LIV ||| I Need You, Hel(l)

I pressed my face on his neck, feeling some tears rolling down.

"I… she didn't torture me for nothing. Every time she tortured me, she would take my nails, my blood, my venom, my eyelashes, my hair, slices of my skin, my wings, my fangs, my scales…" I clenched my teeth, cursing myself, but unable not to break in his embrace.

"I'm here with you, babe…" he whispered, holding me tight.

"She… she would take pieces of me, Oli. Winged serpents have the strongest regeneration of all races and she made sure to put that into play. She would mutilate me. Cut fingers, hands, arms, legs, ears, teeth, tongue, eyes, nose, all my organs except my heart and brain, skin me alive, would make me turn into my serpent and skin my scales from me, take pieces of my flesh. Meredith mutilated me many times to get different bones from my body. Then, without any medicine, she would throw me back into the emerald coffin, the only gem that is harmful to my kind, and it would all regenerate in the spam of a month. Slowly. Painfully."

"She has the Maden on her side, Oli. The Goddess was the one who told her how to harm me with emerald, how to mess my stasis potion up in some kind of way I still don't understand and which believe might be the reason why I was conscious the whole time and never even when my body was not. My serpent assimilated the harmful emerald of my coffin after being locked for so long, that's why you can see dots of green in my tattoo, necklace, and ring. It's a side affect. I'm mainly black but some of my scales are emerald because of that."

"It would slow my healing up, and make it all more unbearable. For two thousand and forty years I lived this nightmare, solely with Meredith. Every bloody month she would come for me on the 1st Sunday of the month and would spend the day torturing me. She would lock emerald handcuffs all over me, on my wrists, waist, and ankles as you can see by the scars. That might be why my waist is tiny. She also had special shackles for my serpent and she would lock around twenty around me, afraid I would try to kill her as she probably could see the desire to do exactly that in my eyes."

"Oli, she would torture me with all kinds of weapons and then break all the bones in my body, even my neck. Only when I was fully broken, she would take my shackles off and throw me on my emerald coffin to heal in a month. All over again, and again, and again. I used to think my hair had turned silver after she pulled it all from my scalp by force until it bleed so many times. I thought it changed after raising again every time. I'm relieved that wasn't it."

"Then, ten years ago, she released me from my coffin, saying now would start my training and I would be able to grown physically. That was when she put Cosmos as my master. Now I'm starting to think she only took me out ten years ago because it was around the time both you and Felix were also out of your stasis. She must have wanted to see what she had all but cultivated through blood for twenty centuries."

"I didn't sleep in in the coffin anymore, but I didn't had a bed either. The first special ability I showed was telekinesis, and so, she made me hone it by force," I scoffed bitterly. "Meredith made me use my telekinesis 80% of my day. I began to only use two shackles instead of five, that locked my wrists together, but the second they put them on my wrists, the ground under me would open to a bottomless pit, making me use my telekinetic ability to float steadily while my body rested after training to exhaustion, or while it healed after another section of Meredith's torture."

"Because she didn't stop after I was out of stasis. She simply began to use the smallest mistake I made on anything as a reason to punish me with her torture. The torture made it extra hard to maintain my control on the telekinesis, but not impossible, especially when my mind stayed awake all the time my eyelids were closed. Unable to sleep, my mind was chaotic and near insanity most of the time."

"Until my deadline of ten years came, about 20 days ago. The ten years were over as Meredith came on the 1st Sunday of my last month in her Royal crypt, to test me. I slowed time so she could test me in everything and I passed, I got every single letter, syllable, word of my answers write. And when I fought with Cosmos, I won. She freed me hypothetically, but gave me two weeks to get here, as Belladonna would be my new prison."

"Cosmos helped me out in secret, told me how to get here, gave me a phone with all my favorite songs, and told me what to do. Then he sent me to the main mountain in the top of the Himalayas Mountain Range where mom's lair was, and the rest you know. But you know what is the most fucked up part of my relationship with Meredith, Oli? She is my grandma."

"She's my father's mom. She and Philippa killed my mom because she was disgusted by the fact that her golden dragon son was mated to a black dragon, when she wanted him with Philippa as much as that bitch also wanted him back. It would mess with her blood purity in her eyes. My mom ran back to her ancestors home, and raised me there with her for 7 years, but I awakened my serpent and that fucked it all up."

"Meredith can track all of her bloodline members no matter where they are, and she did just that when I awakened as such a powerful being. I ended up attracting her to us, and she came with Philippa who had gotten engaged to my father when mom was pregnant of me. Then, they locked me to the wall of our lair with magic, stood on their dragon forms and ripped my mom apart in front of me."

"Not just killing, Oli," I cried, feeling my body shake. "They teared my mom's dragon body apart. I was drowned in my mom's blood before I knew who they were. Mom stayed with her gaze on me the whole time, all because they used me as a bait to get her to fight. She tried to get to me, but they got her first. Their talons reaping mom's scales apart. She ripped her to so many pieces that by the end of it, it was just a mountain of dragon blood, teared body parts, and open flesh."

"My dearest grandmother then kidnapped me and tortured me. Not being able to believe that a legendary winged serpent had been born from a lowly black dragon like mom and Russell Frederick Bloom, her dear son. She made sure to kill mom in front of me to prove me a point. To show me that she would and will murder anyone I have a link with or love just like she killed mom."

"She would constantly threaten me that if I ever dared to love any person in my life, she would kill them in front of me like she did my mom, and then she would throw me in the pit, the 9th circle of hell. All because she doesn't considers me, as a black horse of her now-imperfect bloodline, worthy of anything and especially not love. She will try to destroy you, Oli, because you are my mate. Because me having a mate will mean there's a chance of me having children, that would be another stain on her bloodline."

"You being a vampire at that, would make her even more furious. And you being someone with such a catastrophic power would make her even more akin to murdering you. Because there's no way a gold dragon would come out of us if we were to have a child. It would all be a threat to her perfect vision and purity of blood."

"She only kept me alive because to her I'm a tamed weapon way too strong to be discarded. I played the submissive on her and made her underestimate me, Oli, that's why she left me off. She believes in under her control, and she's too arrogant and condescending to ever think that I would not be under it. That I would be able to do whatever the fuck she wants me to. If I hadn't, I might still be locked in there."

"I did what I had to survive. I slowed time until it lasted a thousand years in a spam of ten, long enough for Cosmos to teach me everything he had in storage. About absolutely everything, from the old and new world. From fighting with absolutely all weapons, to dancing and cooking. To how to survive living alone with cleaning skills, to how manage a fortune. To etiquette of new and old world, to all languages spoke on earth. New, old, dead, ancient. He also made me read all the books in the library of their Court. And I did everything dutifully, because it meant getting out."

"She made Cosmos bring me countless of animals alive, then she made me kill them. Dangerous or innocent. She made me kill them all. And then see would bring in some…" I gulped… "she would bring prisoners whom she tortured and make me kill them. If I took even a minute before doing it, it would mean getting broken and mutilated again."

"I… I killed so many prisoners in these last ten years, Oli. Because doing it would mean getting her to lay her guard down. I tried to tell myself that I was helping them. That they were being saved by dying. That I was ending their suffering. But their screams… I can still hear them, Oli. Back in the crypt their spirits would haunt me non-stop."

"They all screamed, and cried, and begged me not to do it. But I couldn't do anything else. Cosmos doesn't know of the killing because she would send him out when she tortured me. The killing was part of it. You're the first person I'm telling this… but I did because it meant freedom. It meant I would be able to see the world, and find the person who will help me kill Meredith. I would be able to defeat her."

"These people were all innocents like I once was, Oli. I'll forever feel guilty and carry them with me, but I did what I had to survive. That's why I said what I said to you back in the gallery. I'm sorry… I know you were trying to help me, but I was angry. The Serpent's Lock in my hand have been blocking the spirits from getting near me since I got the tattoo."

"You deserve someone better than me," I broke. "My hands are tied and dirty with blood. And I'm dangerous, Oli. We can't…"

He held my face softly, eyes blood red with anger, "You are not the only one who's hands are dirty with blood, Hel. I'm not going anywhere. So, don't you dare to try to push me away. We are on this together. I know you are scared for me, I'm scared for you too. But I need you, Hel!"