Chapter 7

Locket sat in the dank dungeon, hair covering her face. Beneath her hair she smiled, the next time that they came to torture her she'd break free. The ties on her hands were holding on by a thread, she could break it easily. She was so glad Lily's men were stupid enough to tell her what she was, where the nearest safe house was, the directions and what to say to them? God! she had idiots for cronies.  She drifted to sleep with a devious grin on her face and a wicked gleam in her eyes.

~~~~

"Caspian? Caspian!," Hope yelled trough the air duct grate. He moved slowly, like every step caused him pain. He leaned against the wall and stared at her, "Well? are you going to open the grate so I can heal you or are you going to stand there until they come to torture you again?" She observed him, and cataloged every single one of his wounds. Scars ran along his arms, it looked like someone had decided to play tic-tac-toe on his chest, he had bite marks on either side of his neck, and little scratches all over his face.

"I'm not going to let you risk you're life for me, Hope, leave and don't come back," It took everything he had not to flinch at his own words, it was nearly impossible to walk away from the grate and turn his back on her.

"I'm not going anywhere, Cas. I care about you, and I'm not going to let you die," she said through the grate, he whirled around to face her.

"DON'T say that. I DON'T want you here, Hope. I DON'T want you to care about me, go find some happy human and make a life for yourself. Leave, now Hope, leave," This was what hurt him the most, he loved her and he was hurting her. He hated himself for it, but it was for the best. Then she did the one thing that he never expected her to do. She orbed through the grate, and walked towards him. He moved back as she moved forward, eventually she parked him against the wall.

"Don't say that, Cas. I can tell you're lying. Now I can't force you to let me stay here, but I am going to heal you and then if you still want me to, I'll leave."

"Trust me, I'll want you to," with that she led him over to the bed and started to heal him, she closed her eyes in concentration. He studied her face, hoping that it was the last time he'd see her. 

"Hope! what the hell are you doing?," a shrill voice interrupted her, and Cas fell forward on top of her. Since he was not completely healed there could be serious complications. "Get away from him!," Jaz yelled again.

"Please, just let me finish. If I don't he could die!" 

"Get away from him!," Hope shielded him with her body and finally broke down.

"If you don't let me finish what I've started, with God as my witness, I will turn myself over to Lily!"

"Fine. Finish, but then we're going to have a serious talk about your choices."

"Jazlyn Arianna Blake, you and I will not have a conversation about this. My life is none of you're business, and since your mate is one of the creatures who hurt him I refuse to talk about anything with you," Jaz was fuming, and Hope turned away from her to finish healing him.

Caspian groaned as he came back to consciousness and he grumbled "Changed my mind, I don't want you to leave."

Hope laughed "Well, too bad. Because now I need to go. I'll talk to these freaks about stopping your torture."

He opened his eyes " Thank you."

~~~

"Back the hell up, buddy!," Seline yelled at Laurent.

"What did I do now?," Laurent mumbled, then said aloud "Yes?"

"Don't play the innocent card with me. Where is all my stuff?," she said standing in the doorway to her room.

"It burnt, Sel."

"Nope, I charmed all of it. It can't burn. And It's tied to me so wherever I live, that's where my stuff goes too."

"Did you check our room?"

"Our? I didn't agree to that," She said, eyes widened with trace amounts of fear. 

 "You are my mate, it wouldn't be right for you to sleep away from me. I'm supposed to keep you safe, how can I do that if I'm not near you?"
      "Alright, first off Its my job to keep me safe. You are my mate, not my keeper. Secondly, if you keep up this whole ' me male strong, you woman weak' s**t I will hurt you. I don't care if you're my mate, I'm a strong witch from a very strong bloodline. My family are direct descendants of Maylene and Hrishika," She was referring to the first human witches, the daughters of Hecate, the Goddess of magic and witchcraft. Circle Bloodlight , run by Mayline until she cast a spell turning herself into the first vampire, was the bad group of witches, and Circle Daylight, run by Hrishika until she died was for the good witches.
    "I didn't know that, and I apologize for insulting your blood line. However, you are mine and I will protect you. Its not because I'm male and you're female, its because if you run up against someone who wants to hurt you and you either can't cast a spell fast enough or they're immune to your magic I can keep you from being injured. There is no being on earth that is immune to claws and fangs. I am able to use my power of shifting to help you, as well as my power to disable an attacker by neutralizing them with my empathic abilities. I promise you that this is not some idiotic macho 'I'm stronger than thou' insanity, I am honestly just trying to keep you safe. I know you're strong, but it doesn't hurt to have some back up, does it?"
     "I hate it when you make sense, it makes it so much harder for me to give you hell ," she smiled but then said " but we still need to talk about the whole 'sharing a room thing' cause that don't really work for me."
     "The crazy witch, who says whatever she wants to whenever she wants to and regularly makes sex into a joke, doesn't feel comfortable sharing a room with her mate? Now this doesn't make sense to me," he narrowed his eyes and looked at her.
   "Well, I can see how you'd be slightly confused. But the truth is," she looked around to make sure no one could hear her then she she stood up on her tip toes and whispered "I'm a virgin."
     "You're?," he stared at her and saw that her eyes were closed, and  a look of embarrassment covered her face. "Oh, Seline. Come here," and he pulled her into a comforting embrace. "You should have told me before, I wouldn't have had them put you in my room."
   "I should have told you the biggest secret of my entire life?" She used telepathy to say this, since Mist was quickly walking down the hall, what for she had no idea.
   "Hi guys, bye guys!," Mist yelled behind her.
   "She's insane," Laurent observed.
   "Certifiable," Seline agreed, then they both started to laugh. 
~~~~~ 
      Locket was pretending to be asleep, she heard footsteps coming from the stairs. She smiled inwardly, her hands were unbound, the remains of the ropes lay behind her. Nothing more than ashes, but that was the power of the fae. 
     "Wake up, b***h," one of the vampires said. Locket allowed her mismatched eyes to drift open and fake fear. "Look at this boys, she's finally afraid," the vampire laughed and stepped forward to drink, that's when Locket attacked, with the wooden spear she had created from the railing on the stairs. 
     "I don't fear you. In fact you should be the one that's afraid," she said as she plunged the steak into his heart, then said, "who's next?" To the two vampires that remained.
    "Look, I don't know about this one but I'd rather live. Maybe you could just hit me over the head with that steak and leave?" this from Coward vamp number one
      "Yeah, maybe there's a way you could leave us alive?," said Coward vamp number two. Locket looked at them both suspiciously, then nodded. She hit them both over the heads, they both looked ridiculously goofy. Naturally she had to, she went through their pockets, took their wallets and found a pen. She smiled to herself and then drew on their faces. She ran up the stairs, laughing to herself silently. In a few hours she'd be home free.