B00AO57VOY EBOK Read online

Asshole.

  He is so lucky I don’t have a wand, I thought with another groan when he was just a step or two away. If I was Harry Potter, he would so be a toad right now.

  “Why do you keep fighting me, Ember? You can’t win,” Bastian said, his every word oozing satisfaction.

  Maybe not, but I sure as hell wasn’t going down without giving it my best shot.

  His hand shot out, wrapping around my ankle, and I reacted without thinking about it. Using the leg he didn’t have a tentacle wrapped around, I kicked him in the face with all I had. I heard the bone break when it made contact with his nose, and blood went flying from both his nose and mouth. Even then he didn’t let me go. Instead, he used his grasp on my ankle to pull me off the desk and sling me to the floor hard enough to crack whatever bones he hadn’t crushed by flinging me across the hallway.

  Bastian, never one to miss an opportunity when a girl was on her back, didn’t waste any time. Before I could force my screaming body to move, he was on top of me and had me pinned down.

  “Very good, Ember,” he purred, turning his head to spit out what looked like more than one tooth and a mouthful of blood. “You’ve got spirit, I’ll give you that, but you were a fool to think you ever had a chance against me. You’re nothing but a pathetic little girl who sees ghosts.”

  “Yeah? Well I’m not.”

  Bastian suddenly flew off me backward when a blurred shape that looked and sounded a whole lot like my boyfriend slammed into him. Their momentum was enough to send them sliding down the hall and straight into a wall. I flinched at the sickening sound of bones breaking then tried to scramble to my feet.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t in such good shape myself. I made it to a sitting position when the room started spinning like a top, and I fell back with a groan. I nearly died of a heart attack when a delicate, feminine-looking hand appeared in front of me—and then forgot to take it when I looked up to find Kim gazing down at me.

  “Kim?” I wheezed out, so relieved that my muscles went even weaker than they already were. That demonic piece of crap had lied to me! He didn’t have Kim in some dark dungeon somewhere torturing her for kicks. She was standing right there in front of me, healthy and all in one piece.

  At least, I think she was…

  There was something different about her. It was like I was looking at someone else, someone dangerous. She looked like my Kim, but there was a look of cold calculation in her dark eyes that my Kim couldn’t have pulled off in a million years.

  “It’s okay, Em,” she said, even her voice sounding off. “Let me help you.”

  Dazed, I let her take my hand and help me to my feet. I staggered and a pair of strong arms were suddenly around me. I looked over my shoulder to see Blake giving me a sympathetic look. Like Kim, he didn’t look right. He had the same dangerous air about him, the same coldness.

  What the hell had happened to my friends?

  Before I could even pull it together enough to start demanding answers, I was suddenly swept up into Blake’s arms and he was moving fast toward the other end of the hall. When we reached the door leading to the main hall, Blake placed me back on my feet and then moved to stand in front of me with Kim next to him.

  “What’s the matter, Bastian?” Nathan crooned, drawing my attention back to the epic brawl going on in front of me. “Afraid of taking on someone your own size?”

  I had never seen him look so…so much like a vampire! His lips were drawn back to reveal his fangs. His body was coiled and ready to launch at his opponent and his beautiful hazel eyes were so white that not even a hint of his pupil showed black. He was covered in dust and he looked kind of windblown, but he was perfectly fine.

  Bastian, on the other hand, didn’t look so good. His arm was hanging at a strange angle and…there seemed to be a bone protruding out of his neck! As we watched, he grasped his arm and jerked it around so that it was hanging at the right angle without even flinching. When he reached up to do the same thing to his neck, I thought I was going to throw up.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Bastian sneered, rolling his recently repaired neck like he was working out a tense muscle.

  He had dropped the façade. The baby blue that had had every girl, except me, at Oakhurst hyperventilating when he looked their way was gone. His eyes were pitch black, so devoid of any kind of color or light that they looked like a matching pair of black holes.

  I shivered when his gaze found me again and pinned me to the spot and I immediately started choking. Bastian’s smoke and fire effect had been bad before, but it had never been as intensely real as it was at that moment. And when I say ‘real’ I mean real. I’d had visions before, but not like that. Even when Bastian had somehow managed to set me on fire in some kind of waking nightmare, burning my leg to the point where it looked like overcooked roast beef, it hadn’t been as it bad as it was then.

  I was burning at the stake again, but this time the pain was everywhere. I could feel my skin melting in the intense heat of the flames and started to scream as it grew more intense as the seconds passed. A wild burst of hope cut through my pain and my panic when I felt someone grab my shoulders, praying they were going to pull me out of the flames.

  “It’s not real,” Kim said softly, trying to reach me through my pain and my fear. “Listen to my voice, Em. It’s not real. There’s no fire. It’s just his way of messing with you, of getting under your skin. Just think about something else.”

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t think about anything else, and the searing pain of the flames and the choking stench of the smoke were only getting worse. I was going to die. I was going to burn up, leaving nothing behind but the embers I’d been named after.

  Just when I thought I couldn’t take another second without losing my mind completely, the mark on my neck started to pulse like a second heartbeat and something wonderful happened. I felt something in that moment that I couldn’t have described in a million years. It was like I had been wrapped in silk, the coolness of it taking away the pain of the flames. The smoke cleared from my lungs and I was left with a quiet, tranquil feeling. No, that’s not even right. Not tranquil…euphoric, blissful, elated.

  “Leave her alone,” Nathan growled, his voice coming from just over my shoulder.

  I looked up to find him standing behind me, his arms wrapped around me tightly. A slight shudder rippled through him as I took my first real breath since Bastian had sent me into panic mode. He never took his eyes off Bastian, but he gave me a gentle squeeze in understanding when I started to cry out of sheer relief.

  “She will be mine,” Bastian snarled. “The sooner she accepts that, the better.”

  In his dreams, I thought, just managing to choke back a snort of disgust.

  The anger his bogus claim inspired helped to dispel the last of the fuzziness in my mind and I glared at him. He had eyes only for Nathan, though. They were having the stare-down to end all stare-downs.

  “Kim, get Ember out of here,” Nathan said, his beautiful voice so full of anger that my head snapped back around to look at him. He met my gaze squarely, the determined gleam in his eyes caused my heart to stop and my breath to stick in my chest. “Don’t let her out of your sight. And if this goes badly…”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, but I saw Kim nod out of the corner of my eye nonetheless. Kissing the side of my neck, Nathan whispered in my ear.

  “I love you, Em. I have always loved you and I always will. Remember that.”

  With that, he was gone. I turned back around to find him standing a few feet from Bastian, his broad shoulders tense and his head held high. It was only then that I understood his instructions. He was telling Kim to take care of me because he wasn’t sure he would be walking away.

  He had just kissed me goodbye.

  “No!” I screamed, a wave of agony making me feel like I was shattering into a million pieces.

  Kim tried to catch me as I darted around her, but she missed. Blake made a grab for me, too, but I quickl
y side-stepped him and kept going. Nathan turned around to look at me just as Bastian grinned and disappeared. The next thing I knew, a meaty arm was wrapped around my neck and I was being dragged backwards, away from Nathan who let out a roar of fury that almost literally caused the walls around us to crumble.

  A hiss of pure rage filled the air around us and I looked at Kim to see that her body was crackling with blue-white electricity, the same beautiful light that had been dancing across my own hands just moments before. As I watched, it snaked up her arms and only seemed to intensify. Within seconds, it was too bright to look at, forcing me to close my eyes.

  “You have two seconds to take your hands off her,” Kim said, her voice so cold even I shivered. She stepped forward and my eyes popped open in panic.

  “Save your threats. You won’t attack.” Bastian’s voice positively oozed with confidence, proving he was stupid. Kim didn’t make threats. She made promises. “You won’t chance hitting your charge, Robbins. Don’t even try to play that game with me.”

  Her charge? Oh, God! The guard detail! And, if Kim was one of my guards that meant she was a witch, too. And here I had been, sweating bullets, trying to figure out how to tell her I was a witch.

  Right after she killed Bastian, I was going to kill her!

  Kim didn’t warn him again. With an almost graceful wave of her hand, the light radiating up and down her arms flew across the hall and hit Bastian’s other arm, the one he wasn’t using to strangle me to death, and he howled in pain. The arm around my neck loosened but it still wasn’t enough to get loose.

  Knowing it was going to be the only chance I got, I slammed my elbow back into his stomach and stomped down as hard as I could on his instep. He grunted in pain and the arm around my neck slipped just enough for me to wiggle free. It was the opportunity the others had been waiting for.

  Nathan was closest and he darted forward to grab me around the waist even as Bastian made another swipe at me. With inhuman strength, he tossed me into Blake’s waiting arms in a move so well-choreographed it was as if they had done it a hundred times before.

  Blake dropped me next to Kim, who moved to stand in front of me again, and then both Nathan and Blake launched themselves at Bastian. It was all happening too fast for me to follow, but I heard an inhuman cry of pain that literally felt like a spike had been driven through my head, and then Bastian disappeared again in another cloud of foul black smoke.

  For a second, nobody moved. Then, everyone seemed to be moving at once. Nathan and Blake both headed straight for me, but Kim was still standing in front of me and something about her stopped them in their tracks. They stood there, looking unsure, until Kim took a deep breath and turned to face me, killing the electricity flowing over her skin as she did.

  “I think I should explain,” she said, softly, her dark eyes filling with tears.

  “You think?” I screeched, planting my hands on my hips and glaring at her. “What the hell was that, Kim?”

  “Magic.” She shrugged, going for a grin. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  I continued to scowl at her, too mad now to even respond.

  “Oh, come on,” she said moodily, matching my pose. Given the difference in our height, it was much more impressive when she did it. “It’s not like you haven’t been keeping your own secrets all these years. The secrets you’ve kept in the last month alone are enough to make me want to smack you. Don’t be such a hypocrite. I just saved your life, Ember Leigh Blaylock, so you can stop glaring at me.”

  “How did you even know where I was?” I demanded.

  “You stood me up,” she said, shrugging. “You had to know I would hunt your ass down for that.”

  My anger began to fade a little as I realized she was right. She had just saved my life. I certainly hadn’t been able to do it. What was the point of having powers if they only worked when I didn’t want them to? Or maybe it was me. Maybe I just wasn’t strong enough. Kim, on the other hand…

  “You’re…you’re a…” I stammered, still trying to make myself believe it.

  “Bandraoi? Yes.” She stopped glaring at me and I saw the fear she had been hiding fill her eyes. “And so is Blake.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Kim?” I asked, trying not to cry.

  “Because we couldn’t,” she muttered, miserably. “We were under direct orders from the Council of Elders not to reveal ourselves to you until they removed your bind. Very bad things happen to people who defy the Council’s orders, Em. Then when I was finally allowed to tell you, I just couldn’t figure out how to do it. I wanted to tell you so many times, but I couldn’t.”

  Forgetting that I was mad enough to kill her for keeping such a huge secret—never mind that I had been doing the same thing—I ran to her and hugged her. She hugged me back and started to cry. Of course, that set me off, too. So there we were, crying and hugging like crazy people when a deep, amused, voice interrupted us.

  “Quite the pair, aren’t they, Nate?”

  I pulled away from my best friend, laughing and wiping the tears from my cheeks, and turned to face Blake where he stood a few feet away with Nathan. The laughter died in my throat, though, when I saw the murderous expression on Nathan’s face.

  Uh-oh.

  “Kim, get Shea on the phone and tell her she’s going to finish removing that damned bind tonight,” Nathan snarled, his eyes never leaving mine. “Blake, get Ember a jacket before she freezes to death. And you…”

  “What?” I asked sharply, irritated by his snarling tone and the way he’d just ordered my friends around. The almost violent look he was giving me wasn’t exactly helping his cause either, come to think of it.

  “Come here,” he growled, crooking his finger at me in case I didn’t understand the order.

  What was there to understand? My boyfriend was fixing to strangle me. Call me crazy, but that didn’t exactly make me want to rush into his arms.

  “Look here, buddy,” Kim began, but the look he gave her shut her up quick. I stared in shock when she turned around and walked away, reaching out to pat my arm in sympathy as she went.

  “Ember, come here,” Nathan hissed through his teeth once my best friends had abandoned me, closing the door behind them.

  “Um…I’d rather not,” I squeaked, backing away instead.

  Before I could turn and run, he was standing in front of me and I was being pushed against the wall behind me. His eyes still glowing with fury, he slammed his hands on either side of me and trapped me there.

  “You know, this is starting to get old,” I told him, trying to sound like I wasn’t starting to do the pee-pee dance as he snarled and leaned even closer to me. “Really, I think you need to find a new way to keep me where you want me. Maybe—”

  “What did you think you were doing, Ember?” he growled right in my face. “Do you have any idea what would have happened to you if he had disappeared with you? We never would have found you, even with my mark on you! He would have tortured you to death and then brought you back so he could do it all over again!”

  Okay, that sounded fun, right?

  I gulped, realizing what I had done. But, I had done it for him. Even the thought of being tortured to death—apparently repeatedly—wasn’t as agonizing as the thought of having to live without him. Suddenly, I was just as furious with him as he was with me. Ramming my hands into his chest, I returned his glare and then stood on my tiptoes and got right in his face.

  “And what about you?” I snarled back. “I’d rather he torture me than have to watch you die, you idiot! What did you think I was going to do when you made that sweet little goodbye speech of yours? Stand there and watch?!”

  He jerked back slightly, but his scowl stayed firmly in place.

  “Oh, and while we’re on the subject,” I continued, ignoring the fact that the anger was fading out of his eyes and he was starting to look like he wanted to laugh, “that goodbye kiss sucked! If you were going to kiss me goodbye before you sacrificed yourself, you could have
left me something better to remember you by, damn it!”

  I seriously considered castrating him when he just smiled at me. So fast I never had a chance of defending myself, his arms were suddenly around me and his head was dipping toward mine.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” I muttered, turning my head away and squirming to get free.

  “But I want to,” he purred in my ear before catching my earlobe between his teeth. “I want to show you exactly how memorable I can be.”

  And he did. That kiss was something serious! It was a mixture of fear and anger and passion and love. It was hot and sweet and beautiful, scary and amazing. It was the very definition of intensity and my legs folded beneath me under the onslaught. Without so much as missing a beat, Nathan picked me up and turned us so that his back was against the wall and just kept going.

  Too bad Kim was tired of waiting on us…

  The wall behind Nathan—which turned out to be a door—suddenly disappeared and we fell backwards. Nathan took the brunt of the fall, but I might as well have hit concrete as I landed on his chest with a pained “Oof!”

  “Hey! Get a room,” Kim said, loudly, propping her hands on her hips. “Look, I know how this works. New love and all that crap. I get it. Been there and done it. But.” Yeah, kind of saw that coming. “I’m one breath away from starving to death, and I’ve just spent a month missing my best friend so I’m really not in the sharing mood right now. Oh, and Shea is on the warpath, and there’s a demon running around that’s not going to kill himself. Priorities people!”

  Nathan rolled his eyes at her and I couldn’t help but laugh as I staggered to my feet, sore all over now that my knees were bruised from our fall, and held out my hand to pull him up with me. If anyone had told me a month before that Kim was a witch and that I was going to fall in love with a vampire, I would have laughed myself sick. Now, it just seemed kind of…normal.

  In that moment, I accepted it all. Nathan was my soul mate. My ex was a demon. And my best friend was a kick ass witch of the first order. Somehow, it didn’t seem so bad all of a sudden.