The Assassins of Light

by Britney Jackson

  Rose swallowed uneasily. “I can’t decide which part of my nightmares I hate worse: the falling, the corpses, or you,” she muttered under her breath.

  “I’m only voicing your insecurities, Rose,” Alana said in a sickeningly sweet voice. “If you hate what I’ve said to you, then it’s not me you hate. It’s you.”

  “Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” Rose complained bitterly.

  “Aww, listen to how depressed you sound,” Alana pouted. She leaned in close and whispered, “It’d hurt less if you just surrendered to it. Like I did.”

  “I just want to wake up,” Rose said tiredly. “Will you let me wake up?”

  Alana smiled. “Of course, darling. But there’s only one way to be free.”

  Rose heard a strange shuffling sound, and she turned, her eyes widening, as she realized that the corpses—burnt corpses, blood-soaked corpses, corpses with holes in their chest where their hearts should have been, corpses without heads—they were all on their feet now, shuffling toward her, like a scene from a zombie movie. Except this didn’t feel like a movie. This felt real. And terrifying.

  Alana whispered in her ear, “You have to surrender to the Darkness.”

  Rose spun around and tried to run, but the imaginary floor that had been holding her upright seemed to dissolve beneath her feet. And once again, she fell.

  16

  Derailed Train

  Rose could never remain in bed in the hours after a nightmare. To do so would risk falling back to sleep, falling back into the dark, horrible prison of her own mind. On this particular day, she found her solitude downstairs, far away from the vampires sleeping upstairs and the humans who hung out in their rooms, which were also upstairs. With the residual fear still crawling underneath her skin, she sat on the sofa and drew her knees up to her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the images out of her mind—of blood, death, and Darkness.

  “You have them every day, don’t you?”

  Rose opened her eyes, exhaling slowly, as her blood responded to that soft, lilting voice, a voice so familiar and soothing that it could break through the traumatic state of her mind. She let her legs fall to the floor, feeling the cold wood beneath her feet, and turned around to face the doorway. She found Kara behind her, dressed in nothing but a white sleeveless shirt and navy blue boxer shorts, leaning tiredly against the doorframe. “Kara,” she whispered, “you’re awake.”

  Despite the purplish-black circles beneath her blue eyes, Kara managed to smile, still—a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Observant, aren’t you?”

  Rose nodded, appreciating the sarcasm, even as her chest opened up with pain. “I’m sorry if I woke you. I’m fine, though. You didn’t have to come down.”

  “Fine,” Kara repeated. She tilted her head to the side, studying Rose’s movements. “It’s the only lie you can tell without fidgeting or stammering. Your pulse doesn’t even increase when you say it. Do you know what that tells me?”

  Rose swallowed, unnerved by how easily Kara saw through her. “What?”

  “It tells me you have a lot of practice with that lie,” Kara told her gently.

  Rose turned, glancing down at her hands, as emotions welled up inside her throat, suffocating her. She heard Kara’s bare feet padding softly across the hardwood floor, the sound coming closer to her and then retreating away, as Kara crossed the room and sat down on the other sofa, directly across from Rose. It seemed as if Kara were trying to give her space…but without leaving her alone.

  Kara leaned back languidly, draping her arm across the back of the sofa and propping her legs on top of the coffee table in front of her. She looked as if she could sleep, right there in the living room, except her eyes were open and pinned on Rose. “When was the last time you slept without having a nightmare?”

  Rose shrugged uneasily. “I can’t remember,” she admitted. “I suppose there were times…before I died…but ever since that night, it’s all gotten worse.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Kara said softly. Sympathetic pain flashed in her eyes. “I felt it…because of the blood bond. Your fear, your pain, your despair, your anguish, your…darkness.” Her brows creased. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rose said. “You could break the bond, if you…wanted to.”

  “Why would I want that?” Kara asked, her voice barely loud enough to carry across the room. “Do you think I would run from your pain, Rose? Do you think that’s enough to turn me away? It’s not. I don’t scare away that easily, ást.”

  Rose blinked in surprise, her head ringing with the sincerity of Kara’s words, whirling with the emotions that those words unleashed inside of her. “I went to therapy, you know,” she said suddenly—because she wasn’t sure what else to say, “and I took medication, like I was supposed to.” She looked down at her hands, her mind suddenly far away. “When I was human. But it didn’t stop the nightmares. My psychiatrist said that it was a normal symptom of PTSD.”

  Kara nodded understandingly. “Alana had them, too. Every day. Until she figured out how to control dreams. Honestly, I think that was the reason she became so obsessed with that aspect of her power.” She sighed, “But then, once she learned to create and manipulate illusions, she started using that power to manipulate me. And later, she used it on everyone else, too. It started, though, with her just wanting to end the nightmares, and I could never fault her for that.”

  Rose’s chest felt tight, overwhelmed with sympathy for Alana’s suffering and anger for what she’d put Kara through, all at once. She tried to lighten the mood. “I have more in common with your crazy ex-girlfriend. How comforting.”

  Kara chuckled at Rose’s sarcasm. “What are you afraid of?” she asked, her lips tilting into a flirty smile. “That you’ll become my crazy ex-girlfriend, too?”

  “Well,” Rose quipped, “now that you’ve put the thought in my head…”

  “Oh, Rose,” Kara said with a seductive smile, “to become my crazy ex-girlfriend, you have to be my girlfriend first. But you keep insisting that you’re not.”

  “Because I’m not,” Rose said defensively. She sank a little lower into the soft, leather cushions, her face reddening. “You and I are just…friends. Right?”

  Kara lifted an eyebrow at the uncertainty in Rose’s voice. “Do you usually kiss your friends, Rose?” she asked. “Do you want them the way you want me?”

  “W-what?” Rose stammered, blushing. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Kara leaned forward, resting her elbows on her mostly bare thighs. Her lips quirked up at the edges. “Audrey and Owen are your closest friends, aren’t they?” she asked, her voice dropping to a low, sensual purr. “Do you want them the way you want me? Do you think about them the way you think about me?”

  Rose grimaced. “No,” she muttered. “That would be…really weird.”

  “Then, clearly,” Kara said with a smirk, “I must be more than a friend.”

  Rose felt cornered, caught in a lie that was so pathetic that no one could have possibly believed it. “You’re…a different kind of friend,” she tried again. She shrugged nervously. “People have friends like that, right? That they kiss?”

  Kara laughed. “Are you suggesting that I’m a fuck buddy, Rose? Because I’ve had plenty of those before, and if that’s what this is, you’re not doing it right.”

  Rose blushed. “No, of course not,” she mumbled, mortified by the idea. “I don’t do that. I couldn’t. That kind of thing isn’t…casual to me.” She looked up at Kara, her chest fluttering with nervousness. “We’re not…casual, are we?”

  “You tell me, sexy,” Kara said. Her icy blue eyes sparkled with curiosity and excitement. “You’re the one who’s too afraid to admit your feelings for me.”

  “That’s hardly fair,” Rose muttered defensively. “We’re on the precipice of an apocalyptic war. We could die at any moment. It wouldn’t make sense to…”

  “But of course it wo
uld,” Kara said. “Everyone confesses their feelings before a battle. No one wants to die, still holding on to those words, out of fear.”

  Rose scowled. “You’re being a little hypocritical, don’t you think? You’re accusing me of being too afraid to admit my feelings for you, but you haven’t admitted your feelings for me, either. Maybe you’re the one who’s too afraid.”

  Kara straightened. “Is that a challenge?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Rose froze, feeling her heart dance anxiously inside her chest, feeling the curiosity rise within her. Part of her feared what Kara might say—and how she might react to it—but the other part of her desperately wanted to know. “Yes.”

  Kara unfolded herself from the couch so quickly that Rose instinctually leaned back, startled. She rounded the coffee table, her long, lithe legs taking sure, determined steps, toward Rose. She placed her hands on either side of Rose’s hips and bent at the waist, leaning over Rose. Her dark, silky hair fell forward, over her sleeveless shirt, enticing Rose’s senses with the scent of Kara’s shampoo: the wild, sweet scent of violets. “I’ll tell you,” Kara said, “if you want to know.”

  Rose stared up at Kara, afraid to even breathe, for fear of giving into the desire and hunger thrumming through her veins. A spark of defiance and intrigue flashed in Kara’s piercing, blue eyes, and Rose realized that Kara was challenging her as well. Kara was daring her to hear the truth and be unchanged by it. Rose’s heart beat faster and harder, and a nervous thrill shot through her, but if Kara thought that Rose would back down in fear, she had another thing coming. “Yes.”

  Kara’s lips parted in surprise, and a shaky breath escaped her mouth. But then, a smile began to tug at the edges of those thin, pale lips—the lips that Rose couldn’t tear her gaze away from, the lips that Rose ached to kiss. “The truth is, Rose,” Kara whispered, her eyes burning with intensity, “I’m in love with you.”

  Rose’s mouth fell open. For several moments, she couldn’t speak. She could only listen to the rapid cadence of Kara’s heart and to her own heart, which seemed to have stopped entirely. “That’s a bit…more than I expected you to say.”

  A smug smile pulled at Kara’s lips. “The ball’s in your court now, sexy.”

  Rose sat as still as possible, her bright blue eyes wide, her heartbeat so fast and harsh that her chest ached with each beat. She chewed on her bottom lip anxiously as she tried to think of an appropriate response. “You know,” she rambled nervously—because that’s what she did when she was this nervous: she rambled, “you’re probably the only person in the world who would call me sexy right now. I mean, I’m awake during the day, which means I probably look half-zombified, and I’m wearing these pajamas, and everyone hates these pajamas.”

  Kara’s lips twitched up on one side, and her light blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “You’re so cute when you’re nervous,” she murmured, somehow managing to make that mostly-innocent statement sound sensual and seductive.

  Rose blushed. “Even in these pajamas?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Kara’s intense gaze darted down toward the oversized flannel that Rose had worn to bed. “Especially in those pajamas,” she said with an amused smile.

  Rose gave her a skeptical look. “Everyone else hates them,” she repeated.

  “Everyone else lacks imagination,” Kara murmured. She leaned back on her heels and slid her gaze over Rose’s red-and-black flannel-clad body, her gaze darkening with desire as it trailed over each of Rose’s curves, even though those curves were currently hidden by the oversized pajamas. Rose could practically feel Kara’s gaze sliding over her, undressing her, and that sensation left her overheated and breathless. Kara smiled seductively at her. “My imagination works perfectly.”

  Rose just sat there, slouched on the sofa, staring up at the incredibly sexy vampire who leaned over her, as she tried to remember how to breathe. Her body felt about three thousand degrees hotter, all of the sudden, and an intense, pulsing desire ached throughout her entire body, her head rattling from the intensity of her pulse. “Oh,” Rose sputtered, her eyes wide. “I can feel…what you’re feeling.”

  Kara pressed more of her weight onto her hands, and a lock of blue hair fell over her face as she leaned over Rose, their bodies so close, yet still not touching. Her breath warmed Rose’s face as she whispered, “Intense, isn’t it?”

  Rose dug her fingers into the sofa cushion as an incredibly painful wave of desire rushed through her. “What are you thinking?” she heard herself say.

  Kara smiled. “Do you want me to tell you,” she asked, “or show you?”

  The painful intensity of the desire that rushed through Rose’s body in that moment caused her to moan. Without thinking, she whispered, “Show me.”

  Kara didn’t hesitate. She instantly closed the space between their bodies, straddling Rose’s hips, and capturing Rose’s lips in a deep, aggressive kiss. Rose moaned against her lips, their hands clutching each other’s faces, as their lips and tongues met. Kara smiled at Rose’s reactions to her kiss—the way she moaned into her mouth, the way she arched her back, pressing her curves against Kara’s.

  “I want you so badly, Rose Foster,” Kara groaned against her lips.

  Rose didn’t think—couldn’t think. She could only feel. “Take me, then.”

  With a low, hungry growl, Kara devoured her, kissing her so hard that her head spun from the intensity. Kara pulled away sooner than Rose wanted, but only so that she could trail warm, wet kisses along the curve of Rose’s neck. Rose tilted her head back, gasping for breath, as Kara teased her with her lips and fangs.

  Kara leaned back, pressing herself harder against Rose’s thighs, grinding her hips. Rose watched, so mesmerized by the slow, sensual movement of Kara’s hips, so overwhelmed by the tension that sizzled and snapped between them. She reached out and touched Kara’s hips, feeling them move beneath her hands, her gaze shifting up to meet Kara’s. Kara closed her eyes, moaning softly at Rose’s touch, and then, she tilted her face forward, her breath warm against Rose’s lips.

  Her piercing, blue eyes, dark with lust and hunger, watched the pink flush of Rose’s skin as she trailed her fingers over it—over Rose’s jaw, along the curve of her neck, down to the collar of her pajama shirt. With quick, graceful fingers, she unbuttoned Rose’s shirt, her intense gaze following the path of her fingers, trailing over Rose’s soft, bare skin. She paused, though, when the shirt opened over the scar in the center of Rose’s chest. Rose noticed her reaction and glanced down at her scarred skin, to the worst of the scars—the one left by the stake.

  “It healed,” Rose sighed, “but not fast enough to prevent the scarring.”

  Kara bent her head and pressed her soft, warm lips against the scar, her gaze shifting up toward Rose’s face. Rose’s breath caught in her throat, a fluttering warmth spreading throughout her body, as she watched Kara, as she saw the love and affection that burned in Kara’s light blue eyes. Kara moved to kiss her lips, once again, and there was something communicated in that kiss—something so poignant and genuine that Rose felt it in every part of her soul, cracking open her heart and seeping into it, making its home there, blossoming inside of her.

  “Kara,” Rose breathed, her heart racing, “what are you doing to me?”

  Kara’s lips curved against Rose’s, into a soft, grateful smile that Rose felt with her lips. “Same thing you’ve done to me, I hope,” she whispered. But then, she pulled back, and that smile tilted mischievously. “And…maybe a little more.”

  Rose felt the remaining buttons of her shirt coming free beneath Kara’s fingers. Kara’s light blue eyes darkened with pure, undiluted lust—so much so that they seemed to become an entirely different shade of blue—when the soft curves of Rose’s breasts came into view. Kara quickened her pace, stripping off Rose’s shirt in a matter of seconds, smiling at the sight of Rose’s bare breasts.

  Kara’s smile widened, becoming…hungry. “I really love your breasts.
”

  Rose might have had a retort for that, but she didn’t have time to use it because Kara had already begun to move. Her fingers closed around Rose’s hips, pushing her back against the couch, as she bent her head toward Rose’s breasts.

  Kara covered one of Rose’s breasts with her hand and the other breast with her mouth, licking and sucking at Rose’s nipple. Rose arched her back at the intense sensation, pressing more of her breasts into Kara’s hand, into her mouth.

  Rose moaned as Kara moved her mouth to the other breast. “Is that why,” Rose paused, gasping as Kara ran her tongue around Rose’s nipple, “you love me, then?” She offered Kara a cute, playful smile. “Because of my breasts?”

  Kara smiled at Rose’s teasing. She raised up, putting herself at eye-level with Rose again. “No,” she said with a wicked smile. “They’re just a perk.”

  Rose watched her, desire and curiosity burning in her bright blue eyes.

  Kara offered her a wolfish smile. “Get it?” she said playfully. She ran her thumb over Rose’s nipple, laughing as Rose moaned at the sensation. “Perk?”

  Rose tilted her head back and giggled, “Oh my word. You’re so terrible!”

  Kara smiled. Every time Rose called her terrible, she always made it sound so sweet, as if she found Kara’s terribleness endearing, rather than annoying. And that sweetness in Rose’s voice and eyes made Kara smile. “You like me, anyway.”

  Rose looked at her, a gentle, hesitant smile curving at the corners of her lips. “Yeah, I do. Very much,” she confessed. Desire still burned through every part of her body, leaving a bright pink flush on her skin, but now, another warmth blossomed inside of her—a feeling that terrified her and delighted her at the exact same time. “Kara,” she breathed, “did you mean it? Do you really…love me?”

  Kara smiled warily. “It’s not really something you can take back, is it?”