Flames of Fury

Magnolia

“Lay back and lift your shirt up a little. This may feel a little cold.” Ember squeezes out an extremely generous amount of a pale blue jelly onto my stomach, which is cold but I don’t complain. It’s been a week since I woke up, a week since Ian told me I was pregnant and gave me an ultimatum.

I’ve dreamed of him almost every night and every dream is more or less the same; I’m restrained, he toys with me, and then I wake up just before he forces an orgasm from me.

It doesn’t help to remind myself that it’s just a dream. It doesn’t make it feel any less real or any less invasive. I’ve tried forcing myself to stay awake, but sooner or later my body shuts down and forces sleep upon me the same way Ian forces himself on me in my dreams.

Though I’m exhausted, both mentally and physically, I try to push all that aside and focus on getting the proof I requested of my alleged pregnancy. Ember places a wand like device over the jelly, smearing it over my belly as she moves the wand from side to side.

Eventually, the fuzzy black and white images on the screen stabilize and focus on a large black oval with more fuzzy black and white shapes inside it.

“Huh,” Ember lets slip before her face hardens with determination and focus.

“What? What do you see? Is there anything in there?” The questions come pouring out of me, everything hinges on this moment. Either I’m not pregnant and I can torch the place and go home, or I am and I’m stuck figuring out a plan B.

“See this here?” She points to the screen. “That’s the baby’s head, and down here,” she moves the wand an inch down my belly and slightly to the left, “these are the feet of the other one.”

I stare at the screen mesmerized, the tiniest of humans is floating around peacefully, completely protected and unaware of the hell hole I dove into.

Ember turns a knob on the machine and a rapid, rhythmic thumping begins to play. “They have strong heartbeats, they look perfect so far.”

I’m so transfixed by the sound of their little heartbeat that I barely register anything that she’s saying to me right now. All I hear is the sound of a new life growing within me, my mates’ baby. “Sorry, what’s perfect?”

Ember smiles warmly at me, “your babies, my Queen. You’re having twins, fraternal twins, but it’s still too early to tell their genders.”

It’s a good thing I’m already laying down because the room starts to spin and close in on me. I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be experiencing this moment in the depths of hell. I should be surrounded by Ro and Varian, watching their faces as they react to seeing not one, but two babies that they shot into my belly swimming around on the screen.

“Magnolia, look at me,” a voice calls out to me through the fog amassing in my brain. A hand cups my cheek and directs my face to look in the direction of the voice, “over here, my Queen, focus on me now.”

My heavy eyes lift enough for me to take in the sight of Griffin crouching at my side. One hand still on my cheek, the other hand clasping one of my hands. “There you are,” he beams at me with a wide smile, “breathe, Magnolia. You’re not alone.”

I force my lungs to expand and take in fresh breath. After five or six deep breaths the fog has cleared and I’m back in control of my senses. “What the hell is happening to me?” I mutter to myself, frustrated that I can’t get a grip on my emotions. I’ve survived worse than this, so why are my emotions steamrolling me now?

“Magnolia, you need to go easy on yourself. This kind of stress isn’t healthy for you or the babies.” Griffin says gently.

“You don’t need to pretend like you or your boss give a shit about my wellbeing.” I try to be stern but there’s no fire behind my words, I don’t have the energy.

“You’d be surprised by how much I care about your wellbeing.” Griffin’s response is as tender as his touch, and he’s right – I am surprised, if not a little skeptical and I’m sure this sentiment reads clearly on my face.

“A story for another time, my Queen, but until then I promise that I will not harm you.”

There’s that word again. Harm. Every minute spent here is harmful, every day stripped of my freedom is harmful, every sleepless night filled with unwanted dreams of him is harmful. Ian may have given the orders but every person in here that executes those orders is equally culpable, equally complicit. Except maybe Ember, and that’s a fragile maybe.

Ember wipes the jelly off my stomach with a towel. I readjust my shirt, swing my legs over the side of the bed as I sit up, and hop off. I have to tilt my head back in order to look at Griffin’s face, he’s almost as tall as the twins but not nearly as built.

“Unless you’re going to walk me out the exit, go ahead and run along to your master and tell him all about my babies.”

He cocks his head to the side but his amused smile doesn’t fade. “Do you want me to tell him about your babies?”

“Do I get a choice?” I scoff.

“It’s your body, my Queen, and it’s your news. The only thing Illian wants to know is if you have an answer yet about his proposal. Everything else we can keep between us if that’s what you want.”

I look askance at him and despite the seconds ticking by, his expression remains unchanged; he’s still looking at me with no mal intent behind his eyes. That either means he’s telling the truth and may prove to be trustworthy, or he’s a damn good liar and an even bigger monster than Ian. My survival here won’t depend on which he is, but on how quickly I can figure out the answer.

I shake my head, “no, don’t tell him. And my answer hasn’t changed. He can shove his proposal up his ass.”

“Very good,” he extends an arm gesturing toward the door, a subtle indication for me to lead the way back to my room for the night.

When we reach my door, before I close it I make the last minute decision to try to get to know him better. “Hey Griffin? What would you say is your weapon of choice?”

He beams mischievously at me making him appear younger and more boyish for just a moment. “Are my killer good looks an option?”

With that, Griffin manages to do something I thought would be impossible in this hellhole — he makes me smile. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried, it was such an automatic response, impossible to resist. But I quickly erase it with an eye roll and shut the door in his face.

***

I wake up in a different room than the room I’ve been staying in all week, but I’m not in a bed. I’m leaning up against some inclined, plush, leather table of sorts. When I try to sit up to get a better look at my surroundings, I find that I’m cuffed to the table, my body splayed out like a giant X. What the fuck? Struggling against the restraints proves futile, the friction rubs my skin raw while the chains just clatter angrily.

“The more you struggle, the more the cuffs will bite.” His caustic voice burns through the darkness.

He appears before me dressed in black, tailored slacks and a crisp white button down shirt. He regards me coolly and remains silent as I continue to lash out against the restraints. I end up pulling so hard that my left shoulder dislocates, causing a brief but audible cry to escape my throat.

“Are you done hurting yourself?” He chides, approaching me slowly with hands buried in his pockets. He stops when he’s just a breath away from my skin.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” I spit.

He smiles a wide, beautiful smile that just makes me want to carve it off of his face even more. “I promise I won’t lay a finger on you, yet.”

From his pocket he pulls out a small knife and carefully pulls my shirt away from my body enough so that he can slice the knife through the fabric, bisecting it to reveal my naked breasts.

“Do those mutts you fraternize with know how beautiful you are? Do they know exactly how precious you are?” He takes his knife and begins to cut through my pants.

I jerk my hips to the side as much as I can to try to stop him from completing his task, but the tip of the knife ends up slicing a cut from my hip to the center of my lower belly.

“Oh dear, you’ve hurt yourself again.” He throws the scraps of fabric that used to be my pants to the side and assesses the gash. It’s a deep enough cut that I can feel blood trickling down my stomach and leg.

Suddenly he crouches down, placing his hands on either side of my waist being careful not to touch me. He runs his tongue along my thigh up to the slit in my skin, lapping at the blood like an ice cream cone in the heat of the summer sun.

He hums happily, his lips still pressed to my body. The vibrations of his humming reverberate through me causing my body to stiffen.

“You like that.” It’s an arrogant statement, not a question.

He then runs the blade from my belly button up to my sternum, allowing his tongue to trail along the crimson path.

“The things you do to me, my flower,” he groans as he alternates between kissing and licking my bloodied body. “You’re my own personal forbidden fruit.”

His lips divert from the center of my chest, lazily making their way to my breast. I twist my body again, but I freeze when I feel a sharp poke in my abdomen above where the new life grows within me. He’s holding the knife so the tip rests on my stomach, the smallest movement would cause it to pierce straight through me.

“I was disappointed to hear you chose to decline my proposal, but admittedly I wasn’t all that surprised. I did warn you, though, that your answer would not change my plans for you.”

A sharp hiss escapes through my teeth when he latches on to my nipple, toying with the hardened nub with his tongue, taking me between his teeth and tugging it enough to walk the line between pleasure and pain.

He kisses and licks his way up to my neck. I turn my head away from him trying to keep him from invading my mouth.

“I’m going to make you feel things you’ve never felt before.” He breathes against the shell of my ear. “Scream for me, baby.”

“Go fu–,” my words turn into a mangled cry as he sinks the blade into my left side and drags it across to the other side, slicing me open from hip to hip. Blood pours out hot and thick, the lives of my twins cut short and obliterated by his blade.

I scream from the pain, from the loss, and throw my body forward.

I’m sitting in my bed thrashing against the sheets, screaming and crying. “No, no, no!”

“Magnolia! Magnolia, it was a dream! Magnolia, wake up. It was a dream!” A woman shouts at me.

My panic turns into confusion, the eyes that meet mine in the dark of my usual bedroom aren’t those of Ian — they’re Ember’s.

“What? No, he just,” I rip off the blankets patting the front of my body but there is no blood and no cut. There’s no sign at all that I had just been trussed up, stripped down, and filleted open. “He cut me open, he was there.”

Ember holds my face in her hands forcing me to look at her, she takes in deep, exaggerated breaths that I can’t help but mimic. The panic settles and warmth diffuses through my veins, healing my anxiety.

“It was just a dream. You’re safe, your babies are safe.” She comforts me.

“It felt so real. Even more so than the others.”

She releases me from her healing hold and sits next to me on the edge of the bed.

“How are you here right now? How did you know?” I ask her.

She smiles at me sadly. “I’m in the room next door. Griffin was on guard and heard your screams, he woke me up and let me in here.”

Silence grows between us for a minute before she speaks again. “Magnolia…”

“Mags,” I correct her.

“There’s something you should know.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Illian is a dreamwalker, that’s why he was in your dream. That’s why it felt so real.”

“What are you talking about, what does that mean?”

“It means that he can infiltrate your mind through your dreams. He can make you see things, make you feel things. It’ll feel as real as anything, but it’s not.”

Panic grips at me again, tightening my throat and making it hard to breathe. Incandis and I have trained for many situations, we’ve fought enemies and escaped from captivity enough to prepare me for my current imprisonment. But what I couldn’t prepare for is Ian’s ability to enter my mind at will and having absolutely no means to stop him.

“How do you know?” I ask her, hoping that it’s just a rumor she heard from someone.

Ember practically crumples, she brings her knees to her chest and hugs her legs making herself as small as possible.

Realization hits me like a hot iron, searing me with understanding. “He’s done this to you, hasn’t he?”

She nods, not meeting my eye. “When I first got here, he visited me almost every night.”

“Wait, ‘got here’? You’re not from Drow Hollow?”

She shakes her head. “That’s a story for another time. What’s important is that you remember they’re just dreams. And…there are rules to dreamwalking.”

She scoots closer to me. “He can’t touch you. If his hands make contact with your body you’ll wake up immediately.”

I scoff, “I’m not concerned with him touching me,” My hand rubs across my belly, over the line he carved into me. “I’m more worried that his actions in my dream will have real life effects. He gutted me, split open my womb and watched their lives pour out of me.”

“What happens in the dream isn’t happening in real life. Injuries, marks…pain…will vanish upon waking. He can’t really kill you. If you receive what would be a mortal wound, you’ll wake up then too.”

Oh good, I’ll be his own personal Prometheus. Legend has it that the Titan God Prometheus was sentenced to eternal torture for gifting fire, of all things, to man. Some believe this also resulted in the birth of dragons, the combination of man and fire.

For his crimes, Prometheus was strapped to a boulder and everyday an eagle would eat his liver right out of him, and every night it would slowly grow back. And on and on the cycle went.

That’s my future if I don’t get out of here — eternal torment.

One thing becomes clearer to me now than ever. Ro and Varian are going to have to fight me for the honor of killing Ian, and Ian will beg for me to be the one to do it. Because if the twins get their hands on him… there’s no telling the lengths to which they’ll go to torture him, and it sure as hell won’t be in a dream.