Death (12 page)

I cough as the rib pulls away from my lungs and starts to
heal, "Dorian. Pissed." I whisper.

He picks me up and flashes us to my bed. He lays me down and
lies beside me.

Ophelia walks into the room. "You okay?"

I shake my head. Aleks stands up and shrugs, "She'll be
fine. Her kind heals fast."

"What happened?"

He shakes his head, "Dorian did something to her."

I'm struggling to get my breath, still winded. "Slammed
me into a tree." I say breathlessly.

Ophelia looks disgusted, "You don’t want to defend
her?"

He frowns, "I don’t like getting involved in Roses
business."

She growls, "I've had just about enough of this. She
snaps her fingers and grabs his face before he can move away. She holds his
head. His eyes roll back inside his head. He drops to his knees. I'm gasping in
horror, she's killing him. She drops her hands after a second.

He scrunches his face up. He looks up at the ceiling and
screams. When he lowers his head his white eyes are on fire. He grabs my hand,
"I'll go talk to him."
 
He winks before I can talk him out of it.

"What did you do?"

She grins, "I fixed him. He was broken." She walks
out of the room.

In the silence I hear a scream and slamming. My bones are
lining back up with loud snaps and grinding going on in my body.

I cry out taking shallow breaths.

The commotion downstairs is too much. I climb off the bed and
wink into the kitchen. I look out the back window to the grass where Aleks and
Sam have Dorian on the ground. Ben is in wolf form hovering over Dorian's face.

I wink out on the lawn, "What are you doing?"

Sam looks back at me and grins, "Defending you
milady." Ben saunters to me and rubs against my hip. I rub my fingers deep
onto the wolf down and notice the burning look in Aleks' eyes. He looks
different and yet somehow the same.

Dorian's pleading black eyes meet mine, "You
alright?"

I nod once.

I know he's sorry. I can see it blanketing his face.

"I'm sorry too." I whisper.

Aleks climbs off of him and grabs my hand. Something is
different. "You really alright?"

"Yeah?" I furrow my brow.

He bends and presses his warm soft lips against my cheek. My
entire body shivers. I pull back, "What was that for?" My words are a
breathy whisper.

"I just remembered so many things and I'm pretty sure
it's been a long time since I did that."

His hands are warm around mine. He steps away and walks across
the lawn. Dorian looks after him, "Wanker. I could have taken you if the
lads hadn’t helped."

Aleks chuckles and flashes in front of Dorian again. He bends
down and punches him in the face once more, "That’s for touching my
girl."

Dorian's face breaks into a bloody grin, "You hit like a
girl."

Aleks laughs and offers him a hand. Dorian looks at his huge
hand and then takes it.

"Apologize."

I'm lost. I shake my head, "Let's focus on getting Ari
back." I walk away, "I'm not your girl." At least I don’t think
I am.

Lorri walks out the back door, "Okay, planning time.
We've worked it out. We know many of the things that happened last time are
going to happen again. The place should look the same. Let's do this." She
frowns when she sees them all, "What are you idiots doing?"

Sam beams, "Wrestling."

Lorri looks less than impressed.

Ophelia

The cold of the vampire fortress feels the same as it did last
time. We have killed more than we did the last time though. I gag watching
Aimee take the soul of the man she's holding. She does it rough, like she used
to. His black blood sprays across the pale beige wall of the hallway. She
hasn’t done that since she was the old Aimee.

Aleks is clinging to her side, like he used to.

"Why didn’t Marcus come? I thought he wanted this
too." I ask.

Sam shakes his head, "He's holding Jon ransom and won't
help us. Not until we make Hanna like she was. He wants her dead and reborn.
He's been having a tough time locating her though." His grin is cheeky and
accusing.

I chuckle, "Ha. Well good luck Marcus. The blue sisters
have been watching the house for me. They've been keeping her guarded and
cloaked. He doesn’t stand a chance. I just can't believe he's being such a
baby. He isn’t helping or anything?"

Sam shakes his head looking around as we follow the group.
"He's pissed and won't let Henry have Jon until we change her."

"Bastard. I promised my sisters I would free them."

He presses his lips together. I know he wishes Hanna was
changed too.

"You don’t want to even see if your mom is okay?" I
ask.

He draws his brows in, "No. I know she's fine. I know
what she is." He means traitor and I hate her for it.

We walk in silence and my stomach flips when we near the main
courtyard. I remember the pain and suffering Aimee endured when we got there
last time. I'm terrified but also anxious. Oliver should be waiting for us. His
face flashes in my mind.

Aimee looks back at me severely. Her beautiful pale face is
covered in the splatter of the black blood she has filled the air with.

I nod. I know she's checking to make sure I'm ready. Dorian
and Lorri have gone off separately. This time I didn’t go with them though.
This time I'm meeting my father in the courtyard. Lorri and Dorian have gone to
kill Daniel. Daniel who has no idea they know about him. Not this time.

Aimee opens the door we all know leads to the courtyard.

The cold wind hits us. I catch a glimpse of him. My insides
flutter. His lips, his hard cold face, his steely eyes and thick body. I
remember too clearly how it felt to be with him. The ground thaws beneath me.
His eyes meet mine but the love and burning isn’t there like it was before.
Something is wrong. He doesn't see me. He sees Jonathan's daughter. I can see
it on his face. Cold recognition.

My father stands in the middle of the courtyard looking
handsome and youthful. The way they all look. His cruel sneer on his face is
all I see though. I hate him. My memories of him burn when they crawl around
inside me.

He lifts his lips into a grin. Two men drag the limp body of a
bleeding Ari out into the snow. Lucas and Ben growl. Aimee grabs them by the
fur.

"So, we meet finally." He speaks and I feel sick. I
forgot how much I hate his voice.

He points one finger at Aimee, "You must be Dorian's
little puppet. The cure."

Aimee stands ready to be shot. I'm not sure if she will be or
not but I know we all made a pact no one would be near her and she would wink
as he fired the gun. He doesn’t have one though.

He reaches over and grabs Ari's limp arm and drags her tiny
body to him.

"This is the one that has surprised us the most. The push
is fascinating is it not?" His voice is silk and evil.

Aimee steps forward, "She is harmless."

He smiles wickedly, "She's not though is she? She can
change the time. Daniel mentioned it and I realized that of course I knew about
this talent. We had one once. She was amazing. Had to kill her." He shakes
his head, "She just couldn’t be trusted to let us have things the way we
wanted them. Had a conscience. Very annoying." Oliver laughs as if
remembering. He is my father's puppet. My heart is breaking. I look around for
Lorri and Dorian but they're not with us.

"Hello Ophelia, love. These nice men are going to take
you for a little stroll. We can't let you run off with these Roses you
see." The two lugs that brought in Ari walk toward me. Aimee nods once but
doesn’t turn her head to see me. I know Trist and Philip will rescue me. I let
them take me even though I have to fight my urges to electrocute them both. The
snow melts where I walk. Flowers spring from the cracks of the bricks and
cobblestone under the deep snow.

I steal a glance at Oliver. He doesn’t budge. I feel sick. The
flowers die on the spot. Like my heart.

I'm taken to a doorway. I glance back at my father. He is
without mercy. I don’t like the way he holds Ari. I have a sick feeling. I'm
dragged into a stone hallway just as I watch him reach behind Oliver, who
doesn’t budge. Who doesn’t stop him? He pulls out a blade and holds it to Ari's
throat. The wolves whine and moan but the door closes as the screams fill the
courtyard, and I'm left with the horror of my imagination.

I'm dragged to the cell. It's all the same. Nothing is
different. It smells and feels exactly as it did the other times.

I'm tied and bound and left.

I don’t hear the footsteps or the chatting of my brother and
his boyfriend. I hear nothing but my own thoughts and the sound of the wind whistling
in the cell.

Aimee

The blade comes from Oliver's back somewhere. The glint of it
in the air above her head stops everything. The wolves whine and I scream,
"
Stop please."
I put a
hand out trying to be calm. "Stop. Please. Whatever you want, I will do
it. Kill me, not her. Please don’t hurt her."

Aleks takes a step for me but I shake my head, "Take me,
kill me instead." I step forward. Lucas is beside me, ready.

Jonathan's fangs glint the same as the blade does. "Why
do you think I want you dead? I have something I need you to do." He holds
the short blade at Ari's throat, "Go peacefully with Oliver here and when
he is back here and you are in the cell safe and sound I will release her.
Otherwise I kill her now." He digs the blade in, drawing her dark blood
and making it drip in a slow stream onto the white snow.

I nod anxiously, "YES! Please. I'll go." I put my
hands forward.

Oliver steps forwards, "Hands behind your back death
dealer. I know how it works." His voice is harsh. I don’t have any
memories of him but I know him, in my soul.

I put my hands behind my back. The others argue and bicker but
I ignore them. I look Jonathan in the eyes, "He will be right back."

He nods, "Take her."

Oliver grabs my arms and drags me roughly to the same door
Ophelia went through.

I'm trembling. I can't stop looking back at her. "Sam,
don’t let them move."

"I won't." He is gripping the wolves.

Giselle gives me a last look, "Aimes." Her voice is
small and weak.

"It's okay. I'll be right back." My voice cracks.
She looks ready to break.

Oliver drags me through the doorway. When it closes I look at
him, "Are you on our side?"

He shoves me hard down the stairs. I almost stumble but I wink
and am standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him when I catch
myself.

He points, "Don’t do that again or I won't go back to the
courtyard." His blue eyes sparkle.

I turn and walk town the stairs. He unlocks a door and pushes
me inside. O is already tied up. She smiles and speaks through the gag,
"Oliver. Oliver, untie me quickly."

He pushes me against the wall and rubs his body against mine
perversely, "Why would I untie you princess? Not when I have this in front
of me for the taking." He nuzzles into my neck and kisses, "I've
heard you dealers can be quiet extreme. You suck and pull while you suck and
pull."

I gag. "I'm a virgin, please don’t do this." I
whisper into the cold rough stonewall.

He chuckles his warm breath into my neck and presses what I
assume is his erection into the back of my pants, "I can help you change
that." My hands are burning against the bricks.

A scream rips from my throat. It's frustration and pain, from
not expelling the rising pressure of my powers. Tears leave my closed eyes.

I whisper, "O, don’t do anything to him. They're going to
kill Ari if he doesn’t go back up." He rips my shirt from my defenseless
body. I'm trembling naked from the waist up in the freezing cold cell. I can't
imagine what Ophelia is going through. She is watching the man, she thinks she
will be with for all eternity, rape someone else. His hands reach around. He
cups my breasts roughly. I cry out again, "Please stop. Please."

I'm not weak. I'm not feeble or helpless. I'm strong. I could
kill him in a hearts beat but it would be a death sentence for my best friend
and her unborn baby.

Ophelia is screaming behind the gag. She's crying and
struggling. I can hear her.

He turns back, "You'll get your turn baby. Don’t you
worry about that."

"Oliver, stop, please baby. Stop. He's done something to
you. This isn’t you." She must have worked the gag from her lips. She's
sobbing and her voice is cracking.

"Untie me first. Do me first."
 
She pleads.

He grabs a fist full of my hair and slams my face into the
bricks. My nose breaks on contact. He ties me up and gags me. Then he is across
the room to her. "You want it first?"

I'm in a haze of blood and pain and tears and hating the fact
I'm naked and hanging by my hands. The black blood is dripping down my face
onto my bare chest.

"Untie my hands so I can touch you too. I'll make you
happy I promise." Her words are shaky. I can hear it. She's crushed and I
feel sick. He's taking too long. Ari is dead. I know she is. My heart is
burning and aching. I spin on my ropes and watch, as her eyes become dead and
unfeeling. She smiles weakly, "I can make you happy." Her words are
as dead as her eyes.

"You haven’t had any magic training have you?"

She shakes her head, "N-n-not yet."

I can hear the smile in his voice, "And you won't tell
your daddy, if I touch you?"

"I'm not a virgin." Her words are a whisper.

He gropes her, "Good."

I sob, watching it. "Please, just go stop him from
killing Ari and then come back." My voice is broken. I can't speak without
making sounds I don’t recognize.

He looks back at me, "He was never going to let her live.
I was never planning on going back up there. Now shut up and wait for me to get
back to you." His grin is cold and sick. "They need her before they
need you. So she goes first. Hope that's alright."

Ophelia's eyes bug out of her head when she looks at me. He
unties her hands and pulls her shirt off. She stands still and sobs as he grabs
at her. She looks defeated. She looks up at me. I can see resolve in her eyes.
I just don’t understand the decision she has made.

"You better make me happy bitch." He undoes his
pants.

Her trembling hands lift, slowly, for his arms. She rubs them
for the slightest second and then closes her eyes. Her fingers bite into his
skin. Where her hands touch him black veins crawl up her arms to her bare
breasts. They make a black pool around her heart. He's frozen when she touches
him. She pulls the black veins from him until she can't stand anymore and falls
to the cold stone, unconscious. He blinks and looks at me.

"Aimee?" He whispers, stunned.

I cry harder, "Ari. Get Ari."

He looks lost. His blue eyes are clearer than I've ever seen
them. He's looks at me again and then is gone.

"Ophelia. Please wake up O." I look up into the
stone ceiling and sob, "Please. Please help us. We fight for you, please
help us."

Not that I expected anything, but when nothing happens I can’t
help but feel a little disappointed. If there is a God, he cares for us the
same as every other being. Even though we give everything of ourselves, he
treats us no differently.

Her body moves with shallow breaths. She twitches and
trembles.

"O. O, please don’t leave me here alone."

She moves a pale hand that is still covered in the black
veins. Her fingers grip like she's having a seizure.

I close my eyes and lower my head but the air moves around me.
I lift my eyes and jump. She stands directly in front of me. Her eyes are
completely black. The veins are reaching her face. Her lip trembles.

Her voice is a whisper that doesn’t come from her. It's as if
something speaks through her cold stiff body that is pressed against mine. We
are bare chest to bare chest.

"She took it all Aimee. She took his evil and his
dark. She took it all inside of her. She's dark now. Her soul is as dark as our
father's."

I look at her black lips moving faintly with the whispered words.

"What can I do?" I ask.

"
Kill her now before he finds her. Before it's too
late."

I look around shaking my head, "I can't. Don't ask this
of me."

Her eyes start to flutter.

"Do it before she gains consciousness."

I try to move my trembling hand to her arm. The black veins
move with the flow of her blood. The poison is filtering everywhere. Tears
blind me to everything but the blackness of her fluttering eyes. If I close my
eyes I can smell the ocean and see the harbor of my small town. I can hear my mother
laughing and my sister criticizing me and even that makes me smile. I can see
my father rocking in his chair with a book and a tea. He smiles at me over his
books. I can ask the voices inside of her to untie me and wink home. I can
refuse it all and let the cards fall where they may. I sniffle as her hand is
lifted and pressed into mine. They know what I am. The fire is waiting for her
skin. It's waiting for me to do it. It is still there from the wall in the
face. Her cold bare chest pressed against mine feels weird. I keep my eyes
closed, until as I release it. I pull it hard and fast and let it take the
control.

Her body slams hard against me again and again as she
struggles. The real her must be there. She feels herself dying and is fighting
me.

But I've let it go. I've let it have her. It sucks and pulls.
Even though my eyes are closed the tears find their way out. They soak my face
and chest.

"Aimee." She speaks softly once.

Her body heats up just as I feel the suck stop. She's dry. I
open my eyes in time to see the horrified look on her face, frozen there. Her
dead body slides down mine. The tears have soaked us both. I go limp in the
ropes.

I hear voices. I'm shaking and trembling.

"I'm not talking to you."

"You're talking right now."

"I hate you."

It's two men bickering. I ignore them both and hang swinging
against the ropes. Ophelia's corpse is against my feet, which barely touch the
ground.

The wind moves and he's there. He's holding me. His body forms
around mine, cocoons around me. He's warm and soft and real against the cold
and pain that I'm stuck in. He unties me and holds me. I feel my winking powers
coming back once the weird cloth is off of my wrists.

"Oh my god. What did you do? Who is that?" The men
start shrieking.

"Ophelia? Ophelia? Is that Ophelia? Will one of you talk?
One of you bitches better start talking."

I look past the huge arm that’s holding me in the air, to a
handsome man covering his panicked face and shaking his head. The other man is
also shaking his head but in tiny twitches. They look at me accusingly.

"What have you done to her?"

Tears are pouring from my face. I try to talk but the words
aren’t there. I don’t have any. I'm empty and broken. I've killed my friend.

The voices whisper in the wind above us, "She had to
brother. She had to do it. Ophelia pulled the darkness from Oliver."

The one I'm assuming is Tristan lifts his face and screams. He
howls almost. The other man grips him and pulls at him, but he struggles hard
to get to his sister's corpse. He claws and struggles but the other man pulls
at him. "No. Trist she's gone my love." He says soothingly. Tristan
is a ball of emotions and fury. His eyes meet mine, breaking my heart again.
"I never met her. You bitch, I never met my own twin sister."

I sob silently. I won't steal his moment of grief from him by
being sad.

Dorian winks into the room. He grabs me from Aleks's huge arms
and pulls me to him, "I need you. Now." He winks us to the cold snowy
courtyard.

No one is there. Nothing is there. No blood, but the small
amount that was forced from Ari's throat.

"Where is she?" I ask.

"He took her. He took her. Sam has gone to track him. I
need you to go with me to Marcus's. I need him on our side. I need Jon dead and
the dead girl's magic transferred to Tristan." His voice is frenzied.

I nod. I will do anything. I know that. I've just proven it. I
killed my friend. My heart is broken and numb and lifeless. I'm far deader than
I imagined.

"It won't work." I look back at the man speaking.
It's Oliver. He is dead looking and broken like me. He stands, leaning against
the door to the stairs that leads to the cell I was just in. "We are
doomed. He will win like he always does." He looks at me with regret
blanketing his face. "I'm so sorry." His words are nothing. They're
nothing but air and emptiness.

I shake my head, "You owe me nothing. You didn't know me
anymore than I knew you."

He swallows, "Is she….down there still?"

I lose control again and sob. My face nods with the heaves and
sobs. He's devastated and I'm bare-chested and frozen and dying inside from the
pain and the sorrow of my own betrayal. I betrayed her. I've lost the war for
us all. I killed the one in the prophecy.

Dorian wraps his coat around me and holds me to him in a way
that feels familiar. Like we've done this before. "Why won't it
work?" He asks.

"The witch has to be a girl. Lillith cannot die by the
hand of a man. It must be a woman who wields the power of the seven sisters.
It's why Jonathan hasn’t ever made Tristan take the power for himself. Daniel discovered
it only about a year ago, going through the old prophecies and scriptures. We
have a lot of reasons to believe it must be a female." Oliver's voice is
lifeless. His eyes are full of tears.

"We are defeated." I whisper.

Oliver nods but Dorian winks us away. We are standing outside
Hanna's father's house.

"Kill him." Dorian's words are a whisper.

I walk up the gravel to the front door. My legs are shaky. I
zip up the coat he has given me to cover my breasts. I lift my hand, wincing at
the black blood I see on my knuckles. I knock and wait.

Roland answers the door after a moment. His jaw clenches.
"Madame dealer. I was certain we were not expecting you. The potions are
making Doctor Jekyll better every day."

I look into his eyes, "It's time for her."

His face tightens more, "I dare say it is not. We
agreed."

I shake my head, "No, the deal is off. We need her."

He looks disgustedly at me and then past me, "You will
trade her for the shifter? Trade a human life?"

Dorian shouts at him, "Yes! Yes I will. I will trade
whatever I have to, to end this. Call for her, now."