by Unknown
“Stay, please.”
Fissures split his flesh like ruptured stone every time he moved. “How did she find you?” Trembling, I pulled him up close to me. As carefully as possible positioning him to lie against my body. He cringed in pain with every touch and movement.
“Didn’t. I found her.” He groaned as he lay against me. Phoenix’s hand wrapped my own tightly. Every time he squeezed automatically because of the pain elsewhere I heard and felt the bones in his hand break.
“Why would you do that?” His back arched off of me and I could hear the bones rupturing as he snarled wildly. “Tell me what to do!”
“No choice. She would have come for you.” He gasped for breath painfully. “It’s magic. I need blood. Strong blood.”
“Drink from me.” Cradling him carefully I held my arm to his mouth.
“No. You-” He breathed deeply closing his eyes to concentrate on his words, “You don’t know what you offer, Lianna.”
“Damien said Vampire blood is stronger than human blood. Like concentrated or something,” I was flustered and rambling. “It can help you. Please drink.” Raising my arm to my fangs ripping the flesh wide, I held my wrist forcefully to his mouth.
He only fought me for a minute. Then suddenly with a groan he latched onto me. His hands came up to hold my arm tightly to him as he drank in the blood with primal need.
I watched his skin ripple and listened to the sounds of his bones mending as rapidly as they had broken moments before. His body shook with silent sobs. Vampire blood was more potent than anything else. I knew that much. I didn’t care if it made me weak. I would have sacrificed anything if it helped.
Too quickly he pulled away, gasping. There was still pain in his black eyes as he fell back. Slowly he raised his head to look at me.
“I shouldn’t… You don’t understand,” he breathed in a whisper. The strangest feeling washed over me. The connection was instant as it was intense. Just as I had with the mountain lion the first time. Just as I had with Damien. I could feel his pain. It was alarming and far more horrible than I could have imagined. Yet I was also still me.
“Why are you stopping? It will help you won’t it?” My arm was already healing. The full intake of blood had allowed me to heal even quicker than usual. Phoenix nodded hesitantly as he grit his teeth, fighting the pain.
“Then just do it.” My hand came up to sweep the hair back from my neck, a fingernail slicing through the flesh on the nape. Blood oozed from the gash.
Too desperate to resist he lunged. The force of his body startled me as his arms wrapped around me tightly, crushing me to him. His mouth found the wound eagerly, fangs digging deep into the flesh almost savagely. One hand slid to my back griping me to him tightly as his other held to the other side of my neck beneath my hair, holding me to him intimately.
A low moan rumbled from his chest as he sucked against my neck. It felt like lightning had struck us together. Everywhere our bodies touched electricity crackled between us, fusing us together. Sharply I gasped from the shock of feelings swelling inside of me. I had never felt anything like it before.
Pure need. Pure want in its most basic desperate form of desire. It was as if we were sharing more of our selves than I had ever thought possible. It wasn’t his emotions and mine, they were ours. My hands held to his shoulders as he drank. As he shook violently from the pain of fighting the magic I held him tighter to try and keep him from seizing.
During blood exchanged with Damien, I never paid much attention to much else than the pleasure of being with him. This was much different. I could feel things from him I had never felt before. We were connected. If nothing else, for this moment, I could feel everything he did. And likewise Phoenix had the same connection to me now.
As his shaking began to subside, he moaned low. His hand that cupped to my neck let his fingers stroke against my flesh tenderly. His bone crushing tight hold still desperate and needy was becoming no more than firm and gentle.
“Phoenix? What the hell are you doing?” Damien’s voice shocked me having been so absorbed to not even hear his approach.
My stomach twisted strangely, almost guiltily as I looked up while Phoenix sucked on my neck greedily still. “He’s hurt,” it was all I could manage to say.
“Let go of her,” Damien’s voice throttled with a low menacing growl of warning. He stepped closer slowly, almost in a crouch. His hands by his side looked like he was ready to rip Phoenix off me himself if he didn’t let go immediately.
With a painful groan Phoenix released me, falling back with a gasp. His eyes closed when he laid back. I could feel his endorphins racing still and they were nearly euphoric.
I wondered how long I would feel these things from him. Opening his eyes, he looked to me with a heavy sigh fallen from his lips. “What’s going on, Phoenix?” Damien took another step closer.
Phoenix breathed heavily as his body continued to heal slow and painfully. “Nekayla,” he whispered faintly, his eyes still deep crimson as he watched Damien. The pain was still ever present but he was feeling- if I had to explain it, intoxicated. Damien knew it, too.
Hm, my blood’s intoxicating. Isn’t that something?
Phoenix glanced up to me and his eyebrows sort of shrugged. “Lianna, step away from him.” My mouth dropped to argue shock and anger filling me at the way he was acting. Before I could speak he snarled. “Now.”
I stood, backing away from the both of them. Still yet close enough to be certain I could keep Damien from killing Phoenix if need be. “He’s your brother, Damien! What are you doing?”
Damien ignored me. His eyes watched Phoenix closely. “You saw Nekayla?” Phoenix let out a deep aching sigh and hung his head down for a moment. His hand ran down over his face before he looked up to Damien with a disgruntled expression, nodding.
Pulling himself up to sit, he leaned back into the base of a fallen tree. “Yes. She has always confided in me. I knew she would again,” Phoenix’s voice was ragged, but he was recovering. “She’s just not usually quite so pissed off.”
“Damien, we need to get him home. Look at him!” Damien glanced at me. His eyes narrow, not angrily but as if he was hurt. Quickly his attention redirected to Phoenix.
Phoenix shook his head. “No, it’s good he’s here. You both need to hear this. Before anyone else does.”
Other than with Paul and Liahm I had never seen Damien so ready to kill for any reason other than to hunt. Never had I seen so much rage and pain both in him. I was suddenly certain if Phoenix hadn’t have looked so badly off, Damien would have killed him without hesitation.
I was the cause of this. The demolition machine of his life.
Phoenix’s eyes rolled back into his head as another bone in his spine snapped back, forcefully healing itself. After a moment of incoherent mumbled foreign cursing he looked up to Damien.
Phoenix’s skin was hallow and translucent. Even the whites of his eyes were blood red. The irises were pale sky blue, almost a pale blue-grey. His skin was loose and baggy under his eyes. He looked like hell. “I do appreciate you not killing me, brother. But you don’t have to worry… She’s yours. She always has been.”
Damien straightened as he eyed Phoenix suspiciously. “Explain,” his voice was still almost feral as he snarled every word.
“Well it’s not a positive answer to your problem, but it’s closer than anything else you have found yet.” The back of his hand rose to wipe fresh blood away from his lips. The poisonous magic was lingering. He was still bleeding internally. He needed more blood.
“Nekayla said some pretty damned interesting things that I thought you just may want to hear… Outside of her murder plans for the majority of us, she said that Lianna should have stayed dead the first time. Something to that effect that is.”
Phoenix’s chest rumbled with a low growl from the pain as he tried to sit straighter. One hand was dug deep into the dirt, half hidden by his thigh. Trying to keep a grip on his sanity and control over the pain, he h
eld onto whatever he could.
As I looked from Damien to Phoenix my eyes widened. “What? What does that mean?” I asked, watching as Damien’s eyes narrowed.
“It means she has killed you before. And seeing as it was technically Demetrius this last time… I believe she means Shayla. Which would mean Damien was right. You, little Sticks, are a walking reincarnation. One that has royally pissed off a Vampire comparable in strength to any mythological God.” Shit. He nodded. Oh shit. His shoulders and eyebrows shrugged together. He seemed almost amused if not for the tortured pain in his eyes.
Damien staggered a step closer to me. As if a bucket of water had been thrown on him, the rage seemed to wash away. After a long pause of silence between the three of us Damien looked back to Phoenix. “You’re certain of this? Did she say anything else?”
“Nothing too interesting.” Phoenix’s eyes narrowed as they slowly turned to a deep violet. “Oh, other than that you belong to her. Have you been holding out on us, brother?”
Damien’s brow furrowed in confusion shaking his head slowly. Shit! Phoenix almost chuckled about my over use of the single explicative. “She turned him?” I dropped to my knees, literally floored. Phoenix shrugged. “When she killed me… She turned him…”
“I don’t remember turning. Just dying. It’s possible,” Damien answered uncertainly. Since I’d introduced the idea, he’d readily believed it was Shayla’s magic that turned him. Brought him back from the dead as a Vampire, so that he might find me decades later. He’d wanted it. We all fell silent again. This changed a lot of things. And also told us just how dangerous things had become. I’d pissed off one hellaciously powerful Vamp by coming back from the dead. Twice. Somehow that just seemed kinda cool more than doom worthy. Didn’t that make me a badass by born definition?
“How did you find us?” I had to ask. Though in New York, we were pretty far outside the property still.
“Lara saw something. Hendrick helped me track you. I sent him looking for unfriendlies when I head Lianna.” My thoughts. On cue, Phoenix wiped his mouth with the back of his hand again. It wasn’t my blood. It smelled like his. Nearly black blood stained his grey placid flesh. Damien grumbled, his eyes locking on my bloody neck and the blood stain on my arm. Both were healed. Didn’t matter to him though. “Anna… I need you to leave me with Phoenix a moment.”
I shook my head in protest, but his hand came up defensively. “I just need to talk to him. Please? We’ll be right behind you, I promise.”
Uncertain, I looked to Phoenix who nodded. Walking to Phoenix I knelt down, trying to ignore the daggers shooting from Damien’s eyes. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out the sphere, tucking it into his palm. It was cold and clear.
With nothing else said, I left them both and began running to the house. A million thoughts raced through my mind so rapidly I felt overwhelmed by it.
Phoenix and Damien watched Lianna leave. Both stared after her until she was safely out of hearing range. Damien looked down to Phoenix with a sigh as he walked over to him. His arms crossed over his chest. “So, you gonna tell me just how it is you’re such good friends with Nekayla?”
Phoenix sneered and chuckled grimly. “Good friends… You better sit down for this, Damien.” Damien’s brow lifted as he kneeled down beside Phoenix. His legs folded under him, weight balanced on the balls of his feet.
“Does anyone else know?” Damien was obviously having a hard time trusting Phoenix. After all, the betrayals’ just seemed to be flying about at the moment it seemed.
“Jezabell’s the one that sent me, Damien. Trust me when I say I had other plans entirely.” Phoenix shook his head in thought.
“She’s just that hard to resist I guess. It takes a real woman to ask you to walk to your death, and you do it happily for her. Okay, I don’t know about happily. I still did it though.”
But it took an entirely different kind of woman to have you not just willing, but planning to before you could ever be asked. Phoenix didn’t say that though.
Damien’s eyes narrowed as Phoenix spoke of Jezabell. All he could do was wait for Phoenix to continue. “Jez knew about my ties to Nekayla obviously.”
Phoenix took a slow weary breath. “Maya… Maya is my maker, Damien. Brother.” Phoenix looked up to the man he had called brother with a hard painful laugh. It was not a laugh of amusement. Their bond was beginning to shred. He could see it. They both could. And yet ironically as it turned out, Damien and Phoenix actually were brothers of sorts.
Damien took in a deep slow breath falling back to the floor of the forest to sit completely on the earth beside Phoenix. “Damn.” What else did you say to that?
Phoenix chuckled again and gave a nod. “Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know.” Shaking his head, he looked down to his hand. The skin looked like white marble with grey lines of color where the veins coursed beneath his flesh. Dark crimson, nearly black blood smeared the back of his hand. “You know, I almost forgot how big of a bitch she is.” Damien smirked a little. No he hadn’t.
Phoenix still hurt like hell but the breaking had stopped at least. “I didn’t plan for it to happen this way. I never planned for any of you to find out aside from Jez. But here we are. Now you know Maya’s only blood child has been calling you brother for the past however many years. And as it turns out, apparently it was a very literal term for the two of us.”
Phoenix shook his head. “Nekayla always… enjoyed my company.” Phoenix sneered, speaking that word with utter disgust. A million thoughts and memories playing through his mind of his sorted past.
“She’s confided in me many times. Jezabell doesn’t know the quality of our relationship, just that there was one in some aspect.” He paused in thought. “I knew she was right. So I went to her.” His hand waived before them grandiosely. “And here we are.”
“I will leave you to your past.” Damien nodded understandingly. No one liked all their skeletons laid out to be seen.
“Thank you,” Phoenix didn’t sound sincere but he was. It would be bad enough having everyone know the truth. The details of that truth were another story entirely. He would kill Nekayla if ever given the chance. But that wasn’t likely anyway.
“So… mind telling me about what’s going on with you and Lianna?” Damien looked to the ground, not yet willing to look at Phoenix regarding the subject of the only woman he could ever love or ever had for that matter. No matter what body she inhabited. Damien had never doubted Shayla’s rebirth into this life.
“You know damn well if you were going to trust anyone to do that aside form you it would be me. Quit with the defensive shit, Damien. She’s yours. I’m not ever going to try to change that. And yes, you are one lucky son of a bitch to have her. So I am going to put this out there while we’re being brutally honest.
“If you ever. And I do mean ever- hurt her again. Then at this moment you know the outcome something like that will have. Don’t you? Don’t ever make me choose between you and her.” Phoenix watched him closely and Damien returned the challenging stare. A million things passed in that silent moment between the two of them.
“A blood bond is not something so easily dismissed,” Damien spoke through grit teeth.
“She hasn’t had my blood, and I’ve no intention of giving it to her.” Phoenix looked down, unwilling to go into the complexity he felt on the subject of Lianna at all. And of course as always when anyone tried to read his mind, Phoenix was a blank slate.
“I don’t like it,” Damien finally said with a sigh, looking up to Phoenix at last.
“Don’t worry, brother. I will leave as soon as this mess with Nekayla is done with. In fact I’ll be glad to. Until then, you may need me. Or hell maybe she’ll do us all a favor and kill me quickly.” Phoenix laughed again in his dark demeanor.
Damien’s brow furrowed as he shook his head, dismissing the comment instantly. “So I am not the only one she wants then, am I?”
Phoenix shook his head. “Nope. But I won’t submit to t
hat life again. Maya released me,” he snarled. “My time with them is over. If Nekayla tries to force it to be otherwise then I’m certain one of us will die in the end. I doubt it would be her unfortunately.” He sneered again.
Yes, it was rightfully said that many people would revel in the end of Nekayla. Not that it was really possible. No one knew the truth in that as much as Phoenix did however.
“So will you tell her?” Phoenix looked up to Damien curiously. They both knew what he meant. The blood bond and what it could mean for Lianna. “I tried to tell her, Damien. Honestly. I told her she didn’t understand what she was giving to me. But when she bled, I was too weak to resist. I’m sorry. Truly.”
“I have to now. Perhaps this is my fault. Perhaps I should have told her from the beginning… I should have given her the choice from the beginning.” He glanced to Phoenix before looking down with a shake of his head. Both of them knew it wouldn’t have changed anything. Lianna would have done it anyway, but that was hard for Damien to admit.
“Look at it this way- in the mean time she just has another excellent body guard. And when the time comes, I will vanish into the wood work.” His hand waived dismissively. “It has never been my intention to come between you two. I do mean that,” and he did mean it as his words were vehement.
“Yes. I know. She’s like a drug that draws you in. Impossible to resist.” Damien chuckled slightly with a painful sigh. He stood at last. His hand held down to Phoenix.
Hands locked around wrists, Damien smoothly pulled Phoenix to his feet. Phoenix groaned and fought the urge to double over as he staggered forward. With the other hand his brother steadied him. “Easy… She certainly did a number on you, eh?”
“Yeah, and she likes me. Don’t be quick to forget that.” Phoenix got his bearings and in moments they were trailing after Lianna. Each of them knew now they would be bonded to Lianna in every way, until their days would end. One way or the other. But neither Lianna, nor Phoenix would have changed what had happened.