Lailah (The Styclar Saga) (21 page)

“The others have readied themselves, and I need you to prepare a bag. We need to leave,” he said, with a chill that blew through his voice.

“I have a backpack ready,” I replied. “I don’t need to pack.”

I moved a rook and, holding my finger on it, narrowed my eyes and crinkled my forehead. “Gabriel, I…”

I wasn’t sure how to tell him that I loved him, that I didn’t want him to leave me. I was frightened, and not of the Pureblood Vampires, but of losing Gabriel all over again.

His face smoothed and he took my hand from over the board and slid his fingers in between mine. “Don’t be scared, I’ll never let anything happen to you.” He misinterpreted the reason behind my fear.

He parted his hand from mine, moving his bishop into play.

I suddenly filled with an uncomfortable impatience. “Why are we playing chess?” I blurted.

“Because I wanted to start a game we could finish when I come back to you. Something to look forward to,” he offered.

The fire burning next to me was starting to scorch my skin and I shifted away from it.

“Why can’t I come with you?” my voice pleaded in a slight squeak.

“They will suspect I will look for Malachi, it’s not safe,” he replied.

I didn’t know if he was referring to the Purebloods or the Arch Angels.

“If these superiors of yours want me erased then why don’t they just come and do it?”

He grimaced. My words stung him. I felt it.

“They can’t. They watch over the other Angels bound by their own rules. Finding you isn’t that simple. They have no claim to you.”

I perched my finger on top of the red knight and my body shook, disconnecting my train of thought. My fingertip tingled as it stamped the smooth mane and the knight seemed to enlarge. “I feel something toward the knight,” I said, my voice shaking.

Gabriel grinned. “It was always your favorite piece. You said it reminded you of your own horse … Uri.”

As he said her name, my skin began to tingle. I felt myself slipping back through a tunnel of memory: I was watching myself pelting through thick, green grass on top of a fantastic white mare. We were galloping across a wet field, stormy clouds forming above us. I watched myself pull the horse to a halt, while a galloping stallion came into view, eventually coming to a stop next to us. I was surprised to see that the rider next to me was not Gabriel. As he dropped the reins, he brushed his long, dirty-blond hair back from his face. Catching the stray strands, he placed them neatly behind his ears. The gold ring on his finger caught my attention and for a brief moment I thought I recognized it. As I began to scan his features, the scene suddenly felt strange and I was forced to look away.

The image spun and whizzed in front of me as the thundery clouds swallowed up the daylight. I panicked. It was the same sensation I had felt when I had sat with Gabriel, lost my memory, and become trapped in a vision of a Pureblood. I felt my heart racing and I desperately tried to leave and return to the present.

As a wave of heat from the log fire brushed my cheek, I began to relax. I was in the room again, Gabriel sat opposite me; his lips moved, but strangely the words didn’t reach me. He was mute, and it occurred to me then that I was suspended, caught between Gabriel and the dark clouds.

Gabriel’s expression darkened and he catapulted forward. I desperately reached for him, and just as I was on the verge of meeting his hand, I slipped away.

I left him, falling back through the tunnel against my will. The cottage, the chess game, and the flicker of the flames were all gone. Something, someone, was dragging me back in.

I was faced with a backdrop of emptiness. The Pureblood appeared in front of me, huge and towering. He took his time striding toward me. As he neared, I recognized his coal-black tattoos, two opposite rows from the center of his form. They were plastered across his face, broadening as they ran down his neck, two faultlessly symmetrical quills, black liquid keratin stained against his skin. The raised lesion prominently embossed between his orbs. It was the same Pureblood I had seen in the vision when I was drinking lemonade with Gabriel. He was back. This time he was alone.

He grew closer, seeming to change position without moving. I encouraged my legs to stretch out into a sprint, but my body was unwilling to shift an inch. He circled me; disappearing and reappearing. Finally, he extended his terrifying clawlike hand and moved it over my eyes and nose, stopping at my throat. He squeezed it, just enough to prevent the air from finding my lungs. He seemed to cackle, tormenting me. His sharp-razor fangs protruded over his lower lip.

As I gagged, I considered his expression in all its unholy glory; it made me want to die on the spot. I couldn’t move my neck to avoid his glare and more panic rose inside me as his black pupils mutated, forming a revealing clear film. In his eyes I glimpsed a reflection of a dark silhouette—the girl in shadow. Where was she?

Petrified, silent tears poured from my eyes and I forced them shut. Just as I felt my arms and legs growing limp, he dropped his hand from around my throat. Gasping for air, I shivered as he ran the tip of his split lizard-like tongue up from my jaw to my eyelashes, tasting my tears. He pulled my head back by my hair, and with the serrated talons extending from his knuckles; he sliced a tuft of my loose curls. Grasping the stolen strands, he threw me down.

I was confused as I watched him raise them to his orifices. As he took in the fragrance, the wavy curls appeared black. Perhaps everything he touched turned to night?

He tilted his head from side to side, his bones cracking, and I found myself elevating from the ground. He raised his arm up and I ascended; he was controlling me.

“You belong to me!” he roared with a sonorous voice.

Each word quaked in a language I didn’t recognize, but I understood him nonetheless.

I felt an anger brewing inside the pit of my stomach, unlike any emotion that I had felt before. My blood seemed to boil and blacken, and my hands formed into claw shapes, daggers breaking through my knuckles.

I didn’t know what was happening, but as I grew hotter my teeth shifted and fractured. I felt myself slipping away when a lightning bolt flashed across the blackness. It splintered into forks, vibrating my name and crushing the metamorphosis rising inside me. I cooled as my name was sung to me in the second strike. I didn’t see the creature disappear; I was focused on the lightning that was illuminating the space, now filling the void with light. The ground dissolved and I dropped into nothingness.

My eyes opened. A blurred but bright spark spread across my vision. A beacon, leading me home. The illumination glowed, expanding until the light made up Gabriel’s figure. I choked, my body released, and I gasped for air.

“Where were you? Lailah! Are you okay?” Gabriel’s words struck me repeatedly.

I said something and he stared back at me confused.

With soothing tones, he said, “Lailah, I don’t understand what you are saying.” He was running the back of his hand over my blazing cheek and my attention pricked, witnessing his skin dripping crimson with the stain of my bloodied tears.

“She is mine!” I hissed in a voice that didn’t belong to me.

Gabriel didn’t flinch. Placing both of his hands on either side of my face he came in nose-to-nose with me. I closed my eyes shut; I didn’t want him searching my swollen and blackened orbs.

“She is under my protection! I will end you if you harm one hair on her head!” Gabriel yelled.

I knew the creature was still listening, imprisoning my consciousness. I was a vessel.

“Know her for what she is, Angel, and you will release her to me!”

It was over. A black hole inside convinced me that what the Pureblood had said was true. I didn’t know what I was, but I wasn’t who Gabriel thought I was. Not anymore.

“Lailah,” Gabriel began.

I leapt off the floor and grabbed for my throat; piercing stabs jabbed through my lungs and over my skin where the Pureblood had touched me. I scratched and scratched at my neck and I screamed long and hard, hoping that the sensation boiling within me would escape.

Gabriel’s body was hard as marble; every muscle now clenched and jutting from under his skin. He grabbed my wrists quickly, forcing them down to my sides. I shook my head violently. Why was this happening to me? What did they want with me? What was I? Intense anger bubbled under my skin.

“Look at me!
Lailah!
” Gabriel was shouting louder now, but I refused to give in to his wish. The last thing I wanted him to do was peer into my soul through these eyes. I didn’t own them and I had no idea what he might find.

With a dark and inhuman strength, I shook my arms away from him and forced his hands off my wrists. I bolted through the room, running over the painted sun and toward the entrance. Just as I reached it, the heavy door flew open and Jonah filled the doorway.

“Stop her!” Gabriel yelled.

I peered up at Jonah for a split second and took in the surprise stamped across his face. My eye sockets were burning and bloodied tears still streamed down my cheeks.

Jonah’s arms wrapped around me, forcing me in to his chest, holding me prisoner.

“I can’t let him see me like this.…” I whispered, and his body eased in reply.

Feeling confident that I was secured, he let his guard down. Taking advantage, I heaved him off me and made for the path.

I couldn’t run very fast; my legs were weak and I was disoriented. Hoping that no one else would find me, I stumbled through the door into the kitchen of the main house. Speeding along the hallway, I passed by Hanora, who was hovering on the edge of the lounge looking curiously toward me, but it seemed as though I was invisible to her.

Somehow I made it out of the house. I ran along the roadside. I blocked Gabriel; I didn’t want him sensing any part of the feelings that were surging through me. I scoped the landscape for somewhere quiet to calm down. I needed to be alone. Across the road there was an opening to a trail in the woods. I headed toward it, but smoke filled my vision as something hard knocked into my side. Stumbling, I flashed a glance back to the car that had caught me as I raced across the gray lane. I watched the stunned expression of the driver as he ground to a halt, the hood dented and concave. Unconcerned, I charged to the trail. The driver lowered his window, but I had already gone into the woods so I failed to hear the profanities.

My legs slowed me, so as soon as I found a tree with a trunk large enough to conceal me I slumped to its roots. Shaking, I tried to compose myself, but the heat fizzing through my body was still raw and aggressive. Beads of sweat tumbled from my forehead and I was painfully aware of the fact that I was still streaming tears of blood. I felt so dizzy. I moved my arm back and forth and it came in and out of focus, as though it didn’t exist in this world. I forced my eyes shut and tried to think of happy things, good things. Gabriel. The two of us playing chess, wrapped around one another in the barn, the softness of his lips brushing my own …

As the images rolled repeatedly on a loop, my body began to cool and I stopped feeling nauseous. I placed my hand over my crystal ring hanging at the bottom of the chain, hiding underneath my blouse. Feeling the soft edges of the crystal across my palm instantly comforted me.

Just then the heavens opened and torrential rain poured down, quickly soaking me through. I raised my head and let it wash over my face. I sobbed. Ordinary tears merged with the raindrops, forming an alliance.

Curling into a ball, I cradled myself, arms wrapped around my legs. I didn’t know where I was, or how dangerous it could be outside unaccompanied.

Lailah, where are you?
My being filled with light and suddenly I wasn’t alone.

I didn’t reply.

You can’t be outside by yourself. Tell me where you are.

I disconnected. I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn’t be out here, and I didn’t want to be alone, but I was afraid of my own self. I needed more time to be sure that the Pureblood wasn’t coming back. I didn’t want Gabriel to ever see me like that again. So I imagined building a wall in front of the entrance to the tunnel. Visualizing it, I placed the last brick in the gap and silence fell. I squeezed my legs more tightly into my chest and rocked myself.

*   *   *

I
MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP
as the rain battered down. Once more the winter reached the core of my bones and, wearing only jeans and my ripped blouse, I was frozen through.

The day was nearly over; the sun was starting to set through the thick mist that surrounded me. I panicked. I knew I wasn’t safe. Would they have all left without me? Were they searching for me? I didn’t know, but only now did I feel a twinge of guilt. How long had I been out? It only felt like moments, but the sun retiring to sleep once more proved I had been gone too long.

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the haze to clear and attempting to knock the wall down. He must have been waiting for me.

Lailah, please! Where are you?

I responded by conjuring an image in my mind of the scenery around me and the large tree under which I was sitting. It couldn’t have been more than a minute later that he literally appeared right beside me. He wasted no time scooping me up off the bark and thrusting my body against his. He clung to me, allowing no space between us, pushing his hand into my soaking hair. Eventually I removed my face from his chest and stared up into his eyes; they were enlarged with worry and brimming over with sadness.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

His reply was firm and convincing, but now the anger had subsided and I was starting to feel like some form of human again, I was confused. Worse still, I was completely vulnerable.

“Never block me out again, you hear? I’m trying to protect you, to keep you safe. I need you to be on my side for me to do that. Do you understand?”

I nodded apologetically.

In the moment of my innocence, I forgot myself. “You loved me once before.…” I sniffed.