Tasting Drakness

Chapter 7

I didn’t know what time it was when the door opened again, but I cringed when it did. Fear coursed through me, making my eyes dart to it. Worried, Darius has returned to inflict more injury on me. My leg needed to be set back into place, and I needed a doctor. Without my mates, I have no way of fixing it myself with one hand, and I doubt I could, anyway. My pain threshold wasn’t the best.

Relief floods me when I realize it isn’t him. It was my usual morning visitor. He walks in, and I watch him as he tosses the water bottle through the bars. It falls at my feet and bumps my foot. I didn’t even feel it, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing because I wasn’t in pain or a bad thing.

“Aleera, please just-” He stops, his eyes going to the odd angle of my leg and my blood that has frozen on the floor beneath it. His eyes moved to mine before going to the hand still held to my chest. I knew how gross it looked; my fingers were swollen and black, and they still hurt; however, my leg was numb, and I prayed it didn’t mean something terrible.

“Darius did that?” he questions, and I just look away from him. He appeared shocked. Why he thought better of him was beyond me? All the rumors of his cruelty turned out to be accurate, and to think, I tried to convince myself over the years that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad..

Perhaps I could get past him killing my parents. Thankfully, I never gave in to the hopelessness that comes from living out there and surviving. If I had, I would have been here over four days, and if this is four days brings me, just what am I truly in store for, and could I survive it.

The door swings open and bangs on the bars, and I look over at the man. He curses but hesitates for a second before walking over to me with his eyes trained on me like he thought I would do something. He glanced at the door behind him, and I watched as he kneeled beside me. He rolled my pant leg up. His eyes dart to me like he was expecting me to cry out at the movement of my leg, but I feel nothing when I see his hands move towards my leg where the bone poked out of my skin.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“I can’t leave you like this,” He says; he almost looked guilty like he did this to me.

“Why do you care?” I mutter, looking away from him.

“Because you don’t just belong to him,” He says, and my head whips back to look at him.

haven’t figured it out, have you? Do you know who I am?” He asks before I feel his hands grab my

once but doesn’t take his eyes off my leg when I hear it crack as he forces it back

door, which I noticed was wide open. He looks back at me when no one comes down before

the mess hall,” he says while examining m y

I flinch as his hand comes in contact as h e feels my leg, searching for something. I have no idea, but

before offering it to me. I just stared at him. When a thought

magic right now because, with my pain, I knew I wouldn’t be able to

what you are,”

you sure because you didn’t recognize me or feel

felt it when you touched me,”

have no magic left, or I would sense it, we all would nevertheless I still would have thought you would have had some inkling about who I am to you” he sounded almost upset I didn’t recognize him or

like I see your face splashed all over papers and the media,” I

you because I

finally states, but my brain is still stuck on the word castle. Did he mean like an actual castle from fairy tales? Did they still exist? Was I in a dungeon of sorts? That explained the weird-ass shackles on the walls. I thought maybe they were some twisted Halloween decoration, or perhaps they were into BDSM, but now I was looking at them differently.

I heal,” he says before groaning, and I turn my gaze to his wrist that closes up before my eyes. His eyes turn silver again, his canines sinking into his wrist.

The pull to his power and him now

I had a strange feeling he was fighting the urge to pull away from me. Like my touch repulsed him when I realized he wasn’t healing me because he wanted to, but because he felt guilty. Anger courses through me, and he looks away as I press my

that was the wrong word for it. It’s like turning on a vacuum, and I felt his magic slip into