Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(60)

“Shut up!” he yells. They sit in the corner, crying. He runs over to them, smashes in their skulls, but they’re still crying. He kicks their bones, scatters them like sticks, but they won’t stop. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

He bangs on the door. Locked. Helena had locked it behind her. She’s in the corner, too, sitting by herself. She isn’t crying. She’s stuck with him. Forever. My love, my slave.

He crawls over to her. So hungry. She’d brought down the last of the students—those who were kept behind—ages ago. Weeks. Months. Years. She brought the last. And when that wasn’t enough, he took her.

“Speak up,” he hisses at her. He picks up her skull, stares into her empty eyes. “Speak up.”

Her mouth is open, skin taut, but she doesn’t say anything.

She’d stopped talking weeks ago.

But not the blood.

Her blood still screams, still sings in his bones. She is still with him.

She will never get away.

When he gets away, he will make them pay. He will devour—

Water stopped.

Tenn floated, warm, his arm tingling with pain and pleasure. Red. Warm and wet and red.

“Saving your ass grows tiresome,” Tomás whispered into his ear. A warm hand stroked his face, chilling the spilled blood to frost. Everything was red.

Red, red and black.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

Dreya’s voice pulsed through the darkness, a wash against the red staining his inner eyelids. He wanted to float there, lost in emptiness, but there was a hand on his skin now, a tingle of magic that swept through his bones. The energy filled his insides with fire and ice. His eyes fluttered open as a shiver racked his body, a shiver that sent lances of pain through his arm.

It took a few moments for the scene to focus.

Dreya knelt by his side, one hand on his chest. Devon stood behind her like a sentinel. Both of them stared down at him, awash in pale white light that filtered from an orb hovering above Devon’s head. The room took even longer to come into view. First the floor, smeared with what looked like black oil, glinting in the light, then the sensation, the wetness, the softness beneath him. His arm gave another twinge. He looked back and nearly yelped.

Dmitri was there, slumped against the wall, his jaw gaping on broken hinges. Dmitri, looking so much more alive than when Tenn came down here. His flesh was full, his chin dripping Tenn’s blood. Much more alive, save for the butcher knife firmly embedded in his neck. Blood slowly dripped off the handle and onto Tenn’s shoulder. Pat, pat, pat. Tenn tried to jerk away.

“He’s dead,” Dreya said. She forced Tenn to stay still. “It’s okay.”

Water was a slow thrum in his gut. It ached, but the damned Sphere seemed to enjoy it. He remembered kneeling there, remembered placing his hand on the corpse’s skin...then the rest flooded back in a smear of pain. He had willingly knelt there and let Dmitri feed off him, all while...what? He relived Dmitri’s own painful past?

What the hell had Water done to him?

Perfect crescent moon gashes were etched deep into his flesh, his bones just visible through the mess of muscle. Before he could lose any more blood, he opened to Earth and sealed off the wounds. The scars welled up pink as flesh knitted itself together. Shivers racked through him the moment he closed off to the Sphere; somehow, he felt even weaker than before.

“You lost a lot of blood,” Dreya said. “You are lucky you did not bleed out.” Her magic flooded him, burning through his veins and spurring his marrow to produce more blood. He shivered uncontrollably, but he’d rather she did this than have to do it himself.

Earth might leave him weak, but there was no way he would trust Water. Not now. How was she able to use it without succumbing to the terrors of this place? How was she not seeing what he had seen?

Tenn looked back to Dmitri, to the knife embedded in his throat. The voice he heard before fainting filtered through his ears. Saving your ass grows tiresome. Tomás had been here. Tomás had saved his life.

“What the hell were you doing down here?” Devon asked. He nodded to the broken Howl. “It could have killed you.”

“Water,” he said. The words left his mouth in a dry croak. “I don’t... I don’t know why. Water pulled me down here. It took over. Again.” He clutched his head in his hands and closed his eyes, tried to drown out the new memories that interlaced with his. He had been there. He had worn Dmitri’s skin. “I felt it,” he said. “I saw his memories. How he died. What he did.” He trailed off. The memories burned. The blood of his classmates was a sharp tang in his mouth.

He knew it wasn’t his doing, but Dmitri’s sins felt like they were his own now. The blood he’d tasted danced in his veins.

“That is more than transference,” Dreya whispered.

Tenn nodded slowly. His fingers dug into his hair, tried to press the images out.

“I have never heard of this,” she continued. “Places resonate and Spheres answer, but they do not compel you toward death. They do not make you live another’s life.”

“I don’t care what it is,” Tenn said. He opened his eyes. “I just want it to stop.”

“You can’t stop it,” Devon said. He knelt down, Fire flickering in his throat. “But maybe...maybe the Witches can help you control it.”