Gulp. “I’m not dead.”
His hands loosened into more of a caress on my wrists. “Something tells me that our little bond is trying to push us to complete the triforce.”
My lips curled. Every time I heard “triforce”, I couldn’t help but think of The Legend of Zelda. Chase was my Link, always rescuing me. I was positive he would have no clue what I was talking about.
He looked at me funny. “Why are you smirking?”
“No reason. So what are we going to do if it is the bond? It’s not like I can lock you out of my room.”
“True.”
A hint of worry wove itself inside my belly, and I knew it was partly his emotions.
“You’ll have to handcuff me at night,” he added.
I gave him a droll look. It was too late to be joking about handcuffs. “Are you going to take this seriously? ‘Cuz if not, I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t get your pink panties ruffled. Of course I am taking it seriously, when something messes with my life, I always take it serious.” And I believed him. A cold glint of ice hardened his eyes, and that voice I loved darkened. “We’ll worry about it tomorrow. He kissed the tip of my nose. “Sleep tight, Angel Eyes. Don’t let the demons bite.”
I screwed up my face. “Funny.”
“By the way, you have the cutest bedhead.”
I threw a pillow at him, completely missing because he was already gone. I smashed my face into the pillow and let out a muffled scream of frustration.
Sleep was not capable after that.
Chapter 5
Every time I saw the black demon marks at my hip, I was enthralled. My mom still hadn’t seen them, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I could only hide them for so long. One slip and my butt would be toast. What I needed was a really good cover story, a believable one, or a great fake ID. Me getting an underage tattoo was something she would at least understand.
After I received the second mark, heartbond, the ancient swirls laced up my side. There was a light pulse of life in the ink, and lately I’ve felt something stronger, darker pulsing. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it was no good. I was learning that nothing good ever came from the unexplainable.
Lifting my gaze from the strange but beautiful markings, I stared into dark blue eyes that were almost unrecognizable to me. It gave me goose bumps to see them shift from light to dark, every shade of blue possible. I pulled down one of my eyelids to get a closer look and make sure I wasn’t growing any weird alien veins.
God, I was letting Emma get to me.
My second week of school with the combat-freak wasn’t any less horrid than the first. And so the pattern went week after week. She was really pushing my buttons, yet there was still a part of me that felt sympathy for her, and it was a weakness that kept me from lashing out. I was still human, with those nasty human emotions.
Maybe I should try to compel myself—make me feel less.
I reminded myself over and over every day that she had just lost her dad. If it had been my mom, I would have gone Freddy Krueger on whoever was responsible. I was pretty sure that was how Emma felt about Chase and me. She was just taunting us right before she went in for the final deathblow, and I hated being a waiting duck.
However, Emma wasn’t my only current problem at hand. That would have been just too darn simple.
I was afraid to sleep, or maybe I wanted to sleep too much. It was all confusing.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw these visions, these steamier than McSteamy dreams of Chase. And each time I awoke with my hip on fire. I wasn’t sure what he had done differently, but Chase hadn’t ended up in my room since that first night. There might have been a little bit of disappointment swimming inside me each time I opened my eyes alone.
It was not only the dreams that alarmed me, but the burning demon mark.
Satisfied that I didn’t have some kind of zombie infection growing in my eye sockets, I tugged my shirt down and belly flopped onto my bed. Chase had been suckered into Christmas shopping with Lexi. Better him than me. I could hardly believe that the holidays were quickly approaching right around the bend, and I still didn’t have the foggiest clue what I was going to get a half-demon.
It hardly felt like Christmas.
Maybe because I wasn’t used to all the white powdery stuff that still dusted the ground, or the cold air that made my snot freeze.
It wasn’t pretty.
With Chase not around, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and then I remembered—I’m a gamergirl. As long as I had my Xbox, I was never bored. Leaning over the side of the bed, I snatched the remote control from the floor.