“I’m sure I’m not.” I grab her empty glass of orange juice. “Want another?”
“Sure, handsome.” She giggles again when I look down at her. I stand and inch down toward her like I’m going to kiss her, but I pull back. I do it twice more before she laughs and grabs the back of my neck, yanking my lips to hers. She swats my backside as I walk off toward the table containing an assortment of beverage options.
“She’s a beaut.” Says a man to my right. I glance over at him. Not a man. In fact, he doesn’t appear to be much older than I am. I don’t like it, but he resembles Kol a little. The same dark hair and blue eyes, though his are pale in comparison to Kol’s. I follow his blue gaze over to Malia.
“The ocean or the girl?” I ask.
He smirks. “Both. I’m Haydan.”
He extends his hand to me. His sleeve lifts in the motion and I see a tattoo on his wrist that feels familiar to me somehow. A caged serpent.
I shake his hand warily. “Aaric.”
Haydan tries to make small talk with me until I refill Malia’s glass. I excuse myself politely, but even as I sink back down into my chair across from Malia I cannot stop thinking about that tattoo. I know I’ve seen it before. I just can’t, for the life of me, remember where.
“Hey, you okay?” Malia asks, reaching across the table for my hand. I give it to her, but I don’t answer.
Instead, I ask, “How much longer do you think?”
“We should arrive in Llìria by tomorrow afternoon.”
I stare out at the ocean while she finishes her food, thinking of the story Malia told. Of the Sirens who were hunted down simply for having magical blood in their veins. It reminds me of my sister and how she’s continuously being hunted for having magic she never wanted, but was born into. This prodigy daughter, baring the burden of a war she doesn’t want. I could let her fight it, or I could find my sister and drag her somewhere no one will ever find her. It might be easy, to choose the path of self-preservation, but I fear that, when I do find my sister, there’s going to be a fight in her I won’t be able to diminish.
—CHAPTER THIRTY—
AARIC
HUNTER
Amara’s eyes flash to me and I see the fear coil inside of her. What had she just done? The assassin lie dead in the dirt from nothing, but the touch of her hands. Her initial reaction is to look to me, for answers, for me to tell her she’s imagined it all. But I’m speechless.
My eyes fall to what I now know is a Hunter, a Zodiac Hunter and I see it. The same tattoo as Haydan, inked across his neck.
I wake in Malia’s room, this time on her cot instead of the floor. She’s already awake, moving around the cabin, dressing for the day. “Morning, sleepyhead.” she says to me. “Everyone already went downstairs for breakfast.”
“Get them back here.” I say hastily, standing and dressing as fast as I can. “Get them back here now!”
“Aaric, what—what is it?” Malia moves toward me, pressing a hand on my shoulder. “Tell me.”
“Yesterday I met this boy in the dining room. Haydan. I saw a tattoo on his wrist and I knew I’d seen it before. I just couldn’t remember where. But then I remembered.” I look down at her. “The other Hunters had them. The night we got our powers.” Thinking about it now, I’d seen it another time since then too. During the attack on the Serpentarian camp, the night Willow died, I saw it on one of the Hunters that night too. The caged serpent.
“But you fought with your magic that night. Hunters are immune to your magic. They couldn’t have been Hunters.”
“We know Hunters are using Zodiacs now.” I remind her.
“Wait. You said you met someone with the tattoo yesterday?”
“Yes. And if there are Hunters here…we have to get off this ship.” I say, starting to search the room for anything I can use as a weapon. Usually the magic in my blood is all I need, but just because those Hunters we met the night we got our magic back weren’t immune doesn’t mean these won’t be.
“But we don’t dock until noon. It’s only nine thirty.”
“Well then for the next two and a half hours we need to lay low.” I suddenly remember Malia’s bag of weapons under the cot. I pull it out and unzip it, fishing around for weapons I can hide easily. I shove a hunting knife into my boot and another into the back of my pants, concealing my shirt. “We gotta go get the others and bring them back here. No one leaves this cabin until it’s time to dock.”
Malia loads up on her own weapons quickly. “Alright, let’s go.”
The ship is busy today. Riders wanting to take full advantage of the ship’s amenities before we dock. The dining room is twice as busy as it was yesterday. Prime breakfast time.
I spot Roman at a table with the boys and Niykee. Just when I’m about to race to them someone catches my arm. When I look up it’s Haydan.
Shit.
“Hey, Aaric, right?” he asks, though something tells me he remembers my name perfectly. Luckily it’s a popular name. He can’t know I’m Aaric Boudelaire, infamous ether user, twin to the Serpentarian savior. Not yet.
“Ah, yeah. Haydan. Good to see you again.” I squeeze Malia’s hand in mine. “Hey sweetheart, why don’t you go sit with the others and I’ll get us something to eat, huh?” Malia isn’t stupid. She knows I want her to get the others out of here before Haydan even notices they’re there.
“Sure, sweetheart.” She presses a lasting kiss to my cheek and then smiles at Haydan before strutting off, using her feminine whiles to distract Haydan.
“Don’t worry, man. I prefer blondes.” Haydan jokes. I force out a laugh. “So, what part of Limacore are you from?” he asks while walking over to the bar.
“Ironport.” I’m not going to tell him I’m from Baal, or the capital. I need to steer him away from associating me with the Aaric that lived with the king. I don’t know if he knows who I am yet, but I’d like to keep it that way.
“Ironport. Interesting city. Drink?” he asks, leaning against the bar.
“It’s barely ten am.”
“Well now you’re just stating facts, my friend.”
I laugh and climb up onto the stool to his left. “Fine. One couldn’t hurt.”
Haydan waves the barmaid down and orders for the both of us. When the drinks come I’m wary to drink mine. I wait for him to have some of his first. I’m not sure what this Hunter wants with me, but I’m going to find out. Out of all of us it’s me he keeps trying to make friends with.
“I see your friends left.” He glances over to the table Roman and the others had been sitting at. It’s now empty.
“Antsy bunch.” I say. “So you didn’t mention where you’re from.”
“Ah, I am actually from where we’re headed.”
“Llìria?” I don’t try and hide my surprise. A Hunter from Llìria? It makes exactly zero sense.
“Yeah. I mean, Llìria may not have a ruler at present, but that doesn’t refute the Llìrian blood running through my veins. I was sent on an errand in Vakrov actually, which ended up being a bust so I’m headed home now. What’s your business in Llìria?”
“Oh, I have some business with a girl.” Kara, this Dariella woman. Take your pick.
“Business with a girl? Don’t we all? This one—this one wouldn’t happen to be a mouthy blond, would it? Pretty green eyes? Irresistible smile?” I quickly move to stand, but Haydan slams his hand down on mine, digging the tiny umbrella in his drink into my hand. I grunt in pain. “Do you see those men standing around the room?” Haydan asks and my eyes whirl around the room to see men in black trench coats standing around, hovering around the exits. “One word and they’ll pounce.”
“Likewise.” Roman says from Haydan’s other side. His hand grips Haydan’s wrist and he uses his Bleeder abilities to drain Haydan of his magic.
“How did you know that I have magic?” Haydan says through grunts of pain.
“I’m a Bleeder. I could sense your magic all the way across the room. Now sit
down.” Roman shoves Haydan down onto the stool between us.
I rip the toothpick out of my hand, grunting in pain. Roman hands me a handkerchief and I press it down on the wound to try and stop the bleeding. “Thirteen hells that hurt.” I groan.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have Malia heal you after we get answers out of this one.” Roman eyes Haydan with disdain. “So, Hunters are recruiting Zodiacs now. That’s new.”
“A Limacoran prince recruited by a Serpentarian. That’s new.” Haydan says sarcastically and Roman bleeds more magic from him, making him grunt.
“You can answer our questions here or we can do this back in our cabin, with knives. Tell your men to back down.” Roman orders him. Haydan takes one look at us and gestures for his men to stay put. “Since when do Zodiacs work for Hunters?”
“I don’t work for them. I am one of them.”
“You’re as Serpentarian as I am.” I sneer. “You can brand yourself with their mark all you want. You’re not a Hunter. You’re a Zodiac.”
Haydan chuckles. “That’s what gave me away, huh? The damn tattoo.”
“Yup. Now answer his question. How many of us are working for them?”
Haydan looks me square in the eye. “More than you can count.”
I look to Roman. “He’s being difficult.”
“We don’t like difficult, do we, Aaric?” Roman replies.
“No, we don’t. You don’t really wanna piss him off. See, the girl he loves, my sister, is engaged to be married to my backstabbing best friend so Roman is just itching for a good torture session. Get his frustrations out and all.”
“He’s right. And I think you’ll do just fine.” Roman prepares to bleed him again when Haydan calls out anxiously.
“Alright, alright. What do you wanna know?”
“My sister’s in Vakrov. What business did you have there?”
“Kara Volterra and Kol Kasanoff sent me to find out more about this prophecy, involving her baby?”
“What prophecy?”
“Oh, you don’t know.” Haydan barks out a laugh. “Oh, you’re out of the loop. I forgot, I forgot. Kara’s babies, actually Theon Beleros’, not Tristan Lancaster’s. Also, there’s a prophecy stating that her bouncing baby boy is supposed to one day last waste to the world.”
“What?” Roman and I both shout.
“You’re lying. Kara would never…she wouldn’t—you’re lying.” I don’t know why the reality of this lie makes me want to vomit. The thought of that monster’s hands on Kara, it makes me physically ill.
“In her defense, she didn’t know who he was at the time. I went to Vakrov to find out more about this prophecy, from a man called Talvinder, but when I got there he was dead. And when I say dead I mean he’d felt the touch of death in his veins. Looks like twin sis got there before I could.”
“Amara is locked up in a palace. She isn’t galivanting across Vakrov looking for answers on some prophecy that may or may not exist.”
“Oh, it exists. But tell me, do you know of anyone else who can take a living, breathing man and turn their body into a graying bag of bones? Because I don’t. These nether users talk a big game, but none of them can kill with a touch like Amara Boudelaire. Not even your pretty little girlfriend.”
“What do you want from us?” I demand. When he doesn’t speak I glance past him at Roman. “Bleed him.”
“No, no, no, wait, wait.” Haydan protests. “I swear, us all being on this ship together is purely coincidence. I’m going back to Llìria, same as you.”
“How do you know Kara and Kol?” Roman asks.
“Well that’s easy. He’s my baby brother.”
Roman and I share another look of irritated surprise. “Kol Kasanoff is your brother?” Roman asks.
“Baby brother actually, much like you, little prince.” Haydan says and I shove him hard in the chest.
“Only I get to call him that.” I say defensively. Out of the corner of my eye I see Roman smirk. “I’m assuming you two are brothers on your mother’s side.”
“Aviana Kasanoff was my mother, yes.”
“So let me get this straight. Your brother, Kol, is working for Theon Beleros, the Serpentarian tyrant after my sister and yet you’re working for the Hunters? Explain that to me, please.” I say, folding my arms over my chest.
“Look, Kol and I both grew up knowing the hatred people had for our kind. Theon Beleros raised us when Theron Novak’s family discarded my mother like trash. But I also saw the tyranny Theon was capable of so as soon as I was old enough I left.”
“Huh.” I laugh. It’s almost funny. “So Theon sent Kol to the Novaks to be a double agent for him and the Hunters sent you to Theon to be a double agent for them. Wow. That’s just…that’s funny to me.”
“The difference is Kol did what he did because he was trying to avenge his mother.” Roman says, turning his green gaze to Haydan. “What did you betray your family for, huh? Aviana was your mother, and Theron Novak was your father.” I raise an eyebrow to Roman, but he focuses solely on Haydan. “I’m a Bleeder. I know what magic I’m bleeding when I bleed it. You’re a nether user, which means you and Kol have to be twins.”
Haydan grins. “Ding, ding, ding. And we have a winner.” His blue eyes shoot to me. “Come on now, Aaric. I mean, I know Amara’s the smart one, but keep up. You’re losing points here, to him. The most oblivious prince in the history of the world.”
“Can you bleed him enough to knock him out?” I ask Roman.
“Hm, I don’t know, but I’d love to try.”
“Good, because it looks like we’re docking. Niykee,” I call to my sister. She moves through the crowd, making her way over to us. “We’re gonna need a little distraction.” I glance around to make sure no one’s looking and I grab up an entire bottle of rum, smashing it on the edge of the bar to break it. Niykee doesn’t need to ask what I want her to do with that and she sends a wave of fiery nether toward the spilt alcohol. The four of us duck as the fire reaches the alcohol, creating a rather large explosion over the bar. “Bleed him.” I tell Roman.
Roman does as I ask and bleeds Haydan until he falls unconscious in his arms. Then the rest of us race out of the dining hall, hoping to get down to the docks before Haydan’s Hunter friends reach us.
“That was incredible.” Niykee says giddily. Together we all zip down the hall as people rush over to see what all the commotion’s about.
Lucky for us the ship workers have their own private exit at the back of the ship, separate from where the guests disembark. We get many looks as Roman walks with an unconscious Haydan tossed over his shoulder, but no one seems to care.
“He gets really sea sick.” Malia says, smiling as a passing couple gives us dirty looks.
It doesn’t take long for Haydan’s Hunters to figure out where we’ve gone though and by the time we walk out onto the docks we see them at the front, searching for Haydan and the rest of us. Me and Roman’s eyes meet and then they shift to the water behind us. At once we have the same idea.
“What about him?” Niykee eyes Haydan, pointing out that if we go hide under the water Haydan could very well drown depending on ow long we’re under.
“Risk it?” I ask Roman.
“Risk it.”
All at once we jump off the side of the dock, plummeting into the water. Haydan’s body goes flying, but gets yanked back by Roman’s hand grasping his ankle. We swim as fast as we can under the dock until we reach the surface of the water. Roman throws Haydan’s still unconscious body down on the sand while gasping for breath himself.
Niykee goes over to Haydan and slaps his cheek, but he doesn’t move. “Wow. He’s really out.”
“Roman bled him. I’m hoping he can keep bleeding him enough to keep him weak until we can figure out what to do with him.” I say, rolling my wet sleeves up to my elbows.
“Why did you bring him anyway?” Bay asks.
“Well, he’s a Hunter and he was planning on going back to Kara at the
palace. She doesn’t know he’s a Hunter. He could hurt her. Besides, we may not need to trade the Nexus for Kara’s freedom if we have him.”
“You want him to double-double agent Theon?” Felix asks, looking puzzled by his wording. “Huh. That’s sort of brilliant.”
“So what now?” Niykee asks me.
“Now, this.” I tug the Nexus locator necklace out from under my shirt and watch as the little ebony starts to get a little bit bluer now that we’re in Llìria, getting closer and closer to the Nexus by the minute. “We follow this.”
“Good thing you had that on you.” Roman says.
“Sorry about your weapons, Malia.” I say. We all lost most of our things back on the ship, but Malia never goes anywhere without her weapons.
“It’s okay.” She shrugs. “I have most of them on me anyway.”
We all laugh together for a moment, giving ourselves a second to breathe before we have to run off and find this Nexus.
“What do we do once we find it?”
“We get some use out of him.” I say, eyes landing on Haydan.
“Well, alright. Let’s follow the magic necklace, shall we?” Felix says sarcastically, starting off toward the pier. Roman and I both look at each other. He grabs Haydan back up and then the six of us are off, ready to slay whatever dragons come at us next.
—CHAPTER THIRTY ONE—
AMARA
BORDERLINES
Keenan is silent the whole ride home.
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t touch me. All I can do is focus on the ring on my finger. I twist it around and around, trying to find the will to take it off. It must hurt him for me to wear it now, considering everything I did, everything we said, trading pain like school children. I leave it on for the time being.
I don’t yet know how Keenan is going to play this. When we get to the palace he approaches me and Haven where we sit side by side in the transit. He removes the bracelet and Haven lets out a shaky breath, a sigh of relief that she can feel her magic again.
To the guards he says, speaking for the first time since Talvinder’s house, “Bring the girls to their chambers. Bring the ambassador and the traitor to the dungeons.”
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