Текст книги "Pure"

Автор книги: Jennifer L. Armentrout

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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

CHAPTER 24

SETH TIPPED HIS HEAD BACK, SIGHING LOUDLY. “ALEX, YOU DON’T want this. It’s the drink.”

“That’s not true. Nothing’s wrong with me. Don’t you want to kiss me?”

“It’s not about what Iwant.” He clasped my arms. “I’m not doing this when you’re like this.”

“I’m not drunk,” I said indignantly.

“You were just dancing like some wood nymph five minutes ago. You took off your shirt and now you’re latched onto me like a little monkey. So don’t tell me you’re in complete control of yourself.”

Damn. When he said it like that, I had to stop and think about what I was doing. Thinking lasted all of five seconds, maybe six. Thinking was overrated. “You want to kiss me and you liked kissing me last night.”

Seth made a low sound in his throat as he grabbed my shoulders, giving me a little shake. “Do you know why you feel this way right now? It has nothing to do with me or you,” he said roughly. “Someone wanted to ruin you, Alex. They wanted to get you on your back with some pure so you’d be removed from the Covenant and placed into servitude. Don’t you get it? This– thisis not you.”

“No. This is me, really me .Or the connection thingy, but who cares? I want you to kiss me again. I like you, Seth. I really don’t know why. You’re arrogant and rude, but I like you. Don’t you like me?”

“Alex.” He said my name as if he was in some sort of exquisite pain. “I’m trying to be a good guy right now, and you’re not helping.”

“I don’t want you to be a good guy.”

He choked on his laugh. “You are making this really hard.”

I pressed against him. “You’re making this harder.”

His hands slid down my arms again, sending shivers over me. Could it be possible to be so hot and so cold all at once? “Alex.”

“Seth.”

“There are a lot of things I want to do to you right now, but it wouldn’t be right.”

I tipped my head back and looked him in the eye. Faint marks of the Apollyon started to creep across his face. “Don’t you want to kiss me?” I reached up, running my fingers over his parted lips. “I know you do. I can tell.”

Seth’s grip tightened and his eyes fell shut. I slipped a hand under the hem of his shirt. He inhaled and tried to step back, but I followed him… a bit too closely. My leg got snared with his. For someone normally so graceful, he wasn’t right then. He went down, half on his side and half on his back.

And I, well, I was right where I wanted to be. Giggling, I pressed my mouth to his neck. “Yay me,” I murmured against his skin.

Seth jerked his head back, but his hands dropped to my hips, fingers digging through the denim. “Alex! Get off—”

I lowered my mouth to his. Seth pushed at me, but I had a really good hold on him and he didn’t push too hard. And then he stopped pushing me and was pulling me closer—so close that I melted into nothing. Restraint and good intentions vanished when my lips brushed over his. This kiss wasn’t soft or filled with tentative exploration. Seth’s hands got tangled in my hair, and for a while, I got lost in that kiss, lost in all the insane sensations. Then his hands were on my shoulders, my back, and then the clasp of my bra. Seth’s lips never left mine once, not even when he rolled me onto my back.

Things kind of got beautifully out of control at that point. His shirt came off. My jeans ended up clear across the room. My fingers found the button on his jeans and so on. Crazy as it sounded, Seth held back when I tugged him closer, lifted off me when I tried to wrap myself around him. And even though my body burned for more—demanded it, really—a small nagging voice picked up in the back of my mind, asking questions I didn’t want to answer. Pointing out that this wasn’treal. Or was it? I didn’t know anymore. I knew I should care, but I didn’t. Everything became about feeling.

Seth’s lips moved across my skin. His hands cupped my cheek before drifting down. My own hands followed his lead, mimicking everything he did until the tips of my fingers no longer felt tingly, but numb instead.

Seth pulled away again, his breathing heavy and ragged as his fingers traced the curve of my neck. “I shouldn’t do this. Not when you’re like this, but I can’t help myself. What does that say about me?”

His words confused my already jumbled thought process, but then he kissed me again. This was the powerful, deep kind—the kind I’d had little experience in handling. Only once had I been kissed like this.

Aiden.

Oh, myAiden. My heart, the very air I breathed equaled Aiden. But his name disappeared in the mad rush of Seth’s touch. I shifted restlessly, needing to be closer, and I thought I’d moved at first, but I hadn’t moved at all. I tried to again, but my body wouldn’t respond.

“We should stop here, Angel,” Seth whispered against my lips, even as he slid a hand under my hip, lifting me, bringing me closer.

Closer.Hadn’t that been what I wanted all long? Didn’t I still want that? I just couldn’t get closer. My hands slipped off his back and then my arms fell limply to my sides.

Seth lifted his head and two bright, nearly iridescent eyes filled my vision. They were hazy, clouded with passion. I think he frowned, but then his face blurred in and out.

“Alex? What…? Oh, hell.”

Concern replaced lust, passion—whatever he’d felt. He sat back, pants sliding low on his hips as he pulled me into his lap. “Alex, are you in there?” He brushed the hair off my face.

“I’m… so tired. Sorry…”

He smiled, but it rang false. “I know. It’s okay.”

I shivered, unable to wrap my arms around myself. Where had all that heat gone?

Seth got his other arm around me and stood, cradling me like he’d had a lot of experience carrying girls. Judging by his recent actions, I think he did. He placed me on the bed and hovered over me. “You still there?”

I blinked slowly, his face going in and out. “I’m… sleepy.”

“Okay.” Seth leaned in and brushed his lips over my forehead. I squeezed my eyes shut, stomach twisting when he disappeared.

A few seconds later, he returned to my side and helped me get into a shirt that fell to my knees. Things were kind of hazy after that. Numbness settled so deep in my bones, I started to believe that my limbs weren’t connected anymore. Unable to move, unable to say more than a few words at a time, I lay there and tried to figure out what was going on with my body.

Lust and all those other warm, wonderful feelings had vanished. So had the numbness, and in their place was a godsawful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried to breathe through the sharp rise of nausea. It didn’t help. A twisting and churning motion swept through me. Oh, gods, this wasn’t going to be good. I was going to puke. I could feel—taste it—and I couldn’t move. A soft whimper escaped my lips.

The bed dipped beside me and a warm hand brushed across my cheek. “You hanging in there?”

“Sick,” I gasped out.

Seth scooped me up in one swipe and carried me to the bathroom. The part of my brain that still functioned on normal Alex level noted that his bathroom was bigger than my entire room, and much nicer. So not fair. But then I stopped thinking altogether. The moment he held me over the toilet, I started heaving. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

I really don’t know how long I remained latched there or how in the world Seth stomached all of it, holding me up and keeping my hair out the way. Only when my sides ached and my eyes leaked did the painful heaving subside.

“Better?” Seth smoothed the damp strands off my forehead.

“I want to die,” I moaned pitifully. “I think I’m… dying.”

“No, you’re not.” Seth shook his head. “Water will help. Just hold on to—” He tried to keep me upright, but I slipped to the floor. “Or just lie down. That works, too.”

I pressed my forehead against the cool tile. It helped with the hot feeling, but my head throbbed something fierce. Moaning, I wrapped my arms around my waist and curled into a ball.

Seth cursed under his breath. I felt him stand and go back into the bedroom. I hoped he left me there. I never wanted to move ever again. I could rot there, as long as the pounding went away and the room stopped spinning.

But he returned a few seconds later and forced me to sit up. He barely got one bottle of water in me. I struggled, slapping his hands away a dozen times. Seth was halfway through forcing a second bottle when someone knocked at the door. We heard it swing open.

Seth swore again, put the bottle of water down, and eased me back to the floor. Ah, the cool floor was my friend– friend?I missed Caleb. I missed him so terribly.

“Where is she? Seth?” Aiden’s firm voice called from the bedroom.

“Dammit,” Seth muttered, standing. “She’s fine,” he called out. “Just needs a few more minutes to hang on to the floor.”

I wanted to hit him.

Seth left the bathroom then, and the silence from the other room stretched out long, becoming ripe with tension. My mind provided the images of what the room must’ve looked like to Aiden. And shirtless, pants-unbuttoned Seth. Surely– surelySeth would’ve taken five seconds to button them?

I heard Seth sigh. “Look, I know all this looks really bad. It’s not what you think.”

“This isn’t what it looks like?” Aiden growled, and I’d never heard his voice sound that way before, so hard and flat but with an edge that trembled with the promise of violence. “Really? Because I think thisbelongs to Alex.”

I cringed, wishing I could sink through the floor and disappear. A mass of confusion and unease formed in my delicate stomach. Then Aiden stood in the doorway to the bathroom, and I knew I must’ve looked a mess. Damp hair clung to my skin; the room smelled of sickness, and I was dressed in Seth’s shirt and little else.

“Aiden,” I said weakly. “It’s not—”

“Seth, I trusted you.” Aiden’s voice was filled with cold steel.

“Look, I know. This wasn’t—”

The sound of a fist connecting with flesh came from the next room. A body slammed into something—a dresser? Something heavy crashed to the floor, shattering. The really sweet TV came to mind. Curses exploded from each of them.

I pushed myself off the bathroom floor, standing on wobbly legs. The white walls and gilded mirror spun in wild circles for a moment. Pushing through the dizziness, I staggered out of the bathroom and into the middle of a major throwdown between a highly trained Sentinel and the Apollyon.

“Guys, come on… you both are being so stupid.” I swayed to the left. Cold sweat clung to my forehead.

They either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. Aiden, who looked surprisingly unscathed, backed Seth across the room. He lunged at Seth, knocking him to the floor. They rolled, each of them exchanging and receiving blows.

“Aiden! Stop it!” I lurched forward, swearing as my stomach rolled violently. “Seth—don’t choke him!”

Seth had gained the upper hand, rolling Aiden onto his back. He reared back, throwing one arm in the air. Blue light shimmered around his fist. Akasha.I panicked—which maybe wasn’t the greatest thing to do considering my reflexes and even basic walking skills were subpar at the moment. I stumbled to them, intending on pulling Seth off Aiden, and then I planned to knock the crap out of both of them.

I wrapped my arms around Seth’s waist the same moment Aiden slammed his fist into Seth’s stomach. When Seth fell backwards, so did I. My shoulder smacked off the edge of the bed first and then Seth’s weight crashed onto me. I hit the floor for the second time that night.

Aiden popped to his feet and grabbed Seth, tossing him to the side. I turned over and there was my bra—lying right there, laughing at me. I closed my eyes, utterly mortified.

“What the hell?” another voice rang out. A clear, distinct voice I knew belonged only to Leon. “Have you all lost your godsforsaken minds?”

Seth rolled to his knees, wiping his hand over his bloodied lip. “Oh, we’re just wrestling.”

Aiden shot him a dark look as he dropped down. “Alex, are you okay?” He slid his hands under my arms and helped me to sit up. “Say something.”

I peered through the mess of hair covering my face. “I’m… great.”

Aiden brushed the hair off my face. “I’m sorry. I should have never—”

“Aiden, I know you’re pissed—”

“Pissed? You took advantage of her, Seth.” Aiden rose to his feet. “You son of a—”

“Stop it!” Leon ordered. “You two are going to bring every Guard in this building to this room. Seth, get out of here now.”

“This is myroom,” Seth protested, climbing to his feet. “And if this dickhead would give me five—”

Aiden growled low in his throat. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh, that’s it.” Seth whirled around, eyes flaring. “Let me see you try.”

I staggered to my feet and reached for Aiden. The room swayed off kilter, but I ignored it.

“Don’t. Please. This isn’t Seth’s… whoa.” The wall spun suddenly.

“Alex?” Aiden said, but he sounded so far away, which was weird, since he was right beside me. I reached for him, but then I think I keeled over.

When I woke up, I felt like hell and I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet. A drummer lived inside my head and my mouth was a desert. I groaned and tried to roll over, but I couldn’t move. Something stopped me. Slowly, I pried my eyes open and looked down.

A heavily muscled arm lay across my waist—not my arm.

Well, this was odd.

I tilted my head to the side, blinked once, and then twice. It couldn’t be him… Waves of dark hair fell over his forehead and along his cheek. It was Aiden’s flawless face inches from mine, but a younger version of him. At rest, he looked vulnerable, peaceful. My fingers itched to trace the smooth line of his jaw, to touch his parted lips and see if he was real. It had to be a dream, something my heart had produced, because he couldn’t be here.

“Stop staring at me.” Aiden’s voice was gruff with sleep.

I jerked back an inch. Okay, maybe not a dream. “I’m not.”

He pried one gray eye open. “Yes, you are.”

Accepting that this was reality, I glanced around. We were still in Seth’s room. “Where’s Seth?”

“I don’t know. He left a couple of hours ago.” Aiden seemed to realize then that his arm was around me. Looking confused, he pulled back and sat up. “I sat down for a little while. I must’ve fallen asleep. How are you feeling?”

Everything seemed hazy at first. Then, slowly, the memories clicked into place: Laadan giving me the super sex cocktail drink, Aiden ordering me off with Seth, and then… everything with Seth.

“Oh. My. Gods,” I moaned. “I want to die. Like right now.”

Aiden hovered beside me. “Alex, it’s okay.”

I covered my face with my hands. When I spoke, my voice was muffled. “No, it’s not. I’m going to kill someone.”

“I think you’re going to have to get in line for that.”

“Have you found Laadan?” I asked. “Is she okay?”

“Yes, I found her in her room just before I… I checked on you. She’s fine, but she doesn’t remember a thing. It’s just like the night Leon found you in the maze. To compel someone that strongly and to make them forget is a hell of a compulsion. And to use it against another pure is unheard of.”

I mumbled incoherently against my hands. Delayed as it was, it struck me then that Aiden had spent the night with me—in a bed. And I’d been passed out for it. Gods, that royally sucked, but it didn’t suck as badly as it would have if someone found out about it. “Why did you stay here? What if someone—”

“Only Seth and Leon know what happened. And Laadan. No one else knows we’re here.” He pulled my hands away. “I wasn’t leaving you alone. The drug was still in your system and I wasn’t taking a risk on something else happening to you. You were sick again in the middle of the night. You don’t remember that?”

“No,” I whispered, trying to ignore the warmth his protective words brought. “I don’t remember that.”

“Probably a good thing, it was pretty rough.”

“Great,” I muttered.

A brief smile appeared. “You were… talking a lot, too.”

“This just keeps getting better. What did I say?”

“You told me you wanted to marry Seth’s bed, and then you told me you’d marry me if I asked. After that, you started to—”

“Enough,” I groaned, wanting to crawl under the blankets.

Aiden laughed. “It was actually kind of cute.”

More embarrassed than I’d ever been, I had a hard time looking at Aiden. His face didn’t show any signs that he’d duked it out with Seth. Maybe I’d imagined it. “Did you and Seth… fight?”

One eyebrow arched. “Yeah, we did.”

“Oh, gods, Aiden, it wasn’t Seth’s fault.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that you had to go through any of this. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong, but he did.”

“Don’t apologize. Please. None of this is your fault.” I drew in a deep breath. “It wasn’t Seth’s, either. Aiden, he tried. Really, he did, but I just…” I couldn’t believe I was going to say any of this. “I just kept pushing him. I couldn’t stop, but I knew what I was doing. I just couldn’t stop myself.”

“That doesn’t matter, Alex. Seth should’ve shown restraint. He knew you were vulnerable, that it didn’t matter whoyou were with.” He paused, drawing in a deep breath. “Alex, look at me.”

I lifted my head slowly. I expected there to be some sort of judgment or disappointment in his gray gaze, but all I saw was infinite understanding, which made the ball of conflicting emotions feel that much worse. His eyes shut briefly. When they reopened, they burned an unnatural shade of silver. “Did he… did you two…?”

“No. We… didn’t do that. He stopped.” I figured it was best to leave out the exact reason why he’d stopped.

We fell into silence for a little while. My mind worked through the events of last night, the implications of them. Someone had wanted me to screw up in a bad way. And to go to that kind of extreme—even the idea sickened me. What if Aiden and Seth hadn’t seen me?

“You really think someone was waiting for me?” I swallowed down the taste of bile, shuddering. “Waiting to catch me with a pure?”

Aiden looked me straight on. “Yes.”

It was hard to wrap my head around that kind of tactic. I shuddered again. Aiden reached down and tucked the blanket around me, but then I jerked up, ruining his hard work.

“Are you feeling sick again?” He moved as if he would carry me off the bed.

I wasn’t sure. The walls did feel like they were closing in around me, but it wasn’t the effects of the brew. “I could’ve lost everything.”

Aiden didn’t respond, because really, what could he say?

My mind raced. There were so many things I could do with the power I would have. I’d learned one thing at the Council—I needed to be able to do something to change the lives of my kind. Seth had been right; we could do something about that as long as I made it to eighteen without being forced into servitude. If I were put on the elixir—which was what someone had intended last night by hoping to catch me with a pure—I might never Awaken. I’d lose such a huge opportunity—more than any half had ever had.

And someone had tried to take that from me at least three times in the last couple of weeks: the compulsion, the Council session, and now this? Telly had warned me if I messed up one more time, I’d be kept in New York.

Sleeping with a pure, willingly or not, would have classified as messing up.

“Alex, are you okay?”

My gaze dropped to his. I don’t know what I saw in his eyes. I couldn’t read them anymore. “Do you think Telly did this?”

Aiden blinked. “Minister Telly? I don’t know, Alex. He’s a lot of things, but to do this? And why?”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“Not liking you is one thing, but to destroy you? It has to be more than dislike, Alex. There has to be a reason.”

Aiden had a point. “Then I need to find out why.”

“We will find out why.”

I nodded. “Right now, I just… I just want to leave here. I want to go home.”

He leaned forward and placed his hand over mine, easing my fingers off the blanket I’d been gripping. “There’s a late afternoon session, and we’ll leave immediately afterward.”

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel very relieved by that. The plus side in all of this was I now knew not to take drinks from… it hit me then. I laughed.

Aiden’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. “Alex?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s just that damn oracle was right again. She warned me, did you know? She told me not to accept gifts from those who meant me harm.” I laughed again. “Of course, she failed to mention that it would be a secondhand gift from someone who didn’t mean me harm. Gods, if that woman were still alive, I’d hit her. Seriously.”

His lips stretched into a lopsided grin and his hand tightened over mine. An old and familiar ache sprung alive at the sight of his smile, forcing me to look away. I swallowed, wanting nothing more than to climb into his arms. “Do you know where Seth is?”

“No. He left when he realized I wasn’t leaving. He’s around here somewhere.”

I ran a hand over my face. I was surprised and kind of stung that he’d actually left me with Aiden, but I was happy that he had. Because that gave me time with Aiden—time in bed with Aiden. Which didn’t make any sense. “I need to find him.”

Aiden’s hand left mine. “You shouldn’t be worried about him right now. And I don’t want you running around looking for him. It’s not safe here.”

“I know it’s not, but I have to see him. You don’t understand. Things—”

“Things are what, Alex?”

I turned toward him. He was frowning, eyes a deep and dark gray. “I don’t know. Things are different with him.” That was all I could say.

Aiden stared at me a moment, then straightened. “Are you two… seeing each other?”

My cheeks turned several shades of red.

His eyes turned silver in a nanosecond. “I thought you were against this whole fatething.”

“I am! But… I don’t know. Things have just changed and… he’s been there for me,” I finished lamely.

A muscle started ticking along his jaw. “And I haven’t been. So you decided to be with Seth?”

I gaped at him, but then my temper shot to the surface. “No, you haven’t been. But that’s not why I’m with Seth.”

“Really?” He pushed off the bed. Standing, he ran his hand through his hair. “I find that hard to believe since you told me a few days ago you hated him.”

I flushed, partly because he was right and that pissed me off. “Why do you even care, Aiden? You can’t– anddon’t—want me. And you even said you thought Seth cared about me. Or is this one of those lame lines like ‘I don’t want you but I don’t want you with anyone else?’ Because that’s so not cool.”

He dropped his hand. “That is not what this is about, Alex. I just don’t want to see you getting wrapped up in something… so serious for the wrong reasons.”

My gaze flicked up, meeting his. His eyes burned so brightly, taking up his whole face. “You’ve told me we can’t be together and—and I know. I know we can’t, but—”

Aiden bent quickly, leaning down so our faces were only inches from one another. “But that doesn’t mean you should settle for Seth, Alex.”

I crushed the blanket in my hands. “I’m not settling for Seth!”

He quirked an eyebrow and held my glare with his own.

Then it hit me and my heart sped up. “This isn’t even about Seth. This is about you! You don’t want to see me with him or anyone else! Because you still care about me!”

Aiden jerked back, shaking his head. “Of course I care for you.”

I drew in a deep breath, trying to quell my racing heart. “Tell me… tell me that you feel the same way I do about you, because if you do…” I couldn’t bring myself to actually say it. If he told me that he felt the same way—that he loved me—then to hell with everything else. To hell with it all, because I would not—could not walk away from that. No matter how wrong it was, how I’d resolved to let him go, and no matter how dangerous it would be for the both of us. I simply couldn’t.

Aiden inhaled sharply. “I won’t.”

“Or you can’t?”

He shook his head again, eyes flickering shut. A quick grimace pulled at his lips, and then he looked me dead on. “I don’t.”

I exhaled harshly, suddenly wanting to curl up in a ball and cry. But I didn’t. I’d brought this on myself. “Okay.”

“Alex, I want—”

“No. I don’t want to hear anything else.” I pushed off the bed. “What I have with Seth is none of your—” A rush of dizziness made me stumble. I bent, grabbing the edge of the bed for support.

“Alex?” Aiden moved around the bed, reaching for me.

“Don’t!” I threw up my hand. “Don’t pretend you care. That takes douchebaggery to a whole new level.”

Aiden stopped, opening and closing his hands. “Good point.”

The room righted itself and it felt safe to move again. Ignoring Aiden and the need to wail like a baby, I started the mortifying search for my clothes. I gathered up my jeans and hoodie, tucking them under my arm. One very important, very embarrassing item hadn’t been located. I scanned the floors rather desperately.

“I think this belongs to you.”

Cursing under my breath, I turned around. Aiden dangled something black, small and flimsy from his fingertips.

Color burst across my face. I snatched it out of his hand. “Thanks.”

Aiden didn’t smile. “It’s my pleasure.”