Page 22 of Memories Like Fangs
The silence that followed was worse than the echo, worse than the pain. It gave life to the absence around me. It was something so vast, cruel, and empty that it swallowed my voice whole.
What was I going to do?
Suddenly, the door’s lock clicked, the sound bouncing off the shadows and walls throughout the cellar. The door swung wide and heavy, scraping against the cement floor with an ear-piercing grinding noise. When it came to a stop, heels clickedand clacked until a woman revealed herself from around the door. She was a youngish white woman as far as I could tell. She was tall, especially with her platform calf-high boots. Her body was mid-sized and pear-shaped. Black waves glistened even with the lack of light, cascading down her back and around her shoulders like a wild, waterfall-like mane of dark mist. Her sculpted face was beautiful like an emerging actress in an indie darling that doubled as Oscar-bait. Her makeup was dark and immaculate, making her brown eyes pop more like they are a dark maroon. The mystery woman wore dark, ripped jeans tucked into her boots and a long-sleeved turtleneck. Notably, on the right shoulder, there was a hole cut in the top that couldn’t have been a design choice with the placement of it. Yet, her skin underneath was unblemished, and there were no blood stains. She smirked, full of devious intent, her teeth brilliant in the darkness. The mysterious woman had a vibe that pulled me in, made me want to get to know her, yet that same appeal also made me want to run away from her without looking back.
The mystery woman toyed with a very familiar blade in her hands. It was black with a vibrant rainbow of colors in its aura. How did she get one of Quinn’s daggers? I knew my girl would never give her blade up without a fight. Was she okay? Where?—?
The stranger used the sharp point to flick the light switch on. I hissed at the sudden, instant change from complete windowless darkness to a bright orange-y glow from the medieval chandelier above that I hadn’t noticed before. My eyes snapped closed to recover from the sting of it.
“Hi there, ladybug!” She greeted, her voice high-pitched and tinged with a very subtle and subdued Southern accent. My eyes fluttered open just as she closed the door. She strutted over to me. “Well, well, well, would you look at you? What a sight you are to behold!”
“Who are you?”
The woman gasped, melodramatically placing her hand not holding the dagger on her chest. Her eyes widened. “Byrdie! You don’t remember me? I’m offended. Now, here I thought I had made an impression!”
I forced myself to avoid thrashing and causing myself pain out of frustration. “Look, I don’t know you, okay? How do you know me? How do you know my name?”
“Ah, babygirl, I have been watching you for quite some time. Oh, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You asked me who I was. While I am a smidgen bothered you don’t remember me, I suppose there is no reason to keep beating a dead dragon, huh?” She chuckled at her own sick joke. My stomach churned. “My name is Lilah, and I am a blood witch-fae.”
My heart plummeted through the chair and the cement straight into the very core of the earth to melt away. “Theblood witch-fae? Like the one that was stealing from the Archive and that we fought before?”
“From that and more, my dear! I have been toying with your life for a minute, babe. But, I will say those were some powerful ass guardians! I have encountered quite a few strong supernaturals in my day, but them and that building? Pretty fucking unmatched. Bra-fucking-vo!”
A few months ago, Izzy at the Archive had told me about someone breaking into the Archive to steal materials. She didn’t want me to worry about it at the time with everything going on with what I would discover was my mother’s grimoire, and she merely wanted me to be informed. However, it would end up becoming a pressing concern later as that same thief supplied Quinn’s ex-girlfriend with a weapon and magic to attack me not once buttwice. While we had managed to capture Zaria, her co-conspirator had escaped during our fight.
The blood witch-fae that had hurt the Archive and created the weapons from my kind was standing in front of me and hadme restrained by her magic. There were no curses that I could utter that would capture how fucked I was right now.
I have no idea how I was able to speak, given how my jaw was on the floor internally. “What the fuck do you want? Why were you breaking into the Archive?”
“Simple.” Lilah booped my nose, and I wanted to bite her finger off with how condescending the action was. “It’s for my spell, of course!”
“Spell? What spell?”
Lilah tsked. “Nice try, ladybug. I may be a villain, but I’m not one of those in a movie. I won’t be revealing my master plan just yet. No, we get to build up to it. Together! The tension! It’s going to be so much fun!”
“Wh-what? What are you talking about? What do you want with me?”
“Oh, babygirl, isn’t it obvious?” Lilah leaned in close to me. The scent of copper hung heavy in the air around her, along with the smell of synthetic roses. Even without my supernatural nose, it was overpoweringly floral yet artificial. It reminded me of the cheap, overly sweet car fresheners. It was cloying, heady, and lingering deep in my throat. I recoiled, but she kept close to me. “I wantblood. Now, whose I will get is completely up to you.”
“What do you mean?” I flexed my claws slowly, carefully, fighting to ease the tension out of my hands and to remain calm, but it was growing harder and harder.
Lilah’s dark red eyes stayed on me, but her smile was so wolfish that my skin crawled with the creeps it gave me. “You are so cute, trying not to fight your restraints. You might as well do it. The more you struggle, the more it’ll hurt, sure, but it’s also the more you’ll bleed and the more blood you’ll give to me that my magic will collect immediately.”
“Your magic? C-collect?”
“Hey, keep up, ladybug. I know you are a smart cookie who can do better than that!” Lilah said, snapping her fingers in front of me. I growled at her condescension. She simply turned away and started strolling around the room just like the cartoonish villain she had said she wasn’t. “I am a blood fitch, babe. My magic’s source is blood. I can find power in other supernatural creatures’ blood and manipulate that to fit my needs. Your bindings are even cursed with dragon blood, so it’s made to aggravate you. The more it does, the more ofyourdragon blood it collects, making me grow stronger and giving me more power. That’s why there’s some magic in your little stabby wound. It’s a great way to keep you alive while draining you bit by bit. Oh, and the best part? Your body senses the danger—yourdragonsenses it. But, the more she tries to surface and fight, the more the magic subdues her and your little mating bond with that Huntress Princess. Based on the size of your restraints, I would say she is caged in very nice and deep within you. You can’t talk to her at all, now can you, ladybug?”
My eyes widened as the rest of me stilled at her words. I looked down at the blood magic that bound me in place. The magic swirled around me, very alive and pulsing with energy. I noticed how wide and thick they were, the power crackling off of them like a live wire. It hit me fully how raw my throat felt, how sore my wings and tail were, how the restraints had sawed their way through my clothes to get to my skin, how deep the cuts were there as the magic drank the blood still leaking from the wounds. My dragon had fought. She must have surfaced while I was out and tried to break out. She had always protected me, even before I knew she existed, even if it would kill us both. Now, she was gone, and so was my connection with Quinn.
Both were buried.
Fuck.
“Yep, you don’t even have to answer. I can sense it. I know?—”
“If you wanted only blood, you could have left that harpoon in and I would be bleeding out and dead already.” I realized quickly then, my brain finally running at full speed. “So. What do youreallywant with me? You said I choose whose blood you get. It’s me versus who else?”
Lilah turned around with a beaming smile full of malice more than cheer. She approached me again, leaning onto the back of the chair and scorching my nose with her headache-inducing scent. “See, now you are using that brain of yours! I’m so proud of you! I’m also so happy you asked. It’s very simple: you can bleed out hereoryou can just answer one thing for me.”
