Ripper (The Morphid Chronicles Book 2) (3 page)

Sometimes, it seemed like this indecision would drive her mad. Only Greg’s patience and support kept her this side of sane, which made her feel like she was taking advantage of him, and piled the guilt on like heavy layers of icing on a ready-to-collapse cake.

She
had
improved, though. At first, Greg hadn’t even been able to kiss her without triggering a near-nervous breakdown. Recently, however, she’d been able to control herself, delaying the refusal long enough to
almost
get to second base. Still, he deserved so much more than this, even if all he ever asked for was to be allowed to stay by her side.

“That outfit is driving me crazy,” Greg said in a breathy whisper against her lips.

Let’s go,
she wanted to say.
Let’s go to your place and . . .

She nearly spoke the words out loud. Instead, what came out of her mouth was a resounding,
“No.”.
The refusal erupted from her lips of its own accord, accompanied by a pair of hands pushing him away.

In the dark, she didn’t see his expression. She peered at him, desperately trying to see his reaction. Already she knew there would be hurt in his blue eyes and a small crease between his eyebrows. She had seen the disappointment in his features a few times in the past two months. But had she gone too far this time? Would this be the time he got fed up with her split personality?

Frustration roiled in a sour mess inside her stomach. When would this reluctance go away for good? Would these lingering instincts ever stop going against her heart’s desires? She wanted to be with Greg. From the beginning, he’d been the one her heart chose, and yet her Morphid side still resisted.

“Greg?” she said, trying to find his hand. “I’m sorry. I . . .” Sam touched his hand, but Greg pulled away.

“Don’t worry,” he said, though his tone suggested she
should
worry. And plenty.

A set of bright headlights broke through the darkness as someone parked in front of them. Sam caught a glimpse of Greg’s expression just as it changed into a nonchalant mask.

“Well, we don’t have to be first anymore.” He smiled cooly, but Sam didn’t buy it, not after seeing his wounded expression just a second ago.

“I don’t mean to be like this—” Sam tried to explain.

“I know,” he cut her off.

“Please, Greg. I just—”

A loud tap on his window made her jump.

“Get a room, you love birds,” Brandon Ellis said, then laughed.

God, talk about nail-on-the-head comments
.

“I tried,” Greg mumbled, as he opened the door and stepped outside.

“Yo, dude, what’up?” Brandon performed their inane, complicated basketball handshake.

“Sweet,” Greg said, pointing to his friend’s Dracula ensemble.

Sam seethed in her seat and worried at the hole that had already appeared on her leggings. Their male antics had never seemed stupider than at this instant.

Brandon poked his head through the open driver side door. “Let me see you, girl.”

She sighed, trying to rein in her emotions, forcing herself to see the situation with logic, since her heart
and
instincts were useless. It didn’t help.

I make no freakin’ sense.

As she exited the car, Greg retrieved his mask from the back seat, and Brandon came around.

He wolf-whistled and said, “Holy cow, you look like a damn supermodel.”

Greg walked up, twirling the mask in his index finger.

“Sorry, bro, but she’s hot,” Brandon said. “Seriously, she could, like, be on the cover of a magazine or something.”

Greg seemed unimpressed, indifferent actually.

“Cut it out, Brandon.” Sam wished he’d shut his big mouth.

“Remind me not to ever give you a compliment,” he said.

More cars arrived and, quickly, their occupants filled the street with loud cries of excitement as they moved en masse toward Brooke’s front door.

“Let’s party,” Brandon said, whirling so that his black cape billowed in a wide circle.

Greg wasted no time and followed in his friend’s steps.

Sam reached out and grabbed him by the crook of his elbow. “Wait, we should talk.”

He turned and slipped on his mask. “Don’t worry.” His expression as he said this was, once more, lost on Sam. “You don’t need to explain anything. I get it. I understand.”

True, he had dealt with something similar when he realized that, as a Keeper, his feelings for her were completely inappropriate. He’d fought his attraction and lost. He even tried to stay away, but his protective instincts brought him back to her. Still, even with all of that, he truly couldn’t get it. It wasn’t the same. She had been severed from Ashby and watched him die horribly, right in front of her eyes.

“You keep saying that, Greg, but I don’t think you can possibly understand.” She knew her words sounded harsh, but she’d wanted to say them for a while. She looked up expectantly, wanting to rip that absurd zombie mask off his face.

“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t.” His tone was cool, unaffected, and Sam thought there was no way it could reflect the way he really felt about this situation.

“Take that stupid mask off.”

After a few long seconds, he pulled it off and let it fall to the ground. “So much for being in costume,” he said, surprising Sam with the impassiveness of his features.

“So I take it you don’t wanna talk?”

“No. I’m tired of talking,”

“You’re being unfair. You can’t pressure me into—”

He let out a dry chuckle. “Pressure you? Maybe if we were human this would be about me trying to pressure you. I wish it was
that
simple. Nah, my problems are bigger than that.” With that he walked away and headed to what was already starting to sound like a rowdy party.

Sam stood on the lawn listening to the loud music and excited whoops of her classmates. Past memories and emotions of what it had felt to be human assaulted her. At the time, it had all seemed so complicated, but now she couldn’t think of a simpler existence.

The discarded zombie mask ogled her from the ground, its bloody grin mocking her. She picked it up.

Smartie pants zombie,
she thought with a sad smile.

She unfocused her eyes and looked up. She did her best to ignore the severed link and zeroed in on the one that connected her to Greg. It floated above her, glowing brightly, and disappeared somewhere above Brooke’s house. Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes, as she wondered where Greg would be right now if he wasn’t tethered to her.

Probably ten thousand miles away
.

If only she could figure out how to break through this barrier that stood between them
.

Chapter 4 - Veridan

With each step, the soles of patent leather shoes against stone floors announced Veridan’s presence. He squinted against the sunlight that shafted downward from small, round windows high on the walls.

He passed Xasdia, who stood atop a small ladder, running a dusting wand over a large tapestry. The girl gave him a quick, dirty look before doing an awkward curtsy.

Veridan ignored her. She was nothing but a servant girl, who thought herself more because she slept with that stupid young apprentice, Perry Hambleton. Once more, Veridan made a mental note to have her fired. She was so inconsequential, he kept forgetting. Too bad the girl was a Singular, else he would have had Danata take care of her. The more, the merrier.

After traveling through several corridors and encountering a few servants who actually knew their place, he stopped in front of the large wooden door leading to Ashby’s bedroom. He rapped three times, then, knowing he was expected, entered without further preamble.

Regent Danata stood by the window, looking out onto the south gardens, her angular nose made more prominent by a trick of the light. He went to stand by her side. They watched the topiary below in silence.

The early afternoon sun hid behind a thick blanket of gray clouds, marking the last day of Danata’s disregard for her duties. What he held in his amulet would set things right and would make the Regent turn back into her old self.

She needed to refocus on the important issues, if she was to remain in control. The Regency was slipping away, but she was so caught up in this uncharacteristic bout of motherly affection that she barely seemed to notice. Veridan hoped that what he’d brought to her today would set her straight. He couldn’t have her rights to the Regency challenged. She was too important.

“I believe the incantation is ready,” he finally announced.

For the last two months, while he’d searched the inner reaches of the nebula, he’d lied to the Regent, saying a spell was needed in order to accomplish this. She need not be aware of the exact details. That she was the source of his ever-growing power was something only he needed to know.

Danata’s breathing halted, then resumed with an ill-concealed sigh of relief.

“If it is so, Veridan, then I am in your debt.”

He nodded, eyes fixed on the perfectly round shape of one of the shrubs below.

Danata turned with determination. Her long hair was loose and hung down her back in wavy locks. Her skirt rustled as she moved with the same grace that had once captured Mateo’s attention, as well as his own. Veridan shook his head, displeased at the way these memories of his old friend kept resurfacing. He pushed them away.

The Regent moved toward the large four-poster bed that dominated the room. A shape lay under heavy covers, looking small and wasted. Danata’s grieved expression still looked out of place on her face. Veridan would have never thought it possible, not after all he had seen her do this past fifteen years.

On the bed, the boy looked gaunt and sallow-faced.

“Will it work?” Danata asked. “Or will he be like that fool,
Bernard
? Will he be a Void?”

Her tone as she pronounced her brother-in-law’s name held even more contempt than usual. Not only that, it also held a healthy dose of fear, which was rather well-placed. Bernard’s miraculous recovery two months ago had been a terrible, terrible setback. He had been reconnected to his Companion, Roanna, and had found her shortly thereafter, tracing her to Modena House, a forsaken human asylum the mentally infirm.

If only Danata had killed him, instead of letting him roam the castle babbling stupidities and sowing turnips. With a severed link, he had been but an empty husk that got in everyone’s way. The ripping process always made essenceless creatures out of those strong enough to survive the shock of separation. They became Voids, simpletons who deserved the mercy of a swift knife to the heart. But Danata had deemed his death unnecessary, and now, due to her misplaced sensibilities, her Regency was in danger, and Veridan’s quest for more power in need of expediency. All thanks to that girl and her Keeper.

“No,” Veridan answered. “He should be just fine. I expect him to make a full recovery. I have . . . my means.”

“Heal him, then.” Her violet eyes grew hazy as she regarded the figure on the bed.

He hadn’t expected her weakness for the boy. Maybe she was also struggling with past memories of Mateo. Odd how after all these years, they each seemed to be developing a conscience.

“Heal him!” she repeated. “Give me back my son, so I can return my full attention to Bernard and Roanna.”

“As you should.”

Veridan sat on the bed, more than ready to put an end to her nonsense, not to mention his own daily chores of administering nourishing spells to keep the boy from wasting away.

The Sorcerer’s manicured fingers unfastened the small ivory buttons of his shirt and retrieved his talisman. The onyx at the center seemed to move, the blackness inside twisting like a whirlpool in an oil pit.

He spoke an incantation. When it finished, a black plume of smoke rose from the gem into the air and floated right above the boy, leaving the onyx back in its normal state.

What was Ashby’s life essence floated in midair for a fraction of a second, then shot toward the unconscious body and greedily seeped in through the half-opened mouth, nostrils, eyes and ears.

Veridan smiled. If he’d held any doubt as to whether or not this was the right life force, it was immediately dispelled at the sight of the willingness with which the energy traveled into the boy. With the wrong vessel, it would have never been this easy.

They waited in silence for a few minutes. The boy remained the same, giving no signs of snapping out of his coma, in spite of the bit of color that seemed to return to his face.

“Well?” Danata said, putting in one word the weight of her full expectations.

Veridan stood and buttoned up his shirt. “It might take a few days.”

“A few days? I can’t wait any longer!”

“You should have thought about that before you
ripped
his vinculum.” Veridan walked to the window once more. “But you have always let anger cloud your judgment.” Not that he was complaining. He had benefited from her temper more than she could ever imagine.