Embrace, Entice, Emblaze (60 page)

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Entice

voice. “But you can’t deny, Dapper, you don’t altogether mind

my company.”

Dapper blushed.

Please!

“Two weeks,” Dapper said, curt as ever, then looked over to me.

“And you owe me.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Well”— Onyx clapped his hands— “aren’t we all just so civi-

lized? It’s a new thing for me, granted, but entertaining in its own peculiar way,” he marveled.

“Onyx! You’re wasting time. Tell me what’s going on,” I snapped, clenching my fists.

“Yes. Of course. You want to get back to your shadow-

finder— you do like to torture him. I admire that.” He stood up and started to flounce around the room. I knew he was talking

about Lincoln. By this point, I just wanted to smash his face into the wall, and from the expression on Zoe’s face, I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t look at Spence. I couldn’t meet his eyes right now, and Salvatore had moved over to stand with Steph. She was whispering to him, translating, I guessed.

“I have only ever seen it once before. A powerful weapon,

though not many of us are willing to take the risk…or the bond.” His nose wrinkled at something. “I wasn’t even sure what it was or what its importance was when I came across it. It was more speculation than anything…Though after seeing what I saw tonight,

it now seems very believable.” He sighed. Typical warm-up. “It

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was in the thirteenth century. A young Grigori- turned- spiritual leader. Some even thought him to be the first, and only, Grigori to ever be graced with true vision. Of course, for exiles, his fame made him a particularly important prize, and though he was

often guarded and deceptively powerful, one exile found a way

to get to him.”

Onyx looked at each of us one by one, enjoying that we had no

idea what he was talking about. “The exile appeared to the Grigori as a vision, used his imagination to put him in a state of confusion, and then inflicted wounds that he found”— the corners of

his mouth curled— “appropriately amusing. Afterward, the exile

healed the Grigori and let him go under the belief that he had

received a spiritual connection with a heavenly power when in

actual fact…” He trailed off as he motioned a hand toward me. I’d forgotten he liked audience participation.

I swallowed nervously. “He’d done whatever Phoenix has done

to me.”

Onyx nodded. “All that had been achieved was an ongoing

physical bond between the Grigori and the exile. The exile, of

course, planned to use this new power to help turn the tides, but unfortunately, it was not to be. When the Grigori discovered the deceit, he would not succumb to the exile’s demands and endured the pains of the wounds each time they were reinflicted. It was a harder time then. Religious types were less malleable than they are today.” Another deliberate sigh.

I shook my head involuntarily.

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“It had been an ambitious tactic and, if it had worked, would

have been an awesome weapon. Even in its limited version, it was.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling my throat tightening.

“Because it still led to the Grigori’s death in the end. His injuries gradually drained his powers and the very life from him.”

Steph took a step forward. “The thirteenth century?”

Onyx raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” he said suspiciously, looking at Steph as if noticing her for the first time. I imagined in his exile days, Onyx would not have believed in interactions with straight humans, other than for sport.”

“You’re talking about Saint Francis of Assisi, aren’t you? He

died after suffering five brutal wounds for just over two years.” Steph looked at me, sickly green. “He bore the stigmata.” Her eyes were welling.

Onyx was perplexed, as was everyone in the room apart from

me. Steph wasn’t an out- and- proud brainiac. Onyx clearly hadn’t expected someone to spoil his story’s denouement.

“Aren’t you a very clever human?” he sneered.

“Hang on,” started Zoe. “This sounds like a load of shit to

me. The stigmata? The wounds of the crucifixion? Violet doesn’t have those.”

“No, she has my wounds,” Onyx said proudly. “They’re just

another version. Assisi’s wounds were symbolically inflicted on him first, just as Violet’s were, and then healed. By healing the wounds, the exile effectively gives a piece of his immortality to the victim, in this case Grigori, and as Phoenix demonstrated, what one giveth, 139

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one may also taketh away.” Onyx raised his arms and all but took a bow.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself. “He’s going to kill me.”

Slowly.

Onyx heard me. “It appears the likely outcome,” he said, as he

lounged back into the sofa, content.

“We kill the Phoenix first.
Si?
” Salvatore asked and Steph nodded.

“You could try. It might work.”

“You lie,” Salvatore said, watching Onyx then turning to Zoe.

“He lies.”

“What aren’t you telling us?” Zoe demanded.

“Two Armani shirts, one white with pinstripe, the other char-

coal. Slim fit. And”— he ran a hand over his chin— “an electric shaver. An expensive one.”

“How about I just ram my fist into your face until you tell us

everything you know?” Spence suggested, taking a few exaggerated steps toward Onyx.

“Don’t bother with that, lad,” said Dapper. “He’d be happy

enough for you to finish him off. You won’t get anywhere that way.” Spence looked at me, but even now, I still couldn’t quite bring myself to look back.

“I’ll give them to you tomorrow,” I said in a daydream.

“Do you think your Lincoln will ever forgive you?” Onyx asked.

“What? He…Phoenix did this. It wasn’t me. Lincoln will…He’ll

understand,” I said, stumbling over the words that I had been trying to tell myself since I saw him walk out of Hades.

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“I didn’t mean about tonight— though it cannot help your

cause.”

I swallowed hard. It wasn’t the first time since I’d embraced that Onyx had raised this question. The last time was right before he stabbed me.

“Ah. I see. Worrying you too? A big thing, that one. Even those with the best intention, the greatest of forbidden love, can struggle to accept another getting to the prize before they do.”

“Shut up, Onyx,” Dapper said. Strangely, Onyx seemed to

respond and moved on.

I gave Dapper a thankful glance. I didn’t really want to have to explain to the entire room that Onyx was referring to the fact that I’d slept with Phoenix and that had made Lincoln…unhappy.

“Very well. Phoenix has a physical connection to you now. Not

only can he bring back the wounds that I so savagely delivered, he is also the very thing that holds off their recurrence. If something were to happen to Phoenix, if he was killed, or, as you like to call it, ‘returned’…Well…” He laid his hands wide.

“I die.”

“It seems inexorably probable.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Steph said as Spence and Zoe swore.

“This one— not good,” said Salvatore, shaking his head.

Dapper remained silent.

Onyx smiled, enjoying his version of applause until his

eyes fixed on mine. My chest tightened and every breath felt

suddenly numbered.

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We looked at each other, and in that brief moment, when

his eyes couldn’t quite hold mine, we shared the truth silently between us.

It wasn’t just probable.

If Phoenix died— I died.

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chapter
thirteen

“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”
fRIedRICh NIeTZsChe

I hoped a morning of painting would help— give me some perspec-

tive or at least let me escape for a couple of hours. But I couldn’t even concentrate for long enough to mix the right colors in my

double period of art fi rst thing.

He’d told me he loved me once. It was hurried and perhaps only

part of a game to him, trying to get me away from Lincoln. I guess it had worked. I’d never felt so isolated before.

Now, again thanks to Phoenix, I was sure of my own demise.

After all the events of last night, by the time I got home, it had been late again. My sleep allotments were declining while my near-death experiences were clearly on the up. But, of course, it wasn’t the lack of sleep that had me so agitated. It was the lack of something else.
Someone
else.

I had hoped the whole time we were at Dapper’s, listening to

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Onyx tell his tale of doom, that Lincoln might come back. That

somehow he might realize I would never have kissed Spence will-

ingly. I even held out hope that Magda might have talked some

sense into him. Wishful thinking. But Lincoln— he knew me.

Surely he would have known I wouldn’t be so…

Even
though
I
slept
with
a
dark
exile!

And there was my problem— the nagging voice of truth we all

have buried deep within. The one that is always there, painting with primary colors, not bothering to mix it up.

Onyx was right. I had planted all the seeds of doubt that

Phoenix was now watering. I may have had my reasons, but that

didn’t change the fact that Lincoln would probably never forgive me or that the sacrifice required for us to be together would be more than he would ever willingly make for me.

He
has
his
real
problem— and I have mine.

I’d sacrificed everything to save Lincoln, but right now I feared surrendering his strengths and risking his power would not be

something Lincoln could do. Not so he could be with me.

By the time the bell rang for lunch, I’d barely made a mark on

my canvas. As I packed up, my art teacher came over to me.

“Violet, you’ve been distracted lately. I know you have other

studies to concentrate on and plenty of social events to attend.

However, if you still plan on making the impact I know you can

at the Fenton course, you will need to start applying yourself again in art.”

I took a deep breath, deflated and cross with myself. “I know,

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Miss Hastings. I’ll try harder. I really want to do well at the Fenton course.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you have work to do,” she said in that voice only teachers can put on, somewhere between parental and

guilt- trip. It worked.

In the cafeteria, I grabbed a salad and a bread roll and slumped down in my usual spot. When the chair beside me was pulled out

and a tray dropped down next to mine, I didn’t even look up. I

assumed it would be Steph.

“Jeez, Eden. You awake?”

I jumped in my seat and looked up to see Spence laughing away.

“What? What are you doing here?” Then, paranoid, I started

looking around. “You’re going to get caught. You can’t be here.

You’re going to get me in trouble! Again!”

He gave me a cheeky wink and his smile widened. “Glamour.”

I looked around the room again and realized no one else seemed

aware of his presence, even though he was not wearing a school

uniform and clearly didn’t belong there.

“What are you doing here?”

“Apart from nursing a wicked hangover? I came to clear the

air,” he said, squaring his shoulders to me. He had no intention of going away.

“Oh.” I blew out an I- don’t- want- to- be- here breath.

“Look. A lot of stuff went down last night, and I get the feeling that of all the awful, if you could take one thing away, it would be the you- and- me- getting- dirty- on- the- dance- floor bit?” 145

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I squinted my eyes at him. “You certainly have a way with

words, Spence.”

He shrugged. “It’s a gift.” He raised his eyebrows and waited. He really wasn’t going to go away.

“Okay. Look, it’s not that I don’t…You know. I think you’re

really nice and all and you were…I mean…It wasn’t bad or

anything. Crap. I just don’t…”

“Like me like that?” he suggested, smiling.

“Yeah.”

“It’s okay. I get it. It wasn’t exactly my choice either, you know.