House of Slide Hybrid (43 page)

“Sure, come on,” I said dragging her up to the stage. They weren’t really playing yet, still tuning up and running scales.

“Hey, band people,” I said, loud enough to be heard over their instruments, so you know, really loudly which I wasn’t exactly comfortable with, but hey, it was for Snowy.

The band leader raised an eyebrow as he looked me up and down, his perfectly mussed hair in the identical disarray it had been in the last time I’d seen him.

“Yes?” he asked, only it was a mockery more than a question. It was amazing that you could say one word and come across that condescending.

“I’d like autographs from the band for my friend and a photograph with her in it.” I looked at Snowy with a frown. “I don’t have a camera though.”

“Here,” Jackson said, coming up to me and handing me the small silvery thing that buzzed with energy that I was very careful not to disturb. He explained button stuff before he stepped up with the others in the group. He still looked different from them, less cold, hard, and perfect. I liked him much better.

I pushed the button, but there didn’t seem to be any effect. I was staring at the small, ridiculously complicated contraption when someone stepped behind me close enough that I could feel the brush of his jacket. I inhaled deeply as I leaned back, closing my eyes as I fought the instantaneous bond desire that blanked my brain for just a moment before his soul sprang into life, surrounding me, drowning me, making everything else disappear.

“Do you need a hand?” he asked.

“Um,” I mumbled trying to remember how to use words. “No, it’s a camera, how complicated could it be?” I straightened up so that I could function, or whatever pushing a button all by myself was.

He laughed, an unbelievably beautiful laugh, just loud enough for me to hear and encouraged goosebumps that had nothing to do with the temperature. I took a picture that displayed on the screen while I held my breath before I turned around to see Lewis, standing there like he had all the time in the world to wait for me.

He looked Wild, I thought with a slight pang as I studied his immaculate suit, perfectly sculpted to every muscle and curve. He was still taller than me but was leaner with more angles to his face that made him look older. Not, fifty-year-old older, but maybe a college guy.

“You look nice,” I said as I stared at his chest, wondering how I’d dared to touch him like I’d wanted to, almost wishing he were unconscious so that I could smooth my hands over his skin, rest my head on his chest. He smiled at me, raising an eyebrow.

“Only nice? I suppose if I wanted to match you I’d be wearing tights and a tunic with my hair full of last year’s leaves. Somehow that would make me look otherworldly and untouchable.” He touched me when he said that, only a brush on the shoulder where my silk blouse covered up my skin but still. The spark of his soul at that contact had me lit up like a Hotblood burning out.

I swallowed, wondering how his soul had snuck up on me when I should have felt it as he came closer. “You have the untouchable part right. I should have taken advantage of you when you were unconscious. Where is my dad?” I asked stretching on my tiptoes to look over his shoulders, searching the crowd that seemed twice as large as it had a moment before. He was the only one I could think that would block Lewis’ soul from me. If I thought about that then maybe I wouldn’t think about how much I wanted to be close to Lewis when he looked like that.

He grinned at me, a look that was so openly hungry that I felt a growl climb up my throat inspired by bloodlust, a need to finish the bond or something else.

“So, your friend probably won’t have any photos if you keep hanging onto my camera,” Jackson said, pulling it out of my tight fingers. “You guys can dance now. The music is playing. That will look less awkward than him staring at you like…anyway, you should probably dance. Don’t forget, five inches,” he added with a wink.

I looked at Jackson, his face so like Devlin’s that I felt off, weird until Lewis took my hand, the one that had held Jackson’s camera. My fingers burned, my toes curled, my heart beat, and I felt like flying as his hand tightened on mine before he put his other hand on my waist and pulled me into a dance that I vaguely noticed was a mix of Samba, Meringue with a little bit of Argentine thrown in for fun.

I forgot about the people, about everything past the circle of his arms as we danced on the spring grass beneath a million twinkle lights. Soul sight flickered, blending with everything I saw, his eyes, his lips, the strands of hair that escaped from the carefully controlled Wild hair-do, his eyes luminous, the green, brown and golden specks subtle, needing closer inspection. The darker green of his soul sang and spun inside of him with every beat of his heart, every step he took as we moved together. My soul pressed at my fingertips, searching for the response of his soul, the soul that called for me the way mine cried for his. When our souls collided we became one person, as though he were only an extension of myself and every move, breath, thought, feeling I had. The night stretched above us, around us, the night and the whirling universe of his soul as I drowned in him, his life and pure energy that wrapped me, filled me, completed me. Like the life, the spring that erupted all around us, the layers of perfection built, growing, exploded exponentially as we moved as one.

I didn’t understand why Lewis stopped moving, why he stepped away from me until with a lurch the contact broke leaving me feeling like the world had tipped sideways, throwing me off into a big black nothing.

My mother’s voice pierced the moment of misery as she stood beside my father, staring at me with cold dark blue eyes that gave nothing away.

“Your father wishes to dance with you.” Her words were accompanied with a brief smile for Lewis that didn’t touch her eyes.

I let my dad lead me into a dance but my eyes followed Lewis, not believing it when he gave his arm to my mother and did an entirely appropriate dance that somehow didn’t look ridiculous with the squeal of electric guitars behind it.

The band, I realized belatedly, wasn’t that bad. The singer, the intentionally mussed Wild, had a gravelly voice that penetrated down my spine and made me wonder what kind of Wild gifts he had. I watched with impatient jealousy as Lewis led my mother into a dance that should have been mine.

“You’re astonishing,” my father said in that melodious voice that I couldn’t help but pay attention to. I glanced up at his silver eyes, noting his faint smile.

“Yeah? Pretty awesome that I didn’t die from the tattoos,” I said with a grin, for a moment almost not noticing Lewis and my mother.

“You’ve been able to maintain the unfinished bond. You both suffer greatly from it. Why do you hold back when you so blatantly adore him?” he asked as he spun me beneath his arm.

I shook my head feeling a rush of uncertainty that I didn’t want to deal with, not that day, not when everything was finally going so well.

“We’re waiting for things to settle down. I want to be sure.” I beamed up at him. “You’re right, though. I am sure. When he saved us from Samaliel he sacrificed himself without a second thought. Now that my life runes are finished, now that I know I’m not going to die sometime soon, I’m ready.” I bit my lip as I looked up at my father who looked more silvery and magical than normal. “I don’t know how it works, though. I mean,” I said feeling a blush climb up my cheeks, “I know that I need his blood in my veins, but is there more than that? Do people accidentally become blood bound without meaning to in war or something?”

He shook his head, smoothing my hair down, the blue color too bright and synthetic in his fingers. “The two of you are perfectly matched. Without that, you would not be half blood bound, but simply mingled. He’s a blood worker. Every mark they make has meaning. However he binds you, if he chooses to do so, will reveal his intent towards you. He has held back so long. I do wonder what he is waiting for. Perhaps he knows something I do not know.”

Lewis looked up at me, across the grass, and in his eyes I saw the world, everything that I could ever want and more. My heart danced in my chest as he looked at me offering me everything he had and was, openly, for everyone to see.

“He loves me,” I whispered, then closed my eyes tight as I held the memory of that look close to my heart. How could one look do that to me? I believed that his heart beat with mine, that he would protect me with his last breath for no reason other than that he would rather die than lose me.

“So soon,” my father breathed, words that I heard and understood as an acknowledgement that his daughter wasn’t a child anymore.

I squeezed his hand and smiled up at him, the lights past him, feeling my heart in my chest so light and bright that I would float away at any moment. My tattoos were nearing an end, my training was well begun, and Lewis loved me.

“It’s okay,” I said patting his lean cheek. “Lewis will take care of me the same way I’ll take care of him. He’s more than proven himself to be worthy.”

He looked through me piercingly before he nodded solemnly, and in that look I could see age, time and the weight of an entire world. The weight of the world hung above us as we danced silently, subdued as we circled the grass. I felt sad when the music stopped, as though there had been a goodbye in that dance, a goodbye when we hadn’t had enough time together.

“May I?” a lazy voice drawled.

I turned and saw Matthew, a man with wrinkles across his cheeks and forehead, while his eyes glittered in tan skin, so different from my father, so human and clearly mortal while my father had no age, no time touching his features unless you counted his eyes. I blinked, focusing on his soul, trying to see what he was and saw nothing.

“Of course, Carve,” my father answered with a regal nod, handing me over to my Trainer.

“Now,” he began as he dragged me into the dance, not bothering to move in time with the music. “It’s the height of bad manners to examine other people’s souls. Don’t do it.”

“Do you have to step on my toes every step? Maybe you could do every other,” I said, scowling at him. I wanted to dance with Lewis, not my trainer, however helpful he was with leaning.

“Which is why you shouldn’t wear delicate slippers until training is completed,” he sneered as he pulled me along in his warped version of a waltz.

“How did you know that I was looking at your soul? I didn’t touch it.”

He shuddered before he gave a long suffering sigh. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that last part. Everyone can tell when you look at their soul, it’s like someone opening a door and letting a wind blow through after a cold bath. Some people don’t know what it is but every trained Wild should be able to recognize it.”

“How lucky for me that my Trainer is so illustrious and wise.”

“And you just stepped on my foot.”

“Revenge is sweet. Why are you so old?”

“Why are you so young? It’s strange isn’t it, to see someone who isn’t afraid of age. Your father is probably the oldest one here, except for the Hybrid lurking around the edges, he’s fairly ancient, but here I am, younger than most looking practically forty.”

“You look way older than forty. You don’t even try to blend in.”

He frowned at me. “I am different, as are you. We are not Wilds with their Houses and Runes who live to play the game. We are outside.”

“Says someone who has not one but two Houses and Runes and who if I’m not mistaken, plays the game better than anyone else. If that’s outside, let me in.”

He laughed, a strange sound that I’d never heard from him, like he’d hadn’t meant to let a laugh slip out. When he smiled like that, his whole demeanor changed. Instead of surly, ugly bordering on hideous, he became fascinating, compelling, and embarrassingly attractive.

I pulled away from him until his normal scowl covered his features and the fleeting impression faded.

“How did you do that?”

He flicked a glance to my face before he looked away, in the direction of my mother. She stood on the edge of the crowd gazing at him with a peculiar expression, concern for him or for me I wasn’t certain.

“Did you lean me, or are you leaning me now, or…”

He sighed, a long drawn out sound as he unconsciously spun me out in time to the music. He’d forgotten to be a bad dancer. My trainer was completely bizarre.

“You’ve found my Achilles heel. I am too attractive for my own good. I only became Head of two Houses to keep women from pursuing me.”

“Head of Houses are very eligible,” I objected.

He sighed again. “No one told me that before it was too late.”

I frowned at him, trying to see him, to understand what made him tick.

“Do you love my mother?”

His eyes flashed at me. “Of course. My hopeless adoration of her is the only thing between me and countless imbecilic Daughters like yourself.”

“Okay? Never mind. I probably do not really want to know, anyway. My mother is very beautiful, and lonely. I don’t understand her. Why don’t they get divorced? I suppose they still love each other, but what’s the point of love if nothing ever comes from it?”

“Not nothing,” he said, looking at me with an intense focus that made me forget about the ugly. “Besides you and your brother, he’s given her a life here, peace, safety, security. These are not small things in a world where everything teeters so precariously on the brink of chaos.”