by AJ Myers
The blood just about froze in my veins, though, when Jack turned around and I saw that he was laughing. Nathan was tearing him apart piece by painful piece and he was laughing. When I realized he was holding something in his hand, I knew why.
I saw it like a movie in slow motion. I saw the carved hilt of the knife. I saw the gleam of the blade in the bright sunlight pouring into the room from the doors behind them. I saw Nathan’s eyes widen in surprise, saw him try to move out of the way, and knew he wasn’t going to make it. And then I watched as it buried itself in his chest, all the way up to the hilt.
The gleaming silver hilt.
I started to run toward him, sheer instinct taking over, but he looked right at me with eyes so cold and dangerous I couldn’t move. He missed, Nathan said in my mind, his eyes never leaving mine. Forgive me, love. I need you to stay there. I’ve got this under control.
The last syllable had barely brushed my mind when I felt that zinging sensation across my mark again and my muscles froze like they were encased in ice. I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I stared at him, torn between shock and anger and fear as I realized what he had done. He had used my mark to control me, the very thing he had just promised never to do.
If Jack didn’t kill him, I would.
“My turn,” Jack crooned maliciously as Nathan yanked the knife out of his chest and flung it across the room.
I stood there, unable to move, as Jack went after Nathan with a vengeance. Nathan did a remarkable job of holding him off, at first, but with every drop of blood that gushed out of the wound in his chest, I saw him getting weaker. About the time Nathan fell to his knees, I noticed the veins in his neck and arm were standing out in sharp relief—and they were black as night. It was like some kind of bacteria had entered his system and was racing through his bloodstream like lightning.
Like blood poisoning, I thought, horrified. That’s why it won’t heal. It’s like vampire blood poisoning!
“You didn’t think I’d fight fair, did you, Nathan?” Jack asked with a grin. His teeth were bloody from one of the lucky punches Nathan had been able to land and I felt sick seeing that macabre smile.
“Not really,” Nathan slurred, swaying in place. “You’re too much of a pussy for that.”
Still grinning, Jack bent over to pick up the knife Nathan had flung away from him and started flipping it end over end. He looked Nathan up and down, watching as he tried to push himself to his feet only to fall again. I knew then that he was going to kill him. I could see it in his eyes, in the too-confident smile on his lips. He was going to die, and I was going to have to watch, frozen like a statue, as it happened.
Then, a miracle happened. Well, that is, if miracles came dressed in leather with lime-green hair and a bad attitude.
“Why are you just standing there, Ember?” My eyes, the only part of me that still seemed to move independently, slid to the left to find my least favorite ghost, Snake, leaning against the bed post next to me.
Because he told me I couldn’t move, I thought frantically.
“Since when do you do what you’re told?” Snake scoffed, wincing when Jack’s foot shot out and caught Nathan in the chin as he tried to stand again, sending him flying halfway across the room. “It’s all in your head, babe,” Snake said, shrugging, when he saw my surprised look. “If you don’t want to stand there, don’t.”
He was right. Why was I just standing there, watching the guy I loved get the shit kicked out him?
And just like that, I could move. It wasn’t gradual, but like sensation came back all at once with a tingle like my foot had fallen asleep—only everywhere. Ignoring the discomfort, I turned toward Jack and Nathan just as Jack dropped to his knees, straddling Nathan’s prone body, the silver knife grasped in his meaty fists held high.
Directly over Nathan’s heart.
“No!” I screamed, distracting Jack just as the door flew open and Tyler ran inside followed by Grams.
That scream seemed to reverberate around us, getting louder and louder until it was the only sound left in the world. Jack clapped his hands to his head with a roar of pain and I saw Tyler and Grams do the same out of the corner of my eye, both of them bowing under the agony of that sound. But all I could really see was Nathan, covered in more blood than I would have ever thought a body could hold, dying as the poison in his system ate at the last of his energy.
My mind played a montage of our memories in my mind as I stared at him. The way he’d smiled at me from the wreckage of his car the day we met. The sadness in his eyes when I told him I didn’t care about him that day at Haven. The feel of his lips on my throat the night he marked me. The desperate need I could sense in him the night he kissed me and told me I would never get over him.
And he was right. I wasn’t going to get over him. I was his and he was mine. And I finally realized that I had known that since the moment he slipped that cross over my head in my parents’ kitchen.
And I wasn’t about to let Jack’s sorry, demonic ass take him away from me.
It happened all at once. There was no pressure, no pounding heartbeat, nothing to warn me. The furniture began to levitate, then fell with an earsplitting crash as the windows all around us blew out in fragments of sparkling dust. The sun disappeared like a dark cloth had been draped over it as thunderheads blew in without warning, turning the sky dark and threatening, and I felt the most amazing sensation course through me. I could feel the electricity in the air! It was like I had become an electrical conduit. I had never felt anything so amazing.
My entire life, I had felt powerless, but right then I felt like I could do anything. I felt invincible, like nothing could hurt me anymore. The feeling was like a drug, one I knew I could get addicted to if I wasn’t very careful. Right that second, though, I didn’t care. I wanted to hold on to that feeling forever.
“Well, that’s different,” Jack said softly, his voice full of shock, reminding me I wasn’t alone.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind him and stared at the being glaring back at me. It was like seeing someone else where I should have been. The girl looking back at me from the mirror looked like an angry goddess or something. Her hair was whipping around her in the wild winds that had blown in with my storm and her eyes were glowing with blue-white light. I could see flashes of that same light, like my own personal lightning, beginning to flicker across my hands and up my arms.
“Hey, beautiful! Catch!”
I turned toward the sound of Tyler’s voice just as he tossed something small and gleaming toward me. I reached up and caught it automatically and felt a rush of calm and peace flow through me. Uncurling my fingers, I saw my cross lying there in my palm, glowing brightly. Smiling, I raised my head and pinned Jack with a look that was so vicious that he scrambled back.
Away from Nathan.
Away from me.
“You wanted me, demon?” I asked softly, sauntering toward him like I had all day to exact my revenge as I focused every ounce of power, every particle of energy, into the cross in my hand. “Well, here I am. You’ve stalked me and tormented me. You’ve taken my freedom from me. You’ve cost me my identity. You killed my friend. But.” I came to a stop in front of him, close enough to touch, and was surprised to see that his eyes were full of fear. Leaning closer, I whispered, “You will not take him.”
The blast of light that erupted from the cross in my palm was blinding in its brilliance. Jack screamed like he was being burned at the stake himself as it melded to his skin and the sucking wind of the void wrapped around him. I backed away, feeling nothing as I watched it take him, bit by flailing bit into that sickly bright light. Never had it been so clear, so radiant, and yet so chillingly cold.
“I’ll be back, you bitch!” he screamed just before the void took him completely. “Just wait! I’ll be back!”
Then he was gone. I stared at the place where he’d been as my cross fell to the floor with a ping. With u
nhurried steps, I walked over and picked it up, enjoying the sudden quiet after the howling of the void winds.
“No. You won’t,” I whispered with a smile.
“So…beautiful…”
I turned to find my audience staring at me in awe, but the only face I focused on was Nathan’s. He was lying with his head in Grams’ lap and his lips were turned up in a bittersweet smile that was so full of love it took my breath away. Then, I really saw him. Like, really saw him. His eyes looked like they had sunk into his handsome face. His cheeks were gaunt and the roadmap of veins I had noticed before were more defined.
“Grams! Do something!” I cried, taking a step toward him.
“She can’t, beautiful,” Tyler said quietly as Grams started to cry. “Her kind of healing only works on the living. Nathan is an Immortal. There’s nothing she can do.”
I stood there, mouth working but no sound coming out. I hadn’t saved him. Demon or no demon, he was going to die. My heart shattered into a million tiny pieces at the thought.
“Get out,” I told them, quietly. Tyler and Grams looked at me, then each other, but they didn’t move.
“Ember, he…” Tyler began, but the glare I leveled at him had him shutting up in a hurry. Seeing as the lightning-like light still hadn’t faded from my skin, I really didn’t blame him.
“You can’t heal him, Ember,” Grams said, her voice so soft and sad it brought tears to my eyes. “What are you going to do, sweetheart?”
I didn’t answer her for a long moment. Instead, I caught and held Nathan’s gaze, reveling in the pride and love I saw there. As I looked into those beautiful eyes, eyes that were growing weaker by the second, I felt a distinct throb along my mark. It was like a point in the right direction when you’re lost, and I suddenly knew what I had to do.
“I’m going to improvise,” I told her, my voice just as soft as hers had been. “I just need a few minutes with him, Grams. Please.”
Grams and Tyler exchanged another worried glance, but they finally did as I asked. I waited until the door closed behind them before I turned back to the dying vampire I couldn’t live without. He was still smiling at me, but he looked weaker than he had only seconds before, more fragile. Taking a deep breath, I killed the electricity flowing over my skin and walked slowly toward him.
“What…are you…doing, baby?” Nathan asked when I knelt down beside him and pulled my hair to one side, revealing my mark, the mark he had given me that bound us together for the rest of my life. I saw a shadow of panic darken his sunken features, though, when I reached for the knife Jack had dropped.
“I’m saving my guy,” I whispered.
“No!” he croaked.
But it was too late. I hissed at the instant flare of pain, but I didn’t stop until I felt the warm slickness of blood trickling from the wound I had made across my mark start to snake its way over my shoulder. Nathan tried to push me away when I hooked a hand around his neck, but, for once, I was stronger than him. When I pulled him toward me, he turned his face away, his breathing shallow and fast, too fast.
“Please, Nathan,” I whispered, a tear sliding down my cheek. “Please, let me help you. Stay with me. I need you.”
I don’t know if it was the fact that I had admitted I needed him or just the smell of fresh, warm, unpolluted blood that did it, but he sucked in a deep breath and turned to look at me. His eyes were glowing white, but I wasn’t afraid. I smiled at him, encouraging him to take what I was offering.
Tearing those glowing orbs from my face, he zeroed in on the blood sliding down my neck and he licked his dry, cracked, lips. I saw it in his eyes when the instinct to feed took over and felt my first flash of fear. As if he sensed it, he tangled his hand in my hair and held me still. Pulling me down to him, he closed his lips over the cut I had made in my skin, sucking at it frantically. But it wasn’t enough.
I gasped in true pain when his fangs sank into my neck, only realizing at that moment how gentle he had been the first time he bit me. But his dying body wouldn’t let him be gentle this time. It was demanding nourishment, and I had offered myself up as a full course meal. He held me to him desperately, his tendons quivering beneath my fingers like he was waiting for me to start fighting him. I didn’t. Instead, I closed my eyes and focused all the power in my blood into the ultimate healing potion.
By the time he managed to rip himself away from me, I was more than a little fuzzy and disoriented. I felt his tongue flick over the wound I had made with Jack’s knife and the punctures he had made with his fangs and shivered, the mutant butterflies only he could give me waking up and going wild. For a long time, he just sat there holding me, his face buried against my neck, his breathing ragged.
“Why did you do that?” he finally whispered, breathing the words against my skin. “I could have killed you, Em.”
Because if I hadn’t done it, he would have died. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of living without him. Because I loved him. Valid reasons, all. But, the one I gave him was, “Because I can’t introduce a corpse to Kim as my boyfriend.”
He lifted his head to look at me and I saw a haunted shadow pass over his eyes for a second before he smiled. In that moment, I was really glad that I couldn’t read his mind. I didn’t think I wanted to know what terrible thought was behind that look.
“And how are you going to explain my remarkable recovery?” he asked, chuckling and holding me closer.
And it really was remarkable. His eyes were bright and his beautiful face was no longer traced in inky-black veins. He looked healthy and alive and stunningly gorgeous. When I reached up to touch his face, amazed by how well my plan had worked, he caught my hand and turned his head to kiss my palm, causing a tingle to race up my arm and radiate through me from head to toe.
“Magic,” I teased in a whisper, winking. “I’m a witch, remember? It could happen.”
He was still laughing when he caught my lips in a kiss hot enough to set my toenails on fire. When he finally pulled away so I could catch my breath, I was so dazed that all I could do was stare up at him. Grinning, he adjusted my weight in his arms and rose to his feet in one fluid motion.
“What do you say we get out of here and leave the explaining for later?” he asked, already headed for the French doors. “I’d hate for your sacrifice to be for nothing, and if Shea finds out how you ‘healed’ me, it will be. Because she’ll kill me herself for marking you.”
“God, yes!” I agreed. Seriously, if I never saw the inside of Mrs. Amelia’s attic again, it would be too soon. “But…how are we going to get out of here undetected?”
He stopped just short of the French doors and the raging storm beyond and looked down at me, his eyes twinkling. “Do you trust me, Ember?”
“Yeah…” I said, drawing the word out as I looked between him and the storm outside.
“Good,” he said, smiling wickedly. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“What?” I asked, really not liking that look on his face.
“I hope you don’t mind getting wet.”
Heart and Soul
I didn’t really pay attention to where we were going until I looked out the window of Nathan’s rental car and the first thing I saw was my parents’ house. I felt a stab of pain in my heart and looked away quickly, feeling tears start to burn my eyes again. Nathan squeezed my fingers, but didn’t try to say anything to make me feel better. He knew a lost cause when he saw one, I suppose.
We turned the corner at the end of the street and had only gone a couple of houses down when he turned into a driveway and hit a button on his visor for the garage door. I gave him a quizzical look, but he carefully avoided making eye contact with me.
“Where are we?” I asked, even though I thought I might already know.
“My house,” he said, looking like he wanted to wince when he saw the expression on my face.
Yeah, that’s what I had been afraid he was going to say.
So he had been right around the corner the
whole time? He had been so close and I had never even known he was there. I guess the close proximity had made it easier to spy on me, though. I mean, we wouldn’t want being a creepy stalker dude to be difficult, now would we?
I barely caught a glimpse of the exterior of the house before we were safely ensconced in the dark garage, but the impression I got was of a medium-sized, family style home. Somehow, I couldn’t see it being something Nathan would have chosen for himself. It just didn’t have the right…flair…for Nathan.
“It was this or Amelia’s,” he said, laughing, as he hit the button to close the garage door behind us and killed the engine. “I’ve made do, but it’s not at all to my liking. Not nearly enough windows. But, it was close to you and since that’s where I wanted to be...”
“What are we doing here, though, Nathan?”
He turned in his seat to face me and took both of my hands in his before looking deep into my eyes. We sat like that for several seconds and I couldn’t deny the thrill that kept shooting down my spine or the tingling, electrical, sensation I felt everywhere his skin touched mine—and in a few places it didn’t.
“You’re going to stay here,” he said, finally, taking a deep breath. “With me.”
“I can’t move in with you,” I shrieked, my voice almost high enough to shatter glass.
“Why not? Because I’m a vampire?” He grinned, waggling his eyebrows.
“No, I don’t care about that. I can’t move in with you because you’re….well, you.” I snatched my hand free and waved it at him to indicate the answer to that should have been obvious. “I just…I can’t.”
The look he gave me then was so warm and mesmerizing it should have been illegal. It was coercion, plain and simple. He used my hand to pull me toward him and I saw his intentions in the heat in his beautiful eyes. He was going to kiss me senseless and I would do whatever he asked me to. Instead, he surprised me by doing nothing more than cupping my face in his hands and giving me a heartbreakingly pleading look.
“Stay with me, Em,” he breathed, repeating the same words I had whispered to him as I tried to save him, his lips so close to mine that I could almost feel them. “Let me protect you. Let me show you how remarkable you are. Let me love you, Em, the way you deserve to be loved.”
