Chapter three to my third book

“Is that him?” Sarah whispered in Damien’s ear. He turned his head towards the road far ahead where silhouetted was a figure followed by a mount carrying supplies. As the man drew nearer, Damien realized there was a second passenger. Bordre dismounted, holding a hand out. Damien found it difficult for flesh to actually be as pale, if not paler than Jessiah Bordre, but he witnessed it as a slender, well manicured hand placed itself in Bordre’s for support.
His breath was taken away as the creature dismounted with unnatural grace. Hair cascaded down her back and wisped about with the same angelical air as her movements. She was so thin and fragile, yet she held an aura of regality. Her eyes captured his and deep beneath the awe, he knew he should fear.
“This, my dear Reverend, is Siatika, The Carinite.” They all took in a soft gasp, but Jessiah tilted her head back and actually smiled. “She’s harmless, I assure you.”
Damien found that more chilling than any encounter he’d faced in his life. What kind of man could tame something so vile? To answer his question, Bordre stroked the delicate hair like some kind of possession and replied thoughtfully, “She faces complications when breaking commitments and a silent agreement to my woods bound her. I needed a servant and someone capable of months, year’s maybe, to support me.” His mirthless smile was sickening and the expression on the young girl’s face did no better to settle his stomach.
Siatika met Bordre’s gaze and with his nod, she leapt atop his mount and tugged its reins to tether it to the inn’s stalls. Jessiah didn’t take his eyes away from her for a bit longer, insatiable hunger lining under his controlled façade. After what seemed forever, he tore his gaze away and finally returned to the present.
“I think I’ll leave her with you for tonight.” With another gruesome grin he continued, “She’s had a rough journey.”
With that, he walked into the shadows and stared, waiting for them to turn away, his pale grey orbs the last to fall way to the backdrop.

They were afraid to even walk around her in the close-quartered room they’d rented out. Tales of her sickening torture and anger against all humanity was enough to reason things out. She was somewhat short for her kind. Damien thought Jaken were tall, with tan skin, striking white hair, and crisp blue or emerald green eyes.
She turned to him, staring languidly, and weighing his heart.
“I’m an albino Jaken.” Her voice carried a slight accent. She stood and paused as he leapt back, knocking a chair over. How could she be so suave when everything wanted her dead? She started forward, halting just before him and staring deep in his eyes. A slight frown appeared over her features.
“You’re a fortunate man, Reverend. You’re the first person I’ve chosen to speak to freely over a span of two hundred years.”
She was done and became silent again. She didn’t eat with them. He wondered just what kind of appetite she had. He lied awake around two in the morning, curious beyond reasoning. He went to the connected kitchen to find Ben sitting at the table and reading a book by candle light.
“What are you doing up at this time?” Damien asked.
“I could ask you the same question.” Ben smiled. “Are you restless because of that creature?”
Damien nodded, rubbing his eyes that screeched for sleep while his brain fired with dozens of questions. He sat down across from the lanky man.
“She spoke to me….” That mere sentence was enough to cause Ben to close his book and look up at Damien with a new interest.
“What did she speak of?” he asked almost hungrily.
“She read my mind… somehow. I thought that takes contact or a bond? Either way… I’d thought of how different she was compared to the usual Jaken I read about. She told me she was an albino. She also stated that she hadn’t talked freely to people for 200 years, which I find highly unlikely.”
Ben chuckled. “Actually… It’s true. How lucky you are,” he almost whined. Damien didn’t find it that great.
“It scared the hell out of me actually.”

I need out of here, she thought passively with her eyes closed as she used a different sight outside on the balcony. It was pitch dark out…. Wasn’t this his night; when no stars lit a path for those unfortunate souls?
She could feel the horrid sacrifice that bound them as one wrenching at her soul. Even now, the link was clear like a marked trail for the hunter hunting the buck. She couldn’t leave. His orders were still framed in her brain. So long had it been since she could feel things like hunger. Her stomach gave her a distant reminder of what she was cursed with.
Why should it matter whether I eat, breed, or breathe? she thought with a sharp intake of air. He needs you at your best, she answered for herself. She stared at the river of core source running along the ground in spirals and dividends that reminded her so much so of the veins found running about them as beings. Only for a moment longer, she lingered on the path that linked her and Bordre before turning and going back in.

“Does she talk to you?” Damien couldn’t help but find himself asking Bordre when they finally set off. The man stared at him awkwardly.
“Do you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Only when she’s writhing in pain and begging for my mercy,” he breathed.
“How can you do that to a child??” he growled, anger rising before he could help himself.
“Don’t be so protective because she gave you insight on herself. She’s anything but innocent and you know that well. I’m just paying debt to all the illegitimates she ridded of.”
Damien couldn’t take it and went to the back of the line to join Ben and Sarah. Siatika had gone off to hunt for food for them. They were going to get supplies in the next town.
“We stop here,” Bordre whispered, his voice carrying easily through the Vaese.
Just as the fire was made, Siatika landed gently before them, serene as ever. In her hands were two creatures that resembled rabbits. She tossed them to the ground and went to wash her hands in the stream. She returned to see that they were hacking away at the carcasses now over the fire, suspended by what she considered cave-man tools. She sat down beside Bordre.
“Thank you,” Sarah whispered awkwardly, which was followed by an even more awkward silence.
“Eat,” Bordre spoke into the air. Siatika turned to him and narrowed her eyes. “No,” she simply replied, getting up, and walking off to be captured by the darkness that rimmed their campfire light.
Damien didn’t think he’d ever seen Bordre nor would ever see him reveal so much anger in one expression. Before he could stop the man, he’d gotten up, bent low to the ground, stroked a finger to capture her path through the core source, and pulled forth his companion blade.
“Do not interfere, for I won’t hesitate to kill you,” he assured them, more so to Damien. His eyes were depthless black holes. Power emanated forth from them like a whirlpool, causing Damien to become dizzy and actually have to grip the ground to know he was still held by gravity. With that, Bordre bound into the woods.

She could hear their voices still, even as she sat frozen in a tree about a mile away. Her mind was torturing her, screeching her failure and causing her inward self to convulse in pain to the pact. She was frightened and knew he could sniff it out of her.
She whipped her hand about in front of her to hide her trail. Rooted deep inside, was shame. No…. She would not be humiliated in front of petty humans. She leapt to the next tree in mimic of the Abunai. She continued this pattern till a clearing met her. Yards away were her destination. She could make it…. It was the clearing that was her challenge. She couldn’t waste time and prepared for the jump. At last when her body was ready, she leapt into the open.
Without full conscious awareness, she knew she was doomed. His enchanted blade entered her flesh in one quick movement, causing her to hit the earth in a diving fashion. She didn’t need to see his face to know his level of animosity. She gripped a hand over the wound and crawled to a sitting position, unsheathing a cutlass.
“Denying me, are you?” he whispered, starting forward in a slow pace. “Taunting me, are you? Making a fool of me?” His aura…. It forced the fear out of her and caused her pulse to skyrocket.
He let out a soft chuckle that was anything but gentle. “You don’t wish for them to hear you.” She took in a sharp breath. “How unfortunate...”

Damien cringed as he heard the muffled cry from where he sat. Every instinct in him screamed to defend the child.
“I’m going to bed.”
He was up and in the tent as quick as he could gather his stuff. He stuffed a pillow over his ears and drifted uneasily into sleep….

Damien woke to noises outside. He lit a candle and opened the tent flap to see Siatika graveling at the last morsels of meat from last night’s meal. She looked at him with a timid expression, backed away from the campfire, and extended her claws threateningly. He didn’t look to her face, but to her side soaked in blood. She took notice of this and quickly moved her cloak over to hide it.
“I can heal,” he whispered gently.
“Your healing would kill me.” She collapsed to the autumn ground, uncaring. Damien cautiously walked forward, sitting beside her. Her breathing was labored and her pale flesh had become a ghastly hue. Without her consent, he looked at the wound. Bordre’s blade had nipped all the way from her third rib to her jutting hip. Bacteria had already gathered about the open flesh, Platelets had released their Thyroxin to create the Fibrin thread that clotted the vessels that were open to the air, and he took notice that she’d cleaned out some of the infection by the stream.
“I’m a doctor…. I could heal you,” he said, trying once again to subdue her.
She attempted a laugh. “I understand what’s going on with me priest. Did you not read the greatest aspect of the creatures of Nosa in your text books?”
Damien thought back to his teens when he’d spent nights upon nights immersed in books for his horrid tests. The Jaken….
“I don’t remember….”
“Immortality!” she growled, glaring at him.
“Why do you talk to me?” he asked.
She kept her gaze on him. “You’re distantly related to Sampson.”
She forced herself up in fluid movement, curtsied to Damien, turned away, and quickly left.