Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) (26 page)

“It doesn’t have to,” I said, trying to tug free of him. But he was supernaturally strong; I would’ve had a better chance of pulling off white after Labor Day than breaking free of his grip. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I do.” He ground his teeth together. “I don’t have a choice.” His bright eyes filled with tears. “Do you think I wanted to be this? Do you think this is what I envisioned for my life?” He stomped hard against the ground, causing a crack in the pavement.

Damn, he
was
strong.

“I had a good life, Char. I had ambitions. I had dreams. I had a fiancé. And do you know what she did when she found out?” Tears tripped down his cheeks now. “She just left. Said she couldn’t handle it, that she didn’t think she had the constitution to care for a sick person.”

“Sick?” I muttered, my face tensing as my eyebrows drew together.

“Cancer.” The word left him like a breath.

Images of my mother flooded my mind the way they always did when that horrible word was uttered. I always figured time would change that. But I was wrong. Even now—in the most dangerous situation of my life—her face was the first thing I saw.

“Stage four,” he continued. “There was nothing the doctors could
do. There was nothing anyone could do. They just expect me to rot away, to lie around and wait to die.” He shook his head. “And do you know the worst part? By the time it’s finished, what they bury won’t even look like me.” He stared past me for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the ground, but his hand never left my arm. “And I’ve tried, Char. I found as much blood as I could after that old man came to me. But it wasn’t enough. The magic always wore off, just like he said it would.”

“What old man?” I asked, wincing as his hand tightened around my arm, his nails digging into my skin.

“That doesn’t matter!” He yanked me closer. “None of it matters, because it wasn’t enough.” He blinked hard. “But he showed me what I needed to do. I had to kill that stupid Conduit and change myself.” He shook his head, slowly lifting his gaze back to me as he gentled his tone. “Have you ever killed someone, Char?”

“You don’t have to do this, Dalton,” I said emphatically. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe we can help you … somehow …”

“It changes you,” he said. “It digs deep down into you and steals away things.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Things you didn’t even know could be stolen.”

“Dalton—”

“I had to,” he said, as if begging me to understand.

And the scary part was, some small part of me could. Some small part of me wondered how far I would have gone to save my mom from the same fate Dalton had faced. But I wouldn’t have gone this far.

“I couldn’t die like that,” he continued. “I had come too far. I had done too much to let it all end like some chump, connected to machines and living off applesauce and medication.”

His eyes filled with some dreadful emotion I could not pinpoint. Desperation? Determination? Or was it agony and regret?

“And that’s still true,” he said. “I hate to do this, but I can’t just give up on life. I’m sorry, Char. I can’t. Why should it be me who dies? Why does fate get to decide?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to say. That’s just the way it was. He couldn’t play God. It wasn’t right. “So—so what are you going to do?”

He let out a slow sigh. “I need more Supplicant blood. All of a Supplicant’s blood. The
right
Supplicant’s blood,” he added. “That’s the only hope it might be enough.” His cracked his knuckles in front of him, then slanted his gaze toward me. “I really wish it wasn’t you. Please don’t make this harder for me.”

“Harder for
you
?” A new wave of anger came rushing through me. “What are you expecting, Dalton? That I’m going to willingly sacrifice myself for you? Clearly you would not do the same for me.”

He bit down on his lip and shook his head. “Sorry it has to be this way.”

Then he swung at me again, striking me hard against my right cheek with a sickening crack. I slumped in his grasp. Now that I was limp and defenseless, he finally let go of my arm, and I crumpled to the ground.

“I wondered if you could use it, the magic in your blood.” He kicked me hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of me. I lurched to my side, holding my stomach. “Guess not.”

My eyes scanned the ground. Of course I would leave the stupid gun over there. Of course I would.

“D-Dalton …” I said, my voice nothing more than a thin rasp. “P-Please …”

“I wish I could stop, Char.” He advanced, his fists morphing into sharpened claws. “I’ll make it quick.”

This was it. He was going for the finishing blow.

“You
can
stop,” I murmured. “You can.”

He raised his right hand over his head, readying to bring it down on me. “Pleading won’t save you. Nothing can save you now.”

A blur whizzed across my line of sight. In a blink, Dalton was on the ground, gasping for air with scratches across his face.

Looking up, I saw Abram standing there in his human form, bare-chested and glistening in the moonlight. “I think I’d like to test that theory.”

My heart leapt. The rest of me would have followed, but I was as bruised and battered as the honorees of Mr. Blackwell’s ‘What Not to Wear’ list, and my heart was the only part of me capable of doing any leaping.

Abram glared at Dalton with enough animosity to break glass. His chest huffed up and down like waves crashing against a gorgeous shore. He was obviously pained. Panicking, I scanned his torso, searching for the bullet wound. All I found was dried blood. It seemed the injury had closed itself. I should have known better than to worry. It would take more than a bullet to stop Abram.

Of course, the same could be said for Dalton.

But what did that mean? If Abram wasn’t injured any longer, then why was he in so much obvious pain? The answer came to me almost immediately. It was after midnight. He was trying to maintain his human form, probably so that I would recognize him.

“Are you okay?” he asked, speaking to me but never removing his gaze from Dalton.

“I think he broke something,” I answered, already feeling how much my jaw was swelling up.

Abram growled. “I’m about to break
him
.”

Dalton smiled from the pavement. His wounds were stitching themselves together, too. This wouldn’t be an easily won fight. The only thing clearer than that was the fact that
I
seemed to the only person around who couldn’t heal her own wounds, which put me at a distinct disadvantage.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Abram,” Dalton said, getting to his feet much quicker than he should have been able to. “Run along like a good dog, and you just might survive this.”

Abram leaned toward Dalton, not a wrinkle of fear to be found anywhere on him. “I would say the same about you, but I’m not going to afford you that luxury.”

As they circled each other, Abram’s eyes flashed down to me.

“Run,” he said, his worried voice gravelly with warning.

Then he sprung forward, morphing into full-on beast mode as he came down on Dalton. His elongated jaw went right for Dalton’s throat. He was obviously not wasting any time, freeing up of whatever energy it took him to remain human and going right for the kill shot.

Dalton ducked out of the way, and Abram landed, spinning around on his paws. Deep claw marks gashed into the pavement.

I darted off, heading right for the woods. But Dalton appeared in front of me.

“Stick around,” he said. “I don’t want you to miss this.”

Grabbing my arm, he flung me hard. I stumbled back and crashed against a parked car. The impact dropped me to my knees, and I curled up, spikes of pain shuddering up my back.

Abram’s howl pierced the night air. It was, at once, terrible and wonderful. He looked over at me, his beast form lean and muscular. His eyes traced me, taking ownership of all they saw. He lunged toward Dalton, but this time Dalton wasn’t lucky enough to get out of the way.

Abram collided with him, a mass of fur and teeth. Soon, Abram had eclipsed him, and all I could see from where I slumped against the car was Abram’s massive form huddling over what surely by now was Dalton’s bloodied corpse.

Astonishingly, though, Abram’s form lifted from the ground—Dalton held him over his head. He flung Abram through the air. The beast hit hard against a nearby building and yelped.

I shivered, realizing what Dalton could have done to
me
. But he wanted me alive—at least until he was ready to drain all my blood for himself. If I died before then, I would be no good to him.

Dalton started toward me. “Let’s go, sweet thing. I don’t exactly have an endless amount of time.”

Another howl danced across my eardrums, and Abram raced between us. He was on all fours now, growling with bared fangs and raised fur. The two beasts pounced toward each other, claws connecting with bodies midair, slicing gashes into each other as they tumbled back to the ground. They rolled closer to me. A spray of blood—I hoped not Abram’s—splashed onto my hospital gown.

With so much blood streaking and matting their fur, I could not fathom how either of them continued to brawl. Abram swiped at Dalton’s face, his nails slicing through his snout, and Dalton howled. He whacked Abram hard, sending him flying back, then barreled toward me again. His dirty claws tore right through the hospital gown and into my thigh, and I screeched.

Though my mind went numb with terror, my whole body shook from the pain. Dalton raised his paw again. But Abram towered behind him, pulling Dalton back by his beastly shoulder and sending him hurtling through the air.

Oh, Abram
.
This is a disaster
.

Abram’s eyes, even in beast form, looked so human. So anguished. He made a small mewling sound, tilting his head as he looked over my wound. He ripped off a piece of my hospital gown and tied it around the large gash in my thigh, then started to try to lift me.

Before he could get me off the ground, Dalton pounced on his back, wrapping his beast-arms around Abram’s neck and digging claws into his shoulders to hold tight. Abram’s grip on me slipped, and fell back, my head knocking into the car. There was just … so much blood. My stomach lurched, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Please, God, do something
.

A shot rang across my field of vision, nearly striking Abram in the head. Turning to the left, I saw Mr. McKenzie, gun pointed toward the beast. They were waking up—the entire town. And that meant that, once again, the game had changed.

“It’s back!” Dalton screamed. “The monster is back!”

I spun my gaze toward him, only to find Dalton had already morphed back into human form, his clothes hanging in tatters off his body.
The devil
. He’d created the perfect scene to further incite the mob: a battered detective hero, the bleeding damsel in distress, and the hulking beast waging war on this sleepy peaceful town.

One by one, the people of the town encroached on this tableau, an entire town, readying themselves for the kill.

“Abram …” I murmured, reaching out helplessly toward him.

He pounded his clawed-fists against the ground, getting onto all fours. He looked at me and then shook his head forward, snorting. I knew what he wanted. With what little strength I had remaining, I thrust myself onto his back and grabbed a handful of fur.

Abram took off, driving a path through the terrified townspeople. The muscles in his back flexed as the wind picked up around me. It was almost like flying, moving through Main Street quicker than I had ever gone before. But where were we going? Where
could
we go? There was no escaping this.

When Abram’s paws hit hard against the pavement to take an all-too-familiar left, I knew where he was headed, even before he descended the staircase—the very one I fell down the day we met.

Abram burst through the locked doors of The Castle and darted down the hall, huffing as he settled in front of the strangely marked door.

He lowered his back, and I climbed off. Chanting and clanging and thundering from the streets poured in now. The mob was legion. And they were coming.

The beast stood and, slowly but surely, morphed back into Abram. His shape returned before my very eyes, naked, muscular, and mouthwatering.

“How are you doing this?” I asked.

“The room,” he said as his voice returned. “This room, it’s letting me do it.”

“How?” I asked, my voice shaking.

A loud crash echoed from down the hall. From here I could just barely make out what it was: someone had thrown a lit bottle through the window. A table caught fire, and it quickly spread to the drapes.

“My God,” I said.

He took my arm gently. “We have to go inside. You’re losing a lot of blood.”

I’d nearly forgotten my own wounds; I’d been staring at Abram, whose body was unmarred, no evidence of his injuries remaining. I hadn’t noticed the blood streaming past the cloth Abram had used to tie off my wound. I was dripping blood all over the floor.

I gasped and stumbled back, about to faint at the sight of all the blood—worse, somehow, coming from my body. A body I knew would not heal itself.

Abram caught me and pulled me against him. “The room will protect us. Get inside.”

But I just stood there, frozen, unable to pull my gaze from the fire. The flames licked up the walls the same as fear burned in my core. Abram pushed the previously unmovable door open and swept me inside.

A soft light—like moonlight—swelled around us, so pale it was nearly blinding. He pushed the door closed behind us and, slowly, my eyes adjusted to the light.

But my mind could not comprehend what I saw.

No sooner had my feet crossed the secret room’s threshold than something flared inside of me. Some pieces of myself, parts that I didn’t even fully realize existed, started lighting up and falling into place. The light here shimmered in flecks of gold, sort of like the way my blood looked when it came in contact with someone magical.

As the light washed over me, all my pain subsided, all my wounds tingled into a glorious numbness. Once my eyes adjusted from the burst of light, I began to take stock of the room. It was quaint, nearly empty. Nothing inside betrayed whatever importance existed within these walls. Why had keeping me out of here been so important? And why was this barren space able to keep us safe now when all other areas came up lacking?