Whirl (Ondine Quartet Book 1) (32 page)

"Ryder." My jaw was tight. The tension in the
air thickened and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
Arthur's face tightened with impatience and there was now a savage
glint in Gina's eyes. She didn't like the idea of her new play
thing walking away.

I tried to push Ryder behind me, away from
them. "Take the car and go."

"No." His voice was louder, his expression
dark and angry. "I'm not going."

Why was he being so stubborn?

"Ryder —"

"We don't have time for this,
sondaleur
," Arthur demanded, taking a step forward. "Leave
the boy. He's of no consequence to you."

Ryder murmured in my ear. "I always said I'd
have your back."

And in that millisecond I knew. I knew what
he wanted to prove to me, knew what he would do
for
me.

Before I could stop him, Ryder lunged towards
Arthur.

Time slowed.

Every detail jumped out with startling
clarity.

The determined anger on Ryder's face.

His body weak with injuries.

Arthur's amused smile.

"No! Ryder!" I screamed.

But it was too late.

Arthur grabbed his throat with one hand. With
an easy flick, he threw Ryder across the warehouse. His body
slammed against the wall with such force, the concrete cracked.

For one moment, Ryder hung in the air like a
puppet with glassy and lifeless eyes.

And then he slowly slid down the wall to the
ground.

TWENTY-THREE

This couldn't be happening.

Horror and shock bloomed through me. The pain
was all-consuming, like my soul had crawled up and died. The world
had stopped because there was no way anything could exist after
this. I wanted to scream and scream until the universe took me,
too.

It hurt so much I thought I'd never breathe
again.

"What a shame," Arthur's indifferent voice
tore through my thoughts. "The boy could have left. I don't know
what you saw in him,
sondaleur
. He was clearly not very
bright."

Coldness arose in me.

It slid out from the very depths of the dark
shadows I always shoved aside. I welcomed it, encouraging the icy
coil to unravel and wind its way through my blood. It feasted on my
pain, clearing my mind and body.

"Can I keep him for a little while, Arthur?"
Gina pleaded. "He can be like one of my dolls."

"Sweetheart," Arthur chastised. "You know
what's going to happen. He's going to start smelling soon. We
talked about this."

The black tendrils unfurled and spread,
crawling their way up my throat. No, this wasn't anger.

Rage.

You fucker. I'm going to make you pay.
I'll rip you apart until there's nothing left
.

All rational thought fled. The warehouse
shrank and my fury howled with the need for release.

"I. Will. Kill. You."

"Don't be silly, dear. I have to take you to
the boss. You did promise." He sounded cheerful.

I dragged my eyes away from Ryder's unmoving
body and turned to face them. My dagger was already in my hand.

Don't lose focus.

Gina giggled when she saw the blade. "Arthur,
look what she has."

Arthur placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Kendra, you're an ondine. Come. Let's not make it any harder." He
spoke as though negotiating with a child.

I stared into his eyes and a flood of images
and emotions suddenly surged through me. Ryder's eyes lit up with
laughter. Chloe's radiant expression as she helped get me ready for
the ball. Tristan's face shining with both fierce power and patient
gentleness. Marcella's pride when she spoke of my mother. Rhian's
strength in the Council Chamber. Aubrey's quiet understanding no
matter what I demanded. Gabriel's eyes flickering with
sympathy.

From the depth of the cold blackness,
something new emerged. A warm energy. A burning sensation that
built in my core. It increased in power, tingling up my spine and
racing down my arms. The heat grew until I thought I would explode
from it. The icy darkness still squeezed my heart, but now it
fanned the inferno, like black coals feeding a blazing fire.

The scorching current whipped through my body
until it reached the tips of my fingers and the ends of my hair.
Energy crackled around me and I spread my arms wide, accepting and
reveling in the full power of my Virtue.

Gina's eyes widened and Arthur took a step
back. I raised my arm, my dagger blazing with a brilliant golden
light. It was the same glow of Essence that surrounded the
kouperet
.

"What…what?" Arthur stammered. "That's not
possible."

Gina recovered quickly. Her perfect, innocent
face transformed into a mad, violent grimace as her true demonic
self burst through. With a feral snarl, she crouched and sprang,
arms outstretched and hands curved into claws.

But her movements were no longer so fast, so
strong.

Fueled by the magic that now empowered every
cell in my body, I lunged at her.

We crashed in mid-air and my arms wrapped
around her in a ferocious crunch. She cried out as her ribs gave
under my hold. Landing hard on the ground, I rolled away and
snapped back on to my feet. I dug deep, reaching for more of the
burning energy inside me.

Gina reached for my throat and I evaded,
twisting behind her to stab the backside of her injured ribs with
my blade. Circling back to the front, I thrust in a single fluid
move. The dagger penetrated her stomach and I shoved deep until it
was embedded to its hilt. With a quick jerk, it cut straight up her
torso to her breastbone.

Her screech ripped through the air. Sticky,
black blood splattered across my face and ran down my arm. The
stench of it flooded my nose.

She was in excruciating pain, but she wasn't
dead. Yet.

Arthur, his pale eyes filled with crazy rage,
came at me from the other side. But I was already pivoting,
anticipating the approach. Balancing on the balls of my feet, I
pushed and leapt into the air, the ground dropping away from
me.

I came at him from above, watching as his
expression changed from fury to surprise. And then fear. My dagger
arm, lifted high, came down in a slicing arc and cleaved across his
chest at a diagonal. Landing softly, I bent my knees and slashed
again, my arm whistling up as the dagger tore through him from his
right hip to left shoulder.

The blade cut through bone and meat and I
yanked it out with a wet slurping sound. Arthur roared in pain and
fell to his knees. The giant X carved onto his torso oozed rotting
black gore.

I wasn't done yet.

Gina had recovered enough from her injuries
to jump me. She leapt onto my back, attempting to lock her arms
around my neck. I tossed her off and whirled around with a high
kick that cracked her skull. I cut her again and again until she
fell into pieces. When she lay in a pool of black blood, her little
girl body no longer recognizable, I grabbed her perfectly curled
blonde hair and jammed my dagger straight into her Origin.

Whipping around, I saw Arthur get up off the
floor. His wounds sizzled as the skin scabbed and healed before my
eyes. The pale, light blue irises had become an endless black,
devoid of anything but pure hate. His lips pulled back in a growl
and he let out an inhuman cry that rang through the warehouse.

Come and get me.

He lunged. I waited until the last moment.
Just before he fell on top of me, I twisted to the left and stabbed
him between his shoulder blades. Pushing, I impaled the dagger
deep, digging through muscle and spinal bone.

I kicked him down to the ground, hacking and
slashing. I wasn't aware of time. I wasn't aware of anything except
the image of Arthur tossing Ryder aside if he were nothing more
than a doll.

I struck over and over again.

The fire of my Virtue and the steely hardness
from the darkest part of me existed in unison, fueling and
sustaining my haze of rage and pain.

Arthur wasn't moving. Severed limbs and parts
were strewn on the floor around him. I blinked, trying to see
through the black blood spattered over my clothes, shoes, skin, and
hair.

Gathering all my strength, I drew back and
slammed my blade through his Origin. I wanted it to go deep. Into
the heart of this nightmare. Into the very earth itself.

I ripped the blade out, and a shudder racked
through my body. The fire that had burned within me receded,
leaving behind only that cold, hard blackness.

My mind shut down. Only one thought
existed.

I turned around, unseeing anything except his
still body.

Every ounce of energy and strength
disappeared with the burning fire. Staggering, I made my way over
to him and collapsed onto my knees. Those smoky eyes, always
gleaming with sweetness and good humor, were now empty and
blank.

I hurt in places I didn't even know
existed.

Gathering him on to my lap, I wrapped my arms
around him.

The first person who'd spoken to me at
Lumiére. The first person who'd ever thrown me a party. The first
demillir to practice sparring with me.

His body was warm. I stroked his hair and
held him close.

I don't know how long I stayed there.
Everything disappeared, everything else was unimportant. Burying my
face against his neck, I breathed in the faint traces of his
familiar smell, clinging to the warmth that slowly ebbed away.

There were no tears, because tears couldn't
come from a hole of pain this deep. My insides ached with a
terrifying blackness and I didn't care if it consumed me. I didn't
care if I could never find my way out of it again.

Distantly, the sounds of people entering the
warehouse filtered into my awareness.

Someone — or several people — pried at my
shoulders and arms, trying to get me to let go.

"No!" It sounded like screaming and I
wondered if it was me. "No! He's still warm! I'm not leaving
him!"

Strong arms wrapped around me in an embrace,
but didn't pull me away. Something about that pierced through the
numbing pain.

"Kendra," a voice murmured against my hair.
"Kendra. It's over. It's time to let go now. You have to let him
go."

Tristan. He repeated my name over and over
again, like an invocation. The tenderness in his voice reached
through to where I was drowning and pulled me back.

Slowly, I allowed those comforting arms to
move me. His dark eyes, gentle and understanding, gazed steadily
into mine.

I let him remove my arms from Ryder and wind
them around his neck. He scooped me up and gathered me to his
chest, just like that night at Axis so long ago.

My cheek pressed against his shoulder and my
fingers curled around his shirt. I heard the steady, comforting
sound of his heartbeat against my ear and breathed in his clean,
masculine scent.

He was the one I clung to now. He would pull
me out of this darkness I was too exhausted to fight.

Disembodied voices drifted into my
consciousness.

"My God, she didn't even have a
kouperet
!"

"I've never seen such a glow from magical
energy. Did you see it? I swear the entire city was lit up —"

"She hasn't trained with the chevaliers yet
—"

The voices faded into the background as
Tristan carried me out into the cool night air. My eyelids were so
heavy. But I had to explain.

He got into the backseat of a car, settling
me on his lap. Cradling me close, his long fingers smoothed and
stroked my hair.

"He was still warm," I murmured, struggling
to keep my eyes open.

I tugged on Tristan's shirt, willing him to
hear me. "I…I needed to keep him warm."

The words barely made it past my lips. There
was so much more I wanted to say.

But exhaustion had me in its grip, and I
couldn't keep my eyelids open any longer.

Just before the blackness swept over me, I
heard Tristan's voice, soft and pained.

"I know."

TWENTY-FOUR

The blackness held me for a long
time.

I sank in a sea of shadows that swirled
around me like stains of pain and grief. Voices tuned in and out,
smells and sounds occasionally seeping through my unconscious
state. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol as Nexa whispered, "You
found the water." Aubrey asking the Healer questions about my
condition. A cool hand against my skin and the refreshing smell of
grass after the rain as Marcella said, "Kendra. You're going to be
all right."

But when I finally pulled myself out of the
blackness, it was to the sounds of a cello. The haunting music
glimmered like a light far in the distance and I strained to reach
it. I knew if I could just grab ahold of it, it would pull me out
of the dark.

My eyes opened slowly. Bright sunshine
streamed into a clean, white room and I realized that I was at the
school clinic. Chloe, Aubrey, and Cam were quietly talking to each
other in the corner of the room, but they came to my bedside once
they saw I was awake.

"How…how long have I been here?" My voice was
dry and hoarse.

"Two days," Aubrey said. She sat on the side
of the bed, her bright eyes searching. "How do you feel?"

Emerging from the deep miasma of turbulent
darkness felt a lot like dying and reawakening. There was no
physical pain. Just a general sense that my soul had gone through a
battering and an all-over weariness from climbing back.

"Like my insides have been run over multiple
times."

A concerned look crossed her face. "I'd think
so. Especially after what you've been through."

Everything came back in a rush, and I bit my
lip to keep from crying out. Arthur. Gina. Ryder. And…I glanced
quickly at Chloe, who was gently holding my hand. Pale and worn,
black circles ringed her eyes and her cheeks were sunken in pain.
Cam had a protective arm around her waist, harsh lines carved into
his face. Chloe looked so fragile, it seemed like she'd float away
if he let go.