Hannah shoved the strap of a backpack into my hand. “I brought you some stuff to change into, why don’t we go into the bathroom and freshen up a little bit?”
I tried not to cringe and failed. The last outfit she’d picked out for me had been purchased from Sluts-R-Us. I didn’t think anyone with even an ounce of dignity could blame my hesitation. “You packed?”
Hannah rolled her eyes and when I didn’t physically hold on to the pack, she tried to wrap my fingers around it. “The Vault had a dress code! Will you ever let that go? I stuck with the basics this time. Pants. Shirt. Don’t worry, they’re both black.”
Relenting, I took the bag from her, grateful for the distraction. Even though I couldn’t see Micah, I felt him behind me.
“Just so we are clear, a corset isn’t a dress code, it’s underwear.”
“Go on now,” Dante ordered, earning a glare from me. He ignored my annoyance. “I’ll come get you if the doctor comes out.”
Hannah pulled on my hand, tugging me from the pastel-colored waiting room with its soft blue chairs and down a long white hall. The intercom overhead beeped and I flinched. I braced for the screams, for Hannah’s pain to filter through the speakers as it had in the asylum.
Please, no! Stop, oh God, stop!
I remembered the sound—the god-awful noise—of bone snapping. Snap. Snap. Snap. Like crisp tree branches breaking in half. My sister’s scream had changed pitch. Went higher, sharper…
The flashback faded as I realized there were no screams, no pain. “Paging Doctor…”
I pushed the soft, soothing voice away and tuned out whatever the announcement was. This wasn’t the sanitarium. Hannah was right next to me, safe and unharmed.
I ignored the glances from the nurses and the other people milling around. I’d grown used to the gawking that followed whenever I stepped foot outside of our house. The people we passed gave me a wide birth. I can’t say I blamed them.
I slapped a hand to the bathroom door and pushed it open. I wrinkled my nose at the scents of vomit and urine, something no one else aside from me could probably smell. I bypassed the long, wall-length mirror and headed for a stall, locking myself inside the too-cramped space.
I didn’t need to be reminded of how bad I probably looked. I stripped out of my workout clothes and sweater, piling them on the beige tiled floor. From the backpack, I found and pulled on a pair of black cargos, then dug deeper for a shirt. I brushed my fingers over something hard and my heart picked up its pace. Hannah, bless her soul, had brought me my wrist sheaths and Silverstone blades.
Corset debacle, totally forgiven.
The second I put on my weapons, I felt better. More grounded. Less like an emotional wreck and more like myself. Kickass.
To conceal the knives, I put on a long-sleeved black shirt Hannah had wisely chosen. The familiar scents of my clothes helped dampen the hundred other conflicting odors around me, a trick I’d learned over the last couple of weeks. I pulled my hair free from its ponytail and adjusted the strands so they fell around my shoulders in messy waves.
The second I exited the stall, my sister was there waiting for me. Despite her tears, splotchy face and quivering chin, she looked gorgeous and perfect. I’d inherited most of my traits from my father—strength, agility and an affinity for weapons. Hannah had taken after my mother and been graced with a timeless beauty. But as my sister was proving, she was so much more than a pretty face.
“How are you holding up? The nurses said it might be a while before we get an update.” Hannah brought her thumb to her mouth and chewed on the nail, wearing off the polish.
I shook my head, thought about feeding her a line of bullshit. Instead, the truth poured out. “Not so good, Hannah. Everything is so fucked up. It’s been one thing after another after another. I can’t keep up. I can’t lose Roy. I can’t lose Micah. I don’t even know which direction is up anymore. Last week a dozen people died because two master vampires got into a dispute. If I were a true queen, like Lizbeth, they would have come to me to sort it out—or make them duel or some shit. It’s my fault people are dying, my fault people are dead.” I paced up one side of the bathroom, then the other. I looked up from the pattern of squares scrubbed within an inch of their lives and met my sister’s gaze. My chest constricted and my voice lowered as I admitted the root of my problem. “Do you know how many otherworldly creatures I’ve killed? In cold blood because I’d been ordered to?”
I braced for her judgment. The breath I’d been holding slowly released at the soft, tender look filling her face.
“Out of necessity, Ella. Roy gave you those orders. You’ve killed a few to protect thousands.”
“Have I? Was it necessity? The Shadow Agency gave those instructions to Roy, and then he gave them to me. But did they deserve to die, really? I’m in this fucked-up place where I am what I used to hunt, where I’m supposed to be protecting what I used to hunt.” I shook my head. “I don’t know anymore, Hannah, I just don’t. Micah doesn’t even trust me. What does that say about me when the person who claims to love me won’t share his secrets with me? I think he cheated on me.”
Hannah moved in front of me, stopping my pacing. Her gaze was hard and fierce. Somehow our roles had gotten reversed.
“That is complete and utter bullshit. There is no way—none—that he was with another woman. Think about it, Ella. Not only does he love you, there is the bond.”
“Oh, I’ve thought about it. A lot. What if there wasn’t a bond, what then? I’m not sure if we’d even still be together.”
My sister pressed the back of her hand to my forehead and then cheek, as if she were checking for a fever the way our mom used to. “Are you feeling okay? Can vampires get sick? I mean, and don’t take this wrong way but…”
I brought the heel of my palm against my forehead, wishing I could shove all the emotional crap out of the way and go back two months, to the place I’d been before my life had been turned upside down. “You don’t have to say it. I’ve been a fucking wreck. Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with me—mid-life crisis aside. Can I pull the PMS card? I haven’t had a period in months.” I was one step away from losing my badass card.
Hannah lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not…ya know—” Her gaze dipped to my stomach.
“Pregnant.” Finishing her thought, I nearly choked on the word. “Hell no. I’m on the Pill.”
My sister blew out a breath and I understood her relief one hundred percent. The child Micah and I produced, the Demon Son, was prophesied to bring about mayhem and destruction.
“Listen,” Hannah said. “I’m sure Micah had his reasons for not being honest. You can feel his guilt—taste it—you can’t fake that kind of emotion. Not to mention, he looks like you just tore out his heart and pulverized it. You didn’t see his face when he walked through those doors, it was like someone skinned his puppy and he was forced to watch.”
I pulled away and pushed a few strands of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Two weeks in my world and you’re turning dark.”
She gave me a sad smile and cupped my hand to her face, holding me there. “I’ve always been in your world.”
And she had. Time to change the subject.
“What did Roy say before he passed out? Lama something or other.”
Hannah’s eyes lit, eclipsing some of her worry. “Laminas Animarum.” The words rolled off her tongue in what I guessed was perfect pronunciation.
“It’s Latin for ‘Blade of Souls’.”
I sniffled back the last of my tears. This felt normal. That was if I ignored the fact we were having a clichéd heart-to-heart in the bathroom. “That sounds ominous.”
“Right?” Hannah snorted. “Combined with Richard and black market, yes. As soon as I get home, I’ll find out what it’s for and gather any information I can get on it.”
“Darlin’.” Dante’s voice sounded through the bathroom door. “Doctor’s got an update.”
I grabbed Hannah’s hand, lac
ed our fingers together and squeezed.
“You ready for this?” she asked me.
“No.”
In the waiting room, Hannah and I met with a doctor who was just an inch taller than me. His trimmed white beard was a sharp contrast to his dark skin and eyes. I stared at him and braced for the worst possible outcome—Roy hadn’t made it.
“Your uncle—” the doctor started.
I held my breath and closed my eyes.
“Suffered a major heart attack, which then led to a stroke and seizures. We’re prepping him for bypass surgery now. Assuming all goes well, when he comes out, we will induce a coma to let his body heal. In these types of cases, patients wake up and try to pull out their breathing tubes, IVs. This is the safest route. We won’t know the extent of the neurological damage, if there is any, until he wakes up.”
I blew out a breath. He was still fighting. Some broken pieces of me fit back together. Like my weapons had anchored me, the news that my uncle was still fighting filled with me strength. If he could survive this, I could get over my bullshit emotional trauma.
I straightened my shoulders, not even aware I’d been sagging. “How long before we can see him?”
The doctor checked his watch. “A few hours. You can stay here, or there’s a hotel across the street. One of the nurses can call when he’s been moved to a private room.”
Hannah reached out and grabbed the doctor’s hand. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
He gave us a grim, haggard smile before walking away.
My sister turned to me with tears shimmering in her eyes. “I’ll stay here with him. The sun will be up soon. Go home and get some rest, we’ll do shifts.”
I didn’t want to go but couldn’t think of an alternative method of not catching my eyeballs on fire and terrifying the humans milling around us.
“You’ll call me?” I asked hesitantly.
“Anything changes, I’ll call. I swear it.”
I rose on the tips of my toes and kissed her cheek before heading for the exit. Micah’s footsteps echoed behind me, the sound of them something I’d memorized months ago. The minute we cleared the emergency room, I turned to him.
“Now’s not a good time.”
He caught my arm and drew me away from the shadowed alcove I’d planned on phazing from. Heedless of my protests, he dragged me—all bossy like—across the circle drive to the parking lot where his car, muscled, shiny and black, stuck out from the minivans and SUVs.
“What are you doing?” I struggled against his grip.
We stepped in front of an oncoming car and Micah waved off the honking horn, his steps never faltering. We both knew if he stopped and let me get the upper hand, I’d kick his ass.
“I’m driving you home,” he all but growled at me.
“I can get myself there, thank you very much.”
“No way.” He lowered his voice and looked around at the few people within hearing distance. “You try to phaze there, who the hell knows where you’ll end up. You’ve gotten better, but it’s not perfect yet. I’m driving you. End of story.”
I looked for the spot inside my head, the one where I concentrated on people and places so I could transport myself there, and found it murky. This made me scowl. I’d learned how to phaze using trial and error. Mostly error. He might have had a point, not that I was telling him that. Ever.
“You’ve been drinking.”
He shook his head. “I don’t get drunk, not anymore—you know that.”
Women’s cologne wafted from his jacket, a mocking reminder of our earlier fight. “Well, you reek of cheap perfume.”
Never letting go of my arm, he dragged me the rest of the way to his black GTO and pushed me against the passenger door. I had fond memories of us against this very spot. I pressed back against the cold metal and Micah followed, caging me in with his body. Lust slammed into me, heating me from the inside out. A family of four strode past us. I couldn’t help but notice the way the mother shot me a dirty look and gathered her two small children close when they rushed by.
Uncaring of anything except us, Micah cupped my cheek and forced my gaze to his. “You want to talk to me about reeking? Julian’s scent is all over you, like you fucking bathed in him. I close my eyes—even for a second—and all I see is him all over you.”
Fatigue settled in and I rested my hand on the center of Micah’s chest. Under my palm, his heart drummed. “I didn’t let him kiss me.”
“Doesn’t make the image go away. Doesn’t erase the history between you two. Doesn’t change the fact that he expects you to put on that fucking dress he bought you and hang off his arm. Doesn’t change the fact that he was there for you when I should’ve been. There’s this hard, morphing ball of fire in the pit of my gut. Now that I know what those flames look like streaming through the air, I can actually visualize it growing inside me—feel my palm burning with the need to relinquish it. All I see is red, like the world is painted in blood and I can’t turn it off.”
Violence and mayhem radiated. Would he hurt someone? Turn into something that I, a few months ago, would have put down without blinking an eye?
“Micah,” I said, letting some of my hostility go. Hannah, who knew everything, had made some solid points. I knew in my heart that I’d blown the fight between us way out of proportion.
Micah’s gaze hardened and he stepped back—misreading my hesitation.
“You know what, following you out here was a mistake. Phaze home—take some time to figure out what the fuck you want, because it doesn’t seem to be me. I screwed up, broke your trust. Fine—I take accountability for that. But right now you aren’t acting rational.”
And here we went again. “My uncle just had a heart attack!”
“Which really fucking sucks, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Your emotions are all over the place, like you swallowed crazy pills or some shit. You aren’t my Ella. My Ella fights, kicks, punches and screams. She doesn’t cry. Doesn’t let her undead prick of a sire get within touching distance.”
His words, similar to Hannah’s, were like a slap to the face. What was wrong with me? “Micah, I didn’t—”
He shook his head. “Save it.”
Anger swept away everything else. “You’re a real asshole, you know that?”
If he answered, I didn’t hear him. I closed my eyes and dug through the murky images. I pictured the area just in front of the house I’d lived in for the last several weeks. In my head, I saw the massive trees that surrounded the Victorian house with its steep roofs, tall windows and fading orange-red brick walls. My chest constricted as my world spun. Colors whirred behind my lids. I held on to the vision in my head and when I opened my eyes, I was home.
The second my world stopped spinning and the sprawling house came into focus, I pressed a hand to my stomach to keep in the vomit. I put my head down and drew in slow, deep breaths. Cold air whipped around me, blowing my hair in front of my face.
There was a certain scent lingering in the night. Blood. Violence. My fangs pulsed and the shadow living within woke, desperate for the fight I’d been depriving it from for weeks.
“Vampire whore,” someone hissed.
I looked up as four men, dressed in brown and beige fatigues that were tight enough to show off their finely honed muscles, materialized from the trees. I knew these men, had trained alongside them for years. One of them, Jared—the one who’d so affectionately called me a whore—had stolen my first kiss at a Shadow Agency party when I was twelve.
“My problem isn’t with you, go home,” I said, tried to rein in the temper Micah had stoked and these assholes had fed.
They strode in my direction and the closer they got, the more potent the aroma of death became. The man in the middle—black hair, blue eye and an ass crack for a chin—threw something on the ground.
The darkness shifted as my vision homed in on the object rolling to a stop at my feet. Even though I could see it, I had a hard time deciphering it
. The “it” was a severed head, blood oozing from the raw, meaty neck.
Something else thudded to the ground, rolled to me, and my chest squeezed tight at the realization. I knew these headless corpses. Wolves. Ja-air and Hellix. They were members of the Fenrir—men under my protection—men who had worked to keep me safe.
Now they were dead.
Rage fought through my control. I looked up, into the unforgiving faces of the Shadow Agents and I bared my fangs. The line between duty and honor vanished, leaving me with a clear outlook on what it meant to be queen—what it meant to be me. I’d been raised to hunt, knew how to kill, had perfected the technique. Lizbeth might have had the passion to rule the vampires, had the ability to keep them loyal to her using her girlish wiles, but she lacked the necessary ability to fight.
But not me. I stepped closer, a wild, restless energy vibrating from the tips of my fingers and making them tingle. The hint of violence fed the darkness inside and I came alive for what felt like the first time in days.
“What have you done?” My voice was low and furious.
“Ridding the world of fifth,” Jared said, his words ice cold.
I wasn’t the girl he’d chased when we were kids. I wasn’t the girl who’d punched him in the stomach after he’d shoved his tongue in her mouth.
The lethal vampire I struggled to keep caged since staking Lizbeth filled me. My fangs lengthened with the need for vengeance. Blood. Their collective heartbeats hammered my senses and I licked my lips in anticipation of the kill. Their thoughts whispered through my head, an addictive buzz that made my heart soar.
“We decided not to wait for the trial,” one of the men said. “Tonight, you die, bitch.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and notched my chin up in challenge. My hair blew in the wind and tickled my cheeks. I trailed my burning blue gaze slowly over the men who’d once been my allies. Hatred shone in their eyes. Now, like so many others, they were my enemies.
The line I straddled blurred and I could see my inner vampire wrestling with my morals in some strange internal battle.
Dark Secrets Page 7
