Feral (The Irisbourn Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

He smirked and sat up.
 
He had angled his body toward me, so that our
faces were only inches apart.

I didn’t feel the urge to move
away, which was unlike me.
 
I also was
the first to break the silence, again unlike me.
 
I strongly suspected that my sleep-deprived
mind had surpassed the stage of zombie-like lethargy and was now entering
stupid brazenness.

“Well, I told you a childhood
story.
 
I believe you owe me one.”

“Do I now?” Adrian seemed amused by
my boldness.
 
“Let’s see.
 
This one time Arisella and I were hunting a
monster of a grimalkin that had mauled a family in the outskirts of the Blood
Kingdom.
 
Quite a beast, it was.
 
We were in the Black Forest for over a week,
searching for its den.
 
It was the head
of its pack, so we had to take out half a dozen other grimalkin before we could
kill the one we wanted.
 
It was absolute
bloody madness.”

The twinkling excitement in
Adrian’s eyes was extinguished by my horrified look.

“I realize now that my childhood
story was rather dark,” Adrian acknowledged.

I made a small nod, keeping my eyes
fixed on the dancing flames, tongues of light licking up the cracking sides of
the wood.
 
As much as I hated to admit it
to myself, I was frightened – not by his story, but by the look of bloodlust that
had animated his eyes.

“I apologize if I upset you.”

“No, no.
 
You shouldn’t have to apologize.
 
Sometimes I forget that you grew up in a
different culture – hell, a different world.
 
It’s just a little hard getting used to all this at once.” I bit my lip
thoughtfully.

“Well, you’ve exceeded my
expectations so far.”
 
Adrian grinned at
me, and, for the life of me, I couldn’t keep myself from grinning back.

I shivered as an icy chill ran down
my spine, and Adrian took my hand in his.
 
His fingers sent hot, tingling sensations through my skin – not
unpleasant, but unusual.

“Gods, you’re cold,” Adrian said
softly.
 
He reached for my wrist and
nudged me closer to the fire, incidentally closer to him.
 
He gently ran his thumb over the thin, blue
veins in my hand, and at his touch my heart fluttered sporadically in my
chest.
 
I was so sure he could feel the
sudden surge of blood pumping through my veins.

He turned my hand over, holding it
the way he had when we had first met, when he had been examining me for
injuries, but this time he was more delicate, more careful.
 
“Everything about you is human – the way you
speak, the way you move, the way you think.
 
Everything, except for your blood.
 
Your blood is undeniably Irisbourn.”
 
Adrian’s eyes found mine.
 
“Everything about you is unfamiliar to me.”

“And everything about you is
unfamiliar to me,” I found myself murmuring.
 
My gaze shifted to Adrian’s wrist, the blood in his veins running darker
than mine, almost black.
 
Perhaps a trick
of the firelight, an illusion cast by the contrast of his pale skin… perhaps
not.

I looked up at him.
 
“I’d say we have some more acquainting to
do.”

“I’d say we do…”

The world became quiet then, save
for the soft sounds of our breathing, and I became hyperaware of the boy in
front of me – the shadows dancing wildly across his face, the dew beading on
his dark hair, the warmth radiating off his bare, powerful arms.
 
He leaned in closer, so close that I could
distinguish the individual filaments of blue in his irises.
 
And still I did not pull away.
 
No, I wanted him closer.

His lips parted ever so slightly
and he froze, his eyes searching mine with uninhibited intensity.
 
Under his gaze I felt like a deer caught in
headlights – I couldn’t move, didn’t even want to move.
 
All I could see, all I could think about, was
him.

He moved his other hand to my waist
and pulled me toward him, closing the distance between us in one strong, fluid
motion.
 
He brushed his burning lips
against mine, sending shudders rippling through me.

The heavy rhythm of approaching
footsteps echoed through the forest, ripping me away from Adrian, ramming me
back into reality.

I tore myself out of his arms, and
he let me go without any resistance.
 
I
arched my back and rose to a fighting stance, my senses heightened and on red
alert.

A flash of dirty silver appeared
against the shadows, and a bloody grimalkin stepped out from the trees.
 
A midsized dog-rabbit creature sat lodged
between its jaws, another slung across its back.

The grimalkin spat the creature
onto the ground and shook the other off dangerously close to the fire before
transitioning into human form.

“My, dinner was quite bloody
tonight,” Arisella muttered, as she wiped away animal blood with a soiled rag
from her backpack.
 
She eyed Adrian and
me warily while she pulled herself into fresh clothes.
 
“What, have you two gone dumb?
 
You could at least thank me for the
moonrabbits.”

I glanced back at Adrian, and found
him exactly where I had left him, perhaps still a little stunned by how I had
left him.

But as soon as he noticed me
watching him, he instantly recollected himself and rose to his feet.

“You, dear sister, have truly
dreadful timing,” he said irritably.

“Do I, now? What did I interrupt
that was of such importance?”

“Adrian is just upset because we
were in the middle of discussing the differences between Earth and Fallyre,” I
said hurriedly.
 
I wasn’t sure how much
Adrian intended to tell his sister, but I didn’t want her to know about any of
what had just happened, especially when I barely knew what had just happened.

Adrian lifted an eyebrow at me, and
I felt the blood rush to my face.

“Boring.” Arisella ran her fingers
through her tangled hair.
 
“And I really
don’t care.
 
Let’s cook the food.
 
I’m starving.”

I didn’t get a chance to speak to
Adrian for the rest of the night; he had dragged the two moonrabbits away to
the far edge of the camp to skin them.
 
When he was finished with the first one, he let us claim the
unrecognizable red mass.
 
Blood pooled at
its sides, and I could see its bones straining against the tissue, its broken
arteries, its individual muscle fibers.
 
It took everything in me not to vomit.

I left Arisella while she skewered
the thing with a stick, and I spent my efforts where I felt I would be most
useful: making a spit over the fire.
 
Sure, it might have been a little wobbly, and Arisella might have had to
crossly remake it, but at least I had tried to contribute.

At the smell of cooking meat, Dylan
awoke with one objective: to pull off as many pieces of the roasting moonrabbit
as possible.
 
He popped them all into his
mouth, effectively burning his fingers and his tongue.

Moonrabbits tasted like tough pork,
I decided as I chewed mine thoughtfully.
 
Not bad, but I didn’t consume much of it – watching Adrian skin them had
killed my appetite.

The meal left me exhausted, and I
was already sitting in my sleeping bag.
 
Everyone else was still working on their portions, so they didn’t seem
to notice as I laid my head down and allowed myself to slip into
unconsciousness.

That was, until a hoarse whisper
rattled my eardrums. “Where do I sleep?”

I produced an irritated grunt and
rolled over to squint at Dylan.
 
“I don’t
know.
 
Figure it out.”

“I don’t have a sleeping bag.
 
Amber, it’s really wet and cold out here.”

I groaned.
 
He was right.
 
He would catch a cold out there, and I doubted whether Arisella and
Adrian cared much for Dylan’s health.

“Fine.
 
Get in,” I muttered.

Dylan hastily unzipped the sleeping
bag and smashed himself in with me.
 
We
had grown significantly since the last time we had both slept in it, which was
when we were ten, camping out in his backyard.

“Cozy,” Dylan whispered, wiggling
his toes.
 
“Just like when we were
little.”

“Hush.”

Once again, I felt myself on the
brink of unconsciousness, when a vulgar exclamation tore through the silence of
the camp.

“What the hell?!
 
What is he doing?!” Adrian growled, his eyes
alight.

Dylan put a finger to his lips,
like the way a teacher might shush a kindergartener.
 
“Hush, we’re trying to sleep.”

“Get out of there.”

“Well, what if I like it in here?”

“I. Said. Get. Out,” Adrian
commanded through clenched teeth. He was clearly not in the mood for Dylan’s
sass.

“What if
she
likes me in here?” Dylan grinned slyly.

Adrian grew silent.

“Okay, both of you stop,” I spoke
up, still half-asleep.
 
“I would love to
have this sleeping bag all to myself, but Dylan has nowhere to sleep. He can’t
sleep on the ground.
 
So I don’t see
anything else we can do here.”

“He can have my sleeping bag,”
Adrian volunteered.

“Where are you going to sleep?” I
asked dubiously.

“On the ground.
 
A night on the forest floor is nothing to
me.
 
You should know by now that I’m not
a weak human who needs to be coddled.”

Dylan inhaled sharply.

Arisella appeared from behind the
fire, still picking at smoked pieces of moonrabbit.
 
“Adrian, enough with your foolishness.
 
You’re not sleeping on the ground
either.
 
As much as the thought of Dylan
in my bed makes me sick,” Arisella narrowed her eyes at Dylan, “he might as
well have it.
 
I prefer to sleep as a
grimalkin, anyway.”

“It’s settled then!” Adrian scowled
irritably.
 
“Now get out.”

“How do I know she hasn’t put
snakes in there or something?” Dylan whined.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dylan.
 
She’s not that evil,” I said with little
conviction.

Dylan looked at me disbelievingly.

“Okay, she might be.
 
But she also knows that if anything happens
to you, I will make her life a living hell.”

Arisella made an unladylike noise
over her food.

I shot her a serious look that told
her I meant every word of what I had just said.
 
“So please accept her offer, Dylan.
 
My foot’s falling asleep.”

Dylan took his time rolling out of
my sleeping bag.
 
He kept his eyes
trained on Adrian’s expressionless face the entire time.
 
He then made a big show of inspecting
Arisella’s sleeping bag for snakes and spiders, and when he had deemed it safe
enough for him to retire in, he announced loudly, “All clear!”

And finally, as I closed my eyes
and let my thoughts become one hazy, unintelligible jumble, sleep claimed me.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

When I opened my eyes, it was still
dark.
 
In fact, it felt like barely any
time had gone by at all.
 
I sat up
slowly, rubbing the sleep from my eyes with the cool palms of my hands.

Everyone was still asleep – Dylan
snoring brokenly, his face obscured by the front flap of the sleeping bag;
Arisella as a grimalkin curled up near the fire; Adrian breathing softly, his
back against a tree, a knife in hand.

But I sensed another presence
nearby, watching us from a distance.
 
A
bony figure encased in a wispy black shroud floated above the sheet of
fog.
 
A wraith?
 
I squinted at it, forcing my eyes to focus in
the darkness.
 
It lifted its head up, and
its hood fell to its shoulders, exposing a pair of colorless, wide-set eyes I
could recognize in a heartbeat.

Matt?

At least, it looked kind of like Matt.
 
Whatever it was, it had been charred beyond
much recognition, its skin hanging in burnt, black bits over its thin, sickly
frame.
 
The fact that I thought it had
even resembled Matt made me feel ill.

But those looked so much like his
eyes…
 
The more I stared at them, the
more certain I was that I was staring into the soul of my brother.
 
But the body…

It held out a bony hand in my
direction before turning to recede into the depths of the forest.

“No!” I shouted, as I jumped out of
my sleeping bag.
 
No one stirred around
me, not even Adrian.

“Adrian, look!” I shook Adrian’s
shoulder weakly at first, then with increasing violence.
 
Still he did not wake.

“Adrian, please,” I begged.
 
It was disappearing.

Those eyes would haunt me forever.

I took off after it alone, stumbling
along blindly in the darkness.
 
I could
see it billowing in front of me, taunting me, willing me to follow it.
 
But no matter how quickly I moved, I knew I
would never catch up to it.
 
Upon
realizing the futility of my situation, I collapsed to my knees.
 
With the heartbreaking realization that I
might never see those eyes again, I watched the figure fade away.

It took all feeling and light with
it, leaving me in pure numbness.

I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t
feel anything – I was completely and utterly alone.

Then, so gradually I almost didn’t
notice it at first, the world around me slowly began to lighten.
 
I felt my eyes opening – actually opening,
peeling away the nothingness and exposing a new reality.

I was on my knees, at the edge of a
coursing river, staring into a freckled face framed by fiery red hair.
 
I was staring into the face of a kelpie.

Upon perceiving where I was, I
immediately clambered away from the river, my fingers digging into the soil, as
if I were trying to anchor myself to land.

But Kaela just released a soft,
musical laugh at my panicked reaction.
 
“You need not fear me.”

I inhaled deeply and examined my
surroundings. It was undoubtedly still night – but light filled the air,
radiating from mysterious blurry patches deep within the river.
 
The countless flowers shuddering in the trees
emanated a soft, golden haze, and kelpie floated gracefully in the river, their
hair decorated with the glowing flowers that augmented the fairness of their hair.
 
The entire place had an unearthly, almost
heavenly aura.

“It was just a dream,” I realized
softly.
 
“I was sleepwalking.”

“Yes.”
 
Kaela laughed again.
 
“I called you to me.”

“Like a siren,” I murmured to
myself.
 
I furrowed my brow at Kaela in
confusion.
 
“What do you want with me?” I
demanded.
 
Why hadn’t she called Adrian?

With a horrible sinking feeling, I
wondered if perhaps she had already called him to her, forced him to sleepwalk
to a watery death. I frantically scanned my surroundings for any trace of his
presence.

“You are alone,” Kaela assured me.

I tried to disguise the wave of
relief that coursed through me, no doubt unsuccessfully,

“You are not like the others,”
Kaela observed, keeping her bright eyes on my face.
 
“What are you?”

I bit my lip, unsure of how to
answer.
 
“Irisbourn,” I finally
replied.
 
There was no point hiding it
anymore – my eyes gave me away.

“But how?
 
You are all supposed to be dead.”
 
Wonder filled her expression, as if I had
become the rare, mythical creature, not she.

“I am not dead.”
 
At least, not yet.

Kaela’s face darkened.
 
“If you are truly who you claim to be, why do
you keep the Bloodbourn in your presence?”

“His name is Adrian, and he’s
helping me,” I implored.
 
“He broke from
the Blood Kingdom and their abominable principles. Without him, I would have
died.”

“Bloodbourn are not to be trusted,”
Kaela warned me.

“Funny, he told me the same about
you.”

Rather than snap at me in offense,
Kaela just grinned eerily.

“You possess the brazenness of your
kind, that is certain.
 
There was a time
when your kind protected us from the Bloodbourn, prevented them from committing
their vile crimes against us,” Kaela recalled nostalgically, painfully.
 
“Those times are long gone.
 
But I will be forever grateful for
them.”
 
She withdrew from her memories
and turned her attention solely to me.
 
“And for that reason, and that reason alone, I cannot let you meet your
demise in the Blood Kingdom.”

My spirits lifted.
 
Was she saying what I thought she was
saying?
 
Or was this another trick?

“I will allow you to cross my river.”

“What about my friends?”

“They may cross as well –”
Gratitude swelled within me.
 
“—except
for the Bloodbourn.”
 
I felt myself fall
like a deflated balloon.

“Then I won’t need your
assistance,” I affirmed, completely aware of how I was throwing her goodwill
back in her face.

“Are you really willing to die for
that boy, that spawn of soulless murderers?” Kaela hissed.

“Yes.”
 
It surprised me how little I needed to think
about it.

In a flash of her tail, Kaela swam
to the edge of the river, launched her abdomen out over land, and seized my
wrists in her inescapable iron grip.
 
At
first I was certain she was going to pull me into the water with her, but she
stopped when my arms were submerged, my face a single inch from the surface of
the rippling river.
 
Beneath the water,
she studied my frightened, wide eyes intensely, before releasing me and
allowing me scramble even further from the water’s edge.

Kaela reappeared above the water’s
surface, her hair dripping and hanging about her in dark tendrils.
 
“If you feel this strongly about the
Bloodbourn, I must let him cross as well,” Kaela reluctantly allowed.

I exhaled hugely.
 
Arisella had been right.
 
The kelpie were unbelievably fickle.
 
But apparently I had gotten that to work to
my advantage.

“As soon as you wake tomorrow,
return to my river.
 
Perhaps now I can
begin to repay the lifetimes of debt I owe your people.”
 
Kaela’s expression grew grave.
 
“Be careful who you trust, young Irisbourn,
or that Bloodbourn boy will be the death of you.”

With that creepy piece of advice,
the kelpie sank under the dark waters for a final time, taking her sisters and
their light with her.

Darkness closed in around me,
enveloping me, sealing me away.

“Wait!” I called after her.
 
She had left so abruptly, and I still had so many
questions.

My eyelids grew heavy, and I felt
myself sinking into the grass.
 
I was
falling away, away…