My Willful flame

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Everyone had gone quiet. This time he was the one to stand over me, watching me cling to life.

I was hurt all over, bleeding out from the many gashes he had inflicted on me, but most of all from the fatal wound in my abdomen. He hadn't even hesitated, no glimmer of the life he had lived with me had awoken anything in his eyes as he ran his sword through me.

Tears were streaming down my face and I could hear the wheezing of my breaths becoming shallow and slow.

"Xander," I begged again, wanting him to stop his torture. He was tearing me apart, ridding himself of me, the last physical thing to remind him of his humanity. And it was all too easy for him.

How had he sunk this deep?

He moved swiftly as if triggered by the sound of my voice. He crouched over me and unexpectedly, the hands that had once held me lovingly, were holding me down. A sudden pressure on my throat deprived me of air and I could feel the pulse of my heart rise to my head.

His fingers bore into my skin and he lowered himself to be inches from my face. "Don't call my name," he sneered.

His sword dug into the ground next to my head, his white-knuckled hand clutching it. "There is nothing left of me that is familiar to you anymore."

I clung to life, gasping for as much air as he allowed. I tried screaming, tried crying out but no sound escaped me. I felt nothing else but my heart breaking, and that was a sound no one could but I could hear.

I had wished for something so much differently and even allowed myself to hope for so much more. I had followed him here, blindly, thinking still like the naive little girl who wanted to mean something to someone. I was cut all over, bleeding out again, this time with no one screaming my name or fighting for me. I had robbed myself of everything.

"Your death liberated me." Xander continued cruelly, marked by an enraged glimmer in his eyes.

I could feel his hands almost slip from my throat, the blood made it too hard for him to hold on.

"I'm in here," I gasped, putting my hand on his heart.

Before I could touch him he had my hand in his, pinning it back to the ground. I inhaled desperately as his death grip vanished from my throat.

"You never were," He panted deep and I gritted my teeth in pain, the weight of his body crushing mine.

"Your death will mean nothing. You will mean nothing. To history. To me. To anyone. Your pathetic existence will be a gain of sand amongst many, stepped on, never admired, easily forgotten." He spat irate, so out of control he could barely stand to look at me.

There was something in the way he looked at me, the way his hand squeezed mine holding it down, not like a lover but like an enemy. He had waited for me. Waited for the moment he could hurt me. Maybe even, all along.

"Choose your last words," he whispered.

I sulked, my eyes stinging in pain.

"Do what you will. What you must," I whispered a cry, "Then put me here," I moved my free hand, and this time he didn't move. My fingers moved over his shirt to the neckline until I felt his skin against my fingers and then his heartbeat in my palm.

"Make me the one amongst many. Forget me here. I want to be in here." I tapped his heart surrounded by the ink of all his regrets, marked on his cold shell.

"Put my mark here."

A mark to join the rest, to complete one af the many maps of death. A single dot like a forgettable grain of sand.

"I will forgive you."

Xander laughed, cruelly and mad. "I do not need that."

"But..." I stammered, my weakened voice lowered. "I do."

For what he was about to do. For turning to the darkness. For yet again exacting vengeance and evil onto the world.

He caught his breath and his laughter died.

"Because I love you, Xander Barone." I caught a gasp.

Like all his victims before, everyone with a name, he had moved on but never forgotten. He had marked himself in punishment and now I wanted him to do the same for the life he was about to steal, my life.

He shook his head, denying what he had just heard. But it was the truth. At that moment, my weakest time, at the mercy of him I knew the truth. I loved him. I had for a long time and my last wish was for him to hear it.

"You...." He tried but nothing else came out.

And for a moment we just looked at each other. The rawnesss of the eyes locking, the sheer vulnerability of seeing everything in each other that one self would never be able to.

A roar so loud and painful escaped him and he grabbed for his sword. I cowarded under him.

Turning my head with closed eyes, I screamed too, waiting for the collide...

His scream echoed and nothing followed.

My cry died out but my breath remained.

With horror caorsing through my body, I dared to open my eyes.

He had risen. Standing over me, he was clutching the sword his hand, breathing wildly. Chaos was written all over his face and his eyes looked into mine. No one moved—the blade was aimed at my throat.

Another silent understanding and I knew.

He couldn't do it.

"Take your vow" A loud command broke the dread. Djevel stepped toward us. "I will not have this again. You will take her life on this day, so finish your task."

Xander took a step back.

"Don't you dare," Djevel warned, his eyes narrowing.

Xander looked drained.

"Seize him" One swift command moved ten men.

But Djevel's words were almost lost in the howling wind, as Xander stumbled backwards, his sword fell from his grasp. A voluntary surrender.

The Mile men moved, pinning him down with ruthless efficiency. But Xander offered no resistance, his eyes fixed on mine with a haunting intensity.

Djevel moved to me, hauling me onto my legs.

"Punishing you for your disobedience once wasn't enough." He mocked, tightening his arm around me as I struggled to stand.

"I thought he had been bewitched by you." Djevel was talking to me with a low whisper from behind. "I thought you promised him something only a selfless monster like him could be compelled by. To discover his flaws one after the other, I was repulsed. I thought I whipped mercy out of him long ago." Djevel dragged me to the side. His men stepped aside to let us through.

"But I was wrong. His failures were not his but mine." He grabbed my chin, forcibly turning my head up.

I cried out in horror.

"I corrected that fast." His taunt echoed over the snowy terrain.

On a tall pike was the head of a woman, her face frozen forever in terror.

I lowered my eyes fast, catching Xander staring with an empty gaze at the ground as his brothers held him in place. He didn't move. Almost didn't breathe. This was what they had done to him. This had been it.

"I'm so sorry." I sobbed toward him but he didn't react. How many days had he had to stare at Gaia's ice-cold face before he broke?

"You are the last one," Djevel added, almost carrying me back in front of Xander, whose eyes dragged up.

"You have clung on to humanity by your soul ties," Djevel declared, his lesson had begun.
"Your mother was my mistake. This one, she is yours."

"Do you know what happens to women who enter the black lake?" Djevel's low voice hissed into my ear.