Destructive Embrace (4 page)

I settled myself on the
windowsill of a window above them and off to the side a little so I
wouldn't have to crane my neck in order to see her. My foot rested
on the sill beside me, and I propped my elbow on my knee, resting
my chin in my hand.

Dmitri looked up and, upon
noticing me, frowned. But he quickly brought his attention back to
Elyssa before she could notice that his attention has strayed for
even a moment. Dmitri apparently didn't want her to see me. "That
suits me just fine," I murmured.

A dull ache filled my chest
as I continued to watch Elyssa. Their training continued for the
next forty-five minutes, during which time Elyssa had accumulated
quite a bit of grime and sweat from her efforts. Dmitri hardly
looked ruffled, and I chuckled.

Dmitri's eyes wandered up
to find me again – probably to see if I'd watched their whole
session – and Elyssa's gaze followed his curiously. When her gaze
fell on me, her eyes widened and her lips parted. For the briefest
moment, she appeared to be saddened at the sight of me. Then, her
face wiped clean of that negative emotion and she waved, the
corners of her mouth tilting downward slightly.

I waved halfheartedly back
at her, the corners of my mouth also turning down in a grimace.
"God damn you, Dmitri," I muttered.

She turned her attention
away from me and said something to Dmitri before heading inside.
Dmitri remained standing there for another few moments, eyes
trained on me. His gaze had hardened and the glare was apparent on
his face. What the hell did he have to be mad about? Had Elyssa
told him what happened? If so, how did
I
deserve a glare, even in Dmitri's
eyes? I wasn't the one who stabbed Reid.

My thought process shut
down as I realized that I used the same logic that Roxann had tried
to force on me. I sighed and lowered my feet to the floor so I
could stand. I began walking again, heading to the
stairs.

As I rounded a corner,
someone ran into me and the two of us crashed to the floor, the
offensive person landing half on top of me. Whoever it was had been
moving fast enough to knock me down – it had to be a vampire. I
pushed the person off me and jumped to my feet, scowling down at
them.

Elyssa. Of
course.

"Ouch," she muttered,
rubbing her side as she sat up. "Next time I'll move slower," she
said, giggling nervously. She was a mess. Dirt was smudged all over
her face and covered her clothes. How she'd managed to muck herself
up so thoroughly was beyond me, but it made me laugh. She glared at
me and got to her feet.

"What's so funny, Zeke?"
she asked. A spark of defiance touched her eyes, but it vanished
quickly, and I wondered what she'd done to get rid of her feelings,
even those that would come in handy when she was in my presence.
Then it hit me. "Why did you turn them off?"

Her posture stiffened and I
clenched my fists at my sides so I wouldn't grab her and shake some
sense into her. "That isn't any of your business, Ezekiel." Ouch.
My full name. Two can play at that game.

"Seeing as you're in my
castle, Elyssa Jane Smith," I began with a smirk, "I think it is."
She clenched her jaw at my statement and swung her arm out to hit
me in the face. The punch landed solidly on my jaw and I groaned as
it dislocated. So she really was learning things from Dmitri.
Damn.

Glaring at her, I set my
jaw back in place and grabbed her shoulders. Shoving her against
the nearby wall – hard – I leaned down so that I could look
directly into her eyes. "Elyssa! It isn't a joke! When our kind
abandon all feeling, that's usually when we wreak havoc on the
humans!" She blinked every few words, but other than that didn't do
anything. No words left that snappy little mouth of hers, and I
shook her harshly. "
You
weren't meant to be cold and emotionless!" I bit out,
growling at her from deep in my chest.

Those green eyes widened,
and her jaw dropped a little. The light was still out, though, and
I knew she wasn't ready to give up the facade that made us true
vampires. "Zeke," she began, shaking her head. She grabbed my
wrists and gently removed my hands from her shoulders. "I'm fine. I
just need it for a little while," she promised. She still held my
hands, and she squeezed them.

"I just... Need it right
now," she whispered. For a moment, the emotions showed in her eyes
once more, the pain she was in deep down inside her. I shook her
hands away and cradled her face in them.

"Elyssa," I breathed. "You
should grieve. You should not be running around this place without
emotions. You're going to get in trouble," I told her. I knew that
she knew it was true; there wasn't much that I told her that
wasn’t
true. Why start
lying to her now?

Elyssa sighed and dropped
her head forward, out of my hands. She then ducked around me and
stood there, waiting for me to turn around. As I did, she set one
hand against my face, her palm warm against my skin. I didn't care
if she was getting my face dirty. "Zeke. I'm going to be fine. Let
me handle this the way I see fit. Please." Then she ran off. I
could have followed her with ease, but if she needed to be alone,
then who was I to intrude?

I headed to the nearest
bathroom to make sure I was clean before I left the castle. When
all traces of dirt were removed from my face and hands, I left the
castle. My destination was the mainland, so that I could
–

Well, I didn't really know.
All I knew what that I needed to be off Lanistter Isle for a little
while. As I boarded the ferry less than half an hour later, I
looked back at the island, the castle.

Everything was there.
Including the things that would make my life more of a hell than it
already was. What if I just left?

I shook my head to remove
the thought from my mind. As I shook my head, my hair fell forward,
getting in my face as the sea breeze ran through the tresses. I
scowled. That's what I needed: a haircut. As soon as the ferry
landed, I would be going off to find a hairdresser.

As the ferry moved, the
thought occurred to me that I could probably cut my own hair, but
soon it was pushed out by the fear that I would severely mess it up
and would be trapped looking stupid with a messed up
haircut.

"Yes, I definitely need a
hairdresser to do this particular thing for me," I
muttered.

Several days after Reid’s death, I was
healthily mourning Reid. The numbness felt too good to give up, but
somehow I forced myself back into the realm of those with emotions,
where I belonged.

I paced back and forth across the floor
of my new room in Zeke’s lower levels, debating. “Can I really part
with this thing?” I muttered to myself, shooting a glance at the
journal. Over the past few days, I’d memorized the passages that
meant the most to me – a few of Tywin’s rants, a handful of Reid’s
more… Reid-like entries, as well as his final entry – and had no
more use for it.

“Zeke will have a better chance of
gaining insight into what some of Tywin’s bullshit means anyway,” I
told myself. That was the deciding factor.

So I picked up the journal and left my
room. I made two consecutive right turns before I arrived at the
double doors that led down to the dungeon of the castle. Taking a
deep breath, I pushed through the door and traveled down the
stairs.

I stepped into the dungeon
and froze. There were locks of blond hair scattered across the
floor.
He didn’t…
I thought with a gasp. A scream pierced the air and I reached
for my Kodachi. I cussed quietly when I remembered that I left them
in Reid’s room the day he died.
Idiot
, I reprimanded
myself.

I knew I would regret it,
but I moved through the dungeon to get to the cell where the scream
came from. Halfway there, my nose and throat began to burn from the
scent of human blood, and I paused. Did I really want to go in
there?
Why would he cut his hair?
I wondered. My curiosity won out.

I inhaled one last breath of the
stinging aroma and held my breath as I stepped into the cell. The
gasp that slipped through my lips allowed more of the burning scent
into my nose, and I held my hands up – journal in hand – to try to
block it out. Slowly, I looked over journal at the scene before
me.

The sight I was rewarded with was one
that I would never forget. The gory remains of a human dangled
limply from a set of chains on the wall. The blonde woman was dead,
her hair matted with blood and clumped together in various places.
There was hardly any clean skin showing – she was beaten brutally
and carelessly.

The man holding the whip – a
single-tipped whip with a small, sharp hook on the end – turned
around with a growl. His crimson eyes were cold and
empty.

I pressed one hand against my mouth as
I stared at Zeke. He was covered in the woman’s blood, and his new,
shorter hair was clumped in similar ways as the woman’s. “Zeke,” I
whispered. I’d never been around when he was beating another woman
– aside from his joint session with Roxann and me.

I’d never been around when he killed a
women.

He began to move toward me. His
movements were slow and smooth; he wasn’t trying to threaten me, I
realized. As he passed by the table in the cell, he let the whip
clatter to the surface.

“Why are you here?” Zeke asked. He
brought his hands to his face and breathed deeply. When he dropped
his hands, more blood was smeared across his face and he looked
exhausted.

I let the journal fall from my hands as
I rushed toward him. I collided with him in a rough hug. His soft
grunt told me he was caught off guard, but his arms immediately
wound around my waist. He gripped me painfully, burying his face in
the crook of my shoulder. I squeezed him back, running my hands
along his back and shoulders.

Suddenly, he pulled away and moved away
from me quickly. “Stop,” he whispered. His voice was hoarse, his
expression pained. So much emotion ran through his eyes… I longed
to embrace him once more. However, I refrained, thinking I was the
one to put that broken expression on his face.

“Why are you here?” he repeated,
sighing. I bit my lip, looking back at the journal on the floor.
Zeke’s eyes followed mine, and, taking in the journal, he laughed
bitterly. “Sure, Elyssa,” he bit out my name like it was an
expletive. “Bring me the journal where Reid talks about how he was
slowly going mad. Remind me once more that I didn’t do anything to
help him!” His snarl made me flinch and he laughed once.

I began to walk backward as the first
echoes of fear resonated in me. Zeke was on me in a second, though,
his hands clamped painfully around my arms. “What? Finally afraid
of the monster Zeke?” he asked, laughing. “About fucking time,” he
spat, thrusting me away from him.

I bit down hard on my tongue. I wasn’t
really afraid of him; he’d just caught me off guard with his
hostility, especially since he’d returned my embrace just a moment
before. I decided to not answer, instead turning to pick up the
journal.

“I thought it would give you a better
insight into what was happening,” I said, turning to face him once
more. I nearly dropped the worn book again; he was directly in
front of me, invading my body space. Breathing heavily, I continued
in a steady, quiet, voice even though my throat seared with pain at
the scent of blood. “The hold Tywin had on his mind was far
stronger than anyone would have guessed, Zeke,” I said. “There
wasn’t much that anyone – including you – could have
done.”

Zeke brought one hand up to grip my
throat. I winced at the pain of his hand crushing my windpipe, but
otherwise just stood there. Reasoning with him never worked anyway.
“Like I said,” he growled, eyes boring into mine. “I do not wish
for that to be rubbed in my face. So take your dead Mate’s journal
and go fuck yourself.”

He released me then, and I inhaled
deeply without thinking; the scent of the dead woman’s blood once
again ripped through me. I brought my hands up to my neck, clumsily
holding my throat because I still held the journal, and hissed.
Zeke laughed quietly. If I hadn’t been in pain over the scent of
blood, I would have been glad that he was laughing. Under the
circumstances, though, I glared at him. He shrugged one shoulder,
teeth bared in a lopsided grin.

His suddenly carefree attitude worried
me, but I figured that it was better than him man-handling me, so I
heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Did you get your fix?” I asked
sarcastically. My voice was rough, and while each inhale reduced
the pain in my throat as I became accustomed to the scent, it still
burned.

His grin widened, and I imagined a
blond-haired, red-eyed Cheshire cat for a moment. “It made me feel
good to beat her, yes,” he told me. “I didn’t mean to kill her so
quickly, though.”

I hesitated before asking my next
question. “Who was she?” It must have startled Zeke, because his
grin faltered, and his gaze softened.

“I went to the mainland to find someone
to cut my hair,” Zeke murmured, brushing his hands through his
hair. It was noticeably shorter, only an inch or so long. It was a
startling length in comparison to his hair which was previously
long enough to always be fastened in a ponytail at the base of his
neck. “I didn’t want to butcher this little project,” he muttered,
dropping his hands. “So I Willed her to come back here, gave her
the impression that I would blow her mind, if only she would be a
good little hairdresser and chop my hair off.”