A Kiss of Ashen Twilight (Ashen Twilight Series #1) (48 page)

“No!” Jace lunged toward her, but Avery was too quick as he turned around and grabbed Jace by the throat, tackling him to the ground.

Pain shot throughout Ariya’s body as she felt the cold blade penetrate her throbbing skin. All the sound had ceased in the room and it felt as if everyone was moving in slow motion around her. With all the strength she had left, she summoned an energy boost that caused her body to glow. She bent down to gain momentum and leapt into the air with Blakedon still holding onto her. She held her hands out, creating a burst of energy like a force of gravity that boosted them upward toward the sky. She ignored the rush of blood soaking her neck and the front of her dress. The throbbing pain lined along her throat where the slash had been made. The elemental swarmed toward the power like a magnet and swooped up under her. She felt the creature collide with her body. Soon they hit the top of the roof, but their bodies didn’t collide with the physical structure. The mortal realm melted away into the Aziza Fairy realm in mere seconds.

Light emanated from the heavens as she flew upward from the grassy grounds and toward the tall trees. Blakedon broke away from her and jumped toward the ground as she continued ascending. Her wings sprang open into flight and she turned to fly away, but the elemental was right there behind her. She tried to fly but the trees swayed all around her with no opening toward a clearing.

Then she felt it. A thousand needles invaded her body, cutting into her, ripping her flesh from each and every direction around her. She turned over and saw Blakedon watching with awe and determination as the creature tried to invade her body and absorb her powers.
Something was wrong.
The creature immediately retracted and freed her.

Ariya felt a slight sense of relief as she watched the elemental darken into a thick black and grey form as if it was poisoned. And poisoned it was, she realized. What little of Jace’s blood that remained in her system had mixed in with her Aziza blood. She didn’t know what effects it had on the creature but one thing was true from the screeching high pitched sounds of pain it emitted. It was dying.

She tried to flair out her wings to gain wind power to propel her into the air, but it was too late. Her wings had been torn in the attack! Freefalling toward the ground, she watched with wide eyes as the elemental turned from a smooth ripple in the air into a red, orange and yellow ball of fire. Pain, destruction and death immediately flashed across it and she could’ve sworn Blakedon’s visage was visible within the fiery image. Finally, the elemental slowly burst into flames.

“No!” She heard Blakedon screaming from the ground. “What have you done?”

She couldn’t fight gravity anymore. All of her strength had left as she gave into gravity and fell toward the grassy ground. She heard Blakedon’s voice in the distance of the air, yet his words were indecipherable to her ears. The Aziza Fairy realm gave way to the mortal realm before her body could fall against the hard ground. The roof of the warehouse appeared again just as her body slammed into the concrete flooring.

“Ariya!”

Jace’s voice was distant and she couldn’t move. She felt him moving close, but the seduction of darkness was closer. Mind numbing pain shot throughout her body and she tried to move, despite her limb’s objections. Slowly she was giving way to an unconscious state.

* * * *

“Ariya, no!” Jace kneeled down to Ariya’s body and scooped her into his arms. The past few moments happened in an instant. One minute both she and Blakedon were there. The next minute a ripple of waves in the air flashed and they were gone. Moments later Ariya came through and before he could release his hold from that cursed Avery, he had watched her body collide with the concrete. She couldn’t die! He couldn’t lose her now.

“Ariya,” Jace said softly. Her heartbeat was slowing by the moment. “Ariya, you have to hold on. Do you hear me? I’m not going to lose you now. I’m not going to let you die on me now.”

Jace pulled back his sleeve and raised his wrist to his lips. He winced slightly as his teeth penetrated the skin, aiming for the thick vein in the middle. A few drops of his own blood spilled into his mouth. He was thankful for the adrenaline rushing through into his system to dull the pain. Once he severed the vein, he pressed his wrist against her mouth hoping to get a response; any kind of movement of her lips or a quickening of her pulse. “Ariya, drink now! Do you hear me!”

Angry tears forced its way through his eyes, blurring his vision and he wiped them away. “Ariya, please.”

Slowly her heartbeat came to a halt—and then silence. Her warm body lay still underneath him and he could hear nothing that alerted her body was still alive.

Jace threw back his head and released a primal scream. Nothing mattered now. Not anymore. He lost the one thing in his life that mattered. She was the one person who showed him that a life of no feeling meant death. And now that was ripped away from him yet again.

He didn’t even have a chance to tell her how he truly felt. How much she had changed his life.

And how much he loved her.

Gently he lay Ariya down, peering up Avery with a hateful glare. He pushed up off his knees and raced toward him with a raging fire fueling his body. He lunged toward Avery with all his might, tackling him to the ground. He raised his fists and pummeled into Avery over and over again, cracking his knuckles against skin, muscle and bone. He was like a machine now, only seeing red and no end in sight. Voices screamed around him to stop but he couldn’t hear them. He didn’t want to hear them. He felt Julian’s arms hauling him up, but he yanked his arms away only to land his fists into what was becoming a bleeding, sore mess of Avery’s face. He didn’t care. Every hit was for Ariya, for himself him and all the times they lost because of these Shifters and that cursed Blakedon who had to take her.

“Ease off, Jace!” His uncle forced him backward away from Avery’s still body.

“Freakin’ Ren needs to taste his own blood while I beat his life out of him!” Jace yelled at the top of his lungs. He launched a kick, knocking Avery in the ribs with a sickening crack. His body recoiled as he spit blood and fell over into fetal position to hold his body.

Julian held onto him closely as he pulled him further away. “He is my son! My son, Jace.”

The words echoed in Jace’s mind as he watched two Nightwalkers haul Avery’s limp body upward. Behind them the Lycans stood in true form as they held the Shifter Rens captive. They all watched him closely but Jace didn’t care. His mind was a complete mess and his body was numb. He had lost the only thing that mattered to him in his life and he wanted revenge for Ariya, for himself and most of all for the life that they could have shared for each other.

* * * *

The Highlands of Scotland proved to be a formidable refuge in the days they retreated from home. After burning the dead bodies of the servants they lost in the massacre, the rest were left to wonder with clouded minds as to where the Archanes went. Jace remembered the trek across the green mountains ascending into the heavens. The biting cold air whipped around them and what was once harsh weather had been a comfort to their new bodies. They traveled during dusk once the sun dipped behind the shadowy horizon and into the night where mortals had prepared for rest during the late hours. As they walked for nights on end across the hills, he couldn’t get their home out of his head. Nor could he get the death of Sophie out of his heart. He was changed then. An even greater change would take place as they came upon the tracks of men tied to ancient torture machines that had cut their skin, castrated them and had ripped their limbs from their sockets.

Jace remembered the shock that his father held upon seeing the inhuman device. Daoine had told them that it was a way of getting rid of the ‘monsters’ that the townspeople had thought were immortals. The display would be a warning to set an example of what would happen if any travelers and immortals wandered by. Jace felt his heart drop into his stomach once it was confirmed that the tortured individual was a mortal, probably killed upon suspicion from the townspeople. It was then he realized that none of the mortals could be trusted. Their bloodthirsty hearts feared anything that was different from their mortal norms. As the legends grew, twisted and changed throughout the centuries about his Nightwalker brethren, he wondered if it was now safe to walk amongst them with no fear.

That fear was a grave mistake that he had paid dearly for.

Jace sat back in the chair with thoughts of the past clouding his mind. They gathered the remaining Rens and held them at a nearby home safely away from the location of the Ashen Twilight House. Jace insisted on taking Ariya there. He refused to believe she was gone despite her absent pulse. Blakedon’s whereabouts were still undetected in the mortal realm and it was assumed he was still left in Ariya’s realm. He hoped for the best that the elemental had been defeated which would leave Blakedon a mere mortal without his supernatural beast to command.

But how? How could he be a mortal and have lived all of these years?

And Avery, the boy he had passed as his own. Jace’s cousin. He nearly beat the younger Nightwalker to death on sight for putting Ariya in danger. The last he had heard, Avery was being held within one of the rooms of the house after Julian’s insistence.

Jace shifted his position in the old Victorian chair. None of this was over. He could feel it in his bones—it was far from being completely over.

He looked up at Ariya’s still body. Her soft dark face still beautiful and peaceful in the serenity of death. Her neck was wrapped and hadn’t healed any and was still torn from the knife that Blakedon had used on her. He reached out to her hand and held it gently in his own. What was once warm skin now felt cold as ice and completely limp. Her dark curls were splayed around her heart-shaped face and when he placed her on the large cushioned bed, he made sure not to damage her wings anymore than they had been. As he watched her laying still—his sleeping beauty—he couldn’t help thinking about what she mentioned earlier when they spoke of life and death.

Do you really believe I have been tainted? The hands of death stretch far beyond your world and well into mine long before I saw what Julian did to that Ren back there. The only
difference is until that day when the elemental was conjured up from this land, death had an understanding with life. Nature understood the cycle and life was only taken when it was ready. Not a moment before. Each creature understood their spirits were taken temporarily and for a greater reason. But this—this world kills at random with no purpose. And yet there is a light that makes everything worth continuing. Worth fighting for.

He wasn’t in her world, but if death and life had extended from his world to hers, there was a chance that he could reach it because Ariya’s spirit was not ready. He knew it deep down in his heart and soul; she was not prepared to go yet.

He gently unfolded the wrap around her neck and tried not to wince at the large jagged cut that broke her beautiful dark velvet flesh.

Jace slowly rose to his feet, still holding Ariya’s hand while his other gently caressed her forehead. He focused on her with all the energy of his lifeforce and the power of hundreds of years. Everything he had contained and cut off from feeling a connection to another now rose to the surface. His chest rose and fell with the power of his breath of life.

“Listen to me over there. Ariya, you are not ready to go yet. You have come too far to quit now. You’ve awakened something in me that has been dormant for centuries and I’m not about to go back to that life. I can’t go back to that life—any life without you. You have to fight to come back. You hear me? I’m right here fighting for you. Right here! Just come to me. Come back to me, Ariya. I need you. I—I love you. Do you hear me! I love you, Ariya. And I’m not about to let you go!”

His voice rose with the power of his emotions. He then he felt a presence in the room behind him, the three Patriarchs, but he wasn’t going back on his word. His hands gripped her as he felt a force of power surging like electricity within his body. He held onto her and watched as a glow surrounded her body then integrated itself with her. A sudden burst of light emanated from her body like droplets of rain. Ariya’s eyes shot open and she breathed in sharply, loudly and full of life. She breathed, in and out, and her dark eyes finally flashed with vibrance and life. She looked around the room and turned to him.

“Jace?” she said softly.

Her voice was like chorus bells to his ears. Gently he caressed her cheek as he leaned in. “Yes, baby. It’s me. I’m right here.” He bent down and crushed his lips against hers, coaxing her mouth open in a frenzy to consume her lips with his own. She reached up and wrapped her arms around him and slowly the cuts and abrasions on her body healed themselves. “I thought I’d lost you.”