Lailah (The Styclar Saga) (42 page)

Anna Booth, for the gorgeous interior design, and for hitting a home run with the very first swing!

Dave Barrett, who does a fantastic job keeping the wheels moving and the machine well-oiled, and Nicole Moulaison, for being a perfectionist who ensures that everything is nothing short of the very best quality.

Gabby Oravetz in the Contracts department, for looking after this quirky Brit all the way across the Pond!

The Swoon Reads Team—on behalf of every writer out there trying—for innovating, opening up the gates, and giving all those with a story to tell, the best and most swoonworthy place to tell it.

You, holding this book and reading this line right now. Characters only breathe when someone, somewhere, is living their story.

BONU
S

CONTENT

FOREWORD

B
OOK 2 OF THE
S
TYCLAR
S
AGA
G
ABRIEL

“
T
ICK.
Tock. Tick. Tock. Tock. Tick.” The hands of the invisible clock perpetually rolled over and over.

This was nowhere. But time did indeed subsist in this place. That clock was perhaps present to remind nowhere’s company of the inescapability of nothingness. A form of torture, to know that time continued to move forward for everything else, and everyone else, in a place where they still existed; while those that had gone lay lost, wrapped in the fabric of the unknown.

Thoughts, only thoughts, here at the center of a room, only there were no walls, no floor, and no ceiling. No longer possessing a physical form, all that was here were my erratic, barely conceived thoughts.

And they considered that this was nature. This was what happened when everything you were just stopped and no other worldly force intervened.

But then, someone had put that clock in here.

Trying to hide from the sound of the “tick, tock,” concentrating instead on the faintest smudge of an imprinted memory.

All thoughts were fragmented and stifled, but they struggled on regardless—anything to block out the sound of nonexistence echoing around this dwindling semiconscious state.

A strange image of an object—small and thick, with a jagged edge around its top—flashed from an old memory into thought.

Focusing on
it
, there was no comprehension as to what
it
was.

The anonymous object started to fuzz and blur, but this mind wasn’t going to release it so easily. Think of it, and remember it. King. A word. Recognition. King. It had a name.

Now it existed.

The sound of the “tick, tock” filtering back through made it harder to concentrate, and somehow the sound of its malevolent hands was getting louder.

King. King. King. Its name now resounded in time with the strikes. Balancing it, holding the image steady.

Check. A new word forming—check. My king was in check. My king. Me.

That thought only caused further struggle.

Me. I. I wasn’t me. I wasn’t anything. I didn’t exist. There was no I. And then the idea started to dissolve.…

Lailah.
The word almost whispered into life, repeated again,
Lailah …

A name. Things that didn’t exist didn’t have a name. But that one belonged to me. I had a name. One I swore I would never forget again.

Lailah.

Strange, at the end of the room, a circle appeared.

The “tick, tock” quickened as it increased in its raucousness. Peering into the glass window I saw it had an image locked inside—someone beautiful sat at the foot of a bed—I knew him. And a chess set sat upon a table.

I concentrated on the king, feeling a spark of light flow through my mind. And as I began to feel something, whatever it was quickly began to recede as the face I was watching dulled with a shadow of sadness.

“No.” I heard my voice; it wasn’t in my mind. It bounced off the sides of the room that were now forming. “No!” I shouted again. As I did the king moved for me, it moved itself out of check.

Command the choice to decide.

Command the choice to decide.

The words looped themselves in my mind, and I felt a chill below me.

The room had a floor, and I had feet.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock…” The clock sped up, booming with every strike, almost deafening my mind into silence once again. And with every turn of the big hand, I felt as though my head was being pounded and smacked against the newly formed wooden walls.

I could see my hands now ahead of me, and as the floor started to fall away and the ceiling began to cave in, I placed my palms against the glass in desperation, watching him.

The glass shattered as the space bounced and rocked from side to side, and his image left along with the shards, shortly to be replaced with a new window, a way back to the world.

Heavy lumps of wood came crashing down around me. I squeezed myself through the gap of the face, staring down into oblivion. I stood straight and teetered on the ledge of its gold pane.

I searched upward and found three perfect spheres floating above me, lined up in a row. One, a luminous white; the second, an amalgam of sapphire blue and emerald green, hung in the middle; and the third was a black ball containing swirling gray clouds, as though a storm was trapped inside.

I cast my gaze back down and to my right, and as the prison broke apart I saw a number, 9. I struggled to retain my balance through the falling debris raining down on me from above. I snapped my attention to the left to see a number, 3, cracking and falling away.

Even with such incoherent thoughts, I realized that I had been locked inside a grandfather clock. I was a nonexistent prisoner of time. But I was beginning to exist once more, so time would have to halt long enough to release me.

My head thumped and throbbed with the clank of the hands as they banged angrily. I kept my balance, but they began twirling at an incredible speed around what remained of the clock face, so fast everything felt like it was spinning.

I had commanded the choice; now I had to decide.

“I want to go home! I want to live!” I shouted at nothing and no one.

The heavy brass pendulum swung as the dial finally slowed and hovered at 12. The casing that had enclosed me broke away as the clock chimed for its last time, sounding the beginning of a new day.

I remembered his face as I closed my eyes, his name forming at the fringes of my consciousness, and I fell from the ledge of my prison.

The hands of the clock stopped ticking.

Every clock, in every world, stopped. Just for me.

ONE

T
HEY SAY THAT DEATH IS
a part of life. And that the only thing in life that is truly certain is death. I guess “they” had never met me.

I gasped for air, and was relieved to feel it filling my lungs, circulating some form of life back through my sleeping body. I wasn’t sure if it was my dulled senses causing everything around me to feel as though it was moving frame by frame at a snail’s pace, for, as I watched him, he didn’t move; he merely stared at me with the most remarkable, utterly unreadable expression.

Rays of sunlight shone through the trees, creating shadowed stripes across his face, but nothing could dull those sapphire eyes as they gleamed back at me.

Everything, including him, was utterly serene.

I released a steady breath as I felt the frost of this new day begin to tingle on my lips. It was as though I was blowing a bubble through a magical sphere, as the image of him and the snowy landscape behind him seemed to stretch. Gently, as I exhaled, it expanded. He and the whole scenery around him became caught in my bubble.

I was literally holding the whole world, in anticipation of my first full breath.

It was beautiful. He was beautiful. And I was home.

But as I watched him inside it, standing rooted to the spot, a dark swirling cloud seemed to appear from nowhere. Then, as it dispersed, his full form came into focus, and his mesmerizing midnight orbs blemished the beauty of the snowy scene. And even though it had occurred to me, while I basked in the light radiating from
those
eyes, that nothing would ever be able to remove me from them, unexpectedly they no longer held my attention.

Instead, his black orbs pulled me in, sucking and destroying the light and peace I had felt. And before I knew what was happening, my gaze became imprisoned by them.

Panicking, I inhaled sharply, and the bubble I had created came rocketing back toward me, shrinking as it did. A strange new scent rode the breeze hard, rushing all around me, until finally it caught me straight in the back of the throat. From zero to a thousand, the whole world slapped me in the face as the bubble burst.

Without warning, peace erupted into chaos, everything becoming audible all at once, booming into my hearing. The sound of a bird chirping miles away stabbed my eardrums; the distant noise of the wind hitting tree trunks felt like tidal waves smacking me underneath them. And that step he took toward me—the sound of his shoe pushing the snow down underfoot—almost caused my eardrums to rupture as it crunched with his weight.

I sat bolt upright, cracking my neck toward the origin of the overwhelming scent. Finding the owner, I regarded the shadowed stranger daring to look back at me, daring to approach me. But my attention was drawn away from his eye, to his elbow, where the smallest trace of blood was smeared against his pale skin, and where I witnessed the final moments of a wound healing.

A strange sensation flooded me, as my teeth fractured and my top lip quivered. My skin seemed to crawl with an intensifying hotness, rising from inside me somewhere. I didn’t decide to get up; I didn’t elect what happened next. It was as though my body was free from the restraints of my mind, as my legs found their way to the ground. Letting out a low moan, my body attempted to stretch, but it wasn’t fully awake yet and I stumbled down to the snowy blanket beneath me. I clawed my way to my feet, getting ever closer to that scent, as my body propelled itself in the stranger’s direction. I came to an abrupt stop as strong arms wrapped themselves around my waist, turning me away from him, but I struggled against them.

The coolness of his breath skimmed my earlobe as he said, “Lailah, no.”

This caused me to pause, and my red-hot skin began to simmer against him. My gums ached as my new fangs receded, and my body felt weak, causing me to collapse, but he held me tightly and eased me to the ground, enfolding his arms and legs around me from behind, cradling me in a protective embrace.

“You need to go.” He spoke hurriedly over his shoulder. His protective voice cut through the jumbled noise invading my hearing.

“But…”

His footsteps moved closer from behind me, and I growled, my fingernails grinding into the earth beneath the snow in response.

“Go. Now,” my protector repeated.

I noted briefly his hesitation, before the wind whipped as he sped away through the clearing.

My ears throbbed. Throwing my hands up, I covered them and, rocking myself back and forth, I let a scream escape my lungs.

“Shhhh, it’s all right, I’m here, shhhhh.…” he whispered, cupping his hands over my own.

It was then I felt the trickle of liquid seep between our entwined fingers, and I knew my eardrums were bleeding.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, the glow of twinkling stars seemed to move around me, and I recognized the sight; I had seen them before. Dropping my hands to my knees, I was surprised to see that the flashes of diamonds were exuding from my skin as well as his. His light seemed to wrap itself around mine and I felt a sudden explosion of energy. As the diamonds from his skin and my own merged together, I felt his connection to me rekindle.

He held me there for what felt like an eternity, and I closed my eyes, allowing the sun’s rays to sink into my new skin. Finally, the noises dulled into a low hum, but I didn’t feel right; I felt dizzy.

Rising to my feet, his arms around my waist, he helped me up, and I hesitated, stumbling a little, as I broke away from him. I sensed him follow me, but I held my hand in the air, signaling for him to stay back. I stood, precariously balancing my weight, barefoot in the snow. Holding myself calmly, I breathed in and out, forming a rhythm, taking my time. He waited patiently.

“I may not remember you, but I never forgot you,” I whispered. “One shared light, split into two…”

Memories, thoughts, feelings all began appearing, as if I was staring into a kaleidoscope. I watched, engrossed, as each new shape formed, becoming more prominent than the last as they moved into focus.

“Styclar-Plena. The third dimension. Earth. Home—choice. I had a choice.…”

But with every turn of the cog, the blur that filled the space in between the luminous charms brought with it a different type of memory: a scar, reimprinting itself, damaging me again. Michael’s demise, Ethan’s end, Frederic, Bradley … She was gone; the girl in shadow was ended. I had died, but I was back. He led me home, his face, the thought of him, and the thought of me.

And when finally the kaleidoscope was only repeating its pattern, and I knew once again without having to count the number of edges to each shape, I stopped.

Bowing my head, allowing the length of my bangs to shield my eyes, I turned slowly toward him. Peeking, I observed his dimples dip at the sides of his cheeks as he seemed to frown. His pupils expanded, anxious of what I might say.

“Gabriel.” I allowed a small smile to creep across my lips before I said, “My Gabriel. You waited for me.”

The knots in his body seemed to loosen a little as he murmured, “I knew to wait for you this time.”

Stepping cautiously toward me, he tilted my chin up with his index finger and cleared my vision with his free hand before cupping my cheek in his palm. He looked me square, exploring these new eyes. But the very fact that no sooner had he met them with his own than he looked away didn’t go unnoticed.

I had fought my way back, and yet with just one silent glance in the wrong direction, it screamed that there was another great chasm forming between the two of us. I didn’t know it yet, but it wasn’t the appearance of these new eyes that had caused Gabriel to look away. It was, instead, the fleeting thought of what now lay behind them.