His weight feels so good and so does his heat. I don't know why but in this moment I love him so much my heart might explode.
His greedy pulls have turned into hesitant sucks and sometimes it feels like loving kisses. I know he is trying to stop but he can't. His body has been denied it's sustenance for far too long and it's not willing to give it up yet. It needs it.
Gods, make me stop. I can hear your pulse slowing down.
Not yet, love. I'm fine, I promise.
I don't believe you! Please, help me, I'm…scared.
You're fine, just drink.
He whimpers.
His hands have been roaming my body a little bit, his body has pressed a little bit closer. I can tell how much he wants me and it ignites my body even more, which I didn't think was possible. I feel like I might burst into flame.
I want to touch him so bad in return.
I really want to touch you.
I really want to stop drinking this heavenly blood. But it's like a drug and my fangs won't retract.
I'm getting a little light-headed now. Maybe you should stop soon if you think you've had enough.
Oh god. Make me stop. Punch me. Pull my hair. Something!
I didn't know you liked it rough, Shadow.
Alexia…. he growls.
He's onto something here. If he has had enough for a little while, then I really should stop him because I am about to faint. I don't want to hurt him though so I try my little trick from last time.
I pinch his nose shut.
I hold it closed as long as I can but I'm not sure if it works or not, because the darkness takes me with it.
Chapter Six
The first thing I notice is that someone is stroking my head. I must have been asleep for a while because my stomach feels empty and rumbles and my mouth is dry. My eyes feel so good being closed that I keep them shut as I delight in the pleasure of being coddled.
I attempt to open my eyes but I just feel my eyelids flutter. I'm still staring into the darkness. I feel so tired and sluggish.
Who knew it took so much energy to just open your eyes or wake up.
"Alexia?" My name sounds so broken coming from that raw voice.
My eyelids flutter open this time without even putting that much effort into it.
Huh.
The first things I notice are the two glowing red eyes above me that light the darkness all around me.
The second thing I notice is that instead of that making me panic, my heart swells with relief.
And have they ever been so bright?
I try to speak but my voice lets out a rough, hoarse squeak and I clear my throat.
"Yeah?" I manage.
"How do you feel?"
I close my eyes and smile.
Pretty good as long as you keep petting my head.
"Oh gods, you scared me, baby," his voice comes out thick and broken.
I frown and try to sit up. He pulls me into him, putting my head on his chest with his arms around me.
He rocks me and I am shocked at his tenderness. I feel so secure here in the strength of his arms that I don't speak to ruin the moment.
It's been so long since he showed me any affection.
He kisses my forehead and rocks me, continuing to stroke my hair. I feel so feint and sluggish that it's hard to wrap my mind around what's going on.
But I do finally manage to do that.
Oh.
I grab the hand that was stroking my hair and bring it to my lips before resting it over my beating heart. I look him in his amazing, fiery eyes that seem brighter than ever right now, and show him with the proof of my beating heart that I am okay.
Shadow needs evidence, not words.
"I'm okay," I whisper.
He swallows and glances away from my sincere stare.
I notice his body trembling all over.
"Why are you shaking? What's wrong?"
He tries to downplay the concern in my voice, that's how I always know he is hiding something. He never wants me to worry.
"I'm not sure. I feel so…good."
I raise an eyebrow. "How so?"
He takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his already disheveled hair making me want to drool. He stands up and starts pacing, putting on display his nice form now that my eyes have adjusted to the dim light.
And I am floored. Absolutely shocked to my core.
Not only because his muscles are magically back and very defined and large, but his wings don't look broken anymore.
He stretches them out to their full length on either side of him and pauses mid-stride to look at me with a smirk on his face. "I know right?" his sexy, deep voice rumbles.
"What…in…the…world…? Your not thin-looking and...and you wings, they were broken?"
He resumes his pacing. "Well, they weren't broken but they were too heavy for me to lift, and I haven't been able to retract them for a long time now. Since they ripped them out the third time, but other than that I feel charged and just so antsy. I have so much pent up…something…that I just feel like I'm about to explode!"
I try not to comment on the ripping out of the wings for the third time, because I don't want to take him back there now that he seems happier. But wow, I am glad that they grew back, it's pretty much a miracle. That's unheard of.
"Do you…do you think it's my blood?"
Don't smile, don't smile, don't smile.
"Yes, I do," he laughs, "and you should smile because it suits you."
Despite the blush creeping into my cheeks, I smile.
"So much for ever having a private thought again, I suppose."
He smirks. "You're probably right. So you're going to have to shut down all those dirty ones."
"I can't believe it," I say with mock seriousness. "You made a joke." I look around dramatically. "Where is Shadow and what have you done with him?"
He scoffs.
"So back to the discussion," he holds up a finger and begins to tick things off. "I think I was closer to dying than I knew. I think that all those experiments they were doing to me weakened me, and I think that your blood I just drank strengthened me because I was away from you."
I scrunch my face up in confusion. "What?"
He contemplates. "I think we may have had a partial bond, Alexia." He faces me, hands on hips and I try to keep my eyes on his, not drifting down.
I glance at his chest a second later and curse at myself.
He doesn't seem to notice and he continues on while I struggle to focus and listen.
"It makes perfect sense! Your bond with Gabriel didn't form because we had already formed one! Whether partial or otherwise we will find out, but that's something! I couldn't keep anyone's blood down or form a bond to anyone they threw at me in here because once demons form a bond to someone they can't keep anyone else's blood down!"
I think on this for a moment, letting it all sink in, wondering how I did not see this myself. "But that means that you were starving without me."
"Well, yeah but don't you see how crazy this is? What this means?"
"So you were dying. If I hadn't had the crazy last minute thought to come try one LAST time to find you, you would have died. DIED."
I cross my arms, willing the unpleasant thought away.
"Well, most definitely. But I didn't. You came for me, Alexia. And the point is that I am alive and I feel amazing right now! I feel my strength back and maybe even more! Something's different and I just can't put my finger on it."
He certainly looks different. I must say, it's very pleasing to the eye. "Your eyes are the brightest red that they have ever been, and you were emaciated before I passed out. Now you're…you're…"
He smirks arrogantly, waiting for my answer to his toned physique. "I'm…?"
I purse my lips. "You're healthy looking."
He makes a show of looking down at his torso and flexing his solid eight-pack.
I roll my eyes.
"A little more
than healthy looking, I think," he smirks as he runs his finger up his well defined abs one by one as if playing keys on a piano.
"Well at least your sense of humor is back," I mutter petulantly.
"Mmm. All these compliments are going to go to my head." He smiles a breathtakingly masculine smile with white, gleaming teeth and sharp fangs that make my stomach dip dangerously.
I swallow and rack my brain for a subject change.
"So what are we going to do now? We need to get out of here…"
He resumes his pacing. "You're right, we need to come up with a plan. I won't be their lab rat anymore."
I swear I saw his eyes flash when he said that and before I can process my thought he blurs into motion so fast I can't track and punches the concrete wall…on the other side of the cell.
I gasp and cover my mouth, eyes wide as saucers.
He looks just as stunned as me and he confusedly examines his hand. The cut on his knuckles heals right before our eyes. He looks back over at me across the room and I can't form any thought. He turns back and examines the huge hole in the concrete wall, and little pebbles are still crumbling and falling down.
I exhale in a rush, not realizing I was even holding my breath. This draws his attention instantly as if I had called his name.
"Something's wrong." His voice is gruff and almost alarmed.
"Pft! Understatement of the year!" I cry.
He doesn't really seem to pay much attention to me.
"I don't really know what happened," he mumbles.
I shake my head, mouth agape and at a loss for words. Can he really be so calm about this?
"Or how…" he continues his ramblings looking from his hand, to the wall, back to me across the way.
I throw my hands up and let them smack my hips as they fall back to position, in perfect hissy fit-style. "Shadow! Helloooooooo…." I wave my hand back and forth as if to bring him back to present.
He doesn't notice my temper tantrum and my annoyance tries to surface.
Okayyyy…I think. "Well they do say one person's craziness is another person's reality," I mutter barely above a whisper.
Suddenly, there is a breeze that ruffles my hair between the time I blink and the time I open my eyes and in the next second bright, red eyes are intently boring into mine and Shadow is standing nose to nose with me.
We stare each other down and it is a game of determination. I won't look away first. He will not make me weaker than he is in either of our minds.
His pupils contract and it's so crazy-beautiful that I almost falter. My lips part and I inhale.
His eyes shift down, focusing on my lips and a small smile of triumph pulls at the corner of my lips.
He rolls his eyes.
"You cheated," he tells me.
"You're a sore loser," I reply.
He cants his head, eyes locked onto mine again. "That may be, but I'm not crazy. I heard you."
Wow. His hearing must be phenomenal because there is absolutely no way he could have heard me if it wasn't. I barely heard myself say it.
"I was figuring everything out, trying to figure out how I moved so fast and with such strength, so that I could do it on command. It's called analyzing and I wasn't standing there like some loony shocked at what had happened….like you were."
"Well, while you may think it's super cool that you have new powers and all, I am a little skeptical seeing as how I saw a bunch more kinds like that on my way in here. And let me tell you, they were just a little bit freaky and a lot crazy," I said using my finger to emphasize a little bit and my hands to emphasize a lot.
He finally sobers up and seems to take me seriously. "You were afraid of them," he states, grabbing my hand in his while still face to face with me.
I glance away from his sincerity. "Yes, I was." It was little more than whisper.
"Are…are you afraid of me?"
Still looking away from him I shake my head.
"You know I would die for you. I won't ever let anything hurt you, especially not me."
The depth and sincerity in his statement take me aback. I still wasn't sure if he even considered me his friend and now he is telling me this. It takes me a while to catch up and accept that we went from strangers to lovers again. Maybe.
I really want to bring it up somehow, and ask him, even if just to soothe my aching heart but I still fear his rejection.
My heart flutters in my chest just thinking about it and trying to get the nerve to ask.
His thumb rubs a circle over the frantic pulse on my wrist. "Your words tell me that you aren't afraid of me but your body tells me different."
Boys are insufferable! Will they never understand girls?
He frowns. "I can't understand you if you don't explain yourself, Alexia."
His free hand lifts and he runs a knuckle down my cheek. I close my eyes hoping the tears don't overflow my waterline.
"It's not that I'm afraid of you, Shadow," I whisper. I swallow and don't know if I have the nerve to finish what I desperately want to say.
"Then what?..." he asks just as softly.
"I'm just scared that…that you…" I can't bring myself to say it, so I finish the thought through our mind link.
I am afraid that you don't love me anymore.
He doesn't respond and my hope starts waning. I instantly try to explain myself, feeling the need to justify my fear.
I worried about you for six months, I saw you in my dreams, you haunted me every waking moment of those long six months. My love for you didn't die, it only intensified and so did my guilt. I can't bear it all any longer. And when I found you…you were…different. And I tried not to take it personally but, I just can't talk myself into thinking that it has nothing to do with me. Am I not who you still want? Or what you want? Or…or…
"Alexia," he sighs, interrupting my ramble.
"It isn't you that's changed, Sweetling, it's me."
Sweetling? I don't want to be Sweetling, I want to still be your Bayla.
He either isn't listening or he ignores me.
"I'm not going to tell you that I don't still love you, because the truth is that I'm not sure what love is, really. But, whether I figure that out or not, right now I am only trying to take responsibility for all of my actions, whether good or bad."
I'm losing the fragile connection to him that we just got back by making him tell me the truth. I shouldn't have asked, because I knew. Deep down I knew, and I wouldn't accept it so I had to ask. Will I ever learn?
Tears flow down my cheeks but my lips don't wobble this time. He squeezes my hand for comfort but that's as far as it goes.
"Please," I gasp brokenly, not sure what I am pleading for. Surely not this.
In my desperate attempt to keep him close when I realize that he is pulling away, I put my hand over his heart and he startles and jumps back out of reach.
I stare in confusion at what just happened. As if my touch literally burned him or something.
He puts his hands up in a pleading manner, like he is settling an angry animal. "Please don't make this any harder on you or me then it has to be, Alexia. I am trying to do the right thing. You deserve so much better than me and when you realize that, I don't want to be standing in your way. No empty promises and obligations to stay."
I hear what he's saying but my mind registers it as a load of crap. I still focus on his chest, trying to understand why my gentle touch caused him to jump back and panic.
"That wasn't your fault either….I don't like to be touched, in most places anymore. Compliments of being raped and tortured here," he smiles sadly, not a full blown, make-my-knees-week smile.
"But those Guards were monsters…this is just…me?" I whisper, not sure why I phrase it as a question.
He shakes his head. "I don't understand it either, Alexia. I'm trying to tell you that I am really messed up now! I'm different! In a bad, bad way!"
"Yes, and I still love you in a bad, bad way!" I screech brokenly.
<
br /> He throws his hands up and squats down, head in his hands, elbows on his knees.
I hate that I blurted that out but I can't take it back. Just something else for me to be guilty about, after he just asked me not to make this harder on him, what did I do?
I had to go and make it harder on him.
"Do you want to know the ugly person I have become, Alexia? Is it not enough that I was a half-ling?" He shakes his head.
"Well, since it obviously didn't deter you, let me enlighten you on a few things that have happened since I was just a half-ling confessing my love for an off-limits angel wed to someone else: I have gotten addicted to Black Poison, I have been raped and I have raped, I have fathered a score of children whom did not make it because their mother could not have my blood, I did not remember their mother's names nor did I really care, I have been tortured, cut, burned, and injected with many different things. I have also drank from slaves and windows and mates of others. Now I have become some sort of freak weapon against the Hell Horde, with evil powers like the monsters that you saw on the way in. Truth is, I am not better than them, Alexia, I am way, way, way worse.
Eyes wide, trying to absorb all of this horrible information, a final tear curves a path down my dirt stained cheek and in another blur of motion he's there, palm up, catching my tear as it falls from my jaw.
"…And someone as pure as you, should not be spilling one single tear onto this dirty floor because of me. I'm tainted, everything inside me is…dirty."
I know he is right, but I just don't care. Redemption is always an option.
Chapter Seven
I watch him draw patterns into the dirt floor out of the corner of my eye. He has been at it for quite sometime, impossible to know how long though, without seeing the sun for time or having a watch. He has erased it and started over a handful of times and from what I can tell it looks like some kind of maze.
"It's not a maze; it's a map of this place from my memory."
Ah.
"Wow, how do you know it?"
"I have been down here a long time and I paid attention when they moved me around inside of it, hoping that one day it would be useful for escape."
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