Chapter 18

CHAPTER18

My head is buzzing. Hornets swarm within the confines of my skull.

I think I’m blinking but I can’t see beyond a white squall. I’m in a blizzard. Snow swirls across my skin. It’s so cold here. I’m lost and it’s so cold and white.

“Stop hovering. You’ll freak her out.”

“She is already freaked out, witch.”

“Well, you’ll freak her out more being a scary demon with smoke wings and fire eyes. Just chill the fuck out. Take her hand. No, her hand, not her arm, dumbass.”

“What difference does it-”

“Let go,” Ediye hisses in a fierce whisper as I start to thrash and twist. “That’s where they grabbed her to take her away.”

There’s a silent pause. I feel a band of warmth leave my arm and the fight dissolves from my limbs. My mind feels cleaved in two. One half is conscious but unable to move, the other is trapped somewhere frightening and far away.

“You want to help for real? Learn how to do it right. Take her hand. Talk to her calmly.”

I feel a warm palm close around mine. It might be the only thing keeping me here on Earth.

“Vampire. Wake up…” Something touches my face and it feels wet. My skin or the hand, I don’t know. I feel wet everywhere. I groan and hear a whispered instruction from Ediye but can’t make out the words. When Ashen speaks again, his worry is buried beneath a quieter voice. “Lu, you are safe here. Wake up.”

I press my eyes shut. The buzzing seems to subside enough that when I open them again, I can see. But I’m not really a fan of what my eyes take in.

On the plus side, I haven’t pissed myself.

On the negative side, I’ve redecorated the bathroom. With my blood.

My kaiken lies on the floor next to me. My body is covered with sweat and dark crimson spatter. I’m shaking with a deep sense of cold. I’m pretty sure my marrow has been sucked clean and replaced with snow. My fingertips ache. I still feel half in a blizzard, half here on the bathroom tiles.

I’m really fucking confused. I was in bed?.. I think?.. That’s the last thing I remember. I got into bed and Ashen was on the floor by the window, watching as I gave him one last, suspicious, somewhat unfocused drunken glare before I pulled the blanket to my chin and turned my back on him. And now Ashen is kneeling next to me with his hand around mine, with Ediye squatting on my other side. They both look stern. Worried.

“What the fuuuuck,” I whisper. My voice is extra hoarse, my throat extra sore. My tongue feels too thick and pasty in my mouth. I suddenly feel very tired, like I’ve been running instead of sleeping.

Ediye stands and grabs a hand towel. I hear the water run in the sink. Ashen stays by my side. When it’s ready, he takes the damp towel from Ediye and wipes my skin with gentle strokes. I focus on his face, his eyes following the movement of his hand as it trails down my cheek and across my neck. He must feel me watching and meets my gaze. He tries to give a reassuring smile but there’s a crease between his brows that looks too concerned to give me any kind of relief.

My attention drifts up to the mirror. Chevrons and lines and triangles of ancient Sumerian drip across its polished surface. “I don’t remember this from any issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine,” I say, my gaze transfixed on the text that spans the width of the mirror and a wide section of the formerly white plaster wall. Ashen’s eyes narrow in my peripheral vision and I sense his confusion.

“Last year’s October edition. Spooky Season On A Budget, how to decorate with your own blood,” Ediye says.

“Right. Nailed it. Bianca will be thrilled.”

Ashen grumbles something incoherent that sounds an awful lot like haramenzen, Sumerian for troublemakers. I meet Ediye’s eyes and she gives me a fleeting smile as Ashen’s arm slips beneath my neck and he lifts me from the cold tile floor, wrapping a towel over my shoulders. When I’m up and steady on my feet I turn to the mirror.

“Gasaan tiildibba me zi ab. Dul susi giskasilim tilla. Nigkulli duma galu barama niingar,” I whisper, reading the first line of text across the mirror. “The first lines of my spell in Sanford.”

“Queen that gives life to the dying. The weapon of sweet voice. My music let no man make,” Ashen says. I meet his eyes through the reflection. The scrawled text of blood is like a mask over our faces.

“Umunzid kian utudza angim sunutega. Gasaan utud muszid kesdi. En utud sag men mama,” Ediye says, reading the next line down. Combined with the first line, the text repeats, over and over. “A true form, designed by heaven and earth thou wast created, like heaven intangible. Offspring of a queen, clad upon by a true form. Offspring of a high-priest, whose head is crowned.”

“What does that mean?” Ashen asks, reading the cuneiform as though a hidden message might jump from the bloody text. They both look at me in the mirror, but I can only shrug.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything,” I say, trying to pull a memory from the dream that must have drawn me from my room and compelled me here. But there’s nothing, only the white blizzard from the hazy moments just before I woke. My gaze homes in on Ashen. “Did you hear anything?”

He shakes his head, his troubled expression falling away from mine. “No. I woke and you were gone. I came out of the room to rouse the others and heard you talking in the bathroom. You were repeating the lines of the spell.” Ashen’s jaw hardens. When his eyes lift from the shadows they burn with flame. He looks at me for only a heartbeat before his gaze slides to Ediye. “How is this possible? I cast a spell tonight that should have kept Lu from harming herself.”

Ediye’s expression darkens as she holds the demon’s stare. “Harm was not her intent. Her intent was to send a message.”

Ashen’s gaze meets mine again and I can see that Ediye’s words only spark more worry. And irritation. “To whom? And about what?”

“I don’t know, but we should have Bianca look at this in the morning,” Ediye says, turning to me. “Perhaps she can decipher whatever you were trying to convey. She seemed like she saw something in your blood at the club that was connected to your spell, so maybe she can lend some insight here too.”

“Yeah. Can’t wait. It was so fun the last time,” I reply with a note of heavy sarcasm as I lock eyes with Ediye. My hand drifts to my damp tank top and presses to my heart, which feels like it has taken more than its fair share of abuse lately.

Ashen’s eyes narrow, and I can tell he’s trying to make sense of our exchange. Whatever conclusions he’s drawn only seem to sour his mood even further. He’s a demon, so it’s not like it’s hard to do. “Get her cleaned up, witch,” he says, his voice gruff as he gently pushes me in Ediye’s direction. “She needs to rest.”

“First of all, I’m right here. Don’t talk around me like I’m not,” I say, shrugging off his hand as I level him with a glare. He frowns and the crease deepens between his brows. Okay, fine, I’ll admit he does have a point about cleanliness and rest. I feel both gross and bone tired. “Secondly, I slipped right out from beneath your watch, so don’t go getting pissy with anyone but yourself. Especially not Ediye.”

“I am precisely the person I am angry with, vampire,” Ashen says, taking a step toward me as his glowing eyes warm my skin. Ferocious anger brews within his gaze. He bends and picks up my kaiken from the floor, glaring at the blood that stains the blade. “It will not happen again.”

Ashen looks back to me, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he surveys my face, his hard stare lingering on my lips. I have an urge to make a quip about his motivations, but I manage to keep my mouth clamped shut. I do still give him a fierce stare, however, that only brightens when his gaze connects with mine.

“Give us some room, Reaper,” Ediye says, turning on the shower. Ashen holds my glare but acknowledges her words with a curt nod. He stays unmoving for a moment longer than what seems normal, then turns and leaves, stalking down the hall to my room.

“This has been a weird night,” I whisper through a heavy sigh, dropping the towel on the counter and stripping off my soaked and bloodied tank top and shorts.

“Yeah, there have been a lot of weird days and nights lately,” Ediye replies as I step into the shower. She closes the curtain behind me but I can sense her lingering on the other side. “Your Reaper was pretty spooked to find you in here, writing up the walls.”

“Not my Reaper, Ediye,” I say as I watch the water cleanse the blood from the slits in my fingers, the deeper cuts still raw and open.

There’s a weighty pause of silence. “You’re never going to convince yourself of that, you know.”

I sigh. I wish she was wrong.

Ediye leaves me to my thoughts in the hot stream of water to retrieve another set of night clothes, and leaves them on the counter with a vial of statera elixir before heading back to her room. When I’m dried off and my damp hair is twisted into a bun, I pad through the dark hallway back to my room.

The door is ajar when I get there. The Reaper paces by the window, lost in thought, a stream of smoke and cinders drifting in his wake. He stills when he hears the door close and turns in my direction. We stand watching one another for a long moment, unmoving.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Though I kind of wish it was. Part of me would like to lay more blame at his feet. But he was there with me, on the floor, with my hand in his. He didn’t have to be. And as much as I know I shouldn’t want to be near him, part of me still does. I look at him now, standing by the window, and it doesn’t take preternatural senses to see the pain and guilt in Ashen, even from this distance, even in the dark.

Ashen keeps the flame within his eyes trained on the floor. “I will not let it happen again.”

“You might not have a choice.”

“I should have stayed awake. Or stayed by the door,” Ashen says quietly as he meets my eyes. “Maybe a different choice could have led to a different conclusion.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just a few cuts and some redecoration.”

“That is not how it felt on the other side.”

I tilt my head, considering his words.

Not how itfelt.

Ashen never talks about how something feels. It’s always how it is, how it was. But not the emotion it leaves behind. I’m the one who is left defenseless as you dismantle my walls, stone by stone. But he didn’t tell me he was afraid, or hopeful. You have stolen my heart, vampire. But he never said he loved me.

Maybe that’s how I fell so easily into the darkness of the Shadow Realm. I filled in the blanks. Yet, right now, this is different. And it’s the second time tonight. He’s angry at himself and said as much, and now there’s something else.

“How did it feel? On the other side?” My voice is quiet, full of weariness and the anticipation of being left to fill in those blanks once more.

Ashen looks away into the comfort of darkness for a long moment. I think he’s not going to answer, but then when his gaze returns to me, his jaw tightens.

“Like diving into deep water and drowning in it. Like helplessness.”

Silence invades the space between us once more. We watch one another from our bastions of shadows, neither of us wanting to move or break whatever spell this moment is.

Slowly, the sparks dim and the smoke recedes. Ashen moves to the bed and draws the covers back, gesturing for me to get in. I don’t have the energy to fight every suggestion tonight. Between a restless sleep, lingering alcohol, emotional disarray and a scalding hot shower, I’m willing to trade a truce for some rest. So I climb into the bed and lie down without argument, almost sighing when the cover is draped over my body. Ashen settles next to me but stays above the covers. His hand folds across my wrist and he draws it up, inspecting my fingers in a shaft of moonlight that filters through the slit in the curtains.

“Unhealed,” he observes. The cuts are still open and sore, but no longer bleeding.

“It’s the silver in the kaiken. It’ll take a little longer.”

My pulse thrums with heavy beats as Ashen takes time to look at every notch and slice. One of his thumbs follows the path of the heart line on my palm, so slow that maybe he thinks I won’t notice. But I do.

“You can take my blood to heal faster,” he says in a voice that’s low and almost hopeful.

I don’t answer, but I don’t reject him outright either. My heart leads my mind to exactly where it shouldn’t go, and I think about what it would be like if we had mated. Taking his blood would be natural. Normal. Something as simple as this would barely be a question, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take it. But we’re not mates, and every drop I do take brings me one step closer to needing it. And it’s a need that is one-sided. I’m a vampire, it’s not like it should be a surprise that someone’s blood might call to me. I just don’t think what little blood I gave to Ashen during that fight when we first met has the same effect on him.

“I can’t,” I finally say, but I don’t pull my hand away. “Besides, it’ll be much better by morning. I need to hunt tomorrow anyway. For now, I just need rest.”

“You just need rest,” he echoes. The shadows consume his quiet words, and all that’s left for a long moment is breath and heartbeats. Ashen turns my hand over and brings it to his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to my knuckles. My bones seem to heat with his touch. “Sleep well, vampire. No more wandering away.”

With the heavy notes in his voice, I don’t think he means just sleepwalking. He’s talking about running. From him. It feels like this is something he wants for himself, not for his greater goal or for the glory of his realm. It’s tempting to believe, even after everything he’s done to show that my belief in him is naive and misplaced. But the thought still fills my chest with warmth, no matter if I want it to or not.

I give myself permission to feel just a little bit. Only the anchoring warmth of his touch in this moment of uncertainty about what’s happening to me. So I let his hand close around mine. I let him lay his arm across my ribs. I can accept this moment of offered comfort so I can rest.

I take off some of the armor around my heart, and I fall asleep with Ashen’s arm draped across my body and my hand encased in his.