Haunted by Your Touch

“Aw, Mara, don’t be pissy,” Jack said in a chiding tone. “I told you to quit coming back looking for Ashton, but no, you just wouldn’t listen.”

“So it’s my fault you’re a murdering prick who devours the life essence out of children?” I spat, trying to kick even though my feet were bound, too.

I could barely see him now, but it looked like Jack shrugged. “I gotta eat just like you do. Can’t help it if my food is Partials.”

“All this talk of food is making me hungry,” a voice I hadn’t expected purred near my ear.

Every muscle in me stiffened. It wasn’t Rafael yanking me deeper into the river but Ashton!

I looked around again, but all I saw was the two of them. “Where’s Rafael?” I asked, my voice almost eerily calm.

Ugly laughter came from behind me. “Nowhere near here, baby. He doesn’t even know about this barrier, but thanks to you, now we know where another one is, too. Once we get rid of Rafael, we’ll have our choice of a few different barriers to play with. I can’t wait.”

“Get rid of Rafael…,” I repeated, my eyes closing in the agony of revelation. Whatever Rafael had been doing hiding those barriers, he hadn’t been involved with Ashton. Or with Jack, or possibly with any other Pureblood.

And I’d used him, tricked him, drugged him, and now set him up with my family to take the fall. Drowning all of a sudden seemed too good an end for me. What had I done?

I didn’t have long to wallow in revulsion over my actions before Ashton’s hand clamped over my mouth, pinching my nose at the same time. Before I could react, a horrible crushing sensation enveloped my entire body, squeezing me so hard that my organs ached. I would’ve screamed, but between the pressure of Ashton’s hand and those merciless invisible bands compressing me, I couldn’t even gasp.

Then I was on my back, looking up not at the ceiling of a dark underground dwelling but at a sky the most amazing shade of purple. For a moment, I stared, not moving. Was I dead? Was this the afterlife? If so, it didn’t look all that bad—

“Get up,” Ashton’s voice snarled.

No, not dead. Unless this was hell and Ashton had arranged to personally greet me. I blinked, my eyes adjusting from the darkness of Nocturna to the new, hazy sort of sunset all around me. Ashton yanked on my bound hands, forcing me to my feet so abruptly that I stumbled into him. Yet I collided with him softly, as if something I couldn’t see cushioned my impact. My body felt different, too. Lighter, like I’d suddenly lost thirty pounds.

A sick tremor ran up my spine. Ashton must have pulled me through a barrier in the river. Now I was in the next realm, a place that I could never leave even if I did manage to get away from him.

“Like it here? This is where I took the girl you were with that night,” Ashton murmured, hauling my face right up next to his. His brown eyes gleamed. “You know, I don’t even remember her name—”

“Gloria,” I interrupted him through gritted teeth. “Her name was Gloria, she was my cousin, and she was sixteen years old, you piece of shit.”

He just smiled. “Whatever.”

Then he began to drag me toward some tall slabs of rocklike formations. With the odd, buoyant feel to the air, it seemed like it took him less effort than it would have on Nocturna, or even in the normal world. Gravity must not be as strong here. Why I cared, I had no idea, but the analytical part of me was taking note of my surroundings in far more detail than the fatalistic part of me was.

Warmer here than Nocturna. Gravity might be a little off, but oxygen levels must be similar or I’d be dead already. Lots of big, whitish formations, like a crystal forest around us. Gray fog everywhere. Dark blue ground underneath us, similar to sand….

“Stop right there,” a hard voice thundered.

Ashton froze even as my heart constricted with a wild mixture of hope and disbelief. Rafael came out from behind one of those tall, smoky-colored pillars. His jacket, shirt, and vest were open, muscled arms crossed over his chest and leather-clad legs tucked inside knee-high boots. With the fog swirling around him, he looked like something out of a dream.

Or a hallucination. Maybe that’s what Rafael was, a trick my subconscious had formulated as a way to buffer me from the horrors of my reality. Then, just as quickly, I discarded that thought. Rafael couldn’t be a mirage, because it was clear that Ashton could see him, too.

“How did you get here?” Ashton demanded.

I wondered the same thing myself. I’d abandoned the idea that Rafael was a Pureblood after Jack and Ashton revealed he wasn’t involved in any of their dirty workings. Yet here he was, and only Purebloods could cross the barrier—unless Rafael had somehow managed to get a Pureblood to pull him through?

“I’ll give you one chance to die with your essence intact,” Rafael replied, each word bitten off with palpable fury. “Let her go now, and I’ll only take your life as punishment for what you intended to do to her.”

My mouth dropped even as Ashton’s grip on me tightened. Maybe the different atmosphere in this realm was messing with my mind, because Rafael couldn’t mean what that sounded like.…

“You,” Ashton said hoarsely. “That night, I couldn’t see your face, but it was you —”

“Yes,” Rafael cut him off, flinging aside his coat, shirt, and vest in one fluid movement. Then, as if out of a nightmare, I saw shadows begin to form behind him. Those shadows grew, darkening, solidifying… until a pair of charcoal-colored wings spread out in terrifying, magnificent formation, extending well past Rafael’s shoulders with their lighter tips trailing all the way to his feet.

Not a Partial or a Pureblood. Fallen.

Ashton flung me away from him as he ran. With my hands and feet still bound, I landed face-first on the sandy indigo ground instead of catching myself. Something whooshed over me, punctuated by a scream from Ashton. It took a second or two of awkward twisting, but I finally managed to flop over—and then stared.

Rafael had Ashton in his arms. Between the fog and the incredible span of his wings, I couldn’t see everything clearly, but it looked like Rafael had his mouth pressed to Ashton’s in a chilling parody of a kiss. Ashton bleated in terror, kicking and flailing against Rafael’s ruthless embrace, but to no avail. After several long moments while I watched, transfixed, Ashton’s movements slowed and his head fell back. When Rafael let go of him, he fell to the ground with a limpness that spoke of permanence.

Lights seemed to flicker in a spiderweb pattern over Rafael’s skin before they faded, vanishing into his natural creamy skin tone. Part of me was howling that now would be a really good time to attempt running, bound feet or no, but I didn’t move as Rafael turned and began to walk toward me.

“Am I next?” I rasped, mildly surprised that I could still talk after what I’d just witnessed.

Those unbelievable wings fluttered once before Rafael reached down, breaking through the duct tape around my wrists as though it were tissue paper. He did the same thing with my feet, until the sticky substance still clung to my skin but no longer restrained me.

“I told you before, Mara; if I wanted to eat you, I would’ve done so years ago,” he replied, no emotion in his tone or in his gaze. Then he hauled me into his arms, his grip unyielding, that lovely, killing mouth mere inches from my own.

I stared at him, barely able to breathe, thinking that if my heart beat any faster, it would burst.

“But now you know what I am, so you know what I do eat,” he whispered before brushing his lips over mine.

Then the air exploded around us as his wings lifted and fell, vaulting us upward into that deep violet sky while Ashton’s lifeless body lay below on the ground.

Chapter Seven

From the glimpses I caught when I wasn’t fighting off nausea from the dizzying dips and ascents, this realm looked like a cross between Antarctica and the Grand Canyon, except in different colors. Rows of crystal formations—or their mineral counterparts—littered the ground, interspersed by streams, that bluish sand, and