Gabriel (9 page)

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I waited for my fangs to crack, but they didn't. I tensed my body, anticipating that surge of inescapable rage, but it didn't come.

“Feeling all right there, beautiful?” As he purred the words, my mind tumbled over itself, and I felt that same sense of déjà vu creep over me once more.

I shuffled backward. “I don't know you. But I do know that, if you get too close, I might not be able to stop myself.”

“You know me very well, actually. Are you not the tiniest bit curious?”

I met his stare. “I believe that's the very thing that gets the cat killed in the end.”

His eyes grew bigger, his gaze reaching for me. He took another step closer and I grew anxious. Not because I feared him, but because I feared who I might become around him. My instinct was to once again run, and I sped into the woods. My legs stretched and my body glided, but seconds later I slammed into Jonah, who had raced ahead of me.

I flew backward, smashing into a tree, and I wrapped my arms around the trunk behind me to stop myself from falling.

“I said,
we need to talk
.” His jaw was rigid and his stance unmoving. “You remember Gabriel, you remember the others, but you don't remember me.” He scowled, as though he were offended.

“Have you forgotten what happened just yesterday? You're playing a very dangerous game, Vampire,” I sneered.

“The name's Jonah. But you know that, don't you?”

It made no difference whether I knew his name; I didn't know who he was underneath it. Reluctantly, I nodded my head.

“Then please use it instead of referring to me by what I am, especially with that tone. And, for the record, you're a
Vampire
, too,” he said, injecting the same scorn into his voice.

I turned my back on him. My skin was starting to tingle, but it was a very mild sensation—my body simply acknowledging his presence.

“You're going to run with Gabriel, right? That's the grand plan?” he shouted from behind me.

I paused.
Why was I pausing?
“Yes. If that was what you wanted to talk about, the question you needed an answer to, you have it. Now leave me alone.” I jumped and then clambered up the side of the large tree. Once at the top, I focused on the branches of its neighbors and began springing from one to the other.

I'd made it across only two of them when a firm hand clutched my ankle, and with one swift tug I was plummeting to the ground. Jonah's arms were outstretched, ready to catch me, but instead I swung my body away from him and landed in a crouching position.

“You're really starting to get on my nerves,” I barked.

“Good,” he replied. “I'm glad I'm having some effect on you. Just like old times.” His lips curved into an arrogant grin.

I glared at him.

Sighing, he said, “You're a Vampire, Lailah, as much as you are an Angel. I doubt Gabriel will ever be able to accept that. He will stifle you, and worse still, he will make you vulnerable.”

I hesitated, Jonah's words about Gabriel struggling to accept my darker nature echoing my own, private concerns. But I trusted Gabriel. I realized there was even a reasonable explanation for his meeting with Hanora: It was business; that's all, business.

Disregarding Jonah, I turned on my heel and ran back the way I had come through the forest. Just before I reached the opening to the clearing, the sound of knuckles cracking caused me to stop. Jonah sat perched on a fallen tree ahead of me, flexing his hands.

“By rights, you should probably be faster than me, but you're not.… That's a problem.” He rose to his feet and strode over to me. “I didn't come here to talk to you about Gabriel.”

As impertinent as he was being—showing no regard for what I asked of him, senselessly attempting to get a rise out of me, and essentially all-out vexing me—something about him prevented me from trying to run again.

I didn't try to stop him as he reached out to me. He glided his hand underneath my hair and tipped my face to one side, stroking my cheek with his thumb.

It took me a moment to find my voice. “What did you come here for?”

He grinned deviously. “Ahhh … five minutes ago, the fate of Puss in Boots was more important to you than answers.”

I raised my hand to bat him away, but he snatched it, wrapping his fingers around my own.

He leaned down so that our eyes were level, rendering me unable to escape his stare. “I came back for you, to talk about your future. You won't be able to outrun
them
forever.”

My gaze fell to his feet, but he nudged my chin up until I met his eyes once more.

He squeezed my fingers and offered me a gentle, reassuring smile. “I only came back to make sure that you embraced all of yourself.” He paused thoughtfully. “Embrace everything and all of what you are—the most deadly force to walk this world.”

“Why? You believe I can free this world, too? You think I am some sort of savior?” I challenged, Ruadhan's call to arms reverberating in my ears.

“Who said anything about that? I only care about
your
freedom,
your
life. I can't watch you … fall.” He hesitated. “Not again. Never again.” Jonah's grasp around my hand tightened.

Who I had been to Jonah was a mystery to me. Why was he the only thing, the only person, I couldn't remember?

“I know why you've forgotten,” Jonah whispered. “I know you.” He brushed the tip of his nose against my ear. “And without me, you won't wind up a savior, but a martyr.” Moving his eyes back to mine, he stared at me. “You will meet your end.”

Within an instant, Jonah's fangs cracked. In one swift movement, he had his hand spread in the small of my back, crushing me into his body, while he hooked his sharp fangs into the skin of his wrist. He dragged them down, creating a bloodied laceration.

He spat out a clot of blood. “Time to remember me, beautiful.”

I opened my mouth to protest, clenching my fists into balls, ready to free myself from his grasp, but his scent of cinnamon met me first. Lashes of a burning whip assaulted my body. The red haze returned, clouding my vision.

Jonah's presence had caused me to yearn inside, but in that split second I realized that it was his blood that pushed me over the edge.

He knew it, too. And, more important, he knew why.

My fangs broke through my gums, and I whined as they painfully cracked into place against my will. I lunged forward, straight toward his exposed throat, only this time I desperately tried to fight my instincts—my overwhelming urge to consume him. I clutched his wrist, trying to stop his blood from spilling out of his skin. As he fought me, I became aware of how dry my throat was. I knew that I could relieve the feeling if I helped myself to him, but still I tried to restrain my body's reaction.

“It's okay, beautiful; drink from me,” he goaded, grasping for the back of my head so that his wrist was inches away from my desperate lips.

I knocked him to the ground, straddling him, and the air around me seemed to warp. Unable to hold off my desire any longer, I snatched his arm and ran my nose along the cut, breathing him in. As I verged on granting his wish, a sarcastic bout of laughter escaped Jonah's lips, and as he pressed his thumb to my cheek, it grew louder.

The world stopped.

I heard his laughter again—only more gleeful, more honest—but it wasn't coming from below me; it was resurfacing from somewhere inside me. I knew that sound. No longer did the fragrance of cinnamon overrun my senses; instead, I could smell warm mince pies and mulled wine. I could only taste Christmas. As though a bucket of cold water had been thrown over me, it flooded the febrile fire that had ignited and my rage ebbed away. I became numb.

I lifted myself from off his lap and fell away from him. My fangs receded, and the red fog began to slowly lift.

He looked at me with bemusement.

I may not have known who he was, but I could never, and would never, forget that laugh that had left his lips once upon a dream.

I ambled away from him back into the clearing, holding myself steady as I went. He didn't immediately follow me. I hoped he would have the good sense to leave me be.

I was halfway across the field, slipping as I hurried, when a single bloodied tear fell down my cheek—the last flicker of my inner flames. But before I had the opportunity to wipe it away, Jonah had bolted from the forest, diving on top of me.

He pinned me to the frosty ground, his eyes a dangerous whirlpool of swirling incarnadine eating up his hazel. Locking my arms above my head, he growled. He clutched my thigh around his waist but, restraining himself, he simply blotted my bloodied tear away.

Still the sound of his laughter was echoing insanely around my head.

“You need to drink from me,” he pleaded.

I could have thrown him off but I was lost, focusing on his smile that was flashing from my memory back into my conscious thoughts.

“I think it's only improved your section of the tree,” I mumbled.

He held my waist firmly and brought the tip of his nose to mine, where he hovered.

I was so captivated by the sweet sound of his laughter that I didn't hear the gunfire.

Jonah's body became looser, and he was no longer lingering over my lips. I met his swollen, bloodshot eyes as he fell away from me.

“Lailah…” He winced. “Run!”

 

SEVEN

I
WAS SLOW TO
react. Too slow.

Jonah was being hauled away from me, dragged across the clearing by his ankles. He thrashed around, coughing up blood and trying to stand. A young boy was trying unsuccessfully to fetter Jonah with chains. Before the fire inside me had time to reignite at the sight of his blood, I was being pulled across the damp grass in the opposite direction. A dull throb came over my entire body, and my limbs felt disjointed.

I should have been able to move, to fight, but my body had become weak. In my kidnapper's free hand, silver chains clattered noisily as the length of them skimmed the ground next to my body. I was like lead.

“Let me go!” I shouted, trying to tip my weight forward. I could see Jonah in the distance, gripping his calf, and trying to stem the flow of blood that was bubbling through a rip in his chinos.

“Use the silver! Tie it up!” A voice bellowed from behind me as the young boy nervously teetered around Jonah, circling him as though he didn't know what to do. “Cameron!” The voice shouted again.

I pulled away from the arm that was tugging me backward. My abductor released me, and finally my palms met with the ground. The person behind me surged forward, toward Jonah and the young boy. Jonah was now on his feet, but he was stumbling. The low growl and shrill hiss that left him were sinister and menacing. I hoped that they were warning enough to keep his attackers back.

A pair of sturdier, heavier arms yanked me to my feet. There were silver chains twisted between his fingers and wrapped around his arms, and they grazed my cardigan. I yelped as a searing heat began to melt my skin underneath the layers I was wearing. The guy didn't seem to notice, and he wasn't trying to attack me the way his companions were attacking Jonah.

They must think I'm human.…

My thoughts jumbled. It was as though the silver acted as a magnet, drawing me away from my very self so that my mind was pulled in two different directions, leaving an expanse of darkness in between. And the nearer my body came to the chains, the worse it became until I was plunged into darkness.

*   *   *

M
Y EYELIDS WERE HEAVY.
Muffled voices came from somewhere nearby. I forced my eyes open. I was surrounded by an odor of stale cigarette smoke. My face was resting on aging polyester, but my body was too heavy for me to sit up.

I blinked frantically, and I realized I was in a vehicle. The bumps of the road underneath me made my body bounce. In my peripheral vision, right beside my face there was a mass of silver chains, bundled lazily together.

I possessed the traits of both Vampires and Angels, and that silver was too close.

There was no one with me. I was alone in wherever—whatever—this was, but there were others, somewhere. The silver made my head spin; the waves in my mind warped and as long as those chains were so close, I didn't think I would be able to get up.

I bided my time, waiting for the next bump to come. When it did, my body jolted, and I tried to push myself farther from the chains. It didn't work; the chains only bobbed closer. A link met my cheek, and immediately my skin sizzled.

Another jolt from the road came, and this time, more out of instinct than collected thought, I threw my body backward, away from the silver.

I managed to catch my breath. Though still foggy, my mind began to regain control, and the second my legs responded, I was on my feet.

I scurried to the far corner, as far away from the bindings as I could get. I was in the back of a small Winnebago. I had been lying on a sofa beneath burnt-orange suede curtains that were drawn but falling away from the rail. A small table and chairs were at the end of the space, together with an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, a deck of cards, and several boxes of matchsticks. What was once a garish blue carpet adorned with swirling patterns ran the length of the floor, but it was hard to see through the trodden-in mud and filth.

The only thing between me and the next room was a beaded curtain in the doorway. Through the moving strips, I could make out a driver, with his companions seated next to him, at the front of the vehicle. Nothing but a darkened road, lit only by the headlights, stretched out ahead.

I didn't know why they had taken me from the field or what had become of Jonah. And though I still didn't know who he had been to me, the very fact that the memory of his laughter,
that
laughter, had stopped me from ripping him apart told me that he had been someone important. Someone I wouldn't want dead.