Kiss of Fire (Imdalind, #1)(64)

“Home?”

“Joclyn, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you know where we are going quite yet.”

I felt the warmth of Ilyan’s magic flood through me, the numbness moving through my body and into my brain. I turned to see the last of the city flash past me before my vision blacked out and Ilyan’s magic put me to sleep again.





Twenty


“Just wait. You will see what I mean.”

“I don’t have time for this; can’t it wait until later?”

“No, Ovailia, it can’t. If he—”

“Fine.”

I felt the depression of the bed as someone sat down near my feet. A bed. The more I woke up, the more I could tell it was a bed. I could feel the soft and hard combination of a spring mattress made far too long ago, and smell the musty stench of blankets left too long in storage. I opened my eyes, trying not to move.

It looked like I was in an old hotel room; the décor was something out of the sixties. The wallpaper was faded and peeling in places, but still had the obvious brown-on-orange striped pattern that was popular then. An orange, angular lamp sat on a darkly varnished table, a hard plastic chair pulled up to the side. The look of the room explained the musty smell of the bed and the blankets; they all must have been here since the day the hotel first opened for business.

Although the shade to the window near the table was open, the light filtering into the room was dim and filled with the blue light of dusk. Even with what came in through the window, there wasn’t much light, which was further diminished by the dark color scheme.

“Ugh. More commercials. I don’t know if I can wait any longer.” It was the woman’s voice I had heard before. It was deep and nasally. She was irritated, and by the sound of it, she was irritated all the time. Her voice held only a subtle hint of an accent, as if she had been trying to get rid of it for far too long and had only partially succeeded.

“Ovailia...” Wyn pleaded. I could pick Wyn’s voice out now, accented or not.

“You have another minute, Wynifred; that is all. I hate human news; it’s so boring,” Ovailia’s voice drawled out angrily.

I felt the bed move as someone shifted their weight. I just held still. I wasn’t sure I wanted to let them know I was awake. Ovailia did not sound like someone I wanted to meet right now anyway.

“Here it is!” The sound on a television they had been watching was turned up, and someone shifted their weight again.

“We have a further development on the kidnapping of sixteen-year-old Joclyn Despain, who has been missing for twelve days. And in the murder of her mother, fifty-three-year-old Angela Despain.”

Murder.

I thought of her still body spread over the kitchen floor, her beautiful, yellow nails. Ilyan had said it before, and I felt the same destructive force move through me now as it had then. The dilapidated house that contained my soul ripped apart with a violent explosion that rushed over me in a torrent of depression so deep, I was drowning in it.

I was barely able to stabilize myself amongst the flow that swirled around me. I did though; I caught my breath and found a hand-hold somewhere deep inside. I was stable, but empty. I could tell automatically that this pain, this emptiness, would never leave me.

“Ryland LaRue, who was last seen with the young girl, and continues to claim his innocence in her disappearance, has stepped forward in a press conference this afternoon, offering a reward for information leading to her safe return.” The sound cut out as a video clip was loaded.

“Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and members of the press.”

I sat the second I heard his voice. Ryland, the hand-hold that I clutched onto deep inside me. His voice felt like an electrical current that shot through me. The blankets tumbled down around me as I sat, my body surprisingly not protesting the quick movements. The two women at the foot of the bed did not register my actions; they, too, were focused on the TV screen. I was vaguely aware of them; Wyn with her short, auburn hair, and Ovailia with an absolute sheet of sleek, honey blonde that fell well past her hips and cascaded over the grungy brown bed spread.

“I would like to address you today…” My ears did not hear another word. The sound of his voice faded away into the air around me.

At first glance, he looked like the Ryland I had always known, the Ryland I had always loved; dark curls falling over his face, strong jaw, strong body, bright blue eyes. However, once my heart stopped seeing and my mind was left to linger, I instantly felt the tears come.

He had been beaten.

His left eye was swollen and tinged with an ugly purple, a large gash ran from his cheek and down across his neck before disappearing underneath his shirt. A few more deep purple bruises were just visible from underneath his hair and around the collar of his shirt. Although he gestured with his left hand, his right and dominant arm hung loosely at his side. I could almost see the pain in his eyes, the strain in his face. I recognized the same pain in me, the same entrapment I had felt over the last few days as my body ached and tried to heal. He was in agony.

Then, he flinched. It was so subtle I almost didn’t catch it. His left arm moved toward his chest and then out again. I reached toward the image on the screen, my heart calling out to him. The bed lifted as Ovailia stood and took a step closer to the screen.

“You see it, too?” Wyn whispered.