Love Comes In Many Dangerous Forms

(Shane’s P.O.V.)

I felt a hiss work its way through my clenched teeth as I read the words. Zach’s pleas for Cassiel to respond were becoming more and more frantic.

“Cassie! Wake up, please Cassiel!” he shouted at her, and still he did not get a response.

“Do you have any idea who would do this to her?” I asked Vera not turning away from Cassiel.

“Many people strongly dislike Cassiel, so it could be anyone,” she sighed worriedly.

“Well can’t we track the son of a bitch’s scent?” I hissed.

“Do you smell anything?” she asked.

I took a deep breath and was confused, “No.”

“Exactly,” she bit her lip, “There are dozens of mortals and immortals that go into Cassiel’s room. And whoever did this to Cassiel, knew that there are different scents in her room and that they are all blended together, and if he came, there would be no possible way to track him. Or he is very good at not leaving a scent, which is nearly impossible. And he was careful to not leave any trail behind him. And it would be even harder to find him in the forest, if that’s where he went.”

I cursed and clenched my fists together in pure rage.

“She went into shock,” Vera stated as she sat on the edge of Cassiel’s bed.

No one said anything for a moment.

“When will she come out of it?” Audrey asked pressing a cloth gently on the back of Cassiel’s neck.

“Whenever she’s ready,” Vera told her quietly.

“Where’s Prince Colton?” Audrey asked confused.

“He went to a meeting,” Vera answered her.

“Some husband he’s going to be,” Zach hissed.

And for once, I actually agreed with him.

“Audrey could you go get a bowl of cold water, more cloths, and gauzes?” Vera asked taking the soaked cloth from Cassiel’s neck and removed the bandages that were on the back of her neck. The bandages that she was forced to have, because of me.

I felt my anger multiply, but it was directed towards me. There, right next to the two words that were etched into her delicate skin, was a gouge that ran deep into her flesh. Blood gushed out of the wound free from the tourniquet. Dark purple bruises pulsed with her intoxicating heartbeat. And I realized that I was no better than all of the others that had harmed her, because I was a monster who hurt an innocent girl. A girl that was better than all of us, despite all of the hatred and pain that even I couldn’t comprehend. To a girl that I cared about.

Audrey rushed into the room with the supplies that Vera asked for and laid in on the bed. Vera picked up the small bowl of water carefully and dropped at cloth into the liquid and gave it to Zach.

“Put this on her forehead,” Vera stated quietly as she dabbed a dry cloth on her neck stopping the blood flow.

“You don’t seem surprised that this happened,” I commented.

“That’s because I’m not,” Vera responded solemnly.

“You knew this was going to happen?” Zach questioned in disbelief.

“I didn’t know this was going to happen, but I knew something was going to happen,” Vera explained wrapping fresh bandages around Cassiel’s neck.

“What do you mean by that?” Audrey asked.

“Well, we all know that most people hate the royal family and would do anything to overthrow them,” Vera explained sadly, “Any one of them could’ve been attacked. But I expected it to be Cassiel being that she is going to become queen in a few months.”

“Could it be that Hillary tricked someone into doing this?” I asked remembering that she would have done anything to be queen, even killing her sister.

“Possibly, but I don’t know why she tell someone would engrave ‘YOU’RE MINE’ on Cassiel’s neck,” she sighed and took the book that Cassiel gripped onto, leaving her free hands to shake violently.

“Why does Cassiel have a book on demons?” Vera asked flipping through the old pages off the book.

I looked towards Audrey, who had her eyes widened. So she knew.

I glanced at Zach, but he was too focused on Cassiel, but he had a tiny hint of confusion in his eyes. And he possibly didn’t and I knew that Vera didn’t.

“Cassiel wanted to refresh her memory on the demon culture, being that she stopped learning about them in her immortal studies class,” Audrey blurted out.

Vera looked at her questionably but put the book on the nightstand.

“Do her parents know what happened?” I asked changing the subject.

“No,” Vera answered, “They went to the council meeting with the Nevatrix family, and Hillary went with them.”

“Why didn’t they take Cassiel?” I was confused.

“Well,” Audrey started, “They think of her as a disgrace to them and to their people. Not that they care that much about her or their people anyway,” she muttered angrily.

“But that’s not fair,” I accused gritting my teeth, “She has her own opinions, she should be able to share them. And who is the council? And what did you mean by ‘they don’t care that much about her?’”

“Well if you haven’t noticed Cassiel is a slave to them, she has no rights,” Audrey rolled her eyes, “The council is all royals from each race – the humans, werewolves, vampires, demons, fairies, angels, merpeople, witches and wizards, and trolls – but they all have one thing in common, they all hate Cassiel with a passion for just wanting peace between them and would practically do anything to kill her.

“You know that Cassiel is becoming queen, but none of you know why they choose her. You all think that they choose her because she wants what’s best for the humans, but that’s not it. I heard King Richard, Queen Jennifer, King Victor, and Queen Isabelle all talking in the lounge. I didn’t think of eavesdropping until I heard Cassiel’s name. But that conversation only made me hate them all even more.

“Cassiel’s parents only chose her over Hillary for one reason and that reason only. They chose her because she was the most likely to become pregnant the fastest with Colton’s spawn. They didn’t even think about what she went through not even seven years ago,” she spat my hiss matched Zach’s, hungry for death and coated with rage, “And that’s not all. They planned on killing her and all of us including Jimmy and Carly after she gave birth to it. You should have heard the things they saying, slipping poison into her tea, pushing her off one of the balconies, drowning her, stabbing her in the heart, and basically make look like suicide.”

“Audrey they-,” Vera started.

“Vera, they’ve changed,” Audrey explained, “They aren’t the innocent humans you meet nineteen years ago. They’re more monstrous than we are.”

“But the queen has been-,” Vera persisted on protecting the worthless scum.

“I know Vera; she’s been nice to you and everybody else. But she is probably the worst of them all. She is only being ‘nice’ so that she can get closer to us, to Cassiel, so that she ‘exterminate’ us faster. And so that her conscious, not that she has one, will be cleared because she acted like she loved her daughter for the few months of the life she had left.”

I struggled not to go and track their appalling scent and rip all of their heads off and burn their remains. To torture them slowly before they beg for death. I glanced over at Zach and it looked like he wanted to do the same thing.

I wanted to kill every person who has hurt her, to have them beg for mercy that would never come. But I also wanted to comfort Cassiel, because I realized that she really did have nothing, only her friends and Jimmy, and yet she still gave everything and more to us, to me.