The Blood Bracelets #1: Blood Bound

Chapter Eighteen

Taryn jerked the string up and down, watching Silkie grapple for it with her claws out, her tail fluffed in agitation and her little jaw snapping. It had started out as fun, but Taryn was sure Silkie had spiralled out of playing and into seriously trying to destroy the string – and Taryn's fingers. 

'She's a vicious killing machine, you know,' said Zed, watching Taryn from the kitchen. 

Taryn laughed. 'I can see that, she's trying to rip my hand to shreds.' 

Silkie caught the string on her claw and tore it out of Taryn’s hand. She ran off with the string between her teeth, the end of it dragging across the floor behind her in defeat. With her source of entertainment gone, Taryn slumped back against the couch in a huff, bored once more. Both Coranna and Eljae had left earlier in the evening, leaving only her and Zed in the building while Ace and Kael investigated this Alchemist dancer who had a connection to Asina.

She felt like she was going stir-crazy, her legs twitchy and uncomfortable with restlessness, even though she had been confined for less than twenty-four hours after her visit to Cecile’s. She figured it was more the idea of not being allowed outside that was getting to her, since she had never felt the need to step outside during her university holidays, often spending days on end inside until someone forced her out. This was different though – this time, she wasn’t allowed outside.

She looked across the room, seeing Zed sitting at the kitchen table as he pulled apart the toaster Ace had broken that afternoon, though how he had broken it was unknown. It was almost 10 o’clock at night now and they hadn’t heard from Ace and Kael yet, making a sliver of worry creep into her and form a pit in her stomach that was only adding to her restlessness. Taryn was trying not to think about it, but every time the flash of red caught her eye from the blood bracelet her thoughts were immediately pulled back to Kael and where he was, what he was doing, if he was okay. Something told her she would know though; if something happened to him then surely she’d know. She’d feel it.

Crawling off the couch, Taryn went to the bookcase in the corner of the room and tilted her head to read the titles running along the old spines that were dusted and faded with age. Not all were old though and some she could even understand, unlike the demonic version of the bible Zed had pointed out to her before. There was even John Milton’s Paradise Lost, but since she had studied that for her university course she gladly skipped right over it now. Her eyes flicked to a book titled Immortal Law and landed on another one called Hell's Law as the books were all in alphabetical order – Taryn had come to realise that Zed was a meticulously neat person – and she pulled the book from its place, letting the others fall against each other to close the gap. She took the book back to the couch and sat down, curling her legs up underneath her.  

The book wasn't entirely in another language, so she flipped through the pages that felt crisp and light against her fingers, her eyes skimming the words until something interesting caught her attention. She vaguely remembered discussing the myth of Lucifer in her Ancient Studies course at university, but naturally she hadn’t been paying all that much attention and so now, when she needed it, the details escaped her.

Taryn stopped at a passage that drew her attention as she was about to flick the page over. It mentioned a verse from the story of Revelations in the bible; 

‘Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.’