Irritation flooded through me as something disturbed my peace. It was soon brushed aside by the agony that racked forcefully through my body, bringing every cell alive with pain. My lungs instinctively drew in short ragged breaths and claws raked through my throat and chest. Even my teeth ached. My body sung with relief as life was sucked back into it.
I became aware of the sound of someone shouting, their words drowned out by the rushing blood within my ears. As my mind began to clear, the will to survive became stronger. Suppressing the panic, I tried to control my breathing, forcing each breath slowly in and out, past the pain of the claws shredding my throat, each one leaving red hot tears in its wake.
‘Ana? Ana? Can you hear me?’ As the words broke through so did everything else and I cringed away from the loudness of it all. My own harsh breaths were overshadowed by a terrible screaming that vibrated through my body, setting my teeth on edge.
‘Wha….’ As I tried to speak the claws became hundreds of blades slicing me from the inside, preventing the croaked words from being completed. Thankfully the screaming stopped. I slumped with relief and tried to turn my head towards the person shouting at me, but it wouldn’t comply, as if the muscles no longer worked.
Everything was a blur. It took seconds of blinking away the tears formed from the pressure of his grip, before my vision began to clear. I had expected to be by the wall, but instead I was kneeling on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, my hands in front supporting me.
When I forced myself to sit, I could see it was Maria who was shouting at me. I tried to put my hand to her lips to quieten her, but only managed to wave it uselessly in her direction, the action jarring every bone in my body.
‘It’s over now, Ana. Adam has him.’ Thankfully her voice was quieter, though her words still made no sense. ‘Don’t kill him.’ That made no sense either. I wasn’t going to kill anyone. I tried to clear my mind further and focus on what had happened.
‘Why?’
I suppressed my groan and shifted my body in the direction of Adam’s voice. His eyes blazed with fury and his mouth twisted into a snarl that brought to mind the image of a jungle cat, pounced ready to attack. I couldn’t help but shrink from him.
I stiffly turned to follow his murderous stare and found the cause of all my pain crumpled in the corner. Tears rolled down his broad cheeks and the muscles in his face convulsed. He was desperately trying to scream, but his lips refused to part for him, allowing only quiet grunts to escape. His leg was twisted in an impossible angle and his shoulder was several inches below where it should have been. If I could have smiled in satisfaction, I would have.
‘Why can I not kill him?’ Adam hissed.
‘Because it would not be enough of a punishment.’ Maria’s severe words were in contrast to the gentle touch of her fingers on my arm. She awkwardly stood and strode over to where Ron lay broken in the corner. ‘You shouldn’t have gone after my friend, Ron.’
At her approach, he cowered as far back as his injuries would allow. His awareness that his strength was useless warmed me. A voice far back in my mind warned me that I shouldn’t feel pleasure at his suffering, but I pushed it out before it could gain ground.
Maria paused before my weeping attacker. She rolled her shoulders and shook her body, as if to rid herself of the tension she was carrying, before bending forward to grip his face between her hands. He tried to pull away, but she held him steady and looked deep into his eyes.
‘Ron, hear me now.’ Her voice was so soft and gentle, that I momentarily wondered if I was really awake. Ron whimpered once more. ‘Open your mind Ron, and listen to my words.’ Ron face became slack and his eyes vacant. He no longer struggled to push himself away from her and relaxed against the wall as all the tension left him.
‘When you leave here,’ Maria continued in a murmur, with her hands still cupping his mottled cheeks. ‘Every person you look upon, you will see the face of someone you have hurt, and you will know that they are coming for vengeance. You have no power over these people anymore Ron, you are weak and they are strong. Sometimes they will lie, and tell you that they are there to help, but you will not believe them, because if you let your guard down for just one moment Ron, they will get you. Do you understand?’
Ron whimpered with childlike distress before his face and eyes returned to their almost dead appearance. As I watched, I could feel my mind stretching like an elastic band, ready to snap. I was aware that Maria was asking Adam to dump Ron somewhere away from us, yet I couldn’t tear my stare away from the vacant look in his eyes.
All my pleasure at his pain had gone, for all I could see was my face in his, lost in my own craziness, unable to deal with all the madness around me. I had to get away before I truly did snap and become like him. I found the strength to pull myself up and staggered from the kitchen, the pain that racked through me only fuelling my ability to run in body, as I could not in mind.
I slumped into an empty corner in the bedroom, with my arms wrapped around my knees, and calm descended upon me. Even though I could feel the pain caused by my breathing, it was dulled, as if I was experiencing it through a layer of sponge. My thoughts slowed. Instead of thinking about what had happened, I focused my attention on the edge of the duvet, observing the folds in the material and how they changed the pattern of the squares. They made sense, and I relaxed with the gentle harmony they offered me.
Even when Maria entered the room to sit with me, I kept my attention on the squares. She sat silently down before me with her legs crossed as a small child would, and held out the bottle of water off the bedside table.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a few minutes.
It took several attempts to form a coherent word. ‘What do you have to be sorry for?’
‘I saw the car,’ she said. ‘On my way to return your purse. It just never occurred to me that he would follow you.’
‘I think it’s my face,’ I told her. ‘People seem to find it offensive.’ I tried to chuckle, though it brought to mind how Neave had sounded when she’d had croup as a toddler. A dry, wheezing sound that was not pleasing at all.
‘He was going to kill you for just being there.’
‘Welcome to my life.’ When I tried to stand, my whole body shook and quivered, forcing me back down.
It was as if a cheese grater had been taken to my throat and I sighed with relief as I felt Gabriel return. He was here now, so it would be alright.
After running up the stairs, he paused momentarily in the doorway to hiss something unintelligible before swiftly joining me. He held me in his arms, with his hand pressed tenderly to my throat. Maria discreetly left us alone.
‘How are you doing?’ he asked me tentatively when he had finished healing me.
‘I’m okay,’ I croaked. I smiled weakly, no longer feeling as if I was going to lose my mind. Gabriel left to obtain me a glass of water from the bathroom, to replace the room temperature bottle I held in my hands. I gratefully drank it, relishing the cold water as it soothed the dryness.
‘Why is it that I can’t go one month without an injury?’ I muttered after a few minutes.
Gabriel’s scowl caused me to bark a coarse laugh. It was as sound void of real humour, but it was at least a start.
‘Don’t bother answering that,’ I said as I awkwardly stood. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’ I grimaced. ‘I suppose I owe Adam one for this.’
Maria was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, wringing her hands together.
‘I’m really all right,’ I reassured her. She sceptically looked me up and down for a moment before deciding to take my word for it and turned towards Gabriel, who was supporting my elbow, as if afraid I would collapse at any moment.
‘You must be Gabe. I wish we could have met under better circumstance and I’m so sorry for the trouble I brought on Ana, but still, it’s good to meet you.’
‘How are you at fault here?’ He glowered at her, though I sensed that some of it was meant for me
. I gripped his hand tightly and threw him a warning look.
‘Ana here bravely came to my rescue from certain death this afternoon.’
‘Hardly,’ I muttered feeling Gabriel’s stare laying heavily on me. Maria could have kept that that part to herself.
‘Tell me what happened.’ His voice was tight and his expression only became harder as I filled him in on the details. Adam stood expressionless throughout, maybe because Maria had already explained what had happened, but most likely because he just didn’t care.
‘What were you thinking?’ Gabriel demanded once I had finished.
I shrugged, unable to explain that I hadn’t thought, I had just acted.
‘You two aren’t human then?’ The awe was evident in Maria’s voice as she glanced at Adam, before focusing back on Gabriel. I remembered her ability to see their Shi and groaned loudly, which only drew the men’s attention back to me. Gabriel and Adam both glared at me, though Adam with a lot more intensity. Nothing unusual there.
‘She didn’t tell me,’ Maria hastily reassured them. Gabriel stood rigidly by my side as she told them about reading auras and being a witch.
‘What do you plan to do with your knowledge?’ Gabriel asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she laughed. ‘I always knew there were things out there, but to actually meet…what are you?’
‘Siis,’ Adam told her to my surprise. Gabriel glared at him, while Adam just stood idly as if the conversation was boring him, though when I studied him, I saw that he was watching Maria intently.
Maria glanced around and frowned. ‘I think I’ll leave now.’ She embraced me and whispered into my ear. ‘Will you be okay here?’
I nodded and hugged her back before leading her through the kitchen.
I closed the door behind her and leant back against the door frame. It took a couple of deep breaths before I was ready to go back to the men.
They stood facing each other, Gabriel tense, with his chest puffed out, while Adam’s motionless frame held an air of nonchalance.
‘Why did you tell her that?’ Gabriel hissed.
Adam shrugged. ‘I only divulged our name, something Ana would have let slip anyway.’ I gave him an indignant look before relaxing. There were already too many heightened emotions in the room.
‘We could have suppressed her memory of us.’ Gabriel took an aggressive step towards Adam. I moved towards them, and then paused. It wasn’t as if I could do anything.
‘Hardly,’ Adam scoffed. ‘Did you not get a sense of her? Her mind would be harder to manipulate than Ana’s.’
I glanced at my feet and shifted on the spot as both men turned to stare at me.
‘We could have tried.’ Gabriel turned back to Adam, his posture slightly more relaxed.
‘You didn’t see how easily she hypnotised Ana’s attacker. The man was screaming with insanity when I left him at the side of the road. It was a surprisingly inhumane action on her part.’
‘I want to learn how to fight,’ I interrupted before things escalated any further. Both men turned to stare at me again, the object of their annoyance with each other forgotten for the moment. ‘I am fed up of being the victim, never being able to defend myself.’
Gabriel moved to stand in front of me and gripped my shoulders. ‘I do not want you fighting. I promise I will protect you better from now on, so there will be no need.’
‘You can’t always protect me Gabriel. You weren’t even there today.’
‘Next time, I will be.’ His voice was full of quiet determination.
‘What about when you’re at work?’
‘I’ll quit.’
The desire to be with him all day, every day was strong. So strong in fact, that it scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t an obsession that I thought was wise to fuel, and I had already noticed that the more time I spent with him, the more I needed to.
‘Don’t be stupid.’ My words were sharper than needed, and I snaked my arms around his stiff body to show that I was sorry. ‘You can’t spend every moment with me for the rest of my life. You love your work and I love mine. That is why I need to learn to defend myself.’
‘It makes sense.’
Gabriel spun to confront Adam for his words. Before trouble could spark again, I pulled his face towards me.
‘Please Gabriel. I need this, if only for my peace of mind.’ His jaw relaxed a fraction and I quickly continued, ‘Anyway I’m sure I’ve had my life’s quota of bad stuff already, and I will never need to use it but… it would help me sleep at night.’
He stared at me, with his mouth open as if ready to speak, but with no words available to draw on. I had won. He wouldn’t be able to resist my request, if only to help prevent my nightmares.
‘I will teach you basic self-defence. I won’t teach you to go on the offensive. Will that be acceptable?’ I nodded in agreement; relieved to know that soon I would be able to break free from an attack, if only to run away. Adam sighed audibly with disagreement, but we both ignored him.
‘Great, we can start tomorrow.’ Catching Gabriel’s pained expression, I turned to the kitchen saying lightly, ‘Now I need to eat, nearly getting killed has made me ravenous.’
Gabriel hissed something barely audible as I left the room.
Chapter 16
‘Are you ready?’
I shifted myself into a relaxed position and nodded for Gabriel to continue. The lawn was uneven in places and I shifted once more to make sure that I would keep my balance. He charged towards me with the rubber knife and I side stepped him. Grabbing his extended arm, I propelled him around and pulled his shoulder back as I used my free hand to hit his lower back, causing him to fall backwards onto the ground.
‘Yes!’ I hissed, feeling most proud of myself.
‘Well done sweetheart.’ He sprang up off the ground ‘You are doing so well.’
Having mastered the move of deflecting a knife attack, I was finally starting to feel that I might just be able to protect myself.
‘Let’s do it again,’ I said as Adam let himself through the back gate. Thankfully, he had found his own place the week before, although much to my irritation, he still turned up every day to see Gabriel and watch me suspiciously. As I was used to him, I ignored his presence and stood ready for Gabriel to attack.
After I had successfully caused him to drop the knife again, Gabriel turned to Adam laughing. ‘She is doing really well, is she not?’
Adam raised his eyebrows and to my surprise, smiled slightly with amusement. Wonders never ceased.
‘Against you she is doing fine, however, I have to wonder how she would perform when confronted by a real attacker.’
Staring him straight in the eyes, I grinned. ‘Bring it on.’
He took the rubber knife from Gabriel’s reluctant hands and stood before me with a smirk on his face. He stood watching me for so long I opened my mouth to tell him to get on with it. Before I could form a word, his hand snaked forward with a speed Gabriel had never used. I landed heavily on my back, with no idea how I got there, finally realising that any training I had had off Gabriel was useless, that he had been giving me false confidence in my skills.
Gabriel roared as he threw Adam against the side of the house and pinned him by his throat.
‘Do not ever touch her again,’ he seethed through clenched teeth. His muscles vibrated and sharp, stabbing shocks, pulsed off him in waves. Adam held his hands up in surrender.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I gasped as I struggled up and pulled at Gabriel’s hand. ‘He was making a point that’s all.’
‘I don’t care,’ Gabriel hissed without even glancing at me. ‘He had no right to hurt you.’
‘I’m not hurt.’ I smiled, though the painful ache in my chest begged to differ. ‘Gabriel let him go now,’ I demanded breathlessly, whilst pulling harder at his arm. Gabriel glared at Adam for several seconds before he finally released him, his body still tense with anger, but the shaking now controlled.
‘You
could have warned me,’ I muttered to Adam.
‘Do you think your attacker would warn you?’ His words reminded me that there was a serious reason that I was learning to fight. During the first few days of learning I had been full of anger which had fuelled me. After a while that had died down and I had started to enjoy practicing with Gabriel, taking pleasure in the laughter and closeness it offered us.
‘So what do I do?’
‘You learn to defend yourself correctly. Maybe then you will have a small chance of surviving.’
Gabriel snarled loudly.
‘Will you teach me?’ I asked him.
‘No!’ Gabriel shouted, forcing himself between us. ‘I will not have you teaching her to fight.’
‘Will you teach her then?’ Adam asked him mildly.
‘No I will not!’ Gabriel shouted. ‘There is no reason for her to learn as I will never allow her to fight.’
Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘Does she not get a say?’
Beginning to wonder that myself, I tried to push Gabriel from in front of me, but he was unmovable like a boulder. He grabbed my wrist and pinned it behind him. Although my first instinct was to hit him over the head, I opted for a more subtle approach, and bent his hand over until he released his grip.
Once I managed to force myself between them, I shouted at Gabriel. ‘I am not your property and do not ever presume to treat me as such.’ I panted as I glared at him, daring him to argue with me.
After a minute of staring each other down, Gabriel threw a cutting look in Adam’s direction before silently storming off. I followed him into the house with a sigh, to find him stood in the kitchen, glaring out of the window. I stood behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. He remained rigid.
‘I’m sorry I spoke to you like that in front of Adam,’ I said calmly. ‘But you really can’t tell me what I can do.’
He turned to hold me in his arms. ‘It’s not like that.’
Night of the Fae (Ana Martin series) Page 16