Rising Darkness (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 9) (4 page)

One hundred percent.

Shock scattered my thoughts and I leaned forward to press my face against the cool table. A hand was on my back, pressing into me. “Breathe, Rylee, breathe,” Faris said. Faris consoling me, not Doran as I’d expected.

If I had stayed, if I’d ignored Liam and stayed with my friends, our daughter would have been exposed to this. She would likely even now be in the hospital fighting for her life, or worse, dead. I struggled to do as Faris said, the air feeling tight in my mouth and throat. Finally, I got the words out. “How much good are we doing here?”

Deanna answered, slowly at first. “We are barely able to keep the demons at bay, and we can’t send them back. And though we can heal a few people of the pox, it is like trying to empty the ocean with a ladle. The truth of it is . . . this disease has more than a foothold. It is swallowing the world whole.”

Orion had said when he came he would save the world so they would love him and hand the reins to him. The humans would willingly give him anything and everything he wanted in order to be cured, to save the rest of the population.

“So we have no way of stopping this disease?”

Deanna took a slow breath, her eyes never leaving mine. “You could be the key to this, too.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean? I’m no healer.”

“But your blood, it’s Immune to this. All of this.” She waved her hands around her, fluttering them like spastic butterflies.

“Right. I know that.” I wasn’t following where she was headed.

Faris obviously understood what she meant. “She wants your blood, Rylee.”

“My blood?” I wasn’t deliberately trying to be dumb, I just . . . and then it hit me. “You want to drink my blood?”

Deanna flushed. “Not me. Someone who is infected.”

We didn’t get much further than that because someone new entered the tent. Someone I loved dearly, but the others wouldn’t necessarily see her through the same lens I did.

Berget
strode in, her chin held high and her blue eyes clear. I grinned at her.

Doran didn’t.

“I told you I’d kill you if you came back,” he snarled, his green eyes glittering dangerously.

Shit sticks, I did not want to get between two vamps. But I didn’t have a choice.

CHAPTER 4

Rylee

D
oran lunged at
Berget, and I got in the way. He ended up tackling me to the floor, and I rolled with him so I was sitting on his hips, straddling him. He let me. It wasn’t like I could really take him down. Which meant he didn’t really want to kill her, either. But appearances were everything in the vampire world. I knew that.

I kept my hands on his biceps. “Doran, she is not under her parents’ control anymore.”

“You don’t know that. We can’t have a loose cannon like her around our people!” He could have thrown me off, but he didn’t. He stared up at me and I didn’t take my gaze from him.

“I trust her, Doran. What happened before was not her fault.”

“And when she tries to kill you and no one is there to save you? What then?” His question was not unexpected.

“If that happens, then I will do what I have to do. But it won’t.”

“Can I say something?” Berget asked.

“No,” Doran snapped, as he sat up. I stood and held out a hand to him. He took it, but then jerked me behind him, throwing me halfway across the room. “I’m sorry, Rylee, this is for the best.”

“No!” I screamed as I flew through the air away from them. No, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go. Berget was finally free of her parents. I saw her as I fell, head bowed in front of Doran as he reached for her.

I hit the ground and was up and moving toward them with barely a breath. I had to stop Doran; I had to make him see she wasn’t the problem.

But someone beat me to it.

Faris.

The blue-eyed vampire slid between them and put a hand on Doran’s chest. “If Rylee says she trusts Berget, then you should too.”

That did not sound like Faris. That sounded more like . . . Liam. But that wasn’t possible, was it?

Everyone else in the tent had backed against the walls to give the vampires room.

Doran and Faris were eye to eye and Doran slowly looked back at me. “For now, keep her. But you are never to be alone with her. Faris. I charge you this task. You will keep the Tracker safe from her sister at all costs.”

I saw a light in Doran’s eyes slowly go out. He was the vampire leader; there was no way he could leave and come with us. It felt like I lost a portion of his friendship in that moment, and a piece of my heart broke.

“Done,” Faris said, without hesitation. Again, not like him.

Doran did a double take. “How . . . ?” He pointed at Faris’s arms, as in at two arms where there had been only one not long ago.

Faris grunted. “I am not without my wiles, Doran. You know that.” So, he wasn’t going to admit he’d had help in that department. Again with the stupid vampire games.

From outside the tent came a low murmuring of voices. Lying next to my feet, Alex grumbled, “Fucking vampires think they can pick on Berget.”

I saw a shadow move against the wall of the tent. “That a vamp, Alex?” I tilted my head toward the tent side.

He gave a sniff in the air. “Yuppy doody.”

My sword was freed of its sheath in less time than it took to draw a breath. I drove it through the thick canvas and into the body of the vamp. His—by the sound of the scream—body jerked and danced.

I yanked the sword out. “Any of you touch my sister and I’ll fucking well roast your heads on a spit.”

“That wasn’t necessary, Rylee,” Doran said softly.

I shook my head. “Maybe not for you, but they need to remember you aren’t the only one to be afraid of.” I wiped my blade on the interior wall of the tent and then slammed it back into its sheath.

Doran ran a hand through his hair and beckoned everyone to sit again. The others did. I chose to stand.

“Rylee, there is one other thing. The reason Deanna suggested trying your blood on an infected supernatural is because there are rumors flying around. Rumors that you are the cause of the pox on the supernatural community. That if you were killed, the pox would go away like magic.”

“What has that got to do with her blood?” Faris leaned in, his fists on the table.

Doran looked from Faris to me and back again. “The rumor is not only that killing her will help, but that her blood will heal. So if they can’t kill you, they’re more than happy to bleed you out.”

I snorted. “Please, they aren’t actually falling for this propaganda shit, are they?”

“Rylee,” Deanna’s voice was soft, the fear in it thick. “Those who are sick are terrified and delusional. The fever that grips them burns away so much of who they are. Those who normally wouldn’t consider harming someone are destroying those around them. They believe you are the cause of all this.” Something in her voice made me really look at her.

“And you, Deanna? Do you think I am the reason this happened?” I wrapped my fingers through my belt, gripping the leather hard. I worried I already knew the answer to my question.

Her lips trembled as she tried to keep them pursed together, a good minute passed before she answered. She broke the silence carefully. “Everything started when you left. I don’t know why you had to go away, or why you came back. But the correlation is there.”

I shot a glance at Doran. He shook his head. So no one knew I had been pregnant. That was probably for the best. The fewer people who knew about that chapter of my life, the safer my daughter was. Still, I had to deal with this shit, and deal with it fast. Time was ticking and I had to get moving.

With a wave of my hand, I said, “Bring in a supernatural. I’ll offer up my blood to show it won’t do any good.”

Deanna swept out of the tent, almost running. There must have been someone she had in mind because within seconds, she was escorting in a hulking creature wrapped in a blanket despite the heat. Whoever it was towered over the rest of us, even if they were moving slowly. For a moment I thought maybe it was an ogre. But no, Mer had a look of distinct distaste on her face. So not an ogre. Everyone else pulled back from the infected one. I didn’t blame them. If I hadn’t been immune I would have done the same.

“What kind of supernatural?” I asked, trying to see into the folds of the blankets.

“Does it matter?” Deanna snapped and that brought my head up.

“Why, yes, it fucking does,” I said so sweetly my teeth ached.

She pulled the cloth from the creature’s face with a shallow sigh. A troll stared back at me, its lips hanging down past its chin, pustules oozing inside its mouth. Pale green skin hung in folds and flapped as it moved. Gills on the side of its head. A water troll. Rare and generally pretty quiet from what I knew.

“Ah, fuck, couldn’t you find someone else?”

“No. Most supernaturals die quickly when they’ve been infected. Twelve hours is the longest I’ve seen it take.” Deanna slumped into a chair. “He’s been infected for six.”

Damn it, I didn’t want to help a troll, but then, I had known a couple of half-breed trolls that were exceptionally awesome.

I bent and yanked a blade from my right boot. “Anyone got a cup?”

Faris disappeared from the tent and was back quickly with an empty Styrofoam cup. “Here, use this.”

I put the cup on the table and debated where to cut myself. With Doran in front of me and a cup waiting for my blood on the table . . . the scene took me back. The last time I’d done something this drastic had been with Doran, when I’d been looking for India so many months ago. The memory slowed me, which was good.

Faris stepped up beside me. “Your upper arm, there’s a vein on the underside that will be easy to wrap, and if you go too deep shouldn’t interfere with movement.” He pointed to a spot on the inside, upper flesh of my left arm.

I handed him the knife, not even blinking. “You think you can hit it straight?”

Deanna snorted. “We are in a triage situation, why don’t I get a needle?”

She was gone and back in a flash. And I blanched. Damn, I should have cut faster. Deanna swept into the tent and handed the still packaged needle and syringe to Faris. She shook her head. “I never thought badly of you ‘til now, Rylee.”

What the hell was she talking about? I stared at her as Faris twisted my wrist, looking for the vein in my forearm like a pro. “You’ve done this before?”

“More than you probably realize,” he muttered. As he prepped my arm and the needle. I looked away, my stomach clenching at the thought of that long, thin metal rod going into one of my veins.

I let my eyes wander, not really thinking about what he was doing. I’d rather have used my knife, but that wouldn’t go over well if I said that now. Nothing to do but act like I didn’t care either way. A trickle of sweat slid down the back of my neck and spine.

“Hold still,” Faris said, and a sharp pinch in my arm made me clamp my teeth together. I refused to look at what he was doing and in doing so, ended up looking at Doran. He seemed . . . confused. Deanna was pissed, Will was resigned, Mer was tired, and Frank was scared. But it was the confusion that held me tight.

“All done.” Faris slid a thumb over the injection site and I stepped away, putting pressure where his thumb had been. A full vial of blood stared back at me. “Give it to the troll. Let’s see what happens.”

The troll slowly lifted his eyes to me. “Not all trolls are bad, Tracker.”

I shrugged. “Not all demons, either. But I have to go with the majority.”

Deanna took the needle and changed the tip, then handed it back to Faris. He lifted the troll’s arm, found a vein, and slid the needle in. My stomach rolled watching the needle pop the skin and then the plunger depress. I gave a shiver and looked away.

Alex butted up against me. “Growdy gross. I hates those needles.”

I dropped a hand to him and steadied myself. “Yeah, me too.”

He turned his big eyes up at me and wrinkled his nose up. “Pamie listening.”

Pam? Everyone else was looking at the troll, not listening to Alex. No, that wasn’t true. Faris’s eyes met mine and then flicked to the door of the tent. Why wouldn’t she just come in?

Only one way to find out.