Emma (Dark Fire) (17 page)

The alien feeling scared the crap out of her! She shuddered in fear. The feeling of overwhelming joy was a foreign feeling. Crap and cuss words, she knew the alien emotion didn’t come from within her. She knew it didn’t! Yet, she couldn’t force the emotion away. The sensation filling her was such a strong emotion she laughed without knowing why.

“I’m not happy,” she insisted, lifting frightened eyes to Tyler. “Why do I feel like singing and shouting? I’m not happy!” Her voice rose with each word.

“Emma, it’ll be okay.” Tyler looked like he was bursting with excitement.

“No, it’s not,” she snapped at him. She rubbed her chest, trying to make the feeling go away. Whimpering and laughing nearly simultaneously, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her eyes drilled into his, begging him to explain what was going on. She didn’t know why, but she knew he would have the answers.

“It really is okay. I swear,” he said. Seeming to give into a silent fight within himself, he wrapped his arms around her, gently rubbing her shoulders in soothing circles.

“You don’t understand. I didn’t want to laugh,” she shuddered, leaning into the security of his arms. Images of him holding her in a meadow flashed through her head. Just as quickly, she saw herself getting on the back of a huge black dragon, while his tail wrapped snuggly around her. She couldn’t seem to separate the two images.

“I must be as nuts as my step-father claims. I keep seeing a dragon. And I swear it’s like someone else’s emotions keeping surging through me. I must’ve hit my head really hard.”

Tyler gently hugged her. “Come on, everything will be okay. I promise,” he said, tugging her through a doorway, into another room. “I’ll explain, but let’s get dry first.”

In the smaller room, warm air swirled around them, drying them nearly instantly. She gasped, tightening her hold on him. He seemed like the only solid thing. She wasn’t the type to fall apart, but the creepy room was the feather tipping the scale into overload.

“Okay, how’d that happen?” Emma demanded, glancing around the bare rock room.

“Um, it’s a drying room,” Jenna hesitantly offered, her own pale blonde hair was dry, springing with curls down to her hips. She impishly waved her hand at them, “I think Tyler better explain the rest. Come on Zach, let’s go.”

The girl tried pulling the golden giant out of the room.

Unmoving, Zach frowned at her. His solid six feet holding firm against the girl’s slighter build, he said, “Jenna, we need to talk first.”

The girl’s heart-shaped face looked very delicate against the boy’s athletic build, but her frown was anything except gentle. She looked fierce. She shook her head and flashed very sharp teeth at him.

Emma squeaked in shock. Eyes locked on the girl’s fangs. She’d heard of people who sharpened their teeth, pretending to be vampires. She had no clue how she managed to get mixed-up with some kind of weird vampire cult, but she was getting out as fast as possible. Drinking someone’s blood was so gross.

“Oops! So sorry,” Jenna said, slapping a hand over her mouth. She shook her head. “Zach, you are so thick-headed sometimes.”

“What?” he thundered. “I am not!”

“We need to take care of the problem from upstairs.” The girl insisted with a firm voice, tugging on his arm. “Come on.”

“What kind of problem?” Tyler asked in a grumble.

Emma held back as he turned toward the door. She wasn’t about to go anywhere with them.

As if reading her thoughts, Tyler turned and gave her one of the sweetest smiles she’d ever seen. “We’re heading upstairs to the gardens. If you want, I can take you to see Keith.”

She snorted to herself. Unless she wanted to stay in the bathroom, she really didn’t have a choice. “Okay, fine,” she said, nodding her head in agreement.

“I take it the problem has something to do with all of you going down the slides completely clothed?” Tyler asked Jenna as he led them out of the small cavern, and up several flights of steep steps.

“It’s nothing we can’t handle,” Jenna said with fierce determination. “You need time with Emma. Why don’t you take her for a tour of the town or something?”

“Jenna, the only time you get this way is when someone threatens a member of the clan. What’s up?” Tyler demanded.

“Clan? You mean like Scottish?” Emma interrupted, which brought a grateful grin to Jenna’s face.

“I don’t understand the word Scottish, but at school we have the option of living in dorms or going clan. Each clan has their own suite of rooms,” Jenna said quickly. Giving Emma a closed mouth smile, she added, “They accepted me as clan.”

“Of course we did, twerp.” Zach affectionately ruffled Jenna’s hair. Glancing at Emma, he said, “We’ve been together for years.”

“Clan means family in the old tongue, but ours is closer than any family I know of,” Tyler stated quietly.

“Yes, we are.”

“I agree,” Jenna quickly nodded, adding her fervent agreement. “We even exchanged blood oaths, but not many would’ve accepted me as fully as they did.”

“I think putting up with my surliness, golden boy’s arrogance, and Kyle’s insane humor is more than enough to quiet that argument,” Tyler argued. Turning to Emma, he grinned. “At least I won’t have to deal with Andrew constantly slathering after you. He’s in a different clan.”

Emma shuddered as flashes of a boyish face pushed through her mind. He leered at her and she heard him agree to push her out of a window. His muffled voice changed into a female’s high shrill tone, demanding her death. She shook her head, trying to make sense of the distorted memories.

She didn’t know she had whimpered until Tyler tightened his hold on her and gently shook her shoulders. “Emma, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Trembling, she buried her face in his shoulder, trusting him completely. That disturbed her even more. How could she trust a total stranger? Images flashed through her mind, going faster and faster. Bubbles? Her face flamed bright red as she remembered him kissing her, and bubbles, mounds of blue bubbles.

“Please,” she whispered, “someone explain what’s going on. Why did I just remember someone talking about killing me?”

“What?” Tyler demanded. The fierce, animalistic growl – that sounded immediately under her ear – caused her to jump in shock. She would’ve run backward, but his gentle hold was like dual bars of steel; they were completely unbreakable.

“Emma, sweetheart, please calm down,” Tyler said urgently, pulling her toward a small shaded garden within the larger elegant landscaped area. Sitting on a stone bench, he kept her securely within his arms.

“What’s the last thing you remember before waking up in the water?” he asked.

She looked at him with wide eyes. He had to be kidding. He growled!

“You can’t be serious! You’re asking some stupid question and want me to forget you growled? You growled! That wasn’t the waterfall earlier. That was you. A real, honest growl and you want me to ignore that? Jeez, are you totally insane? For that matter, where am I?” she demanded, glaring at him. “Did you kidnap me?”

Lowering his face closer to hers, his lips twitched as if he was fighting a smile. “No, Em, we didn’t kidnap you. Now, let’s take this one thing at a time.” His gaze never left her face. “Jenna, if you take one more step, I’ll tie you up. Last time you tried protecting one of us, you ended up facing an angry mob down in Spike Village.”

“He’s right, stay put,” Zach grumbled.

“You’re just miffed, because that same mob nearly shaved all your fur off,” Jenna complained. “Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have gone far.”

“Leave it to a vampire to twist her answer enough that I can’t smell the lie,” a new voice grouched.

A knot of dread formed in the pit of Emma’s stomach.

Walking into the small garden, a brown-haired guy, about the same age as the other teenagers, sat down beside Jenna. Grinning, he slung his arm around the girl, much to her apparent annoyance.

“Kyle, shut up,” Jenna snapped, thumping him on the back of the head. “Emma hit her head and doesn’t remember anything about Tuatha.”

“Oh, uh,” Kyle grimaced, looking a bit sheepish. “Um, just kidding?”

“You called her a vampire,” Emma said, scooting a bit closer to Tyler. She sighed, rubbing her head, trying to remember anything at all. Maybe the girl was a vampire. It couldn’t be any worse than believing in the imaginary dragon that refused to leave her brain alone. “That’s why you insisted she wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t suppose that means the dragon is real as well, does it?”

“You’re sitting beside him, you tell us,” Kyle said with a chuckle, nodding toward Tyler.

“Huh?” Emma blinked in confusion. The garden whirled around her, blurring nearly black. Memories of the last few days came flooding into the forefront of her brain. She trembled in Tyler’s arms as her mind dumped images and conversations into her head with an uncaring vengeance.

“Emma?” Tyler asked worriedly, holding her shivering body as close to him as possible without pulling her onto his lap.

“It’s okay,” Emma said quietly. She remembered everything.

Opening her eyes, she glanced up at Tyler’s concerned face.

She tightened her palm against his wrist. The warmth of her skin heated. His anxiety poured into her, a tight noose around her heart.

She exhaled her pent-up worries and smiled up at him. “I remember.”

At her smile, his unease lessened.

She gingerly felt the back of her scalp. Hitting her head must have given her a concussion. By rights, she should be in a hospital, but her head wasn’t hurting nearly as bad. In fact, the skin felt a bit tender, but the bump was nearly gone.

She remembered her fingers had been covered with blood, yet she couldn’t feel the smallest cut on her scalp. She leaned against him, seeking his reassurance. “Did you lick my cut to heal it?” She hadn’t felt anything, but she’d been really out of it.

“No,” he whispered worriedly.

“Maybe something was left over from when you licked my cut finger,” she said, grasping for an explanation.

She didn’t like the dark, nearly frightened look that flashed through his eyes. “It doesn’t work that way.”

Well, cuss words. Her rapid healing concerned him. It did her too. The only good thing from the whole ordeal was seeing his reaction. Not that she wanted him upset, but he seemed genuinely worried about her. From the raw emotions flowing from him, he was more than simply worried. She peeked at him through thick lashes and he smiled.

If she had wanted some kind of sign that she could trust him, she was getting it by the bucket load. His emotions couldn’t lie. She’d been falling for him from the beginning, but feeling what he felt for her, shoved her faster than what she was prepared for.

She prayed she was not making a seriously bad choice. After hearing Lily sentence her to death, trusting him wasn’t easy.

“What exactly happened?” Kyle asked Jenna, tapping her knee to get her attention.

Jenna shrugged. “I wanted to meet Emma so I went to her room, but she wasn’t there.”

“Jenna was still waiting for Emma when I went looking for Tyler.” Zach grinned. “I wanted to see if Ty passed Morgan’s test on the first try. Anyway, we decided to follow Emma. She went all the way to the Entertainment wing. After a while, we realized she had to be lost. She just kept going in circles. Then we smelled Lily and Andrew. They seemed to be following Emma. We split up, Jen followed Emma’s trail and I used the servant’s passageway.”

Frowning at Emma, Zach shook his head in annoyance. “I told you to stay put. Why did you run?”

Emma inched a bit closer to Tyler. His confusion and simmering anger filled her. Neither emotion gave her much comfort. “I heard Lily and Andrew talking,” she hedged. “Then you spoke with Andrew. I was, um, worried you’d…”

Zach clenched his hand in the smooth fabric of his pants. His lips curled up in silent anger, stopping her cold.

At her small sound of alarm, Tyler bared his teeth and snarled at Zach.

“Calm down, Ty.” The teen’s amber eyes flashed with surprise. Shoving long fingers through thick blond hair, Zach chuckled. “Emma, I wasn’t growling at you. Just at what you said. You’re now part of Tyler. And Tyler is… well, not only Ty, but all of us,” he waved his hand around the group, “are truly closer than siblings. I’d never hurt you. After I heard Lily and Andrew talking, I wanted to rip him in half, but I needed to buy some time since Lily is the Wér-Dragon’s daughter.”

Emma focused on the sincerity in the gryphon’s words; his tone had a ring of truth she couldn’t miss. “It’d be impossible to miss how loyal you are to each other, but at the time, I didn’t know whether to trust you or not, Zach. I overheard all of you talking last night and I knew how angry Tyler was with me. I didn’t know if you, or even if Tyler, agreed with Lily’s suggestion to kill me.”

“Never,” Tyler said vehemently, interrupting her words. Pulling her forcibly onto his lap, he hugged her with enough force to squeeze the air out of her lungs.

“Em, even if you refused me, I could never hurt you, not ever,” Tyler said amid a growl. The fierce quality of the rumbling sound was quite opposite from the excruciating gentle kiss he pressed against her temple. “I was crazy about you from the first moment I saw you, whether you ended up being my mate or not.”

Astonished over his admission, she blinked into his forceful gaze. Deep blue eyes stared back at her. His desperation flared through her, emphasizing the honesty she felt through their link, a tenuous connection that was growing stronger with each passing moment.

A strong sense of yearning wrapped through the wholesome emotion. A white-hot flare of another emotion blazed through him, astounding her. She tasted its brilliant intensity for a split instant then all of his emotions disappeared, sucked away from her in an instant.

Forcing back a whimper, she leaned her cheek against his, sighing contentedly as the skin-on-skin contact made the black hole disappear. Now she knew how her uncle felt. At least, she thought she did. That brief glimpse of intense emotion could only be one thing.

She struggled with herself, not wanting his emotions to sway her one way or the other. On one hand, she knew she could easily fall in love with him. On the other, she feared she already had. Her sense of self-preservation demanded she ignore both theories and protect her heart from future heartache. Mental bond or not, she honestly couldn’t believe Tyler would want a mortal, a mortal without an ounce of royal blood in her veins and even less beauty to make up for it.