Bound, p.5
Bound, page 5
part #1 of Blended Souls Series
“We all need to be saved at some point,” said Colt.
My body stiffened at his words. “What? I didn’t say that aloud!”
The three of them withdrew as if I had suddenly burned them.
“Just like before,” said Colt. “Except then, she tapped into our psychic link somehow and that enabled her to understand us. This time, we just tapped into her. How is this possible?”
“So, what am I missing out on?” a strong voice called out from the entrance to the room where we were all congregated.
We turned as one to see yet a fourth man enter the space. He was not as tall as the others, but just as powerfully built. His stride exuded confidence, and I could tell from the jovial smile he wore that he was probably the charming rogue of the bunch. He was dark skinned, but with a plume of incredibly red hair flowing freely about his head as if being pushed around by eddies only he could feel. His eyes were bright green orbs, with no irises or pupils of any kind. He strode toward us and for a brief second I could swear he was moving in slow motion…like those old Baywatch shows where the hot lifeguard would come slowly out of the water and onto the beach.
“Ashe,” said Brayne, “welcome home.”
The new man came up to me and locked those blazing green eyes on mine. “I see we have an unannounced guest.” Even though he was looking directly at me, I knew he wasn’t speaking to me.
“This is Piper Winters,” said Ren. “She is with us while she recovers from a werewolf bite.”
Ashe cocked his head to one side, arching an eyebrow. “A werewolf? And she isn’t dead? Impressive.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off me, and yet he hadn’t addressed me directly. “And can someone explain what I walked in on? Are you suddenly able to heal her by touch rather than submersing her in Ren’s healing waters?”
“No, we were…commiserating,” said Brayne.
“Ashe, she has been claimed. A vampire has marked her as his property.”
“I see,” said Ashe. “And which of our options have you all decided to pursue?”
“Options,” said Colt.
“Yes. Either you give her to said vampire, or, and this would be my choice, we just kill the vampire.”
“Agreed,” said Colt, barely able to contain his enthusiasm.
“No!” countered Brayne. “You know as well as I do that would bring us into war with the vampires. We have been at peace with them for centuries. Giving her shelter is one thing, but to deliberately provoke an attack…”
“Bah,” said Ashe, waving his hand dismissively. “Loathsome creatures. No one will miss one little vampire if we snuff him out.”
“The problem is, this particular vampire has set up residence in her world. We would have to go there to engage him,” said Brayne. “And while the humans have recently learned of the existence of the supernatural world, they may not be ready for our kind. And we are most definitely not ready for their world.”
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Colt, half under his breath. This drew a stern look from Brayne but no comments.
“She smells different,” said Ashe. “I have not been around a human in over two hundred years, but I do remember they don’t smell like this. Does she know what we are?”
I had had enough of being referred to as if I weren’t in the room. “She does indeed,” I said.
Ashe smiled, his eyes still on me.
“Well there is one other option,” he said, finally breaking his gaze to look at the others. “If we kill the vampire, it could make things difficult for us. Especially if we enter the world of man to do it. But…” and here he returned his gaze to me, “why don’t we just let her kill the undead creature? Assuming she does not want to be become its mate, that is.”
I bristled at what he had implied. “No. I don’t want to become its mate. But…”
“But what?” he said, addressing me directly for the first time.
“I…I can’t kill a vampire.”
He stepped closer, finally taking a seat on the bed next to me. His eyes burned into mine as he spoke. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not one of you. I’m not a gargoyle that can kill a werewolf.” I glanced at Colt, whose eyes had never left me. “I’m not strong, I wasn’t born with power or magic. I’m not a witch…I’m just…human. I can’t fight something like that.”
“Well, obviously you weren’t born with magic, but what does that have to do with anything?” said Ashe.
“Where I’m from, the only people who can kill vampires are witches. They have the power, the magic, to fight them. But witches are born, not created. That’s not a world I can belong to.” While I refused to feel sorry for myself, I needed for them to realize that Ashe was asking for something beyond me.
“What? Who told you that?” said Ashe. “Maybe in your world that is true. But here…in our world, magic is everywhere, and it can be tapped into.”
“Ashe…no,” said Ren.
“Why not?” he asked, rising. He moved to the foot of the bed and faced me.
Without another word, he began to change, his human self melting away as his form grew and morphed in size. Where there had just been a handsome, redheaded man standing before me, now rose a towering, eight-foot tall, grey-skinned, massively muscular gargoyle. Powerful arms that ended in clawed hands stretched out. A face that could have launched a thousand wet dreams was transformed into a fanged, grinning semblance of itself, complete with a jutting under bite and sharp, chiseled jawline. Red hair had become flames that danced around his head, lighting the room in its glory.
But despite the change, his eyes remained the same. They shone with an intensity that I could not have imagined, green stars displayed against a pitch sky.
He rose to his full height and addressed me in a voice that thundered inside the enclosed space.
“You do not have to be born with magic in order to wield it. We can teach you. We can make you stronger, little human. Strong enough to kill any vampire that dares threaten you or your loved ones.” As he spoke, wings flared out from his back. Large and powerful looking, they rose to fan out above his head and beyond even his muscular arms. “The power is there for the taking. All you have to do is reach for it.”
6
Piper
Ren was right about one thing: the fact that I was in no shape to march out of there and head back home. My flesh had knitted itself back together on the surface, but underneath I was still a mess of torn tissue and ripped muscle. It was almost as if I were healing in reverse, from the outside in.
But it wasn’t just my torn body that needed time to mend, it was my mind as well. Nightmares crept into my slumber, all tooth and claw reaching for me out of the shadows. My body demanded sleep in order to put itself back together, but no sooner would I drift off than I would awaken screaming, fighting away phantoms until the now-familiar arms of a man who wasn’t really a man would come and hold me tight, rocking me gently until my breathing subsided.
The only respite I found was in the baths.
As it turns out, all the gargoyles were born under what they called a Luna Mark. It was their version of astrology, but it really corresponded to what I knew as the four elements. Ren was born under the Water Luna Mark. He was capable of doing amazing things with the natural springs that bubbled up under the massive dwelling they lived in.
But by far his most spectacular ability was to command the waters to heal. He would haul the water in mammoth barrels I would never have believed a single person capable of moving, had I not watched him do it with my own eyes, and bring them into my quarters to fill a massive tub. Then, in quiet tones, he would chant an incantation of some sort and place his hands in the water. He said he was purifying it, and he would leave his hands submerged until the water glowed blue, as if he had dropped thousands of tiny incandescent bulbs into the tub.
When the water was ready, he would have me strip down and climb in. The instant soothing rush of calming heat was a balm to both my body and my mind. He told me I was healing incredibly fast given that I had been nearly ripped in two. He would keep me in the water for hours at a time, and honestly I didn't mind. It was the only time my mind would be still and stop whispering things to me when I threatened to drift off.
I may have also felt more at ease because I knew that Ren was standing over me, the blue in his eyes pulsing rhythmically, keeping pace with the small undulations of the water as it caressed me gently, working its magic on me. Somehow Ren was able to keep the temperature of the water at the exact same degree as my body temperature. It was a strange sensation, losing myself in the feeling of floating in midair, no longer able to tell what was my body and what was water around me.
All I knew was that it was peaceful and relaxing. When the session ended, I would reluctantly climb out of the tub and could immediately feel that my body had healed a little more than before I went into the bath.
It turned out that werewolf venom is some incredibly toxic shit.
I mean, I always assumed that werewolves savaged their prey, ripping, tearing, chomping away at them. That’s all true, of course, but the one thing that no one ever revealed about them is that their teeth and claws secrete a venom which works its way into their victims. Over the centuries, werewolves realized that the longer they lingered over a fresh kill to devour it, the greater were their chances of being discovered by angry villagers with forks, torches, and later silver bullets.
So, clever fuckers that they were, they evolved. Developing a paralytic toxin that not only reduced their victim’s ability to struggle after being attacked but could also start to break down muscle and sinew while softening bones, to make the poor person that much easier to eat. Less time spent on a meal meant less likelihood of being discovered and killed. It was part of what led them to staying at the upper rungs of the food chain in the supernatural world.
Unlike their counterparts, the vampires, their bite didn’t turn you. Thank the heavens for small favors, I guess.
Brayne was usually the one who would give me all the details about the supernaturals. He had a particular aversion to werewolves, referring to them as “filthy beasts.” I knew there was a reason he and I got along so well. Brayne was born under the Air Luna Mark. He said that the winds talked to him, whispering changes that were spreading across the Dark Realm.
“What kind of changes?” I asked. I was lying propped up in my bed. It was one of those times where a particularly nasty dream had driven me into his arms, and I refused to even attempt to go back to sleep. Brayne was a little more reserved than Ren but was also a scholar. He loved to educate me, as he put it.
“Well, for starters there are rumors among the populace that a human is in hiding somewhere in the realm,” he said. “Try as we might, we can only mask your presence here so much. Some creatures that are in residence in the deep woods around our home have never encountered a human before. But they can smell you, and your scent is driving them wild with curiosity.”
Great. Just what I needed to hear. This was going to do wonders for my sleep patterns.
“Will they…can they get to me?” I asked.
“Absolutely not. They are dumb brutes, scurrying about, acting on instinct. And while they may wonder just what we have sequestered away in here that smells so good, their self-preservation instinct would never let them set food in our abode. No, you are perfectly safe with us.”
“For now,” I murmured. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what a gargoyle was, so how safe could I really feel?
Brayne must have sensed what I was thinking. Or maybe he outright read my mind.
“Of course. You don’t know what our intentions are.”
Was that a tinge of hurt I heard in his voice? It immediately made me feel bad; after all, they had saved my life. “No, it isn’t that,” I half lied. “Well, it isn’t only that. I guess, if I’m being honest here, what I’m feeling now is just the escalation of what I’ve been feeling for the last six months. Ever since the people in Trinity Cove found out about the existence of monsters…no offense…everything has changed. I mean, the town where I grew up and love so much is crawling with things that want to eat us, or…worse, I guess. I’ve just felt this creeping dread ever since the Veil between our worlds came down. And this — everything that has happened to me over the last week — has felt like the realization of my constant dread. Or maybe by focusing on it for so long, I just willed it into being. I’ve probably done this to myself.”
“You haven’t done anything,” said Brayne.
“Oh no? Then why am I being targeted by a vampire? I must have done something to bring that on.”
“Vampires, much like werewolves, are creatures of their senses. They don’t know why they can be attracted to certain individuals; they just are. For them, it happens on a level buried so deep within they don’t even know it’s there until it is triggered. And once that happens, they become a slave to the desire until it is quenched.”
“And by quenched you mean…?”
“They either turn the object of their affection, or they kill it.” As ever, I was grateful for his directness.
“I should have left town with everyone else,” I said with a sigh.
Brayne cocked his head to one side. “So why didn’t you?”
I swallowed hard, trying to determine the best way to phrase my response. “I guess it all boils down to fear. Fear of leaving the only place I have ever known. Fear that my sister might not want to go. She was enamored with our new community. Fear of leaving the security of our home. The thought of striking out alone into the world was more paralyzing than the fear of what could be out there in the darkness.” I blushed when I looked up and saw the way Brayne was looking at me, his eyes bright and filled with concern. “I’m sure to you that sounds crazy…I mean, this is your everyday normal. There’s nothing to be afraid of in the dark for the four of you.”
“I think that there are other reasons you stayed.”
This jolted me. I had just opened my heart to someone, spilling things I hadn’t even verbalized to my sister. “Why would you say that?”
“Something in you, something buried down deep, feels a connection to the dark. I can sense it, but it’s unlike anything I have ever felt before.”
Anger flared briefly inside me. “What? Are you saying that I’m…that I’m one of your kind?”
“My kind? Most definitely not. You are all human…but also somehow more. I can feel it. Colt definitely senses it.”
He let that hang in the air for a second, gauging my response.
“Yes, there it was. Brief and flickering. What just passed through your mind?”
Instantly I hardened, looking away. “Can’t you read my mind? You tell me.”
“But that’s just it,” he said. “I can’t read you mind; at least not alone. As one born into the Air Luna Mark, I am gifted with the ability of telepathy. I am the one who forged the bond between the four of us, allowing us silent communication. The bond that you somehow tapped into when you first regained consciousness. Something that you should not have been able to do, by the way. Then, when the three of us were together, we read your mind without meaning to. That of itself is significant because I can’t read the minds of non-gargoyles.”
“But then how…?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know how it happened. As I said, there is something different about you…”
“Now you sound like Sherry,” I said.
“Your sister? What do you mean by that?”
“She used to joke that there was something about me, something that attracted people to me. Men in particular were always hovering around me, giving me attention that I didn’t want. I’ve always ignored them and thought it was just that all men are horn-dogs.”
“Interesting,” said Brayne. “That could be part of the reason Colt was drawn to helping you that night in the woods. When I questioned him about what happened, he felt compelled to step in and save you. That he wanted nothing more than to help you at that moment.” He stopped, lost in thought.
“What is it?”
“All supernaturals have senses that are far beyond a human’s. You have five senses while we have more; many more, in some cases. If there is something about you that tugs at the senses of normal humans, then it would be amplified considerably for supernaturals. That would explain the…attraction that we as a Stone feel towards you. It would also explain why a vampire would instantly seek to claim you as his own.”
I wasn’t sure what to say at this point. My mind was spinning in a million different directions.
“That would also explain the agitation that we are feeling in the air lately. The creatures in the forest are sensing your presence in a way they have never felt before. It’s like you’re a flame, glowing bright in the darkness, and you’re attracting some very dangerous and ravenous moths.”
I tried to mask how depressing that made me feel but I’m pretty sure Brayne saw right through me. “So. What do I do?”
“Well. We are going to teach you to tamp down your flame; to mask who and what you are. After all, wolves can’t find you if they can’t get your scent.”
7
Piper
And just like that I began my apprenticeship, as the four of them called it.
Of course before any of this started, I made requests. I wanted to see my sister, and when I was assured that stepping foot outside of the house would be disastrous, I made sure that Colt checked on her regularly. He would keep watch from afar most nights, reporting back to me how she was doing. Some nights he would approach her to request more clothing and reaffirm the psychic suggestion that I was happy as a lark and would be seeing her again soon.
Part of me felt horrible at what was being done to Sherry. She had always been a good sister and loved me unconditionally. In return for that love, I had given her the gift of mental manipulation.
