He looked sad, if only for a fleeting moment. It wasn’t enough to soften my hard-boiled soul. “My hand was forced. The less you knew about yourself, the better. And after a while, I liked it that way. You were my secret and mine alone. If my father hadn’t exiled me, we might have conquered him together. You could have ruled at my side. But it’s too late now. What’s done is done, and now that you’ve been found and others understand the importance of your existence, there’s no going back. You can’t run from Fate. I might not have you at my side, but you’ll still get me what I want.”
What a load of bullshit. I felt my body drift into shadow, and as I became solid, my hand wrapped around the grip of the ancient katana. I freed it from the scabbard with blurring speed, but before I could put the blade to good use, Azriel had passed into shadow and was gone.
“Fuck!” I screamed, slicing through the air.
Sleep would’ve been impossible after Azriel’s visit, so I strapped the katana to my back and headed out in search of trouble. The Pit seemed as good a place as any to start, and with only a few more hours to go until closing, I’d be able to pin down Levi for a minute to talk. At the very least, he may have heard a rumor or two that could come in handy. Either way, I didn’t want the night to end without a little bloodshed.
The club smelled like stale alcohol, cigarettes, and sweat. I wrinkled my nose in disgust and walked through a couple groups of drunken slobs, parried a few friendly hands, and kicked one brave soul in the shin after his palm made contact with my ass.
It was unusually crowded for so late in the night. The counter was strewn with discarded glasses that Levi and a cocktail waitress were hurrying to throw in the dishwasher while wiping down the bar and restocking the bowls of peanuts, popcorn, and other nasty-looking snack foods. The TV was tuned to ESPN, and a few guys were catching up on scores from throughout the night while their dates crowded together and whispered in a tight circle.
Levi steered me in the right direction. “See that girl over there?” He pointed to a petite blonde, standing alone and swaying her hips in time to the music. “She’s just what you’re looking for.”
I tipped him a hundred-dollar bill (it was worth it), and made my way through the die-hard partiers to where the girl danced by herself. She couldn’t have been taller than four-eleven, and her long blond hair looked wild and uncombed, swirling in a knotted mass to almost her knees. Her eyes were closed, and in a dreamy sort of way she rocked to and fro, her arms waving like tree branches in a strong breeze. She seemed completely oblivious to everything around her. Only the music held her attention as the haunting beats dictated the sway of her hips back and forth, back and forth, like the tide washing up on shore.
I recognized her as a Sylph, an air creature, to be more exact. She bore a striking resemblance to the woman seated next to Xander at the Summit earlier that day. Raif had pointed her out to me. The energy coming from her didn’t surround me like the bubble of pressure a Lyhtan’s presence caused. And unlike the hum that had come from the Fae, her energy was more like a soft wind caressing my face. I was quickly learning to identify these inhuman creatures by the way they felt to me, rather than the way they looked.
I cleared my throat, but I doubted she heard me above the music, so I tapped her shoulder. She opened her eyes in a languid motion, like she was just waking up. Her thin lips turned up in a Mona Lisa smile, and she continued to sway. “You’re a pretty Shaede,” she said before twirling in a circle. “Wanna dance?”
I wondered if I came across as the kind of girl who let loose on the dance floor. She looked me up and down and gave a small shrug of her tiny shoulders. “No, but I thought I’d ask anyway.”
Whoa. That’s new. “I guess people have to be pretty careful around you, don’t they?”
“What do you mean?” Blondie replied, her eyes drifting shut again. “Because I can hear your thoughts?”
“Uh, yeah.” I watched her sway and twirl, and the strange flow of air that came off her sort of lulled me, momentarily confusing my purpose in being there. I blinked back a sudden wave of lethargy and tapped her shoulder again.
“I know you’re, um, busy dancing and all, but someone said you might have some information on where I can find the Enphigmalé.”
She twirled again before peeking out at me through one eye. “When night becomes day and day becomes night, the nine will come to claim their right. When darkest soul meets lightest love, her blood will play creator’s role, and from stone release their souls.”
I didn’t expect her to go all rhyming and poetic on me. Not to mention that none of what she said made an ounce of sense. She spun again and ignored me completely while the music absorbed her attention. “You want to elaborate on that?” I asked, grabbing her by her arms to stop her. I was getting seasick from all the rocking.
“Marked as creator, but no one’s maker. No mother, no father, they surely will take her,” Sylph Girl said.
“What are you talking about? The Enphigmalé? Whose souls?” I gave her a little shake. “Hey! Snap out of it! What the hell are you talking about?”
Her head lolled back and a deep, throaty laugh bubbled up through her mouth. It drew the attention of a small group, and one of the guys came over to see what was so funny.
“You girls want to go to a party?” he asked.
The Sylph smiled and broke free from my grasp, turning to the guy, who would’ve been better off minding his own business. She pulled him down for a kiss, which didn’t get weird until he started thrashing and fighting to get free. You wouldn’t think something that little would be so strong. But all ninety-eight-or-so pounds of her held on to that big guy, and she kept a lip-lock on him like a sailor home on leave. His efforts became weak, and then she just let him go. He fell to the floor, dead.
“That was fun,” she said with a giggle, and resumed her dance.
Levi jumped over the bar and rushed right into the action. “You’d better get out of here, Darian. This isn’t good.” He turned me around and gave me a little push. “There’s something wrong with her; she might’ve taken something. Human drugs and Sylphs don’t mix. That, or someone’s really fucked her up. She shouldn’t be doing this. Go.”
Doing what? Sucking guys dry and dropping ’em dead on the floor? I didn’t get the chance to ask my question, though. Levi gave me a harder push this time, and I moved to the darkest corner I could find, passing into shadow before the bar flooded with a stream of Sylphs, armed and ready for a fight.
I didn’t think my presence would make anybody feel at ease, so I watched from the shadows. One of them pulled Levi aside, and a discussion ensued that I couldn’t hear over the music. While they spoke, the others tried to break Little Miss Dance Machine out of her weird groove. She smiled sweetly and ignored them for the most part, stepping over the body of the guy she’d just killed like he was an obstacle on a hopscotch court. Levi tried his best to evacuate the bar of its human occupants while the Sylphs worked on restraining the girl, whose dancing had increased to a frenzied tempo.
Dancing turned to spinning, and spinning to jumping. The jumping quickly changed to trembling, and the girl shook from head to toe before freezing in her tracks. She bent her head low before a scream broke loose from her chest. Glasses shattered, and the few humans who remained fell to the floor, writhing with hands clutched over their ears. Levi ran for the door but didn’t make it before he collapsed, one hand just over the threshold. Still, the girl screamed.
The piercing sound wasn’t without its effect on the nonhuman occupants of the club. Sylphs dropped like flies, grabbing their heads between their hands and calling out for the girl to stop. The sound magnified in my own ears; I didn’t think I’d be able to take much more before my head exploded. It was as if the howling wind itself blew inside my brain. A few of the humans closest to the screaming girl had begun to bleed from their ears, and I made a decision. It might have been rash, but I’m a woman of action.
With each step closer, th
e force of her scream seemed to blow me back like a strong gust of wind, and I had to fight to gain ground. The katana was firm in my grasp. I made my way to the girl, who continued to scream, her eyes rolled back into her head. I looked at her face for only a moment, shuddering at the awful sight of those blank white eyes and gaping mouth. I pulled back and with a scream of my own, ran the blade through her chest. The terrible screaming ceased, replaced with an odd and ugly gurgle as blood welled up in her lungs and throat. She grasped at my arm, blood trickling from her mouth.
“You are marked,” she said. “They’re coming for you.”
The blade resisted as the suction from her body held on, but I pulled it free and she tumbled to the floor, her eyes staring at nothing, her last life breath trickling from her chest in a wheeze.
A woman screamed, and the people who had fallen scurried about like frightened mice. Levi looked okay as well, helping the others out the door and cautioning against saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gang wars, he’d informed them. The Sylphs stood one by one and circled around the dead girl, their heads bending collectively in a solemn show of grief. The entire scene seemed surreal to me, too strange to be connected to the reality I’d known. But it was, and apparently I’d become a marked woman.
Just like I’d wanted, the night had ended in bloodshed.
Chapter 22
I went home and looked over every inch of my body in the mirror. No marks. Not a birthmark, a mole, or even a scar or discoloration. Screaming Girl must have been mistaken. Her weird little rhyme played over and over in my head, though, as well as her assertion that “they” were coming for me.
I hadn’t allowed myself to slow down for weeks. Since Xander’s appearance in my life, I’d been kept so busy, I hadn’t had much time to consider my situation. But as I crashed down on my bed, I finally let myself think.
Xander. Had he really wanted me? Or was it just another of his tricks to keep me tied to him? I had my own personal wish granter, for who knows how long—and he hadn’t even had the decency to ask me how I felt about it. And then there was Azriel. My former lover and maker who’d left me alone and uninformed had returned—for what? To conquer a kingdom? To take some kind of revenge on his own father for sending him into exile? And what was it he wanted? A crown? Me? And last but not least, the “marked woman” thing. Marked how? Where? Why? The whole damn thing made my head ache.
Only one of my boots had the chance to clunk to the floor before I passed into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I woke well into late afternoon, one boot still on my foot. My hair engulfed my face in a snarled mass, and by the look of the twisted mess of covers, I guessed that I’d tossed and turned for most of the morning. My eyes felt a little too puffy when I rubbed the sleep from them, and my mouth dry and sticky. It was like waking up to realize you’ve partied way too hard the night before. But, unfortunately, my night had nothing to do with fun.
Coffee was my first order of business, followed by a bowl of cereal. The normalcy of my actions both comforted and disquieted me. My spoon circled a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios as I replayed the previous night’s events in my mind. I’d never allowed my conscience to dwell on death. I was a killer. I wasn’t so foolish as to try to convince myself otherwise. I’d killed humans, but never anyone who didn’t deserve it. Evil people with not even enough moral fortitude to fill the spoon I swirled in my bowl. It was all part of the lovely gray area that freed me from guilt. Last night, I’d killed a girl, a Sylph, and I had not been paid or directed to do so. She wasn’t evil. Out of her mind, sure. But I don’t think she would have done the things she’d done if something hadn’t been seriously wrong with her. If I’d let her continue, she may have killed me, Levi, a handful of her own kind, and a few more humans too. Maybe. Maybe not.
Was I getting soft? The block of ice that encased my heart had begun to melt by slow degrees, and I wondered whom I should blame for that. Tyler? Xander? Both?
Raif would need to know about the Sylph and her strange prophetic announcement. Oh, and the fact that I’d killed our only lead. I paused, the spoon of floating rings hovering in front of my mouth. He’d need to know about Azriel as well. My stomach soured at the prospect of telling him I’d failed in killing the sonofabitch. Holy fuck. I did not want to tell him that.
The grating buzz of my intercom gave me a start. Most of my visitors didn’t bother with the formality. I went to the lift and pushed in the button by the speaker on the wall. “What do you want?”
“It’s Tyler. Can I come up?”
He never rang. Ever. “Why’d you ring?” I softened the hard edge of my voice as butterflies took flight in my stomach. “You always just come up.”
“I was worried when you didn’t come back to Xander’s last night,” he said, and then added, “I thought you’d appreciate the fact that I’m trying to respect some boundaries.”
He’d already tried that act and bombed. What made him think I’d appreciate a repeat performance? “Well, you thought wrong,” I said. “Come up.”
I let go of the button and went back to my bowl of cereal, now too soggy to eat. I put the bowl in the sink and filled it with water just as the lift came to a halt. Tyler stepped out, a grim look on his face.
“How’s Delilah?” I asked.
“Asleep. She still isn’t talking. Mumbling a little, but nothing coherent. I needed a break, and she’s well guarded at Xander’s.”
My stomach gave a flip at the sight of him, and settled into a warm glow. “What are you doing here?” I wanted him to know that I felt better having him close. That everything wrong in my life had become just a little more right because he was here. But I kept my mouth clamped shut, the words trapped behind a hundred years of practice in keeping my emotions locked down—tight.
“I told you. I was worried. I wanted to see you, make sure you’re okay.” His voice sounded soft, steady. Not the usual overconfident Tyler. He still wasn’t smiling.
“Well, here I am,” I said, spreading my arms wide.
He walked toward the kitchen like a reluctant kid, staring at the floor. He opened his mouth, clamped it shut, and ran his fingers through the thick waves of his hair. While he wrestled with what he wanted to say, I held my breath and waited for the blow.
“I came here planning to tell you that if you don’t want me, I’ll leave you alone. You can break the bond and be free of me and I’ll bow out. You can be with Xander.”
His words slapped me right in the face. “Ty,” I began, wrestling with my own words. “I don’t know what I want. You know how I am. I’m not a share-my-feelings kind of person. I’m just—I’m . . . I don’t want you to leave me alone.”
“Do you love him?”
Xander was frustrating more than he was endearing. If love meant that I wanted to gut punch him and kick him when he was down, then, sure. I loved the shit out of him. “No. I don’t. He’s a royal pain in my ass. But he’s a link to my own kind, and I’ve been alone for so, so long. Tyler, why are you putting so much pressure on me?”
Tyler rapidly closed the distance between us. I stepped away from the counter, ready for anything and prepared for nothing.
“He wants you,” he said low. “He made it sound like you had feelings for him, too. Told me if I didn’t make myself scarce, he’d have Raif chop me up into little bite-sized pieces.”
I opened my mouth to protest. I couldn’t imagine Xander behaving in such an impetuous way. Not the cool, detached king I knew.
“I thought about it for about half a second. Leaving you. But then I realized something . . .”
I took a deep, long breath. “What’s that?” I whispered.
“It’s gonna take a lot more than Xander’s petty threats to keep me from you.”
“Oh.” Was it really my voice that said the tiny word? I looked up at him and he smiled.
“I love you. You don’t have to say it back. You don’t even have to love me back. But I love you. I love you, Darian. Till I die, I
’ll love you.”
“I wish I could say it back,” I said, honestly sorry. If anything, he deserved reciprocation. “But—”
Tyler took my face in his hands and lowered his mouth to mine. His cool lips caressed mine tenderly at first, but soon the urgency of his actions transformed his kisses into something altogether more forceful.
I should have stopped him, but when his tongue slid against mine, I couldn’t remember why.
He didn’t waste any time letting me know exactly what he wanted. My head swam from the intoxicating taste of him, and while my own hands were busy slipping under his shirt to explore the muscled expanse of his chest, his were working their way up my back to unhook the clasp of my bra. From there, my shirt made its way up and over my head, landing on the floor in a heap, followed a second later by the bra.
My breath came in a gasp as he pulled away from my lips to leave a trail of cool kisses down my throat, to my shoulder, and across my collarbone. He bent me back, just a little, and ventured farther down, taking my breast in his mouth and sucking deeply before pulling back at my nipple. My body became alive with sensation, the pleasure of Tyler’s touch that I’d denied myself for far too long. A soft moan swelled from somewhere in my throat and I guided him to the other breast, where he went willingly, teasing the flesh into a taught peak with his teeth.
The sun descended in the western sky and the muted orange glow filtered in through the skylights to bathe Tyler in a diffuse light. I pulled the buttons on his shirt and raked it over his shoulders, mingling with my own discarded clothes. His exposed chest flexed beneath my fingers as I explored his smooth skin, his heated gaze laying claim to every inch of my body. I kissed his neck just to the side of his strong jaw before running my tongue along his ear. Taking his earlobe in between my teeth, I sucked before returning to his mouth so I could savor the sweet taste of him once again.
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