Rising Darkness (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 9) (12 page)

CHAPTER 14

Rylee

F
aris kept his
arms around me, twisting me so I was scooped in his arms, like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. I didn’t think it was going to help. I held my breath, counting the seconds. Fuck. We were way too fucking high to survive. I closed my eyes and curled forward, hands over the back of my neck; didn’t have time for much more than that.

Landing hurt, but the pain told me I was alive. Faris took the brunt of the fall, his body absorbing the impact. He went to his knees and I was flipped out of his arms, my back screaming with pain where his arms had been as if they had been iron bars and not bones and flesh. I lay on my belly, breathing hard, grateful I could breathe. Surprised more than anything.

A Harpy claw grabbed me, squeezing me hard, dragging me through the dirt in a hopping motion that made me want to puke. “Stop, Eve, please!”

“No,” she said. The ground behind us exploded. Chunks of dirt flew through the air and a ripple effect hit me like a wave of earth lifting and then lowering me again. Eve did stop, and I rolled to see the female dragon, her body half-buried from the impact of her fall. Right where I’d been.

“Shit, Eve, you saved my bacon.” I jerked upright and then to my feet. “Faris, did—”

“Marco grabbed him. We all made it, even if we’re a bit worse for the wear.” She fluttered her wings, drawing my attention to burnt edges of her pinion feathers. When did that happen? We were lucky. Two dragons too cocky for their own good. No, that wasn’t true. The demons were cocky. I had a feeling if it had been true dragons we might not have survived, but the demons wouldn’t know how to be a dragon. Not really.

Eve ducked her head. “Marco and I won’t be able to fly right away. A day or so is what we need to heal. Maybe less if we’re lucky.” She flicked the tip of one wing toward the three boys and Berget. Marco’s right wing hung at a bad angle. Like bent in the middle where there was no joint. I winced. “I have to exchange blood with Faris, then I will Track the Great Wolf. I can confirm the direction for you then.”

She bobbed her head and I limped toward the others. There seemed to be a rather heated conversation going on that escalated into a pushing shoving match between Faris and Alex, of all people.

The werewolf lunged, his teeth just missing Faris’s thigh. The vampire stepped back and I saw the intent.

“Don’t you dare touch him, Faris!” I broke into an awkward jog that jarred every bone in my body.

Faris took a step back, his body stiff. “I will not play bottom of the pile to a submissive.”

I rolled my eyes and came to a stop between them. “I’m not asking you to.”

Berget’s eyes met mine and she gave a slight shake of her head. Later. She mouthed to me. Great. What else could go wrong?

Time to give everyone a job. “Alex, do a sweep of the area, make sure we’re safe and see if you can find a road or something.” He closed one eye and peered at Faris, snorting softly before he walked away. Of course, he couldn’t leave it at that. He had to kick dirt with his back feet at Faris as he trotted away. The dirt hit Faris’s pants legs. He looked at me and I shrugged. “What do you expect? You’re trying to take over Liam’s place, and Alex fought for me when Liam first stepped into my life. You aren’t even a wolf to take over as an alpha. Of course he doesn’t like you.”

I looked around for a spot to do the blood exchange, somewhere we weren’t alone but that I didn’t have to stand. My back was fucking killing me.

“Just come here,” Faris reached for me and pulled me toward him, being surprisingly gentle. Before I could say anything his fangs were in my neck and he was drinking me down. His fingers traced the lower edge of my spine, the places that ached as if he knew just where I hurt. Each touch soothed away the bruises, the breaks in the skin, the tendons and muscles that had been pulled. Liam’s scent, that clean woodsy smell, a hint of wolf musk under it that I would always associate with him curled around me, and I breathed it in deeply. Filled my lungs with it as if I could hold it there.

His mouth un-suctioned from my neck and traveled down to my collarbone, biting at the edge without breaking the skin. His fingers dug into the bottom of my ass, pulling me against his body.

Liam. All I could see was Liam, his golden eyes above me. Couldn’t think of anything except the building pressure in my lower region and then a sense of horror. This was Faris, not Liam. Shit. I was
not
going to climax from this. I was not.

Oh, fuck. I jerked away from him as the peak reached for me. Falling to my knees, I slapped a hand to my neck, staunching the blood flow as well as hiding the struggle I had to breathe normally.

Faris let out a groan, leaning forward with his hands on his thighs. The way he shifted his legs, I knew his pants were suddenly too tight. He lifted his eyes to mine. “You’re killing me.”

“Good,” I whispered. I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. I closed my eyes, the images of the two men merging inside my head. Liam’s soul. Faris’s body. Even now, Liam’s essence called to me.

“Rylee, you still have to take my blood.”

Damn, I’d conveniently forgotten. He dipped his mouth to the crook of his elbow, cutting his skin with his fang. Jaw tight, I took his arm and put my mouth over the shallow cut. Vanilla ice cream, smooth and velvety, rolled down my throat.

“It isn’t chocolate for you, is it?” His voice was in my ear and I shook my head. I had to take at least a couple of minutes’ worth of blood for it to be enough, and after how quickly the first batch had worn off, I was going to take more.

Which kept me in rather close proximity to Faris after that almost-sex. Almost-sex, how did that even happen? Faris kept his free arm around my waist, his mouth at my ear.

“I wouldn’t have left you, Rylee. I would have found a way to close the veil and keep both you and the child safe.”

His words were a slap and I backed away from him, my mouth hanging open. “Don’t you say one more fucking word. Not one!”

He smiled at me. “It’s the difference between me and him. He’s a martyr. I’m a survivor. You would never lose me.”

I pulled a sword, hating that my hand trembled. “I mean it. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

His eyes flared gold for a moment before the color was quelled by the blue once more. Liam was in there, but for how much longer? I turned my back on him and strode away.

“Alex. Let’s get our asses out of here.” I set a thread to Track the Great Wolf. He was to the south about fifty miles, and I told Eve where he was. She gave me a sleepy bob of her head and then tucked her head under her wing.

If we moved fast, we could make it to the Great Wolf before the day broke and we had to find a hiding place for the two vampires. Berget placed herself beside me as we walked. Alex led, and Faris pulled up the rear, way back. I refused to think about what happened and the things said. Refused.

Berget touched my hand. “You have blood on your mouth.”

I swiped at it angrily. “I won’t exchange blood with him anymore. I don’t care what Doran or that ass hat back there thinks about you.”

“You can’t swap who you exchange with partway through. It can do crazy things to your head. For some people, it makes them suicidal.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Of course I can’t.” I had to try three times before I got my sword back in its sheath. My body was fine, healed from the injuries with Faris’s blood coursing through my veins. But my heart . . . damn, every time I thought things were better, that I could move forward, I’d get my heart jabbed again.

Like a freaking piñata.

“My parents, I asked them about the situation with Faris and Liam.”

I glanced at her, noted she wasn’t looking at me at all, her eyes unblinking. Crap, that wasn’t a good sign. “And? Did they have something helpful?”

“They said that Faris is wrong. That Liam won’t just leave him when the veil opens.”

From behind us came a low laugh from Faris. “They aren’t necromancers, they don’t know this.”

Berget glared over her shoulder at him. “They aren’t, but they owned a few over the years. Your father being one of them.”

The tension rose about a hundred notches with that little bombshell. Awesome.

“Let her finish, Faris. She isn’t them, you know that.” I stopped him before he could start. I hoped.

Berget shrugged. “They just said they’ve seen something like this before. I guess this isn’t the first time the veil has been temporarily shut down. They said if Liam’s spirit is still in Faris when the veil opens, they . . . they could be stuck together forever.”

I stared ahead, at the dark trees and shrubs we walked past, mere shadows in the night. Alex bounded here and there, the silver tips of his coat gleaming, but all I could see was a future where any chance at being with Liam would include Faris. Could I do that? Even as it was, this could still be considered temporary.

“Fine by me.”

We both stopped and turned to look at the blond vampire, his hair all but glowing in the starlight.

“It is?” I didn’t understand, didn’t he want to have his body back to himself.

He gave me a slow smile. “If I keep Liam, you’ll never be able to truly separate yourself from me. You’ll finally be mine in truth.”

My jaw dropped open and a black and silver shape hurtled out of the night. “NOOOOOOO!” Alex howled as he tackled Faris. They rolled over and over, the dirt and bushes dug up as they wrestled for dominance.

“Faris, don’t you hurt him! One fucking hair missing and I will take your head!” I ran toward them but couldn’t get between them. Claws, teeth, fists, and feet slammed into one another. How the hell was I going to get them to stop?

“Liam!” I shouted his name and the air around us shifted. He was here, it would be okay. I had to believe.

He forced himself to the surface of the vampire, shoving the bloodsucker’s soul back. Lifting his hands from Alex’s neck he rolled to a crouch, breathing hard. “Easy, Alex. Easy.”

“Boss?”

“For the moment.”

Slowly, he lifted his eyes to Rylee’s. Damn, she was as beautiful as ever and he itched to touch her. But he saw the hesitance in her stance, the desire and the fear warring within her. Faris and his games were messing with all three of them.

“Liam, you have to go. If you stay with Faris, you’ll be trapped in his body. For as long as he’s alive.” Rylee held a hand out to him, then slowly let it drop when he didn’t reach back for her. Gods, how he wanted to, though.

Inside his head, Faris raged.
Let me the fuck out, wolf!

He pushed the vamp even further back. “I don’t know how to go, Rylee. Would you really not want me here?” He knew he’d made mistakes, knew he’d gone about things the wrong way, and cursed himself every moment for it. But he couldn’t believe she was so angry with him that she wouldn’t want him close.

“If I have to share this body with the vampire until the ends of time, to stay by your side until you don’t need me anymore, then that is what I will do.”

Her eyes filled with tears and he couldn’t stop himself. He stood and pulled her into his arms, breathing in everything she was. Her strength, her love, her fear, her courage. “You can do this, Rylee. You don’t need me. I’m not as strong as you. I can’t let you go, even though I made the choice.” He brushed her hair back and smiled down at her.

Her eyes swirled with her thoughts and he knew what she was thinking. After all, he’d been there when Faris had bit her. “Don’t worry about it. In the end, it will work out. And if it’s not okay, it isn’t the end. Trust me.” He kissed her forehead and stepped back before Faris took control again. He didn’t want the vampire to realize he could break through. Better for him to think Liam was stronger.

Far better than the truth: that if Faris really wanted Liam out, then there would be no fight. Liam would have to go and Rylee would be without him.

Again.