TORN: (The Fire Born Novels, Book Two) Read online

  TORN

  The Fire Born Novels

  Laney McMann

  Contents

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  QUOTE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  10. Max

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  13. Layla

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  18. Max

  Chapter 19

  20. Layla

  21. Max

  Chapter 22

  23. Layla

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  29. Max

  30. Layla

  31. Max

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  36. Layla

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  40. Max

  41. TRUE ~ Chapter 1

  Acknowledgments

  TORN

  The Fire Born Novels

  Book Two

  TORN ~ The Fire Born Novels, Book Two

  Published byJagged Lane Books

  Copyright © 2014 Laney McMann

  Editor: Carol Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-9963295-9-0

  First Edition: 2014 J. Taylor Publishing

  Second Edition: 2016 Jagged Lane Books

  For my grandmother ~

  Who rearranged the words to Alice in Wonderland and read the story as many times as I asked her to, making me laugh until my stomach hurt. Thank you for sparking the flame of my vivid imagination at a very young age.

  The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

  ~ Henry David Thoreau

  1

  Sunlight seared my face and my fingers dug into hot sand before a cool shade fell over me.

  “Teine?” A soft voice called my name. Someone pulled on my arm.

  My head lolled to the side, but my neck caught on a crick and refused to move further.

  “Teine? Can you hear me?”

  Soft wisps tickled my face, hair maybe, and my head pounded above my left ear. My eyelids opened and closed, scratching against the corneas like sandpaper—my mouth dry, like paste. Through blurred vision, I saw a figure looming over me.

  “We have to go. Hold on to me.” A quick squeeze of my hand made my fingers flex.

  “Max …” My voice cracked and slurred; my tongue seemed too large for my mouth. I tried to lift my arm, but it thumped to the ground at my side with the weight of a lead pipe.

  “Shh. Do not let go.”

  My heavy arms swung up without my volition. I attempted to clasp my hands, to entwine my fingers, but they slipped back down to my sides again with a dead thud. Vision refusing to cooperate, my sight slipped. “What … happened?”

  “You will be all right. Hold onto me.”

  “Max?”

  “Save your strength.”

  Oh, god.

  Max.

  I fell … We fell. It was so hot. Too hot, and …

  The memory came back at me with debilitating impact.

  “Layla!” Max’s voice tangled in my head along with the rush of wind whistling in my ears and the roar of fire surrounding my body.

  “I’m coming!” The pulse of pure energy surging through my veins was a fear I’d never known—a heat I couldn’t control.

  The ground below me looked like a bomb went off. Where white sand once stretched for miles on the beach behind Max’s house, a war scene bristled. Dunes were flattened to nothing. Bits of charred lumber and ash blanketed the shoreline. Sea oats had been ripped free by their roots and laid smoldering, bright red embers shining up like sinister eyes.

  The multiple explosions that had occurred inside Max’s house had unleashed an acrid off-charge, tainting the surroundings in tendrils of fire and smoke streams. Sparks sizzled through the atmosphere, leaving traces of color in the air brought on by wicked lightning strikes illuminating the sky.

  Streaks of green and white flashed in all directions—fingers of electricity lacerating the clouds—like a fireworks display gone wrong. Growls of building thunder vibrated my body before falling silent, and a cackling laugh echoed around me, taking my attention to the dune’s edge.

  Crows lined the shore, still as statues—miniature militant soldiers. Ebony feathers laid, as if methodically placed, around a broken body carpeted in withered gardenia petals. Blank, flat crystal grey eyes stared upward, fixed and unmoving.

  Cold shock ricocheted through my core as I took them in, and a voice, foreign, yet chillingly familiar, snarled inside my head.

  “One will kill the other. Say goodbye to your beloved.”

  A guttural vibration quaked the sky. The atmosphere shifted, and the heavens erupted.

  “Max!”

  “Shh, Layla, I’m right here.” Max’s face swam into view, stained in soot and blood, his dark eyes gazing down. “Are you okay?” Breathing hard, he crouched over me as I laid in the sand, the outline of his silhouette darkening by the sun at his back. “We need to get out of here.” He scooted forward. “Can you stand?” His fingertips brushed my hand and his firm hold took my breath away. His gaze roamed over my body—my face. Black irises taking over the usual light grey.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” His voice echoed around me as if he was screaming, but I could barely hear him.

  “You were dead,” I said in a whisper, staring up at him. “I saw you—before. Lying in the sand.”

  “What?” He swept away the loose hair sticking to my cheek. “I’m right here.” Concern deepened the contours of his face, and his brow crunched into a scowl as he put a palm over my forehead. “Did you hit your head?” Cradling his arms underneath my body, he lifted me off the sand, and up against him.

  “Promise you’re not dead?” My voice slurred as I stared at him.

  He chuckled, eyes darkening further. “Promise.”

  2

  “Lay her down gently.”

  My fingertips dragged across something cold and hard, like metal.

  “How long? How long has she been like this?” My grandmother’s tone flooded with emotion. “Were there any others?”

  “I did not see anyone else. The beach was deserted.”

  Footsteps shuffled close by, and a medicinal sterile odor prickled my nose. A cool touch pressed on my wrist—under my jaw.

  “Her pulse is weak. Hold her still.” Someone grasped my wrists. “Do not let her go. Do you understand?”

  A scalding pain surged through both my arms, and I shot up, eyes open wide, and found myself sitting in the middle of a narrow bed. “Grandmother!” I tried to yank free, but my aunt was pin
ning my arms to my sides. The pain hit so severe, everything in the room doubled, and two blurred outlines of my grandmother’s body swam into sight.

  “I am sorry, Kindred,” she said in a gentle voice. “Flidais, do not let her go.”

  My aunt maintained an unyielding grip on my wrists.

  “Try to relax.” My grandmother lifted my shirt and touched the front of each bare shoulder, just below my collarbone, with her fingertips.

  A blinding, horrifying heat, so intense it was almost numbing, coursed through my veins.

  I screamed.

  “Sleep now, Kindred. Sleep and allow yourself to heal.” My grandmother’s words faded out with my cries of pain, as blotted colors bloomed before my eyes like drops of ink bleeding over wet paper. A haze of darkness draped my vision as if the world had become distorted by a black, sheer curtain. All the bones in my body seemed to turn to liquid, and I fell backward onto the narrow bed, my sight, my consciousness, obliterated.

  The stab of feathers bit across my shoulder blades, a constant crash of wind and waves pounding in my ears, and the harsh odor of burnt wood and plaster overwhelmed my senses. My sleepy-eyed gaze roved across a darkened ceiling and soot-mottled walls. Running my fingers along the sides of my body, rough fabric, tufts of material, came loose in my hand.

  “Looky, looky. She wakes.” A woman’s voice rebounded off the walls as if it was closing in on me, and I shifted my head, but found no one. “Come to see the ruin?”

  “Where am I?” The slur in my voice didn’t surprise me—I’d become accustomed to what it must have felt like to be hit by a tranquilizer dart.

  “Where are you? Where am I? It seems a redundant question. You are here. I am here.” She snickered.

  Eyes roving the walls, my gaze traveled up a staircase banister to the highest point of the ceiling far above my head. Attached to the ceiling like a spider, skin sagging from her bones, a woman hung upside down, watching me. I let out a breath, and she smiled, a blackened-toothed grin spreading slowly over her wide, lopsided mouth.

  “Clever, I see.” Her smile widened. “Smart is good—clever is better.” She scurried across the ceiling on all fours and down an adjacent wall, coming to a stop a few yards away from where I laid stiff and alarmed—afraid to move.

  “But …” She altered her four-legged, crouched stance, and a netted material appeared above my head. I rolled to the side instantly and shifted into the Raven, flying out of the snare. “Quick is best.” She smirked.

  “Blackbird, blackbird, where have you flown? Through shadows and darkness where the Underworlds roam. Blackbird, blackbird, shall I hear your cry? For your Twin Soul has died.”

  “What did you say?” I shifted back into my human form, heart hammering, and stood staring at part woman, part arachnid, a threadbare shawl draped over her skeletal shoulders like a cape.

  She shuffled forward on all fours again and sat on the edge of the dilapidated couch from where I’d just flown. “Only the words in my head.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

  “A gatekeeper, you needed. Agrona is happy to serve.” She bowed.

  “Gatekeeper?”

  “You are here to check the boundary? It is as sound as my word, my Princess.” She chuckled and bowed lower to the ground.

  “You know who I am?” My fists clenched.

  She inclined her head, peering up at me. “I know whose blood runs through your veins.” Her reddish-eyed stare seared into me, causing a chill to run down my spine.

  “Someone sent you to find me?”

  She grinned an evil smile. “Someone. The boy’s guardian.” She nodded. “Your beloved’s Bean Tighe.”

  Grandma Mac? My brain whirled as I focused on my surroundings and took in the water stains running up and down what used to be white walls. The wooden floors jutting up all over the house, ash and soot blanketing what was left of the furniture in a thick black film. Giant holes were gashed into the ceiling and the roof, and the banister up the stairway seemed to be the only solid structure in place, and probably the reason the entire second floor hadn’t collapsed onto the ground level.

  A choke embedded in my throat. Max’s house was almost unrecognizable.

  Before I could stop myself, I raced up the stairs, not giving a second thought to whether they would collapse underneath me. Standing on the threshold of a doorway, I swallowed the sudden ache that tore into my heart and wiped the tears from my face. Max’s bedroom looked virtually untouched. As if it had been draped by some protective field that shielded it from the fire and wind we’d created during the Fomore’s attack.

  “Sad. She is sad.” The woman’s voice snapped me back to real time, and I turned, looking down at her from the staircase landing. “She misses her Twin.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What do you know about Max?”

  “He is your beloved.” She tilted her head up, deep red eyes still gazing at me. “The Shadow Realm, she seeks.”

  “What do you know about the Shadow Realm?” My words were formal, hesitant, disbelieving.

  “Agrona knows.” She grinned, covering her mouth with her wrinkled hand. “Does the Princess ask for my help?”

  Standing immobile, I watched her, my blood continuing to heat. “Yes.” My voice was clear and unwavering.

  “Smart, clever and quick. I like this one.” She fumbled with her hands, seeming to talk to herself. “Better than the gargoyle.”

  “Justice?”

  She ignored my question. “There is only one way to penetrate the Shadows, Princess—” She sneered her lopsided, blackened grin, and scurried partially up the stairwell on all fours, staring at me. “You have to become one. Tell me, girl, how far are you willing to go … to protect the one you love?”

  3

  “We have to stop this.”

  Something cool touched my forehead, my arm, my neck. A steady beep played over and over again on my left side, and an uncomfortable sensation pricked the crook of my elbow. The rich, spicy, sweet smell of gardenias filled my lungs.

  Max.

  “This is neither the time nor the place to discuss such things, Lorelei.” My grandmother’s voice accompanied a gentle, cool squeeze of my hand.

  “People are sick and dying, Mother.”

  Dying? Head spinning, my breath came in long even drags.

  “Try to relax, Kindred.”

  I wanted to comply, and do what my grandmother asked, but swallowing took an enormous effort—as if razors were embedded in the soft flesh of my throat. Hot and cold spasms pulsed down my arms, like something was breathing—living under my skin, and a slithering sensation rippled over my shoulders and wrists. It wasn’t the same crawling, feathered itch of the Raven that I’d become accustomed to, instead it moved. Opening and closing my hands seemed to heighten the feeling.

  “What did you do to me?” I asked, my vision shifting around the room.

  I found my grandmother in a chair next to my bed, my Aunt Flidais across from her near a large wooden door, and my mother by a table covered with white flowers.

  “I saved your life.” My grandmother’s tone was neutral, her white eyes blank, as she stood and huddled over the bed. “I performed an Ancient ritual. I am sorry about the pain.” The creases in her leathery skin appeared more layered, deeper than usual. “You should remain still before you fall unconscious again. You have been coming in and out for hours now.” She pressed her fingers under my jaw. “You will only cause yourself more discomfort if you try to move.”

  With a small nod, I glanced around my surroundings. Muted sheets of sunlight fell across the bed, heating the blankets over my legs. White walls enclosed a small room on four sides, and dozens of potted gardenias rested on a large round table underneath the only window, flooding the space with their rich scent. Voices and footsteps sounded from beyond a large door on the far wall.

  “We are in the Otherworld,” my grandmother said, answering my unasked question. “In the infirmary.” She touched one of the t
ubes attached to the vein in my arm. “It seems you took a very hard fall.”

  “Max …” I whispered. I wasn’t sure what I’d seen on the beach, or in my head—visions, nightmares? I didn’t know if any of it was real.

  “He is gone, child.” Her eyes were full of sorrow. “I am so sorry.”

  “Gone?” My voice cracked, and I pushed up, trying to sit.

  She squeezed my hand and pressed gently against my shoulder, making the slithering sensation in my shoulders worse. “MacKenzie is missing, child. There was no one else on the beach when Flidais found you.” She gestured toward my aunt, sitting in the far corner. “Benny sent word when she arrived at Mairsale’s with Tristan. Flidais arrived at MacKenzie’s house just after the attack, it seems.”

  I let out a breath. Benny. I couldn’t stand to hear her name. She never came back. She just left me there. “Tristan … how is he?”

  “He is under Mairsale’s care.” Although her white eyes remained bright, the tone of my grandmother’s voice was grave.

  I touched the leather bracelet wrapping my wrist, skin searing under my fingertips, and slowly sat up as I noticed black and red streaks running down my arms. It looked like I’d rolled around in the embers of a fire place and gotten badly burned. From wrists to collarbone, my skin smoldered with a lingering, singeing heat, red streaks everywhere. “What happened to me?” I glanced at my grandmother.

  “As I said, Kindred, you took a hard fall. I saved your life. Try to rest.” She urged me to lie back down.

  “No one else was on the beach?” I asked.

  “No,” my aunt said. “It was deserted.”

  “So … Max … isn’t—” I shook my head and tried to move my leaden legs off the edge of the bed. “I have to find him.”

  My grandmother touched my knee, stopping my motion, the lines marking her expression a sadness I’d never remembered seeing in her face. “We must formulate a plan.”