She stared at him. Confusion clouded her eyes. Even after she blinked, and her back straightened, her eyes remained unfocused. Pulling away from his soft touch, she glared at him and shakily demanded, “Where am I? Who are you?”
“I’m Tyler. You’re my...,” Tyler’s mouth snapped shut. Anxiety sharpened his next words. “You don’t remember me?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t seem to get my thoughts straight,” she fretted, rubbing her forehead. “My head feels like it’s going to explode. I keep seeing a black dragon. I know, I know, there’s no such thing as dragons. He just seems so real.”
He reached for her head, intent on seeing how badly she was hurt.
She slapped at his hand, pushing him away. “Back off. I don’t care how cute you are, you don’t have the right to touch without asking,” she muttered.
“I think Jenna’s right. We need to get her to a healer,” Zach said, kneeling beside Tyler’s crouched position in front of Emma.
“I don’t need a doctor,” Emma grumbled, feeling the back of her head, she hissed. “Ouch.”
“You must’ve hit your head going down the slide,” Zach said with a grimace.
Her pale skin blanched even whiter as she looked at her bloody fingers. “I’m bleeding,” she said in a dazed voice.
Tyler turned to his friend, demanding, “And just why did she go down the slide to begin with?”
“Long story,” Jenna said. Her clothes made a wet-squishing sound as she sat beside Emma. “Will you let me see how bad you’re hurt?”
Emma looked at her through narrowed eyes. Tilting her head toward Tyler, she asked, “I heard him say something about you not hurting me. Why would he say that?”
Jenna sighed. “I get a little tense around blood. It’s no big deal. Come on let’s get you fixed-up before we get into that discussion. I have a feeling you aren’t going to like some of the answers.”
Emma hesitated, and Tyler noticed she was unconsciously leaning toward him. “Please, Em, we just want to make sure you’re okay.”
“All right,” she sighed huffily, tilting her head forward so the other girl could see the back of her head.
Tyler moved from his kneeling position, and sat next to her. Bloody hair greeted his eyes. He gently touched the back of her head. Fear hit him, crushing him in a painful grip. Hurt! His dragon bellowed furiously as blood poured from the gash. A deep rumble began in the middle of his chest.
Emma tensed, pulling her head up. Her dilated eyes jerked around the cavern. “Geez, what was that?” she demanded.
Clenching his teeth, he tried swallowing the building growl. Fighting his dragon’s anger wasn’t easy. He shuddered as fury boiled within him. His every instinct screamed at him to kill and destroy.
As much to calm his dragon as Emma, he curled his hand around her bare arm, caressing her skin to skin. He nearly lost it right then and there. Her arm was feverishly warm to the touch.
“It’s nothing,” Jenna soothed Emma, pushing her head down toward her knees. “Now let me see.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing,” Emma muttered, allowing her head to be tilted downward. Tyler’s large hands wrapped around her head, keeping her from moving it as his clan sister inspected the damage.
“Sometimes the waterfalls make weird noises.” Jenna looked up at Tyler and made a licking motion with her tongue. “You or me?” she silently mouthed.
“Didn’t sound like a waterfall,” Emma grumbled.
The veins in Jenna’s eyes shimmered slight pink, but didn’t turn red. A good indication she had her blood thirst firmly under control. As an adolescent chimera, her thirst for blood was a constant battle.
Tyler frowned at the gash. He knew Jenna was right. One of them needed to stop the bleeding. He preferred to do it himself, but Jenna’s saliva had even more healing agents within it than a dragon’s did. He trusted his clan sister, but he also hated asking for this type of help. She accepted the vampire half of her nature, but she didn’t like it when people noticed.
He sighed, not missing a beat as she waited for his answer. He nodded to her, giving her the go ahead to lick the wound closed. “Emma, I’m going to pour a bit of water down the back of your head.”
“Oh, okay. Is it that bad?”
He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t, not when his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth in growing shock. His shock turned to pure disbelief as the freely bleeding injury slowed to a trickle in a matter of heartbeats.
Jenna’s startled eyes met his.
Cupping his hands, he poured water over the wound. Clearing up the area didn’t change the outcome. The skin was knitting shut, healing before his eyes. He shuddered as fear skittered up his back. Something was seriously wrong. Mortals didn’t heal that quickly, not ever.
“Huh, well at least she...” Zach grunted as Tyler smacked a fist into his shoulder.
“What?” Emma questioned, squirming under his careful hold.
“Not bad,” Tyler blurted, trying to think of anything to say. Her rapid healing had stunned him, leaving him with a loss of words. “After I poured a bit of water on it, it doesn’t look that bad. You know how small head wounds bleed really badly.”
“Yeah, okay. My scalp feels funny, kind of warm and tingly,” she said, her words muffled against her clothing.
In less time than it took to fly from one end of the castle to the other, her injury had stopped bleeding and sealed closed. Shaken, he poured several handfuls of water over her head, trying to get the blood out of her hair.
“Here, this would be easier,” she said. Leaning sideways, she dipped her head in the pool, swishing her bloody hair through the water.
She sat up and gingerly felt the back of her head.
“Thanks, Jenna,” Tyler said warmly. Gently hugging his shy clan sister with one arm, he smothered a grin as Emma glared at him.
___________
Emma didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. One minute they were fussing over her head, the next minute the gorgeous hunk was hugging the petite blonde.
She didn’t know either of them so she didn’t have any idea where her surge of jealousy came from, but the emotion was hard and sharp. She felt a wave of complete possessiveness toward the hunky jock. The feeling didn’t make a lick of sense. Dangerous bad boys were not her thing.
She turned away from him and came face-to-face with a golden haired beauty. Only this one was male and so beautiful it made her eyes hurt. Was everyone in the wacked-out place gorgeous or beautiful? Jeez, it was enough to give her a complex.
She shivered. Glancing up, she realized why she was so cold. Not only was she soaking wet, she was in a huge cave.
The place looked like an underground amusement park with obviously fake blue trees scattered around pools of crystal-clear water. The ceiling had hundreds of stalactites hanging down. She frowned. They looked like stalactites, until she noticed they were glowing.
The whole place was really neat, weird but neat. None of it helped her figure out what was going on. The longer she looked around, the better her blurry vision grew, getting crisper as she glanced from the vaulted roof to the pools. Her head stopped pounding, giving her relief from the screaming headache. She remembered falling and hitting her head. Yeah, she remembered that with a grimace.
“I fell out of that tunnel.” Waving toward the gushing water, she turned to Tyler for an answer. “I’m fully dressed and drenched. What happened?”
He started to answer, but scowled when she shivered. “Let’s get you dry. With the slides officially closed, they turned off the heat.” He quickly held up a pacifying hand. “It won’t help, if you get sick.”
Sighing, she agreed.
Refusing to let him carry her, they walked across the sand of an indoor beach. Emma shook her head in wonder at the vast area.
Tyler guided her through an arched tunnel that exited in a smaller cave. The sand stopped, revealing a polished stone floor. Mirrors lined the right side of the room, an
d a dozen doors covered the far wall.
She tried, but couldn’t stifle her giggle. She hated it when she giggled. “A bathroom? In a cave?”
Tyler grinned at her. She stopped and just stared at the adorable dimple. The image made her hesitate. She remembered his smile. A single look from him and she turned into mush. When she looked at him, a warm glow bloomed through her, an unusual feeling to be sure.
What she really couldn’t figure out, was why in the world she kept thinking crazy thoughts about a dragon. She rubbed her chest, knowing the black beast was actually minor compared to the sick feeling building inside her.
Not simply sick, she hurt! The minute Tyler removed his arm from her shoulder her entire upper body felt like it was going to smash inward. She rubbed her chest, trying to stop the constant ache.
“Emma, are you okay?” Tyler asked. Concern laced his voice. Reaching for her, he stopped just before touching her, letting his hand drop to his side.
She shrugged, and admitted with a worried frown, “I keep seeing flashes of things that aren’t normal. Maybe, I should see a doctor.” She continued rubbing her aching chest. “And my chest hurts. It sounds dumb, but I feel like it’s been cut open, everything ripped out and stitched back together. I feel hollow inside.”
For a split-second, Tyler just stared at her. Then to her utter dismay, he smiled. The face-splitting smile softened his features, turning the bad boy into irresistible, and stunning her speechless.
Nervously, she rubbed her hands together. The empty ache abruptly disappeared. A surge of excitement and joy raced through her soul; a joy so pure and sweet that she gasped in response as it swept through her.
The alien feeling scared the crap out of her! She shuddered in fear. The feeling of overwhelming joy was a foreign feeling. Crap and cuss words, she knew the alien emotion didn’t come from within her. She knew it didn’t! Yet, she couldn’t force the emotion away. The sensation filling her was such a strong emotion she laughed without knowing why.
“I’m not happy,” she insisted, lifting frightened eyes to Tyler. “Why do I feel like singing and shouting? I’m not happy!” Her voice rose with each word.
“Emma, it’ll be okay.” Tyler looked like he was bursting with excitement.
“No, it’s not,” she snapped at him. She rubbed her chest, trying to make the feeling go away. Whimpering and laughing nearly simultaneously, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes drilled into his, begging him to explain what was going on. She didn’t know why, but she knew he would have the answers.
“It really is okay. I swear,” he said. Seeming to give into a silent fight within himself, he wrapped his arms around her, gently rubbing her shoulders in soothing circles.
“You don’t understand. I didn’t want to laugh,” she shuddered, leaning into the security of his arms. Images of him holding her in a meadow flashed through her head. Just as quickly, she saw herself getting on the back of a huge black dragon, while his tail wrapped snuggly around her. She couldn’t seem to separate the two images.
“I must be as nuts as my step-father claims. I keep seeing a dragon. And I swear it’s like someone else’s emotions keeping surging through me. I must’ve hit my head really hard.”
Tyler gently hugged her. “Come on, everything will be okay. I promise,” he said, tugging her through a doorway, into another room. “I’ll explain, but let’s get dry first.”
In the smaller room, warm air swirled around them, drying them nearly instantly. She gasped, tightening her hold on him. He seemed like the only solid thing. She wasn’t the type to fall apart, but the creepy room was the feather tipping the scale into overload.
“Okay, how’d that happen?” Emma demanded, glancing around the bare rock room.
“Um, it’s a drying room,” Jenna hesitantly offered, her own pale blonde hair was dry, springing with curls down to her hips. She impishly waved her hand at them, “I think Tyler better explain the rest. Come on Zach, let’s go.”
The girl tried pulling the golden giant out of the room.
Unmoving, Zach frowned at her. His solid six feet holding firm against the girl’s slighter build, he said, “Jenna, we need to talk first.”
The girl’s heart-shaped face looked very delicate against the boy’s athletic build, but her frown was anything except gentle. She looked fierce. She shook her head and flashed very sharp teeth at him.
Emma squeaked in shock. Eyes locked on the girl’s fangs. She’d heard of people who sharpened their teeth, pretending to be vampires. She had no clue how she managed to get mixed-up with some kind of weird vampire cult, but she was getting out as fast as possible. Drinking someone’s blood was so gross.
“Oops! So sorry,” Jenna said, slapping a hand over her mouth. She shook her head. “Zach, you are so thick-headed sometimes.”
“What?” he thundered. “I am not!”
“We need to take care of the problem from upstairs.” The girl insisted with a firm voice, tugging on his arm. “Come on.”
“What kind of problem?” Tyler asked in a grumble.
Emma held back as he turned toward the door. She wasn’t about to go anywhere with them.
As if reading her thoughts, Tyler turned and gave her one of the sweetest smiles she’d ever seen. “We’re heading upstairs to the gardens. If you want, I can take you to see Keith.”
She snorted to herself. Unless she wanted to stay in the bathroom, she really didn’t have a choice. “Okay, fine,” she said, nodding her head in agreement.
“I take it the problem has something to do with all of you going down the slides completely clothed?” Tyler asked Jenna as he led them out of the small cavern, and up several flights of steep steps.
“It’s nothing we can’t handle,” Jenna said with fierce determination. “You need time with Emma. Why don’t you take her for a tour of the town or something?”
“Jenna, the only time you get this way is when someone threatens a member of the clan. What’s up?” Tyler demanded.
“Clan? You mean like Scottish?” Emma interrupted, which brought a grateful grin to Jenna’s face.
“I don’t understand the word Scottish, but at school we have the option of living in dorms or going clan. Each clan has their own suite of rooms,” Jenna said quickly. Giving Emma a closed mouth smile, she added, “They accepted me as clan.”
“Of course we did, twerp.” Zach affectionately ruffled Jenna’s hair. Glancing at Emma, he said, “We’ve been together for years.”
“Clan means family in the old tongue, but ours is closer than any family I know of,” Tyler stated quietly.
“Yes, we are.”
“I agree,” Jenna quickly nodded, adding her fervent agreement. “We even exchanged blood oaths, but not many would’ve accepted me as fully as they did.”
“I think putting up with my surliness, golden boy’s arrogance, and Kyle’s insane humor is more than enough to quiet that argument,” Tyler argued. Turning to Emma, he grinned. “At least I won’t have to deal with Andrew constantly slathering after you. He’s in a different clan.”
Emma shuddered as flashes of a boyish face pushed through her mind. He leered at her and she heard him agree to push her out of a window. His muffled voice changed into a female’s high shrill tone, demanding her death. She shook her head, trying to make sense of the distorted memories.
She didn’t know she had whimpered until Tyler tightened his hold on her and gently shook her shoulders. “Emma, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Trembling, she buried her face in his shoulder, trusting him completely. That disturbed her even more. How could she trust a total stranger? Images flashed through her mind, going faster and faster. Bubbles? Her face flamed bright red as she remembered him kissing her, and bubbles, mounds of blue bubbles.
“Please,” she whispered, “someone explain what’s going on. Why did I just remember someone talking about killing me?”
“What?” Tyler demanded. The fierce, animalistic growl �
� that sounded immediately under her ear – caused her to jump in shock. She would’ve run backward, but his gentle hold was like dual bars of steel; they were completely unbreakable.
“Emma, sweetheart, please calm down,” Tyler said urgently, pulling her toward a small shaded garden within the larger elegant landscaped area. Sitting on a stone bench, he kept her securely within his arms.
“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up in the water?” he asked.
She looked at him with wide eyes. He had to be kidding. He growled!
“You can’t be serious! You’re asking some stupid question and want me to forget you growled? You growled! That wasn’t the waterfall earlier. That was you. A real, honest growl and you want me to ignore that? Jeez, are you totally insane? For that matter, where am I?” she demanded, glaring at him. “Did you kidnap me?”
Lowering his face closer to hers, his lips twitched as if he was fighting a smile. “No, Em, we didn’t kidnap you. Now, let’s take this one thing at a time.” His gaze never left her face. “Jenna, if you take one more step, I’ll tie you up. Last time you tried protecting one of us, you ended up facing an angry mob down in Spike Village.”
“He’s right, stay put,” Zach grumbled.
“You’re just miffed, because that same mob nearly shaved all your fur off,” Jenna complained. “Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have gone far.”
“Leave it to a vampire to twist her answer enough that I can’t smell the lie,” a new voice grouched.
A knot of dread formed in the pit of Emma’s stomach.
Walking into the small garden, a brown-haired guy, about the same age as the other teenagers, sat down beside Jenna. Grinning, he slung his arm around the girl, much to her apparent annoyance.
“Kyle, shut up,” Jenna snapped, thumping him on the back of the head. “Emma hit her head and doesn’t remember anything about Tuatha.”
“Oh, uh,” Kyle grimaced, looking a bit sheepish. “Um, just kidding?”
“You called her a vampire,” Emma said, scooting a bit closer to Tyler. She sighed, rubbing her head, trying to remember anything at all. Maybe the girl was a vampire. It couldn’t be any worse than believing in the imaginary dragon that refused to leave her brain alone. “That’s why you insisted she wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t suppose that means the dragon is real as well, does it?”
Emma (Dark Fire) Page 13