Wild Hearts (Blood & Judgment #1) (16 page)

He’s not wearing his armor now. Draven or one of his Coven members must’ve stripped him of anything that could be used as a weapon. He’s shirtless and wearing only a pair of black satin boxers.

Whoa. He’s ripped beyond belief. His chest is all hard muscle with abs that look like they’re carved out of stone.

Without thinking, I reach out to him.

“Shit,” I cry as the blue field zaps me, sending a bolt of electricity through me.

“Are you all right?” Cahl asks me, concern filling his eyes.

I glance down at my hand. It’s burned, but it’ll heal quickly. “Yeah,” I say, looking back up at him. “I’ll be fine.”

“Do not touch the field again, princess.”

Like I’d be that stupid twice. I roll my eyes at him. Wait.
Princess
? Did he just really say that? Wow, that came out of left field. I’m not sure what to make of it, so I decide to just blow past it.

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

“No. The warlock has not begun his interrogation as yet.”

“He won’t need to, will he?”

He smiles. “No.”

“You’ve already defected from the Jurisdiction.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Do you not already see why?”

“I—”

“I found the answer to my question.”

“Question?” I ask. But then I remember. The weird conversation we’d had that’d shocked me back at the hotel the other day:

“It’s kill, or be killed.”

“Is it?”

“What?”

“Is there not more than…this?”

“There
is
more.
You
have shown me that, princess.”

“I’m not your princess,” I snap, not comfortable that I’m softening so easily with him.

“Your wolf begs to differ, I believe.”

Well, he’s got me there. I shrug. “She just wanted the cuffs off.” Blatant lie.

He grins. “I see,” he says, although it’s clear he doesn’t believe me.

“Well…good.”

“I wonder if anyone else has succeeded in calming your wolf before?”

He asks it in such a casual way, but I know damn well there isn’t anything casual about it.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“On the contrary, it matters more than anything.”

This whole thing is beyond messed up. “Don’t you hate my kind?”

He shakes his head. “It was never about hate. Emotion did not enter into it.”

“Then…what?”

“Duty.”

“Duty?” I scoff.

“You may not understand as you are not one who follows orders. You give orders. I was raised to do this duty and nothing else.”

“I get that. What I don’t get is why you suddenly defected. So, what, you suddenly saw me and decided to turn your back on everything? I know I’m a hot piece of ass, but still. It’s a little hard to believe.”

“Hot piece of ass?” he questions, the words sounding so weird coming out of his mouth.

For some reason, it has me blushing. What the hell? This man affects me in the strangest ways. “I…I mean, you found me attractive.”

“Oh,” he says, smiling with amusement. And then his expression becomes serious. His eyes lock with mine, the intensity causing my heart to skip a beat. “No, it was more than that. I realized who you are. Your eyes. Your hair…such a vibrant red. A shade I have only seen once before. I should have realized the connection immediately. It is clear to me now that the Jurisdiction lied to me about your true heritage.”

“What?”

“You are the daughter of Alessandra.”

“Alessandra?”

“Your mother.”

“You…you knew my mother?”

Before he can answer, the door flies open and Draven strolls on in.

“Aria,” he says, sternly. “A word, please.”

I eye Cahl, hesitating, as he was about to reveal something major to me. He shakes his head at me, letting me know that he won’t say anything with someone else here. Shit. What the hell does he know about my mother? How does he know her? And who the hell could she be to have him doing a complete one-eighty and defecting from his own people just to spare my life?

I blow out a frustrated breath as I allow Draven to usher me out of the cell.

He shuts the door and I watch him sweep his hand over the lock. It shimmers with blue magic and I know he’s just spelled it. Dammit.

I fold my arms across my chest as he regards me seriously.

“You must be careful. We don’t know his intentions yet. This could be a trick.”

“If you hadn’t interrupted, I could’ve found out.”

“He has power over you.”

I scoff. “Please.”

“You can’t dismiss it. I was there. He was able to subdue your wolf. A wolf that is stronger than any other wolf on this earth. That is great power, Aria.”

“I—”

“Borne from love.”

I burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of what he’s suggesting. “Powerful, good looking
and
a sense of humor. Ember’s a lucky girl.”

“She will be once I break through her stubbornness,” he says with an annoyed frown. In an instant, his serious all-business expression is back as he tells me, “But I am not joking about this. You know it, even if you can’t admit it aloud. Be careful. Until I can be sure of his intentions, you won’t go near him again. The spell will see to that.”

“I—”

“Ember is in the dining hall. You can join her for dinner.”

Argh. He’s stonewalling me. There’s not much else I can do, given the fact that I don’t possess any magic of my own, let alone
his
extreme power.

“Fine,” I mutter, walking away.

I’m aware that he isn’t following me.

I turn back to see him still standing at the door to Cahl’s cell.

“Draven?”

“Yes?”

“He doesn’t need to be interrogated. He’ll tell you what you want to know. You don’t need to…force it out of him.”

“All right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

I hesitate for a moment, before heading on back up the stairs.

Chapter 16

~Ember~

I have been placed in this dining room, well more like dining hall it is so large, all on my own. It irritates me. Don’t ask me why, normally my own company is all I can stand, but now it just makes me suspicious.

I look up as Aria waltzes in with a worried frown that had better not be the result of anything to do with me. I am not in the mood for another go around show of arrogance.

“Hey,” she says and sits opposite me, lifting the lid off the domed, silver setting in front of her. She breathes in deeply at the steak and salad and picks up her knife and fork. “You eat?” she asks before shoveling food into her mouth.

“Obviously,” I snap at her. “Or I wouldn’t have a plate of food in front of me.”

“Just asking,” she mumbles with her mouth full.

I pick at my salad and the feeling of dread just gets worse. It’s enough. I need to feed; I need to
kill
.

“Everything okay in here?” Draven asks a second later, sauntering in looking like he just stepped out of
GQ
. “I sense some tension.”

He and Aria exchange a look that completely excludes me and that is the final straw. I stand up. “I need to feed,” I announce.

“I will get some blood for you,” Draven says hastily, sensing the dark mood that has overtaken me.

“It’s not your damn responsibility!” I yell at him and swipe my plate off the table, sending food flying and china crashing to the floor.

“Calm the fuck down,” Aria says, picking a shred of lettuce out of her hair. “He’s only trying to help.”

“Oh,
is
he?” I snarl at her, pissed that she is sticking up for him. “Stay out of this.”

“Done,” she says coldly and goes back to her eating.

I glare at her and then stalk past Draven and towards the front door. He stops me halfway across the drawing room and grabs me. I forcefully pull my arm out of his grip, but he grabs it again anyway.

“Ember,” he says. “I will sort this out for you. I should have made arrangements before. I thought we had more time. I apologize. You are mine to take care of and I will do so.”

“I am
not
yours!” I shout at him. “I don’t belong to anyone and I can fend for myself, thank you. I don’t need your assistance.”

“You are mine,” he says stoically, giving me an intense gaze. “It is written as much as this prophecy you believe in is. You need to let me in.”

“Never,” I spit at him. “I am fine on my own.”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “You are quite accustomed to being on your own.”

“What would you know of it?” I growl.

“After you and Aria appeared at my doorway, I checked into you. I wanted to know about you and I knew you wouldn’t tell me after our encounter.”

“You did a supernatural Google check on me?” I shriek at him. “Oh, you had better be fucking joking!”

He shakes his head. “No jokes. I know all about your family situation…”

“You know fuck all,” I seethe. “Now let me out of here.”

“I know you are on the run from your father and have been for many years. You can stop running now, Ember. I can protect you,” he says sincerely.

Fuck that. “All you offer me is another prison,” I say, shaking my head at him. “I will not accept your help in exchange for you claiming me. That isn’t how this works.”

“That’s not what I am doing,” he says in exasperation.

“You can’t reason with her,” Aria says, entering the room and crossing her arms. “She is too far gone. Let her out.”

“She will kill,” Draven says, worried.

“Yeah. She will,” Aria says seriously, a deep sadness in her voice. “But this will only get worse.”

“No,” Draven says. “There is another way.”

I look between the two of them and bare my fangs at them. The two of them buddying up against me and skulking around during the daylight hours together is making this bad situation worse. They need to leave me the fuck alone. Now.

“Let me out, or I will start tearing through your Coven one by one,” I challenge him.

“And I would have to stop you,” Draven says menacingly. “Don’t make me do that.”

“Then drop the wards and open the gates,” I say and turn on my heel and race towards the door. I open it and run through, aiming straight for the gates.

“Ember, wait!” Draven calls to me, but all I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears and the smell of the forest all around me. It brings out the hunter in me and I don’t stop.

“Ember!” he shouts, but it’s too late. I have run headlong into the ward and the flash of blue electricity burns my eyes as it stops my heart, before flinging me backwards twenty-five feet.

As I hit the ground, it restarts my heart and I open my eyes with a gasp.

“Ember,” Draven cries and drops to his knees, cradling my head in his lap. He looks down into my eyes and the look of terror turns to one of confusion. “That should have killed you,” he says.

“It did,” I answer, pissed off, and sit up pushing him away from me. “Lucky for your ass, I am better than death. Now. Drop. The. Ward.”

He stands up, as I do, and says coldly, “As you wish.”

I don’t bother with gratitude, I just turn and run. This time I make it out of the grounds and I stop only for a brief moment to remove my shoes before I take off again heading for the hills. Figuratively speaking. I am actually heading straight towards that dive motel where we picked up the
Ford
. My killer instinct is at its peak and Aria was right about one thing: you can’t reason with me. All I can concentrate on is getting to my next feed.

I run and jump my way through the forest. A cautious forty-five-minute drive in the car is made into less than ten minutes with my speed on foot.

The trees clear and start to thin and then my bare feet hit tarmac. I stop then to breathe in deeply. The race hasn’t tired me out, only made me more invigorated and hungrier. I replace my shoes and calmly walk across the road to the motel. It is nearing midnight so it is relatively quiet, just a few noises coming from the small bar attached to the motel. As I reach the parking lot, I stumble as the ache in my head suddenly fires up.

No, no, no. This is the worst time for a vision to strike! But instead of the mind numbing intensity of a normal vision, all that happens is I lose focus and the drumming in my head stays at a steady beat. I get a picture in my head. A picture I wish I wasn’t looking at. Draven is standing outside, staring at where I disappeared and Aria is standing next to him.

“She’ll be okay,” Aria says.

“I know she will,” Draven says. “It’s everyone else that I’m worried about.”

“Me too. I’m just glad she didn’t lose her shit while we were still with my pack. Woulda been hell on earth.” And then she eyes him and says, “Good luck with that one.”