A Tangle of Hearts (A Shade of Vampire #44)(31)

Next thing I knew I was standing in front of the familiar shell. It had changed its appearance. Deep red veins crossed its pearlescent pink surface, drawn from the magnolia roots above. Whatever was flowing through them, it glowed in a precise rhythm, like a crimson heartbeat.

My chest tightened, the first physical feeling that I experienced in that state. My thoughts ran to her. She was inside, hidden from everyone and everything. I could feel her heartbeat resonate inside my ribcage.

Nothing else mattered. I just wanted to see her again.

I watched as my body was pulled toward the egg by an invisible force. The sensation of soft fingers touching my face lingered before I was drawn inside the shell. The hard casing didn’t object to my body going through it. It dawned on me then that my presence was more spiritual than physical. Whatever I was feeling was directly connected to my very soul. The longing she’d nurtured in me stemmed from it.

A brilliant light glazed over me. I found myself lying inside the shell, facing her. The Daughter slept, curled up in a fetal position, her reddish pink hair flowing around her with no regard for gravity. Her body was covered in a delicate shimmer, its soft light pulsating to the rhythm of the shell’s red veins, which converged into her back as if feeding her.

I watched her for a while and listened to the sound of her heartbeat echoing around us. It was calm and comforting. Her lips were a spicy red, glistening under the light. They parted slightly.

I could stay here forever.

Her pulse echoed inside of me, too, drumming in my ears, and I felt it accelerate as she opened her eyes. If I’d had breath at that moment, it would have stopped. Instead, I felt myself burn under her gaze, two pools of electric indigo storms beckoning me to surrender my entire being to her.

Her lips moved slowly, as if she was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her.

I wanted to speak to her, I wanted to tell her something, but I had no control over my mouth. She kept talking, and I felt rage bubbling up inside of me as I became increasingly desperate to find out what her voice sounded like, to understand her.

But then something incredible happened. Her words started to resonate and emerge clearly inside of me, in my own voice, rising up and translating into electrical signals that my mind recognized as coherent sentences.

She was projecting her words into me, and it was a superb and intimate feeling, as if she’d reached deep inside and touched my very soul without moving a muscle.

“Wake me up, Phoenix,” she told me, in my voice.

How do I do that? I thought as I watched her lips stretch slowly into a faint smile. Her beauty was out of this world. I would do anything for her.

“The knife, my darling.” Her answer came tumbling like a rock, as I started to feel my body again. Slowly but surely I was drifting back into consciousness.

But I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to leave her. I needed more time.

“I need you,” she urged me as a sharp pain stabbed me in the back of my head.

Pitch blackness came over me and took her away.





Aida





[Victoria & Bastien’s daughter]





The past twenty-four hours had been petrifying. Seeing Field’s injuries and his subsequent drift in and out of consciousness had rattled me.

As I’d cleaned his wounds, I’d gone through different emotional stages, from fear to grief to anger and back, unable to focus on anything other than making sure Field would recover fully from those deep cuts. The thought of losing him had punched me in the stomach, and I’d been struggling to snap out of it ever since.

I’d slept out of necessity that night, as my eyes no longer listened and kept closing of their own accord.

By midnight, Field had already gotten up and gone out flying again, but I was still reeling from it all in the morning, which further added to my frustration. Not only was I head over heels for him, but I’d been faced with the prospect of losing him, and I didn’t know how to cope with such a horrible feeling. Loss wasn’t something that I was ready to experience.

I wasn’t too happy about Jovi leaving with the group to reach out to the Red Tribe either. The jungle was full of dangerous creatures ready to tear into us with no hesitation, a fact dramatically proven the day before when they almost died rescuing Anjani. I took comfort in the fact that my brother was strong, fast, and a fierce fighter; his wolf genes increased his chances of survival in pretty much any circumstance.

The Druid had given us instructions before he left, asking Vita and me to keep pushing ourselves and to use the herbs to further tap into our visions while they were away. We’d said yes, and we’d meant it, too. However, as the sun rose lazily over the plantation house and as we looked at each other from either side of Phoenix’s bed, both Vita and I silently agreed to leave the Oracle stuff for later.

She’d been through enough as well with that emergency treatment of Phoenix, and she’d been spending a lot of time watching over him. The kind of violence that we’d been subjected to over the past few days wasn’t something that Vita was used to, and neither was I, for that matter. Training for GASP and surviving bloodthirsty shape-shifters were two very different experiences.

I sent her outside to get some fresh air that morning, as she was starting to look worryingly pale. I’d watch over Phoenix for a while; it was a good opportunity to analyze everything that had happened and the way I’d responded to yesterday’s events.