by Melle Amade
“It’s okay,” Roman pulls the hair away from my face. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“What is wrong with me?” I ask. My voice creaky and unsteady.
“It’s the poison,” Roman says. “The truth serum,”
“What, what truth serum?” My heart clenches. I was in Berzerken hands, in an interrogation chamber. “What were they trying to find out?”
“Everything,” Darko’s tone is flat.
I try to sit up but a cramp moves through my stomach, doubling me over in pain as I lean forward. The word “everything” rattles inside my brain as if it’s going to destroy what peace I might have found.
“My father?” I look up and the pain must be apparent in my eyes, because Darko’s clear blue eyes go soft and gentle and he even gives a slight smile.
“He’s sick, but he will be okay,” Darko says.
The room sways back and forth. It takes me a moment to realize it isn’t my equilibrium, the room is actually moving. “Where are we?” I ask.
“You’re on my ship.” Darko’s hand encompasses the room in a simple wave.
My eyes go wide as I suddenly notice the wooden, sloped walls. A painting hangs on the wall. It’s the same as the print from the book. Darko as a knight, sailing away from the Hunter’s castle.
“I want to see him.” I try to sit up, but I cramp again and have to lay back.
“Your father isn’t here,” Roman says. “He is back at the plantation with Lord Mubarak. It’s okay!” He holds out his hands as I try to sit forward. “Lord Mubarak has promised to protect him and sent him to the priestess in the swamp. He will be fine.”
I breathe in deeply and relax my shoulders, my whole body sagging back against the pillows. Another cramp moves through me. I roll with the pain as it edges against my stomach.
“We did it,” I say. “We saved my dad. We got him out.”
I stare out the windows at the brilliant blue sky, but there’s a change in the room at my words. My gaze goes first to Roman who busies himself by standing up to clean the bowl with my vomit in it. So, I look to Darko who sits quietly and calmly in a forest green armchair. Both his hands on the armrest. He stares at me, not unkindly, but with such an extremely serious expression. My mouth goes dry immediately.
“What is it?” I ask. What are you not telling me? “Where are we going?”
“To get Aiden, Callum, and Zan,” Roman says.
“We found out El Oso has taken them to Antilles. He’s throwing some sort of event there and he’s invited shifters from all the Muiderkrings.”
“Okay,” I murmur. “But whatever El Oso thinks he’s doing in the Antilles, whatever event he’s throwing, he’s not going to be able to complete it because he doesn’t have a dove. It will fail. We got my dad out.”
“We did,” Roman nods.
“But?” I can’t stop the razor’s edge that starts to slide up my center.
“But they found out a lot,” Darko says. “When you were on the truth serum.”
“I don’t care if El Oso knows I’m alive and I’m a Thunder Being. He can hunt me forever. I’m just as powerful as he is.”
Darko raises an eyebrow with mild skepticism but I just glare back at him. There’s no way I will let show any doubt. Even if I’m not as strong as he is now, one day I will be.
“It’s not about you,” Roman says. “He’s disposed of the bowl and sits back in the chair. But the way he looks at me chills my skin.
His face is drawn and haggard. Now I see it. “How long have I’ve been out?” I ask.
“Two days,” Roman says.
“Is it Callum? Zan? Aiden?” My voice gets more high-pitched as I say the names of all my loved ones, trying to find out what has happened. And then it strikes me at the same moment the word comes out of Roman’s mouth. It drops like a bomb into my heart exploding everything there.
“It’s Henry,” Roman says. “They have Henry.”
My eyes go black. I’m completely numb. I should feel pain or danger. I should be jumping out of this bed and rushing towards the door. I should be screaming shit, shit, shit, at the top of my lungs and racing towards him, where ever it is they have him. But I’m frozen. I just sit here, my brain trying to catch up. How did my little brother go from living in a safe haven, a place nobody even knew about, and even if they did know they couldn’t get in.
Truth serum.
I told them where my brother was.
My mouth opens and I gasp for air, trying to understand how it is I could be the traitor who gave away my little brother.
“But how did they get in?” I ask. “How did they get in to the village?” My gaze flies to Darko. He meets my eyes. “Even you couldn’t get in. You had no way of getting in to the village. How is it possible the Berzerken got in?”
“We don’t have the details,” Darko says. “But we know they used Hunters. The Hunters I’ve been aligned with were looking for me to help do the job. But I didn’t respond to the call. I thought if I didn’t go in, then it wouldn’t work. I was wrong.”
“El Oso used Hunters? What Hunters? Why would they want to work for the Order?”
“They wouldn’t,” Darko says. “Unless they understand who they’re working for. My guess is in some level of the Hunters, there is a Berzerken plant who helps him play their game of cat and mouse. I don’t believe El Oso wants to rid himself of the Hunters. I think he uses them to drive fear into the shifters and help control them. Every government needs an enemy to help control the people, to give the people a single focus. And I believe that El Oso might actually have someone like that in the hunters.”
The cramps have subsided and I move to the edge of the bed. “We couldn’t stop them?” I ask. “You have access to the Hunters and you couldn’t stop them? We have access to the Ravensgaard and we couldn’t stop them?”
“We tried,” Roman says.
“How can you say you tried?” I ask. “You’re sitting here by my bed.”
“You almost died,” Roman yells at me.
I glare at him. “I don’t care if I almost died. Now they have my brother and they plan to ritually kill him in order to feed power to all the Berzerken. What is that compared to my life?” I sob. “You should have done something.” I glare at Roman because he’s my friend, he’s one of my best friends. He knows my brother, he loves my brother. “You should’ve done something.”
“Aiden gave orders we do nothing,” Roman says.
My stomach lurches. “Aiden stopped you from doing anything.?”
“There was nothing we could do from the other side of the country,” Darko says. “Please, Shae, you have to understand. Your father and your brother are not the only purebred doves in the world. There are others. This isn’t about the dove, it’s about the ritual. We have to stop the ritual.”
“Like hell it’s not about my brother. If it was Lady Heather who had just been captured to be ritually killed, you don’t think it would be about her?” I ask.
Darko meets my gaze with a steely glare. His jaw tightens but he doesn’t say anything.
“My mother? Jacqueline? Hercules? Lydia? What of the others?”
“Lydia is dead,” Roman says. “Your brother was the only one they took. Jacqueline and Hercules disappeared. Nobody’s heard from them. We think they went after the Hunters, but we know they didn’t stop the exchange. Your brother is in the hands of El Oso.”
“What about my mother?” My world is reeling. I’ve just rescued my father, I have spent months trying to keep my family safe, trying to put them all together into one room, and just as I succeed in one place, it breaks somewhere else. “What about my mother?” I repeat.
“She’s back in Topanga,” Roman says. “The Ravensgaard took her back and deposited her in your home. She is still under the radar for El Oso and they believe she’s quite safe.”
I hunch over, my elbows on my knees, my head heavy as it rests in my hands. “Where is he?” My words are muffled, but still they hear th
em.
“They’ve gone to the Netherlands. Antilles,” Darko says. “There is an old mansion there. That’s where they’re inviting everybody for the event.”
“My brother is there already?” I ask.
“They’re expecting him to get there by tonight.”
I push myself up off the edge of the bed. My legs are a bit weak, but I hold my hand on the bed to steady myself. “Does my father know?” I ask.
“He’s not doing well, Shae,” Roman says. “He’s had a tough time with the Berzerken. He needs to rest.”
“And it’s probably best if you don’t see him,” Darko says.
I nod silently. I don’t think I could keep it together if I did and he would know something is wrong.
“Why are we on a boat?” I ask. “We need a jet.”
“Listen to me,” Darko says. “There is absolutely no way a plane is approaching that island without being seen. Without them asking for the passenger manifest. Without them figuring out you’re on it. Without them killing you. You’re lucky we got you out of there alive as it is.”
I open my mouth to argue.
“Trust him,” Roman says, a hard line in his voice I have to pay attention to. “This is his world more than it’s ours. He knows more about the Berzerken than we ever will and how to combat them.”
“But my brother,” I say. My shoulders sag again, as I lean towards Roman. He reaches out but I stand before he can support me. “My brother.”
“We will do this,” Roman says. “But we have to listen.”
Darko takes me to the prow of the ship. Iona flies ahead. The wind lifts my hair and braces cool against my skin.
“You guys have nice resources,” I mutter.
“You guys?” He asks.
“You know,” I say. “Hunters.”
“This ship does not belong to the Hunters,” he says. “The ship belongs to me. It has been in my family for –”
“I know, like twenty thousand years,” I say.
“No,” he says. “Four hundred.”
“But that’s not exactly your family, is it? Isn’t that like you?”
He shrugs. “One of my grandsons built it.”
“That’s a little weird.”
“It’s only weird if it’s not your life,” he stares out across the sea. “When it’s your life, well that’s just what it is and you learn to live with it.”
I can’t help but think about how, even now he’s living away from Lady Heather, he’s working towards something he has agreed to do at my request to protect her. Sometimes it seems like all the choices we make in life are simply the choices we make in the moment. And once we make them, we have to follow through. My gaze strays up to Iona soaring in the sky. I take in a deep breath, my heart full and large.
Darko hands me the spyglass.
“There,” he says. “Pointing in the distance. You can see the island now.”
“They can’t see us, though,” Roman smiles stepping up. “Darko has mad powers. He’s not a Thunder Being, but vampires are cool. He’s made the whole ship invisible.”
I raise my eyebrows. Neat trick if you can do it. Squinting an eye shut I raise the spyglass.
Darko lets out a long whistle and Iona flies back to the ship. “When we come into the island,” he says, “there must be no trace of ravens anywhere.”
The glamour used in areas outside Topanga is fierce. Iona has told me Castle Brannach has it. The village used to have it, but now, as I look through the spyglass, I don’t understand how this Dutch colonial mansion that belongs to the Van Arend family sits out on a butte, so bold and beautiful.
“Shouldn’t it be hidden?” I say.
“It is,” Iona whispers.
“If it’s hidden, then how can I see it?” I ask.
“Because they use raven magic to hide it,” Darko says.
“And I am raven,” I nod.
“Aiden’s family built this house three hundred years ago. Europe was often considered unsafe and they felt like they needed to have a place to come to that was private and protected. It wasn’t until the caves were discovered underneath that the Berzerken decided this would be a perfect place for them to have a winter home. So, they asked the Van Arends for it.”
“They gave away a mansion?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Right,” Roman nods. “Where was I when they were handing these things out?”
“No,” Darko says. “The Van Arends gave the Berzerken access to the caves underneath and not even the full caves at that. Just a branch of them. We’re going to be landing in another set. Ones that are connected, but the Berzerken can’t even find.”
“We’ll hide out there until the reception,” Iona nods.
“Hide out?!” I exclaim. “I’m not going to hide out! I want to get my brother!”
“There aren’t that many of us, Shae,” Darko says. “We have to have a plan or we will never get your brother back.”
His words cause me to draw a sobering breath.
“Be patient and we will get him,” Iona nods.
The ship rounds the rocky shore and it looks like we are facing an outcrop of rock, but as the ship pulls closer to the rock, a tunnel appears, the turquoise waters turning dark as they enter the shadows of the cave. It looks like we might sale directly into the wall, but it must be some trick of the eye, because as soon as I feel the bow it going to crumple against stone, the ship suddenly turns again and we’re going down a long, dark passage that suddenly opens up into a natural cave harbor.
The ceiling is high and the cavern is wide, a huge dome that fits not only the ship but a large landing dock that we pull up next to. On the jetty is built a two story wooden house that looks like it must have been here from the bootleg or slaving days. The entire place is quiet. I can only imagine what the main activities taking place above ground are.
“I want to go up and see what’s happening,” I say.
“It’s too dangerous,” Zan says.
“I am a raven,” I say. “I don’t see that there’s any reason why Aiden can’t hide me in his entourage. Why can’t I just be another Ravensgaard?”
“Because you aren’t,” Iona says, placing his hand on my shoulder. “We need you to be ready. We need you to not be seen, not be captured, not be anything. We need you to be ready, because you may be the only one at the end of the day who can stop El Oso.”
I take a deep breath and nod. “Okay, I understand. But don’t you think it’s gonna look a lot more normal if we all show up together, rather than having some random extra raven at the ceremony?”
We’ve stepped off the ship and we’re walking along the dark quay towards the house. Darko turns on the lights as if he’s used to hanging out here and we step into a small living room. The place is quite comfortable, if a little worn. Wooden chairs and a table fill the room while a couple of benches line the walls as if sometimes this place has more guests. The kitchen is connected to the same room and there are no cupboards, just open shelves fully stocked with dry and canned goods. There’s a tank of water in the corner and I imagine there are fairly comfortable beds upstairs.
“Let her come,” Iona says. “The truth is, we need her. And we need her to know everything she needs to know. Aiden alone will be not be enough to stop this.”
25
Chapter 25
The event is that evening and everyone has been invited. In the beginning, I’m not sure how we’re actually going to go in, but it seems Darko has more skills than just hiding ships and living forever. He can also cast glamour so we appear slightly different than who we are. I guess all the vampire stuff is not completely lies. Now that I think of it, I must admit I haven’t seen him eat anything. When I question him about it, he tells me that the one thing about bat shifters that is true is they can only eat in bat form. So, he spends his life sucking the blood out of mice for dinner.
Ew.
I’m so glad I can still eat as a human. But he admits he doesn’t know any better. He ca
n only ever eat in their bat form.
One thing he is able to do is make us look different. And as we stand in the upstairs room of the small wooden building, getting ready to go to the house and join with the shifter royalty who are attending the Order’s event. I look in the full-length mirror and I’m completely astounded. My hair is short and dark, not long and reddish-brown like usual. My eyes are bigger and my cheekbones higher. I look older.
In the heat of the tropics, we wear loose fitting gowns, the men in short sleeves and long pants but everything is thin and light and moving slightly with the breeze as we come up from the caves and begin walking across a broad green lawn. We seem to be out in the middle of a park, but soon we arrive at the road. There’s already a vehicle waiting for us. And inside on the seat in the back of the vehicle are tickets to the ball.
“We all go as Ravensgaard tonight,” Darko says.
His clear blue eyes have changed to dark brown, much less noticeable. And his hair is shoulder length and black, his features much sharper, his nose elongated. It’s strange because if I look at him a certain way, I feel like I can still see the Darko I know.
“Those who know you will be able to see through the glamor,” Darko says. “So be careful if El Oso or Polaris are there.”
“No one will expect to see me here,” I pull my shawl around me. Although it is warm, I feel a bit of a chill.
“Your escape is known,” Iona says. “But since they have everything they want, we hope they will not be overly worried. They probably believe you are long dead from the truth serum.”
The security is tight. Dark sentries check each car window. I frown at one of the guards, my eyes dark and steely as they inspect us. I want to appear like any other Ravensgaard. We are supposed to be random cousins of Callum’s and Iona’s from Ireland. But I’m sure if I open my mouth too much they’re going to be confused by my lack of an Irish accent.
“Just don’t speak,” Darko says. “And if anyone asks just tell them you spent a little too much time in Topanga at the Van Arend court and lost your accent. Trust me, nobody’s here to try to figure out who the two random Ravensgaard are. They’re all here for El Oso’s announcement.”
