Chapter 565: Don’t touch me
Nerrisa dropped her hands from her sister’s cheeks, swimming backwards. "I can’t help you, you are clearly not even happy on the land. If you won’t tell me what brought about these changes, then..." Nerrisa swam away, returning to what she was doing and pretending indifference to get her twin to spill the truth. But Azmira didn’t. She only looked even more miserable before swimming away from there.
Azmira swam to the shore, sitting on the sand and watching as her beautiful tail separated into legs. Then she got up and put on the clothes she had left there before returning to the village, which she was starting to consider more of a home than her real home. But the weight on her shoulders was so strong she couldn’t hold it in.
She went to her meeting place with Vaelor, her heart beating in dread and an unexplainable fear, which brought confusion to Viola, who was living the moment without any control over changing the events and actions happening.
When Azmira reached his favorite tree, she looked around for him until she sensed him standing behind one of the trees, and she went there. But the moment she reached him, it wasn’t his hug she received but a heated slap to the face that jerked her backwards.
She gripped her throbbing cheek, turning to the silver-haired man looking at her in fury, his silver eyes burning at her, and something dawned on her, and she trembled backwards.
"I am sorry, there is no way out." Azmira said.
"I will mark you as mine if it’s the last thing I do in my life." Came his words, falling in her ears, breaking her heart to pieces and making her afraid of him at that moment.
"You can’t force what is not there." Azmira said to him, tears flowing down her cheeks as she began to back away while he advanced on her. "You can’t mark me, we can’t be together." She said.
"Then let’s see you try to stop me, my dear. This is my world and I will do as I please." He reached out and grabbed her, and just as she was fighting him, the scene changed.
And for Viola, who couldn’t fully grasp the events happening and was being tossed around in them like she held no control over them, she felt a cold blade go into her chest just as the pain of a marking was settling against her neck.
"Don’t go back on your words." Came his whisper as he twisted the dagger into her chest, causing her more pain.
She felt that floating sensation again, as though her body was leaving her, only it was her soul flowing away and watching her heart being devoured by Vaelor, who did it with tears flowing down his cheeks, as though he was being forced to do it. He looked so heartbroken that it was as disgusting as it was confusing to Viola, who watched.
The scene changed again, and Viola found her body hanging with chains all around it for all to see before the waters, as though to lure the mermaids out so they could be caught and meet the same fate as The Child Of The Sea.
"Alpha Vaelor grew an ability and a power that no other Alpha could ever defeat by eating this creature’s heart. We have to make sure we catch ours too." Laughed the greedy werewolves setting the trap at the river to catch mermaids like fish.
"Who would have thought things like this were real, a fish and a human. I can’t wait to have mine." Said another, and as the words flowed into Viola’s subconscious, she felt her fingers clenching, anger flowing into her veins, and it dawned on her why she was seeing this.
Elder Ysara had said Azmira’s presence had lingered even long after her death, as though she had some unfinished business and something she desired, and now the memories of the soul were playing out to Viola, who was Azmira in a way, though without full memories of this lifetime.
Stuck in it, Viola saw Vaelor coming towards the men at the shore who were hanging the decaying body, and at the sight of him she felt a rekindling of rage in her heart and a hurt so intense she wanted to hit him and hang him alongside the mermaid he had killed, though she didn’t know why something in her was holding her back and looking at him with longing instead.
What was this? Was it some sick puppy love? Was Azmira like Sofia who had loved her husband to the end even when he hurt and try to kill her? Viola wondered miserably watching Vaelor.
Then she was jolted awake by a hand, and Viola took a sharp inhale, seeing her sister’s face coming into focus before her eyes, her lips moving as though she was speaking. But Viola couldn’t hear her. All she heard were the words of those cruel werewolves wanting to catch mermaids out of greed, just like their Alpha, and a consuming feeling of resentment.
Then she took a deep breath, and the voice of her sister returned.
"...Viola, are you all right?" Ivy asked, crouching down before her and smoothing her hair away from her flushed face.
"Honey?" Came another voice that made Viola turn to see Sebastian next to her sister, and she looked at him hazily, her mind still stuck between reality and what wasn’t, unable to grasp onto either one.
𝖋𝖗𝗲𝖾𝒘𝑒𝙗𝙣𝔬𝙫𝙚𝗅.𝙘𝙤𝘮
Looking at her husband, she saw him with a blood-smeared face, the blood of her heart, and when he reached out as though to touch her, Viola recoiled from his touch and moved closer into her sister’s arms.
Sebastian, who noticed it, paused and looked surprised. He had run all the way here after Alex told him they couldn’t wake his wife, who seemed to have fallen asleep on the floor, and worry had gripped his heart like a vine, so much that he had thought the worst.
He was now taken aback by her reaction and the look in her eyes. It was almost one of hate and hurt, and it stabbed at his chest and confused him.
"I...I got you the cake. Do you want to have it now? Come, let’s get you off the floor—" he said, reaching out, but she moved away again fearfully, her eyes widening in horror.
"Don’t touch me." She whispered.
Ivy took note immediately and held her sister to herself, looking at Sebastian and wondering what he had done to make her fearful of him. She had just returned from the sea with Alex to the news that her sister had fought last night and was resting now, but it didn’t look like it. Did he force her to fight for his pack against her will?
When Sebastian tried to reach for his wife and she moved away again, Ivy was quick to grab his wrist. "She doesn’t want you to touch her. Stand back." Ivy warned, glaring at him in a way she never had before.