FALL (The Senses) (2 page)

Maitagarri,

You
are the air to my lungs, the blood to my veins, the anguish to my soul when we
are apart. Without you I am empty—you give me life. I can’t survive without
you. Know that I will never let you go for all eternity.

I
giveth this gift. 

A
drop of your blood within me. Touch within a moment. Give me the power. A life
to breathe and follow. Together. As one. Change as I hold her close. She is
mine.

I
love you baby.

Prologue

Prologue

Toronto,
Canada 1987

“You
bloody well won’t give him up, will you?”

Delara
let go of the balcony railing and spun around. The breeze caught the jagged
strands of her hair, drifting them across her face. The moment she saw his
reddened cheeks and clenched fists, she knew what was to come. Her fingers
curled into her bathrobe and she stepped back, but the railing impeded any
further escape. “Tarek? What are you—”

“Waleron!”
he shouted. Tarek’s attractive face twisted into a distorted monster—smooth, pale
skin filling with crevices and lips pressed so firmly together that they nearly
disappeared. The sound escaping his throat was a mix of a lion’s roar and an
eagle screeching in misery as if caught in a trap.

He
smashed his fist through the glass French door and blood dripped from the cuts
in his skin. He didn’t appear to notice. “He’s dead. Dead, damn it.” The glass
crunched beneath his feet as he came towards her. He grabbed her by the
shoulders, fingers digging into her flesh. “I’ve done everything for you.
Everything!” Tarek shook her so hard her teeth clanked. “Yet, still you love
him.”

How
could she deny it? She couldn’t. There was no point fighting Tarek when he was
like this. She’d learned that long ago.

He
shoved a crinkled piece of paper into her face. “Explain this.”

She
glanced down at the familiar handwriting and gasped. Oh god, he’d found it.
Before he could react, she grabbed the letter from his hand and curled it in
her fist, hiding it away from the tainted hand of anyone who dared to read it.
But Tarek had. He’d found it within the folds of the pages in her book on her
nightstand.

“I
always wondered why you opened that same book every single night before you
went to sleep. You were reading it.” His voice was garbled with rage and saliva
spewed from his mouth. “His words. In our bed.” His bloodied hand slapped
across her cheek with such force her head whiplashed backward. If he hadn’t
been holding her shoulder the momentum would’ve sent her over the balcony. “I
loved you! I cared for you.”

I can’t
survive without you.
Waleron’s words. Words he’d written to her.

“He
never loved you, Delara.” She winced as he shoved her in the chest and the bone
in her spine crushed against the metal railing. She hooked her arm in the rails
then quickly glanced over her shoulder, looking down the three stories to the
pavement below.

“I did.”
Tarek said, “It’s me you should love.” He leaned forward and his whisky-soaked
breath gusted into her face. “I won’t stand for it any longer. I won’t be made
a fool of.”

Fear
smothered her. His last words were calm, deliberate, and in that instant she
knew this would be different from his usual punching bag sessions. “Tarek,
please. I know he’s gone. He—”

Tarek
grabbed her arm, fingers bruising her flesh as he yanked her towards him. “When
you make love to me, do you think of him?”

 “No
Tarek! It’s not like that.” She tried to pull from his grip, but he raised his
elbow and slammed it into her face. Her body flew back and she would’ve fallen
if he hadn’t been holding her.

Her
scream of agony was cut off by another blow to the head, this time causing her
vision to blur. She coughed and choked as blood streamed from her broken nose.
Tears swam with the blood, dripping onto her robe then onto the floor. She had
to breathe out of her mouth, short gasps of air mixed with cries of pain.

She
tried to keep from passing out by focusing on her training.
Remember what
Waleron taught you.
Years she grappled with him, her vigilant lover making
certain she could outmaneuver any species that came at her. What he hadn’t
taught her was how to live after he died.

Tarek’s
fist made contact with her cheek again, making a resounding smack. She heard
the crack of her cheekbone the same time as sharp, jarring pain rushed through
her face. “I did everything to make you love me, but still you think of him.
Still want him! You fuckin’ ungrateful bitch. He’s dead, damn it. Dead!”

“Please,”
she sobbed. “Tarek that’s not true. Don’t do this. Why are you doing this?” But
she knew why. Jealousy. Tarek had always been obsessed with her and she
would’ve seen it, if she’d cared. That emotion disappeared the day the Lilac
killed Waleron. Now, she survived. Breathed. And often used her knife to cut
her skin to try to take away the emotional pain.

“If you
won’t have me then you will have no one.”

Body
broken, spirit eaten away over the last sixty-one years of misery, Delara
thought she’d welcome death, but the fear of what Tarek would do to her gnawed
into her flesh like termites. “Tarek, please—”

He
punched her in the gut and air was forced from her lungs. She bent over in
agony, holding her stomach. She spit the saliva that tasted like iron from her
mouth while she gasped for breath.

Tarek
grabbed her arm and jerked. He dragged her through the bedroom to the top of
the staircase. Without warning, he pushed her forward with a hard shove to the
small of her back. With a choked scream of surprise, she tumbled head first
down the flight of stairs to land in a heap on the ceramic-tiled floor.
Debilitating pain pounded into her back and neck, while her twisted right leg
felt as if it had been trampled by a herd of buffalo.

Footsteps
thudded down the stairs.

She
choked on a cry as she tried to crawl to her feet and get away, but he was
already on her. His fist curled into her hair as he pulled her on her back
across the floor to the living room. Her scalp screamed and she tried
desperately to ease the pain by holding his wrist and pushing with her feet,
but her right leg refused to function properly.

He
lifted her up by her hair, forcing her to stand. A cry wrenched from her throat
and she stumbled and nearly fell to the floor. Fresh tears swam in the lids of
her eyes.

“Tarek.”
Her breaths hitched. She noticed his wavering pupils, the twitching in his
cheek—he wasn’t going to stop. He was going to kill her. The crazed look
sheathed his usual striking appearance, making him unrecognizable. Whatever she
had to do it had to be now, because Tarek was going to make certain she never
saw another sunrise.

She
averted her eyes and relaxed her limbs, hoping her submission would lower his
guard. The moment he loosened his grip she reacted, whirling and slamming her
fist that held the note into his broad-width nose. She heard the distinct
crunch and his roar of fury at the same time.

She
raised her knee as he bent over screaming something about how he’d make her
suffer and jerked it into his face. She collapsed to the floor as her bad leg
gave out. She crawled a few feet away and used the couch for leverage to pull
herself up.

She had
no clue why she was fighting when she’d been dead inside for years, but
something inside her screamed for her to live. Tarek wouldn’t stop until her
last breath this time. This wasn’t about submission or punishment any longer.
It was control. Possession. Worst of all it was madness.

Delara
limped to the foyer while Tarek yelled incoherently, holding his shirt to his
broken nose.

“You
bitch!”

She
banged into the door and undid the bolt only to yank on it and have nothing
happen. She pulled and pulled, using her physical strength and her mind against
Tarek’s telekinesis, but he was stronger and there was no way she could win
against his power.

She
turned, breathing heavily, heart pounding, as Tarek approached. Blood was smeared
across his face and his nose sat at an odd angle. She judged the distance to
the bay window in the den and wondered if she could make it before he caught
her. Could she jump through the glass? Would it break on impact? Did it matter?
If she didn’t get away, he’d make certain she suffered before dying.

The
crumbled piece of paper still lay protected in her deadlocked fist and she
thought of the man who wrote it, of his unyielding courage. Waleron would fight
until his heart refused to pump, his limbs refused to function—he’d never give
up. He’d do whatever it took to survive.

Her hand
tightened on the paper.

“You
have nowhere to run,” Tarek said, eyes glistening with excitement. A bead of
blood teetered on the tip of his swollen nose then dropped to hit his chin. “It
will be much easier on you if you don’t fight.”

“I
promise to be good.” The words slipped across her tongue out of habit and
desperation. She had known he wanted control and she’d given it to him. Over
the years it had escalated to the point that she rarely decided anything for
herself. She couldn’t even fight with her Talde anymore. She let it happen.
After Waleron, she died a little more every day, leaving behind an empty shell.

And
tonight that shell was being cracked. The note Tarek found was too much for him
to handle.

Tarek
was unsound; it was evident in the sweat beading on his brow and in his eyes
that looked like high speeding pendulums. The generous Senses warrior who spent
years trying to win her heart had vanished. There’d been a time when he fed her
because she barely ate and bathed her when she refused to get out of bed.

Then he
changed. The isolation from her Talde, the refusal to allow her to call anyone
without him monitoring. It was her slow burial as he began to lock her up when
he was gone. Then the punishments began and, finally, the threats. He beat down
her already broken soul until she had nothing left to fight for.

Except
the letter.

“Tarek,
I swear I can be good.” She needed to distract him, to keep him talking. “If
you do this the Talde will—”

“Shut
up,” he said. Five feet. Four feet. Three feet away.

She had
never been frightened of dying. It had never scared her because she knew when she
did, she’d join him. Waleron. But suddenly, when death faced her head-on, she
wanted to live. It was the first time since Waleron died that she realized the
truth in the statement.

God,
Waleron. I want to live. I don’t want to die like this.

She
lived with a flicker of belief that Waleron may be somewhere she could reach
one day. It was a foolish notion, but that increment of hope refused to drown
no matter how many cuts she put on her body.

Delara
reached behind her and tried the door again, but Tarek’s mind was still on it
and she was unable to get pass his barriers. “Tarek, think of what you’re
doing.”

“You
love a dead man. After everything I’ve put up with and still you think of him
when I kiss you. You made a fool of me. A fool!” He grabbed for her.

She dove
to the right, sliding across the tiled floor on her stomach and managing to
climb to her feet by the time he changed direction. She bit her lip so hard at
the pain in her leg that she swore her teeth went right through the flesh.

Kitchen.
Knives. She had a chance with a knife in her hand. Waleron taught her how to
fight with a knife and it had become her greatest asset. Tarek had known that
and took her Talwar knives away months ago, but all she needed was something to
deter him. To make him stop and think.

His
voice rang out as he shouted for his Scar. Oh god, she’d never have a chance
with two of them. His Scar was his mirror image, and just as deadly. All she
needed was to stab him once and his Scar wouldn’t be able to rise. Her Scar no
longer lived, never to be called upon again after Tarek cut across the ink on
the underside of her left foot. He had tied her down, ran a blade deep into the
bottom of her arch and sliced. She hadn’t been able to walk on it for days. She
never told anyone—she couldn’t and it wasn’t just from the fear of him killing
her. It was bigger than that. Before he came to Toronto he lived in England as
a solitary. He was a hit man with connections and it would put her Talde in
jeopardy by telling anyone what he’d done.

She
peered over her shoulder as she ran for the kitchen. Tarek was almost in reach.
Suddenly she went head first over the top of a chair that was thrown into her
path. Telekinesis. Tarek was always better at it then she was. She used the
chair to climb to her feet then pushed it out of her way. She turned to run and
slammed into his Scar. Senses were all given their ink tattoos by the Goddess.
When called upon to fight, Scars were lethal.