17. Chapter 17
Chapter 17
I t’s in the dead of night that I fling my eyes open, this feeling of dread keeping me from moving a muscle while drawing my gaze in the direction of the door leading onto the terrace.
Closed, just as I left it.
Still, my heart is skipping beats, and over that sound, there’s another one that’s warning me against going back to sleep.
A faint yet unsettling whisper in the air.
Still silent and motionless, I close my eyes and then open them back again, letting Sight take over.
Slowly and with bated breath, I scan the door, my gaze snagging on the far right corner. I drag it across the floor, my heart breaking into a gallop.
In the near darkness, right here in my room, there’s a ghostly rivulet of cold light disappearing under my bed.
I open my mouth to cry for help, but it’s at that exact moment that something grabs a hold of my left ankle and my eyes dart in its direction, seeing a ring of that ghostly light tightening its grip.
And I’ve never before seen them with the help of Sight, but I could do it with freshly gouged eyes and still recognize what I’m looking at.
His shadows.
For one long moment, I don’t even try to move, panic wreaking havoc inside me.
Then, suddenly, I try and I try it violently, only to realize that instead of yelling and thrashing, my body is doing absolutely nothing.
They’ve already instilled themselves in me, taken control of my mind.
And just as I think that, the rivulet tenses, as if it’s a bow being strung tight, and the next thing I know, I’m flying off the bed and falling to the floor with a muffled thud, my body being dragged across the room and straight into the door.
With rounded eyes, I see another shadow formation — this one more of a cloud — appear in front of the door, expand and knock into the glass, throwing it open.
That’s how they’re getting me outside, and who knows where they’re taking me.
It’s pure instinct that makes me zero in on the shadows holding me by the ankle and imagine destroying them from within. But I still can’t use my Aurora powers. Nothing happens, except that I’m almost through the door now.
Hope floods me when I remember the Rune I’ve unlocked mere hours ago, but as soon as I try to imagine my body in motion, a shadow blocks the image and I hear a cackle in my head.
One that makes my blood boil, imagining that unsettling look on Serra’s face when I first heard it, back in the cave in which I thought I defeated her.
She’s laughing at me because, after everything I’ve been through, I’m still going to die by her hand.
And now my body is sliding over the threshold, my mind filling with the image of my last resort.
“Raven,” I call out, panic in my voice despite it staying in my head.
It’s the flap of her wings that makes the shadows flicker for a second, allowing me just enough wiggle room to throw my arm back and grab onto the doorframe.
“Anna,” I hear Raven call out, breathlessly.
I can’t see her, but by the tone of her voice and the fact I can’t hear anything else, I have this sinking feeling that she’s letting the fear paralyze her.
“Go get Lorcan,” I urge her.
I hear another flap of wings and then there’s a second of silence before I feel the shadows loosen a little, just as I thought they would. Some of them are after Raven now, but she’s fast, faster than they are.
I don’t hesitate. I manage to jerk my leg enough to break free of the noose around my ankle. Then I push myself up and wobble over to the door leading onto the hallway, my body sluggish and slow to react as if I’ve just been drugged.
But I can sense the shadows already moving after me, so I swing the door open and slam it behind me before they can get through.
Swallowing roughly, I tear myself away from the door and start running, or at least trying to, at the same time opening my mouth and only managing to produce barely audible, wheezing “Help.”
It’s only once I pass the sitting room that I realize what I’m doing. Orpheus. Without ever having made the conscious decision, I’m running straight to his door.
The realization almost makes me stop and try to find another option, but then I sense them behind me, too close for comfort, I turn around and I stop, my mind threatening to explode. They’re filling up the corridor like a black cloud of hellish, living smoke, and in a second, they’ll be eating me up.
No no no.
It’s at that exact moment that I feel these vibrations in the tips of my fingers, I look down and I see them heating up, fast.
On instinct, I raise my hand and try to shoot the hot energy out of my fingers, imagining powerful tongues of fire lashing at my enemy.
But the movement only makes me curse, my skin getting burned.
And now they’re so close, I have to tip my head up to see them in full.
It’s in a split second that I decide. As fast as I can, I spin around and I use all my remaining strength to charge straight at Orpheus’s room.
I’m so close, I’m already reaching out my hand, preparing to pound on the door.
When the shadows grab a hold of my leg again, yanking me back and making me fall down again, face first with my hands flying to grab onto something.
Almost at the exact same time, the door in front of me flings open. I lift my head to find him frowning at me from high above.
I open my mouth to try to ask for help, when his eyes dart up, widening for a split second before I see his Runes glow and hear something massive come crashing to the floor behind me.
The shadow sets my leg free, I throw a look over my shoulder and I see a wall of sand blocking the corridor entirely.
But before I can breathe a sigh of relief, I watch the shadows start making cracks in the wall. I sense Orpheus lower into a crouch, “Stay put, Anyi,” he says in a voice that’s at the same time gentle, commanding and brimming with rage.
The next thing I know, I’m getting up and spinning around to watch Orpheus destroy the wall he brought down on the shadows and blast them through the front door with a new one.
Then he disappears.
“No,” I wheeze out, panic surging through me.
He doesn’t know how dangerous Serra is, and he’s just gone to serve himself on a platter to her.
I use my Movement to get out of the house as well, my breath catching when I see him standing at the center of the terrace, looking up at Serra hovering high above the ground, held up by a web of shadows and smiling menacingly.
She sends a snake of shadows lashing at him.
He blasts it away from himself, his shoulders rising and falling in anger, not strain.
Before she can do anything else, there’s this low, rumbling sound coming from the ground below us, followed by giant rocks getting yanked out and sent flying up.
For a split second, they remain hovering in the air, before Orpheus — with barely more than a flick of his wrist — makes them explode into shards and sends them straight at Serra.
She tries to get away, but I see a lot of them hit the mark.
Still, she’s not exactly alive and she’s much more powerful than that .
It makes blood curdle in my veins when the smile disappears from her face, turning into a grimace of pure rage, just before she lunges at him on her cloud of shadows.
The cloud opens its mouth to swallow him whole.
He doesn’t even flinch.
“Orpheus,” I try to call out.
I don’t know whether he hears me. He just lifts his hand in the air and closes it into a fist.
I see Serra stop midair, her eyes widening and her mouth opening on a shriek as her left arm starts rotting right before my eyes.
My eyebrows shoot up. I thought Orpheus was able to control sand, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. He can use sand because he can use Decay — just as easily turning rocks into fine powder as sucking the life force out of living flesh.
That’s why they call him the Grimm Reaper.
Serra flails, but he’s gripping her tight, and not just that — he’s yanking her towards him with obvious intent to kill. She struggles to use her shadows.
Then, abruptly, she locks eyes with me, rage filling hers. “Do you really think I’ll be letting another one of your mates hurt me?”
The next thing I know, the shadows swallow her and she disappears, the night sky above us once again silent and showing only countless blinking stars.
I remain standing where I’ve found myself, her words ringing in my ears and working up to an explosion in my mind.
With slow, deliberate movements, Orpheus turns around, rage and shock twisting his features. I take a step back, my heart skipping a beat.
By the time his eyes land on mine, there’s only shock left.
I frown.
Because it’s definitely Orpheus Grimm I’m seeing standing not too far away from me, yet…
Pain and longing flood me at the same time a realization explodes in my mind, taking the form of a series of vague, flickering images.
His eyes.
My dreams.
All the things he does that Jericho did.
I inhale sharply. How did I not see it before? And he obviously didn’t either.
One long moment goes by before I spot him move towards me.
I take a step back, shaking my head. He stops midstep, a frown on his face, but I don’t care if what I’m seeing is true, simply because it’s completely irrelevant.
“Thank you,” I find myself saying, in a rough, strained voice, at the same time wanting to express my gratitude to the man who’d just saved my life, to break the uncomfortable silence and to stop him from commenting on what I know we’re both feeling or seeing or experiencing right now, however you might call it.
For a moment, he just keeps looking at me. “No, don’t thank me,” he finally says in a low, somber voice. “ Answers , that’s what I need from you.”
I blink. “Yes, of course.”
Although, do I even have them?
It’s at that moment that my head snaps to my left, Orpheus almost instantly appearing in front of me with his back blocking my view of the steps.
My heart skips a beat, until I hear a flap of wings and something heavy landing on the terrace. I peer out only to see Lorcan shift back into his human form and keep marching straight towards us with Raven at his tail.
“Anna,” he calls out breathlessly.
I step out from behind Orpheus. “Lorcan, Raven—”
Lorcan throws a single look at me before he lunges, his face twisting in anger. “You bastard,” he yells at Orpheus, “what did you do to my daughter?”
“Enough, Lorcan,” I say as I come between the two of them. He stops midstep. “It was Serra.” His eyes round. “Please, let’s just get inside.”