House of Slide Hybrid

by Juliann Whicker

  “You shouldn’t do that. I have a very hard face. It would hurt your fist. I’m sorry Dariana, for all of this. I should have trusted Aiden. I should have finished the bond as soon as it happened. I didn’t see clearly. I wanted so much to be good for you. It turns out that I didn’t know what you needed. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve wanted you from the first moment, but wanting someone and loving them isn’t the same thing. I want you to be happy. I don’t see a future for me. I’ve lived a long time for a Hotblood, even if I’m half Wild, fifty is a long time. I haven’t lived gently. I haven’t held back anything, except with you. I don’t want to mess you up.”

  I stared at him. “You shaved me. You really think that I could get any worse?”

  He flinched. “If we finish the bond, you’ll be miserable when I die. It will be like your soul being ripped in half and unable to ever heal.”

  “You’re not going to die. I saw you. I couldn’t kill you no matter how much I tried. The only thing that hurts you is you trying to keep me alive. That’s just an excuse because you don’t really want me. If you didn’t want me before, there’s no way you’d want me after the plane wreck.” I sniffed after that. I hadn’t meant to sound vulnerable, more matter-of-fact, but the scars I tried not to see, my head with its fine stubble that itched, me ripped to shreds was all too much. Why had I mentioned the crash? I tried not to think, to see myself and the Frankenstein’s monster that I was now, patched together with jagged scars that didn’t fade, but every time I thought of the plane spiraling down, of the scream of the demon mistress… It was a good thing I spent most of my time unconscious.

  “No? Well, that explains everything,” he said. “Really, now I get why I haven’t been able to leave you alone when being with you, with anyone makes no sense in my life. I have no future. If I’d thought that being bound to you would protect you, I would have done it. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the demons coming. No one ever sees the demons coming.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to hear Lewis, to focus on how infuriatingly perfect he was instead of the helpless horror. He looked at me, a long look that pushed the fear back or at least shifted it to him while a roaring grew in my ears. He was so close, the bond ache so unbearable, why not finish what I’d started in that small warehouse office what seemed years before. Maybe I’d be so full of him I wouldn’t have room for fear.

  “What were you going to tell me in the woods?” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “More secrets, more layers of who I would be if I weren’t something else.” He dropped his head on my hands, pressing kisses to my knuckles his eyes against my fingers. “If you don’t want me to finish the bond, if you’d rather keep the taint, I understand.”

  “Why aren’t I dying from the taint?” I whispered closing my eyes and leaning against his shoulder. “It took Grim fifteen minutes. Is it the mists or the other thing, where I already had some demons in my heritage?”

  He raised his head, frowning at me intently. “What demons were in your heritage?”

  I shrugged half-heartedly. “Ash said that my skills were a mix of Hollow and demonic. Maybe that’s why you don’t want me.”

  He groaned before he leaned forward and gripped my shoulder with his teeth, one of the few places on me that wasn’t bruised.

  I froze in shock as he held me so gently, pressing against the skin of my shoulder in a way that made absolutely nothing else exist.

  “Lewis,” I whispered as I melted in his arms, forgetting about pain, demons, and everything else besides his teeth, his hands, his warmth and soul.

  He pulled away, looking bewildered and vulnerable.

  “I need you,” he said clenching and unclenching his jaw. He brushed my cheek with feather light fingers. “If I don’t hold back, I might consume you.”

  “So, consume me,” I said without thinking as I pulled him close.

  I kissed him, his lips, ignoring the pain, the way that my cheek pulled from unhealed skin. I ran my hands over his skin beneath his shirt, needing him closer, closer, sudden overwhelming desire leaving me weak and dizzy.

  He pulled away.

  “You wish to complete the bond?”

  I fought off the wave of anger, struggling to distinguish between what I wanted and needed and what the demon taint inside of me craved. The Code. A broken Code left one vulnerable to demon possession. I hadn’t broken the Code, had I? I wanted to. I wanted Lewis in an extraordinarily physical way which would break the Code before we’d been married, or at least bound.

  I had to be smart, had to think. I couldn’t when my body ached for him with every throb in my veins, his silky skin tempting me, his warmth and strength made for me.

  I turned away from him, startled that I could feel so much. It reminded me of Raoul when he put his hands on my neck, his fingers against my runes. He’d filled me with sensation that didn’t come from me but from the metal. The demons were feeding my already overwhelming desire, trying to corrupt it into something more destructive than it already was.

  “What do the demons want with me? Why are they always trying to take me? Even now, this darkness spreads through me.” I thumped my fist against his chest, then regretted because he wrapped his arms around me, holding me too close. When he spoke it was with anger and something else, something dark in his voice.

  “I don’t know why they want you. They should be afraid of you, of your Nether blood. The taint goes both ways, but maybe you’re as irresistible to them as you are to me.” His hands smoothed possessively over my bald head.

  So close to him I felt a gap in my anger, my armor. I wanted more than anything to melt against him, to take the knife, or my teeth, and finish this thing, to be his, and make him mine, inseparable always.

  His voice was lower, rough with emotion as he continued. “Samaliel should never have known you existed, much less been tracking you. I don’t know why. I don’t know if Ash and Aiden know or not. Aiden won’t say. As for the demon mistress, from the beginning, she’s been impossible to trace as anything more than rumor. Why does she want you?”

  “She wanted my knife,” I said in such a small voice that I could barely hear it over the sound of his heart beating, but he grew still.

  “She talked to you?”

  “She touched me, but not too much because…” I shuddered. “She didn’t want to ruin me. I guess that was good although it didn’t work, did it? I don’t know why she wanted my knife, or why she freaked out when I didn’t have it, like I’m going to be carrying a knife at my party, well, I would have when I had your soul…”

  “It’s a good knife,” he said thoughtfully. I could feel him pulling away, wanting distance, to think, so I clung onto him, burying my face in his neck like that wasn’t a very stupid idea if I was serious about not finishing the bond.

  “You said that before,” I murmured into his neck, smelling his skin. He smelled like Autumn, like death. Maybe I needed more death, or maybe just him.

  He sighed, shifting, then gave up trying to get me off of him, instead wrapped his arms around me again, where they were supposed to be.

  “It’s a Netherblade. I could sense that much, but I have no idea what a demon mistress would want with it. They’re rare though, very rare. At the gallery I saw you fighting with it, taking skills along its edge. The only reason you could do that is because you have a lot of Netherblood, on your own and from your father’s transfusions. A Netherblade would be worse than useless to any demon touched. A Netherblade could destroy any demon who handled the weapon. Of course, if there really are Wilds working with the demon mistress, one of them could use it for her.”

  I felt him shake his head above me, nudging my forehead with his jaw.

  “I should be out there, finding answers instead of…”

  That got me away from him. I sat up, aware of the way my body ached as my internal organs protested all this movement. “Go then. Now that you have no mists, no fury, why don’t you go find out why the demon mistress wanted t
o kidnap me? Yeah. Go take out Raoul, find out what other Wilds were involved in wanting me dead. While you’re at it, go find Zeke and kill him before he ends the world and takes out the Wilds, except maybe we want him to because let’s face it, Wild’s suck. So what if you’ll die? So what if I’ll be here with this gaping wound in my chest, bleeding forever while the world burns?”

  He stared at me while I breathed heavily.

  Aiden’s voice cut through the air. “Dari, look at all that energy you’ve got. Are you ready to move?”

  “Move?” I blinked as I looked past Lewis, at the glowing blue eyes in the tan, angular face.

  “You want to stay here forever?”

  I nodded.

  “That was a rhetorical question,” Aiden said stepping closer. Lewis turned to look at him, standing, moving away from me even though I hated it, that he would leave like he had a right to. “You two look cozy. So, I’m guessing you’re not bonded which is why there’s all this, tension in here.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. His narrow face was so young, but his eyes were the same: chips of ice that could paralyze you.

  “Is there something new?” Lewis asked, irritated.

  “Well,” Aiden said holding up his hand to tick off points. “One, we’ve got the usual Wilds searching for their dear Daughter. Two, there’s demon activity, certain demon men who you can’t burn out because you’re fresh out of fury.”

  Lewis tightened his jaw.

  “We’ve got Nether,” he said with a scowl. “And some Hunters who should know better are looking around, not to mention the other red Wilds. Seems the plane wreck didn’t go unnoticed and about everyone who’s anyone has been through the wreckage sifting it for remains.”

  “So they know that Dari survived,” Lewis said.

  Aiden shrugged. “Or that she was taken dead, by the demon mistress, whose body was also missing.”

  I felt cold suddenly, cold and numb. “What do you mean, missing? She couldn’t have survived the wreck,” I said.

  “It’s fine,” Lewis murmured, wrapping his arms around me then smoothing my head again.

  I wanted to punch him, but instead I turned my face to his chest and counted the beats of his heart. I couldn’t stay there, not if everyone was looking for me, not if the demon mistress was alive and would come for me again. She couldn’t be happy that I’d escaped, that I’d crashed her plane. Where could I go that would be safe? Where could I take Lewis, protect him? Any time I got hurt he suffered along with me. I hated that. I hated it more than anything else with so much intensity I thought I might blow something up.

  “Not exactly fine,” Aiden said roughly, reminding me that he was still there.

  I pushed Lewis away and stood on my own, wavering on my feet while Lewis watched me.

  “So what do we do?” My voice wasn’t whiny anymore, instead I felt resigned over the gap of terror that I wasn’t going to look at directly in case it swallowed me.

  Aiden scowled. “Your father’s house, or your mother’s house, or we could see how many of Lewis’s old friends are willing to help you out.”

  “What about your friends,” I asked Aiden.

  “Aiden doesn’t have friends,” Lewis said, smoothly, tugging me gently towards him so that when my legs collapsed his strong arms came around me, supporting me.

  I closed my eyes, fighting back tears, hating that I had to choose something when I was still trying to come to grips with being alive—having to be alive.

  “How close are the parties,” he asked Aiden over my head.

  “Not close. They have to watch out for each other, so they’re taking their time. I think we have a few days to make a decision.”

  “What do you think I should do?” I asked him in a shaky voice.

  “Bond with Lewis, go back home, finish your training so you’re not a liability. Lewis here is barely hanging on. It would be nice if you could take a few hits for him.”

  I looked up at Lewis, could see the muscle of his jaw clench then visibly relax as he smiled down at me. His golden eyes didn’t glow, but there was life there—more life than I’d seen for a while. “Don’t let Aiden scare you,” he murmured.

  I swallowed.

  “All right,” I whispered fighting the rising screams of demons that echoed in my skull. It was all my fault. I was the one who had given him my blood. Maybe I should have left him to die. My heart lurched as I remembered him, bloodless, lifeless, the panic and urgency. I couldn’t have left him there. So should I finish the bond? Should I rip open Lewis’s skin and drink his blood like some kind of inhuman nightmare? Should I give in to the Nether inside of me and forget about pink sparkles and prancing ponies?

  “Where is a knife, or do you want me to use my teeth?” I asked in a whisper against Lewis’s chest.

  I had thought he was going to ask me to marry him. I’d thought we’d live happily ever after. I’d thought a lot of stupid things, like that I knew what I was doing, ever. Now what? What after I’d been ripped apart and put together, when I knew firsthand how precarious life really was?

  “Are you sure?” he answered, his heart pounding against my ear faster and faster.

  “Sure?” I’d been so sure at my party not very long ago. I’d known he loved me, that he wanted me. If Aiden hadn’t interrupted us, who knew what would have happened. Maybe I wouldn’t have run out into the night.

  “Aiden,” I said pulling away from Lewis, falling to the stone bed weakly.

  “Daughter of Slide,” he replied sounding more serious and calm than I’d ever heard him before. He ruined it by taking some raw meat out of a bag and taking a large bite out of it.

  I flinched away from the sight, from the smell, trying not to feel the bewildering conflicting emotions of desire and anger.

  “Do I really have demonic heritage? Do you know why?”

  He frowned, licking bits of flesh off his fingers. “Your brother,” he finally said with a scowl. “You and your brother shared your mother’s blood, her choices.”

  “My mother?”

  “She became bound to your father. That cured her from the taint, but the vulnerability passed on to you and your brother.”

  I gasped while Lewis sat beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist, careful not to hold me too tight.

  “So, if I’m bound to Lewis, that will probably cure me of my taint, but the vulnerability will be passed on to any children I have?” Why did that hurt so much? I hadn’t even really thought about having children.

  Lewis pressed a kiss to my head while the demons screamed and my body ached.

  “No one knows what the future holds,” he murmured reassuringly. “I doubt your mother thought that her children would suffer for her choices.”

  “Did you know about my mother?” I asked Lewis, looking up at his chiseled face, his soft eyes beneath dark eyebrows.

  “She had a reputation, but I wasn’t around at the time. I was in the woods lost in my own darkness.”

  “Reputation? What for? Grim was tainted. Is he vulnerable now?”

  Lewis sighed, stroking my bald head. “It’s complicated. Sometimes people taste Nether blood and become addicted. Sometimes people taste the power of the darkness and need more.”

  “You’re being too delicate,” Aiden said with a scowl. “Dari, your mother killed a lot of people. Some rich with Nether blood, some full of demon taint. She fed on blood the way you’ve fed on death.” He put away the raw meat. Did he feed on blood? Is that what I really wanted to do and be?

  “My mother is a vegetarian.”

  “Now, sure. After your father blood bound her to him, she adjusted. I don’t know how she became what she was. That’s rumor and speculation. Your Trainer, however, he stayed with her until the very end.” Aiden shook his head, scowling at me. “I remember that. I don’t remember everything, bits and pieces of other lives. I remember you killing at the gallery. I’m concerned that once you become bound to Lewis you’ll lose your delicacy about killing.”


  I stared at Aiden, wondering why that’s what he worried about until Lewis brushed my shoulder with his lips, sparking fire over my skin.

  “Will you complete the bond?”

  “Will you marry me?” I asked.

  He looked up at me, eyebrows drawn together in thought before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. I stared at the gold circlet with a whorl of leaves curling around one side.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked, smiling slightly at his echo.

  “That’s a ring,” I said stupidly, blinking rapidly as the demons screamed their fury inside my head.

  “I made it while you were at your father’s house, after I visited you on Pisces. So long ago,” he whispered with a sigh.

  “You made it for me?”

  “I thought binding and marriage would be convenient if we were unable to untangle our souls any other way. I would deeply enjoy every aspect of our union.”

  I shivered as I felt a flicker of the Nether mist against my skin. “You wanted to marry me? Why did you change your mind?” I waited while he slid the ring onto my left hand ring finger, flinching when the band burned and the demons shrieked inside my mind. I took a trembling breath and tried not to throw up. I hadn’t eaten anything solid yet so I wasn’t sure what would come up. I couldn’t think about things like that, not when I could barely sit up straight.

  “He thinks he’s going to die and you’ll suffer with the broken bond. I think that he doesn’t give you enough credit. You’ve got grit, girl. You may be delicate on the outside, but you’re his soul mate. That means that you’re a survivor. Sure, it might not be the most pleasant thing, but go hunting for a while and you’ll feel all right. I’ll even take you,” Aiden said with a leer.

  Lewis sighed as he shook his head at me. “Apparently my fears are entirely unfounded. Aiden will take care of you. I didn’t ever tell you how he trapped me and tamed me, did I?”

  Aiden cleared his throat and pushed his hair back. “You were not a lot of fun. Kept trying to kill me.”

  “Imagine that,” I said with a half-smile.