Born of Silence (Immortal Guardians) (12 page)

“I’m sorry.”
She raised her hand to the glass, fanning her fingers wide. She didn’t know how else to get her point across,
knowing that he couldn’t hear her. The only bond they had was through the glass, and so she kept her palm there.

His jaw shifted as though
he
was considering what she’d said. H
e placed his hand to the
pane, lowering
his brows in concentration.
She watched, amazed as she always was as light filtered from their hands. This time though, it wasn’t only the light.
Strange so
unds surrounded her, causing her to
jump. But as soon as they came so did his voice. “
What are you?
”

Danielle blinked
,
focusing on
his mouth and k
nowing, without a doubt, that his lips
hadn’t moved. Had he actually spoken in her mind?
He couldn’t.
Was that even possible? “
What?
” she thought. “
Is that you, Garrick?
Can you
…
hear me?
”

He nodded as “
Yes
” came through in her mind. “
What are you?
I know you’re not human
.”

The sound of his voice was like an angry growl, the bite behind it making her flinch with each word. “
What do you mean?
”

“
Don’t toy with me, Dani
.
I saw what you did
.”

She stared at him, her eyebrows slowly rising. He thought her name was Dani? It took her a few seconds to realize why. She’d never finished writing her name on the window that day. Pyro had interrupted them
, and she’d only gotten the first-half of her name written
. “
I’m not toying with you
,” she replied. “
I don’t know why it happened. I don’t even know how. I just know that Ekhart keeps forcing me to do it
.”

“
You
could have told me you were a fucking Harpy. Why would you keep it from me? What game are you trying to pull? Or
did you keep it
secret
because of the war?”

After getting over the initial shock of him swearing at her—and at even being able to hear him at all—she said, “
A Harpy
?
I’m not a Har…”
She paused, dead air stretching between them until her eyes widened in understanding.
“Oh my god, they changed me. Garrick, that must be what they do here. They change people. They changed me
.”

His eyes narrowed, but whether that was from confusion or just that he didn’t believe her, she didn’t know. “
What do you mean they changed you? Stop fucking with me,”
his voice boomed in her head.
“You’re a Harpy
.”

She shook her head. “
No,
I
swear. I grew up normal
…
uh, human. I didn’t even know that monsters existed until they brought Karena and me here.”

His face relaxed a little as he gripped on
to that new bit of information.
“
Karena?”

“
My sister. She
died a few years ago, I guess. I don’t know exactly when she died, but it feels like a long time ago.”

Garrick nodded, the anger that had been plastered across his face lessening a few more degrees. “
Okay, say I believe you.
Was there anything special with her? Or did she grow up ‘normal’ too?”

She couldn’t tell—hell, she hadn’t even been around anyone but Ekhart’s goonies for nearly a decade—but she could have sworn there was a trace of humor in his thoughts. “
She was human. She was normal until they started experimenting on her.”
Thinking of her sister, she remembered all of the scrapes and sores she came back with. They were much the same as what Dani sported almost daily now.
“She always had it a lot harder than I did. She’d come back with bruises and cuts all over and I
…
Garrick, do you think that they tried to turn her into a
…
a Harpy?”

He seemed to think about that for some time, somehow keeping certain thoughts from her while letting others seep through. Mind made up, his gaze found hers and he nodded.
“Probably.”

“Is that what killed her?”

“
It’s possible. Mixing genes of different races has been illegal up until the last few centuries. It’s still frowned upon though, and what Ekhart is doing to humans and demons is still forbidden.
”

She brought a hand up to her face, thinking
about
how weird and wrong all of this was. She shook her head and opened her eyes, locking gazes with Garrick. “
So different races shouldn’t mix
?”

“
Many shouldn’t. Some turn out okay from what I’ve seen. But I do know a lot of demons who’ve tried to intermingle with other races, and their offspring either die you
ng or have to be put down for
unacceptable behavior.”

Oh, God. What she’d done had to be unacceptable. “
Oh
.”

Garrick’s lips twitched.
He looked to where their hands were still joined on either side of the glass.
“
I’ve never heard of anyone actually doing what Ekhart is
accomplishing
though. I’d think that the risk would be too great.”

“
What r
isk?
”

“
The council
.
They monitor doings in all the realms and intervene when someone or a group of someones have overstepped their bounds
.”

She noticed how calm Garrick had become. The strains of anger no longer crossed his handsome features and he’d once again returned to his casual, as-easy-going-as-you-can-be-while-imprisoned-in-a-cave demeanor that she’d witnessed from her side of the glass. And while they’d never had an actual conversation before—hadn’t he
ard each other’s voices before
—she sensed that breeziness that he’d offered ever since he came to the Institute. And for the first time, Dani felt like she was starting to get some answers. After being here for years and years, constantly wondering where she was and who she was with, and slowly coming to the realization that monsters actually existed, Garrick was finally giving her
something
. He had told her
she was a Harpy—a mythological creature. Pyro had
ment
ioned that Garrick was a Fairy,
if she could take his ranting seriously.
Even so, Fairies were also mythological.
Both times, they’d been said in anger. Pyro’s over her friendship with Garrick, and Garrick’s because of. . .

“
A war?
” she asked.

“
What?
”

“
You asked if I didn’t tell you because of the war. What
war
?
”

“
Oh
,” Garrick replied, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “
Don’t worry about it
.”

“
Nuh uh
,” she thought, shaking her head. “
T
hat’s not fair
.”

“
Is any of this fair
?” When Dani pegged him with what she hoped was an angry glare, he rolled his eyes. “
Fine. We’re dangerous around each other
.”

“
What? How
?”

“
Well, actually you’re dangerous to me
,” he clarified. “
What we’re doing right now
is
even
dangerous
.”

She looked at their almost-joined hands
, wondering if he was telling the truth
.

“I am,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.

“
Why
?”

“
Now that, little Harpy, I am not going to tell you
.” He pulled his hand away from the glass and turned away, leaving Dani to the empty quiet she’d suffe
red through for the last decade.

How in the ever-li
ving hell had things gone so wrong? Why had Ekhart and his Institute bastards gone after an innocent girl like Dani and turned her into one of the most ferocious
demons
in existence?

Dani, w
ith her lovely red hair that he’d dreamt
of seeing gleam in the sunlight;
with her bright blue eyes and soft, pink lips. He
often
imagine
d what she would look like,
twirling under the bright sun, enjoying every ray as it lit upon her skin.

And now that dream
was
shattered. She wasn’t a sun goddess, but a demon capable of indescribable evils. Harpies took everything without giving anything in return. They lived to steal—by any means
necessary—
and had been a long-time rival of the
Fae. Harpies were from Caireal, the same realm that he had grown up in. While he’d been raised on the Isle of
Túir
, the Harpies had resided and thrived on their own islands. Quite often they’d attack
the Fae en masse, taking anything and everything
they could, including the lives
of his people.

Harpies and Fairies had a very precarious relationship. While Fairies could wield their magic, only gifting magic to others by their own will, Harpies co
uld drain the Fae of their essence
, without or without the Fairy’s consent.

That was why Garrick had to be careful around Dan
i now. The two of them formed a
connection days ago, long before he found out what she truly was. And he’d used that same connection to talk to her today, despite the fact that it had put him in grave danger. Had
she
wanted to, she could have drained him, leaving him no better than a human.

Or worse.

But she didn’t, and Garrick was grateful that she wasn’t aware of her full Harpy potential. She was still human to the core
;
he
could see that now. She had the heart of a human, and humans notoriously had the biggest hearts of any race
he’d come upon. Maybe that was
why she hadn’t given into her fully Harpiness. Maybe that made her
different from the others. And m
aybe that was why after he’d given a piece of his magic to her that day when she’d needed healing, Dani had offered it back without question when he’d needed it from her.

Garrick eyed the female, still unsure of what to make of this whole predicament. He was drained from the magic he’d wielded to speak with her telepathically. Even now, he stayed away from window, wonde
ring exactly how to handle this; wondering how much he could even trust her.

****

Dani did not understand men. One minute, Garrick was pissed off at her for something she clearly didn’t have any control over. The next, he actually seemed okay, or at least accepting of the situation at hand. And then, he’d turned distant. Something was clearly bothering him and she had no idea what it was.

As for her, her mind swirled with thoughts of Fairies and Harpies. A part of her had known for a long time that other creatures existed, but she’d never thought that she would become one herself. It seemed inconceivable that she could be born one thing, only to be made another.

Her gaze met Garrick’s and she was drawn back to wondering what made him fear her.
It couldn’t be what he’d said about them being enemies. If what he said was true, that Fairies and Harpies
were
at war, then that was a non-issue. She wasn’t a Harpy. Or, at least not inherently. She hadn’t been born that way, she’d been forced that way, and it wasn’t even permanent as far as she could tell.

She hoped it wasn’t.

Dani
tried to get him to come back so that she could tell him so, but he refused to do that cool mind-talking thing again. He
sort
of just zoned out
before he just turned his back to her, l
ay
down on his bed, and fell asleep.

Having nothing better to do, she watched the rise and fall of his chest. At some point, one of the guards turned off their lights and she was submerged in darkness, forcing her eyes to adjust.

She sat, as
she’d done countless times before, in the dark with her back against the hard, rocky wall of her cell and her head leaning against the glass.
She placed
her hand unconsciously against the pane,
running a
finger over the smooth, cold surface, letting her mind wander over the things that had happened and getting angry that Garrick would hold something like this against her. She thought they’d become friends, and now look what happened. He was literally turning his back on her.