Chapter 4

"Help me get him on the bed!" I yelled, scrambling to Thomas' side. Vycandor seemed hesitant to touch him. "C'mon. What are you waiting for?"

Cautiously approaching as if Thomas might bite, Vycandor reached down – both of us grabbing an arm and a leg each to gently carry him to the bed.

Poised over his ruined back I realized I'd been partially wrong about what had caused all the damage. Surprisingly, there was very minimal bleeding. The jagged edges of the angry wounds showed radiating tear marks made by powerful claws that were best suited for shredding its victims. Definitely not human. Whatever had attacked Thomas tore at his muscles to immobilize him, but had not quite reached his ribcage. Thankfully there was no damage to his heart or lungs. At least, not as far as I could tell.

The longer wounds across the top of his hips were more evenly spaced suggesting they too had been made by the claws of an enormous animal that held him down while it fed, careful to keep him alive as long as possible. How he managed to get away was a complete mystery.

All I knew with any certainty was that a zombie didn't attack Thomas. Besides, zombies didn't care if they kept you alive while they snacked on you. I didn't have a clue about what kind of creature could possibly do this much damage, but I was willing to bet that Vycandor did.

"We need to get him to a hospital," Edgar said, appearing out of nowhere.

I brushed him off thinking about Carmen and the guys. "There's no time. And even if there was, the hospital's a zoo right now."

A horrible scream of pure towering fury ripped from Vycandor's mouth. I gasped and craned my neck to watch him morph into a beast again, trying not to hear the disgusting sounds of bones breaking, tendons snapping, muscles tearing, and skin stretching to impossible limits. When it was finally all over, Vycandor sagged against the bed panting – the monster he preferred to keep carefully hidden within now on full display. My blood had only temporarily appeased his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde nature, not healed him as I'd hoped.

Soon...too soon...he would be thirsting for what only I could give him to take away the hunger. Right then I had more pressing issues to deal with. Like trying to figure out how to bring Thomas back from the brink of death.

Rubbing my hands together until they filled with heat, I thrust the power into him causing his body to jerk and convulse from the force. His mangled back shuddered as his body worked under my guidance to feverishly knit itself back together, leaving new raw skin in place of the wounds.

When Thomas failed to regain consciousness right away, I thought I'd lost him.

Vycandor catapulted away from the bed with renewed determination and flipped Thomas over onto his newly healed back. Hovering anxiously above his head, Vycandor's massive hands gripped Thomas by the shoulders to pin him down. "Try again," he urged. "Aim for his heart."

I poured everything I had directly into Thomas' chest, and then some. All my love, all my strength, even my stubborn will for him to live. Chest heaving up and down, his body bucking wildly from the force, that final thrust of urgent power drained me. It would be a while before I regained enough energy to try again.

Failing to revive him, I resorted to weakly pounding on his chest like a small child. "Wake up, wake up. I refuse to exist without out you. Wake up, damn it!"

Vycandor interrupted me by coming around my side to check for a pulse. "He's alive, but barely. There's nothing left to do now, except wait."

I stared up at him blankly. "You don't understand. We don't have time to wait."

"This is about the Angels of War?" Vycandor asked hesitantly.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Then make me understand."

Not knowing what else do to, I brought him up to speed with everything that had happened since I last saw him, including how Serenity had used the power of the super blood moon eclipse to first raise her global army, and then unleash them on an unsuspecting public in the first wave of attacks.

Vycandor nodded absently. "So that's what made Thomas attack. It's all starting to make sense now."

 "Wait, it gets worse," I cautioned. "You've been poisoned too."

He smiled, but not like he was happy. "Yeah, by you."

I shook my head. "No. Before that. Don't you remember trying to kill me?"

"Me," Vycandor repeated. "Kill you? That's preposterous. More like the other way around. You tried to kill me." As if trying to prove a point he ripped open what was left of his jacket hanging off his body in shreds, followed by the frilly white shirt in order to expose his heavily muscled chest.

Truth be told I never got tired of seeing him practically butt naked, but I pretended to be bored anyway. "Your skin is perfect because I healed you."

"Again..." he stressed. "You had to heal me because you tried to kill me. Death by Holy Water is an extremely unpleasant way to die. I should know."

"Well, what about you?" I practically shouted the words at him.

"What about me?"

"You sure put on a big show for Halloween. The way you pranced around the ballroom like Master of Ceremony at the Zombie Prom, and then later when you tried to take my head off with your ridiculously long fingernails because I refused to become your slave."

Vycandor poked me in the chest with a super sharp nail. "First of all, I don't know what you're talking about. Second of all, I've never opened up my home for anything as mundane as a Halloween party. To my knowledge, you're the only visitor I've ever had here. Besides Edgar, of course." Raising a dark eyebrow, he added, "What was that part about you being my slave?"

I suddenly remembered something Thomas had said about the Dark Ones being capable of taking on other forms to deceive. After Vycandor was captured and poisoned into submission, did they possess his body in an attempt to lure me back to their side? Probably. But when their diabolical plan failed, Serenity had sent me on a mission to destroy him.

"Never mind," I sighed. "It's not important. We've got to stop the second wave of attacks before it's too late."

Vycandor held up a hand. "First we have to find them."

It was my turn to point a finger into his chest. "I've already found their leader."

He eyeballed me suspiciously. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means...I finally figured out why Serenity chose you instead of Thomas to be her guinea pig."

"Why?" His voice sounded flat. Almost as if what I was about to say wouldn't come as a complete surprise.

"Because Thomas wasn't born a monster. But you were."

A look of hurt flashed on his face. "It's not like I'm proud of what I am, Chaos. Why do you think I became a drainer, instead of accepting my true birthright as a drinker like my mother? She left when I was still a little boy because I refused to follow in her footsteps and feed. I never knew my father, and I'm guessing that's a good thing after what you've been put through. If it hadn't been for my Uncle Edgar, I doubt I would have survived this long. He's the one who taught me how to feed on the energy of our victims from a distance, without bringing them harm. I haven't had an easy life up until now, if that's what you think. I've had to continuously fight against my true nature to kill. To destroy. Everything was going just fine until you came along and force fed me your blood."

Robbed of speech, I could only stare up at him. My heart went out to this beast of a man who, like me, never asked to be thrust in the middle of this war the Dark Ones were raging to wipe out humans. But here we were.

In the purple haze of the room Vycandor smiled nervously in a way that made me want to melt into him. Just like with Thomas, that strange magnetic attraction between two polar opposites pulled us together, making it hard to breathe.

Feeling the obvious connection we shared, Vycandor narrowed his green eyes. "If you and I are truly meant to be together, then why are you wasting your time with a human?"

"Thomas wasn't always a human," I began slowly. "He was an Angel of Light who gave up his eternal life to save mine."

"And you love him?" He made it sound more like an accusation than a question.

I nodded. "With all my heart. I just haven't been able to find the words to tell him how I feel."

A flicker of light caught my attention in the darkness of the room. Glancing over at Thomas' clenched fist, I gently uncurled his fingers only to discover the lock of my hair I'd given to him. As promised, he'd never let go of my gift that was forever glowing a bright crimson red. I'd lost the bracelet he'd given to me long ago in a fire that had consumed my entire body, just like I'd broken my promise to never let him go. I let go and now look where we were.

Glancing up at Vycandor as if somehow it were all his fault, something moved behind his eyes. I wouldn't call it jealousy exactly, but close. Very, very close.

I didn't have time to debate my love life with him. Flinging out my hands in frustration, I gestured to the bed. "I think I know how to stop the next wave of attacks, but I need your help. If Thomas doesn't wake up soon, we can't just leave him behind."

"Sure we can. Edgar will keep an eye on him," Vycandor offered.

I turned to smooth Thomas' hair, willing him to open his eyes. Instead of stirring, a thin sheen of fog coated his skin, curling into long, icy tendrils that traveled up and down his entire body.

Reaching out a hand to touch his cheek, I pulled it back.

My eyes flew to Vycandor's in a rage. "What did you do? Thomas is frozen solid!"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Ice. That's my super-power."

I was so completely shocked that I lost all ability to form complete sentences. "But...how? I can't just...uh, I mean...you can't just...go around...freezing people. It's not...right. Unfreeze him...now!"

"Trust me, he's much safer this way," Edgar insisted, appearing out of thin air again. "This way his body can finish healing. I'll take good care of him."

 Mind spinning out of control, everything started to unravel all at once. 

This ridiculous palace built on top of a freaking castle wasn't made out of crystal. It was made out of ice. Vycandor wasn't really a harmless psychic vampire after all. He was a blood thirsty demonic angel. Serenity wasn't responsible for turning him into a beast. I was.

Leaving me alone while I continued my mental ranting, Vycandor decided to change into a high collard white shirt with a ruby colored ascot tie that perfectly matched his sensuous full lips, before slipping into a floor length black leather trench coat.

Holding his hand out to me, he said, "Do you trust that Thomas will be safe?"

Delicately placing my hand on his icy palm, he curled his long fingers around mine. "I do."

"Then let's go save the world, shall we?"

I glanced over my shoulder at Thomas, knowing full well that I'd be back to unthaw him once this was finally all over. Just the thought of him lying there helpless made me shiver. 

A hidden door behind the bed slid open to reveal a staircase leading to a maze of secret passageways that blindly wound their way through the entire castle in pitch black darkness. Eventually we exited through a door on ground level, and ended up in the parking lot.

Squinting against the sunlight, I exhaled in relief. Lucky for me it was no longer raining.

Vycandor quirked an eyebrow at the Fury. "This must be your chosen mode of transportation?" Again, he meant it as more of an accusation than a question.

"You always been this much of a snob?"

He nodded curtly. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I have."

Geez. He didn't even have the decency to pretend to hide his arrogance.

Placing a hand on my hip, I stuck out one foot impatiently. "I can't wait to see what you consider to be an acceptable mode of transportation." Tapping my chin thoughtfully, I tried to guess. "A Bentley?"

Vycandor shook his head. "Not even close."

I snapped my fingers together. "I've got it! I bet you drive a limo. Once of those really stretchy kinds."

He stared at me confused. "What? No." Green eyes flicking behind me, he frowned.

I turned to find an ornate, two story building just as breathtaking in exquisite detail as the castle itself. It used to be the carriage house, but now most likely served as a private garage to store Vycandor's classic car collection.

Not that I was complaining, of course.

The Fury was considered to be a classic, so I didn't know why he had a problem with my choice of cars. The frown dominating his entire face probably had more to do with the fact that an ancient maple tree had recently lost one of its extremely large limbs, and had come crashing down right on top of the carriage house, flattening most of it like a pancake. His antique car collection didn't stand a chance. 

I gave a satisfied shrug. "Guess we're taking mine." 

"Not so fast," Vycandor said, pointing to the far end of the building. "My vehicle is in there. If I can get the door unjammed, we can still take mine."

Attempting to brush past, I whipped out an arm to stop him in his tracks. "Wait. Allow me."

Fastening my eyes on the only wooden door that had survived the impact mostly in tact, I gave it a mental yank. The weathered, brittle wood snapped off its rusty hinges and careened straight toward us. I called the fresh burst of power burning inside and aimed for the door. It completely exploded upon impact sending a burst of red, orange, and yellow sparks dancing around in the air above our heads like fireflies, before falling harmlessly to the ground.

Vycandor opened his mouth to speak, only to snap it shut in a daze.

I smiled up at him innocently. "Fire. That's my super-power...among other things."

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