Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
PARIS
Iwas home again.
Back in my flat in Oreflame City above the Aidan Temple, wrapped in chains and laid out on my sofa.
My plants were dying, Oliver the orchid already long gone, stinking up the place. His decay infected me, making me sick, hurting every inch of my body and soul.
“Oh, fuck…” I wheezed, unable to move.
I didn’t know when we got here; I woke up like this from the screaming darkness.
A curse. True love.
What the hell? That couldn’t be right. This had to be Aidan screwing with me, even if my instincts told me otherwise.
Why would someone do this? To end vampires? And how would they know about the true love stuff? Through some sort of foresight or spell?
Bollocks. This sucked.
I’d been begging Caer to talk to me, singing repeatedly, but she stayed silent. So much for helping me save the world. So much for being the precious one. What was the fucking point of her being inside me if she was so damn weak?
“Caer! Help me, please. I’m begging you.”
“Oh, stop complaining,” Aidan cut in, striding into view. He ran his finger over the mantelpiece, sighing at the dust he collected. “Terrible.”
I retched from the decay, but managed to respond with, “Like I’ve had time to dust.”
He looked at me, wrinkling his nose. “Grubby little shit.”
“Dickhead.”
He wiped his finger on the wall.
I struggled weakly against the chains. If you wanted to disempower an elf, dump them in the presence of dying plants.
Regardless, I’d still try my best to kick his arse. “Let me out of these. Come on, let’s throw down without the bells and whistles.”
“I don’t think so,” he answered, projecting indifference.
A good old fight would help to work out the knots within me. Make me forget some of the bullshit for a bit, and give me a target to pour my anguish into.
True love…
The vampire is my true love…
Violence as a release was just as good as a fuck.
“Come on. Let’s go. No magic, just fists. Let me show you a real fight.”
He laughed. “What’s brought this on?”
“The constant plague of seeing your fucking face. Now free me. If you win, you can do what you want. If I win, you go back to rotting in your tower. Deal?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “What a ridiculous thing to say when you’re so diminished by these flowers.
Anyway, I have a better idea.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“We’re going to find the source of this curse together and break it.
I get the sense you’re not ready to admit your feelings, and I’m not willing to wait until you do.
We’ll find another way to kill you instead.
” He wobbled, leaning on the wall for support.
It was then I noticed the beads of sweat on his brow, and the pale sheen to his complexion.
Doing too much, was he? Powerful, but not that strong?
Hell yeah. I could work with that shit.
“What are you smirking about?” he demanded, pushing himself off the wall.
“Picturing you smashing your head against the window. Just to give myself something to smile about.”
He stomped over and punched me in the face.
Wow, there went my nose again, blood pouring into my mouth.
“I think I’ll gag you,” he hissed, flexing the hand he’d just struck me with. “Maybe with some dead petals, to really teach you a lesson to keep your mouth shut.”
I spat blood at him. “You asked the question.”
A familiar rippling doorway appeared, Medusa charging through it with Elio and Lord Vaughn behind her, the vampire brandishing a sword.
Whoa!
“What is this?” Aidan roared.
The vampire cleaved Aidan’s head off with one swing, then booted his body across the flat with a sidekick.
Medusa grabbed my chains and broke them in a display of incredible strength. Vaughn then scooped me up and hurried out the door.
“Silvanus is in serious trouble, sugar,” Medusa said from behind me.
She explained the details about the frostbrood attack, and Silvanus being frozen.
“I’m not losing another friend,” Vaughn said, descending the stairs quickly.
As if my head wasn’t a mess already. Now this? Man, the piercing, devastating terror manifesting inside me was unbearable.
I couldn’t lose him. No fucking way.
Because you love him?
“A couple of minutes and I’ll teleport us back to Glimmer City,” Medusa spoke with a shaky voice. “Screw everything. We’re getting to Elio’s parents and to that Carving Glade.”
Elio hadn’t said a word yet.
My strength returned the moment we were out of range of the dead flowers. Vaughn put me down on the path outside the shops opposite my flat.
Well, I guess I did go home again.
“One minute left,” Medusa announced.
“Over here,” Vaughn instructed, directing us into the small park beside the shops.
Silvanus. My true love, destined to die by my hand.
What the fuck?
I wrapped my arms around myself, the air feeling colder than it really was.
Things were falling apart.
Big time.
“Thirty seconds,” Medusa said.
With a series of deep breaths, I steadied myself in the choppy nightmare. Bullet pointed list inside my head—getting to the Carving Glade at the top of my agenda, closely followed by saving the vampire king and his people.
See? Fuck those words from some bullshit fable. I was meant to save him, not kill him.
Yeah, yeah. Pull the other leg. Harder.
Dammit!
“Ten seconds,” Medusa announced, starting the countdown.
I waited for Aidan to attack, but he didn’t.
Too weak? Too overstretched?
Man, I really hoped so.
Medusa opened the portal and we ran through, the alarms shrieking in my ears in a resident street back in Glimmer City.
I covered my poor eardrums as Medusa gestured for me to follow Elio.
Scanhawks swooped down.
“I’ll distract them!” she cried, then shifted.
Yeah, that got their attention, a series of green beams landing on her.
Elio ran down a short alleyway, leading me up a spiral stone staircase toward a frosted box of glass at the top.
Vaughn followed, staying close to me.
As much as he made my skin crawl, I kind of liked him being around. Especially after the awesome beheading he delivered to Aidan.
Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
I scanned my surroundings quickly, the area a series of glass cubic homes on various levels. Complete with tiny gardens to break up the glittering glass and stone.
The alarms carried on but seemed to be more muffled here. Less strain on my ears was always good.
Silvanus…
I straightened and tried to have my professional face on as Elio knocked on the door.
Get this job done.
I heard movement behind the door, then a woman with sleek silver hair answered it.
She blinked, gasping when she saw Elio. “What? What are you doing here?” Her blue eyes found me, a louder gasp rattling in her throat. “By Aidan!”
What the hell? I rolled my shoulders, uncomfortable from her staring.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
Elio looked between us. “Mum?”
“You’re…you’re him.”
Her coral face paled as if she’d witnessed a horrific accident.
Okay, I didn’t need more weirdness in my life. “Do I know you?”
She grabbed the doorframe as her knees buckled. “By Aidan.”
“Mum!” Elio cried, helping her.
Did I look that bad? I knew I needed a long bath, about ten million hours of sleep, and a two-year vacation, but really?
“Honey?” a man’s voice called.
I looked to Vaughn, who shrugged.
“You shouldn’t be answering the door when there’s an alert on,” the man said, appearing in the doorway. “Elio? What are you doing? And—” He looked at me with the same shock as his wife.
Something heavy, really damn heavy, hit me then.
The man had the same tawny skin and hazel eyes as his son. But the woman shared my complexion, my blue irises and silver hair.
No…
The man crouched beside his wife as Elio backed off. “This can’t be.”
“Mum? Dad?”
His mum whimpered. “It’s him.”
“This can’t be,” the man repeated.
“Don’t you feel it?” she whispered to him, eyes shining with tears.
I did, like the tugging of long-dormant threads.
No…
Coral skin, that silver hair, worn the same as Pearl. Man, she looked like Pearl.
My breath caught in my throat, the threads drawing me forward a few steps.
No.
No.
No.
The words bubbled up my throat, sliding onto my tongue.
“What’s going on?” Elio asked. “You’re scaring me.”
Why? Why did this have to happen?
“Answer me,” Elio said, the alarms seeming to increase in volume again.
No.
No.
No.
The man and the woman stared at me, both crying, holding each other against the rising drama.
Because this was a drama, a real fucking doozy thrown into the melting pot of chaos I called my life.
These elves were my parents.
The story continues in…