Every second you’re not there is another drop of blood I take from him.
I look forward to seeing you again. Tick. Tock. ~Lily
My teeth threatened to crack from how hard I clenched them. I’d known she was planning to play games. They’d become her favorite pastime in recent months. Her only real joy. I’d known I only had so long before she turned her sights my way and finally enacted this grand ploy she’d been dreaming up.
I thought I’d be able to stop her before it came to this. I thought I had more time. But now we were here, and in three days I had to come face-to-face with my sister and kill her. Again.
Somehow.
“She wrote this in blood,” Johanna commented. I didn’t need to lift it to my nose to know she was right. Even dried, the note stunk of their undead scent and made my stomach turn.
“How was it delivered?” I asked.
“She sent a messenger. I found him first. His head has already been removed,” she answered pragmatically in a detached voice.
“Have you told the others?”
“Not yet.” Her answer surprised me. “I thought you deserved to be the first to know.” I nodded but couldn’t find it in me to tell her thank you.
“We need to figure out a plan,” I said. “She’s moving pieces on the board so fast I can’t keep up, but now that she has Ash I have no choice but to try.”
“If you slept you might see what she was actually planning,” Johanna said, testing the waters.
I nodded, releasing a strained breath. “I know, but I’m not prepared for what I’m going to see. She slaughtered a room full of Shifters without trying. She killed the Alpha with barely any effort. All these months I’ve been planning to get her back and she’s simply been biding her time, growing stronger . . .” I let the words trail as I shook my head.
“I won’t pretend that I’m thrilled with you right now,” Johanna murmured, taking a step back and turning to survey the fixed windows and clean space. “I understand why you did it though. We often overlook the worst qualities in the people we care about. It’s a flaw unto itself really. You wanted to believe that given enough time you could find her and fix her.”
I nodded, slipping the note into the baggy sweatpants I wore. “I have a problem with willfully believing what I want because I want it to be true. So many people have died because of that. Because of me.” My chest tightened.
Johanna looked at the ceiling, stuffing her hands in her pockets while she did so. “The things the world is asking of you right now aren’t right. The sacrifices you’ve had to make and will have to continue to aren’t fair. It’s too much to expect one your age to handle this well.” Slowly her attention drifted down the walls, coming to settle on me. “Regardless of all of that, the gods and the world are asking it, and they’re asking it of you—the one of us who is the most capable and yet struggles the greatest in turn. You’re an interesting choice for them to make. I can’t help but wonder if they chose someone who’s neither good nor bad for a reason.”
“Would you do it?” I asked her.
“I’d like to think I would,” she answered softly. “But I can’t say for certain. The truth of it is none of us have had to give as much as you and none of us are being asked to make the choices you are.” The pressure around my chest eased its grip. “Jayma was my best friend. I loved her as much as you love your sisters and Anastasia killed her. If she hadn’t actually died. . . if she’d come back as something else . . . I can’t say I could be the one to put a dagger through her heart. I’d like to think I could. That I would do it for the old her, but the truth is I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.”
I nodded, moving to take a seat on the cushioned leather couches. I sat near the edge with my legs open and my elbows resting on my knees. I leaned forward, letting out a yawn into my hands and then running them through my hair.
“I don’t even know if she can be killed,” I admitted.
“Everything can be killed,” Johanna answered, coming around to sit across from me.
“I’m not so certain of that,” I murmured. “She was stabbed through the heart and healed herself. She has a heartbeat again. I don’t think she’s even Made anymore. She’s something else. Something,” I paused, trying to grasp for a word that could explain but came up short. “More. She’s more than you or me.”
Johanna sighed. “She’s a part demon that was turned Vampire. She could heal herself before death. It’s not a stretch to say that she might have found a way out of it.” I reached for the brandy on the end table and poured two fingers in a crystal glass. Johanna eyed me with distaste when I extended it to her.
“It’s six something in the morning,” she said.
I shrugged. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
The liquid burned going down my throat but the heat that spread through me, it was a mockery of what heat could be. I frowned down at the decanter and set it aside. This was a hard conversation to be having this early with no sleep, but with three days and the clock ticking, it wasn’t one I could avoid.
“We’re going to find a way through this,” Johanna said. I grimaced at my glass, turning it round and round to watch the two drops of amber liquid run around the rim.
“You can’t guarantee that,” I said.
“No,” she nodded. “But I’ve been in a lot of difficult situations before. Seen a lot of bad and good. More bad than good, if I’m being honest. I have to think that the ancients wouldn’t ask this of you if there wasn’t hope at the end of the line.”
I thought about that. It was hard to believe she’d have hope if she knew what I knew though. Assuming I could find a way to send my own sister to the grave, I had to follow her.
If there was hope, it wasn’t meant for me.
The only thing that waited on my horizon was death.
Chapter 159
“Three days?” Alexandra repeated. We stood around a long conference table, none of us using the chairs. On one side of the room, a wall of windows overlooked the field that had once been where Shifters trained. Now it was barren; the odd mechanical contraption they’d used to train sat quiet without the gears turning to make the scythes swing. It looked sad. Desolate. About the same as the people around here felt.
In front of it a pile of bodies had been stacked and was growing higher by the hour as Shifters brought their loved ones before it. I should have counted my lucky stars that Ash wasn’t in it. I was grateful, but all I could think about was where he was and what my sister may or may not be doing to him. I wondered if death would have been kinder.
I wondered about a lot of things.
“Yes,” I answered, almost absentmindedly. It was strange how fast things were happening that I was being forced to take it in stride. People dying. My signasti being kidnapped. My sister coming back. The inevitable end. I should have been screaming or crying or tearing apart mansions and causing earthquakes. Instead I stood eerily quiet, watching over the cold ground, once so full of life . . . like me.
“How do we even plan for that?” she asked. “There’s what” —her eyes flicked from one person to the next— “seven of us. That’s it. What kind of plan involves seven of us?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Johanna said. “That’s what we need to figure out—”
“I’m inclined to agree with Alexandra here, Jo,” Oliver said. “I want revenge for our friends too. What happened to Scarlett and Liam . . .” His voice trailed off, and we all looked at anything but each other, especially me. “The missing Alpha is a problem, but how do you expect us to even make a dent when they killed almost a third of the entire residence?”
“She doesn’t,” I answered him. “While a third of the residence is dead, two thirds very much aren’t, and they want justice for their friends and family. I can have Tam put out a call and I guarantee there will be even more Shifters that will rally around us when they hear what’s happened.” Was it a great plan? No. No, it was not. At the moment it was all I had to
go on.
“What are more Shifters going to do when they only managed to even kill a handful of Made during the attack?” he asked, his voice dripping with condescension as he forgot one little fun fact.
“Hey,” Amber snapped, bristling. A trail of fur started to line her arms as her eyes glowed. “Many Shifters died in that attack because they were taken by surprise. My mother included . . .” Her voice trailed off as the fight started to leave her as fast as it came. Alexandra put an arm around her shoulder and stared pointedly at me. I ignored it.
My guilt had already suffocated me so thoroughly I was forgoing breathing at this point.
“The Shifters were not prepared for the last attack. They would be for this one, and there will be more of them from Tam’s estimates,” Johanna inserted diplomatically. “We’d also be able to use Selena and Alexandra’s Fortescue heritage to call on Supernaturals for aid.”
Alexandra scoffed. “The Supernaturals hate us as much as everyone else does. While the Fortescue name holds power in persuading other courts to do shit, the people are tired of it. Too many died at Daizlei and they think Selena did it. Too many have been kidnapped and turned or worse.” She pressed her lips together as her thoughts took a darker turn.
“She’s not wrong,” Blair said. “We’ll be lucky if we get even a few hundred Supes willing to join the fight, and even then, there’s no way of knowing if their powers are useful for this.”
“And that’s not even our worst problem,” Alec said. He stood at the opposite end of the room from my cousin. I noticed her tense in my periphery. Her demon kept its thoughts and opinions to itself for the moment. While we’d been out trying to form an alliance with the Witches, Alec stayed here to guard Lucas. Something that saved both their lives during the attack.
Fortunately, him being alive kept her demon appeased. Unfortunately, this situation was testing her small modicum of control.
“Our worst problem?” I found myself asking. “I don’t know how we really quantify what’s better or worse here. People have died and more are going to before this is over. Ash is gone. The Shifters are crippled. The Supernaturals just as much so in their own ways. We haven’t even heard anything from the Fae since this happened—”
“Actually, we have,” Amber said. “Cade’s mother laughed in his face when he pleaded for our cause.”
“His father was a Shifter.” I frowned. She nodded.
“And the Shifters didn’t rise against the Supes when he was killed.”
Well then.
If it were even possible, the situation just went from bad to worse.
“That’s still not the worst problem,” Alec said, interjecting again. I turned, looking at him pointedly.
“Please, tell us what the problem is, then,” I said, losing patience with this.
“Central Park.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Central Park,” he repeated.
“Yes, I have quite good hearing. I heard you the first time—”
“Humans,” Blair said. I paused mid-sentence, my lips parted and jaw hanging open. At once, I understood what they were getting at.
A string of expletives tumbled from my lips. One look around the table told me I wasn’t the only one who missed that.
“She wants to start a war in Central Park and expose magic and paranormals to the world,” Alec said after the shock started to wane. “Anastasia had suspicions this was their plan for a long while before she started keeping me at bay.” His attention strayed toward Blair before he corrected himself and turned back to address me directly. “If we do meet her there and a fight breaks out, there will be no way to keep this from the media. If we do this and lose? It becomes open hunting season for the Vampires.”
My insides curdled at the thought, but once he pointed it out I knew he was right. This was her move. To give us too little time to plan. To force us into the open. For so long Vampires had been sequestered away from the world because of what they were, and strict laws placed on them for feeding. If the people who enforced those laws were no longer around, then Vampires had free rein, and with the Born able to create new Made, it wouldn’t take long for them to have a true army. One that not even the entire paranormal community could hold back.
“She’s in Vilicky Novgorod,” I said. “What if—”
“We can’t march on the High Council,” Johanna sighed. “There’s too many Vampires and no way of getting that many of us there in time that the first wave wouldn’t just be slaughtered.”
“I never said anything about getting us there,” I replied tersely.
“Then what—”
“It’s her.” I cut her off in a harsh tone. “She’s the one leading them. If we take her out, then we stop the brain. She’s the Dark Prince’s signasti. If she’s out of the picture, he won’t be able to function. The Made can’t think for themselves because they’ve been too subjugated and the Born have lost their confidence ever since Ivan the Cruel stabbed her through the heart and she came back again.”
“Selena . . .” Alexandra started, some unnamable emotion coating her tone that I didn’t understand.
“What? That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Her to be taken out?” My sister swallowed, her lips pressing together. “I can go by myself. I’m faster and stronger. If I can get to her, then maybe—”
“No,” she said. “You made a mistake in not telling us, and I’m still unbelievably pissed at you for it, but I’m not letting you go on a suicide mission because you’ve decided to take this on yourself now—”
“Then what do you want me to do?” I asked her, leaning forward and placing my hands on the conference table. “She is where this begins and ends. I hate it more than any of you—but she is what we need to focus on. If she comes out of this alive, it doesn’t matter how many Vampires we kill. She will never stop.”
“Why?” Blair asked when Alexandra didn’t speak fast enough.
“She blames us for not saving her. She knows I stayed here and protected Keyla. She thinks that we left her to rot.”
“We didn’t leave her—” Alexandra started, anger surging forward.
“It doesn’t matter what we did. All that matters is what she thinks.”
“The girl I knew was soft. Gentle. Even after you started training her she held onto her compassion. For her to do this . . .” Blair said and shook her head as if perplexed by the situation.
“She was desperate. People do crazy things when they’re desperate.” I sighed. “In Lily’s case, she had to find a way to survive what she’d done and the only way she could was to normalize it.” My hands formed fists as I thought of the way she’d killed the girl that looked like Alexandra. She’d told herself a great many lies since then. Lies that she started to truly believe. “She told herself that’s what survivors do. Her thoughts have quickly descended into madness ever since killing Anastasia, but she bordered on it before that.”
Of course, Cirian’s soul had a part to play in that. While my sister had already lost so much of the battle before she’d killed Anastasia, the ruthlessness developed after, as did the grandiose thoughts. I hung my head, watching the strands drift back and forth.
“That’s very curious that it was Anastasia’s death that tipped her over . . .” Johanna murmured, her thumb brushing over her bottom lip as she stared too hard at the mahogany table.
“No matter what brought it about, I don’t agree with you going there by yourself. It’s what she’s going to expect because that’s what you’ve always done,” Alexandra said.
“I second that,” Blair chimed in.
“I do as well,” Johanna concluded.
“Which brings us back to square one,” I said, lifting my head again. “We have to be in Central Park in three days and have as many allies as possible. It’s our only choice.”
A knock came at the door. I lifted a hand and the knob twisted on its own accord. The wooden panel swung open, revealing a red-eyed Keyla in mourning clothes.
“Everything’s ready,” she said. Her lips were chapped and her tan skin pale. Her slender form was covered head to toe in black, formless clothes. Her bottom lip quivered as she waited for an answer.
“If this is the best we’ve got, then I think we’re done here,” I said to the others as I walked around the table and went to her side. I linked our arms together as we headed downstairs.
“Selena,” she started softly.
“Hmm?”
“Are you really going to kill your sister?” she asked. I took a deep breath. No one had asked me quite so directly. No one deserved an answer more.
“I am,” I told her as we came to a stop before the open double doors that led out to the training field.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I don’t think I’d ever heard something as kind as those two words. My sister took her father from her. She took her brother from both of us. Somehow, Keyla managed to have empathy for me despite it all.
I pulled my arm away just to wrap it around her shoulder and kissed her hair as I whispered back. “Me too, kiddo. Me too.”
Chapter 160
The scent of burning flesh cloaked the residence as the fire burned past the midday sun and into the night. Our first day was over. The second had yet to come.
Thoughts of the future and what I had to do weighed heavily on me as the flames licked through skin and muscle and bone. While Lily’s victims were largely ash as it was, the others that had died were not. Keyla gripped my hand in hers as she stood with me, staring into the flames. Her sobs had broken hours ago. The tears had run dry. Now all that remained were her long fingers linked tightly through mine as she numbly gazed forward.
On her other side, Amber stood, looking like an older version of grief. Keyla lost her father. Amber lost her mother. Now they were orphans like me.
The thought was almost as gut wrenching as the smell. I’d never forget either as long as I lived.
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