Chapter 218: The Sacrificial Lamb
Enzo
My brain felt so foggy. No matter how hard I tried, it almost felt as though my eyes were constantly out of focus, like I was walking through a thick mist that was obstructing everything in front of me. That strange girl that looked almost exactly like Selena came running out of the woods, and she tackled Selena, sending her to the ground. They grappled there for a few moments in a shrieking, clawing heap while I stood in complete and utter shock, before I finally came to my senses and pulled her off of Selena.
The girl kept saying strange things. She kept talking as though we knew each other, but I didn’t know her. I didn’t even know where I was. It felt like there was something at the very back of my mind that thought that maybe she wasfamiliar, and that maybe I did know her somehow, but that didn’t make any sense.
And so, when Selena opened a portal and took my hand, I went along with her.
When we stepped out on the other side, we weren’t far from the Alpha King’s mansion. Selena seemed angry, and for good reason; that girl had muddied Selena’s clothes and wrecked her perfect hair during their fight, and I knew that Selena didn’t like getting dirty. But there was something else that I noticed, too, as she took me by the hand and pulled me toward the mansion. She kept muttering to herself about the other girl.
“That bitch… Thinks she can pull a fast one on me… I’m his mate, not her.”
I frowned as I listened to Selena. I thought back to what Selena had told the other girl She had said “See? He doesn’t even remember you!” It was as if Selena knew the girl, but I didn’t know her for some reason. How could this be? I was so confused.
But I didn’t say anything. Selena was extremely angry, and when I opened my mouth to speak, her nails only dug even harder into my wrist as she pulled me along. I decided then and there that I needed to give her some time to cool off before I tried to say anything about what happened.
Within a few minutes of storming through the woods, we arrived at the front of the mansion. The guards let us in; it seemed that they, too, realized Selena’s anger and decided not to question anything. I didn’t even know. why or when we had left the mansion, so I was just as baffled as they were.
Once we were inside, Selena led me upstairs and down the winding hallways to my room. She then opened the door and pushed me inside. “Stay here,” she growled, her eyes burning with fury. “I’ll be back later.”
I furrowed my brow. Now, this was getting too confusing. I wouldn’t just sit there and wait for her to come back; I needed to know what was going on. “Where are you going?” I asked, putting my foot in the way before she was able to close the door.
Selena paused, her jaw moving back and forth as she grinded her teeth together angrily. “I just need to take care of something,” she said. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.” Then, with one final shove, she pushed me into the room and slammed the door shut. I heard the sound of the lock sliding through the bolt, and then her receding footsteps.
I cursed under my breath, my brain still coated in a thick fog. What was going on? It felt as though there was a voice in the back of my head telling me to snap out of it, but I didn’t understand why. And when I searched for my wolf to see if he had any guidance to offer, he was fast asleep.
It almost felt as though there was some sort of spell on my wolf that was keeping him in a coma. He was there, but he wasn’t conscious. This made me nervous; what if something happened and I needed to shift? I couldn’t do that if my wolf was fast asleep and couldn’t be woken up.
Suddenly, as the sky darkened outside, I saw a flash of something through the window that caught my eye and broke me out of my train of thought. I bolted over to the window to look out, and I caught a glimpse of what looked like Selena running across the road in a cloak. She was fast, like a bolt of lightning, and she looked over her shoulder as though she was making sure that the guards wouldn’t see her. Then, she disappeared into the forest in the blink of an eye.
Something was going on here – I was sure of it. I didn’t know what exactly was happening, but I knew that something was wrong. And I couldn’t help but think that Selena and that strange girl who could have been her twin had something to do with it.
I decided that I couldn’t stay here. I had to follow Selena; but she had locked the door.
Once again, I cursed under my breath as I paced the room, trying to think of a way to escape. My eyes fell on the window once again, and I tried to lift the window frame. It slid up easily; in Selena’s haste, she hadn’t blocked me from getting out this way. I quickly climbed out the window and used a combination of the vines that were climbing along the side of the mansion, an old and rickety trellis, and the corner of the building to make my way down.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, I took off as fast as I could toward the direction that Selena left in. The guards didn’t see me in the darkness. I could still faintly pick up Selena’s scent, and so I followed it.
I followed her trail carefully through the rapidly darkening woods. She had been in such a rush that she didn’t retract her scent, so it was easy to follow it. She had left an obvious trail of crushed leaves and broken bushes as well, so I quickly found where she had disappeared to.
When I saw the little witch’s hut in the distance, with its yellow light spilling out from the closed window into the dark forest, I had to rack my brain to remember why this place felt familiar. It was foggy and distant, but as I approached, I remembered that I had been here before. I had found Selena in here once, talking to the witch about some curse… But I couldn’t remember much of anything after that. Did the witch put a spell on me? That was the only logical explanation for this strange mind fog that I was in.
I quietly approached the witch’s hut until I was close enough to hear voices.
“Hold it still!”
“I’m trying! It’s wriggling around too much. Just get it over with.”
I could hear the sound of terrified bleating. It sounded like a sheep in distress. A lamb, actually. It sounded too small and weak for an adult sheep.
Then, I heard a strange sound, followed by silence.I couldn’t explain why I did what I did next. That tiny voice that had been echoing in the back of my mind took hold for a moment, and I knew that there was something going on in that int that needed to be stopped.
And so, I gritted my teeth and kicked down the door.
Just as I suspected… Selena was sitting on the floor in the middle of a circle drawn with chalk. In her lap lay the bloodied body of a lamb, its throat slit. In front of her kneeled an older woman, a witch, who was smearing blood on Selena’s face.
They both froze. Selena whipped around to look at me, her eyes wide and her face covered with blood that was painted on her skin in strange symbols..
In the candlelight, she looked demonic.
