Chapter 5 - Aurora's POV

Aurora’s POV

Everyone is staring at me. The prisoners look at me with unrestrained fear, the vampires observe me with suspicion, but some of them carry a sick kind of thrill in their eyes from witnessing me murder someone in front of them.

We are all frozen in time for about five seconds. Then, three vampires take simultaneous steps in my direction. Before I can think, my arms are wrenched behind my back, and I feel a metallic coolness as my wrists are cuffed.

“He deserved it” a voice comes from behind me. “He assaulted her.”

We all turn to face Everett who has left the comfort of his hammock to… come to my defense?

“What?” spits out the vampire still holding my arms behind my back in a vice-like grip, even though I’m cuffed.

“That pile of shit was rubbing all over her and trying to force himself on her. She acted purely in self defense,” Everett states firmly. Then he turns to look at the prisoners standing in the immediate vicinity, “Didn’t she?” he asks them, and there’s an underlying threat in his hard voice.

They cower under his gaze and nod frantically. My heart thunders in my chest. I acted out of rage, not thinking of any consequences. But it seems Everett might actually help me get away with murder.

“I saw it too,” Adrian says, walking in front of the vampires still holding me in custody. “I was about to rip him away from her when she…” he trails off but holds my gaze with uncertainty in his eyes.

Another vampire makes his way over to our little standoff. It’s the big burly one who was barking orders back in the dungeons. “Release her Quintin. Lux, Ulric, step down.” The three vampires surrounding me follow his orders immediately.

Quintin unlocks the cuffs, which fall from my wrists with a satisfying *clink* and the other two – Lux and Ulric – back away still watching me cautiously.

The large vampire, who is obviously in charge, begins barking more orders, “Take the prisoners back to the wagons. Time to get back on the road before we lose any more of them.” He shoots me a glare then turns to another vampire, “Silas,” he says, “Take care of the body.”

The vampire – Silas – picks up the body at my feet without sparring me a glance. There’s a gust of hot air, and he’s gone.

The vampires begin herding us prisoners back toward the wagons. Everyone avoids my gaze, which is fine by me. I’m still trying to calm my racing heart.

I’ve been touched too many times by depraved men who think they have a claim over my body. The first one to ever lay his hands on me was also the first one I ever killed.

As I settle into my seat, I realize we are one prisoner short in our wagon. I didn’t even take in the man's features – aside from his muddy eyes – before I killed him. And now I realize he had been sitting two seats away from me for the last three nights.

The remaining ten men sitting around me are trembling with fear. Only it's because of me this time, not the vampires.

Does it make me an awful person if I take pleasure in terrifying these pathetic men?

I look to my left, where Adrian and Dimitri are busy preparing to leave. They sit in front of the horses reins and are securing various bags and satchels to the inside of the wagon as the horses begin moving without any needed direction.

As we get further away from the Eternal Flame territory, the air cools, and a refreshing breeze flows through the wagon.

After a few hours on the road, I look at Adrian and Dimitri. They’ve been mostly silent since the first night. They ignore us except to alert us to an approaching stop to relieve ourselves. They speak to each other sparingly. Mostly just to point out something about the horses or the scenery around us.

But right now they are whispering quietly to each other, heads together and throwing me curious glances, and I realize I’m probably the topic of their hushed conversation.

Dimitri wasn’t out on the field earlier. He didn’t see what I did. It looks like Adrian filled him in, because now when he looks at me it’s with a burning intensity.

Their whispered conversation ceases when they realize I noticed. They each spare me another glance before facing the front again.

I try to let the swaying of the wagon lull me into relaxation, but my thoughts are running wild.

Why did Everett and Adrian come to my defense earlier? And Dimitri. He is always staring at me like he knows something. Soleil leaving him to seek out a conversation with me doesn’t look suspicious at all, and add easily snapping a man's neck on top of that and I can see where his suspicion comes from.

Fuck. I am so screwed.

I take a couple of deep breaths and focus on removing the memory of that vile man's touch on my body. My cotton prison uniform feels suffocating. The dull grey material burns my skin in all the places his disgusting hands grabbed at me.

I remember the first time a man thought he could take from me without consequences. I had recently turned thirteen, and been on my own for about a year and a half, travelling from city to city in the human empire, staying in inns and keeping to myself. 

My mom had told me to blend in with the humans in the empire. It's why she used a cloaking spell to change my hair and my eyes. My hybrid heterochromia and the white streak going through my pitch-black curly hair (a known witches mark) would draw too much attention to me. She gave me sleek brown locks and chocolate eyes – a pretty combination, but perfectly normal.

But it didn’t matter what I looked like; a sick man will assault a little girl regardless of the colour of her fucking eyes.

I was so young, and absolutely terrified of staying in one place for too long. One particularly nasty innkeeper took an interest in me. I noticed as he watched me over the course of the week I stayed at his inn. But my thirteen-year-old brain didn’t recognize the desire in his eyes when he looked at me. If I did, I might have left earlier.

He came into my room on my last night. And he wasn’t alone. The innkeeper and his three perverted friends broke everything in me that night. If my mother had never put her fucking spell on me, I would have been able to stop them. Witches receive their magic at thirteen years old. I could have defended myself from those men.

Instead, I endured a torturous night of defilement. They consumed me and took everything. It was the very first time I ever felt my wolf. Our wolves are always with us, but they cannot fully reveal themselves until we turn eighteen and are strong enough to shift.

But I felt her, and I’m positive they saw her in my eyes. There was a moment during the night; I was bent over on my knees, there was a man underneath me forcing my body down on his cock. Another was behind me, pounding into my ass painfully. The innkeeper was in front of me with his repulsive length shoved into my mouth, and the other man was standing next to him, watching me, stroking himself, and eagerly waiting for his turn to use me.

I was devoured so many emotions, but the rage was the strongest; I think it was her, my wolf. I could feel her seething with it. It felt as if she was throwing herself at some invisible wall in my head, trying to break free. The two men in front of me hesitated from how I must’ve looked at that moment. The one watching even seemed nervous. Then, the innkeeper smashed his fist into my temple and the rest of the night was a blur.

When I woke early the next morning, my room had been completely ransacked. Not only did they brutally rape me, they also robbed me. All of my money was gone. My mother had given me so much money; I would have been set for years. They destroyed my entire life in one night.

I pulled myself together, packed up my remaining possessions, and left in a hurry. I waited in an alleyway not far from the inn for the entire day, feeling everything and nothing at the same time. When night fell and the inhabitants of the small city had all drawn their curtains, I slipped back into the inn. It was very late, and the innkeeper was snoring loudly in his room. I picked his lock and quietly made my way to the side of his bed.

His fat belly jiggled as he slept. I took my mothers knife – one of the few things they thankfully didn’t seem to find when stealing from me – out of my pocket. The handle glinted with sapphires, and at the hilt, before the blade began, was a small sphere containing water. My mother, being a water witch, infused the blade with her magic. The water in the sphere was a power source.

But not having access to my magic, made the blade just a blade. It was a beautiful blade however, sleek and sharp, with a slight curve at the tip.

I crawled on top of the man and placed my knees on either side of his heaving stomach. I slowly pressed my blade into the pulse point in his neck. I continued pressing harder, until blood began to bubble under my knife, and he woke with a jolt.  

As soon as he opened his eyes and they widened with recognition, I sliced my blade across his throat.

He had the audacity to look at me with pleading eyes as he died. When the life was drained from his disgusting body, I finally moved from my position above him and searched his room.

I found some of my clothes, and a portion of my money, but it looked like they had split it evenly between the four of them. I should have tried to get his accomplices’ information from him before killing him.

I stared at his dead body for a long time. Cursing him to the depths of the underworld. This motherfucker had just ruined everything. I changed out of my blood splattered clothes and ran.

I never returned to that city again. I was reckless with the last of my remaining money. The trauma from that night haunted me for so long. Instead of staying in cheap inns, I had to stay in the more expensive bed and breakfast cottages. The safety they provided outweighed my concerns over my dwindling supply of money.

It seemed like no time at all however, before the money ran out and I was forced to sleep in alleyways, or under bridges. I begged for food and barely survived. I forced myself to keep moving and eventually found myself in a small town on the edge of a vast forest.

The forest became my refuge. It offered shelter from bad weather and the soft ground provided a more comfortable sleeping arrangement. It also supplied some food: I picked berries, chewed on mint leaves, and would sometimes eat wild mushrooms so I could escape my reality for a little while.

I became acquainted with some of the other street kids and joined their “party” as they called it. They inhabited a rundown cabin in the forest and everyday some of them would go into the town to scavenge for loot. Every single item, bit of food, money, and anything else was split as evenly as possible between us all.

I lived with them for about a year. Atwood, the leader of the group, became the closest thing to love I’d felt since my mother left. He became the most important thing to me. I knew I would be able to find my fated mate when I turned eighteen, and for that year, I truly believed it would be Atwood.

I was fifteen when he was taken from me. I had finally found contentment – in a town called ‘Heart’s Content’, ironically – and it was snatched from me before I really got to enjoy it. Just as everything else had been taken from me – my mother, my magic, my body, my money – I also lost the boy I thought would heal my broken soul.

After that, things got considerably worse; I got arrested, and then the Stallard’s came into my life. Gregory and his wife Petra took things from me I didn’t even know I had left to give. 

Gregory is one of the Emberi Empire’s most beloved politicians. A real family man with a doting wife and three loving children. “Stallard fights for the people, so the people don’t have to fight for anything!” Was his campaign slogan the year he acquired me. He actually won with that bullshit.

My body begins to tremble the more I think about the Stallard’s. They were a topic I avoided while withering anyway in the dungeon, I would spiral into a state of mental anguish, missing them and hating them at the same time. So I refused to think of anything but revenge, I consumed myself with a kill list, planning each murder meticulously, and living with nothing but the thought of enacting my own personal justice to get me through each day.

***

I drag myself out of my thoughts before they bring the all too familiar despair back, and look outside the wagon to see that night has fallen and stars fill the inky black sky like billions of sparkling diamonds.

I force myself to stay focused on the twinkling stars even though I can feel Dimitri’s intense green eyes burning a hole into me. I know he can tell something is off about me. He wouldn’t be looking at me like that if wasn’t suspicious of me.

Goddess fucking dammit what am I going to do? My birthday must be just days away. I need to know the date more than anything but I’m reluctant to ask; I don’t need any extra reasons for Dimitri’s or Adrian’s attention to be on me. I really just need to keep my head down and try to come up with some kind of escape plan.