rylee adamson 10 - blood of the lost (9 page)

She gave a slow nod. “Thanks. You do realize I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, right?”

I rubbed a hand over my face. “Yeah, you aren’t the first Tracker I’ve met. You all tend to be like that from what I understand. It’s the Spirit Elemental in you, it makes me unpredictable too. Though to a lesser degree.” I smiled to soften the words. She laughed and a little of the tension between us dissipated.

“Somehow I doubt that. If we’re related, you probably have more than your fair share of a temper too.”

Peta snickered softly at my feet. “That’s an understatement.”

I ignored my familiar. “Yes, but I’ve learned to control it.” Which I had for the most part. Occasionally, it still flared. My guts twisted with the thought of seeing my family after being locked away for so many years and what that would do to my careful control. Likely break it into a million pieces of pissed off.

The sounds of clothing being pushed aside and a stealthy pair of feet made me step back. Liam stepped out from behind one of the racks. I’d never known him separately from the vampire, but I could only imagine the struggle of choosing between the two men. I snorted softly to myself. Who was I kidding? I was still trying to choose between two men, and was no closer to making a decision after years in banishment and the oubliette to think about it.

I touched Rylee on the arm. “If I can give you a suggestion?”

“If you have to.”

“Both of those men are offering you their hearts. Take them. I don’t believe love can be wrong, my friend.” I stepped back and gave Liam a quick nod before turning my back on them. For whatever time we had here in this quiet pause after the battle, they needed to talk.

I had a feeling we weren’t going to get many more of these quiet spells.

“Good advice you gave her,” Peta said.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one thinking about the pause in our journey since I found Cactus standing at the rack of belts, his fingers plucking through them like loose harp strings. “I heard what you said to her, about love.”

I blew out a breath and picked a belt for myself. “I believe it’s true.”

“I love you, Lark. You know that.”

“And I love you too. But I also love Ash—”

“Don’t remind me.” He grunted. “I don’t know if he and I can share like those two over there.”

I looked over my shoulder at the bowed head of Liam and the upturned face of Rylee as they spoke. “They wouldn’t be doing things this way if they didn’t have to, Cactus. What would you have done if I’d taken the throne? I could have married you and had a man on the side. Loving you both, pretending when I was with one that the other didn’t matter, which would be a lie. What would you have me do?”

“I would have you pick me,” he said softly, his green eyes as vulnerable as I’d ever seen them. “I would have you tell me you love me best and that he was just a phase.”

I blew out a breath and let him tug me to him. His arms wrapped around my body felt so right, so good. And in that moment, I was able to forget I’d been stuffed away like garbage for years. I was able to forget the one other man I loved was missing, and maybe dead.

I was able to forget I was supposed to be the end of the Elemental world.

But of all those things, the one I wanted to forget and couldn’t, was when the time came, Rylee’s life would be in my hands. It would be up to me and my strength whether she lived or died in the battle against Orion.

A shudder slid through me and I clung to Cactus as I hadn’t done since we were children hiding in the darkness of the forest on a moonless night. Peta leapt up to my shoulder and butted her head against both of us, purring softly.

“You can do this,” he whispered into my hair. “You are the best of our world because you will do what no one else would even dream of. You know, even now the four families of elementals cower in their homes and cover their ears to the death cries of the humans. You will change that, Lark.”

I pulled back from him and kissed him softly before letting go completely. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Cactus.”

CHAPTER 10

LIAM

LARK’S WORDS HOVERED in the air between them. He reached out and brushed a strand of Rylee’s long hair behind her ear. “Rylee.”

“Liam, what if I fall in love with Faris?” she blurted the question, and by the smell of fear on her, he knew it was already happening.

He expected Faris to crow his victory, but again, the vampire surprised him. There was a softening and Faris stepped forward without pushing Liam back.

“I think it will happen, eventually, when there is no longer two, just one.” His voice waivered as if both of them spoke at the same time.

Liam swallowed hard, and felt Faris do the same.

Rylee reached up. “I’m not surviving this, so I don’t know why I bother to worry about you two.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t going to fail; you don’t have it in you.” He couldn’t help but wrap his hands around hers and tug her closer. Her head still fit under his chin, the same as it had in his old body. She wrapped her arms around him and took a deep breath.

“Maybe, I won’t fail. I have to finish Orion and close the Veil. I believe that much, even if I don’t have a gods-be-damned plan. Lark said it and she’s right. A sacrifice is expected of me.” She looked up at him and her eyes filled with tears. He wiped them away and kissed the trail of tears down her cheeks. Faris held Liam’s tongue, keeping them quiet. Liam would have jumped in and tried to fix it right away, but the vampire seemed to know a bit more about women than he initially let on.

And a small piece of Liam was grateful to have the vampire with him, navigating these new waters with Rylee.

She closed her eyes. “I’m not scared to die; that isn’t what terrifies me. But leaving Marcella does. She’s so little. How will she know how much I love her if I’m not there to tell her? How will she know I would willingly go through everything in my life a hundred times if it would take me to her? The thought of never seeing her again, of not watching her grow up, eats at me like nothing I’ve ever felt, and I don’t think I can do it. I can’t leave her. I know I can’t.”

Her head bowed forward until it touched his chest. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He blinked several times while trying to formulate the right words, but Faris beat him to it.

“You will never lose her, Rylee. Even if you die, you would never be away from her. She would carry you in her heart, and see you in the mirror every morning the same way I carry my sister. You never truly lose the ones you love, and I believe my sister even now walks with me in my darkest hours.”

She let out a sob. “It isn’t the same as holding her when she cries out from a nightmare. Or seeing her off to her first day of school. Or watching her go on her first date with the boy down the street.”

“No, it’s not.” He tipped her head up and kissed her, holding her tightly to him as if his love would somehow protect her from her fears, from the path that lay ahead. There was a desperate urgency to the kiss, as if for the first time she let herself feel it. Their mouths were hot against each other, and if they had been alone he knew what would have happened. Even as it was, his hands found their way under her tank top and slid along her skin, feeling the tremble of her muscles as she leaned into him. A groan slipped out of her, a whisper of his name.

Gently he pulled back, keeping his forehead pressed against hers. “No matter what happens, I am with you, Rylee. You are not alone in this, and Marcella will be loved beyond that of any child in this world because of the people who love you, the people you’ve touched in your life.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. Her eyes narrowed and she snapped at him, “Stop trying to soften this shit, Liam.”

Kiss her.
The thought came over him and he acted on it, pressing his lips to hers. Her eyes softened and she kissed him back, tentatively. A few tears trickled down her cheeks. What the hell was wrong with her? None of this was like her. Tough, yes, that would always be a trait of hers. But not this snapping, lashing out she’d been doing. Something was happening to her.

Slowly, she nodded, and he could almost see the resolve harden in her eyes once more. “Sorry I’m being such a fucking baby.”

He cupped her face. “Your eyes are even more beautiful when you cry.”

She took his hands and gave them a squeeze before pushing him away. “Get out of here, you two. Round everyone up, we need to move.”

The moment was over, but Liam felt the shift in her, as did Faris.

She would love them both.

And they were good with that.

CHAPTER 11

RYLEE

LIAM STRODE AWAY as I reached to the back of my neck and the throbbing ache that beat in time with my heart.

I ran my finger over the bump . . . and it moved.

“Fucking hell,” I breathed out, horror flickering through me followed swiftly by a thunderous roll of fatigue and a sense of hopelessness so deep I knew I’d never be able to get back out. I might as well lay down and die right there. The fatigue was all bound up with an anger so intense I thought I would burst with wanting to lash out at those around me. They were not the friends I’d thought they were.

The emotional pendulum swung back the other direction.

What was the point in fighting if I was going to die anyway?

Blaz called to me, but I couldn’t answer him; I couldn’t see past the blackness that had come for me.

The sounds of my friends around me in the store echoed to me as if from a great distance, and I silently said my goodbyes to them, begging them to understand that I was not strong enough.

Hands were touching me, trying to hold me up.

“She’s not breathing.”

“What is it, what happened to her?”

“I think she’s been demon stung; they must have implanted something in her when the humans mobbed us. Cactus, grab my spear, we need the blade if we can find the entrance point.”

The world as I knew it faded, and I stood on a white plane of sand, wind whipping around my face and lashing me with my own hair. In front of me stood a man with long black hair streaked with white and silver, his back stooped as if he were about to pick something up off the ground.