The Alpha's Desire 4 (5 page)

Chapter Nine

As I managed the final steps, all I could see at first was a trash can with a low fire burning inside of it, sitting in the middle of the room. With fewer windows broken here, the arid smell of whatever was on fire burnt my eyes, making them water instantly. Blinking, feeling the first drops hit my cheeks, I scanned my surroundings even though I’d come running up the stairs, not only letting them announce my arrival, but coming to stand at the top of them fully exposed with nothing to protect me but whatever would come from my hands.

With my emotions beyond heightened, having been that way for hours, really days now, who knew what would happen if I used them? With the ominous glow of the few flames that reached the top of the trash cans, the meager light they created just barely reaching from all four corners of the room to my eyes, adjusting from the flood lights to the dark, to me even the shadows appeared to move.

I looked around, gripping my hands into fists to keep them calm, or as calm as I could manage. I felt that if I let go of the power churning inside of me at this point, I might just propel myself right back down the steps I’d just managed to make it up. I pulled in deep ragged breaths, attempting to shake off this feeling of being watched, of any minute being doomed.

Stupid girl
, I chastised myself, just as a movement, one too much to dismiss, caught my eye.

With the sounds of war still coming from downstairs, I couldn’t hear anything, but my Lex finally came into view. His hands were strung above his head, chained to something on the wall. In that position, his shoulders looked like they’d tear from their sockets at any minute. Wounds all over his body were either caked with or dripping blood. After I rushed to his side, I stopped short, not wanting to touch or move him lest I hurt him more. His labored breathing hit my ears. I shuddered even as my stomach convulsed, and threatened to hurl. As much as I’d wanted to be on this trip, I was grateful now that I hadn’t really been able to eat much.

I could not only see, hear, and feel his pain, which served to make me even sicker, but I could smell and taste it, too. It enveloped me like a blanket made of barbed wire. A small movement made me jerk my head, sending a shot of fire through a pinched nerve. The man in the black suit stood to our side. I inched closer to Lex, but away from where the man stood. As I moved, the light from the moon glinted off something by his thigh. I soon saw that this was a knife hanging from his hand. Blood, Lex’s blood, dripped from it.

My skin tingled, to be so close to Lex again as I fought the urge to throw my body over his. At the same time, looking at the man in black, that same skin crawled, disgust like a thick pus oozing over me. I wanted to leap at him, rip that damn black, expensive-looking suit from his skin and slice him up with that damn blade he held.

When he moved, and stepped out from the shadows and into the dim light of the fire, I could see the evil smirk on his face that smoothed into a grin, one probably meant to calm me, but it had just the opposite effect. What was inside me raged to be unleashed upon this man, to send him hurling through a window and falling to his death five stories down. I’d never had the instinct to kill before. Maybe in self-preservation, but not to end a life the way I craved to end his.

The feeling didn’t sit right inside me, even as much as I loathed this man right now, giving new meaning to the word. I’d hated before, don’t get me wrong, but I’d always hated intangible things, the ones out of my control, like death. To hate another human so much, whatever shapes and forms he could morph into... well, it didn’t work with my personality, and yet still, it seethed under my skin, had me nearly choking on it. While I couldn’t reconcile the feelings, they grew, with each jagged and shaky breath my Lex pulled in and pushed out; the magic in me rushed through my veins, hell bent on murder.

“My dearest Christina,” the man in the black suit said, using a voice meant to sooth like a father would a daughter.

I shot him a look that would kill. Anger boiled in me, bubbling up to the surface until I realized that if I dared open my mouth, dared to let one word come out, it would be in a scream so loud and harsh that no one would understand me. And, if I started, I feared I might never stop, like I would scream myself to death. Probably not possible, but it sure felt that way at the moment. How dare he try to comfort me? The whole idea of it, I found not only demeaning, but ultimately rude and egotistical. Ego was something I just didn’t get, and it incensed me to even consider it.

“Calm down, dear. I just need to talk to you, to explain to you what is happening, and what needs to happen to save this man you love. That magic of yours glowing from your hands will not save him, only hurt him more. If you hurt me, he will die. Trust me.”

I grumbled or groaned, maybe growled, the sound that rumbled through my chest burning my dry lungs, bringing more tears to my eyes, something I couldn’t explain.

“Listen, dear,” he continued, before he actually stopped, jerking his head back at the look I gave him, wanting to rip his head off with my bare hands, to feel it burn in them when I unleashed my magic. What came across my face had to be animalistic. It actually hurt, the way it wrinkled up my forehead and nose. I scared myself, the way I was losing the human ability to care about the harm I wished to do this man.

Crouching here beside Lex, all of his agony washing over me, all of his physical and emotional pain streaking through me, I couldn’t breathe, think, or get a grip on anything, let alone the reality of consequences for any of my actions. With the continued noises downstairs as a background, not knowing who was winning or losing, it didn’t help me at all to get a handle on myself, to even begin to think rationally again.

“Please, Christina, you must understand, or at least try to, the life my people have been forced to live under our curse. Our sorcerer…”

I cut him off with, “You mean the poor man you kidnapped?”

“Our sorcerer believes that with you, a Royal, he can give us what we need. With that in mind, I have Lex here bound in spelled chains. They are not allowing his magic to heal him. If he remains here much longer, he will indeed die. As I said, you hurt me, and he will be left to die because I won’t be here to get someone to break the chains.”

“If he dies, it will be because of you, not me. You are the monster here. You are the one who has continued to hurt him beyond what his body can handle. He has suffered, for days now, you monster,” I yelled, cringing at the volume of my own voice.

Poor Lex moaned beside me. I could tell he wanted to move, to talk, but his body was so worn down, so drained of blood, probably half-starved and dehydrated as well, that he just couldn’t. Still, I felt how much he wanted to help, to save me, and it encouraged me to go on, from the depth of that love that remained despite what this animal in front of me had done to him.

“Once he is released, he will heal, be as good as new in no time,” he offered like he was a righteous man, and that a worthy offer, one I’d be a fool not to take. “All you have to do is give yourself to me, and in return, I will let him go; save the life of the man you love. Otherwise, you will watch him die, and still, I will take you. Your choice.”

Chapter Ten

As the anger and energy merged into one, I was like a ticking time bomb. Only, I feared even I might not survive the release of it. My hands had started to glow even brighter, like a force field of light had formed around them. Forcing them out in front of me, my mittens of pulsing light, I watched as the man in the black suit took a step back, assuming I was threatening him rather than just keeping my magic at arm’s length. While I only meant to move away from Lex, the man thought I was moving toward him. A flood of warmth, both my magic and triumph, surged through me.

Paper dust and other trash-like remnants began to move around on the floor around me, the magic coming out of my pores to stir up the room. Every glance at Lex increased the whirlwind, creating a fat tornado-like thing around me. My hair whipped up around my face, and I drank in the feeling of taking back the power in this situation. If I was the center of this force, I stood as far from calm, though. The more power I felt, the more I created.

That idea of taking the win was short-lived, as the man in black dashed to Lex, putting the knife to his throat. I mimicked the look on his face, jaw in a tight line, the sides of his mouth pulled back. Wide eyes bulged from his head as I felt mine do the same. I focused in on the blade, though. Caked with dried blood, it pressed into the skin on Lex’s neck. It would be what killed him. I knew that, and felt the truth of it in my bones, that this was the last cut his body could take while in these magical chains. I had to stop it, but the two of them were so close.

“Stop what you are doing or I will end him,” the man shouted over the roar of the wind, definitely like a freight train as it bounced off the walls to come back to our ears. “Turn yourself over to me, or I slice his throat and end him. Your willing surrender is his only shred of hope right now.”

“No,” came from me in a crying whisper, softly, on a sob, so that I didn’t even know if he could hear me over the wind I created, which picked up, throwing something more tangible, metal maybe, against the far wall. We heard it hit the wall and then land with a few bounces on the floor.

As I shook my head, my hands, tight, arthritic looking, the knuckles poised but bent up in odd ways, moved up to chest height. They trembled visibly, the energy making odd, wavy patterns in the darkness. I lost control of them, watching them as if they were possessed, no longer even belonging to me.

The knife suddenly flew from the man’s hand, speeding across the room like someone had shot it from a cannon, only to hit a wall behind me, causing a dent with the handle before it hit with a thud and then a clink on the ground. My light hadn’t touched it, but still, it had moved as if I’d done it. Surely, he hadn’t thrown the thing. He wouldn’t have gotten that sort of force anyway, even if he had.

With his hand still on Lex’s neck, the man just stared at me as if he didn’t know what to do next. Shaking his head, he fell to his knees from his crouched position, and pressed his hands against Lex’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the wounds there, making Lex moan weakly with the pain. He seemed delirious with it, like he couldn’t see me, and didn’t know anything else but the pain.

“To save him, you still need to give yourself to me. I will not allow the chains to be taken off without you in my possession. You have no choice. Move whatever you want. Kill me even. He still dies in these chains. I can take them off with the snap of my finger. My sorcerer made me the key to unlocking them,” the man yelled at me, taunting, his own panic revealed in his voice, the itches changing like a boy going through puberty. Though, he still held onto the idea of having the upper hand.

“You believe I will not sacrifice my life to save his, that you will take me by force and let me watch him die, so why the show? If you think you can, come take me by force,” I challenged, spitting the words, really. “Look, whoever you are, my magic is taking over. I don’t understand it, and no one, especially me, has any clue what it is truly capable of.”

“Is that a threat when I hold his life in my hands?” he managed to get out, his voice loud but shaky.

“No, just an explanation. You need to set him free and leave, or I won’t be responsible for the consequences. I’ve never killed anyone. Even now, in this enraged state, I don’t want to have to. As much as the thoughts of your death have come into my head, thrilled me even, I don’t want to live with blood on my hands. Even that of a man as disgusting as you who has caused me more pain than I thought possible in the past weeks, even you; I want to, but don’t want to have to kill. Still, you don’t seem to understand the lack of control I have over this. I fear I will kill us all. Do you understand that? Without him, what else do I have to live for? So, my counter-offer is, if you don’t unchain him and let us both go, then when he dies, I will end us both, kill you and not have to live with it.”

Some sort of light show began then, like tiny lightning bolts that shot from my hands to the ground, causing small fires to start in the dust. At times, a single flame would shoot up from the ground only to snuff itself out. I forced myself to keep my palms as steady as I could. The man had the protection of Lex at the moment, as he was too close for me to shoot anything at him.

A scream of frustration laced with fear escaped me, and streams of a yellow light came from my hands, blinding even me for a moment as they seemed to follow an imaginary circle around me before disappearing. I felt the shock of it, the mild sensation of electricity rippling through me. It must have traveled along the floor as well, as Lex moved a little, but the man in the black suit stood up, his hands out to his sides as he looked at the floor as if it had just attacked him.

As I stood there waiting to see what my hands would do next, warding off the need to turn my palms over and look at them, the man in the black suit moved to the closest broken window to him and the ground, and moved through it. I heard the clinking of the fire escapes, not sure if I was happy or sad that I hadn’t heard his body slam into the ground below.

Moving to the window, I let my magic go, threw the waves of it out that window, over his head, laughing maniacally as he screamed, and as I watched his body disappear into the darkness.