(Unedited, 1st draft)
Chapter 8
Walking to my small shack I saw my father and mother sitting around the table looking down at it. With the fire blazing around them, I could sense something was wrong since it was still dark out knowing they should still be asleep.
My father was the first to look up at me with the flash of weariness dancing through his eyes "Laiya, where have you been?" He asked, pushing his chair back to stand up to walk over to me.
"Why does it matter where I've been?" I question. With the information, I had learned at the pond earlier with Victor I finally understood my family's deep dark secret. I was to become the Beast' mate if I like it or not. It was going to come for me tomorrow night and there is nothing I could do to stop it. Victor had been right, I was the key to undoing the curse, but I was unsure if I could accept such a monster as a mate. All I cared about the moment was finding Penelope and bringing her home, even if that meant being captured by the beast.
"Laiya please we've been worried that you had run off before the Blood Moon. There's no telling what the beast would do if it found out most likely cause more trouble for a village." my mother sobbed.
"If you must know I was out looking for answers about Blood Moon. The answers I found to have left me with more questions about who I really am and what it is the family has been keeping from me." I explained to her not liking to see my mother and such a sorrowful mood. "Why must I wait until grandma tells me tonight about the Blood Moon and how it is our family is tied to the beast?"
"Because Laiya, that is how things were told in the prophecy." Pa insert hanging his head. "There used to be a book revealing the beast and it's tied to the moon, but the book was lost during the last Blood Moon." As he spoke about the book my heart pounding think back over what I had read earlier at the pond with Victor.
"Pa, what is the prophecy say?" I probe, hoping he was finally opening up to me.
"Laiya I'm sorry, but we're not allowed to tell you. We all promised Penelope before she disappeared, we wait until the eve of your birthday and have your grandmother tell you everything." He answered, taking a step towards me as I took one back feeling betrayed by him once again. Only thing was he did not know that I knew the answers to my questions now. My destiny sealed and there's nothing anyone could do to stop it not even myself.
There was just one person that I wanted to talk to about this to see if there was a way out of it. "Well, it's the eve before my birthday when do I get to go to grandmother's house?" I demanded, wanting to be able to figure out a plan as soon as possible.
"When the sun goes down you'll walk along trail and not wonder off. It's the first night of the full moon and there a chance the Beast will be hunting in the woods and there's no telling what it would do if it found you the night before the blood moon." My father worried before turning his back to me and walk over to a wooden chest next to our fireplace while pulling out a key from his pocket. Has he unlocked it and threw it open my heart dropped from my chest. "Penelope would want you to have this. She knew how much you adored it when she got it for her eighteenth birthday."
When he turns back to me with the red cape across both arms, walking over to me. I slowly raised out with a shaking hand to glaze my fingers across the red stain has the memories of Penelope sitting under the tree on my fifth birthday when she gave me the red ring that blended into the red cape. "I thought the Beast tore it up?"
"No, one of the hunter the next morning found it in perfect condition hanging on the tree limb blowing the wind." Pa explain, lifting it out now for me to slip into. "I know she would want you to have it for your birthday. You have grown up into such a strong woman. I know the Moon Goddess has a great plan for you to come in the upcoming years."
"How can you be so sure and what the Moon Goddess has in store for me?" I asked, turning to feel him slip the cape over my arms and up over my shoulders. It was heavier than it appeared, but I knew it would keep me warm with the air changing to a colder temperature. "There's always the chance the Beast will find me tomorrow night and kill me."
"No Laiya, the Beast won't kill you. I've known since the day you were born, you were meant for something greater than anyone in our family has ever experienced." He researched me gripping my shoulders to turn me around to face him. "You were born with a power that can help you in any fight that comes your way, you just in to believe in yourself and it will come to you."
"What power?" I asked, looking into his blue eyes simpler to mine to see they were glazed over with tears he was holding back. "Pa, what power are you talking about?"
"I'm sorry Laiya, but that is something your grandma will have to tell you." He answered finally turning away from me to look into the fire behind him. "Your ma and I will have no control of you once the moon is straighter above us tonight. It's the night before the Blood Moon and you will soon understand what it is that you have been seeking." Then he turns back around to walk over to my mother was looking to be a nervous wreck has she cried in slight has Pa and I spoke. "Come there nothing else we can do to help her without sitting down and telling her the story ourselves." I stood there watching them walk out of the door feeling baffled on what I had just been told.
* * * * *
Walking among the village I saw people from other villages had finally joined us and were setting up tents in the field by Hunters Forest. There was the fear that the Beast would come out and attack them during the full moon tonight, but there had been rumors on how the Beast never shows itself before the Blood Moon. It still didn't comfort my concern for their safety knowing that it could change its mind and attack our guest.
"Hello," a little girl with big around green eyes looked up at me. "I like your red cape" She reminded me of myself all those years ago, before I understood what it was going on in my world.
"Thank You, I'm Laiya." I said, leaning down to shake her little hand. "Where might have you come from?"
Before the little girl could answer an older woman ran over, grabbing the little girl's arms pulling her away, "Come here Sara, we don't talk to Witches." I stood back up to tell her I wasn't such a thing, but the words caught in my throat as I watch them walk away.
"Wow, some people are just unfriendly and like to criticize others before they even get a chance to really get to know them." I heard yet an older gentleman sais beside me. Viewing next to me, there stood Carter Sterling looking upon the women who dragged the little girl away from me. "Then again, I don't blame her for calling you such a name, given you're wearing the color of red, the same color of the Blood Moon to come tomorrow night."
The way he talked about the cap being the same color of the moon made my insides stir and I had to bet my tongue not to say anything out of conduct. "The cap belonged to my cousin who disappeared during the last Blood Moon." I told him, hoping he drops his suspensions about me being a witch.
"Yes, I remember seeing a girl about your age the last time I was here. I had hoped I would get to talk to her again, but I didn't know she had disappeared during the last Blood Moon. What a shame." He stated, but there was no remorse in his voice, but something that sounded as if he had already known this. "I take it the Beast had taken her."
"That's what everyone assume, but given there were three girls missing we really not sure what happen to her." I went on to explain, "What still baffles us all still is why three and not one like normal. Most people are scared the Beast will take more this time."
"What if those girls won't happy with their lives here and ran away?" he question me in return. "We get people from all the neighboring village asking to join us for their tired of living in the life deprived of the greater things in life. Have you try to go off and see if she might be in a different village?"
"No, I won't be of age till tomorrow and my family won't let me leave the village." I answered, looking around the village to see people gazing at us with questioning looks of their own. "I'm sorry, but I don't think its smart talking to you knowing your reputation from the last time you were here."
I had only taken a few steps away when he reply, "Yes, I did cause quite a stir here the last time. Plus, we don't need people thinking we have some secret love affair when you already have two gentlemen fighting for your hand."
I turn to face him once again wondering where he had learned such rumors, "I'm sorry, but I think you are mistaken. I have no one asking for my hand since everyone knows it is against the law for anyone underage to be shown such attention, plus with the Blood Moon about to rise, there no chance someone is trying to steal me away before I have to face the Beast."
"Yes, this ridiculous Blood Moon Mate sacrifice, what a shame. All those beautiful women having to walk into the woods only to be a meal ticket to someone so horrible that a man he can't kill it." Carter laughed, "If I were you I just find a young gentleman and ran away before the Blood Moon rise and say the hell with it, but then again that's just me."
I stood there baffled on what he was saying, "No, I won't anger the Beast and have him tear my village apart for my selfishness. That would be wrong, plus I love my family too much to betray them in such a manner."
"Yes and playing with two boys' hearts isn't wrong at all." He laughed, "I almost felt sorry for my dear cousin Victor, I say he rather fond of you. He could give you the world at your feet were the other guy could only give you the simple things in life."
"Sir, you have no right talking to me about my relationship when you know nothing about me." I reply and turn to walk away feeling the strange energy start to come alive inside me once again. I took a few deep breaths to try to calm myself down, but it was only making me angrier thinking about Carter words about how I should betray my family.
I wasn't paying much attention when I felt someone grip my hand and spun me around only to grab the hook to the cap and through it over my head. "Your eyes are turning dark again. You're scaring the visitors from the other villages." Looking up to see Victor looking down at me with a smile made the anger slip away and brought a lightness back inside me. "They're now turning back into the blue sky color I admire so much in the short time of knowing you."
I hadn't talked to him since the pond when I ran off after figuring out I was the key to the Beast undoing. I'm not even sure if he had heard me before I ran. This was just another question I would have to ask grandmother tonight. "Victor, what are you doing here?"
"Well, I came to talk to my cousin but found you both talking before you storm off. So I followed you till I knew it was safe and no one would see us." He explains, "I wanted to ask you about what happened last night at the pond."
"There's nothing to talk about." I assure, knowing he wouldn't be able to answer any of my questions like he was hoping I would be for him. "It's just the lack of sleep and I misunderstood everything going on around me, please don't think too much about it.
He gave me a questioning look before a smiling once again at me, "If that is what you wish." He then grabs my hand once again and pulled me along an ally that was between the homes of the people in my village making it semi dark, so no one could see us before stopping somewhere along the middle and turning back to me, "Tomorrow your birthday, is there anything special you would like?"
"Victor it's sweet of you to ask, but there nothing you can give me that will make that day any special knowing what is to come that night," I answered leaning against the back of one of the shakes. "I just want all this unanswered question to go away, so I can understand what my life is really about."
"Isn't that way you're going to your grandmother's tonight?" he rummages, putting both his hands up against the wall beside me, trapping me into only look into his honey-brown eyes. "What if you don't like the answers she gives you, when what will you do during the Blood Moon tomorrow night."
I felt my heart twitch not because of his question, but for the simple fact that as he talked, he step closer to me pressing his body up next to mine sending my body up in heat. "There's nothing I can do besides try to serve the Blood Moon and come back home to my family."
"We both know that's a lie. You never plan on coming back home during the Blood Moon." He secures dropping one of his hands to wrap it around my waist to pull me near him. I knew I should have tried to pull him away, but I felt a warmth swipe around me the closer we stood to one another. "I knew from the moment I saw you in that field shooting those arrows, you were on a mission and if I had to guess you plan on going out to find your missing cousin."
I had never told anyone that had been my plan along and I had slightly forgotten about it with everything else going on around me that I was amazed that he had been able to see through everything. "How are you so sure that is my plan?"
He let out a little laughed as he brought his head down places his head down along my neck, "I'm not stupid Laiya. I know how to read women and know what she is thinking normally in a drop of a hat. I just know when to question her motives." Then I felt him bite little down against my skin in the same spot the Beast had bitten during my dream, the morning he had shown up.
"If you're so sure you can read me what is it I want at this moment?" I found myself asking as light as a whispered.
He lifts his head back up to see his eyes had turned to a dark brown color, almost black, "Me, you want me to kiss you and take you away from all this. Just say is the word and we can go back to my village and start living our life's together. All you have to do is accept me and all will be broken."
I drop my gaze from him to look down the alley and saw people walking by, but no one seems to notice we were in here. "How nice it would be to leave this place with you I just can't leave my family behind. Yes, you're right about me wanting me to find my cousin, but at the same time I'm scared of what's to come if I am the Beast mate."
He brought his finger under my chin to see his eyes had turned back to its normal color. "There's nothing to worry about. If you do become the Beast mate like the Moon Goddess messenger last night told you want, you must do to break the curse, but if not I know you will return to the ones that love you."
I let out a deep breath as the coldness around us came to hit me once again, even though we were still pressed up against one another, "Victor this is wrong we shouldn't be acting in such a manner. What are we going to do if someone sees us and tells the council that we're engaged in such a manner?"
"No, need to worry my father the head of the council and he'll understand why I'm acting the way I am." Victor explains wrapping the hand that had been placed against the wall into my hair pulling it slightly to make me look up at him. "I've already told you I feel a connection with you and it grows stronger every time we're together. Last night it took everything I had not to through myself on you and take you there."
"Then maybe its best we don't see one another, till after the Blood Moon if I am to return." I said and putting my hands against his chest and pull away, but he only grip harder onto me.
"No, I don't want to sit around and watch you from the shadows." He said, keeping me in place. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to upset you. I just want to make my feelings for you clear Laiya before all this Blood Moon question takes place. I don't want to lose you, you mean to more to me than to just let you slip out of my hands."
"Victor, please let me go. I need to get ready to go to grandmother's house." I state not know what to say back. I thought how Carter said I was just playing with his cousin's heart when in reality I wasn't trying to. I never thought I have to choose between two different guys when it the back of my mind all I wanted was to find my cousin and bring her home.
"Before I do, just promise you won't push me away after you have all your questions answered." He asked with a hint of sadness in his voice. What was it that he was so scared of when I finally knew the truth about my family?
"I promise," I reply, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. I felt his hands slip away from my waist and release my hair as I took a step away from him. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. I'm most likely be staying the night at my grandmother's tonight with it being the first full moon."
He didn't say anything has I turn to walk out of the alley and back among the villagers. "You've been a very bad girl." I heard a voice say before my world turned dark around me.
copyright © 2015 Letty Scott/Embrace_Passion (All Rights Revered)
Author Notes:
Yes, I know it's been a long time since I've written on this story, but I've been having problems with writing emotion and detail lately. Given this chapter been written for a while and not fully edited so, sorry for any grammar mistakes. I'm hoping I can get back into this story to help me get out of my slight writer's block I'm having with all my story. Sorry for the long wait.