Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (47 page)

I nodded, turning away from the house of horrors.

Outside the window of the room I was kept in, the world had been covered in a thick, black blanket, but I could always make out the odd tree top, or field of grass. But when Khrane wrenched open the door, we were underground, buried under miles of rock and dirt. The chamber the house sat in was a yawning expense of dark tunnels, their opening so high and massive, I couldn’t even see the tops. The ceiling was a black smear of shadows broken by a round disk of light so bright it was painful to look upon. The blinding shards spilled across a ground carpeted in snow.

No. Not snow. Ivory sticks. They were strewn in all directions for as far as I could see.
A long, thin path was formed from the doorstep all the way into the distance. Khrane took it without faltering. I fell into step behind him.

Not sticks. Bones. Human bones. I wasn’t a doctor, but I recognized enough to know these weren’t the remains of any animal. The leering skulls, the disjointed arm bones, the curved rack of a torso, it was a massive graveyard of horror. Entire skeletons lay sprawled as though tossed aside with complete disregard.

“What is this place?”

Strides long and purposeful,
Khrane never glanced back when he replied, “Home.”

T
he macabre garden of death went on for what seemed like forever before we ducked into a tunnel and left it and the sprawling manor behind. Khrane waved a hand and a small ball of light flickered to life above our heads. It zipped on ahead, illuminating our path through the stalagmites and stalactites dripping from the ceiling and rising from the floors like the jagged teeth of something much too big.

“Why did you take me
?” I asked abruptly, quickly changing the topic before my mind started picturing demons. Being afraid of darkness seemed highly stupid at that point. Yet, I welcomed the distraction.

“
Would you believe me if I said for your delightful company?” He snickered when I shot him a dry glower. “The truth then. I wanted to meet you.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a creature that should not exist. Yet I have been anticipating your arrival for centuries.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“A child with feet in both worlds.”

Something zinged down my spine as those familiar words hit home somewhere inside me.
But I shoved it aside. I was part human. He couldn’t do anything to me. He couldn’t hurt me.

I shuddered. “How much longer?”

He glanced down the seemingly endless tunnel. “Time and space are only a matter of perspective here,” he explained. “We don’t bend to its power, which is why days here are months, sometimes years back in the mortal world.”

That explained why I never saw a clock anywhere in Agartha
, whether I was in Luxuria or Aumon.

“So how do you know when it’s time to do something? Like get up or have supper?”

“Eons of practice,” he replied simply.

“Why are you underground?” I asked, and he looked at me.

“Am I? Or is that something I wish for you to see?”

I exhaled. When people started answering my questions with questions, I knew it was time to stop.
Any further discussion with this guy would only result in a very pissed off me and what was the point of that?

“Your father has truly kept you quite i
gnorant hasn’t he, Princess? It makes me wonder why.” He swung his arms and clasped his hands behind his back. “So I looked into it, into you. It’s amazing what you can learn just by asking the right people, isn’t it? It took some doing, but I think I finally understand.”

“Understand what?”
A better question came to mind. “What people?”

He looked at me.
“Oh, I would never reveal my informants.”

“
They’re wrong,” I muttered, averting my eyes.

“
How would you know? I haven’t even told you what I have learned.” He stopped and turned to me. “Like your mother, for example and how you were conceived. I also know what you’re running from.”

I shook my head. “You don’t know anything.”

“Tell me about the human.” His hand reached out and caught a strand of hair. He curled it around his finger. “The one you care so much about.”

I smacked his hand away
before I could catch my temper. “He’s none of your business.”

“Consider me a concerned uncle.”

There was no containing my disgust.

It must have shown because he smirked.
“Did you know that I can have your father beheaded for what he’s done? All I would have to do is present you to the other members of the Guild.” He pivoted on his heels and started walking. I had no choice but to follow. “They would be horrified. Such a thing has never happened. What your father has done is disgusting, breeding with a filthy human woman. He may as well have mated with a dog.”

“Don’t talk about my mother that way!” I growled before I could stop myself.
“If anyone’s a dog, it’s you.”

He came to an abrupt halt and I skidded to a stop to avoid walking into him.
His white eyes were black and his darkened lips were curled back over his serrated fangs. “Did I not warn you to watch your tongue, Princess? It is not too late for me to change my mind.”

The light darkened above us to spill crimson fingers across
the hard lines of his face. Sewerage and stagnant water filled the cold space with their foul stench, and I was powerless to slow my breathing as I watched the man in front of me watch me back with sparking danger. He pushed himself closer to me and I found myself scuttling back until the jagged walls were cutting into my spine.

When he raised his free hand and reached for me, I flinched, cringing back. But that didn’t seem to bother him as he followed my retreat and smoothed cold fingers against my cheek. He brushed back a coil of hair that had fallen from its pin and my stomach churned. I jerked my face away, barely noticing the crack of my skull ricocheting off the wall behind me.

“I disgust you,” he deduced.

I met his gaze through the riot of curls that had tumbled loose around my face
and barely contained my revolution.

Tendrils of black coiled around the corners of his eyes, but his lips curled up in an almost grin. He grabbed my chin with fingers seemingly of steel and thrust my face up to his. “Oh what I wouldn’t give for the honor of breaking you.”
He skimmed my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb and I had to suppress the urge to snap at it with my teeth. “How unfortunate you have a higher calling and I have no desire to touch a dirty little half-blood.”

Then get your stinking hands off me!
I wanted to snap. He must have seen it in my eyes. The pinching fingers left my chin only to wrap around my throat. He shifted closer, pinning me to the wall with the strong length of his body and I stilled all over, not even daring to breathe.

“
Because of your human blood, I can’t physically harm you,” he growled into my upturned face. His fingers tightened until I gasped. “As much as I wish it, but I can make you suffer, Princess. I can make you beg and scream and…” He bit his lip, that look of dark hunger returning to his eyes. “And not in any way that you will find remotely pleasurable.”

Ignoring the desperate crack of my heart, I met his gaze unflinching. “I’ll never beg you.”

Pointy, notched teeth flashed in a broad, menacing leer. “We shall see.”

He drew away and, without
glancing at me again, turned.

I shoved off the wall and followed him, trying my damnedest not to scrub the phantom imprint of his touch off my skin. I glared at the back of his skull, wishing I could bash it in with a rock.

“Wishing me ill harm will do you no good, Princess,” he remarked breezily. “I have had women much stronger and more dangerous than you cast me those icy glares I feel prodding between my shoulder blades.”

I bared my teeth. “Shocking
that not one of them has killed you yet.”

He turned his head a fraction of an inch to the side and peered at me from the corner of his eye. “
Oh they have tried, but I cannot be killed.”

“Everything can die,” I replied
evenly. “But some are just harder to kill.”

He snorted a chuckle. “
I am impossible to kill, Princess. You will learn quickly enough.”

He gave me no chance to press him as he pivoted on his heels and marched onward. I had to sprint to catch up.

“What do you mean?” I fell into step with him.

Khrane
sighed. “I haven’t been around a mortal in eons, but have your kind always been this frustrating?”

“I’m a special breed
.” I muttered.

“I don’t understand your fascination with
all these questions,” he said, shaking his head.

“Well, you’re the one who claims I’m ignorant,” I reminded him.
“So enlighten me.”

“But you ask such
absurd, human questions and they bore me.”

“Okay, you said I
had a higher calling, what did that mean?”

I expected more taunting, maybe more grumbling, but I did not expect him bu
rsting into a riot of laughter that echoed off the cavern walls like thunder.

“Incredible!” he exclaimed at last. “You defend your father with such vehemence, yet he
has sold you for his own selfish gain.”

“What are you taking about?”

He faced me. “The next time you see him, ask him why he has chosen you to be his next when no mortal can take the throne. Ask him why he waited until you showed your powers to claim you. Ask him why he sent you by car to the border instead of using the nexus, which could have taken you to the moon if you wished it.” His grin blossomed into a full blown smile. “Ask him what he plans to do with your mortal lover.”

“Wait!” I grabbed the crook of his arm when he started walking away.
“What does Isaiah have to do with any of this?”

“Everything!” he bellowed, swinging his arms open wide. “
There is no place in our world for a weak ruler, young princess. There is no place for a mortal. Your humanity…” He slid the back of his knuckles along my cheek. “Is a broken wing holding you down. It must be torn from your body so that you may embrace the darkness caged inside you.”

I jerked away. “You’re insane.”

“Yet I am right. You know I am.” He was breathing hard now. “Your father has played you, stupid girl. He’s blinded you with promises of … what, exactly? When all that time, his grand design was to have you at the head of his army as he dominated Agartha.”

My head rocked wildly from side to side. “You’re wrong.
Ashton isn’t like that—”

“Let me guess,” his tone dripped with malice. “He wishes for you to do a blood ritual, bind your blood with an heir, am I correct?” He smirked when I said nothing. “Ever wonder why, Princess? Ever wonder why Arcarius Blackburn has been a lost puppy at your heels all those months?
Quain has always been a cunning bastard. Clever, joining forces with the new rising power. With you by your father’s side, there is nothing stopping him from conquering the world.”

“No,” I said, but my voice was weak and pitiful. “Ashton w
ants nothing to do with the gateway.”

“And why would he?” Khrane purred. “By ruling the seven regions, he will be the most powerful Sire to have ever lived. He has everything he wants right here with you destroying anyone stupid enough to
defy him.”

“I wouldn’t!” I growled. “Ashton knows I would never—”

“That, my love,” he traced my collarbone with one finger. “Is your humanity talking. Once you have bound yourself to a sin, you will no longer care about little things like compassion and mercy. You will be as cold and heartless as the rest of us.”

My heart was a panicked mess in my chest. I couldn’t hear myself thinking over its wild crashing. I didn’t know what to say, except, “
You’re trying to mess with my head.”

He was suddenly in my face, practically on my feet so I had to scramble back
to keep from getting stomped on. “Your pathetic morality, your human drive to shun things your puny mind cannot comprehend will be the nail that seals your coffin. Don’t be blind, Princess. Open your eyes and see the truth I am giving you because it is the only truth you will ever have.” His blackened eyes thinned to dangerous slits. “I will never have love for the abomination that you are, but I believe your life holds a purpose even if your heart … your real heart is as black and cold and as empty as mine.” His smile was the thin edge of a razor blade. “So go ahead and hide behind your humanity, it is what will destroy your world.”

Chapter 26

The nexus Khrane opened brought us straight out of a lamppost in the middle of a park. I didn’t recognize it, but the entire world was smothered in snow, which wouldn’t have been so strange—it was Canada after all—except that it was May. Snow should have been melting, not building to almost fifteen feet. It was as though British Columbia had been transported into the middle of the Antarctica—and I was in a dress. It had been compacted to ice, otherwise I was sure we would have had to dig our way out.

Turning away from the frozen pond
in the distance, I surveyed the rest of our surroundings.

Thick tufts of
snow drifted down from the heavy, gray wall of clouds glowering down on the ruined remains of what may have been a city. Cold wind bit my cheeks and stiffened my limbs as I surveyed the desolation sprawled before me.

Buildings that had once stood tall and proud were torn
to the ground like a child’s Lego tower. Chunks lay strewn across churned streets. The stench of sulfur, ash and smoke clung to the air. There was no human life anywhere. It was like the world had ended and I was the only survivor.

“Are we in the future?”
I whispered.

The door we’d walked through had been like any other door. It opened and we went from the dank caves of
Khrane’s world to the icy ruins of mine. At least, I thought it was my world.

“Where are we?”

“Downtown Vancouver,” Khrane answered from beside me.

What? No. I was here only days ago and it hadn’t looked like this.

“Where is everyone?” I turned, surveying our surroundings for some sign of life. “What happened here?”

Khrane
shrugged, unaware or uncaring of my dismay. “That is another question for your father, I would think.”

“No!” I
refused to believe it. “Ashton would never have done this. He can’t hurt humans.” But that didn’t mean he couldn’t let them die. Like he let the Tracker die.

Khrane’s
eyes were cold and flat. “Smell the air, Princess. That metallic stench that twists around the scent of blood and death … that is the power of a Sire. Only weeks old, if I’m not mistaken.”

I pushed past him and started in some random direction. I had to get home. I had to find Isaiah.

I calmed myself just enough to try and tap into our telepathic link. If he was out there somewhere, he would hear me. He would find me. I held my breath as I waited for a response.

“You’re going the wrong way, Princess,”
Khrane called after me, interrupting my attempts to contact Isaiah.

I stopped and glanced back
, shaking my head. “I need to find Isaiah. I need to know if he’s all right.”

“He’s not.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. “What?”

He gestured with a fluid wave of his arm in the opposite direction.
“You’ll find him that way.”

Not stupid enough to simply throw myself blindly into what he was telling me, I closed my eyes and tried to find Isaiah telepathically. Silence wafted back through our connection. It was as cold and empty as the wind lashing around us.

Without waiting for Khrane, or even caring that I was in four inch heels, I took the direction he’d indicated at a run. My breath wheezed from my lungs and my gut twisted in knots. I was sweating despite the frigid air tearing at the thin material of my dress. All I could think was,
please, please don’t let him be hurt
, even as I put every ounce of strength into our link until I was sure I would rapture a vessel. Still, not a single word back. Not even a peep. I half wondered if the entire city was destroyed. Was it the whole province? The whole country? The world? Just how much was gone? Was anyone alive?

I was tempted to call out
, but even if I had, the raging winds would have only thrown my shouts back at me. It was laced with serrated blades that lashed mercilessly at us from all directions. I gritted my teeth and hugged my arms around my chest, fighting not to let myself fall. I knew I’d never get up again. My watery, stinging eyes searched for some sign of shelter, an abandoned store even. Somewhere I could stop and think and maybe even get warm.

I spotted an army surplus and bolted for it, leaving
Khrane behind, not caring if he followed or not. The door was locked, which I found ridiculously amusing, but it didn’t stop me from snatching up a hunk of fallen debris and shattering the glass door. No alarm sounded as I crawled inside.

The inside was layered in dust, but everything was still on the shelves as though the owner had simply not opened
shop one morning. I moved quickly through the aisle towards the back where the clothes were kept. I was vaguely aware of Khrane following me inside as I tore on sweaters, gloves, a hat and dry, warm boots. He was watching me when I made my way back to the front.

“You could have asked for my coat,” he said evenly.

I spared him a wary glance. “Would you have given it?”

He smirked. “Probably not.”

Ignoring the urge to either kick him or flip him off, I went to the display cases and peered down at the hunting knives, the assortment of bows, quivers of arrows and other weapons I had no idea how to use. But I took them. I tucked several knives into my pockets, strapped one on each thigh, stashed one in my boot and hauled down a fancy looking sword with a sleek, silver handle.

Khrane
raised an eyebrow. “Are we going to war?”

I held tight to the sword as I passed him and started for the door.
“I will be if anything has happened to Isaiah.” I ducked outside, waited for him to join me. “And my world wasn’t like this when I left. Something did this and I want their blood.” I had no idea where the last part came from, but it just burst from me as though I … okay, so I did crave blood every day, but I wasn’t crazy.

Khrane
smirked. “Ah, and there is the princess I could almost respect. And you claim to be nothing like me.”

“I am nothing like you!” I hissed, wishing I was strong enough to stab him.

“Oh but you are.” I never saw him move, but he was suddenly right in front of me. So close his front brushed mine and I jumped. “I can feel the darkness inside you.” He drew in a sharp breath through his nostrils. “I can smell it writhing like snakes, angry and cornered, hungry to get out.” Darkness seeped through the white of his eyes and he bit down on his lip until I was sure he’d draw blood. “It’s delicious and so wasted.” He bore into my eyes, his breathing making uneven puffs around my face. “You say you’re not like me, but you are so much worse.”

“Get away from me!” I growled through my teeth.

The ravenous hunger masking his features slipped away and he was once more watching me with a contemplative stare.

“I could leave you,” he mused. “Let you fend for yourself.”

I wanted to scoff. He was the last person I wanted watching my back in a fight. But he was the only one who knew where Isaiah was and, as much as I hated to say it, I needed him.

“Can you show me where
Isaiah is, please?”

“
As you wish, Princess,” I heard him say, followed by the very even crunch of his feet.

I didn’t glance
over my shoulder although the back of my neck prickled. I had a monster behind me. I was not pleased about that. But I ignored him and focused on the road ahead.

It was Vancouver, or what was left of it. I didn’t know the city well enough to judge which area of it I was in, but it all looked the same, a ghost town of dilapidated buildings, ruined streets and blood.

The narrower side streets were reasonably unharmed, but once I reached the inner linings of the city, I could see where the real fight took place. Bodies were strewn across snowbanks, or lay face down over unmoving cars. There was a carpet of death in all directions. So many that they covered everything as far as I could see. Men, women, children, torn apart as though…

“It was a massacre,”
Khrane observed helpfully. “They were all drawn here and killed.”

The sword almost slipped from my fingers as I stared at all the innocent lives lost because of me, because I came into their city, because I was a coward and didn’t face Garrison. This was his message to me. He wanted me to see this, to know that I could never hide and if I did … everyone around me would be punished.

No. That couldn’t be possible. Garrison was one man. Yes, he may have an army, but he was a man. He was flesh and bones. He was mortal. He could be killed! Why had no one killed him?

I spun on my heels and scanned the area, looking for the army, the
National Guard, someone … anyone that fought back. But there was nothing except a sea of blood and death. Why had no one come? Unless the entire world was gone.

I rounded on Khrane. “
Which way?”

He jerked his head towards the south. “This way.”

Our combined footsteps crunched loudly in the deafening silence as we walked. Our breaths fanned out and slapped into our faces with every pant. My nostrils burned with the sharp shards of ice flittering in the air. My lungs ached with the cold and exertion.

“Where are we?”
I panted, feeling my legs begin to wobble.

“Not much further,” he replied, looking straight ahead.

We rounded several corners, crossed a number of alleys and left the city entirely until I thought for sure he planned to cross the whole world. Instead, he began to slow his pace once we reached the edge of a forest running alongside a stretch of highway. I was thankful as I stumbled after him through the naked trees. It was no surprise that he wasn’t gasping or panting the way I was.

“What is it?” I asked when he stopped and sniffed the air
.

He
cocked his head and surveyed our surroundings when something in the air stirred. Next to him, I tensed. My fingers tightened around my blade.

“What?”

In a move I never saw coming, he was on me, fisting the front of my jacket and hauling me to him.

“
Forgive me, Princess,” he said into my ear. “But we have dwelled in the shadows for too long. It’s time for a new world order.”

I
was about to ask him if he’d lost his damn mind when there was the snap in the distance and a moment later a lithe figure stepped out from behind a row of trees and smirked at me. I gasped.

“Maia!” I choked around the forearm crushing my windpipe.

The woman was as beautiful as always with her sleek waterfall of ebony locks pulled back in a shiny tail at the back of her head. Her flawless face was dominated by the toxic green lipstick, bright against her white complexion. The color matched the strips in her hair and the spandex leggings on her impossibly long legs. She wore a gorgeous black parka with fur around the hood and boots I would kill for. She was gorgeous and I hated her.

“It is my understanding your Master
and I possess the same interest in this girl,” Khrane said from over my head. “I will relinquish her to you on the condition that I have a moment of his time.”

“
Khrane, no—” He squeezed and I broke off in a fit of coughing.

Maia’s poisoned lips bowed and her brown eyes glimmered with cold triumph. “Welcome back,
pretty monkey. I’ve missed you.”