by Rye Brewer
“No, it’s always better to be on the safe side,” I allowed.
“For all I know, she could have been someone who knew my brother or one of his ilk.” The disgust all but dripped from his voice.”
“He was your brother?” I asked.
“Half-brother, from my father’s first marriage. He was the heir to the family name and fortune, but… I cannot say I regret his passing, though I regret very much the crimp it put in my plans.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t, with all due respect.” Genevieve looked up at the shifter with obvious adoration. “He sacrificed everything for me, and now I regret having burned so many bridges in the past. We need someone to offer protection, and you’re the only person I could imagine coming to.”
How very fortunate for me. They couldn’t have cornered me better if they tried. “All right,” I announced. “I have to leave now, but you’re more than welcome to stay here for the time being—every bedroom but the one at the end of the hall to the left is currently unused. The one on the left is mine, and I’ll know if you go through anything.”
She scowled imperiously, and once again looked like the Genevieve I’d come to know. “Now, why would you imagine me going through your things?”
“Don’t get me started,” I warned. “Otherwise, the refrigerator is stocked with blood. Anton, if you’re in need of food, you can order from anyplace around here, and the guards on duty have a standing order to stop all deliveries at the front desk. They’ll bring it up to you after that.”
“Jonah.” She stopped me on my way out the door, clasping my arm as I walked past. “Thank you. Truly. You don’t know what this means to me. I wouldn’t ask unless…”
“Unless it was absolutely necessary,” I finished for her. “I understand. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Please make yourselves at home, by the way.”
At least the penthouse wouldn’t be empty any longer.
I could only hope none of my siblings decided to make a surprise return while it was only Genevieve and a wolf shifter in residence.
26
Stark
When I opened my eyes, I was certain I was on the other side of the veil. That I had died and gone on to whatever happened to be waiting elsewhere.
For a moment I was even glad. It had been a long life, and I’d seen more than my share of pain and horror. Perhaps it was more than enough. Perhaps it was well past my time to move on and allow life to move on without me.
There was no longer any pain, which was the first clue. My shoulder had burned unfathomably after the bite, like the entire arm was on fire. More than once had I expected to find it sizzling and blistering.
That was nothing more than a bad memory now. I felt no burning. In fact, I felt nothing. Yet another clue pointing me toward the probability of being dead.
Yet as the ceiling above my head came into clearer focus, I knew I recognized it. I was in my bedchamber, back in Hallowthorn Landing. I had no memory of arriving and none of anything that had transpired after the fact. I’d simply opened my eyes to find myself in my bed.
“He’s awake.” Sirene’s face hovered over mine. “Can you hear me?”
I opened my mouth, but it seemed someone had stuffed it with cotton while I was sleeping. I couldn’t make a sound come from my throat no matter how I tried.
“You’re thirsty,” she realized. “Let me help you.”
The hand she slid behind my neck was cool, unflinching, and she lifted my head with it while guiding a cup of water to my lips. No, not only water. It had a strange, almost floral taste. She’d put something in it to dull my senses. So my lack of pain was not a natural occurrence.
Knowing this did not stop me from drinking gladly, welcoming the cool liquid as it slid down my throat and brought me back to life. “Thank you,” I whispered once she’d allowed me back onto the pillow. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Two days.”
My eyes bulged. “Not truly.”
“Part of that was my doing,” she admitted with a slight grimace as she perched on the edge of the bed. “The treatment I put you through… you were better off unaware of what was happening. Trust me.”
“I trust you. I felt terrible enough before the treatment. But why? What did I need?”
She blinked, looking rather incredulous. “You were bitten by a vampire. He actually injected a toxic into your bloodstream. They don’t always do that. I had to flush the poison from your system. It was a stroke of luck the creature latched onto your shoulder and not your throat, where they might have hit an artery. Even so, by the time Branwen dragged you through the portal you were in very poor shape indeed.”
“Branwen. Where is she?”
“Resting. As you need to be,” she added, pressing me back onto the bed when I tried to rise. “You can see her once you’ve recovered somewhat, or once she’s strong enough to come to you.”
“How badly did she get hurt?” I asked, confused. “Was she injured at some point?”
“No, she wasn’t hurt. You must rest, calm yourself. She was merely exhausted, collapsing beside you once she’d delivered the blood to Anissa. I suspect the amount of mana it took for her to bring down the tunnel—then the strength required to drag you with her—was too much for her. She’s never been physically strong.”
“I know,” I murmured, only half listening as I fought to recall more of what had gone gray or entirely blank in my mind. I remembered a great crash, for certain, and coughing on great clouds of dust. And the burning. The burning had overtaken nearly everything else in my mind, but who could blame me for that? Lesser men would have crumbled into nothing if they’d endured even half of what I had.
And I’d still managed to create an entire wall of ice while in mind-numbing pain.
I couldn’t free myself of the feeling that something else had happened. Something important. My subconscious seemed determined to pummel me with shadows of memories. I was desperate in the tunnel, thinking I was about to die. “I knew I was dying,” I whispered. “I felt myself leaving my body.”
“Please, don’t speak of it,” Sirene urged. “No good will come from you remembering that terrible place.”
“But I have to. I feel like I have to, even if I don’t quite know why. I said something to Branwen. I can’t… I don’t…”
Sirene’s face fell. She looked as distraught as I had ever seen her. “You told her the reason why you ended things between you. Oh, Stark, why did you never tell me?”
It all came back in a rush, slamming into me like a wave and threatening to pull me under. Yes. I told her everything because I’d felt it was either tell her then or never get another chance. “I didn’t want to die without her knowing the truth.”
“I deserved to know the truth as well,” she insisted. “If Dracan threatened my life, I deserved to know it. I could have protected myself, Stark.”
“Not if he was determined to end your life,” I snarled, sounding much more vicious than I’d intended. “I won’t apologize for the choices I made. You can rest assured that I did not make them lightly.”
“I wouldn’t imagine you did.”
“I sacrificed. I knew what it meant to do so, and I was willing to do it for you. That was my decision. Only I could have made it.”
“You never thought to ask if I wanted you to make it.”
“I had no way of knowing what Dracan would do to you if you learned of his threat. You know there was never any predicting what went on in his mind. None whatsoever. He might have tracked me somehow, spied on me. I didn’t know.”
She remained silent. Her expression somber.
I found her hand, resting near me, and closed mine over hers.
“Don’t you know I couldn’t lose you? I’ve already lost a sister and have no intention of doing so again. Not ever. I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. We were raised apart, we never had the chance to know each other well. And I’ve done quite a lot that I’ve been ashamed of. I was
a large part of the reason why there could be little closeness, and I take responsibility for that.”
Still, she was quiet, but tears welled in her eyes.
I squeezed her hand. “Don’t you see? This was the least I could do to make up for the shame and grief I caused you.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek with her free hand. I’d never seen her cry before. “I never made you feel as though you needed to make it up to me, did I?”
“No, you didn’t need to. You were always perfect. The example I could never live up to. It isn’t your fault, certainly. I won’t blame you for being good, for being on the side of right.”
“I have not always done what was right,” she reminded me in a gentle voice. “At least, not what would have been considered right by those who take it upon themselves to determine such things.”
“When you saved Fane.”
“Yes, among other things,” she added with a rueful smile.
“That’s nothing compared to the pain I inflicted. I’m not going to argue who was wrong and who was right, or who was worse. My point is, it was the least I could do.” I managed to smile. “And look what came out of that. Lena is with us, and she is fast becoming the light of my life. I wouldn’t have her without you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, raising my hand to her cheek. She held it there for a moment, eyes closed. “I want nothing but the best for you, now and always. You deserve it after all you’ve done. You saved my life, and now you’ve saved my daughter when it meant risking yourself. You came very close to making the ultimate sacrifice.”
“I would’ve done it for her. And for you.”
“And for Branwen, I would wager.”
I winced. “What else did she say? When she told you, I mean?”
“What did she say?” Sirene frowned.
“Are you truly going to put me through this?”
“Perhaps. Whatever could you mean?”
Yes, she was clearly toying with me now. Forcing me to say that which I felt couldn’t be said.
But I’d said it to Branwen, hadn’t I?
Yes, when I’d been all but certain I was about to breathe my last.
“Did she give you any indication of how she felt about my confession?” I asked with a roll of my eyes. “Honestly. I’m glad this is bringing you so much enjoyment.”
“It is, rather.” She patted my uninjured shoulder before standing. “And for what it’s worth, she seemed glad. Very glad.”
“She did?”
“Exceedingly so. If I hadn’t warned her away from being present while I treated you, she would never have left your side. I didn’t think she ought to be present for it. The effects are a bit… jarring.”
“How so?”
“Do you truly wish to know?” she asked with a delicate raise of her brows. “Let me say you were in a great deal of pain as the poison worked its way out of you, and you sweated through several sets of linens. The sight of it would have brought her pain. I thought you wouldn’t want that.”
“You were right,” I breathed in relief.
“I know. I am your sister, after all.” She bent to brush her lips against my cheek, and the simple sweetness of it touched my heart.
“How is Lena?” I thought to ask before she left.
“Happily feeding from the supply her uncle so courageously brought back to her,” she smiled. “I’m sure by the time I bring her to see you, she’ll have grown another foot and will be able to tell you herself how grateful she is.”
“You don’t need to wait. I would like to see her.”
“Not yet. Not until your shoulder heals fully. Those are orders.”
“Very well, then,” I grumbled, though I was secretly pleased to be cared for and fussed over.
My entire body tensed with the need to go to Branwen, to speak to her and apologize for all the years of misunderstanding between us. All the wasted years when she was all I’d ever really wanted—no matter how I’d talked myself out of my love for her.
Why pine away when the chances of our happiness seemed impossibly remote at best, nonexistent at worst? I’d never been one to waste time wanting something I could never have, and any attempt at forgetting our love had been nothing more than an act of self-preservation.
Now? Now, I would’ve given anything for the strength to climb out of that bed and go to her. To lay my heart at her feet and pledge my undying love.
Unfortunately, the tonic Sirene had poured down my throat had other ideas.
I quickly faded off into the blessed blankness of sleep.
27
Naomi
Every muscle in my body ached.
That was the ever-present concern, one which literally haunted me day and night. No matter how much exercise I tried to get in our new cell—while it may have been more pleasant and vastly preferable, it was still a cell—I couldn’t seem to shake the stiffness in my muscles. As if the dampness from the dungeon had settled into my limbs and refused to let go.
“Come on! Just a few more! You can do it!” Raze cheered me on as I did push-ups next to Cari, the two of us turning our battle to get back in shape into a contest to keep things as light as we could.
There was only so much we could do to make our situation more livable.
Even as my muscles strained and begged me to give up, all the while I remembered the watchful lab workers who witnessed our contest.
Who did they think would win? Were we proving to be an enjoyment?
“You can do it!” Gage urged Cari on, crouching beside her. “You can do it. One more. One more. One more.”
“Enough!” I cried out, having had my fill both of push-ups and of Gage’s coaching. “I’m whipped. You win.”
Cari collapsed, her arms giving out. “Thank God. I don’t think I had more than a few left in me.”
“Now she tells me,” I said, breathless, and we high-fived to show there were no hard feelings. How could there be? We were all we had.
“I need to cool down after that.” She accepted a hand up from Gage. “Next time, I want to see you two go head-to-head. I’m tired of you being my coach. It’s your turn to get down on the floor.”
“I’ll go right now,” he offered. “What do you say?”
“Me?” Raze asked, all innocence. “Push-ups were never my strong suit. Sit-ups, on the other hand…”
I sat on the edge of my bed, toweling sweat from my brow. I felt good—really, truly good, as only a vigorous round of exercise could make me feel. Yet it did nothing to lighten the heaviness which hung over me like a shroud. I couldn’t shake it.
Just as I couldn’t shake the impulse to look up at the cameras. To stare at them. To defy whoever watched from the other side, to dare them to come meet me face-to-face. No guns, no shackles, just us. We’d see who would come out victorious.
But it was all anger, and it was all foolishness. We were no match for them, not with the odds stacked against us as they were. Not with the weapons that had that were lethal and debilitating to our kind. We weren’t meant to win. We were meant to be docile, to allow their testing, to thank them for the small glimpses of dignity they afforded us.
Like fresh clothing. Like showers. Like beds, though we never slept. It was still better than sitting on a damp, freezing stone floor. This room was heaven compared to what we’d already suffered.
Which was precisely what they wanted us to think. They wanted our gratitude. They wanted us to let down our guard and be more relaxed and even friendly.
Cari pretended, at least, to keep her father and his lab staff happy. I couldn’t pretend. I’d done enough pretending to last three or four lifetimes, all of it thanks to Micah and my years spent in the catacombs.
Raze sat beside me, always at a respectful distance. I wondered how long it would take for him to stop being so respectful. I appreciated it, naturally, but there was a time to leave a careful distance, and there was a time to hold me and tell me all would be well.
This moment f
ell into the latter of the two categories. In fact, every moment we’d spent together after being moved to this cell fell into the latter. I needed him to hold me, to comfort me. To at least let me feel the simple pleasure of being touched. It had been so long, and I’d never needed it more.
“I won’t bite you,” I murmured, looking down at the towel in my lap.
“What’s that?” he asked, sounding vague. As if his thoughts had been elsewhere.
“I said I won’t bite you,” I repeated as gently as possible before leaning closer. “You were thinking of her again, weren’t you?”
“Who?” He had the good grace to look genuinely surprised.
“Anissa. Who else? You talk about her all the time. Anissa did this, Anissa said that.”
He scoffed. “Because she’s my tie to Gage. The one thing we have in common outside of being vampires, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
I wasn’t so easily convinced, and the look on my face must have told him so because he went on. “Listen. Remember how I told you our clans didn’t get along? At all. Ever. But most especially after the Great Fire. We were at each other’s throats, literally. Anissa was sent by her clan leader to murder Gage’s brother, the leader of their clan. It was that intense.”
“I remember you speaking of it, yes.”
He glanced across the room, where Gage and Cari were whispering and smiling and generally behaving like lovesick puppies. “The fact is, any kinship between us now is tentative at best. Any time I can remind him of our common ties, I do what I can. My oldest and closest friend is his twin brother’s woman. We’re practically related, strange as it seems. I can’t tell you how many times I wished someone would knock them down a peg or two.”
He ran a hand through his spiky hair, chuckling to himself. “Look who fell down a peg or two right beside him.”
