Don’t. Don’t. Stop it. Don’t eat them!
My heart shouted. The weird sweet taste was in my tongue again. It
seemed I couldn’t stop eating them. And…uh-oh, I’d eaten
everything, all the berries…
I lifted my eyes from the empty bag,
perplexed. “Who are you?” My mouth was dry.
He blinked, regaining the sweet brown in his
eyes, and smiled, stepping closer. “My name is Gavran,” he suddenly
said with an accent.
Leave. Get out of here
. My heart spoke
to me once more. But I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t. My feet were
anchored to the ground. It was as if my mind was detached from my
body.
“So you’re from Russia, huh?” I managed to
say through the bitter dryness of my mouth.
“Americans,” he sighed in a disdainful tone.
His soft face was turning dangerous. “The outside world still
remains a blank map to you. Typical.” He arched one eyebrow. “I'm
from Croatia, not that I would think you know where it is.”
My blood was boiling with rage. “You—”
“Don’t speak. Your mouth looks even more
beautiful when it’s shut.” He slid his fingertip across my chin. I
wanted to slap him, punch him, just do something! But it was as if
I was a robot waiting for an order. I couldn’t control my body.
Worse, my legs were losing their balance, and he noticed it.
“Now,” he grabbed me by the waist and pulled
me against him. “What’s your name, beautiful?”
Ugh! Don’t answer him! Don’t answer him!
“Are you refusing?” his eyes turned
pitch-black again.
I pressed my lips hard, struggling to send
down my throat the words fighting to burst out, but it wasn’t
enough. “N—No.” I panted heavily.
“Then?” he leaned his eyes closer to mine.
“Tell me.”
Click.
Why was I refusing to tell him? He was
so…attractive. “My name is Kalista,” I said dizzily, my vision
getting blurry all of a sudden.
He bent over. “What an exquisite name,” he
whispered in my ear. “Just like you.” And after that, all went
ink-black.
Death black.
Tristan
…
Of the fourth
kind…
Shadows…there were shadows in the darkness.
No. No. There were silhouettes, hazy silhouettes. Were they angels
of death? Coming to get me? Oh no, please no. I wasn’t ready to
leave; not now when I had Tristan in my life. And my…dad…I couldn’t
leave him alone. No.
Wake up. Wake up. Please wake up
. It
wasn’t my time yet. I rubbed my hands against my eyes and a sharp
pain stopped me at once. Oww. My eyes were open. My fingers felt
like acid on my eyeballs. I started to flutter my eyelids, trying
to ease the pain, and that’s when I became aware of what the tall
silhouettes surrounding me were. Trees. Thousands and thousands of
trees in the darkness of the night. A full moon glowing in the
skies my only companion.
I was deep in the woods, alone. Completely
alone. Why was I here? Who’d brought me? With what purpose? Where
was Tristan?
My breath started to get shaky. Deep down, I
knew the ominous answers. The guy in the long coat—he’d done
something to me and brought me here to the woods. And as if ice had
slapped my entire body, the answer fell down on me. The woods. The
woods! He was a bugbear!
I stood up quickly and moved forward. But I
didn’t get far. After a few steps, I lost my balance and fell to
the mossy ground. My legs too unsteady to walk.
I started crawling to the nearest tree but
stilled as my hand touched something soft and shyly warm.
Glug.
Glug
. A hideous gurgling, guttural sound reached my ears, and I
realized I was touching another hand—someone else’s hand. I turned
slowly, with my heart pumping in my throat, and cried at the sight.
I felt as if my dry throat had been ripped apart because of that
scream. But it wasn’t my throat that’d been hurt. It was Chloe’s.
She was lying with a deep slash on her throat. The blonde strands
around her neck red and wet. Wet with the blood streaming down from
the wound crossing her throat. And she was still alive, still
fighting for her life. A wound that deep and large would’ve killed
a human in seconds. But she was fighting. Conviction boiled in the
icy blue of her eyes.
She saw me and a cold shadow fell over her
face, sharpening her angles to the one of a gravestone, as if she’d
suddenly realized her battle was a dead end. The look in her eyes…I
would never forget it. It was like looking at a storm of emotions.
Sorrow and despair swirled in it, but regret took over at the end.
My eyes brimmed with hot tears. She infused all that was left of
her strength into her hand and squeezed mine. Then, her head fell
to the side, eyes empty.
“No…” I whispered, my throat raw. How had
this happened? She was a Benandanti. She had to come back. She had
to!
“Finally,” said a voice in the dark. My eyes
snapped open. “You took longer than expected, sleeping beauty.” A
ghostly tall figure emerged from behind a tree.
It was him.
I let go Chloe’s limp hand and crept to a
tree. He walked toward me. I pulled myself up as fast as I could,
placing my hands on the scratchy trunk for support, and turned back
to look at him.
“I must admit you’re the first girl to fight
against my charm.” He said the last word with a sarcastic tone,
radiating a dangerous energy that paralyzed my entire body.
“Usually they all give in like cheap greedy courtesans, willing to
do anything. But you…” He stopped a few inches from my face and
took off his coat. I noticed a small tattoo in one side of his
neck—a star with several points. “You’re not like the rest. You’re
a rebel, like me.” He dropped the coat and touched my face.
I jerked away from his skin, but he clutched
my chin and pulled my face back to him.
“I like your defiance,” he said with a sly
smile. My breath came out harsher. “If I wasn’t so hungry right
now, I would’ve considered you as my partner.” He licked my
cheek.
“You…” I cleared my throat, struggling to
ignore the piercing dryness. “You killed them… Chloe and the old
lady.” I regretted using the static spray on my hands. A jolting
shock right now would've been a hell lot convenient.
“The grandma?” he laughed sinisterly. “I told
you I came to visit my granny. It wasn’t a lie, was it? Oh, well,
to make it easier for your limited mind, you can see it as…playing
my own version of little red riding hood.” He grinned, showing his
perfect white teeth. “The other girl was merely a bonus—which I'm
sure you already know since you knew her so deeply well.”
I frowned.
“How did I know?” he said with a derisive
smile. “The first time I saw you, you were outside the Keeper’s
bookstore. The moment my eyes found you…I knew there was something
about you, something special. I didn’t know what it was, so I
followed you.” The eyes I’d felt watching me that day in the
street—it’d been him, not Chloe. “I saw you talking to her, right
outside the log cabin of that pack of losers, and I told myself ‘if
she knows about them she must know about the Benandanti.’ Of
course, that’s not the only thing you ended up knowing.” He pushed
my chin up and pinned me with his dark, dark stare. “Where's the
book?”
The book? So I was right about everything.
“I…don’t know…what…you’re talking about.”
He cupped my chin harder. “The Keeper gave
the book to someone when she sensed us coming—and that someone must
be you. My instincts have never failed me. So I warn you…don’t play
with me.”
I managed to shake my head against his strong
hold. “I…have…no idea.”
He twisted the corners of his mouth into a
dangerous smile. “We’ll see if you don’t have an idea in a couple
of minutes. Right now…you’re mine.” He tilted his head and licked
my neck.
Eww. He really acted like an animal.
He drew a damp line all the way up to my
cheek. “Mmm…you’re the sweet kind, still intact.” He sighed against
my lips, seizing my face in an iron-hard grip. “There aren't many
left like you nowadays. This is a true privilege, and
mouth-watering indeed.” He kissed me, forcing my lips open.
I didn’t move. I was frozen. Sickened.
After a moment of revolting lip-action, he
stopped. “You’re not helping,” he hissed, panting. “It would be
more enjoyable for you if you could play along with me.”
Was he discussing my death? Ugh. Sick
bastard. “Enjoyable…for you, disgusting…for…me.” I replied with
great effort. My voice seemed to fade more with each second.
He smirked. “Playing hard to get, then?” he
looked at me fiercely, running his hand down my back, lower and
lower.
I snapped it out. “Don’t…touch me, you—”
“Shh.” He blocked my hand before I could slap
him, clutching both of my wrists. “I should have given you more of
those special berries.” He pinned my imprisoned wrists against the
tree. “But you don’t have a choice anymore. If you move, you fall.
Soon you won’t be able to speak or see. So if you don’t want to
suffer, you need to cooperate with me. And you will.” He aimed his
shark eyes, even darker than the night itself, on mine. “Kiss me,”
he ordered.
Click
.
No. No. No!
My lips were against his, kissing him against
my will, like a puppet attached to the wires of his mind and eyes.
In that moment, I had no feelings, thoughts or senses, nothing. I
was just there, waiting for my death. There was no way out. Tristan
couldn’t smell Galr-Galdr, or whatever his name was. I was
lost.
Gavran’s kisses turned deep and more eager.
He released my wrists and pulled me against him, crushing my body
to his. He dug his fingers into my back. The knifelike nails
pierced through my shirt and deep down into my skin, while he
slowly and agonizingly slid his hand lower, opening and scratching.
The burning blood snaked down to my lower back.
I squeezed my eyes in pain. What I thought
was going to be a high-pitch cry came out like a short crackly
sound through my dehydrated throat. I couldn’t scream. He was about
to kiss me again, but he froze. He veered his body in a blur behind
me and pressed a bloodied fingernail down my neck. It wasn’t until
I looked across me that I understood what was happening.
My heart stopped in shock.
A creature…no, a human. A very humanlike
creature was standing a few feet away. It wasn’t like anything else
I’d ever seen. The moon’s light revealed every physical trait. His
skin was a surreal gray-bluish color, his body strong and hard like
a beautiful granite rock, and his feet larger than a human’s, with
paw-like foot toes. He was wearing dark jeans and had strong wide
hands with sharp pointed nails. The lower arms were covered with
thin silvery-gray hair that merged into the color of his skin
flawlessly.
The face though, was familiar but different.
The nose was similar to a wolf’s but with a shorter bridge. He had
pointed ears and the dark hair on top of his head was longer and
bushier. But the eyes, the same feline-shaped ones I’d seen in my
dream, were the final trigger. That mesmeric silver sea of sharp
emerald depth was matchless.
Tristan
.
It was Tristan. He’d come for me.
And boy, he didn’t look happy.
His back arched defensively and his eyes
filled with glowing anger. His fingers, a bit more chunky than a
human’s, were stretched in a hostile position as if about to
attack. But when he caught my eye, his face and posture suddenly
relaxed, almost like a whimpering dog. There was no anger in his
eyes, only fear and hesitation.
“Step closer and she dies,” said Gavran from
behind.
Tristan looked back at him, lowering his
strong chin, and his face and posture exploded with fury again.
Gavran pressed his lips against my ears. “Why
didn’t you tell me you invited your boyfriend to our party?” He
asked me in a husky tone. Yet an edge of fright flickered in his
voice. He was afraid of Tristan. Good.
“What are you exactly, though? You look like
a freak, comrade,” Gavran said full of scorn. “I didn’t even smell
you.”
I had to disagree with the freak issue.
Tristan looked eerily wonderful, like a beautiful mythical being.
And, apparently, he looked different than Gavran when transformed,
most certainly because of his undine side. But what truly caught my
attention were Gavran’s last words. He couldn’t smell Tristan,
too…
Tristan groaned, curling his upper lip and
displaying sharp fangs. It should have scared me (because it looked
deadly scary, a hundred more times scarier than the wolfdog) but I
knew he wasn’t going to hurt me. He was threatening my attacker,
not me.
Gavran smirked. “Stop that attitude or your
girl here is going to pay.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “Leave him alone,
you son of a—”
“Shush.” He ordered, pressing his finger
against my neck as a warning. Tristan groaned deeper, his face
angrier and darker. “Cussing isn't appropriate for ladies.”
A gentle wind started to sweep through the
trees, drying the sweat in my forehead. An ominous edge surrounded
the cold. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was charged with
something strong and menacing.
“You’re having that attitude again. Perhaps
you need a reminder.” Gavran said, sliding down his other hand to
my hip.
Tristan snarled at him.
“Don’t!” Gavran warned him. Tristan froze,
narrowing his eyes. “Just move a millimeter and she’s out. Out!” I
could feel the razor-sharp nail this time, threatening to slash my
throat.
The wind became stronger, intensifying the
whooshing sound of the trees around us. But it wasn’t peaceful.
Their whisper sounded like muted screams of warning.
Gavran laughed again, bursting with cynicism.
“Love is a strange affair, isn’t it? Especially with a human. Or
didn’t you get the memo? We’re supposed to stay away from them, ‘no
close interaction,’ remember? Of course, I’ve kindheartedly
rejected that stupid rule for all my existence, and even done a lot
more, as you may know. You, on the other hand, have broken your
oh-so-magnanimous oath with this human girl and who knows what
problems await you.” He sighed, as if the idea of Tristan in
trouble worried him. “Yet here you are, begging for her life.
Hmmm…kind of rebellious, don’t you think? But I wouldn’t blame you
with this one.” He slid back his hand up to my…to my…Ugh!