Sunburst (Starbright Series) (15 page)

             
“I
am
here to fight,” I countered defiantly. Serena shot me a quick grin over her shoulder. At least she was proud of me.

             
“You can’t,” Seth argued. “It’s in the contract.”

             
That irked me more than it probably should have, but it also prompted me to say, “Sorry, I didn’t sign a contract.”

             
“Be that as it may,” Seven butted in, sounding more like an adult than I had ever heard her. “The contract includes you. You’re not allowed to kill any of us.” She flipped her long, golden brown hair over her shoulder with the tip of her sword, somehow managing it effortlessly without cutting even a strand of hair off.

             
“I didn’t sign the contract.” I took a step forward, proving I wasn’t afraid of them. “I’m not responsible to it.”

             
“Fine, you’re responsible to my brother, then.” Seven rolled her eyes, back to being the child.

             
I shrugged again.

             
“I would have stopped for a pint if I knew we were just going to talk all night,” Nate taunted.

             
“She can’t fight,” Seven glared us all down. “We’re not allowed to engage her. How is that fair?”

             
“Not my problem,” Serena growled. I had a sudden feeling that Serena was a huge fan of this contract. It was somewhat of an advantage.

             
“Alright, but what about my brother? If any of us dies at her hands, he dies at Aliah’s.” She crossed her arms, her hands still full of her two swords that were similar to mine, but more Samuri-ish.

             
“What about your brother?” Serena bit out. “From where I’m standing he looks every bit as Fallen as the rest of you.”

             
Which was very true, but I was also hoping she was bluffing some.

             
“I have a solution,” I gloated. Seth quirked an eyebrow at me. “We’ll play man to man tonight. Seth and I can fight each other.”

             
He let out a bark of laughter and shook his head at me. “That’s hardly a fair fight.”

             
“You’re scared of me?’

             
“Terrified.” He smirked.

             
“I can tell.”

             
Seven turned to face Seth then and leaned into whisper in his ear. She reached up with one hand and held her palm caressingly against his face. The hilt of her sword sat awkwardly in her grasp with the blade extending out at an extreme angle. She looked careless and irresponsible at that angle, but her fingers moved deftly across his cheekbone, so it was hard to tell if she was in control of herself or not.

             
“What are we waiting for?” I asked, genuinely wondering what we were waiting for, but also in an attempt to get Seven’s poison out of Seth’s head.

             
Serena laughed a little and then teased, “I’m not sure. Everyone is so very chatty down here.”

             
“Are you saying you don’t stand around staring at each other like imbiciles off planet?” Jupiter asked dully.              

“No,” Nate laughed. “We do that
, too.”

             
Then Serena raised her sword and brought it gracefully but skillfully down, slashing a line of destruction against the stone wall next to her. Shadows dissipated immediately at the contact and her ominous battle cry called us all to attention. And in a half a second we were engaged.

             
The Shadows swarmed around us like a tornado of death. The force of our Lights burned through the darkness, illuminating everything into a blinding shade of white. Our swords clashed through the brilliancy; the silver seeming dull against the pure color of raw Light.

             
And on the opposite side of the spectrum, the Fallen fought with their black auras that sucked our Light into their black hole of evil. Shadows fought alongside them, moving effortlessly- and able to stay out of the path of a flinging sword but still weave around the Light in an effort to cause pain.               Seven was the only Fallen to still fight with her Light fully intact. She glowed brighter than even me. And for as crazy as she was, she fought with staggering talent.

             
But then so did Seth, so maybe it was a genetic thing.

             
Jupiter was the only one to escape letting off some kind of color effect. Except for his eyes. The dull red world-weary and exhausted eyes were now sparking a brilliant red. He could have been a vampire from the Twilight movies. I had the strongest urge to suggest a vegetarian diet.

             
But I refrained.

             
Mostly, because I was fighting for my life.

             
Jupiter stayed skillfully close to the Fallen and out of the burning rays of our Light. He was more resilient to the heat and power than humans, but we could easily still burn him. The mixture of Light and Dark mixed together to make a conducive atmosphere for his battle skills.

             
I hadn’t initially engaged with Seth, although that was the plan. But because of how quickly Serena initiated the fight and how we were standing, I was paired with one of the Fallen I hadn’t met before.

             
And damn, he was good.

             
I matched each of his blows with my two beloved katanas. These weren’t the practice swords I used with Jupiter; these weapons could cause some serious damage.

             
If only I could quit playing defense and get one of my own hits in.

             
“Play nice,” I mocked him. “Pretty sure your friend over there will cut your head off himself if you hurt me.”

             
The man leered at me. “But it would be worth it.”

             
He swung around with his broadsword- or whatever it was. It was heavy and made from some kind of metal not native to Earth. I heard a faint accent in his voice when he spoke.

             
He was old.

             
Bummer.

             
Warriors seemed to get stronger with age. And he was already kicking my ass in the brute force department. I had fifteen months before I received the fullness of my strength and while I was currently much stronger than the average human, I wasn’t exactly measuring up to Hulk Hogan standards when fighting my own kind.

             
It was in stupid moments like these where I understood Seth’s decision. I didn’t like it or agree with it, but I could understand it.

             
The good thing about the zealot giant I was fighting was that he wasn’t exactly a refined fighter. He relied too heavily on his brute strength and didn’t pay enough attention to his foot work or smaller movements.

             
I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for Jupiter’s anal, over-the-top training and slid under one of his crashing blows using part instinct, part years of volleyball training. I looked like I was getting ready to dive low for a hard hit.

             
When I came to standing again I was at the Fallen’s back, my swords waiting to cross his neck like chopsticks with a difficult piece of broccoli. I was eerily resolved to cutting his head off, the only true way to kill a Warrior or Star. My blades pricked his skin to let him know I was there and give him an idea of what I intended to do. I would have to pull my swords back to give my body some momentum to cut all the way through his neck, but I had this really practiced, dramatic speech to give first.

             
It was my first Fallen kill after all.

             
He stilled under the touch of my blades, knowing he was caught. A string of curse words flew out of his mouth, realizing he wasn’t just facing death, but death by a Starling at that.

             
I was embarrassed for him.

             
And then I was flying through the air, but not by my own free will. I smashed into a stone wall. Bits of rock flew everywhere and Shadows scurried out of the rays of my Light. I had a sword to my throat, just the tip of a curved sword that looked like it belonged to a pirate.

             
“Ah, ah, ah,” Seth taunted. “You’ll make me jealous if you keep this up.”

             
My swords dangled limply at my sides. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.
I knew that.
But his eyes were so lifeless and cold that I needed to remind myself of that, on a loop that ran constantly in my head.

             
Trying to play the wounded girlfriend card I said, “I was just trying to get your attention.”

             
“You have it.” He stepped forward and let his sword fall to my waist. The point dragged across my t-shirt, snagging it before jumping down to the next catch in the fabric.

             
“We could get out of here?” I smirked at him. I had no idea what I was doing, but he seemed to respond to physical touch last time we were together.

             
“Are you trying to seduce me?” He laughed, but he sounded gentler.
              “Is it working?” I deflected because it was kind of depressing that Seth found my efforts humorous.

             
“More than you realize.” He took another step forward and this time his sword dropped to his side too. We were close again, his chest heaving against mine. “I don’t know how to control this,” he whispered.

             
My battered heart plummeted to my stomach and I forgot how to breathe for a moment. “Why did you do this?”

             
Something like pain flashed in those dead eyes and his jaw ticked before he answered me, “So we could be together.”
              “But will you come back to me?”

             
He was silent for so long, while a battle raged around us, and Shadows slithered along the wall near my head, that I thought I had lost him to the hundreds of distractions that called for his attention. Finally, he growled in a voice so low and hoarse I could barely understand him, “Hold on to me, Stella, so that I don’t have to come back to you. Hold on to me so that I never leave you.”

             
My soul splintered into a million pieces and tears pricked at my eyes. He displayed a dichotomy of extremes- on one side he was this vulnerable, broken man that I loved, and on the other he was quickly becoming a ruthless killer that wouldn’t recognize me anymore.

             
I felt myself nodding and all I wanted to do was finally confess how much I loved him, how desperately I was in love with him.

             
How I chose him.

             
But it was too late. I had chosen too late.

             
“Seth!” Seven called out. “We’re done here.”

             
Seth’s eyes took on more emotion than I had seen since before he joined the dark side and he let his free hand trail a line up my forearm. I shivered under the tenderness of his touch before he leaned in and pressed the briefest kiss to my lips. My eyes fluttered closed on instinct. Our contact was short and feather light but I breathed in the hot warmth of his soft lips for as long as I could. After only a second I opened my eyes but he was gone.

             
He had disappeared back into the night that he’d come out of.

             
I looked over at Serena and Nate who were standing there a little battered and a lot bloody. Jupiter was leaning over the dead body of the only Fallen I hadn’t dealt with tonight. His body lay at an awkward angle and his head had rolled a little ways off to the side.

             
It was pretty gross. But it made me breathe a little easier knowing at least one of them died tonight.

             
Serena looked at me and let out a whoosh of disbelief. Finally she said, “Out of everything that happened tonight, that wins the award for Most Tense Moment.” She shot me a sympathetic smile and I realized that she was referring to Seth and me.

             
“Is that why they left?” I ignored her insinuation and nodded at the dead body.

             
“No,” Nate shook his head. “You’re why they left. I don’t know how you’re going to manage it, Stella. But if anyone can bring Seth back, it’s you.”

             
If only I could be that confident.

Chapter Fourteen

             
A week later I was still reeling from my confrontation with Seth. I hadn’t seen him since, but I definitely had not stopped thinking about him. I couldn’t get the desperation of his words out of my head or the isolated indifference of his eyes flashing at me every time I closed mine.

             
It was like he was this shell of a being and I didn’t know which side of him to accept. Trust the words that I wanted to believe? Or the eyes that told me everything he uttered was a complete lie.

             
But always I would go back to those moments before he disappeared, to when he asked me,
made me promise
, not to give up on him.

             
He knew what he was doing then and how it would change him. But he had believed that whatever we had was stronger than all that.

             
And I hadn’t even told him I loved him.

             
But even without saying the words out loud, they were true.

             
Tristan and I had been spending a large amount of time together, just like we used to. I had scaled back with him when Seth started having such a huge issue with him. But we didn’t have that barrier anymore.

             
Except it wasn’t like it was before. I wondered if Tristan really had only been infatuated with me because of Seth, like his turf was being threatened or something. Now that I was technically a free, er, free-ish woman, I wasn’t as exciting anymore?

             
I didn’t know.

             
But with all my recent developments in the feelings department for Seth I had to assume this was a good thing. Life seemed less complicated at the same time it was infinitely more so.

             
And then there was Jude. The bane of my existence. He was miserable and intrusive. And always there.

             
Always.

             
Like right now, while I was trying to eat lunch, he was hovering. “What?” I finally shrieked in irritation.

             
“Just making sure you don’t choke,” he smirked. “You’re taking really big bites. Are you starving? Do you have a tape worm? Why are you eating like that?”

             
“Oh, my gosh,” I hissed. I felt my face start to glow from embarrassment and I stamped the instinct down- way down. “I’m hungry, geez.”

             
“No,
I’m
hungry,” Jude commented dramatically. “You’re trying to gain ten pounds before the bell rings.”

             
“I’m going to kill you,” I growled. My face was getting harder to control. We were surrounded by a lunch room so full that I would not be able to explain my glow worm talents to. Why was he egging me on?

             
“You don’t mean that,” he grinned.

             
“I do,” I assured him. “I mean that. Just wait until I’m eighteen.”

             
“Stella, if we both make it until you’re eighteen, I’ll hand you the sword.”

             
He said it so candidly, so
loudly
that I snapped my head around and gave him my full attention, quietly asking him to explain. “Why do you say that?”

             
Jude finally gained some sense, and looked around at the table of my friends pretending not to listen to us. He leaned in to me with his minty-cigarette scent and asked in a quiet voice, “Want to go outside with me?” He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and tapped them against the heel of his hand.

             
I sighed. “I guess.” He did seem to be the chattiest while he was smoking. I didn’t understand it, but I put up with it for my occasional answers.

             
I avoided the questioning stares from Piper and Tristan and silently got up and followed Jude out the door, tossing my trash on the way. I slipped out of the cafeteria hopefully unseen, as I didn’t really want to be connected with Jude. The entire student body knew why he was leaving early and I had a feeling the teachers were starting to catch on.

             
Sure, kids smoked at parties and on the weekends. But this was a school filled mostly with athletes. Jude’s chain-smoking habit was literally unheard of  in this environment.

             
He pushed the outside door open; we stepped into a beautiful spring day. The wind was strong and cool, but the sun was brazen and hot, standing unapologetically in the sky. I tilted my head up, basking in the warmth on my face, after enduring the chill that came with our nearly windowless school building. I wondered how Jude felt about the sun. Jupiter’s stories about Jude’s youth came back to me and I suddenly couldn’t get them out of my head. What kind of kid could survive a lifetime of Darkness?

             
What kind of child could live without ever knowing the Light?

             
Jude leaned back against his favorite oak tree, in full view of the school building and anyone walking by and pulled out a cigarette.

             
“Got a light?” He teased, waggling his eyebrows at me.

             
“I’m not supporting that habit,” I replied primly. I felt like a prude. And then I hated that I was embarrassed by that. What was wrong with following rules and having a quality of conduct standard? Nothing. And I had never felt bad about it until Jude showed up.

             
“Why?” he chuckled. “Afraid it will kill me?”
              I rolled my eyes. No, it wouldn’t kill him. It probably wouldn’t even seriously bother him before his supernatural internal organs already started to heal from it.

             
So I crossed my arms showing off how uncomfortable I was to be around him alone and nodded. “Yes,” I agreed just to be contrary.

             
“You’re worried about me?” he asked again, only this time there was actual curiosity in his voice.

             
In response I let out an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes. “Why do you think we’re both going to die before I’m eighteen?’ My voice was quiet and broken, completely giving away my fear. It was frustrating, but the questions were necessary.

             
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he shrugged and inhaled deeply. The smoke escaped his mouth in a long stream of white. He seemed casual, but his tone was callous.

             
“Then why did I come out here with you?” I demanded.

             
“To keep me company?”

             
I laughed before I could stop myself. “Who are you, Jude Michaels? How did you, of all people, get roped into this contract?”

             
He looked at me through the haze of smoke and let out a slow breath. “Obviously, I’m the right age for high school.” There were such strong tones of bitterness in his voice, I actually took a step back.

             
“Is that the only reason?”

             
He let out a dark chuckle, “You’re not seriously trying to psycho-analyze me are you?”

             
“Don’t be a bastard,” I shot back quickly. I was really annoyed by his deflection, more so than usual.

             
“Such a mouth,” he tsked. His eyes invariably fell to the subject in question, and lingered there. I shuddered from the vulnerable nakedness I felt when he looked at me like that. My stomach was queasy; I didn’t know whether to run away or slap him.

             
“You don’t know me, Jude,” I reminded him.

             
“And you don’t know me, Stella,” he countered with his cold eyes meeting mine again.

             
With that lovely conversation finisher, I turned around and stomped back inside. He was infuriating. He was constantly crowding me, but the minute I tried to make our situation anything but wretched, he turned into the evil overlord I knew he was.

             
Tristan was on the other side of the door, waiting for me. “Hey.”

             
“Hey,” I sighed.

             
“Everything alright?” His bright green eyes were pinched with concern.

             
“Yeah, it’s fine. Jude was just…. I don’t know, I thought he was going to give me some answers about Seth, but he was just playing games, I guess.”

             
“He’s kind of an asshole, right?”

             
I laughed. “Right.”

             
Tristan’s expression became more serious and I thought he was going to warn me about Jude- again; but he had something else entirely on his mind. “Hey, so I know we have practice after school, but I was wondering, if maybe, you wanted to have dinner with my family tonight? They haven’t seen you in a while.”

             
That was true, they hadn’t. And a night at Tristan’s house actually sounded amazing.

             
“That sounds great,” I agreed quickly.

             
“You don’t have training or anything?” his voice dropped to a whisper.

             
Matching his tone I explained, “No, the missions I’ve been going on with Nate and Serena have taken the place of training. And besides, I can always meet up with them after, if they need me.”

             
Tristan’s jaw tightened and his neck muscles were suddenly bulging, but he nodded. “Well, I’ll let my mom now you’re coming then.”

             
“K.”

             
And then we parted ways…. awkwardly. I decided I wanted to talk to him about that tonight. There was a time in my life, not that long ago, where Tristan was my epicenter, where my entire world revolved around him and our relationship.

             
It just wasn’t like that anymore. And I didn’t know why. Maybe it was as simple as we were growing apart. Maybe it was more complex and I’d somehow jilted him by falling accidentally in love with Seth- the boy I couldn’t have anymore.

             
Maybe it was all him.

             
I wasn’t sure, but I needed to find out.

----

              “Stella!” Tristan’s mom, Allison, greeted me as soon as I walked in the door. “It has been too long! Where have you been?”

             
I smiled under her over the top affection and greeted her with a hug. She squeezed me tightly to her and then kept her arm around me as she walked me inside her house.

             
Tristan’s house was a huge farmhouse that was done completely in comfort and easiness. I loved it over here. It was basically my second home. It always smelled like baking or delicious homemade somethings. It was crazy loud- all the time. And it was consistently messy.

             
Allison was a stay at home mom. But even with two boys already off to college she had a hard time keeping up with everyone. Tristan was the third child with two older brothers and three siblings younger, two brothers, one sister. And their names all start with a
t
and an
r
: Trader, Trenton, Tristan, Trevor, Troy and Truman.

             
The crazy thing was that Allison kept talking about wanting another baby.

             
Being an only child, and coming from a culture that rarely had more than one child per family, that was insanity to me. But it somehow worked for the Shields. And even in the chaos of their rowdy household, there was such a feeling of peace and acceptance that it was hard not to fall in love with all of them.

             
Tristan’s dad stepped out of his office and offered me a huge, welcoming smile. He was exactly what Tristan would look like one day- tall, athletic, dark, almost black hair kept short and manageable, with piercing green eyes that seemed to see deeper than surface level.

             
Allison didn’t let me get waylaid with his greeting though, she kept pulling me toward the kitchen where she was determined she would teach me how to cook. I promised her there was a defect in my genetic code, but she kept dismissing that as an excuse.

             
Allison and Brian were high school sweethearts that actually graduated from Mead. They both went off to college at the University of Lincoln, got married right out of college, and then moved back home to farm and raise their family. They were the poster children for small town living and they had quiet expectations that their children would all follow a similar path. They weren’t pushy about it, but anyone who knew the Shields could tell.

             
Trader and Trent had gone off to UNL on football scholarships without even questioning the family manifesto. But Tristan was having doubts, and I didn’t blame him there. It was easy to blame his parents for putting too much pressure on him to be like them, but as soon as I would walk into their house, I always questioned my disappointment with their confined expectations for their kids. This seemed so perfect to me, living like this, with homemade delicious dinners and all of my children crowding around a happy table. It was so idyllic. I had a hard time taking Tristan’s side when I compared it to my own, very empty future.