Page 79 of Spellbound
My eyebrows pinched downward. “What do you mean?”
“I can feel a person’s heart,” she explained, sauntering toward the bed where I lay. “All I need to do is place my hand upon them, like this.” She touched my hand. Her touch was too soft, too gentle for someone with her disposition. “I can sense the essence of a person. It’s a power I did not expect when I became immortal, but one which has allowed me to dispose of only the worst people.”
I thought about Bryan. The quiet, sweet boy I’d hung out with when I first came to Istinia. “No. Bryan, one of your victims, was my friend. A long time ago,” I said, although ten years was nothing to a goddess. “He was a good person.”
One of her dark eyebrows arched. “Ah, yes, the boy close to your coven. He was not an innocent.” She gazed up as if lost in the memory of how he’d tasted.
I shuddered at the thought.
“He wanted to inflict pain. He hurt animals. That’s how I found him. He was torturing a deer in the woods, so I tortured him.”
“Well.” I huffed, my cheeks heating. “You can’t just decide who gets to live and die. You’re not...”
“A goddess?”
I gripped the silk sheets tight. “I mean, you are, but you can’t just kill people.”
“Who says I can’t?”
I paused. “It’s wrong.”
“No.”
My eyes widened. “No?”
“I needed souls, and I chose to feast upon dark ones. How does that make me bad?”
“Everyone is allowed a fair trial. You can’t just feel someone as being bad, then condemn them.”
She shrugged, sitting at the edge of the bed all too casually. Peering around her, I noticed the large window overlooked the snowy peaked mountains and an evergreen forest that continued to the horizon. I looked around the wood cabin, which must have been situated on the side of a mountain—or at least built up high.
I moved as far away from her as I could, without falling off the bed. “You kidnapped me. You’re not making a strong case for not being the bad guy. I mean, it’s like you’ve taken a page right of the villain handbook.”
Freya shifted her weight, then tucked her hair behind her ears, showing off her diamond-shaped face and strong features. I supposed I could see the beauty that had captivated Raiden. Her cupid-bow lips were painted dark red, complementing the dark brown of her hair and her olive-toned skin. “I’m doing what I must to survive. You see, they will not allow me to live, but Thalia and Aziel listen to Raiden, and Raiden cares for you. As long as I have you, he won’t come for me, not when your life is in danger.”
Panic struck through me, forcing my heart to skip its next beat. “You’ve got this all wrong. We’re barely friends. We hated each other before that. If your life is riding on whether or not he cares for me, then you’ve made a fatal mistake.”
She rolled her expressive eyes and stood, sweeping the creases from the silk at her waist. “I know what I felt when I touched Raiden, and he was protecting you that day I broke in. I am not wrong in this. I never am in matters of the heart.”
“Don’t you care?” I pulled myself off the bed and stood. “He loved you! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
She looked at the window, her gaze far off. “No.”
“You’re so cold.”
“I’ve had to be.” She walked toward me, even as I shuffled against the headboard, and took my hand in hers. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and a hint of a smile curled her lips. “You have felt great loss too. It never goes away, the emptiness after losing someone you love, and you have so much emptiness.” She released my hand, gently placing it on the covers. “You feel almost hollow. I can see why Raiden showed an interest in you. He, like you, is broken.”
I scoffed. “You’re not?”
“Why do you think he loved me?”
I scowled. “How can that mean nothing? You speak so coldly of him when all he did was love you.”
“You know what he did. He is responsible for my son’s death.”
“He didn’t know.” My voice cracked at the ends. “This is all one big mistake.”
“My son’s death is not a mistake.” She balled her fists, tensing the lean muscles in her arms.
