by Rye Brewer
Certainly, it was comfortable. I had everything I could ever want. Except the freedom to come and go as I pleased, which was something I missed terribly. I folded my robes more swiftly with that in mind.
It was a stroke of luck on both my part and Fane’s that he’d found me while I was already traveling, at an inn in which I was staying to avoid other witches. It was in my best interest to keep a low profile. Sirene had known I would be there—it was the only way he could’ve found me so quickly, with so little effort.
I was relieved that he had, of course, as I’d been able to assist my old friend in her time of desperate need. But that had also been nothing but a mere stroke of luck, as he’d secured my help for the purpose of pulling the Ancient One, Valerius, out of another bloodsucker’s body.
I’d just happened to be around when Sirene had needed me most.
My nose wrinkled. Bloodsuckers. What was she thinking, getting herself involved with them? I had no time for them, myself, no desire to know any of them. Who would want to? I sometimes wondered what went through Sirene’s head, I truly did.
But I had no choice, I reminded myself with a sigh as I cinched my bag closed. I’d been pulled into Sirene’s life, which meant spending time with bloodsuckers. She’d even given birth to one. It hardly seemed possible.
Though at least Fane was no longer a bloodsucker. He hadn’t told me why, referencing a long story and nothing else when he’d first found me. I’d noticed the difference in him right off. But he’d been a bloodsucker when the baby was conceived, which was what mattered.
How unfortunate. For all of them.
We’d been in a hurry then, and we were in a hurry once again. This time, it was Hallowthorn Landing we were headed to.
And Stark. If he was still there.
Sirene waited for me in the living room, looking nervous and happy and cautious and worried. Elena slept in her arms—a good thing, since I was not particularly in the mood to watch her break more lighting fixtures.
Sirene didn’t know about my history with her half-brother. I’d never seen the point in telling her before, unwilling to bring her into the painful past I shared with Stark. Now that we were traveling together, it felt unjust to keep the truth from her.
I wouldn’t know where to begin. Perhaps it would be for the best if he was no longer living there. I could avoid opening old wounds which had long since healed—or, at least, had stopped bleeding. I didn’t know if I would ever fully heal from the heartbreak he’d delivered me.
Anissa was there, too, speaking with Sirene in a whisper so as to avoid waking the child. I wasn’t certain what to make of her. Another bloodsucker, though this one was at least a hybrid. Not entirely low. She seemed helpful, genuinely concerned for both Sirene and Elena, though there was something about her I couldn’t quite reconcile. A tension, as though she were always coiled and ready to spring.
Sirene was admiring her hand, on which there was a new ring to go with the engagement ring I’d noticed before. Anissa caught sight of me watching them and blushed.
“Jonah and I just made it official. We wanted to do it before I left with you.”
“Oh. I see.” A bloodsucker wedding. How nice. All it did was make me think of Stark again, which brought back so much of the old pain. Why of all places were we going back to where he might be?
I bit my tongue against the impulse to ask Sirene if he was there. She wouldn’t know, most likely, and the question would seem out-of-place. I didn’t wish to give her any ideas—correct though they might be.
It would be so much easier to forego this entirely and avoid the chance of seeing Stark again, but that would mean deserting Sirene. She was not in top health after delivering her baby, no matter what she might believe. There was still a chance of her developing complications. I couldn’t take that risk and live with myself if things went wrong.
Just like I couldn’t desert her when she had an elemental infant on her hands.
“Are we ready?” Sirene asked.
Anissa motioned to a pack she’d slung over her back, and I nodded. Sirene took this as permission to create the portal which the three of us stepped through, leaving the suite and everything in it behind.
We stepped into Hallowthorn Landing, arriving in the courtyard at the edge of the fortress which bordered the sea. Behind us was the impossibly tall rock wall, before us was the sparkling water. It was quiet just then, gently rolling, waves lapping at the rocks below us and the docks in the distance.
It was all just as I remembered. A warm breeze immediately caught my black hair, making it swirl around my head as it did to Sirene’s. Elena woke, cooing happily. A relief. We’d seen what happened when she was upset.
“A different world,” Anissa murmured, shaking her head. “It’s easy to forget that there are different realms which exist all at once, all moving along at the same time.”
She turned to Sirene. “I wonder if Sara will visit. Or if Stark has seen her recently.”
“Sara?” I asked, my ears picking up Stark’s name as they always did.
She nodded enthusiastically. “My sister. She was training with Stark.”
“Training? Your sister is a witch?”
She shrugged. “The same situation as we’ve had with Elena, here. She drank from the same tainted batch. Now she’s elemental, and she’s been training with Elewyn in order to hone her power.”
It was a knife through the heart, hearing that name again. I hadn’t heard it since the say Stark told me he was leaving me for her. I could picture Elewyn in my mind. That imperious glare, that cold manner, the way she talked down to everyone who wasn’t either her brother or Stark.
When I managed to get my breathing under control, I asked, “So, Elewyn is helping your sister? Is this what you’re telling me?”
Anissa nodded.
I chuckled, then sighed. “Elewyn never helps others unless she plans to get something in return. What is she getting from your sister?”
Anissa blinked, taking a step back. “What could she possibly get from Sara?”
My throat constricted from the force of emotion rising up in it. I fought to speak over it. “That depends. What is she to Stark?”
When she frowned, I knew I’d hit my mark. So there was something between him and this new witch, was there? Why was I in the least bit surprised?
Something, I did not know what, told me to look up at that very moment. To the balcony several floors up.
Where Stark was standing.
I froze in place.
27
Stark
Standing on the balcony where Sara and I had argued during that first training session brought back a lot of memories. All I needed was a storm like we’d had that day to make things perfect.
And Sara, of course.
Everything made me think of her. Worry about her. Wonder how she was faring under Elewyn’s tutelage. Was Elewyn treating her fairly? Was she upholding her end of the bargain? Or was she merely drawing things out in order to keep us separated?
Did Sara even care either way?
I gritted my teeth and knew that if I hadn’t such control over my power, I might have let loose with the sort of elemental display Sara had treated me to in the early days of her training. I wished the question of her feelings for me wasn’t a question at all, but there was no forgetting the ease with which she’d dismissed my being away from her. She hadn’t put up a fight when presented with Elewyn’s caveat, the demand that I not be around.
That eagerness to comply was like a seed. The smallest little seed which had planted itself in my brain and was now flowering into something much bigger, something with vines which curled themselves around my thoughts and tainted even the happiest memories.
Did she care at all? Had she only been using me in order to control her power?
I wanted nothing more than to see her. To prove it to myself once and for all whether she wanted me or not.
Elewyn might have planted seeds of her own in S
ara’s mind since we’d parted, too. I couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt after knowing the depths she was willing to sink to. She never understood that I didn’t want to be with her, not really. Always reaching for something that was never there.
My heart had always belonged to Branwen in the old days. I still hadn’t gotten her out of my head, even after all this time. My doubts over Sara only served to push thoughts of Branwen back to the forefront of my memory.
I’d never had to question Branwen’s feelings for me. She had never left me guessing.
I shook my head and walked the length of the balcony, then back again, willing myself to focus on the present. I had more than enough to concern myself with.
Like Gil Riviera. It had been less than twenty-four hours since my dinner with him in Rome, in that little back room at the restaurant.
I’d always thought him a decent man and a good soldier, but that was when I’d been more deeply involved with the Order. Before I saw the error of my ways. He’d become little more than a heretic, his eyes blazing with anger when I warned him away from pursuing Gage Bourke.
“How dare you presume to tell me what to do? His icy tone had barely masked his rage. You are the one who walked away from what you started. How is it that you’re even aware of my pursuing this Bourke vampire?”
I’d merely straightened the cuffs of my shirt before taking another sip of the excellent wine which I had already charged in Gil’s name.
“I still have connections within the Order.” I’d left it at that.
The fact was, I’d recognized the Bourke name from the first, having remembered my ill-fated acquaintance with Scott Bourke on Shadowsbane Island. That fool. I’d made the connection quickly and had felt compelled to warn Fane. But I’d never learned the name of the vampire Gage had turned. Gil didn’t believe that—not that I cared much one way or another what he believed.
So long as he believed that hunting a Bourke would be a dangerous undertaking. Which he hadn’t.
The presence of a portal in the courtyard caught my attention.
I watched as three figures emerged from inside the swirling energy field—and immediately recognized my sister.
Who was carrying a baby.
My heart soared in spite of the dark turn of my thoughts. My niece or nephew. I couldn’t pretend to be thrilled that Sirene’s baby was part-vampire, but she’d seemed happy when last I saw her, late in her pregnancy. She’d made it out all right, looking better than ever. I could hardly contain my relief.
And Anissa was with her. I would know her white hair anywhere. The sight of her made my thoughts return to Sara. Was she why Anissa was visiting? Did she plan to make the trip to Shadowsbane? If so, perhaps she could get a message to her sister for me…
Branwen.
When I recognized her, all thoughts of Sara were squeezed from my heart by the vise which suddenly gripped it.
What was she doing here?
It all came back just as fresh as it had happened yesterday. The tears. The accusations. Her claims that I had gone behind her back, had betrayed her with Elewyn.
I had done no such thing. I would never have so much as looked at Elewyn, much less cheated on Branwen with her, if it hadn’t been for…
Dracan. Of the Witch Senate.
I was glad he was dead, just as glad as I’d been when I saw his body lying on the floor along with the bodies of the rest of the Senate. I’d imagined him dead so many times.
Starting with when he first threatened to kill Sirene if I didn’t end my relationship with his granddaughter, Branwen.
He had been that intensely against our being together, no matter how deeply in love we were. He’d cared nothing for that, and we had been naïve enough to believe he might. Only when he dangled my sister’s life in front of me—whether or not he knew I’d already lost a sister was never confirmed—had I gone ahead with mercilessly breaking Branwen’s heart.
And I’d pretended to move on to Elewyn, only because I’d needed some sort of cover which would protect Dracan. He had to believe Branwen was ignorant of his machinations.
She looked the same, but then she would. A tiny little thing, with the same cloud of dark hair, the same luminous eyes that seemed innocent and ancient all at once.
Her grandfather had torn us apart. Her grandfather was dead…
“No,” I whispered, denying myself the pleasure of indulging such thoughts.
For one, Branwen hated me with a passion, had ever since I left her. For another, I had to focus my energy on keeping Gil away from Gage and his vampire girlfriend or whatever she was to him. That was more than enough for me to concern myself with. I didn’t need Branwen muddying the waters.
Until she looked up and our eyes locked and I forgot everything but her for that split second.
28
Genevieve
When I was a little girl, I used to sleep beside my father’s wolfhounds.
Father hated it, had warned me time and again to stay away from them. They were animals, beasts, well-trained though they might have been. He ought to know, as it had been he who’d trained them.
There was never any telling when an animal would lash out, biting the hand that fed it. He’d drilled this into my head, referring not only to the wolfhounds but to all of the beasts of the woods which surrounded our home.
But the hounds were my friends, I would remind him. They liked me, perhaps even loved me. They’d never been anything but gentle with me, hairy beasts though they may have been. Great, giant Russian wolfhounds who’d kept me warm during endless, brutally cold Balkan nights. My dear, sweet friends. We’d huddled together, and they’d accepted me, just as if I’d been one of them.
I would wake up in the morning to find my father’s beloved, familiar face looking down at me, where I was, still curled up on the stone floor of the back room where the hounds spent the night. He would always try to look angry, stern, but the gleam in his eyes and the smile which revealed itself through his thick, black beard always gave him away.
I could never tell Anton about those early days of my human life, as wolfhounds had been used to hunt wolves—and he, of course, was a wolf. He didn’t need to know. He only knew that I enjoyed lying in bed beside him while he was in his wolf form. It reminded me of those early days, my childhood. Happy memories of a happy time.
Anton wasn’t interested in comforting me or taking me back to my early days. He preferred sleeping in his wolf form while we were together in order to listen for trouble, should it approach. His hearing as a wolf was far superior to his human hearing. I’d reminded him time and again that there had never been so much as a whisper of trouble in all the nights we’d spent together, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
I humored him because it comforted me.
And so it was in the cottage after I’d fed from him. It was night, the day having been spent together, rekindling what had never died out to begin with. He slept behind me, his wolf form curled around mine while I went into stasis in order to refresh myself.
I could almost imagine living a life with him in moments such as this, when it seemed as though we were the only two people in the world. Just us, in a little cottage no one had lived in for at least a half-century. It had been used for parties when Anton and his brother were younger, wilder, but those days were long gone, too.
Not that I wanted to live in a cottage. Far from it. The castle in which Anton had spent his life was much more my speed. That great, rambling, exquisite old gothic monstrosity. I could see myself throwing balls and banquets in rooms dripping with crystal and gilt, diamonds dangling from every feasible part of my body.
I imagined glorious nights together, roaming the castle grounds with no need to hide ourselves. Watching from the balcony as Anton ran across the grounds in his wolf form, admiring his beauty and agility. Days spent reading through the hundreds of books in Dorian’s infamous library.
Being able to love and be loved without reservations.
; Being able to hunt if I pleased. Outside the rules of the blasted League. Drinking from any creature which caught my fancy, human or no. It had been so long since I’d lived in freedom.
That was what appealed most to me about Anton, I realized. I could be free with him. I could let loose any of my darker thoughts, could share my mind with him. I could also let down my walls and be vulnerable for the first time in as long as I could remember.
I could be with him in complete happiness, all because he reminded me of my childhood friends.
Anton’s sudden snarl pulled me from my thoughts, propelling me into full wakefulness. I sat up, breathless with surprise, turning in time to catch sight of his glowing eyes before he shifted to his human form.
“What is it?” I gasped when he jumped out of bed and peered out the window.
“Intruders,” he whispered.
“Who?” I scrambled out of bed, relieved that I was still clothed. All the easier to make a quick escape.
“Shifters.” He went to the cupboard, where he normally stored a few pieces of clothing, and shoved an outfit into my hands. “Here. Take these in case I need to shift back to the wolf to reach you, so I might dress once we’re out of danger.”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“Do you remember the waterfall we went to, just beyond the cave?”
“Of course.” I would never forget that day, one of the most beautiful and special of my life. When I had known for certain that I loved him.
“Go there now. I’ll meet you.” He grabbed me by the arms, pulled me to him for one brief, hard kiss before bending to open the trap door. “Hurry. Course there. I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”
I had one more chance to look up at him from the bottom of the stairs before he closed the trap door.
29
Anton
I was buttoning my shirt by the time the front door burst open.
