My muscles tensed, Simon’s agonised screams in the distance sent the skittering of dread up my spine. I was being played, whatever had Simon was using him, it wanted to see what I was made of, it was searching for my weakness. The only problem with knowing what it was up to meant I would have to willingly play into its hands. It had found my weakness as surely as if I had told it. I spent enough nights waking drenched in sweat, the face of my own demon leering and looming large in my mind, but I had gotten out. I wasn’t going to leave Simon here. Nobody had come to save me but I could save him.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I whispered in a sing-song voice. “Time to pick on someone your own size for once.”
Something cold slammed into my chest and I was airborne in the darkness. Air rushed past my ears and I twisted my body in mid-air the way a cat might, landing in a crouch on one knee, my free hand planted in the swirling darkness, fingers digging into the dirt. My boots scraped the ground, stone and something else I couldn’t quite place shifting beneath me.
“I remember you now, little snake,” a female voice cooed at me from the darkness and I was back on my feet in an instant, whip snaking alongside me.
Moving forward, I led with my hips, the noise of the whip as it cracked the air like thunder drowning out the sound of the woman’s laughter. It was an all too familiar laugh and it had the hair on the back of my neck standing to attention.
From out of the gloom she came into focus, her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders like some kind of golden waterfall. It fell to her waist in delicate waves, her blue eyes lined in kohl stood out in her porcelain face, her full red lips stretched over her perfectly pearly teeth.
As I met her eyes, a memory popped into my head, my steps faltering as I remembered her screams, agony and ecstasy by turn as Kypherous brought her to climax over and over.
“I see you’ve not forgotten me,” she said softly, her voice allowing me to shake free of the memory.
“He killed you.”
My words brightened her smile. “And yet, little Snake, here I stand.”
“This can’t be real,” I said, horror sliding over my skin, it’s familiar brush like an old friend come to pay me a visit.
“Do you remember what we did, little Snake?” she said. “Do you remember what he let me do?” Her eyes had begun to glow, the blue growing brighter with each second that slipped by.
“No,” I said hoarsely, taking a small step backwards, panic and fear sliding up my spine. I’d thought I was free of him, of the pain and terror he’d inflicted upon me.
“Let me drink of you and I’ll let the boy go free,” she said. The lie of her words tainting the air so that I could taste it on my tongue.
Simon was suddenly crouched on the floor, his body curled in on itself as he rocked back and forth in the darkness.
“Give yourself to me as you once did and he is yours,” she said, her breath slick against my neck as her tiny hands slid around my waist.
Panic coiled in the pit of my stomach. There was no way out. If I broke free, she would kill him, but if I stayed…
Power flooded the place where my panic was growing, sizzling and fizzing through my core. The tattoo on my back writhed, the viper coming to life beneath the touch of its creator. Cold terror held me in its grip and I stared at Simon on the floor, his pleas for someone to save him echoing inside my head.
“I can give you the world, little Snake,” she said again, nuzzling against my back.
“Jenna!” said a voice in the dark that I recognised only too well. Heat flared, starting at my lips, tingling as it spread across my face and down my neck, into my arms and through the very core of my body. The woman holding me howled as the magic pushed her out, fought the darkness holding me.
In one brilliant star burst I was ripped from her grip.
“No!” The scream tore from me, ragged and frantic as I reached for Simon. The scent of his fear filling my nose as his terror stricken eyes stared into mine and then he, too, was gone.
Opening my eyes, I blinked against the harsh brilliance of the sunlight that poured in through the window behind Grey. In his dark eyes I could see myself reflected, my face drawn with fear, it was the face of the girl I’d been when Kypherous had held me, the girl I’d killed the night I’d killed the monster who had tried to make me his.
“Jesus Christ, Jenna,” Grey said, his voice oddly muffled as though he was speaking to me from beneath a duvet. “What were you thinking?”
“I wanted to help him,” I said, gesturing past Grey to Simon. “I felt his fear, I couldn’t leave him there with that thing.”
I blinked back the hot tears that threatened to spill over my lashes, scrubbing my palms across my leather trousers. I was back. She didn’t have me. Sucking in fresh air, I made a mental note of my surroundings, a grounding technique Adrian had taught me after I’d told him a little about my past.
Hospital room, blue geometrically patterned curtains, pale primrose walls, blue blanket, white sheet… Grey blocked my view of Simon, but from the shape, I could see beneath the covers there was something not quite right but my brain couldn’t put the pieces together.
Grey grabbed my shoulders as I tried to look around him, jerking me onto my feet. He spun me around fast, frog marching me toward the door and the hall beyond.
“Wait, Grey, what’s—” I broke free of him.
“Jenna, no,” he said, trying to stop me, his broad shoulders blocking my view.
Shoving against him, I barged back into the room and stopped dead, my words of reproach withering on the tip of my tongue.
The young man that had been in the bed was gone, his body nothing more than a dried husk. Skin that more closely resembled parchment paper was stretched thinly across the skeleton below. His jaw had dropped, the mouth twisted into an expression of terror, the sunken sockets where the eyes should have been gaped. But I knew the expression he’d worn. I’d seen it before Grey had broken the connection between us.
The wall hit my back, solid and cold behind me, and my knees buckled, my body sliding toward the ground as everything else disappeared until all that remained was the look of terror reflected in the eyes of the innocent I’d failed.
Chapter 5
“Jenna!” Grey’s voice came from far away. Behind it I could hear the choked sobbing of a woman and it was her anguish that pulled me up from the depths of despair I’d fallen into.
Blinking up at Grey who was crouched in front of me, his face blurred as my tears finally won the war and dripped over my cheeks.
“Speak to me,” he said, concern in his voice as he pressed his hand to my face, his thumb brushing my skin softly.
“I let her kill him,” I said, my voice grating to my ears.
“He was already dead,” Grey said. “This wasn’t your fault, you simply broke the glamour.”
I shook my head, bringing my knees up to my chest as I wrapped my arms around them and buried my face. “I saw him, Grey, I felt him in there. She wanted me, if you hadn’t pulled me out when you did—”
“Then you’d be dead, too, and we’d have two bodies instead of one,” he snarled.
His harsh words washed over me like a bucket of ice water and I scrubbed my hands over my face, brushing away my tears. I tried to look past Grey once more but he gripped my face, holding me with his steely gaze.
“Stop trying to blame yourself for this, Jenna, it wasn’t your fault. Simon was already gone. Whoever did this was simply looking for their next victim.”
Swallowing back the lump that had formed in the back of my throat, I fought to regain control of my emotions.
“I know who’s behind it,” I said softly, noting the way Grey’s eyes widened a little at my revelation.
“Tell me,” he said, pulling me up onto my feet in one fluid movement. I let him direct me toward the door, for once not fighting the iron grip he had on my shoulders. Shit, I was obviously more screwed up after my run-in with Kypherous’ b
itch than I’d realised.
Alex stood in the hall with his back to us as Grey maneuvered me out past the small crowd that had gathered outside the door.
“She killed my baby!” A woman’s shrill cry broke through the low murmur of those nearby. A solid body slammed into me, sending us both careening back into the glass window that overlooked Simon’s room.
“You killed him,” she said again, her hands tearing and clawing at my face and chest. The woman was a blur of movement, but I saw enough of her to recognise the likeness between her and Simon. He had his mother’s eyes, and when she stared into mine, I witnessed her anguish laid bare for all to see reflected in her brown-eyed gaze. “You murdered my boy,” she said again as I caught her wrists gently.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered the words to her as she sagged against me, her legs simply giving up. I watched her strength drain away, the light in her eyes fuelled by her momentary hatred of me ebbing as though it had never been.
Taking her weight, I went with her, cradling her so she wouldn’t have to hit the cold disinfected floor of the hospital corridor. Her faced crumpled as a wordless howl of anguish poured from her throat. The sound reached into my chest, scooping my insides out as surely as though she’d cut me open and spilled my guts on the impossibly polished floor. It was the cry of a mother who’d lost their only child, and while I couldn’t possibly hope to understand what she was feeling, her pain slammed into me, sealing my breath inside my lungs. In that moment, as her eyes held mine, I was her witness. Emotions flitted through her gaze, pain, loss, vengeance, grief.
I couldn’t make it better. I couldn’t bring her son back, but I could hold her, witness her grief, my arms locked around her shoulders, the only comfort I could give to a woman whose whole world had crashed down around her ears. Her loss echoed through the halls as it left its mark upon me.
Some things could be dealt with. Some failures you could move past, but this… This was something that would stay with me forever. Simon’s death was something I would carry with me. I knew it as surely as I knew I would continue to see Kypherous in my nightmares. Except now, Simon would join him, the terror in his eyes, the scent of fear that had drifted from his skin. I hadn’t been the one to draw the life from his body but his death was a black mark on my soul… If gorgons even had one of those to begin with.
Alex lifted Simon’s mother from my arms, the concern in his eyes as he glanced down at me twisting my stomach. And then he was gone and Grey was back, his face mostly unreadable, except for the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw. He gathered me in against his chest, holding me as though I was suddenly the most precious and fragile creature in the world. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d held me like that.
From over his shoulder, I caught sight of Alex handing Simon’s mother over into the waiting arms of her family. Their combined agony tore at me anew.
A young woman stood on the edge of the group, she had the same dark soulful eyes as Simon and his mother and she stared at me with an unreadable expression. Her lips were clamped shut, her jaw tight as she held my gaze. It was an expression I would remember for the rest of my life. She was trembling, her entire body vibrating with unspent energy. My gaze slipped from her face, to her hands that were curled into fists at her sides.
“Jenna, don’t make me carry you,” Grey said, moving into my line of sight and blocking my view of the grieving family.
His words brought a twisted gasp of laughter to my lips and I slapped my hand over my mouth to contain it but before I could stop it, the sound slipped out, climbing like some sort of living creature out between my fingers. The only acknowledgment Grey gave my hysterical giggle was a slight tightening of his grip around my waist as he half carried half dragged me down the hall and into a small side room off the ward.
I didn’t see where he’d gotten the chair from, it was just suddenly there, and he planted me on it, crouching in front of me as he grabbed my face, jerking my head down so that I was forced to stare into his dark eyes.
Meeting his gaze, I realised the laughter continued to escape me, short bubbling gasps that were rapidly devolving into sobs of despair.
“Jenna, I’m here, look at me,” he said, his worry tugging at the place within me that wanted nothing to do with him. He’d hurt me. Turned his back on me when I needed him the most and now he had the audacity to stare at me with such anguish and concern in his eyes.
Twisting out of his grip I tried to push up onto my feet but he pinned me in place, holding me on the chair with his body.
“Let me go,” I said my voice almost unrecognisable.
“Not until you look at me,” he said again.
“I don’t want to, please, I don’t want to…” I said, fighting his hold. It was the truth, I didn’t want to look at him. If I did, I would only see the disappointment in his eyes that I had allowed an innocent to slip away, the inevitable disgust that I had allowed the monsters to win, that I’d been so soundly beaten and Simon had paid the price for my mistakes.
“It’s not your fault, Jenna, please, believe me. This isn’t your fault,” he said.
I shoved against him, sending him sprawling back to the floor as I scrambled onto my feet. The urge to run and never look back washed over me. I spun around, my head reeling as I found the exit. Run. Run. Run away, Jenna. Go now. The words twirled in my mind galvanising me to action. I needed to get away, to escape. He was only being nice, we both knew the truth and…
Grey slammed into me, his body moulding to mine as he pinned me to the wall. I expected to feel the push of his magic as he tried to calm me. Instead, he held my face, angling me so that his forehead was pressed to mine. I tried to look past him but his dark gaze was so close it was all I could see. In that moment, he was my whole world and nothing else mattered.
“This isn’t your fault,” he whispered, his voice hoarse as he held me firmly in place. I bucked against him and the strain of trying to hold me without hurting me was evident in his voice and expression.
“Jenna, this isn’t your fault.”
My movements faltered and I closed my eyes, anything to escape the expression on his face. Drawing a deep breath into my lungs and blinking past my tears, I looked at him once more. I could have fought him, and maybe I could have won, but I was so tired, so goddamned tired, I didn’t want to fight anymore. My body sagged into the solid wall at my back.
Searching his face, I waited to see the inevitable disappointment but it didn’t appear, neither did the expected disgust. Instead, all I saw reflected back at me was compassion and another emotion, one I’d thought never to see in his eyes after the way we’d finished the last time.
“You’re not to blame, Jenna, please believe me.”
There was no denying the sincerity in his voice as he pleaded with me. My hands were planted on his chest, palms down on his white shirt. I let my line of sight drop to my ragged fingernails and the dirt that coated my fingers. I hadn’t imagined it. It had been real, Simon had been there and I’d let him slip away. I curled my fingers over, hiding them from view. Focusing on the place beneath my hands, I could just make out the dark outlines that made up the druidic tattoos that criss-crossed his skin and I suddenly wanted to feel them. Feel the warmth of his flesh beneath my palms.
“He was alive, Grey, I could have saved him.”
He shook his head softly, the movement causing me to meet his gaze. “It wasn’t Simon,” he said, “just the echo of his spirit’s final moments. The perfect trap for an unsuspecting rescuer.”
“It felt like him,” I said.
“Whoever is doing this is powerful, Jenna. They’ve got magic I haven’t seen in centuries.”
“It’s a she,” I said, remembering the woman’s blue eyes alive with her power. “She belonged to Kypherous.”
Grey sucked in a deep breath, the harsh sound hurt my ears being this close to him and I felt his fingers spasm against my face digging in for a heartbeat before he forcibly relaxed once m
ore.
“Her name is Carmine,” I said. “She’s the one who tattooed the viper onto my back.”
Grey’s eyes sparked with rage and I turned away, sliding out of his hold. Crossing the room, I stared out the window at the cars moving in and out of the carpark below. The road network beyond was congested with traffic and I’d have given anything to be stuck sitting in my car, bumper to bumper with all the other commuters, simply going about my day, none the wiser about the twisted magic at work a few feet away from us, down the hall.
“She’s some kind of fae,” I said, pressing my forehead to the cool glass. “At least that’s what Kypherous said she was, but he wasn’t exactly forthcoming with information about those I met when he kept me…” I trailed off leaving the last word hanging unspoken in the air between us. I didn’t like using the word prisoner, it left me feeling weak and I was anything but that. Although, as I stood with my head bowed, breath fogging the glass, weak was just the right descriptor for how I felt.
“Why would she do this?”
I shrugged. His question might have been rhetorical but I still felt compelled to give him some kind of answer. “I don’t know… When I met her, she was pretty crazy but Kypherous had that effect on those in his grip. She was in love with him, at least I think she was…” I closed my eyes. “The things she let him do to her.” My voice cracked over my words and I fought to bury the memories that threatened to surface.
Swallowing back my bile, I straightened up, and turned to face Grey once more. “I thought she was dead… I watched—” My voice broke, I could barely say his name. The memory of his blood-soaked hands on my skin turned my body to ice.
Stakes and Stones Page 5
