Dangerous Lovers (203 page)

The buzzing started then. Any instinct to react rocketed through my body. No, that wasn’t quite right. My body wasn’t under my control. My head looked up into the boy named Elijah, but his face was blank, unsurprised. He raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. I could see an almost amused look cross his always blank face.

“You stupid fool. You, wraith, are out of your league. I wouldn’t mess with this child’s fragile mind.” It was coming from my mouth, but I wasn’t saying it. I didn’t understand it. Then Elijah did the scariest thing he’d done since I had met him. He smiled. His teeth were sharp and pointed, all of them. His tongue that he ran over his teeth was black and unsettling.

“Apparently you don’t realize whom you are dealing with.” Elijah looked at me with an air of calm, but I was shaking.

I tried to move, to speak, but I was trapped in my own body. I remember this had happened before, when…but it was from fear. That time was fear. This time was different.

“Oh, yes, the great Elijah. I know who you are.
You are nothing
,” I sneered back. My voice was different, deeper, and it scared me.

“This will be a fun few days,” Elijah hissed before he touched his other hand to my hand.

Pain blinded me to the point that I knew nothing but darkness.

Chapter Fourteen

Stone

The next few days were torture. Elijah was at her side most of the time. Both of them deathly silent until Audrey would scream, whimper, and pass out again. I was stretched to the limit on the third day. I had been staying right outside the door. Elijah had stated when he went in that the chances of the wraith jumping bodies would be higher if another body was available. Nixie would join me, but I could tell she was uncomfortable with Elijah so close. She had bigger issues with wraiths than the rest of us.

I looked over at my siren friend and hoped that she would find peace one day, but I could see that she wanted to go into the room and rip Elijah away. She kept pacing in front of the door. She would stare at it while she moved as if willing it to open. I knew I wanted it to. My muscles shifted, strained, and burned for me to do something. I shifted a lot from my stance, my skin feeling too tight for my body.

“You need to go for a run or something.” Charlie watched as I paced in the hallway outside of Audrey’s room. Elijah had kicked us all out again after the wraith had started to break. I turned to Charlie with a snarl. His teeth lengthened, and he growled right back, eyes flashing red. “Don’t take your anger out on me.”

“Back off, Charlie,” I replied with the same amount of venom in my voice. My body buzzed with energy, just waiting for me to make even the slightest of moves. I shook off the anxiety the best that I could. “Fuck! I don’t know what is wrong with me.”

“I do. You haven’t moved from this spot other than for essentials for a few days. You need to move. You need to get out. You need to run, stretch your muscles.” Charlie calmed down, his eyes returning to their natural, mellow blue state.

I released a strangled breath; I needed to get out of this building.

“Call me if anything changes. Anything, Charlie.”

He nodded, waving me off.

I headed toward the elevator. I knew that I should go grab running clothes and run in my human form, but at this point I needed a better release. My body felt strained and tight. When I got outside, I was glad for the acres that we owned. There was a forest behind the hotel with a lake near the edge of the property line. The hotel was built in a small city that didn’t garner enough tourists. Most outsiders would drive straight through to get to the next city twenty miles away.

There was plenty of room for all of us to roam. I took off my clothes at the edge of the forest, where a Dryad had created cubby holes in the trees for this exact reason, and placed the bundle inside. I let my body relax, then it began to transform, stretching, the cells shifting, bones extending. My hands came down with a loud slap on the hard ground. They were twice as big and twice as hairy. I took the form of a black leopard and began my descent into the woods.

I didn’t take my cat form very often because the sensitivity that the whiskers offered was hell if it wasn’t needed. I took this form because my legs felt stronger, more power going into every stride. In this form, I could get the run I needed without having to go too far. I caught the scent of wolves out and about a little too late.

The werewolves weren’t too bad when they knew other shifters were out here, but caught off guard, their animal instincts took over. I saw a massive blonde wolf with yellow eyes running to my side. I knew more were going to follow, so I started to focus my mind. I thought of longer legs. I thought of a slightly shorter tail. I thought of pointed ears. I shifted to a black wolf, my eyes probably an ugly shade of brown at my annoyance. The blonde wolf howled and turned away.

I didn’t realize how far I had made it out until I noticed the start of the cabins. Some of the creatures that lived on the base couldn’t live within the metal walls. Not that I blamed them. I didn’t enjoy people being able to get into my mind and hearing my thoughts. Their houses were at least five miles out so that they were out of range. I shook my now longer snout and turned back toward the hotel.

As I ran, I tried to reason out why I felt this an undeniable need to protect Audrey. It wasn’t a shape-shifter thing. We didn’t have quite the same instincts as the Weres did. They were part animal down to their cores, and shape-shifters were not. We didn’t react the same way as them. The protective instincts weren’t so ingrained in us. We acted much like a human would with bonds. Of course, ours were intensified but only after time. I didn’t know Audrey. I didn’t feel a sense of family with her, but I felt something. I just had to figure out what that something was.

“Stone! Stone-y boy! Stone! Stone, Stone, Stone!”

I let out a growl when I heard Nixie call out to me, her voice managed to carry through the forest. I didn’t want to deal with the six foot, green-haired siren at the moment. She looked so out of place in her high heels and short skirt. All sirens had problems with hiding their legs, saying pants were too constricting. “Hey! Stone!” Now she was dragging my name out with far too many syllables. Her voice started to change into a song, and I knew she would not be denied. I came out, shifting as I walked toward my clothes. I gave her my backside while I searched for the tree that I had stuffed my clothes into.

“What do you want, Nixie?” I asked as I pulled on my boxers. I looked at her when she didn’t answer. She was staring intently at my ass. I pulled myself up to my full six foot, three inches height and stared at her. “Are you finished?” I growled, getting more annoyed. She shook her head.

“Sorry, what was I saying?” Usually sirens were much more composed than she was. After all, their first calling was to call sailors into the rocks in order to kill or mate with them. The lucky ones were the ones that were killed.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her.

“I don’t know, Nixie. You were going to tell me.” My jaw was clenched so tightly that my words came out strained.

“Oh right, I demand that you help me get in to see Audrey.” She set her legs shoulder width apart, and her jaw jutted out.

“Nixie, I have no control over that. Elijah hasn’t let anyone into that room since he entered it three days ago. You know why we can’t go in there.” I pulled my plain black shirt over my head as I spoke. When my head poked through, Nixie was looking at the ground defeated. I wasn’t sure why, but sirens had strong bonds with people that only seemed to grow the longer they were away from water. “Nix, when was the last time you went to the lake?”

“I don’t know…a week. Maybe a month and half…” she whispered the last part, but she knew I could hear her.

“What the hell, Nixie?” Sirens needed the water at least every two weeks in order to remain healthy.

“Look, going back to that lake is not an option. I spend a little extra time in the bath or in the pool. I am fine!” Her coral eyes flashed a deep seaweed color.

“Obviously. Look, go to the lake for an hour or two. Keep your cell phone close by, and I will call you if there are any changes. You need real water, not the pool, and certainly not a bath.” My voice turned gruff, and I knew that this was how Charlie must have felt when he had been dealing with me earlier.

“You don’t understand!” Nixie screamed at me. She was losing her temper, which wasn’t too shocking. Normally, I could deal with the shorter-tempered creatures, but at the moment, I was on edge myself. The run had only helped so much.

“Don’t you dare yell at me, siren,” I growled, my voice coming out strangled and distorted. I knew at this point my wolf fangs were out and my eyes had shifted a deep red color. Nixie dragged her hands down her face.

“Whatever, this is getting out of hand. Look, I will go to the fucking lake. Call me if anything changes with her or if Dallas decides to go with the pack to the other territory.” She flipped her deep green hair and headed toward the lake. I didn’t know what had happened between Dallas and her, but I was glad I didn’t know. I headed back upstairs.

When I arrived on the floor Audrey was on, I could hear her screams. I tore through the hallways to get to her room. I tried to push her door open but it was still locked. Charlie stood there wide-eyed. I gave him a questioning look, and he just shrugged.

“Elijah! Let me in!” I slammed my hands on the door. “Audrey!”

Chapter Fifteen

Audrey

White surrounded me. It felt like safety. It felt like home. Someone was calling my name.

But this wasn’t home. Suddenly the whiteness melted away, and my old home took its place. Home was a worn down one story, three-room house. A living room with a stained, hole-ridden couch with the stuffing overflowing and a small, mostly broken TV that only received a couple channels. It was a kitchen with broken tiles that were littered with unrecognizable stains. It was a closet that someone had converted into a bedroom by tossing in a mattress and an old pile of clothes. And his room, my father’s room. I never went in there.

I stood in the kitchen, not moving as he added new scars to join the others. I was being punished. I’d forgotten what I had done this time, but this one was the newest of scars. The set that wrapped around my thigh.

“You belong to me. Do you understand that? I am branding you as mine. If anyone else tries to use you, I will kill them. I might even force you to kill them. You understand me?” His voice had a slight hiss to it. His tongue was always slimmer than other people’s. His pupils were slits.

I nodded as I cried and screamed on the inside. He took his time, letting the claws do their work. I heard it all. I heard my skin rip apart, and then felt the blood run down my entire leg. I heard muscle rip. I tried to shift my weight so that I wouldn’t fall forward and make it worse.

Make it stop, make it stop, please make it stop.
My only relief from the memory was when he had finished. He carefully wrapped my leg in gauze and set me down in my bed. He then told me not to move for a couple of days and he would bring food to me. He wasn’t a horrible father all the time. His instincts ran deep into his blood. He believed that by marking me with his claws, he was doing the right thing every time, except when he scarred my face. He meant to do that as a punishment. He meant to hurt me.

I was thrown into my next memory with no transitioning, no warning.

My body closed in on itself, trying to be small. The smaller the body, the less they could attack. Attacks from every side-punches, kicks, unwanted touches. All of it, never ending. I cried for it to end. They demanded things I couldn’t give them. They demanded that I do things I would never do. I’d rather claw out my own eyes than use them for these people. I wanted to…something. I couldn’t remember what. It was hidden there deep in my blood but I could never remember. The attacks continued.

“Audrey!”

I knew that voice, a voice that gave me a small sense of comfort. Another memory tried to swamp me but that held me for a moment more.

“Audrey, the wraith is weakening. You must awaken now.” This voice was colder, cut off from any emotion, but it was still a voice that wasn’t connected to painful memories.

My head throbbed. My mouth was dry, but somehow I managed to strangle out a “no”. I wanted the peace of the white room, the safety that the room offered.

“It’s safer here,” a voice whispered in my head. The voice was a slight hiss, a promise of what I wanted, what I needed. Safety. Safety in my room.

I shut my eyes even tighter in order to make myself stay asleep. I was forcing my brain off. I was forcing so hard it hurt. “Please, please, please.” I could feel the mattress beneath me; I could sense eyes watching me, waiting patiently.

“You must not listen to the wraith in your head. If you wake now, you will break his hold. That safety you think you feel is false. Let go.” The unemotional voice was back. He was asking the impossible. How could anything be safer than the evil I knew? I was safe here because it was familiar.

“Audrey!” I liked this voice. I savored how it made me feel. For a second, I felt…safe. This voice promised me things. This voice belonged to someone who’d… saved me. “Audrey!” the voice roared again. I twitched.