Cursed (Demon Kissed #2) (10 page)

I felt my eyes rim violet, as I began
to lose control of my anger. I could feel it happening. It was the
same insane rage that shot through me when I slashed down Valefar
after Valefar last fall. My lungs felt like they were on fire.
Every muscle in my body went rigid as if I were prepared to fight
to the death. The tips of my hair flamed deep violet. I could see
it happening out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t know why that
happened some times and not others. Truth was I didn’t care. I let
the surge of power overtake me. The air felt like it was stifling
hot, crushing my body.

I must have looked insane. Someone
near me shrieked, while others pointed in alarm. My guard
hesitated, backing away from me. They were terrified. I could see
it in their eyes.

Now many of the Martis were standing,
and screaming to be heard over the chaos. Julia was standing,
leaning over the oak divider, and screaming at the guard to finish
his job. Al was silent, watching me. The old Martis next to her was
pulling at Julia to sit down and restore order. But, she wouldn’t.
Utter hatred flashed across her face when she looked at Eric. And
something worse appeared when she looked at me. She knew what I
could do, even if I didn’t. And at that moment, I didn’t have any
clue what I was capable of or why I was dangerous.

I acted without thinking. I had to.
There was no time left. The guard suddenly remembered he had arms.
His sword swung backwards, poised to swing down and lodge the
blackened blade in Eric’s skull. I launched myself across the room
at exactly the same moment that the silver sword swung down. The
swordsmen did not falter until my hurtling body appeared in front
of him. During that brief second, he hesitated making his sword
falter mid-swing.

I crashed into Eric, causing his chair
to rock back and crash to the floor. The sword completely missed
Eric and nearly cleaved me in two. The silver sword slashed down my
back ripping the flesh open. Pain shot through my body, as the
tainted blade tore through me. Others were shouting, but it was too
late. Heat surged through my body as the efanotation
began.

My arms were wrapped around Eric, as
we fell and I allowed the heat of the efanotation to overtake us.
The screams, gasps, and chaos were soon muffled by the roar of fire
coursing through my body. I knew where I wanted us to arrive, but
I’d never been there before. And the screaming pain in my back was
making it difficult to concentrate. I’d broken a cardinal rule of
efanotation. In order to move your body from one place to another,
you had to have been there before. Collin once told me he spliced
himself, and separated his skin from his body, because he didn’t
observe that little rule. I never bothered to ask him how to fix
that. I just knew it would hurt beyond comprehension.

As it was, no other Valefar could
efanotate with another person. But, I could when I didn’t have a
fatal wound on my back. While Celestial Silver or Brimstone alone
couldn’t kill me, combined they might succeed. The demon blood that
flowed through my soul-ravaged body overtook me. The dark magic
coursed through my veins. Valefar powers were always paid for with
pain. Efanotating felt like I was being burned alive from the
inside out. I could barely tolerate it under normal circumstances.
The wound on my back made it unbearable. I noticed I was crushing
Eric’s limp body in my arms. He didn’t have any demon blood to
protect him from the scalding heat. And, I knew he felt it. As long
as I maintained contact with Eric, he would come with me, and feel
what I felt—or worse. I risked killing him instantly and splicing
us both, but I had to. There was no other choice.

The heat licked my stomach
making me cry out in agony. Warm blood oozed from my back, stinging
as it touched my sweat soaked shirt.
Catacomb. Focus, Ivy
. Attempting to
ignore the pain, I continued to picture the painting from the book
in my mind; every vivid detail. The angel’s wings. The flaming
swords. The Valefar mark painted on the tomb. I imagined the cool
smell of the earth and the narrow passages that surrounded the
graves.

I clutched Eric harder when I heard
him cry out. I couldn’t stop it. There was no stopping efanotation
midway through. The pain was intensifying and searing every inch of
my body from within. My lungs let out another scream drowning out
Eric’s cries. The cold earth crashed into us abruptly.

I fell face-down in the dirt and lost
consciousness as the pain in my back overtook me.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Pain coursed through my body unlike
anything I’ve ever felt before. My muscles felt raw in an unnatural
way. I patted my arms, checking to make sure my skin was still
intact. It felt like it had been fried off. That was the most
painful efanotation that I’ve ever done. I sighed in relief,
rubbing out my sore muscles, and sat up looking for Eric. He was
lying a few feet from me, facedown into the dirt. He rolled onto
his back and was breathing hard. Dirt streaked his white
shirt.

I slowly dragged my wounded body
toward him. A moan escaped his lips as he tried to move. His amber
eyes opened cautiously and stared at the tomb ceiling. He blinked
slowly, finally focusing on my face. “What happened? Where are we?”
he asked.

Leaning over him, I looked to see if
efanotating caused him any permanent damage. He obviously didn’t do
with it well, but he seemed fairly unscathed. He would have looked
better if I didn’t hurl us into the floor.

Relieved, I breathed, “We’re somewhere
safe; for the moment anyway. We’re under Rome.” In a grave. I left
that part off since it was obvious from the piles of bones stuffed
into the stone walls. I slammed my eyes closed and stifled a
moan.

“
Are you all right?” he
asked sitting up.

I looked up at him. “The blade hit my
back.”

The expression on his face changed, as
he crawled next to me. Slowly I sat up, trying hard to swallow the
pain. He knelt behind me and after a minute said, “Your shirt is
covered in blood, but it’s stuck to the wound. I can’t see it very
well. May I?” indicating he needed to look under the shirt to see
how bad it was.

I nodded, “Just do it, Eric.” He
hesitated. My back was covered in blood. When he didn’t move I
turned sharply and said, “Forget it.”

“
Ivy stop,” he said. “It’s
not like that.”

“
Then what’s your problem?
You’re so afraid of touching demon blood that you won’t help me.
Forget it Eric.”

“
No, that’s not it. If
you’d be quiet for a minute, I’d tell you.” I folded my arms and
stared at him. Bright red marks blossomed in his cheeks until his
entire face was in a full blush. “The blade cut through your bra.
The strap is cut three-quarters of the way through.”

I laughed. “I was slashed with a
deadly weapon and you’re blushing over the back of my bra strap?
Seriously, Eric?” I reached behind me and ripped the strings that
were holding the fabric together. The bra broke, and I pulled it
out from under my shirt and threw it on the floor. The back strap
was covered in blood.

Eric’s blush deepened, but I pretended
not to notice. It was kind of sweet. “You shouldn’t be walking
around, ya know. From the amount of blood on your back, you should
be dead.” His fingers pushed the torn sections of the back of my
shirt apart. For a moment he said nothing, and then I felt his
fingers pressed lightly on my back, and I flinched. “Does that
hurt?”

I shook my head. “Not really. But,
you’re hands are cold. How bad is it?” He moved in front of me.
Eric’s expression was odd. He studied my face and then looked at
the floor, gathering his thoughts. His response was making me
panic. I tried to look over my shoulder to see the wound, but I
couldn’t twist far enough to see anything. “Eric! Tell
me.”

His gold eyes looked up at me with a
blank expression. “There’s nothing there. The wound’s gone. The
only thing left is the dried blood sticking to your back.” I stared
at him for a moment. My finger reached around to the spot where the
wound was and slid over my skin. Caked blood came off in my
fingers, but nothing else. No warm, wet blood. What happened to the
wound? “Well, apparently silver and Brimstone in the back won’t
kill you.”

I stared at the dried blood on my
fingertips. “How is that possible? Where’s the cut? Shannon had to
heal me last time I was hurt. I know I was cut badly. That blade
sliced through my back. It missed bone, but I felt it slice my skin
open. The pain was unbearable. It wasn’t a scratch. And it’s still
sore.”

Eric shrugged. “Part of the mystery of
the Prophecy One. Martis can heal from most wounds, and so can you.
That’s why you didn’t need Shannon this time. You’re part Martis
and your powers are intensifying. You healed yourself. You’re
changing, Ivy. You’re changing into the Prophecy One.” I cringed. I
didn’t want to be the Prophecy One. At the same time, I was still
alive because I was. Eric looked around and then asked, “We’re in
the catacombs, aren’t we?” I nodded. “How did we get
here?”

“
We efanotated,” I said
cautiously. He was going to be pissed. I used Valefar magic on him.
He hated that part of me. Well, I wasn’t going to hide it. Those
dark powers saved our lives. I didn’t really care where they
originated from at the moment, but the former Seeker might have
difficulty disregarding it. I decided to explain when he didn’t
respond. “I can make my body move from one location to another by
thinking about it. It hurts like hell, but it saved us.”

Eric’s brow pinched together as he
stared at me with his mouth open. He was frozen…but with what? I
expected him to rip into me and give me the scolding of a lifetime.
But the tension flowed out of him and he smiled saying, “Then, why
did you stay there for three months? The Martis thought they had
you trapped. And this whole time, you could have left whenever you
wanted?”

I nodded as the corner of my mouth
pulled into a faint smile. “Yeah. I could have left whenever. I
stayed because it seemed like they’d see…Well, I was hoping that
they’d notice that I wasn’t evil incarnate the way they thought.
But, after a while, it didn’t seem like they were capable of seeing
me any other way. It didn’t matter what I did.” I pushed a curl
back behind my ear. “Then I was just staying to research stuff
about Kreturus. I spent the entire time looking for a backdoor into
the Underworld. I planned on leaving as soon as I knew for certain,
but the Martis said I was needed at the hearing. They stopped me
earlier and dragged me to the courtroom. And I wanted to know what
happened to you. So, what happened?”

Eric’s eyes darted away from mine for
a second. When they returned to my face he seemed decided about
something. “They called me back. They initially questioned me about
the battle and sealng the portal. When I repeated that you helped
me, and said I did not act alone, they changed what they were
questioning me about. They shifted to another night, night that I
should have killed you, the night you changed Collin. I stood there
and watched. I did nothing. Shannon was to follow my lead. She
failed to act because of me.

“
Then, tonight the
Tribunal told me your fate—you were to be executed. They concluded
that they had to destroy you before it was too late, and that your
involvement in sealing the portal was irrelevant. The Tribunal said
that there was nothing I could do that would change their minds,
but they had hoped you would try to change mine. You were supposed
to be used as leverage to get me to speak.” He laughed, “That
didn’t work out the way they planned, huh?”

I stared at him with my mouth hanging
open and a shocked expression on my face. I didn’t know what to
say. The Tribunal already sentenced me? Why didn’t Shannon or Al
know about it? And they moved onto other matters, like my ability
to save Valefar, and the one boy that could have killed me, but
didn’t.

“
Eric, why didn’t you just
tell them? You couldn’t kill us. You couldn’t even see what was
happening until it was over.” That night was a blur. I remembered
Eric being irate, but I didn’t remember him being passive and just
letting it all happen.

He shook his head. “Ivy, there was
black mist swirling around you, but not in the beginning. When you
tried to help him, I was shocked. I couldn’t tell if you were a
Valefar or… you. So I waited when I should have killed you. Then
after that, I could have called as much light as I wanted to try
and bust the black mist apart. I didn’t. I just stood there.” He
went to say something else, but closed his mouth instead. He looked
away from me.

“
Why’d you hesitate? Why
not kill me if you thought I was Valefar? Eric, what aren’t you
telling me?” I tried to piece things together in my mind, but they
weren’t coming together. He should have killed me that night. No
questions asked. He thought I was a Valefar. But when he realized
that I wasn’t, I was still The Prophecy One—the girl he’d been
hunting for centuries—and he did nothing. He should have killed me,
but he didn’t. Why not? Especially with the rage that was plastered
all over his face that night. What was with him? Why couldn’t I
figure this out? It made me totally uncertain about Eric. It was
part of his bipolar personality. At least he seemed that way to me.
He didn’t do things half way. His actions were either totally
saintly or inherently evil. I didn’t know what motivated him to act
the way he did. Without that information, I couldn’t decide if he
was trying to help me, or finish his original assignment to kill
me.