(eng) Niall Teasdale - Thaumatology 10 by The Other Side of Hell

Author:The Other Side of Hell [Hell, The Other Side of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Interlude: Cheryl

Chilcomb, Hampshire, December 31st, 2012

Cheryl Tennant sat on the bed in Carter’s country retreat watching the sun setting over the surrounding hills. It was New Year’s Eve and she was, once again, Cheryl Tennant, Doctor of Thaumatology. Almost.

She had been without the chain which supressed memory and personality for two weeks; Carter had, apparently, been insistent that her health was assured and any physical harm healed before removing it. Her initial reaction had been panic since her last memory was of being grabbed by dark shapes. There was no way her kidnap could be kept from her and her men had been bright enough not to try. She had been given the basic details of what had happened to her; in truth neither Carter nor Alec knew exactly what she had done while she was in Bangkok, but they could all fill in sufficient details from imagination.

After a couple of days she had come to terms with it, rationally. She could remember nothing after she was captured until the necklace had been removed. She knew she had been dancing in a bar when Carter and Alec had found her, and she knew that the dancers in that bar were whores. She knew that she had probably been selling her body to Chinese soldiers and officials, but any after effects of that activity had been erased from her body. Almost all of the effects anyway; to her amusement she had discovered that she was a little fitter than she had been and she was better at dancing, if only provocatively. The amusement had not lasted long, but it had been a momentary break from the anguish.

Because while her conscious mind was as happy as it was going to get with her situation, her unconscious mind was a lot less sanguine. She had nightmares of lying in a dirty hotel room while a queue of men lined up to take their pleasure of her. Her self-confidence was gone and she found herself watching the shadows in any room she was in, just in case they moved. She knew that Gwyn, Ceri’s draconic ancestor, had personally seen to the task of healing her body when she had been brought back, but she had found herself unable to even call the woman to thank her. And a couple of attempts to engage in sex had ended in her hyperventilating and having to leave the room.

Both Carter and Alec had told her that she just needed time to get over what had happened. Cheryl knew they were right, of course, but she did not want it to take time. She needed to get back to normal. If she could just start behaving like nothing had changed she was sure her mind would catch up. Trying to do that was not working, however. Something was missing, she had decided, and that was stopping her from getting back into her normal swing.

The sun was setting on the year. In the morning she would go back to London.

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