Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,88
For the second time in as many minutes, he felt as if he were pushing through a muddled mind to reach for something.
Finally, he found it. Take her in your arms, you daft asshole! And suddenly he was moving with dragon speed to slide across the marble floor behind her, simultaneously turning her around so he could pull her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms over hers and used both grips to hold her tight and rock gently back and forth.
He didn’t say anything at all. She didn’t want words anyway. Her sobs were quiet, deep, dry like they’d come from a well she could no longer pull anything but pain out of. She just wanted someone to know and understand and feel – or at least pretend they did.
And she wasn’t done telling her story anyway. “Sterling… he knew I would only have enough strength for one more resurrection after saving my mom. And I didn’t even realize that the entire time, the whole damn day, he’d been handing me all this candy. All this chocolate and shit. Telling me I had to eat it. When we reached the warden’s house, I realized why. He was fueling me because he knew I would ask to come along. And he knew I would try to pitch in. And he knew I would need strength to do it.”
She went still in his arms, held motionless not only by his strength, but by the awful strength of what she was once more seeing in her mind’s eye. “When we got to the house, it was quiet. But even I could smell the blood. Sterling turned on the lights… and we found the bodies. The warden was gone. It was clear she’d been taken. Or maybe she’d finally just given up. Not cared any more. I wouldn’t have. Not after that.” She was racked by another sob, one that ripped pain right out from the deepest depths of her and ruthlessly made her feel it. “Three kids. And their father. Two of the kids were small, maybe four or five. The third was a little older, maybe ten. Two preschoolers and their big brother. The father had been ripped to shreds. That was the blood we smelled. But the kids… they’d been killed without a mark. It was like the Apex had simply willed them to die. To stop breathing.”
He probably had, Ares thought. Apex were vampire-werewolves. They were werewolves that had later become vampires. Or in some rare cases, the other way around. They were immensely powerful and often times, just plain insane. That insanity made them horribly dangerous. Apex often had amplified vampire abilities, such as the ability to not only read a person’s thoughts but control their mind. These mental suggestions and commands, no matter how base and fundamental, would be followed to the letter.
“I remember Sterling felt all of their pulses or whatever warlocks do that’s the equivalent, and then looked at me. He said, ‘Annaleia, we have to do this now. Please help me save two of the children. Please.’ But… I couldn’t, Ares. I couldn’t decide between them! Jesus, who the fuck am I that I think I can just pick who is going to live and who is going to die?!”
She bucked a little in Ares grip with those final words, the pain of her fury becoming too physical to ignore. But he held on tighter, and he lowered his lips to her ear. “I know, Leia. I know…. It’s wrong. It’s so goddamn wrong that you are forced to do this. I’m so sorry, Raindrop.” He shushed her softly, rocked her, and held tight. So tight.
Until finally, her crying eased up enough for her to speak again. “Oh God…” She made an agonized sound, as if it were literally eating away at her chest. “I think he saw that I couldn’t do it. I was too weak to even make the first step of deciding. Because all of a sudden he was just standing in front of me, his hands around my arms, his eyes spearing through me like shards of ice. He said, ‘Annaleia, come and help this boy right now.’” But of course as he led me to the kid, I just had to ask. “Why him? Why not the others?”
“And the poor man, he looked so helpless. He just said, ‘I sense no physical maladies, no genetic defects or illnesses in him; he has the best chance for survival between