Blood wells. Gushes from the cut—thick, red, viscous.
More screams. More pleading.
Rough hands on my back, rolling me over. Rolling her over. I struggle to remain apart, not to get sucked into Shelby’s tiny body. I can’t help her then. But it’s hard, impossible. Because I can feel him touching her, touching me. His hands positioning me on my side on the edge of the bed.
A whole new horror swamps me, but he doesn’t touch her again, except to pull her leg forward and over. There’s a drip, drip, drip sound as the blood hits something metal. The bed frame. No. A container. A chalice.
Oh goddess. Oh goddess. Oh goddess. No. No. No! It’s me screaming now, not Shelby. She just feels the pain. She doesn’t know what this is, doesn’t know how much worse it’s going to get. But I do. I do.
Shelby! I scream her name. Answer me! Shelby, are you there?
There’s no answer. Just a low, ceremonial chant that registers only on the edges of my consciousness. I strain to hear the words, but they’re soft and muffled, nearly indistinguishable. I know the rhythm, though. Have heard it before, though I don’t know where or when or why. This kind of magic is far blacker than anything I have ever experienced.
Xandra! Xandra, help me!
But I can’t help her, can’t do anything but lie here as—
Burning agony explodes through my face, through the whole left side of my head. My ear rings and my eye feels like it’s going to pop right out of the socket. I try to hang on to Shelby, to the connection between us, but everything is mixed up. Chaotic. Like I’m three steps behind where I should be and can’t quite figure out how to catch up.
Xandra! Xandra! Xan—
And then there’s nothing.
Seven
I wake with a start. Alone. Confused. Shivering. Terrified without knowing why. Reaching out an arm, I search for Declan’s warmth. But his side of the bed is cold, empty. He’s gone.
Not just gone-to-the-bathroom gone or in-the-kitchen-making-coffee gone. But well and truly gone. I can’t feel him. He’s not here, in my bedroom or in my house.
More confused than ever, I push myself into a sitting position, then immediately wish I hadn’t as my whole body protests. It hurts. Goddess, it hurts so much. But why? I don’t understand. I was fine when I went to bed, fine—
Xandra!
It’s a psychic scream and it grabs me on a visceral level, wraps itself around me and squeezes until my heart feels like it’s going to explode. And then my dream comes flooding back. Shelby. Blood. Pain.
Shelby! Now I’m the one screaming her name—and on a psychic plane I didn’t even know I could reach. There’s no answer. Shelby! Shelby! Shelby!
Nothing.
Totally freaked out now, I push the covers back and swing my legs around to the side of the bed. Everything aches. Still, I have to get up. I need my phone, need to call Declan. I don’t have a clue what’s going on, but he might. Surely he can at least tell me if it’s even possible that I connected with Shelby or if it was all just a nightmare brought on by my concern for her.
Before my powers kicked in, I’d never been prone to night terrors, but lately I’ve been getting them every night. Sometimes two or three times a night. Yet another reason why it’s so strange that Declan isn’t here. He knows how bad the nightmares get and he never leaves me alone while I’m sleeping, never leaves me to face them by myself. Especially when it’s still dark outside. Which it is.
I glance at the clock. It’s barely one in the morning. Which means I’ve been asleep about three hours. I think about my last encounter with Declan, how I was so sure that he had distracted me in an effort to tire me out and get me to stop asking questions. If that’s true—and it’s hard to imagine that it isn’t—what reason would he have to do it? He might be dark, but he has a surprisingly large heart. I can’t imagine a lost little girl not touching him.
Shelby. I call to her again, determined to find out if this is all just a figment of my overactive imagination. There’s no answer.
I shove out of bed, determined to find my phone. And I end up falling flat on my ass, my legs completely unwilling to support me.
What the hell?
I grab onto the nightstand and shakily pull myself back up. My head is pounding, my leg throbbing, and the rest of my body is filled with dull aches and pains that weren’t there when I went to bed.
I put my hand on my right thigh, start to massage it. Then I pull up short when I feel a long, thick scar stretching all the way down to my knee. Images from my vision tumble through my mind and I start to race to the bathroom. But I manage to take two steps before I’m on the floor again. Damn it.