Howl - Brieanna Boyce (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

more sobering than the fact that she was dying slowly. Of course, the queen would not allow her to die like this; no if the queen would kill Skylar it would be much worse than the pain that she was suffering now.

Her left eye was bulbous and entirely swollen shut; it had a dark purple almost black hue. Blood ran like a river over her body, a bit of blood streaming down her round, chapped lips. Then, over her wrists and ankles where the skin was torn, down her back, staining all the way to the front, down her calves and exposed toes.

Her skin was pale, even more so than her usual china-doll complexion and her auburn hair was tangled in messy clumps over her shoulder. Even though I had seen women considered much more beautiful than her, although I’ve met people more intelligent and wiser, no one was braver than Skylar, no one more willing to risk her life for another.

I had watched Skylar grow and used glamour, which is the ability to alter something’s appearance, (for me it was my age) so that we could both grow together. She had always stood up for others and fought hard to teach others how to fend for themselves. Even when she was teasing someone it usually was for the purpose of helping them.

I had watched hundreds of humans, all of them seemed to be the same and I greedily feasted on them. That all changed when I met Skylar; I had seen her running around the neighborhood, she was picked on by the other children and yet did not cry, scream, or tattle. The only time she would get upset is when others would bother her brother Adoni, or pick on another child.

One day I was so perplexed and irritated by her passive behavior that I went over to her and pushed her down into the mud. She didn’t cry, she looked up at me with large, mesmerizing green eyes and tilted her head to the side looking at me.

“You’re just going to let me push you around?” I asked.

Skylar got up and shrugged, then headed over to her brother unphased, of course Skylar wasn’t a pushover, she just didn’t fight over anything that she saw as pointless. Self defense to her wasn’t that important unless she was in dire need.

I spent a lot of time with her, thought about her all of the time; at first I thought I just wanted her blood but every time I went to drink from her I couldn’t. Somehow the thought repulsed me; it’s not that she didn’t smell good in fact she smelled delicious but the thought of drinking her was too much. Her limp, pale body unmoving in my arms, and her beautiful green eyes forever closed. Never glittering with excitement, never darkened by impatience or anger, never again looking at me and boring through my soul, the thought was almost more than I could take.

At first I thought it was just hate or irritation, I walked with her everywhere and even when she thought I wasn’t looking I was. It was sick, bordering on obsession, but I couldn’t understand her, or anything about her. She had this way of screaming, crying, laughing, and yet feeling nothing. This way of pouring out her soul and yet not saying anything at all. Yet in her silence she seemed to say more, we usually communicated through eyes and expressions, which was incredibly odd since people could hardly even communicate with me.
In a way though I think Skylar knew I was hiding something, though I doubt she knew to what extent. She always seemed to be trying to figure me out, crack a code she didn’t know. However she understood more than most, she noticed how prickly I get when talking about my “family” due to the fact that I had implanted false memories in the human’s heads so they thought I was their son. One day when someone asked about my family she smiled politely and said “long story.” Politely she curtailed the conversation and enveloped everyone in a new one. All I could manage to do was blink in surprise; I hadn’t realized how much she knew.

Than everything fell apart when her mother died, she no longer held that curious wonder in her eyes that they had once held. In fact she was so miserable that often she wouldn’t respond to anything. One night I remember sitting outside watching her from a nearby tree branch which I usually did. She went to her bed and folded her fingers kneeling in front of her bed, tears rolled down her freckled cheeks.

“God,” she began, her voice already breaking, “Please, I know I have taken you for granted, I know I haven’t really believed in you before, but please, please, I will do whatever you ask.” She buried her face in the mattress sobbing heavily, “Just give me my mother back, please, please!”

I couldn’t bear her broken hearted crying and hopeless begging, my arms ached for her. So I jumped to her window and opened it than went to her and hugged her. She didn’t fight it; she buried her head in my chest and wrapped her arms around my waist clinging desperately to me. My heart ached for her, and yet at that moment I realized that I wasn’t obsessed with her, I didn’t hate her, she wasn’t my friend. I was desperately hopelessly in love with her.

I scooped her up and held her in one arm, when I felt the surprising feeling of lips pressing gently to my neck. I shuttered in shock and desire, than laid her down in her bed. I watched in an almost trance like state as her beautiful red hair spilled over the pillow, and her green eyes still spilling over with tears. I got in the bed with her and gently kissed each tear away, my body loomed dangerously close to hers I could almost feel her body pressed to mine, and the very idea of it tantalized my brain. I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers, but she threw her arms around my neck and fastened onto my mouth her tongue sweeping through my mouth, dancing and teasing mine.

I gasped, the sudden rush of desire swept through me, I groaned softly and then separated our lips. I looked down at her, her tears welling again.

“Please…” she said quietly, “If no one can bring her back than let me forget her,” her eyes closed tightly, “please Tristan make me forget… just for a bit.”

I leaned down and kissed her tears away than shifted my body so I could lie beside her and hold her hand, which fit perfectly in mine. I couldn’t have her, not tonight, but at least I had her hand in mine, at least I got to kiss those beautiful lips, at least we shared a kiss. However hard it was to know that she had only wanted me to distract her, that she would not give herself to me otherwise. I still held a buzz from her kiss, still felt the aftereffects she had left me with.

She cried endlessly that night until morning came and she fell asleep. I kissed her head lightly and sighed, than left, one day she confronted me about the experience blushing bright red as she did so. I told her that I had not been there, had not kissed her or held her. This, oddly, was the hardest lie that I’d ever had to tell her, to completely erase our night together.

I often used to think what would happen if she knew, if she knew what I was, the beast that I was. The things I had done the things I still do? Would she love me? That was once a yes, but now, now I’m not so sure. We fight so much now, struggle so much now; is love always this difficult?

These thoughts brought me back to this cold, dreary, stone room, in which she was imprisoned, and the blood cross that held her. I tried to think of a way to release her, to run away from the queen.

Maybe, if I got Skylar to tell the truth, we could have more time to escape, it would be quite a feat, especially with Skylar at her weakened state. Perhaps if I let her stay weak, even passed out, and left her brother here. I could come back for him, something ten times more difficult to do. Of course by than he might be dead or one of the queens’s human “blood bags,” as she’d liked to refer to them.

Skylar wouldn’t like the idea at all, but it was the best chance we had. Getting Skylar to surrender up information about her pack would be no easy task either. Especially, due to her feelings for that damn dog, Kale, god just thinking of his name makes me shutter, I hate him loath him. I hate the fact his pack even exists, in truth if I was capable I would have all werewolves killed, although they are a skilled species that is not to be underestimated. They are incredibly hard to kill, I know because the queen previous had tried desperately to eliminate them, obviously to no avail. Though I am aware their numbers are much lower than ours.

I sighed and got out of my chair, than left the room and went to the queen’s quarters. She was laid on her bed; her robe disheveled dipping low on her chest and having a slit up her leg, her white hair swept over her shoulders and down to her waist. Even in her laid back state she held a regal air about her, a power clung to her like a second skin.

She smiled smoothly her blue eyes glittering, “What did my pet say?”

I looked away, “She said that you could screw yourself.”

The queen cackled sharply, “Oh such a spitfire! That must be why you have fallen for her.”

I spoke curtly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about highness.”

The queen beckoned me forward and begrudgingly I obeyed. She smiled amusement clear in her eyes grabbing my chin lightly, “Don’t try to hide it from me; I know the sick loathsome creature you are. You are my creation, as much as you try to deny it, to hide it. You belong to me, and are so much like me in so many ways.”

“I am nothing like you,” I hissed.

The queen smiled and pulled me on top of her. Then: rolled the both of us so she was straddling me like she had done so many times before. I felt the hate, the loathing, bubble in my soul, my skin felt as though it were crawling desperately trying to escape. I wish I could’ve pushed her off, killed her, hurt her. We’d fought so many times before and she always won without ever breaking a sweat. She’d broken me, I was her empty shell; her toy, with which she could do with what she pleased.

She leaned down and bit my neck drinking from me gluttonously, than she licked the wound closed and proceeded to kiss down my body. I lied there, motionless, empty the queen smiled victoriously, and proceeded to undress me and then untie her own robe letting it pool around her. I closed my eyes like I had when I was younger, pretending that I was somewhere else.

***

We lie there, covered only by her blankets; I looked at the ceiling blankly as she smiled watching me. I never looked up to check