Shadow Games Page 8

  “Well now if the shadow demon,” he said pointing his knife at Tarin who was now crouching beside me. “Hadn’t bound you and therefore the Asha Vahisita together to him, that wouldn’t be the case. But now…” He shrugged his shoulders loosely. “What would you suggest?” He asked me directly enjoying my uncomfortableness at being around a supernatural sociopath.

  “Listen to some Nirvana and get over it.”

  “Can’t do that.” Arlow replied continuing our Mexican stand off.

  “Why? What’s wrong with Nirvana?” I smarted at him. “Not a grunge fan?” Arlow smiled at me bitterly and I knew I was in for serious trouble then. It wasn’t anything personal the guy just hated his maker and wanted to kill her and I was kind of in the way of him being able to do that.

  Tarin remained silent and in a flat footed crouch beside the mattress next to me. Ready to defend and attack at the same time. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Arlow bared his pearly white teeth in a clenching growl and raised his knife high and charged forward. Tarin jumped up from down low and speared himself into Arlow’s mid section. But not before Arlow plunged his knife into Tarin’s back shoulder blade causing him to cry out in agony before he pulled it out and threw Tarin off him, leaving Arlow to come at me.

  I did the best thing I could do to save myself. I reached into myself and heaved Asha into being without warning or waiting. This was her fight, I’d felt her lingering around my senses the whole time I’d been awake. She had been push-pulling her emotions and wants on me. It’d made me feel like we’d been flip flopping a lot. When I had started to reading Arlow, she’d stilled in me. She’d let me read him, and she’d taken in all that information as I’d said it and he’d confirmed it.

  But now, right now, she wanted out and I wanted her fore front of the fight. It was like being shoved backwards, yanked back by hand that grabbed my top and then watching something through my eyes, in another dimension all together. It was weird, whatever was happening to me and Asha, it was blending or unraveling, I couldn’t figure it out. Wasn’t sure I wanted to. I watched the body I knew was my physical form, fight Arlow off. But it wasn’t me it was all Asha and I couldn’t even tell if I was inside my own body or on the outer of it. Was this how Asha existed most of the time, like a mist of time, an invisible shadow aurora over my own?

  Tarin flung himself onto Arlow’s back as Asha launched forward towards him and Tarin struggled to get his knife, out of his hands. I felt surreal, Was I disappearing was that it? Or was this what I was like when Asha was in the forefront of me and I was unconcious or inactive in our duality? Tarin growled as Arlow cut his across his chest, blood spurted out freely as a wound opened deeply through the material of his wrecked shirt. But it wasn’t Tarin that Arlow wanted to hurt or cut into. It was all Asha and when he finally threw Tarin free of himself, his focus shifted with a snap of prescision back onto Asha and my barely healed physical body.

  “Give up Asha Vahisita, the mortal you carry has wounded you. You are more than suspectible to me now.” I wondered what he meant by that other than a barely healthy physical form would be easy, possibly too easy to kill. Again. Or you know, this time.

  But it didn’t happen. I felt Asha before she /we did it. Was she using me now, instead of just her own being inside of me? The feeling of fight was beyond survival, there was something incredibly tribal to it and Asha was about to lay down the law to Arlow through the use of fight.

  The sound of skin smacking skin was primal and hard and loud and I felt her anger and power resound through me, but how could I since I wasn’t me? Well, not entirely. There was an ancient power that eminated with each movement of my physical being and it got stronger and stronger each time, my fists and elbows connected with Arlow’s battered body. I saw through my own eyes as he staggered backwards off balance and fumbled to stay on his feet. Blood dripped from his head and teeth.

  Asha shoved me back again, it was like she had a pull on me and she was jumping in front of me to be the one in charge of Arlow’s beating. The last thing I saw before I was shut down completely was Asha grappling with Arlow and the ornate knife in her hand, raised high and poised to plunge down into Arlow who lay on his back, as his hands tried to crab walk him backwards, out of the downwards arc of her swift swing.

  18

  When I came too I was still there, in the shitful hovel of wherever the hell they’d taken me to patch me up from being shot. But I was on my back looking at the roof, well trying to. My eyes felt swollen and one of them was almost closed completely.

  I turned my head slowly and saw Tarin, he looked close to dead, if not dead, blood weeping from a wound that he’d put a hand over. My head throbbed like lightening was charging around and bouncing off the insides of my skull as I winced and tried to ignore the white light ache behind my eyes.

  “Tarin.” My voice sounded hoarse, in desperate need in water, it felt scratchy. Why the hell had Asha let me come to like this? Wasn’t that bitch supposed to heal me? I felt anger that she used my physical body to cope the brunt of a fight I’d never otherwise have ever been in.

  My ribs smarted as I pulled myself across the floor, towards Tarin’s still unmoving body slumped against a wall. “Tarin,” I tried again. I tried crawling and groaned, but moved, slowly and steadily towards him.

  “Hey,” I said finally reaching him and noting the very shallow rise and fall of his chest. “Jesus, you’re mess.” I began to sit up and tried to think of what the hell I was supposed to do to help him. My mind blanked when I stared down at the blood covering his chest and upper body. There was a lot of it. Too much of it. My chest clucheed tightly. “Tarin, wake up, please.” I tried putting a hand under his chin.

  “Look at me.” It was only then I remembered the image of Arlow and Asha grappling in fight and Asha getting the upper hand. I snapped my head around behind me to look at Arlow and instantly regretted the action as pain seared into my brain and I closed my eyes tight, crying out.

  My neck hurt, felt restrictive, my head hurt and felt like it should explode outwards. My body was filled with multiple aches and pains that shot around it. I tried to breathe out, calmly and deeply but couldn’t quite manage it. I didn’t have enough reach in my muscles to turn and see if Arlow was still there, lying there as wounded as we were. But I figured, if he were, I’d soon know about it.

  “Tarin.” I said opening my eyes after a moment and again looking at him. “Shadow Demon.” I watched, waiting for a reaction from him and saw his chest still rising and falling, but slower than before. That couldn’t be a good sign. I pulled myself closer to him, onto him and lifted his lolling head back. I pried open his mouth and ran my fingers over his teeth until I cut them on his fangs they were weapons at his disposal.

  Of course he’d bared them in battle. I let my blood, my truth-sayer blood fall into his mouth. He needed it in his system. I hoped he needed it in his system. Like I hoped he needed me. I let the water of my tears spill down my face, and mix with the other blood and grime on my skin. It was stupid to be having irrational feelings for him at such a precarious time, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling them. Or denying that I had these feeling for him.

  “You need to let me in.” I said to him as I squeezed my fingers pushing my blood out and into his mouth. “You need to drink me. You can trust in me, Tarin. I won’t hurt you.” I heard him gag before his throat worked flexing as it struggled to breathe in air and drink down my blood. His body spasaming once as he tried to remain conscious.

  “That’s it, drink it.” I pushed my hair back from my neck as his mouth clamped down on my finger and sucked on it hard, trying to draw the blood out, while the rest of his body lay still, his eyes still closed. “Let me be your god.” I muttered softly, only it felt like Asha was working my words out and put my neck to his lips that were working on my fingers.

  Arms grabbed me and blue eyes pierced me as he held me too tight in a hold that was not an embrace so much as a form of entrap
ment, not to escape from and his mouth opened baring down fangs on me that sank into my flesh like it was mere butter to melt away. I couldn’t tell if it was painful or not, I was already in a multitude of pain that I didn’t think I could sense anymore because I was at my maximum tolerance level. But I felt my body go limp against him as his mouth buried into my neck and he gulped down all that he could take. My warm blood, Asha’s life force, flowing from me to him.

  What was it I had said about gods? My mind blurred and my eyelids felt heavy. This wasn’t the first time Tarin had drank from me nor was it the first time I’d felt this kind of fevor from him in doing so.

  But unlike the first time, I didn’t feel surprise, shock or even fear. Was it because it was now too late for me to recover from my blood loss? Had I in the end been the one to kill myself by giving myself over, so freely to the Shadown Demon who lay slumped and badly wounded under me? My eyes tried to remain open and move about the room, looking for our common enemy, Arlow but my vision was getting blurry and I couldn’t left my vision to see far.

  Tarin’s mouth remain latched onto me and his hands moved over my body. Down my breasts, squeezing them as they guided down my stomach and between my legs. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t have the energy to laugh at the inappropriateness of the situation. I was practically naked, save a few strips of cotton, and blood coating me. Now was clearly not the time to have sex.

  Still he drank. Tarin’s fangs dislodged from my neck and his tongue slid over the opening on my neck, repeatedly.

  Momentairly all sense of pain, hurt and confusion left me. Then it crashed back in on me and I winced at the agony of my hurt body being so damn deceitful. “Katelyn,” Tarin panted. “Thank you,” his lips kissed my face. “How’d you know to use your blood on me?”

  I let the pain in my ribs subside to a low throb and I tried to breathe without too much discomfort. “I don’t know, I guess I didn’t.” I winced. “Instinct.” He kissed the top of my forehead.

  “You’ve got good instinct. Arlow cut me deep with that thing.” Tarin said pointing to the knife beside us. The knife, Arlow’s horn. It lay just slightly outside of my hand’s reach. Tarin rolled me slightly to the side and I noticed for the first time, that there was no Arlow.

  “Where’s the unicorn?” I asked wearily.

  “Don’t know. I don’t remember much after he cut me. Didn’t see much more than my blood spurting gout of me before I ended up here.” Tarin’s lips rested along my neck again and I tensed. I shouldn’t I know, but I did. He spoke lightly into my ear. “I have to get you out of here, you’re in worse shape than me.”

  “Now.” I agreed with him.

  “And when you’re better,” He said beginning to sit up and move with me against him. “I promise to make love to you, properly. For once.” Tarin moved out from under me and around me. Grabbing Arlow’s horn knife and putting it in his waistband. I coughed and laughed at him as my head fell back and I felt my body drop heavily into his arms, as Tarin lifted me in them, carrying me.

  “Always the gentleman.” I muttered tiredly.

  “Well we did have an agreement, didn’t we? I’d hate to not live up to my end of it.” He replied walking out of room, cautiously ensuring I didn’t hit the doorway or walls.

  I closed my eyes as the movement of him walking and carrying me began to feel somewhat rhythmic. Tarin stopped moving and I looked up at him with a lot of effort, to open my eyes again. He looked down at me smiling broadly. No fangs in sight, just all male, joy. It was a pretty sight to see on him.

  “What?” I asked allowing my eyes to drift closed again. But whatever it was Tarin answered me with I didn’t hear it, sleep was too easy to come and all I could do was fall into it, in his arms and wait for the rest of the world to catch up to us. That part seemed inevietable.

  19

  It was weird to be me again, just me. Asha seemed content to lay dormant in me, at least she had been for the last forty-eight hours. I wasn’t picking up anything from her as I healed.

  Tarin seemed content to nurse me back to health. After the week that was, we stayed close to one another. Wanted to stay close to one another. Something was definetly developing between us.

  Maybe it was due to extreme circumstances we’d found ourselves in and might, still be in for all intents and purposes. After all, running away from a bad fight, doesn’t really mean it’s over. Especially when you find out a pissed off Unicorn is the offspring of a Truth Sayer god, that resides within your physical form, wants you dead along with whoever else set the whole thing that was once your ordinary life, into to topsy turvey mode.

  “You know this isn’t over, right?” Tarin said to me as he sat in front of me, with a drink of hot water for me. “It’s far from over.”

  “I still don’t understand what this is that I’m involved in.” I took the drink off him. Tarin paused and looked at me before letting out a heavy breath with his hand over his mouth.

  “I’m not sure I understand it all either.” He said softly looking back at me with a kindness in his eyes I hadn’t seen before from Tarin. What was happening to us? Was Tarin finally being real with me, was this he real Tarin I was seeing? I wanted to read him to get my answer but automatically stopped myself.

  Doing a reading on someone I was close to without permission, that was rather unethically aggressive and I wasn’t sure I could cope with the fall out of doing that, so I resisted. I needed to learn to trust him and him me, if we were ever going to have a shot at anything between us being more real than the monsters we were prone to being and attracting.

  “The vampire back at Laurundel,” He paused and his eyes dipped off me again.

  “What about her?” I tried to ask gently.

  “So you know you she hired me to find you and kill you. What you don’t know was I was as clueless about you’re real purpose as you were.”

  “Bullshit.” I said directly. “I remember what you said to me the night, you attempted to kill me. You said I was a bigger threat than I realized.” Tarin broke into a huge grin at me then and laughed.

  “I meant you were a threat to me Katelyn. To my heart.” He looked down at our hands together and back up to me. “Believe it or not, I do have one and I am not prone to giving it out to just anyone or often. In fact, if you want to know how many times I’ve felt it’s vulnerability, then you’ve only to look at my family members. There the only ones who I’ve opened it up to.”

  I held his gaze, awestruck by what he was admitting to me. “And then, then there was you. I don’t suppose you know how suprising it is to find yourself wanting to give yourself over to someone else, but fearing it all the same. I mean, you didn’t deal with emoitions in your previous line of work did you? It was all superficial and super easy as a result.”

  “You’re Shadow Demon nature. Shaye said it was based on seduction and deception, so how do I,” I sighed heavily. “Without reading you, how do I know you’re telling me the truth.”

  Tarin let out a light huff of a half laugh. “Of course he told you that. Shaye’s demon nature is based on desire and if he desires the same thing I do, then he’s more than willing to play dirty to get it.” I looked wide eyed at Tarin.

  “Shaye?”

  “Shaye’s demon nature is desire. He was telling you the truth. At least half of it, it’s also ground in deception too.” He held my gaze and I found myself asking because I could not.

  “Tarin what’s your true demon nature, no bullshit.”

  “Passion.” He replied simply. “Which is founded in plenty of deceptive emoitions and uncertainty.” He went on.

  “So when you say demon nature, what do you mean exactly?”

  “It’s what we sense in others and can, how do I put this, facilitate? Excelerate?” Tarin said watching for my reaction. “One look at you Katelyn Pheonix and I could see the passion inside you just waiting to be unbrideled. You just needed the right person to bring it out in you.”

  “And that was you.
” I replied back at him.

  “It’s always been me. I watched you at that party, the way you responded to each person you interacted with, even Shaye. None of them made you feel passion, that only came out when you’re around me.”

  I picked up my drink and sipped at it. “The vampire woman, she figured out what type of Shadow Demon I was when I was younger.”

  I frowned remembering something. Something Asha had found out about Tarin. “She’s the vampire who captured you and your sister when you were fourteen.” Tarin nodded her head.

  “She captured me and Peyton and held us for days. Molesting us both, using my demon nature against me, for her own will.” Tarin dropped his hand away and looked away from me.

  “She raped you.”

  “In more ways than one.” I reached for his hand again and blue eyes locked onto my face again. “I believe you.” Three words I wasn’t sure I’d ever say to Tarin Armadel, ever and yet they had come out as my truth.

  “And because of that, she holds me in fear. Because I know what she’s capable of and I don’t want to experience that again. So when she found me and threatened me with more…” Tarin looked away and grabbed his hands back and slid it through his blonde hair roughly. “I should’ve known, I shouldn’t have given in. I mean, I’m not fourteen anymore, I’m a shadow demon for god sakes!”

  I put my drink down and focused on Tarin again. Talk about vulnerable, I’d never known him to be like this. “She’s made you hate your very self.” Tarin avoided eye contact with me.

  If this was a trick, then he damn well deserved a big fat gold award for acting so convincgly, not that I thought he was, or wanted to think he was. “Then you wouldn’t have been put in danger and pulled into all of this shit and you wouldn’t hate me and want to get away from me so badly.”

  I laughed at him, because I couldn’t stop myself. “Jesus Tarin, you really need to learn how to date women.” He smirked back at me and then let out a small laugh too. How could we not laugh at the absurdity of ourselves and where we found ourselves?