by Owens, C. M.
I pucker slightly when disappointment hits, and he smirks against my pouting lips.
“I really wanted it to be a surprise unveiling,” I huff while drawing back.
“You look stunning, baby. I’ll act surprised if it’ll make you feel better.”
I let a small laugh escape, and then I feel his lips against mine again. He smiles behind the delicious kiss, and then he sighs out while withdrawing.
“I hate this morning went so foully.”
“Doesn’t sound like a good omen,” Brazen mildly interjects while shrugging, and Hale’s eyes scold him.
“I’m relieved it’s over. Let’s go make this wedding worth it,” I giggle out.
Clay walks back in with a smile on his face for our successful act of evading the truth. I also detect a bit of smugness in his eyes. It’s not often he bends the rules of the United since he is the commander, but I can tell he feels like a renegade hybrid again. His youthfulness is almost refreshed as he struts toward us. It just proves he loves me, his sister in our formed family.
“I’ll be back in time to walk you down the aisle,” he says while walking over to give me a hug filled with relief.
“Thank you.”
Angelica’s eyes lower to the floor, and I know she’s thinking of our absent father right now. I walk over to offer her the first truly honest hug I’ve ever given her, considering she just saved me and my child.
“Thank you,” I utter sincerely.
“You don’t have to thank me, Araya. I’m your sister.”
“Let’s discuss this later. I think it best if we move forward with the day and not let our moment be ruined by any of this,” Hale asserts gently while fully taking in my dressed body. “You really do look astonishing.”
“I’m glad you didn’t just use traditional black for the wedding. The red truly demonstrates you,” Angelica says softly.
“I remember a day when white was the traditional color,” Brazen chuckles.
“That was when there was a such thing as virgins getting married,” Grayson adds with a snicker.
“Why are you laughing? You’ve barely begun to live your life,” Brazen scoffs with a smirk plastered on his face.
“I don’t have to be old to know old traditions.”
We all laugh lightly, and in that moment, the bad air is dispersed to allow room for the joyous flow to waft in. Hale pulls my hand to his lips before leading me out of the room.
“Two more hours, and you’re mine.”
“I’ve always been yours,” I whisper, and he jerks me around to pin me against the wall.
The anxiety from this morning’s scare, the excitement and shock from our impossible pregnancy, and the dread of what tomorrow holds for us all releases into my mouth as he expels it from his body in the middle of his passion.
“I love you,” he murmurs against my lips. “Promise me forever.”
“Forever,” I utter without hesitance.
His hands travel up my thighs, and I’m worried we’re going to fuck here in the hallway with my wedding dress still on. I don’t care either. I want him. I really want him.
His soft lips curl around mine as he starts pulling the dress up, and then a throat clearing interrupts the out of hand moment.
“Yeah,” Hale murmurs without looking.
“I was hoping to speak with Araya for a moment,” a chilling but familiar voice says, and I get sick when I see Brazen’s mother staring at me.
Shit!
“We don’t want anymore trouble today,” Hale grumbles. “Why are you here?”
“I’m sorry to intrude upon your wedding day, but this really is rather urgent. I need to speak with Araya only.”
She’s not acting like her usual frigid self. She seems a little frazzled, off, and possibly scared.
“Yeah. Sure,” I murmur to her while moving away from Hale’s protective hands, and then I turn to face him. “I’ll see you at the end of the aisle.”
He smiles salaciously, and then his lips fall on mine again. He glowers at the woman when he passes her, but she keeps her eyes burning against me, barely even giving Hale a second glance. What could be so important she came to speak with me? She hates me.
“If this is about Brazen and I… well… I honestly thought you’d be celebrating our breakup.”
“It’s not about you and Brazen. Is there a place we can’t be overheard?”
“Yeah, this way,” I say while motioning to Hale’s office.
I type in the security code to unlock the door, and she follows me in while quickly locking the door behind her.
“Is it true? Your blood heals our kind’s allergy to the sun?” she gushes, tears threatening her eyes.
What!
“Who told you that?” I prompt.
“My son was reported dead the day the two of you helped with that prison run. They called us and told us there was no time to deliver blood, and that you had stayed behind to be with him when he passed. It was the first time I ever felt anything but hatred for you. Then he calls me to tell me he’s fine. At first I believed his story about some passerby having blood in tow, but then I heard the chatter about a man named Leon claiming he knew a way full bloods could live and breathe in the sun. He claimed he saw a captain walk out of a building after death had been presumed. He claimed then the full blood stood in the sun’s glory while in full glow.”
I text Brazen discreetly without looking at my phone while she spouts on. My heart is racing furiously right now, and I can’t face this alone. Hale might actually kill her for knowing after he interrogates the piss out of her.
“Please tell me you can heal us,” she pleads.
“I… uh… um…” I stutter for a minute longer, but the genuine and sincere hope in her eyes is enough to make me cave. As much as I hate her, I see a little bit of Brazen in her eyes. “It’s true, but you can’t tell anyone. They’ll tear me apart before waiting for the serum Clay is close to finishing right now.”
Tears spew from her eyes in a gushing flow. I’ve never known her to be the emotional type. I’ve never known her to be anything but icy.
“When will it be finished?”
“Originally we thought a few years, but Clay is now saying a few more months,” I murmur hesitantly, not mentioning his gift.
“My son has tasted the warmth of the sun?” she asks with tears pouring from her eyes even more.
“Yes. He can also sustain himself on solid food. He only uses blood to heal or to keep up appearances. I thought you would be disgusted to hear about your son being so close to hybrids now. I worried you would actually hate me more.”
“Araya, I don’t hate you. I envy you. Our weakness is our thirst. Our pain and suffering is in our need to hide from the one thing we desperately want to feel - the sun’s true warmth. You gave my son that. You are a savior, not a devil. I’m so, so sorry,” she releases through her uncontrollably jubilant sobs while throwing her arms around my neck. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He’s trying to keep me safe. I was attacked by Leon,” I answer while warily returning her embrace.
She withdraws to look me directly in the eyes to show me her devout honesty and… loyalty perhaps?
“Araya, I would never tell a soul about this. I promise you that.”
A beeping sound comes from the keypad, and I turn expecting either Hale or Brazen to walk in. My smile is bright momentarily until I see the face appearing. Suddenly my smile fades into an ashen look of shock as Ty’s face darkens the room.
“Evening, ladies,” he chillingly offers.
I start to fling him across the room, but my powers aren’t working. Nothing is working. I’m exposed, shaking, and completely unable to even move a pen with my mind. My body is drenched in a fever as everything evades me, even my invincibility.
“Who are you?” Greta demands.
“I’m the man who is about to exterminate your filthy breed now that I have completed my little experiment.” His eyes turn back to
me, their vile glow burning brighter. “What’s wrong, Araya? Gifts on the glitch?”
“What’s wrong with my gifts?” I growl while moving to be in front of Greta.
“It’s sweet how forgiving you are, Araya. Just yesterday you might have enjoyed watching this bitch die, and now here you are guarding her. But to your point about what I’ve done to your gifts, well that’s all attributed to her,” he says while opening the door to reveal Symphony - hooded, eyes blazing a different blue, and completely dilated pupils.
“That’s not her gift,” I almost whisper as she joins us in the room.
“It wasn’t. You see, through my many experiments, I learned something very crucial to changing our lives going forward. The gifted don’t have some sort of special powers burning inside their bodies idly. As a scientist - a brilliant scientist - I discovered hybrids have a completely different section of their brain. If you unlock certain portions, you control your body in different ways. You can even control your savage, which as you’re well aware, is when you’re at your strongest. Symphony’s brain had the capacity to be fully unlocked, it just took some time. Also, I’m her counter.”
“That’s impossible. You’re ungifted,” I scoff.
His eyes narrow as his fury shines through with Hell’s promise of burning flames awaiting me for my snarky remark. His lips tighten as he takes in a breath, and then his eerily calm tone chills the air around us when he continues.
“I’ve always hated that classification… ungifted. They might as well have called us unworthy, unnecessary, unlovable, unfit to be cared about… the list goes on and on. A hybrid without a gift is crucified from the time they’re born until their span ends, but a gifted hybrid forgets what has been done to us by their kind.”
Suddenly Greta flies against the book case as Symphony uses her mind to send her sailing. She thuds to the ground unconscious, her body distorted. I can tell there are several broken bones, and I’m praying Brazen doesn’t arrive. My text pleaded for him to hurry, and now I’m terrified about what Ty will do if he shows up to be my hero.
“She wasn’t my counter, but she is now. I am the one she wants. Not Clay,” he growls.
Clay? Oh fuck. Clay is her counter. Why isn’t she going for him though?
“How did you manage to do that?” I say while easing to the window.
“Don’t even think about it. If you jump, I’ll just have her whirl you back in here.”
I take a deep breath while moving back across the room.
“What do you want from me? If you’ve completed your experiment, then it’s obvious you’re not here for my blood. Why are you here?”
“Because I want you,” he growls, and he cracks his neck to the side before his pupils dilate too. “I can have two counters, and I’ve always wanted you.”
Holy fucking shit. No. No. No.
He pulls a gun free, and I feel the sting before I hear the tranquilizer being shot. This shouldn’t be affecting me. Dark patterns emerge from nowhere as they toy with my groggy mind. There’s no sedative strong enough to subdue a gifted hybrid, so why… do… I… feel… so… sleepy?
Chapter 10
Power Hungry
The dank room rattles around with dripping bits of water from above. We’re in the wetlands right now. I can smell the moist soil above me. I can taste the humidity falling down through the concrete holding cell I’m strapped up in. I can feel the darkness encompassing me in the room that almost exactly duplicates the torture chamber I was once held in.
My tattered dress drapes over me with an exhausted cling. My eyes strain to adjust to the dark while they try to awaken from their sleepy haze. How did he sedate me? That shouldn’t be possible.
“You’re finally awake,” a voice echoes over to me, it’s hollow thud bouncing off my over stimulated eardrum, and I look up to see the odd blue eyes of Ty staring without waver into mine.
The chains binding my hands to the wall behind me rattle when I try to lunge at him, and he laughs as he mocks a face of fear.
“Easy girl. I’d tell you not to go savage, but you can’t. That’s funny, huh? That’s my little gift to you. Until I can merge your blood with my little medicine, you’ll have to stay impotent in that area.”
“Merge my blood with what?” I growl.
“It’s something that enters your veins as powerfully as the venom from a bite. It erotically charges you, and leaves you as spellbound as you are when blood fucking a partner. The difference is, it holds you to that person unconditionally for an indefinite amount of time.”
“Why do this?” I almost whimper. “Why couldn’t you just move on?”
“Move on?” he blares with rage seeping from his tone. “You were my life, Araya. I thought we were going to be inseparable. I thought you loved me the way I loved you.”
“The way you loved me?” I snark in derisive disbelief. “You kidnapped me, told a group of full bloods to torture me using my most profound weakness, and you let them carry out said torture for days and days. My body still aches when I merely think of those rods protruding from me. My nightmares haunt me to this day.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he says insincerely while taking a step back.
He strides softly across the dampened floor, but his shoes clank the ground with each step. The echoes of his footsteps rattle out in the dark, empty space I’m held captive, and no other breaths warm the air around us.
“I had reached a point of desperation. When you and I were together, I found an amazing quality in your blood I had never tasted before. When I studied it closer, I learned you were immortal. I didn’t want you to be mad, so I kept it a secret. I wanted to find a path to immortality myself so you and I could have forever together. I still haven’t figured it out, but I’ve managed to add a few centuries onto my span. Your blood is so amazing, Araya. It created an entirely new species. Can’t you understand everything I’ve done, I’ve done for us?” he gushes out.
“There is no us, Ty. I love Hale.”
“You feel bound to Hale. It’s not the same. I can give you the real love you deserve. If he had never come around, you and I would still be together.”
“If he hadn’t come around, I would have left you anyways. I was already done. Kissing you left a sour taste in my mouth, and I was ready for a change. Don’t you get it? I never loved you, and I never told you I did for that reason. Those words never left my mouth. I’ve only ever loved two men, and neither of them were you.”
He growls in the back of his throat before slinging a large rock across the room. It shatters against the stone wall while chunking it up as well. I see a slither of light coming from a room on the other side, and I’m curious if that’s the way out of this hell.
“No. I gave you love. You did love me, you just didn’t know it. He took you from me, and I swear I’ll kill him before this is over. My army is growing stronger by the minute. The final drops of blood from your phase three has completed my mission. I’m already better because of it.”
“I didn’t love you. I related to you. We both lived through Cheyenne’s worst, and it was nice to talk to someone who understood. You used everything I shared with you against me. You used Cheyenne’s torture room for your playhouse to slay our own kind in your quest for self betterment. I went on to help people; to keep them from suffering the way I had to. You went on to be just like the ones who held us down and broke our flesh and spirits.”
“I did this for you,” he says, hatred burning in his tone.
“Hale will find me. You know he will, and it won’t be him who dies. It’ll be you. He doesn’t need his gift to destroy you and your sorry, ungifted ass.”
He laughs, which wasn’t what I was expecting to happen after that threatening remark.
“He might have found me if he didn’t think you just left him,” he says with a touch of mystery trying to intrigue me.
“What does that mean?” I ask while taking the baited hook.
“It means Symphony can
do more than just what you saw. Originally she had your big boom that rattled the lands and caused mass destruction. Then I unlocked the piece of her brain that gave her telekinesis. Piece by piece, I unlocked more and more. Her mind is phenomenal, and the power she now holds is unsurpassable by anyone… including you. I happened to record this when we’re were leaving.”
He holds his phone out, and I gasp as I see her wearing a dress just like mine and a face that I should only ever see in the mirror. She looks just like me, and I realize the hand holding the phone has to be his.
“Everyone knows your face. Everyone knows what you look like. How did you walk in at all let alone carry me out with you? It would seem rather odd to have two of me side by side.”
“It would seem odd, wouldn’t it? Did I forget to mention the ungifted can also be gifted now?” he asks, and my eyes widen when I realize he’s referring to himself. “This is crazy, Ty. You know this is crazy.”
“Why? Because now I’m a forgotten they can’t forget? If I had been able to unlock Symphony’s ability to block your power before your phase three blood, I could have had you sooner. If I could have done this,” he says, and suddenly he vanishes from sight while letting his voice carry on. “I could have kept a better eye on you until time to collect you again,” he says dangerously close to my ear, and then he reappears.
My breaths become shallow, rapid, and disgusting to taste as his exhaled ones fall into my mouth.
“But, now I can. Your blood gave me the ability to heal sections of my brain that shouldn’t work. Your phase three blood is so much grander than anything I’ve ever seen.”
He doesn’t know about the unspoken.
“Ty, please don’t do this,” I plead, but he ignores me as he carelessly walks around the empty room.
“All I had to do was disappear while holding you, and you were just as invisible as I was. Then my sweet Symphony held the door open to secretly allow me to climb in with you by packing her bags in the backseat. She told the officer she was leaving Hale, and she was sorry for anyone’s day being interrupted. Then she pulled out with us in tow. They never even questioned the fleeing, considering it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve left a fiancé.”