I caught his arm and guided him out of the room before we fell under Max’s spell and we headed to the bedroom I’d claimed for my own here in the Hollow.
The room was big with white sheets on the bed and all kinds of my crap strewn about the place from Pitball medals to textbooks. There was a long window along the far wall with a view looking out over the snow covered trees.
“What do we do?” Seth asked with a soft whimper as I closed the door behind us.
“I don’t know,” I admitted as I dropped down onto the edge of the bed, gazing out at the view.
Seth sat beside me, nuzzling against my shoulder affectionately.
“I really fucked up tonight,” I breathed, thinking back on the moment I’d seen the black rings around Tory’s eyes. I should have realised who it had been right away. But it was like my thoughts hadn’t been in order and all I’d wanted was to lose myself in her.
“You didn’t know,” Seth murmured, taking my hand and squeezing it. “The stars are going to use anything and anyone they can to keep them apart now. You were just the first of many things they’ll use to drive the wedge between them…”
“It’s not right.”
“I know. But what can we do?”
“Something. Anything. I don’t even know what yet. But I’m going to make up for this,” I swore. “I’m going to find some way to fix it.”
I woke from a darkness so thick, it had bled into every part of me and held me captive. The world was a haze and I couldn’t piece together which parts of my nightmares had been real and which had been imaginary. A heaviness weighed on my heart and a prickle in my right arm made my hand twitch. But I couldn’t piece together what that feeling was, even though it was achingly familiar.
A warm body pressed me down and I reached for her, knowing her by scent alone. But there was another scent in the room, tainting everything about this moment of waking up with her which should have been so perfect. Blood.
What happened? Where the hell am I?
Slowly, it came back together, the memories stirring in my mind in a thick pool of oil. We’d brought Clara back, and then…
I shuddered and Darcy groaned softly in her sleep.
Clara…my own sister, she’d driven the draining dagger into me and drank too much of my blood. I remembered Blue gazing down at me, each of her tears making me ache. The words I love you had fallen from her lips and sounded like the sweetest song in the world. Then darkness, nothing but darkness.
My head throbbed, but my chest hummed contentedly with the fuel of magic and I recalled being awake in that cave, drinking from Darius and-
“Fuck!” I bolted upright and everything tilted. Seth.
Darcy sprang to her knees in alarm, staring at me in shock. “Are you alright?” She reached for my hand and I realised she was shaking.
“Blue,” I groaned, grabbing her and pulling her against me, needing her like I needed air to breathe.
She wound her legs around me, burying her face in my neck and clutching onto me like the world would stop turning if she didn’t. She released a sob that wracked through her whole body and the pain in it hurt me too.
“It’s okay,” I hushed her.
“Lance, you have no idea-”
I silenced her with a kiss, seeking out her mouth and tugging her so close it felt like our hearts were about to collide through our flesh. I let my magical barriers down and she gasped, our power merging and dancing together like they’d missed each other.
“What happened?” I asked heavily as she drew away, unsure if I wanted to know. “How did I get back here?”
“Darius,” she said, resting her forehead to mine. I held on tight to her waist, not letting her get any more space between us than that.
“He turned up at last then did he?” I snarled, my fangs extending in anger. My thoughts were still a fog and the shock of what had happened was too much to process. But my rage over Darius letting me down was as keen as it had been before.
“He said something happened.” She shook her head, clearly not knowing any more than that.
“And Tory?”
“I don’t know. I left my Atlas back at the cave. Yours is broken.” She pointed to the device on my nightstand, a huge crack splintered up the centre of it.
I lifted a hand up and curled a lock of her hair around it which was coated with blood.
“Come on,” I said gently, meaning to scoop her into my arms and carry her to the bathroom, but my strength failed me. “Fuck,” I hissed as a tremor wracked my body. I was dizzy with blood loss and I blinked away a haze of darkness curtaining my eyes.
“Here, it’s alright.” She guided me out of bed and I growled, hating to appear weak in front of her.
There was so much we needed to say, but both of us were dirty and bloody and I couldn’t bear to see her looking like that a second longer so I let her gather up some clothes and lead me through the house to the bathroom on the other side of the lounge. I didn’t want to let myself think about Clara just yet, because I was fairly sure my heart was going to break when I did.
We headed straight into the large shower unit and my vision faltered for a second as I turned the water on. I gazed down at her bloodied clothes and flesh and my heart crushed in my chest. I turned her around, washing the blood out of her hair, pulling her clothes off as I made sure I got every last bloody mark. I found bruises all along her spine and choked back the razor sharp lump in my throat as I healed them away.
This is my fault. I was the one who asked her to be there last night. I should have realised it wasn’t safe. That Clara might not be herself.
The water swirled around us, turning red by our feet, taking the evidence of tonight with it, but taking none of the lasting hurt inside me. The scar across my stomach would likely never go completely, but I brushed a line of healing magic over it anyway, helping it fade a little more.
Darcy turned to me when she was clean, stripped bare and her eyes full of pain and relief, the two emotions so raw they ate at my heart. She tugged my clothes free and washed away the lasting imprint of blood on my skin until there was nothing but a sea of unspoken words hanging between us and the water.
Something told me she didn’t want to voice them, and I certainly wasn’t ready to face the impact of this night. So I pressed her back against the wall and laid kisses on her to chase away the horrors in her eyes. She ran her hands over me like she wanted to be sure I was real and I let her explore every inch of my skin before I lost myself in her body. The only words to pass our lips were I love yous and they were the only ones I cared for right now.
We stayed joined until the world weighed a little less and I could finally think straight again. Then we headed from the shower and I put on a pair of sweatpants and Darcy pulled on one of my T-shirts.
I glanced toward the window as we exited the bathroom, finding the sky beginning to pale, snow still tumbling against the pane. Something told me when the sun rose today, the world would be a much darker place.
I led Darcy back to my room and caught the sound of movement just before we stepped through the door. Darius stood by the window, his arms folded and his body draped in gold from chains to rings and a thick bracelet.
He glanced between us, realisation in his eyes and I gritted my jaw. Fury sliced me apart and I didn’t even care that he was seeing us together because fuck him.