His Darkest Obsession

Two {My stranger, my saviour}

FRIDA

As the rain poured down on me, I continued to run until I got to the peak of the bridge. It must have been late already because there were only a few cars on the road. I had not bothered to check my phone for the time.

I guess when you wanted to die, nothing else seemed to matter. Just you, your thoughts, and what it would look like in the afterlife.

There I stood, at the edge of the bridge, staring down at the large body of water beneath me. If I jumped, I knew I would die before I even touched the water. The force of my fall would kill me.

I wasn't bothered. When you are told you are going to die, nothing seems to scare you anymore.

I just wished I got a chance to tell my best friends goodbye. Renee and Marika were the best gifts Everleigh High and life in general had given to me. And even in the afterlife, I would love them, watch over them and be with them forever.

I did not cry - much to my surprise - not a single teardrop fell from my eyes. I could only hear the sound of rumbling thunder above me and a faint female cry from a distance.

One leap and it would all be over.

I was ready and determined to take that leap.

I closed my eyes and held onto the railing.

One. Two. Three.

At that moment, the second I hopped off the bridge, I could feel my spirit already leave my body.

I just hoped my mother wouldn't cry too much, and my father would rot in hell. If I came back as a ghost, I wouldn't let him touch her, I wouldn't let him beat her anymore. I would give her the strength to stand up for herself and leave him.

I chuckled, the heavy breeze kissed the skin of my face. Soon, I heard a loud thud in my head. My already wet skin crashed against a seemingly hard surface.

It was at that moment I felt a large body enveloping me, before I started to sink.

It didn't last for long.

It was the hand that caught hold of my right hand that caused my eyes to fling open. I could not see anything, I could only feel myself being dragged out of the water.

Was I already dead? Were the people of the afterlife already here to retrieve my spirit from the water while they allowed my body to drown?

I found myself holding my breath, until I was pulled out of the water.

Immediately my head was out of the water, I sucked in a deep breath and looked around. My chest felt heavy and the water was freezing.

This wasn't the afterlife. It was still raining, and it looked too much like Everleigh, where I had lived.

Before I could speak, a firm hand held me by my waist and started to swim. I turned sharply to the right, only to see a man holding me with his right hand, while he controlled his movement in the water with his left.

I know I had wanted to die, but I soon found myself swimming side by side with him.

The burning in my chest continued and we were surrounded by water. Where exactly was he…?

Oh.

I sighted a speed boat approaching us. It stopped in front of us and someone tossed a rope and a floater towards us.

I could say shock had numbed and paralysed me.

The strange man stuck the floater over my head like I was a three-year-old learning to swim. With the rope, he pulled us closer to the boat.

The man in the boat helped lift me up and pulled me into it. The strange man followed after.

The rain ceased suddenly. If I had not known any better, I would have said it was waiting for me to be rescued.

"Xander! What the hell man?! Don't ever do that again! Jumping off into water like you just caught the fish of your dreams. I don't care who's drowning, you have to tell me first."

Xander. His name was Xander.

As I sat on the floor of the boat, the elderly man who had helped me into the boat was scolding the stranger who had rescued me.

He was a tall man. About six feet and four inches tall. He did not reply to the white-bearded man who had scolded him.

Freezing with cold, I continued to watch the two of them. I had not died after all.

But why? Why did he save me? How had he seen me?

I watched as he took off the wet shirt, the muscles of his back were now on full display. I swallowed hard, trying to convince myself that the cold was the cause of the shivers that ran down my spine, and not this stranger's beautiful body.

He turned to look at me, while tossing his shirt to the floor.

In the dark, icy blue eyes stared back at me with a coldness I could not place. I expected him to question me, try to talk to me, but he said nothing.

He only stared at me long enough for me to take note of how dangerously handsome he was, before he turned away from me.

It might have been the water or the rain, but the lines on his face told me he was older, with at least fifteen years.

I saw him whisper into the ears of the older man. The man stared at me, eyes ladened with pity. He also did not speak to me.

The boat didn't stop until we got to the shore. It seemed like forever, perhaps it was.

The boat stopped and I was the first to rise from the floor. I rushed out, placing my bare feet on the wet sand. The stranger followed me behind.

He was awfully quiet, and for reasons I did not know or understand, his silence bothered me.

Why wasn't he asking me questions? He had just saved my life, the least he could do was ask me where I was headed to.

We continued to walk, and I found myself following him behind. He stopped in front of a black car before he tilted his head backward to look at me.

I found myself heaving a sigh of relief. Finally, he was going to say something.

He didn't.

He only opened the car and got into the driver's seat.

I stood still and watched him, stupefied, embarrassed and shocked.

Was he really going to leave me here?! He could have just left me to die then!

A deep frown formed on my face as I glared at him. He started the engine and turned to me.

His lips were sealed, but his eyes told me one thing; I could either get into the car, or he would throw me into it.

My scowl deepened and I kept my feet firm on the ground. If he did not speak to me, I was not going to move an inch.

As if he had read my thoughts, he pushed the car door open and climbed down from it. Before I could say a word, he walked to me and picked me up from the ground.

He held me like a baby, pulling me close to his chest.

At that moment, my heart melted in my chest. I felt my entire body melt into his warm arms, I wrapped my hands around his neck, resting them on his broad shoulders. I dug my nose into his skin, breathing in the scent of his cologne, wet sand and rain.

I could not open my mouth to say a word. I was being carried by a man I did not know, but I didn't resist. I didn't want to.

With one hand, he opened the door of the car and placed me into the seat beside his driver's seat.

He banged the door shut and walked over to the driver's seat. He had still not said a word.

I suddenly felt guilty.

Perhaps he couldn't speak. Maybe that was why he had to step out of the car to pick me up.

If he couldn't speak, I knew I would have to tell him where I was headed.

"Evermont Estate. House 17." I blurted out, staring at the empty road ahead of us.

He didn't turn to me, or acknowledge that I had spoken.

I turned to glare at him.

Was he deaf too?

He turned the keys and when the engine roared to life, he drove us out of the sand. It took about an hour - I knew, I was counting the seconds in my head - for us to arrive at the estate I lived in.

My eyes widened as I stared at him.

He wasn't deaf after all.

He stopped in front of the huge black gate of house 17. My mother was standing by the gate already. She seemed confused, pacing about in her night dress.

I pushed the car door open and jumped out before I closed the door.

The sound caused her to turn to the car. Her eyes widened and she broke into tears immediately when she saw me. As I walked towards her, she ran towards me.

She pulled me into her embrace and squeezed me tight.

"Frida! Don't ever scare me like that again! Do you understand?" She cried.

I wondered what she would do if I told her she would have been crying over my dead body tomorrow, if it had not been for the strange man who had saved me from myself.

Why did seeing him give me a strange form of comfort?

I felt my mother stiffen when I heard the engine of the strange man's car roar to life.

She pushed me away from her arms and stared at the car. She watched it with a strange look in her eyes, she did not stop until the car disappeared from sight.

"Who was that, Frida?" She asked. Her tone was unusually harsh.

The red pendant on her neck was shining again.

The man who saved my life. I wanted to answer.

"I don't know. He just…he just gave me a ride." I muttered instead.

She gripped my shoulders and stared deep into my eyes.

"Don't ever go close to him again, do you hear me?"

Okay. What?

"Mother, I…"

"Tell me you won't go close to him again!" She thundered.

"I won't go close to him again." I replied, making sure my voice was loud enough for her to hear me.

Deep down, I knew I wanted nothing more than to see him again.

But how could I do that? All I knew was his name.

My mother soon seized my wrist and pushed the gate open, leading me into the Adams mansion, my home.

~•~

AUTHOR

~•~

She knew.

From the moment Stella looked into the eyes of the man inside the car, she knew who - or what - he was.

Confusion struck her first, before fear followed closely.

He was a wolf! A werewolf!

What was he doing in the human realm? How had he gotten here? And what was he doing close to her daughter?!

She could see his wolf right through the cold of his blue eyes.

If he had not found out who - or what - Frida was already, then it was only a matter of time until he did so.

She had done her best to mask her daughter from everything, but fate had refused to leave her alone.

Stella knew what was eating her daughter from the inside. The doctors, her husband and even Frida herself, believed it was a form of cancer. But Stella knew it wasn't.

She also knew how to stop it.

But she knew what it would take.

A trip into the gates of hell. A trip she never imagined she would have to take.