Rising Dark (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 2) (7 page)

I wept uncontrollably for what seemed
like hours, and for the first time in my life, I wanted death’s
morbid embrace.

But they had something much worse in
store for me.

It was probably a few minutes before I
became aware that their cries of passion had ceased.

I looked up. They were standing before
me in a semicircle, their naked waxlike bodies unearthly in the
wicked light cast by the sconces on the wall. I tried to dart away,
but Onyx caught me by the hair. I tried to strike out at her, but
she hit me across the face and I went crashing to the ground. They
descended on me like a pack of lions. I screamed when I felt teeth
puncture the flesh of my neck, wrist and thigh and thrashed against
them but to no avail. I began to feel myself sinking as I weakened,
eventually ceasing to struggle.

My limbs felt cold and my head felt
dipped in lead, my thought processes slowing. As if from a distant
place, I felt the pressure ease from the wounds on my thigh and
neck. But the pressure on my wrist intensified.

Auria’s voice seemed to reach me from
a faraway place.

“
Stop, Emory!”

I opened my eyes to thin slits in time
to see Auria grasp Emory by the hair, yanking his head away from my
wrist. He bit down hard as she wrenched him away, and a burst of
pain radiated along my wrist as he tore the flesh. I only uttered a
low moan.

Auria struck him, sending him flying
roughly three metres through the air before he was able to right
himself, springing into a crouch like some sinewy feline. His fangs
were bared and his mouth covered in blood as he snarled at
me.

“
What are you trying to
do? Kill him?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, merely slunk away to
the corner where he sat and glowered at me.

She loomed over me for a few seconds,
her face drawn, her brow creased. Using a small gold knife, she cut
herself on the upper part of her breast. Then she knelt down and
forced my lips against her breast and the weeping cut she had
made.

I lay against her breast, too weak to
resist, and it was a moment or two before I realised she was using
her unnatural power to make me drink her blood. But at that moment,
my will was broken and I didn’t even try to resist.

Noxious, hot blood
saturated my mouth and I spluttered. But as more of it entered my
mouth, it began to taste
sweet
.

“
Yes, drink, my prince. I
am your mother, your god. Drink from me and join us for all
eternity.”

As I drank, a curious sensation began
to course through me, as if my veins were being lit from within,
gently warming me from the inside out. It tugged on my wounds, and,
to my hazy astonishment, the pain ceased and my wounds began to
heal.

“
Stop now, Auria,” Onyx
said behind her. “You’re giving him too much.”

Auria ignored her as acute pain seized
me. My flesh was on fire and my internal organs were being squeezed
and tightened. I wanted to scream, but she was still forcing me to
drink her blood although she was straining now to keep her control
over me. Abruptly she let me go and I slumped to the ground where I
writhed in pain.

Onyx grasped me by the foot and
dragged me over to the coffins. She opened one of the coffins and
then hoisted me off the ground with one hand.

“
No
!” I screamed.

She threw me inside the coffin, which
was much deeper than the average coffin. She slammed a hand against
my chest and held me down as Emory appeared by her side and poured
what looked like earth into the coffin from a wooden bucket. Auria
did the same whilst I screamed and fought as the coffin began to
fill with earth. I eventually stopped screaming when the earth was
poured over my face, obscuring my vision, earth filling my nostrils
and mouth. I coughed and grunted in desperation, merely succeeding
in drawing more earth into my mouth. My chest was on fire as my
body fought against the suffocation.

I don’t know how long I struggled, but
I was dimly aware of the sound of the coffin being closed over me,
shutting out the faint sounds of their laughter. Eventually I began
to weaken, my mind clouded over, and the world, along with life,
melted away from me.

I succumbed to the
superior darkness
.

Roaring filled my ears, like a
cascading waterfall. Within the clamour were individual sounds:
slow, easy breathing, birdcalls, scratching noises, and the
insistent drone of crickets. My nostrils were also suffused with a
multitude of rich scents. I could smell earth, thick, musty earth
that was polluted with another dry, papery scent of some mineral I
could not identify. But the strongest scent to assault my senses
was that of violet cologne.

I opened my eyes. I was lying naked on
the floor, the underground chamber awash with light despite the
fact that the same number of torches hung on the walls as before. I
blinked against the fierce light as a whirling, fluttering noise
rose up above the din, like a mammoth bird flying overhead, just
before a set of male clothes landed on me. I pulled a shirt off of
my face and pulled myself into a sitting position.

Emory sat on one of the coffins
peering down at me, his expression calm, amusement dancing in his
sea-green eyes. He looked different somehow. His skin seemed to
have a luminosity to it and his long blond hair hung like cascading
waves of gold.

“
Good evening.” His tone
was amiable.

It did not seem as if he had raised
his voice, but the sound boomed around me and almost drowned out
all else I could hear. His voice also appeared to have changed in
depth and timbre, making it easier to discern the cutting edge of
anger running through it.

“
I...I am not dead?” I got
to my feet.

Although I felt relatively well and
there were no traces of the wounds they inflicted the night before,
there was an ache in my bones and my throat burned. The earth they
had buried me in had been cleaned off my body.

“
Yes...and no.” Emory
smiled when I peered at him in confusion. “I apologise about the
coffin. You see, we had to kill you to begin the process, and Auria
likes the whole thing to be as dramatic as possible. You are a
vampire now. You’re as strong and fast as we are. And you’ll live
forever.”

“
But why would
you—?”

He shrugged, that anger dominating his
tone when he spoke again. “Because it’s what she
wanted.”

“
The...Fosters. Did they
know you would do this?”

“
Of course they did. They
do whatever Auria tells them to do in exchange for the wealth you
saw.”

“
My ears. All...all the
noise. It hurts, and the light—”

“
You can control
it.”

He hopped off the coffin and came to
stand before me. Aware of the fact that I was still naked, and his
gaze was lingering on my nakedness, I brought the clothes up to
cover myself and stepped back when he reached his hands toward my
face.

“
Relax. Let me show you.”
He grasped my head and peered into my eyes. “You can control what
you see and hear just by thinking about it. Focus on my voice and
the rest will fade into the background. You will still be aware of
it, but you can turn it up or down depending on what you want to
hear.”

He was right. The din receded, as did
the light, until it looked as it had before, although everything
was still heightened.

“
Thank you.” I stepped
away from him, sure he had not needed to touch me in order to
demonstrate.

“
No, I did not,” he said
with a chuckle as he moved past me. “Get dressed.” He paused to let
his gaze linger on my bare chest. “And meet us outside.”

He moved to stairs in the corner of
the chamber and was soon out of sight.

I stood there clutching the clothes he
had given me, which were as ostentatious as his were.

I was alive.

Then that meant...Julia!

I dressed quickly and darted up the
stairs leading to a hidden trap door that took me out of the
underground chamber to the back of the chapel. I raced out of the
chapel, not realising I was moving much faster than a man could
move.

I stepped out of the chapel to a night
like no other. The moon hung like a white god that showered the
clearing with silver light amidst the glittering stars gathered
around it. Even before I reached the trees, my heart and hopes came
crashing back down from the heights I had allowed them to ascend.
The scent that drifted to me from the edge of the clearing told me
all I needed to know. But I could not stop myself from going to her
anyway.

Her head lay at an odd angle and her
body was already beginning to bloat. I was surprised some wild
animal had not scavenged her remains. But with my heightened
senses, I was aware now that the immediate area was relatively
silent and the wildlife gave it a wide berth.

Tears filled my eyes as I stared at
Julia, and my hands trembled. “She is still dead,” I
whispered.

“
Of course she is dead. We
killed her, remember?”

I ignored Emory and moved closer to
Julia, more because he was standing a little too close to me for
comfort.

“
Don’t be so sad,
handsome. Auria and Onyx will be here any second now with a present
for you.”

I could hear them now. They must have
materialised at the edge of the woods, and they were not alone. I
could hear another’s ragged heartbeat and the sobs she tried to
suppress to no avail.

Auria stepped into the clearing. Onyx
followed wearing a navy blue gown. She was dragging a short, slim
Negro girl with her. The slave, who was probably no more than
twenty, was a pretty girl with a slight build and mournful looking
brown eyes. She was shaking like a flower caught in a violent storm
and tears streamed down her face. Dread licked at my insides as I
stared at the terrified girl.

“
Please, don’t kill anyone
else, Auria. I beg of you,” I said when they reached us.

“
I’m
not going to kill her,” Onyx replied and then savagely bit
the girl on the neck.

She cried out, her pretty face
creasing in shock and pain. When Onyx released her, she brought her
hand up to her neck to try and stem the blood, which seeped through
her fingers leaving glistening red trails that gleamed in the
moonlight. She looked frantically about her before she tried to get
away. But Onyx pushed her toward Auria, who grabbed a handful of
her hair. The girl cried out again.

“
Shut up!” Auria
said.

I observed all of this in a mild daze.
The scent of blood—in fact, the girl’s scent—was having a curious
effect on me. I shook myself free of it, telling myself one of them
was using their supernatural powers on me again. But my attention
kept returning to the rich crimson blood, the sight of her chest
heaving in terror and the pumping of her heart an insistent call
making me want to draw closer to her. I focused on
Auria.

“
Please, Auria. Just let
her go.”

“
If you wish.”

She threw the girl toward me and I
only just managed to catch her before she fell. But rather than
being reassured, she was screaming all the louder now.

“
Please, jus’ let me go
back,” she cried. “I ain’t never done no wrong to nobody. Please.
My baby boy be waiting for his mama to come home. Please, I ain’t
afraid to die, but you cain’t make me leave my baby ‘lone in this
world! Just take me back,
please
.”

“
It is all right. I will
take you back. There is no...”

But even as I spoke those
words, I became aware of the fact that my hands were tightening
around her slender arms. I couldn’t finish my sentence because I
could not stop staring at the blood, the scent of it was somehow
aromatic and
seductive
. The grip I had on her arms was no doubt painful now, but I
could not let her go even though I could easily crush her bones
with the strength I now had. There was also an ache in two points
along my gum. Then I felt the top two incisors begin to lengthen,
pushing against the flesh of my lips.

I took a deep breath and forced myself
to relax the hold I had on the girl. I saw hope flare briefly
within her dark eyes and she quieted somewhat, although she
continued to weep.

“
What are you doing to
me?” I managed to gasp when I tore my gaze away from the girl, and
the blood, the warm, sweet-smelling blood. “Whatever it is that you
are doing to me, Auria, I want you to stop,” I pleaded.

“
I’m
not doing anything,” she said as she moved to my
side.

Like a mother to a child, Auria gently
lowered my head toward the two small holes in the girl’s neck as
she began to wail again, fighting desperately to be free of
me.

I gasped when the blood touched my
lips. I wrenched my head away from her neck. But I had tasted it
and it was electrifying. Lust overcame me in that instance and I
felt aroused, not only in my groin but everywhere, a scorching heat
that demanded to be sated, lest it drive me insane.