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Twisted i-3

Page 27

by Gena Showalter


  All that growth, in about two weeks time. Wow. But then, she probably looked different, too. She was tattooed, thinner, maybe even gaunt. “Where’s Riley?”

  “Right beside you.” Victoria motioned to the other side of the bed with a tilt of her head.

  Barely concealing her jolt of surprise, Mary Ann twisted on the mattress, the springs protesting. Sure enough. Riley was beside her. He was awake, propped up on pillows, and…in pain? His skin was pallid but for the dark circles under his eyes. The normally luminous glow of his green eyes had blunted.

  She reached up to trace her fingertips along the edge of those circles, halfway hoping to brush them away, but he jerked his head to the side, preventing contact.

  Astonishment? Yes, she experienced that. Then utter, absolute distress. He didn’t even glance in her direction, just kept staring over at Aden and Victoria. He didn’t offer an explanation, just kept his lips pressed together in a hard line.

  What was wrong with him?

  Had she done something, said something?

  Or was he simply hurting too badly to be touched?

  He was shirtless, his chest free of injuries, but his lower half was hidden under the covers. Maybe his legs were giving him fits, making the rest of him sensitive to any type of human contact. She wanted so badly to believe that was the answer, but deep down she suspected the worst.

  He was done with her.

  And if that was the case, well, she’d pushed for that, hadn’t she?

  “I thought I heard Tucker earlier,” she croaked out, turning back to Aden and Victoria.

  The vampire princess hadn’t budged from his lap. Why would she? It was probably the most comfortable seat in the room. Although…her back was straight, her posture perfect, her hands folded neatly atop her thighs. Anyone else would have thrown in the towel and sprawled. Aden had, though he was running one of his hands up and down Victoria’s spine.

  They looked every inch the couple. In sync, together together. They might be having problems, as Riley had told her, but they were clearly working on them.

  A pang of longing moved through her. Would she and Riley work things out? Did she want to?

  No pondering necessary. Yes, she wanted to. Would she let herself be with him, though, placing him in even more danger than she already had?

  Yes, she thought again. She would. After the kiss they’d shared, she would do anything to be with him. If he would have her. She’d run from him, yet he’d chased her. She’d tried to get rid of him, yet he’d stayed with her. And now…now she had no idea what was going through his guy brain.

  Well, they would find a way around the draining thing. He’d always been so confident about that, and it was time she believed him.

  “Mary Ann? You listening? Tucker’s gone,” Aden said.

  “Oh. Where’d he go?”

  “We don’t know.” Victoria pursed her lips. “Riley was about to kill him, so his disappearing act was for the best.”

  “You should have let me do my job,” Riley snapped at Aden. “Majesty.”

  Hearing the harsh rasp of his voice left her shivering. Or maybe shuddering. He hadn’t lost his ability to speak—he just didn’t want to speak to her. Ouch.

  “Where’s the other guy?” she asked. “The one at the hospital? The one who carried me?”

  Victoria’s brow furrowed, creating worry lines in her forehead. “You remember that?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Did you hear—never mind. That was Nathan, Riley’s brother, but he didn’t travel with us. His presence upset Tucker.”

  And they hadn’t wanted to upset Tucker? Shocker. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Her stomach released another grumble, soliciting the return of her blush.

  “Hungry?” Aden asked.

  “I…yes.” Wait. She hadn’t been hungry for food, real food, for several weeks. Only energy. Magic. Power. Now, she would have killed for a hamburger.

  Mmm, a hamburger…

  All three sets of eyes regarded her strangely.

  “That’s…weird,” Victoria finally said.

  Her stomach protested the description with yet another growl. “That doesn’t change the facts. I’m starved!”

  “Well, then, let’s feed you.” The princess popped to her feet, her expression a little too eager. “I’ll fetch you something.”

  “No.” Aden shook his head. “Absolutely not. Tucker’s out there. I don’t want you—”

  “I’ll be fine. If not, well, I’ll text you. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m getting good at using modern technology,” she said and bent down to kiss his cheek. “Besides, you can’t go. You have a lot to tell Mary Ann.”

  “You could tell her.”

  “Impossible. I’ve already forgotten half of what you wanted her to know.”

  “No way,” he said. “You and Riley did that joining hands and exchanging of memories thing. You know more than all of us.”

  “True. Which means you’ve got some catching up to do, too.”

  She didn’t wait for his reply, and shockingly, neither Aden nor Riley tried to stop her as they once would have done. The door shut with a soft snick behind her, sunlight pouring in for a moment, then vanishing like vapor.

  “Stubborn,” Aden muttered.

  “Typical,” Riley groused.

  Chauvinists.

  “What do you have to tell me?” Mary Ann asked, dread blending with her hunger and leaving a thick coat of acid on her sternum.

  “Brace yourself.” For the next half hour, Aden told her so many gruesome things, she wanted to scrub her ears with sandpaper.

  A coven of witches, slaughtered. The D and M ranch, burned to the ground. Vlad the Impaler, possessing humans and forcing them to do despicable things. Tucker’s little brother, potential kidnap and murder victim.

  Shannon, stabbed to death. Currently a zombie.

  Aden’s voice wobbled a few times, as if he was fighting tears, but he battled them back and continued. When he finished, she kinda wished he hadn’t.

  “So much death,” she whispered. Poor, sweet Shannon, who would die all over again if something wasn’t done. Could anything be done, though? She wanted to sob for him, for what he’d lost. She wanted to bring him back as he’d been. Wanted to hug him. Wanted to punish Vlad in the most terrible way.

  She wanted Riley to put his arm around her, to comfort her, to tell her everything was going to be okay.

  Big shocker, she didn’t get any of that. Even worse, the silence that followed her horrified whisper acted like a thick cloud of oppression. No one knew where to look or how to respond.

  Hinges squeaked, and light once again flooded the room. Victoria stepped inside, shut the door and chased that light away. She held a paper bag, the scent of bread, meat and greasy fries wafting from it. Mary Ann’s mouth watered, and she was ashamed of herself. After everything she’d just heard, she should have lost her appetite. For, like, ever.

  But when Victoria handed her that oil-spotted bag, she was unable to help herself and dove in, devouring every crumb in record time. After swallowing the last nibble, she realized the hush hadn’t lifted from the room. In fact, everyone was staring at her. Great. She probably had food in her teeth and mustard smeared on her chin.

  She wiped at her face with the back of her wrist, her shame intensifying.

  “Do you feel sick?” Victoria asked. She’d reclaimed her perch on Aden’s lap. She wasn’t quite as pale as before, and was that a ketchup stain on her robe?

  “No?” Mary Ann replied, her amazement making the word more of a question than a statement. Her stomach actually felt grateful. Before, when she’d even thought about eating, she had battled nausea. “What does this mean?”

  Pensive, Victoria tugged at her earlobe. “You were shot with a witch’s arrow and lost a lot of blood.”

  She nodded.

  “And you were given a transfusion at the hospital.”

  “Yes. At least, I think so.”
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  The princess started chewing on her bottom lip again. A nervous habit? “Maybe the new blood, the human blood, has made you human again. At least for a little while. Or maybe it has something to do with Riley? He’s always interfered with your ability to mute. Maybe he’s now interfering with your ability to drain.”

  “So, at the moment, I can’t, won’t drain anyone?”

  “If you keep the food down, and it seems like you will, magic and energy probably aren’t on your menu selection.”

  “You won’t have to run anymore,” Aden said.

  “Not if there’s a way to stay this way,” Mary Ann replied, trying not to leap off the bed and dance like a fool. There had to be.

  “I don’t know. We could ward you against the draining of energy, but if, say, your hunger for it returns, you would then die.” Victoria studied Riley before returning her attention to Mary Ann. “I mean, we’ve warded drainers before. Not when they were without their ability, because, to my knowledge, that’s never happened before, but always they starved to death.”

  If there was a worse way to die, she suddenly couldn’t think of it. Did that stop her from plowing ahead? No. “I don’t care. I want to try. I want a ward.” If there was a chance, well, she’d take it. Anything to return to her dad.

  Anything to be with Riley.

  She’d rather die than hurt her boys, so, she had no qualms about risking her life. “Do we have the equipment?”

  “Yes. Nathan noticed your new wards, and the scabs forming on one of them, and thought Riley might want to correct the damage, so he commandeered what was needed before he took off.”

  “We’ll think this through before we do it,” Aden said.

  Mary Ann was shaking her head before he finished. “No. We’ll do it. Here, now. Before we leave this place.”

  Aden, too, glanced at Riley, his expression more what’s-going-on than help-me-make-her-see-reason. “What happened to our sweet Mary Ann who rarely argues?”

  Riley shrugged, offering nothing else, and for some reason, that upset her as much as when he’d pulled away from her. “You told us what you learned this past week. Now it’s our turn to tell you what we learned.”

  A pause. A shuddering breath. “All right.” Aden braced himself for impact. “Go.”

  Another half hour ticked by as Riley explained Mary Ann’s search for the identity of the souls, her success, her search for Aden’s parents, and what they assumed was her success.

  Aden listened, paling, stiffening. His eyes were changing colors so rapidly they were like a spinning kaleidoscope. Blue, gold, green, black. Violet. Such a glittering violet. The souls must be going crazy inside his head.

  By the time Riley finished, the oppressive silence had made another appearance.

  Aden propped his head on the back of the chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how to react to this. I need time. Like a year, maybe. Or two.” He rubbed his temples, as if battling a persistent ache. “But you know what I hate most of all? That we’ve been running around reacting to everything, but not causing anything.”

  “I don’t understand,” Victoria said.

  “Yeah,” Mary Ann said. “What?”

  “We’ve been letting Vlad pull our strings. He hides in the shadows, forcing people to hurt us, and we do nothing to stop him. We wait, we take it, we react, bumbling around without any planning, without delivering any retribution. He has no fear of us because we never strike first. Why haven’t we struck first?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Riley asked, hard tone laced with the kind of eagerness you might hear from a prisoner on death row who had nothing to lose.

  “I’ll talk to Tonya Smart myself. I’ll visit…my parents, if that’s who they are. I’ll find out as much as I can about myself and the souls. Because in the end, I need to be at my best if I’m to have any hope of defeating Vlad. And I can’t be at my best if I’m pulled in a thousand different directions.”

  He paused, eyeing everyone to make sure they were listening. When no one offered a reply, he went on, “You two aren’t ready to leave yet, you’re both still pretty weak, and to be honest, so am I. So rest up. When the sun sets, we’re rolling out and cutting some of those strings.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  MARY ANN COULDN’T REST. Shock and medication were wearing off, and emotions were slogging through her with the force of a battering ram. Aden and Victoria had left over an hour ago, staying in the room next door, but she couldn’t even close her eyes. Riley was still beside her, quiet, motionless. So quiet her ears were ringing. So motionless he could have been dead.

  Like Shannon was destined to be, all over again.

  The only way to kill a zombie was to cut off its head. Thinking of her friend ending up that way, of never seeing or speaking to him again, she wept for endless minutes—hours? Wept until there was nothing left inside her. Until her eyes were swollen and burning, her nose clogged up. At some point, Riley gathered her in his arms, those strong, beloved arms, and held her tight.

  When her body stopped shaking, she released a shuddering sigh. If only that were the end of her misery, but her mind still refused to quiet. Tucker would have to be dealt with, too. Even though she hadn’t truly trusted him, even though she’d known what he was capable of, she hadn’t expected this.

  “You good?” Riley asked gruffly. His arms fell away from her.

  She rolled to her side, peering over at him. He was on his back, staring up at the ceiling, reminding her of Aden as he’d searched his mind for answers. “I don’t want to vomit out my guts, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Well, okay then.”

  “You’ll ward me?”

  “Yes, if that’s what you still want. I’ll fix the one that was damaged and give you a new one to prevent you from taking energy from others.”

  “Thank you.” But why was he so willing? Because he no longer cared if she lived or died?

  “No reason to wait, then, is there?” He threw his legs over the side of the bed, and she saw the wound scabbing over on his calf. Raw, red, angry. He must have been in serious pain.

  She reached out and grabbed his arm, preventing him from standing. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” he said, and shook off her hold.

  As she watched, upset all over again, he dug through the bag his brother had left behind. When he had everything he needed, he set up shop at her side.

  “Roll over.”

  She obeyed. He didn’t speak as he pulled at the hospital gown she still wore, the material draping down her shoulder. Fixing the ward on her back stung, the needle running over fresh scabs and healing flesh.

  By the time he finished, she was a trembling, sweating mess.

  “Where do you want the new one?”

  There was a chance she would be human again. Normal. And that meant there was a chance she’d get to see her dad again. He’d flip when he saw the tattoos on her arms. No reason to add to those, thereby adding to his flip out.

  “My leg,” she said.

  Her back was throbbing, so she didn’t attempt to lie flat. She just propped herself up on a pillow and extended one leg.

  Riley slid the gown over her knee, and for a moment, he didn’t move. Just looked down at her, expression…heated?

  “Riley?”

  Her voice jolted him from whatever thoughts he’d been entertaining. Scowling, he got back to work. After the other one, this tattoo barely registered. But, wow, it was big, stretching from just under her knee to her ankle.

  The gun’s motor shut down, and Riley cleared everything away, then dabbed at her bleeding calf with a towel from the bathroom. “Victoria was wrong. You won’t die if this doesn’t work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you start to weaken, or can’t eat regular food anymore, I can close the ward and you’ll return to nor—yourself.”

  He’d stopped himself from saying “normal” self. But the gist was, she’d become a drainer aga
in if he closed that ward. On one hand, she knew that meant he still cared about whether she lived or died. On the other, he’d just closed the door on a relationship, hadn’t he?

  “No matter what, I want it open,” she said. “Working.”

  “Mary Ann—”

  “No. So I need you to give me another ward.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t protest. She knew him, though, and knew he was thinking he’d do whatever the heck he wanted. “For what?”

  “You know for what. I want one like Aden’s. One that prevents anyone from being able to close my wards ever again.”

  He was shaking his head before she finished.

  “Admit it. The witches wouldn’t have attempted to poke a hole in the ward preventing my death by physical injury if I’d had one.” Witches could sense wards and exactly what they meant.

  “Yes, but what will you do if you’re captured? What will you do if a ward you don’t want is added to your body?”

  “So give me a ward that prevents me from getting any more wards.”

  “No one in their right mind ever allows themselves to acquire that ward. You’ll leave yourself open to too many other spells.”

  “Riley.”

  “Mary Ann.”

  “I want the ward, Riley. The first one I mentioned.”

  “Too risky.”

  “Aden has it.”

  “And it’s worth the risk with him. Too many people are drawn to him, want to use him, control him, hurt him.”

  “News flash. People want to hurt me, too.” In fact, everyone Riley knew wanted to kill her. Even his brothers. Was she the only one who remembered the way they’d looked at her the night she’d slain those witches and fairies? With horror, disgust and fury. The only reason they’d gone to so much trouble to save her today was because Riley loved her. Or used to love her.

  “With an unbreakable ward preventing death by physical injury, how do you think the witches will go about killing you next time?” he growled. “And they will try to kill you again. You’ll be blamed for the Red Robed Massacre.”

  “But I—”

  He didn’t let her finish. “In case you can’t figure it out, let me explain. They will lock you away, starve you and torture you without killing you, keeping you in that state until you die of simple old age.”

 

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