At the slight shake in her voice and the smile he was beginning to doubt, he stepped a little closer. “Is this part of why you were sent to that dingy old shack? Because of what he saw?”
Merrin shook her head, tossing her hair about. “No.”
He sighed, sending a puff of air towards her. “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”
Her brow furrowed, and she feigned another smile. “Why don’t we go look for something to hunt? We’ll need a warm meal tonight.”
Tarquin straightened. A surge of excitement filled him at the idea of doing something useful, something he was certain he was still skilled at.
Unless my eyes fail me again.
He quashed the knot of doubt growing inside and located the bow he’d not had cause to use in days.
He grinned as he checked if he had enough arrows left. Merrin snorted a laugh. “I haven’t seen that look on your face for a few days. You’re happy to hunt then?”
Tarquin nodded. He was happy. Strangely. It felt good to be doing something even remotely normal. Even if he was in the middle of a mountain range with a strange little man who was eying him warily and a perplexing girl he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss or yell at.
Hunting was what he did best. His grin faltered as he grasped exactly what that had meant in his old life.
Tartarean had me hunting people.
Hunting Luminary he’d been lied to about, being told they were criminals responsible for deeds he’d never fully understood.
Lies. All of it.
Lies used to explain away that which Tarquin was still grappling to understand. That beings of light lived among them. That light and dark were entities warring with each other. It was too fantastical to be true.
But as he followed Merrin past the small campfire, he found he could see just as easily as during the day. Tarquin knew he’d only just seen the tip of what lay outside his imaginings.
No wonder Tartarean sought to bind and control those like him. What could he accomplish with that kind of power at his control?
The answer was both shocking and enthralling. Nothing was outside of his grasp.
His breath was ragged as he leapt up the hill, landing on his feet above a startled Merrin. Her own eyes shone in the dark. “You’re finding some skills.”
He chuckled, a bubble of excitement building as he gazed around the snow-tipped rocks. With little vegetation growing, it would be hard to find anything out in the cold evening. Only predators would be lurking.
His lip curled. Maybe he should see what else he was capable of? He’d fought Skylar off until Merrin had intervened; maybe he was strong enough to take on an animal?
He turned, ready with the question, and found her gazing at him. She sucked in a breath and adjusted her footing, her eyes darting to the left. “Sorry. It’s the first time I’ve seen you look so…ah, Luminary.”
His heart slammed about in his chest at what he guessed that meant. “Maybe you were wrong about the dark? Maybe I can fight it?”
Her eyes snapped back to him. Her shoulders lifted. “Maybe. We’ll find out tomorrow. Let’s find something to hunt, shall we?”
Tarquin’s grin grew as she dropped to the ground and examined a set of paw prints. He joined her, and he ran a gloved hand over the ground. “Mountain cat. Big one too.”
Merrin pushed her hair behind her ear and leaned a little closer studying the ground.
Knowing he shouldn’t but too intrigued not to, he leaned a little closer to examine a mark on her neck.
His heart clenched as he saw it wasn’t a mark. A tattoo.
He reeled back a little as a memory dragged its way out. Pain shot through his head, and he grabbed his skull, trying to still the flood of memories crashing over him.
Merrin’s hands were on his in an instant, her voice soothing. “What did you remember?”
Tarquin’s voice was ragged as the memory surfaced like a razor-sharp barb yanked through his brain. “There was a ceremony. Some sort of ritual.”
Bitterness rose in his chest, his eyes locked onto the person who understood the depth of pain he felt when recalling. His hands began to tremble as he fought the tears flooding his eyes. “What did I do?”
Merrin’s eyes widened as she grasped his hands tighter. “You did what he made you. You promised to serve him. You promised never to disobey. And you promised you’d die before breaking that promise.”
Cold ran the length of his body, travelling so quickly, spreading like icy fire that caused a convulsion to rip through him tearing him away from the warmth in Merrin’s hands.
Pain mingled with the cold; a terrible knowledge surrounded him, blanketing him, clothing him in darkness until whatever light he’d found was snuffed out by the enormity of what he had failed to remember until now.
His voice was a croak as he forced the words past his frozen lips. “I can never be free then.”
Merrin’s light blazed to life, the last thing he saw before the darkness overtook him completely.
***
Merrin’s heart crushed inside her chest as she watched the dark overtake him. Her throat closed over, stealing her prayers as she fought tears.
His body was convulsing, lost in the throes of whatever memory held him so tightly. His eyes squeezed shut, no sign that the light, just a moment ago he’d seemed convinced he’d found, was inside him.
Her hands shook as she pressed down hard, simultaneously praying and rubbing his skin in the vain hopes she could warm away the frigid dark at work inside him. She shuddered with the cold, the shock and the horrifying thought she would lose him here on the mountainside only a few hours walk from an Old One capable of returning his memories.
Her voice was just above a whisper. “Please. Fight it, Tarquin. Just a little longer.”
The wind whispered around her, calling to her words she didn’t want to hear, words she’d feared hearing again.
You can’t save him.
Her eyes burned, light dimming as her fingers numbed from contact with Tarquin. The sob escaped. No. Please no.
He couldn’t be losing the battle. There must be some way to help him fight? Another shudder crept through her body as the chill crept through her, stealing a fraction of her light. A tug at her spine, then a trickle of knowledge emerged, that she was losing the battle to stay warm.
She was too weak. Not strong enough to fight the darkness that pulled Tarquin back, back to the caves where he’d been a prisoner. Her resolve wavered as she clenched her jaw and petitioned for Onom to shine more, give more than she was.
He was her charge. Her responsibility.
Merrin’s tears dripped on his chest as she sobbed quietly, alone in the moonless night, knee deep in the snow, with a boy caught in a struggle she wasn’t strong enough to win on her own.
I’ll never be enough.
Not for Tarquin. Not for the calling. Not enough to be worthy of Luminary.
“Get up, girl.”
Merrin’s eyes popped open a second before she sprang to her feet. A shady figure appeared in her sights, brilliant shards of light streaming from his lined face.
“Zolten?”
He huffed a breath and stepped close enough for her to see the wizened face that haunted her dreams.
“Of course, it’s me you, silly girl. The wind started bothering me half an hour ago.”
Merrin swallowed the last of her tears and forced her voice to stay steady. “I was on my way to find you.”
He scoffed and sent a pointed look at Tarquin, writhing on the ground, still locked in a sleeping torment. He turned on his heel, his staff in his hand before he thought to speak again. “Well, hurry up, girl. We need to move him.”
Without another word, Zolten descended the hill, leaving her to stare at his back and wonder if the Sherpa had seen him arrive.
Merrin stared at Tarquin for a moment before dropping to her knees again and slowly dragged Tarquin to sitting; then, with strength not her own, she carefully hefte
d Tarquin over her shoulder.
By the time she’d found their camp, Zolten was waiting by the fire with no sign of the Sherpa. “You’ve gotten stronger.”
Merrin gulped, firelight flickering on Zolten’s angular face and furrowed brow. “I have.”
He nodded, his eyes blazing heat so white she squinted. “The Sherpa ran off, took his mule and left. Superstitious little git.”
Merrin adjusted Tarquin, still a dead weight over her shoulder and reined in her temper that their guide back had fled. “You frightened him.”
His eyes narrowed. “I did nothing of the sort.”
Merrin held back the retort burning at her.
As though he could read her thoughts, his eyes narrowed. “Get him in the tent then, girl.”
Merrin bristled, no longer concerned about what he might say if she provoked him. “My name is Merrin.”
The faintest flicker sparked in his eyes then, warning her not to push too hard. His temper, it seemed, had not dimmed in the years since she’d last seen him. Rather than face his wrath or the barrage of reminders at who she really was, Merrin dragged Tarquin back to the tent.
Where, like the coward she was, she could hide from the truth burning in the old man’s eyes.
***
The wind roared around him. Ice trickled over his body, merging with the black that coated his thoughts and seared into his skin like needles, burning but cold all at once.
Tarquin groped in the dark, searching for anything, for something to catch a hold of. Light. He needed light. The warmth would come and drive away the coldness causing his mind to ache, twist and pinch inside his skull.
If he could have moved, Tarquin would have gladly thumped his head against the ground if only to put a stop to the pain grinding through him.
A pinprick of light shattered the dark. And a spark of hope lit inside him all was not lost.
He was not lost. To the dark. To the cold. To Tartarean to whom he was forever in bondage to.
A faint sound. A voice. Soothing. Calling. Enticing.
But more than that. She called him. Merrin. Warmth, light…
Love called him.
From within his tormented body, frozen by fear, by pain, by darkness he couldn’t understand, he felt the presence of something urging him to fight.
A growing urgency bubbled up inside his fevered mind. It penetrated the dark, the gloom and the cold filling him.
His body screamed at him to move. To go to the warmth. But the more he struggled, the more his body rebelled, holding him locked in place, chilled to the core, more from the cold fear that he would never again see the light in Merrin’s eyes.
He would die here. In the cold, in the dark, in agony that tore him in two.
But worse, Merrin would likely suffer for his death. The council would send her further into harm’s way. Perhaps she’d even end up like him. Caught again in Tartarean’s web of lies.
Desperation built inside at the thoughts battering him. They couldn’t do that to her.
I won’t let them.
With a roar, Tarquin grasped the last threat of light as it slowly disappeared and clung to the hope he could see the light and feel the warmth of Merrin’s touch again.
If only to keep her safe. A flickering memory floated past him. A couple, standing in a meadow. Wildflowers swaying in the breeze as he watched them, curious to why they stood so close. And spoke soft words. Vows. As a young boy, he’d not understood.
But now, as a man without the light, without the warmth he’d found surrounding him...he understood what he was missing.
Before the thought was fully formed, light sparked around him, soothing him, warming his very bones, sending heat and awareness that he wasn’t alone, that he never needed to be alone ever again.
Then, as if hands pulled him from the depths of the darkness, Tarquin broke free from the inky black.
He opened his grainy eyes, mind still thick with the choking fear that had encompassed him to find Merrin staring at him. Her eyes were wide with fright. Terror and fear creased her lovely face as a tear dripped onto his chest.
Without thought he pulled her to him and kissed her hungrily, his need to connect with her overtaking any senses he might still have left.
With every response of her body, his need grew until his mind was too fogged to think of anything but her.
She was everything. She was warmth, light, truth, and he wanted to consume her, to take every part of her until she was as much a part of him as he needed her to be.
No matter what anyone said or did, Merrin belonged with him.
That was all the truth he needed.
Chapter 9.
At the moan that escaped his lips, Merrin’s skin rose in response. Her own body sought his, lost in frenzied need that stole all rational thought from her until she struggled to draw enough breath.
Her veins fired, her skin tingling as she gave in to the desire pulsing through her body. Her heart thrashed in her chest; nothing mattered in that moment but giving in to his need, his desire. My own.
A sharp pain stabbed at her, distracted her for a fraction of a second as she fumbled with his clothing, desperation increasing as she lost contact with him.
“Let go of her, Tarquin.”
Heat washed away as light blazed between she and the man she needed. A muffled curse slipped past her lips at the distance created between them.
Tarquin’s flushed face, then his angry voice, broke the spell she’d been under. “Who are you?”
Zolten’s scowl was fierce enough to bring her back to herself. Realisation dawned like a terrible bolt of lightning.
In a flash of movement, Zolten grabbed Tarquin by the scruff of his unbuttoned shirt and yanked him to his feet. “I should break your neck, Templeton! For what you nearly made that girl do.”
Merrin sucked in a breath, humiliation curling around her body before her fevered mind stumbled over the name. “Who?”
Tarquin’s eyes sought hers, and for a moment she thought she saw remorse, before he grasped Zolten’s hands and shoved him hard. “What did you call me?”
Zolten staggered slightly, a flicker of fear showing before he scowled again. “I called you by your true name. The name of your kin. The Templeton clan. Worthless half-lights. Fence sitters. Not strong enough to decide. Neither Luminary nor Tartarean. You’re already reverting to what you know best. Manipulation and deceit. Anything to escape.”
Tarquin’s face contorted into anger then confusion. His eyes dropped as he shifted to look at her. “Merrin. I didn’t try to make you. I swear.”
She willed the tears away, furious she’d fallen for him again. Furious she’d nearly been so consumed by pleasing him that she’d have given herself to his desires. Her heart constricted at the pained expression he sent her way. Judging by the pain in her chest, Merrin knew her denial was little more than a lie.
She’d wanted to. Onom help her. She wanted him too. Whatever he was, whatever had just happened, it wasn’t his fault alone.
Was she that weak? So easily influenced she’d nearly made a terrible mistake?
Zolten’s accusing gaze found hers, and she knew what he was going to say before he said it. The words like familiar barbs pierced into her very core. And now Tarquin would hear them too.
Before she could plead with him not to, Zolten’s eyes blazed as he spoke. “Reckless. Disobedient. You are too inexperienced to deal with a half-light. His strength is already greater than yours, and he is manipulating your feelings to get what he wants.”
A choked sob slipped from her mouth still burning from Tarquin’s frantic kisses. Her cheeks burned with humiliation that caused her eyes to sting.
Zolten’s eyes blazed brighter as he pointed a finger at her, condemning her further in front of the one person she’d hope to hide the truth from. “You should never have been illuminated. You would have been better off not knowing what you have failed to be. You were a mistake.”
Merrin’s tear
s flowed unbidden as the words sunk in again, washing over her like a tidal wave of all too familiar loathing.
She didn’t bother to hide her sobs as she dropped to the tent floor, barely recognising the wind as it whispered around her, seeking to bring comfort where none could be found.
A chill crept over her body, and she hugged her knees tighter, curling into herself as she tried to smother the pain crawling over her.
Why did it still hurt so much? To be reminded of her failings, her lack, the disappointment of the council…it should have grown easier to bear.
Yet, here she was, three years after her charge slipped back to the dark, back to the Tartarean—despite Skylar telling her it wasn’t her fault, that he was as much to blame for not watching the boy— and still she woke every morning with a crushing weight on her shoulders.
It tempered everything she did. It gave her the drive to never allow such a failure to happen again. But it was happening again. And this time there was no one else to shoulder the blame as Skylar had done.
I’m not strong enough. I’m going to lose him to the dark too.
Her head still buried in her hands so she didn’t have to bear Tarquin’s disappointment in his misplaced trust, she almost missed the sound of feet shifting inside the tent. She peeped through her fingers, terrified to face Tarquin after what she’d nearly done, after what he’d heard.
The air rushed from her lungs at the fury on Tarquin’s face: his eyes blazed white-hot fury in Zolten’s direction. His chest heaved as his eyes burned into the old hermit. “I don’t know who you are, but you better shut your mouth, or I’ll shut it for you. No one talks to her like that. Got it?”
Surprisingly Zolten’s own light seemed to dim a shade. “Be careful, boy. You have powers inside you that you don’t yet understand.”
Tarquin sneered at him, his voice shaking with anger as he rounded on him. “Get out. I won’t let you bully her anymore.”
Zolten’s eyes narrowed, then he shot her a puzzled glance before a knot formed on his weathered face. “Where is Skylar? Why are you here alone? You are too young to be left on your own with a half-light.”
Illuminate: Upper YA Paranormal Romance Page 9
