“I studied several dead languages as well. I can read or speak quite a few actually. Gaelic being one of them. I figured that if I didn’t end up teaching folklore then having experience with multiple languages would get me somewhere.” She smiled at Cullen and he smiled back reassuringly, but remained silent and waited for her to continue. “Rafe was teaching one of my folklore classes. When I started taking his class was when the visions started getting scary. I didn’t connect them to him at first. They were all disjointed and vague. As though something was trying to warn me that I was in danger.”
She took another deep breath. “But Rafe, himself, was always very nice. Exceedingly so. And he always smelled good. I don’t know what it was but he wore some kind of cologne that made me want to breath him in. He ran a club after class that examined and discussed antique texts. I ended up joining the club and that was when we started dating.” Cullen shifted and his jaw tightened. “That was a bad phase in my life. After I started dating him I found myself pulling away from my family and friends that I had known all my life. My world revolved around the guy. I had no idea what I was getting into or what he was doing to me.
“After I told him about my visions, which I never should have done, he seemed to be even more interested in me. Since I was a doting girlfriend at the time I was willing to do anything to please him or make him happy with me. He started taking me with him on weekends to a compound that he lived on. It was weird. After I got away from it I started thinking it was probably a cult.
“He referred to the compound as the Circle. When we were there the people treated him like he was God. They would do anything he told them to do. It was creepy. He told me that there used to be a council that ran the place, but he had convinced them that he would be a better leader than the council. I would nod stupidly and agree with him when he told me things like that and when I was informed of how wonderful and brilliant he was. Each time I went there with him things got stranger. But since it happened in little pieces I just accepted it day by day. I stopped talking to my family completely and my friends. Looking back on all of it I’m almost grateful that my separation from them happened the way it did. It’s probably what stopped him from using them against me later.
“Anyway the first couple times I went out there with him I noticed the exotic animals around the place. Lots of them. All kinds and weird ones too. Animals that looked like a bear had bred with a gorilla. And on any given occasion when I looked at them, especially the females, their eyes would glow and swirl. None of them in cages, just wandering around. Then there was the time I was there that I walked into an orgy. Animals and humans. At the time, I was exceedingly bothered by that.” She smiled at Cullen as she put the emphasis on ‘at the time.’ “Even though it was so strange Rafe was always able to explain it all away and I would just accept it. Even now there always seems to be this part of my brain that looks at things that should bother me and tells me that I haven’t seen anything yet and if I stare at anything long enough I’ll see something unusual in it and that’s okay.”
“As time wore on I started having black outs. When I would go with him to the Circle I wouldn’t remember what had happened to me. I started getting scared. I didn’t like the things I saw there. And I both wanted to know and still don’t want to know what was happening to me that I couldn’t remember. When I wasn’t around Rafe for a long period of time I’d start to wonder why I was going along with him. But it was like every time I saw him I just accepted it all and was happy to do whatever he wanted from me. When I questioned him about what happened during some of the blackout time he would tell me not to worry about it and that he was taking care of me. I was his favorite.” She had chills at the thought.
“Finally he decided that I should quit college and go live at the Circle. The suggestions he started making then got more and more demanding. I don’t really know when I got control of my mind again. It might have been the day that I watched him order a man put to death. He fed the man to some of the lions that he had walking around.” Cullen growled in distaste. This was the kind of thing that would keep weres and humans from ever being able to interact with each other.
Aislinn continued. “I was starting to think that I needed to get away from them. But I would lose the motivation every time I saw Rafe. I suppose I should thank Kara for giving me the incentive to get out. She was one of his favorites. She was always walking around naked and flaunting herself in front of Rafe. She hated me. She was the one who told me that he intended to get me pregnant.” Cullen growled again.
Aislinn smiled at him. “It never happened. I left. It took more than I ever imagined it would. He sent people after me and I kept having to move. Any time I started to get settled somewhere the visions would come back. More and more detailed. It got to the point where I could feel him coming for me and could move on before it became too urgent. I got better at controlling the premonitions over the years. But he never stopped and just kept coming. It was always just a matter of how long. But the longer I was away from him the more I realized about what had been happening and what he had been doing. So I tried all the harder to keep out of his reach. Random cash jobs in shithole places until the visions came back and then I’d run. There were pieces of it all that I learned from visions and things that I just remembered.”
“I can tell you that Rafe can influence anyone with his mind. He seems to be able to control people, large groups of people. Mostly you have to be kinda willing to let him. So he always comes off nice at first and slowly manipulates you into trusting him. Just like any guy who might start a cult. He starts by giving you things you want or treating you the way you want. Whatever will get you to trust him enough to let him plant suggestions in your head. He doesn’t seem to be able to make people do things that they are drastically inclined not to do. Like if he had ever told me to kill someone that wouldn’t have worked. I don’t think.” Aislinn seemed to look into herself at that before returning to the story. “He can get into dreams and he’s been able to pull me out of my dreams. That’s the worst because it doesn’t matter where I am or how far, he can grab my mind and pull me to him. Sometimes I think that’s worse than him having me physically. He doesn’t seem to be able to get into my head while I’m awake. So I try to sleep as little as I can and usually at odd times of the day. Hence the bar jobs being my favorites. It give him fewer opportunities to bother me. During your ceremony, while I was sleeping, he grabbed me out of my dreams and brought me to the ceremony. He was there. Watching you all and waiting to attack you.”
“The best way to describe it is an out of body experience. It’s like my consciousness is somewhere. And no one can see me or hear me but I can see and hear them. I can walk around and touch things but no one can feel my touch. Or at least I used to think they couldn’t.” She briefly considered that she had managed to touch the lycans’ dreams that night before continuing. “But I really don’t know much about it. It all just sort of happens to me. But the impression Rafe has given me is that he’s able to do more to me because I’m like him.” Just saying it left a bad taste in her mouth.