by G. K. DeRosa
“He knew the code.” Gavin jogged in. “Thanks for waiting on me.”
I ignored him and pulled Solaris back, scrutinizing her condition. Her blonde hair was damp from the shower, and she was wearing a pair of gray camouflage pants and a white t-shirt. On most, it would have been unflattering, but Solaris made anything look good.
Malcolm shook his head. “I don’t understand. How did he know the code?”
Gavin’s attention was on the window overlooking another examination room. Carissa was curled up on the bed while Isla stood next to her, putting cream on her sores. “She needs an I.V.,” he muttered before opening the door and quietly entering the other room.
I turned back to Solaris. The mask covering half her face sent a punch to my gut, reminding me of her sickness. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she mumbled through the mask.
“Is this some unnatural nocturne ability?” Her father took a seat a few feet away in a hard metal chair, dark circles bruising beneath his eyes. It looked like he’d been through hell. Being tortured by Turstan and his eager soldiers couldn’t have been fun.
A small part of me thought he deserved it just a little. He should have protected Solaris every chance he had. He should have taken her to this building the moment she was released from the Collective’s custody. Instead, he ignored the danger closing in.
Solaris laid her hand on my chest, feeling my heart beat against her palm. “It’s part of the bond.”
“Why aren’t you lying down?” I asked, my brows dipping. “You should be resting.”
“I’m fine.” She motioned toward a half-empty bottle of water on the counter. “I’ve been able to keep this down. I’m feeling better.”
I pulled the mask from her face and bent, pressing my lips to hers. Tingles radiated across my body, and the bond jumped wildly between us. She tasted as sweet as honey and as wild as a storm. This sickness couldn’t even tame the fire blazing inside her.
Her father loudly cleared his throat, and we broke apart.
A scowl covered his face. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t maul my daughter.”
“Dad!” Solaris hissed as she covered half her mouth with the mask again. Her cheeks were flaming red.
I blinked. When I left her in the shed, her skin had been a sickly shade of ashen gray. Maybe the warm shower was responsible. “You should at least sit down.” Without waiting for her permission, I gripped her hips and lifted her up on the examination table, the thin mattress sinking beneath her meager weight.
“Kaige.” She shot me a death glare. “What have I told you about that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I forgot.”
“Your brother poisoned my daughter.” Her father’s hoarse voice echoed against the stark walls. “She’s sick because of you.”
Claws tore at my gut as I spun to face him. “I know that,” I hissed. “I’ll get her a cure.”
“Stop blaming him.” Solaris’s hand landed on my shoulder. “I told you he would never hurt me.”
Except I had. I’d given her up to my brother before, and he attacked her. My eyes traced her neck. The bite marks were gone, but the memories weren’t.
And now he’d poisoned her.
“What about the prophecy?” Malcolm rubbed his temples, his eyes weary from lack of sleep. His face was already showing signs of malnourishment with deep shadows and harsh angles.
“Dad, the prophecy is not about Kaige and me.” Solaris took her hand from my shoulder and pulled the mask away as she drank another deep sip of water. “Seriously. What are the chances of that?” She motioned between us. “How could we cause the end of the world just by being together? It’s ridiculous.” She rolled her eyes and secured the mask back into place.
A flutter of panic bounced through my chest. I wanted to believe her, but years of staring at the plaques and having memorized every word made the task nearly impossible. The prophecy was always in the back of my mind, taunting me.
Malcolm’s brows dipped. “So you two are together?”
She sighed. “I already told you that.”
The man looked ready to collapse. “You’re only seventeen! You can’t be with—him.” He wiped a dribble of sweat from his temple. “He’s too old.”
Lines creased her forehead and I could tell she was scowling behind the mask. “He’s only eighteen!”
I had a feeling he really wanted to say I was too much of a monstrous bloodsucker.
Malcolm grumbled under his breath, dissatisfied with the entire situation.
Solaris’s green eyes blazed, looking more vivid than they had since consuming the Mortiphen. “Nothing you can say will change this. Let’s worry about the real problem.” She motioned her hand toward her father. “We need to get you safely out of Imera. With the amount of hatred Turstan has for both of us, this place won’t stay secret forever. He’ll leave no stone unturned including this one.”
“Your father can’t come to Draconis.” I might be king, but it was still dangerous to even have Solaris there.
“What about the Shadow Lands?” She glanced up at me between long lashes. “We can hide him there.”
I nodded, ignoring the images of those blurs I’d seen when I’d been searching for firewood. “We’ll need supplies.”
“I just don’t understand how you think my daughter will be safe in Draconis.” Malcolm ran a hand over his pale face. “How can you protect her there?”
“Kaige isn’t your average nocturne.” The mask moved as she breathed deeply. “He’s the King of Draconis.”
Malcolm shook his head. “No. The king is Razvan Stramonox.”
I bristled at the name, picturing the scowl I was going to receive upon my return. “My father handed over the crown to me yesterday.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe our words. “You’re telling me my daughter is having some kind of illicit affair with the King of Draconis?”
She groaned again. “Dad, please.”
Not an ounce of color remained in his cheeks as the new information sank in. “That’s…” His gaze turned pensive, his mind probably going a hundred miles a minute.
If I were him, I wouldn’t want my human daughter to be involved with me either.
“We should start gathering supplies.” Solaris tried to jump down, but I held her in place. “You’re not going anywhere. You need to rest.”
“I’m fine. Really. I don’t even feel sick anymore.”
Her father stood abruptly and marched toward the door.
Her brow furrowed. “Are you okay, Dad?”
He waved a hand. “I just need a minute.”
Solaris sighed as his frail figure disappeared. “I don’t think he’s handling this very well.”
I didn’t care how he was handling it. I was more worried about her. My hands rested on her cheeks, the feverish heat nonexistent. “Strange,” I mumbled.
“What?” She absentmindedly twisted the bottle in her hands.
I peered into her eyes. The whites were no longer red and irritated. In fact, her gaze looked as clear as it had before she was poisoned. From what I read about Mortiphen, once it was ingested and the sickness developed, there were no reprieves. There was no getting better, no chance of breaking the fever.
So how could I explain the lack of bloodshot eyes, feverish skin, and pale coloring to my little human?
“What is it, Kaige?” She placed the bottle beside her and rested her hands on mine, pressing my palms into her cheeks.
I swallowed hard. “You just seem… better.”
“I feel better.” The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled behind the mask. “Maybe Xander didn’t do it right or maybe it wasn’t Mortiphen at all. It’s possible he only wanted to scare me, right?”
Creating potions was one skill at which Xander was flawless. He didn’t make mistakes. And if he hadn’t intended to kill Solaris, he would have confessed that when I attacked him at my coronation.
Something
else was happening here.
A loud crash erupted in the hall. Solaris jumped down and darted out the door. Malcolm had stumbled into a metal cart, and his trembling body now sprawled on the floor.
“Dad!” Solaris kneeled beside him as his face turned toward her.
My stomach clenched as a cement boulder sank to the bottom of it. A white pallor coated Malcolm’s face, and a sheen of sweat glimmered on his skin. His light green eyes traveled to Solaris’s, the whites stained red.
He had contracted her illness.
Chapter 8
Solaris
“No! No. No. It can’t be. I never even touched him.” Kaige’s tight grip on my arms was the only thing that kept me from collapsing. My legs quivered as I stared through the glass separating me from my father. His emaciated form was splayed out across an examination table, eyes squeezed shut.
The line between Kaige’s dark brows deepened as he rubbed his hands over my trembling limbs. “How about before?”
“Before what?”
“Did you have any physical contact with him before you started showing symptoms?”
My muddled mind raced back to my visit to the prison cell. Oh god. I’d hugged him through the bars, my tears mingling with snot and who knows what else pressed against his face. A pit the size of a bowling ball took root in my stomach, and I staggered back.
“Solaris, are you okay?”
“I did this to him. I infected him the first time I went to the AirComm base.”
Kaige steered me away from the viewing window and toward a chair along the wall. “You better sit down; you’re looking pale.”
I squirmed out of his grasp and doubled back to the glass pane. “No. I’m fine.” Oh god, Gavin. A second swell of panic erupted in my chest as I tried to recall our interactions. “Kaige, what about Gavin? I was with him too before the symptoms started.”
The tendons in his jaw twitched, and a pang of jealousy flooded the bond. “Did you touch him?” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Did I? I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t hugged him because he was so mad about Kaige at first, but a passing brush of the hand or arm? I couldn’t be sure. “I don’t think—” Gavin’s image suddenly coalesced in my mind, paralyzing my lips. When he dropped me off at the cabin after seeing my dad, he hugged me. I was on the verge of tears, and he had tried to comfort me. The corners of my lips turned down, and Kaige’s expression fell.
“You did?”
“I hugged him—just once. But it was only for a second, and Gavin’s so tall, I didn’t get anywhere near his face. I don’t think any bodily fluids could have been swapped.”
Kaige scowled when the words bodily fluids left my mouth, the bond pulsating with jealousy. He clenched his hands into tight fists and paced in front of the window. “Everyone needs to be quarantined for twenty-four hours.”
“What?” I shook my head violently. “We don’t have time for that. We have to get my dad to Draconis to find a cure now.”
Kaige clutched my hands, locking them in his steel grip. “Solaris, even if we could take your dad to Draconis, we can’t just leave without knowing. If Gavin, Isla, or even Carissa have been infected, they could spread it to the entire human population. The results would be catastrophic.”
Like end-of-both-races catastrophic. A chilling, raspy voice hissed the words of the prophecy in my head, sending an icy tingle skittering up my spine.
A nocturne and a human shall unite,
Love will blossom, overpowering all that is right.
Great disaster will befall
Ending both mortals and vampires, one and all.
Cold frosty fingers wrapped around my lungs, tightening with every ragged breath. “Oh god, Kaige, what have we done?”
“Nothing yet. Hopefully.” He peered across the room to the adjoining one where Gavin and Isla sat with Carissa. “Everyone needs to be separated at once. No contact for the next twenty-four hours just to be sure.”
I sent up a silent prayer hoping my dad would last that long. The symptoms seemed to be progressing faster than mine had. I steeled my resolve, nodded, and pulled the mask back over my mouth, heading toward the door.
Kaige’s iron grip stopped me.
“You stay here. I’ll tell them. I’m the only one that we know for sure isn’t infected.”
My friends weren’t going to like hearing this from Kaige, but what other option was there? I agreed reluctantly. He darted out the door, closing it shut behind him. I hurried to the other side of the room and flipped the audio switch by the viewing window.
Carissa was asleep, her chest rising and falling slowly as Isla sat by her side stroking her brittle hair. Gavin leaned against the wall, his head tilted back staring at the white ceiling. None of us had slept, and it was nearly dawn. My eyelids drooped, every limb weighing a ton.
Kaige walked into the room, and all eyes darted toward him. And just like that I was suddenly wide awake.
“What’s going on?” Gavin straightened, narrowing his gaze at Kaige.
Kaige cleared his throat and donned his expressionless mask—the one he’d been perfecting all his life. “We think Malcolm’s been infected.”
Isla gasped and Gavin moved toward her, extending his arm to comfort her.
“Don’t touch her!” Kaige growled, causing Gavin to freeze mid-step. “All three of you need to keep away from each other. Each of you will stay in a separate room for twenty-four hours until we can be sure that none have been infected.”
Gavin’s eyes widened as he took two steps back and slumped against the wall again. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“I’m not leaving my sister alone.” Isla crossed her arms over her chest, jutting her lower lip out.
“You have to. It’s for her own good.” Kaige approached her, but she recoiled back.
“This is all your fault.” Gavin raked a hand over his buzzed hair. “You should’ve left Solaris alone from the start. None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for you.”
Isla shot Kaige a nasty glare, wordlessly echoing Gavin’s sentiments.
I couldn’t let Kaige take all the blame for this. It was as much my fault as it was his. I pressed the button on the side panel, and a hiss of static blasted through the intercom. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears.
“Sorry.” My voice rang out in the adjoining room, and all eyes turned to the window. “You guys can’t blame this on Kaige. If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I’m the one that stole the Collective jet and crashed in the Shadow Lands. I started all of this. He was only trying to save me.”
Gavin grunted and peered down at me through the glass. “Is what he’s saying true? We could all be infected?”
My eyes burned, but I blinked rapidly, pushing back the tears. “I’m so sorry, Gav. Kaige’s right. We have to wait it out to be sure.”
“I’m still not leaving my sister.” Isla’s face appeared in the window. “And she needs to be taken to a hospital to get proper medical treatment.”
“I promise as soon as the twenty-four hours is up, we’ll get a doctor to see her.” The pain consuming my friend’s eyes pierced a hole through my chest.
“But how?” Gavin frowned. “All of OrderComm must be out searching for her and Malcolm by now. We can’t just bring her to some hospital.”
Kaige crossed the room, tentatively laying his hand on Isla’s shoulder. “I’ll compel a doctor—a whole hospital if necessary. I promise I won’t let anything happen to your sister. And for the next twenty-four hours, I’ll keep an eye on Carissa myself. Now please, both of you need to separate.”
Isla nodded, her lips clenched, and followed Kaige to the door. Gavin shot me a parting glance and trailed after them. I exhaled, my shoulders slumping as the three disappeared from my view.
What had we done?
Chapter 9
Solaris
I stared at my watch for the millionth time in the past twenty hours, my eyes focused
on the ticking second hand. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The sound was mocking me. Only a few more hours and my friends would be in the clear.
“Go back to sleep. You need rest.” Kaige’s arm pulled me tighter into his chest.
“I can’t, and I’m fine.” I pushed off the blanket and sat up. I wasn’t just being tough either—the fever was gone, the pounding in my head had stopped, and the relentless queasiness in my belly had disappeared. I was completely healthy, and we had no idea why.
I felt terrible about it.
My father lay trembling with a quickly rising fever, wracked with bouts of vomiting, and I was fine.
“Solaris, don’t do this to yourself.” Kaige’s hand slid up my back, moving in slow soothing circles.
The closer we got, the stronger the bond. I couldn’t keep anything from him anymore.
“Why not, Kaige? This is all my fault. I’m the reason my dad is dying out there, and my friends could be next.”
His dark brows furrowed, and he swept a lock of hair behind my ear. “It’s our fault, and we’ll fix it together.”
“Or maybe we should just end it right here.” A burning ache seared through my chest like a hundred hot knives piercing my flesh. I swallowed hard, pushing through the pain. “Maybe we should stay away from each other before it’s too late. Before we doom both of our kinds, like the prophecy foretold.”
Kaige sucked in a breath and growled. “No.”
“But Kaige, don’t you see what’s happening?”
He shook his head, silver eclipsing his irises. “Don’t you even say it. I won’t let you leave me. And we don’t know that anything has happened yet.”
I inhaled a sharp breath. The blood bond pulsated, white-hot and angry. I didn’t want to be apart from Kaige, but what if we really were responsible for all of this? What if the prophecy was about us?
A violent coughing fit yanked my attention to my dad’s room. I jumped off the floor and ran to the window. His chest heaved as he coughed, his vertebrae poking through his thin shirt. I pressed the audio button on the side panel. “Dad, are you okay?”
