Let Me Stitch Your Broken Heart

Colton pulled the door open slowly, as if it were too heavy for him. Seeing limits to his inhuman strength startled Carly. The trio walked through the entryway into what must have been a foyer, but resembled something more like a grand throne room. Stark white walls loomed over them. A cathedral ceiling was painted with dark stained glass windows to allow a small bit of light in from above. However, a majority of the seeing-light emanated from black opal stones set into the walls like stalking eyes. Each glimmered beautifully with a different colored overtone. Furniture was sparse in this room. A black chair next a small drawered table across from an elegant hanging mirror gave it a boudoir feel. Carly could only stare in amazement until Colton’s voice pulled her back.

“Carly, you must be careful about your words here. The way it is…everyone else can understand you…and you can understand them. Even Yasmijin.” He jabbed a hitch-hiker’s thumb in her direction. Yasmijin deepened her scowl in response. "And someone is listening all the time."

“What do you mean?”

“His Majesty made it that way.”

“How?”

Colton shrugged. “He’s the ruler of Ceilidh.”

“He’s a king, not God. He can’t just poof! make everyone speak the ‘realmly’ language!”

“Hush! Don’t say that word!” He clamped a hand over Carly’s mouth.

She pulled his fingers away. “What? Poof? Realmly? God?”

He leaned in closer and closer until his lips were just a millimeter from her ear. “King.”

Carly knitted her brows. “I don’t understand.”

“Let me explain so you'll get it. It’s kind of weird. Back home, when a man…let’s say Charles…takes over the throne, he becomes,” Colton bugged his eyes and spread his palms while clearing his throat in order to allude to the forbidden term, “Charles. It’s just a title. Here, however, when someone like His Grace, Faas Ulderijk Liewe, becomes ruler, he drops Ulderijk and adds,” he cleared his throat again, “to the front. This makes Faas his middle name. Calling him…you know…would be like calling the Pope ‘dude.’”

“I see. I’m not Catholic, though, so I probably would call the Pope 'dude.' For fun.”

“Sure you would. Just remember what I said, okay?”

Carly was distracted from Colton’s warning by the entrance of four extravagantly dressed guards wielding large futuristic weapons.

“His Honor will see you now,” the shortest one, clearly the leader by his elaborate headdress, spoke to them.

One of the other three guards each took hold of a member of the group as the leader remained behind them. They clipped disconnected cuffs around Yasmijin, Carly, and Colton’s wrists. When Carly opened her mouth to voice her curiosity, Colton just shook his head. Her lips clamped together tighter than her wristbands. The guards’ weaponry scared her and she knew better than to go against Colton when he knew this place so much better than she. As they were quickly whisked towards a narrow orange hallway, Carly spied Yasmijin inconspicuously graze a gnarled finger over one of the smaller opal insets. Her manner was surprisingly loving and sorrowful. A small buzz hinted at the edge of Carly’s hearing then. It stopped once she stepped into the hallway beside her guard.

After following a maze of halls, rooms, and tight spaces, Carly was thoroughly lost. Eventually, they reached theking’s ruler’s dwelling. What was his name? Oh yeah, Faas.

“Ah, visitors. How lovely. What brings you here, hybrid? Yasmijin? And…who are you?”

Once again, Colton glared her into silence.

Yasmijin answered, “New blood.”

Carly scowled.

“Oh so you’re the one I’ve been hearing so much about? I’m intrigued by your bond with this thing.” Faas tilted his head in Colton’s direction. “Is she pure?”

“No, he bit her.”

Tense silence overtook the small, wooden-walled room. Finally, theking ruler reacted. “You did what?!?”

“He reversed the realm-time continuum, also.”

Faas looked ready to combust. The words exploded from his line-thin lips, “How many things will you have to screw up before you feel satisfied, hybrid? Was Tallina not enough? Hm? Tell me, did you feel the need to damage us further? You aren’t helping your debt, shape-shifter. Do you enjoy slavery to my realm?”

Colton didn’t speak.

“Answer me!”

He didn’t so much as blink.

Faas threw decorations off his throne in frustration and screamed wordlessly. After a few minutes of this, he began to breathe slower. “Perhaps, you’d like to give the story, oh impure one.” Sarcasm dripped from the nickname he spoke at Carly.

She glanced at Colton, but his eyes were fixed on the floor. She looked back to Faas and inhaled a preparatory gulp of air. “I forced him. It’s my fault.”

Colton jerked his head in her direction, alarm flashing across his praiseworthy features. Still, he kept to silence.

“You did what?” Ceilidh’s ruler spoke in a soft airy tone.

“I seduced him, tricked him, forced him. I played with the wants already born into his head. Don’t blame him.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I wanted to be like him. I knew it would make me forget what I was feeling.”

“What were you feeling? For who?”

Instinctively, Carly felt the urge to scream ‘None of your damn business!’ but she could sense what was at stake. “A boy I dated last school year. I screwed up our relationship even though I love…loved…him.”

“You humans and your petty emotions.”

Carly didn’t answer.

“There’s an antidote,” Colton spoke hesitantly.

“To that poison you’ve poured in her veins?” Carly's heartbreak story was forgotten.

“Yes.”

“Well, tell me what it is since you seem to have found your voice. And don’t lie to me, hybrid. I’ll know.”

“Pure werewolf venom.”

“Idiot! That’s just as deadly!”

“No! Listen! When mixed with vampire venom, it cancels out. They eat each other alive. Put them together and boom! nothing left. It’s like neither one was ever there at all.”

“Then why are you venomous, wolf boy?”

“My father doesn’t have venom. He’s the result of a mutated recessive gene. He only has one werewolf ancestor. The gene shouldn’t have carried on in the blood as long as it did.”

“I see. You!” Faas pointed to Yasmijin’s guard. “Find Kareltje and tell him to bring me a vial of this counter poison. I know he carries it on missions to that realm.”

The guard nodded once and left.

“This had better work as you say it does. I want her blood and I want it pure.”

“Actually, I was thinking maybe we could work something out.”

“Oh you want to negotiate now?”

“Yes. You don’t know how to properly administer the venom, so you need me for that. I’ll only tell you on one condition.”

“I don’t do conditions, hybrid. How about you tell me what to do and I let you live?”

“Let her live instead.”

“What? That defeats the purpose!”

“You can have a taste, but let her live.”

Throughout the conversation, Carly’s feelings changed like an unpredictable roller coaster track. She was stunned into a quiet stupor. She'd known what was supposed to happen had Colton not bitten her, but hearing it spoken about so casually—especially now that it seemed to still be a possibility—frightened her deeply.

“That’s impossible.”

“I did it. Are you saying that my self-control surpasses yours?”

Faas glared majestically. “Not a chance. Here’s the deal: She will be given the antidote. I will drink a pint of her blood. Then, to pay off your remaining debt and the added debt of the continuum and my not getting all her blood, you two will work for me. Once I feel as though the debt is fully repaid, I will send you home. Neither of you will be permitted entrance here ever again and we will not bother you anymore.”

“But—”

“My rules. Take it or I drain her and you both die.”

Colton stared at Faas for a moment as he contemplated the deal in front of him, trying to find some way out of it. Seeing none, he eventually agreed, “Fine. Deal.”

Faas smiled. “Take her away.”

“What?”

“Ah, Kareltje, you’ve arrived. Hand it over.”

Silently, Yasmijin’s husband approached his ruler and placed the vial in his grimy outstretched palm.

“Thank you. Now, take this creature and use him to fix the realm-time continuum. It’s been reversed. You know what to do.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Colton interrupted, “Wait! But you don’t know how—”

“Actually I do, hybrid. I knew about the antidote all along. It’s quite fun tricking you like this. And I think we all agree that you deserve it.” He smiled.

"Please—"

“Silence, slave!”

The magic surrounding the deal shushed Colton. He was bound.

As he was dragged out the door by Kareltje, Carly’s screams filled his ears. He hadn’t had time to mention the pain of the cancellation to her. Separately, the venoms were rather pleasurable, but together they caused a fire within the veins of the victim. His heart ached unbearably for her.

“Move it, you.” Kareltje pushed him faster. “You’ve really screwed up this time.”