A Bastard's Allure-Chapter 103: Marked?

"Love. Some say it’s the strongest of feelings. Is it?" Lord Atticus scoffed, taking a step closer to inspect Elena’s body on the floor. "Not even the love he had for you stopped him from confining the beast within himself," he added.

He gave a nod to the knights who lifted her body and took it out of the room.

"Get me the demon bitch!" He instructed another knight by his side. The knight nodded and left to arrain Allicent.

But Allicent knew what had transpired. It started with a pang in her heart when she was enjoying a cup of tea casually in the royal garden, the type she experienced whenever she thought the queen was doing injustice to her son while she was tied in a dark room.

She ignored it at first, but then it came again, as if a part of her conscience. This time, it was like a siren call. She hurried through the hallways when she overheard maids gossip about Elena’s death.

"His eyes were as dark as hell itself. Not even love can tame such a creature, beautiful as it might be from the outside," she heard a maid sigh in finality.

"Did they catch him?" Another asked curiously.

"I heard the palace captain say he jumped into the sea and cracked his head against...."

The rest of the words turned into background noise in Allicent’s ears. Her heart raced in fear, a pang of pain racing through every nerve of her being. She felt weak in the knees and leaned on the wall as her breath came out shallow and shaky.

"It can’t be..." she denied it with every fiber in her body. But there was nothing that affected a demon so much like the loss of a mate. Gabriel did not only lose her but was the one who killed her, which was still a mystery to her.

If he was dead, she could have felt it already. She had to get to him before he did anything stupid.

*****

Gabriel’s POV

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to drown? Your eyes open, the sun, the only thing you can see through the clear waters, scattered on the vast liquid. And then you realize you’re dying!

The water starts choking on you, as if to replace every fluid in your body with nothing but itself. You start beating the water, trying to reach for the sun, but the current overpowers you.

In the end, you feel light, unable to reach the sun. It starts appearing distant in your eyes as you travel to the abyss of darkness. It turns blurry, into a tiny distant dot before the darkness takes over.

I opened my eyes, the blazing sun glaring at me in mockery. I lifted my elbow to block the extra light and surveyed my surroundings. It was a shore. My clothes were covered in water and mud and my hair stuck to my forehead.

Rubbing my eyes, I squinted them as a mild headache began staging a riot at the back of my head. It was a sharp searing pain that coursed through every fiber of my being.

"Where am I?" I asked groggily at no one in particular. Clearly I was at a shore. But how did I end up here? I closed my eyes tightly when the images of Elena flashed across my mind vividly.

I was holding her lifeless body in my hands and... I jumped! I ran away from my mistakes! I lifted my hands and stared at them as if they were a part of me recently attached but never existed before.

"I killed her, with me own hands," I muttered. And it settled in my soul, a piece attached to the words guilt and unforgivable. What then was left to fight for?

My eyes scattered at the blanket of the ocean, the waves rising into a small tide in the distance. Why did I live? It should be her and not me! She could have been a ruler in Mysthaven, but I... I looked at my hands again.

"I deserve nothing," I said, and I meant it. To live was the last this in my wishlist currently. But death itself was a scary thing. It came randomly to those who least expected. But I wanted to bring it upon myself.

I pushed myself off the ground and took the route to the forest just close by. From a vantage position, one could spot the high walls of Mysthaven in the little island and the massive ships anchored in the harbor. But what I made out was the open window in her room.

’The she’ll!’ I remembered. It wasn’t in my hand not in my pockets. It was the only valuable thing I had of her and I wasn’t going to let it get lost, not even in the depths of the ocean.

I hurried back to the shore but the back of a woman was the welcoming sight. She was clad in all black, her hair swaying in the wind.

"Mother?" I called, still approaching her cautiously.

"Are you looking for this?" She asked and lifted her hands to show a white shell in her hand, her back still facing me.

I swallowed nervously, now rooted at the same spot. "How did you find me?" I asked instead.

She turned around to face me, a hint of silver gleaming in the corners of her eyes. She walked towards me, her eyes never leaving mine before she grabbed me by the neck.

"You used the spell of truth against your own mate and ended up killing her," she stated the obvious.

"I wasn’t intending to do it," my voice cracked. "She was standing there and then she wasn’t! If you want to kill me, you’ll be doing me a great favor." I closed my eyes tightly waiting for her to snap my neck, but she withdrew her hand instead.

I opened my eyes to see her inspecting the shell in her hand.

"Have you ever marked her," she asked.

"Marked?" I asked, confusion doting my muddy face.

"When making love, demons, the demon part of us, feels the urge to bite and mark our mates."

"No, I haven’t," I replied, shaking my head slightly.

"I think there’s a way we can bring her back!" My eyes dilated in hope.