CHAPTER 6 - JANE
The voice sends my heart into a frenzy, and I feel my knees go weak. A weak gasp escapes me as tears clog my vision. This can't be.
"Ri – Richard?" I stutter, going pale from staring at my nemesis. No. This has to be one of my nightmares. It has to be, 'cause my reality can't be this terrifying.
Someone, please wake me up!
"Yeah, it's me, little mate," He walks in further, stopping a little distance away from the threshold.
I take in his appearance and my limbs go trembling. His hair is a sandy blonde and it is sleek and falls to his shoulder. His dark clothes and boots sync with the dark, horrific aura surrounding him.
His eyes are dead, and it has me getting paralyzed by the torrent of fear that grips me. His once-white dentition is now dark, and crooked. His upper teeth are covered in grills that heighten his monstrous look.
He has a two-edged sword hanging on his back and two daggers in his hands. The complete assassin outfit. A human depiction of cruelty.
I get unnerved by the blood dripping from one of his daggers. Oh God!
He takes a step closer and I wobble backward, hitting my butt on a table.
"Why do you seem so scared, mate?" He asks, stopping a little distance away from me. "This isn't our first meeting, I'm sure,"
"Yes…yes…it is," my voice is shaky and barely audible.
"You sure about that?" He tsks, shaking his head sideways. "So the bathroom encounter doesn't count?"
"Wh– what?" I fist my trembling hands as his words cause an uproar inside me. The bathroom? So it wasn't me hallucinating?
"Or my visits to your dreams. Don't they count? I haven't missed a night for the past three years, you know,"
"How did you know about my nightmares?" I ask him.
He waves his daggers in the air with a low groan and my breath hitches. "Is that what you call a dream I'm in?"
"What?" I ask breathlessly.
"If I'm your nightmare, then what is Vishal? Your fantasy?"
There's no way I can answer his question, that will only put me in a harder spot. He glares at me like he's waiting for an answer.
I try to say a word but my quivering lips can't afford anything coherent.
"I project myself into your dreams, Jane. I've been the reason for your… nightmares," He adds with a squeeze of his face.
"How's that possible?" I gasp, hating just how dreaded I'm feeling from this encounter.
"It's easy, mate. All I needed was to know my dark spells and have a little something that belongs to you. Voilà," He grins, flashing his grills.
A little something that belongs to me? What could that be?
"So you see, mate. I never really left. I've been with you, in ways Vishal could never be,"
I check the hall for a chance to escape the man in front of me. It seems like suicide but I'll be damned if I just sit still. I need to find my family and loved ones. I need to find Vishal.
With a leap, I get off the table and race for the exit but in a flash, I get pulled back with a force that sends me crashing into the chairs. My body hurts from the fall. But the scary shit is the fact that he didn't move, so what pulled me back?
I mind-link my wolf, Amber, for her to take charge, but before I could morph into her form, I hear her howling out in pain in the back of my mind.
"Amber, what's wrong?" I ask through the mind-link. She gives a deeper, excruciating howl.
"I – I can't breathe," she gasps out, "He – he's choking me out,"
I look at Richard and he's moving his fingers like a puppeteer, stringing his puppets. The terrifying thing is the smoke emitting from the tips of his fingers.
"What are you doing?" I sob, struggling to my feet. My body aches from the fall but it's nothing to the pain my wolf is feeling.
"What does it look like?" He clenches his fingers and Amber cries out.
"What are you doing to my wolf?" I ask in panic. Amber's breathing is getting weaker and my bond with her is diminishing.
"I'm suffocating her," Richard growls, "with no wolf, you'll be just like any other female out there,"
"Please, don't," I cry, still trying to keep the mind-link between Amber and I. But she's slipping away.
"What was that?" Richard chuckles menacingly. "The almighty Jane Biller pleading to the monster of her life?"
"Please…let Amber go," I pleaded more, ignoring his taunts.
"I could remember pleading this much to your swindler mate right when he had me in a chokehold. He didn't listen. And then my wolf left me right after. I'll be damned if I listen to her pleas,"
His eyes take a silver shade and I'm pushed by a fierce wind that puts me on a chair and a rope ties me to it.
I can't believe my eyes. I look at him and he's laughing his head out.
"Are you surprised that I have this many powers?" He laughs, pinning his dagger on a table. "You thought I'll never have powers again because my wolf left me?"
I'm short of words. No matter how much I dreamt of this horrid moment, nothing prepared me mentally for it.
"I've got a lot of powers now, Jane. More than I used to. With a flick of my fingers, I can bring the whole world crumbling down,"
"No…no…." I go hysterical, squirming on the chair I'm tied up in. "Vishal! Vishal!!"
"You can yell out his name all night, but he'll never come running in,"
"What have you done to Vishal?"
"Nothing, for now," He pulls out a chair and sits it in front of me. "But I could rip his heart out in the next second. It's all up to you,"
"What do you want?" Tears slide down my eyes as I ask the question. It feels like I'm playing into his game again. And that has never gone well in the past.
"It's simple," He smirks, running a finger around my cheek. "You come with me, and I let your loved ones go. Just like old times, right?"