Something Wanton (Mystics & Mayhem) Page 9

  I studied her for a second, thinking I’d be more likely to climb Everest than guess her age. Immortality is one of those tricky little things, you see. Though she looked to be about twenty, she could very well be a thousand.

  “I’m six hundred and seven years old,” Sierra said calmly when I just shook my head. “I am one of the oldest darklings in existence. Most cross over or die long before they reach my age.”

  Holy hell! She’d been alive for more than half a millennium! She hadn’t been kidding about the shock factor, because I was totally blown away!

  “I started with my age because I want you to understand how things were in my time,” she explained, giving me an intense look. “In my time, girls were treated like property. When they came of age to marry, they were basically auctioned off to the highest bidder. In my case, the highest bidder happened to be a demon.”

  “I begged my father to reconsider,” Sierra continued, her voice dropping to a sad whisper. “I was afraid of the man I’d been promised to. The way he would watch me just—”

  She stopped suddenly, shuddering. I shuddered right along with her. I knew what she meant. I had felt the same way every time Bastian had looked at me through Jack’s eyes. It was a feeling you could never quite forget.

  “My father ignored my pleading,” Sierra continued, her expression going hard. “I’ve tried for centuries to forgive him for that. My family was very poor and Marcus offered my father a small fortune for my hand. I try to believe my father did it for my mother, my brother and sisters. It’s easier than the truth, which is that he did it out of greed.”

  For the first time since I’d seen her wrapped around Nathan’s arm like a leech, I felt sorry for Sierra Lovell. My parents sucked, there was no doubt about that, but even my father wouldn’t have sold me—my mom, maybe, but not my dad. I knew that was how things had been in those days, but it still wasn’t right. And to be sold off to a demon? Whether her dad had known or not, that was just all kinds of wrong.

  “The demon who purchased me understood greed,” Sierra continued, dragging me back to her story. “He would, seeing as he inspired it in others. He liked to collect girls, you see. He was careful to choose those whose fathers weren’t real choosy about whether he married them or not. Yes, good old Marcus had his own little harem.”

  “So how did you become a darkling?” I asked when she had sat staring out the windows for a while. “Did you try to escape?”

  “I might have,” she said with a weak smile. “God knows I thought about it enough. But before I could make the attempt, I became pregnant. I died in childbirth, infected with Marcus’s essence, the child with me.”

  I thought I was going to be sick. Not only had she been sold to a monster, she’d actually died trying to give birth to his spawn. There weren’t words for how twisted I thought that was.

  “Death is supposed to bring peace,” Sierra whispered, her perfect mask of calm slipping for the first time since I’d met her. There was so much anguish on her features that my heart actually went out to her. “It should have been an escape. Instead, it became a whole new version of Hell.”

  “I wasn’t the first of Marcus’s girls to die in childbirth,” she said, turning eyes burning with hate in my direction. “But death didn’t buy us freedom. No, Marcus found another use for us. We were placed in a brothel that catered only to the cream of society. We were trained to feed. At the end of the night, we were then called forth one by one and Marcus would drain us of the energy we took from the patrons. He put more than one of us into stasis with his gluttony. Some of them never woke up.”

  “He killed them?” I asked in a croaky whisper.

  “Yes, he did.”

  I released the breath I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding when she turned away, releasing me from her gaze. I believed there were two different kinds of hate in that moment. There was the kind that, with time, would fade. And then there was the kind that could never die, that became a part of who you were. It was the latter that I had seen in Sierra’s softly glowing eyes, and it was utterly chilling.

  “That’s where Nate found me,” she continued in a soft voice. “He arrived late one night with that dreadful friend of his, Zander, for a card game in one of the back rooms. He found me completely by mistake, having wandered into the wrong room. I was nearly dead, so drained that I didn’t even know where I was.

  “I attacked him,” she said with a sheepish look at me. “Nate has a delectable aura, doesn’t he?”

  “To say the least,” I admitted wryly. “So did you feed on him?”

  “Uh, no,” she said with a chuckle. “He decked me. I was out cold for twelve hours. I was kind of pissed about it at first, but I understand why he did it. I would have killed him, there’s no doubt in my mind. Once I started feeding, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.”

  “So how did you get better if you didn’t feed?” I asked, confused. “Did they have Nexus then?”

  She shook her head. “No, Nathan took me to Skipper, and Skipper found me donors and monitored my feedings until I was back in control. I believe that was when Skipper started his research to create our pretty blue elixir.”

  “There are actually essence donors?” I asked, both awed and disgusted by the idea. “Why would anyone willingly take a chance like that?”

  She looked at the mark on my neck, and then smiled. “Did you enjoy it when Nathan bit you, Ember? And tell the truth.”

  “Well, it hurt at first, but then…”

  “Then it didn’t hurt,” she finished with a sly smile. “It’s like that with us, too. Only, there’s no pain at all with us. Not until we take it too far, at any rate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you get hungry, you feel like your veins are shriveling, right?” I nodded. “Well, if we take too much from a donor they feel the same way. And if we take too much, we literally dry them out like a raisin. It’s a painful way to die. Trust me, I know. I came close to that fate more than once.”

  “What happened to Marcus?” I asked after another long moment of silence.

  “Skipper,” she said, like that was all the explanation that was needed. “Turns out, he didn’t appreciate a demon operating in his domain. From what I hear, it was pretty gruesome. I’ll spare you the details.”

  Yeah, I thought that was probably for the best.

  From there, she went on to tell me what she’d done with her life since being rescued, but I was still stuck on the rescue itself. My Nathan, ever the Knight in Shining Armor rescuing the damsel in distress. Always saving them.

  All of them but me.

  I was still thinking about that when the first pain hit. It was a terrible twisting sensation, like someone was trying to tie my intestines in knots. I pressed my fist against my stomach, sucking in shallow breaths in an effort to make it stop. After a few seconds it started to subside, but it left me feeling weak and shaky. When it was finally over, I found Sierra watching me like a hawk.

  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” she said quietly. “It’s at that point where you think you’ll do anything to make it stop that your demon will be the strongest. And that’s when you have to make a choice. Do you fight, or do you give up? It’s really up to you.”

  “Here,” she said, pulling something from under the couch. When she handed it to me, I was surprised to find it was one of Tyler’s sketch pads. When Sierra saw my confused look, she patted my hand and got to her feet. “He thought you might need that.”

  I stared down at the pad in my lap as she left the room, wondering what I would need it for. Finally, curiosity got the best of me and I flipped it open. On the first page was a single sentence written in Tyler’s messy scrawl.

  To help you remember what you’re fighting for.

  I pressed my fist against my lips to hold back the sob that was trying to get past the lump in my throat when I flipped to the next page. Staring up at me was a sketch of Grams. She wasn’t smiling or looking dir
ectly at Tyler as he worked. Instead, he had caught her poring over a book, her forehead creased with concentration, and her curls coming loose from her ever-present twist.

  I traced the outline of her familiar face with my fingertips, wishing she was there to give me the hug I so badly needed. Closing my eyes, I tried to imagine her arms around me. I could almost feel her hand smoothing my curls the way she always had when I was upset or scared.

  “Our heroes never leave us, beautiful,” Tyler had written beneath the sketch. “They’re always there in the wings, waiting for us to exceed their expectations. Show her you’re as strong as she believes you are. Fight for her, Em.”

  If you had asked me before that moment who my hero was, I would have said Kim without blinking. Staring at my Grams’ beautiful face, I knew it wasn’t true. Grams had always been my hero. I had just never realized it until that moment. But Tyler had. He had seen what I couldn’t see myself.

  I flipped the page and the sob I’d been holding in finally broke free when I found Kim smiling up at me. My best friend. My rock in the storm. My anchor. My sister. Tyler had caught the gleam in her eyes to perfection, that impish smile. He had captured her beautiful face, but more important to me, he had transferred her beautiful soul onto the paper before me.

  “There are few people in this world who are capable of perfect love, Ember,” the caption read. “Even rarer are those who would sacrifice their own lives, their own happiness, for a friend. Kim is one of those people, and so are you. The two of you really are twin souls, beautiful. If you fall, so will she.”

  I had to close my eyes against that unbearable burning as those words sank into my mind and branded themselves there. I prayed for the tears to come then. I prayed for just one little drop to help ease the painful pressure in my chest where my heart should have been.

  Never had truer words been written. The bond Kim and I shared was rare. Even as a kid I had known that. If there had ever been anyone who loved me, it was Kim. She had been there through the good and the bad, never wavering, never even thinking of running. She had protected me and cheered me on my whole life.

  I missed her so much in that moment that I thought it would kill me—again. Because it was in that moment that I realized it was all up to me. For the first time, she couldn’t save me. For the first time, she was counting on me to save myself. To save us both.

  Turning to the next page, I found my first smile—sad as it might have been. There before me was a perfect rendering of Blake. My heart ached as I stared at the lines of his face. Tyler had caught that evil little grin that he had worn so often through our friendship. No, not friendship. Like Kim, Blake and I were much more than that. He was my protector. He was the voice of reason in a world gone mad and my shoulder to cry on—a service he’d provided more than once in the last eleven years.

  He was my brother, just as Kim was my sister.

  “Soldiers are hired guns, but a real protector is something money can never buy,” Tyler had written beneath the sketch. “Only love can gain you the loyalty of someone so honorable. Remember that, Em. Remember how much they love you. Remember the times they’ve been there for you and held you up when all you wanted was to sink and never be seen again. Fight for them. They need you, beautiful, as much as you need them.”

  Was that true? Were they as miserable without me as I was without them? Somehow, I thought they just might be. Kim and I had been inseparable since Kindergarten. Blake had been ours since his first day in Moonlight. We had been a team, the Three Musketeers. Even brief separations had been hard for us.

  And if I didn’t get my shit together, and soon, this separation was going to be anything but brief.

  I turned to the next page and felt my heart swell just a little when I found a self-portrait of Tyler staring back at me. His classic features were arresting, but I decided there was something lacking in the sketch. I finally decided it was the eyes. Tyler’s golden eyes were so enchanting that seeing them in black and white took something away.

  Still, there was something about the sketch that healed a few of the cracks in my heart. Tyler had proven himself time and again to be my champion. There was something safe about Tyler, something warm and comforting that had always drawn me to him.

  “I’m always here,” he had written beneath the sketch. “If you need me, you only have to call me. I will never be far away from you.”

  Though I had been expecting it, the last sketch took my breath away. Nathan was as gorgeous on paper as he was in real life. Just looking at him was enough to start me sobbing again.

  “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to love an imperfect person perfectly,” Tyler had scribbled beneath Nathan’s sketch, beneath which he had written. “I’ll be the first person to admit he’s not perfect, but he loves you, Em. If you won’t fight for me, or for Kim and Blake, or for Shea, fight for him. He needs you, beautiful. And you need him. Don’t let your pride and anger keep you from seeing it.”

  As good as that advice might have been, it was still the quote I couldn’t tear my eyes from. It brought back a memory, a memory of another time when I had thought Nathan could never love me. I had quoted it during our road trip to Washington after he’d kidnapped me.

  I had believed in those words then, and I still believed it. It had never mattered to me that Nathan was a vampire. I had accepted that and had given him my heart, anyway. The only question was; could Nathan do the same for me?

  By the time I closed the sketchpad, the cramps in my stomach had started to intensify. Holding the sketchpad close to my chest, I got up and staggered back down the hall to the bedroom. I climbed into the bed and pulled the covers over my head, breathing a grateful sigh as the electric blanket I kept going at all times helped warm my over-chilled skin.

  Two hours later, misery had taken on a whole new meaning. It had become agony as one cramp after another ripped through my abdomen. When Sierra came to check on me, I sobbed and begged for my shot. Then sobbed some more when she shook her head sadly and walked away.

  Three hours after that, I was practically delirious from the pain and hunger raging through my body. My skin felt unbearably tight and my hands had shriveled against my chest. I was dying, withering away to nothing, just as Sierra had described.

  Oddly enough, I didn’t mind. If it would make the pain stop, death couldn’t come soon enough. Even spending an eternity stuck in Oblivion suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

  Get up and find some energy, you idiot! a voice said in my head, though it sounded more like a feral growl than a voice in my opinion. Do you want to die? Well, I don’t! Stop fighting me and let me save us!

  I’m ashamed to admit, I thought about obeying that order. But then I remembered what Sierra had said, that I could give up or fight. And, thinking about all those faces in Tyler’s sketchbook, I made my decision.

  Screw you, I thought even as I started to scream, the pain finally too much to bear in silence. I might starve to death, you bitch, but, as you like to remind me, I won’t die alone. You’re going with me.

  With one last scream that felt like it had ripped my vocal cords in two, the darkness of Oblivion came for me at last. I welcomed it, welcomed an end to the pain, the hunger, the heartache. I fell into that waiting darkness gratefully.

  And part of me hoped I would never come back.

  Chapter 8: Feeding Frenzy

  I came back to the land of the living to the sounds of a full-scale argument in progress. I could make out Sierra’s voice, as well as Nathan’s and Tyler’s. The door of the bedroom was cracked, allowing the argument to float to me from down the hall. At first I couldn’t seem to focus on what was being said, but after a few minutes of listening to them, I was starting to get the gist of the problem loud and clear.

  Yeah. I was the problem.

  I got out of bed and forced my weak muscles into motion. I slipped silently from the bedroom and, using the wall to keep my balance, crept down the hall to the kitchen.
The three of them were sitting at the table, their expressions tense and strained.

  “It’s not going to work,” Sierra was insisting, sounding irritated. “If you would just open your damn eyes, you would see that!”

  “It has to work,” Tyler said, sounding a little desperate. “There have been three more disappearances in the last week. We’re going to have to move her soon, Sierra. Maybe in another week...”

  I frowned. That was the second time I’d heard them talking about people disappearing, but there still wasn’t anything in the paper about it. How could five people go missing and no one report it?

  “The two of you aren’t listening!” Sierra cried, slamming one of her delicate hands down on the table in front of her. Watching her, I thought maybe I should leave the missing people to Deputy Donut and worry about myself.

  “We are listening, Sierra,” Nathan said calmly. “We just think you might be overreacting.”

  “I am not overreacting,” Sierra ground out. “She should have had enough Nexus built up in her system to ward off full stasis for two days! She didn’t make it twelve hours! She’s burning through it ten times as fast as the average darkling. I suspected as much our first lesson, when I saw her extreme reaction to the cold. Now, I’m sure of it.”

  My mouth fell open in horror and refused to shut again. If the Nexus didn’t work, where did that leave me? The answer to that was pretty easy to figure out—dead or a demon.

  In other words, I was screwed.

  “So there’s no hope,” Nathan said, his voice as wooden as his expression, mimicking my thoughts.

  “I didn’t say that,” Sierra said with a dark look in his direction.

  “Then what are you saying?”

  I waited, holding my breath, to hear the answer to that question myself. Was there another drug like Nexus, something I could supplement it with to keep from demoning out and sucking the life out of the first human I ran across? Was there some magic pill or darkling energy drink? Really! If the Nexus wasn’t going to work, what the hell was I supposed to do?!