Birth of a Vixen (Shadow Faith Book 1) Page 6

“I’m here.”

  “How are you holding up?” Lucian brushed a loose strand of hair back from my face. He forced a smile. His eyes faded back to their normal shade. The green and grey in them lightened.

  I took a moment before I answered him. There were no voices in my head. Thais wasn’t vying for control. “I think you got rid of her.”

  “No, I haven’t, but I have figured out that you are not as nuts as you may have thought.” He sat up and pulled me up with him.

  “What do you mean?” It was nice to be told I wasn’t crazy, but it wasn’t very reassuring. Why? Because it meant there was something far worse wrong with me than I assumed.

  “Because of the way you killed Thais you took a piece of her into you. She left an impression of herself in you, like a fingerprint, or the remaining piece of her soul.”

  “I don’t think Thais had a soul by the time I got around to meeting her.” No one that sadistic had a soul.

  “Everyone has a soul. The trick now is to get her out.” He studied me like he had in the lounge. That same quizzical furrowed brow and pensive frown.

  “So what you are telling me is I need an exorcism.”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

  I barked a sarcastic laugh then flopped back on to the floor. I forgot that I was naked until the cold tile froze my back, then reached for the fallen towel. I shied my eyes away from Lucian. “How are we supposed to exorcise her from me?”

  “You are going to have to give control over to Thais while still maintaining control yourself. I will do what I can to help you expel her, but this will mainly boil down to a battle of wills against the two of you.”

  “And if I can’t win?” I was already convinced I would lose. It was only after Caelyn beat the shit out of her that I was able to take her out the first time. Physically Thais wasn’t much. Her strength lay beneath the surface. She was a creature of will.

  “If you lose, then there is a very good chance that Thais will stay in control, and you will cease to exist.”

  I respected his blunt nature. I hoped the outcome would be a little better. Even a tiny smidge of a lie would have been nice to hear, but this way I was prepared. “Thanks for not sugar coating it.”

  “If there were another way I would say it but we have no other choice.”

  My head drooped to the side, eyes close. I weighed my options. By doing nothing I would remain the same way I’ve been for the past seven years. That wasn’t really my idea of living. Could I finally stand up to her and take back my life? Then again if I lost I’d be dead. Staying the way I was meant I was practically dead any way.

  “Promise me one thing.”

  “What is that?”

  I sat up. “Kill me, if I lose. If I can’t live then neither will she.”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter 7

  My body ached as I walked into the lounge. All the places Sasha ripped apart had healed more or less. There were still small bruises on my hips. I couldn’t tell the extent of the bruising without examining them further. My eyes no longer burned. My determination to be rid of Thais got me past any lingering pain.

  I had put on the clean clothes Sasha had brought in for me. Now dressed in a blue t-shirt and black sweat pants I sat comfortable, if not a little nervous, on the black rug. My hair fell across my shoulders and down my back in thick, damp waves.

  We sat on the rug in front of the lit fireplace. “There was a reason she must have wanted you to begin with. You have power you don’t even know you have buried deep inside of you. If you didn’t, she wouldn’t have been drawn to you in the first place. You’re strong enough to do this, but you can’t let your natural defenses just work their magic. You have to channel all that energy against Thais.” He took a big gulp of blood out of a white, coffee mug. Then he put the mug on the table between the chairs and sat down in front of me cross-legged. “Ready?”

  “Let’s just get this over with.” I adjusted the way I sat to mirror him. Then I swallowed down any fear, any doubt, and centered myself. I rotated my neck, stretched out my arms and fingers and tried to think positive.

  “All right, I am going to walk you through this.” His voice got low and hypnotic again. “Just listen to the sound of my voice. Close your eyes and picture Thais. Imagine you are looking in a mirror again and seeing yourself only a few short hours ago. Do you see her?”

  “Yes.” Through a mental haze I saw Thais’ silhouette. She stood off in the distance. The harder I concentrated the more solid she became. Then the closer she got. It was a slow process, but in time I saw the intensity of her blue eyes.

  “Now gently tell her it is okay. Convince her she wants to come out. It shouldn’t be hard since it is what she wants.” Distant and muffled his words resounded through the mist.

  I listened to what he said, but trying to provoke her out was more complicated than we first anticipated. I felt her move away from me. She was aware of what was going on and wanted no part of it. I had to work harder to regain the lost ground.

  I called out to her with promise of Lucian’s demise. I promised her all the depraved acts she loved. It was like pushing a boulder up a hill but I got her to come out. Unlike before I maintained a hold on my consciousness.

  My eyes opened and Thais saw Lucian for the first time. “What am I doing here?”

  It was the oddest sensation in the world to feel your mouth move and hear words come out, but not be the one speaking. It wasn’t the fact that she spoke through me that was weird. I saw how Thais saw things and knew what she thought.

  She saw Lucian in a way I had not seen him yet. His eyes were drained of any emotion. Thais read nothing from him. He was a stone statue before us. “You are here because Angela asked you to come here. I saved her life once tonight and will help her take back what you took from her.”

  “You think she can get rid of me with your help?” She snickered at him. It was the small laugh she gave to people she deemed disillusioned.

  “I think Angela could do this without my help, to tell you the truth. She just needed to be shown how.” He did not waiver at Thais disbelief in his or my abilities. Lucian believed we could accomplish the impossible tonight and that belief gave me hope.

  Her playful laughter exploded into near hysterics. “Please, Angela can’t do anything without help.” She sobered and brushed away a fake tear from my eye. Her last thoughts were of the Winnebago flipping. She had thought that all her work had been for nothing. Now she knew that wasn’t the case and this was her chance to unleash all that pent up aggression. “That means that you are my biggest threat here, and I have a contract to fulfill.”

  Thais lunged. She extended my arms and tried grabbing Lucian’s throat. In her mind I saw that her vision focused with the desire of fresh blood. Lucian’s neck looked very welcoming.

  “Stop her Angela.” Lucian ordered me. Though his voice got louder, with a touch of fear, he did not flinch. He remained still and trusted me to save him.

  The fear in his voice hit me deep. I was not sure if the fear was for his life or my own but either way it registered. Determined not to let her hurt him I focused my attention to my arms. They were after all my arms.

  I remembered what it was like when I felt the blood course through those veins. I stretched my consciousness through that memory. My arms felt numb. I breathed out to those lifeless limps and reminded myself that they were mine, not hers. Like a person taking control of a nightmare I took back the controls. Instead of Thais grabbing his throat she clenched his shirt.

  “What’s going on?” She looked at her hands confused. Shock rippled through her like a heated tidal wave.

  “She’s fighting back.” The left side of his mouth turned up.

  “No.” Her rage increased. The angrier she became the more control I gained. Thais became discombobulated, torn apart by her emotions. “No, I made you. You are mine. You’ll always be mine.”

  He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “She isn’t your
s any more.” His pride in my small accomplishment rang through to me. His confidence in me raised my self-esteem. He knew what that meant to me.

  I visualized Thais standing before me and she looked small. I smelled her and she smelled like prey. I tasted her and like before she tasted sweet. I gathered all my strength. I recalled all the pain she caused me, all the tears I’d cried because of the evil she did to hundreds of people in her lifetime, the loss of my family, and all the guilt she made me feel when things turned from bad to worse when she entered the picture. I threw all that bile at her core and smothered her. Then I slashed at her with every ounce of my own pain.

  “I will not let you kill me a second time, you tiny, insignificant plaything. Without me you’re nothing.” Thais yelled at me through my mouth.

  I tried to ignore her. Yet, her words diminished my power over her. Her words cut me, weakened my hold on her. A little self-worth paled compared to a lifetime of being slammed.

  Thais regained some control of my body. My hands slid up Lucian’s shirt inching them closer to his neck.

  “Angela, do not listen to her. Don’t forget you are the one she always wanted. There was a reason she went to great lengths to make sure you were born. There was a reason she needed to make you feel weak. Don’t let her drag you down. You are stronger than this. You are stronger than her. You killed her once. You can do it again. This time you can make it stick.”

  I drudged through the sluggish feelings of doubt. I forced my way to the surface and spoke. It was the only thing I could do. Thais locked me out of the rest of my body. “Kill me.” My voice sounded weak and pathetic even to me.

  He lifted my chin. He locked me in place with his piercing gaze. “She hasn’t won yet. I only promised to kill you if she took over completely. You are talking to me right now with her still floating at the surface proves you can finish this. Now do it!”

  “I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  I pulled back into my mind and recalled the image of Thais before me. I smelled her fear and knew the next step. When Thais sired me into the Vadimas House, her blood, the blood in our line, gave me power over emotions. The wonderful things I could do with fear. My fear didn’t bother her. It fuelled her. She needed a taste of her own medicine.

  I reached into her heart and felt that small ounce of fear. I cranked up that heated emotion to its boiling point. I showed Thais her worse fears come to fruition. I showed her how minuscule she actually was in the grand scheme of things by reminding her Caelyn allowed her to keep her beloved Primus seat in Columbus, how I avenged Kaelanna’s murder, and how a fresh neophyte was the death of her. I pushed at her, forced her out of every pore like a virus sweat out with a fever.

  She screamed inside my head and out my mouth. My eyes bled. Blood ran from my nose and connected with another stream that coursed out my mouth. My eardrums popped. Blood cascaded down the sides of my neck. The room dimmed. A flash of brilliant blue light ignited between Lucian and me. I felt lighter than air as Thais’ soul dissipated. Then a dead weight started in my chest and stretched throughout my body. I heard a distant thud and the world went away.

  Chapter 8

  Fingers gently stroked the hair around my face. I relaxed into the soothing touch. All around me was soft, soft bed, sheets, and fluffy pillows. That warm, safe feeling cocooned me.

  “Morning.” The ginger wind from Lucian’s breath came as a sweet surprise, as did the feel of him laid out beside me. I must have tensed for a second when I woke up.

  “Is it?” Afraid it would vanish I kept my eyes shut. After all, I could use a good pampering. Instead I wiggled closer to him. The softness cradled every inch of us.

  “It is. In fact, this is the third morning since you passed out.”

  My eyes popped open. “You serious?”

  He nodded. His hazel eyes were full of relieved joy and exhaustion. He forced that look of joy when the corner of his mouth quirked up. “You had me worried.”

  “What happened? The last thing I remember is the world getting dark and bleeding a lot. And that light, that was weird.”

  His smile vanished. “You bled Thais out. I think the light you saw was what was left of her.”

  “She’s gone?”

  “She’s gone.”

  I hugged his naked chest and buried my head against the nape of his neck. We rocked under the sheets. Never once had I thought this day would come true. I was free. “Oh holy shit! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

  He chuckled, but it felt forced. “I’m so happy for you.”

  I dropped back against the pillows. He let me hold him at arm’s length. “Yeah, I can tell. You are all bubbly.”

  His brow furrowed, creating deep lines. “Excuse me.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He hid his lovely brown and green eyes behind golden lashed eyelids. “You bled a lot. When you slumped over your head crashed hard against the floor. I can still hear the thud.”

  “Lucian-“

  He shook his head. “I picked you up. Sasha came into the room. She tried to take you from me. I wouldn’t let her. She kept telling me you were going to be okay. When she was finally able to pry you out of my arms, there was so much blood. I thought Thais had taken you with her; that I had lost you.”

  Unexpected much. I was glad his eyes were still closed so he didn’t see the shock on my face. There was no way to hide it, especially with as close as we both were, physically.

  I touched his chest, above his heart. “I’m right here.”

  This time he pulled me in for a tight squeeze. “You almost weren’t.” He said against my forehead.

  “But I am, so it’s all right.” My lips brushed against collarbone as I spoke.

  “Yes.” He brushed my hair back. Then he rested his chin upon the top of my head. Our bodies sagged comfortably against one another.

  It had been one hell of a week. Relaxing into Lucian, and getting a huge sense of how he felt about me, was icing on shit cake. So much had happened since I arrived in Kent, too much to process. As I winded down all of it slipped into place in my mind like puzzle pieces locking with their long lost mate after years of being left on the floor. They inched closer to one another and when they joined all those feelings I had buried surfaced.

  Once again the life I had built was stripped away from me. Sure there were crap times, but there were good ones, too. It balanced out. I remembered playing chess with Guillermo, fetch with Jazz and the mastiffs, and how Kaelanna lectured for hours about feminism and how one properly disposed of body. We joked about that all the time. Or at least I had. She was serious.

  Lucian leaned back. He tilted my chin up. “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m happy. But I feel guilty for being happy and well,” I groaned and sat up. “Alive.” I was grateful someone dressed me in a black nightgown. I would’ve hated being naked. The level of exposure between him and me had gone above and beyond the norm, especially for two people who technically just met. “I’m all discombobulated inside.”

  “Because of your friends?” He sat up and wrapped an arm around my lower back. The blankets fell and revealed his red, silk pants.

  I nodded, unable to actually say “yes”. “This isn’t fair.”

  “Nothing ever is. I understand wanting to get even with the people who tried to kill you. Believe me. However, holding onto this grudge for El Diablo Cebo, ‘friends’ who made you look like that psychopath for their own gain, will only hold you back.”

  The slack jawed what-the-fuck-did-you-just-say look I snapped his way was unavoidable. “I watched that Maarten blow Kaelanna’s head off. Jazz and John and Ransack were gutted by Brutus after they saved me. The back of Jared’s skull was blown out, not that I really cared too much for him, but come on. I don’t even know if Guillermo made it. Sure they were fucked up, but they were family.” I scooted to the side of the huge bed before I jumped out. “For three years they were the only thing that kept me
from walking into the sunlight.

  “And made you avoid mirrors. And to kill. They used you. Their reputation grew every time they brought Thais into a new town, every time they completed a contract.” Lucian slid to the bed’s edge.

  “They died because of me.”

  “They lived off of you.”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “What makes you different from them? You saved me, changed me, helped me get rid of the ‘competition’ in my head, and are going to send me right back into the fray.”

  It was a low blow. The pain that shot through his eyes nailed my heart. After he opened up to me about Selene that was the worst thing I could have said. It did not matter that I told him I was all mixed up inside. He knew what it was like to have your pain used against you, to be used. “Sorry. That was horrible. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Yes you did. It is a valid point. Who am I to judge how much they actually cared about you and vice versa. For all I know your mercenary buddies were…sweet.” He pushed up off the bed. Long gold hair fell across his bare shoulders.

  “They were.” A smile tugged at my lip.

  He took slow methodical steps closer to me. “Compassionate to your needs.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Did you have a lover among the group?” The gap between us shortened.

  I barked out on awkward laugh. “No chance in hell of that. Kaelanna and Guillermo were married. And Jared, well, he was more of Thais’ type. I don’t even want to think about what they might have done.” A shiver ran up my spine.

  “Noted. Would you like to take a shower after that thought?”

  “The hotter the better.”

  “Me, too.” He closed the space between us. His smile was sweet with an underlining hunger. “I’m not used to people talking to me the way you do.”

  “Should I be submissively apologetic?”

  He slid his hands along the sides of my stomach, traced the top of my hips, and stopped at the small of my back. I unfolded my arms as he drew me closer and placed my hands on his chest. He was strong and delicate all at the same time. “Never.”