Rock Star (Dream Weaver #2) (26 page)

             
Thank you.

             
Some inane posturing volleyed between Nick and Thomas, but my mind was engrossed on other things.               This would be painful, for sure. I pressed Ari into my chest until her eight legs popped through the skin. I may be a ‘baby’ Caphar, but I was sure I could do it. I had the memories of Sabre’s twists and re-weavings. I just had to weave Thomas into the equation. Bile warred in my gut, as I re-weaved the warped images of the rape. My chest heaved. Hyperventilation made me dizzy, and I leaned my head on Nick’s back for support. My body quaked and a whimper escaped before I could control it.

             
Em, stop!

             
It’s fine…I’m almost done.

             
As if on cue, Ari scuttled across my shoulder, down my body to the ground, where she sparked and vanished.
All she needed was a moment to transfer the images. Just one more tiny spider bite.

             
Thomas roared and batted his ankle. We saw Ari drop to the ground, just as Thomas’ boot came down hard on her body. There was a gut-wrenching crunch, and when Thomas lifted his foot, Ari lay smashed into the ground.

             
“No!” I lurched forward, but Nick stayed me.

             
“You really think a bauble with a bit of old magic can stop me?” He laughed, low and cynical.

             
One could hope,
I thought
.

             
“It’s time to end this.” Thomas advanced, a storm front of one. Five more paces and he’d be on us. Four. Nick’s body hardened under my fingertips, and crouched into combat stance. Three. Two…

             
Cold, night air rushed around us. I clung to Nick in fear that William was now enjoining the fray. Maybe—we really were about to die.

Chapter 27
Love Me Bad

              Instead, Sabre whorled around Thomas, and pinned him with one arm around his throat and a wicked combat knife to his gut, angled up toward his heart. Thomas struggled against Sabre’s grasp, but the knife nicked into his flesh with each movement. Sabre murmured something menacing that we couldn’t quite hear, and Thomas stilled.

             
“I believe it’s time for the truth. Don’t you?” Sabre face contorted with fury at the Wraith.

             
“Whose truth is that, old friend?” Despite being a hostage, Thomas exuded arrogance. “Yours? Or mine?”

             
“You were
never
my friend. Your only goal, from the moment you strolled into our lives, has been my destruction. As for truth,
the
truth. Not your warped, convoluted lies.”

             
“Aw, my friend, so cynical with age. And truth is relative,” Thomas spoke with nonchalance—just another quiet Sunday stroll.

             
Sabre’s patience evaporated. “The truth! Before I spill your fucking guts on the ground!” he growled.

             
Whoa! Sabre swore!
Despite being the bad ass, his language never resorted to cussing. Nick nudged me, reminded me to keep my head in the game.

             
The Wraith chuckled. “Perhaps the truth shall die with me.”

             
The blade pressed deeper into Thomas’ stomach. Blood soaked Sabre’s hand, sticky and hot, and cooled as it dripped to the ground with slow, quiet thuds. Thomas’ gaze cut across the yard in search of William. My gaze followed the arc of his. Where
was
William?

             
“If not for William, at least let me hear the words from your mouth.” Sabre eased up on the knife. “Tell me!” he yelled. “Confess before witnesses your treachery.”

             
“What is it that you wish to know?” Thomas gasped under the press of Sabre’s arm.

             
A frustrated, primal snarl ripped from Sabre’s throat. He was beyond tired of Thomas’ stupid game. “The truth about the death of Sarah Rose.”

             
“Aw yes. The most lovely and sumptuous Sarah Rose.”

             
Sabre snarled again, fierce and cruel. His muscles shook with restraint. Everything in him wanted to rip the Wraith to shreds, but he wanted the truth first. “Tell. The truth. Now!”

             
Thomas scanned the grounds in search of his master, but this time, a shadow of fear danced in his eyes.

             
“I did it.” The words tumbled out, gravelly and weak.

             
“Say it louder so we can all hear,” Sabre raged.

             
This time, decided fear sparked in the Wraith’s eyes as his gaze combed the yard. He writhed against Sabre’s hold, but the blade sank deeper with his efforts.

             
“Say! It!”

             
Decades of denial darkened Thomas face. Centuries of getting one over on Sabre, of lying to William, contorted his cadaverous face. “I killed Sarah Rose,” he said, as if the truth scourged his throat on the way out. “I wrapped my hands around that pretty little throat and broke that pretty little neck.”

             
As though projected on the large blank wall in Sabre’s living room, images swept us into the past.

              Beautiful, blonde and innocent, Sarah Rose sat by the creek, dangling her fingertips in the cool mountain run off. The starry look of a woman in love reflected in her blue eyes. Love for the man, Sabre. A branch snapped nearby and Sarah launched to her feet; the layers of her dress cascaded around her feet.

             
“You are so beautiful,” Thomas crooned.

             
Sarah flushed. “Why thank you, Thomas.”

             
So shy, so childlike, so trusting. She was too young to know the dangers of the man that circled her like a piece of meat. Though a shiver of intuition raced up her spine.               Thomas trailed coarse fingers up her arm. “Yes, you are very lovely, my dear. I would have you as my own.”

             
“My heart belongs to another,” she said softly, a tiny smile of adoration crept across her lips.

             
His arm snaked around her waist and he forced her against his body. Desperate and afraid, she pushed away from him, but his strength outdid hers and he held her close.

             
“I would have you as my own,” he repeated and kissed the elegant curve of her neck.

             
Sarah struggled more aggressively, panic brightened her eyes. “Please, Thomas. My heart belongs to Sabre and my hand will be his also.”

             
“Perhaps not—when I’m done with you.”

             
“Please. My brother. He will kill you if you hurt me.”

             
Thomas simply chuckled. He held her body to his with one arm, and clasped her hair with the other. Jerking her head back, he slobbered greedy kisses down her neck.

             
“Please…” she cried.

             
Thomas threw her body to the muddy bank, her hair and petticoats fanned across the ground. He pressed his body on top of hers to hold her down.

             
Realization flooded her face. She bucked and screamed and clawed at his face. Thomas pressed a hand over her mouth, but she bit him. He roared in anger, and he cuffed her hard across the face. Still she struggled.

             
“My brother. And Sabre. They will find you. They will kill you.”

             
“By the time I’m done with you, your brother will believe it was Sabre who molested you. And so will you,” he sneered.

             
“No! No!” she screamed and fought her fiercest yet. “Sabre!”

             
“Sarah Rose?!” Sabre’s voice came from a distance.

             
Thomas scowled, his plan foiled. As Sarah continued to struggle and fight, Thomas reached his hands around her throat to silence her cries. Her eyes went wide and blank, unseeing, staring into the heavens. Then, with a vicious twist, he broke her neck.

              “I had only a moment to change the final memories in her pretty little head to indict her betrothed. I vanished just as you flailed through the brush to find her frail, human body on the banks of the creek. I went directly to William while you extracted those final memories. What horror it must have been, to see yourself murder her. The rest just fell nicely into place, after I showed her brother the memories of what I had witnessed Sabre do to his beloved sister in a fit of jealous rage. He doubted me at first. Until he saw her withered body laying by the creek and his pet, Sabre had absconded.”

             
The lights surrounding the yard sputtered and dimmed as a raging flurry stormed around us. Sparks like tongues of fire lashed at Thomas as William shoved Sabre away. In a hail of fury, William slammed Thomas to the ground and pinned him with his weight.

             
“Why?” William’s voice barely had strength enough to force out the word. “Why!” he screamed through shattering sobs into Thomas’ face.

             
“Simply because I wanted her. And she wouldn’t have me. If I couldn’t have her, I’d be damned if
he
would. He would only have made her life miserable. But she refused to see the truth I showed her, true and plain. And why shouldn’t I blame him for her death? If he had stayed out of her life, I’d have won her heart.”

             
“She was my sister,” William crumpled Thomas’ shirt in his fists and pounded his head to the ground with each syllable. “I have hated the one heart that was truest. And all because of your lies.” William continued to mutter incoherent words that sounded like a heartfelt declaration. After a moment, he shifted his weight off the other Wraith and hauled him to his feet. But Thomas took advantage of the liberty, and swirled into a blazing, buffeting fire. William’s foundering energy attacked the other Wraith and the two shifted randomly from solid to ethereal, and stages between both.

             
The Rephaim broke into another brawl with the Caphar as only spectators. Like a microclimate storm confined to this one, small patch of ground, they savaged each other. Nick backed me towards the garage, his arms wide to shield me. Thomas whirled between us and snatched the knife and taser Nick had drawn for protection. He turned on William with primal roar, thrust the knife deep into William’s chest and ripped it out again. But William’s anger was dauntless, and even with a mortal wound, he launched himself at Thomas.

             
A storm of Rephaim spun around us, igniting the air with electric ire. A sudden crack, like cloud to ground lightning, charged the air, and out of the storm, William fell to the ground and Thomas disintegrated to nothing. Sabre phased to William’s side and cradled his old comrade in his arms.

             
“I didn’t,” Sabre choked out as he clutched William’s shirt in his fist. I stepped forward but Nick held me back. I balled his shirt in my fists and pressed my head to his shoulder. The almighty Sabre was broken.

             
“I know, old friend. You were right.” William’s words were breath and moan. “I’ve been a fool all these years. Believed—all his lies. I should—have known better. I should have believed in you. I am—so sorry.” It was time for the truth. Time for Sabre’s amnesty.

             
“Don’t speak. You need to phase. We will talk as old friends, once you are well,” Sabre encouraged.

             
“No,” William’s voice came out as a quiet breath. “I’m tired now.”

             
“It’s just the shock.” Thomas must have gotten a shot off with the Taser. Sabre’s voice held a note of desperation and some of those rarefied Sabre tears glistened down his cheeks.

             
“No,” William repeated. “I am tired of this world. I am tired of the death and destruction. I am tired of the chase that was built on a lie.”

             
“I truly loved her,” Sabre admitted. “I love her still.”

             
“I know.” William’s breaths were fading, weak and shallow. “Forgive me, old friend. For turning your life into a war over something you did not do.”

             
Sabre’s brow crinkled in thought, perhaps to remember the words I’d used when he begged my forgiveness after letting me fall to my death. “I forgive you,” he choked out.