Dark Starlight: Archaic Races Book One

by Hannah West

  ‘I can smell it on your skin,’ he murmurs against my ear. ‘It’s taken the tiredness from your eyes and dusted you with my scent.’

  Wait, what? I spin to face him but he isn’t there. My gaze darts around the garden but Zephyr’s gone. How is he doing that? I bolt back inside and lock the door behind me. Goose bumps prickle my skin and there’s a soft sheen on it, like I’ve been sprayed with amethyst glitter. I scrub at both arms with hand soap at the kitchen sink, but the shimmer is still there when I rinse them under the tap. I lift the hem of my top, exposing my stomach, to find the skin shimmering too. It’s only visible when the light hits it at certain angles, but it’s definitely there.

  I enjoy my scent on you.

  I pause at the memory of his comment then sniff my hands. All I smell is hand soap, so I pull the neck of my shirt down and sniff my shoulder. An alluring fragrance teases my senses. It’s faint, lying just beneath the scent of my body lotion, but it’s there. It calls to something in my centre, like a memory I can’t quite grasp.

  Darkness vibrates inside me, like it’s purring. It likes Zephyr but I don’t know who Zephyr is. I’m harbouring some freaky secrets, but this guy? I can’t move like he does. One minute he’s there then the next he’s gone, and I don’t know what he looks like. My imagination is starting to get the better of me and it’s not pretty. Zephyr’s voice makes my insides do this weird wriggle, but for all I know he could look like a monster. I’d like to think I’m not shallow enough to discount someone for not being handsome, but I draw the line at fangs. Or gills - Or a third eye and scales.

  I shake my head at the stupid direction of my thoughts. Zephyr is probably just screwing with me. I bet he’s an average guy with a purple torch. I don’t know how he moves so fast, but I’ve watched plenty of magic tricks on television. There could be a simple explanation for everything and my imagination is making things seem worse than they are. But then how does he touch me in the way he does? He makes my darkness pulse in anticipation and I lose rational thought. Zephyr’s marked me in glitter and a fragrance that makes my toes curl. My brain wants to attribute everything to something simple, but it can’t. I can’t decide if I’m more fascinated or freaked out.

  I think of his touch and fresh excitement rolls through me. What if Zephyr is like me? What if he has his own darkness but has learned to control it?

  I microwave a piece of lasagne I saved from Drew’s rampage of my fridge then eat it at the kitchen table. Every now and then the light catches the dust on my skin and I frown. I drum my fingers against the table and look at the back door. I’m agitated, wondering if Zephyr is out there, waiting until I go to bed so he can leave another rose on my doorstep. The smoke and mirrors act is tap dancing on my last nerve. I’m an angry person on a good day, and I’m not in an emotionally fit state to deal with all this tension right now.

  I huff and push from the table, going back outside and march to the centre of the garden. It’s quiet, no sign of Zephyr, but I get the feeling he’s watching. I don’t feel him, like before, but I know he’s here, sneaking around, like the creep he’s proving to be.

  ‘I know you’re here and I don’t like it,’ I announce to the seemingly empty garden. ‘I don’t like you sneaking around and I don’t like the rose you left me, Zephyr. You need to leave.’

  Violet light flashes around me and I shield my eyes from the glare. Hands grip my upper arms while I’m still blinking through bright spots in my vision. I’m pulled against a hard body then full lips meet mine. I gasp in shock and a tongue pushes into my mouth. With it comes the taste of the fragrance painting my skin, the scent left by Zephyr.

  My brain catches up with what’s happening and I start to struggle, despite my body urging me to surrender. Zephyr growls into my mouth, his grip on me tightening to the point of pain. I whimper and the pressure eases slightly but stays firm. I wriggle enough to wedge my hands between us. My fingers press into hard muscle then curl into fists when I fail to push him away. If I’m honest with myself I’ve wondered about his kiss, but not like this.

  His lips heat against mine as light shines between us. It grows brighter and brighter, until I can’t see anything except the amethyst shine. Zephyr bands his arm around me, weaving fingers through my hair to hold me in place. Heat fills my mouth and I gag when it pushes its way down my throat. I thrash against him, oxygen supply cut off. But I can’t get free, and my darkness doesn’t seem inclined to help me. Instead it’s doing nothing, like it’s rolled onto its back to show its belly.

  Shadow creeps around the edge of my vision. I’m not afraid of dying, and I’m no stranger to the dark. But I’m angry at how weak I feel in this moment. I bite down in frustration and Zephyr snarls, ripping his mouth from mine. The light dies and the taste of his blood paints my tongue as I suck in a breath. I try to run but he pulls me close. I’m blind in the sudden darkness, Zephyr’s heart drumming against the ear pressed to his chest.

  ‘Mine,’ he snarls.

  I shut my eyes against another burst of purple light then fall to the grass, Zephyr’s support disappearing. I pant against the ground, pressure wrapping around my chest. It feels like my lungs are filling with fluid, pain splintering through my ribcage in agonising shards. I crawl back to the house, making it to the kitchen before I can’t breathe through the pain anymore. I pant into the floor, gaze locked on the open back door. A rectangle of night stares back, like a window to my future. I don’t know what Zephyr did but I think I’m dying.

  I curl into a ball when ice bleeds into my middle. It spreads to my extremities and I cry out. It hurts so much, a thousand agonies spiking over my skin. Something snaps in my centre and I scream, back arching. Pain steals my vision and lances through my skull. I try to suck in a breath but my lungs won’t function. My palms slide over warm, wet linoleum and my mouth tastes like pennies. A scream crawls up my throat but I can’t breathe to voice it. I scrunch my eyes shut and pray for an end.

  The backs of my eyelids glow pink, like I’ve turned my face to the sun. There’s light all around, but I can’t open my eyes to see where it’s coming from. Pain clenches my middle then slices through my centre. A sharp sensation rages from deep in my core and collides with my heart. The agony it causes flips me onto my back and I suck in a breath, voicing the scream lodged in my throat. My eyes snap open to blinding violet, which dims almost instantly under the shadow flooding my vision. I let the shadow take me, relief drenching my thoughts as consciousness fades.

  CHAPTER 5

  I think I’m in love,’ Amy sighs drawing our attention.

  She’s gazing at a picture in her magazine with a dreamy look on her face, twirling a length of hair around her index finger.

  ‘Is that Nile?’ Charlotte asks.

  ‘Who else?’ Amy sighs.

  ‘Lucas is better looking,’ Charlotte says.

  ‘No way,’ Amy shouts and throws a pillow at Charlotte’s head.

  She squeals and throws it back. Amy ducks and it smacks into the wall behind her. I laugh, pressing against the opposite wall to stay out of range. Amy’s bedroom door opens and her mum frowns into the room.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Amy says before her mum has chance to speak.

  ‘You girls should be asleep.’

  ‘But, Mum-’ Amy whines.

  ‘I told Christine and Emily I’d have you in bed by ten and it’s half past now,’ her mum cuts in. ‘Ten is more than reasonable for eleven-year-olds, so wash your faces, brush your teeth and into bed.’

  Amy huffs but we all comply, going into the bathroom down the hall. I wash my face then brush my teeth, before going back to Amy’s room and shuffling into my sleeping bag on her bedroom floor. Charlotte comes in a second later and slides into the sleeping bag beside me. We both look at the door when Amy squeals from the hallway. There’s a loud thud followed by the sound of her brother laughing.

  ‘Mum!’ Amy shouts.

  ‘Stop annoying your sister, Charlie,’ her mum shouts back.

 
Amy storms into the room a second later and slams the door behind her. ‘Stupid boy,’ she huffs as she climbs into bed and yanks the covers up.

  Charlotte grins at me and I grin back. Amy and her brother don’t get on, and they go out of their way to prank each other.

  ‘What did he do?’ Charlotte asks.

  ‘Sprayed me with a water pistol,’ Amy grumbles, ‘but I’ll get him back.’

  She reaches up and slaps the light switch, bathing the room in darkness. I hear her roll over in bed and I wriggle around until I’m comfortable enough to fall asleep.

  Prickles skitter over my skin and I blink in the darkness. It takes a second to remember I’m not in my own bed at home. I’m at Amy’s house for a sleepover, and that’s Charlotte shifting on the floor beside me. I’m sleepy and warm, so why is my skin prickling? Something moves in the corner of the room and I stop breathing, straining my eyes in that direction. I can feel the heat of Charlotte beside me and Amy is snoring from her bed, so what else is in here?

  A floorboard squeaks when the thing moves again, creeping closer to where Charlotte and I are lying. My heart picks up, thrumming against my ribcage so fast I think it might break a rib. My skin starts stinging, as the thing moves even closer, and something uncurls deep in my belly. The thing is so close I can hear it breathing. I want to curl into a ball on my side but I’m too afraid to move. A foot brushes my sleeping bag as the thing steps over me, until it’s standing over Charlotte. I suck in a breath when something thick and oozing drips onto my cheek, my leg jerking out in surprise to kick Charlotte.

  Charlotte sits bolt upright, smacking into the monster looming over her, and screams. I scream with her, clutching my sleeping bag as the monster thumps to the floor. Amy’s scream joins in and I’m blinded when the light blinks on. My vision adjusts to see Amy’s brother Charlie squirming on the floor at Charlotte’s feet. Darkness connects me to him, like a shadowy ribbon. It’s circling his throat, choking him. His fear mixes with mine, making it difficult to tell what’s mine, and what’s his.

  ‘Charlie!’ Amy screams, scrambling from the bed.

  She kneels beside him, tears streaking her face. The door crashes open and Amy’s mum and dad rush into the room in their pyjamas. They drop beside Charlie too.

  ‘He’s having a seizure,’ Amy’s dad says trying to hold Charlie down.

  The way Charlie’s writhing on the floor makes it look like he’s having a seizure, if you can’t see the inky bands gripping his throat. He’s in his pyjamas, a bottle of syrup oozing golden liquid onto the carpet. I touch my sticky face, where he must’ve dripped it on me on his way to Amy’s bed, and it all makes sense. He was playing a prank on his sister.

  ‘Please,’ I whisper, glimpsing Charlie’s blue lips.

  My darkness is eliminating the threat to me. That’s the biggest problem with the dark part of me. It doesn’t understand that some threats aren’t life threatening, and now Charlie might die because of it.

  ‘He wasn’t trying to hurt me,’ I whisper and close my eyes, concentrating really hard on calming down.

  If it thinks the threat is over it might let him go.

  I take a deep breath and think of Mrs Spencer’s ginger tomcat. His name is Montague and he’s a peach Persian. He likes to roll on our garden in summer, leaving tufts of ginger fur on the grass. When it rains, the fur on his belly goes curly and he stretches out on his back while I brush it out. Mrs Spencer says he likes me so much he spends more time in my home than hers. She even gave me a box of the special food he eats for when he spends the night in our cottage instead of hers.

  The sound of coughing draws my attention and I open my eyes to see Charlie half sitting up, my darkness no longer wrapped around his throat. His face is red instead of purple and his lips are no longer blue. He’s coughing like his throat hurts and tears paint his cheeks. Everyone is crying, including me, and a cloud of shadow halos my body.

  ‘I want to go home,’ Charlotte sobs.

  Her caramel skin has turned almost as pale as mine. There’s syrup in her hair and she’s shaking. I want to hug her but I’m afraid because I don’t know what my darkness will do. It feels prickly, and when it’s like this it reminds me of a rattlesnake I saw on the television. The snake was shaking its tail, body coiled, ready to strike. My insides feel coiled tight, like that snake, the prickling sensation the rattle of its tail.

  I hug my knees to my chest as tears drip from my chin. Amy’s mum comes over to hug Charlotte and speak to her in calm tones. I don’t hear what she’s saying. I can’t sleepover at Amy or Charlotte’s houses anymore in case my darkness hurts someone else. It almost killed Charlie - I almost killed Charlie. I’m worse than a rattlesnake because nobody knows how dangerous I am.

  Noise chips at my aching brain. I try to ignore it and return to peaceful dark, but the noise is persistent. I groan and roll away from it, but moving makes the noise grow louder. Bloody hell I feel worse than the time Drew and I stole the Russian vodka from his stepdad’s liquor cabinet.

  The thought of Drew makes the noise more distinctive, and it morphs into his voice. He sounds like he’s shouting from the end of a long tunnel and it takes a while to distinguish what he’s saying.

  ‘Primrose.’

  His voice gets louder then louder, like he’s getting closer, and I realise he’s shouting my name over and over again. It hurts my ears and I groan, trying to lift my hands to cover my ears. My left hand snags on something and I realise Drew’s holding it. I take a deep breath and force my eyelids open. They stick a little, like they’re glued together with sleep. I hiss against the daylight, head pounding, and snap them shut again.

  ‘Don’t close your eyes!’ Drew shouts.

  The raw panic in his tone has my eyelids slitting open. It takes a moment for his terrified face to come into focus, blue eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Drew,’ I croak, mouth dry. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Prim,’ he sniffs. ‘Don’t close your eyes, okay? I’m going to phone an ambulance, just stay awake.’

  Ambulance?

  I grab his hand when he goes to stand. ‘What are you talking about? Who needs an ambulance?’

  He stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. ‘Primrose-’ his voice breaks and he stops to wipe his eyes with his sleeve.

  I realise he means me, and start to panic. Memories from last night flash in painful snapshots through my brain, and I sit up. I groan, grabbing my temples when the room spins.

  ‘Prim!’ Drew barks, fussing around me but not actually doing anything. He gives in and pushes to his feet. ‘I’m phoning for an ambulance.’

  ‘No!’ I shout and shove to my feet.

  The room tilts and I stagger sideways, vision dimming. Drew swears and catches me before I fall into the kitchen table. I lean on him, while he pulls a chair out and sits me in it, crouching before me so he can look into my eyes. I bend forward and put my head between my knees, until the room stops tilting.

  ‘Prim,’ Drew whispers panic painting his tone. He’s really no good in a crisis.

  ‘No ambulance,’ I whisper back meeting his gaze.

  Whispering is good because it hurts my head less.

  ‘But-’

  ‘I can’t go to the hospital. Not this soon after Mum.’

  His mouth snaps shut, understanding dawning through his features. He wasn’t here for the numerous trips to the hospital. He wasn’t here for treatments or resulting days of sickness from the chemotherapy. He didn’t have to watch Mum waste away at the end. It took days to scrub the hospital stench from my skin, and I’ll always associate the smell with those final hours of Mum’s life. I can’t go to that place right now. I can’t.

  ‘Okay,’ he says then, ‘can you tell me what happened?’

  I blink at him, wondering how much I should say. I’ve never spoken to Drew about my darkness, and if I tell him I was attacked by a guy that pumped me full of purple light he’ll change his mind about that ambulance.

  I frow
n at him. ‘How did you get in here?’

  ‘The back door was wide open,’ he answers.

  I remember staring at the open doorway and nod. ‘I didn’t close it,’ I murmur.

  Drew rakes fingers through his blond hair. ‘Did someone break in? Were you-’ he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before meeting my gaze again. ‘Did they…touch you?’

  I choose my words carefully. I don’t want to lie to him but there’s no way I’m telling him about Zephyr.

  ‘Nobody broke in, Drew.’

  His relief floods the air around us, and it’s difficult to keep the shock off my face. I can sense other people’s emotions, but only if we’re touching skin to skin. Drew and I aren’t touching, yet I feel what he’s feeling. His emotion mists the air and my darkness drinks it in. Intricate, midnight patterns swirl over my skin, different and I watch them fascinated. I can feel my darkness drawing Drew’s essence to me, like it’s breathing him deep.

  ‘Then what the hell happened, Primrose?’ Drew demands, his frustration cutting through the haze of shock. ‘I came here at three, like we planned, to find you unconscious on the kitchen floor. And you’re covered-’ his voice wavers but he pulls it together. ‘You’re covered in blood and it’s all over the floor, Prim. There’s so much,’ he says glancing behind him.

  I follow his gaze to a large puddle of dried blood on the kitchen floor and what he’s saying sinks in.

  ‘What the hell?’ I murmur.

  Drew meets my gaze again. ‘I didn’t think a person could bleed that much and survive.’

  ‘Me either,’ I whisper.

  You’re covered in blood.

  I look down to see my clothes stained the same red as the puddle on the kitchen floor. It registers that the blood came from me. I was bleeding last night; more than a person should and survive to tell the tale. I finger the rusty stain on my top, the material rigid.

  ‘But I’m not injured,’ I murmur, confused as to where it all came from.

  ‘Your nose,’ Drew whispers.