House of Slide Hybrid (45 page)

My fingers burned as he caressed my fingers, so gentle in spite of the strength of his hands.

“I’ve never said this before, to anyone alive.” There was a gaping silence as my breath hitched and his grasp tightened. “I’m… You’re… Could you consider…”

I slid my hands up his shoulders reveling in the feel of his strength while I ran my fingers up his face, tangling in his silky hair as I leaned closer to him. “Of course, I’ll finish the bond and marry you. I love you. When I saw you fall, when I watched you after you’d burned out, I didn’t understand what I felt but now I know that I don’t want to live a life without you. I want to bind my heart and yours together forever.”

Here he was supposed to wrap me in his arms and kiss me, with no need for words that were so hard for him to express. Instead of that, he was still, frozen under my hands like a statue, perfect, cold, unmoving. What was wrong? Was he in shock from joy, or was he…something else?

“Oh.” I had a sudden awareness of the change of mood, of the awkward silence and his frustration and promptly felt like the biggest idiot ever to be alone in the woods with someone who wasn’t proposing marriage or blood binding to them. “How awkward,” I said with a laugh that sounded hysterical as I pulled away from him, falling over the back side of the log in the process because accepting a proposal that isn’t offered isn’t quite humiliating enough. My tights were definitely ripped as I rolled to my feet, ready to break into a run. No, that would only make everything worse, like anything could be worse.

“I’m sorry, that’s not…”

“I know,” I said, too loud, then laughed again like we were having the best time ever. “Isn’t that funny? Because I was talking to Smoke about marrying Snowy and he was all, why not? And of course, that’s Smoke, so not like anyone else ever would think like that, and especially you who are so not like that, of course not. The only romance we’ve had consists of us watching each other almost die. And marriage anyway is like a big joke, I mean with my parents who are still married but don’t live together, and who gets married anymore? Right? You know what? I’ve got to get back to my party, you know, because it’s my party so I should probably be there in case anyone needs someone to act like an idiot.”

I was on my way out of there when he moved so fast, so soundlessly, I barely gasped before he was there, so much energy crackling on him that I forgot about the rest of existence as he pinned me against the tree with the mass of him that was suddenly so much more, so dark, so thick, it reminded me of the Nether.

Tears sprang to my eyes as the blood bond ached, torment that would probably never ever end. He was there, so close, so impossible for me to take, so impossible for me to not want. What an idiot I was thinking that something like marriage would be a reality for me and someone like Lewis.

He lifted my chin so that I was forced to look him in the eye, eyes that seemed so dark in the night which grew darker and darker with every moment, like black mist was rolling in.

“I am…” His words, absolute, like death were interrupted as someone came out of nowhere, tackling him from the side and knocking him to the ground. I didn’t have time to react before Lewis’s attacker pulled out a knife and drew it down Lewis’s arm.

The smell of his blood filled the air, like death, like pain, like need and agony. I panted as the smell of him, of his blood made the bond ache grow until it erupted, filling me with its mindless need. The knife made no other slashes, the man held Lewis firmly to the ground.

“Quickly, before he wakes up,” he said, his voice and burning blue eyes identifying Aiden, the unstable Hybrid.

I moved mindlessly, pulled to the stream of dark blood as it flowed steadily from the wound. I stopped, with the most effort I’d ever had to use, freezing my muscles as I hovered over Lewis, over his beautiful body, his beautiful blood, calling me as his soul reached, his aching as great and vast as my own. It would be so easy to kiss that skin, to taste his life and become one.

“No,” I said through gritted teeth, forcing myself to remember the humiliation of only a moment before. “He doesn’t want me however much his bond aches.”

“Dari,” Aiden said as he glared at me. “This isn’t the time for thinking things through. You don’t have much time before it’s too late. Trust me.”

“Trust you? Trust the insane person who stuck my uncle to the wall with butterknives? Trust the person who just attacked my soul mate and sliced him open? What’s wrong with you?” I took a step away from Lewis, but couldn’t make myself take another. I should leave before the blood bond took over completely, I could feel it roaring, filling my head, my chest, my limbs as it clamored for the blood which belonged to me, the same way Lewis did. Mine.

“Hurry. I can’t hold him much longer,” Aiden said sounding strained. “You trusted me to bring him back after Samaliel, the same way your uncle trusted me to bring you back when you burned out. Look at me, Dari. Cool, Hot, with old blood, strong blood, the blood that keeps us from dying. I’m a phoenix, cursed to awake from the ashes over and over again.”

His eyes glowed bright blue as his large hands spread on Lewis’ chest holding him down as he suddenly began struggling, twisting on the ground.

“Let him go,” I said, somewhat relieved that Lewis was back from being stunned by the Hybrid. There was that other part that wished he had stayed still so that I could lean forward and take the blood that called to me.

Lewis, I realized, wasn’t fighting Aiden as much as he was struggling for me, the roaring vastness that was his soul coming to consume me, to complete the bond and make us one, even though some part of him didn’t want it, this other was in control, fed by the feel of his blood trickling down his arm, of my proximity and the hunger that burned through me.

I took another step backwards, pressing my hands hard against my face, over my mouth and nose, blocking out the scent of him but it didn’t make any difference, not when he was coming for me, any minute now, barely held in check by Aiden, but why did he do that, hold Lewis back when he wanted the bond completed, and why did he want so much to have the bond completed, and what had he been saying about phoenix’s, and bringing me back when I’d burned out? Why were those eyes so familiar, those hands looking strange without the gnarled cane that belonged in them?

“Old Peter. Aiden is Old Peter?” I stared at Lewis, feeling suddenly cold, hard and breakable. “You didn’t tell me that Old Peter was alive. You let me think that he was dead, that I killed him. Do you know how many nights I couldn’t sleep as I tossed and turned, thinking about the sweet old man being burned alive?” I took another step backwards. Aiden/Old Peter, whoever he was let go of Lewis, but it was too late. The madness had gone leaving him in control, looking at me with dark eyes that grew darker and colder every second.

“Is that what you were going to tell me? That Old Peter was a phoenix?”

“No.” He said in a cold voice, betrayed by a slight tremble. “I was going to tell you much worse.”

I shook my head as I took another step away from him, from them. It hurt so badly to move away from him, whether he was a demon in disguise, it hardly mattered with the way I was consumed with the bond ache. “Why? Why didn’t you tell me Old Peter was alive?”

“First, that’s not my secret to tell. Second, you trust him. He’s not Old Peter, he’s Aiden. He’ll become Old Peter if and when he lives long enough.”

I took another step away from him. “I have to get back to the party.” I turned, refusing to look at him any longer. I wanted so much to tell him that it didn’t matter, that nothing mattered except that we finish the bond. I wanted that to be true, but it wasn’t, not when he didn’t want to bond with me. I heard them scuffling behind me but I didn’t look to see if they were fighting, not when I couldn’t do anything to help. It was all I could do to take those steps away from him as his blood called for me.

As soon as I was out of sight, I broke into a run, desperate to return to the party, to see the bright lights and the people who I mostly understood. I heard the music and the singing just ahead of me, followed the lights I could glimpse every once in a while. I ran, my breathing ragged as I forced myself to move away from the direction of Lewis, my soul mate, heart breaking as I tried to understand how Aiden had been Old Peter, why Lewis hadn’t told me.

The party was just past the clump of bushes. I struggled through them, and with a gasp stared at the water below me, water that was the opposite direction of the party. I’d been too distracted to realize when the demons whispered in my head, leading me away from the party, towards the river.

I twisted, trying to find my footing, but the bank crumbled beneath my feet, my fingers slipped over the thorny brambles as I tried to find purchase. I opened my mouth for one scream as I plummeted over the edge.

The icy water shoved the scream back in my mouth as it pulled me down, slammed me against rocks, spun me helplessly so I couldn’t tell which direction was air. I hit a boulder that spun me up so that I broke surface, gasping as the wind froze my wet face, struggling to breathe as I hit something hard. I clutched at the moving object, a large branch that I grasped with one hand, trying to stay afloat, to continue breathing in spite of the icy water that squeezed my lungs. Wet hair clung to my face, almost protecting my cheek when the log spun and a branch hit my face.

Bruised, close to drowning, I was still ridiculously aware of the aching unfinished blood bond. I was almost tempted to let go, to let the water swallow me and extinguish the pain forever, but my fingers clung stubbornly to the log, my arms seeming frozen in their grip.

I felt a small pain, barely noticeable above the rest. It was a sharp prick, like a needle stuck in the side of my neck. My muscles began to relax, my mind slowed down, terror and pain easing away around the edge, numbing more towards the middle as my fingers slipped from the log and I sank peacefully to the bottom of the river.

Cold, slimy hands grabbed me, hauling me out of my peaceful, watery death. I gasped when I broke the surface, when I felt the grip of worse than death on my limbs as the sound of heavy breathing filled the night and the scent of rotting suffocated me. My eyelids were too heavy to open as whatever it was pulled me across the surface of the water with chilled hands and icy breath that smelled like despair.

I couldn’t move through the numbness, couldn’t twitch an eyelid to see what had me or open my mouth to scream as the creature moved with me through the water, dragging me onto the bank with a hiss and a crunch that should have made me scream, the way that being touched by such a monster had me shrinking in my skin.

“There she is,” I heard. Only a whisper, but it conveyed a world of delight in the woman’s voice, a woman who smelled like a bottle of cheap perfume.

“Get her before the creature eats her,” a man said with a giggle, like that would be funny.

The icy, slick fingers withdrew then I heard a plop as the waters swallowed whatever darkness had pulled me from the river. Other hands grabbed me, less gentle than the monster in their rush to throw me over a shoulder. I lay limp, unable to reach my leaning, my gifts, anything. I was blocked inside my own body with nothing, not even pain, to keep me company. The man ran, faster than anyone without runed tattoos should have been like I weighed nothing. He smelled like vinegar and made a sound like a giggle every fifth step, like it was part of his physiology.

“Your turn,” the man said with a giggle as he pushed me onto another person, someone who smelled better than the others; no vinegar and flowery perfume on him. His soft hair tickled my nose as he carried me in his arms, my head on his shoulder like I was a child, his hand on the back of my neck, beneath my dripping blouse, touching my runes. I wouldn’t have noticed except that the runes stretched in my skin at his touch. It hurt, spreading pain and awareness through my limbs with agonizing slowness, but giving me the ability to move if only slightly.

“Hold still,” he whispered in my ear in an accent so dangerously mysterious that I knew that he was my almost Intended, Raoul, House of Grasse. I blinked then fought the urge to struggle, to twitch my fingers as the pain spread. “Don’t let them know that the paralysis is gone.” His breath was warm on my cheek, his arms and body full of warmth I could feel through my wet, formerly beautiful clothes.

“Whispering to the captive?” the woman’s voice asked mockingly. “You’ll have time for playing with her later.”

“If
she
leaves anything left over,” the man who smelled like vinegar said with his giggle.

Raoul didn’t respond, only continued stroking my neck with his hands, the movement stretching the metal, forcing my nerves to awaken, to scream. I didn’t scream, didn’t move as I let myself relax against Raoul. I didn’t understand what was happening other than that I’d been taken, but I knew that I’d been paralyzed by the small dart the woman had taken out of my neck and that Raoul was helping me. I didn’t second guess it. I would let myself believe that he was my ally, however unlikely that was, until I was in a position to do something about it, at which time I would reevaluate.

I tried to take deep even breaths, to not think about where it was they were taking me, who had captured me, or where Lewis was. I couldn’t not worry about Lewis. He always rescued me, stepped in at just the right moment to prevent everything from spinning out of control. He would come for me, would save me even if it killed him. I tried to swallow but choked on the lump in my throat as I thought of him sacrificing himself for me. It would be better if he let me go, let me die, but I knew that he wouldn’t, whatever it cost him.