beyond that, I was utterly lost. It was good that I hadn't heard anyone around me. Perhaps I'd managed to put some good distance between myself and the coven.
That distance wouldn't matter if I died, though.
At that moment, my shoeless foot caught on a root, sending me face-planting into the muddy soil as the rain I'd somehow avoided finally caught up with me. I shuddered, scooting back to lean against a tree as the sky opened up, leading my breath to come out in little puffs of air barely visible in the semi-darkness. Crying, I pulled my feet up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, trying to keep warm as I called to that well of power inside me.
I didn't feel pain this time when trying to access my abilities, but I also felt... almost nothing. My powers felt muted, dead like flowers left to rot in a vase on someone's kitchen table.
I lowered my face to my hands and cried as the gravity of my predicament filled my mind. The rain fell harder, and I scooted closer to the tree, though it couldn't offer me the warmth I needed.
Then I smelled sulfur.
"No," I whispered, trying to stand only to feel my legs give out. The only thing that kept me from falling on my ass was the tree.
In a flash of fiery light, Kai appeared in front of me, standing in his demon form as he glared squarely at me. The shadowy outline of his body in the darkness had me hissing and backpedaling, though the same damn root I'd tripped over before led me to fall backwards while the predator stalked closer to me.
It was too dark for me to read his expression. "Lex..."
"Stay the fuck away from me, Kai."
I flinched when all he did was step nearer and snap his fingers, leading a halo of light to surround the two of us. The orange glow cast sinister shadows which danced and waved thanks to the wind and the rain.
When he finally saw me, he frowned. "You have a black eye."
"Well, it's better than being fucking dead..."
I hissed as I pulled myself to stand, drawing Kai's attention to my bloodied ankles and ruined shoeless feet. The sight had him stopping and wincing. The rain that fell on his demon skin sizzled from his heat, and some part of me wanted to walk up to him and wrap myself in his warmth. He looked menacing here in the wilderness, black horns curving delicately out from his head. The only things that humanized him were the leather jacket and black jeans he wore.
Instead of reaching for him, I took another step back, using a tree to support myself as I did. "I mean it, asshole. Stay away from me!"
"Are you going to blast me again?" His amused smirk didn't quite reach his eyes, and his teasing lilt fell heartbreakingly flat.
"No," I shook my head, realizing that at some point I'd lost the hair band holding my hair in a braid. Sweeping wet curls out of my eyes, I added. "I... something is wrong with me. I can't feel my powers. Why can't I feel my powers?"
I heard the panic in my voice, and Kai's expression softened as my crying intensified. I was acting like a child, and I hated myself for it.
"They'll come back. It's residual from the chains."
I sniffled, taking a step towards him despite myself. Idly, I wondered if he was controlling me, drawing me to him with some dark magic of manipulation, but deep within me, I knew that Kai wasn't causing this attraction. He just looked so fucking warm, and I needed him.
Surprised by my reaction, Kai stood there, waiting for me to make another move while eying me skeptically. I could sense his curiosity... and his trepidation.
Was he afraid of me?
"How'd you get the black eye?"
"Jackson." I frowned, stepping nearer, my eyes locking with Kai's. The intensity of his gaze made me feel dizzy. Or was that dizziness caused by the cold? Kai growled out an admonishment against Jackson that had me laughing darkly as I took another half-step towards him. "What the hell do you care about me? I'm going to be dead by the end of this, anyway."
The man balked, opening and closing his mouth in surprise before schooling his expression. "You heard us?"
I shrugged, shivering and halting my stalking towards him. After a moment, Kai wordlessly pulled off his jacket and held it out to me. I stared at the jacket angrily before taking the it and slipping it on, shuddering violently when I was enveloped by the warmth of the man I still loved. I sniffed, rolling up the sleeves. As I looked down, I could feel Kai's eyes on me, boring into my soul.
"Alexandra, it wasn't supposed to be like this... I can't..."
I sniffed again, looking up and trying to wipe my eyes on the sleeves of the jacket, but since it was leather, all it did was make my cheek colder and spread my tears. "Are you going to take me back to them?"
Even in this demon form, the man looked pained as he nodded, and I felt my stomach drop with the realization that what he said was true. He was going to take me back... Instead of fighting my fate, I sighed and stepped up to him, taking him by surprise and wrapping him in a tight embrace. When our skin touched, it tingled, and the sensation had me smiling. I was frigid, and he was so pleasantly warm that I just sighed and rested my head on his shirtless chest, though I had to turn to my other cheek when I accidentally pressed the painful side of my face against him.
I thought he was going to shove me away or remind me that he'd just been using me all along. Instead, he wrapped me in his arms and hugged me back, leaving me confused and reeling. I was warm, safe and home, and with that realization came a stirring of my powers, a tickling in the back of my mind that something needed to happen. Kai sensed a change, too, and he was about to say something as my consciousness reached out to him.
It was a weird sensation, feeling my mind brush up against the man's. I knew Kai felt it, too, because when it happened, he gasped. It wasn't like I could read his mind, not like that, but I could... feel him. Curious, I pushed farther, allowing instinct to guide me as I finally found Kai's own well of powers, his own magic. There was the magic of the demon, raw and chaffing, but there were also the powers of the elemental raven, cooling and soft and...
It was time again.
"Lex," he started, pushing me back gently.
It was too late. Whatever was happening had been set in motion, and before Kai could stop it, I was reaching into him, feeling myself pulled... somewhere. A different time, maybe? Different reality?
I heard Kai cursing and pleading, felt him struggling to hold onto my rain-slicked body while I began to fall backwards. As I looked straight up, the trees seemed to reach out and congratulate me as if this was something they'd been waiting for, and I stared up at the dark, clouded sky as I went limp and kept falling down.
Down into a black hole in the forest floor that had opened up beneath me and was sucking me in like matter being drawn in when a dying star imploded.
Could Kai see the hole, too?
It didn't matter. This was right, and I sighed softly as I fell backwards through the darkness where I was greeted by the smells of a different forest and the sounds of songbirds I didn't recognize.