Ace rocked on the ground, his sallow face twisted into agony. “I’m not just going to let it go.” He warned.
“I was hoping you’d say as much.” Julius grinned. “I’ll be looking forward to our next encounter.”
Our encounter with Ace haunted me the rest of the night and well into the next morning. I’d never seen him, but he’d managed to follow me. How long had he been doing it? Had he been there the whole time, at my father’s home, watching? Or had he seen me at the diner that morning and tracked me down after? Either way, I didn’t believe he was stalking me of his own accord. James and Julius had made the mistake of thinking I was valuable, too, but I didn’t believe it was Ace’s entire motivation for finding me here.
I’d pestered Julius and Desmond the entire way home…how had he known Ace was following? What exactly was that place? And if he was a hunter, why didn’t Ace take the first opportunity to take us out?
They didn’t offer much, except Desmond did graciously tell me that the place they called Gehenna was a sort of training grounds. I suggested that since Ace had been spying on me during training, that maybe he just wanted to recruit me, but Desmond and Julius had both laughed. “Trust me when I say that’s not what he wanted.”
I went about my usual routine, but the whole day I was anxious to get outside at night and resume my training. Julius had told me he’d take over from here on out, and it was a more exciting prospect to have him beat me to a pulp every night then to have to listen to Delilah’s yells.
By nightfall, I was out of my mind with the weight of everything that fell upon me, and restless to boot. There were plenty of books around to occupy my mind, plenty of questions that I could puzzle over, but I didn’t want to focus on the endless stream of unknown again. A walk in the gardens before meeting Julius seemed like the perfect distraction. After all, it was the place where just a few days before I’d let all my troubles go and forgotten to fear my enemy or question his motive. It was that desire to alleviate the pressure that had me strolling through the halls, making my way to the exit.
The halls were dark and quiet, as I was accustomed to. They filled up in the hour following dinner, so much so that navigating through the masses was an impossible task. Other than that, it was quiet around here, and I liked it that way. I wouldn’t have minded spending more time with Janna, or having James actually acknowledge my existence once in a while, but other than that, the solitude was generally peaceful.
Once I reached the bottom of the stairs, though, there was a shift in the air… one that coaxed my skin into goose bumps. I was no longer alone. Three figures stood silhouetted in the entryway, directly across from me. The front door hung wide open.
Something was wrong.
My feet kept moving though my brain wanted to turn the other way. When I saw the figure in the middle I realized what was going on. The small girl that stood between two strange men stared at me in a sort of shocked terror. She looked particularly small beneath the weight of a heavy arm draped threateningly over her narrow shoulders, but I knew I’d seen her before.
I stared at the men, every bit human, trying to understand how they’d gotten past the first line of defense, much less made it through the maze. I didn’t have much chance to question it because I realized suddenly why the little girl looked familiar. She was the one who had watched me in awe yesterday at the werewolves’ camp. Had they taken her from there?
I took another step closer, and froze in place to the sound of a loud click.
A shaft of moonlight from the oculus glanced off the object in one man’s hand, steel and small and pointed right at me. My breath caught momentarily in my chest while I eyed the gun. “What are you doing here?” I demanded. The words sounded strong to me, though I felt that I must be trembling as much as the young girl who was staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.
The man with the gun shook his head, stepping slowly forward. “If you’re a good girl, then nobody will need to get hurt.” He smirked. “Good girls don’t ask questions.”
His face was younger than his voice suggested, though dark and unshaven. He couldn’t have been much older than Julius; His companion, too, seemed just slightly older than myself. I looked between them and found the courage to speak again. “What do you want?”
“Lots of things,” The man answered gruffly. “And you’re going to give them all to us.”
“Or the girl’s going to die.” A second gun was pressed to the young girl’s temple, and though she shook violently, she did not scream. It was in her dark eyes, wild with terror, but only a small gasp escaped her.
All I could manage was a nod. My dry mouth couldn’t have made any audible noise even if my brain had known what to say.
Clearly calling the shots, the first man stepped close enough that I could see the relish burn in his hard eyes. “She’s just a child, herself.” He mocked. “How old are you, anyways? Sixteen? Seventeen at the most.”
“Please,” I tried again, “we have nothing of value here.”
But he seemed not to hear me. Instead, he turned to his companion, who I didn’t recognize. He seemed to know me, though, because he nodded some sort of confirmation. “It’s her.”
Before I knew what was happening, the first man had seized my upper arm tightly enough to leave a bruise and pulled me toward him. From the corner of my eye I saw them release the young girl, pushing her forward so that she took off at a run without as much as a backward glance. “Don’t struggle,” He warned, “and maybe when we’re all squared away, I’ll let you walk freely.”
It wasn’t an enticing promise, and the fact that they didn’t bother hiding their faces suggested that they did not intend for me to survive whatever was in store anyways. Shit. I’d spent the last week learning self-defense, but those old rules and standbys went right out the window now that there was a gun involved.
They appraised me together, moving closer until I was backed into the wall. The man dusted a cold finger along my collar bone. Refusing to move my eyes from him, I noticed the thick scar that cut across his cheek. A cold shock choked the air from my lungs when I finally recognized him as one of the men from the night I’d been bitten. He was the one who’d thrown me into the wall. But why was he here now?
He smiled, now that we’d been reacquainted. “Good to see you again.” And then his fingers delved down to grab the medallion that hung at my neck. He wrenched it free at once. There was a tiny metallic noise as a piece of the chain broke on the floor. In its absence, I felt exposed and inexplicably vulnerable. “I’m sure that’s worth a pretty penny.” He said, looking down at the antique piece in his hand. The statement garnered the attention of his comrade, who looked eagerly over his shoulder on tip toes.
I assessed him with the assumption that this was the other man from the alley, but he didn’t seem the least bit familiar. He grimaced and shifted uncomfortably, as though my necklace were cursed. He looked at his friend through narrowed eyes. “Is it what I think it is?”
Wide-eyed, the first man managed a nod. Seconds later, he released his grip on my arm, brushing his hand across his pants as though my skin had repulsed him. “We’re done here.” He said. Still, the gun was pointed at me, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to feel fear when I didn’t understand half of what was going on.
The second man looked at me grudgingly. Suspicion soured on his face. A long index finger stroked the trigger, almost an impulse of its own.
Standing at the other end of that human weapon, I knew how quickly it could end. All of it. It was an uncomfortable truth that in a second, a twitch of his finger could end my life. It stopped me from moving and made me feel dizzy at the same time.
They began to retreat backwards into the night, slowly and without the gun moving off of me. I closed my eyes, trying to deny the fear.
When the gun went off, it stole the breath from my chest, and I closed my eyes tighter, waiting for an impact that never came. I opened my eyes in time to see the two young men runnin
g out into the night like their lives depended on it. A strange sound escaped me, something like strangled relief, and I turned around. My ears were still ringing from the blast and the echo and the blood rushing through my ears, so I hadn’t heard him, but I could see my name forming on his lips. Lilith. The King lay at the foot of the steps, not far from me.
His own blood leeched out around him, a rapidly growing pool of crimson.
I ran to him and dropped to my knees at his side. Find the wound. Those three word suddenly seemed all that I was capable of thinking. If I could find where he’d been shot, I might be able to staunch the flow. But there was so much blood…already it was soaking into his white shirt, and making it impossible to see anything. I ran my hands over his stomach, his chest, until I found it.
Still, the King was trying to speak. Sound was returning to me slowly, but I couldn’t make out anything he was trying to say. “Hi…” He swallowed, and it seemed to take a lot of effort. My hands were trembling…I think my whole body may have been trembling.
“Shh. I don’t think you should be talking.” I pressed harder against the spot and opened my mouth to scream for help when I heard the footfalls like thunder.
Julius didn’t make it entirely down the steps before phasing, jumping as a wolf over his father. His back legs didn’t even get any traction before he peeled out the door. James dropped down opposite me, checked his father’s pulse with a finger on the neck and then looked up at me. “Are you hurt?”
“The King…your father…”
Suddenly the queen was there, and she took James’ place across from me. James tried to pull me away, but I wasn’t letting go until help came. I shook him off and managed a single word, “No.”
“I’m here.” Delilah announced, coming over to kneel next to me. Her hands pushed mine away, and I let James drag me back that time. She knew what she was doing.
James helped me up. I might have swayed if it weren’t for his arms anchoring me. “Are you hurt?” James demanded again, tilting my face into the light as though he were inspecting for any signs of damage. He sounded calm and dignified, but when I managed to look at him, I saw that his eyes were blazing with something like anger.
“No.” I blinked. The hall had filled up with people now. An older woman came in and started giving orders, directing people about. I didn’t hear what she said, but the King was still trying to speak. His wife leaned her head to his lips, held his hand, and shook her head. Whatever words he was attempting to say, they weren’t being heard.
“He’s in good hands.” James assured me, grabbing my chin so that I had to look at him. I blinked, but his words were lost on me. I was far away, reliving the day that man in the alley had thrown me against the wall like it was his God-given right. I thought of the way he had looked at me tonight, like he was intrigued and disgusted. I thought of the way he had teased that trigger…he’d wanted to shoot me. He’d gotten the King instead. But was it an accident, or just a way to get away?
Somehow, I ended up in the shower. I wasn’t really sure who lead me there, but they turned the water on and laid out a towel for me. I stepped under the jet still fully clothed and let it beat the blood out of my shirt until my skin was red underneath. Then I undressed and stood under the stream ‘til the water went from scalding to lukewarm. I scrubbed the blood out from under my fingernails, scoured it off of my skin, and even wringed it out of my hair.
When I emerged there were clean clothes waiting for me on the counter. I slipped into them and opened the door to find Iz standing there. “James asked me to keep you company.” She explained. I nodded, and followed her through the halls until we got to a big black door. She opened it, allowing me to enter first. James was sitting on the bed expectantly.
“Your highness.” Iz sounded surprised.
“I’m not of any use right now.” James explained. “You can return to your camp. They need you now.” Iz nodded and pursed her lips before disappearing. “Have a seat, Lilith.”
I perched on the edge of the bed and James handed me a mug of something. It was steaming and felt good between my palms, and I drank it without question. “Your father?”
The door opened and Julius came in. He shook his head. I took that to mean that the intruders had gotten away.
“It’s too soon to tell. But he isn’t conscious to say what happened. Can you?”
I could, and so I did, explaining everything from the moment I had noticed something was amiss to the second he had knelt across from me.
“And they were just going to walk away?” James asked for the second time since I’d finished my tale. My nervous system was beginning to respond to the coffee James had retrieved for me. Though I still had no idea what had really transpired, the shock was beginning to fade away. Julius watched me, hard eyes made even harder by his suspicion.
I had hoped James or even Julius would be the one to provide me with answers, but that didn’t seem likely as James looked as mystified as I felt. I decided not to answer him. “Xian must have sent them to get the necklace. It’s the only thing that makes sense. They knew exactly who and what they were looking for.”
James didn’t seem so sure. “And they were human?”
“Yes. I recognized that one man from that night you bit me. He was one of the two that cornered me in the alley.”
James looked away, focusing on Julius instead. I wondered if the way I spoke so blatantly made him uncomfortable. “It doesn’t add up. Why would a vampire get humans to do his dirty work?”
“Well, that’s obvious.” I frowned. “He offered them the one thing that every human seems to want—eternal life. What I want to know is how they made it through the maze?”
James frowned too, contemplating my question. “It’s impossible.” He said after a while, though he clearly wasn’t sure of that.
“Apparently not.” Julius spat. It was quiet while they considered it, and then Julius looked up, his face grim. “The only way they could have made it in is if they already knew how to get in.”
“No human knows how to get through the maze.” James shook his head. “There are the tunnels...”
“Which should be locked.”
“Unless we have a traitor in our midst?”
Julius merely raised an eyebrow by way of response. It was possible—it had to be, if you could only make it through the maze if you’d been told exactly where to turn. I didn’t know these people well enough to say whether they were capable of treachery, but it wasn’t exactly a long shot to say that someone driven by hatred like Delilah would want me gone.
There was a brief knock on the door before Janna poked her head in. “Sorry to interrupt.” She said, looking between the three of us with the weight of unspoken questions. “Mom’s looking for you.”
James stood so quickly that he was able to pierce the remnants of shock that had still clouded around me. Seeing James’ dedication made me feel a little twinge of guilt for thinking so darkly of his mother.
I nodded in response to the one he gave me on the way out. He didn’t say as much, but I had a feeling he would be back shortly.
Janna’s eyes narrowed in suspicion towards Julius, but she waited until James was out of earshot before speaking to me. “Is it true? Did you really save Molly’s life?”
“Molly?” I asked, willing my brain to catch up with the rest of the conversation.
“She’s no Mother Teresa,” Julius was quick to dismiss her, though I did see a glint of appreciation in his eyes that his acerbic words couldn’t deny.
“Is Molly the little girl who they had captured?” I ventured a guess.
“Yeah. The one that you traded spots with. I have to say, Lilith, I didn’t have you pegged for a martyr.”
“I didn’t trade places with her,” I shook my head.
“Well, Molly is saying you did.” Janna managed a weak smile. “Everybody is buzzing about the vampire savior. And you scared the intruders off, too. I knew we should keep you around for something.�
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“She didn’t scare them off.” Julius snorted. “They knew the gunshot would attract others, and they ran.”
Julius didn’t know that they had seemed scared of me, though. Or at the very least, disgusted by me.
“Well,” She shook her head a little. “I’m going to head back. I want to be there when he wakes up.”
In the silence left in her wake, I looked at Julius awkwardly. It wasn’t my room, nor was it his. The answer of whether to wait here for James or go back to my own room was one that depended upon whether Julius was staying. But James knew where my room was, and so he could find me if he did wish to continue our conversation—whether it be the one we’d started nearly a week ago or the one that had been interrupted mere minutes ago. I was almost to the door when Julius spoke, stopping me in my tracks.
“What was my father saying to you?” His eyes were narrowed on me like they were locked around a target. I guess whatever progress we’d made in the last few days was now undone.
I bit my lip. “He said hi.”
“Hi?” Everything about Julius suggested that he doubted that as truth.
I shook my head. “I didn’t understand it…I still don’t.”
“Maybe he was saying bye?”
I grimaced at the thought. “Maybe.”
James did not come back to visit me that night. Nor did I see him the next day. I stayed in my room the better part of the day, until I could take it no more. I had to get out of that room or I’d drive myself insane trying to answer questions that only seemed to mount each time an old one was answered. I considered the mythological hydra, an ugly serpent who grew two heads every time Hercules chopped one off. Life was a hydra.
The grief was still so raw that I couldn’t bear to think of it, yet it was all my mind seemed to be capable of focusing upon. Since leaving the night before, I hadn’t seen any of the royal family.
The Celestial Kiss Page 17
