“Lucien knows what is required of him,” my father murmured. A deceptively soft purr that lured the unsuspecting into a trap.
I knew better. He was enraged.
“Luc,” I said, very, very carefully, “was crying out for help.” My father blanched. Not a hard ask for a vampire, but one as well fed as Michel Durand could usually avoid such revealing reactions.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. His eyes searching my face, slipping down my body to land on my Sigillum. He watched the colours swirl with tight lips.
“Did it not occur to you,” I said, throwing his words back at him, “that the arena is the last place Luc would ever be found?”
“Of course,” he replied, the words snapping out like a whip. “But unlike you, Lucien usually has a well thought out reason for his actions.”
I stared at him, my heart deflating. I’d always been such a disappointment.
“Élaine,” he said softly, taking a step forward, regret marring his stoic features at last.
I shook my head, let my gaze fall to the floor. The hallway seemed unnaturally quiet.
Until my mother cleared her throat.
“Perhaps it is time to return to the Plaza,” she suggested.
Georgia growled. She always growled when my mother said anything. My lips attempted to curve into something of a smile. Then I caught the look Mama and Papa shared. I couldn’t decipher it. But it was meaningful. And it was all to do with me.
That was it, I’d had enough. I was done. For most of my life I have lived in my parents’ shadows. I may have fucked up tonight, but not once when confronting Hakan had he acted as though I was anything less than a worthy opponent.
I turned to Georgia. Her eyes, still rimmed in the vestiges of her Dark Shadow’s red, held mine.
“It was fun,” she drawled. “Let’s do this again sometime.”
Jett made a snorting sound, then wrapped a hand around her wrist and hauled her down the hall, and out of sight. She didn’t fight him; her Dark Shadow was still too close to the surface. And her Dark Shadow was all Jett’s and no one else’s.
Vampires began to move again, as if given command to come alive. I lifted my eyes to Papa’s and crossed my arms over my chest, my Sigillum still fucking spinning its tell-tale colours.
“There is more going on than you realise,” he said, his French accent in check. His emotions all bottled away nicely.
I nodded my head in reply. There was always more going on than I realised. My father didn’t trust me enough to share all his secrets. Is it any wonder I kept mine?
“But I need to know, you’ll stay away from the Mhachkay.”
He knew that too. How much did my father already know about Hakan Bahar? How much leeway was he giving the foreign vamp because of their shared history? None of this made sense.
“I have no intention of seeking him out,” I gave as answer. I might have been reckless, but contrary to popular belief, I was not stupid. Hakan had won tonight.
But next time I’d be better prepared for the battle.
I could have asked Papa. I could have hounded my mother. I could have even pressed Alain. What did they know about the Mhachkay?
I kept my lips sealed and my face blank.
Papa sighed. It was a good sigh. Weighty.
“Leave your brother’s situation to me,” he instructed. Then reached for my mother’s hand and flashed from sight.
I hated when they did that.
His vampires all followed suit, until it was just me and Alain. Of course it was. I was his betrothed kindred, soon I’d be his problem. Not Papa’s.
“He worries about you,” Alain said, his eyes darkened with emotion.
I offered a snort and nothing else.
“You and he are much alike,” he said, making me roll my eyes as I started to walk out the front door. “You do not see it,” Alain persisted. “You are too close. But you remind Michel of himself.”
“Stop it!” I snapped, rounding on the man. “Enough, all right? Enough.” I turned back to the night and started walking.
I was tired. I was hungry. I was angry. And I was a little lost. Not literally. Figuratively. Parnell was up the hill from the wharves. At least that was something. The walk to Travis’ was all down hill from here.
“Éliane,” Alain called. “Let me drive you to the Plaza.” So, I was expected to tuck tail and behave.
“Are we going to fight again, Alain?” I asked.
“Only if you insist,” he replied steadily, keeping pace.
“I’m not going to the Plaza.”
“Your father has requested it.”
“Ordered it, more like.”
“Éliane, stop this,” he chided softly. “You cannot win.”
I halted in my tracks, staring up into an inky black sky. Clouds blotted out the stars, the swollen orb of the moon glowed menacingly from behind them. A high pitched screech came from the darkness. The clatter of something being broken shattered the night. The rapid clop of running feet on concrete set a rhythm to someone’s heartbeat. None of it reached us. We were cocooned in a bubble of hurt and heartache.
“Do you ever fight back?” I asked, my face still tipped to the night sky.
I felt him come along side me, his feet silent on the rubbish strewn road.
“There are battles that can be won, and battles that should be lost,” he murmured. “You fight when you have to, not when you think you must.”
I turned and looked at my father’s spy master, who had fought more battles for Michel Durand than any of the vampires in his large, large line. Was he a battle I should lose? Or a battle that simply couldn’t be won?
“I don’t want to be joined with you,” I said, the words sounding childlike in their simplicity. I fisted my hands, letting the sharp sting of nails in flesh ground me. “What if I refuse?”
Alain held my stare with an impassive one of his own, as if I hadn’t just resolutely rejected him. A sadness swept into the pale blue of his eyes. Sadness mixed strangely with acceptance. Alain had never met an argument he couldn’t win, and yet he was stepping down now?
No. Of course not.
He reached out and lifted my fisted hand up in his own, his fingers prying mine apart carefully. And then he lay your palms against each other. My hand tingled, I felt the hint of power that we could share. The promise of so much more to be uncovered. Just there, a thin layer of skin between us. One drop of blood each and it would be done.
I pulled my hand back and rubbed it with my other, my eyes narrowed on the man before me.
“He has brought the joining forward,” Alain said quietly.
I shook my head, taking a step back.
“He has lost Luc,” Alain pressed. “He is determined not to lose you as well.”
“Has he given up on my brother?” I demanded, my body beginning to shake with shock and rage and confusion. My father never gave up on anything, let alone his prodigal son.
Alain shook his head, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, as if just realising they were empty and he wasn’t sure what to do with that fact, and held my gaze.
“Luc is where he needs to be, Éliane,” he said. “And you need to be with me.”
“No.”
“Less than three weeks to go, why is bringing the joining forward so hard to accept?” The unasked was there; in the way he looked at me, intently, focused entirely on the smallest nuisances my features provided. I could have sworn he was holding his breath.
Why was joining with him so hard to accept?
“Alain,” I said, wishing there was a way to make this easier. Accept him or reject him. Neither left me feeling at all right.
I rubbed my stomach, felt the ribbons inside flip and twist. My hand clenched, I pressed harder against my abdomen, my eyes scrunching shut as I willed the sensation forming to go away.
All it did was make it bigger. Larger than me. Too sizeable to fight.
I heard Alain say something. Indistinct. Dis
tant. Then felt the brush of tiny tendrils of delight. Anticipation. Eagerness. Hunger. Desire.
A pull that had me lurching in one direction, while Alain called me from another.
And then the world around me changed.
Night became day. The moon became the sun. The road I walked on became an intricately patterned carpet instead. Spices reached my nose; rich and cloying, making me lick my lips. Music danced around me; soft and enticing. The smell of sunshine and heat, jasmine and cinnamon, cardamon and cloves wafted on the warm air. The touch of fingers across my collarbone, the press of soft lips against my neck, the sting of teeth scraping across flesh.
I arched my back, bared the pulse thrumming at the base of my throat, and fell gently backwards onto soft cushions.
I blinked. The world momentarily matching the vision. Bright colours; golds and reds, rich purples and deep greens. And then the darkness of Auckland City on a cloudy night closed in.
Alain loomed above me, his arms wrapped around my shoulders, his face a mixture of horror and awe.
“What was that?” he said in French. “Where were we?” he asked, still in his native tongue.
His eyes searched my face, one arm holding me tightly to his chest, the other brushing my hair aside as though he’d touched me like that a million times in the past. The familiarity went both ways. I didn’t pull back. I didn’t twist out of his grasp. I lay there and looked at him, a mirror image, I should think, of his emotions playing across my face.
“I…I don’t know,” I stammered.
“A talent,” he said, now speaking in English. It wasn’t a question either. “A strong one. Dream Walking?” That last was asked as though to himself. I suddenly felt uncomfortable.
I pushed out of his hold, realising we’d been in the middle of the road leading out of Parnell. Dirt and bits of Goddess alone knows what clung to my leathers. I dusted them off and began walking, fast. As fast as I could from this place. From him. From my birthright and my destiny.
“You cannot outpace this,” Alain said at my side. Too perceptive by far.
“I can sure as hell try,” I offered.
“You are powerful,” he replied, as though this should calm me. It did anything but. “You have new talents that must be contained.”
“Why?” I snapped. “Why do you care?”
He gave a soft French snort in reply.
“I get the whole doing as my father bids thing,” I hissed. “But you are not simply a puppet, Dupont. You can’t be.” Was that a plea to him or myself?
He ignored my outburst. “What else has manifested?”
I shook my head, ground my teeth, and stormed heedlessly onto the wharves.
“Ellie,” Alain said, gaining some traction with the use of my nickname. “Please,” he added, making the fight drain out of me and my surroundings come into better focus.
People hunched around a barrel of fire off to the side of the rubble strewn road; homeless and desperate, quite willing to follow us with their eyes, trying to see if we had a weakness. Not all of them were Norms. I spotted a taniwha shifter and a ghoul, the flash of red eyes might have belonged to a vampire, the sound of a howl to something else.
I kicked up rubbish and rocks, scattering an empty tin can towards the onlookers. I offered a glare to follow up the threat. Some turned away, while others just watched more closely.
The wharves were on edge tonight.
“We should leave,” Alain said, whisper quiet. “Something is amiss,” he added.
I slowed my pace, one hand resting on the hilt of a stake. The other itching to draw my sword. Adrenaline made the tastebuds on my tongue burst to life; sounds became too loud; smells too potent.
I slipped my cellphone out of its pocket and swiped at the screen with unseeing eyes. My gaze was for our surroundings. The call connected and went to voicemail. Travis always picked up, no matter what time.
I stopped in the middle of several derelict buildings, a creepy chill slowly climbing up my spine. With my head tilted I listened to the night. Everything sounded ominous but normal, yet something wasn’t right.
The ribbons within twisted abruptly, snapping and knotting like arthritic fingers inside. Bile coated my tongue. I swallowed and glanced towards Alain. His eyes glowed a soft cyan, crimson edging the lighter colour. His gaze met mine; he flashed fang. His vampire-within smiled.
“Fey,” he said softly.
“Ljósálfar,” I whispered back and received a raised eyebrow. There was no smell of ozone mixed with peaches. And if my father suspected the Light Fey of having broken the chains that bound them, he had not confided in the head of his spies.
“There was one at the Guts & Glory,” I murmured, my eyes back on our surroundings, my words only loud enough for Alain to hear. “And Hakan’s.”
“Hakan’s,” Alain repeated.
I did meet his gaze then; his look was more disgruntled than alarmed.
“It distracted me,” I said, holding his challenging gaze. “That’s how Hakan got the drop on me.” It was as good an excuse as any.
“Hakan?” Alain repeated, this time probing, ignoring my explanation and homing in on my familiar use of the vampire’s name instead.
I smirked, offered a shoulder shrug, and started walking. Whatever was out there hadn’t attacked. Yet.
“Please tell me you aren’t getting attached,” Alain demanded, his voice laced with unbridled anger.
I huffed out a breath. “Really? That’s what you’ve got to say right now?”
“You are easily impressed, Bébé,” he drawled, somehow managing to make me both relax with the familiar use of his nickname for me, and become riled.
“Says the vampire who does my father’s bidding. No questions asked.”
“I ask questions,” he argued. “I ask a lot.”
“Like, how high?” I pressed.
He smiled; it was shockingly beautiful.
“Like,” he said, eyes sweeping down my body, “how soon?”
I turned away and ducked beneath a broken arch, coming out in the courtyard that led to Travis’. And knew immediately that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
My Svante was in my hand before the breath escaped me. Regardless of what it showed anyone who cared to watch. My heart flipped. Those ribbons tangled beyond comprehension. Light thrumming all around us, as Alain’s Sanguis Vitam attempted to soothe.
“No,” I whispered.
“Éliane,” Alain said urgently, reaching for my arm, but I’d already moved.
I should have known better. I should have recognised the trap for what it was.
Travis’ building a crumbled mess, no longer habitable at all, matching the decaying disarray of the wharves. The lack of sound, the eery quiet, the missing whir of electronically controlled guns. The smell of smoke, charred wood, melted metal. The gaping hole in the middle of the courtyard, that led down to Travis’ garage and whatever precious things he hid underground there.
I’d managed half a dozen steps, leaping toward what remained of my friend’s home, before the trap snapped closed around me.
Alain shouted a warning, and then followed it up with a series of swearwords in French, English and I was thinking perhaps Latin. Then my body lurched one way, and then another, as pain shot through my arm, directly into my Sigillum.
And the ribbons danced, twirling in a synchronised rhythm, winding tighter and tighter, twisting and turning, and finally snapping apart.
A scream tore from my lips, but no sound emerged. Red glowing eyes met mine across an invisible chasm, rage so pure it made me smile.
I’d never seen Alain so frantic before.
And then he was gone. And so was the courtyard. And Travis’ destroyed home. And the wharves.
Replaced with the sickly sweet smell of burned peaches.
11
That’s All
Something tugged inside me, something strong and determined and real. I made a sound, even to my ears it was pathetic. And
then the pull ramped up, the tug intensified, and a scream was torn from my throat.
It felt raw. This wasn’t the first time I’d screamed, but I had no recollection of any others. In fact, I had no idea where I was, how long I had been here. Why I was being slowly pulled apart.
I tried to move. I couldn’t. For the first time since consciousness had returned I recognised the terror I was feeling.
I tried to swallow. My throat was dry, the action hurt. But not as much as the tug that kept on pulling, drawing, sucking something from me. I didn’t know what, but I knew once it was gone, it would be gone forever.
Terror mixed with desolation mixed with confusion and then I wondered just what colours my Sigillum was making. The question had me opening my eyes.
For a moment, I thought I was floating in darkness, but I could feel the hardness of something pressing into my back, and the soft breeze that carried the sweet scent of flowers, and the warmth of a sun that trickled in from outside, slowly making the room coalesce around me.
Relief that I was alone was the first thing that registered. Then horror at my predicament.
I was lying on stone, from the angle of shadows that were becoming more and more distinct, it was above the level of the floor. An altar? The walls were rough, not smooth, the ceiling rounded. The room a cavern of some description, inside a cave. The entrance led into a tunnel, I couldn’t see outside, but I knew the tunnel led towards the sunlight I could feel. The flowers I could scent.
It led to possible escape.
I tried to move. My body remained immobile, and I realised the only thing I’d shifted in the past few minutes had been my head, my eyes. I stretched my neck, trying to look down the length of me, trying to discover what had me trapped, what was stopping me from jumping up and running as far and as fast as I could from this nightmare.
A sharp inhalation of breath was all the sound I made, as I watched the colours on my Sigillum bleed into the air above my arm. Sage, mint green and lime, intertwined with ribbons of blue, magenta and violet. They twirled above my skin, dancing on the still air in the cave, twisting like the sensations I feel deep down inside my stomach.
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