Shadow Bloodlines (Shadow Bloodlines #1) (4 page)

My arms and legs grew heavy like they’d changed into cement. What had they injected me with?

The wind whipped through me and I shivered. Ms. Moor stood behind her minions, as though seeking their bodies for protection, but still close enough that she could watch. My captors resembled images in jagged fun house mirrors as they carried me closer to the roof’s edge.

One of the spaghetti strings on my black dress had broken. Thankfully, the edge of the material was trapped under my armpit so I didn’t give them a peep show as hooknose jerked me forward. Tattoo guy on the other side bumped me also like I was a pinball stuck between two pop bumpers. Back and forth, but no escape. The other two guards marched a step behind us. Even if I could move without the feeling of fighting against mud, I didn’t think I’d make it very far. At least not with all four of them after me.

I searched my captors’ faces, hoping for a sign that one of them might help me. Hoping for a measure of sympathy. Their eyes seemed drained of life, like a dead fish. My gaze landed on the huge gargoyle perched on the ledge, as though ready to launch any moment. The only witness, besides Ms. Moor and her minions, to my murder: a statue. So unfair. I thought I’d at least die of old age while swimming with Great White Sharks.

My stomach clenched and dove to my feet. I was about to die by my greatest fear: falling from a height. Tears stung my eyes as I wanted to plead with them, but my tongue lay pasty in my mouth. Was this from fear or the drug they gave me?

The world around me grew fuzzy and warped like I was looking at everything through bubbled water. A giggle escaped from my mouth. Maybe I could swim through the air; after all, the air flowed in waves like the ocean, and I was a good swimmer. Maybe I just had to be high enough to fly? My head felt dizzy and my limbs stuck to my sides.

Swimming was release. I’d be buoyant, free.

Some part of my mind was bellowing, but I couldn’t understand the words. It was like the drone of a car engine in the distance.

One of the men let go of my arm, and I held my hand in front of my face, amazed at how red my blood looked. She’d only sliced my pinkie tip, but the blood coated my palm.

At the roof’s edge, I grabbed the gargoyle’s head for support. A shock raced up my arm as if I had touched metal on a winter day. It didn’t feel like stone exactly but quivered beneath my fingertips. Or maybe it was that I couldn’t stop the shivers that were racing through me. My blood smeared across the stone.

The concrete ground at the bottom of the building and vertigo rushed to meet me and wavered at the edge of the building.

Tattoo guy let go of my arm, but I couldn’t move. The height of the ground, the drug, my terror, all made it impossible to budge. Hooknose dropped my arm. He shoved his hand into my back and I stumbled forward, my feet slipping off the edge. I was falling.

The air swept past me and my black torn dress fluttered around me. When a body falls on TV, it’s fast. But time slowed as I watched the road below closing in. All I could think of was why and that Jacqui was going to be pissed I ruined her dress. The drug made a giggle rip from my mouth at that thought.

As I fell through the sky, part of me was blissful. I started laughing, then yelling.

No, wait, that wasn’t me screaming. It was Ms. Moor and those guys. A grey figure swept towards me.

The gargoyle's wings had transformed into black feathers like a crow. Was I imagining it? His arm wrapped around my waist, and the breath shot out of my lungs as he broke the trajectory of my fall and carried me close enough to the moon I wondered if I could touch it. I must be dreaming. Or dead. Doesn’t it take several minutes for the brain to die?

I squinted to get a better look at him but, in my drug-induced haze, his features blurred between gorgeous and the gargoyle’s sinister grin.

His body felt cool beneath my fingers.
Is he naked?
My face heated. Could he feel my blush against his skin? Wait? What about his stone body? It felt like flesh beneath my fingertips. Who knew a pre-dying vision would be so real?

If this was my last dream before I died, I was going to make the most of it.

The guy was too handsome not to kiss. I didn’t know how long the dream would last before the end. Lying in his arms, my body held against his solid chest, I lifted my chin and kissed him on his mouth, then whispered, “Thank you.”

He gazed down at me with hazel eyes that made my heart flutter. His stare smoldered like he wanted to kiss me again. His lips paused a breath from mine and when I sighed, he brushed his mouth over mine. Tingles spread from my lips to my toes and back up again. It was like riding a rollercoaster while eating chocolate. Thrilling and decadent. His lips moved against mine and I drew my arms around his neck and kissed him back. My heart fluttered in my chest like an excited bird in a cage.

Damn, this was the most amazing dream ever. Too bad I was dead and couldn’t tell Jacqui about this guy. She’d be so envious that I’d scored such a hottie.

***

I awoke to drool on my cheek and, pushing up, I rubbed it off with one hand. My eyes felt swollen as if I’d been crying. Where was I?

It was dark, with only a pale light glowing from a huge doorway, as if I was in a cave or something. That’s weird, I thought, the sun should be coming from my window… then my hand brushed a body—a very male body. I shuffled backward, my back hitting a rock wall behind me.

“You’re awake.”

The rising sun barely lit the cave entrance, but I saw his black wings ruffle as he stood and sent me scrambling further into the cave. Was I dead?

“Who are you? Where am I?” The questions scraped out over my raw throat. Last night, or maybe was it longer ago, came flashing back. Was this the gargoyle that had saved me? Someone who could fly? Right, get ahold of yourself, Bethany.

“I am Amar. We’re in the mountains; it was the closest I could find to shelter.”

“Umm … what about a house?”

He chuckled and I wondered if he always made people feel warm inside when he laughed. “I have no house.”

“Great, I’m going mad.” I dusted myself off. “Well, thank you for rescuing me, but I’m going home now.” Mom was going to kill me for not checking in. Oh, and Jacqui too. I climbed to my feet and tried to flip the broken spaghetti strap over my shoulder. No good.

He blocked my path and I frowned. Just who was this guy? And how did I survive falling off a building? I remembered our kiss and wondered if I dreamed it, or if I really had kissed him. “You cannot go home. They will look for you there.”

“Who are they?” Yup. I was talking to an escapee from the psychiatric ward, who was wearing what had to be fake wings. But how had I escaped the fall? It must have been that drug they’d shot me up with … and I must have hit my head. My skull ached enough for that possibility to be true. This guy’s some kind of guard, I decided, watching over me. He’s going to make me think he’s on my side so they can—what? Why did they even want me? An eighteen-year-old who swam well and was good at puzzles, but average in other things. I didn’t even have a date for prom yet.

Maybe I could humor him until I could get out of this place. I knew Ms. Moor and her thugs were after me, but not why.

Why these people were after me was the question I had no answers to. My dad might know. If I met him, I’d tell him next time to text
crazy people want to kill you, leave school.

Nah, I’d have dismissed that text too.

I glanced back at the winged guy. Now that my mind was not as blurry as it had been from the drug, in the light, I saw he looked like a cross between Tyler Posey and a younger Tyler Hoechlin.

His hair was a darker brown than mine, almost black. Not as dark as the midnight shade of his wings. The muscles carved through his skin made all the guys in school seem like rubber dolls.

What was he wearing? A loincloth from animal fur. It made me giddy inside. Holy cow that was all he was wearing?

I jerked my stare back to his face. His eyes looked greenish-brown from here, but I remembered how they’d looked an inch away from mine: green with bits of brown and gold streaking through them. I shivered and forced myself to focus on something else.

His black wings moved slightly.

Before I could think, I blurted out, “Are those real?”

Of course not. They had to be an elaborate costume or some kind of trick. If they were real, which my mind refused to acknowledge, then maybe I needed to check-in with the ward myself.

“My wings are real. Would you like to touch them?”

How could an innocent question sound so sinful? Even though they did look soft, I wanted away from him. I wanted to go back home and forget all this. Well, maybe not the kiss.

“No thanks.” I swallowed and fought the urge to fan myself. “Do you work for Ms. Moor and her … men?” Please say no.

“I don’t know what they call themselves in this century, but they are the Blood Spirits. They hunt our kind and have nearly made us extinct.”

“Right.” I shuffled closer to the cave opening. Beyond the guard guy, there were mountains or caves. Where were we? Haven, Texas was flat, except for the man-made bridges and overpasses. Maybe it was some abandoned building for rock climbers. “Spirits of Blood. Got it.”

“No.” He moved and his feathers rustled. “Spirits of Blood would have drunk you dry, rather than merely tasting to confirm your shifter blood.”

How did he know about that? And shifter blood? I’d never turned during a full moon or any moon. I was human and shifters, werewolves, didn’t exist. “Look, this has been nice. Thank you again for helping me or whatever. I don’t really remember since I hit my head, but thanks. I’m no
shifter
. The moon doesn’t change me into a werewolf. You can believe whatever you like, but I’m leaving.”

“Shifters could be any animal, not just wolves. I must remove the poisons before it spreads more. I didn’t want to do it while you were sleeping, without telling you first.”

“What? No, whatever Ms. Moor shot me with is out of my system now.” I frowned when he didn’t nod. “Flushed away.”

“Not the tainted venom on the blade she used to cut you.” He pointed to my injured finger, but I refused to look at it.

Later, when I wasn’t trapped in a cave with a weirdo, then I’d check it out and go to the doctor if needed. He took a step toward me with his brow furrowed in concentration.

Now my legs felt like liquid. He was going to do something to me; did I escape one nightmare to fall into another? I feigned going to the back of the cave. When he followed, I tore past him and outside.

My breath hitched. Dozens of snowcapped purple and blue peaks greeted me. We were in the freaking mountains! How?!

I scrambled down the slope’s edge, and pebbles careened below me. A bird flew in front of the sun, its shadow flickering. I winced, thinking it was him.

I was continuing my headlong downward climb when I slipped. Pebbles and rocks rained down below me as I fought for purchase. Suddenly
he
was there and hoisted me up until my face was tucked under his chin. I gaped at his black wings, which were spread out like a condor. No longer did he have the gargoyle’s face as he had when he had first caught me last night; now he had a human face with stubble that brushed my forehead. His eyes now appearing grey-green stared at me and I lost all thought. He could be a model, I glanced down his naked chest, then my eyes snapped back to his. Correction, an underwear model.

He flew me back inside the cave. My legs gave out from underneath me, and I collapsed onto my butt.

He was real. His wings were freaking real! An angel? But didn’t they have white wings? Maybe he was a demon.

“I will not hurt you. You have rescued me from eons of time trapped in stone.” He ran a hand through his dark curls and I wondered if they were as soft as they looked.

Stop it.
Here was a creature of good or evil before me, and I was drooling all over again.

“Your finger. The poisons are already spreading from your cut. Only your shifter blood is keeping it at bay for now. If you were fully human, it would already be in rampant in your entire bloodstream and it would kill you.”

I gasped when I saw black lines spiraling around my pinky finger. “Get it out of me.”

He pulled an obsidian blade from his loincloth.

I plastered myself against the cave wall. He was working for Ms. Moor. He had to be. For a few seconds, I’d thought he had truly had saved me. But he was just a guard. One sent to torment me. I started to pant as I looked around for a weapon or rock.

“This will hurt for a moment, then you’ll grow a new one… if I’m right about what
kind
of shifter you are.”

“Grow! What the hell are you talking about?” Whatever this guy was, he was still crazy. He reached for me. I kneed him in the groin and ran.

Something streaked across my vision, then Amar’s hand closed around my wrist. I kicked and punched. I twisted and slipped from his grasp. I dashed for the cave opening, but he tackled me. I fell with a grunt.

Not that anyone could hear me, but I screamed anyway. He grabbed my ankle and dragged me back into the cave. I clawed at the dirt for purchase, but dirt caked under my nails. His weight on my back granted me little movement.

I tucked the finger Ms. Moor had cut against my chest. When he maneuvered to yank my arm out, I punched him in the groin and he twisted away. I raced to the cave opening. Within seconds, he snagged my elbow and I fell. The cave rocks bit into my knee.

Suddenly, he wrapped his legs around mine, pinning them down. Then with his upper arm, he locked my left arm until only the finger he wanted was loose. I slapped him hard across the face, but he didn’t even blink. I punched him and my knuckles burned. Still he didn’t move but just looked at me with hazel eyes full of sorrow.

I was pinned, but so was he. Then he shifted until my arm was tucked under his shoulder so he could grasp my flailing hand in his free hand. Then, I was stuck. His other hand held the blade.

“Sorry,” he whispered, and the blade sliced through my skin and bone in one hard swipe. He severed my pinky finger!

It was bad. Thick blood squirted everywhere. The ground started spinning. I was going to puke. On the ground was my finger, staring up at me. He let go and I crumbled, dry heaving.

“You sick bastard!” I screamed as my injury throbbed.

He reached out to me and I scrambled away as I cradled my hand to me. Blood already soaked my dress.

“Close your eyes and concentrate. Think about healing.”

“Lunatic! I can’t heal and grow a finger back! Give it to me and take me to the hospital, they can reattach it.”
Can’t they?

“The poisons will find their way back into your body if you reattach your finger. See?”

My severed finger twitched, then seized and turned to ash.

“What the hell…” My stub itched. I’d heard of people who’d lost a limb but still felt like it was there … phantom limb syndrome. I was feeling it now, and it was super itchy. I didn’t want to scratch and infect my wound. And I had to get away from this crazy person—no matter how handsome he was.

I hunched over, carrying my bleeding hand. “I have to go now. Thanks for, err, saving me and my…” I couldn’t thank him for chopping off my finger. It had to be a trick. Somehow he had made me think the finger had disintegrated before my eyes. The ache along my nerves told me that him taking my finger and the blood were both very real.

“Call me Amar. And you are?”

I didn’t want him to know my name or where I lived. What if he cut off another body part to match? Maybe he was a sick pervert and would cut me into pieces until there was nothing left. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me whimpering in a corner. All of me would fight until I was dead.

He gestured to my injury, and I glared at him. I would have to wrap it in something soon to stop the bleeding, but even though he was only in a loincloth, I wasn’t losing the dress and going naked. And with all the blood, I’d have to buy Jacqui a new one and it would cost me a year’s allowance or more. I tore off a ribbon from the bottom of the dress and wrapped my bleeding finger stub inside. Then I stood and faced him. Somehow I would make him pay.

“Your finger is fine now.”

“It’s gone,” I snapped.

He strode toward me and my hands rose up to ward him off.

What? My finger. It was back. I unwrapped it to make sure, and it was there. Nail and all. Maybe this guy
was
a magician and had tricked me, but it had felt so real. “How did you do that?”

“It wasn’t me. It was you. You are a shifter, and an octopus if I had my guess.”

“Guess? You chopped off my finger, but you weren’t certain?!”

“The finger was tainted. It had to come off or it would have spread. To your hand, your arm, all of you, until you twisted into the agony you saw your finger go through before it died. Either way, you are safer now without it. I smell the ocean on you, even though we are miles from it. So an octopus.”

“Like Doc Ock on Spiderman? Ewww, can’t I shift into something cool like a tiger?” This had to be some bizarre dream. But the agony of my finger being chopped off was real enough.

He laughed and this time, the sound made me clench my jaw. He was after something. All men had their own agendas.

“It is rare that a person shifts into the animal. No, now they mostly take the benefits and some of the weaknesses of that animal. In my time, shifters were common and yes, they did transform into all kinds of animals. You have the ability of regrown limbs, as does an octopus.”

“You hacked off my finger and you weren’t even sure it would work?” my shriek echoed off the cave walls.

He smiled a lopsided grin. One that made me think he’d been spoiled as a child. “When we wrestled, it was like you had extra limbs. It was a guess, yes, but an educated one.” He shrugged like hacking off fingers was an everyday occurrence. “But it had to come off or it would have spread through you until your entire body was poisoned, then withered and turned to ash. And it’s more painful that you can imagine.”

“Yeah, I get it. Turn to ash equals bad.” I was an octopus? What else could I do? “So can I squirt ink? Ewww.” Maybe this was all some crazy dream. I’d wake up and Jacqueline would say I’d kept her up all night moaning and stuff. I still didn’t believe exactly what this dude was saying.

“Doubtful. You can probably swim exceptionally well and either hold your breath for a long time or breathe underwater.”

“Cool.” I didn’t tell him I might have already done that when Ms. Moor and the goons were after me and I’d hidden in the pool. So it was because I was a shifter that I did so well in swimming?

“And you have another animal shifter in you.”

His words caught me off-guard, and I scuttled back a step. “I don’t think so.” What would he do to test for another shifter? “My mom’s human, so I guess I only got my dad’s. Speaking of him, why didn’t he hang around and teach me all this stuff? It might have helped me get away from that Moor-woman.”

“No doubt he was an octopus; it is against their nature, especially the males, to raise or
hang around,
as you say, with their offspring. Every shifter has two animals. One that is hereditary and one that is… like a spirit animal. In my time, shifters had three: one from each parent and then their
totem
animal.”

Whatever. I was just happy to have my finger back. “It’s been nice talking all this mumbo-jumbo with you, but I have to get home.”

“Call me Amar.”

“Fine. I’m Bethany or Beth.” I looked out over the mountains. How the heck was I getting home? “Um, would you fly me home from here?”