Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (16 page)

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask who the hell that was and if I would need a weapon, when it hit me. “Archer?
What’s Isaiah doing with him?”

“I’m unsure, miss, but I could take you—”

“Oh, no, no.” I laughed curtly. “I am not falling for that again. Nice try though.”

Leaving her staring after me, I turned on my heels and marched back through the doors. I had a momentary surge of hesitation about leaving her alone in my room. Who knew what she was capable of? Last thing I wanted, or needed was to wake up with snakes in my bed or something. Man
, not even God would be able to save her from me if she did that.

I
shuddered at the mere thought, but didn’t slow my pace. All I could think was that Archer was torturing Isaiah. I just knew it. Why else would Isaiah go with him freely, or why he wasn’t answering my calls? There had to be a reason and I would find out … just as soon as I found my way to the gardens.

By memory, I made it all the way to the foyer before doing a slow turn, surveying my surroundings. I tried to remember
which way Celia had taken me and even contemplated going out the front door to make my way all the way around. The latter was quickly dismissed. I would be walking for months. The place was just too enormous for that kind of adventure. Granted, it would probably not be as bad as walking around in circles. Last thing I wanted was to get lost, which was beginning to feel like a great possibility no matter which way I cracked it.

“Hello?” I called to no one in particular, but hoping someone would hear me. “Does anyone
actually live in this place?”

Seconds ticked by and nothing. Not a whisper. Not a creak. It was as though I
was the only person in the entire place.

Exasperated, I pushed onward, following the
doorway leading towards the dining room. It felt like a good bet, heading down a path I was semi familiar with. It felt safe. My stomach gave a few wrenching jabs that sent a wave of hot and cold through me. I’d never been sick a day in my life, but I’d heard and seen enough people with the flu to recognize the chills. I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like it. The weakness, the need to crawl into a ball and die, the aches and pains. How did people function? But I had to. I had to keep going. I had to find Isaiah.

“Isaiah?”
I called through our link.
“Where—”

Beneath me, my knees quivered and my mouth filled with a filmy paste that tasted suspiciously like throw up. I tried to swallow it down
only to have to wash back up, triggering my gag reflex. The cold marble cushioned my fall as I dropped onto all fours and heaved. Sweat chilled along my spine, dampening my shirt and plastering stray strands of hair to my temples. Nothing actually came up. My stomach hadn’t had anything in it in over a month, but the dry heaves were the worst.

Gentle hands touched the middle of my back and I jumped.

“It’s all right,” a kind voice soothed.

I mop
ped my face with my forearm, wiping away the tears, sweat and slimy spit off before confronting the person kneeling next to me. I tensed.

“Odalyn.”

She offered me a ghost of a smile, but her eyes were shrewd and watchful. “Let’s get you some water.”

I didn’t push her away when she
hoisted me to my feet and kept a strong and protective grip around me. I didn’t tell her I didn’t drink water. I simply let her lead me the rest of the way to the dining room.

Carefully, she set me into a chair and turned to her left. “Water and some crackers,” she said to the empty space.

I was just wondering if she was out of her tree, or I was out of mine, when something flickered where she was looking. It was quick, the way shadows jump across the walls when light passes through a window at night. And that’s what it was. It was a shadow that peeled away from the others pooling in the corner and disappeared through the door.

I blinked hard
, but the thing was gone and I couldn’t be sure anymore if it was a trick of the light or my imagination.

Then Odalyn was there, taking the seat next to me. “Tell me what happened.”

Still eyeing the spot the shadow had moved from, I replied, “I get like that some times. It’s nothing. I just need to find my friend.”

“
The boy.” she said. She smiled when I looked at her in surprise. “I may be old, but I am not blind.”

I shook my head. “I’m just … you didn’t call him
the human
, like he’s some kind of disease.”

“I have no love for humans, nor do I wish them harm. I am what you might consider, neutral.”

Go figure. I had a cool grandmother.

“I wish the rest of this place was the same,” I muttered. “If I got a dollar for every person who said
human
since I arrived, I would be rich.”

Odalyn laughed. “
Agartha is a place of many thing, tolerance and acceptance is not one of them.”

“Agartha?”

It was as though she were expecting my question. Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted ever so slightly to the side. “Where you are.”

I had to think about that for a moment, before asking, “Aren’t we in Luxuria?” I was almost certain
that was what Ashton had called it.

“Yes,”
she said with a wary tone that suggested she suddenly didn’t trust me. Like I was some undercover spy out to steal information and she was on to me. I had an overpowering urge to fidget under her prodding gaze. “We are in Luxuria.”

I was too afraid to ask anything else, so I just nodded slowly. Finally, when the smothering silence became too much, I started to rise.

“I should find my friend.”

“Where are you from,
ocha
?”

“Fallon,” I corrected her.

My bottom hit the cushion of the chair once more.

She chuckled. “It means daughter in a language that no longer exist. Sad really because it was a beautiful language.”

“Oh … uh, I’m not from here.”

“The topside,” she said for me.

I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess that’s what you guys call it.” I winced. “Not
you guys
, but you … people?” God that sounded worse. “What I mean is…”

Odalyn laughed. It was a sweet, rich sound that nearly made me laugh with her.
She pressed a hand over her heart and peered at me with an affection that made me oddly uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to strangers looking at me like they wanted to embrace me. The only people in my life who had ever had their arms around me were Mom, Ashton and Isaiah, and that was a record for me. Yet here sat this woman, watching me like I was her long lost daughter or something. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I could have told her who I was
, I supposed. But Ashton had made me promise not to tell anyone, and his explanation made sense. The world had no real knowledge of Garrison and it was best if it stayed that way. Plus, I wasn’t sure I could just blurt out my identity. She might not believe me and that would hurt, or she might believe me, which seemed somehow infinitely worse. So I said nothing.

“You remind me of Acheron when he was a small boy,” Odalyn said, breaking the silence that had descended over the grand room.
“Awkward, but in an endearing manner.”

My first thought was to thank her.
Instead, the words that poured out were, “What was he like?”

Odalyn blinked. “Acheron?”

I nodded.

She sat back, folding her hands together on her lap and peered above my head as though seeing the past somewhere up there.
“Incorrigible. Stubborn.” She shook her head, a faint smile on her lips. “A dreamer. He was always getting himself into trouble. He hated being told no, like it was a challenge. He would go out of his way to prove that he could.”

I felt a smile tug on my lips. “My mom used to say the same about me,” I murmured.

Odalyn’s hazel gaze met mine, gentle but intense. “Where is your mother?”

“She died,” I replied without thinking about it. “Last month.”

The odd glint in her eyes faded and remorse replaced it. “That is terrible. Were you close?”

I nodded,
dropping my attention to the fingers I was twisting together in my lap. “She was my best friend.”

Odalyn clicked her tongue. “I am truly sorry for your loss.”

I looked up at her, surprised by the words. Granted no one but Isaiah, Ashton, Celia and I knew of my mother’s death—and Garrison, although he didn’t count—but this was the first time anyone actually apologized for Mom’s death and I was baffled. She had nothing to do with it. She’d had no hand in me becoming an orphan, yet her words were actually comforting. It was so strange.

“Thank you,”
I said for lack of anything better.

“
Tell me about her.”

I stiffened. I wasn’t ready to talk about Mom. I knew going down that path would only wind up with me bursting into tears
in front of a complete stranger and I didn’t like crying at the best of times.

“I really don’t—”

With an audible clink, a class of water and a small plate of crackers materialized next to me on the table. I yelped and leapt out of my chair, sending the heavy piece of furniture teetering dangerously. My eyes swept over the room only to find Odalyn and I were the only two there, or at least the only two visible.

“What … who…”

Odalyn looked on the verge of laughing again, but somehow managed to keep it restrained as she studied me. “It is just your water, dear,” she said.

“I see that, but how did it get there?”

“The hallow brought it.”

I searched the room a second time. “
The what?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You do not see them?”

“Them?” My voice came off a little higher than I cared to admit and I didn’t care how embarrassing it was. “There’s a
them
? Them who? There’s no one here but us.” I hesitated. “Right?” The last thing I wanted or needed was to worry about invisible people creeping into my room to watch me shower.

Call me paranoid.

Rather than answer, she continued to study me, humor completely gone from her face. It was disturbingly blank as she rose gracefully to her feet.

“What are you, Fallon?”

Chapter 12

It was my turn to laugh, but it sounded hysterical and barley in control. “Me? What are you? What is this place?”

My gut
gave a violent wrench and I went down hard. My knees struck marble with my full weight and I barely caught myself from face planting. The breath left my lungs and I was left torn between screaming and trying not to move as pain reverberated through my very soul. The world blurred behind a curtain of tears and I choked on the sour tang coating my throat.

Vaguely, I was aware of Odalyn shouting something to someone.
The crash of warm liquid rushed between my ears like waves rearing over sand. The hollow sound pushed over my head until I was drowning. I knew the sound. I knew what it meant. I struggled to my feet, my heart pounding against the cage of my ribs.

I had to go. I had to get away from Odalyn before I did something unforgiveable. There was no guarantee that I would be able to control myself if I stayed.
But I couldn’t find the door. The room was a smear of colors too warped for recognition. Shapes weaved and bobbed in my direction, hundreds of them, dark and gangly with glowing eyes. I squeezed my own shut, willing the sight away before opening them again. The phantom figures were gone and Ashton had my shoulders.

I had no recollection of being touched. He was shaking me
, his mouth moving with words I couldn’t hear over the melodious hum of his blood, thick and warm beneath his skin. I could smell it. And while I was repulsed by the very idea, a part of me moaned.

I was so hungry.

Ashton drew back and I wondered if he saw on my face just how close he was to getting his throat ripped out. But he left his hands wrapped tightly around my upper arms as he turned his head to something behind him. Bad move. The vein running along the side of his neck thrummed, inviting me, tempting me.

“No!” I threw up my hands and shoved.

Caught off guard, Ashton staggered and tumbled backwards onto his backside. I scuffled away from him.

“Stay back!” I panted, blinking at the sweat trickling into my eyes.

“Fallon…”

“No!” I growled when he got onto his h
aunches and took a tentative step forward. “Don’t come near me. I need Isaiah. You have to find him.”

A figure moved up behind him and his attention was diverted from me. I took the moment to regulate my breathing, to control the madness swallowing me up.
The struggle was me against a demon who knew exactly what I needed, and how do you fight that? Especially when the drive was untamable, refusing to budge so it was in every breath I took like serrated nails. I never should have left my room. From this moment until it passed, every person I came across was a potential victim.

“Take her upstairs,” Ashton was telling someone.

I started to shake my head, to tell the person not to touch me, but it was too late. The person reached me and knelt so we were eyelevel.

“It’s all right, miss.”

Delphi.

The beast leapt out of my grasp the way a wild animal lunged
at an unsuspecting idiot wandering too close. Every fiber of my being seemed to freeze and race forward at the same time. The roar came from everywhere all at once and then it was just a high pitched shriek that nearly deafened me.

The world erupted into chaos. Dark figures bounded around me, frantic shapes desperate to do something I didn’t care about.
So much movement… so many voices, I couldn’t think.

There was another whisper somewhere at the back of my head, prodding, pinching and demanding to be heard.
A scream erupted. Several more quickly followed, louder. None of it registered. I was surrounded by the warm pulse of life. The flimsy stretch of fabric keeping me from my quarry was torn away by talons that looked nothing like my hands, revealing a rosy flush where flesh joined shoulder to jaw.

“Fallon
, stop!”

Brutal hands grabbed me
. I was jerked back violently and spun. The pain in my shoulder was almost as powerful as the hunger clawing up my throat. Then it all stopped as suddenly as it had started and I found myself engulfed in a familiar wave of leather, spices and soap. A hard clamp cradled the back of my skull, pushing and guiding my face forward when all I wanted was to back away from the restraint confining me.

“Don’t fight me!” a voice hissed into my ear.

My waist was squeezed and the grip in my hair tightened. A growl pounded in my ears, a wolf advancing on the scent of blood. I whimpered as pain that had nothing to do with the hands on me spiked through the cavity of my skull. The hold became gentle, the voice soothing.

“I’ve got you.” Lips touched my cheek.

The hand at the base of my skull nudged insistently, guiding my protruding canines to the strong pulse beating beneath taut flesh. Any resolve I may have had, dissolved. I sunk through the madness and drowned in the sweet taste of life and sanity. His life poured into me until I was sinking in him, until he was beating inside me. My own heart pounded in my skull, a second heartbeat between my ears and I was only vaguely aware of the words he was speaking. I only became aware of his wants when his breathing became ragged and his muscles shuddered around me. His pain lanced through me like a whip of fire. My hands tightened on him as I extracted my fangs.

“I’m sorry…” I choked, woozy and feeling more than a little drunk.
“I’m sorry.”

“
Shh,” he breathed into my temple.

Then there was darkness.

I woke up with the distinct feeling of being on fire, of having my skin sizzle and peel away beneath the single sheet covering me. It felt alien, sensitive and prickly as though reacting to a third degree burn. I wanted to scream, but all I could manage was a moan that spoke nothing of pain, at least not the bad kind.

Something touched me
, a light graze of something cool against my cheek. I gasped and automatically turned to the balm. My heart cracked in my chest, drumming with anticipation, longing and something I didn’t care to pay attention to.

My eyelids lifted, my mind already knowing what I would see.

Isaiah’s face hovered over me, his blue eyes black. Another moan lodged in my chest, building until I thought it would just explode from my chest. My breathing increased, as did the rate of my heart.

“Where were you?” I heard myself whisper.
Whether it was in my head or out loud was beyond me.

“I’m sorry.”
His response was in my head.
“I didn’t hear you until we got closer to the manor. I came as quickly as I could.”

I didn’t understand what he meant by not having heard me. I didn’t think such a thing was possible.

“It’s not,” he said out loud. “I don’t know what happened. Forgive me? It won’t happen again. I swear it.”

His fingers, just the tips, ghosted along my jawline and followed the curve of my neck
. That single caress had the full punch of a power line. It coursed through my veins as though I’d been touched by something with high voltage. My entire being gave a violent shudder and I cried out, grabbing the hand, stopping him as the overwhelming surge brought me to the verge of passing out.

He was breathing hard. His nostrils flared with the effort. Sharp splinters of electric blue pulsed behind the veil of black. I could see
it crackling like bolts of lightning in the dark.

The hand I
held twisted and captured mine so our palms touched. Beneath the sheets, my toes curled, my back arched as the same hot currents shot up my arm to explode through the rest of me the moment our palms mashed together.

I gasped his name
. My free hand reached for him and curled around the back of his neck. I had every intention of pulling him down, of bringing those lips to mine, lips I’d been dreaming of tasting for weeks. Instead, he growled. His facial muscles tightened. The muscle along his jaw tensed and he looked to be in terrible pain. I jerked my hand away, terrified I’d hurt him.

“No!” he gasped, his voice unsteady. “Don’t stop.”

“I’m hurting you.”

He shook his head. “No
. It feels incredible.”

Carefully, I returned my hand to his skin
and watched as he jerked and his eyes slammed shut. The same ripple of power surged off his skin, through my palm to anchor somewhere deep inside me.

“What’s happening?” I half moaned, half shouted.

Eyes still shut, Isaiah shook his head. “I don’t know.” His face came down until his forehead rested on my shoulder. “I can’t stop.” His lips turned to my neck and I swore as they burned into my skin. My fingers fisted around the ones laced through his. “I don’t want to stop.”

His free hand jerked away the sheets separating us and went straight for the hem of my shirt. They slipped under without
pause. I had no sense left in me to protest. I wouldn’t even if I had. My nails cut into the taut flesh of his neck as his fingers grazed my stomach. The muscles beneath his touch convulsed and I whimpered.

Touch me! Touch me!
The voice in my head chanted, desperate and starving for the full contact of his flesh against mine. But he was in no hurry as he traced the curves of my ribs and littered my entire body with goose bumps with just the tips of his fingers.

His breath rushed
hot over the hammering pulse at my throat. “God, I want you, Fallon.”

My mouth opened to ask him what the hell was stopping him, when a soft, very discreet cough alerted us to t
he newcomer to our party.

Isaiah
jerked back and we turned to the figure darkening the doorway leading into what I slowly began to realize was my room. I was in bed, though I had no recollection of how I got there, or the events leading to the reason why. It was all a blur of colors and sounds, something vague and distant as though it were part of a movie I’d seen once but no longer remembered.

Ashton moved deeper into the room, still clad in slacks and a white dress shirt. His hands remained tucked casually in his pocket as he moved to stand between
the bed and the door.

“How are you feeling?”

Frustrated, I wanted to say. Annoyed. Restrained. Hot. So
hot
. But I couldn’t think about that. Focusing on it hit me with a powerful need that made me want to jump Isaiah. It wasn’t an unusual thing, my desire for him, only it had never been like this. It had never filled me with such a hunger that I felt half crazed with it. It was taking all my strength plus some to keep from pulling him down with me onto the bed.

“
Confused,” I said at last, not fully lying, but opting for only a partial truth. “What happened?” I looked to Isaiah for the answer.

He was watching me
with those darkened eyes. No. Not just watching. He was devouring me, stripping away fabric, flesh and bone to bore deep within my very soul with a scrutiny that seared in all the places it grazed. Every inch that he’d touched tingled under the phantom caress. I bit back the sound housed in my throat. I couldn’t be sure what it was. A moan maybe. But I couldn’t trust that I wouldn’t beg him to do something that Ashton would probably, mostly likely not approve of. I had to look away.

Ashton was speaking, saying words that were moving his lips, but I couldn’t for the life of me make sense of.
He looked so solemn. I tried to tune in.

“Unexpected,” he was saying when his speech finally sunk home.

“What was?” I asked.

Ashton blinked
. A flicker of something, maybe irritation passed over his face when he realized I hadn’t heard a thing.

“
I said that was interesting, if not highly unexpected.” He glanced from me to Isaiah. “Would either of you care to explain what happened?”

Not really.

Ashton turned his eyes on Isaiah when it became apparent that the only thing I wanted was for him to leave.

“
Isaiah?”

Isaiah
found a spot on the bedcovers and stared hard at it. My heart went out to him. How difficult it must have been for him to be torn between his loyalties for Ashton and whatever he felt for me. I couldn’t imagine. But I felt a surge of guilt for putting him in that position.