by Myers, AJ
She looked beautiful and perfect, everything that I wasn’t—which only made me hate her that much more.
“Hi,” I said curtly before turning a burning look in Nathan’s direction. “Who is she, and why is she here?”
“I’m your new babysitter,” she said calmly before Nathan could answer, dropping a bulging duffel bag next to her feet. “You’re not at all what I expected, I have to tell you. Rumor has it you’re like dynamite—a lot of power in a small package. Personally, I don’t see it. You seem kind of docile to me. More scared little girl than badass witch.”
My spine went so rigid that I was surprised I didn’t hear a crack to let me know it had broken in two. Docile? Seriously? People like me—you know, the opinionated loudmouths of the world—don’t really take well to being called ‘docile’. Actually, that was one term I could honestly say had never been applied to me.
“Give me time,” I hissed through my teeth. “I’m sure I’ll live up to the hype when you get to know me better.”
The smile she directed at me in response was one of pure patronizing amusement. I decided then and there that I would rather be alone. I consider myself a pretty good judge of character and I just couldn’t see us being friends anytime in the near future.
Or ever, really.
“Sierra is here to help you,” Nathan said, looking a little nervous. This chick might not know me, but Nathan did, and he could see the angry storm brewing behind my eyes. “She’s a darkling, like you. She’s here to teach you control.”
Tutors for dead chicks. Who would have thought it?
“I don’t know if I thanked you for coming, Sierra,” Nathan said, turning his attention back to his arm candy when I just looked at him like he was crazy. “I can’t tell you how much Ember and I appreciate this.”
I could. I’d be more than happy to tell her that I didn’t appreciate her being there at all.
“Oh, I could never deny you, Nate,” she crooned, smiling up at him. I suddenly found myself wondering how beautiful she would be without lips—because I was seriously tempted to rip them off of her face.
“Can I?” I demanded, my voice so cold that I was surprised when it didn’t start snowing right there in the room.
“Excuse me?” Nathan said, turning his full attention to me again.
“Can I deny you?” I clarified. I almost blurted out the truth—that if he stuck me with Sierra I was probably going to commit my first murder—but, I managed to clamp my mouth shut just in time.
“Em, you need help,” he said, taking a step forward. He stopped just as suddenly as he’d started, though, when I instinctively backed away. Really, getting too close to him wasn’t in my best interest. Or his. “Sierra can teach you how to control your hunger. She can help you be you again.”
I flinched like he’d slapped me. I was me. Okay, so I had some kind of demonic eating disorder, but that didn’t change who I really was. It broke my heart that he didn’t see that.
“Nate, maybe the two of you should talk this out alone,” Sierra said softly when I looked away to hide the pain in my eyes. “I’ll just step out into the hall…”
When neither Nathan nor I answered her, she left the room without another word. I didn’t know whether to be ecstatic that she was gone or terrified that she had left me alone with Nathan. In the end, I decided to be jealous instead. At least that was a normal, human, reaction.
“You two seem friendly,” I said waspishly as I walked to the window and stared out at the watery blue sky.
“We’ve known each other for a while,” Nathan said, sounding tired.
What did that mean? They were friends? Had they been more than friends? I closed my eyes and shook my head at that thought. I didn’t want to think about Nathan in the arms of that beautiful creature. That mental picture would never go away if I did.
“Em, Sierra can—” Nathan began, but I talked right over him.
“I’ve got this under control,” I hurried out, not wanting to hear about what Sierra Lovell could or couldn’t do. “I’ve got a plan. I’m going to ask Kim and Blake to help me, and Tyler’s doing a great job of keeping me on schedule with my meds. I really don’t need your Barbie’s help, Nathan.”
“She isn’t ‘my’ anything,” Nathan sighed, sounding exasperated. “Em, Kim can’t help you. Blake can’t help you. And, obviously, since you entranced me yesterday and tried to feed, Jordan can’t help you, either. But Sierra can. Let her help you. You owe me that much.”
I owed him? What else could I possibly give him? I had given him my heart, my body, my soul, my forgiveness. I had given him my trust even after he’d branded me. I had given him everything I was or would ever be.
And he had left me.
“I owe you,” I repeated, not liking the way those words tasted on my lips. “What do I owe you, Nathan? I’ve given you everything. And what did I get in return? When I needed you the most, you weren’t here. So, tell me. What else do you want from me?”
For a long moment, he just looked at me, and the sadness in his eyes broke my heart. I tried to look away when my mark started to thrum gently, but I couldn’t.
“I want my soul mate back,” he finally said, his voice barely a breath in the sudden stillness of the room, even as his thoughts whispered sadly, I want you to go back to that night and choose me, us, rather than Jack.
That thought shocked me so much that I gasped out loud. I had never chosen Jack over him. Every time I’d had a choice to make, I’d always chosen him. I would always choose him.
Then choose him now, another voice said in my mind. Let the Barbie help you. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to work this out. So stop being a stubborn twit and tell him you’ll do it.
As much as I hated to admit it, that voice had a good point. If I was ever going to be able to get close to Nathan again, I had to learn how to control the thing inside me. And wasn’t that what I wanted? To be close to him again, for things to be the way they were?
“Em—” Nathan began, but I shook my head with a sigh, cutting him off.
“She can stay,” I said, dropping my eyes from his at long last.
“And you’ll at least try to learn from her?” he asked, sounding hopeful.
“I guess so.”
“And you won’t be stubborn about it?”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised through tightly clenched teeth. “Just tell her to keep her claws sheathed, and I’ll try to do the same.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask,” he said with a soft, sad-sounding, chuckle. “I promise, Em, you won’t be sorry.”
I nodded, but as I watched him walk out the door, I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that he was right and I wouldn’t be sorry.
I already was.
∞§∞§∞§∞
Sierra Lovell was the Devil.
I came to that conclusion after our first lesson together. Promise or no promise, by the end of the night I was plotting her very painful demise.
“Get dressed, we’re going out,” Satan—I mean Sierra—said the next evening, barging into my room like she owned the place. Ignoring the less-than-friendly look I shot her, she headed directly for the closet and threw it open.
“Out?” I repeated.
“Yes. As in, outside,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’re not going clubbing or anything, of course—you’re not quite ready for that just yet—but the back yard is pretty safe.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you need to know what happens when you get cold,” she said, indicating the clothes hanging in the closet with a wave of her hand. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen in five minutes.”
With that, she blew out of the room as quickly as she’d blown in. I stood there for a second, seriously thinking about just letting her wait in the kitchen until she rotted. Then I remembered my promise to Nathan and forced my feet to move toward the closet.
Remembering Tyler’s lesson on darkling hypothermia, I stripped out of my jean
s and put on a pair of thick tights and a pair of thermals before putting them back on. I pulled on my warmest hoodie over my long-sleeved tee and then topped it all off with the thick down jacket I usually only used for ski trips. I wrapped a warm wool scarf around my neck, and then put on two pairs of thick socks and dug around in the closet until I found my hiking boots.
Once I had taken on the approximate size and shape of a giant marshmallow, I grabbed my knit cap off the hook on the back of the door and pulled it over my curls, followed by a pair of earmuffs. After adding a pair of thick gloves to protect my hands, I decided my ensemble was complete.
All that just to go in the back yard. Pitiful, right?
I was surprised to find Nathan and Tyler waiting with Sierra when I entered the kitchen. Nathan’s lips twitched when he saw how much padding I had on, but the glare I leveled at him kept him from actually smiling.
“At least she dressed for the occasion,” Tyler said quietly under his breath, making a noise that sounded way too close to a snort of laughter.
“Okay,” Sierra said, giving me an amused once-over that made me want to pull her perfect hair out. It didn’t help that while I was dressed up like the marshmallow man, she was wearing nothing more than the coat she’d arrived in and jeans. “Well, since the abominable snowwoman has arrived, let’s get this show on the road.”
“Bite me, Barbie,” I muttered as she threw open the door and indicated I should go first. It didn’t do much for my temper when I heard her soft laugh behind me.
The cold December air hit me like a sledgehammer, taking my breath away, as I stepped onto the patio. I mean, I had expected it to be cold, but not that cold. I felt like I’d just climbed into an industrial freezer.
Okay, so Tyler had told me that I wouldn’t react well to the cold, but the near paralysis I experienced after only a few minutes wasn’t what I’d expected. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I couldn’t feel my toes. I couldn’t feel anything. But, being stubborn—and blatantly stupid—I pretended the cold seeping through my clothes in an attempt to reach my bones didn’t even faze me. I clenched my teeth when they started to chatter, refusing to give in.
“Just tell us when you’ve had enough, Em,” Tyler said, looking worried.
“With all those layers on, she should be able to spend the night out here,” Sierra muttered softly behind me with another laugh.
Giving her my best go-to-hell look, I forced my sluggish body to move toward the patio table. If I found it disturbing that I only knew I was walking because of the jarring sensation I felt in my hips, I didn’t let it show. By the time I sat down, though, I had started to feel a little…loopy.
My entourage followed me, but I blocked them out and let my head fall back to look up at the sky. I knew they were watching me, waiting for me to cave, but I wasn’t going to give Sierra the satisfaction even if it meant I turned into an ice sculpture.
“I do believe she wants to be alone,” Sierra said when I still hadn’t cried uncle after the first half hour. “I think we should let her have her way this time. Let’s go have a drink, boys. I think a little brandy. Nothing warms you up like brandy.”
They walked back into the house chattering about how warm they were going to be in a few minutes. I watched them go without a word. The deadly look I was giving them was all the communication I could manage without my teeth clacking together hard enough to shatter on impact.
Leaning my head back again, I watched as the sky got darker, as the stars began to come out. Those stars had never looked so far away. In my loopy state, I equated them to everything else in my life that was out of reach. I picked out one for Kim and another for Blake. Grams got the next one. My other half got the brightest one I could find. My dwindling senior year got the one next to it.
“And there’s Nathan’s,” I whispered, surprised to find that my teeth had stopped chattering. “No, wait, that’s a planet. Oh well, he can still have that one. I have a better chance of touching Mars than I have of touching him.”
I’d been sitting there, giving all the stuff I missed a star, for about an hour when I started to feel warm—then hot. I knew it was a bad thing that I felt that way. I knew I shouldn’t take off my jacket. I knew I should be worried when I tugged off my earmuffs and cap in a fit of sweltering heat. I knew that taking off my hoodie wasn’t the brightest plan I’d ever had.
And I damn sure knew that when the back door of the house next door banged open, letting out a blast of music and one solitary, obviously drunk, young man, that I should get my ass up and run back in the house. But is that what I did?
Oh, come on, people! At least try to remember who you’re dealing with here!
Our intoxicated neighbor stumbled over to the fence that separated our yards, oblivious to the fact that I was there. I wanted to wince in sympathy when I heard him retching into the bushes, but a giggle slipped out instead. The sour smell of vomit reached me within seconds, thanks to the wind, and I wrinkled my nose at the smell—and then breathed deeply as a completely different scent drifted to me as the guy stood up and leaned his elbow against the top of the fence to brace himself. He noticed me sitting there about the same time I focused on his coppery-colored aura.
Peering at me through alcohol-glazed eyes, he gave me a sheepish smile. “Well, this is embarrassing,” he slurred, his cheeks turning a deep red. “Sorry. I didn’t see you sitting there. Don’t mind me. Afraid I can’t handle Uncle Eddie’s eggnog.”
I nodded, but decided speaking wasn’t in my best interest. Honestly, I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth. Taking my silence the wrong way, he ran a hand over the back of his neck nervously and glanced toward the door he had exited through.
“Some party in there,” he said, trying again to smooth over what he considered an extremely awkward moment. “You wanna come join the fun? Just avoid the eggnog and you’ll be fine.”
“Or you could come over and join me,” I said, surprising myself as I realized how completely calm I sounded. I heard something in my voice that scared the shit out of me, a kind of husky invitation that I had by no means put there on my own. “The fresh air would probably do you a lot of good.”
No. No, wait. He couldn’t join me! He had to go. And I do mean go. Like the kind of exit that included a lot of blood-curdling screaming, adrenaline, and the lingering nightmares that accompanied any near-death experience.
“Yeah, I could do that,” he said with an adorable grin.
Run! Damn it, Ember, get your ass up and move! the lingering smidgen of my humanity screamed. Only…I couldn’t remember why I should. I couldn’t remember anything. I just wanted to sit there and talk to my new friend. I wanted to enjoy the warm night and the cool breeze and the scent of flowers and spices in the air. Was that really so bad?
Uh, yeah, it was. Because that warm night was a sultry thirty degrees, at best, and that cool breeze was bringing that down to single digit range. And that spicy-floral scent?
Yeah, two guesses what that was.
As pukey-drunk as he was, the new neighbor took a step back and used his hands to leverage himself over the fence between us. Some semi-hysterical part of my mind gave his landing a solid four when he had to grab hold of the fence again so he wouldn’t fall. Steadying himself, he gave me a triumphant grin and started staggering in my direction.
With each step he took toward me, that funny humming sensation under my skin got worse. He was practically in front of me when my blurry brain realized what that feeling was. It was the same humming I’d felt the day I woke up from Oblivion. It was the same feeling I’d had when I’d tried to feed on my boyfriend.
I was hungry.
No! my human side screamed even as my demon side smiled up at the young man who had unwittingly just put himself in life-sucking range. Seriously, I wasn’t holding back on the ‘I’m beautiful so let me eat you’ vibes, and this poor, drunk idiot was eating it up. I could almost see the less-than-pure thoughts going through his head. My demon’s smile
got even bigger when his aura started to glow brighter.
“Sit down,” I told him, my voice even huskier and more compelling than it had been when I invited him over to join me. He sat, moving like he was in a trance, and my demon started jumping up and down with glee as it surveyed its intended prey. “So, what’s your name?”
“Clay,” he said, leaning toward me, wanting to get closer. My demon growled in anticipation.
“Clay,” I purred with a seductive smile. “I like that name. I haven’t seen you around here before, Clay. Are you new in town?”
“Just here visiting my cousin, Cassie,” he said, waving a hand toward the house and the party still going full-force. Grinning, he leaned even closer, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “She has a thing for the guy who lives here, by the way. Thinks he’s hotter than fire.”
The human side of me bristled jealously at that. Hotter than fire, huh? Apparently, she didn’t know just how hot that particular element could really be. Of course, messing with my boyfriend was generally a good way to find out.
Not anymore, that sad little voice that had kept me company since I woke up dead said in the back of my mind. And you might want to ask yourself if Nathan is still your boyfriend before you go getting all territorial.
Would you shut up? I thought, not wanting to think about the fall of mine and Nathan’s relationship. Really, who needed enemies when the voices in my own head were so sweet and full of light?
Before I could listen to my conscience and get all depressed, though, my demon kicked back in with a vengeance. Wanting to see just how bright his aura could get, I leaned toward Clay, a sly smile pulling at my lips.
“He’s cute,” I agreed in the same conspiratorial tone he’d used, nodding. I felt a spasm of disgust when I realized I was the kind of monster who liked to play with her food before she ate it. Laying my hand over his on the table, I smiled again flirtatiously. “But you’re cute, too.”
He stared at me, wide-eyed, for a second and then smiled like a kindergartener who’d just gotten a gold star. “And you’re gorgeous,” he murmured, actually scooting his chair around the table toward me. My darker side laughed. “So are you and that guy,” he waved his hand toward the house, “a couple or something?”