Chapter Twelve
My eyes are too heavy to open at first, but a distant dripping sound leaves me with the taste of dread, forcing me to summon the strength to wake.
I gasp for air as I surge forth, and I look around, surprised by my surroundings. I expected a dank, dark dungeon, but this is a beautiful room with one flaw - a leaky faucet in the gloriously gold bathroom adjacent to me.
The sleek, white walls are lined with gold satin fabric along the edges. The sheer gold curtains flow in the wind from the balcony doors that have been left open, offering an airy, sensual feel.
Where the hell am I?
"Hey," a soft voice from behind prompts, and I whip my head around to meet his eyes.
It's him. The dark user I so foolishly trusted.
"Where-"
"You're in the council's ward. It's a castle veiled from the mortal world. You okay?"
I grip my head that seems to still want to spin, but other than that, I feel fine.
"Yeah. Why did I-"
"I was worried your conscious state couldn't handle the vaporized pace for the distance I had to carry you, so I rendered you unconscious instead. Sorry, but it was the best way to keep you from dying during the intense travel. This is one of our healing rooms. The council wants to speak to you now."
I swallow hard, suddenly feeling like a lamb spread across a sacrificial altar.
"The Dark Council?" I barely break out in a whisper.
"Yes," he chuckles out. "The Dark Council," he continues, a melodramatic tone carrying out a mock eerie delivery.
"This isn't funny. I'm light. This is suicide."
"Chill out. I wouldn't have brought you if I felt you were in any danger. As I told you before, this is simply a declaration of innocence."
"Fine. Where do I need to go?"
He takes my hand in his, and I follow him, my legs still wobbly. He steadies me by wrapping his arm around my waist, and I ignore his dark beauty as we step through the threshold together.
"You ever going to tell me your name, or should I stick with Mr. Dangerous?"
"Mr. Dangerous?" he asks with amusement. "This coming from a girl bunking with changers and night stalkers?"
Rolling my eyes, I murmur, "I don't mingle with the night stalkers… ever. They creep me out even worse than your kind."
"Ouch," he says teasingly. "And here I was thinking we were starting to get along."
"Your name?" I grumble.
"Fine, but don't mention me to your father, please."
"I don't speak to him… ever."
He seems to relax, making it obvious my father really does scare the hell out of him. Of course, Drackus scares the hell out of everyone… including me.
"It's Gage. For now, that's all you need to know. When you go before the council, they're going to expect you to make eye contact. Otherwise it'll seem as though you're being dishonest."
That's the complete opposite of the light council.
"Well, they can kiss my ass if they're worried about my honesty. I didn't come here to prove my innocence, and you can take me home right now if that's what this is about."
"This is a two-way meeting. I'm just asking you to show my people the same respect I've shown you."
"The same respect you've shown me?" I ask incredulously. "You've kidnapped me once already, and now I've been led here under false pretenses. What respect have you shown me?"
He looks at me, his eyes showing more seriousness. "More than one of your kind would have shown me."
This is so fucked up.
The way he talks, you'd think my kind was dark and his kind was light.
"Well, your kind has been trying to abolish mine for centuries. If it was up to you, we would-"
"Just drop it. It's obvious we'll have to agree to disagree, for you feel all dark users view things the same. It never occurred to you that some of our kind happen to respect all forms of life simply because you're a biased, spoiled brat with some naïve notion the world is only layered in black and white."
I rip free from his grip and glare at him, my eyes going crazy with their random shades.
"Whoa," he says while backing up. "What the hell is up with your eyes?"
"I'm pissed, that's what's up. You brought me here, and you've done nothing but bash the light, yet you feel as though I have no right to do the same to the dark. Your kind are vicious, unforgiving, and merciless monsters with a need for blood. You're no different from a night stalker, other than the fact you don't shed blood to survive!"
He sighs, exasperation oozing from his stance, and then he grips his head as his dark hair falls over his hand. Finally, he looks up while steepling his hands in front of his face.
"Let's just do this, and see if we can at least try to get along for five damn minutes. If they see us bickering like this, they'll never agree to uniting in an effort to track down our stalkers - the real threat out there."
"I never said I wanted to unite. In fact, I'm ready to go home. Screw this. I've got enough on my plate with my mom missing. I hope the gang of night stalkers find you and the rest of your kind and rips you all apart."
I turn to storm off, knowing I can't escape if he chooses to force me to stay. My whole body burns with fury, adrenaline, and fear. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to go with him.
When I turn around, I expect to find him right on my heels, but he's gone. The hallway is empty, and a breeze stirs as a door to the outside blows open.
With a heavy breath, I turn toward it and rush outside before he has the chance to change his mind.
Great. Lost in the damn woods. Stupid, stupid, stupid girl. Why in the hell did you trust a dark user?
If I had never gone with him, I wouldn't have spent the last five hours wandering aimlessly in no man's land. I'm cold, hungry, and freaking the hell out every time the wind blows too loud.
Great, I'm Frankie.
I hear a crack, and my body whips around to look for where it came from. I sigh in relief as a fox scurries out of a burrow and hustles deep into the woods. When I turn back around, my breath leaves my throat as a strong hand clamps around it, stealing my ability to use my magic.
Night stalker. It's the same frigging one from Phoenix.
My mouth falls open as strained wheezes emerge from my throat, and the few breaths of air I struggle to get are painful. With what little mobility I have, I look around to see the other fanged, blue-eyed beauties ready to show me their monstrous side.
"Where the fuck is it, witch?!"
I shake my head - what little bit I can - to answer when the only sound to escape through my lips is a strained squeak.
Slivers of night's black drapes are disrupted by the random streaks of moonlight, the glowing beauty only fueling these deadly assholes' strength.
"Tell me where it fucking is!" he blares, his spit finding my face and giving me the urge to gag when I can't wipe it away.
"Pl..eeaas..ee," I gurgle out, mindlessly begging for my life with that one word.
Then suddenly I'm released when the night stalker is launched backwards by some invisible force.
Oh thank you, Frankie.
I throw my arms out, sending out my own attack as several of the others fall to their backs, digging up the once dormant ground. Between dodging their desperate hands and fighting off their lunges, my eyes scour the surface for Frankie, but with all the blurring nonsense, I can't find him.
"Get me the hell out of here!" I plead, my attacks still coming out fluently.
The ground shakes beneath me as all of the night stalkers are tossed back at once, and my breath leaves when arms appear around me, vaporizing me with the invisible savior I now know isn't Frankie.
Frankie can't vaporize me.
I turn my body as we move too fast, and my legs wrap around a waist as I cling on for dear life. The dizziness and nausea sets in, but before I have to vomit, I feel the seat of a car and the slamming of a door.
Gage pops in beside me, and the little black car we're in suddenly charges into the night, racing through the winding roads.
Shit, shit, shit. He saved me. Now what?
His eyes study the road, but his ghost of a smile tells me he's waiting for some form of gratitude. He's enjoying this far too much. After I blasted his entire race for being nothing but dark - hence the name dark users - he saved me.
"Thank you," I mumble, quickly looking away as soon as his smile tries to twitch up more.
"I'm sorry, what did you say? My vicious, unforgiving, and merciless killer ears couldn't hear."
Crap. Jackass.
"I said, thank you. You saved my life," I humbly mumble, choking on crow.
I refuse to look at him, but I can feel his taunting smile.
"You're welcome. Now, can you accept the fact things are not black and white? You obviously think a changer can be good, and they really do kill for blood."
This time I turn to eye him suspiciously.
"You've been spying on me, haven't you?"
He shrugs, not finding that to be the invasion of privacy I do.
"I've had to. You apparently trust anyone with a pretty smile, and there are a lot of pretty smiles with deadly fangs behind them. If you're to be of any use to me, you have to stay alive."
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glare at him.
"I don't trust every pretty smile. I don't trust yours," I growl, and his eyes light up as he turns to me with his far too sexy smirk, as if he's mocking me.
I hate hot immortals… all immortal males.
"Despite my title as a dark user, you came out with me tonight, and you didn't even know my name. You trusted my smile, you just didn't like it when I told you the truth."
If I knew it would do a bit of good, I'd slap him for that.
"You just barked at me earlier, calling me naïve, spoiled… and… and something else. I think you're just as judgmental as I am. And, I never trusted you. I'm just desperate to find my mother. Thad has been there for me enough to prove himself."
He lets a laugh out, and then he shakes his head.
"You barely know the guy. Thad just tells you what you want to hear, and he constantly flirts with you, flashing his pretty smile for you to dissolve when you see it. If you're not naïve, then please tell me what you are."
Asshole - him, not me.
I refuse to say anything else. He's just going to twist my words around no matter what I say.
Instead of poking the bear, I simply sit there quietly as we drive around a mountainside. It's obvious he was just waiting for me to need his help. We're nowhere near the cabin I was in, and he was there to save me the second I screamed for help.
"Where are we exactly?"
"About a ten hour drive from where you were. I'd vaporize you and carry you with me, but after having done that not too long ago, it would quite possibly kill you. Besides, it's exhausting to travel long distances too frequently that way."
This is just weird. I'm living with changers and night stalkers, and now I'm riding with a dark user.
"Did I get you into trouble with the dark council?"
He huffs out a touch of laughter and then shakes his head.
"Not at all. They couldn't believe you made it that far before backing out. Your council wouldn't listen to you anyhow. It was purely for your benefit to know the truth so you'd stop chasing down dead ends that all lead to us."
"Okay, okay. Fine. So if those night stalkers aren't with you, who are they with?"
"They're sure as hell not with me, but I don't know who they're working for. It's obviously someone of magic, otherwise they couldn't use the black diamond of Roth. If it's someone dark, they're keeping themselves distanced from the council. If it's someone light, they're doing the same. Keep an eye out for someone who might have recently dropped off the grid. They would have had high clearance to even know who the keeper was."
"And what happens if I find out something? How do I get a hold of you?"
"Don't worry," he says with a small smile. "I'll be checking in."
"I'm not sure if that's a warning or a threat," I dryly joke, and he lets out a laugh, proving he's not as stern-faced as he pretends to be.
"It's simply a promise. If you need me, you can always send up a message flare with the right chant, and it'll call me to you."
"Really?" I muse, considering I've never heard of such.
He bursts out laughing, mockery in his roaring release, and then he shakes his head as my cheeks burn red.
"No. Don't be ridiculous. You can call me. I've already programmed my number in your phone. It's under Vicious One."
I slouch down, now that I've revealed how truly gullible I am, and I face the window while scrolling through my phone to see Gage Saber as part of my contacts, though he didn't literally program it the way he claimed.
Hmm. Saber? It's a fitting surname, considering this alliance could very well be a double-edged sword.
"You're right. You did program it under Vicious One."
He chuckles lightly while rolling his eyes, and I let my eyes fall heavy, exhausted from the day of unexpected craze.
Waking up in my bed, I quickly glance around at the room. Frankie is asleep on the floor, and I nudge him to see him startle awake.
"Shit, you scared the hell out of us," he gushes while reaching up to jerk me in his arms.
"What happened?" I muse, not remembering anything after falling asleep in the car with Gage.
"We spent most of the day looking for you, and then suddenly you were just in your bed, as if you had appeared out of nowhere. When I tried to wake you, you wouldn't budge. I realized it was a sleeper spell, one that just has to take its course and wear off naturally. Who took you? Was it that guy again?"
Knowing Frankie would storm the castle and fight Gage to the end over this, I shake my head.
"I don't think so. I'm fine now. Where's Aunt Hilly?"
"She's with the others in the living room. You want to talk to her? She's been worried."
"Um, actually, I think I'll just get some more rest. As crazy as it sounds, I'm still a little tired."
And I don't want to deal with Aunt Hilly.
"Well, tomorrow we're taking you back home," he bluntly adds, surprising the shit out of me.
"What? Why?"
"Because it’s obvious you aren't safe here. You can't cast a protection spell here because of all the bloodsuckers coming and going at random. It'd be a hassle to unlock the spell for all the new ones who are only here for small spurts at a time. And as bad as I hate to say it, you would be safer in your own house. I'll help cast the spell, only it won't just be against dark, it'll be against everyone. No one will be able to come or go without your direct consent. Understood? That means no strangers, no matter how friendly they seem."
"Understood," I grumble, feeling like the child everyone keeps accusing me of being.
Sighing, I collapse back down to the bed, and I think of how impossible it will be to keep Kane safe once he knows I'm back. I only thought he was relentless before.