CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Davien
IT FELT AS though my limbs had been torn from every corner of my body while simultaneously merging with hers.
In my eight-hundred and then some years alive, I had only ever experienced anything remotely close to that a handful of times, and I’d forgotten just how brutal the process felt.
I’d been unable to ground myself, the air around us had warped, and then we were floating between the stars.
It was over in the flash of a second, but my body felt its force like a punch to the gut.
My muscles trembled as I lifted myself up from my knees.
It was old magic.
Powerful.
The kind that was almost forgotten.
My eyes darted around the darkness, trying to find anything at all to latch on to.
Anything to tell me where I was. The landscape around me looked as battered and broken by the roaring elements as I felt.
There were nothing but endless fields and the night sky.
Just the broken handcuffs that had once tethered me to her lay broken on the ground.
I inhaled deeply, the cold, damp brisk air filling my lungs, staving the nausea somewhat as I righted myself.
Where the fuck were we?
We were in the middle of fucking nowhere.
“What the fuck did you do?” I snapped at her.
Eve was dead.
Because of her.
I looked down to see her a short distance from me, kneeling in tall grass. Her long black hair was blowing in the wind, her features expressionless. The rolling hills behind her made her appear like a goddess of death.
She used magic, one of the rarest, most powerful types.
Fuck me.
She turned to look at me slowly, her blue eyes a storm of their own, the faint glow of magic still in them. That wild chaos poured out of every one of her pores. She was beautiful in a way I hadn’t dared to allow myself to register. Stunningly strong, yet in this moment, fragile.
I suddenly realised the anger I felt wasn’t at her.
Even if Eve hadn’t succumbed to her injuries, the moment we were gone and they had failed their mission, they would have taken her out.
I was angry at myself. It was all my fault.
I had placed both of them in the line of fire.
I should have been more careful. She could have died under my protection.
Ailsa rose to her feet slowly, looking away from me, still not uttering a word, and took a couple of steps away from me before she then tumbled to the earth. Her body lay in the grass in a lifeless crumpled pile. And for the first time in a very long time, I felt something akin to fear.
I rushed to her side in an instant, lifting her into my arms. I gently moved her hair from her face, relieved to feel her breathing.
She was still alive, just knocked out from the magic use.
As a turned one, I didn’t have the gift of magic—only true borns did and even then some were born without.
But I knew that the use of magic required great effort, especially in someone untrained.
All magic had a cost, and vampires were no different in that regard. She’d need to rest.
But we needed to move, and I needed to find shelter before the sun rose or I’d be toast.
After what could only have been around half an hour or so, she nuzzled herself against the crook of my neck before rousing from her slumber. She opened her eyes when she saw I was carrying her and leapt from my arms like a startled fawn.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” she screeched in what could only be discerned as disgust.
I held in the laughter that was threatening to rise. “You collapsed. What else was I to do? You teleported us to the middle of nowhere, I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait for you to wake from your beauty sleep.”
Her face twisted, as she took in that piece of information before snapping back. “So I saved your life. I think what you mean to say is thank you.”
I’d witnessed true borns sleep for days after using a fraction of the magic required for teleportation, and the fact that she was on her feet after only thirty minutes of rest was quite frankly astounding.
“Thank you.”
I mean, she was right, sure I probably wouldn’t have died, but she got us out somehow and showed me that my intuition about her had been right.
“Well, you're welcome,” she said, righting her clothing, before adding. “Sorry about your friend.”
I sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought this to her door.”
“Who were they? What… What was that thing?”
“That was Zack, he’s a true born, with the ability to form wings, as you saw. They make him look almost bat-like. He’s powerful.”
“So you knew them?”
“I work with them. I am them.”
“I don’t understand.”
I looked her over, really looked at her, allowing her to see the truth in me. “I underestimated how much they’d want you, but I knew that they would and I don’t know… that just didn’t sit right with me.”
She chewed her lip but seemed to accept my answer. Either that or she was too tired to bother for more.
Her usual annoying, pestering self had given way to silence as we walked..
I had half expected her to make a run for it, but I could tell she was exhausted, not that she let it show.
As I’d learned, she was far too stubborn to show weakness, which given everything that she’d been handed, was admirable if not a bit adorable.
The stark reality was that she was stronger than I’d given her credit for.
I had thought she was a spoiled, albeit lost, true born who expected the world to fall in her lap like the rest of them.
But I was starting to think that she was telling the truth about her history and that she genuinely had no idea who she truly was.
I didn’t know which was scarier, the idea of a true born vampire growing up amongst humans with no idea of supernaturals, or the reason why anyone would have put her in that position in the first place.
I didn’t like it and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was more important than any of us.
Finally, in the distance I spied what revealed itself to be a little hamlet tucked into the valley, and just before it, an old disused caravan park.
Thank fuck, I breathed a sigh of relief. We could feed and steal a car and get the fuck out of here pronto.
We walked through the underbrush, entering the thick forest at the edge of the caravan park, the dead leaves crunching beneath our every step as an eerie sensation slithering its way up my back.
Suddenly, a swarm of birds above our heads scattered from the trees, taking their anguished cries with them. A warning sign if I’d ever seen one.
Then it was quiet.
Too fucking quiet.
Even at this time of night, the woods should be alive with many a night predator from owls to foxes. No, something wasn’t right.
A low growl emanated from the darkness.
I whirled around to look at Ailsa, who seemed wholly oblivious, although she also looked like she was barely holding on.
Then it dawned on me.
Fuck.
I pulled my knife from the inside of my boot as my eyes scanned the darkness.
“I know you hate my guts, but it’s really really fucking important that you listen to me right now.
” I kept my voice low and steady. I took a step backward, shielding her with my body right when I saw two red glowing eyes staring back at me.