Cursed (Demon Kissed #2) (7 page)

I rounded the corner, and cut through
another courtyard that smelled sweet with winter flowers. This was
the fastest way to the library. The guard closed in on me as we
approached a Martis. The woman sneered at me as we passed.
Considering that the Martis were supposed to be good guys, most of
them were awful. It didn’t dawn on anyone that I was still human,
and in possession of my ravaged soul. No one remembered that I
still had angel blood flowing through my veins, and that I should
have been their sister Martis. No. Instead, they viewed me as an
abomination and made sure I knew it.

I stared at the Martis as I passed,
refusing to let her get the better of me. I was leaving soon. The
Martis wouldn’t chase me into the Underworld. I’d ditch the guard,
and finally be on my way to rescue Collin. It’d been so long that I
was sure he thought I wasn’t coming.

His blue eyes and soft
touch raced through my thoughts, causing my stomach to stir. The
night he saved me, and took my place, he said words that I’d never
forget—
I love you
. I didn’t respond at the time. I said nothing, watching him
fall inside the pit, taking my place.

I suck.

I kicked open the library door, my
mood turning darker. The guard scribbled something on his pad
behind me. I turned to him irritated, “Oh, and you guys never get
mad, and kick a door, right? You’re always perfect all the time.”
They said nothing, not acknowledging that I spoke.

They sucked, too.

I walked into the room. Massive walls
stretched to the ceiling covered in whitewash, thick wooden shelves
with thousands of books and ancient texts went all the way to the
top. The room was gleaming white. I had no idea how they kept
everything so clean. The floors, walls, ceiling, bookcases—all of
it was pristine, like it was brand new despite its age. The
impossibly high books on the top shelves were so far out of reach
that I wondered if anyone ever read them. Each shelving unit
stretched from floor to ceiling in no apparent order. There was no
card catalogue or computer to look stuff up. I had to have a Martis
get me the things I needed. There was a lady assigned to me, Casey,
who seemed to live here. She never went home. I looked around the
room for her, assuming she was lost in the stacks somewhere. I
walked over to her desk, leaned on it and waited.

After a few minutes, I slid up onto
her desk to sat down. There were no cushy chairs up here to wait,
and if I wandered around without her, I got scolded. Despite the
fact that I loathed most of the Martis, Casey wasn’t so bad. I
dangled my legs off the side of her desk, wondering how long she
would be. The Martis had records, books, and texts going back to
the beginning of time. Or at least that was what Julia said. This
vault connected underground somewhere with the archives at the
Vatican—the place Julia worked when she wasn’t trying to kill me. I
was certain my trial dragged on because of her, although no one
would confirm it. That woman hated me from day one, and that was
when she thought I was a Martis.

The Martis Dyconisis knew how
everything was filed in this room and exactly where to find it. The
Martis were split into three groups based on their abilities and
powers. There were Seyers, Dyconisis, and Polomotis. The Dyconisis
were healers and handled the law. They also deciphered the Seyers’
visions for the Martis. Apparently, they were also hardwired to
retrieve books in a library that was the largest I’d ever seen. It
was weird. There was no computer, no file, no nothing that even had
a record of which books they owned.

The Dyconisis just knew.

I heard Casey approaching behind me
with her quiet librarian voice. That was something that transcended
cultures. I slid off her desk and turned around, shocked at who was
with her. Casey turned to a small desk across the room, holding
three small books. She placed the books on the little desk, and
turned up the flame of an overhead lamp. She gave directions to the
Martis, and as she spoke, he turned and looked up at me.

I started at him, saying nothing, not
revealing the betrayal I felt. When Shannon said they were to
summon Eric, I didn’t realize they already had. I felt my teeth
sink into my lip, as I bit down to try and remain stoic.

I don’t know why my anger with Eric
didn’t surface the last time I saw him. Maybe I was too shocked to
notice. Maybe I couldn’t feel the depth of his betrayal until now.
Life is like that sometimes. You sit there and stare, blank-faced
and horrified, but utterly unable to respond.

Eric turned back toward
Casey, nodding. He slid into the chair, and flipped open the book,
ignoring me. I don’t know what I wanted him to do, but that wasn’t
it. It confirmed the feeling that he used me, and betrayed
me.
Dirty blood
,
he’d said.
Abomination
. I started to walk towards him with sharp words cascading
into a symphony of screams in my mind, but Casey approached me. Her
petite figure and perfectly cut blonde bob would toss me out if I
picked a fight. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself. I needed my
books first. There would be time to scream at Eric
later.

“
Yes, Miss Taylor?” Casey
asked, always polite. She dressed in pastels, always
pastels.

“
I need books on the
catacombs,” I said. The movement was miniscule, but it was there.
She flinched. I looked at her round face and brown eyes. She never
responded like that before no matter what I asked for.

Her pretty pink smile faltered, “The
Roman catacombs? What specifically are you looking for? There are
hundreds of texts about them; everything from lineage to
architecture.”

Oh crap. I didn’t plan on telling her
anything. The more information I fed the Martis, the longer I made
my noose. There was no doubt in my mind that if the trial didn’t
turn out the way Julia wanted, then she would find something else
to hang me with. I needed to think of something fast, but I didn’t
know what to say.

Eric spoke over his shoulder. “Bring
her the oldest texts you have. She’ll want all four.” Then he
turned back to his desk. Casey looked at me for confirmation with
an eyebrow raised. I nodded, and she trotted off, down the aisles
of towering shelves.

I stepped closer to Eric, wanting to
ask him what he knew about Apryl’s death. All the information was
there in his head. The memories were trapped behind his eyes. All I
had to do was ask, but I couldn’t. I wanted to know what happened
to my sister, but I felt conflicted. Did I really want to know what
happened to her? What if I couldn’t handle it? Would it throw me
back into my past? I nearly lost it when Apryl died. It sent me on
a downward spiral that ended in a demon kiss. The pain of losing
her was too great. It left a gaping hole in my chest. The void was
not filled by sobbing, so I tried to fill it with other things.
Like boys. I was reckless, and made out with strangers to ease the
pain. But, it didn’t really work.

Nothing did.

That was what happened when I learned
of her death and I didn’t have all the details. Would finding out
the truth make it better or worse? And how was he connected? Did
Eric really use me that long? Was I so stupid that I couldn’t tell
who my real friends were? Yes, yes I was. The problem was that I
wanted to believe he was good, but such conflicting words and
actions confused me.

As I stepped toward him, the guards
pressed in around me, shielding Eric from me, like they were
protecting him. I looked at them with hostility flashing in my
eyes. “Move,” I commanded. But, they remained between Eric and me.
The guards didn’t do this to Shannon or Al. I didn’t expect them to
do it to Eric, but they did. Anger burned within me as I looked at
the guards. Being treated like a caged animal was making me act
like one. My fingers curled into fists, ready for a
fight.

Eric turned, and stood. His amber eyes
looked back and forth between the guards, taking in my expression
and stance. A crooked smile formed across his lips. Half laughing
he said to me, “This must be driving you nuts.” I locked my jaw,
staring at him. In a more serious voice, he turned to the guards
and said, “You can leave us.”

The two guards remained where they
were, and stole a glance at each other. One finally answered,
“Sorry, but we were commanded to remain between this person and all
other Martis; especially if she shows signs of
hostility.”

Eric laughed, and put his hand on the
guy’s shoulder. “I’m here to testify for her. She won’t hurt me.
I’m her ticket out of this place.” Eric’s smile was as genuine as
his words. He tilted his head waiting for the guard to respond,
still smiling. There was unspoken guy moment, and the guards
stepped back.

By then, my fists were balls, hidden
in the crook of my arms. I folded them so tightly over my chest
that they were turning white. I hated this place. Being treated
this way for so long was messing with me. It was making me want to
lash out at them. I didn’t think it was right to hate anyone. Live
and let live. Plus, hating people is a waste of time, but I was
feeling the hate right then—for all of them. I wanted to scream,
but I locked my jaw instead.

Eric’s smile faded as the guards
backed away to their normal positions, flanking me from a distance.
“How long have they held you here?”

My eye twitched when I answered,
“Almost three months.” I bit off the words. I sounded bitter,
because I was. Three months of searching for a way to help Collin
and finding nothing. Three months of hostile stares. Three months
of tears no one saw me cry. It was the loneliest, most enraged time
of my life. And now the guy that killed my sister was standing in
front of me like everything was fine.

But it wasn’t.

His eyes widened a little, before he
turned back to his desk, and kicked out the chair next to him.
“Sit. Ask. I see it on your face. Someone told you.”

I stood for a moment, watching him
slide back into his chair. His eyes looked tired. Not the kind of
tired where you don’t sleep for a night, but the kind of tired that
comes from within. It’s a fatigue that is so burdensome to bear
that it nearly crushes you flat. I know. I bore it. But, why did he
have that weariness? Eric didn’t look like that the last time I saw
him. But then, I hadn’t seen him for very long. He was insisting on
telling me something that he never got to say. Julia whisked him
off to some place before he had the chance.

With my spine straight, I sat in the
chair next to him. I didn’t unfold my arms. My mouth wouldn’t work
either. Words wouldn’t form. The truth was that I was a coward. I
didn’t want to know what happened to Apryl. I didn’t think I could
handle it. What if his words made it worse? What if she suffered?
It would shatter me completely. And I didn’t trust myself to not
attack Eric. I could kill him instantly.

A piece of Brimstone hung around my
neck disguised as a pendant. Brimstone was a powerful weapon that
the Valefar forged from rare black rocks in Hell. The dark stone
was lethal to Martis. One scratch from my tiny Brimstone flower and
Eric would die. While he was training me back at the church on Long
Island, Eric had told me that Brimstone was most commonly made into
Valefar weapons, but that it was given other deadly forms, too. The
most horrifying was dust. The Valefar would grind down Brimstone
until it was a powdery dust that was so fine that it was barely
visible. Then during combat, the Valefar blew it onto Eric’s
troops. One minute the Martis were slashing their Celestial Silver
through their enemies, and the next they were crying out in agony.
The Martis had inhaled the fatal powder. It snaked through their
lungs, burning them alive from the inside out. It was the worst
attack Eric had ever survived, and it was purely by chance that he
wasn’t near the front lines when the dust was dropped.

Eric knew what was going through my
mind. I wanted to hurt the person who did this to her. I couldn’t
leave it alone. And if it was him, if Eric did kill Apryl, I
couldn’t let him walk away. His eyes said he knew I’d kill him, but
his actions said something else. Why did he send away the Martis
guard who would protect him? What really happened to Apryl on that
pier?

Eric was cautious, but my silence
caught him off guard. “You’re glaring at me because someone told
you, right? That I didn’t directly cause your sister’s death? You
know. And you’re mad that I said I did it. You don’t know who to
believe. But, you’re too afraid to ask me what really
happened.”

“
I’m not afraid of
anything,” I lied staring him defiantly in the face. Why was I so
mad at him? Shouldn’t this make it better? He wasn’t the one who
killed her. But then, “Why did you cover for whoever did kill her?
If it wasn’t you, why’d you take the blame? You lied to me, Eric.
About something that was unbearable…” I shook my head, and turned
away too disgusted to look at him.

His eyes dropped to the
floor. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t lie to you. Ivy, I took the
blame, because it
was
my fault. I was reckless in how I pursued her and it led to
her death. The Valefar who said I killed her were right. It was my
fault.”

“
You weren’t the one who
stole her life. You weren’t the one who physically killed her,
though. Were you?” Direct questions. Ask him direct questions and
he can’t lie.