Dark One: One for Sorrow... (The Khiara Banning Series Book 1) (27 page)

I drape Cael’s body over her back, but I’m so preoccupied with getting to the house that I lose my hold on my thoughts, and somehow everything un-freezes too early and Cara has to grab me with her teeth to drag me inside the open door, as Vicky and dog-Damien resume their fighting.

Only when we get inside do I realise that my necklace isn’t on me anymore; it’s just outside the door. It must have ripped when she dragged me inside.

“Shit!” yells Liam as he pushes me towards the living room where both Lisa and Sam are now sobbing and Tristan is looking appropriately terrified, holding the scraps of Cara’s clothing that she must have burst out of.

“Move back, I need to get it now! That necklace is supposed to protect you, and without it you are as vulnerable as a new born fucking baby.”

He moves to get it, but not fast enough. Almost instantly a big dog – Damien, I have to remind myself – who’s long black hair is drenched in blood and matted with clumps of dirt, appears as if out of nowhere and scoops it up, bounding off into the forest.

Seconds later, Vicky stumbles through the door into the small kitchen where everybody has now gathered.

“Fucking… hell, kid. You… have a damned death wish,” she pants, looking at me; and then promptly passes out right on the dining table, blood seeping out a massive cut on her chest. Liam springs into action, grabbing her and lifting her over his shoulder, then wordlessly carrying her into the living room.

Cara makes a chirping sound and snuffles once from behind me. I turn around to look at her, and her fluffy tail is making wide swishes like a cat’s, her ears are pulled back, and she’s low on her tummy.

She’s not wrong.
She thinks at me, making a high pitched keening kind of noise as I reach forward and absently pet her soft fur. She flips onto her back and looks me dead in the eyes, her ears standing straight at attention now.
You could have died.

~*~

Cael seems to be knocked out cold as Liam and Tristan take him into Liam’s room to change his clothes and get him cleaned up, but after ten minutes or so I can hear his beautiful accent and my heart becomes less heavy.

It takes a good twenty-five minutes for Vicky’s cut to heal though but she wakes up after twenty, just as I’m done changing her into some of Lisa’s pyjama pants. I took off her tattered shirt and Cara’s ruined sweater, and with the help of Lisa, placed her on the bigger couch to change her pants.

Of course when she wakes up the first thing she does is complain about having no shirt on and being in her bra.

“Oh shut up,” says Cara from her place on the other couch, now fully back from being in fox form. She’s wearing an old shirt and some sweatpants of Samael’s.

For once, Vicky listens, but does so with a scowl.

“Okay,” says Liam, as he sits on the couch across from us, ten minutes later. Cael sits down, not long after, his eyes heavy.

“The Battle is in less than two months and now we’re even more fucked than we were before, without that necklace. I don’t know who gave it to you, but they sure as hell didn’t stick around to give us any more help. We’re back to Plan A. We are going to have to teach you how to defend yourself against us, as well as we possibly can.”

“I can help,” says Tristan, his smile earnest. “I didn’t know what I was before, but now that I do, I’m not afraid of what I can do. I’m not fast like Lisa but I
am
strong. And I can read a mind or two, though I’m not sure how that particular talent can help.”

Liam nods. “Khiara can use all the help she can get.”

~*~

Three days later, after having a particularly non-average but not
overly
exciting Saturday at Cara’s house learning how to fight against a member of the Fae, my body aches. My ribs are probably bruised from trying to tackle Cara to the ground, seeing as she’s a lot stronger than she appears to be; how she’s kept this whole side of her hidden from me is still amazing to my mind. Her whole body burns with this overwhelming heat at the drop of a hat, and she can make flames appear out of thin air in the palms of her hands. She hasn’t been able to turn into a fox again, but I suspect she has to be under extreme duress and it’s not exactly like I want to subject herself to that to her on purpose.

She’s taught me how to identify the different typed of Faen people, Nymphs, Elves, and Pixies.

Pulling out the list she gave me to study, I look over her neat handwriting.

Elves: Tall, slightly pointed ears, arrows imbued with their elemental magic, can control the elements directly but not with their hands like Nymphs (They can't create it, only draw on it)

Pixies: About the size of the average hand, very pointed ears, exude a small hum when they fly with their tiny wings. They can breathe out dust that does all manner of different things.

Nymphs: About as tall as humans, very high amounts of sexual allure (I’m so sexy), whatever element they correspond to, they can directly use it in their hands (shape it, etc), they can turn into foxes (fuck yeah!).

Elements:

Earth: Brown hair, tanned skin.

Wind: Bright blonde hair, dark skin.

Fire: Red hair, fair skin.

Water: Dirty blonde hair, fair skin.

Spirit: Black hair, tanned skin (slightly lighter than Earth)

All have healing capabilities, but in different ways. THAT’S IT! BRING COOKIES NEXT TIME!

As I lay in my bed at night and think of all that has happened in such a short amount of time, I wonder how I will ever tell my parents about all of this. The thought consumes me until I finally decide that I just can’t sleep and on a whim elect to take a cab to Cael’s; he told me to stop by anytime, and he even told me where his spare key is. I send him a quick text to let him know that I plan on coming over, and I make my way downstairs.

Dad is sleeping on the couch, having had too much to eat, and I kiss him on the head as I make my way to the door.

“Sorry boy,” I say to Pug as I walk to the front door. He grumbles unhappily, but doesn’t throw a fit, so I know he’s not going to wake up my parents, who are actually both home tonight. When I got home today from Cara’s, they greeted me with dinner and hugs, which was nice. Maybe they’ll be home more often.

When I get to Cael’s I knock first, and when he doesn’t come to the door I retrieve the spare key from under the welcome mat and go on in. He isn’t in the living room, or the kitchen, though the lights are still on, so I decide to just go to his room to see if he’s in there.

When I walk into his room the first thing I notice are the words,
I will never regret
, written in English on the wall. But the words aren’t painted on like all of the other ones are, not in that fantastic golden script. Instead, they’ve been written hastily, using liquid paper, as if he couldn’t possibly waste any time by getting out the paint from underneath his kitchen sink, where I know he keeps it, because I saw it once when he was looking for dish soap.

“Oh Cael,” I breathe, as my gaze lands on his sleeping form. I haven’t seen him for three days, though we’ve spoken on the phone, and his stress is palpable. He’s sleeping on top of the sheets in only his boxers, but I can see that he is shivering because his window is wide open.

I begin to walk towards him to cover him up, when suddenly my chest catches fire and I break into a fit of coughs that are incredibly painful. I feel like my nose is running not for the first time in the past couple of days, and I swipe at it absently with the back of my gloved hand. I don’t bother looking, but it comes away wet.

Cael stirs, making little sleepy groans that agonisingly contrast the sound of my coughs as he moves to turn onto his side, but suddenly sits up when he realizes the source of his waking isn’t from whatever dream he was having.

“God,” he says as his eyes focus on me. He stands up and appears before me like magic, but that could be just my suddenly fuzzy head playing tricks on me. I wouldn’t know; he’s an angel, and Lisa sure can move fast for somebody who’s only half.

I can’t stop coughing, and between coughs when I try to pull in air, all I can manage to do is wheeze. I feel my body begin to sway. I move to wipe at my nose again and realize that my once white glove is now red.

“That’s…strange,” I rasp between coughs. “This…was just white…”

And then I’m suddenly in the bathroom, sitting down on the floor by the tub. How did I get here?

“Khiara, sweetheart, you’re going to be okay.”

I try to ask him what he’s talking about, but it just comes out as, “Whaa?” and I cough some more. Wipe at my nose some more. Where did my gloves go? Why are my hands red? I close my eyes. Try to concentrate. Something warm and soothing caresses my face and I nuzzle into its touch.

“I need to get you cleaned up,” whispers somebody, though I’m not sure who it is or where I am anymore. “Can I,” they hesitate. “Can I have permission to strip you to at least your underclothes? There’s blood on everything.”

That one word, blood, pulls me mostly back into myself and my eyes open. “Cael,” my voice is nothing but a hoarse whisper. “Hi.” Something around him shimmers into and out of existence for a moment and I squint, trying to figure out what it could have been.

“Hi,” he whispers. Tears are streaming down his face and I don’t know why. I reach out a shaky hand to wipe them away and realize that he was right. There is blood all over me. “Oh,” I say, “I didn’t even realize what was happening…”

“It’s okay,” he says gently, but it’s not okay at all. The air around him shimmers again and I have to close my eyes for a second once more. “But I need to get you cleaned up.”

“I don’t want to be alone.” My voice sounds like equal parts fear and pain. I open my eyes again, and he looks so worried, and I can’t help but think that it’s not fair. I was on my way to comfort him, but I’m just the source of more pain.

“I won’t leave then,” he says in answer. “But you need to get into the bath. You don’t have to get naked, but you need to get out of those clothes so I can wash them.”

I stand up with his help and slowly undress until I’m in my bra and underwear. I feel almost naked, even though he’d see just as much skin if I were in a bikini. Cael helps me get into the tub and when I’m sitting, he hands me a wash cloth.

“I’m not sure if you want to do this part by yourself. I was willing to do it when I thought I might have no other option, but I mean, since you’re conscious…”

“I was never unconscious.” I remind him.

“You may as well have been,” he says. “It was terrifying. It was like…what would Cara say? She’d say something witty like, ‘The lights are on but nobody’s home.’ I thought…I thought I was going to lose you.” His voice breaks, and so does my heart – right into a million pieces. He’s gone through so much, and it kills me.

I cough and wince. “I’m falling apart, Cael.”

He sighs. “It almost makes a sick amount of sense now that I think about it. When you were born, you were sick and dying despite being the purest soul on Earth, right?”

I nod, not sure where he’s going with this.

“And when Morrigan brought you back to life, she cursed you. We know this part. But what if there’s another catch?”

“Like?”

“Think about it,” he says. “You’ve been feeling increasingly worse recently, and the Battle is supposed to be in a little less than two months. She probably planned this but never said anything because there’s always a loophole and…”

Anger blossoms in my chest and I bring my knees close to me and warp my arms around them, resting my head atop my knees. “Well that’s just fucking great, isn’t it? We’ve exhausted all of the loopholes already and that didn’t turn out very well. In the end, I’m still alone. No Guardian. And now I’m going to die alone.”

He flinches and instantly I feel like the biggest asshole in the world. “Cael,” I say, but he’s already pushing past it, shaking his head and putting his hands up as if in surrender.

“No, you’re right. I wasn’t supposed to get involved on a personal level. This was supposed to play out completely different. I was supposed to help you but mostly from afar, never from where you could see me, and when the battle drew near I’d have placed all of the proper tools for you to realize your role. There was supposed to be the epiphany and the awakening of your soul, but I
fucked
up. And now you’re going in practically blind, I know that. I think about it every second of every day.”

“Cael,” I say again, because I have no words that could possibly fix his sadness. He always keeps it locked away, just out of reach, and I realize now that if he’d never literally Fallen for me, he’d still be in Heaven. Why have I never realized the full importance of that until now?
How selfish am I?

His expression is pained. “Please,” he says, running his hand through his messy hair. “Don’t think like that,” he whispers, hearing my thoughts as though I’d voiced them.

“Your wall,” I say as gently as I can. “I saw…”

He stands up then, lightning quick so my eyes can’t track his movement, “I don’t regret it. I don’t. I won’t
ever
. What happened to my sister has nothing –” he stops talking mid-sentence, and walks towards the door. “I’ll be back; I just have to get you some clean clothes, alright?”