Bound by the Viking, Part 2: Compelled by Delilah Fawkes Read Free Book Online

Bound by the Viking, Part 2: Compelled
     
    By Delilah Fawkes
     
     
    She danced, her bare feet springing over the moss as the thumping beat of the drums pulsed through her like the heartbeat of the world. Mist was all around, spinning in wisps as she moved, her legs flying, arms wide, hair loose and whipping in the night air.
    This was the wild time, the dark time. The time when magic filled the air and anything was possible. Candles flickered all around her and the whispering sound of a hidden spring met her ears, sending a delicious shiver down her spine. The night air held her, touching her with chilly fingers as she danced, a partner, a lover.
    She laughed, the sound echoing strangely in these woods, her hair clinging damply to her neck as she whipped around and around, dancing and dancing. The touch was more insistent now, the darkness reaching for her, prodding her, caressing her.
    The votives flickered, flames sputtering. She flitted to the sound of the water at the base of a gnarled old tree, older than time, pushing aside briar and bramble in her hurry. Blood blossomed on her wrist, black in the haunted light. The spring chortled beneath her hands, and she gazed into the dark pool gathered beneath jutting roots.
    She held up one of the candles and gazed into the depths, the drums pounding around her, the sound blocking out everything but the urgency, everything but her need to see what the water had to show her.
    Aislin bent down, her locks hanging like bracken over the black water. The candle light reflected a ghostly twin in its depths, dancing its own dance to the beat of the drums, waving and twisting, like a lover beckoning her closer. She leaned closer until her hair dragged in the spring, growing heavy, tugging her down toward the mud.
    “Show me,” she said.
    The drums pounded, crashed. The flame dimmed, until it was just an ember kissing the end of the wick, but its twin grew stronger, reflected in the pool. It surged, flickering, almost hissing, or was that the water? She shivered, although she almost imagined she could feel its heat, coming from beneath, instead of from the dying spark of her votive.
    The mist had crept in, and now, she felt it on her like the chill breath of death itself. The pool stilled, the ripples from her movements smoothed now, the surface as hard and clear as obsidian. The fire within changed, swirling, expanding, its color turning wan, until it was a sickly green, pulsing, a circle of dead light, drawing her eyes toward it.
    “Please…”
    Her eyes widened as figures grew out of the light, dark shadows at first, but then silhouettes, then shadowy figures, lit dimly so it was like seeing a face through a hard summer rain. The figures focused themselves, and Aislin gasped, her heart pounding in her chest.
    Mother and father… my parents here, in the black pool.
    The drums increased tempo, and a bird shrieked from the trees overhead, the sound rending the night. Her heart clenched in her chest, her stomach roiling at the sight of those faces in this dark place. Tears stung her eyes as a third figure flickered in the pool’s depths.
    “Brenna!”
    Her sister’s face turned upward, her eyes pleading, even through the shadows, but then, as quickly as she appeared, she faded, blowing away like fog, while the two other figures remained.
    “Brenna, no… Brenna? Brenna!”
    Tears rolled down Aislin’s cheeks, falling into the pool. The surface rippled, and the ghostly flame extinguished. She shrieked and pawed at the water, her candlewick now dark as well. Her family, all of them, reflected in the waters meant one thing.
    Death.
    The drums crashed over her, the rhythm discordant now to her ears, frantic. She struggled to her feet, her wet hair slapping at her chest. The mist was all around, the world nothing but darkness and cloud, hemming her in.
    She batted it away, squinting, looking for the votives, trying to find the edge of the circle with her sight, but it was no use. She