Scorched Treachery (33 page)
Read Scorched Treachery Online
Authors: Rebecca Ethington
“Ryland has asked me…”
“No!” My voice caught him off guard, his eyes widening at the power behind my one word.
I couldn’t stop the panic that flowed through my body. I moaned as I curled into the blanket, every nerve ending tensing in agony, in fear of what was to come. I felt Ilyan’s magic surge into me and my own magic joining his as I attempted to calm myself, to take the fear away.
I could see Ilyan’s thoughts in front of me, his worry for his brother and his friend and his desperate need for me, and I could hear Ryland
’s words in his head. I tensed as they hit my mind, my body tightly wound before Ilyan’s magic was able to calm me again.
I will not see him.
I answered the unasked question inside his head.
I will kill him if I see him. I
want
to kill him.
I narrowed my eyes at him, my jaw tensing at the calm agony his eyes showed me. I curled into the wall, my mind fighting against my better judgment as it begged me to run away.
“You won’t kill him,” Ilyan said as calmly as he could, and I felt my anger rise and my magic pulse. For one fleeting second it was stronger than the crazed anxiety that still overtook me.
I will.
“No, Jos,” he whispered, and I couldn’t help the thunk of my heart at my nickname on his lips. “You don’t want that, not really.”
I do, Ilyan.
I begged him. I begged through the panic, the fear. I needed him to understand this. To understand my need. The anger was a fire inside of me, the need for revenge fanning it ever higher.
He hurt me… he…
My thoughts stopped as Ilyan’s hand moved against my neck, the sharp jolt as his skin made contact with my mark stopping my words. I sighed at the sensation, at the pleasurable heat it gave me, before staring into Ilyan, knowing it had been his intention to stop me.
“You don’t want to hurt him. You don’t want to kill him. It’s not really
you
that feels that way. You think it is because you are still so scared and confused at what has happened. You were hurt, Joclyn, but not by him.”
His eyes dug into me as he spoke, his words pleading with me to believe him. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t see beyond the panic
and pain. It consumed me. A part of me wanted it to. In some ways, the pain and the anxiety made me remember that I was alive.
It was him.
I spat as I pushed Ilyan away, as I let the anxiety mix with the hate. I could feel my magic surge and pulse, but it wasn’t like when I had healed Wyn; this was uncontrollable, like I myself was the danger, as if I would explode.
“No, my love,” Ilyan said calmly, his eyes scanning me as I continued to try to move into myself and my breathing picked up. “It was a farce, a projection in Cail’s mind meant to confuse you so that you would kill him if you ever got the chance.”
I could feel Ilyan’s magic move into me and take away the frayed edges of my panic. I wanted to hold it to me, and relax in the pain, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tear my mind away from what Ilyan was saying, what he was trying so foolishly to get me to believe.
I couldn’t ignore the pulse of anger that moved through me. I couldn’t ignore the way that just talking about him was awakening my panic, causing my body to shake and curl into itself. Ryland needed to pay for what he had done to me.
It was him, Ilyan. I know…
“How do you know it was?” The desperation in his words stopped me, my eyes widening. Why
did he doubt me? Why was he pushing me? What had Ryland told him? What had my father said?
I had shown Ilyan
everything; I had filled his mind with those memories. Why couldn’t he see that I knew? I knew by the way that he had walked, the way that his hair curled. I could have admitted that there had been something different about him, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I didn’t want to.
I twitched as I focused on the memories, the images letting that strong fear back into my heart. My body moved even further into the wall as I tried to keep the fear at bay, as I tried to hold onto reality.
How do you know that it wasn’t?
I countered, my voice snide in his head.
Ilyan closed his eyes for a moment, and I could hear the replay of the last hour in his mind, the conversation he had had with Sain. I didn’t want to hear it. Even though I could tell he was trying to give me the thoughts, I wouldn’t let them in. I wasn’t interested.
“They did the same to him, Jos.” He sighed, his breath exhaling as he lifted his eyes to look at me again. “They turned him into a weapon to hurt you. It’s why he punched you. He still sees you as the enemy they haunted him with. He is trying to fight it, but I am not sure he can.”
I just stared at him, the words sinking into a place deep inside of me that I wanted so desperately to ignore. Ilyan’s eyes were soft, the truth behind them penetrating. I sighed as I leaned my head against the wall, not willing to except it, more willing to let my panic take over.
How do you know that I am meant to be a weapon now?
Ilyan stared and moved closer, his body folding as he leaned toward me.
“It’s what my father does, Joclyn.” His fingers twitched in desperation to hold me again. “It is what he has always done. You know this.”
I did. I had seen it even before he had done it to me. I had seen it in Thom, and I had heard the stories of my father. I had no reason to doubt any of them.
“You need to let go of that anger, Joclyn,” Ilyan continued when I said nothing, his hand finally moving to rest against the blanket that covered me. “You can’t let the pain control you.”
I can’t, Ilyan. If I let go of it, then there is nothing left. I have nothing behind that. It’s all I am anymore.
“That’s not true,” Ilyan said, his hand moving to rub my body in comfort through the blanket.
It’s all I feel.
I sighed, pulling the blanket around me tighter. I felt the jagged edge within me as it threatened to turn into panic. I pushed it away as I buried my face into the wall, refusing to look at him. I knew the look he would have if I did.
“You have to look beyond it, my love,” he whispered, his voice soft as his hand moved from the blanket to the skin of my face. I fought the temptation to lean into the touch, to bask in it.
There is nothing behind it.
I said, the voice in my head breaking in my sadness.
Ilyan sighed, and his hand moved over my skin before he dropped it, before he leaned away from me. The movement scared me, and I looked toward him. But when I did, his eyes were looking right at me, the bright blue shocking as they raged with a heady emotion that took my breath away.
“My father hung me from a tree shortly after it became obvious that I was the one challenging him. He caught me, whipped me, and burned my skin with irons. I thought I would go mad. But I didn’t.”
He didn’t move as he spoke, his eyes never leaving mine. I had always excluded Ilyan from the pain Edmund had caused his children. I didn’t know why, but Ilyan seemed untouchable.
Now he was telling me that he had been hurt. He had thought he would go crazy. But he didn’t
How?
He smiled at my question, and for the first time since I met him, I could tell he was nervous. I could feel the anxiety in his mind; hear the thump of his heart.
His heart called to me, and I leaned toward him, the heavy blanket moving away as I reached for his hands and wrapped my hands around his.
“Ilyan?” I asked aloud, loving the way his name felt on my tongue.
“I thought of you
, of the vision. I basked in the way you felt in my arms, the smell of your hair. I thought of every vision I had seen in the sight and I knew I was bigger than the pain. I looked beyond it, and I found love.”
Love.
The look in his eyes, the way his magic felt within me, none of it was wild, none of it was scary. Everything about Ilyan was calm. He was love.
He was light.
I had felt it before, before Wyn’s screams had broken open the façade I had plastered together. Ilyan was love.
He wasn’t love simply because I knew he loved me. Because I did know that. Without question, he had proved
that to me again and again. No, he was love because I loved him.
I loved him.
“What is beyond your anger, Joclyn? What is your pain hiding?”
I didn’t look away from him as he asked his question
s. I didn’t dare take my eyes off him. I stared at Ilyan as my body leaned toward him, as my hands moved from his. My fingers moved on their own, trailing up his shirt and over the skin of his neck.
I held my breath as I touched his face, the soft skin I had never touched before. I ran the pads of my fingers ove
r his eyebrows, his defined cheek bones, and through the hairline of his short cut.
My heart pulsed wildly inside of me as I let my fingers trail over the scruff from a beard I had never seen, prickly and sharp, before dragging to his lips. I froze.
I froze at the sound of my pulse in my ears. I froze at the calm that had overtaken me. I froze at the desire that circled through Ilyan’s mind and the willpower he was exerting to keep it there.
I watched his breathing. I felt the heat of his breath against my fingers, the pulse of his magic hot under his skin.
What was behind the anger?
“Ilyan,” I said again, his eyes opening slowly to stare at me, “you are behind my anger.”
I smiled at my words, my heart thumping even more at the clarity they brought, at the way each word formed perfectly. Ilyan’s lips upturned underneath my touch, the skin parting as he kissed the pads of my fingers, the wetness of his lips soft against my skin.
“
I always will be,” he whispered as my fingers fell from his lips and I moved closer.
As I kissed him.
Thank you for reading, for supporting and for loving what I do.
Thank you to my friends who put up with my excessive writing habits, to Liz who watched the Monkey, to Dan who cheers me on. Thank you to those who read it first, and those who read it last. Thank you for sharing, for raving, for blowing me away.
Thank you.
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About the Author
Rebecca Ethington has been telling stories since she was small. First, with writing crude scripts, and then in stage with years of theatrical performances. The Imdalind Series is her first stint into the world of literary writing. Rebecca is a mother to two, and wife to her best friend of 14 years. She was born and raised in the mountains of Salt Lake City, and hasn’t found the desire to leave yet. Her days are spent writing, running, and enjoying life with her amazing family.
Soul of Flame
, the fourth book in The Imdalind Series is due to be released December 2013
Rebecca will also be releasing
Through Glass
, book one in The Glass Series September 20
th
2013
And
Hit, a YA Contemporary,
in November 2013
Follow Rebecca on her blog at:
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On Facebook:
Facebook.com/rebeccaethington.author
#Imdalind
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