Things That Should Stay Buried - Casey L. Bond Page 0,16
you?”
“Shall you heal me? Um, no. You shall not lay another finger on me!” I snapped. I turned to Kes. “But you’re going to explain every damn thing. Now.”
Kes gestured to the beast. “Larken, I’d like you to meet Aries.”
5
Aries.
Like the constellation glowing overhead.
My heart thundered, trying to keep up with whatever the hell was happening.
I looked from Kes to Aries and waited for an explanation that never came. Kes turned to his friend. “I invoke my right.”
Right? What right?
Aries went rigid, completely still as he stared holes through my brother. I was afraid for him and eased toward him, ready to get between them again if it came down to it.
“The others have been unearthed. The division has already begun.”
Aries watched Kes carefully. Sharply. “What will you ask of me?”
“I want you to pledge yourself to Larken, vowing to protect her above all others.”
Aries’s pink eyes flared, and his upper lip curled as he roared in Kes’s face. “You cannot ask this of me!”
Kes didn’t back down but met him toe to toe, pushing back when Aries postured. “She is my family. You know what Taurus will do to her.”
The two stared each other down for a long moment, silent conversation passing between them.
“What would he do?” I asked, keeping my voice as tempered as possible.
Kes and Aries ignored me.
“I won’t see it happen. I am granted a right, and I demand you honor it,” Kes hotly demanded, pointing at me. “You gave me your word,” he panted.
I stepped toward them, extending a hand. “Wait. What does this whole pledge-thing mean?”
Without answering, Aries cut the palm of one hand with a claw on the other and slashed the nail through the pooling blood, approaching me with it. I backed away. “What? No.”
Kes stopped me. “You must allow him to make this promise to you. This is the only thing I can do to help you now. He’s coming.”
“Who?” I asked, half in exasperation, half in fear.
“Taurus.”
“Taurus?” I parroted, trying to understand exactly what he was saying. “Are you trying to tell me the zodiac signs are real?”
“The Zodia are real,” Kes corrected, “and they are collecting those who are rightfully theirs. You belong to Taurus.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I argued. I wasn’t a thing, a possession.
“This isn’t the same world you woke up in, Larken, and it will never be again. Aries is making an offer you should not refuse.”
Aries wasn’t offering anything. He didn’t want to pledge to me. He didn’t want to protect me from Taurus or anything else. He couldn’t care less if I lived or died, but he owed my brother some sort of favor and was willing to honor it. I looked at the pool of his crimson blood, then I turned my attention back to Kes. I wrung my hands and shook them out like they were covered in water. I didn’t know what to do.
“I’m scared,” I whispered, another tear leaking from my eye.
“So am I, but you have to hurry. He’s close.” Kes’s eyes flicked to the staircase.
“Fine,” I said, watching warily as Aries approached. I told myself that if Taurus was as awful as Kes said, maybe this was a good, temporary arrangement. With that thought, I tried to quiet my racing heart.
Kes would never hurt me, I reminded myself. He promised to keep me and Mom and Dad safe.
“Kes, have Mom and Dad been… collected?” This was bad. Dad was a Taurus, too. Mom was a Libra.
Kes’s lips thinned. The muscle in his jaw ticked. “Yes.”
“What will happen to them?”
He shook his head. “They’ll be fine,” he said noncommittally.
“Dad’s a Taurus, too,” I reminded him. “And you just said you didn’t want me to go with him.”
Aries lifted his sharp fingernail. “Close your eyes.” The deep rumble of his voice slid over me, pebbling my skin.
A million questions flooded my mind but disappeared the moment his cool, wet blood was applied in a thin line that started above my right brow, bisected it, and slid over my lid and down onto the apple of my cheek. Aries drew a matching line over my left eye and stepped away.
The bad feeling I had earlier today returned with a vengeance. The hair on my arms rose.
Kes looked to the ceiling.
“He is here,” Aries said ominously, wiping his blood along his loincloth and striding across the room and up the steps. The ground shook above us like two giants were battling outside.