by L E Royal
They accompanied us into the elevator. I jammed myself between them and Jade, pushing her against the wall, Camilla slipping in behind me. Once in the apartment, we walked to the kitchen, Jade stopping so short that I plowed right into her back.
Cami stepped around us and closed the door.
“I’ll send for someone to start…fixing it.”
It was a ruined bloody mess, like something from a horror scene. I wondered absently how much of the blood coating the previously beautiful tile floor was mine.
We moved back through the hall, the guards already gone, presumably to head back to the bunker, to await their next orders from their new leader. Something inside me shuddered at the thought. I followed Cami and Jade into the living room and plopped down into a recliner, too tired to care about my dirty clothes, my bloody hair.
They sunk down together on the sofa, Jade falling in Camilla’s lap, long legs tangling with long legs as she leaned down to kiss her. I leaned my head back, closing my eyes and letting them have their moment. I desperately needed one of my own, but unfortunately my girlfriend was off learning how to run our city when morally, I was not entirely sure she was qualified. I sighed, telling myself she couldn’t make it any worse than Wilfred had.
My mind ran lazily back over the events of the last six months, the times “the Government” had ordered punishments intended to hurt us, to hurt Scarlett. It had been Wilfred all along. Everything was just crashing together, bleeding into a picture painted with a sick sort of symmetry that all made sense now, when Camilla, finally done getting lost in Jade, interrupted my thoughts.
“Rayne, are you okay?”
I opened my eyes. Both of them were watching me.
“I think so. Part of me can’t believe she did it. And part of me is worried about what’s going to happen now she did.”
Camilla nodded, and Jade looked conflicted.
“She has the keys to the kingdom now. It could be dangerous for her, yes.”
That was the last thing I had wanted to hear Camilla say but as always, she was honest.
“All we can do is try to temper the dark, to keep her human, remind her. I was actually hoping you would have some way to rein her in, honestly.”
Me, rein in Scarlett when she was on a roll. The thought was funny, and I was about to laugh when I realized what she was talking about.
“It doesn’t always work like that.”
“So it’s true?” Jade cut in. “You two are blood bound?”
I nodded, watching the fear and awe that played across their faces.
“We have been since before you met me, apparently. I didn’t know until she was sick.”
“What’s it like?” Jade was curious as she asked; she almost looked excited. I guessed finding out your sister and her girlfriend had been doing something forbidden by law, by history, by nature, would be something out of the ordinary.
“Like knowing someone intimately, I guess. Sometimes I can feel what she’s feeling but she’s better at blocking it than me. We can compel each other, but again, she’s way better at it.”
Camilla leaned forward.
“So, you drink her blood.”
A blush bloomed across my cheeks as I nodded. Jade made a face.
“That night when she was going to kill the girl in the Fringe you stopped her?”
I nodded again, tired, content to sit back and watch them fit the pieces together rather than playing Twenty Questions.
“So then why are we worried?” Camilla asked. “If you can compel her then that means you can bring her back if she’s going too far. Usually when you take her out of the moment she understands later, right?”
“I won’t be her father.”
It was something that had already crossed my mind many of the nights I had laid awake waiting for her to get home. Back then it was just a what-if—what if this crazy plan of hers succeeds and I start to lose her? Now it was real, and I was even more determined.
“I’ll help her to make the right choices—not that I know what they are, but I’ll try. I won’t ever control her unless it’s an emergency. I hate the thought. We’ve both done it, that’s how we survived Wilfred, but it’s not something I want to do to her. I guess we just have to believe in her?”
I didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but Jade was all teary-eyed and nodding along like I’d said something profound anyway.
“She can do this. I know it.”
Camilla seemed less convinced but was eager to hear about exactly what had happened while she and Jade were locked in the closet. I was halfway through recounting it all, when a loud thud from above made me pause mid-sentence.
“What was that?”
Jade jumped to her feet.
“My mom is up there. She probably doesn’t even know my dad is dead or anything.”
She took off in the direction of the elevator and was gone in a flash. Camilla grabbed my hand and shot after her, leaving me sort of sailing through the air behind her as she pulled me along. We made it into the elevator just as the doors closed behind us, and I crashed into the vampire, unable to slow my body from the horizontal free fall it felt like she had tugged me in. She grumbled as we collided and set me on my feet.
“Remind me why we didn’t just make you a vampire again?”
There was a smile in her eyes that I returned in full force.
The elevator doors opened, and we crept toward the sound of movement, soft thuds and scuffling. I wondered if the fourteenth floor was being robbed.
“Oh my God, Mom!” Jade stopped in a doorway, and I peered around her.
“Shikara?”
Looking as composed as ever, Shikara sat up atop Helena Pearce, her dark hair wild as it tumbled loose down her back.
“What…you can’t… She’s crazy… You can’t do that to her…”
Jade sputtered out the words.
Helena popped up from beneath her lover, giving me an eyeful that I never, ever wanted to see.
“Jade, darling, why don’t you wait downstairs and we can talk in a little while?”
She was lucid.
“Mommy?”
Jade sounded so very young, despite the bizarreness of the situation, that the single word almost made me cry.
“I’m fine, honey, Shikara fixed me.” She looked up at Shikara, who looked much younger than her, adoringly, her eyes filled with too much love, too much memory for this to have been a spur of the moment fling.
“Babe…” Camilla started to steer Jade away. “Maybe we should just go wait downstairs?”
I turned to leave, but Shikara’s voice called me back.
“Rayne?”
There was a softness glowing in her eyes that I had never seen before.
“Would you close the door on your way out?”
Dumbfounded, I did.
SCARLETT CAME BACK to me just before the sun crested the horizon, just before she would break her agreement to come home. It had been a long night of hearing about Helena and Shikara’s romantic involvement and the heartbreaking story of how Wilfred had kept Helena crazy this entire time because she was once a brilliant mind on the verge of exposing him.
After everyone dispersed to process, Cami had loaned me her phone, showing me the messages that served as announcements to the vampires throughout the city. Apparently, in the Fringe they had speakers. Through the announcements I had tracked Scarlett’s activities, listening to a macabre display in the punishment center where Luke was named as her successor, though it was made clear Scarlett would not be giving up that domain completely anytime soon. She threatened Vires into compliance under her hand and then promised a brighter future as she swore to uphold the values already held dear.
I heard a voice I didn’t recognize announce that at least three people were dead for moving against the Government, the Government which I knew now consisted of Scarlett alone.
I fell asleep to the sound of static and woke to the ticking in the pipes as the shower was
turned off. She appeared minutes later, a silhouette in the dim light of dawn at the foot of the bed.
I reached for her and felt nothing. Frustrated, I reached again with more intent and took a dizzying and unexpected trip through her emotions from the night, ending on the fear she held in that moment, which surprised me. She snarled at the intrusion.
“What are you afraid of?”
I couldn’t see her face, and somehow, that made it easier. I pushed myself up until I was sitting and drew the covers down to my waist, letting the chill in the room wake me.
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
I exhaled and waited. The cool hardness, the grandiose confidence in the words had no place in our bedroom.
Just when I began to worry she was going to leave, she spoke again.
“I’m afraid of losing you.”
The stoniness that had risen into my chest thawed at the words.
“I’m afraid of losing you too.” My reply was a whisper, but I knew she heard.
The towel hit the floor and she crawled to me. Her skin was cold when she settled beside me. I pulled her under the covers, not caring that she was damp, eager to warm her back to her usual tepid temperature.
“You’re never going to lose me, Princess.”
She leaned back into the pillows beside me, the ends of her wet hair tickling my neck. Soft cold lips pressed just below my ear and I felt the apology though I wasn’t ready to accept it.
“You almost killed me today. When Luke bowed, you liked it. You’ve been running around killing people and having them swear fealty to you all night… Scarlett, all along you’ve said you needed power to protect us, but honestly, you need power because it makes you feel good, and I’m so afraid to lose you to that.”
“I need you more.”
The whispered words sounded so broken, and I almost, almost gave in and turned my head to kiss her like I knew she wanted.
“I don’t want to lose you to the dark.”
She took a deep breath.
“I know I frightened you today. I hardly remember… I’m so sorry. I was hurt and stuck in combat mode, I didn’t realize; it was pure instinct.”
“You told me I was yours, right before you bit me.”
She let out a shuddering breath.
“That’s instinct too. You’re mine, Princess, right down to the core of me. That doesn’t make it okay.”
She sounded ashamed.
“What would have happened if Cami hadn’t stopped you?”
Both of us already knew the answer, and it hung between us until finally she said it.
“You would be a vampire.”
She swallowed hard and I wondered if she was crying, a veil of dark hair hiding her face from me.
“I understand if you can’t trust me, sweetheart. It was a situation I’ve never been in, and one I don’t foresee happening in the future. I never want to hurt you, Rayne. You’re my world. Do you understand that I’m sorry?”
“I do.” I did. It was never so much that I wanted an apology. I wanted to know she understood there was a problem, that she recognized the seriousness of the situation, and it was an isolated incident in an extenuating set of circumstances that wouldn’t be repeated.
She moved away from me, pulling back the covers, and my heart fell as I realized she was leaving me.
“I’ll give you your space tonight…”
I reached for her and pulled her back before she could leave. She landed beside me on the pillows, tears shining in the first light of the sun on her cheeks.
“Scarlett… I don’t want you to beat yourself up over it. I just wanted to know you were aware of it. We have so much to talk about, and we will, but I…want to be with you for now?”
She nodded, fresh tears in her eyes, and I laid my head down on her shoulder, her cool arms wrapping around me. The covers were pulled up over my back.
She threaded her fingers through my hair and finally, I exhaled, relief crashing over me, the first semblance of peace, in far too long.
“Can you believe we did it?”
She sounded almost childlike in her wonder and it was impossible not to love her like this, as she really was when it was just the two of us.
“You did it.”
She laughed softly, breathy at the correction.
“I think we did it together. Things weren’t going all that well when you showed up.”
“Seeing you like that…” The memory assaulted me, the strongest person in my world head down, sobbing, her arm broken, a knife through her shoulder. I slid my arms around her neck and held tight. It was so easy in moments like this to feel her mortality though she spent most of her time acting as if she was infallible.
“I almost killed you and you’re upset I got hurt?”
She was working through, trying to follow the tracks of my emotions that I knew were sometimes hard for her still, after a life of being twisted by one of the few people in the world who should have loved her.
“No matter what you do, I will always hurt when you hurt… I’ll always love you.”
The admission was quiet, and I tipped my head back, finding her eyes. She was nervous still, soft, tentative waves that lapped at me, love and apology and uncertainty.
I watched her watch me, waiting. The deeper I got inside what she felt, the more I sensed the weight of her guilt, her shame, her self-hatred. She blinked, and I felt her pull everything back, not completely shutting me out but balking at the intrusion.
“Have you looked in the mirror?”
I nodded and said nothing more. The sight of my neck after my earlier shower had been unexpected, but not terrible. The twin puncture marks she had originally left there had become a tender raised crescent, still sore to the touch, and not unlike my face after Luke had scratched me. In time it too would flatten and contract into another pale silver scar on my skin. She swallowed thickly. I felt the ice-cold kiss of her self-loathing before she locked me out again.
Her cheek was cool under my fingers, and I stroked it until she looked at me.
“I’m not saying it’s okay that you lost control, I’m not saying you didn’t scare me, but I do know you would never hurt me on purpose.”
She just looked back at me, still somehow, wrong, and I realized she wasn’t breathing. It was jarring.
“Why do you breathe?”
She shrugged, taking a breath before she replied. “Habit mostly. Speech requires it too.”
“But you don’t have to?”
She shook her head no and I marveled at all the things I still didn’t know about her.
“I’m sorry I shot you… Or you made me shoot you…”
“I could kill Shikara for giving you a gun, you’re dangerous with the damn toaster oven, but I suppose that’s the least of her crimes.”
I cringed.
“Did you talk to Cami before you came in?” Cami was usually awake while Jade slept, and I figured after the stress of the last twenty-four hours, she was likely to be up when Scarlett got home.
“I did, and she told me all about your unfortunate meeting with my mother.”
“Did you know…”
“Hell no. I’d always suspected something happened to make her crazy, but I didn’t know it had anything to do with my father. And I had no idea she was ever involved with Shikara. For a long time, I considered Shikara a close friend, though she always tried to fulfill more of a mentor role in my life. Guess now we know why.”
“You and her weren’t ever…involved?”
Scarlett chuckled at my discomfort.
“No, sweetheart. Although it had crossed my mind, but she never seemed interested and so it stayed as just an errant thought. I haven’t had many ongoing…arrangements aside from Camilla. The rest were mostly human and all just for a time.”
I tried not to let the information worry me, tried not to acknowledge the jealousy that still lingered at the thought of her last human “arrangement,” the thought of her with anyone els
e.
“Your insecurity baffles me.”
I grumbled at her to get out of my head.
“Is that why you were so upset when I had to feed before fighting with Wilfred?”
I had almost forgotten about that and although I had been upset, I was suddenly embarrassed.
“Jealousy is supposed to be an ugly emotion, but I don’t see it like that.”
Her voice hovered on the edge; it was almost molten, liquid sex, though she held herself back. The hesitancy I’d felt earlier was still present. She didn’t want to upset me, didn’t know if she deserved to go there with me yet.
“I’m not jealous.”
I was ragingly, blindingly jealous. She kissed me, and my own hatred of the idea of her drinking from anyone else was reflected back from her to me.
“It wasn’t for pleasure. In fact, there was no pleasure in it.”
Her eyes burned up at me, turned gold in the morning sun.
“No?” I hovered over her, watching her bite her lip as she shook her head. I knew already where this was heading, what she wanted, and I needed the release too.
“You’re mine, Scarlett.”
I leaned down to kiss the corner of her mouth and wrapped my fingers gently around her throat. She blinked and her eyes closed for a long beat. When they opened her irises danced for me.
“Always.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE FIRST WHISPERS of spring were in the air, and once again I was walking through the square alone. Unease hung heavy on every corner, whispers of a new regime and Scarlett Pearce quieted as I passed each stall. Some people still recognized me, some didn’t, or maybe they just didn’t care anymore given the bigger news that the Government was overthrown and the woman many of them feared the most had appointed herself their new leader.
The scar on my neck itched and I tugged the thick wool scarf tighter around it, already anticipating the day it would fade some as the one on my cheek had and no longer be so sensitive. Humans manned the stalls, and it was nice to be out in the daylight, the vampire population in the market significantly lessened, only the occasional Delta perusing the offerings or moving through the area on their way to wherever they were going.
