Pierced [Pain & Love 2] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Ashlei D. Hawley

  “If you think it’s best, dear one. I simply don’t want to concern him with this. He would drain himself dry trying to cure you of this affliction, but I have a better chance of it. My blood is older and more powerful. The minute I think I have lost the ability to help you, I swear we will bring it to Leigh, to see if there is something that he can do better than I because he is your maker. Until then, I will do all that is in my power to restore you without risking him.”

  Marlyna was reassured by Henry’s promise, but Mallory became incensed. The bastard! She knew her instinct had been correct all along. Though Henry hadn’t said it outright, it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d secretly given blood to Marlyna, who’d fallen prey to the Munetero, and had done the same centuries later for Mallory, who was now suffering the same ill fate.

  Mallory put all of her energy into moving Marlyna’s body, wishing to strike at Henry if possible. What she was seeing had already passed, however, and it didn’t matter if she tore his face off in the dream. She couldn’t stop what he’d done to Marlyna or what he’d already done to her. It was possible she was capable of reversing the effect, however, and she clung to that thought throughout the vision. As soon as she awakened, she’d work on getting rid of the plague Henry had instilled within her body.

  “Thank you for being here to help me, Henry,” Marlyna said gratefully. “I’m glad Leigh and I aren’t alone in this.”

  “I will visit you again soon. Remember to retain your calm and keep your fears from Leigh. If he adds his to yours, the Munetero will sweep through you all the faster. You must be strong, dear one, for all of us.”

  Marlyna nodded as Henry stood and the vision began to vanish. The woman went back to her book, once more trying to focus on her words. Mallory was relieved to feel the grip of the vision slipping away from her. Ignoring the whispering of that omnipresent voice telling her what she already knew about the timeframe of the vision, Mallory clawed for consciousness. She needed to be awake. She had plenty of things to do before nightfall.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Mallory let her eyes drift open, she wanted to cry at the unfairness of the timing of the universe. Marlyna hadn’t known when the Munetero would claim her. Either she’d willfully blocked out the knowledge or she’d suffered a different version of it, because Mallory knew the instant the assault began on her senses.

  Fire poured through her veins, the wick lit by the fury she carried into waking from the vision. She wanted to tear Henry apart, and that visceral, blinding rage lent itself as perfect fuel for the Munetero. She wanted to tell Leigh everything that she’d seen in the two visions of Marlyna, but the most she could do was utter his name breathily.

  “Leigh,” she gasped. “Leigh!”

  He came running from the other room, having felt the intense surge of negative emotion from Mallory. She was sitting up on the bed, holding her temples as though suffering a horrible migraine.

  “Leigh, help me.” She met his eyes, pleading with him to save her. “Help me.”

  “Mallory, what’s wrong?” Heddy pushed past Leigh, making her way purposefully toward her granddaughter.

  Leigh snapped, “No!” as Mallory came to her feet in a seamless, invisible motion and went for her Gran.

  Deciding that containing Mallory herself was a better idea than pulling Heddy back, Leigh caught Mallory in his grasp and pulled her arms behind her back. She kicked out and came up off the ground. If she’d been near a wall or anything else to get leverage on, she would have been able to push back and break Leigh’s hold. Her strength was fantastic when driven by the madness, and Leigh grunted and began to sweat with the effort of keeping Mallory away from her grandmother.

  “Get out of the room,” Leigh snarled, his visage twisting into its harsher form as it displayed the effort needed to keep Mallory contained.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Heddy demanded to know. Mallory snapped fangs at her like a rabid beast, straining against Leigh and screaming her fury over her body’s impotence. She needed to attack, to rend, to feast. Leigh was keeping her from that and she hated him, hated him for it.

  Mallory moaned through the pain of mental fire and the physical strain of Leigh holding her back from the potential human victim.

  “What’s wrong will be that she tore out her grandmother’s throat if you don’t get out of here!” Leigh roared at Heddy.

  With one curt nod, Heddy slipped out of the room and shut the door. Leigh pressed Mallory down onto the bed, placing his full body weight on top of hers. She twisted her head to the side so she could breathe and continued to buck and writhe beneath him, not giving up her fight to run after the prey.

  Leigh murmured Mallory’s name into her ear, an endless whispered song of pleading and desperation. He didn’t know how to bring a youngling back from Munetero. The last time he’d tried, it had ended terribly. If Henry didn’t know how to save her, and Leigh hadn’t discovered the knowledge for himself, what could be done to restore Mallory before he had to destroy her as he had once before?

  In the living room, Heddy wrote as Mallory raged. She trusted Leigh to keep her granddaughter contained while she sought answers. Leigh couldn’t possibly think that sitting on her during her fits of madness was the treatment plan. Heddy wanted to look for a more promising form of correction for whatever was assailing her sweet Mallory.

  The pen flew over the page. She pressed so hard that the ink bled down through multiple layers. Not looking once at the words she wrote, Heddy simply let her power take hold. She’d given it a focus and now demanded answers. Nearly a century of experience with her craft had given her the control to guide the power where it needed to go. Need fueled her current session, and she hoped it would result in clear, useable answers to her present question.

  After what felt like hours of pen on paper, Heddy looked down at her notepad. She’d written a name she didn’t know, one she’d heard in passing and several other things that made little sense to her. Munetero. That was a strange word.

  Mallory had quieted, but Heddy didn’t think she’d come out of the craziness that had taken hold of her. Continuing to study what she’d written, she waited for Leigh to bring her granddaughter out so they could discuss what her power had put into words.

  * * * *

  Mallory had stopped thrashing and was just breathing quietly. She didn’t speak or scream and didn’t try to get Leigh off of her anymore. Seeking through the confused darkness of her mind, Mallory fought to return to her logical being. They needed to deal with what Henry had done to her before the night came, and she needed to be sane for that to happen.

  It happened in layers. First, Mallory found she was thinking in words instead of images. Her fangs receded. The muscles in her limbs stopped tensing and contracting, allowing her body to relax. Her breathing went from quick and shallow to slow and steady. Finally, she was able to speak without screams spilling from her lips.

  “Leigh, get off of me.”

  He’d been quiet for several minutes, but she’d heard him saying her name over and over again. He said it once more as he hesitantly peeled himself away from her.

  “You were able to come back.” He sounded unsure, and Mallory was sad that what she’d done had added to his sorrow and feelings of inadequacy. Impulsively, she hugged him.

  “We need to talk. Where’s Gran?” The fear in her voice left a piquant taste on her tongue. She couldn’t remember if she’d seen her Gran after the Munetero had taken her mind.

  “I sent her away,” Leigh assured Mallory. “You weren’t well.”

  “Yeah, and I know why.” As Mallory stood, Leigh scrambled to his feet and followed. She knew? He wondered how she could possibly know.

  Entering the living room, Mallory rushed to Heddy and the women embraced. Leigh was relieved to see he was able to do one thing right and had not allowed Heddy to be injured by her granddaughter. The blinds had all been drawn in the living room and Mallory was in no danger of burning to death as she sat on a
couch facing Heddy and gestured for Leigh to join her.

  “Henry told me about the Munetero.” Mallory plowed right into her explanation with no preamble. She knew the cause of what was happening to her, thanks to Marlyna, and what she really needed to focus on was the cure. She hoped Leigh and her Gran would be able to assist on that front once she got all the information out there.

  “Why would he tell you about that?” Leigh asked with a frown.

  “He said that’s what happened to Marlyna.” Mallory watched Leigh’s face darken when she said the name, and pressed forward in spite of his discomfort. “He agreed with me that that’s why you wanted me to kill you after we’d saved my family, so the Munetero wouldn’t take me, too. Is it your blood you think makes that happen? Is that why you didn’t make another between Marlyna and me?”

  Leigh opened his mouth, closed it. He didn’t know how much Mallory knew, or how helpful the information he could give her would be. Looking to Heddy, he silently requested the woman’s advice or input. She obliged by thrusting her notepad forward.

  “I wanted to know what was happening to my granddaughter,” she explained as Leigh took the bound sheaf of yellow papers. His eyes flew over her loose collection of jumbled words, making much more sense of them than she had. “So I called upon my power. These are the answers it gave me.”

  Leigh saw first the names of Mallory and Marlyna, bound together and interplayed so the names looked like themselves and each other all at once. One soul, many lives was written around their names in flowing script, and Leigh knew that Heddy could at least tell that on some level, Marlyna and Mallory were the same. Munetero was a word presented multiple times, scratched with particular force into the paper and drawn in long, thin letters that all seemed sharpened to dagger points.

  Other words were peppered between the others on the first page. Leigh saw, Betrayal, Blood transfusion, Lies, Fear, Doubt, Jealousy’ and Lust. He flipped the page over and a sickening shock wound through his gut and stuck in his throat like the burn of nausea.

  There was only one word on the page, repeated a thousand times or more. Henry. Henry. Henry. Henry. Henry. Henry. Henry.

  “What does Henry have to do with you? With Marlyna?” Leigh asked as he thrust the paper at Mallory. Her eyes swept over it, taking much less time than Leigh had to come to the same conclusion about the meaning of the combination of the words on the pages.

  “Henry caused the Munetero,” Mallory declared. “In both me and Marlyna.”

  “How?”

  “He tricked us.” Mallory was loath to admit that Henry had gotten past her defenses and her initial mistrust. It put the blame on her in her mind, but she carried on with her explanation, anyway. “He said we weren’t strong enough, that he had a defense against the Munetero he could offer us, so we wouldn’t leave you, wouldn’t drive you to worry or hurting yourself to protect us.”

  “And what was this defense?” Leigh asked. His voice was dangerously quiet and Mallory was afraid he was mad at her for not coming to him immediately with any of her concerns. She felt small and stupid when she answered him.

  “A transfusion of his blood, to complement the blood we already received from you.”

  Leigh wanted to hit something or hurt something. He wanted to funnel his rage into the destruction of anything, animate or inanimate, just to blow off the incredible pressure his fury filled him with.

  It couldn’t be true. Henry wouldn’t do that. He knew exactly what would happen if he did. Leigh had known his maker for centuries and he knew Henry wouldn’t do that.

  Or would he?

  Frustrated with his back-and-forth mentality on the matter, he requested Mallory explain further. He needed to know more.

  “Marlyna had at least two transfusions that I know of. I saw it in visions, Leigh. My power doesn’t lie. I was with her. I…was her.”

  Leigh wondered if Mallory had been in Marlyna’s mind because they were the same soul on some small level. Mallory didn’t act as though she knew she was a later incarnation of Marlyna, however, so he had to ask.

  “What do you know of Marlyna?” he asked. “Entirely.”

  I know you loved her desperately, Mallory thought to herself, but out loud she said, “I first saw Marlyna in a vision of a room in a castle or other large, stone structure. She was confused, scared. You helped to calm her, but I felt the flames of the Munetero licking at her mind. I also saw Henry, standing in the hallway, watching. Neither of you knew he was there.”

  Leigh couldn’t pinpoint the memory Mallory had stepped into in her vision, but he’d bet it was sometime before they’d had to leave their last home, after Marlyna had begun killing innocent humans and leaving their torn remains in the streets for others to find. He hadn’t known Henry had been there. Leigh had suspected it once before, but now he was certain his maker could hide his presence if he preferred. Leigh didn’t like that.

  “And the next?” Leigh asked.

  “The next was more important,” Mallory stressed. “I saw Marlyna and Henry talking. He admitted to giving her a transfusion, Leigh, and brought up the need for another one. He said that it was going to help keep her from falling prey to the Munetero, but I think it did the exact opposite, just like it did for me.”

  Heddy, who’d been silent until that point, spoke up. “What is the connection between Marlyna and Mallory, Leigh?”

  Leigh was hesitant to tell them, but Mallory was looking at him expectantly and he couldn’t act like he didn’t have an answer for Heddy’s question.

  “They are two bodies that have housed the same soul,” he admitted plainly. “I loved Marlyna centuries ago, and I knew it when she was reborn into Mallory.”

  Even worse, Mallory thought bleakly. She’d had a suspicion that she and Marlyna were more connected than she’d first assumed, but hearing Leigh say it made her realize that she was even less to him than she thought previously. She was a reincarnation, a copy of Marlyna that had disappointed him on every level. No wonder he was ready to end it all.

  “And what problem does Henry have with this?” Heddy pressed. Mallory didn’t want to make Leigh uncomfortable, but she proposed the only idea that made any sense to her.

  “Henry is in love with Leigh.”

  Heddy nodded, readily accepting the information, but Leigh lashed out against the implication.

  “Ridiculous. I’ve known him for hundreds of years. Don’t you think I would have realized this before now?”

  “Some people are silly when it comes to love, Leigh,” Mallory suggested. “Sometimes we don’t see what other people think of us, no matter if we’ve been with them one year or a hundred years. I’ve seen it. The way he looks at you, the way he touches you. He loves you, and he has for a long time.”

  “So what you’re saying is, Henry loves me and he killed Marlyna and is trying to kill you to get you out of the way, in hopes that I’ll eventually come to love him back?” Leigh struggled with the words as he said them.

  “I think that’s exactly what it is,” Mallory admitted. “As simple and complex and crazy as it is. Tell me I’m wrong about the blood and I’ll rethink my whole stance on the issue.”

  “You aren’t wrong. Receiving any blood besides the blood of your maker will result in a madness very much like the Munetero. It is not the same, but it has the same effect, if not the same cause.”

  “Well, now that we know what’s happening,” Heddy began in a careful tone. “What are we going to do about it?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The discussion between Mallory, Leigh and Heddy continued throughout the morning and into the afternoon. They had lunch, spoke of unimportant things, and then resumed their talks about how to rid Mallory of Henry’s blood-given poison in her system. Shortly after 1 p.m., Heddy received a call from Luke.

  “Junior’s been shot,” Heddy told Mallory. “He’s in stable condition. Your mom and dad are with him. Craig Taylor and two other off-duty officers are there, as well.”


  “The Hunters?” Mallory inquired as she sat on the couch. She felt lightheaded and strange. She was helpless to go to him and she mourned her inability to be with her family.

  “Yes.” Heddy sat down beside Mallory and rubbed her arms soothingly. “But they’re fine now. They’re safe and they’ll be there at least for the night. You can do what you have to without worrying for them. It’s a blessing in disguise, I think.”

  “Junior might argue with you, Gran,” Mallory said wryly as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

  Leigh listened to their exchange, but said nothing. The Hunters were playing a new game, and before they lost, Leigh and the others needed to turn the tables.

  * * * *

  Lydia and Jade entered the house that Jade and Daria shared. They needed basic things like spare clothing and weapons and a few unique items.

  “I’ll do it,” Lydia offered to Jade as the raven-haired sister pulled two necklaces of gold from a jewelry box that used to belong to their mother. It was a small, simple red box decorated with blue and green flowers. Gold trim weaved through and around the painted petals. The chains both held circular lockets that were empty and had enough space to fit a pearl the size of a pea. They had a very specific purpose.

  “This mess is yours,” Jade retorted. “You should do it.”

  Not arguing with her sister for once, Lydia sat cross-legged on the floor. Daria mirrored the stance on the bed and Jade watched from a standing position.

  Meditating on the task, Lydia found herself distracted by so many different trains of thought, she almost gave up. She couldn’t help but think about the people she’d turned over to the Hunters and wondering even if the so-called demons she’d helped to destroy had actually been innocents. She had to hope that she hadn’t only ever hurt people with what she was doing. That wasn’t what she’d been trying to do.