Chapter Thirteen
"Ivy!" I shouted. Fear took over, and I backpedaled. Ivy moved when I did, her expression one of the lost. I didn't understand. We had done it. We had done it, damn it!
But she was coming at me, silent and with a deadly intent in her. What in hell had happened? She had been okay, and then...she wasn't.
My arm came up at the last moment and I knocked aside her hand as it reached for me. Ivy twisted and grabbed my wrist. I had just enough time to gasp before she yanked me forward, leveraging me into losing my balance.
I went down.
She went to drop to a knee, and I rolled. I was just ahead of her move, and I smacked into her feet, knocking her into a front fall. I curled into a ball to avoid her and lurched upright.
I was too slow. Her vampiric speed had her standing, and I rose right up into her grip.
"Ivy, stop!" I exclaimed, and she shoved me backward. My arms flailed and I hit the fridge. Pain hit hard as I tried to keep upright and find my breath at the same time. My eyes watered, and she slowly followed me, carefully placing her boots to just miss the patch of blue-tinted sun glowing through the curtain. She was powerful and lean in her work leathers, walking with grace and a savage, leashed strength. Smiling with her lips closed, she moved, arms swinging as she crossed the few paces between us. She was in no hurry. I was hers.
"Stop," I gasped when I found my first clean breath. "Ivy, you want to stop. Stop!"
My voice brought her to a halt three feet from me, and my heart pounded. A flicker of distress marred her confidence. "Why?" she sighed, her gray silk voice cutting through me.
Faster than I could follow, she pinned me to the stainless-steel fridge. One hand forced my shoulder back, and the other was twined in my hair. My breath came in a pained sound when she jerked my head to the side, exposing my already bleeding neck. God, no. Not like this.
Her body pressed into the entire length of mine, one of her boots between my feet. My pulse was fast and I was sweating. I was pushing every button she had, but I couldn't stop. Terrified, I tried to see her, but her grip on my hair wouldn't let me turn. I was scared out of my mind, and a thought of Kisten surfaced and was gone.
"Ivy," I rasped, struggling to see her with my neck craned. "You can let go. Just don't look at me. We can do this. We can do this, damn it!"
"Why?" she repeated in that same calm voice. She pressed harder against me, but her grip on my hair eased, and I turned to her. I felt the blood drain from my face, and Ivy shuddered, drinking my fear in like a blood aphrodisiac.
Her eyes were utterly black. Her face was absolutely expressionless. Perfect and calm, she stared at me, breathing in my fear and feeding her blood lust. It was as if she were dead already, and from the back of my thoughts came another flash of Kisten. I'd seen his eyes like this...on his boat.
"Just let go," I whispered, my breath shifting the hair about her face. "We did it, Ivy. Just let go."
A shimmer of distress crinkled the corners of her eyes. "I can't...," she said, her sudden fear making an ugly crease in her forehead as she struggled with herself. "You gave me too much. Damn it, I..." Her expression smoothed as her instincts took over. "I want that again," she said, her voice dropping in pitch. It sent a shudder through me, and her grip tightened. "Give it to me. Now."
I could see her conscious thought shutting down to protect her sanity. I was losing her. If I did, I was dead. Panic burbled through my soul as she jerked my head to the side. "Ivy!" I said, struggling to keep my voice calm, but failing. "Wait! You can wait. You're good at that. Just wait. Listen to me."
My heart pounded, but she hesitated. "I'm a monster," she whispered, her words on my skin sending ribbons of sensation through me. Even now, as I saw my life ending, the damned vampire pheromones tried to lie to me. "I can't stop."
Her voice was almost her own again, pleading for help. "You're not a monster." I carefully placed my palm against her shoulder in case I had the chance to push her away. "Piscary screwed you up, and you're getting better. Ivy, we did it. All you have to do is let go."
"I'm not better." Her voice was thick with bitter self-recrimination. "It's the same thing as before."
"It's not," I protested, feeling my pulse slow. "I'm conscious. You didn't take enough to hurt me. You stopped. Just. Let. Go."
I held my breath as she pulled her head from mine to look me in the face. I could see myself in the black depths of her pupils, my hair mussed and tracks of tears I hadn't noticed marking me. I saw myself in her eyes, and I remembered...I'd seen myself mirrored in someone's eyes before, as I stood powerless and fearing for my life. I'd lived it.
And suddenly, it wasn't Ivy's lily-white fingers gripping my shoulder, but a memory of someone else's. Fear came from my past, shocking through me. A flash of memory took the place of my reality. Kisten...
An image of being pinned to the wall of Kisten's boat yanked itself from my unconscious, twining about the reality of my back against the fridge. With a nauseating suddenness, it coated my present in a choking layer of fear and helplessness. A memory I hadn't known existed turned Ivy's eyes into someone else's. Her fingers in my hair became foreign. In my thoughts, her body pressing into me became coated in the alien scent of angry, undead vampire bent on possession.
"No!" I screamed. Ivy's touch had sparked memories I hadn't known even existed. Fear electrified me, and I shoved her away. A burst of ley line energy swarmed out to find her, and I yanked it back, hunching over in agony as the force rolled under the skin of my palms, burning until I finally pushed it back into the line and let go.
My wrist hurt. A vampire had hurt me. I had been pinned against the wall. Someone had pinned me against the wall and...Oh, God. Someone had bitten me.
God help me, what had I almost done?
Panting, I pulled my head up to see Ivy slide down the cupboards across the kitchen to the floor. Her expression was unfocused, and she looked out of it.
I pressed against the fridge, holding my upper arm, with helpless tears flowing. Ivy lurched upright, her balance unsure. "Rachel?" she whispered, hand outstretched as if dizzy.
"Someone bit me!" I burbled, the tears coming from nowhere. "On my lip. Tried to..." Anguish coated my soul like black tar, and I sank to the floor. "Kisten was dead," I sobbed, knees coming to my chin as I sat against the fridge. How could I forget? "He was...He was dead! The vampire who killed him..." I looked up, more scared than I'd ever been before. "Ivy...His murderer bit me...so I couldn't fight."
Ivy's expression was utterly empty. I stared at her, one hand clenching the opposite arm until it throbbed. God help me. I was bound. I was bound to Kisten's killer, and I'd never even known it. What else had I forgotten? What else was waiting in my thoughts to crush me?
Ivy moved, and I panicked. "Stay there!" I said, heart jumping. "Don't touch me!"
She froze as my reality fought with the lies I had told myself. My tongue ran over the inside of my mouth, fear rising anew as I found the tiny, almost nonexistent scar. I am bound. Someone bound me. Nausea rose high, and I felt like I was going to be sick.
"Rachel," Ivy said, and my attention jerked to her. She was a vampire. I had fallen, and I'd never felt my face hit the dirt. Terror made me scrabble upright and move until I found a corner, hand on my neck to hide my blood from her. I had been bound. I belonged to someone.
Ivy's eyes were black at my fear. Chest rising and falling, she held her fists at her sides. "Rachel, it's okay," she said, her voice low and throaty. "You haven't been bound. I could tell."
She took a step forward, and I flung out a hand. "Stop!"
"I can tell, damn it!" she shouted, then lowered her voice. "I'm not going to bite you. Look at me. I'm not that vampire. Rachel, you are not bound."
Fear spun liquid fibers through me like a spider's web, and I tried to control it. Beneath my fingers, my pulse hammered. It was just Ivy. But she took a step forward, and my will shattered.
"I said stop!" I shouted, pressing into the corner. She shook her head grimly as she took a slow, careful step forward.
"Stop! Stop, or I'll hurt you!" I demanded, almost hysterical. I had let go of the line, but I could find it. I could hurt her with it. I had tried to hurt Kisten's killer, and the vampire had bound me. Bound me so I would come crawling, begging to be bled. God help me, I was someone's shadow.
Ivy's hand shook and tears coursed down her perfect face as she reached out and set her fingers upon my shoulder. Her scent poured over me, and her touch reached deeper than my broken memory until it struck the core of my being. My terror dissolved like a filmy gauze. It was Ivy. It was just Ivy, not my unknown tormentor. She wasn't trying to kill me. It was just Ivy.
I started to cry. Huge racking sobs shook me. Kisten's murderer had bound me. They would crook their finger, and I would beg, writhe for it. I had fallen, and I never even saw the hole. I was so stupid. I had been playing with vampires. I thought I could keep myself safe, but it was all for nothing now. I hadn't wanted this, but it had happened.
"Rachel, you are not bound!" Ivy said, giving me a small shake. "If you were I could smell it, I could tell. Kisten's killer might have tried, but it didn't take. I would sense it, if it did. Listen to me! You're okay!"
My breath caught, and I tried to stop crying. "I'm not bound?" I said, tasting the salt of my tears as I looked up. "Are you sure?" Please, God. Give me a second chance. I promise. I promise I'll be good.
There was a soft hush of sound as Ivy put her arms around me, pulling me into her and rocking me as if I were a child as we stood in our blue-lit kitchen. "You are not bound," Ivy whispered, and I wept tears of relief into her shoulder as I started to believe. "But I'll find out who did this to you, and then I'll make that bastard beg for your forgiveness."