“Ten minutes,” Johanna said. She turned to them and pointed to the hole where the door had been.
“And then?” Tori asked, her feet dragging.
“I send Aaron in to keep her balanced,” the golden-eyed woman answered. “She promised not to kill the boy in the immediate, and I trust she will withhold that judgement for another day.” She paused, looking between Lucas and me. “I will stand guard at the end of the hall should it . . . escalate.”
Tori strode by first, followed by Amber who didn’t look as if she cared one way or the other how this went. Johanna paused at the doorway. “I can’t get him to talk,” she said softly. “I’m hoping that you can. Please don’t make me regret this.”
“You should check on Liam . . .” I spared a glance over my shoulder. “Alec too. I don’t imagine he’s taking this well.” Given Blair was turning demon at least once a day and over half the time knocked unconscious, he’d lost it a few times and had to be subdued as well. It was hard on him, wanting to help but knowing that their history would always be between them. Blair’s demon wanted him something fierce, but the girl herself couldn’t let go of the past, and I didn’t blame her. I don’t think anyone did.
Johanna nodded once and left me to walk into the last place I wanted to be. Unfortunately, it was the very place I needed to be.
Lucas didn’t stir as I plopped down into the rickety chair across from him. He didn’t twitch as I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, hands clasped together.
There was no indication that while his lungs still breathed and his heart still beat, that anyone was home.
“Lucas.”
A single word, and his breathing paused, before resuming. His heart beat faster, whether from fear or something else I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
“I was attacked today,” I told him. “Vampires. Sent by the High Council. You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you?”
I waited for his breath to hitch and his pulse to race. I waited for a twitch of his fingers, or a glance of his jewel-green eyes, shattered like stained glass.
I waited, with bated breath, for his mind to sidle up to my shields and try to pry.
But it never came.
Eight of my ten minutes passed where we sat in silence.
Tumultuous, terrible silence. The only words spoken were those we left unsaid.
I almost stood back up again and walked out the door, metaphorically closing this one behind me where he would rot until the day came I felt like putting him out of his misery.
I almost did it.
Then he spoke.
“I dreamed of this day.” His voice was raspy from disuse and probably bruised from my manhandling in the market. That felt like months ago, even though it wasn’t.
“Of what day?” I asked, not allowing myself to overthink it.
“The day I would finally be rid of her.”
Inside, deep down where I would never let him see—I shuddered. There were no tells as to how I felt. No clues to give it away—that I was suffocating on the knowledge that the same entity who drove Anastasia to madness was the one now residing in Lily.
“I never understood how you ended up with her to begin with.”
His head shook. “No,” he sighed. “You wouldn’t.” Lucas laughed bitterly and finally lifted his head. Several days of growth shadowed his jaw and dark circles lined his eyes. Exhaustion. I knew the sign well enough, even when it wasn’t my face they showed on. “You never cared half as much for me as I did for you.” The words didn’t sting like they used to. “I wasn’t sure if you were capable of caring for a man that way at all, until I saw you with the dog.”
“Don’t call him that,” I snapped.
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. One corner tugged up, reminiscent of who he was, but not who he is. My heart no longer squeezed at that smile. Certainly not when it danced the line of cruelty.
“I gave you everything,” he said, still wearing that terrible smile. “Every piece of me there was to give and then some. I would have done anything for you—been anything for you. And do you know what you told me?”
“I told you I didn’t want you to be my everything. I wanted to be your friend, and at the time I was still trying to figure my life out.” His eyes darkened, that brilliant, jewel-toned green still holding an inkling of the darkness that chained him before.
“Exactly. You didn’t want me—but you accepted him. From me you only wanted friendship, never mind how good we were. How great we could have been.” He shook his head, as if trying to erase the memories.
“Never mind that you lied to me, right? That not only did you know he was my signasti—but that you two had a little deal going on the side. He got to play you sometimes, but you got the prize in the end?” I might have forgiven Ash, but I was still far from forgiving the piece of shit that sat across from me, wallowing in his own self-pity. “Get over yourself, Lucas. We were never going to happen, and that was before I found out about your lies, before you killed my sister, and before you tried to kill Ash.”
“And yet I gave up everything for you—to save you from her—and it’s him you forgive and end up with in the end.” There was an edge of mania in his tone. Of the madness that crept in. “That’s the reason you don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like to love someone so deeply that you give yourself up in the process. He will always choose you, whatever part of you he can have, just as you have clearly chosen him. But me? Lily? We’re just pieces on the board that she moved. My love for you broke me. She swooped in and gave me hope. She preyed on those dreams I had of us. Showed me things that couldn’t have been real, but they felt so real at the time . . .” He looked away, shame clouding his gaze. Once again he laid his feelings bare to me, but this time it was not in hopes that I would accept him. It was not rejection he feared. Oh no, I’d already rejected him. It was consequences of our choices, his and mine, that he now showed me.
“What kinds of things?” I asked, choosing to ignore the blame he placed on me.
“Visions of us.” He looked at the ceiling now, not wanting to meet my gaze. “Of you. Of what we would become if he were never in the picture.”
“There was never a picture he didn’t exist in,” I told him flatly. Lucas only shook his head. “You realize that, don’t you? That whatever she showed you wasn’t real.”
“I know that now . . .” he breathed. “Now that she’s gone it’s like this fog has been lifted. I can see clearly again.” His lips pressed together, like he’d said too much, but from my point of view it was too little.
“What did you mean ‘see clearly again’?” I didn’t want to say that he hadn’t been seeing or thinking clearly since before his declarations of love. That would probably only aide to setting him off and right now he was at least talking and somewhat complacent.
“It’s all a haze. Everything we did. Everyone we saw. I remember doing it, but I can’t tell you what was real and what wasn’t.”
Dreams and illusions. Visions of us, he’d called them. Anastasia had fucked with him hard, and while I still didn’t understand all of it, I understood enough.
Enough to know that he may be a lost cause.
There were some things people just never came back from, especially when they didn’t want to.
And Lucas, for as much as he said he wanted to be rid of her influence—I wasn’t sure he wanted to be rid of it all. He’d lived in a distorted reality for months. Coming back had to be jarring.
Reality meant he had to face the facts of what he’d done; something that he was not ready to do. Not when he still clung to that bitter resentment.
“Did you know I was going to be attacked today?” I already knew the answer, but I still needed to ask it. Still needed to have his words when Ash stood right outside the door listening but not interrupting, because he was well aware how Lucas would respond.
“No.”
“You didn’t communicate with the High Co
uncil in any way?” I asked, hoping for an expounded answer.
“You know as well as I do, maybe even better, what the limitations on telepathy are—probably more so given your father was a Fortescue.”
So he’d heard about that already? Word traveled faster than the wind around here. Unless it was from Anastasia he’d first heard it . . . I steepled my bloody hands and settled my chin over my fingers.
“Do you know why they might have come after me?”
“Again, you’re the Fortescue between us.”
Another non-answer, but there was a flash of something in his face that told me Lucas wasn’t completely out of it. “So is Lily,” I replied, watching his haunted expression for further slips. “Who I know you know is alive.”
“If you could call it that,” he answered stiffly.
My fingers clenched, and I dropped my hands to my sides, leaning back. I promised them I wouldn’t kill him. Unfortunately, a backhand to the face might do just that because I might not stop there.
“Where is she?” I asked, hoping, praying that it wasn’t the place I thought it was. That it wasn’t the one location on earth that might be unbreachable, even from me.
Silence was my answer.
Not yes. Not no. Not a smart-ass remark meant to piss me off.
Silence.
I asked three more times before I got the hint. Whatever reason he had decided to talk, he was done again. Which meant I was finished here, at least for today.
“He deserved what he got,” Valda said from the back of my mind. Her cold, numbing presence unforgiving.
I didn’t disagree, but I wasn’t sure I agreed either.
That bothered me more than I let on, but not enough to stop me from coming back and forcing the answers from him if I had to.
I hoped for both our sakes it didn’t come to that, because whatever shards of sanity Anastasia left him with might not survive me.
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Johanna asked, pulling me from my own thoughts as she fell into step beside me.
“I think he doesn’t know the difference anymore. Truth and lies. Real or fantasy. He already had issues before she fucked with his head.” I sighed, turning for the elevator. I needed to shower before I checked on Blair, then Keyla.
“It’s a good way for her to take her secrets to the grave,” she murmured to herself. I pressed the button, and the elevator dinged.
“What?”
“Even in her death he can’t see through the lies she wove. It keeps whatever she was doing with the High Council secret. Probably the only reason they let her have him around since there was no chance of him running his mouth later. He didn’t even know what was going on.” I stepped into the elevator, and she followed after me. The doors slid shut when I finally responded.
“He knows something. I need you to find out what.” In here was the only place that no one would hear us. The magical elevator transcended the boundaries of space unlike anything else—and therefore kept my words secret.
“He might not talk to me,” she warned.
“Then make him talk.” Just don’t make me the one to do it.
“That would be easier if Blair wasn’t insistent on wanting him dead,” Jo answered dryly. The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid open.
“Liam alive?” I asked, both wanting the answer and not.
Johanna nodded. “Broken arm. Bruised ribs. He landed on a hippo shifter who broke his fall. Scarlett is with him now.”
“And Alec? How’s he holding up?” I asked quietly, stalling for a moment.
“Do you want the real answer?”
That was answer enough. “She can’t help it,” I said, needing to defend her.
“I know,” Jo said. “That’s the reason we’re all putting up with this, but Selena—it can’t last. Eventually, something will happen. She’ll kill someone, maybe even Lucas, and with the fine line we’re already walking with the Shifters . . .” She didn’t finish it. She didn’t need to.
This situation at the residence was nearing its peak. One way or another, something had to give. I just didn’t know what.
Chapter 145
Yesterday he’d sent seventeen vampires for her.
Today only one returned.
“She killed them,” the Born whispered. He was lucky he didn’t have a heart to betray him now. To show his fear. “Slaughtered them in minutes.”
I settled into the high-backed chair and swirled the crystal glass, holding the stem between two fingers. Blood dripped down the rim, mesmerizing me for a moment. “She let you return.” My voice was soft, not ringing as it once had been. In this graveyard dressed in finery, words were a weapon and silence was treasured above all.
“What?” The man turned his narrowed eyes in my direction. Victor’s cool gaze followed from me to him, and something dark settled there. Something wicked.
I tipped the glass back, swallowing the blood in two gulps. My tongue darted out to catch the drop that escaped me as I placed it back on the wooden finish and uncrossed my legs, moving to stand.
“If she killed them but you returned, it’s because she allowed you to return. I’m well aware how powerful my sister is and how she works. What’s the message?” I asked, and his face could not pale, nor could his heart beat, but the chilling hatred that flashed through his eyes was unmistakable.
Victor got to his feet, a slight sigh leaving his lips as he set his glass aside. The Born didn’t know what he’d just done. He didn’t understand that in a game of survival, I would win.
I would always win.
Fingers touched my lower back softly as Victor came to stand beside me. He leaned in, his lips brushing over the small patch of flesh between my neck and ear. “He tried to lie,” Victor said softly. Deadly. I kept my fingers laced behind my back and didn’t shift a fraction. “You know how I don’t like liars or failures.” His whispered words were a command that no other understood, not like I did.
“But I—” the Born Vampire didn’t blubber or cry. He didn’t have time to as I strode forward and laid a hand upon his cheek. The darkness in my veins whispered of death as they trailed under my flesh, up my arm, to the point where our skin met.
His mouth fell open in a silent scream as he went to his knees. It had only been days since I’d sucked Anastasia dry, and that voice, that deep, devilish caress of the mind hummed in contentment at his pain. I was inclined to agree, not that it mattered.
Victor was not king in this castle, but he was prince—and the Prince of Darkness answered to no one.
“That’s enough, flower,” the devil himself said. My power recoiled when the red line that ran between us pulsed once, far too soon.
I pursed my lips where he couldn’t see, but when I stepped back and dropped my hand it was the face of indifference that greeted him as I kept my eyes downcast. My steps were silent as I came to stand back at his side, the man I’d been torturing now splayed out on the stone floors. His eyes were glazed. Unseeing.
“Now,” Victor said, wrapping his arm around me, his hand coming to rest on my hip. “You’ve had a taste of what lies in your future, should you try to twist this any way other than how it happened.” Fingertips brushed over the edge of my shirt, and I felt nothing. Not revulsion for who he is and what he did. Not shame for staying right where I was. Not anything.
Numb to the judgements of others and uncaring about social constructs, I played his little games because freedom was my reward. But vengeance . . . that would be my prize when it was all said and done. When all of us were nothing more than dust on this earth.
My hands came around to lock behind my back, my wrist brushing his hand at my side. A shiver went through him, and I kept my eyes down and face forward, even as I sensed his attention beginning to shift.
The Born spoke.
“She was going to come with us, but there was a child with her that started screaming. Romulus moved before anyone could stop him and tried to silence the child, but the gi
rl—she moved impossibly fast and took the hit instead.” He pushed himself up onto his knees, eyebrows drawn together as he looked at the floor, recounting his mission. “Her neck snapped, and she simply turned around and slapped him back . . .” He hesitated, and I felt a sick sort of thrill run through me because you don’t hesitate with Victor.
Ever.
“Flower,” he said. It was the only thing he needed to say. I took two steps, and the Born’s eyes went wide. He fell back, trying to scramble away from me.
“The girl you sent us for killed him with a single strike, my prince,” he said in a rush. Victor held up a hand for me to pause, and I more felt than saw it because that damned line that connected a Made to its Born. He commanded me with that line. But his control was slipping. Slowly yet steadily. I obeyed, for now. “She slapped him, and his head caved in from the sheer strength behind it. Her eyes went black, and I—” He swallowed as I took another step in his direction, his eyes flying between Victor and I. “She looked like a demon, Prince. She moved as fast as a demon.”
Victor examined him for a moment, evaluating if this low-levelled Born was simply trying to cover his tracks or if there was some truth to what he said. “Tell me more.”
“After that s-she killed five of them,” he stuttered but attempted to cover it. I barely contained the eye roll.
“You said she killed sixteen,” Victor replied. Not a question, though there was a right answer.
“The first five she killed with daggers,” the Born man continued. He’d said his name when he first entered, but I didn’t particularly care. The chances of him surviving longer than this meeting were non-existent.
“And the other ten?” Victor asked. He was smart for that. Wanting to know more about the woman he sought. The one he believed he could sire heirs with, no matter how foolish that dream was. There wasn’t a cell in this world that could contain Selena unless she wanted to be held.
“Their heads exploded.”
Daizlei Academy Omnibus Collection Page 87
