House of Slide Hybrid

by Juliann Whicker

  “You should warn the camp,” he murmured in my ear, a voice so soft and silky that I turned my head, determined to taste those words with my lips. His breath was cool on my cheek, his mouth a quarter turn away from mine as he said the next words. “The Wild will bring others.”

  The other what? I didn’t ask though, not when words would get in the way. I leaned, closing the distance to his lips, mouth slightly opened, enough that I could taste the cool sweetness. Like peppermint with a hint of death, I thought as I tilted my head, lost in sensations that spiraled through my body. It started in my fingertips and lips where they connected to him, anchors where our souls could touch, spreading through my limbs, chasing away all traces of stiffness and pain, touching me deeper, shooting past layers of skin to where my heart burned, my throat where the bloodlust craved, but not past bearing. The pressure of his lips on mine as he kissed me back was not cool, not sweet. Frantic, desperate, out of control, and I could only hang onto him for dear life while fireworks went off all around us.

  He pulled away and I breathed, but I didn’t want to breathe, I wanted to know that he needed me, while fireworks still went off around us. I blinked while he closed his eyes, like seeing me was too much. Fireworks were still going off. I heard a distant scream, along with a bright flash behind Lewis that was not part of the kissing.

  The others. Raoul was a Wild who had brought others to the camp. I gulped, suddenly aware of the souls screaming around me, of the rest of the world. I pulled away from Lewis, needing to get to the camp, to help Chloe and the other Hybrids. Lewis held me, strong and firm.

  “What are you going to do?” His eyes when he met me this time were clear and dark, full of a certainty that made me want to cling to him.

  “Are the other Wilds here for them or me?”

  He frowned as he glanced over my shoulder, a calculated glance that made me wonder exactly what he was thinking. That look made me think that he would not forget Ash’s coat if he made a plan, would not forget anything.

  I sighed. “They’ve been looking for me; that’s why the Wild knew who I was. They didn’t have you to do their dirty work so they found someone else. Poor guy because I already have an Intended and I’m never going to belong to anyone else.”

  “You might want to find his blade so that you can return it then,” he whispered as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “We have a few minutes that we can run. After that we’ll be fighting Wilds, or at least in their custody.”

  I took a breath while I looked up at him, my mind speeding up as I considered possibilities. “I won’t be responsible for dead Hybrids. Some of them aren’t going to be taken by Wilds.” Erin certainly seemed likely to fight to the death.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Hold me. Wrap your arms around me, and hold me. Okay?”

  I didn’t have to say another word. With his arms around me and his face buried in my neck, I closed my eyes and stretched out my soul, aware of what happened in the camp. Jones burned, a flame so glorious that I could hardly see anything else for a moment. Ash and Orrin were subtle silver, but they were casting nets, shadows to twist the eyes and minds of Wilds and give the Hybrids a chance to escape.

  I stretched towards them the way Orrin had shown me but the way I’d never been able to do, blocking, wrapping the Hybrids in the cloak the Wilds couldn’t see. The explosion of energy that flowed through the fabric between me and the Hybrids seemed like it came from someone else. When the current hit Ash and Orrin they shaped it, shifting it into shadows and illusions lifted from the intentions of the attacking Wilds. As their victims disappeared, replaced by mists and shadows, the Wilds broke formation, searching for the now invisible Hybrids.

  Chloe was the first to slip through the ring of Wilds, still cloaked, invisible to them. I stretched impossibly far as she fled, covering her as long as she could before others realized that the Wild’s couldn’t see them or touch them and ran.

  I could feel the ebbing, the end of the current of energy where it had been coiled inside of me. I felt a rush of euphoria as the energy left me and I was myself in Lewis’s arms while he held the pieces of me together.

  I stared into his eyes, smiling while Orrin and Ash leaned the Wilds to keep them confused, sending them chasing after things they almost thought they saw, leaning that I would learn some day, letting them do what they could while I rested against Lewis, soaking in his solid strength.

  I smiled when I realized, stunned, that the Hybrids were gone and the Wilds were still stumbling around in confusion. We’d won and nobody had died; not one body was lifeless on the ground.

  Lewis wrapped his arms around me, kissing my face, my throat while I pressed my palms against his face, worn out and completely content. His mouth didn’t burn on my skin, but it didn’t matter because I still felt heat spread through me. It didn’t matter that the bond demanded to be completed. I felt relief that even without his Hotblood soul he wanted to kiss me, that I was too worn out to be a threat to him, even without his Fury.

  “She’s over here,” someone called.

  An explosion of heat and flame sprung into life in the tree to my left. Lewis wrapped his arms around me, no longer kissing me, and I flinched away from the brightness, squinting at the dark figures that now surrounded us. I tried to stand up straight but my legs would probably never function normally again.

  I saw Stanley detach from the darkness to come at us, scowling when he saw me and Lewis, arms still around each other. I stared back, bewildered that my mother’s brother would be there, that I’d had to fight him.

  He barked, “Bring the others,” at other shadows that emerged, sullen, hostile, Wilds who I didn’t recognize. Was Stanley the only one from the House? What would they do to me for making them look like idiots? It wasn’t a small thing, I realized belatedly. They would rather have their legs blown off than run around in circles chasing shadows and looking stupid.

  They brought Ash and Orrin, their arms tied behind them, to throw them down at Stanley’s feet. Apparently he was the leader.

  “Where are the Hybrids?” he asked then struck Ash across the face for no apparent reason.

  My gasp was the only reaction, even Ash looked like he’d barely noticed the violence.

  “Here. I’m the Hybrid.” I stepped forward but Lewis came with me, still entangled.

  “Right here,” Lewis added, keeping his arm around my waist.

  Stanley scowled at Lewis, grinding his teeth together as he thought about what to do with him. He already hated Lewis, now I wasn’t sure what was stronger than hate but Stanley felt it.

  “You will get away from the daughter of the House,” he stated, glaring darkly at him before glaring at me. “You are no longer necessary.”

  I tightened my grip around Lewis, noticing how no one looked at Lewis like he wasn’t an abomination. I was so used to him being this unconquerable fury, but now he was at their mercy. I took a deep breath and felt fear wrap around me, tight enough that I felt cut off from oxygen. I had to keep Lewis safe, had to protect him the way I’d protected the other Hybrids. My mind raced to think of something to say as the Wilds closed in, looking truly wild, feral, unforgiving.

  “Lewis is my Intended. Until he’s released by Slide you cannot touch him.” My voice was as firm as I could make it, but I sounded tired and weak, even to myself.

  “I am the only representative of Slide here,” Stanley said, moving closer. “As Slide’s representative I can release Axel at any time.” He hissed on the word release, like he’d enjoyed contemplating the many things that could mean.

  “You call me a Daughter but don’t allow me representation? That seems slightly inconsistent, and I know that Slide is never inconsistent. Stanley, I am grateful to you for doing your duty; you must be incredibly relieved to see me alive and well. If I’d realized that you were the one leading this group of noble Wilds, I’m sure I would never have used my new skills taught to me by those two Cools you a
re holding. They’ve served in some capacity as trainer while we’ve been here, trapped by the demon men who I expected instead of you.” Not quite a lie but it was bending the truth quite a bit. I was proud of myself though. I sounded like I knew what I was talking about—a rare feat for me.

  “Demon men?” Stanley asked with a smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve kept a head for proof?”

  I stared at him blankly while Ash said, “Samaliel, the demon man. Surely you’ve heard of him. Lewis took him out and was unconscious for a few days. We came to the closest place we could find safety.”

  Jones made a choking sound then said “Samaliel,” in a hoarse voice. I only noticed him then. I frowned at him, held between two large Wilds, but he wasn’t the same Jones I’d known a few hours earlier. This one was lean and sinewy, hot in every sense of the word while he struggled, muscles bulging, against his captors. “Axel?”

  His confusion wasn’t helping anything, so I ignored him, focusing instead on Stanley.

  “It isn’t the first time there have been two Intended for one Daughter,” the Wild from before said in his exotic accent where he leaned against a tree, further back from the other Wilds and their approach. “I am not threatened by a little competition.”

  I was bewildered and annoyed when he gave me a slight bow and showed those nice teeth. Sure, he could say he liked competition with Lewis after he was burned out.

  “You are not a member of the House,” Stanley grated at the new Wild who he apparently disliked already. “It has already been decided. Dariana will return to the house where she will be tried for her crimes; no one else needs a trial to see their guilt.”

  I stared for a moment as the Wilds closed in. “You’re the one who will be on trial,” I cried, struggling to keep calm, trying to think my way out of this. “You can’t touch him without touching me, and that is entirely against Slide’s order.”

  That slowed a few of them down, but most of them weren’t interested in listening anymore, not when I was a Hybrid however many runes I had burned into my skin. I took a deep breath and searched my reserves for the strength to cloak us, to lean them, something, but all I found was a wicked ball of fear that I knew would have all the light-bulbs in a mile radius exploding—if there were light-bulbs in a mile radius.

  “You’re safe.” The words, accompanied by my father’s silver voice cut through my rising hysteria leaving me lost in relief. The Wilds stepped back in sync, except for Stanley who never took his eyes off Lewis.

  Orrin dropped to his knees, a look of awe scrawled across his face as my father entered the woods, silver hair cutting through the darkness like water. Ash looked kind of irritated actually. My father looked like magic though, moving on silent feet with silver hair flowing behind him. The woods seemed to rustle a greeting; he seemed to bring a breeze with him smelling of spring and life. All we needed were weird neighbors in cloaks and the Nether.

  “Very impressive,” Lewis whispered in my ear. I only nodded in agreement shifting my attention back to Stanley barely in time to see him lunge towards me, knife aimed to take Lewis through the chest. It happened so fast and nothing in my stolen reflexes could react while Lewis and I were holding each other.

  Lewis took the knife in his hands, turning to the side at the same time he twisted the blade out of Stanley’s hands, keeping me out of Stanley’s reach, still protecting me. I felt my chest constrict as he struck Stanley’s throat with the handle of the knife, dropping Stanley for long enough for my father to close in, putting a hand on Stanley’s shoulder in a way that looked compassionate, but Stanley’s face was not peaceful with his gaping mouth and eyes widened in horror.

  “Don’t tell me I missed all the fun,” Satan’s rough growl filled the woods, and I could sense the other Wilds relax immediately. They weren’t comfortable with my father or Lewis handling Stanley but with Satan they had no doubts. “Dari, the next time you go take on some bulls you’ll have to invite me along. Stanley, you had orders to wait for reinforcements,” he added offhandedly. My father pulled Stanley to his feet then walked him to Satan. “Do you have problems remembering orders, boy?” Stanley was hardly a boy, but Satan towered over him, looking like a bull himself as he chomped on his cigar. “Attacking the Daughter of the House wasn’t strictly against orders, but I don’t imagine Slide will be too happy about it.”

  Stanley grimaced like he was forcing himself to keep in some nasty words that he really wanted to say about Lewis or me before he dropped his head in submission.

  I looked up at Lewis, opened my mouth to say something, then forgot about my uncles, my father, everyone else in the world as he kissed me like I was everything, and he would never let me go. There were even more fireworks with that kiss.

  Chapter 18

  Back at school. Back at home. Back doing tattoos like nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Ash, Smoke, Osmond, everyone looked different to me when I looked at them and couldn’t help but see the energy they exuded. When I closed my eyes I saw Lewis, wherever he was, could feel him in my fingertips, on my lips. He shimmered greener, darker than most Wilds, but it wasn’t his color that I knew him by; it was more than that, less than that.

  He was always with me, calling to me the same way I called to him, my other half. Some things were easier, some things harder, everything more. I could see the sparks of life and soul in my Axel as I lay in my bed trying to sleep. It was hard to sleep when everything, the earth, the trees, the animals were waking up, stretching into a new spring, a new life.

  I loved him. His gentleness and strength, his constancy and self-sacrifice, his smile and frown, the scar on his thumb and the smooth skin of his cheek. I loved his soul burning hot, or cold, always intense. My thoughts were consumed by him, the blood bond ache or the other, the thing that hadn’t been able to watch him burn out: love.

  My father didn’t even bring me home, instead he took me straight to the spa for a session. Lewis stayed with me. I couldn’t tell him to leave. Instead, I held onto his hand until my knuckles turned white.

  For better or worse, we were in this together. My pain belonged to him, just like his belonged to me. How strange to want someone’s pain, but I did.

  He stayed in Sanders with me, in Old Peter’s House with my Trainer supposedly, but it didn’t seem like Lewis was ever there when I wasn’t.

  Carve ignored Lewis while Lewis moved around the house, washing dishes, tightening screws, just being there while I asked Carve to teach me the shadow thing that Ash had done so well with the Wilds, making them see things that weren’t there.

  “One of the things about leaning, is that the more creative you are, the less believable your leaning will be,” he explained easily before he rested thin fingers on my cheek until I knew more than Ash had done, saw different waves of energy that were possible until reality became completely bent and mangled. I preferred and hated that method of learning. I hated having Matthew’s thoughts cross through my thoughts, forcing my mind into his predetermined paths, but nothing beat it in speed and efficiency. I had too much to learn to be picky about how I learned it.

  After my next three inches of tattoos I held Lewis’s hand all the way home then went straight to Snowy’s house after Lewis left to talk her into teaching me how to shoot a gun. After hours of standing in the cold, aiming at a target nailed to a tree, my ears were ringing but I wasn’t any better.

  “You really suck with firearms. I think it has to do with your energy. I think you’re close to melting my beautiful 30mm. Why don’t you stick with knives?”

  I sighed, but agreed. Matthew didn’t want to teach me about runes, said it was a difficult thing that should be approached after I had the stability of finished tattoos, but after I lit my curtains on fire, green fire with green flames, when I’d poured reckless Wild energy into making sparks, mother talked to him for me. He taught me more about what I shouldn’t do than what I should do, but I specifically asked to learn a trap rune for catching demons, so he took me to the w
oods, shaking his head the whole time he explained the rhythms and patterns. I focused, listening as much as I could. I didn’t have time to not know anything that would bring me closer to Lewis sooner.

  Time slipped away, the days turning into weeks as I filled every waking moment either with Snowy criticizing my shooting technique or anything else I could get anyone to teach me. Osmond had become unapproachable, probably angry that I’d gone and done something stupid without inviting him again, but he didn’t belong between me and a demon man. He might be angry, but at least he wasn’t dead.

  My tattoos didn’t last forever. One day I stared over my shoulder in the mirror at the long spiral of silver tattoos from the top of my neck nearly to my waist.

  Finally, it was the day before my party, the big party my mother was throwing to celebrate the completion of my last tattoos for the first series, something involving a tent in my backyard and millions of lights. Snowy was kind of thrilled to death about it, although she was mad that my mother didn’t involve her in the planning.

  I thrummed with excitement in spite of my charming artist informing me that with Life, what the first series was called, I wouldn’t die, but I wouldn’t heal either. I’d simply lie there suffering forever. I’d need the second series, called Healing to come back as mostly me. She smiled at me when she said that I wasn’t finished, that there was so much more pain ahead of me.

  I would have been more irritated if I hadn’t seen a flash of soul sight that had me scrambling into my clothes to careen out the metal and wooden door, into the arms of Lewis where he stood, waiting for me.

  “You made it,” he murmured as he cupped my head in his hands and took his time brushing back my hair, sliding his fingers over the tattoos on my neck. I shivered as the touch seemed to travel down my runes to the base of my spine, sinking through to my bones. His eyes would have glowed if he had a fury, but now they were soft, vulnerable as his hands tightened unconsciously around me. My mother came out of nowhere when she wrapped my coat around me, covering my neck with the collar while she separated us.