CHAPTER EIGHT
He was hot—hell, he wasn’t just hot, he was burning up. He could feel sweat slick all over his skin. Panting hard, he kicked off the blanket and made a move to sit up. His head swam wildly and a groan left his throat. Suddenly, cool hands touched his chest, and a voice broke through the haze of fever. It was like cold water thrown on him—he could finally take a breath. Laying back, he licked cracked lips and tried to speak.
“Shhh, easy, you are still burning up from the change. Don’t try and speak; let me get you some water.” Her presence left him, and he felt bereft instantly as the heat rushed over him again. He ached to hear her. His hearing seemed muted, as if listening underwater.
He could hear her somewhere in the distance, the sound of running water and the clink of a glass. He made a move to sit up, the feeling of being half blind and weak as a newborn sitting like a stone in his gut. It burned within him as wrong. He had to get well, he needed to understand what had happened to him. He sensed her return before he felt her hand upon his chest. He hissed at the contact. She gasped softly and pulled her hand away. Why did her touch bring such peace?
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
He shook his head and blindly grabbed her hand, placing it over his heart again. Letting out his breath, he calmed and settled back down. To be in the dark like this and know there was a woman leaning over him was all very disconcerting. He felt the plastic of a straw against his lips and slowly he sealed them over it and began to drink.
“Easy, not too much—you are seriously dehydrated. Let me get you something for your lips.” She made a move to leave. He was desperate to keep her cooling energy beside him so he tightened his grip on her hand, shaking his head back and forth quickly. “Okay, I will stay, drink some more water.”
He drank deeply. The water tasted better than anything had in his life, cool and sweet against his tongue. It was amazing considering every other sense seemed to be numb right now. Everything but his sense of smell—he could smell her—her scent lingered on his skin, curling around him, through him, bringing him peace.
He opened his eyes, blinking back against the light, and turned his head so he could see her. Her form was fuzzy but the more he blinked the clearer she became. Her smile lit the room and he felt the pit of his stomach drop out. A memory resurfaced from his fevered brain—her blood on his tongue. He looked down to her bandaged hand and reached for it. Shaking her head, she lifted her hand to her chest. Guilt, he remembered guilt—it burned in his gut now like acid. How could he have harmed her?
“Not your fault, don’t you worry about it. My sister will heal it in the morning.” It made her heart ache that he seemed so worried about something out of his control.
His eyes locked with hers and she felt those flame blue orbs trapping her. His eyes seemed to move endlessly like flickering flames; they heated her skin and brought a blush to her cheeks. He looked right into her soul and she looked right back. He reached for her bandaged hand and she let him take it. Slowly he opened his mouth and licked his dry lips before speaking.
“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispered the words, his voice hoarse.
“Hush now, stop worrying about me. You’re the one with all the injuries. Besides, if you hadn’t bitten me, you might not have changed back. I still don’t know how that happened, but I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
She watched him relax and lay his head back against the pillow. He closed his eyes, and within a second he was asleep again. Layla licked her lips and moved to curl up on the couch beside him. Laying her head back against the cushion she watched his chest rise and fall, sweat glistening on his skin. The tattoos seemed to writhe on his flesh, making them look almost alive.
Layla figured she should be worried that having a strange man lying on her floor wasn’t panicking her more. But there was something about him—not just the fact that less than an hour ago he had been a madness-filled wolf-beast, but she knew in her gut that something else had turned him into it. Her eyes trailed over him, her fingertips itched to trace each elegant swirling tattoo. Knowing they pretty much covered his whole chest and travelled down to his hip heated her blood in a way she had thought long dead. Closing her eyes, she finally felt like she could sleep, as if some lost piece had fallen into place.
That had been a very unexpected and upsetting outcome. Chamuel had made sure to stoke the madness to a new level, using Michael as the catalyst, using his brothers and the pain of the change to wipe out any trace of humanity in the beast. He had wound up the beast and let it go on the hunt. He had gone right after the Seer just as expected. Chamuel’s plan had been to swoop in, slay the beast, and save the girl—that way she would easily come with him when Michael needed her.
But the beast attacked and went for blood. The moment he bit her, the curse had shattered like so much glass. He’d felt his grip on the monster break in a painful backlash that caused his brain to ache and his nose to bleed. Clearly this Seer was far more powerful than he had expected.
Chamuel put his hand to his aching head and pushed off the tree. He could do nothing now that the beast was sleeping with the Seer beside him. He would come back after he healed up. He would find that seed of madness again, even if he had to admit to Michael that he had messed up. He just hoped he could convince his leader he could fix it; he didn’t relish the idea of losing his feathers like Uriel had done after his screw up with the Seer of Empathy.
What could possibly save him though, would be the fact he had found three Seers, and one of them only a child. She would be easy to take and hold until they were finally ready to open Pandora’s Box. Soon they could unleash the darkness of sin upon the world and watch humanity rip itself apart.