Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) (18 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

“You hold the blade like this,”
Adrian explained, as he expertly showed me how he wrapped his fingers around
the hilt.

“Like this?” I tested, trying to
force my hands to mimic his movements.
 
Apparently I wasn’t doing it very successfully, because I caught him
trying to suppress a smile.

“You’re holding the blade like
you’d hold a fork.
 
It needs to be more
firm, like this.”
 
He put his hand over
mine and guided my fingers to the proper places.
 
I inadvertently tensed when he took a step
closer.
 
I was sure he noticed, because
he immediately backed away.
Damn it.

“That’s right,” Adrian said with
satisfaction.
 
“Now you’re going to need
to throw it.
 
I’ll show you how first,
and then you’ll try, okay?”

“Okay.”
 
I definitely liked throwing knives better
than having them thrown at me.

He drew his hand back and thrust
the blade into the closest tree.
 
It sank
into the wood with a thud.
 
Something
about the way he moved gave me chills.
 
It all seemed so familiarly dangerous.

He rolled up his sleeves and looked
at the tree with satisfaction.
 
“Your
turn.”

“Okay.”
 
I gripped the knife tighter. The cold metal
bit into my skin, and for a second I glimpsed my reflection in the blade.
 
Just holding the knife left a dull, sick
feeling in my stomach.
 
I didn’t want it
in my hands anymore, so I tried to throw it at the tree, the way I had seen
Adrian do it, but it just bounced off the bark and hit the ground.

“That was a good start.
 
Let’s try it again, but this time with more
force,” Adrian commented.

I grunted in response and picked up
another knife from the ground.
 
I drew my
arm up to strike, but just as I was about to throw the knife, dreams of my
mother with a blade at her neck flooded my mind, and I dropped the knife with a
startled gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Adrian moved toward
me in alarm.

“Nothing, sorry.
 
The blade slipped.
 
I’ll try again.”
 
Get it
together, Amber
.

I grabbed blindly for another
knife, but it just made me feel sicker, so I threw it toward the tree without
thinking.
 
It missed the target by ten
feet and sailed off in the wrong direction.

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Is everything okay?” Adrian
inquired.
 
“You seem distracted.”

“I’m fine.
 
This has never happened before.
 
I just need a minute.” I pressed my palms
into my eyes, took deep breaths, and counted to ten.
 
It was what my sister and I had learned to do
when memories of our parents became too overwhelming.
 
I slowly removed my palms from my eyes and
found Adrian in front of me, scrutinizing me carefully.

“You’re not fine,” he
concluded.
 
“You can tell me, you
know.
 
I wish you would trust me.”

“I do trust you,” I blurted almost
too quickly.
 
“But, I’m messed up and I
have a lot to deal with, and I don’t want you to have to deal with any of
this.”

Adrian’s eyes softened.
 
“You’re not messed up,” he emphasized
slowly.
 
“You may be complicated, but
you’re not messed up.
 
And don’t worry
about what I can and can’t deal with.”

I forced myself to laugh a
little.
 
It rattled like broken glass in
my throat.
 
“Okay, but let me know when
things start getting too much for you.
 
You know how I told you my parents died?”

Adrian nodded.
 
“Yes, I remember you told me your mother
died.”

“She and my father died in New York
earlier this year.
 
They’re journalists,
you see – or they were – and they were doing a month-long project on the
homeless population in New York City, or something.”

Adrian’s brow furrowed and he
seemed to turn a shade paler, but he didn’t interrupt.

“Anyway, they were murdered –
stabbed to death by a crazy psychopath who was probably homeless and will
probably never be caught.”
 
I closed my
eyes to keep the stinging tears from leaking out. “It’s been a lot to deal
with.”

“That’s why you’ve been having
trouble with the knives,” Adrian murmured.

“Probably, yeah.”

“Do you have any pictures of
them?
 
Your parents, I mean.”

It was an odd question to ask, but
I didn’t say anything.
 
“Yeah, actually,
I think I do.”
 
I got my phone out of my
pocket and navigated to the back of my photo album.
 
I hadn’t cleared it since they had died.
 
“Here.”

Adrian took the phone from my hand
and stared at the picture of my parents and Heather.
 
I had taken it that summer when we were
hiking – it was the last picture I had taken of them, I realized.

Adrian wordlessly handed the phone
back to me.
 
He looked shaken.
 
What I had told him must have really affected
him.
 
I was afraid the family tragedy
would have been too much for him to handle, and I instantly regretted telling
him.

“We’re all doing better now,
though.
 
Matt – my brother – was able to
get a book deal through my parents’ company.
 
I think it was because they felt guilty that my parents had died on a
business trip.
 
But at least that means
Matt can stay with us now.
 
Dylan’s
really been helping too,” I said, trying to change topics.

“Has he?” Now Adrian seemed
distracted.

“Yeah, I’ve known him since we were
kids.
 
Our families were really
close.
 
I think of him like another
brother.”

“A brother?” Adrian repeated.

“Of course.
 
What did you think?”

“Nothing.
 
It’s just, people have been saying – you know
what, it doesn’t matter.
 
You should
probably go home, take some time to recover.”

“No!” I objected much too
adamantly.
 
“I want to stay,” I said in a
calmer voice.
 
“Please.”

Adrian looked me up and down
carefully, as if to assess what I would be capable of.
 
“Alright, but no more knives for today.
 
Arisella’s probably returned from her patrol
by now, so she will help you with the change.”

I frowned.
 
I wasn’t quite so sure I wanted to stay
anymore.

“But I’ll be watching, so don’t
worry.
 
I’ll keep Arisella from hurting
you.”

The sliding glass door opened and
Arisella stuck her head out.
 
“I heard my
name?”

“You’re up,” Adrian announced,
directing his attention toward his sister.
 
“But you’re only working on the change, that’s it.
 
No knives.
 
No hand-to-hand combat.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Arisella
whined in disappointment.

“I’m serious,” Adrian growled at
his sister. He sat down on the grass by the tree and stared off into the
distance.
 
He seemed to be lost in
thought.
 
Hopefully not too lost.
 
I did need him to watch Arisella.

“Okay, I’ll teach you how to
change,” Arisella sighed.
 
She glided
directly in front of me, so that I was staring straight into her eyes, and I
couldn’t look away.
 
“But we’re going to
take it slow, so tell me if you get tired or if you start feeling sick.”

My lips tilted upwards.
 
“Showing me mercy, for once?”

“Just empathy,” she said without
emotion.
 
“Now, tell me what you were
doing every time you changed.”

“Wha-?” I stumbled, taken aback by
her sudden seriousness.
 
She rolled her
eyes impatiently.
 
“Um, the first time I
was attacked by a caecus, the second I was attacked by you, and the third –
well, I didn’t actually change a third time.
 
I thought I would, but I didn’t.
 
I was in the woods, and I thought Dylan was another caecus.
 
But he wasn’t.”

“Interesting, you almost killed
your human,” Arisella snickered.
 
“Well,
every time, you thought you were in danger.
 
More specifically, you thought you were going to die.
 
So when we’re practicing the change, you’re
going to have to replicate these feelings of danger without the actual
danger.
 
Do you understand?”

“Yes?”
 
How did you just replicate feelings?
 
That seemed a lot harder than hitting a
target with a knife.

“Think of a memory, a strong
memory,” Arisella suggested.

“Oh, now this sounds cliché,” I
muttered disappointedly.

Arisella scowled.
 
“Screw cliché.
 
Just do it.
 
Memories are going to be your strongest trigger for emotions.”

“Fine.”
 
I closed my eyes and thought back to the
first time I had changed, the way I had felt when the caecus pinned me into the
wet mud, under the stench of rot and death, as it dragged a long nail down my
torso…

But I didn’t feel afraid
anymore.
 
I just felt… angry.
 
My body did nothing -- no quivering,
breaking, doubling over in pain.

“It’s not working.”

“Try a different memory,” Arisella
suggested.
 
“You may have to run through
a few.”

The next time, I envisioned
Arisella launching knives at me, laughing at my inability to escape.
 
I shivered with rage and willed the change to
take me.
 
But still, nothing happened.

“It’s not working,” I groaned.
 
“Those were some of my most painful
memories.”

Arisella smiled evilly. “I guess we
could just make some new, more painful memories for you.”

“NO!” Adrian and I both shouted at
the same time.
 
Good, so he was paying
attention.

Arisella threw her hands up.
 
“It was a joke!”

I eyed her suspiciously.
 
“What’s the memory you use?”

“The time I found my mother in her
chambers, and I discovered that my father had killed her,” Arisella
shrugged.
 
“Rage is my trigger.”

God, how could she talk about her
mother’s death so indifferently?

“And fear is my trigger,” I
muttered.
 
Rage would have been
easier.
 
I thought back to the way my
mother had died, and my hand went to her pons out of habit.
 
She had been wearing it the night she died --
when she had been stabbed in a cold, dark alley by a stranger with a
knife.
 
I squeezed my eyes shut and put
myself into my nightmare.
 
But this time,
instead of observing her, I
was
her.
 
I was the one being followed by the
ebony shadow.
 
I was the one he took by
the hair and shoved mercilessly to the ground.
 
I was the one whose neck he plunged the knife to.
  
I was the one who died.

And I felt helpless, terrified, and
alone.
 
It was all so vivid, and I became
trapped in the terrors of my own mind, unable to find my way out.
 
The scene kept replaying in my head, like a
nightmare, only I couldn’t escape it by waking up.

I barely even noticed that I had
fallen to my knees, or that I was in agony.
 
This time when I changed, I felt more desensitized, like my bones were
liquefying and reforming rather than breaking and being put back together from
the shattered pieces.

When I opened my eyes, I felt
heavier and closer to the ground.
 
I was
alarmed to discover that I had lost the physical ability to stand upright.
 
I stared down at what should have been my
hands, and found paws.
 
I was
anatomically armed with claws I could extend and retract, not to mention that I
was covered in a dense layer of black fur.
 
Like a body-length sweater, I felt it on my face all the way down to my
tail.

Hold on.
 
A tail!

I flicked my tail around fluidly in
amusement.
 
I would enjoy having a tail.

I directed my attention back to
Arisella, who was staring at me openmouthed.
 
Behind her, Adrian seemed awestricken as well.

“She’s…” Adrian began.

“Beautiful,” Arisella breathed,
grinning.

I felt shocked.
 
I would have been willing to bet money that
“beautiful” was not one of the words Arisella would have ever used to describe
me.

I tried to open my mouth to say
something in response, but only a strange, deep rumble emerged.

“You won’t be able to keep the
change long, so we have to hurry.
 
Wait
here.”
 
Arisella ran into the house,
leaving me alone with Adrian.