**A Lost Tale**

Disclaimer: The Night World has come out of the Universe that is the mind of Lisa Jane Smith, Goddess of Magnificent writing.

Rating: The reason I have put one of these in here is because this is an action story. There's lots o fighting, moderately bad language, but only because of the impact it has. Please don't read this if you know you are too young. You have been warned.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay: I fell ill. Many thousands of thanks to Penguin and Arrylle (previously known as Leanne). Chapter six has shown! Enjoy please, I made it a little longer for y'all. Next part will take about 4-5 days to come out. Please review! I NEED those reviews, I'll…I'll even give you cookies and milk! Please comment? Please?

Enjoy:

A Lost Tale:

Chapter six

~Save me from the nothing I've become.
Bring. Me. To. Life~

I am floating in a pearly light, feeling better than I have for aeons. Mmmhh, I sigh deeply, this is nice. Without a doubt I know I'm dead, and the only thing that disturbs the perfect peace I feel is the sorrow of losing Drake. I know he'll miss me—soulmates are designed that way—but I know he's better off without me. A voice is doubtful inside me, but I hush it.

Its true, I tell it. He'll be fine without me.

It's only then I sigh, and settle back into full-blown relaxedness. Its good, I think, to think nothing. Living for fifteen millennia can tire one out, you know. I am tired, tired of life. And it is then I realize…

Dying is good. So long as you dont wake up afterwards.

But it seems the Gods do not favour me, even in a situation such as this. Because pretty soon, soft muted sounds reach my weary ears. A voice…no two, they are arguing, albeit softly.
Then the pearly light changes to soft hues of blue and red, oozing through my closed eyelids.

Inwardly I rage at the Gods, *why* couldn't they let me be? Death would have been merciful. Outwardly, I move. A slight movement of my fingers do not hurt, but when I try to lift my hand, red-hot agony sears through. I make a muffled yell, only adding to the pain. Dimly I realise the two vices have stopped as I try to fight the ache that wants to consume my body.

With a mighty struggle I manage to open my eyes. The light hurts and I have to blink several times before I can see what's going on. I glance at the ceiling, then close my eyes, unable to bear the pure white of it. There is something wrong with my hand I feel. It hurts so much to move my head, to open my eyes. But my hand…I look at it.

Red.

My beautiful brown skin is RED.

I scream, bolting upright. Pain erupts through me and I scream again, partly from shock as my eyes stare dumbly at my hands.

Both of them are red. Red. Red. Red.

"Sierra! Calm down!" Hands grab my shoulders, truing to push me back on to the bed. They are trying to help, I know, but they're only adding to my pain. I struggle, pushing the hands off me, still staring at my hands.

Pain. Pain. Pain. That's all I can feel.

I sag back against the hands that aren't letting go, whimpering as the hurt settles into my bones. "Ouch," I mutter.

"What an understatement." The voice is cool, the accent mesmerising when it whispers. My eyes have closed again – oh my, the pain – but I open them at that sound.

"Devon?" I croak, my coal chords so dry I cough and rasp. A glass is put to my lips and I drink deeply, tasting warm salty blood.

Ah, the nectar of life.

I blink rapidly, my eyes becoming accustomed to the white glare of the room. Then I see who has offered me the drink.

"Topaz?" I mutter.

My friend – oh, how good it is to see her – is grinning at me, the colour in her eyes so magnified it almost hurts. Behind her stands Devon, his unearthly face beautiful in the light.

My friends. Strange, but I can truly say I've missed them.

My eyes sag shut and I lean back against the pillows. Dimly I realise they have put something in my food – vampire tranquillisers, no doubt. I try to open my eyes, try to ask something, anything – but I can't. Darkness steals in to grab me, drift me away on a bed of blissful oblivion.

I sleep.

~*~

The next time I wake, it is considerably calmer. My eyes flicker open, the white less of a glare now. Heaving myself up on the pillows, I steal a glance at my hands again. But I can't see anything; they're wrapped in bandages. Still, it's easy to feel they're much in the same condition as before.

Now I can finally steal a look at my surroundings. I am alone, in a room that's completely and utterly white. Dimly I think they should fire their decorator, the colour is giving me a headache. As far as I can see, there is only my bed, a bedside table and a chair.

A door is at the furthest corner. One wall is completely made of glass windows that show me a view that I can't recognise.

This place looks like a hospital, which is laughable since I've never been anywhere near one.

What the hell happened?

All I can remember is…is…

Black eyes with gold specks. A smile so sensuous it can leave you gasping.

The door opens and there they come, mismatched friends of mine. There is something wrong, I can see it, but they do not say anything. Instead Topaz sits on my bed while Devon sits on the chair.

Topaz traces a finger down my bandaged hands. "I'm sorry," she says, muttering. I'm confused, shake my head. "Sorry? For what?"

But before she can answer the door opens again and in walks Incia. She offers me a bright smile, and I smile back, I can't help it.

"Ah, if you wanted my magic touch you could have just asked," she laughs. I chuckle, wincing when my broken ribs register.

Broken ribs?

That's it.

"Topaz," I say dangerously. "What—"

"Keep still," Incia orders, interrupting. I am about to ignore her when yellow fire streams out of her hands, bathing me in a pastel colour. An unpleasant image of fire flits into my mind, gone before I can grab it.

My body heals, knitting itself into place with painful accuracy, growing new skin that stretches stiffly and then smoothes itself out.

I push up my millennia old pain barrier, bearing it all with gritted teeth.

It is minutes before Incia steps back and sighs, stroking a tiring hand along her forehead, sighing, "It's done." And it is only now I realise she is strong, far stronger than I thought her to be.

Devon springs up, putting a hand on her waist and leading her away from the door, only throwing a smile back at me. I'm grateful that he's going. It gives me the chance to talk to Topaz.

As soon as the door closes, I turn to her with an increased air of determination and open my mouth.

"Check yourself," she says. I grit my teeth, a surge of anger rearing its head in me. Growling softly – I know she can hear – I rip off the bandages off my hands, my eyes widening when I see my skin.

Brown! My beautiful colour is back. I know its stupid, but I can't resist rubbing my hands affectionately and raising them both to place a kiss on them.

"See?" I say. "I Feel fine. Great." Its true. I feel normal. Almost.

Topaz laughs and I look up at her. "Now will you tell me what's going on?"

She loses the laugh and looks nervous, getting up to pace about. "Topaz," I say softly, warning her to speak quickly.

She turns to me, spreads her hands. "I didn't know what else to do," she said, defensively. "I tried to reach you with my mind, but I couldn't."

"What?" I stare at her, confused.

"You never even let me know where you went!"

"Went?"

"Disappeared! Like that!" she clicked her fingers loudly. "And no one knew where you'd gone!"

"Topaz," I say.

"After promising to work together, you dis-a-ppeared!"

"Topaz—"

"So you can't blame me for what I did—"

"What did you do?" I interrupt forcibly, halting her just as she's about to open her mouth and bellow again.

She plonks into the chair Devon vacated and sighs, closing her eyes. Her voice is so quiet, so remorseful that even my vampire ears have to strain to hear the words.

"We used the Tăch Muír."

"You *summoned me*?!" My voice is low, but so strong in its intensity that I am shaking, my hands balling into fists as anger surges through me.

They summoned me. Summoned me. Without my permission!!

I get out of the bed, stand at the window.

The Tăch Muír. An ancient Celtic Summoning spell that Topaz and I discovered on one of our worldly roams. It does more than call the intended so they come by themselves. It transports them, at great pain. We had tried it when we got out hands on it, calling a vampire whom had managed to evade my assassins knife a few to many times. When he'd appeared in the fire cone created by the spell, he'd screamed horribly before burning up in front of our eyes.

We had promised never to use it on each other.

I wonder how I survived.

"That's what you did to me?" I say, turning back to her. Topaz has lowered her face into her hands. She nods wordlessly.

I shake my head slowly and spread my hands, still facing her. "Why?" I ask.

Topaz looks up sharply. "Why?"

"Yes! Why?"

She comes to me, my topaz-eyed friend, and shakes my shoulders. "Why? You disappeared for six months!"

"Five," I mutter unable to bear the look in her eyes. I wonder what I put her through.

"Without contacting me!" she goes on. "After Devon had sent you after that guy, I thought…" she sighs, forcing me to look at her. I thought you'd died."

That hurts. I grab her and hug her fiercely. "Never," I say when I release her. She nods, a mute expression on her face.

"Si," she speaks hesitantly. "Where did you go?"

Oh no.  I can't. I can't.

I turn away, face the window.

"Si?" Topaz says, touching a hand to my shoulders. And for the first time I find myself withholding information from her, my only *true* friend.

"Nowhere. I went nowhere, did nothing." Except die a sweet death.

She doesn't believe me. I can see it in her reflection in the glass. Her eyebrow lifts in one smooth movement. "Nothing?"

What am I supposed to say? I found my soulmate, but he wanted to kill me. He still might want to. Oh, and by the way, he wants to kill Devon. Probably you too. So I ran away, like a coward. Then he found me. And in the midst of our tender reconciliation, *you* tried to kill me.

Huh, even to me that sounds stupid.

I steel myself, and turn to face my best friend. Then I laugh a brittle laugh. "Nothing, babe. I just partied. In New York."

Inside I hurt at the lie.

Topaz still doesn't believe me. She glances away. "But – when you said Drake Blackthorn—"

I flinch violently at the mention of that name; glad she's studying the tile floors and can't see me.

"— maybe he'd gotten to you?" Topaz is still speaking, and it's with difficulty I focus on her.

"No," I say, maybe a bit too quickly. "No, he didn't." I swallow over the lie and go back to the bed to lie down. "I'm tired," I mutter, not at all lying.

"Okay," Topaz says, and her voice tells me she doesn't believe me. But she goes to the door, smiles at me and gets out.

Then I bolt upright, rubbing my face and trying hard not to think of Drake.

Oh God. Oh God.

How had he found me? Why had he found me?

The soulmate link is silent, as silent as it had been in the six months that I was in Mauritius, hiding away. It feels as if a part of me has been cut away, and I suppose it has.

Curse this soulmate link!

Why me? Why Drake Blackthorn, notorious Night World Lord?

And why am I here, while he is there?

Tentatively I reach with my mind, softly touching mental-fingers to the link.

Cold. Empty.

I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to kill someone.

Most of all – I wish I could die.

~*~

He screamed at the heavens. Smashed a few tiles by stamping his foot on top. Sent some lightning into the sky.

But nothing, nothing worked.

Gone.

So many questions were tumbling through his head. Why? How? Who?

Balancing on a flat portion of the roof of the magnificent house that had her scent all around in, he sent his power out in an ever-widening circle. But, alas, he was only part-witch. Only part-powerful.

He cursed, long and hard, in nine different languages. Then he drew his power back, sensing it wouldn't work.

He would go mad this time, he thought, if he couldn't find her. It was only by chance he had in the first place. A snippet of conversation overheard by being in the right place at the right time.

Her thoughts had constantly been in his mind, her sweet mutterings, all through those six months.

Damn it all to hell!

He reached out, wrapping his vampiric mental powers with his magick, slipping into the soulmate link to search.

What he found made his head hang.

Cold. Empty.

He looked up, staring at a star. Flinging his thoughts out, pushing them as far as they could go.

I'll find you. I'll find you…even if I have to go the ends of the earth!

~~~

~There'll come a time you die,
if you could only hold her.~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hope y'all enjoyed that! Even if you hated it, please let me know by clicking below! (Wow, that rhymes! ~_^ )