When they exited the hospital, Ahramin stopped in her tracks. Edon, startled by the noise, turned around and looked right at her. He gaped at her. “Ahri … Oh my god … Ahri …”
Ahramin blinked her eyes. Edon hesitantly moved closer to her, a half smile forming on his lips. But the smile disappeared when he saw the hard, closed look on her face.
“Ahri—I’m so sorry—we failed you.”
“Save your apologies, Edon,” Ahramin said, her voice cold and flat. “I have no need to hear them.”
Edon froze, his entire face red, as if she had just slapped him, and Bliss realized that somehow—without raising a hand—Ahramin had. Whatever had gone on between Edon and Ahramin was over; that much was clear.
“How are we getting out of here?” Ahramin asked.
“I’ll get the van,” Lawson said. Edon remained frozen, a statue, stricken, lost. “You guys, wait here.”
“I’ll come with you,” Bliss said hurriedly. She ran to catch up with Lawson. “What’s the deal, Lawson? Why’d you let her out of there—you don’t know if she’s telling the truth. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
“I can’t abandon her. Back in the underworld, she was the head of our pack,” he replied. “She bested me at the trials. She was our alpha.”
“Well, alpha dog or not,” Bliss said, “she’s a real bitch.”
Ahramin was kinder and softer upon being reunited with Rafe and Malcolm. She ruffled the younger boy’s hair and smiled at Rafe. They piled back into the van and decided to drive to find the nearest campsite, Bliss in the back between Edon and Ahramin, who barely said a word to each other, Lawson and Rafe up front, with Malcolm in between, while Rafe drove.
“How did you guys end up hanging out with a vampire?” Ahramin asked, lighting a cigarette and rolling down her window. “You do know that’s what she is, don’t you?”
“I’m human,” Bliss said with an edge to her voice. Where had Ahramin even found a pack of smokes? She’d walked out of the hospital in nothing but a cotton gown, but somehow she’d commandeered Edon’s leather jacket and found his secret habit. Bliss frowned. She’d seen girls like Ahramin before, knew what they were like. She wasn’t going to let her push her around, alpha or not. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Bliss was the one who led us to you—without her, we’d never have found you,” Lawson said, his voice firm. “You owe her.”
“If you say so.” Ahramin shrugged, then coughed noisily.
“How did you survive?” Lawson asked Ahramin, turning around to address her directly. “We all know what happens to a hound without a collar.”
“What happens?” Bliss wanted to know.
“They die,” Ahramin replied cheerfully. “It’s pretty gruesome. The collars become part of a hound’s soul, so when they rip it off, it’s like ripping your heart out.”
“Why are you here, then?” Bliss asked sharply.
“Maybe it’s because I held on to a little part of myself, even after the change,” Ahramin said quietly. “All I know is that when I woke up, I wasn’t dead. Losing a collar would have killed a hound, but maybe it’s because I was never completely a hound. When they turned me, I fought the transformation as hard as I could—and I think that somehow, I was able to hang on to a little bit of my soul. Of course, when the mortals found me, the Red Bloods sent me to the nuthouse. They said I was insane and maybe I did go out of my mind a little after everything that happened.” She coughed again, a raspy, horrible choking noise.
“Quite a story, it seems awfully convenient,” Bliss said. “That there’s no going back except for you …”
“I believe you,” Lawson interrupted.
What was he doing? Bliss wanted to punch him. He accepted Ahramin without question—it was maddening. She didn’t understand him, and felt a twinge of jealousy. He’d wanted to kill her, but with Ahramin—this hellhound—he was as cowed as a puppy.
“But you want to know about Tala,” Ahramin said coolly.
“Yes.” The air in the van was tense, and the smoke didn’t help.
Bliss could tell how difficult it was for Lawson to hold it together. He’d been filled with hope on the drive to the hospital, and now his hope had been dashed on the rocks. Steady now, she thought. Steady.
“Before I tell you what happened to my sister, first let me tell you what the transformation was like,” Ahramin said. “No one ever tells you what really happens in the pen. When they turn us into hounds. They strip you down. Not just to the skin, but to the soul. They make you forget—everything. They plunge the collar into your body, so that the silver leaches inside, becomes part of your blood. It’s why all the hounds have silver eyes with crimson pupils. The poison becomes part of your body. You become the poison.”
Edon made a strangled noise and tried to reach across Bliss to put a hand on Ahramin’s arm but she shrugged it off impatiently, as if to show she didn’t need any consolation.
“Then you hear it—all the time—Romulus’s voice, in your head. In your dreams. He becomes part of you. It’s … inescapable. Do you know what it’s like, being a slave to someone else’s will?”
“Yes,” Bliss said curtly, thinking of the way Lucifer had used her. “I do.”
Ahramin ignored her. “They didn’t make me come for you in the beginning. In the beginning I was just another drone. Another hound on a leash. Finally, they said it was time. They wanted to know how we had done it, and where they could find you. They’d tried without me, of course, but had been unsuccessful. Now they wanted my help. I had to track you down, bring you back, or Romulus would have my collar. For a while, like I said, I still remembered enough of my life that I was able to resist them at first.”
She tossed her cigarette out the window and lit another. “But I had to give in at the last. It was too painful. You know what they do, you know what they’re like. I had no choice. I agreed to lead them to you. We looked for you everywhere. Finally I got the scent. You stayed too long in one place.”
“Tala … I need to know what happened to Tala …” Lawson interrupted.
But Ahramin continued her monologue. “So she did become your mate. I thought that might happen after she escaped with you. Still, she was such a plain little thing … you never even noticed her before. You never cared for her in the underworld.”
“What happened to her, Ahramin? What did they do to her?”
“They did what you might imagine.” She shrugged. As if it were nothing. But her eyes were shining with tears.
Bliss could see Lawson’s shoulders slump in the front seat. She glared at the dark-haired girl sitting next to her. “Stop torturing him. Answer the question. What happened to her?”
“Is she dead? Is Tala dead?” Lawson asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“No.” Ahramin blew another smoke ring. It lingered in the air above them before dissipating, filling the van with its acrid smell. “But she may as well be. She’s with Romulus now.”
TWENTY-TWO
Bliss offered to pay for a hotel. After everything that had happened, everything they had learned, it seemed like a small consolation but a necessary one. No one had spoken in the van after Ahramin’s announcement; Lawson had completely broken down, his face turning gray and blank, as if he had been shot, as if he were dead already. Bliss took command then—someone had to; Edon was just as useless as Lawson after Ahramin’s rejection, and Rafe and Malcolm looked too frightened to know what to do. She ushered the boys into their own room and placed Ahramin in hers. The “former” hellhound—Bliss still had her doubts—seemed a bit subdued by the reaction to her news and had barely said a word to Bliss before bedding down.
A few hours later, unable to sleep, Bliss crept out of the room, thinking she would take a walk in the hotel lobby to try to find something to distract her from her thoughts.
Was it just two days earlier that she had been with Aunt Jane? How was it possible that so much had changed—meeting the boys, the attac
k by the hounds, looking for Tala and finding Ahramin instead? Bliss wasn’t even sure what would happen next. She had to find a way to the hounds to find her aunt, of course; that was clear. But the boys—Lawson—what would happen to them—to him? Would he consent to doing as she asked? Would he consent to taking his pack to the vampires and fighting for them?
It was hours after midnight and the floor was deserted. Not even the front desk was staffed; there was only a bell to ring if you needed someone. Her footsteps echoed in the hallway. The lobby was standard-issue mid-range hotel, with a fireplace in the middle and comfortable armchairs and couches arrayed around it. She walked closer to the smoldering fire.
“Can’t sleep either?” a voice asked.
She turned to find Lawson slouched down on a couch, an empty six-pack by his side. He was drinking from an open bottle of vodka.
“You planning on drinking that whole thing?” she asked.
“Only if you help me,” he said. He was so obviously tipsy, slurring his words, his eyes bloodshot. But somehow, with his dark hair falling into his eyes, he still looked unbelievably sexy.
“Lawson—”
“Come on. I have chasers somewhere. That’s what they’re called, right? Chasers? To chase away the taste of alcohol. Although why anyone would want to do that, I don’t know. Anyway, there’s a box of orange juice …” He waved feebly around the area.
Bliss took a seat next to him. Getting drunk was no way to react—but how could one react to such news, anyway? His pain was etched all over his face. He looked like a ghost, all the vitality and life drained from his face, his sorrow and grief manifested in his hunching walk, his hooded eyes. She reached for the vodka bottle and took a big gulp.
“That’s my girl,” he said, clapping her shoulder.
“Whoa,” she said, feeling a bit dizzy. Alcohol had had no effect on her before; she kept forgetting she was human now. She put down the bottle and turned to him. “Maybe there’s still hope—”
“There’s not,” he said, cutting her off. “Romulus will never let her go. Now that he knows what she means to me.” He grabbed the bottle and took a swig. “I put her in danger … I never should have left her. It’s all my fault.”
“You didn’t have a choice, and she wanted you to go, to survive,” she said, reminding him of what he’d told her about that fateful night. She took the vodka away from him.
Lawson shook his head. “I’m selfish … I went to the oculus … the hounds could have killed us all tonight … and … and …” He began to hiccup and fell forward into her arms, his whole body shaking. “I failed her. I practically gave her to him … who knows what he’s done to her … killed her … maybe he turned her into a hound early … maybe she died from the change …”
“I’m so sorry,” Bliss whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She held him to her chest, put her arms around him, felt his tears soak her robe. It hurt her to see him like this, so destroyed. “I’m so sorry, you don’t deserve this,” she said, and without thinking she began to kiss his head, his hair. She just wanted to make him feel better somehow, to erase, and to bear, some of his pain.
Lawson put his arms around her back and drew her closer, and then they were kissing, and his tears fell on her face, but he was kissing her, so passionately, as if he had been awoken, inspired, and she was kissing him back, as fiercely as he was kissing her. And his hands were slipping off her robe and she was melting into him, slipping his shirt over his head, and her palms were on his abdomen, his sculpted stomach …
And still he was kissing her, kissing her neck and groaning against her. He had stopped crying, she noticed … and neither of them was thinking of Ahramin or Tala or anyone else. He began to unbutton her shirt while she tugged at the button on his jeans. He loomed over her, and he looked at her, truly looked at her, his golden eyes fixed on hers, and she realized he was not drunk in the least and neither was she; they were both completely sober, and they both wanted this, wanted each other, so much.
She pulled him toward her, pulled him closer, to feel his warmth and his strength, and she wanted him … she wanted this to happen … but …
“Wait,” she said. “Wait.”
Not like this, she thought. Not like this. It would be too easy to discount it, too easy to pretend it was just a mistake, just an accident, just a hookup. Because he’d just found out about Tala, because they’d been drinking. She liked him too much for that.
“Wait,” she said.
He fell against her, his body crashing on hers, and rested his head in the crook of her neck. She could feel him breathing against her skin—hard, ragged breaths—as the warmth between them began to cool.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to …”
Then he said no more. He pulled away from her and then he was gone, without another word, without a look back, and even though it had been her idea to stop, Bliss was the one who felt bereft, alone, seated in front of the fireplace, its ashes long gone cold. It was freezing in the room; she hadn’t noticed. Lawson’s body was so warm.
He had disappeared so quickly that for a moment she was uncertain whether anything had truly happened between them, or whether it had just been a dream.
TWENTY-THREE
The next morning the group convened at the van, sipping cups of lukewarm coffee and munching on free doughnuts from the hotel buffet. Bliss nodded to Lawson, who nodded back, tipping his cup toward her. She was determined to put it all behind them and to forget about what had happened the night before. They’d both been really drunk, right? That was all it was. From the way he was acting, it looked as if he felt the same way.
Part of her was annoyed at that, wanted some sort of sign from him that the previous night had mattered—even a little—that he hadn’t just blocked it from his memory.
Then again, what did she really want from him, anyway? A relationship? It was too soon for both of them; she saw that now. Plus, what would happen if he found out who she really was? It was better just to forget about the whole thing. They’d made a mistake getting too close.
Earlier that morning she had bought them all a change of clothes at the gift shop, and of course Ahramin still looked good even in a silly tourist T-shirt and shorts. She was holding court in the middle of the group, the boys hanging on to her every word.
“What’s going on?” Bliss whispered, sliding next to Malcolm. Ahramin and Lawson seemed to be in the middle of an argument.
“Ahramin has news,” Malcolm said. “But Lawson’s not sure if he believes her.”
“What kind of news?”
“You said you knew about the Praetorian Guard?”
“A little, yeah,” she said. “Timekeepers, the emperor’s soldiers, something like that?”
“Something like that.” Malcolm nodded. “It’s what they called us in Rome, but the origin is much older. A long time ago, when the world was first made, the ancient wolves guarded the passages—the dark roads between time and space. We policed the borders between the worlds and guarded the boundaries of the abyss. But during the waning days of the empire, the Guard was corrupted by a Silver Blood emperor, Lucifer, who was called Caligula then. The Dark Prince used the wolves to find the paths of the dead so he could free the demons from the underworld and hold dominion over both earth and Hell. When we realized what he meant to do, we lent our power to Michael and his angels to build the Gates of Hell. But during the Crisis, we were betrayed by Romulus, our beloved general, who delivered us to Lucifer, who enslaved us and turned us into hounds as punishment for our insubordination. Before we were cursed, however, we were able to destroy the chronologs and the memories of the passages to keep them safe.
“Right before we escaped from Hell, Lawson heard that Romulus had found something important. We noticed that the general had taken to wearing an amulet around his neck, something silver and shiny. Rumor had it that it was a chronolog, that one of the packs had found one.”
“What is it?” Bliss asked
. “Is it like a watch?”
Malcolm nodded. “Sort of, it’s a tool that the ancient wolves used to travel through time, a relic from the old empire. It guides you through the passages. All the guards used to have one, it was part of the arsenal.” He sighed. “Anyway, there’s been a lot of movement in the underworld—rumors that Lucifer is after more than just mid-world, that he’s planning to storm the Gates of Paradise themselves. With the chronolog in hand, if Romulus ever found an entrance to the passages, the Dark Prince could control time itself, and become the master of all creation.”
“That can’t happen,” Bliss said. Understatement of the century, she thought. Perhaps of all time. “So you guys didn’t just escape because you were going to be turned into hounds; you wanted to stop Romulus from using the passages to help Lucifer.”
“Yep,” Malcolm said. “If Romulus and his armies could roam the passages, with the ability to alter time, we knew the world was no longer safe. We heard Lucifer had already given him orders—Romulus was to return to the beginning of Rome, to the founding of the empire, during the feast of Neptune.”
“Why then?”
“We don’t know. But we knew we had to do something. Lawson decided he had to act, find a way to break out of Hell, find the passages before Romulus did, and guard them from him. When we broke out of Hell, Lawson kept a portal open for the others to escape.”
“But no one has,” Rafe added. “No one but us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Ahramin interrupted. She had been listening to their conversation all along, Bliss realized, even as she had been arguing with Lawson. “Like I keep telling your brother here, you guys aren’t the only wolves who’ve escaped from Hell.”
Lawson shook his head. “It cannot be, I returned to the rendezvous again and again. I never found any others. Not a single soul.”
“Maybe your portal doesn’t always let out at the same place … ever think of that?” Ahramin asked. “Maybe when they crossed, they didn’t end up at the same location that you did.”
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