"Wel we got away." Eden shrugged, suddenly nervous.
Her father"s whole body was trembling with emotion. Now she understood the phrase "looked ready to explode".
He scoffed at her, his eyes flashing. "You were lucky."
"Very lucky," Teagan murmured, eyeing her with a twisted grin.
"So, what do we do?" Celine asked in hushed tones.
"They know we"re here, Ryan."
Ryan nodded. "Yes. I"m going to tighten security until the move. And you two." He pointed at Stel an and Eden. "No more school. I"l take care of everything, but you are both under house arrest until the move. We leave the day after the Awakening Ceremony."
"The day after..." Celine gaped. "But that gives me very little time to organise."
"Make time," Ryan hissed. "This is non-negotiable."
It took her a while to fal asleep that night. Everything was changing so fast. Salton hadn"t been much but it had been an anchor of sorts. Somehow, despite her worst efforts, she"d remained somewhat human in Salton. Eden guessed she"d never real y worried much about it until Noah walked she"d never real y worried much about it until Noah walked into her life. Suddenly there was this person who got her, who liked her, who cared about her.
How could it be possible to have imagined the connection between them?
But imagine it she must have. She would have done anything for him; she"d tried to be a better person for him; she had worried herself raw thinking about his reaction if he ever knew what she was. And al this time he had known. Al this time he"d been planning on... what? Had he been leading her to her death? He had fought those other Neith, but how could she begin to figure it out when al along he"d lied to her?
He"d lied. And the pain of that betrayal... it fed the hunger.
Eden didn"t want to ever see Noah again. She was afraid of what she"d do to him if she did. She couldn"t shake the hurt and the emptiness his betrayal had carved into and out of her.
It was no wonder, when she final y fel asleep, Noah was stil there...
It was cold here. Too cold. She squirmed. Too dark.
Open your eyes, idiot.
Her eyes refused to open with ease. She had to concentrate, had to pry them open with all her strength.
She was so tired.
Slowly, her blurry vision began to focus. White. Jeez, there was just so much white.
Groaning, Eden sat up, her fingers sliding through air as the bed underneath her disappeared. She found her feet though. She was standing now.
"Eden?"
She flinched at the familiar voice and turned to face him.
Noah stood before her, in his background of blaring white. He was wearing the Biffy Clyro shirt she loved. She frowned. There was blood on it. "Can you turn off the white?" She screwed up her face, her hands shielding her eyes.
The white dimmed but didn"t disappear.
"Better?" He smirked at her.
That familiar expression ripped through her in a fury and she flew at him, beating her fists against any part of his body she could. "You betrayed me! You betrayed me!" She shrieked over and over again.
Noah took a couple of the blows before he grew impatient and snapped his hands around her wrists.
Suddenly she was nothing more than a puppy wriggling in his arms. "I"m sorry, Eden. I"m sorry I lied." His violet eyes pleaded with her. "But I didn"t betray you."
"Liar."
"I didn"t betray you. I"m trying to help you."
She shook her head. "Help me, you can"t help me.
You"re sick. You"re a liar."
Noah"s face fell, his eyes sad. "I"m not. I"m trying to help.
We all are."
"What?"
He nodded behind her and Eden twisted her neck to peer over her shoulder. She gasped. A giant circle was etched on the floor of the white. Ten men and women sat crossed legged around it. A dark man, with skin the colour of mocha, gazed at her fiercely.
"Who are they?" She turned back to Noah.
His reply was a soft smile. He reached out to her tentatively, his fingers taking hold of the hem of her shirt.
She frowned as he slid it slowly upwards, stopping at the first bone of her ribs. A shiver rippled down her spine as Noah brushed his thumb across the strange birthmark on her lower belly. "The more important question is... who are you?"
"Noah?" Eden felt the tears slip down her cheeks. "I don"t understand. I don"t understand anything. How could you hurt me?"
"I"m sorry," he whispered. He sighed and drew his head down towards her. Her eyes drifted shut as she felt the soft tingle of his lips on hers. The sensation never left, even though he leaned back.
Eden reached for him, her hands sliding around his neck. His arms encircled her waist so they were embracing. "I"m going to hurt you back," she told him mournfully. "I"m going to punish you for what you"ve done to me." Noah nodded, his expression accepting. "I know." With tears flowing freely now, she pulled him towards her and kissed him. It was a deep kiss, full of need and pain and loneliness. She felt his hands fist in her shirt and squeeze her tighter, his tongue stroking hers softly, pulling her under, drugging her.
The hunger grinned and began to feed.
... the kiss felt so real. But it was changing. It had been sweet in the dream, ful and right. And then the hunger had yawned wide open, pul ing Noah in with an utter feeling of euphoria; a euphoria almost as wonderful as his lips on hers. They had been so soft...but now... the kiss... it had grown hard and wet and... choking.
Eden gagged, her eyes flying open, panic gripping her entire body.
Teagan! She barely registered the weight of his body on top of hers, his hands stroking and bruising wherever they touched, his mouth and tongue fused to hers; she just registered the fury.
The strength of her abhorrent disbelief rushed through her, blasting through her muscles as she unpinned herself from Teagan and threw him up and off of her. He landed on her bedroom floor with a thump, wincing as he just as quickly regained his footing.
Eden trembled, her nerves shot to hel , as she struggled to her feet, putting the bed between them.
Her cousin grinned at her, his muscular bare chest moving up and down with exertion. At least he was wearing pyjama bottoms. She thanked G.o.d for smal mercies.
"That was fun."
Rage bled her eyes of their cool colour.
One minute she was standing across from him, the next he was sprawled across the floor and Eden was straddling him, a letter opener biting into his neck. "You come near me again and I wil gut you. Do you understand?"
He merely grinned up at her, jerking his hips up crudely. "I took you by surprise, I apologise. But you should get used to intimacy with me, Eden. You"re eighteen next year.
We"l be married, and touching you wil not only be my want, it wil be my right." Eden pressed the letter opener harder, blood bubbling up under its point. She took satisfaction in Teagan"s wince.
"It wil be a cold day in hel when I let that happen."
"Ryan promised." Teagan grinned again.
She pressed harder, surprised by how much she enjoyed inflicting pain on him. He kept grinning.
Fine. No more Miss Nice.
She changed the location of the letter opener, the blade between his legs. His eyes widened and he suddenly grew very stil .
"Ryan isn"t a G.o.d, Teagan." Eden smiled at him coldly.
"His word isn"t law. And I wil kil you before I ever let you touch me. Do you understand?"
He nodded slowly, his eyes darting to where she had the blade.
Eden sprang up off of him, stepping back to let him up.
He did so leisurely, his body language trying to ooze cool when they both knew he"d been terrified she"d use the letter opener on his precious pieces. She was sure he wasn"t going to say anything, even feeling a little relief that maybe, final y, she had gotten through to him.
But then he stopped at the door and glared at her. "It might just have to come to that then, Eden... "cause I always get what I want."
Without thought, only feeling and impotence, Eden threw the letter opener.
Teagan hissed as it sliced through his upper arm. He scowled at her, clasping a tight hand around the handle of it. It slid out of his flesh, like a knife through b.u.t.ter, and he watched as the wound closed over, the only evidence of it a smear of blood on his skin and on the blade.
"Nice aim." He smirked at her now, his eyes bright with hunger.
Eden felt sick. "Not real y. I was aiming for your eye."
Chapter Fourteen.
Caffeine Hit with... Wel ... Punch Noah stood anxiously waiting on the coffee order. Lucky he had preternatural balance to carry them al . Cyrus, Alain, Emma, Romany, and another three Ankh and eight Neith were back at his apartment. They couldn"t afford to bring in anymore Ankh. Most of them were busy on a.s.signment anyway.
He was trying to stay focused. He was. But as he watched Sal y make up Romany"s vanil a latte, his eyes grew dazed as he remembered the look on Eden"s face when she realised he wasn"t who he said he was. At first it was a look of terror and horror, a look akin to a blade through his stomach. And then there was just betrayal and hatred.
The pain in his chest was worse than the blade.
He"d never betrayed a friend before.
And no matter how much Noah tried to convince himself that he had only been trying to help her, he knew Eden would see it as betrayal. Nothing more. Nothing less.
If someone had told him six months ago that losing her friendship would bother him, he"d have scoffed in their face.
He was an Ankh. He hated soul eaters. He was a seventy year old immortal teenager who had no time for the drama of teen relationships.
Or so he"d thought.
Sighing heavily, Noah tugged on his hair, reminding himself that tomorrow was the big night and he had to be utterly in control if he wanted to rescue Eden before it was too late. The fact that more Neith had come along and screwed up their plan had nearly sent Cyrus off the deep end. But the Neith promised they weren"t hiding the perpetrators, they were trying to discover who this rebel faction leader was and take them out. Stil , they had been watching Ryan Winslow. He"d invited ten more soul eaters to the Awakening Ceremony as a security precaution. Eden and her family were on lockdown.
Cyrus wasn"t stupid.
He had handpicked a Neith trained to withstand the soul eaters compulsion just as the Ankh were. It was a difficult thing for a mortal to accomplish but some of the Neith were capable of it. The female Neith had been sent in as a caterer. She would disable the security cameras, open the mansion gates and send the information they needed on where security was set up etc.
They had done this sort of thing before. It would be a piece of cake.
As long as he closed down and forgot that he had a personal interest in the outcome.
"Here you go, Noah," Sal y said, pushing the trays of coffee towards him with a grin. "Got a study group going or something?"
Noah snorted, handing over cash. "Something like that."
"Wel I"m surprised." She smiled sweetly. "I thought you and Eden kept to yourselves. Like two peas in a pod you two." She winked.
Gritting back a grimace, Noah nodded and took the coffee. He could barely manage a goodbye as he left the cafe, trying to swal ow back the awful reminder of how he had played Eden.
No matter what happened, she was never going to forgive him.
His heart beat a little harder at the thought and he fumbled with Alain"s car keys as he balanced the coffee on one hand.
By the time he heard the scuffle of feet it was too late.
Pain slammed through his head, a sharp slice down the centre of his skul . He groaned, slumping forward as he forced his body to move through the pain. His elbow flew out and cracked someone across the face, but it felt like a mil ion hands were grappling with him, and then a brief sharp p.r.i.c.k of pain in his neck flared his panic.
s.h.i.t, he thought distantly, as a thousand little black bugs crawled across his vision until... there was only blackness.
Chapter Fifteen.