by Riley LaShea
At the creak of a floorboard, Delaney glanced to find Auris watching her, blue eyes sparkling, as if delighted to have gotten to witness Delaney’s banishment.
“Should I go in and finish her off for you?”
Auris’ laughter following her as she made her escape down the hall, Delaney could hear it all the way down the stairs, knowing it was the best thing that could have happened to her. She had fallen in so many ways, too many ways, but, now that she had gotten on Haydn’s bad side, there was no further to fall.
29
“Brooks.”
The unwelcome name on Kiara’s lips pulled Delaney from the mindless diversion of television. Given only one, and not wanting to test the deraphs’ goodwill to ask for another, it had been surprisingly easy for them to make it work. Everybody who wanted any getting some say, they had fashioned a schedule that was satisfactory enough to everyone. Stuck as they were, and unsure when they might be free to make other acquaintances, petty disagreements simply weren’t worth having.
Watching Kiara heave the puppy out from behind the couch, Delaney felt some relief, though only some. Kiara’s insistence on naming the puppy after him was testament enough that the bond she felt with Brooks went beyond his presence in the house, that he would not be easily expunged from her mind.
It was a burden they would all have to bear, apparently.
“Is she all right?”
Looking up as Vicar Bryce returned to the room, Delaney watched his head shake in response to Heidi’s question.
“No.” He dropped onto the sofa, faith clearly tested, as Delaney had seen it so many times since they’d been there. “But she doesn’t want me there.”
“Would it be better if I try?” Heidi asked.
“Maybe,” Vicar Bryce acknowledged, sinking back as Heidi got up to try her luck with Jemma.
When Kiara came up, struggling to get onto the cushion next to him, her temporary animosity forgotten in Brooks’ exile, Vicar Bryce lifted her and the puppy in one scoop, depositing them into the spot beside him, and, along with Rupert, they all went back to staring at the TV screen.
“Did she say anything?” Delaney knew she hadn’t been invited into Jemma’s dilemma, but she couldn’t stand not knowing.
“It’s her husband’s birthday.” Vicar Bryce glanced her way.
“Oh.” The sounds of Jemma’s return that morning, when they had all heard her stumble down the stairs and the sobs from inside her bedroom, making sudden sense, Delaney felt remorse press in. Wondering if she should have done more to dissuade or distract Jemma from Gijon, as if she could do either, she was at least relieved to know nothing worse had happened. Though, she doubted there were many worse things for Jemma than realizing she was not only not around for her husband’s birthday, but had spent the earliest part of it in the arms of another man.
It shouldn’t have made a difference, the day, but one couldn’t explain logic to emotion. Delaney knew all too well. For days, she had been heckled by her own nonsensical thoughts. Given little choice in the matter, she could control her actions, apparently, but not her feelings, and, when it came down to it, she hated that Haydn was mad at her. So mad Delaney hadn’t even seen her.
“Do you want to play a game?” Glancing up, Delaney saw Vicar Bryce poke Kiara’s side, smiling at her wide grin of acceptance.
When he turned the question on Rupert - at least, Delaney assumed it was what he asked - Rupert rose from his chair with a nod and a stretch.
“Delaney?” Vicar Bryce looked to her, and, more easy entertainment enticing, it occurred to Delaney they were going to distract themselves through the rest of their lives if they didn’t do something. Haydn said she was looking for a way to hide them outside the castle, and, on better terms at the time, Delaney had no reason not to believe that, but, themselves, they had been less than proactive in finding a way to freedom.
Of course, only Delaney had expressly been told the possibility was on the table.
“No,” she said. “Have fun.”
Watching them walk out the door, the puppy she refused to call by name plodding along after them, Delaney hesitated for only a moment before deciding they couldn’t wait anymore. Too many things had gone wrong, too many people had gotten hurt, or were simply hurting. It would be better for all of them if they could be someplace else.
Third floor eerily quiet, it felt like a tomb as Delaney stopped to adjust on the dimly-lit landing. It was a tomb, she realized, glancing to the line of closed doors down either side of the hall, with the undead, or never-to-die, sleeping behind them.
Footsteps falling quietly, each sounded too loud not to wake them, and, relieved when she made it to the library unaccosted, Delaney flipped on a brighter light and started to explore the impressive collection.
Most books on the shelves written in dead languages, but for a section in English that must have been left by the house’s previous occupants and had no bearing on the subject, Delaney was glad to finally find a language with at least a few words she knew as she pulled the books written in Latin from the shelves.
Piling them on a table before her, this was the one thing she could do. She couldn’t fight the deraphs, nor their hunters. She couldn’t resist Haydn, nor give into her without internal strife. But she could research. She was damn near expert at research. She might even find something Haydn had missed.
Book heavy in her lap as she settled back into a velvet chair that had amazingly retained an element of its comfort, Delaney recognized what she had in her hands from the first page. Under different circumstances, it would feel like she had landed in a treasure trove, finding this book, sitting in this library. Even in her current predicament, she couldn’t help but linger over the text, wondering how much of it was factual. When she could actually keep her mind on what she was reading. Which was sporadic, to say the least.
She hadn’t considered it, how unbearable it would be to have Haydn so close. Or maybe she had. Maybe she knew exactly how it would feel, and wanted to feel it again, without having to ask or admit her weakness. Maybe she too was an addict, getting her fix in secret, so she could spare herself the judgment and conflict.
If only it could be sufficient. If only she could absorb enough of Haydn’s smell and taste on the air to make it through the remainder of the day, and the night ahead, already looking insufferably long. Instead of easing her craving, though, Haydn’s nearness exacerbated it. It was like having a carrot dangled in front of her face. Delaney was salivating in vain for something just beyond her reach.
Of course, unlike the carrot tied before a mule, Haydn was only out of reach metaphorically. Physically, she was a few doors down, and, book sliding back onto the pile, Delaney discovered it was a path she had walked enough times that she could navigate it even through the obscurity of low light and her own anxiety.
Pause outside Haydn’s door too short to convince anyone she didn’t know exactly what she wanted, Delaney slipped inside, not considering what she might see until she was pushing the door closed behind her and found herself afraid to turn around. Plenty of others willing to satisfy Haydn in her stead, it was with trepidation that she looked to the bed, exhalation relieved as the firelight flickered over Haydn’s sleeping, solitary form.
Surprised Haydn didn’t move as she crept closer, Delaney was certain she had to know she was there, until she climbed onto the bed, shivering at the contrast of the room’s chill at her back and Haydn’s body warm beneath the duvet, and Haydn’s hand shot up to close around her throat. Air cut instantly off, Delaney grasped Haydn’s wrist as Haydn’s eyes opened red, flashing a feline yellow that matched the flickering fire, before they dipped back to near black.
“Delaney.” Haydn let go, and, ache lingering where her fingers had pressed into the sides of her neck, Delaney gasped at the air she’d been deprived. “I didn’t know it was you.”
Oddly pained by the declaration that, while she had been suffering Haydn from a distance for days, Haydn didn’t e
ven feel her in the same bed, Delaney chose not to think about it, chose, instead, to focus on the flicker of the firelight against Haydn’s face, on Haydn’s hand where it had fallen to rest against her chest, not quite in apology, but inadvertently affectionate.
“I’m sorry,” Delaney whispered, and she felt sure she meant it, but when she tried to move forward, past the quarrel left between them, Haydn turned her head so Delaney’s lips met with a cool cheek. “I’m sorry,” she declared again, almost a plea.
“For what?” Haydn looked back to her, but the hand that pressed against Delaney’s shoulder was unrelenting.
“You know what.”
“No,” Haydn stated. “I know why you’re saying it. I know what it’s like to crave something. But why are you sorry? Be specific.”
Not expecting her apology to be challenged, her proposition to be put on hold, Delaney wasn’t all that surprised Haydn was too proud to simply relent. Pride was a deraph trait too. It was the other thing in Haydn’s voice, the whisper of hurt, that didn’t fit.
Like so much of Haydn didn’t fit.
Not the Haydn in the graveyard, who refrained from killing Delaney’s attacker at her plea.
Not the Haydn who took her to the island to get what they needed for comfort.
Not the Haydn who tried to make amends with Kiara when she had done nothing wrong.
Not the Haydn who touched her, with such care it was as if she knew she held more than Delaney’s body in her hands.
The realization she had quite a lot of cause to be repentant striking her with the force of a mallet, Delaney was stunned, for a moment, by the regret she had, apparently, only been faking before to get what she wanted.
“You have done nothing but prove to me that you are not what I believed you should be.” Breathless again, due not to something Haydn had done, but to everything Haydn was, it occurred to Delaney Haydn wasn’t the problem. She was the problem. She had been the problem. Because she couldn’t handle what she felt, or how far it went beyond physical desire. “I’m sorry I’m having such a hard time accepting that.”
Though, she couldn’t say she would ever be okay with everything Haydn was either. They were natural enemies, after all, turned ally only by a twist in the design.
Haydn’s hand moving through her hair, it was a twist for which Delaney was immensely grateful, and she groaned as a tug pulled her closer.
“What am I?”
Haydn was a deraph. She was a demon. She was a sire of Lilith. She fed on Delaney’s kind, innocent people grabbed in back alleys and kept in cages.
“You’re the woman I want.” In that instant, none of it mattered. Against her will. At her will. All her will.
The tenderness in Haydn’s lips as fleeting as the restraint between them, Delaney scarcely noted the difference in her taste. Slightly off, more metallic, embittered. If she indulged, Delaney would think Haydn had indulged too much. Knowing Haydn didn’t, she had no hypothesis as to why Haydn wasn’t exactly the same, because she was the same enough it was difficult to care.
Undiluted fear shook Delaney from sleep.
Fire burning low, darkness swallowed most of the room. The bed a vessel in a black sea, she could feel something circling it, like a shark in murky water.
“Haydn,” she whispered, giving a hard shake to one shoulder when softer touches failed to elicit response, wondering why, with her enhanced senses, Haydn hadn’t woken first. Before she could tell if Haydn was awake, a whoosh, like wind, ripped them apart.
Thrown from the edge of the bed, Delaney flailed the considerable distance to the floor, hearing the thud of bodies on the other side of the room only after the shock of landing on the unforgiving stone subsided. Struggling to her feet, she flinched at the sounds of hits landing hard as she rushed for the door, finding its surface and fumbling next to it for the light switch.
Anonymous attacker revealed in the light that bathed the room, Delaney stumbled back at the burning hatred in Brooks’ eyes as he glanced back at her, before Haydn grabbed the lapels of his jacket and heaved Brooks into the wall with a force that sent the mirror above him crashing to the floor.
Glass crackling beneath him as he lunged to his feet, a growl ripped from Brooks’ throat as he barreled back into Haydn. Arms closing around her waist, they went to the floor, the momentum carrying them across it into the adjacent wall. Punched again, blood flew from Haydn’s already battered face, and, watching Brooks pull a pointed blade from his waistband, Delaney realized she needed a weapon too. Rushing to the fireplace, she grabbed the iron poker, heaving it in both hands when it proved heavier than expected.
Haydn’s scream penetrating the air as Brooks jabbed the knife into her throat, Brooks’ howl of surprise joined in as Delaney thrust the poker into his back with all her might, feeling flesh and muscle give way.
Pain clouding her vision, Haydn could still see the rage in Brooks’ eyes, the coming wrath. He was going to kill them, her or Delaney, and one of them was all it would take.
Too anemic to stop him if he made it as far as his feet, Haydn watched the hole appear in his chest as Delaney wrenched the fireplace poker back out. When Brooks whirled to look at Delaney, his fury transferring to her, Haydn plunged her hand into the hole in desperation. Hand wrenching beneath his ribs to close around the fibrous pulp of his heart, she jerked until she felt veins break loose and blood squirted from the cavity like a geyser. Turning her head as Brooks fell atop her, Haydn pushed him off, hand slipping from the hollow in his chest, and struggled to her feet to search for Delaney.
Stunned, for a moment, by the bloody aftermath, Delaney appeared thankful to be alive, that they were both alive, as she looked up. Haydn saw it, though, the instant she remembered the consequence of their survival. Haydn remembered then too.
Door slamming against the wall as Delaney flew out it, a shirt from the floor clutched in her hand, Haydn pressed her palm to the wound in her neck, trying to stem the flow of blood, as she went to the closet to find something to wear. Collecting a long shirt and a scarf to hold to the gash, she continued through the door, and followed in Delaney’s footsteps.
The sobbing hitting her at the top of the stairs, Haydn stumbled down them, scene surreal before she even curved around the banister on the second landing and looked down the steps toward the first-floor entryway.
Lying across a step, small knees pulled to her chest, Kiara looked as if she had fallen asleep there, but the way Delaney clutched a small arm as she gasped into her other hand was testament to the fact Kiara’s sleep would be long.
Reality of what she’d done sinking in, Haydn could feel it somehow, what Delaney felt, like some peculiar reflection. Knowing she was the last one Delaney, or any of them, wanted to see, the blood pumped through Haydn’s ears as she turned to go back up the stairs.
“Whoa.” Unable to find the first step, she staggered backward. Hands on her back keeping her upright, she glanced into the troubled face of the vicar. “What happened?”
“Brooks,” Haydn uttered, and the puppy on the stairs barked in reply.
It wasn’t the whole truth. Whatever damage Brooks had done, she had done significantly more. The proof was in the small body lying stationary on the stair, in Delaney’s sobs, which sounded on repeat in Haydn’s head.
No idea where she was being led, Haydn slumped when she felt the sofa beneath her, watching the floating faces of the innocents gather around. Twice as many as there were supposed to be, she wondered if they could multiply in captivity.
“Is there something I can do?” the vicar asked.
“It will stop,” Haydn said, but, shivers cutting like spasms through her, blood abandoning her extremities in an effort to keep her heart pumping, Haydn wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Here.” The sound of Delaney’s voice still soothed. “Take her.”
Gaze flicking up, Haydn watched as Delaney transferred Kiara’s lifeless body to the vicar’s arms, lingering for a moment over red curls, before
dropping down beside her, bringing some respite from the chill.
“I need to lie down.”
“You shouldn’t. She shouldn’t.” The young Indian guy redirected his response to Delaney. “She should keep her neck elevated.”
Cruelest thing she could think to hear when lying down was all she wanted to do, it felt like punishment. Until she felt Delaney’s arm around her back. Shoulder pulled against Delaney’s chest, Haydn’s head fell onto her shoulder, and it was as much contentment as she could ever hope to know.
“Could someone hand me a blanket?” Delaney’s request was a whisper against her hair, and, a moment later, Haydn felt the warmth being wrapped around her.
“Let’s go into the kitchen.” It was the voice of the vicar, and, in the retreat of footsteps, Haydn clutched Delaney’s arm, finding it considerably stronger in the echo of her own frailty.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I never would have -”
“I know.” Haydn wasn’t sure if Delaney truly did, or just wanted her to stop talking about it. “I think it stopped bleeding.” Shivering as air hit the wound on her neck, Haydn assumed it hadn’t stopped completely when Delaney pressed the scarf back into place. “Will you heal?”
“Yes,” Haydn uttered. “It’s just deep.”
Getting no response, she sank deeper into the comforts of Delaney’s body, feeling no cause to move as long as Delaney allowed her to stay.
“You haven’t eaten, have you?” Softly posed question a shock to her system, Haydn’s heart pumped harder, forcing blood up to the wound, which throbbed with renewed pain. “That’s why Brooks was so much stronger than you, why you’re so weak now.”
Eyes dragging open, Haydn stared at the smooth expanse of Delaney’s neck. Below the skin, she heard the blood rush through her carotid artery, smelled it ripe and tantalizing. Vision tinting red, Haydn clenched her eyes shut, trying to forget that it didn’t have to be Delaney. There were others in the house. She didn’t have to go hungry.