Intended Series Collection: Books 1-6 by Abigail Grant (most important books to read TXT) 📕

my arms outward, begging for her to hold me. My father stands outside our cottage, drunken and watching the stars. I do not know what he hoped to see in the vast darkness, but he would often watch them for hours. Possibly, he prayed for redemption for all of the horrid things that he had done in his life.

In this dream, I blink and see Mother again. She cowers in the corner of the small parlor of our modest home on the farm. Father stands over her and shouts many long-forgotten words. He paddles her left and right until she is riddled with bruises. My small human body cries out for his mother from the tattered fur rug across the floor. I never meant to disobey my father. On this day, I had climbed the gate that held his favorite horse. My carelessness caused the gate to give way and the horse to go free. Had I known Mother would be punished in my stead, I never would have been so remiss.

Another blink and my eyes open to a different memory. Father screams at my freshly beaten face, mocking me for coming into manhood but not immediately making something of myself. I had been deeply dedicated to the care of my dying mother, to the point where I had neglected work for my father. He had no care for his own wife’s frail state, as long as he received his payments.

Anger builds within my human body each passing day, and with every harsh word the beast throws at me. I had begun to fantasize about the day Father would succumb to death by my hand. I knew I could bring myself to make that choice, if only I hadn’t feared that Mother would look at me as a murderer. Even now, I can feel the fire in my lungs caused by the hate inside of me for the man whose words should raise me up instead of knocking me down.

My young eyes flutter open again to see Mother gasping for air as I try to get her out of bed and to a doctor. Father stops my hand and drags me from my mother’s bedside. “The woman needs to die, boy! It has been long enough for you to neglect what you owe me. Leave her!”

I am fighting against him until he has me pinned to the floor and is repeatedly striking my cheek. The beating is so thorough that I fall, unconscious from the constant blows. When I awake again, my father has gone to town and left me on the wooden floor slats. I find Mother in her bed, motionless. I crawl to her, nearly devoid of all strength. I touch her cold cheek and weep for the only person in life to ever show me kindness and love.

I hear Father approach outside the house. With furious anger rising in my chest, I muster up adrenaline-filled energy, pulled from deep inside of me. I leave behind my waistcoat and shoes and trudge down the muddy road after my mother’s murderer. I jump onto my father’s wagon where he sits with new grain by his feet. He yells at me, “Get off! Do you not know respect for your own father?”

“I am not made of a monster like you! You murdered my mother, and I am here to avenge her death!” I grab him by his throat and push him over the large wheel and onto the ground. The horses whinny loudly behind my back as I sit on top of my father and hold his neck in my hands. He soon stops moving, and his eyes are lifeless. No other words are exchanged between a father and his son.

I stand next to the body of my first kill and find my breath hard to catch. Many people gather round me to see what I have done on the cold, dirt road. They shout many things at me, such as “murderer” and “father killer”. The people grab at me and tie my hands behind my back with rope from my own father’s wagon.

Within the very same day, my execution by hanging is announced to the public. With my mind fogged and palms sweating, I can only see Mother’s face and hope that she visits my soul wherever it lands in the afterlife. Murder is my sin, and it is the largest sin in the eyes of many. As the plank below my feet is pulled away, I am shook with the realization that my mother will never see me from her place in heaven.

In my dream, I can see from my old eyes, and before those human eyes shut forever, a vision of Aella Ganis is watching me, invading my subconscious as I have invaded hers. She covers her mouth and cries as she watches me die.

***

I awaken from my dark and past hell, to my current one. I curse myself for sharing that dream with the Seer girl. It happens when I dream-walk into another’s subconscious. Afterward, a connection of sorts is formed, and I can throw my own dreams into their sleeping minds. It is a very useful gift when I dream of the nightmares of hell and can torture the minds of my enemies. It should not happen without my trying, and if I weren’t so distracted as of late, accidents like this would not occur.

I am grateful, though, to leave the images of the life that created me over two hundred years ago. It is not often that I feel gratitude, or any feelings at all for that matter. Being long dead and mostly surviving in a dark hole beneath the earth has caused any humanity to dissipate from me.

The last time I remember feeling humane was nearly a hundred years ago, when the only woman who controlled my shriveled heart was ruthlessly killed by a Seer. I did not often get to enjoy the company of others, as I worked for the higher-up demons in hell