A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)

A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)

Bella Forrest





Aida





[Victoria & Bastien’s daughter]





The morning sun invaded our room through faded drapes and stained windows, warming the side of my face. I opened and closed my eyes a couple of times to help them adjust to the light. The damp smell was still there, and my nose crinkled. I hated this place.

I lay on the bed with my arm over my face, willing myself to sit up. In the silence, images of runes flickered before my eyes, and the previous night’s chilling images of myself in the mirror crashed into me—the symbols and icons moving across my limbs like spiders. My skin crawled. I sat up and checked myself again.

My skin is clear. Not a single marking. All me, all there.

I took a deep breath and tried to shake the images from my mind. Maybe I had imagined it. Maybe the heat and exhaustion of yesterday had finally gotten to me. But, then again, maybe my reflection had been trying to tell me something, to give me a preview of what was going to happen to my body as an Oracle.

I gave myself another once-over. Still nothing. No weird black liquid on my skin. Not a single rune.

Vita shifted next to me on top of the damp sheets. She looked uncomfortable as she, too, pulled herself from a heavy sleep.

I’d probably managed a couple of hours of downtime after I’d seen myself doodled in runes in that glass cabinet. It had taken a while for me to will myself away from my own reflection and back to our room. Vita had still been asleep when my head touched the pillow, and for a brief moment, I’d envied her. She was just as screwed up as I was with this Oracle madness, but she had been able to at least sleep some of it off. I, on the other hand, had started to hallucinate.

But what if it was all real?

I looked over at her again and found her looking at me. Compassion and concern shone in her turquoise eyes. She pressed her lips together tightly, as if she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure whether she should.

“In other circumstances, I‘d say Good Morning, Sunshine,” I said. I cocked my head, trying not to sound like the bundle of gloom I was inside.

Vita smiled gently, rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands, and sat up.

“You got back late,” she said.

Her words caught me by surprise. I could’ve sworn she’d been asleep both when I’d left and when I’d returned from my short-lived expedition through the mansion. I looked away, trying to focus my attention on the patches of blue skies and wisps of white cotton clouds outside.

“I had a hard time falling asleep,” I said.

“I don’t blame you.” Vita sighed and fumbled with strands of her hair. It was the color of sun-kissed summer wheat fields and slightly curled from all the humidity. As quiet and reclusive as she usually was, she was always able to comfort me without words.

She’d come a long way over the past few days. We all had. From our soirée with the fae, to this life-changing insanity of Oracles, Druids, incubi, and shape-shifters—and whatever else lurked in the jungles around us—in a world where we didn’t belong… and with our families stripped of the very memory of us.

Vita got out of bed and started picking out some clothes for the day.

Memories of my runes flickered through my mind, as I willed myself to tell her about what I had seen in the mirror. I just didn’t want to risk worrying her unnecessarily.

She pulled out a pair of undergarments that would serve as pants, a yellowish shade of white, yet another victim of centuries past. She wrinkled her nose, apparently unhappy with her selection, but it wasn’t like she had a better choice. Our sartorial whims were the least of our concerns this morning.

“Vita…”

“Hm?” She looked up at me. This was harder than I’d originally thought.

“How are you feeling?”

Her blank stare made me realize I hadn’t asked the brightest question.

“I mean, with these Oracle abilities, how are you feeling? Other than visions, have you been experiencing anything else?”

Vita pulled a pale pink linen camisole from the same pile of clothes we’d recovered from the attic and examined it while she mulled over my question.

“Honestly, Aida, I’m having enough trouble with what I see,” she finally said. “I’m in no rush to turn into a blind, barren, tattooed Oracle and end up in an evil overlord’s fishbowl.”

Fair enough.

But last night’s memories nagged me like a twig poking at the back of my head.

“Yeah, I get that. I’m not eager to see where this takes us either,” I said cautiously, “but I think something’s happening to me, and I don’t know who else to talk to about it.”

My voice sounded raw in my own ears.

Vita’s big bluish eyes doubled in size. She set the clothes aside on the bed and came closer to me. Concern drew a small crease between her slim eyebrows.

“What do you mean?”

I took another deep breath, one that made me feel like my lungs were about to burst and let it all out in one long sigh. I described the runes I could remember and the way they had appeared and vanished.

Sweet Vita listened quietly.

“At first I thought I imagined it,” I said. “But then I saw myself in another reflective surface, and the runes were all there, and something dark was trickling out of them through my skin.”