Hooked [Complete]

35. Ostara Part 8: Druantia's Choice

Author's Note: I lied. There are 9 parts to Ostara, but here we are, at the climax of Dru's conflict over her feelings for Sean and Hearne. We all knew Sean's plan couldn't work for long, right? The "good" news...Dru isn't deluding herself, any longer...

Song for this chapter: Fix You by Coldplay. Basically, Dru, Sean, and Hearne are all making sacrifices here to "fix" things.

Druantia's POV

I don't recognize myself in the mirror.

And I don't mean that in an angsty, I-don't-know-who-I-am kind of way. I don't mean...do I want to be the mild-mannered good girl, or do I want to be the real me? Am I wound up too tight trying to be perfect, or am I actually crazy? What is wrong with me? Why am I like this?

What I mean is...I haven't been fully aware in two years. Not since the hospital. Not since I decided to go inside of myself. Not since I started taking the pills that made it so easy to disconnect.

Two years is a long time. I'm older now, my face has lost some of the roundness of youth. I look more like my old self. I mean...my former self. In my mind I can see who I was, so long ago.

I wasn't ever really used to this new body. I only "came to" in this body when I was about fourteen.

Imagine my surprise when I realized you can get recycled into new flesh. You can feel different. You can change.

But you can only ignore the cries of your soul for so long.

Sean says his coven bound his magic, but I bound myself...with therapy and medication. I tried to "disappear" inside myself. Give myself over to just the small part of me that is modern, that is new, that is...light.

But I see now, I'm not fated for that. I'm right back where I started. Lusting after the Horned God, and in love with a beautiful witch I can't have, a witch who is dedicated to another.

I know what I have to do about that. I have to get angry. Anger kept me alive last time. Anger always kept witches alive. We had to be fierce, save ourselves. Only one witch ever got the fairy tale--being rescued by the strongest god, the Lord of Beasts and Men. Most witches hid and feared. Some, like me, watched our mothers, our sisters, our lovers, ourselves burn.

So anger, then. Anger will stop my soul crying. Anger will help me to do what I must.

Okay, here goes.

Fuck Sean Faraday.

I say it, but it's not really him I'm angry with.

I'm furious at how I yield to him...how he drives me insane with longing and how I let myself push him to the point of no control. He grins and runs his hands through his hair, and sings a little song, and I'm biting him and pumping him full of my crazy.

So crazy that he has to mutilate himself to stop from going over the edge.

Every time I close my eyes, I see that magical ink on his chest. Since I saw it, I haven't focused on anything else. There was a whole scene with Carrie and Hearne after that, and I don't even remember what the hell was said, or what happened, except that I wanted cut that bitch for getting in between Sean and me.

I can close my eyes and see the whirling tat in my mind, and I know that image. It's my seal. It's what brought me fully back to the surface, the magic of marking Sean's Faraday's flesh with my seal.

I marked him, but he's not mine. He can't be. He's already hers.

I screwed up today, getting physical with Sean. We violated our agreement. I have to take back control of this situation. And to do that, I have to admit the truth.