She hadn’t looked at her arm since the first rays of light appeared over the horizon, but she didn’t need to. The wolf’s sharp teeth had torn her flesh from just below her elbow up to her shoulder.
She didn’t know how much blood she’d lost…but it was bad.
Ashlyn let her eyes drift shut. Maybe rest would help her heal.
“You’re not falling asleep on us, are you?” Vargo asked sharply. “That’s pretty inconsiderate.”
“I’m…sorry,” she muttered, and opened her eyes again.
Tag, one of the Toryn ninjas who’d pretended to be Ashlyn’s younger brother, had used the shift magic to turn into a wolf and attack her. Ashlyn had stabbed him through the neck with her shuriken, killing him, but he’d fallen on top of her, pinning her down. His heavy, stiff body was still immobilizing her legs, his massive head resting across her chest and stomach. The seeping blood from his neck wound had soaked her clothing and then frozen overnight, but Ashlyn had long ago stopped shivering.
Her father had told her the night before that shift was capable of transforming its user into a wolf, in addition to the bear and panther forms Ashlyn had witnessed previously. Wolves, the only animals in Kresmir capable of intelligent thought and conversation, were lethal opponents, but Ashlyn had never seen a shift wolf until Tag had attacked her.
Vargo dropped his flask on the pearl-tiled floor, but instead of clattering against the tiles, the sound it made sounded like footsteps. “Damn,” he said. “Good thing it was empty.”
“Ashlyn!” someone yelled, and it wasn’t Vargo or Skye.
“You’re hallucinating,” Skye said, seemingly amused by her feverish state.
Aik’s furry face entered her line of vision. Ashlyn was happy to see her friend, but much too cold to react to his sudden appearance. He padded up to her and touched his muzzle to her cheek. Normally the wolf’s nose was cold, but right now Ashlyn was so chilled that she couldn’t feel any change in temperature, only the pressure from the contact.
“Hang on, Ash,” he said, and sat back on his haunches before sending up a long, eerie wolf howl that rang in Ashlyn’s ears like a bell.
Skye and Vargo abruptly disappeared.
Drake vaulted up the stairs and skidded onto his knees beside her, looking decidedly un-Drake-like as he slipped in the sticky, half-frozen pool of blood.
“Ashlyn, look at me,” he said urgently, putting a hand to her cheek and turning her face towards him.
She stared at him dully, lamenting her sad state of mind for conjuring up the vampire in her fantasies. “Go away,” she mumbled. “Bring Vargo back.”
Something flashed across his handsome features- something like the pain she’d felt the day before, when he had coldly backpedaled after finally admitting his feelings for her. Ashlyn felt a brief twinge of satisfaction.
The loud whirring of engines reached her ears, and over Drake’s shoulder she saw the airship circling, looking for a place to land in the water-soaked city.
Drake grabbed Tag’s body and flung it aside, finally freeing Ashlyn to move. She tried to pull one knee up, and couldn’t do it, barely eliciting a tremble from her leaden limbs. Drake gently reached over and touched her injured arm, and the green light of heal illuminated his face as the warming effects of the magic enveloped her.
“No…use,” Ashlyn mumbled, and turned her head to the side, irritated at the loss of her numbness as she began to warm up. “Leave me alone.”
Somewhere in her head she was aware that he was trying to save her, and she was also very much aware that he did not seem to be another one of her hallucinations. But she wanted to be left alone.
Drake turned her face towards him again. “Stay awake,” he said firmly.
“No use,” she repeated.
“I won’t let you die,” he snapped, ruby eyes flashing. “I promise you that. Stay awake.”
She could feel her wounds closing, nerves reconnecting and flesh knitting under Drake’s touch. As the pain of healing intensified, it seemed to penetrate the haze of her delirium. Ashlyn found herself thrown back into reality with surprising abruptness, and her whole body jerked in shock. “That hurts,” she moaned, trying (and failing miserably) to pull her arm away from Drake. “Stop it.”
He responded by sliding his arms underneath her and standing, picking her up so that her head lolled back and her arms dangled awkwardly. Ashlyn’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, but a sharp bark from Aik brought her back. “Crap,” she said ineloquently, realizing that her body was trying to quit even as Drake was trying to save her. I’ve lost too much blood.
“I’m taking you to the airship,” Drake said, and he shifted her in his arms so that her cheek was against his shoulder. “Stay awake.” He began to run, and Ashlyn was totally helpless to do anything but lie in his arms and stupidly hope that he didn’t drop her. She could hear the rhythmic clicking of Aik’s claws on the pearl tiles as he followed, could feel Drake’s hands tightening on her body. Every step served to jolt her out of near-unconsciousness, but the urge to sleep was constant and nearly overwhelming.
“Talk to me,” Drake told her suddenly. He leaped over the last two steps, landing with a splash in thigh-deep water that drenched them both, and waded towards the next staircase. The urgency of his movements and the shallowness to his breathing was unmistakable. He was worried about her.
If she’d had the strength to do so, Ashlyn would have laughed out loud. She was dying, he’d rejected her, and he wanted to talk now? Her thoughts were too muddled to comprehend that he was trying to keep her awake, but some miniscule, polite corner of her mind (a corner that was clearly repressed during her more lucid moments) reminded her that it would be rude not to comply with his request, so she struggled to respond.
“You don’t…need…to breathe,” she murmured, saying the first thing that came to mind. It seemed a betrayal for Drake to deceive people with unnecessary human habits.
“But I still do it,” Drake answered candidly as he ran up the steps. “As much from habit as an attempt to blend in. Keep talking.”
Ashlyn thought about her dad, lying beside him and holding his hand. She’d been so happy to see him again. But after Kou had broken into the room, her dad had still been lying there, a peaceful and serene expression on his face…except that he hadn’t been breathing at all.
“Kou…had…re…reveal,” she whispered, and she was speaking so softly that only Drake, with his superhuman hearing, could have understood her.
Their eyes met briefly as his step faltered, a slight hitch in his stride, and she saw the sorrow in his eyes. He knew about her father.
Ashlyn had lost her hira shuriken to Kou in the basement of her home in Toryn, and she was so desperate to save a dying Vargo that she allowed Kou to escape with the weapon, along with the stanes inside it. Reveal led its user to whatever they were seeking, and Kou had found Ashlyn’s father by using the stane’s powerful tracking magic. Kou had murdered Lord Li as Ashlyn slept beside him, by injecting some kind of poison into her father’s IV line.
There was a small, desperate part of her that had secretly hoped Sara or Aik were wielding some kind of rare magic that would bring her father back to life. There were so many stanes in Kresmir, so many magics. One of them had to bear the power of resurrection.
But the despair in Drake’s eyes told her the truth, and Ashlyn wanted to die in that moment. For three years she had avoided her father and Toryn, fleeing her destiny until even Lord Li had believed her to be dead. When she’d returned, Kou had led her to believe that her father was the enemy, driven mad by shift, but in reality Lord Li had been a victim of Kou’s manipulations and cruelty. His last months had been spent suffering at the hands of a monster. If Ashlyn had accepted her birthright and returned to Toryn following Lord Angelo’s defeat, then maybe her father would still be alive today.
“He’s gone,” she choked out, and began to cry, except that she had no tears left, and her sobs only invoked pitiful tremors in he
r already trembling ribcage. Hers was the crippling, heart-rending grief of a dying daughter, the lamentation of a broken warrior. There was no reprieve.
Drake lifted her closer, crushing her to him in an awkward embrace as he ran. “I know,” he said, and his voice was raw, like he’d been breathing hard from running too long, except that Ashlyn knew vampires didn’t need to breathe and Drake Lockhart could never get winded.
The sound of his boots against the ramp to the airship clanged in her ears, and Drake said, “We’re here, Ashlyn, just stay awake,” before Sara’s shrill voice cut in with, “Careful now. Where is she hurt?”
“Her right arm was torn open. I’ve sealed the vein. She’s nearly bled out.” Drake spoke as he ducked into the airship, heading down the corridor towards the infirmary. Ashlyn numbly focused on keeping her eyes open, fighting the urge to squeeze them shut under the harsh fluorescent lights inside the ship.
“She’ll need a transfusion.” Ashlyn heard metallic squeaking as Sara yanked open a file cabinet. “What is her blood type? I can’t remember. Where is her file?” Desperation was creeping into the scientist’s tone.
Drake placed Ashlyn on the operating table, easing her down carefully and lacing the fingers of his right hand through hers. “We have the same blood type,” he said, brushing strands of frosty hair back from Ashlyn’s face with the cold metal fingers of his gloved left hand. “Take mine.”
There was a brief pause as Sara considered this, and Ashlyn stared up into Drake’s face, blinking furiously to abate the sting of her dry eyes and trying very hard to stay conscious. Now that she’d been yanked from her own delirium into the real world, emotions were ricocheting back and forth inside her, each one opening a fresh and painful wound upon impact. She wanted to sleep, she wanted to die…she wanted to wake up from this awful dream and be back in Endro, far away from Toryn and Kou and the horror of reality.
Drake held her hand tighter, his eyes burning straight to her soul.
“I don’t know about that, Drake,” Sara said at last. “Your condition…your blood might have contagions that could…affect Ashlyn.”
“She won’t turn.” Drake’s voice was sharp. “Please. She is dying. My blood has healing properties. A direct transfusion is the only way.” He didn’t release Ashlyn’s hand, instead jerkily raising his silver glove, unbuckling the straps with his teeth, and dropping the heavy contraption to the floor with a loud metallic clank. He offered his wrist to Sara, and the light gleamed off the scar tissue that covered his forearm. “I’m ready.”
Sara hesitated, clearly flustered. Skye appeared beside her, and his expression was grave.
“Drake, can you guarantee that she won’t become a vampire if you give her blood?” the blond swordsman asked, folding his arms across his chest.
“Can you guarantee that she’ll live if I don’t?” Drake countered, and Skye glanced at Sara, clearly expecting a response.
Sara’s face was white. “I- I can’t guarantee anything,” she stammered. “But every moment we wait changes the odds.”
“Then let me save her,” the vampire hissed, and even in her half-conscious state, Ashlyn could feel the angry heat radiating off him in waves. “You know I’d never do anything if I thought it might hurt her.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” Skye said, nodding. He glanced down at Ashlyn, seemingly considering the options. Finally he turned to Sara. “Do it.”
The scientist rushed to the cabinets and began pulling out equipment, and Ashlyn watched her silently. Skye distracted her by suddenly holding something to her mouth, and she looked up at him, feeling the dampness of the canteen’s opening against her lips.
“It’s only water,” he said. “Drink.”
She was immediately frustrated to find that she was too weak even to swallow, but she let the water trickle down her parched throat, and it was soothing nonetheless. When she had drank it all, he moved away, touching a hand briefly to her shoulder for reassurance.
Her eyes eventually drifted shut, lulled by the comforting warmth of the infirmary. She listened quietly as the people around her spoke in hushed tones, and began to drift off to sleep, only to be interrupted by Drake.
“Ashlyn,” he said, and his voice was soft but urgent. “Stay with me.”
“You…stay with me,” she retorted hoarsely, angry at being awoken. She was at once irritated and exhausted, and in her grief-stricken and weakened state, Drake’s uncharacteristic display of affection was as frustrating as it was comforting. With a monumental effort, she managed to open her eyes again, and turned her head slightly to see what was happening.
Sara was pushing something into Ashlyn’s wrist, attaching her to a long tube that was already hooked into Drake’s arm. Ashlyn had never seen Drake without his silver glove before, and the complex web of scars starting just above his wrist and continuing up the inside of his arm was both horrifying and fascinating. There were so many crescent-shaped ridges crowded onto the skin of his forearm that some of them overlapped onto each other like some kind of morbid patchwork quilt.
She watched fuzzily as the blood began to flow from his body into hers, and felt an immediate jolt as the foreign blood touched her veins. “Your arm,” she whispered. “What…are those?”
“Bite marks,” Drake replied.
Skye appeared on Ashlyn’s opposite side, eyebrows knitting as he surveyed what must have been extensive damage to Drake’s entire forearm. “How many bites does it take to turn you into a vampire?”
“This wasn’t done to turn me,” Drake answered, and the brevity of his answer spoke volumes.
Ashlyn had never questioned why he wore the silver glove, but now she found herself wondering what else he had kept hidden from her- and also wondering just how extensively Lord Angelo had tortured Drake before turning him into a vampire. Most of Drake’s wounds healed with little or no scarring, so these bite marks must have been inflicted while he was still human.
She could feel the blood strengthening her, little by little. Hesitantly, she tried to squeeze Drake’s hand, and was pleased when her fingers responded.
His gaze locked once more with hers, and Ashlyn took a deep breath, feeling almost like time was standing still, trapping the two of them together in a strange limbo. With her delirium slowly dissipating, she felt like she could finally see him clearly, and the events of their last meeting crowded her mind uncomfortably. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now, but with Drake holding her hand and staring deep into her eyes, his blood flowing into her veins, it was impossible to focus on anything else. She could tell from his expression that there was something he wanted to say too, but it certainly wasn’t the appropriate time or place.
“Tag is…dead,” Ashlyn rasped, turning her head towards Skye and breaking eye contact with Drake. “I wounded Kou…but he escaped.”
“You did good, Ash,” Skye said firmly. “We left Trace and Ellis in the Heavenly City. If Kou is still on the northern continent, they’ll find him and kill him, and we can finally end this.”
She nodded faintly, a lump in her throat. If her dad had still been alive, Skye would be reprimanding her right now for running off alone for the third time in a row. Somehow Skye being nice to her was a million times more soul-crushing than Skye yelling at her for being an irresponsible brat.
The light in the room was brightening, her surroundings gaining an astonishing clarity with every passing moment. Ashlyn glanced at Sara, who was standing a few feet away from Drake, holding a clipboard and chewing nervously on her lower lip. She could see every detail of the scientist’s finely pretty features, even noticing a tiny smudge on the lens of the older woman’s glasses.
Strength was flowing through her muscles, enveloping her entire body, and her skin was tingling. The blood was working. She was healing. Heat unfurled in her core and began to spread through her limbs. Ashlyn frowned. It didn’t…feel right. Something was wrong.
Pain spiked unexpectedly in her chest, and she gasped
, arching off the table as the agony blossomed out in a solid wave, the heat sweeping through her body. It burned like someone had dumped a bucket of hot coals on top of her, and Ashlyn wailed helplessly, desperate to escape the feeling.
“It’s trying to turn her,” Drake said beside her, and let go of Ashlyn’s hand to yank the tube from his own wrist. Blood spurted, but he clamped his opposite hand over the hole, stopping the flow and applying pressure.
“How do we stop it?” Skye demanded. Ashlyn could barely hear him over the roaring in her ears. She grabbed the sides of the table, fingers digging into the metal with inhuman strength. The solid pulse in Skye’s neck was throbbing insistently, beating out of sync with the loud fluttering of her own heart.
Resist! she thought abruptly, and tried to reach into her pocket, where she’d put the resist stane the day before. Normally the Spartans kept it just in case Drake somehow lost his own resist stane, but Drake had given it to her yesterday. Another stab of pain froze her in mid-motion, and Ashlyn yelled out a string of profanities, cursing every deity she knew and a few she was probably making up.
“What do you need? Tell me!” Skye exclaimed, catching her hands and pushing them down to the table. Ashlyn thrashed wildly, fighting inwardly for control even as her body betrayed her.
The words she’d said to Drake when he’d lost resist were repeating over and over again in her head. Find the will, you moron! Vampirism doesn’t control you any more than the resist stane does! Fight it!
She didn’t need resist. She was a ninja. She could do this. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find her center, trying to focus. She felt a fresh rush of pain consume her, and pushed it aside, imagining herself sinking into the ocean…letting the cool waves sweep over her face, tickling her limbs as she slowly disappeared beneath the surface. She was weightless…powerless…submitting herself to the serene and steady tide of the water.
The weight of her grief made it easier, somehow, to turn inside herself, to rise above the physical agony.
The Lady of Toryn Anthology (Lady of Toryn trilogy) Page 38