Moon Tortured (Sky Brooks Series Book 1) (31 page)

He took a deep breath and began to mouth something, and then he touched my arm. I drew back when a weird sensation shot through me.

“Touch Ethan,” he instructed me.

I hesitated and then reached slowly toward his arm. “Ethan?” Josh inquired whether he felt anything. Ethan shook his head.

Josh studied me for a moment then he looked at Ethan. “I just wish I knew what you were. When I met you, I didn’t sense magic; now there is a weak presence,” he stated, bewildered and frustrated.

“You need to find out,” Ethan stated firmly before he left. Glancing at Josh, I could only imagine the pressure he must feel, given such as a daunting task.

“Do you think Winter was right? Could I be something really bad?”

He was silent for a long time. Too long for anything that was going to come from him to be good. “Why did you ask that?”

“Because when I went to see the Tréase—”

“When did you go see a Tréase?” he interrupted hastily.

“ About five days ago with Ethan. He didn’t tell you?”

“No. But I doubt he realized he should have,” he replied. His voice was strained, and small, frustrated lines formed along his brow. “What happened?” he asked with spurious calmness. He was bothered; his face betrayed his attempt to conceal it as the corners of his mouth coiled into a frown.

I told him the details of my visit, right down to the creepy demon that startled me.

“Did you make a bargain with her?” he asked impatiently.

“I don’t think so,” I stated with hesitation as I recalled the events of that day.

“Thinking isn’t good enough. I need you to be certain,” he stated firmly.

I thought about the whole incident, frame by frame. I shook my head, “No, I didn’t make a bargain with her. But she seems to think I will come back.”

“Skylar, you must never go back to her. Ever. A Tréase is a demon that feeds you the truth sprinkled with tidbits of deceit. They offer the promises of a better future and the removal of undesirable attributes. It’s all a trick to remove your gifts. And with everything you lose, you still end up being indebted to them. Believe me; you never want to be indebted to them.”

I nodded. “But was she wrong?” I asked, pushing the issue.

“She wasn’t wrong, but she gave you a skewed version of the truth,” he admitted.

I groaned but it sounded more like a distressed whimper. “Everyone seems to be able to tell how really wrong I am, except the people I trust to help me,” I stated softly.

“I wish that were my gift but it isn’t. In the supernatural, where magic exists in many forms, certain anomalies are expected and accepted,” he looked down at his hand. “I am reluctant to take you to someone who may be able to tell us more, especially right now. The word is out that the vampires have an interest in you. There are people who I can go to, but most of them can only be trusted within limits. I would be placing you at risk unnecessarily,” he admitted.

He was staring at the wall, his face taking on a grave appearance. “There are many in this world who can’t be trusted. If you do have desired gifts, some will try to take them— often by force, deceit and death. I’m not sure how many alliances the vampires have formed. It may be a good idea to restrict interaction until the gem is in our possession.”

Josh was always straight with me. I committed to doing the same and trusting him with everything. I took the journals out of my messenger bags and handed them to him.

“I hope these will help. Most of the journals are a simple read but the beginning is a bit confusing. Maybe you can sort it out. ”

He skimmed over the first page, and then stared at me for a moment. It was as though he were hesitant to find out anything more about me, but soon returned his attention back to the journals.

Slowly I walked the floor as he took on the task of reading the chronicles of how I came to be. Flipping back and forth between pages, his frown lines appeared, disappeared and reappeared as he read.

He stayed on the same page for a long time before looking up at me insightfully. “Sit down, Skylar” he stated firmly.

“I’ll stand.” I leaned against wall and watched as the new information cast an unsettling look on his face.

“Sit.” He stated in a tone that didn’t leave much room for objections. He pushed the chair next to the bed toward me. “It’s a good idea that you do.”

Unable to drop my gaze from his, I blindly found my way to the chair and plopped down in it.

“What do you know of your birth?”

“Apparently, Elena came upon a vampire after he brutally killed my father and was attempting to do the same to my mother. But my mother died anyway, forcing Elena to perform an emergency C-section to deliver me,” I stated mechanically. I had read that part so many times I could recite it verbatim. Of the journals, the first pages of how I came to live with my adopted mother were the sparsest. She must have still been in shock when she wrote it.

He sighed; his hands washed over his face. Apprehension piqued but he quickly put it to rest. I had missed something. “Have you ever heard of a spirit shade?” he asked in a tight voice. I shook my head. “Some believe this story to be a myth while others consider it a cautionary tale: Emma was a very powerful witch distraught over her daughter, Maya, who died at two-years old. Driven by sorrow and desperation, she struck a fool’s deal with a Tréase. She bargained for the return of her daughter’s life in exchange for all her gifts.” Josh shook his head as he continued. “In exchange for her daughter’s life, she gave the Tréase her gifts of morphism and foresight, which you’ve had the opportunity to enjoy,” he chuckled a deviant sound. But he was far from amused. He seemed piqued. “The Tréase returned her life but not the body to store it in. Like I said, they are quite the tricksters. Now Maya wanders through this existence, looking for people who are willing to allow her to shadow their lives as her host. Forbidden to force her way in, she must be allowed entry. That’s the sorrow of her life. If no one allows her in, then she exists but cannot live. Quite a sad tale it is for her to be allowed to exist but unable to touch, to feel, to truly experience life unless through a willing host.”

“The Tréase that I met was the same one Emma went to?”

He shook his head. “Witches’, elves’, faes’ and demons’ gifts are transferred through lineage but also can be gifted to others upon death. Many chose not to do so, holding the same belief of humans who refuse to donate organs, fearing it will change their status in the afterlife. The Tréase you dealt with could very well be the same; however, it is possible it’s the offspring. Nevertheless, they are just as untrustworthy,” he offered.

I had no idea why he was telling me this. Taking in the confused look on my face, he frowned and continued. “That night the vampire wasn’t trying to kill your mother. He was trying to turn her and you in the process. He forced her to feed from him, starting the conversion into vampirism,” he stated in a tight voice. “Elena interrupted the feeding, which would have completed your creation and sealed your fate as a vampire from birth, an undead baby.”

“I thought creating a vampire child was forbidden,” I forced out, trying to ward off the nausea that was coming on fast.

“It is. And if things ended as he planned, once your existence became known, your creator, you and your mother would have been killed. A child born into vampirism will never fend for themselves and remain eternally dependent on their creator, essentially an eternal burden. It is cruel to create something that can never thrive on its own. Creatures even as immoral as the vampires can appreciate the cruelty in that.

“Elena saved me by killing him before the process could be completed,” I acknowledged.

His face crinkled. I missed something again. Something quite important. “No. Your birth mother killed him.” He turned the journal toward me. “Read it.”

“‘ … and this life I shall take.’”

He waited for me to respond, but I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. “Your mother performed a death curse to spare your life. It’s an amateurish spell and the penalty for performing it is your life. You can see why it’s something done as a last resort. By killing him, she thought she would save your life.”

There was protracted and uncomfortable silence before he continued. “But she was wrong. You didn’t survive that night either,” he added in a low grave voice.

I stared back at him, a slow panic rising in the pit of my stomach. “I survived.”
Duh, I am standing in front of you.

He shook his head. “No. You didn’t. You are an innate were-animal and the conversion to vampirism had started. No one survives that.”

My teeth started to hurt from being clenched so hard. I heard everything he said, but processing it took a while. Partially because I went into flight mode and, for me, that was to evade. My mind didn’t want to grasp what he was saying, although I knew very well what that meant. “I … How? … What?”

He began to read, “‘‘The woman whispered part in English and part in Portuguese, “This life you shall have. This life I shall take.” The fanged creature exhaled, hardening before he crumbled into dust.’”

“Your mother was Maya’s host and allowed her invitation into you on your behalf before she died.”

We stared at each other for a long time. He was searching, attempting to interpret the blank look on my face. I couldn’t talk because I was too busy telling myself to breath. “What am I?” I finally asked in a dry voice.

“Your mother was either a gifted human or a witch; I’m not sure which. You are just a werewolf with gifts,” he stated in calm voice. He looked troubled as though he didn’t know how to deal with me any longer. I jumped to my feet and began to aimlessly walk around the room.

“No!” The word ground out in such a harsh distressed sound that I didn’t recognize it as my own. Josh looked at me; confusion and apprehension marking his appearance as his eyes followed me as I continued to pace back and forth.

“What?”

“No!” Again, the voice sounded unfamiliar to me. “In one sweeping moment, you don’t change my life like that. You don’t get to sit there and calmly tell me that I am an abomination— an abnormality that has no place in the human world or this one. You can’t just brush it off as me being ‘just a werewolf with
gifts
’. I am a werewolf with a terait that needs to have blood for it to disappear. I am werewolf that serves as a host for a demonic spirit. I am a werewolf that can hold magic. I am not
just
a werewolf!” It started off softly, but in the end, I was standing in the middle of the room yelling at him.

He took a long time to respond as though he were looking for the right words to make things better. But what were the right words to tell someone that they were an abnormality that this world had never seen?

“She’s not a demonic spirit,” he eventually responded in a low, calm voice, the same voice I suspect you would use for someone who was perilously close to jumping from a twenty-story building. “She is neither evil nor good, taking on the characteristics of whoever hosts her life. She is at the mercy of your behavior,” he admitted

I sat down. My hands covered my face. They felt cold and clammy. Of course, they were cold and clammy because technically I was dead. “I don’t care what she is! I want her gone.”

“I suspect the only reason you exist is because you are her host. If she is forced out, your existence might not continue,” he stated in a soft, sympathetic voice.

Josh began rambling about something, but I couldn’t listen anymore. Forced to find a comfort zone, I tried to allow my mind to escape to a place less shocking. But I couldn’t find that place. “Stop talking! Please.” Taking in a large breath, I held it—a little too long because I became light-headed.

“Skylar? Are you okay?” he asked, concerned. I finally stopped pacing and stared out the window.

He asked me again. “No. I haven’t been okay for a long time,” I admitted, feeling my control slipping. Should I be okay with this? I shook my head slowly. “I don’t want this, any of it.”

“Okay,” he stated softly. “But I can’t change what happened at your birth. At the risk of sounding harsh, you are going to have to deal with things because they aren’t going to go away,” he stated firmly.

I didn’t have it in me to do so at the moment. He gave me a look of such sympathy and concern that it made me recoil.

A few minutes passed, I continued to stare, zoning out. The part of me that regulated my feelings stopped working. Every emotion one could feel washed over me and became too hard to sort out. “Ethan, I need you in here,” Josh’s extremely calm voice requested into his phone. I doubt he wanted to be stuck in a room with a freaked-out wolf.

“What the hell happened?” Ethan asked in a low, tense voice as he entered the room, responding to my dazed state.

“Nothing,” he snapped defensively, stepping closer to the Ethan. “She’s just having a little trouble dealing with some new information,” he whispered.

I wanted to be anywhere but there. I needed respite. Dropping to my knees, I prepared for the change to wolf, which I inevitably failed to stop. It came so quickly that I doubt I could have stopped it, even if I wanted to. I stayed in wolf form for only minutes before I changed back to human form. The transition between human and wolf continued five more excruciating times. In the end, I sat on the ground, trying to catch my breath, exhausted from the series of rapid changes. Giving into the exhaustion, I collapsed and fell asleep on the floor.