But it didn’t. It had been nice not being alone. It was pleasant talking to someone who only used their voice to speak. And in the short span of time I’d spent outside, I’d gotten strangely comfortable within that feeling of knowing he was there.
In the absence of knowing someone was there, I had to face the truth that no one had been there all along.
CHAPTER FOUR
Granny wasn’t home when I woke up the next morning. I didn’t know why I expected her to be.
I tried not to think about that gnawing lonely feeling in me that felt stronger than it had in weeks. I shoved it down, where I shoved everything else, and went about my day.
I made Martian breakfast and then I made myself coffee, my eyes flitting on their own accord to the back window countless times. I watched the backyard where “Maxell” had sat in the dark last night, because I was absolutely positive that’s who I was speaking to. It just hadn’t been confirmed.
Why he felt the need to keep his name private didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but the fact that he could do so did. He knew I wasn’t from Port Inlet, thus he could have the secrecy he craved.
Question was why he needed it.
I went to school earlier than normal, glad to find that the library was opened. It was on the fourth floor, and most of the lights were off, but the librarian was at her desk and she nodded at me when I came in. I sat down at one of the computers and wiggled the mouse to wake it up, using my name and ID number to log into my school account.
I opened the browser and typed in my first search. The name Maxell Heathestone pulled up a plethora of results, all of which included just the first name or just the second name, but hardly any that combined them both. I condensed my search.
Maxell Heathestone. Port Inlet, Washington.
I was saddened to see that there wasn’t an abundance of news, but there were some articles about his disappearance at the North Cascades National Park in May. Port Inlet was an extremely small town, even smaller than most of the already small towns in the state. There wasn’t much news coverage in a place like that. The articles were nearly identical to Misty’s story. Maxell went missing during a hike after venturing off from his group and besides finding his backpack, they’d never found any other signs of him. It was like he vanished.
Or that was the way he wanted it to look.
But why?
He had a life. The fourth article I found was a testament to that. And when I scrolled down, skimming the lines of the high school paper about one of the Port Inlet Wild Wolves football games, there he was. His picture took up the entire screen. His smile took up the rest. He was the boy who chased me, the boy who sat within the trees and talked to me. There was no mistaking him.
But there were subtle differences about his face now. Gone was the sun-kissed flush in his cheeks. In their place were shadows and hollows. His stylish yet tousled onyx hair was the same, but his eyes weren’t. I hadn’t technically seen them up close—and something told me I wouldn’t want to get that close—but I’d seen enough to know they were no longer minty or chocolatey. They were dark. The boy I looked at now, with his sweaty handsome face was the same boy I ran from.
Except that boy was alive. He had goals, friends, and a life.
The boy from last night wouldn’t even tell me his name, and he couldn’t see his future any more than I could see my own.
“What happened to you?” I whispered, reaching out to touch his face.
I skimmed my fingers over the computer monitor.
I wasn’t used to boys who looked like him. Boys who made it hard to breathe for weird reasons. Boys who made my heart beat for even weirder ones. Maybe it was sadness and regret I felt. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever seen a boy that beautiful in my entire life. He seemed unnatural.
I closed the article and then logged out, even more unsettled.
I didn’t mention my night to Misty. Doing so felt irresponsible. This wasn’t just my secret anymore, if that’s even what it was. Plus, she hadn’t seemed to believe me yesterday anyway. I welcomed her normalness. It helped me ease back into my day. I didn’t think about Maxell until I was home alone after school and the sun began to set.
I didn’t want to admit I was waiting for him, but when eleven o’ clock rolled around, and it was almost impossible to keep my eyes open, I had to admit he wasn’t coming tonight. And I also had to admit that the strange disappointment I felt left me off-balance again.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of loud meowing. Martian was on the end of my bed, expression clear. “I need to pee, woman.”
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, throwing my covers back. My alarm clock said it was only four in the morning. Groaning, I stumbled downstairs with the cat on my heels.
I opened the front door and leaned against the wall, wrapping my arms around myself. It was so cold, my teeth chattered together, and my breath blew out before me. “What’s taking so long?” I hollered. “Go and move.”
Martian had bounded into the trees and hadn’t made a move to return. Figuring I’d let him in when I left for school, I went back upstairs and fell back asleep. When my alarm clock went off two hours later, and I was ready to leave for school, the jerk still hadn’t come back home.
Huffing in irritation, I stomped off into the forest to find him. The moment I stepped beneath the canopy of trees, it began to rain. Soft, insistent drops pelted my jacket and face. “Great.” I pulled my hood over my head. “Here, boy! Here, kitty kitty.” Faintly, so faintly in fact that if I lived anywhere else—and not the quiet city of Port Inlet—I wouldn’t have heard it at all, his weak meow replied.
“Martian?” I tripped and stumbled my way through the thick twisting maze of trees. There was no rhyme or reason, some steps were easy to take, and others required me to completely circle around the enormous trunks. “You out there, boy?”
The sound of leaves rustling caught my attention. I spun to the right, finding a crumbled orange ball of fur tangled in the dense foliage.
I knelt down beside him, my heart lurching. “What happened, boy?” I didn’t know where to touch. He looked so fragile and broken, but I didn’t see any blood. His wide green eyes peered up at me helplessly.
“Man, you’re easy.”
“The human heart is so predictable.”
I gasped, whirling around to find two humongous men standing behind me. Something about them was familiar, but mostly they scared the hell out of me. I fell back on my butt and scrambled away from them. “Who are you?”
They studied me, the man on my right’s expression was animated. The one on my left was bored. He crossed his arms over his chest, beautiful features apathetic and cold. His hair was the color of light caramel, styled so perfectly I wondered how he got it that way. The man on my right had bright red hair shoulder length with a low square jaw. Both of their eyes were startling, liquid purple.
They towered over me.
“Listen, human girl. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. I have things to do, so I suggest you pick the easy way,” the indifferent one said.
My lips wouldn’t move. I didn’t know what I was looking at, what was happening, and thus, I had no idea what to say.
The red head bared his teeth at me, slowly flicking his tongue over the entire row of his top teeth. As he did so, his canines slid down, immediately threatening my grasp on reality.
“I see what the tadpole means,” the red head sneered, his voice taking on a guttural edge. “She… smells… delicious.”
“Sun,” the other said, voice gruffer than the red head.
“Honeysuckles?”
“Nah, more like lilies.”
“Caramel.”
“Vanilla.”
“Coconut.”
“Fresh cut grass.”
The red head’s eyes glowed, the color black now rimming his abnormal indigo eyes. “Summer.”
“She smells like summer,” his friend agreed, his own eyes bleedin
g black into purple. He tried to hide his extending canines, but they pushed through.
Fear, thick and damaging, shot through me so quickly, I felt parts of me break. It was the strangest feeling, fear that deep, that intense—it was changing. I scrambled to my feet, taking off into the forest. I had one thought. Run.
Two flashes shot forward on my left and right. I took one second between dodging branches and trees before I looked forward again, running into a chest so hard, I heard my arm break when I used it to break my fall before I even felt the pain.
“Hard way it is.”
Pain ricocheted through my skull, and my vision and mind collapsed in on itself.
Pain greeted me.
Shards of it stabbed through my entire body.
I was aware of nothing but how badly I hurt. My skull pounded. Throbbing emanated from my arm. My eyes struggled to open, but when they did, I wasn’t comforted by having my sight back.
I was in a room. A nice room. Books took up every inch of available wall space, stacked neatly on rows and rows of shelves. There was a large wooden desk in the center, fit with an expensive looking computer. The wall opposite me was made entirely of glass. Wherever I was, I wasn’t on the ground floor. It looked like I was hovering in the trees. I glanced around. I was lying on a couch, a plush piece of furniture robed in purple velvet and gold ornate trimming. It looked like something straight out of the Victorian era.
I tried to sit up but the burning in my arm sent white hot pain through me and my head ached so badly I retched over the side of the sofa.
The sound of shouting penetrated my fog. It sounded like it was right outside the large double doors built between the bookshelves. Under different circumstances, I might’ve loved the room. As it was, I found it hard to keep my tears inside.
“What were you thinking?” someone growled. “Bringing her here like a couple of uncivilized thugs? You’ve hurt her and you made her aware. You risked everything we’ve worked so hard to have.”
The responder didn’t yell. I couldn’t hear what they said, but the first man laughed caustically.
“That wasn’t your choice to make. When you agreed to be a part of my family, you agreed to live by way of the majority. Drawing attention to us this way isn’t being part of the team. If you can’t play by the rules, you’re more than welcome to leave, Kline.”
Whatever Kline said made the man sigh, long and hard.
“If that’s what you want, I can’t stop you. I wish you well, brother. I always have.”
Kline said one thing. “What about the girl?”
The man’s voice changed. It became authoritative. “I will handle the girl. She isn’t your concern.”
“As long as you keep taking in every riffraff you find, it is my concern. You broke the rules, Masters. You know what happens when you betray them. You ruined this. Not me. I’m just trying to clean up your mess.”
“Let me worry about the rules and its authors.”
“You risk everything for your morals, Masters. You always have. Being so lenient will get you killed, and everyone who chooses to follow you.” A heavy thud sounded and then the conversation ceased.
I braced myself when the doorknob turned and in walked a man who both took my breath away and turned it into terror. I whimpered, trying to sit up again, but the pain was doubly worse, and I fell back down, retching once more.
The man didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t squirm or make a face. He sat at the chair at the desk and used his feet to pull himself closer to me. He sat in front of me with what I could only call a forced docile expression. There was nothing passive about him. He was tall, pale as snow, and unnervingly attractive, with dark blond hair slicked back with tapered sides like in The Great Gatsby. His eyes were intensely purple, veering on the edge of cobalt blue. He wore a fitted tan suit, and he even had a brown bowtie.
We shared eye contact, but the terror I felt in his presence was too much for me. I wanted to run. Everything told me to run. But his physical beauty belied my instincts. He didn’t look dangerous. In fact, his looks reminded me of a moth to a flame. I wanted to fly right into the fire—that was possibly the most terrifying sensation I’d ever felt. Losing complete control over my instincts and desires.
“Everything will be okay one day, Emmie.”
I cradled my arm to my chest, feeling trapped; I wanted to bolt, barely hearing him.
“My name is Masters. I know you’re afraid. I know your instincts are shooting commands at you to flee. I know your humanity is in crisis. But you are safe with me. I apologize for how harshly my friends have treated you. Please let that not be a reflection of how you think I will treat you. If you’ll—”
“Where is she?” came a guttural, frightening shout from somewhere beyond the room I was in.
Masters stopped mid-speech and hung his head. “Oh, dear. Here we go.”
A familiar body barged into the room, furious and equally as frightening as the man sitting across from me. Mainly because I’d never seen him so bared. The few times I had, he wore all black, covered his face, hid himself. Today, he wore a gray t-shirt paired with black jeans. His onyx hair appeared damp and his skin was as snowy as the man in front of me. He was a barefoot intimidating wall of muscle and brawn.
Masters stood unflinchingly fast. He held his hand up in a placating gesture. “Maxell, I am handling this.”
His eyes cut to mine. His were black. Just black. No pupil. No iris. Two black orbs seared into his skull. But it was him. The man had said his name, and now Maxell knew I knew his name, he knew I knew it was him.
“Now I am.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
Masters moved to where he stood. “You’re not strong enough. You shouldn’t even be in here. She’s bleeding. Her vomit helps cover the scent, but it won’t for long. Go. I will take care of her,” he promised, peering into Maxell’s eyes. “Go feed. Your eyes are starting to freak Reowna out.”
Maxell’s eyes again found mine. In them, I was lost. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I knew what I was thinking.
“Don’t leave me here,” I begged him. He was the only familiar face. He hadn’t hurt me. That’s what counted. “My arm,” I sobbed, unable to keep myself from falling over in my effort to sit up. The fall met my arm the hardest and I screeched out in pain.
“Help her,” Maxell ordered, and then he left the room, slamming the door after him.
Anger only made my pain worse.
“Stay still, please.” Masters kneeled down beside me. “Please,” he stated forcefully. “The more you fight, the worse the break gets.” He gently rolled me onto my back and met my eyes. “You have two options, whichever you choose we must do so quickly. Option one, you allow me to take you to the hospital, where they may or may not be able to set your arm with or without surgery, and six-to-twelve weeks spent in a cast, followed by rehab, and a mountain of inconvenience. Option two, you ingest my blood and heal yourself in minutes. Quickly,” he tacked on. “The longer you wait, the more damage will be done.”
I was in so much pain, his odd conversation made perfect sense. “Blood.”
He nodded seriously and began rolling up the sleeve on his left arm. He met my eyes for only a second before his canines descended and he punctured the vein on his left wrist. “Drink until I tell you to stop. Do you understand? If you drink more than you need, you may set forth a series of events you do not deserve.”
I was positive I was dreaming. I was having one of the worst, weirdest nightmares of my life. Any second, I’d wake up in my bed and have a moment of relief that it wasn’t real, and then I’d go to school and tell Misty and she’d laugh at me and that would be that.
But I didn’t wake up. Masters lifted my head to his wrist, where blood trickled out. It was oddly colored—all the other oddness aside. It was red, but it was so dark it appeared black, with specks of light or something equally as bright within the viscous liquid. I had a brief curious thought before he pressed his wrist to my
lips. Where was his pulse?
“Drink.”
Going with the flow of my nightmare, I did what he said. I expected his blood to taste like copper or hot metal, or maybe even undercooked hamburger meat. Instead, it didn’t have a taste. It wasn’t warm but shockingly cold. Maybe that’s why it was so thick.
At first, the pain intensified. I reared back as excruciating pain radiated from my arm. It felt like my bones were breaking. It took me a moment to realize that the person I heard shrieking was me.
“Your bone is resetting. Continue to drink.” He pressed his wrist to my mouth once more. “The pain will ebb. I promise.”
Pain. Ebb. I drank, sucking hectically on his wrist, swallowing as many mouthfuls as I could until he pulled back abruptly and shook his head at me. “No more.”
I barely had a chance to watch the two puncture wounds on his wrist magically close before the pain in my arm reached a crescendo and then quickly abated.
I lay sweating and panting on the floor, reveling in the lack of pain. I moved my arm. There was a faint mark left, but while I watched, that too healed. My head felt fine. I no longer felt nauseated. I felt… great.
I sat up.
“Careful,” he warned.
But it was too late. I stood too quickly, and just as quickly, I fell back down.
I awoke to a much different scene.
For one, I didn’t hurt. Anywhere.
For another, I wasn’t surrounded by books. Quite the opposite.
I was lying on my back on a sofa. It was modern, smooth and beige. There was an enormous flat screen above the fireplace and the window-walls continued in this room as well. The coffee table was made entirely of glass and had nothing on it but a glass of water.
Strangely, I found myself so incredibly thirsty that when I swallowed, my throat felt like it cracked. I grabbed for the water, chugging it to the bottom.
“It’s the blood. Mimics a hangover in many ways. Dehydration. Lethargy. Slowed motor skills. Minus the headache and vomiting. No one really knows why. You should feel better by tomorrow.”
Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1) Page 6
