Evernight (The Night Watchmen Series Book 2)

by Candace Knoebel

  “You must be so unfortunate,” Cassie says with a sneer. Gavin flicks his eyes to her, telling her to be quiet.

  “No, dear, it’s you that is unfortunate,” Clara says. Her words roll out on a red carpet, heading toward a fighting ring that only she can conquer. “Heeling to the whims of a fatal love affair. Giving your life over to a curse that isn’t even yours to begin with… that’s misfortune at its finest. That’s a sad cry amongst women.”

  I know Cassie’s about to snap because I smell the earthy scent of her magic forming around her. I’m the only one who can calm this situation. I see this in Seamus’ probing gaze. He’s watching me, studying me, waiting to see how I’ll respond. How I deal when pressed under a thousand-pound weight of agonizing pressure.

  He’s about to find out that I do not crack.

  “No, Clara,” I say. My gaze locks on hers. “You’re mistaking independence with solitude. You’re the most unfortunate at this table. It’s you who will die alone, without anyone left to mourn for you. You think you’ve won by cutting everyone who matters to you from your life? By abandoning them? Well, you’re wrong, because the end is approaching for you, and when you reach out for that one small thing that has made your life worth living, that one thing that will carry on your legacy, you’ll find nothing but an empty wasteland.”

  She drops her napkin. Her face turns to a bright shade of pink. I think steam rolls out of her ears. “You think I’m such an awful person?” she snaps back, crossing her hands in her lap. Straightening her spine. “So untrustworthy? You spit my progress back in my face, thinking that you’re attacking a weak link in my armor, but you’re far from wrong. You’re so naïve and trusting that it’s disgusting. Why don’t you start in your own circle of trust?”

  The atmosphere around the table grows tense. Edgar riddles his fingers together, a smile forming across his face. This is pure entertainment for him, and it makes me sick.

  “Why don’t you put your own ‘friends’ to the test?” Clara presses on, raising her eyebrows.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, but I already know. It’s about the secret they all share—the secret Jaxen has yet to let me in on.

  Jaxen’s so still, so quiet. Panic has forced his eyes wide. Clenched his fists against his thighs.

  My heart turns sluggish. Coldness settles into my bones. There’s a sour taste in my mouth because I think that whatever it is he’s been hiding from me, Clara must be a part of. She, and everyone else, knows, and I’m the only one dangling in the dark.

  Stupid me.

  “Your parents, they worked with the Gramm brothers and their partners before, correct?” Clara smiles deviously, knowing she has me right where she wants me. Like always.

  Jaxen tenses next to me, and I feel it all the way to my core. Dread like spiders crawls up the back of my spine and settles in my mind, waiting to trap my trust in its web. My fingers grip the edges of the chair. “Jaxen?” I hear myself say, though the strength in my voice is not my own. It’s a mask constructed to keep the laughter spewing from Edgar and Clara’s lips from tearing me apart.

  He shuts his eyes, presses his lips tightly together, and then exhales out every bit of the lies he’s held within. “I saw your parents the night they disappeared,” he says. Regret and remorse slink in between each syllable, trying to offer comfort in the words my mind digests.

  “What?”

  “We were on a mission, Faye. Mack assigned us to investigate a Witch who was dealing with Bael and trying to raise the Darkyn Coven. Your parents… they were the head of that mission.”

  I think I might be having a heart attack. I know what I thought betrayal felt like before, feels nothing like what I’m feeling right now. It can’t even touch the sick feeling that’s wracking through my stomach, shaking in my shoulders.

  “Wait… you’re telling me that you were there with my parents? The night they disappeared?” I’m surprised those two questions came out as easily and as calmly as they did, because on the inside, I’m surely dying.

  He nods, looking everywhere but at me, and I want to slap him. I want to force his eyes on me so he can see the pain that’s ripping me into shreds. I want him to face me in all his deceit because he owes me that much for opening my heart up to him. For trusting him.

  “You knew what happened to them, and you didn’t tell me? All this time… all this time that I’ve questioned, wondered, and suffered over not having any answers, and you’ve known all along. You could have put some of that pain to ease with just telling me the truth.”

  I can barely get the words out. My mind is on fire. It’s singeing through my skull, burning through my body. He tries to take my hand, but I yank away from him. Shame and sadness pool in his eyes.

  I look around the table at the rest of my friends… at everyone else who knew and never told me. Even though I’m pissed at them, it still doesn’t burn the way it does when I think about Jaxen. When I think about all the thoughts and feelings I’ve shared with him… the times I’ve cried on his shoulder, mourning the loss of my parents, and never once did he open his mouth.

  I scoot my chair back, pressing my arm against my stomach to contain the urge to vomit.

  “Faye, please. I don’t know what happened to them. None of us do. All I know is that they caught wind of someone’s involvement… someone in the Priesthood. I tried to stop them from digging any further. I tried to tell them it would only get them killed, but I was so caught up in dealing with the Witch we had contained that I didn’t get a chance to go after them. I couldn’t protect them.”

  I don’t realize I’m standing.

  I barely even hear Clara and Edgar’s laughter as I rush out of the restaurant. All I know is that I can’t breathe. My lungs are compressed in betrayal, and no matter how hard I try to suck in air, it won’t come. I bump into too many faceless people and stumble down a foreign street that never seems to end.

  Moonlight spills onto the concrete before me, its guiding beam seeming to point me in a direction I can only follow. I don’t stop until I reach the edge of fountain, collapsing onto the marbled seat carved around it, trying to catch a breath. Just one. I’m too numb to cry, too numb to feel the pain I know is pressing against my shattered heart.

  All I can do is collide with this train wreck of reality and hope that I come out on the other side in one piece.

  I knew they had been taken. I knew they were in the Underground. But never once did I think Jaxen had anything to do with it. Never once did I question that he knew more than he was telling me. I thought we had made it past the point of secrets. Past the point of cover-ups.

  I was wrong.

  I don’t move his arms off me when he wraps them around me from behind. I feel his head lean against mine, almost as if he needs me for the support. He sucks in a ragged breath, and conflict battles within me.

  “I love your parents, Faye. Maybe even more than I love my own. I wanted to tell you what I knew so many times.”

  “Then why didn’t you?”

  He swallows hard. “Because I didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t tell you, because telling you would make it real. It would make the fact that I couldn’t protect them real.”

  He takes my face in his hands and begs me to look at him, but my eyes are so heavy, stuck on a spot on the ground.

  “I’m so… I’m so pissed at you right now. So angry, Jaxen.” Just the admittance makes me feel a little better. “I get what you’re saying—that it was hard for you—but you should have told me. That truth should have been brought up from your lips, not Clara’s.” I pause, sucking in a huge breath as realization slams into me. “I think that’s what’s eating me up the most.”

  His gaze falls.

  I want to yell, scream, and cry away this awful feeling that gnaws away at the bones protecting my heart, but I can’t. I can’t because I’ve come to realize something about Jaxen Gramm. Something that, if spoken aloud, would change the dynamics between
us forever.

  I can’t because I love him, and no matter what mistakes he makes, I know he loves me too, and he would never do anything to intentionally hurt me. Not like this. This was Clara’s attempt at breaking me once again, and I won’t let her take him from me. Not again.

  “I’m so sorry, Faye. I tried to stay away from you. I tried to push you away because of what had happened, because of my own guilt, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t.” He turns my face to meet his endless green eyes, which are drowning in turmoil. They’re so terribly sad that it’s killing me inside. “You’re the light I never thought I’d see. I couldn’t give that up. I won’t. Ever.”

  “I don’t understand,” I manage to say, biting my lip to keep it from trembling. To keep the quake of tears away. “What made you feel so guilty that you couldn’t tell me?”

  He plunges a shaky hand through his hair and tugs. He’s struggling to find the right words that will fix this. “I’m guilty for the reason why I couldn’t protect your parents.” He sucks in a breath. “Right before I met you, Gavin, Cassie, Jezi, and I were on a mission—one right before we were assigned to the one with your parents. We had to bring a club ran by a demon down. That demon tried to propose a deal and offered us a spell that would supposedly break the Gramm curse. I didn’t believe it, but I couldn’t say no for a number of reasons, most of which revolved around saving my brother. But the stipulation was that we needed a Witch’s blood in order to complete the spell. A blood sacrifice to be exact. None of us were willing to go out and kill a Witch just to serve our own needs, so I thought the coast was clear.”

  The strain in his voice tears at every string of strength holding me together. I reach out and caress the side of his face, tracing the lines of sadness, wishing that my fingers had the magic to erase them. But no amount of magic can fix a crippled soul. Only love can, and that’s what I intend to give him.

  “But shortly after the encounter with the demon, we were put on the assignment with your parents, investigating a corrupt Witch who was supposedly dabbling in affairs with Bael. Mack made it clear that if we found this Witch to be a traitor, then we could use him to perform the ritual for the spell.

  “I tried to keep us from doing it, but Gavin and Jezi were relentless, and I was… I was weak. I gave in because, deep down, I didn’t want to die. So we went through with the spell, only to find out that the demon had indeed lied. We killed another of our kind for nothing. We committed a crime. It wasn’t until the next day, the day of the Culling, that I found out about Russell and Mary.”

  I try not to wince when he says their names. I don’t want to see my mother’s loving face, with her hair held back by a pencil, or my dad’s proud smile. But for all my efforts, I fail miserably. My heart shrivels up further, and I’m suddenly scared there can be no remedy. No redemption for my hopeless situation.

  “I don’t understand though… how did that keep you from saving them?”

  “Because I knew they were going after the other person involved— someone on the Priesthood—and instead of finding them and stopping them, I was performing the ritual, taking the law into my own hands, killing one of my own for my own needs. I accepted Russell’s insistence that he and Mary continue on without us because it was the right thing to do, and it would keep us safe, only because I wanted to perform the ritual.”

  “He would say that,” I say, my voice distant. I don’t look at him. I don’t want to see the uncomfortable sympathy swimming in his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Faye. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for this to happen.” He buries his face in his hands, sucking in a ragged breath.

  Without thinking, I pull him into a hug and tuck my face into his shoulder. He smells so warm and inviting. I wish I could stay like this forever. Safe and warm. “It’s not your fault, Jaxen,” I finally say, feeling the confines of disappointment breaking away.

  He stills. “Yes, Faye. I could have—”

  “What?” I say, cutting him off. Leaning back, I find his green eyes. “You could have stopped my father? My mother? Do you not remember them? They were stern, Jaxen. Set in their ways. They were devoted to the Coven, and to every single mission they accepted. There was nothing you could have done to stop what happened.”

  “I could have destroyed the spell. Insisted that I join them when they confronted whoever was involved on the Priesthood. Talked to Mack—”

  “No.”

  He stops, his eyes scrunching in confusion.

  “What happened, happened, and it happened for a reason,” I continue, trying so hard to believe my own words. “That’s the way life works and, once you accept that, then you can finally heal. Move on. Find some form of happiness in your life.”

  Reaching out, he caresses my face, his other hand resting comfortably on my shoulder. He leans forward until his forehead is resting against mine. He’s a breath away, and it suddenly feels too far. Too distant. I grab him by the collar and pull him in for a kiss. A soul-saving kind of kiss. Passion explodes behind my lips as I weave every broken piece of him back together.

  When he pulls back, he licks his lips and his eyes settle on mine. “I don’t deserve you.”

  My heart skips to the stars. “Yes, you do.”

  The left side of his mouth lifts, then the right, and then he’s wearing a full-blown smile. The kind that could change the world. “You’re amazing.” He kisses me, slower this time, instilling every bit of his words.

  My thoughts become clouds drifting in the sky, riding the tail of an afternoon breeze. I can’t stop them; I can only drift with them, letting them take me into the unknown. His fingers lace through my hair until he’s gripping the back of my head, holding me so tightly. I lavish in the lightness spreading through my chest. Clara didn’t win. Through all her cruelty and hateful words—

  I pull away from him as a cold jolt of realization strikes me. “She made you do it.”

  “Huh?” he asks, his lips inches from mine.

  It takes a moment for the fuzzy memory to straighten out. For the words to separate from the blood she spilled on my behalf.

  “She said it… right before you saved me. When she wanted me to kill Jonathon. She said she made you murder one of your own. Why would she say that?”

  He flinches back a little, his eyes pressed in question. “What are you talking about?”

  “You said you killed one of our own. She wanted me to do just that to test out my ability. To gain control of it. When I lost it, I asked her if that’s what she really wanted, and she said she got you to do it. The Witch you killed for the sacrifice… he was the only one you killed, right?”

  I don’t like the shades of color that drain from his face. “Yes,” he says slowly as the truth makes its appearance.

  “And you said that my parents never mentioned who it was on the High Priesthood that drove the Witch to do the things he did.”

  He drags a hand over his mouth, his eyes distant, searching through memories. “Your mother mentioned that it was a female…”

  My heart pounds as the pieces click in place. “It was Clara. I feel it in my bones. It has to be,” I say, jolting out of my seat.

  He pulls me back down. “Even so, we can’t just storm in front of the High Priesthood and accuse Clara without any evidence. Seamus is on our side, but you saw Edgar. There are many more on her side that pull weight. Probably more than we know of.”

  “So, let’s gather enough evidence then,” I say with conviction, feeling for the first time as if things are shifting in my favor. Like my place is forming within me.

  His eyebrows dip and his voice drops. He looks all around us, checking for any who could be listening. “What are you talking about, Faye? How can we do that? We have to prepare for the seal. You heard Seamus. You’ve seen the news… what the Darkyns are doing. We can’t let him down. We can’t let the Coven down.”

  “You said you wanted to make this right,” I say, biting my lip, knowing that I’m about to u
se his own guilt against him. “If you meant it, then help me figure out who that lady was my mother spoke of. Help me finish what my parents started.”

  He plunges a hand through his hair, blowing out all his pent-up thoughts. I don’t know how I can be so exhilarated and sad at the same time. Thinking of my parents is the worst pain ever, but knowing that I can do something in their honor… do something that could potentially save them… I can’t pass it up.

  When I find his eyes, my heart freezes up. He looks so unsure… so uncertain.

  “I just don’t think we’ll have enough time to squeeze in an investigation, Faye. Not of that magnitude.”

  I take in a sharp breath. Ponder his words. Kick myself for knowing that I’m manipulating him. It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop. I won’t. Not until my parents are avenged.

  “We’ll make time,” I finally say, deciding I’m not going to pass this up. “And we’ll find a way. I understand if you don’t want to be involved, and I won’t hold it against you, but I have to do this, Jaxen. I have to. She has to be stopped.”

  I see the relenting in his eyes and feel myself breathe out in relief.

  “You’re not going to give this up, are you?” he asks, leaning in to kiss me on the forehead. He throws an arm over my shoulder and pulls me into him.

  “Would you if the roles were reversed?”

  He chuckles. “No.”

  I press my face closer against him, basking in his warmth and his scent. “This feels right, Jaxen. I know she had something to do with it.”

  “Yeah, well, let me figure something out before you go making any rash decisions, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  He pulls me back into a hug. “This wasn’t what I had in mind for our first date.”

  “When does anything ever work out the way it’s supposed to?” I say. “If I had to pick between a romantic evening, and finding out who was behind my parent’s disappearance for a date, I’d take the latter any day. I’m spending time with you and hunting at the same time. It’s a productive date.”