Blood Stained Wings - Chapter Five

Lexi.
I woke up, my head woozy and my limbs just shy of my usual strength. But other than that I felt fine, which I wouldn’t have if I’d slept on that uncomfortable looking cot. My eyelids fluttered open and I blinked, trying to clear my tunneled vision. My head rested on something warm and strong but soft enough that it wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward. I glanced up and saw that Ian had arranged my head in the crook between his neck and shoulder. I looked up, focusing on his face, it was close, so close I could make out the smallest of details lain upon his face. Each long individual eyelash, the color of melted chocolate, on his lids, and even the faint white scars raised slightly on his throat, where there had once been wounds. Demetri had scars of the same intensity, sometimes longer, sometimes deeper, and some much more ragged and desperately torn from pasts he’d left behind. All of those scars I’d more or less seen or traced fondly with the tips of my fingers.

Demetri. Demetri. Demetri. Demetri. His named echoed in my mind, piercing through my chest, and rippled down into my very bones. It was pain that almost felt physical, no matter how theatrical it sounded. I pushed myself up and cringed unexpectedly at the sudden headache.

"Rest." Ian demanded infuriatedly. And albeit his tone and words sounded harsh, the hands that cradled my head and cupped my shoulder contradicted them. A frown tugged at my lips while my brows furrowed, when I couldn’t decide whether to lean into him or argue. I felt Ian’s chest heave and relax in exhalation.

"If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were anemic." He muttered, his tone dimmed to merely flat, but it sounded no better than the vehement fury from before. The cold silence dragged in the musky air of the dungeon like smoke, as something unsaid rested around them. I shrugged off his tone and let him continue.

"I could have killed you, Lexi." The tendons of my jaw tightened as I grinded my teeth frustratingly. Ian was now starting to remind me of the Demetri before we were together, so protective and wary and self-loathing. As if every time I received a new injury he was the one that had schemed and planned it. My shoulders rose and fell imperceptibly, but enough so that he noticed. I geared myself up to argue, but knew I couldn’t because of the demonstration I’d just put on of me passing out. Despite that I couldn’t help myself from still putting up a fight.

"I was the one that suggested you chow down, besides you didn’t kill me. That’s the point." That earned me a side long glance or a glower. His full lips thinned into a hard-line as his gaze pierced down at me, his dark brows knitted in conflicting emotion. I drew in a huge breath and reached up into my sleeve. In my hand came a tiny device, more precisely, an earpiece. I hooked it around my ear, slowing taking my head from him, but astonishingly left my shoulder in his warm grip. A flimsy ripped piece of material, I noticed, was wrapped tightly around my hand where Ian had bitten me.

"Lexi..." The low guilt ridden tone clawed up his throat, irking my insides. Though I knew it wasn’t Ian or Demetri who had vexed me so intensely.

I turned my eyes pointedly on him. Our gazes caught and locked, his elusive navy eyes somber and compelling beneath their thick brown lashes, and they were stripped of all his usual arrogance. They were clear as glass and full of desire. And more than desire, there was a tenderness I’d never seen in them before. That, more than anything, felt like a slap to wake someone from their hysterics. But, despite that I knew I couldn’t let him be as Demetri had been, all that sorrow and sadness consuming him, eating away the very burning sapphire in Demetri’s eyes that she loved. A frightening realization dawned on me, as to what I’d done and what I was still doing.

"Ian, please don’t." My voice shook, as if tears were there, choking my throat to a close. My lips curled into, what I’m sure, was an unconvincing quivery smile. "For whatever reason you’ve lost your personality and I actually think it’s a bad thing, because now more than ever you have to know that I needed to help you." I was a hunter, inevitable because of the hunter blood that ran thick in my veins. And though most hunters don’t let vampires feed off them, my life was constantly at risk. And all that meant I was poison.

"Alexia," a voice came, urgently in my ear. Languidly I tore my eyes from Ian’s, strange that it was harder than I initially thought, despite the relief from being allowed to hide my eyes which stung from threatening tears. "Are you unharmed? Why were you delayed?" Gabriel. And he was furious. A rumbling noise that sounded like metal rubbing against itself drawled from his end.

"I’m fine," I replied, not entirely a lie. The weak whisper that was my voice shook my core further. "I was just thrown in a dungeon." I elongated, strengthening my ambiguous voice, and trying to worm my way around answering the question in full. Inside me something was trying to surge to the outside, the intensity of it made me shiver. Lucia. I mentally growled. Her pining for someone who wasn’t even her lover was getting on my nerves, especially since her desperation was flooding through my body.

"That does not explain why you were delayed in reporting back." Anger pulled his tone taut, edged each word with steel. I chewed my lip anxiously, shoving aside my link to Lucia.

"I’m sorry, Gabriel. We should just get on with the plan. Where’s Lucian?" I withdrew, shrinking into myself guiltily. Gabriel had been sincerely worried, and he hardly seemed like the type to worry, even about vessels. And I’d just flipped him off.

"He’s here." He hissed, a growl rolling from his chest. He wasn’t happy with me and he had a justified right to be. I chewed on the inside of my tongue as I heard the rustling of the device being handed over.

"Alexia, child. If you’re not aware many hours have passed." Lucian didn’t sound mad or impatient, worse - his voice tranquil and grave. Over the past few days I’d learned that when Lucian didn’t let emotions flow through his words it was a sure sign he was disappointed. The cot I lounged on tersely felt like the course surface of the rocky edge of a cliff. I shifted uncomfortably.

"I apologize, Lucian." Self-consciously I pulled my shoulders back from slumping, but covered my stomach with my arms from the awful feeling that lurked in the pit of my stomach. I’d rarely heard this tone of his, but I never enjoyed the moment we were in when I’d heard it. I don’t know if it was Lucia and her emotions or not, but when Lucian spoke this way, half of me always felt as if it were my own father who was disappointed in me. The other half, the half I followed, felt compelled to purge myself of these foreign yet somehow familiar feelings.

"Am I still going through with the plan?" I tried to sound alert, hard and sure, ‘tried’ being the operative word. I heard conversations being thrown around on the other side. The soft brushing of the crown of my hair made me flinch as it ticked my face. Then I realized it was only Ian tucking the hair away from my face. I looked up at him, addled. His burning eyes dimmed to rueful and just short of pleading as if to say "I’m sorry". Ignoring the tears that threatened whenever I looked at Ian I prodded a defeated smile and thumped him lightly with my elbow.

I hauled myself off the cot and tread carefully over to the cell bars, hands out in front, feeling for the cold rough touch of metal, since the bars weren’t under the veil of lighting courtesy of the barred square hole. Ian followed with more fluidity than me, but went over to the cell door instead. My fingers circled tightly around a rusty bar but found it was stronger than I initially thought.

"Continue through with the plan, but you must hurry. There is no time to waste." I felt myself nod, though no one was watching. The pressure of time didn’t rest on my shoulders, instead it tightened chokingly around my chest and throat.

"Shit. I forgot." Ian stood still as granite. The only hint of movement was his fingers skimming the air between the bars as if testing an invisible wall.

"What’s wrong?" I followed his line of vision and eyed the lock of the door warily. He shrugged and nodded towards the cell bars.

"It’s spelled with a tomb in here. Shadows can’t get out any way if they’re inside a tomb." Ian answered, sticking his hands deep in his pockets. I knew I was glaring at the cell door, but it contradicted that sad feeling in my chest when my eyes strayed to Ian.

"Lucian, is it possible for you to take down the tomb spell from the outside?" The distraught sharpness in my own voice bewildered me for a moment so I softened it, feeling slightly ashamed. Unfazed by my sudden outburst he replied to my question.

"No, it isn’t possible with my distance and we lack the amount of time. Furthermore the warlock who yields power in that manor is as powerful as I, so it would acquire a certain period of time even if I were present, and you currently do not have the luxury of time. " Hints of anger flecked his voice, but I wasn’t sure. I felt the smallest sliver of hope drain from my body like all the energy I had contained before. I turn to Ian who was watching me benignly and eying me with heedfully.

He looked better I noted. Healthier and more himself. The same Ian who would always absentmindedly rock back on his expensive Italian shoes, that still somehow looked shiny. His hair was still disheveled and matted, but it was the same waves of silky warm chocolate that curled at the nape of his neck. The navy blue of his eyes was exuberantly bright with a slight ring of soft gold wounding around his irises. Though they were vigorously bright there was an underlying intensity flashing in the depths, strange enough, they made me want to turn my face away while my cheeks stained red. But the words caught on the tip of my tongue washed the urge away.

"I can’t get you out without finding the source of the magic or having Lucian here." I told him, biting back the bitter taste in my mouth. I couldn’t help but feel mad that I would have to leave Ian behind to execute the plan. He looked at me, not frustrated or even surprised. The faded navy blue of his eyes bemused me as they looked the same as the color of an old pair of comfy jeans. It was considerably beautiful.

"Had a feeling I’d be tragically stuck to wither away, sexy Lexi. Just tell me what’s I need to do." A smile quirked my lips as I heard the stupid but familiar nickname. It cleared the strange cloud of confusing emotions flooding in me.

"Lucian, please get everyone out as soon as I let the hunters in, I’ll send you directions as I go through the place." I wanted to drag on the moment, dreading the thought of leaving this cell. I didn’t want to leave Ian here. It left a truculent touch of distaste evident in the back of my throat.

"Ian, wait here until Lucian comes, he’ll help you and tell you what to do from there. I’m going to learn my way around here and…" I paused, choosing my words carefully and judiciously. "Open a path for the others to enter without being noticed." I wanted to sound convincing, not to sound like I was going to use myself as bait. I jarred my focus on the lock of the cell door before he could catch something suspicious whisking across my face. I reached into my bra and pulled out a small capped glass tube.

"You know it’s not a very good idea to seduce me here of all places." He chuckled darkly as if it was the most natural thing in the world, though the searing heavy stares on my back begged to differ. I snorted derisively to hide the discomfort I felt from his heated gaze. I flicked the cap off the tube, it clattered and bounced softly to the ground. Avoiding the eye-watering gas released, I tipped the contents of the glass tube on to the lock. With soft sizzling sounds, muddy bruise colored bubbles frothed on the surface of the rust tarnished lock. Moments later the metal bled away like it would if I took to it with industrial welding and in its place was a block of smoldering weirdly shaped metal. I clasped my hands around the bars of the door and strained against it until the metal yielded to a flush open.

Standing in the open doorway I hesitated, still feeling Ian’s eyes on me. I’d made light of my mortality, but despite that and having an angel on my side I might very well die tonight. Leaving everyone I love behind. Never seeing them again and them never seeing me again. So poisonous. The words make me wince, even knowing full well they were true, but still.

So, just feeling Ian’s presence behind me made it difficult to even inflate my lungs, let alone move. With one fluid motion born of practice I spun and laced my arms around him. My lungs filled with the abrupt scent of Ian, salt and sea and wind, like wading into the most serene waves of the perfect beach.

Right against my skin the beat of his heart against mine, as steady and strong as the pulse of the ocean. Bewildered, I let my fingers grow taut as they dug into the cotton of his clothes, wondering why I was so on edge, why my heart was beating so fast and synchronizing with Ian’s, why this felt wrong when all I was doing was trying to say goodbye to a person I cared for, without actually saying goodbye.

I felt him inhale as I felt the insides of my chest crumple. "Don’t die," My voice barely above a whisper in his ear. I hardly recognized my voice, so petulantly childlike and somewhat frightened. The words had left my mouth, but they still sounded absurd because death would always be a possibility, a highly plausible one too. Unsurprisingly, it also sounded utterly selfish.

I knew that, and yet I never felt as if selfishness honestly mattered before. But feeling as I did now, I wondered if Demetri or the others also thought as I had now. That with just the thought of being unable to bear their absence, you’d say anything, do anything just to protect them from harm’s way. But I knew I’d never truly understand what they had felt or thought, because unlike them I would always be something poisonous and addicting. Something that would kill them eventually.

"You know I’ll bring you back to kill you myself if you do." Along with a pathetic humorless laugh, that was all I could manage to choke out of myself. I pulled away, averting my eyes as well, unable to bear what I’d find if I’d met his honest eyes. I was at a loss for what else could be said.

Ian’s silence made my stomach dance and my palms sweat, while I anxiously waited for some arrogant remark, but it never came. Instead he leaned towards me and weaved his arms around the curve of my waist, resting on the small of my back, coaxing me back into the wreath of his arms, and rested his forehead daintily on mine. His eyes closed while mine fixated on my feet, invisible in the cloak of the pitch black cell. I would’ve been puzzled at how he managed his composure, but the gentle yet slightly ponderous trembling of his hands gave him away.

When I was safely shrouded away in his arms he breathed in and paused. As if to say something. Not pressing anything, I waited for the witty remark I’d expected. But instead he exhaled and drew me in closer, our legs and torsos pressing against each other with no space caught in between. Opening his eyelids Ian’s eyes bore into mine. The tender navy of his eyes abruptly catching me off guard again.

Run. Run. Run. The words chorused in my head like a song I couldn’t let go of. I could almost hear the oncoming tidal wave of unsettling intensity. RUN. Feeling like a small cornered animal I twisted and wiggled, trying to free myself, to escape somehow. But the tenacious fingers that circled my wrists like iron chains refused to release me and instead reeled me back into his embrace. "Ian-" Panicked, my eyes darted, straying everywhere except up to meet the navy of his eyes.

Without letting any space escape from our bodies, he lifted his arms from my wrists, fingers quickly skimming tenuously over my hips, roaming up the length of my arms until his hands rested on either side of my face at the base of my jaw. Cradling my face in his palms his thumbs brushed airily over my jaw, caressing my skin so gently he would’ve given the impression I would break like fragile glass at any moment. He held me there, his eyes grazed over my hair, my face, my lips, like a lingering kiss. My eyes widened at that. That ferocity had caught up and was here and there was no way to run. The rhythmic harmonious thumps inside my chest began to change, evolving into insistent harried poundings. I sucked in a breath, scared of the overwhelming intensity of the words he was about to utter, and braced myself.

His eyes met mine. Everything drained from me but the agony Ian was omitting. The navy of his eyes no less beautiful or intense but rather overwhelmed with a layer of sadness that twisted and wrenched my heart.

"Why are you doing this to me?" With that his lips crushed mine. I didn’t close my eyes and neither did he, he allowed me to see through him, as if his soul was right there in his eyes on display. The love, the sadness, the guilt… everything.

But there was only dreading numbness that shot down into the marrow of my bones. Why was I doing this? To him? To Demetri? To everyone? Loving them, though it felt so good and right also felt wrong, like a sin. But why did it feel that way? I was human, love should be normal.

I shook my head, denying something that flooded my entire being. I felt the tears pooling above my lashes and after blurring the edges of my sight they spilled over.

"I have to stop…" I whispered, not even knowing what I meant. All I knew was what I felt, and what I felt were caught in between an ageless war, though the verdict was still out with whom it was with. But I knew I was the one making choices, wrong choices, selfish choices. I pushed at his chest with my hands, forcing him to stumble several feet back. I was feeling a strength course through me that I didn’t know I possessed, it made me feel so… truly good, but the power also felt like chains anchoring me to the floor of a cage.

I shook my hair out, instead of following the hysterical urge to pull the dark strands from their roots. No. Calm down. I was being completely illogical. But I couldn’t stand this, to face Ian, to face my thoughts of Demetri, his beautiful face affectionate and softened with love and that had me whirling and bolting out the cell door. As if I felt another presence besides Ian, I glanced back over my shoulder to see the other cell residing next to Ian’s. I saw a shadow twitch, maybe they noticed me watching. I felt erratically drawn to that presence, but there was no way I would turn back now.

Foreseeing that Ruby’s arrogance would lead her to make the mistake of not locking the heavy steel door, I heaved it open and dashed out, absentmindedly tugging it closed behind me. My legs weak and wobbly with the sudden impact of my rush of unreasonable emotions, made me slide halfway down on the steel door. I almost laughed at that, of course most emotions were unreasonable. I grunted my disapproval, veered back up and shrugged off the unpredictable wave of hysteria.

I sniffed the crisp air through my nose, feeling the difference between that damp musky cell and the clean uniquely sweet-scented air. The eerie aroma of the air made me want to return to the comfort of the dark musky cell. I was now on high alert. I had to save the people I cared for and loved, before I could even begin to face the unpredictable things hidden that were unlocking inside me.

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Hi everyone, is the new year treating you well? I've had a pleasant enough start to the year, not too bad at all. Classes are pretty exhausting for me right now though, but I have a promise to keep to you lovely fans out there haha, so here you are! Enjoy and of course please comment and tell me what you honestly think! I don't think you guys know much I appreciate your comments! It makes me extremely happy to know you guys enjoy my writing so much, thank you so much!