Adrian peeled his eyes open with effort, disoriented for a second but the pain reminded him of where he was.A sound of pain made him startle and he found Freya, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped tight around herself as tears flowed down her face in rivulets. “Freya!” His tongue was heavy and his speech slurred, thanks to the savages that broke his jaw. “Freya!”His body screamed as he stood but he dragged himself to her, putting both hands on the sides of the face. “Freya look at me.” Her eyes were wide open but she wasn’t seeing him. Whatever she was seeing was terrible enough to put that fragmented light in her eyes. He shook her but she flinched and retreated from him. “Mother.” She whispered, a single tear rolling down her eyes. “Release her!”He turned back to the queen with a hiss.“Or what?” She drawled, her lips curved with ecstasy as an invisible breeze lifted her hair. “What can you do, sorcerer? Have you forgotten you are at my mercy? You have none of your powers
Freya couldn’t handle it anymore, she found a way to deal with the pain, she locked herself in her subconscious but the nightmare was still replaying right in front of her eyes. She was rage, she was pain. What did her parents do to deserve to die like this? With every thud of her mother’s lifeless body, her memories returned, her mother smiling, twirling her in the air, kissing her forehead. Her father sandwiching all three of them into a hug, his laughter loud and hearty as he told her stories before bed. She remembered what a happy life she had had as a young child, her secure life cocooned between her father and her mother. It made the torture all the more exquisite. Riordan shattered her life. Since the day he walked into her house and murdered both of her parents, he called upon the darkness in her life and it engulfed her whole. He should have just killed her when he has the chance. She looked at her own bloody hands, shaking uncontrollably and she started scrubbing at her h
Freya woke up the next morning with an entire realm at her fingertips. Rule of the jungle; they overpowered the queen, the queen’s soldiers bowed to them in turn, as if they had actually been waiting for the right moment to turn against her. “I- I can’t do this.” She had whispered and shifted, retreating into her wolf form and the solace it offered. She allowed Venna to take charge and run as fast as her legs would carry her, taking joy in the delight of her primitive wolf thinking basic thoughts, doing basic things like hunting, following scents that intrigued her and offering her a reprieve from her constantly churning mind. When she’d finally stalked back into the castle, she was exhausted and had walked back into her mate’s arms and allowed him to drive the punishing thoughts from her mind. She woke up refreshed, a large screen over the thoughts that threatened to cripple her if she let them out. The scent of bacon made her sniff and she pulled the covers off her and followed t
Freya once thought that he nightmare ended once she broke out of the queen’s spell. To her horror, it didn’t. Her subconscious was broken, unable to get past that chink in her memory. She was still screaming as her mother’s body thudded to the ground with a sickening sound, and she was still screaming as her father’s body followed. The nightmare amplified the grotesque scene, the blood rapidly seeping out and seeping into her hiding place. Her eyes bugged out of her mind and she tried to get away but there was nowhere to go. The door was pulled open above her and her rage exploded. How could Riordan do this to her?She stabbed her dagger of shadows into his heart, half expecting the nightmare to return back to the start on a loop again but.. it didn’t. Riordan made a choked sound and his hood fell off, exposing his pained face, the spurt of blood from the corner of his lips-Her hands grew cold and she staggered back in shock at her actions. He fell heavily to the floor, his hands
Freya woke up with a smile on her face, immediately reaching for her mate but she found empty space. “Adrian?” She called and got off bed with a light stretch. The past few days had been blissful. She and Adrian had taken over the new castle and at his suggestion, they’d completely switched the timelines. She slept through the day now, and was up through the night. So far, his suggestion worked because she hadn’t had a single nightmare since then. Without the queen breathing down her people’s neck, her people were also blossoming. Adrian sent out all the resources the queen initially hoarded for herself to be distributed amongst the people that were suffering. At night when the creatures she let loose were active, Freya hunted, killing them all methodically. So far she’d added six more of the demented creatures to her belt.Perhaps Adrian was cooking, she thought with a smile. She awfully relished the times she woke up to find him in the kitchen. Like yesterday, though the turkeys
“I could never bring you here.” He said, turning back to her, his face hidden behind his cowls. “I don’t have the power to. You have found your way here once again.”“Why would I?” She asked. “Because there are questions that plague your mind.” He replied. “I did not have the pleasure of introducing myself before. I am Kuruk, your general, commander of the Wild Hunt, enslaved to your command.”“This is insane. My general? I am not associated to you in any way.”“And yet you have found me again.”He breezed closer and Freya stiffened. “Stop right there.” She said and he abruptly came to a halt. “Your wish is my command.” He said and she scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. The last time I made a mistake and broke you out of your prison you killed countless innocent humans. Did you think it was my wish?”His head bowed and he appeared... contrite. How does a dead man even learn contrition?“We got too excited, our instincts to hunt overrode your will because we had been locked up for so lo
When Aremin didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be found but of everybody in the world, Freya knew him best. She drank beer silently in the depths of the pub and she listened to the conversation around the room. Opposite her, Adrian watched her with a permanent frown on his lips. He thought she was neglecting herself since she started chasing after Aremin two weeks ago and he was not wrong but she didn’t care. Without him, she would have hunted Aremin all day without food or sleep but he managed to force food into her mouth at least once a day. Her mind was burning with questions and anger and she would not rest until Aremin gave her answers. A group of men were whispering at the other end of the room. “The collector will show up tonight aye?” One of them asked, so hairy she could barely see his face through it. “I have it on very good authority that he will. Relax, there’s hours yet.” A second man said, his eyes so tiny it looked like he was peering into your soul. “What use h
This used to be one of the drills in her training, trying to catch Aremin. The bastard was quick on his feet, always leading her to traps which she had to act fast to evade. She cursed as she pumped her fist to ran faster. For a human, Aremin was impossibly quick on his feet. Even with her immortal speed, there was never a time during her drills that she did catch him and it always led her to wonder if he was actually human at all. But this was not one of her training moments, she was no longer the girl that Aremin had wrapped around his little finger. When she got to the next diversion, she paused and listened. There, a footprint heading in one direction glared at her. Her trained assassin senses wanted to follow the evidence of his retreat but she would have done that those times when she never used her wolf senses. She sniffed the air instead, closing her eyes until she got a clear picture of his trail which she followed till.. right above her. She dove to the ground and rolled