by S. M. McCoy
“No, don’t!” She breathed in slowly and composed her voice into a gentle caress, “You don’t know what you’re saying. You can’t mean to ask him. You risk too much. Talking to him is too risky if you want to have her. We just put him in there. We won’t be able to surprise him again.”
“Pet, please,” she cooed.
“That won’t work with me. Play your mind games on someone else.”
“You’ll regret this. She still has time. Her own gene could activate by then without the assistance of…” Her voice trailed off then continued, “No need to bring him into this.”
“With the assistance of…?”
“She could still activate on her own. As long as you keep her alive until then, she’ll be fine. Just keep feeding her energy like you have. It’s impossible for the gene to lie dormant now that you’ve triggered her, so it’s sped up her normal transformation. Just keep her alive until it’s fully processed. Her ears and eyes have changed already, haven’t they? Only a matter of time.”
“Time isn’t always on our side. Her heart is stopping.”
“Maybe by then her heart will have changed.” She shrugged like she was innocent in all of this.
“Are you purposefully spacey? What about the rest of her body. Oxygen. Blood. The rest of her body would die. Preserving parts is not enough the whole body must preserve itself in order to live.”
“Wait to assess the situation more. Don’t be rash, my pet.”
“I am not your pet!”
“Shhh. Do be reasonable.”
“Reasonable… You’re lucky I don’t tear you to pieces. I am being overly reasonable with you. Don’t try my patience. Tell me now.”
“You don’t need Damien to save her, you need a powerful Diviner. Aislin is powerful, but she doesn’t know what she needs to do, I can sense a memory wipe on her that is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. The only other person I know with that kind of power is at Ealdred.”
“I can’t take her there.”
“You can’t think of letting Damien bond with her—it would ruin both of them. It may save her from dying right away, but there’s no telling what a hybrid such as her would suffer through with a bond before being transformed fully.”
“Are we any better than him by preventing the bond?”
“Is he any better than you for forcing it?” Her heels clacked away from him before she stopped to say, “Clean up your mess. Take her to Ealdred or hope your energy is enough to suffer the transformation on your own, but don’t even think of letting them bond.”
Bump—bump, bump—bump…bump.
My heart struggled to maintain a steady beat. The slow irregular pumps pulsed in my ears and sent tingles down by body as the blood reached the low oxygenated muscles, like walking through a sticker bush being pricked in different points at various intervals. A momentary surge of life per pulse, per beat, per pump, per each forced thump within my chest.
Some parts seemed fine; the parts that had changed.
Some parts felt like fire; the parts that were urging for life.
Or urging for the change to end their pain.
For better or for worse.
For life or for death.
Either way an end; an end to a means, a way of living.
Take my hand.
The words repeated in my mind. That smooth, fluid voice singing within my thoughts. Take my hand. What did it mean? Why did it pester me over and over again? It was like listening to a song with broken headphones. The connection of the wires were frayed under its sheath and every so often they’d touch, just enough, to hear the words and then separate, leaving nothing but silence. Connected, I heard the words, just those words: Take my hand. It reminded me of an old song but a slower, more distant, and less pop-ish resemblance. A remake applying to my now and present.
“I can’t take her to Ealdred…they’ll know who she is there.”
“That’s not my problem,” Cerise snapped.
“I’ll take care of her myself, but I need you to erase his memory immediately.”
“You demanding welp. Erase it yourself.”
“You know very well I am unable to.”
“Oh my, why, I had no idea my pet.” She laughed heartily and if I could see her I was sure by the inflection alone that there was a smirk on her face and triumph in her eyes.
“It’s beneficial to you as well I don’t see why you should dramatize the request.”
“Was that a request? And here I thought you were demanding, silly me.”
“It is merely an educated request.” His voice seemed so soft normally. There was a hiss beneath his words; within his tone. It might be the first time I’d ever been afraid of him—truly afraid, that is. Not of what he can do or of what I knew, but of what I felt was hidden.
“Educated… Hmm, yes, I see.”
“We have all the time the world has to offer us. However, we are not the only ones involved in this dance of yours. Our conversations are minuscule in the grand scheme of our lives, but it is precious time wasted for others. Enough tit for tat, Cerise.”
Precious time; I thought he believed it. Believed time was precious but not for himself. Which was why it scared me; he scared me. When one’s own life was not considered precious, how could he possibly do what’s right to save more? Never mind. It was nothing, nonsense. I didn’t know what I thought about anything anymore, about him.
“Others… Miss Dylan.” Her voice was agitated and strained.
“Yes, but not just Crystal. Him as well.” Distain threaded through the word “him” like peppered velvet.
“No, my pet, he has plenty of time for our little banters.”
“He has a limited time to bond, which you waste with frivolous banter.” His voice was tense and anxious. How serious was this bonding for Damien…and if this wasn’t him…who was talking now?
Her foot tapped lightly on the wood floor and I could hear the vibrations of the panels and the nails holding steady as I concentrated.
“No one tells me, me of all people–if I can call myself one–to do something I don’t intend to do when I don’t want to do it. Now, my pet, please calm yourself and be patient. I, whether you believe so or not, have a plan. And doing this now is not a part of my plan.”
Her hand waved in the air quickly like a hummingbird’s wings and stopped. Silence replaced the hum in the room and my thoughts were clouded with confusion.
“Crystal.” His voice was a soft whisper floating to my ears.
My ears. It’s meant for me.
Only me. Those lips, that voice, they called to me. I needed to go to him. I had to go to him. And I was shocked…the pull that he had on me…it returned. It wasn’t there earlier. That strained feeling like his voice was controlling me, begging me to join him, and my body launched itself to meet the call. Not this time.
I couldn’t move.
“No.” The pain in my muted word singed through my throat.
“It’s all right. Mmm, it’s all right,” Aislin mumbled and pulled me closer. She was sleeping and she still took care of me.
“What are you doing? You look absolutely awful.” She smirked and I could sense the pleasure in her words. “Is Miss Dylan hanging in there? Ha!” A muffled giggling came from her covered mouth.
“She’s fine.” The words seared into their recipient.
Cerise was shivering, but she couldn’t feel the cold.
“So, let us be on more friendly terms in which I tell you what needs to be done and you assist without hassle.”
“Yes sir.” She shivered again. “WAIT! What are you doing?! Silly fool, I cannot be controlled that easily!”
“You’re right on one thing, that you can’t be controlled easily. But you are incorrect in assuming that you released yourself. You will do what I ask without force.”
“Who are you?”
“I am who you see.” My arm reached toward the door. Closing my eyes—Damien, I could see his face. I caressed the air and saw
his lips as if they were right in front of me, they quivered.
“Soon.” He shook free and composed himself while the temperature around Cerise increased. I felt her heat from here.
“No! No. No. No. NO. How did you get out?” I could hear the mirror crack in the other room, the pieces separating slowly like ice being chipped away. The heat was cold.
“Lathar had a change of heart last night. He told me he’d rather lose everything, even his memories, if it meant saving the girl. He’s more powerful than me, enough to capture me, even so young…brought me here for whatever deal you’ve made with him, but he knew power wasn’t going to save Grace.
“He needed me…he didn’t know about Ealdred, or he probably would have taken her there first. Lucky for us both, he’d already traded with me before foolishly taking her at the Council’s doorstep. She’ll survive if we complete the bond, even if you don’t help.”
Victor…he lied to me again. He was with me earlier. That was him, and I felt my eyes well up. A small smile twitched from the corners of my mouth. We had danced together again, and possibly for the last time. Why didn’t he tell me the truth? Why couldn’t he tell me the plan, whatever that plan was? Weren’t we supposed to run away together?
I know he told me not to be upset with him, but I was. I couldn’t help it, he gave up us, he gave up himself for only solution he could think of…let me bond with a man who still called me by the name of his lost love. I cried silently to myself and felt Aislin pull me in tighter.
“You’re lying! She dies if she doesn’t change before the bonding ritual.”
“You don’t know that.” Damien hesitated, his words choppy.
“You need me,” she choked out.
“It’s been a long time since you’ve seen me last and I would have preferred not seeing you again. Circumstances have brought us together in the same room and we will play nice now, won’t we?”
“Why? You know how much…”
“ENOUGH!”
“Damien, please.” Her voice quivered and begged.
“I’ve heard enough. You don’t want me. You want the shell of what I am and what I can give you. Selfish reasons. If I were actually behind there, trapped, and waiting to have my memories wiped clean, it wouldn’t be me who would bond with you. Memories are what make us who we are. Cerise, mark me, I am not Drawn to you.”
“We are perfect for each other. Two halves of a whole. With your abilities and mine combined we would be unstoppable.”
“Unstoppable for what, Cerise? Unstoppable for what? For taking advantage of people? For treating humans as puppets? For letting a young misguided Shifter hold on to a grudge older than himself and roam the world peeling faces off his enemies like we’re still waging the Blood War? Have you not grown at all?”
“I have, Damien, I have. I am better now, I can be better. My pet, please. Have mercy. Partnering with Lathar was nothing; he’s never meant any harm to humans. I read his mind when I accepted to bargain with him, he’s only targeted serpents closing up the portals to the other realms. He merely believes in the prophecy of war should the balance be broken; he obviously can’t be trusted, but I can be so much for you. Just—”
“Just what? I cannot give you what you ask for. You’ve already toyed with my mind enough. I am not your pet, not your doll, not your puppet to manipulate as you please and add to your collection of drones.”
“It’s not like that.” She pouted.
“What is it like?”
“I was just…”
“Just thinking the monster in there was me as you prepare to wipe what you thought were my memories.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What then?”
“That twit just wanted to stop the bond and save the girl, not harm you. I was saving you.”
“From what?”
“Yourself. My pet, you were—you are—sacrificing your life for a mortal. If you draw to someone not like yourself… She’s dying and you’ll die with her.”
“What’s the point of living forever by one’s self? Feeding, living, for nothing.”
“You don’t even have the chance to spend even a year with her. You have so much. So much good you can still offer this world and me.”
“Whatever time spent with her from: keeping her safe, to prolonging what she has left, to making her last moments precious is worth giving up eternity.”
I was hearing everything, and it all spilled from both of them so fast that I didn’t even have time to think. All of their words were there, but they weren’t registering to my brain. I knew they were talking about me, but all I actually heard was that Damien would give up eternity for me…and again I felt a pang of guilt at not believing him when he said we were meant to be together. I felt guilty that he had to suffer through one loss already, and I felt even more guilty that all I wanted to do was pull myself away from these strings drawing us together.
“You don’t even have eternity without a true bond. Hmph.”
“We’ve already connected, Cerise. Only two more bonds are needed to make it permanent. One from her and then from each other, as one.”
“She hasn’t even bonded with you.”
“She has, half of her has. She remembers, sometimes.”
“Why you waste your time on a girl who doesn’t love you, I’ll never know.”
“She does love me. She doesn’t remember her dreams. When her memories fully transition she’ll remember when she told me about who she was…who she truly is. She’s a dreamwalker Cerise.
“Do you have any idea what that means? It means the Abernithy line isn’t dead. And the prophecy is real. We don’t have time for your petty games. War is coming, and she isn’t meant to die today.”
“If that were true you would have the second seal already.”
“She doesn’t remember. Which is why I sent her to you in the first place.”
“No, my pet. That’s not part of the deal. The deal was that I would have you and whoever is in there would have the girl.”
“Lathar can’t have her.”
“So, that’s who is in there? When I read his memories, he called himself Shakespeare.”
“Yes. And who you should clean the memory from and train him to think he’s a normal vampire, no Drawn hate obsession, no memories of Crystal, just another vampire who had a rough go of it and you saved him.”
“How did he get your face?” She pressed a sensitive button.
“He stole my face at the charity gala. No other Shifter has ever been able to keep a face other than who they’ve last fed on. What if he decides to start peeling the faces off of guardians and screwing up the timeline for the prophecy to expand his costume collection?”
“Oooh, what fun. He sounds like an asset the Council would kill to work for them, and he has a soft spot for your toy. What a shame.”
“What does that matter?”
“Oh, pet. I can save you after all. Why don’t you let him have her and you can move on?”
“She deserves better.”
“You mean you? Ha! How much better is that, dear? To a human, you’ve given her death by knowing her.”
“What are you hiding?”
“Nothing for you to be concerned about. I am just all bubbles of happiness, my pet.”
“You’ve taken a memory from me and you will give it back.”
“I will do no such thing!”
“You will do as I say.” The room would seem cold even to the cold blooded by the way those words struck the air.
She shivered, “I am unable to renew your memory, sir.”
“WHY!”
“Sir, I am able to remove memories, but to restore is beyond my power as of yet.”
“Do you know what you’ve taken from me?”
“I know the meaning of what I took, but not the exact contents, lord.” There was a strain to her voice as she answered him like the stretching of a balloon. How long w
ould his hold last?
“What do you know?” He breathed in deeply.
A moan escaped Aislin’s lips as she clung to my waist more closely. In and out of consciousness I whispered to her, “I need to go to Ealdred…how do I get there?”
“The ring,” Aislin breathed out like in a trance.
“It’s the key to saving Miss. Dylan,” Cerise answered.
“She can be saved?”
“Of course, sir. An heirloom, she needs it to go to the Diviner without her true self being discovered.”
“What is it!”
“I… I…sir, pet, sir, pet. Pet, I cannot tell you. Fool! Unless you plan on draining the life from the two in the other room, you have not fed enough to maintain such power.” Her voice shuddered as the chill from the control flowed down her back and faded.
“I’ll be back.”
“Just look what you’ve done to the flowers! Shriveled like weeds. I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if we were in the garden. Careless, just careless.”
“You will do as I say and remove the memory clean of his entire past. You may do with him as you wish after that.”
“I will do as you say, sir.” She hissed, “Damien, you will not toy with me!”
“I’ve already said the command. It’s ingrained in you until it’s completed. You can fight it but eventually you’ll do the bidding.”
“How dare you mess with Miss Cerise! I am revered here! I am perfection!” She cooed and fluffed her hair with a slight crunch from the hairspray.
“You’ll forget I ever existed, Cerise.”
“Damien…” My voice hardly more than a whisper.
I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even pass out properly.
This needed to be handled now, but how? My human pieces working with the frozen other half left me laying here useless, aching and desperate.
I could hear the soft wisp of air floating through the halls and approaching, nearing closer to me.
“Damien.” An utterance so slight, the vibrations, inaudible to most, reached him.
“Crystal,” he answered.
My eyes held shut by an invisible force left me pulsing for a touch. As if my needs were expressed with words, his hand enveloped mine with a tender squeeze.
“We need to leave while—” A sudden break in his speech sent icy chills down my spine. “I can only carry you.”
