Chapter 11
I want her to walk the halls of Aakash Ghar. To be by my side. Mine to claim. To love. But it can never be, and that tears me up inside. When this is all done, how will I leave her?
UNNAMED JOURNAL (VAULT ARCHIVES)
The lift ride up the side of the mountain offered a sweeping view of the coast and the five towers that made up the Academy residences. But as we neared the top, the elevator took a curve around the mountain, revealing a tower isolated on an island out at sea.
“What’s that?”
“Coral Isle,” Clary said. “It’s where we go to blow off steam—and have a little fun.”
“There are a few places to eat, a market, and some night lounges,” Dori added.
“And the tower?”
“It’s been sealed for a long time,” Dori said. “Rumor is that it belonged to the Blackthorne bloodline.”
“They had a whole tower to themselves?”
“I guess so.”
Now that was interesting. The Blackthornes had been powerful enough to claim an entire tower on their own island—yet Dharma had supposedly wiped them out single-handedly?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Clary said.
“No. You don’t.”
“You’re wondering how one sorcerer could have exterminated a whole bloodline as powerful as Blackthorne.”
“Okay, so you do know what I’m thinking. Please don’t tell me you can read minds.” Shit, what if she could?
“No. I just… I’ve often wondered the same.”
“It doesn’t help that the details are classified,” Dori said.
They had no idea. “Imagine being punished for a crime, not being given the details of said crime, and being forced to simply accept that the punishment is just.”
We fell into silence, watching the sea shift beneath the night sky as Coral Isle flickered to life with twinkling lights. A boat bobbed across the waves toward it, two figures silhouetted in the moonlight.
The lift came to a halt against a platform jutting out of the mountain. A short flight of steps took us onto a dusty path that carved its way through stone-figure littered grounds toward the Main Building.
In the daytime, with the gray sky hanging low and heavy, the sprawling four-story castle looked large and imposing.
But at night, bathed in the silver glow of a crescent moon, it seemed to stretch out forever, held in place by shadows that dominated every crevice and corner of the statuesque structure.
The path melted into shrubs and brush, a wild landscape of flora and stone.
It would be easy to get lost here at night, but the lights of the Main Building acted as a guide.
A group of students came up behind us, dressed in casual wear of loose trousers, cream tunics, and long wool coats, too engaged in their conversation to give us a second glance. They seemed young, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Arcanus, if the neutral colors of their clothes were anything to go by.
A huge shadow darted across our path and into the brush on our left. Clary let out a yelp, barely dodging it in time.
I froze, body on high alert. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” Dori said quickly.
Clary nodded, hand on her chest. “Let’s just keep going.”
“That was not nothing.” I followed the thing’s trail, spotting dark splodges on the ground where it had passed. Blood? “It’s bleeding.”
“Sounds about right,” Dori muttered.
“What?”
Clary hugged herself, eyes darting this way and that. “We should go.”
“Come on.” Dori urged us to continue, but a mournful whimper stopped me in my tracks once more.
“Ignore it,” Dori said, grabbing my arm and forcing me to pick up the pace.
A pained whine trailed after us.
A cry for help.
How could they urge me to walk away? Their actions made no sense. What did make sense, what felt right, was stopping to help. I dug in my heels. “Something’s hurt.”
“We can’t help him,” Clary said.
“Him?”
Dori shot her a glare.
The whine came again, thick with pain, dejected and despondent. I moved toward the sound instinctively, stepping off the path and into the brush.
“Ana, don’t!” Dori made a grab for me, but I shook her off, diving deeper, past a gargoyle with outstretched wings and another sporting a vicious sneer.
Another whimper, followed by panting—the kind that spoke of a desperate attempt to manage pain.
“Anamaya?” Clary’s voice wavered. “Stop.”
“I need to see.”
Dori caught up with me. “Trust me, you don’t, because you can’t help him. No one can.”
I rounded a cracked, dried-up fountain, where a large hound-like beast lay panting on his side. The scent of blood coated the air, seeping from the many wounds scoring his body, and my skin pricked with the heat of rage.
The wounds were deep lacerations, dragging through flesh but jagged in places, as if hooks had caught the skin. If I had to guess the weapon used, I’d say a barbed whip.
Behind me, Clary let out a strangled cry, and the creature’s eyes rolled in our direction. He snarled, attempting to sound menacing but failed when the sound dissolved into a whimper.
He was too hurt to protect himself. “It’s okay.” I held up my hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Ana…” Dori reached for me again, but I shot her a warning glare, and she backed off.
I tugged off my coat and approached the hound. He attempted another growl, but it was a half-hearted attempt, tempered by his agony. “Hush… I just want to help.” I kept my voice soft and low so as not to spook the creature. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
His lips fell back over his teeth, and his head dropped to the ground in defeat, almost as if it understood me. And hell, this was Nightsbridge; he probably did. I fell to my knees beside him and pressed my coat to his blood-soaked flank, wincing when he yelped.
Oh, this was bad. The wounds were deep. “Clary, can you heal it?”
“I’m Unwoven, remember? No access to magic, but even if I had my power, I couldn’t help him. No one can.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ruspin has been claimed as a blood debt,” Dori said. “He’s off-limits to everyone except his owner.”
“What the fuck is a blood debt?” I shook my head.
“You know what? I don’t care what it is.
This is not okay.” I stroked the creature’s head, and he closed his beautiful brown eyes for a beat.
“Ruspin, right? Hey, I’m going to help you.
” I glanced up at Dori and Clary. “We have to get him to a medical room. That woman—Darla, the halfling—she can help, right?”
“You don’t understand,” Dori said. “No one can help him. It’s forbidden by—”
“Forbidden?” I stared at her, incredulous. “It’s forbidden to help a wounded creature, but it’s okay to beat him until he’s bleeding out? What the fuck kind of place is this?”
“I know it sounds crazy to you,” Clary said. “But the law is clear on interfering with a blood debt. We have to go. Now. Before someone sees us and—”
“What do we have here?” A woman stepped into the clearing with us. “Are you attempting to soothe my pet?” The icy glint in her eye contradicted the sweet childish pitch of her voice.
Dressed in fitted black breeches, a high-necked white shirt beneath a crimson waistcoat, and a long leather jacket, she presented a sophisticated picture.
She couldn’t be more than five feet in height.
But her golden, intricate topknot added an extra three inches to her stature.
Her eyes were so dark they swallowed the light, and her alabaster skin gleamed in the moonlight.
I’d bet my left boob this bitch was a Haematophage.
Her dark eyes bore into me, the hard look in them contradicting the smile on her painted lips. “Well?”
“You did this?” I gestured toward Ruspin.
“Not my finest work, but yes. Why? Do you not like it?” She smirked.
“You sadistic little—”
“She’s new, Tamina,” Dori said quickly. “She doesn’t know the rules. We were just explaining them to her.” She threw a warning look my way.
Tamina’s gaze flicked above my head to Dori. “How considerate of you. But then, you were always so very sweet.”
Dori’s jaw tightened. “It’s an honest mistake. No retribution required.”
“Oh?” Tamina said. “But retribution is my favorite pastime…” She pouted and tapped her chin. “But, since it’s you, how about we make a deal? Spend the night with me, and I’ll forget this little infraction.”
Clary gasped, but Dori didn’t even flinch.
“Now you just sound desperate,” she said.
Tamina’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Oh, sweetheart, you have no idea what desperate truly means. You, in my bed, or I’ll claim my pound of flesh from your new little friend.”
I pulled myself to my full five-seven height and looked down on her. “I think your perception is a little skewed, don’t you?”
She arched an appreciative brow. “Wait…you’re the Onyx, aren’t you? Of course…” Her gaze flicked back to Dori, and a dirty smirk played on her crimson mouth. “You always did like the bad girls.”
Dori rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’ll be at yours later. No need for drama.” She grabbed my arm. “We’re leaving.”
A flash of something sharp and ancient flitted behind Tamina’s eyes. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind. Maybe I want my pound of flesh after all.”
Dori’s grip on my arm flexed once before she released me and sauntered over to Tamina, coming to stand mere inches from her petite form. “Have you? Changed your mind?”
Tamina swayed toward Dori inhaling deeply. “Oh…how I have missed that scent.”
Dori stiffened but held her ground as Tamina leaned closer, pushing up on her toes to brush her nose against Dori’s neck.
Dori’s hands curled into fists. “Well?” she snapped. “Do you want me, or do you want her?”
Tamina sat back on her heels. “There is no competition, you know that. I want you, of course, my sweetling. Always you.”
“Then we have a deal. Say it.”
Tamina sighed and shrugged a leather-clad shoulder. “I forgo the right of retribution in this instance.” She narrowed her eyes my way. “But touch what’s mine again, and you will pay the price.”
I had no doubt she wasn’t just referring to Ruspin.
The hound watched me with dull eyes, resigned to his fate, and my stomach twisted. I didn’t want to leave him with the crazy bitch, but I’d come here for the Libra Veritas, and the best way to get to it was to fly beneath the radar. I couldn’t afford to get into a fight.
This couldn’t be my problem.
Even though it seemed I’d made a problem for Dori. Fuck…
Tamina plucked my jacket off Ruspin and threw it at me. “You can keep the blood. A gift from me.” She snapped her fingers at Ruspin. “Up! Now.”
The silver collar around his neck gleamed, and he jolted like he’d been shocked.
She turned on her heel and strode off, the tail of her long coat flapping about her calves.
Ruspin dragged himself upright, his breath shallow and fast, his brown eyes filled with absolution, as if to say, you tried your best, thank you. Then he turned and followed Tamina through the brush and toward the castle.
Clary exhaled shakily. “Wow, that was close.”
I bunched my jacket under my arm; it was too blood-soaked to wear now. “Who the fuck was that, and what exactly just happened?”
“That was Tamina Vayne,” Dori said wearily. “She’s Baobhan Sith royalty.”
I rifled through what I knew about her kind.
Blood-drinking, matriarchal society with roots buried in folklore tied to a species called the Shining Ones.
The Baobhan Sith were known for their heightened sexuality and lack of empathy.
They took several lovers at a time to satiate their hunger for blood and sex, and from the sound of it, Dori had just agreed to be this bitch’s next meal.
I couldn’t let her do this. “Dori, I’ll speak to her and take the retribution.”
“No. You won’t,” Dori said. “I can handle Tamina. She won’t hurt me.”
“I can’t let you do that. What’s the retribution?” Whatever it was, I’d take that rather than let Dori go into the bloodsucker’s boudoir. I wouldn’t sleep tonight otherwise.
“The retribution can be anything that Tamina wants it to be,” Clary said. “And trust me, she’s inventive when it comes to inflicting pain.”
“Pain, I can handle. I have a high threshold.”
“Higher than a Therianthrope?” Dori asked with an incredulous snort.
I was about to say yes, because even though Therianthropes were renowned for their high pain tolerance, it was nothing compared to feeling no pain at all, but I bit back the admission. “Maybe not that high.”
“She’s brought them to their knees,” Clary said.
I could fake being in pain, pretend to pass out—let the bitch get her kicks—if it meant Dori didn’t have to sleep with her. “I want to try. I’ll speak to her and—”
“It’s done,” Dori said firmly. “The deal is made and cannot be unmade.”
“As much as I hate that Dori has to do this, it’s better than the alternative,” Clary said. “Besides, I have an excellent tincture to aid sleep.” She dimpled in Dori’s direction. “Trust me, she’ll have the sweetest dreams.”
“Oh, I remember, and I was banking on it.” The two women bumped shoulders and set off toward the path.
Unease bloomed in my chest. “Why would you do this?” I jogged to catch up with them. “Why did you offer yourself to her for me? You barely know me, and I blatantly disregarded your warning about not touching the hound.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You’d do the same for me.”
Guilt pricked my cheeks—I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have. Thankfully, the darkness hid my shame.
She slung an arm around my shoulder. “Besides, us Unwoven, we got to stick together, right?”
The unease grew. “Yeah…right.”
“Dark skies, you’re freezing!”
Her words acted like a trigger, prompting me to register the chill seeping through the thin material of my blouse. My teeth immediately began to chatter.
“Take my coat.” Clary slung it over my shoulders, enveloping me in her warmth. “I have a wool undershirt on.”
Keeping my guard up around these two was going to be harder than anticipated.