Sebastian and Dr. Baker waited for him at the other side of the room. Sebastian’s face was the picture of stoicism, impassiveness. Dr. Baker didn’t possess that skill, tension lines formed around his eyes and lips as concern marked his appearance.
As a blood oath ally of the pack, Josh was just as committed to them as any other member. Josh was standing on a precipice being forced by his sense of obligation to take steps far too close to the edge. I felt the need to save him before he plummeted too far. I kept a firm grasp on his wrist. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing big, just magic” he lied breezily. I kept my hold on him my fingers pressing into him probably painfully, cuffing him to me.
Josh pulled away, “Don’t,” he commanded before walking briskly toward the infirmary. I fell in step with him, “I’m going with you,” I insisted.
Josh stopped short and pierced me with a stern look. “No.”
“I can help if you need it,” I persisted.
He looked frustrated as he ran his hand through his hair. It was already so disheveled and messy it didn’t really change his look. It was the same look he had the day I met him except then he was confident and relaxed; now, he was concerned and tense.
Frowning, he started to walk away again, “You will just be in the way.”
“In the way of what? You’ve exposed me to magic before, very strong and dangerous magic. Why not now? I’m not afraid. I’ll be there to help if you need it,” I stated firmly.
“Skylar, we don’t have time for this,” Dr. Baker finally interjected from behind me.
“Fine. Then we shouldn’t waste any more of it on an argument you won’t win. I’m going with you. Enough said,” I stated firmly and I started walking behind him.
“Skylar, stop it. You can’t help with this,” Josh admitted, exasperated. Nervousness and fear overshadowed his face, and it was absolutely heartbreaking to look at him.
Before I could respond, Sebastian grabbed me from behind, bundling me into a bear hug and dragging me away.
“Let me go!” As I fought against him, the grip tightened making it painfully hard to breathe as he took me down a flight of stairs. I yelled a slew of threats, colored by enough swear words, that in any other situation, I would have washed my own mouth out with soap. I heard the squeal of a door opening just before he tossed me onto the floor of the cage.
“Sebastian, let me out. Now!” I demanded, rattling the cage. He barely looked in my direction; my anger was inconsequential.
“I’ll let you out when you manage to gain some remnant of control, young wolf because right now your behavior is unacceptable,” he said with a voice so calm and level it was infuriating.
“Oh screw you! I can’t believe you are going to let Josh—“
“Calm down and shut your mouth.” His voice was extremely composed but his eyes were ablaze, his fury barely under control as he stepped closer to the cage. I snapped my mouth close. I wasn’t calm by any stretch, but I had a feeling that if I didn’t get my anger under control, if I lived to next week, I was probably going to still be in this cage.
I walked over to the corner and sat, pulling my knees to my chest and closing my eyes. The gentle sounds of his breathing as he stood in front of the cage served as a reasonable distraction. “If you tell Josh to wait, he will,” I stated softly. Beyond my understanding, they followed his commands blindly. If he asked them to quack like a duck while standing on one leg, I doubt there would be many who would refuse.
He shook his head. “But I won’t,” he stated firmly as he started up the stairs.
“What if I told you I could fix this?” I asked as I walked to the bars, gripping them firmly. I pressed my face against the cool metal, it felt good against my flushed skin.
He looked sorely disinterested when he turned around. “I would say you are as delusional as you are impulsive.” I clenched down hard on my teeth trying to choose my words carefully; although, all I wanted to do was yell at him.
“But I can fix things,” I admitted as I thought of the Trincet discreetly hidden in my computer bag.
Staring back at me were dark-brown eyes that seemed harsh rather than inquisitive. I was telling him I could fix things and he looked about as interested as watching a kitten play with yarn. It was enraging. “Even if the Trincet were still in the room and I allowed you to use it, your death wouldn’t serve any other purpose but to relieve you of your guilt. The number of losses would be greater because Demetrius would start a new search, destroying anything in his path until he found your replacement.”
I dropped my eyes to the ground. “I can’t believe you are willing to sacrifice Josh for this. You protected my life adamantly with very little reason; doesn’t he deserve the same? You can’t let him risk his life for this. In the long run, your pack will suffer greatly. Are you prepared to live with that? I’m not?”
He came back down the stairs and stood in front of me, staring at me with cold tungsten eyes, “We all bare burdens that at the time we feel we won’t be able to handle. You live long enough, you learn to deal with many things.”
The guilt was becoming an unbearable weight, and I was collapsing under it. I wiped away a stream of tears that ran down my cheek and cursed them when they wouldn’t stop.
He stared at me with discountenance, “The world you have lived in has been so small and sheltered that you can’t grasp the significance of things. This is bigger than you. Even if you weren’t involved, we would have done whatever necessary to stop Demetrius from completing the ritual. You take the time in here to get over yourself.”
He was up the stairs with such smooth graceful strides, it was hard to believe that just moments ago he was standing in front of the cage, chastising me.
I had been in the cage for about three hours when Winter came down the stairs, a smirk on her face. “Maybe this is where you should have started off.”
She went on to amuse herself by listing what she considered the many stupid things I’d done over the past weeks that should have landed me in here. She stopped suddenly. Her ears pricked, listening keenly to the sounds upstairs.
“Damn,” she stated under her breath through gritted teeth. She quickly punched in the code to the cage and opened it. Halfway up the stairs, she yelled down to me, “Don’t close the door,” she instructed. “When you have a disgruntled, volatile were-animal on your hands, the last thing you want to have to do is fumble codes.”
Upstairs, a short blond that was too curvy to be were-anything, stood at the door. The scorn etched on her round supple face made her would-be soft features hard as she followed Dr. Baker into the infirmary, holding her bag closer to her. Winter stared at her until she disappeared behind the double door; then she closed her eyes and bit down on her lips hard.
“What’s wrong?”
She cursed. “Pala’s here. This can’t be good,” she admitted herself. Winter looked uneasy as she continued to look at the empty space where Pala once stood. “He’s going to bring Ethos into this,” she whispered; her face was stringent with concern.
“What does this mean?”
Too focused on her thoughts, she didn’t seem to hear me. “Winter.” She shook her head, directing her attention to me.
“Ethos is very powerful and the very essence of dark magic. Some say he is a warlock, others a demon; no one really knows. He’s the strongest source of dark magic, which is not of the world we live in. Well, not in the sense that you would think. There are people who practice its art, and are allowed to borrow it. In return, they are in servitude to him. Pala is a servant of Ethos. Josh is going to use her as a conduit, binding himself to her in order to use dark magic to find the gem. She will be in control the whole time. Anyone who is in servitude to Ethos should never be given control of your body and mind.” She spoke swiftly, her attention focused on the double doors dividing us and whatever Pala and Josh were doing.
I sucked in a breath, recalling what took place when I was used a
s a conduit with Caleb.
“Why would he do something like that?”
“This wasn’t his initial plan; obviously plan A failed, so he moved on to plan B,” she stated curtly. She rubbed her hands over her face and sighed. “We are not prepared for plan B.” If plan A left that fear-stricken look on Josh’s face, then how bad was plan B?
She started to pace, her words were barely audible as she spoke. “He must not have had any other options. Obviously, the locating spell he used in the Chasm failed. He wouldn’t call upon Pala unless it did.” She continued pacing the floor, working through things as she tried to find a reason why Pala was here.
“Chasm?” I asked, interrupting her frantic pacing. So engrossed in her thoughts, she either didn’t care or forgot I was standing there.
She looked at me impatiently and took several control breaths. “Between natural and dark magic is the Chasm. The Chasm is the last place where witches who practice natural magic can go as a source of answers or to perform magic, which is neutral. It’s not necessarily a safe place to be, but often, when you are trying to find the source of dark magic, it works. Most locating spells are done in the Chasm, but the stronger the dark magic you are trying to find, the less helpful it is. The magic hiding it must be too strong, so he is going to use her to locate it. She’s so strong, she should be able to locate anything.”
When she heard a noise from the room, she stopped her pacing and raced around the corner to the other side of the house until she found Ethan. “Pala’s … ”
He rushed around the corner toward the room before she could finish the sentence. I followed behind them breaking into a run to keep up with them. We plowed through the door to find Josh, lying on the floor, thrashing violently. Pala sat next to him, her hand gripping his tightly. Her eyes were closed, but the sound of three were-animals rushing through the door momentarily distracted her. She opened them, exposing pupils that were absent of all pigmentation, cold and piercing. She shrieked, making a loud reedy sound that brought us to our knees. We covered our ears simultaneously at the force that swept through the room with chilling power. The only person who seemed unaffected was Sebastian, who had just entered the room. Suddenly, the room came to a halting calm. Josh lay motionless, his eyes paling. He was alive; I could hear his shallow ragged breaths. And his body was intact, but he wasn’t wholly there.
“Release him,” Ethan commanded Pala through clenched teeth, his eyes so gray there wasn’t a hint of humanity to be found.
“I am not finished,” she responded in a sharp, dark tone inconsistent with her doll-like appearance. He lunged at her, but Sebastian intercepted, pushing him forcibly and sending him back several feet. Ethan crouched and snarled at Sebastian, baring the edges of his teeth. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed into an aggressive glare before he returned the posturing. Within seconds, the level of rage that filled the room was all-consuming as the flames of hostility ignited.
Sebastian seemed to have been in a calmer state until a rolling aggressive growl from Ethan consumed the room. The sound continued to resonate moments later, leaving a ringing in my ears. It didn’t take long for Sebastian’s soft brown eyes to sharpen into amber and hone in on Ethan. They were now wolves in human form, ready to give in to their carnal nature.
They were snarling at each other. I wasn’t sure what a challenge entailed, but I think I was about to witness the beginning of one. Sebastian took a step forward. His face—the hardened grimace of an animal ready to attack and prepared to kill. Winter panicked when Ethan took a step forward.
She moved slowly and timidly reaching out for Sebastian. “Sebastian, please. It’s his brother,” she said in a small, soothing voice. “He’s just trying to protect him. I know you understand that. He’s not challenging you. You know he would never do this to you. Not like this.”
The grimace remained on his face, eyes still fixed in a hard glare on Ethan. There didn’t seem to be any signs of this coming to a nonviolent end. Logic had left the room minutes before and the only thing that remained was unmitigated primal rage. I wasn’t sure how to defuse this bomb, and Winter looked like she was struggling too.
“Sebastian,” she continued so softly that her words came out as a faint whisper. She tried to gain his focus. Reaching up, she used two fingers to guide his focus toward her, but he wasn’t easily distracted as he maintained a predator’s glare on Ethan—angry and intense. She took several steps over placing herself directly in front of him. “Sebastian, please look at me. It’s not a challenge.”
Placing her hand on his cheek, she directed his face toward hers, to meet her gaze. “It’s not a challenge,” she whispered. At that moment, she seemed unnaturally gentle, like Joan. Her mannerisms lost their typical abrasiveness that seemed to be the very essence of her personality. This may have been the most docile I had ever seen her. Winter stood between Ethan and Sebastian, and if they decided to proceed in a fight, she would probably be trampled. But this seemed to be the best way to handle the situation. If she attempted to stop them with similar aggression, the end result would be unnecessarily volatile.
Winter didn’t do submissive, nice, humble or even pleasant. However, she knew assuming submissive, neither Ethan nor Sebastian would hurt her. For the first time, I could see why Joan held Winter in such high regard. This realization was an epiphany: Winter was third for more reasons than her fighting ability. She did what was necessary, despite how uncomfortable or hard it was. Crap, disliking her was getting harder.
She continued to speak in a low, gentle voice. Her movement’s slow, calm and overtly meek. “It’s his brother and our blood-bonded ally. His aggression is misdirected. You know he would never do such a thing if his brother wasn’t involved. Sebastian, it’s not a challenge,” she assured him, keeping eye contact with him.
The aggressive sounds began to decrease to a noticeable calm. His posturing relaxed slightly. She looked at me, directed her gaze toward Ethan and then the door, hinting for me to get Ethan out of there.
No, thank you. If I left with him, that would leave me alone to endure the full power of Ethan’s rage. I remembered vividly what it felt like to be in Sebastian’s presence after the vampires’ attack. But I knew I had to. With emotions so turbulent, all it would take would be the wrong thing said or done and we could be back to where we started.
Sebastian straightened and stepped away from Winter. “Ethan, we need Pala alive for now. It would be better if you stepped out. Seeing him this way may be too hard to handle. I will protect his life as though it was my own,” he stated in a surprisingly calm manner although his eyes still maintained the deep tones of his wolf.
Ethan took in a ragged breath before his face relaxed. He nodded and left the room with me close behind.
After I closed the door behind us, he kept his focus on it. Within minutes, he reached for it and I grabbed his hand. Graphite eyes and an aggressive sneer dared me to stop him as he made another attempt for the door. I pushed him away.
“Move,” he barked. I was just as frustrated with the situation as he was, I wanted to snap right back at him.
When he didn’t stop, I pushed him back again. “No. Not until you calm down,” I stated firmly. I couldn’t stop him if he used force; we both knew it. He didn’t know that I wasn’t above playing dirty pool and kneeing him where it counted. He’d be pissed, but he would recover, and it would be a lot less violent and rapacious than what he and Sebastian would do to each other.
There was harsh glacial silence between us. He stood so close, I felt crowded standing in front of the door. I inched closer to the door forcing more space between us. Stepping back, he paced the floor with wild inhibited force as he tried to suppress his anger, rage and frustration. I exhaled softly, “I understand … ” but before I could finish, he was just inches from my face.
“What exactly do you understand?” he challenged in a sharp voice. I didn’t want to look at him, but it was hard not to with him so uncomfortably close. The emotions pulsing
off him were so turbulent, they were hard to ignore—he was hard to ignore
Frustrated as well, I wanted to snap back at him. But what purpose would it serve to poke the bear—or rather the irate wolf? “I understand what it’s like to feel you are responsible for endangering others who feel obligated to protect you. I understand how infuriating it can be to wish you were the one dealing with Pala instead of standing idly by watching Josh take risk that should be your own. I understand what it feels like to be so angry that all you want to do is curse, fight and kill, but know that it won’t make things any better. I understand more than you care to know,” I said softly.
His angry scowl melted but the intensity of his emotions didn’t falter. He leaned in, resting his face in the crook of my neck. Warm breath nicked at my skin; moist lips pressed against my pulse. His face kneaded in closer; I could feel the intensity of his heart and the rapidness of his breaths.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I know it’s doesn’t mean anything to you, but I wish I hadn’t come into your lives and created such problems.”
“It’s not your fault,” he whispered, his lips brushing lightly against my face as he spoke. He repeated it so softly it was barely audible. I think it was to remind himself. His lips were a feather touch against mine. When he pulled away, I wasn’t quite sure if I’d been kissed.
Then he kissed me again. Firm lips pressed against mine, sinuous and attentive. But it quickly changed to something intense, ravenous, sensuous and intoxicating. I could feel his anger, rage and frustration as he expunged them into the kiss. Grasping fistfuls of my hair, he pulled me closer to him. I felt every emotion flood into me, leaving me breathless.
I was submerged by lust and sensuality that I’d never experienced, yet simultaneously felt trampled and shattered. If I were a wall, he had just put his fist through it. I pulled away and slipped past him. Standing several feet from him, I dealt with the diametric of emotions he made me feel: sated and empty, paramour and prey. We stared at each other for a long time. The silence wasn’t intense, awkward, sensual or even comfortable. It was diaphanous. As though every emotion felt, exchanged and absorbed had shattered, leaving only faded remnants of their existence. “I need to see how things are going with Josh,” I stated, ending the odd silence.
Moon Tortured (Sky Brooks Series Book 1) Page 30
