The Luna Sage

Chapter Eight: Memory

"It's a custard and cream eclair. So eggs, milk and sugar stuff on fancy sweet bread." Bev encouraged, taking the other half from the plate and biting into it, showing me it was okay.

I waited a second, not touching it and watching Bev for the signs. When nothing happened and she happily took another bite, I grabbed it from the plate and followed suit, nibbling at first but the taste was so incredible I swallowed the rest in two bites.

Bev smiled and pulled another pastry from the box, this time it was a rolled bread with dark bits on the inside and a glossy glaze dripped off it.

"This is a cinnamon scroll." She announced, splitting in half again.

"I like cinnamon tea. I used to steal a bit whenever I made sleeping elixirs and make myself a tea." I smiled halfheartedly at the memory of me crouched over my make-shift beaker, having used water from the sink tap that sat above my toilet.

I set it carefully onto my burner can, I glanced back to see my sheet was still firmly stuffed in the cracks of the door; I could hear a tv turn on in the background, telling me the nightguards weren't watching the cameras. I felt safe enough to pull out a small piece of paper I had stashed under my mattress.

The spicy smell made me smile as I put the few minor crumbs of cinnamon and clove I had managed to scrape from my last potion brew without affecting the quality.

I didn't really care, it was for a mean old man who always grabbed me inappropriately and the guards would laugh.

He would only wake up maybe a few hours earlier if that. But he might not even notice, his last Brewer was younger and less knowledgeable than me, and I was barely trained, but he'd always complained about the quality when he first arrived a few years ago, he had yet to complain since he started seeing me.

The tea bubbled telling me it was ready.

I reached for it eagerly, forgetting and suddenly screaming when I burnt my hand on the hot glass. Guards filled my room, my tea spilled across the floor and I was forced to lay in it, burning my face and a knee sharply in my back.

"Oooh," cooed one of the guards, Harren I realised, was the head of the guards and my most frequent brutaliser. He was also the most hands-on. His breath was too close to my ear. "Little Witch just wants some tea." He shifted behind me and the guards pulled back to the door, I felt his hand move across me, his knee still firmly in my back, pinning me.

He gripped my rear painfully through the gown with one hand and the other tangled in my hair and forced my face into the ground suddenly.

I choked a little on the liquid that burned when I inhaled.

"No, no." He now leaned his chest on my back, his nose brushing my cheek. "Lap it up." His whisper was so violent and laced with something disgusting.

I tried to move to get away from the all-too-warm breath but he gripped my hair so painfully, tears dotted and blurred my vision.

He slipped between my thighs, forcing them apart with his knee, pushing his full weight against me now.

"Drink." He demanded, his hand gripping my ass and his other forcing me into the cement. Pathetically, I stuck my tongue out and started drinking.

I closed my eyes and regretted it, feeling something warm and wet move across my cheek and down to my tongue.

"No!" I squealed, moving to bite the intrusion of Harren's tongue, attempting to kiss me.

I'd clamped onto his tongue. I tasted the blood and shuffled back too slowly.

He'd risen to his full height, wiping his mouth and checking the blood that covered the palm.

He stared at me with such hatred.

He tore the gown from my body and spent the next hour or so kicking and punching me until one of the other guards came to relieve him from duty at the end of the shift.

He spat at me before throwing the sheet at me, telling me to cover myself and closed the door calling for the medical woman to come check me.

I remember laying in the pool of blood, trying to check none of my kit was damaged.

I was pulled from my flashback by being grabbed on the chin and forced to stare into Adam's eyes. They darkened and bored into me.

"Miranda." He whispered, my eyes bouncing between his eyes and lips.

"I'm sorry. I was-" I tried to duck my gaze but was held still.

He came across the booth chair, sliding next to me and one leg bent on the chair while the other held straight on the ground, his other arm moved to plant firmly on the table beside me making him stare down at me.

"Tell me."

"It was just a memory, about the last time I made myself tea and got stripped naked and beaten," I muttered, unable to stop myself.

His eyes flared and then blackened horribly.

I could hear the thundering escape his chest and instinctively touched it, feeling the warmth of his body.

His heart hammered against my hand, his breath heavy and viciously laced with snarls.

I raised my other hand and pressed both into his chest; when I felt his breathing slow slightly I started reaching up to cup his strong jaw and stroked his cheek absently.

I never broke his gaze.

He sat down next to me. His hand released my chin to wrap around me quickly and pulled me into an unexpected hug.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, I opened my eyes to see Bev moving her fork in some pasta and stuffed it in her mouth.

My stomach grumbled loudly.

Adam pulled back from the hug, taking the warmth with him, but kept an arm around my back and pulled me closer to him.

His other hand grabbed the edge of a white plate and pulled it to sit in front of us, pushing away the cinnamon scroll and box of tasties.

He picked up a fork from the plate and twirled it in the creamy-looking pasta with pink and brown bits through it, he moved the full fork to sit in front of my face, waiting.

I opened my mouth and let him feed me.

It seemed to please him.

We stayed like that, him feeding me the last of the pasta called carbonara, which Bev proudly announced was definitely a breakfast meal as it was just fancy bacon and eggs; he also fed me half the cinnamon scroll, shovelling the other half in his mouth when Bev tried to snatch it.

He smiled goofily around a full mouth, some sticking out the side of it.

Bev and I laughed at him as he quickly swallowed.

"Your mate certainly has an effort on you!" She exclaimed happily, picking up her frothy drink called a latte, before suddenly stopping as it came to her lips.

Her eyes darkened and met Adams.

"What's a mate?" I asked, not realising the tension and rummaging in the box for something else I liked the look of.