by Bond, Casey
My hands traveled up his arms and over his shoulders, pulling him closer. He let out a small growl. A laugh escaped unbidden and I pulled away from him.
“You are cruel,” he teased with a grin.
Just then, my head began to throb. Wincing against the sudden brightness of the sun, I suggested we go inside.
“I have to finish helping Asa with repairs. Tomorrow, we’re expected to host dinner for a man who considers himself important.”
“Considers himself important, or is considered important?” I asked.
“Both,” he answered. “Though I hate to admit it.” He grabbed my hands. “Please stay. Stay for the dinner. There might even be dancing afterward.”
“Fancy. Why does Asa get the honor of hosting such a guest?”
Enoch glanced at the house. “We are considered members of high society in the region.”
“That means you’re rich and they want to party at your place, right?” I grinned.
He smiled. “Exactly. And before you ask, Robert Benjamin is not hot. At all. Nor are his men.”
“Confounding,” I volleyed, giving him a wink. “Good thing you’re here.” I took his arm and we began to walk down the brick paths cutting through the garden. “Where in the garden was 1776 when she was stabbed?”
He turned and gestured to a set of tall hedges formed into a small maze in the back of the garden. “She said she never saw the face of her attacker,” he added, sounding as if he wanted to say more.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m not posing as Asa’s fiancée. You two can formulate a lie that she was my twin, or come up with a scandal that says I traded him for you, but I’m not pretending to belong to him again. From here on out, I refuse to be anything other than yours.”
Enoch’s brows rose. “Scandalous, indeed. Such a story would feed the harpies for months.”
I gave him a saccharine smile. “I’m glad I could help.”
“I love that you are mine,” he said softly, taking my hand in his and leaning in for another kiss.
I loved that he was mine, too. Maybe Titus and I could stay a few more days…
Chapter Thirteen
Eve
Most of the remaining day was spent repairing what the fire had damaged, but what could be done was only temporary fixes. It wasn’t like they could run to a hardware or lumber store and get what they needed. By the end of the day, the structure was relatively sound. The gaping windows were boarded up to keep out the weather and Asa seemed satisfied.
I’d opened every remaining window in the house to let the breeze sweep the smoky smell from the air, but something kept pulling my thoughts to the garden, to the attack on 1776. Could it have been Asa himself? Enoch said he was evil.
Or maybe it was Terah? She was certifiably insane, after all. Ever since the night she crept into my room, she’d been acting weird. She pretended to avoid me, but I caught her peeking around corners a few times.
The stabbing could’ve been perpetuated by a member of their staff. I didn’t know anyone here other than the Nephilim and Mary, who had stuck around since she came to warn Asa about Enoch’s home. I learned that unless Asa called on her to fight, she worked at Enoch’s estate, watching over and protecting the herds of sheep and goats, feeding them and brushing them. Despite her being a vampire, the animals weren’t afraid of her. She was gentle and kind.
I watched her as she sat under the shade of an oak outside. Every inch of her skin was covered, and she wore the same wide-brimmed hat I’d first seen her wearing. I walked out to talk to her. She smiled as I approached.
“Miss Eve,” she greeted.
“It’s good to see you, Mary. Are these Enoch’s?” A small herd of goats and their kids fed on the tall grasses just beyond the tree’s reach.
“They are. We’re merging his herds with Asa’s until Enoch can rebuild.”
I decided to ask the question that had been lingering at the edge of my thoughts since I first saw her sitting out there. “I thought you were in Asa’s company. Why were you at Enoch’s?”
If she was offended by my question, she didn’t show it. “Asa asked me to watch over Enoch’s place because he was gone.”
I wondered if Enoch had let himself think about everything he needed to do just to recover from the damage Abram caused. If he didn’t regret siring Abram before, I’m sure he did now. If Enoch ever caught Abram he would kill him, and Abram would deserve it a thousand times over.
“You feelin’ okay, Miss?”
I wasn’t, but the fact that she noticed even though she didn’t know me well didn’t bode well for keeping it hidden from Titus or Enoch. “I’m a little tired, I guess.”
“You aren’t like the other one,” she noted. “Enoch explained some things to me. I don’t understand it entirely, but I know your twin was with Asa, and you are with Enoch, and the two of you fought like the two brothers do sometimes.” She chuckled. “They’ve really gone at each other a couple times. As strong as I am, I wouldn’t want to get into a scuffle with either one of them. But you ain’t like her. She was always lookin’ around, though I didn’t know for what. But she’d pilfer in everything she could. I caught her spyin’ on Enoch a few times and run her out of his place. She’d run home to Asa and pretend like nothin’ happened, and then lie when I told him she’d been pokin’ her nose where it didn’t belong.”
“What do you think she was looking for?”
“I have no idea. Maybe she thought Asa had a mistress.” She laughed, holding her hat tight to her head as a gust of wind blew through.
“Did he?”
She shrugged, raising both brows. “I don’t know. Truthfully, I don’t care what he does or doesn’t do.”
“Do you think she loved him?”
Mary pursed her lips. “Not a bit. And he didn’t love her, either. You know how I could tell?” She patted the ground beside her and I sat down, laughing as a small brown and black kid nibbled at the edge of my skirt.
“How did you know?”
“Because there was no love in their eyes. They watched each other like each of ‘em was a hawk and there was a single mouse in the field below. Not two mice, just one, and each of ‘em wanted that mouse. They were watchin’ and waitin’ for the right time to dive down and snatch it up for themselves. That ain’t love. Love is givin’. Love ain’t all takin’.”
“That’s true.”
“I can see Enoch loves you. Do you love him back?”
“Can’t you tell?” I asked.
She smiled. “I think so, but I also see somethin’ else. Somethin’s holdin’ you back from him.”
It wasn’t something; it was many somethings.
Time. The hesitancy I had over knowing the depths of his depravity from my time. A sense of loyalty to Titus as my friend and teammate. Enoch’s siblings, who happened to hate us. Fear. In the end, I guess fear ruled them all, really.
“You’re young,” she soothed, patting my hand. “But you have free will to make your own decisions. Don’t ever take that for granted. You’ll never know how precious that gift is until choice is taken away from you. Until your every breath is owned by someone else.”
I couldn’t fathom the hell she’d experienced, but I knew the feeling of being powerless now that memories kept resurfacing. They weren’t just coming back in dreams; sometimes, the smallest thing could jog my memory, like the scent of charred wood.
Asa’s house was full of it. If I hadn’t opened the windows, I would’ve screamed.
Another memory surfaced…
Victor escorts the three of us to the edge of what he refers to as the Dead Zone, instructing us to evacuate the people from this area and bring them closer to the Compound. Victor informs us that our tech team had hacked Enoch’s personal communicator and learned an attack was being planned in the area for later today, but our intelligence can’t tell what kind. It’s important, he tells us, to act quickly. We will save as many as we can.
And we do. We tell them to
hurry. Not to bother grabbing their things, but to come quickly. An attack is imminent. Men, women, and children of all ages pour out from the buildings, but some refuse to leave.
We assume the threat will come from vampires, but it’s not fangs that kill the innocent that day. It’s a series of synchronized explosions in which Enoch forms a fiery ring around the city, effectively drawing a line between vamp territory and ours.
If only he’d kept his beasts on his side of the rubble… I remember thinking the next day when broadcasts showed images of vamps crossing the debris of The Dead Zone.
I was jogged from my morbid thoughts when Mary said something. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
“Tomorrow is the big dinner. What are you planning to wear, Miss Eve?” Mary asked, one brow quirked.
“I’ll find something.”
“It needs to be pretty. Something grand.”
“Because of Benjamin?” I asked.
Mary laughed. “No, not because of that old blowhard. Because you want to make Enoch drool over you.”
I smiled. “I could live with that.”
A lamb wandered over and settled drowsily between me and Mary. For the first time in ages, I sat in companionable silence and thought about nothing but the soft, white wool of the animal lying beside me.
* * *
Titus had been moved into the bedroom right next to mine, and I was staying in my clone’s former room. Enoch had a tub carried up for me and brought water from the well. He offered to heat it, but I refused his offer because I was hot. I decided the cool water would feel good on my skin. Little did I know that well water was located deep underground, and underground water was ice cold. He tried to warn me, but as usual, I didn’t listen.
Instead, I took a frigid, furiously fast bath and washed the smell of smoke from my hair. Once I was clean, I took a moment to check out 1776’s room. It was a nicely decorated space, bedecked in purples and golds. The dark wooden stain on the furniture glistened in the sunlight spilling in from the westward-facing window. Her wardrobe boasted a wide array of gowns, shoes, and accessories. Did Asa buy all this for her, or did she steal it? I continued snooping through her things, disappointed when I didn’t find anything interesting. I decided to knock on Titus’s room next door.
“Hey,” he answered, looking bleary eyed.
“I woke you up. I’m sorry.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Don’t be. I shouldn’t have been sleeping.”
“Yes, you should have.” I should have been sleeping, too, but I didn’t want to. Whenever I slept, more memories came. I needed rest, but I didn’t want to see anything else. I didn’t want to know anymore. I hooked a thumb over my shoulder in invitation. “It’s dinner time.”
He sniffed the air. “Thank God. Give me two minutes.” He was wearing his tech suit, the top half pulled down to expose his bare chest.
I walked to the top of the steps and lingered, waiting for Titus. As I stood there waiting, I heard a whoosh and turned to see a blur heading toward me, followed by two small hands connecting soundly with my chest. I flew backward, which was a bad thing because the stairs were behind me. I landed at the bottom in a tumbled heap, my head cracking against the wall, and for a minute, I saw stars. Titus ran down the steps.
“Shit! Your arm.”
My arm? I looked down to see my left arm at an angle it should never be at.
“Your ulna and radius are broken,” Titus announced grimly. “I have to set them before they heal in this position.” Titus grabbed my lower arm.
Even though I couldn’t feel his hands on me, I knew this was about to hurt like hell. Gritting my teeth, I nodded, crying out when he jerked and shoved, manipulating my bones until they were in their proper places. My suit healed the rest of my body quickly, but the intense pain left me feeling nauseas.
“I’m gonna puke,” I warned. Without a second thought, Titus scooped me up and ran out the front door with me. We barely made it to the edge of the porch before I started retching, Titus grabbing my hair and holding it back from my face.
“Sorry,” I told him.
He chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. How did you fall?”
“Terah pushed me.”
Enoch came running from the stables on the other end of the property. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Your sister pushed her down the steps and she broke her damned arm. I just had to set the bones back in place, which tends to make a person queasy,” Titus explained, sarcasm and disgust lacing every word.
I wiped my mouth, panting through another bout of sickness. “Are you going to be okay?” Enoch asked softly.
I nodded and asked for a glass of water and a towel. My voice was as raw as my throat. He bought both immediately and then excused himself and raced back inside. There was a loud crash, followed by the sound of glass breaking. The combination of his and Terah’s mingled shouts poured down the steps and out the door. Eventually, Asa managed to break the siblings’ fight apart.
“You shouldn’t have told him,” I grimaced, knocking Titus’s hand away.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because he won’t do anything about it.”
“Then maybe that should tell you something about where you rank on his priority list. Wake up, Eve. He will never choose you over his siblings.”
It would have hurt less if he backhanded me.
Titus tried to backpedal when he saw the wounded look on my face. His eyes fluttered for a second. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I meant to say that Enoch won’t need to do anything about Terah, because I’ll handle her myself.”
“Why not? We’re teammates, right? We’re always honest with one another.” The words sounded as bitter as the bile in my mouth.
He closed his eyes tightly. "I'm really sorry."
"It's fine."
I could tell he felt bad for hurting my feelings, especially after Terah had just shoved me down a flight of stairs, but he only said what he felt was true. And maybe it was. Maybe Enoch was more loyal to his siblings than he would ever be to me. I hadn't been in his life very long, after all. Not that time mattered. In the end, what mattered was love, and love was rooted in loyalty.
Case in point: My arm had just been broken and Titus was the one who came to my rescue, like he always did. Titus was loyal.
I blotted my mouth with the towel and took another drink of water, swishing it around and spitting it out.
Titus caught my arm as I walked by him. "I really am sorry. I'm an ass."
"No you’re not." He was about to argue that he, in fact, was ass-material, when I stopped him. "Let's go eat while it's still hot."
He nodded and followed me inside.
"Thanks for helping me," I muttered, ashamed I hadn't thanked him for what he'd done yet. Not that thanking him while hurling was an option, but still.
"I've got your back," he said sternly. "Always have, always will."
I wondered if the same force that brought me and Titus close, that made us fierce friends, was the same one that drove Abram away. Did Victor manufacture the rift between us, or did it form naturally?
* * *
Dinner was quiet. And awkward. And uncomfortable. Almost torturous. While Asa was calm, Enoch fumed. Terah sat quietly and stared at her plate, refusing to eat. She probably didn’t want to dine with me. Well, guess what, honey? The feeling is mutual.
I picked at my plate, still feeling nauseous, while Titus ate until he couldn’t anymore. He enjoyed the food and the tension, watching the Nephilim carefully. Maybe he was afraid he’d miss the spark that made them explode again.
After dinner, we excused ourselves to give the siblings a semblance of privacy. I could hear what they were saying, or rather, what they weren’t saying. Our absence didn’t shatter the silence. At the bottom of the steps, Titus scratched his head and yawned. “I’m so tired.”
I grinned. “Well, yeah. Your belly is full. It’s nap time.”
; “I wish they would have fed us like this at the Compound.”
“We couldn’t have trained to become the killing weapons we are without the mushy cardboard-like sludge they fed us. Then what would they have done?”
“Sent someone else and let me live out my life in peace?” He smiled. If only it were that simple. He stretched his arms and let out another yawn. “You ready to turn in?”
“I think I’m gonna go outside for a few. I need some fresh air.”
“You mean you need to avoid sleeping,” he surmised.
“Fine. Yes. For a little while, I do. But I promise I’ll get some rest tonight.”
He quirked a brow.
“I promise.”
“Fine,” he said on a third yawn. “You have your stakes?”
I patted my holster through my skirts. “Never leave home without them.”
“Good girl. Yell loud if you need me.”
“I will.”
I waited until he climbed the steps and then pushed the front door open. The sound of cricket song could be heard from the porch, but otherwise it was quiet and peaceful. The sky was blanketed by a thick layer of clouds, bringing the promise of rain. The acrid tang of it hung in the air.
A pair of hands gently gripped my waist from behind. Enoch placed a tender kiss on my neck, nuzzling into it, and then wrapped his arms around me as I leaned back into his touch. I wasn’t sure I could ever get enough of his kisses, of his touch.
“I apologize for Terah’s behavior. It won’t happen again.”
I sighed, disappointed that the calm serenity of the night was shattered. “That’s what Asa said the night she came into my room uninvited and hid in the corner, in the shadows. And that’s what he said again after I was trapped inside the burning room, when Titus asked her for help and she walked away. She’s not going to stop, Enoch, and it doesn’t matter how many times you or Asa order her to leave me alone, or how many times you say she won’t hurt me again, she will try.”
