Torn in Two

A Cordelia Kelly Story

Ryanne Hawk

Other titles in the series:

Duality

Torn in Two

Night of the Wolf

Righteous

Copyright © 2015 Ryanne Hawk

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I woke startled, with the pounding need to hurt something and expend the rush of darkness heating my blood. My fist through a wall or the crack of a glass vase strewn about the room. Maybe I’d hurl rocks at the trees outside. I wanted to run, maim, claw, and cry.

Long buried fears resurfaced in my dream and caused me to bolt awake, trembling and in pain. My heart knocked against my ribs, and my hands were curled into little balls of fury. I frantically tried to brain bleach my thoughts and purge the rolling emotional tide that assaulted my psyche. I scrubbed my palms over my face and untwisted my legs from the soaking wet sheets.

I sat up on the side of the bed and tried to will my racing heart to slow down. The room spun in dizzying circles, and I fought back the waves of disorientation threatening to drown me. It took a few seconds or minutes, could have been an hour with the level of fog holding me hostage, to remember I wasn’t at home in my own cozy bed.

I shook my head to clear the lingering cobwebs, and the realization of my situation slapped me in the face. Some pissed-off and jealous werewolves had trashed my home and forced me to leave my sanctuary. Thanks to them, I was sleeping in a strange hotel. No wonder I had a nightmare; all the scents were different, and there was no white noise. Nothing familiar, except the snoring.

Beside me, Sol slept with an arm thrown over his head. I stared at his relaxed face to gain composure. A semblance of reality. A break from the fear. Sol was my twin-flame, and I depended on him to quiet the demons that haunted my memories and to love me…for me. Only, the longer I stared at him, the more I noticed the frown lines adorning his face. His breathing changed, and I looked deeper.

I touched his arm and tilted my head to focus on him, checking his aura for further signs of distress, just as his eyes snapped open and locked on my face.

He rolled over in a fluid motion and effortlessly gathered me into his arms. “Talk to me, Cordelia. You were thrashing in your sleep. I tried to wake you, but you were locked up tighter than a chastity belt.”

I froze with his rapid movement. He reminded me so much of a tiger with a quick strike. His majestic charm and smile would lull you into comfort, and then, bam, he’d tear you apart. I shook my head once then got angry at myself for freezing. Sol wouldn’t hurt me.

“I didn't think you were awake,” I whispered as I coiled myself into him, relaxing a minutia with my back to his chest, and my ass nestled in the crook of his waist. There was a chuckle lodged in my throat from his remark, but for some reason, I couldn’t force it out. I shivered instead.

He sighed softly. A whisper across my neck making goosebumps spread over my left side and I covered us with the blankets.

“I wasn’t asleep, but I wasn’t awake either. I think I was caught in the backwash of your emotional state. You yelled and punched the air quite a bit. Are you okay?” He pressed his body against mine and rubbed my legs with the arch of his foot before tucking his legs up to rest, spooning me.

I shook my head.

“Do you want to talk about your nightmare?”

I sighed and shrugged. “Not really.”

He chuckled, and the sound eased the clang in my chest as he lightly ran his fingertips over my arms before settling his hands over my heart. He interlaced our fingers, and his energy seeped into my skin, a calmness that told me I was safe. The light blue color of peace, warmth, and love wound around my body. His chest rose and fell against my back in perfect harmony with my ragged breathing as he synchronized his heartbeat with mine, and then he slowly absorbed some of the rushing emotional turmoil inside me, replacing the crushing loss with a stroke of freedom.

“Tell me please, Cordelia. I want to know. I want to help ease your burdens.” He banded his arms tighter around me, holding me together.

I took a deep breath and let the air out slowly. I hated to talk about my past and my horrendous childhood. I didn’t want to sound like one of those people who blamed everything wrong in their lives on their parents. But the simple truth was my parents did fuck up my life. Well, my father did mostly.

Sol’s warm breath on my neck sent tingles rippling all over my body. “Cordy, was your nightmare about Pandora?”

I snorted. “No, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention her name again.” The urge to hit something rushed back.

“Gotcha. Hmm, so if your nightmare wasn’t about…that person who shall not be named, then it could only have been about something from your childhood.”

I stiffened in his arms. “How…how could you possibly know that? I’ve lived a hundred and fifty years.”

“Because I love you and the connection between us runs deep. I sense an old wound. I know from a few things you’ve told me about your Royal dark father that your childhood was a rough one.”

“You have no idea.” Tension hummed through my blood, and I didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t want to remember.

This time he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right, Cordy. I don’t know, but I want to. I want you and I to share everything…the good and the bad. Whatever happened in the past still haunts you, but it won’t change how I feel about you. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for you as a child to cope with your dual nature…half light-empath, half dark-empath. You would have been vilified or burned at the stake if humans had suspected what you were, and yet, you were scorned by your own kind for being a mixed-breed. Not light, but not dark either.”

I sighed and mulled over whether I could handle telling someone about my life. But this wasn’t just someone I’d met yesterday, prying into my head. This was Sol, and he needed to know. I’d struggled alone for so long, and now I had someone in my life who genuinely cared for me and helped me heal. Not only that, but he gave me the strength to merge my dual natures and come to terms with my lot in life.

I tightened my hand in his, took a deep breath and held it, then said as I exhaled, “Okay. This is what happened when I was sixteen.”

1879

“Your father will be home soon,” my mother said as we ate breakfast in the small courtyard off the kitchen—a meal featuring poached eggs, toast, and bacon. Despite the late morning sun, a chill ran down my spine underneath my laced purple corset and heavy woolen skirt.

She set her fork down and wiped her mouth. Her dark blonde hair was brushed to a shine and her face caked with makeup to hide the hollowness of her eyes and cheeks. She stared across the grounds and watched the water stream from the fountain, framed by large fieldstone boulders covered with moss. The sound was comforting on a normal day, but now reminded me of a rushing river of angst.

“Do you know when? How long do we have?”

She shook her head. “Just a feeling.”

I trusted Mom’s intuition. She’d yet to be wrong on dictating father’s returns. I stood at the iron table and wanted to gag, but I forced the bile back and steadied myself with a hand on the metal. “I’ll go tend to the animals.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, soaking in the last sunshine we’d have in the wake of his impending arrival. “I’ll let the men know, and start the ladies cleaning. Hide what you can, Cordelia. Set free whatever is able to leave.”

I fought the burning behind my eyes, knowing I’d have to give up my only friends and companions today. My father had been away from our manor for nearly six months, and God, did I wish he’d stay away and leave us in peace.

The stable at the edge of the field housed my friends. Animals I’d rescued and healed. Some stayed to keep me company; others came and went as they saw fit. Quite a menagerie resided in the cedar barn. I had an owl, whom I’d named Ollie, who nestled on a high beam in a dark corner during the day. Sheena was my Heron, and she’d pop in and out a few times per week. A mutt of a dog, whom I’d affectionately named Lumpy and reminded me of a blood hound and a beagle, usually could be found laying in the hay. Then there were the assorted squirrels, mice, rabbits, goats, and even a snake. I was rather afraid of the snake, but he or she had yet to bite me.

As I made my way across the wheat field, I tried not to think. Just placed one foot in front of the other and kept moving. Knowing what I needed to do, but with every step, hating my father more and more for taking everything away from me I cared for.

I could smell the cedar drifting on the air, and a sense of home called to me. I always found peace out here, and sometimes I’d spend hours talking to the animals, tending to them, mending their wounds. They helped keep me sane and made me use my powers on a daily basis. Occasionally, Gram showed up and taught me new things. Her strawberry blonde hair shone in the sun, and her aura soothed even the roughest of my days. She always smelled like honeysuckle. I missed her. I’d never met my father’s mother, and according to both Gram and my mom, I was better off.

I started to get angry again as I marched closer to the barn. He wouldn’t let me have my pets. He’d either kill, drain, or scare them. Most would run from the cloying dark aura he wore; others would cower in fear and not be able to move. A few might fight, and then he would kill them. My hands fisted and I nearly started to run, but I didn’t want to trip.

About fifty yards from my sanctuary, I heard a screech followed by a terrible cry. My heart started to pound as a thick, black ooze leached from the ground and wrapped me up then forced my feet to stop. All my animals barked, hooted, screeched, and cried out. A tear ran down my cheek. I’d never make it in time.

My father was already here.

I remained rooted, unable to save my friends as fear and rage flowed through me, but I deflated under the weight, knowing he was stronger than me, and that I’d falter. Pressure built inside, a storming tsunami of hate. He locked me here to witness his destruction. To prove his point. To hurt me.

Dead silence rang across the field and permeated my skull, popping the bubble encasing my brain, and then my limbs were free and I crumbled to the ground with a deep tremble. The barn door slid open, and my father stepped out, a spring to his step and a devilish smile to his lips. I watched from lowered lashes as he strolled to me and stopped a few feet away. Then I stared at the ground, afraid to lift my head and see the happy bloat to his skin or the glint in his cruel eyes.

“I appreciate your thoughtful gift, daughter. Thank you ever so much for the snack.”

I tried so hard to bite my tongue, to take his words in and allow them to flit out the other side without a reaction. I squeezed my nails into my palms and yet my mouth said, “They were my friends.” My voice trembled. “They never hurt anyone.” I raised to my knees, still looking at the ground, and stared at the small blades of grass weaving in and out of the wheat. I focused on their color.

“What did you say to me?”

My head lifted, and I stood up then raised my face to meet him. “I said, they were my friends, and you had no right to harm them.”

He shook his dark hair out of his mouth and laughed as he stepped closer to me. His aura made me want to choke. He said, “Right? I have every right and more than that. I’m bigger and mightier than they are. Do you think a lion asks to eat? The answer is no, little girl. The predators always take. And nice way to treat your friends,” he moved just a hint closer and whispered, “you should have thought about that sooner. You can’t hide from me. I always get what’s mine.”

His breath stank like rotten cheese, and his clothes reeked of used kitty litter and smoke.

“Why did you hurt them?”

“Because, little girl…I can and more importantly, I wanted to.” He turned his back to me and took a step forward.

I opened my mouth to speak, and he whipped around, arm raised and slapped me across the face with an open palm. Blood coated my mouth and ran down my nose from the force of the blow. I stumbled back. My cheek blazed hot and burned.

“Don’t ever question me again.” With those parting words, and the return of his smile, he casually walked away, heading towards the cabin where our servants lived. The fear and anguish he feasted on from my pets obviously hadn’t satisfied his hunger. Now, the dark lord planned to drain what little joy and happiness our poor servants might have in their hearts to feed his gluttony for misery.

I watched him until he was a few hundred yards away, and then I ran to the main house, screaming as I entered the kitchen that he was already home, before racing up to my room and slamming the door closed.

***

My dad's angry voice directed at my mom flew up the stairs and permeated my bedroom door like the beating of a hundred drums. “You are good for nothing, Charmeine. I am so sick of your whimpering, your crying, and the way you mope around here.”

If my mom replied, I didn't hear her words. I pictured her so clearly in my mind, a broken china doll sitting on the floor with one leg bent in a protective position. Huddled into herself, her mind elsewhere, trying to save her sanity. My dad was too strong for her. Both physically and mentally, and he crushed her spirit so low she'd long ago buried her emotional resistance under the sand. I didn't know if she'd ever recover…even if my dad left.

He was on a roll now, the hate and the venom flowed freely. “Cordelia is just like you…”

The utter disgust in his voice when he used my name made me  cringe.

“No true power. Boiling with goody-two-shoes light and hell bent on saving the world. She's a bug I should have squashed when she was born, the moment I saw her strawberry blonde hair and green eyes. I wanted an heir I could train to become a powerful dark empath, someone to carry on my legacy. A child I could raise to relish the emotional agony of others, animals and humans alike. Instead, you give me a worthless and weak offspring of the light. So like you, she is. There is no way she can be my daughter, you fucking, cheating whore.”

I curled onto my side and put my hands over my ears, trying in vain to prevent the poisonous words from making a home in my psyche. My bed felt like a wooden plank underneath my stiff body. A dark cloud formed in my mind, barreling over the sunshine, and spreading frost over my warm water. The cold seeped into my pores, and I trembled uncontrollably.

“I should kill you both, right now. Rid the world of your light and pitiful nature. You're a blight on the Earth, Charm. You don't deserve the air you breath, the food I provide, or the grace of my bed.”

I pulled my knees to my chest, a sense of self-preservation pummeling my heart with massive waves, and angry echoes of my previous lives.

My mom screamed, and I squeezed my eyes shut. If she fought back or raised her voice in defiance, I couldn’t tell. A loud thud reverberated through my house, the sound of breaking glass and cracked plaster rent up through the walls, and I shuddered with each bang. In my head, I saw my father tearing apart my house in his manic rage. His dark shoulder-length hair wild around his cold face. He had hard eyes, a deep brown, almost black, and slightly tilted at the corners. He never smiled. The lines on his forehead were from tension and anger rather than laughter and love.

My mom’s heartbreak and agony wound into me. A fissure formed as I lay immobile, trapped by the notion I wasn't strong enough to stop her pain. To protect her. During my younger years, her radiant smile had lit up rooms and tore down the walls men built around their hearts. She’d release their burdens, cast aside their demons, and make them stronger. And for what? The price she paid seemed far too harsh. Why did the God she loved so much forsake her in her greatest time of need? Why didn't anyone come to help? Why did we suffer at the hands of a monster?

The darkness crept closer, a heavy mist slid against my skin and twirled around my body. “I don't want you,” I whispered, somehow knowing the cold, black aura swirling around me was the other half of myself. The part I’d inherited from my father. The side I pretended didn't exist and kept locked away in a confined space within my mind. A padded room with padlock, no windows, no light, and no escape. Only now, the pulse grew stronger as my light waned.

My skin burned and itched from the inside out. I feverishly scratched the surface as the deep ocean-colored cold water arched above me and then slammed through my aura and drowned me.

I struggled. Thrashed. My back arched and my toes curled under. My mouth opened to scream, but no sound escaped. I watched above myself, unable to stop the transformation, unable to keep myself together as I tore apart and fractured. The seams of my existence frayed with each horrific yell below, each time my dad raised his hand, every time my mother whimpered. Her tears undid me. Rage boiled beneath my sunny exterior and sludge ran through my blood, firing my nerves, coaxing the hate I kept firmly leashed, and one rung at a time the chain unlatched, until the last link clanged open.

The door opened, and a woman stepped out, her dark hair disheveled, unclean and straggly. Her pitch black eyes stopped my heart and then she smiled. Her lips twisting her face into a chaotic mess of beauty and demonic lust. 

Then the pain stopped. I looked away from her hauntingly familiar, yet unknown face and drew in a deep breath as I closed my lids. My lungs burned and my eyes hurt. My head pounded with the rush of a thousand thundering buffalos.

When I opened my eyes, I saw her sitting in a white chair, her legs crossed, and body clean. Her hair wasn't black, but strawberry blonde like mine, only more fire and brimstone than the sunrise rays of morning. “Who are you?”

This strange woman snorted derisively. “You know who I am. Don't be so naïve, Cordy. I'm the other half of you. The side you choose to ignore and bury under cold rocks. The side you need now.”

“I don't want you,” I said meekly.

She shrugged her dainty shoulder, letting the full corset she wore heave her bosom up as she stretched her arm above her head. The long, imperial purple skirt she wore accentuated her pale skin and made her seem younger than our years. “We don't always get what we want, Cordy. Sometimes we get what we need. And right now? You need me to protect your family. Your precious mother. So get up, or I'll take over.”

“I don't think I can.” I turned my face away under the enormity of that admission. Inside, I knew I was weak.

“Then move over and I'll take it from here.”

I drew in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, a futile attempt to muster my courage. “What are you going to do?” I asked as I faced her again, my eyes downcast. “What do I call you? My dark side?”

She smiled and tiny shivers tickled my spine, raising the hairs on my neck. “What I was born to do, Cordy, and you can call me Delia. If you put us together you get the whole, but we aren't anymore. We’re two sides of the same coin, but you lack the strength and the courage to merge our dual natures. Now I get to come out and play.”

She stood up and walked over to where I lay on my childhood bed. As I watched her move, her body misted into a spinning vortex like I'd seen hovering over myself, and then the mini-tornado flew at me, hammering against my skin like nails being driven into studs. My ears rang. I closed my eyes as numbness forced my pain to bend, and then the world went blissfully silent.

***

I peered out of the fog, at least that's what the cloudiness felt like. I was inside a room with white walls, a white bed, and a vase of red roses on the nightstand. If I concentrated, I could see the world from beyond this room, but a malevolent force trapped me inside.