by Rye Brewer
His words left me cold inside. It might have been the coldness in his voice, coldness which spoke of deep disappointment. Disgust, perhaps. I’d told myself countless times over my many years that it mattered not whether anyone approved of me.
I’d believed it, too, because it had been the truth. Only Elazar had mattered, though we were so often simpatico I’d never considered explaining myself to him.
Except in one case, which I knew was what Stark had in mind.
“I did what I did to Samara,” I offered, spreading my hands in a shrug. “And I would do it again if it meant freeing my brother from her—”
“Spare me the revisionist history of your brother’s misdeeds,” he growled. “You can paint him in any shade you like, but you cannot change who and what he was.”
“And just who and what would that happen to be? Need I remind you how poorly I take to those who speak ill of him?”
“You need not—but you know the truth already. You can’t bear to hear it, even if you hear it from yourself. Samara did not lead your brother down the wrong path. He did not require leading.”
“That is quite enough.”
“No, it isn’t.” He crossed to the desk, leaning over it until his face was mere inches from mine. His handsome face, one whose image I had called up in my mind more times than I could count.
Strange how he didn’t appear so handsome to me just then, sneering down from his position atop a high horse. “Elazar chose for himself at every turn. Samara was only to blame for her own actions. Not for his. While she was far from a blameless party, she didn’t deserve the end you delivered. I’ve remained silent thus far.”
“Except when holding it over my head,” I whispered, glaring back with just as much intensity.
“I never spoke a word of it to him,” he was quick to remind me. “You know what it would have done. What he would have done to you. Sister or no, Samara was his mate.”
“And nothing in life has ever given me as much pleasure as I gained from killing her. There. Is that what you wish to hear? You’ve heard it. But allow me to advise you, my old friend.” I stood, holding his gaze throughout. “You’ve made a bad habit of judging others who’ve done no worse than you have done. Just because you’ve distanced yourself from your past doesn’t mean it disappears. You can never wipe the slate clean.”
This shook him, but only slightly. He took a backward step. “I can do my best. Every day. And I have.”
“I applaud you,” I yawned. “Still, you are in no position to judge me or anybody else. If Sara’s desire to seek revenge has turned into obsession, that is through no fault of mine. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
He looked fit to burst, his chest expanding, his nostrils flaring. “I pity you.”
There was nothing he could have said which would have wounded me more deeply, and he knew it.
“Get out.”
“You finally have what you wanted.” He backed away, a wry smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “I congratulate you. You freed your brother, who managed to get himself killed. You emptied the island. You are the queen in her castle. And you are alone.”
I held onto the edge of the desk, trembling with rage. “I told you to get out.”
“I’m going. I can hardly wait to put this place behind me forever. Among other things.” He turned away from me then, affording me one last look at his broad back, his lustrous dark hair—how I’d longed to run my fingers through it, so many times—before blending into the shadows of the hall beyond.
Leaving me alone again.
I sank into my chair, quaking inside. There was pressure in my chest, a foreign sensation which I nonetheless recognized from my distant past. The urge to weep.
I would not weep, no matter how much relief it would bring. I would not.
17
Anton
Genevieve looked aghast, thunderstruck. “You don’t understand.”
I shook my head. “I do. I understand all too well.”
“You can’t,” she insisted. “Not if you’re able to take that defeated tone with me. You don’t understand what I went through, and how desperate I was to escape. I tried to explain—”
“You explained perfectly well,” I assured her. “You were in a tight position and had no choice but to promise anything under the sun, so long as Jonah Bourke released you.”
“I only did it to get back to you. You are the only person who matters.”
I held up a finger. “That isn’t entirely true, and we both know it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there is one person who means more than I do.” I pointed my finger at her. “Your instinct for self-preservation is admirable. I’ve always thought so.”
Her pale cheeks flushed. “You can’t mean that the way it sounds.”
“And how does it sound?”
“It sounds as though you think I used you.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No!”
“Genevieve.”
I was so tired. We’d been through so much, and we weren’t yet home free. It would’ve been easier to let go of the argument, certainly, but from my perspective, there was nothing to argue over.
Her hands shook, but she was silent.
“You did what you had to do. You told him what he needed to hear when he needed to hear it, thinking no further ahead than the current moment. You were taking care of yourself. I cannot fault you for that.”
She pressed her lips together in a thin line, so thin they all but disappeared, before replying. “I don’t want you to believe I would use you callously, as if you were nothing more than a pawn. I would never.”
“I know you never would, and you more than likely had no intention of delivering on your promise to Jonah.” I couldn’t help but smile the slightest bit when she colored again. “It isn’t like you to blush, my love.”
“I don’t often feel the need to do so. Perhaps…” She looked away, suddenly fascinated by the floor. “Perhaps I’ve done a lot of thinking. I don’t often take the time to look back upon my actions. How they might have affected those around me.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve grown a conscience.” I snorted. “You know your wicked ways were part of the reason I fell in love with you. I might have to develop a conscience of my own, and then where would we be?”
She snickered at this. “We both know you have a conscience. If you had none, you would’ve killed your mother the moment she got in our way. You don’t possess that ruthlessness. Not that I blame you. This isn’t a criticism. Merely a fact.”
I shrugged that off. Margaux was the last person I felt like discussing, nor did I wish to crack open our difficult relationship and dissect its inner workings.
“No one wants to hear that the one they love above all others believes the worst in them,” she murmured. “It would break my heart to know you believed me capable of playing you false.”
“I would never believe that. I only meant to say that I know what I would do if I were in that situation. My freedom would take precedence over all else. It isn’t so different now, truly.”
“How so?”
“We got away, but now what? I would’ve done anything to get us away from Isolde, from my parents and their guards. We’ve done that now. We’re free. But for how long? Now, we have to think beyond that. And unfortunately, we must consider the consequences of Isolde’s death. Both my family and hers will be after us. We got away, but the stakes are doubly high.”
She let out a long breath through pursed lips. “You certainly know how to inspire confidence.”
“I never said there was no way for us to get through this. Only that I understand how far you were willing to go and how you might now regret what you did to escape the dungeon. Not that I regret Isolde being dead now. If anything, I’d like to have been the one to do it myself. But I would certainly regret it if her father caught up to us. You understand.”
“I do.”
“An
d I understand why you used me as a means of escape. Now that we have that out of the way, what next? Do we go to Jonah and request amnesty?”
“What if he demands something from you in return?”
“The most he can demand is information on Dietrich,” I reasoned. “That has to be why our kind even matters to him. My brother caused trouble. Quite a bit of it. I know little of his doings in the States, and from what I understand, his cohorts were killed along with him. And good riddance. I can offer no more than that.”
“What if it isn’t enough?”
“Then it isn’t enough, but if he possesses even a shred of honor, he will accept that I had nothing to do with my brother’s business and will at least let us go on our way. Refusing to protect us is one thing, but refusing to let us go on our way is another.” I studied her, gauging her reaction. “You know him better than I. What do you think will be his reaction?”
She chuckled. “I’ve learned by now not to predict anything Jonah Bourke will do. I could never have guessed he would hold me in a dungeon for the murder of Lucian, when I quite clearly had nothing to do with it. Everyone witnessed it. Yet he used the murder as an excuse to lock me away. Along with Marcus.”
She looked down at her folded hands, staring at them as she had at the floor. I knew this meant there was something she had to say but did not want to say. “I couldn’t have him hanging around my neck once I was free. I simply couldn’t.”
“I understand.”
“Of course you do. You understand me. But I’ve burned so many bridges—too many, perhaps, and it gives me pause. What if aligning yourself with me, so to speak, hurts you in the end? I have so few allies. If Jonah turns on me, I’ll have virtually no one but you. This doesn’t make me the ideal traveling partner. Or life partner.”
I knelt before her, taking her hands in mind. “I don’t care about that. I don’t care what you’ve done or how many allies you’ve alienated. Or even killed,” I added with a smile, hoping to lighten her mood.
It didn’t help, it seemed, as she frowned, then went on to explain.
“I only considered myself. What I wanted, what I needed. I never thought about the future. It would take care of itself. Now, there’s you. And us. I cannot have you paying for the choices I’ve made.”
I let this sink in for a moment before growling in disgust, flinging her hands away. My wolf knew an attempt at a break-up when he smelled it. “You mean you want us to be finished? Over? You think I’ll go on my merry way simply because you’ve made mistakes? You don’t think I’ve made mistakes, too?”
“Anton…” she pleaded, and though I’d turned my back, I heard tears in her voice. “Please, don’t hate me.”
“I never have!” I roared, all but shaking the little boat as I whirled on her. “Never! I’ve never asked you to explain yourself, and never have I given you the impression that your past meant anything to me. Have I? Tell me the truth.”
She remained steady in the face of my rage. “No. You never have.”
“Then why? When all I’ve done is love you.”
She stood, taking my face in her hands. “Calm your wolf. I am not rejecting you. Either of you. I can feel his pain underneath your anger, but you need not be angry. I want what is best for you.”
“You don’t think I’m the judge of what is best for me?” I covered her hands with mine, mentally cataloging the feel of them against my skin. “You are what’s best for me. To hell with the rest of the world. You’re all I happen to want and all I care about. We’ll make our own way if we can’t find friends in New York. We’ll start over, just the two of us.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I want that. I do.”
“Then let’s take it. We’ve always taken what we wanted before now, haven’t we? I know I have. And I love the way you do it, too. You refuse to allow the world to make the rules on your behalf. You refuse to obey. You are your own creation. You answer to no one but yourself. Why would you stop listening to yourself now? Why start caring so much what the rest of the world believes?”
The last thing I expected was for her to laugh, but she did—genuinely, too. “You don’t know? Because I truly love you, and I’ve never been able to say that before. I don’t know how to protect someone I love, how to care for them. To do what is best for them. But that’s what I want. Only the best for you. If that means our separation—if I am in any way a liability, if I jeopardize you, I would rather face life alone.”
“I don’t care.” I kissed away her tears before taking her in my arms. “I don’t. I don’t care a bit. I want you, no one but you, now and always. I walked away from everything false, every stupid thing that never truly mattered. All of it in favor of you, of us. Please, don’t leave me now.”
I had never needed anyone, ever. Not the way I needed her. Just as loving and wanting the best for her beloved was foreign to Genevieve, needing someone the way I needed oxygen was foreign to me—and even more so to my wolf, though being without her would’ve been harder on him.
“All right, then,” she sighed, her cheek to my chest. “I suppose you have no choice but to continue on with me.”
“Ask me if I’m the least bit upset,” I chuckled, kissing her head in spite of a rather dusty and disheveled state. “Now, to negotiate our passage to the States. I’m well-acquainted with several cargo boat captains who once operated along the Bertrand shipping routes. I’ve, eh, used their services to transport goods from other places.”
“You don’t have to tell me what those goods were,” she murmured with a wry grin.
“I won’t,” I agreed. “At any rate, if I can get us to Marseille, I know they make a stop there on the way through to the Atlantic, then on to New York. I’ve lost track of the number of favors they owe me, all of them. There’s no reason why they wouldn’t allow us to stow aboard.”
I nearly expected her nose to wrinkle at the thought of such rough accommodations, but that would have meant discarding all she had already suffered and risen above. This Genevieve possessed all of the qualities I’d fallen in love with, along with one more. A core of pure steel that would allow her to adapt to unpleasant situations.
“You’re certain of this?” Brilliant, blue eyes studied me, dark brows frowning above them. “You’re absolutely certain this is how you wish to move forward?”
“It’s the only plan I can think up,” I admitted with a shrug. “Neither of us has the resources to rely on at easy disposal. And it would be better for us to travel unnoticed—”
“I didn’t mean that.” She stroked my stubble-covered cheek, and I turned my head to kiss her palm. It was chafed, roughened by our activities. Rest and a steady diet of blood would turn it smooth again.
I sighed before asking, “You meant, am I certain of you?” She nodded, uncertainty creasing her brow. “You know, too much worry causes wrinkles.”
She swatted me. “Oh, shut up.”
“I mean it.”
“I know, but now is hardly the time.”
I pulled her close again. “If not now, when? Yes, I’m certain. I’m running out of ways to assure of you of my certainty. And if you’re certain as well, I’d best pull up anchor and start moving.”
She drew a deep breath—a bit shaky, as new beginnings tended to be. “All right, then. We had better get on the move if we hope to make it to Marseille.”
18
Cari
That was one way to command the attention of everyone in the room. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
My father froze, eyes bulging. There was something gratifying about that. Seeing him come undone. He wasn’t in control anymore—at least, not for now. He had to wait, and watch, and hope while somebody else decided what would happen next.
It had to be killing him. I sort of loved knowing it did, even though my desperation was very real. He couldn’t take Gage away from me, not when I would have no idea what was happening to him. What they were doing to him.
Things my father would nev
er dare do in front of me.
“Carissa.” His voice took on an I’m-speaking-to-a-willful-child tone. “Put the gun down.”
“No. I don’t think I will. Not until you tell them to leave him here. With me. Unrestrained.”
One of the men in coats made a move, like he thought he could catch me off-guard and overpower me. All the work they’d done with vampires, and yet they somehow understood nothing about us. I whirled around in the blink of an eye—much faster than he could’ve reacted, being nothing but a slow, clumsy human—and glared at him until he stood down.
It seemed clear that none of them did much thinking about us outside of their test results. Did we heal, how quickly did it take for healing to start, that sort of thing.
Nothing about our speed. All that time spent studying and murdering vampires, but they had no idea how to handle us. “Just leave us chained up, so you don’t have to keep up with us. Is that it?” I whispered, still glaring at the man who was beginning to look at little sweaty at all the attention he was getting from me.
“What?” my father asked. “You aren’t making sense. You aren’t yourself, Carissa.”
“Well, you’re right for once.” I had to laugh as I backed up to the wall, leaving less chance of anybody taking me by surprise. “I’m not myself. But you already knew that, right? That’s why we’re here. You want me to be myself again.”
“You’ve become hysterical.”
“A word to the wise,” I growled, glaring at him now and letting the other guy off the hook. I heard his sigh of relief, but he didn’t matter anymore. My father did. “If you’re with a woman who’s holding a gun to her head, don’t call her hysterical. That’s literally the worst thing you can say.”
For once, he seemed to stand down. “You’re right. My apologies. You are behaving in a hysterical manner, however, and I don’t believe you can argue the point.”
“Maybe I can’t—but if I’m being hysterical, it’s because of you. Your cruelty, your selfishness.”
