When Spirit Shows Its Thorns

Chapter 23

Lissa and I began to brainstorm over breakfast of things we could try to keep our sex lives personal. Blocking one another out, was not working. I sat back in my chair and began twisting the ring Oksana had given me while in Russia. The small bits of Spirit that Lissa would charm it with helped the effects of the Darkness. Fingering over the ring, I looked between Lissa and it several times. Lissa narrowed her eyes in question.

"I think we've been going about this all wrong." I told her twisting my ring around my finger once more. "What if we tried a Spirit Charm?"

"I don't know. Maybe it could work. It would be worth a try. Could you handle the amount of Spirit it would take to test something like that?" She asked.

"I think so. You can just do small amounts at a time. We'll keep a close eye on it and stop if either of us starts feeling like it is becoming overwhelming." I said, smiling at her in assurance. "Are you done eating? We can get started right away."

"Yeah, I'm done, but won't we need something for me to charm in order to test it? Wait, I know. I brought a few pair of earrings." Lissa exclaimed as she headed towards her room.

"Liss, my ears aren't pierced." I reminded her.

"Oh that's not a problem; I have a sewing kit too. We can pierce them ourselves." She said smugly. I shuddered at the thought of it. "Oh come on, Rose. You can kill Strigoi, but the mention of needles makes you run away." She laughed at me.

"Fine, but if I have to walk around with something stuck in my ears for the next few weeks, it better not be something ugly. The things I do for you Lissa..."

"And I love you more for them." She said cutting off my words and hugging me. Thankfully she allowed me to pick a pair of small silver studs before sending me off to grab a bowl of ice while she gathered everything else up.

"I think we should figure out a charm before we actually pierce your ears. That way you won't have to keep taking them on and off every time we try to charm them." She said as she looked at everything laid out on the coffee table. I gushed in agreement.

Lissa held both pairs of earrings in her hand and after a couple seconds handed a pair to me. She placed her pair into her ears and looked at me. After a minute a smile grew on her face. "Stay in here, I will be right back." She said excitedly and ran from the room. "Okay, try to get into my head." She yelled from the kitchen.

I tried and was greeted with a faded blurry picture of her surroundings. "I can still pop in, but everything is faded and hazy." I called back to her and pulled out of her head. Lissa came back into the room with a slight frown on her face. She took the earrings I held in my palm away, fisting them in her hand. Handing them back to me, she once again walked from the room.

"Again," she called out. I tried again and we got the same results. She sat down beside me again, this time removing her earrings and taking mine again. "I'll try to infuse them with a little more Spirit." She said as she fisted them in her hand again. She looked down at her hand. "Here goes." She smiled at me before concentrating on her hand again.

I felt through the bond as she began to release Spirit into the earrings when the front door was thrown open and Dimitri stormed through, Guardian Woods on his heels. Lissa jumped beside me and I felt as she unleashed a ton of Spirit. "What the hell!" I screamed at the same time Lissa looked up with wide eyes, her mouth a perfect O.

"Oh shit!" She gasped as she looked down at her hand. I followed her gaze and then looked back to Dimitri with wide eyes. Christian and Adrian had come to stand beside him. Christian and Adrian were arguing with the Guardians and Dimitri was looking at us inquisitively. Lissa rarely cussed.

"I asked for one damn day. One day!" I seethed at Dimitri. "Might as well try them out, Lissa, if they work, you won't get pulled into my head and become a witness to murder." I held out my hand, never taking my angry glare off of the boys.

"Whoa Little Dhampir, your aura is…"

"Shut up, Adrian. You three have no idea what you've just done. Just stand over there and stay out of the way." Adrian held his hands up in surrender, as all three stood back to watch.

"Do they seem okay to you, Liss?" I asked. I removed the ice when she nodded and closed my eyes, removing the ice. A moment later I felt a sharp pain in the fleshy part of my ear.

"Sorry." Lissa whispered. A slight tugging and a moment of pinching later, I felt her hands drop. "That's one. Do you want to do the other one now, or test the charm with just the one? The three stooges, scared me and I did kind of blast them with Spirit." Her words laced with trepidation.

"I'd rather just get the piercing over with, but the smart thing to do is just try it one at a time. That was a lot of Spirit."

"Can I say anything yet?" Adrian asked as he pushed his way in front of Dimitri.

"No, you've done enough." I hissed at him.

"But," He argued back. Dimitri looked to Adrian and stepped forward cautiously. I shook my head again stopping anymore interference and turned back to Lissa. She was inserting one of her earrings and backing towards the kitchen. Once out of sight, I tried to enter her mind.

"Blurrier than before, but I still can get in." I called out to her. "Come do my other ear and we can try again. Lissa came back in the room and quickly pierced my ear and inserted the second stud. "Let's try from a further distance too." I told her.

"I wouldn't…"

"Shut up! Adrian." I screamed at him. "Go ahead Liss."

"Rose, please let's hear Adrian out before you go through with this. If it is setting him on edge, then you have to admit, there has to be something wrong."

"Rose, you both…" Adrian tried again

"I don't want to hear it." I seethed, cutting him off. "Lissa said they felt perfectly safe. We'll be fine." Turning back to Lissa I waved her off.

"I'll go to my bedroom." She said as she walked down the hallway, Christian following. "Whenever you are ready," Her voice carried across the house a few moments later. I tried unsuccessfully to enter her mind.

"Try to talk to me through the bond." I yelled out and waited. Lissa and Christian came back a few minutes later, grinning. "It worked then? I asked her.

"Yes." She replied, causing Christian and Dimitri to relax. I held my hand up in the air and smiled knowingly at her. "No, Rose, no high five, please?" I just walked toward her with my hand still raised, grinning. Lissa gave a big sigh and raised her hand.

"No!" Adrian screamed, tackling me to the ground. I struggled against him pushing him off of me. Dimitri ran over and grabbed my arms pulling me to stand beside him looking over me carefully.

"Ivashkov, you have got to be the biggest idiot in America." Dimitri snarled. "She just healed from a head injury and you tackle her."

"You don't understand." Adrian yelled pleadingly. "Those things might feel safe, but it is doing something to their auras." His words caused Christian and Dimitri to freeze.

"How so," questioned Dimitri, the annoyance dropping from his voice, replaced with uneasiness.

"I'm not sure. That's what I have been trying to stop them for, so I can look into it better." Adrian answered. "Lissa's aura is full of Darkness, but she did put a lot of Spirit into the jewelry. With her, I can't be sure if it is the jewelry or just the amount of Spirit she used. It's Rose I am worried about. She has no Darkness in her aura at all. I think the jewelry is doing more than just blocking their minds. I think it might be blocking the bond completely. I'll have to watch them for a bit until I'm sure."

"You've said yourself, that when I am close to Rose, that our auras meet and the Darkness is dissolved." Dimitri pointed out.

"Yeah, so why did you go all linebacker on me then?" I retorted.

"I just wanted to feel your body next to mine, of course." Adrian bantered back. Dimitri dropped his hold on me and fisting his hands, turned toward Adrian. Adrian held his hands up in surrender, laughing. "Kidding, kidding." He said as he backed away a few steps. "I didn't want you guys to touch or anything until I took a closer look at things. I really do care what happens to you guys, especially all things Spirit. Your auras completely reversing is kind of a scary thing to me."

Everyone settled into a hesitant calm after that and we all sat around the living room. Lissa, Adrian, and I in the floor, while Christian and Dimitri took up chairs nearby. The three of Abe's Guardians watched from the couch. I don't think they had really grasped what we were going on about, but once they realized that all we were doing for the time being was sitting around while Adrian stared Lissa and I down, they went about their own ways.

After a while, Adrian reached over, and taking my ring off my finger, slid it onto Lissa's. He sat back and watched. He pursed his lips and nodded his head. I raised my eyebrows at him, but he just shook his head saying the ring helped some, but not enough. He replaced the ring on Lissa's finger stating he thought it would help her more at this point.

"I can just take my earrings out." Lissa suggested. Adrian agreed with her. After taking the earrings out, He said the ring was more beneficial. Then to our disappointment he asked for me to do the same. My ears were sensitive though and I really didn't want to mess with them. Lissa assured me that once they healed we could go get them done professionally, claiming she really hadn't gotten them even anyhow.

Wincing against the pain, I removed the earrings. I instantly felt the bond snap into place and with it, a flooding of Darkness. Grabbing my head, I rocked back and forth as each new wave hit me. I could hear screaming and cursing all around me. I tried to tune it out, as I clawed at my scalp, trying to alleviate the pain and emotions that were engulfing me.

Someone grabbed my arms and the emotions and pain grew overpowering. Fighting off the hands that held me, I stood up and bolted out the front door. My only thought was to get away before my own skin burst open and the demons that had been kept at bay so long broke free.