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His hands are trembling as they grab me and and slam me against his hard body. I can feel his whole body shaking in either rage or relief, or maybe both. He keeps on stroking my hair and murmuring my name softly. Lexington has landed a few feet away from us finally and is watching the scene stoically. Bodies of the killer crows riddle the ground around us. There's at least a hundred of them.
"Let's get you inside," says Aiden finally, surveying the graveyard of birds around us with distaste. The two of us shake our way into the castle grounds. Aiden yells for Gwenny as we walk in, hurting my ears with how loud he is. It will still be a wonder if she can hear him with how big this place is though.
To my surprise she comes bustling around a corner where she stops in horror when she sees us. I'm sure I look like an extra in a horror flick since I'm covered in blood that is still oozing copiously from my many wounds. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, the pain from the combination of all of the damage inflicted by the crows is overwhelming, and it's all I can do to stay upright.
Aiden must sense my weakness because he scoops me up in his arms and carries me the rest of the way to my quarters.
"Draw a bath," he orders Gwenny, who jumps into action. I expect to be set down, so I can bathe, but Aiden surprises me by walking into my cavernous shower with me.
"What are you doing?" I ask exhaustedly.
"There's too much blood on you right now," he says, his anger still threaded throughout his voice. "We need to get you showered off before you can take a bath."
His explanation makes sense to my tired brain and I don't have the energy to object so I allow him to set me down against a wall and turn the shower on. After making sure it's the right temperature, he gently lifts my blouse, and slides it up my body, leaving me in just my bra. I'm sure it would feel seductive under a different scenario, but I'm in too much pain to feel anything at the moment. He slides my pants off of me next until I'm standing in front of him in just the sexy lingerie that are the only options I have available to me as far as underthings go.
I can see that he's trying to temper and hide his arousal, but he's not doing a very good job of it. I can see that he's straining against his pants and his eyes are practically wild with lust. Despite his obvious excitement at my semi-nude state, he's very careful to only touch the parts of my body he has to in order to get the blood washed off. I watch as rivulets of red get carried away down the drain. There's so much of it. As I'm watching it, there's something about the fact that I'm bleeding so freely that bothers me. But I can't seem to place my finger on it.
It's only after I've soaked in the tub, and reluctantly downed the sleeping potion that Gwenny offers me that I realize that I have a very clear memory of my vile foster parents being very careful to not make me bleed when they beat me. Thinking of the fact that nothing magically spectacular happened to me today, and I bled quite a bit, it seems odd to me that my bleeding was ever such a big deal. I'm still puzzling over those facts as the sleeping potion takes effect and I drift off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 14
Damon
It's been a long few weeks of being lost in this hellhole, and we have nothing to show for it. I only caught a glimpse of Mason being dragged away by those undead assholes. There must have been some kind of magic at play, because there was no sign of them when I went after them. It's as if they disappeared into thin air. Tensions are running high between the three of us. Beckham and I feel supremely guilty about leaving Mason unprotected knowing that he was so low in energy. We hadn't understood the full extent of what happens to an incubus when it has stopped feeding, but seeing how easily he was overtaken by those freaks has given us a pretty good idea of just how terrible Mason has been doing on this trip.
Lexi for her part continues to ensure that I will hate redheads forever. I guess I should give her some slack because she's working so hard to try and get Eva out of whatever unconscious state she's currently operating under thanks to "Him." However, the fact that she's working to "kill" Eva, is difficult to be okay about in any circumstance. I also hate the fact that she can't put a name to Eva's crazy ex-husband. I've decided that He's definitely an ex because there's no way He's getting my girl. Still I would like to have a name and a face to go with the guy that I'm hunting rather than simply "Him."
Without Liu we are operating somewhat blind. The clouds and fog are still too thick for my wings to be truly useful in this terrain. We've tried to stick close to the area where we were attacked though since I believe that the vamps must have something to do with the fortress. I've learned over the eons of time I've spent on this earth that there's always a little bit of truth to a legend. Certainly, the existence of theJiangshipretty much confirms there's more than a "little" bit of truth to the legend that surrounds this place.
We're sitting around a small fire. Lexi's magically put a shield around the flames so that they don't get put out by the continuous rainfall. The one good thing about the cloud cover is it allows us to have a fire without fearing what we will attract.
The air feels thick from the humidity. It reminds me of all of the times I would have to wait in less than ideal conditions for a Fallen to make an appearance. It would have made all those experiences a lot more palatable if I knew that Eva was waiting for me at the end.
Lexi's once again muttering to herself, looking to see if she can try bringing Eva back to reality from wherever she's gone. Suddenly she starts rocking back and forth, yelling so loud that I'm thinking the cloud cover isn't going to be enough to keep us hidden from the predators of the area. Her voice reaches a crescendo and then she falls to the ground, spasming violently for a moment before falling deathly still.
Beckham is by Lexi's side in a flash. I haven't healed as fast as normal from the wound inflicted by Liu's knife for some reason, and I can't quite move as fast as usual. Beckham helps Lexi back to her seat. She looks exhausted and there's a thin trail of blood coming out of her nose. Beckham glances at me and quickly grabs a rag to start blotting up the blood. We'll burn the rag after we're finished and hope that theJiangshi'ssensitivities aren't so sensitive that they would be attracted to that small of an amount of blood.
I once read that sharks can detect a drop of blood from a mile away. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I hope it's not true in this case with these vampires. Getting up close and personal with them made me long for the vampires back home. Those at least are actually attractive to look at and can usually control themselves. They also don't usually smell like the dead corpses that they really are.
Beckham finishes cleaning Lexi up and throws the rag in the fire. She starts quietly crying. Beckham crouches down next to her anxiously.
"Lexi, is something wrong with Eva?" he asks, a note of panic in his voice.
"I failed again," she says quietly. "I was so close and he stopped me right before she would have died."
We're all solemn after that, thinking about Eva, thinking about Mason, hoping they're both alright. Mason and I have had such a strained relationship lately. I feel tremendous guilt about how I've been treating him. He's had to go through much more than I have to show his devotion to Eva. Starving himself to death, that's not something I've had to experience. Knowing that Mason has probably never gone a day in his life without feeding by partaking in some sort of sexual experience, the fact that he's managed to abstain is a true testament to how gone he is over her. Not that the normal being shouldn't be able to control themselves and stay faithful to their partner, but for an incubus that usually isn't possible with how much they need to feed. I haven't admitted it to Mason, but I have a lot of respect for him. I can only hope that I'll get to tell him someday. Having him alive and having to share Eva with him seems like a much better option than him being dead.
We spend the rest of the night alternating between talking tactics and taking turns getting some sleep. We never talk about the fact that we could be wrong about theJiangshihaving some kind of ties to "Him." The alternatives are that Mason's either been eaten alive or that he's become one of them (if that's possible for an incubus), both scenarios I'm unwilling to accept.
At the first break of dawn, or at least when the dark isn't so stifling (it's a little hard to see the sun under the current conditions), we set off. After a few hours of hiking I frustratingly notice that we've passed the same tree that's been struck by lightning multiple times. It's caught my attention because it's been burnt to a scorched black unlike the greenery around it. We've somehow been going in circles.
Although this might seem like something bad, it's actually the first sign we've had that we're getting close to something magical since the attack of theJiangshi. Fun fact about angels, we have an innate sense of direction, we don't get lost. So, the fact that we've been going in circles means that there's some type of magic involved that's making us do that.
"Something is around here," I murmur to the group. Now that I'm paying attention, I can feel something off in the air. The feeling rises, and I recognize that it's magic, magic that has increased since Lexi is currently murmuring yet another spell to herself.
"There's some kind of strong glamour in front of us," she says, slightly out of breath from the effort she put into her spell.
"How do we get rid of it?" Beckham asks, eyeing our surroundings suspiciously. I look to Lexi for an answer.
