Obumbrate (18 page)

As soon as I rounded the corner of my door, I nearly ran head-first into Kayden. He jumped back in shock, but not before his hands flung out between us and brushing over my skin. Like a match striking to light, fire crackled between us in a dazzle of warning blue sparks.

"Essallie," he breathed, his dark eyes brimming with excitement. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and I realized he had been running down the hall when I crossed into his path. "I was just coming to get you."

I could feel myself instantly splitting into two, like always when I became involved with him. Half of me wanted to shun him for the jerk he was, cold shoulder him harder than dry ice. The second half preferred the idea of daydreaming a second kiss with him.

I mentally shook the second half of me out of the picture. This wasn't the time to swoon or sway or whatever lovesick idiots did. Not that I was one of those. Narrowing my eyes with discontent, I did my best to appear disdainful of him. "I'm extending you an olive branch when I say I suggest there's an apology involved in this conversation?"

"For what?" He cocked an eyebrow, the action instantly bringing the heat in my veins to a growing boil. "For saying what was on my mind?"

"For calling me a calculating bitch, for starters." I kept my gaze icy. "We can settle you manipulating me later with some flowers or melting your face or something."

He kept his face expressionless as possible, but I could spot the carefully masked twitches of his face fighting to grin or laugh. "Oh, Essallie, when are you ever going to learn?" His head shook, black hair swaying with motion. "It's sink or swim in this world. Even your closest friend will have an ulterior motive somewhere in their back pocket. If you're looking for begging or some sniveling act of pleading for forgiveness, you've got the wrong guy."

"I see," I turned to head back to my room, refusing to meet his eyes even from the sideway glance. "Then I guess this is it."

"This is what?" His words were hard.

I didn't respond, praying the element of surprise would play in my favor. In one move I had uncrossed my arms, fire blazing over them, and grabbed Kayden by the neck. With a sharp thud his body stood pinned between me and the wall, spirals of blue flame rolling over his skin like a fast-spinning web.

"I'd choose your words carefully," I warned him, locking eyes with him. "You'll find I'm incredibly forgiving when the right words are strung together in a sentence."

"Really? This again?" He snickered shortly before grimacing in pain. Horns started to peak through his forehead, his true form appearing under the stress of the flames. "You tried killing me before, remember? You don't have the heart for it."

Adrenaline twisted inside my body, my heart taking off with  fervor. It was like someone had doused my flames with gasoline; blue and black fire began to run off my hands and over Kayden, burning him with a sickening smell.

His eyes briefly widened, the first flicker of fear. "Essie-"

"Make it count, Kayden." It was all I could say, my brain seeming to have disconnected from the rest of me. An odd haze clouded my vision like a thick film, and for a second I felt nothing but a hazy weightlessness in limbo. One heartbeat later, it all came back into perfect clarity.

Kayden still had his eyes on me, the fear still present. Something else was there, too, but what exactly it was I couldn't place. His back arched as he let out a gasp of pain, the fire spreading further and digging deeper into him.

"I know how we can get to the Queen," he spat out with a gasp.

I felt my eyes widen, the shock disabling the overruling power of my flames. Acting on impulse, Kayden exploded into fine black smoke, snaking into my room and away from my fiery grasp.

I stalked in after him, his body filling back to normal near the vanity at the other end of the room. Pink and raised scars covered his body, yet already they started to fade. But I could barely get past the fact that he had said exactly what I had been thinking just as I went to leave my room. Hesitation laced my words as I spoke. "What do you mean you know how to get to the Queen?"

"Exactly what I said, silly girl." His eyes sparked back to life the second he spoke, a mischievous and wickedly dark glint in those swirling orbs. In his hands was a paper I hadn't seen at first. "I found an in to Lucretia. There is a socialite ball in a week, one she is required to attend."

"You're full of bull," I cracked back at him, the fire still running over my hands and arms, brushing over my chest and neck like a self-knitting turtleneck. "You're only doing this to get at me. Congratulations, you've pissed me off. Now
leave
."

"Not until you listen," he declared, his voice dark and rumbling. "I came here to help, and dammit that's what I'm going to do."

"I'll believe it when I see it-"

"After this morning's discussion," he continued over my mutterings, eyes thin as slits. "I thought about things, specifically how to get to the source of the problem. It hit me like the Great Wall falling on me-"

"Oh, how one can wish
that
was real-"

"Lucretia attends one key party, every year. And I bet you'll know why the second I show you this." Kayden was over at my side in a flash, spreading the paper out so I could see. It looked like a poster I had seen before, one that reminded me eerily of myself...

I snapped my head up to meet Kayden's gaze. "The play?" I couldn't believe it. The one time I stumble into Charon and embarrass myself beyond normal standards and here it's the tie to a party to get to the Queen. I was starting to smell one too many coincidences keeping the air clean.

"The very same. Come on," he reached for my hand, freezing centimeters from my skin. Fire crackled between us, daring the contact. He pulled his hand away and made for the door, catching my eyes over his shoulder. "I've already told Ari to meet us in the drawing room again to discuss a plan."

"Hold on," I beat him to the door, putting myself between him and the exit. With one good shove, the door snapped shut. "We're not finished yet." It was now or never, I told myself. If I didn't stand my ground, Kayden would continue to play tennis with my heart. Too much felt up in the air, floating at a dangerously high level, ready to collapse and crush me at any given moment. "Why are you really here?"

His expression shifted, irritation blending into his facial features. Somehow, he looked even more gloriously handsome while bitter and snippy. "Did you not hear me? I came here to help."

"No, I heard you. But I don't believe you." My voice was high and sickly sweet, like poisoned honey. "The last time we saw each other, you told me to my face that you knowingly manipulated me."

"I know what I said," he interjected. "I'm here to remedy that."

"Now you show up offering to be just as helpful as you were before your underhanded actions caught up with you." I pressed past his words, staring straight through him as if he had never materialized. "How can I trust you?"

"Essallie, please." His pained expression shocked me, catching me completely off guard. The strain in his voice was thick, his lips quivering as he struggled to grasp for words. "I need to explain."

I took a step back from his twitching hands, taking note of how tense he had twisted himself in a matter of seconds. "Explain what?"

He swallowed, closing his eyes as he took a sharp inhale of breath. "There are three things I have ever known in all of my existence. One, always have the upper hand. Two, never turn your back on an enemy." His lips pressed shut, thin and hard.

The pause prompted me. "And the third?"

Kayden's shoulders didn't move, leaving me to wonder if he was still breathing. His eyes opened and instantly locked on mine, a look so smoldering I found my heart quieting in my chest.

"Three, never let your emotions control you."

He closed the gap between us instantly, hands cradling my face as his lips met mine. Fire bloomed over my skin and onto his, enveloping us in the blue blaze in seconds, yet he continued to kiss me with hungry lips. His teeth nibbled at my lower lip before his lips traced over my jaw in a frenzy, then down my neck and collarbone.

My mind stalled, heart exploding in my chest. I barely had enough control to put my hands on his chest and shove him back as far as I could, trying to save him from the flames that began to burn deep into his skin. "Kayden,
no
."

The second he stepped back, his body burst into smoke. It hung lazily in the air, swirling around in a half-hearted tornado before his form began to take shape. As he filled in I noticed his skin had turned lighter and paler, pink scars littering his body once more. His eyes held the perfect mix of hauntingly sad and conflicted, a combination that made me want to reach out and kiss him again.

My breath came in short, choppy gasps. I could hardly force the anger into my words. "Are you insane? What the hell has come over you?"

"I don't know, Essallie," he confessed pitifully. "All I know is I've wanted to do that since the night in your bedroom when I saw your breaking in half. I wanted to fix you."

"Stop," I hissed, shaking from head to toe. Every inch of me screamed to run back into him. "I don't need you, or Ari, or any man to be whole and alive. Just because I'm the only girl around doesn't mean I have to be kissed and fawned over!"

His eyes betrayed every inch of the pain in his heart. I could see the armor he had so precariously built up cracking under my words, crumbling into dust.

"Essallie..."

"No," I turned around and fumbled for the door, yanking it open. I couldn't look over my shoulder, not with him standing there watching me, wondering if I'd cave and let my own armor crumble and fade. "Stop trying to think you can fix me. I'm not broken."

I stalked to the drawing room without him, making sure my eyes stayed strictly forward. I could feel the crumble starting in my chest, an aching feeling rippling from within.

It wasn't fair; Kayden had done exactly what I wanted, opened his blackened soul to me and let me in, and I had to be the right one and push him away. He was a demon, a lying and manipulative bastard who sought out only things that brought him gain. How could loving me, or whatever it is his emotions were telling him, play in his favor now? It felt too easy, like he was giving me exactly what I wanted. I would be cautious until I figured out his motive.

As soon as I stepped into the drawing room, my eyes spotted Ari. He seemed to have been waiting for a while, arms crossed over his chest and one foot tapping impatiently. He had traded in his earlier clothes for an all-black get up; black pants, black t-shirt, and a black track jacket with two yellow stripes running across the left side of his chest.

"Have you seen Kayden? He told me to meet him in here as soon as he got you," Ari placed his hands behind his head, stretching. Through the mid-afternoon high sun lighting the room, I could see a thin layer of sweat over his skin.

I made sure to keep my eyes off of his, unsure if I would give away what had transpired in my room with Kayden if I looked Ari in the face. Ungluing my tongue from the roof of my mouth, I searched for an excuse buried in my brain. "I, I think he-"

"-is right here," Kayden's voice finished, and I looked up to the door. Sure enough there he was, the wounded expression I had seen on him last traded in for a cold, indifferent gaze. He barely offered me so much as a nod as he strode past me, coming to a stand between Ari and I.

"I was just sharing with Essallie in the hall that we have a way to the Queen," he said smoothly, not a single hitch in his voice. Ari regarded him coolly, nodding while he continued to stretch his back and arms. "Our earlier mention of parties reminded me of one event she never misses; a party for the new play of the moment."

"That Nephilim and demon play?" Ari asked, and I wondered if he had seen the posters too. "Ironic, given her blood status. How do we get to her? I imagine she'll be crawling with her personal guard and Vens alike."

"Easy," Kayden gave a cold, humorless smile. "We drop into the castle, get into her quarters, and wait for her to return after the party. The event is held on one end of the castle, and her quarters are on the opposite end. We'll have little trouble mingling in with the rest of the crowd there."

"Correction; you'll have no trouble, but I can't imagine the only two Nephilim in existence flying under the radar," I added.

Kayden didn't look at me. "You have your trinkets to blend in, that will cut you out of the vision of most. It's the guards and higher Vens that we'll have to dodge."

"And how do you propose that?"

"A blanket of haze, a-la vile and vicious demon," Kayden said with a bitter zest, dramatically bowing for extra effect.

I wasn't convinced. "So, you want to hover over me like a cloud of smoke? How the hell is that going to help?"

"Honestly, Essallie, have you no faith in me?" He rolled his eyes.

My teeth started to grind. "Actually, no, I don't." My gaze turned to Ari, eyes narrowed. "You're okay with this? No complaints about throwing me in the lion's den? Pretty sure going to the home of the big bad villain is the number one thing they say
not
to do in the books."

"If you're against it, fine," Kayden replied sarcastically. He now stood over near the windows, one hand lightly pressed against the pane of glass. "You said you didn't want to be treated like you're the squishy, unknowing human in some girly vampire novel. Here's your chance, so let's chop up this pretty lamb and serve it raw."

I looked from Ari's wary expression to Kayden's turned back. If there had ever been a moment I wanted to punch both of them, now would be the time. Thunder struck in my chest as the hairs along my back stood straight, my skin prickling with precognition.

"You want a death wish, you got it. I have no problem taking as many down with me as I can."

Kayden looked at me from over his shoulder, confusion buried between his eyes. He turned around fully, a dark laugh escaping his lips. "No one's saying you'll die."

"No one says I'll live, either," I pointed out with a wry smile.