I jumped out of bed, looking around. Zach’s not here—good. He’d stop me. I steadied myself and my breathing, and teleported.
“Mom!” I shouted, appearing inside the house.
She didn’t answer, and Dad didn’t, either. Nor did Clara. . .
“Dammit!”
I ran into the kitchen, but they aren’t there, either. Becoming worried, I whirled around to go upstairs, but stopped dead.
“I knew you’d come,” Lucas mused, smirking.
“Where are they?” I asked, trying to stop the shaking of my voice.
“At your aunt’s. They were never here, Emma. Not with me.”
He used a spell that hindered my attempt to disappear before I could react, and then he grabbed my wrist.
“Let go!”
“I’m not going to let you go, Emma. Your Magic is mine, now.”
He teleported, taking me with him.
This Place is Death
We appeared in a large room with a bed pushed
into a corner. Where—?
“Welcome to La’veer,” Lucas seethed, jabbing a
needle into my arm. I gasped at how quick the needle’s
substance entered my system, stumbling into him. I
fought to hold my consciousness, but the next moment
everything went black.
****
I grimaced, pushing sleep from my eyes as I
opened them to take in my surroundings. I knew immediately it wasn’t the same day, or even the next day. How long had I been here? Wherever here was. . . La’veer. I think that was what he called it.
Even though it hurt to move, I tried to stand up off the bed, anyway. My feet gave out under me and I fell to the floor, undoubtedly earning a bruise or two against my ankle. I felt a warmth emitting from my scars, slipping through my skin.
Zach?
“How many times do I have to tell you, Emma? No one can hear you.” My head shot up, my eyes finding Lucas sitting in a chair over in the corner. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d wake up. You’ve been sleeping for two days straight.”
“Ever stop to think that was because you drugged me?”
“Don’t take it personally. I needed you to not fight me. You’re too. . . difficult when you fight me.”
The warmth came to my legs and I was able to stand.
“I do take it personally, Lucas. Don’t you dare drug me again!”
He stomped over to me.
“I will, because it suppresses your Magic. It keeps you from being able to fight me.”
“I am never going to stop fighting you. Not until you’re dead.” Amusement crossing his features. “What’s so funny?”
“You thinking I’m ever going to leave you or your Galaxies in peace. I thought we’d settled that before I made you Open them. I’m stronger than you.”
With that I was pinned against the wall, his hand around my throat.
“Your Magic and I are going to do wonders together, Emma. Being able to stop a curse like the one I sent at you in Keenan’s office. . . controlling the weather.”
I landed a kick at his shin and he let me breathe.
“They won’t you,” I snapped, shoving him away from me.
“Won’t let me? Oh, Emma, you’re mistaken. They’re Galaxies.” I shot a curse at him, but he ducked out of the way. The wall behind him turned black. “Watch it, Emma. Don’t think I don’t have any leverage on you!”
“I am not falling for your tricks, Lucas! And don’t think I’m going to do any more spells for you! I told you before: I am not yours!”
I blocked his curse, but then he just threw himself at me, knocking me against the wall. My head hit it hard, causing my vision to blur, and that was all he needed to get a hold of my wrists.
“Leverage. Emma—”
“It’s Mrs. Stone,” I snapped.
The red in his eyes darkened.
“Do you want me to kill you?”
“Do you want to burn?”
“Touché, Emma.” He lowered his head so his lips were at my ear. “I will always be able to make you bend to my commands.”
His thumb immediately slammed onto the scar, resulting in me screaming, nearly collapsing. But then his thumb moved off, and I had control of my legs.
I kicked at him, sending him flying backwards— somehow a spell had mixed into that kick. I sent a killing curse at him, to just end this, but he evaded it. He did what I feared he would: he broke my rib again. I stumbled, but I was able to remain standing, to send another curse at him.
He narrowed his eyes, and then I screamed, falling fast to the floor. He had broken my spine. My fingers were at the base of it, a healing spell fixing everything- including my rib- within seconds. But those seconds allowed Lucas to get a hold of me again, and he threw me against the wall. His hand was around my throat again, cutting off my air supply. I clawed at his hand, but he only choked me more severely.
Stop this! I said to him.
“Why? I told you: you’re mine.”
But he let go of my throat, and I gasped in the air.
“I am not a possession!”
“You are my possession. My play thing, don’t you remember?”
I glowered at him.
“Then just kill me already!”
“Wouldn’t you heal?”
My lips pressed together in a firm line.
“That’s what I thought.” He backed me up against the wall, leaving not even a hair’s length between us.
“Listen up and listen up good, Your Majesty.” He yanked my wrist around and I had to bite back a cry. “You will do whatever I tell you to. You will give me immortality.”
“Never.”
His nail scratched against the scar, and a loud, house-shaking boom of thunder went off. Like a cannon. Lucas’s eyes flickered to the window for a moment, before boring into mine again.
“That’s you out there, isn’t it? The storm?”
“I can make it kill you,” I snapped heatedly. “That lightning will shoot straight through the ceiling and strike you dead.”
“But not before this.”
Dislocated shoulder. I sucked in a breath and felt the bruises he’d made on my neck. He looked at me sideways, curiosity filling his eyes. A sick, twisted curiosity that made my skin crawl.
“Bruises don’t suit you.”
“You’re a sadist. What do you care?”
“Because even though I hate you, I’m not blind.” His hand lifted my chin up, and I looked him in the eyes. The sickening intrigue came back, the one that was always in his eyes before he would play with my hair or say something that made me uncomfortable. “I’m sure it would kill you.”
“What would?”
“Me being a masochist.” A smirk planted itself on his face. “I hate you, but I’m still a man. I can see what everyone else sees in you. . . the beauty.”
What the hell is he doing?
“Even though someone once said you are goodlooking, you’re the ugliest thing I have ever seen,” I retorted.
His eyes became blacker than the night. “On to my leverage.”
****
Lucas teleported us in a large, vacant room. Tess
is here, and a figured draped in shadow, pinned to the wall across from us.
“My leverage.”
A light flashed on overhead, and my chest tightened. I looked at Lucas lividly.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re such a liar!” I shouted. “Let her go!”
He turned to me, amused.
“I’m not lying, Emma. I did nothing to her. Tess, on the other hand. . .”
She used her hand to give an obscene gesture, smirking at me.
“Your Majesty. Your friend is even worse than you. She never shut up.”
“You see, Emma, I did nothing to her. Tess did. She is still alive, but that can change.”
“You can’t kill her!” I ob
jected, whirling around to glower at Lucas.
“Yes, we can,” Lucas countered. “But she will live as long as you do what I say.”
I’m saving Jessie, I thought. It doesn’t matter if I’m saving Jessie.
“What do you want?” I whispered in defeat.
“Contact the Council.”
“What?”
“Contact them or she will die because of you.”
“She has nothing to do with them!”
“That may be, but she is your friend, Emma, and I need to put my plan in motion. Now do it.”
I didn’t do anything, trying to figure out some way to keep the Council out of this and to save Jessie at the same time. Lucas looked to Tess.
“Do it.”
She turned to face Jess, and she raised her hand.
“Don’t,” I said, looking at Jessica. She’s still unconscious, and I can’t find a way out of this.
“Giving in once again, Emma?” asked Lucas.
Tess turned back to us, looking annoyed.
“It’s not going to make a difference, you know,” I responded.
“It will make all the difference.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to face the wall. Council.
The palace’s den came into view, and all the Council are there. They didn’t notice us. I turned to face Lucas, and he grabbed my arm.
“No tricks. One trick, just one, and she dies.”
“Fine, no tricks.”
He watched me for a moment, his eyes scrutinizing me, but then he stepped closer to the wall, pulling me with him.
“If you want to keep your Queen alive, I suggest you stop being so unobservant,” he said.
The Council jumped and looked at him, then to me. They frowned.
“Adler, what do you want?” asked Galaxia. “What are you speaking of?”
He nudged his head at me, and their eyes turned to me briefly, Galaxia’s narrowing.
“What do you want?” Mab demanded.
“Everything. Appoint me as the new King of the Galaxies.”
“Ha! Like that will happen!” laughed Horatio in the distance.
“Horatio, please,” begged Louisa, turning around a bit. “That is not possible, Adler. As you know, Zachary and Emma are the Kahi. They, not you, are and will forever be the Kahi.”
“Yes, but I am not afraid of death, and if you do not do as I say, I will kill her.”
His grip on my arm tightened.
“You have too much at stake to make that error, Adler,” Galaxia refuted. “You are to let Emma go. Now.”
Lucas smirked and shook his head.
“I’m not letting her go.”
“Galaxia? What’s going on? What’s with. . ?”
Another knot tightened in my stomach as Zach’s voice wafted into my hearing. He came into view, his eyes immediately falling on our enemy.
“Adler?” he asked.
“Yes, Zachary, Adler. And Emma.”
Zach caught my eyes and held them.
“Let her go, Adler,” he insisted, not looking away from my eyes.
“That’s not happening, Stone.”
“He wants to be King, Zachary,” said Galaxia.
“King? He’s insane!”
Don’t I know it, I thought acrimoniously.
“Why can’t you ever just leave Emma alone?”
I froze. Wha—Jessie?
I turned to where she is, here, but—but she’s not there.
I lied, Lucas Pathed.
You—
I manipulate people into getting what I want, you know that.
He looked at me.
“He won’t do anything to hurt her, Zachary,” insisted Mab, going to stand behind the couch. Zach turned to face her.
“What?” asked everyone, including Lucas.
“He won’t hurt her. And he won’t get anything. Especially not the Galaxies.”
“On the contrary, Mab, I will get them. I will get everything,” said Lucas. He yanked on my dislocated shoulder, and a cry escaped me before I could stop it. I felt Zach’s eyes on me, filled with his own pain.
But Mab didn’t respond, just walked away from the screen’s view.
“Mab, what are you doing?” asked Louisa.
She remained silent.
“Where’d she go?” asked Zach, looking at Galaxia.
“I do not know. However, turning to more important matters. Lucas, give us back Emma,” Galaxia insisted.
“No.”
“That is not the right answer,” said Mab.
But she isn’t with the Council, she was behind us. The screen went black, and Lucas moved me in front of him, digging his thumbs against my scars. I couldn’t see Mab anymore, couldn’t feel her essence, but then his thumbs were away from my scars, and my vision returned.
“I told you I could use you,” he uttered.
I elbowed him in the gut, shoving him away from me. He recovered quicker than I had hoped, and he got hold of me again, shoving something sharp in my arm again. I managed to get him off of me before the drug took its complete effect. I held the last of my strength, and brushed my own thumbs over my scars.
**** The current came gently, waving over me until I
was able to breathe again. There was a rushing, as the foreign particle Lucas had injected me with disappeared. I managed to get my eyes open, and found myself looking up into a stormy set of eyes. Zach’s eyes.
They softened, and I took a breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked, rushing his hand over my head. “Mab said he was touching your scars. . .”
“I’m fine. I’m home.”
I made to sit, and Zach helped. Nothing had been healed yet, I realized. None of the bruises or my shoulder, not my emotions.
“What happened, Emma? How did he get you?”
“I think Lucas caused the headache, like he was trying to invade my mind to make me go to my parents’ house. They—they were arguing; Dad and Lucas were. Dad was yelling at him to stay away from ‘her’, and I thought it was Mom. Lucas kept yelling at him to shut up, and then there was a struggle, a thud, and nothing.
“I thought he had my parents, Zach. He’s always threatened Mom, and I. . . I just got up and left without a moment’s hesitation. I couldn’t wait another minute because if he had them, he could have killed them. But they weren’t even at home; they were at Aunt Rebecca’s. He came, and took me back to this other home of his— La’veer.”
“La’veer?”
I nodded.
“He was there when the Abarims destroyed the house in Farbreach, but I don’t know where this one is.” I swallowed. “He—drugged me. Injected my system with something that made me sleep for two days. . . When I woke up, my system started cleansing itself of whatever he’d cursed it with, but. . .” I shook my head. “He’s hostile,” I whispered.
Zach touched my cheek.
“Your shoulder. . .”
“And my ribs again,” I added. “Choked me until I couldn’t breathe, and. . . and my spine.”
“What about your spine?”
My eyes flickered to Zach’s, and I swear his eyes darkened, but then he leaned forward and kissed my forehead. He shifted so he was closer to me, and I watched his eyes look me over. He looked in pain.
“Let me fix you.”
My eyes met his. Those were the same words he had used the last time Lucas had tortured me. I nodded, and Zach’s fingers ghosted over me again. The bruises disappeared, but then he had my shoulder pop back into place. I bit my lip as he did so- no matter how he did it, this would hurt. I bit through the skin, which only ended up healing seconds later thanks to Zach’s spell.
“I love you, Emma,” he said when he was done.
“I love you, too, Zach.”
He hesitated, moving to sit next to me.
“You said he drugged you.”
I nodded, moving myself into Zach’s arms.
“Emma, you’re shaking.”
“I keep telling m
yself not to be afraid of him, but with—with everything he does, how can I not be? How can I not be afraid of him after he drugs me just so I can’t fight him, or after he breaks bone after bone?”
Zach pulled me closer to him, pushing the tears from my cheeks.
“That fear is not a weakness. I’m afraid of him, too; of what he can do to you. Seeing you come back broken, Em. . . I don’t know what I’d do if the damage wasn’t temporary.” He shifted so he could look at me. “Just don’t let the fear take over, Em. Know I will always look for you, that I will always fix you. I’m never going to leave you.”
I curled back into his arms, and we lay against the covers.
“I’m always going to come back to you,” I whispered. “I won’t let the fear take hold. I’ll fight him.”
He kissed my head.
“As will I.”
I locked my fingers through his, trying to keep the pain from kindling back through my scars. Even his arms couldn’t stop the shaking now.
“Why does he do this to me, Zach?” I sobbed. “Why does he have to torture me every time we’re in the same room?”
“I don’t—”
“Why does he have to look at me that way?”
The words came out whispered, and why I thought saying them was even remotely a good idea was lost on me. For Zach stiffened, and then he was leaning over me.
“What look, Emma?”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t—”
“Emma,” he insisted. I could see the worry in his eyes, but how was this going to help remedy that at all?
I locked both our hands together, sending the memories to him. He stopped it as soon as I’d insulted Lucas, his hands falling from mine.
“I will kill him. He has no right to look at you that way!”
“Zach, please,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears. I took his face between my hands. “I—I can’t. . .” I took a breath. “Everything’s wrong. Why would he say any of that? Why would he even. . .” I shook my head fiercely. “I feel like I’ve lost something.”
Zach kissed me, peace filling me as he did.
“Breathe,” he whispered. “I will always be here to fix you, Em. To find whatever you’ve lost and bring it back to you.”
“He’s just. . .”
“Shhh. It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re home now.” He kissed me again. “You’re safe.”
Starlight (The Lightning Strike Trilogy Book 1) Page 24