“The others have readied themselves, and I need you to prepare a bag. We need to leave,” he said, with a chill that blew through his voice.
“I have a backpack ready,” I replied. “I don’t need to pack.”
I moved a rook and, holding my finger on it, narrowed my eyes and crinkled my forehead. “Gabriel, I…”
I wasn’t sure how to tell him that I loved him, that I didn’t want him to leave me. I was frightened, and not of the Pureblood Vampires, but of losing Gabriel all over again.
His face smoothed and he took my hand from over the board and slid his fingers in between mine. “Don’t be scared, I’ll never let anything happen to you.” He misinterpreted the reason behind my fear.
He parted his hand from mine, moving his bishop into play.
I suddenly filled with an uncomfortable impatience. “Why are we playing chess?” I blurted.
“Because I wanted to start a game we could finish when I come back to you. Something to look forward to,” he offered.
The fire burning next to me was starting to scorch my skin and I shifted away from it.
“Why can’t I come with you?” my voice pleaded in a slight squeak.
“They will suspect I will look for Malachi, it’s not safe,” he replied.
I didn’t know if he was referring to the Purebloods or the Arch Angels.
“If these superiors of yours want me erased then why don’t they just come and do it?”
He grimaced. My words stung him. I felt it.
“They can’t. They watch over the other Angels bound by their own rules. Finding you isn’t that simple. They have no claim to you.”
I perched my finger on top of the red knight and my body shook, disconnecting my train of thought. My fingertip tingled as it stamped the smooth mane and the knight seemed to enlarge. “I feel something toward the knight,” I said, my voice shaking.
Gabriel grinned. “It was always your favorite piece. You said it reminded you of your own horse … Uri.”
As he said her name, my skin began to tingle. I felt myself slipping back through a tunnel of memory: I was watching myself pelting through thick, green grass on top of a fantastic white mare. We were galloping across a wet field, stormy clouds forming above us. I watched myself pull the horse to a halt, while a galloping stallion came into view, eventually coming to a stop next to us. I was surprised to see that the rider next to me was not Gabriel. As he dropped the reins, he brushed his long, dirty-blond hair back from his face. Catching the stray strands, he placed them neatly behind his ears. The gold ring on his finger caught my attention and for a brief moment I thought I recognized it. As I began to scan his features, the scene suddenly felt strange and I was forced to look away.
The image spun and whizzed in front of me as the thundery clouds swallowed up the daylight. I panicked. It was the same sensation I had felt when I had sat with Gabriel, lost my memory, and become trapped in a vision of a Pureblood. I felt my heart racing and I desperately tried to leave and return to the present.
As a wave of heat from the log fire brushed my cheek, I began to relax. I was in the room again, Gabriel sat opposite me; his lips moved, but strangely the words didn’t reach me. He was mute, and it occurred to me then that I was suspended, caught between Gabriel and the dark clouds.
Gabriel’s expression darkened and he catapulted forward. I desperately reached for him, and just as I was on the verge of meeting his hand, I slipped away.
I left him, falling back through the tunnel against my will. The cottage, the chess game, and the flicker of the flames were all gone. Something, someone, was dragging me back in.
I was faced with a backdrop of emptiness. The Pureblood appeared in front of me, huge and towering. He took his time striding toward me. As he neared, I recognized his coal-black tattoos, two opposite rows from the center of his form. They were plastered across his face, broadening as they ran down his neck, two faultlessly symmetrical quills, black liquid keratin stained against his skin. The raised lesion prominently embossed between his orbs. It was the same Pureblood I had seen in the vision when I was drinking lemonade with Gabriel. He was back. This time he was alone.
He grew closer, seeming to change position without moving. I encouraged my legs to stretch out into a sprint, but my body was unwilling to shift an inch. He circled me; disappearing and reappearing. Finally, he extended his terrifying clawlike hand and moved it over my eyes and nose, stopping at my throat. He squeezed it, just enough to prevent the air from finding my lungs. He seemed to cackle, tormenting me. His sharp-razor fangs protruded over his lower lip.
As I gagged, I considered his expression in all its unholy glory; it made me want to die on the spot. I couldn’t move my neck to avoid his glare and more panic rose inside me as his black pupils mutated, forming a revealing clear film. In his eyes I glimpsed a reflection of a dark silhouette—the girl in shadow. Where was she?
Petrified, silent tears poured from my eyes and I forced them shut. Just as I felt my arms and legs growing limp, he dropped his hand from around my throat. Gasping for air, I shivered as he ran the tip of his split lizard-like tongue up from my jaw to my eyelashes, tasting my tears. He pulled my head back by my hair, and with the serrated talons extending from his knuckles; he sliced a tuft of my loose curls. Grasping the stolen strands, he threw me down.
I was confused as I watched him raise them to his orifices. As he took in the fragrance, the wavy curls appeared black. Perhaps everything he touched turned to night?
He tilted his head from side to side, his bones cracking, and I found myself elevating from the ground. He raised his arm up and I ascended; he was controlling me.
“You belong to me!” he roared with a sonorous voice.
Each word quaked in a language I didn’t recognize, but I understood him nonetheless.
I felt an anger brewing inside the pit of my stomach, unlike any emotion that I had felt before. My blood seemed to boil and blacken, and my hands formed into claw shapes, daggers breaking through my knuckles.
I didn’t know what was happening, but as I grew hotter my teeth shifted and fractured. I felt myself slipping away when a lightning bolt flashed across the blackness. It splintered into forks, vibrating my name and crushing the metamorphosis rising inside me. I cooled as my name was sung to me in the second strike. I didn’t see the creature disappear; I was focused on the lightning that was illuminating the space, now filling the void with light. The ground dissolved and I dropped into nothingness.