Evermore, an Arotas Novella (The Arotas Series) (11 page)

She
ignores the girls’ shrieks and William’s cries. She
ignores the pounding of the humans’ frantic heartbeats in her
ear. Nothing matters until this thing is gone.

With
a mighty growl, Roseline wrenches her hands around and feels the
beast’s spine snap like a tree branch. She releases the head
with an exclamation of disgust and slides down off its back as it
collapses beneath her.

Her
chest rises and falls as she wipes her hands against her pants,
sickened by the stench the dog has left on her. A hand falls upon her
arm and she whips around, fist poised to strike, but halts less than
an inch from William’s nose. His eyes widen with fright as he
slowly turns his eyes to look at her. “Thanks for that.”

“For
what?” she asks, dropping her arm. She winces as the skin
stretches taut, tugging her new wounds. Warm blood vines down her
arm, but she hardly notices.

“For
not rearranging my face.”

She
laughs and steps over the massive limp paw and pats him on the
shoulder. “Next time, a little warning would be nice.”

“Got
it.” He grins as he wraps his arm around her waist and helps
her over to the door. The humans stare at her with wide-eyed awe.
Roseline shifts on her feet, suddenly very uncomfortable in her skin.

“Why
didn’t you leave?” she asks.

“The
door is locked. Sean was trying to get the key out of his pocket, but
that thing slammed through the door and everything fell in the way,”
the blond waitress responds, never taking her eyes off Roseline.

She
turns to William. “Go check on Gabriel. See what’s
keeping him. He should have been here by now. I’ll take care of
this.”

With
a brief nod, William takes off at a jog, darting around the debris
like a slalom skier. “You’d better turn away,”
Roseline says.

She
lifts her foot and slams it into the wood, just below the deadbolt
lock. The door cracks and splinters right up the middle, falling off
its hinges into two broken pieces. Hot, stifling air from the street
pours in through the hole.

The
bouncers are the first through the doorway. They turn back to assist
the girls one at a time. The blonde turns back as Roseline raises a
hand to inspect her shoulder, hissing at the black ichor that burns
deep into her flesh like acid. “Look, I don’t know what
you are, but I wanted you to know that what you did is really cool.
You’re kinda like a superhero.”

Roseline
smirks as the girl waves and escapes the building. “Never been
called one of those before,” she says to the empty room.

Even
before Roseline winds her way back to the dance floor, she knows
something is wrong. She can smell it on the air: fear. It filters
down the hall with a nearly visible fog of despair.

She
breaks out into a sprint. Just before Roseline reaches the kitchen,
strong arms lasso around her waist and pull her back. “Let me
go!”

“Rose,
calm down,” Gabriel whispers in her ear, and all the fight goes
out of her. She should have known it was him. No one else could have
restrained her so easily. She turns to look at him and feels the
blood rush from her face.

Gabriel’s
eyelids are drooped low, his gaze unfocused. He is ashen and sickly,
as if he is about to be ill all over the floor.

“Who
is it?” she croaks, clinging to him for support.

He
looks away and swallows hard. “Nicolae.”

A
low moan rises from her throat as she shoves out of his arms and
dashes into the nightclub. There is blood and mangled body parts
everywhere. She can’t help but think of Vladimir and Lucien
when she stares across the vast, nearly empty room of carnage.

Then
she spots Sadie, her shoulders hunched over a still figure. Roseline
is at her side in two great bounds. She kneels beside her friend,
resting her arm over her shoulders as Sadie sobs.

Nicolae’s
chest is a wash of crimson. His leather vest has been shredded nearly
completely from his body. His broad chest has been torn into ribbons
of flesh and muscle, the claw marks deep enough to see bone.

Roseline
fights to still the trembling in her hands as she stares down into
his lifeless eyes. “How long has he been gone?”

Sadie
wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her voice comes out in a
pained whisper. “Only a few seconds. He just… he tried
to say something, but his vocal cords are… are…”
She collapses into a fit of sobs. She doesn’t need to state the
obvious. There is little left of Nicolae’s throat.

“I
couldn’t…” She wheezes. “I couldn’t
save him.”

Roseline
looks up to find Gabriel lingering a few feet back. “Get her
out of here.”

“No!”
Sadie’s head whips up and Roseline can see what leaving
Nicolae’s side would cost her.

Roseline
doesn’t have time to argue. She shoves Sadie toward Gabriel and
tries to focus as her friend’s shrieks of protest begin to
fade.
William
will be able to console her,
she tries to tell herself as she leans over Nicolae.

“I’m
not going to let you die that easily.” With the tips of her
hair brushing against his wounds, Roseline reaches across him and
closes her hand around his dagger. It feels cold, foreign in her hand
as she runs the blade deep across her palm.

The
skin peels back and blood flows freely. Roseline thrusts her hand
deep into Nicolae’s stomach, letting her blood seep directly
into his body.
Only
a few seconds,
she
repeats over and over to herself as she squeezes her arm to push as
much blood out as she can, praying it’s not too late to bring
him back.

When
a lightheaded haze wafts over her, she pulls back and lifts her arm
to help slow the flow. A long-forgotten language spills from her
lips, a mixture of Latin, Gaelic, and Egyptian rolls off her tongue.
The words rise and fall in intensity as she places her hand over
Nicolae’s heart and begins compressions to get the blood
flowing.

Unlike
her own death, Nicolae didn’t have the chance to taste blood
before his heart stopped. Even Gabriel was turned mere seconds before
his heart stopped beating. She has no idea if this will work, only
that she has to try.

“Come
on.” She grunts, massaging a bloody trail down his arms and
legs, trying to manually force the blood to spread.

Her
song ends and she begins again. The shadows seem to crawl forth from
the walls, surrounding her in near darkness. Roseline has always been
terrified of using such dark magic. Now, knowing that Lucien is the
one who created it, she is even more leery of using it, but Nicolae
is worth fighting for.

She
watches for any sign of life. A beat of his heart, a twitch of his
finger, a flutter of an eye. She works on him for what feels like an
eternity before she sinks back and wraps her arms about her knees.
She lowers her head as tears spill from her eyes, curling down her
cheeks to patter against her knees.

A
footstep behind her alerts her to a presence. “It didn’t
work,” she whispers.

“That
is because you are no longer a child of the shadows,” a strange
voice calls from behind her.

Roseline
leaps to her feet, crouching low for an attack that never comes. When
she lifts her gaze to the towering man standing before her, she wipes
her tears away and rises. “Ashir.”

The
great giant smiles. “You did not think we would come?”

Her
breath catches. “We?”

His
teeth seem to shine with the light of the sun as he grins. “Elias
is here too.”

Despite
having just lost a dear friend, Roseline takes a small amount of
comfort in knowing Gabriel’s mentor is here. But just as
swiftly as that relief comes, it is tainted by something darker.
“These hounds that attacked us… they breached the gap
between our worlds, didn’t they?”

“Yes,”
Ashir says, folding his wings tightly behind his back as he
approaches. His long steps carry him to her side with amazing grace,
despite the body-strewn path between them.

“Are
they the ones who have been killing our men?”

He
nods. “Among other things. These beasts are from the Shadow
Lands. The in-between world where darkness has reign. I warned you
the war was coming.”

Roseline
nods and swipes her hand across her forehead to shove a matted clump
of hair out of her eye. The trail of blood that paints her forehead
gives her reason to pause. She glances back at Nicolae and feels her
throat clamp off.

Ashir
places a hand upon her shoulder. It feels solid, warm, and filled
with life. “Can you heal him?”

She
feels a tiny tremble in his hand and looks up into his eyes,
realizing with a start there is a glow building behind his irises. It
is not blue, like she has seen emit from Gabriel, but something
infinitely brighter and far more beautiful. It reminds her of the
sea, crystal in clarity and depthless in beauty.

His
ebony hand begins to warm against her shoulder, but she doesn’t
pull away. It doesn’t burn or scald. It has a distinctive
comforting quality that she can’t quite place her finger on.

The
warmth seeps into her shoulder and she gasps, realizing that the claw
wounds in her flesh have sealed over. The warmth travels through her
with terrifying speed, healing every sore muscle, cracked rib, or
wound it comes in contact with.

She
gasps as he pulls away, staring up at him in sheer awe. “What
was that?”

Ashir
smiles. “It is called Baliem Alorak. In your common tongue,
that means angel magic.”

“But
I’m not—”

Ashir
silences her as he raises his hand. “You are. You all are.
Angel blood runs in your veins, Roseline Marston.” She inhales
at the use of Gabriel’s surname. “Lucien’s magic
didn’t just taint your blood. It inserted darkness into your
soul, like a poison. Some give in to their cravings and all light is
lost, but some, like yourself, fight it.”

Roseline
lowers her gaze. “I was evil once. I killed for the pleasure of
it.”

Ashir
gently lifts her chin, forcing her to meet his soft gaze. “And
you changed, didn’t you?”

She
nods with great reluctance. That is a part of her life that she tries
very hard not to think upon. The years when she became exactly who
Vladimir wanted most. A killer. A murderer. A savage… And she
liked it.

“That
proves that you were never truly lost.” He places two hands
upon her shoulders. “I do not possess the ability to remove the
enchantments that created you, but I can tip the balance enough to
save your friend.”

Roseline
glances down at Nicolae. “You can save him?”

“No.”
She lifts her gaze to watch as Ashir moves away. “You can.”

Roseline
wraps a cloth about her wrist, staunching the blood flow from the
bite marks where she buried her teeth deep into an artery. The sting
has already begun to fade. She doesn’t care about the pain.

The
sound of Nicolae’s fluttering heart is like the finest music.
He
will live,
she
thinks wearily as she sinks back onto her heels.

She
is weak from the blood loss, weary from the battle, yet there is an
unusual energy bursting through her. She rises to her feet and looks
about her. So much senseless death.

Ashir
had said that without Lucien alive to keep the Shadow Lands in
control, this would happen. Fallen Ones scrambling over each other to
gain power. Who will be next to take Lucien’s spot in the
world? Malachi surely would have been groomed for that position, but
he is long gone.

Lucien
never spoke of another, but then again, he didn’t speak about a
great many things to her. Her stomach clenches painfully as she
remembers him saying she would rule at his side. A tremor begins in
her fingers and worms its way up through her forearm and into her
shoulder. She clutches her arms tightly to her stomach and doubles
over.
I
was meant to lead next.

She
can’t help but wonder if Ashir is right. Is there enough good
in her to keep the evil at bay?

The
Arotas prophecy joined Roseline and Gabriel together, forged an
unbreakable bond, but Ashir said the prophecy isn’t done with
them yet. Does that mean they haven’t completed their task or
that there was never meant to be an end?

Gabriel
is a guardian, gifted with extraordinary abilities that even Roseline
struggles to understand. What is she but a sick, perverted use of
black magic?

You
are an angel of light too,
she reminds herself as she leans back.
You
made a choice to live for good. So do it. Fight back!

The
humans know that her kind exist now, even if they may not label it
correctly or ever truly understand. Perhaps one day they will be able
to live in harmony with each other, once the myths have been
dispelled and they see that they have nothing to fear from her kind.

If
the hunters and immortals can coexist, is it really so much to hope
that humans can one day accept them too?