She shivered, her teeth almost chattering. “Oh Lord.”
“What?” Tyon and Aleximanus chorused.
“He asked me to come here.”
The air rushed out of Tyon’s lungs, replaced by ice. “Did you invite him here? If you did, he’d have free access to my house. The protection won’t work.”
“I, no, it wasn’t like that. He just said he wanted to come and—”
The noise of glass smashing and wood splintering echoed from the foyer. Heavy footsteps thudded in the corridor. Aleximanus shot up, the newspaper falling from his hand as he wielded his obsidian blade.
“Where’s the missus?” a male voice drawled. “Ain’t she home?”
Tyon unsheathed the white dagger and stepped in front of Hazel. “Grab the poker. Be ready to run.”
Thank goodness she didn’t argue and did as told. She clasped the poker with both hands and wielded it like a cricket bat. Despite the tremor in her shoulders, her gaze shone with a fierce light.
A man stepped into the sitting room. His short matted brown beard half-covered a rough face with a scar that crossed his chin. Another man stood behind him. His head almost skimmed the lintel when he crept inside, and his shirt hung loosely on bony shoulders.
Aleximanus aimed his dagger at the intruders and dropped into a fighting stance.
“’ere is the missus.” Scar swaggered forwards, twirling a black dagger. Sin-breather. He cast a sideways glare at Aleximanus. “Now if ye come without fuss, ye gonna make me job easier.”
Tyon focused and sucked in a deep breath. The men’s auras sparkled to life, black and solid like obsidian. He took another inhalation, tasting burned flesh from Scar who had to be an anger-breather, and rotting lemons from the other, an envy-breather.
Aleximanus rotated his blade. “What the hell are you doing here? Leave immediately.”
Scar clucked his tongue. “We ain’t taking orders from you this time. The Hierophant said to fetch the lass for him.”
Over my dead body. Tyon unleashed his power. It shot forwards greedily and attacked the man’s aura.
But the snapping tendrils lashed out like wolves, biting his power back. These sin-breathers’ souls were too tainted. He couldn’t sway them from their purpose, not alone. He didn’t have enough energy. So he had to beat them in the old-fashioned way.
Grounding his teeth, Tyon lunged, ducking a stroke aimed at his chest. The first slash of his white dagger cut across Scar’s belly. Scar cried out and jumped back. A hissing noise rose from the gash as the skin touched by the blade burned.
Envy charged towards Hazel, but Aleximanus rushed in front of her, blocking the attack. She swung the poker randomly, whirling it like a windmill. The fight’s speed had to be too much for her.
Tyon spun, his coattails fluttering around him, and stabbed Scar on a shoulder. Blood oozed, the flesh sizzled, and shouts ricocheted off the walls.
With a kick, Aleximanus sent Envy sprawling against the low table, shattering it.
Splinters of wood added to the chaos, and one sharp shards slashed past Tyon’s cheek.
Hazel leapt and beat Envy’s head with the poker while he was still on the floor.
“Hazel, move.” Aleximanus pounced, holding his dagger with both hands.
She scurried out of the way, but Envy rolled back and shot up. Aleximanus tackled him, but his movements lacked fluidity. He staggered, pain crossing his face when the attacker punched him.
Scar kicked Tyon’s knee. Pain burned up his leg, but he landed a punch on Scar’s nose.
Hazel jolted when Aleximanus and Envy rolled over each other and almost trampled on her.
The smell of stale ale hit Tyon’s senses when Scar shouldered him in the stomach and tossed him to the other side of the room. A pang flashed through him when he hit the wall, and for a moment, dark spots danced in front of him. Hazel ran towards the window as Envy sprang up and swung his obsidian dagger. Aleximanus seized him again and fell on the floor, entwined with the thug.
Scar unsheathed a gun, wiped blood from a cut on his forehead, and aimed at Hazel standing alone and unprotected next to the window.
Tyon rushed towards him and threw the dagger, ignoring the dizziness spinning his head. “No!”
Scar pulled the trigger when the white blade sank deep into his gut. He arched his back, his mouth widening into a muffled scream.
The loud thud of the gunshot ripped the air. The bullet grazed Tyon’s shoulder and darted past him. He crashed against Scar and shoved him down. A whimper came from behind him, but he couldn’t understand if it was Hazel.
Scar kneed him in the gut, but he didn’t budge. Warm, sticky blood trailed down Tyon’s shoulder. The healing power kicked in, tingling and burning. Thuds and smacks resonated behind him. There was the noise of a body smashing against the floor.
He pinned Scar’s arms with his knees and rained fists on the thug’s face until the man remained still, limbs turning floppy.
Wielding his white blade with both hands, Tyon stabbed Scar’s chest. Go to hell.
Ex tenebris, ad lucem. Ex umbrae, ad solem.
The blade sank to the hilt in a hiss of charred flesh. Scar exploded into a cloud of black dust and dissolved into oblivion, a scorching gust slapping Tyon’s face. There was a new thud from the other side of the room, and Aleximanus’s obsidian blade flipped in the air and got stuck in the wall.
Aleximanus had pinned Envy underneath him, chest heaving. “Tyon, the white blade,” he shouted, stretching out a hand.
Tyon threw his dagger without hesitation as if Aleximanus had always been one of his knights, a friend, and a brother. As if the past five years didn’t exist.
Aleximanus caught the hilt and jabbed the blade into the envy-breather’s rotting heart, a smile of triumph on his lips. Envy burst into dust, the blast propelled Aleximanus back.
Ex tenebris, ad lucem. Ex umbrae, ad solem, Tyon chanted.
Squinting at the whirlwind of dust, he turned towards the window.
All the blood flowed down from his head. Hazel lay on the carpet, a hand pressed on her chest. Blood trickled between her fingers.
“No.” He’d meant to shout, but his parched tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and only a strangled noise came out.
Eyes wide in shock, Aleximanus stared at her as if trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
Tyon ran to her on wobbly legs and knelt. Sheer, undiluted fear caused his muscles to shake. “Let me see, love.”
She moaned when he lifted her hand and ripped the fabric of her bodice to take a look. The bullet had sunk into her flesh, broke a rib, and maybe punctured a lung.
Anger and desperation burst within him in a head-spinning mix that left him raw. His power exploded out of him like a tsunami.
When pieces of the ceiling started to rain, he held Hazel closer, inhaling her sweet scent mingled with blood.
“I’ll get help.” He picked her up and gently laid her on the couch next to the fire. Then he ripped his shirt and bandaged the wound in tight spirals. She winced, her lips paled, losing their healthy pink colour, and her breathing turned uneven.
Aleximanus limped closer, a coarse sound leaving his throat.
Tyon caressed her cheek. “I’ll find a medic.”
Her shaking hand closed around his weakly. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’ll be right back. One of my neighbours is a doctor. It won’t take long to fetch him.” But he was fooling himself. Too much blood oozed from the wound. Her pulse was slowing, her gaze growing cloudy, and warmth was leaving her body.
“I’m sorry, Hazel.” Aleximanus shrugged off his jacket and covered her.
The words and the sadness in them were a dagger to Tyon’s heart. Even Aleximanus knew she wouldn’t survive.
“I can’t change her without my brothers.” Fury and desperation roughened Tyon’s voice.
“Fuck.” Aleximanus raked a bloodied hand through his bedraggled hair. “I’m a sin-breather. I
can’t help you.”
They stared at each other, and again it was as if they hadn’t been enemies in the past five years. They were two knights, kneeling close to a dying fellow soldier.
“She’s dying,” Aleximanus murmured the words Tyon’s mind refused to accept. “Can’t you contact the Monk?”
“I need another knight to do it as well, you know that.” He kissed her knuckles. The stain of blood was growing, blossoming on her chest.
Hazel whimpered, a soft sound that knifed his writhing soul. Her fingers around him lost strength. Her eyes fluttered closed. “Tyon . . .”
“No, no, no.” He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t turn her. His knights were scattered not like the sin—
“Change her,” he ordered to Aleximanus. “You can save her.”
Aleximanus recoiled as if punched. “Turning her into a sin-breather? Are you barking mad?”
“Do it. It’s the only way to save her.”
“We won’t save her. We’ll condemn her to a life of slavery and pain. You can’t be serious.”
“Do it!” Tyon shoved to his feet and seized the lapels of Aleximanus’s shirt. “She has to live. I can’t lose her.”
“You’ll lose her anyway.” Aleximanus bared his teeth. “She won’t be the Hazel you know. Her soul will be tainted. Think carefully, Captain. Do you want to do this to her?”
He was right, but Tyon couldn’t let her die. Even if she became a sin-breather, he’d find a way to help her later once his knights joined him. They’d summon the Monk, and he’d know what to do.
“Do it.” Desperation choked him, and the words came out raspy and throaty.
“Do you realise I can turn her only into a lust-breather? It’s the only available spot.”
A lust-breather. Every man and woman would want her, and she’d be driven by an insatiable lust until she managed to control her power. But she’d be alive.
“Hazel is more important than anything else.”
“You’re making a mistake.” Aleximanus pried Tyon’s fingers from his shirt. Fury glinted in the depth of his blue eyes while a void opened in Tyon’s chest.
“Fucking do it!” The walls shook, cracks opening around the doorframe.
“Damn you, you fool.” Aleximanus worked his jaw and took Hazel’s hand. The blue and the white in his eyes disappeared, swallowed by shiny black. A red glow spread around him and cast tremulous shadows over the walls. He muttered words in a harsh, rough language Tyon didn’t recognise. Each sentence was like barbs on his skin, scraping him like claws. Nausea caused his stomach to roll, and he sat back, shrinking away from the evil source. The evil that would sink into Hazel’s soul.
I’m saving her. She’ll understand.
Doubt gnawed at his gut like a worm eating its way through an apple. He hadn’t even asked her opinion. He was forcing this upon her. What if she hated him afterwards?
But then, if she hated him, it meant she was alive, and it was all that mattered. He could live with her hating him. He couldn’t live without her.
Shadows flickered around the room. The candlelight extinguished. The gas lamps turned off. Only the red glow from Aleximanus illuminated Hazel’s pale face. A vase on the mantlepiece trembled, plopped off the edge, and smashed on the floor.
Aleximanus’s words repeated itself as an echo spread in the room. Dozens of screechy voices sang with him in a rhythm that was like the tempo of war drums. Tyon’s blood froze. His sitting room reeked with evil.
Hazel arched her back, her body levitating from the couch. Cold descended in the room like a blanket, and Tyon’s breath fogged in front of his mouth. Crimson flashes crossed the room, hissing. A voice sneered, another shouted in ecstasy.
Cold bit his flesh, and he shivered like a new-born. Aleximanus instead seemed to glow with fire. It danced in his obsidian eyes and lapped at his body.
Then she plonked down onto the couch like a ragdoll. The chanting stopped, the red light faded, but the candlelight didn’t flicker back to life. The smell of the burning wicks and sulphur filled the air.
Aleximanus collapsed on the floor, his heavy breathing the only sound. “It’s done.”
Tyon closed his eyes briefly, the doubt now consuming his mind. He staggered to his feet and lit the candles and the gas lamps.
Hazel slept on the couch, her cheeks rosy again, her breathing regular. He lifted the torn lapels of her bodice. The wound was gone, leaving only smooth, unblemished skin. A soft smile curved her lips. Even her skin was warm again. Happiness tainted with worry clogged his throat as if his body didn’t know if sighing in relief or concern.
He caressed her soft, hot cheek. “Is her soul already corrupted?” he asked in a trembling voice.
“To cheat death, a piece of her soul had to be fractured, but she won’t be tainted until she uses her power, until she lures someone with her lust and kills him or her.”
“I have only to protect her and keep her from using her power then.”
Aleximanus huffed. “Yes, good luck with that.”
Chapter 21
TYON’S FOOTFALLS WERE the only sound in the silent house when he finished preparing a hot bath for Hazel and padded downstairs.
Aleximanus slept in the guestroom after they’d nailed some wooden planks on the broken door, put up a stronger protection around the house, and cleaned the sitting room from the thugs’ dust.
Tyon gathered a sleeping Hazel in his arms. She fit perfectly into his body as if she belonged there. He kissed her temple, silently demanding forgiveness once again.
He carried her to his bedroom and laid her on the bed. The water in the bathtub steamed and fogged the mirror, and he added a few drops of jasmine oil. She’d like it.
With shaking fingers, he unbuttoned her bloodstained dress and unfastened her boots. Her skin was supple and warm to the touch. Only the blood caked on her chest proved she’d been shot to death. He undid her chignon and slipped her out of her petticoats, chemise, and stay until she lay naked on the blanket.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I couldn’t lose you.”
Tyon picked her up again and lowered her in the scented water. With a cloth, he washed away the blood and dust from her skin and hair, taking care to untangle the knots in her locks. He stroked her breasts, shoulders, and face, tears almost blurring his vision.
Once she was awake, Aleximanus would be her master. There would be a bond between them.
A tight vine of pain and sorrow wrapped around his heart. He’d sold her soul to the devil.
“I hope you’ll forgive me.” He patiently combed her wet air, a tear trickling down his cheek. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Mayhap when the pact had been broken and he’d thought he’d lost his brothers. And now, he’d almost lost Hazel.
You’ll lose her anyway, Aleximanus had said.
Tyon shook away the thought. She was alive. That was all that mattered.
Her skin became smoother and rosier by the minute. Her already full lips showed a more enhanced curve, and her lashes grew longer.
The perfect lust-breather. Humans would tramp over each other to get to her, to offer their souls on a platter. All he had to do was to be sure she never took a soul.
When the blood became a pink trail in the water, he towelled her beautiful body and held her against his chest as fresh tears flowed down his chin.
~ * ~
AN INSISTENT SOUND, like the thumping of a strong heart woke Hazel up. With her eyes closed, she stirred into velvety bedsheets and stretched. It wasn’t her bed. It was Tyon’s. The mattress was harder than hers.
Memories rushed back into her mind—Leon was the Hierophant, Aleximanus had been in Tyon’s house last night, then two sin-breathers had attacked. They fought like bolts of lightning, and she’d been shot.
She flung her eyes open and touched her chest. The bullet had burned her flesh like an iron rod, stealing her breath. Blood had flowed from the gush. She’d believed she was about to die, then all
had become darkness. And now . . .
I’m not dead. How?
She glanced around. She was naked and alone in the bed, but the bedsheets on the other side were still warm and crumpled. Tyon’s scent lingered on the pillow. Something within her body stirred, similar to hunger but more vicious, more intense. It started in her abdomen and moved lower until heated tendrils of lust throbbed between her legs, the need almost painful. Her nipples hardened, the bedsheet chafing them. Another throb pulsated on her hot nubbin exactly like when Tyon was around but ten times stronger.
Hellfire, what’s happening?
She slipped a hand between her thighs and rubbed her core, bringing a small degree of relief to the fire consuming her. Wetness drenched her fingers. The need for more seared her. Whatever the reason was for this sudden urge, she didn’t care now. The desire was too strong. If Tyon walked in right now, she’d wrap her legs around him and beg him to take her on the floor.
She stroked herself harder with a hand while with the other she pinched her taut nipple, and writhed on the bed until her inner muscles contracted with a powerful release. The shock waves rolled through her, stronger than anything she’d ever experienced. The urge subsided, not entirely satisfied though, but manageable. Her fingers weren’t enough.
Tyon. She wanted Tyon inside her. Hazel buried her face in the pillow and breathed in his musky scent. What had happened to her?
Loud voices drifted from downstairs. Her body tingled with a new flicker of need when Tyon’s deep baritone rumbled. She slipped on Tyon’s dressing gown, didn’t bother with her hair, and inched the door open.
“I did what you asked me to do.” That was Aleximanus. Anger thundered in his words. “Did you think it’d be all nice and easy?”
“I only want to know if the process is reversible,” Tyon said in a grim tone.
“I have no fucking idea.”
Footsteps pounded. They were probably pacing.
“It’s never been done before,” Aleximanus continued. “But I can tell you that as long as Hazel doesn’t use her power, her soul has a chance.”
The Pact of the White Blade Knights Page 22