Ethereal Underground (Ethereal Underground Trilogy) (33 page)

“There is no turning back,” she whispered. She bravely grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Her hand felt warm and soft against his rough skin.

“You can still go home with Leon,” he told her. He wanted to give her one last chance to turn around.

She shook her head. “If I go home, they will cast me out. If I go home with the blood of a fallen on my hands they may forgive me.” Everything she said made perfect sense, but Leon’s words were still stuck in his mind. Was he pushing her to be reckless like himself? He didn’t want to feel responsible for someone else’s death.

“And when it is over, what will become of us? How about our bond?”  Ash wasn’t sure what type of answer he was expecting. She didn’t have any plans to stay, and he had too much pride to ask her to.

“Natara said it will fade with time.” Her words stung him. How could she pretend that this past week had meant nothing to her? Ash coldly pulled his hand from her grip. The sudden thought of losing the bond terrified him. He enjoyed feeling the power of water around him. With the bond, the need to sleep and eat came considerably less. The connection with another living being made him feel less alone. Until she talked about it fading, he hadn’t thought much about how much he loved it.

“This bond makes us unique. If you could give it a chance; maybe we can learn to control it. We can learn to do great things with it.” He wasn’t even sure why he was saying this. He knew all along the end of their story. Perhaps it was the hulmiens’ poison that made him speak before thinking. The only thing on his mind at that moment was the fact that he did not want Annalise to leave, or their bond to fade.

She shook her head and slowly stood up. “This bond does not make us unique. It makes us an outcast. It is a curse for breaking the rules.”

“That is Leon speaking.”

“This is me speaking.” She took her hands and put them to her heart.

Ash disagreed. He stood up beside her. He towered over her small form. Looking her in the eyes, he tried not to sound so harsh. “Once again, that is only your fear.” She didn’t answer, so he decided to drop the subject.

He looked at ev
eryone at the bonfire. They needed to run. His cloudy mind had started to clear out. The hulmiens were preparing that large pot for something and he had a sneaky suspicion they had never eaten a seraph. Today would not be the day they would get to. Ash grabbed Annalise’s hand and pulled her close.

“I know Finlay thinks we will be okay, but I really think we need to get out of her
e. Those friendly feelings the hulmiens share with Fin will eventually fade and we will end up like the piles of bones we saw back along the way,” he told her. Annalise appeared to understand. He talked quietly in case someone was listening. He watched as Finlay started to dance with a hulmien and Leon started to twirl Arie around the fire. He thought that the hulmiens weren’t supposed to have an effect on anyone but mortal men, but everyone was acting far too relaxed.

“What will we do?”

“If we put out the fire, it may distract them. They are preparing that big pot for something.”

Annalise held out her hand. “I can make the water if you can get close enough to t
hrow it on the fire. While the hulmiens are distracted by the water, we can all make a run for it. Leon told me the entrance is a little farther down the cavern, a hole in the ground. They won’t follow us down there. They said that no one ever goes down there.”

Ash looked at her; they didn’t even need to talk. He would do
what he needed to distract the hulmiens and she would get everyone out. It sounded so easy, but he knew nothing ever was. Ash walked closer to the dancing hulmiens and tried to keep his mind focused. He didn’t want to slip back under their spell. He decided to try and touch them as little as possible in case their poison was spread by contact.  He walked up to Leon with his head held high.

“May I steal Arie away for a minute?” Ash asked Leon. Arie spun around grinning and held her arms out to wrap them around Ash’s neck. Leon took a step back and let his eyes wander over to Annalise, who stood back away from the dancers.  The girls noticed that Ash was back and ran over to him. They each put their hands all over Ash’s body and tried to pull Arie off of him. Ash tightened his grip and pulled Arie closer. He gave them a loopy smile and pretended to still be affected by them. “I’m sorry girls but you will each have to make a line and wait your turn.”

They each started to pout and complain.

“But we have missed you.”

“We are so lonely.”

A short green haired h
ulmien hissed and tried to pull Arie back by her hair. Ash watched as her bright eyes started to glow; the sound that came from her throat was like no other. Arie gasped as she lost her grip around his neck. The hulmien bent down and bit Arie in her shoulder.

“My turn!” Her hiss was
so loud it echoed off of the walls.

Arie cried out; more in shock than anything else. She regained her balance and looked at the shorter
hulmien. “You bit me!”

She was answered with
a proud fanged smile. The hulmien held her hands up to show five razor sharp claws that gradually grew from her fingertips. Ash got in his fighting stance, ready to protect his friends.

Finlay ran over from the other side where he was dancing with some other
hulmiens. “Whoa, ladies, hulmiens, why all the hissing?”

The green haired girl pointed
a claw at Arie. “Fin- this red-haired girl means to take my food.” Ash forced down a large gulp as the word food came from the creature’s mouth. Food? In all his keeper battles he had come across many things but never had he been someone’s meal. He knew that the hulmiens’ intentions were not friendly, and she had just confirmed this.

Finlay stepped in front of Arie to protect her. “You will not harm my friends, with your claws or your fangs.”

Ash looked around and noticed that the hulmiens were all starting to circle around the three of them. Annalise and Leon were nowhere to be found, Ash only hoped Annalise was filling Leon in on the plan, and quickly.  Ash pulled his blade out ready to slash anyone who made a move.

“Are you hurt?” Finlay asked Arie. He pulled her head to the side to examine her shoulder.

Arie laughed in response. “It barely broke the skin. I am going to kill these…these things.”

The hissing continued around them as the creatures cried out.

“I’m so hungry.”

“We have waited so long.”

The creatures stepped in closer; there was nothing beautiful about them now.

The sound of Annalise’s sweet voice from behind him made Ash turn around. In a split second a rai
n storm started to fall from above. The rain soaked only the hulmiens. It startled them, since they had never been to the surface to see rain. Ash decided that the bonfire was useless now- he needed to use the water as a weapon against them. Ash tried to use the water to push the hulmiens back from around them, but he wasn’t strong enough. It hit them; it just wasn’t strong enough to harm them. One of the girls jumped toward Ash, but he sidestepped the attack and let her hit the ground. He tried again to make the water into a weapon, but again he failed. He could manipulate it, but there was nothing harmful about the water he threw at them. The water only appeared to agitate and confuse them.

“What are you doing
?” Finlay cried out, pushing a hulmien back with a wall of vines. The vines sprouted from the ground and twisted around the creatures. They responded by slashing the vines with their claws in one swift motion. Arie swiped at a few girls with her knife. He didn’t understand why it was so hard to control the water. He had no problem controlling it before, but he didn’t have much experience with it in battle. He felt the tingle grow in his hands. He took a deep breath and cried out as he used his hands to throw a wave of water at another hulmien. She flew back against a rock, Ash smiled in response. He was getting a bit better. From the corner of his eye he watched each one of the creatures go up in flames. They each hissed and fell to the ground in pain. Their cries didn’t affect him nearly as much as their singing did.

“About time,” Finlay said.

Ash looked over at Leon who stood emotionless; he stared at the flaming bodies. If it was so easy for Leon to kill the creatures, why didn’t he just do it in the first place? Unless, Leon’s plan had been to make Ash look weak all along. The only male affected by the creatures, and the only male without an affinity. Ash let the burning hatred rise in his chest as he glared at Leon. The seraph was putting in his claim for Anna.

Chapter
Eleven

Annalise

Her hands went to her mouth in shock of Leon’s blatant display of power and caused the rain to stop. Before she could open her mouth to speak, he grabbed her hands and pulled her behind him.

“Come on, we need to get out of here,” he called to the others.

She followed behind him quickly, eyes looking back to make sure Ash was in tow. He was, and he did not look very happy about what had transpired. They had tried to use their bond, share the affinity for water, and it had failed them. She knew that it was disappointment that flowed from him and over to her.

After they were once again to safety, Annalise found herself walking behind Ash, Arie, and Finlay.  Leon had allowed them to walk in front so he could keep up the rear and make sure none of the hulmiens followed behind them. Really, Annalise was glad to have a few moments from Ash due to the harsh things he had said to her before they tried to fight their way out of the lair, as well as his interaction with those dreadful creatures. She knew that the flirtations with the hulmiens were due to their poisons and song, but it had reminded her that he had been more like that when they had met. He had been one not to settle down or spend serious one on one time with a woman, and so she had reminded herself that she needed to go home. It would never work between them, even if part of her wished it would. Their bond was not even strong enough to battle with.

Leon cleared his throat and
she looked over to him to see what he needed. “What’s on your mind, Anna?”

“I do not wish to talk about it.”

“You haven’t spoken since we left those hulmiens, and I thought you had some sort of fun there before things became dangerous.”

Annalise let out a sigh
and shrugged, “I did enjoy myself, more so than I have in a long time it seems. It is just that…I spoke with Ash about the bond. He wants to give it a chance, so to speak. I think maybe he wants me to stay but he would not say it.”

She coul
d see Leon’s change in posture at the mention of the bond. He stood up straighter as he spoke, “I told you that mingling with the mortals would bring you down, but you did not listen to me. We used to bond with the mortals, and then it did not turn out in our favor.”

“Do you remember those days?” she asked curiously.

“Yes. I was a young seraph back then. I still had warrior training, but the females were the majority of healers. We lived in harmony with the humans for the most part.”

“Natara says that lots of seraphs were bound with mortals. Did you ever make a…bond?” She drew her words out slowly, not sure if she wanted the answer or not. If he had, perhaps she could get him to understand. If not, she feared that he would not.

“No,” he said simply.

“Did you know of anyone with one? Did Finlay have one?”

“I did know of bonded pairs, and no this was before he was created.”

Annalise tried to imagine a time without Finlay around. “The seraph world must have been a dull place.”

Leon looked over at her with an amused smile on his face, one that she had missed getting from him through all of these serious conversations they had recently, “Is that a joke?”

“Perhaps.”

“I never imagined you making a joke on purpose,” Leon said with a laugh. He reached over to put an arm around her waist and pull her over to him. “I’m just glad to see that you are okay. I feared that the fallen would get to you in order to try and get to me. They know that you are my counterpart and with you wandering around the mortal world…” He let his words trail off, but she could tell what he meant by that.

“I am glad you are safe also. You have always been by my side and I do not want that to change. But Leon, I am not so sure that I want to leave here. This experience with Ash has opened my eyes to all of those things I wanted to see. I have seen the stars. I have gone on adventures. I have-”

She stopped herself from saying those words that she had not even gotten to tell Ash and cast her eyes to the ground, just how much she cared for him. “Anyway, it does not matter. If he wanted me to stay, he would have asked me. Do you not think?”