chapter FOUR
Eric’s lips pressed down on my mouth, but a scream erupted from my throat. He pulled back, and looked at me. His words stoked the dying embers of my brain, cracking the lust with lies. With a forceful shove, I untangled us, and pushed him away.
Pointing my blade toward him, I screamed, “We are NOT the same!” My entire body was red, covered in a blush that I couldn’t conceal. And I hated him for it. I hated what he did to me. And why he thought we were alike was incomprehensible.
His gaze was intense, still burning for me. “We are. You just haven’t accepted it, yet.” He took another step toward me, ignoring my weapon. “You just… ” He didn’t get to finish his sentence. I lunged my left arm forward as if I fought with this hand all the time. The movement made him stop. The smile slid off his face.
“We are not the same!” I screamed. “You killed her! It was you! I trusted you! I said there was something different about you!” The night of Al’s death rushed back into my mind. A string of a hundred images played back to back, and I couldn’t make them stop. My fingers pressed against my temples for a split second as I tried to stop the memory onslaught.
Eric stepped toward me. “There is,” he answered.
But I didn’t let him say more. My hands fell back into an attacker’s position, and I jabbed the blades toward his chest. “There is not.” I snarled. “I was wrong. I was wrong about me and I was wrong about you.” I held my ground. I needed more time. The rage burned off the lust for now, but my right hand was too weak to grip the blade. I’d need to throw some force into the lunge if I was to pierce his heart. It was the only way to kill him.
Time. I needed more time, but his words confused me. They awoke the lust he made me feel. Eric’s touch made me a mindless slave. I spoke, not caring what I said as long as it held him back and kept him silent. “I don’t need your help. I can figure out what’s on that page from your book without you. To think you even remembered was… ” I shook my head, not bothering to finish my sentence. “You’re right, Eric. I am a fool. There is no trusting demons. There is no compassion, no kindness, no love left in your putrid body. I’m the one who did this to you and I’m the one who will end it.”
While I was speaking I could feel the rage seeping from the depths of my soul and filling every part of my body. My eyes pooled violet and I ignored it, thinking I could control myself, but the longer I spoke the more I began to question why I shouldn’t let the rage overtake me. Al had warned me not to. She told Eric to teach me how to contain it, but I didn’t want to. Not now. Rage held power—power I needed to kill Eric. After my eyes pooled, I felt tingling in my right hand. The skin was smooth, and crusted in blood. My blood. Drawing my hands together, I switched my weapon into my right hand. Eric watched me do it. Every muscle in my body felt like it was on fire. White hot fury washed through me with a deafening roar. I didn’t hear Eric’s words. His lust had no power over me in that moment. He no longer tried to move towards me. His words held no seduction.
I lunged at him, swiping my weapon at his throat.
Eric spoke, but I failed to hear him. I swung and he dodged. A strange familiarity came over me as I fought him. We’d done this before, long ago. His golden eyes would dance as he fought me back then, and I would lose. I lost every time. Eric had been a warrior. He taught me to fight. He taught me to win. We’d run through the old gym at the church like children on a playground. Without a doubt, I knew Eric wouldn’t hurt me back then. Nothing was real at that time. Demons and angels were some distant thing that I would never encounter. I didn’t realize how deep I’d gotten. Eric was kind then. He helped me. He knew me. And I had no idea what I’d do to him. I had no idea how much pain I would inflict on him before his life ended. It made my heart sink long enough to hear what he was saying.
My mind jumped out of the past. The memories blew away like a feather in the wind. When the memory faded I realized that my body had been swinging my weapon, and attacking without thought. It seemed that my anger put me on autopilot. My advances were innate. I swung. I blocked. I attacked. Nothing was planned. And as Eric’s voice drifted up to my ears, I found that I’d beaten him. I’d inflicted wounds that I didn’t remember giving. Blood streaked his face dripping down his cheeks and into his hair as he lay beneath me. My legs straddled him, pinning Eric to the ground. He didn’t wince, or close his eyes. Instead he kept speaking words I couldn’t hear. Words that sputtered beneath a sea of static. I watched his lips move, as I swung my arms over my head. My back arched with my blade secure in both hands. Poised to strike. Ready to kill. All I had to do was plunge my blades down and into his heart.
Eric’s words cut through the haze of rage for a split second, and I heard him. “… cannot defeat him on your own. He’ll use you Ivy. He’ll make you into something you’re not. F*ck! Wake up! Listen to me!”
I paused, staring down at him, feeling my arms tremble as I held them still over my head. I wondered how I pinned him. I didn’t remember this. I didn’t recall throwing Eric to the floor. I was ready to strike and end his words forever, but something stopped me. It was like someone paused me.
His eyes were completely golden, without a bit of red. His voice was soft, neither pleading nor panicked. “I remember you. I remember who you are even if you don’t… Ivy, let go of the rage. Let it go and come back to me.”
In that second, my resolve hardened. There was no mercy, no forgiveness for what he’d done. And the fact that I’d made him what he was, was even worse. It was time to end this. It was time to end the pain I’d caused by trying to make him into something he wasn’t. By trying to save him. Every muscle in my body burned and I felt myself becoming more drained by the second. A scream erupted from deep within me and ripped out of my throat. Eric pressed his eyes closed, as my weapon swung straight towards his heart. As the silvery tip touched his flesh, I expected it to rip through him like a tissue.
But it did not. When my blade hit Eric’s chest the tip touched his flesh, sinking in slightly and then stopped. Eric’s eyes went wide, but he said nothing. Enraged, I threw my arms over my head for the second time. Not understanding what happened, I swung down a second time. There was no saving him from this. Eric would die. As the tines whistled through the air downward toward Eric’s chest, I felt something grab me. It felt like I was snatched from the spot where I pinned Eric to the ground. Mid-swing, I was pelted with cold air. Colors of light streaked past me so fast that all I could do was scream. It felt like I’d fallen into a black hole. The world rushed past me in a streak of colors and meaningless sounds. They continued to blare by without pause. Until it stopped. Then, with an ungodly thud, I landed on a slick golden floor. My comb clattered next to me with the blades retracted. A black boot stepped towards me, as a hand reached down and pulled me up by my shirt.
“Have you lost your mind?” Lorren screamed at me. My fingers wrapped around his grip trying to pull him off of me, but he tossed me across the room like I was nothing. I hit the golden floor of the Lorren.