Marcus and I found ourselves underwater, following a drowning Damen. The water was getting darker as we went deeper but all of a sudden, we saw golden light shimmering at a distance.A slender, beautiful woman with long legs and a perfect body approached Damen. She didn't have a fishtail or red hair like Ariel did. Her eyes were black as coal and so was her shiny hair. She grabbed Damen's falling unconscious body and swam away with it."You think she's a fairy?" I asked Marcus."No idea, but she looks unnaturally beautiful. Have you ever seen someone look so good before?"I should feel jealous but he was actually right. I was more focused on Damen's unconscious face at that time to exclaim at her otherworldly beauty.We followed her and found ourselves in an entirely different realm. The deep dark ocean turned into an underwater city with castles and a kingdom. Two other stunning women saw the first one dragging Damen's body with her."Naia!
"Aww... Look at you! So smitten and pathetic... how cringeworthy, tsk tsk tsk tsk." The Dark Fairy, Ophelia, mocked Naia.Her appearance was anything but dark; platinum blonde hair, porcelain white skin, and a white lacey dress. Her silver fairy wings were folded and had faint gray and purple patterns. Anyone would be deceived by how pure and innocent she looked, except for her eyes that told a whole different story."She's not interested in your taunts and jibes. Can you do something about it? Make him pay?" Tritheia scoffed."Of course, I can. I would love to." Ophelia's eyes glinted with madness.I whispered to Marcus in dread, "I thought Naia was crazy, but this one looks like an extreme lunatic."Marcus nodded in agreement, "I wish Naia had just killed me instead. Or even better if that Siren had made sure that I was dead before Naia found me.""Oh, Marcus! Don't say such gloomy words.""She's got a lock of my hair." He pointed t
The scene shifted to the next day morning when Damen was still asleep. Nyneve was busy with the other women in the kitchen.Their two-story house looked similar to Marcus's family home, except for being a bit smaller. It was built from stone, and both the floors and roofs were covered with tiles. There was a courtyard in the center, the walls were high, and there was a tall gate with flower pots all over the front yard.The other women seemed to be Damen's sisters-in-law.Nyneve's sister walked into the kitchen.""Nella! We were just talking about you. Irene and Lyssa also think that you should stay with us until we know something for sure about Dru.""Looks like we will know right away.""What do you mean?" Lyssa asked her while the others were looking at Nella in confusion."That healer woman, Ophelia, she seems to be more like a witch or something. I saw her look into a box and cry. The box had a mirror inside. She said she saw all
The trip back to Marcus's home was a blur. I was beyond consolable, and Marcus wasn't in a condition to act strong either.He did assure me, "We will find out a way to undo this, I don't know how yet.""I read in one of those library books about ways to lift a curse. It talked about destroying the curse scroll. But Ophelia didn't have one to destroy. She just whipped it out like a dish with weird ingredients.""The key may be in these stones. We don't know much about them yet. And it doesn't look like we had them earlier.""Yeah, I think this is the first time that we came into possession of these. The sorceress that gave mine said something about second chances when handing it to me.""How do we find her?""She is a bit too elusive. I talked to her only three times and saw her just that once. The second time was in a dream the night we got married. She asked me to tell you my secret as soon as possible. The third time was when I fainted aft
Why Rhea? My brain refused to think as Tulio slowly advanced towards her. I was expecting him to target me, not her."Pater!! Help!" Rhea screamed for her dad when Tulio grabbed her hair and pressed her face against the kitchen counter.Diana slowly moved her fingers towards the knife that was still in the tray with the chicken. Tulio saw that and took his dagger out in a second."Don't fuck with me, unless you want to get killed too."Marcus's dad reached the kitchen with a puzzled expression and his face turned ashen when he saw Tulio."Calm down, Tulio. Put the dagger away first.""Fuck you!""Didn't you see Allena here? What's gotten into you, that's Rhea.""Just the person I need.""Tulio! Your brain cells took a beating from Marcus. You should be going after Allena.""I will, I like to bed feisty women. But let me kill this bitch first. Glad you are here; I want you to watch."I saw Cassia slowl
~Alyssa~I woke up with a start, with a feeling that I overslept and missed an important school test.Where the hell was I? This wasn't my room."Jeez! You just scared me. I am Jake, by the way, your doctor.""H-Hi" I cleared my throat. "How long have I been here?" I was in a daze and couldn't keep my eyes open without squinting.I was in a hospital suite that was filled with 'get well' cards and flowers. Memories rushed back instantly of the night I met with the accident."A week." The doctor replied."Oh..." Really? It felt more like a month."Now that you are up, I paged the nurse to take your vitals again. She will be here in a bit. And there were people here earlier for you. They were not sure if you were going to wake up. It was my fault because I was not sure what to tell them. Let me go make some quick calls, I will be right back."People? For me? My mom should be in Michigan and Jon broke up with me. Who w
We went to one of my mom's favorite brunch places. The unlimited coffee at such places was never my thing, and I was usually there for the sumptuous pancakes or omelets, but surprisingly, I downed three cups... didn't realize that it was possible to miss even crappy coffee so much.I was hoping to catch up with my dad a bit. I was seeing him after thirteen long years and wanted to know more about his wife and daughter. But my mom took away all the limelight. She loved to talk about herself a lot even when there was nothing new to share. Her car and her house address happened to be on the national news only a couple of days back, so she got a chance to go on about it for another decade I guess."Oh, we have been living in fear ever since. My poor babies are sleeping with me and Ben.""Why would someone specifically choose our house to steal a gun?" I asked. My stepdad must be part of the Mafia."Your favorite handbag is gone too," said my little stepbrothe
I walked towards them with determination but my legs turned to jelly the minute his eyes met mine. The intensity in his look made me falter and stop mid-stride. The time came to a standstill for no idea how long, until we were interrupted by the girl he was with."Babe?!!" She shook him out of the trance.His gaze returned to her with a "Huh?"She then looked at me frowning."Yes?""Can you guys tone it down a bit? Or wait until you get a room?"What the hell was I saying? I couldn't believe my own ears. This was not me; I usually never butt into other people's business. I was rather good at ignoring things that didn't concern me.She placed a hand over her hip and asked with narrowed eyes, "What's your problem? How old are you?""Let's go to the other one. We are getting off soon anyway." He avoided looking at me."But why should we? She can if she has a problem."I did have a problem, and I was bothe
"How can that be? Billy took them?""Liam Cooper checked them out."Marcus and the Druid had some heated exchange of words about the Druid not telling Marcus about Liam earlier."We were focussed on finding Alyssa's home address back then, not who Liam Cooper was or why he exists, remember?"We went to find someone named Jake, the doctor."You folks are driving me insane. That guy looked exactly like him but spoke perfect English," Jake said, pointing to Marcus."Please ask him about Allena's condition," Marcus prompted him.I was so confused about who this other Allena was if Alyssa was in the alternate world as Allena. How many worlds have these people infested?The Druid translated Jake's words for Marcus, "Looks like she underwent the last surgery and was out of danger. As expected, he is going crazy as to why both Allena and Alyssa are still unconscious. He is also suspicious about who we really are. Alyssa said you were h
Marcus's feet staggered, and I caught him from falling to the ground.She loaded the next one to aim at Marcus again."No! Stop!!"He seemed to be awake but not able to get off the ground. What the hell did she shoot him with? Poison?I ran to stop her but was too late. She took a shot at him again."Stop, don't kill him." My voice cracked when I tried to beg.She grabbed another dart and was loading once more. I reached close enough to attack her, but she pulled out a strange weapon from underneath her tunic and moved toward me threateningly, speaking in a foreign language.But what was she going to shoot me with? She loaded nothing in there. It was too tiny to be a weapon. Was she fooling me?I disregarded her warning and pulled my knife out from my boot while grabbing her hair with my other hand.I heard a click sound and saw her nervous expression before she pressed it again. She was too slow, and I had already
I followed Marcus to the hallway where all the guests were accommodated, including my family. He lightly tapped on a door and stepped in.The windows facing the courtyard were all shut and I couldn't hear a thing. I exited the house through the garden entrance to see if the room had windows facing the river like ours. I scaled up to the second floor and stayed behind the window curtains."It just occurred to me now. No wonder she couldn't visit Chicago." I heard Marcus's voice."If the stones work only one way, how were we able to return then?""I think by one way, it means the place where they can be activated from. We can activate my stone only from here. And hers only from Chicago. We used the portal you created from here to return. If the portal had closed, I think we would have been stuck in Chicago."Chicago, portal, stones... what was he talking about? Maybe they were speaking in a mixed language because most of it sounded like gibb
After the wedding feast, Marcus was beginning to look distracted and stressed again. His eyes wandered around, searching for someone. Who else would he be looking for?"Are you looking for Laelia?"I couldn't hide the anger out of my voice.He made me feel so special that I forgot all about her existence until now."Laelia is not here," he said"Was she not invited? Or did she not want to come?"If I had to attend my boyfriend's wedding, I would probably be a crying mess.He looked at me with amusement."Why do you care?""I don't care. I will take it as an insult though if you stare at her while I am in your arms."He stroked my cheek, setting it on fire, "How can I stare at anyone else?"I was at a loss for words. I should be feeling ashamed of myself. I made such overconfident claims, even said to Marcus many times, that I loved Neill. Here I was, dying to hear such cheesy words from him.Ev
Alternate World TwoAllena's POV"I think he suffers from a personality disorder," I told my mother."That won't stop this wedding. Stop making stories up and look down so that she can do your hair well.""It's true! I know no one would believe me if I told them. He has three different personalities, all different from one another.""And what are these?" Selma asked.She thinks I was already so into him already that his hot and cold behavior was bothering me."The first one is the arrogant jerk who is madly in love with Laelia and doesn't give two shits about me."It was my mother's turn to look amused."Does this girlfriend really exist? Or did you make this story up as well? Where is she? I expected her to dress up better than you and taunt you already. That's the kind of impression you gave me about this imaginary woman.""He must have sent her away somewhere when he got possessed by that second personality of
Alternate World TwoMarcus's POVI struggled to focus on what was important. Things were a mess in Chicago, and I was clueless as to what exactly was going on.Thankfully, the Druid from here was very cooperative. He looked almost a decade younger than the other Druid. I was wary about giving him all the details at once and freaking him out. He was already quite panicked that I knew his time traveler secret.But once I talked to him long enough explaining my situation, and when I told him that an older version of him existed, he was all up for helping and meeting his older self. He wanted to know what he had done differently so far in the parallel universe, and all the adventures he went on.The older Druid definitely went back further in time or lived longer in the past to have aged so much more. This younger Druid was particularly excited about portals to the alternate world, which I had no idea even existed. If they did, it w
I wanted to feel anger or indifference. I just wanted to cry my heart out while in his arms."Please don't leave me," he said.I was so determined to leave until this moment. But now I was wondering if I should leave it for Allena to decide. She knows what has been going on so far, and unlike me, she may already know what she wants. I did not have the heart to say no to him. I also did not have much time left with him.After a long and tight hug, he released me from his arms. I saw him look vulnerable for the first time."I am still learning to love, and I will probably never learn to live without you. Please, stay."His words made me cry more. They also had me realize that I could not leave him in the lurch. What if I forgive him today and Allena tells him to fuck off tomorrow?"I have to tell you something, something very important.""Oh yeah? Me too.""Um... What I have to say is not easy to explain. When I show you so
Something inside me had snapped. His words delivered such painful blows that feelings of hopelessness engulfed me; hopelessness about now and forever.I pushed my way out of the kitchen, with a dozen servants watching the drama. Selma followed me to the room, but I didn't want to talk to anyone for as long as possible. I closed the door and locked it, pretending to not see her.What just happened? How I wished this was one nightmare while under sedation.I locked myself in for the next two days, not caring about Marcus or breaking the curse. Nothing mattered anymore.I knew I shouldn't feel so devastated. We didn't share the soulmate bond. I wouldn't even be here two days from now. It was like getting mad at my Marcus for something Damen did like when he lied to Nyneve. The sorceress said 'about' three weeks. I hoped each day that it was the last day.I guess I already blew up my chance to find the portal and do something meaningful. Ma
They say it's very hard to love something that doesn't need you. But it was harder to stop loving the ruthless version of Marcus, even if he didn't want me.He avoided me at all costs for the rest of the afternoon. He said I had to stay in my room until my ankle healed completely. It would save me from all the back-breaking work for sure, but how was I ever going to get another chance to sneak out of the fortress then?I considered telling him about it, asking him to take me to the cave himself. That was the easiest and safest way. I walked to the training grounds, wondering if he was over there."Where do you think you are going?" Logan stopped me."I am looking for the Legatus.""And why would he want to meet you?""He would very much want to, and that's why I am looking for him.""Get back to wherever you are supposed to be. You don't own this place, so stop walking around as if you do."Huh!"I will go back, just tel