by Ava Benton
When we approached the hospital, he dropped my hand. It was so obvious, so abrupt, that I couldn’t help but notice the change in him. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. Uh. I think I should make the rest of the trip by myself.”
I looked at the entrance, a half-block away. “Only if you’re not afraid to walk all that way all alone,” I joked.
He didn’t find the humor in it.
“What happened? Did I do something wrong?”
“No, not you. Not at all.” He kept looking off toward the entrance instead of looking at me.
I followed his gaze and noticed a tall, dark-haired man who bore a jaw-dropping resemblance to him.
A man with a deep red aura.
I took a step back, away from him.
It was his turn to be alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and took another step. “He’s… he’s…”
“My brother?” he asked.
By then, the stranger had noticed me. And he stopped looking like his brother in favor of looking like an angry sorcerer.
I pried my eyes from him and looked at Gentry. My heart crashed and shattered.
“He’s a sorcerer?” I whispered.
It couldn’t be true. That would make Gentry… no, there was no aura around him. Nothing magical. But how was that possible, when his twin was obviously a sorcerer—and a very dark one, judging from the shade of the energy surrounding him?
Holden caught up to us and saw what I saw. “You need to get out of here. Now.”
His hand closed over my arm, and I hated how relieved I was to feel it. I didn’t want him to be right. I didn’t want to need him. How could I have been so wrong?
“I don’t understand what’s happening right now. Just hold on a second!” Gentry shoved Holden, or tried to. It was pointless, like shoving a brick wall. “What’s this all about? You can’t manhandle her like that or tell her what to do. She’s a grown woman!”
“You don’t know the first fucking thing about her,” Holden snarled. So much for the pretense of being a nice, normal if somewhat overprotective brother.
The sorcerer reached us and pulled Gentry aside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing with her?” he hissed, shooting me a look so full of disgust it made my blood run cold.
“Dominic, relax. She’s just a girl—”
“She is not just a girl!” he snapped, then looked around like he wanted to be sure he hadn’t attracted attention. “She’s a High Sorceress! And he’s her Nightwarden!”
Gentry’s face went dead white as he turned to me. “No. That’s not possible.”
“I told you,” Holden hissed in my ear.
“No one told you to speak, Nightwarden,” Dominic spat.
Holden growled. “I know who you are now. Dominic. Brother Gentry. Twin sorcerers. It all makes sense now.”
The truth of his words hit me like a ton of bricks. “That club in Los Angeles,” I whispered, feeling sick and distraught. “The vampire club. You killed all those vampires.”
“And the humans who were visiting the club that night,” Holden snarled, glaring at Gentry. “And they stripped you of your power when you admitted to causing the explosion. Filthy, pathetic monster.” In a flash, he had Gentry backed against the wall. Only we could see his fangs descend. “I might kill you now for that. Let you see how it feels when someone carelessly ends your life.”
“Do not touch my brother, you worthless animal,” Dominic warned. “I could make you drop dead on the spot, and no one on the sidewalk would be the wiser. Don’t test me.”
“Holden,” I whispered with my heart in my throat. “Please, don’t do this. It’s not worth it.”
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted Gentry to live or die just then, but I knew my Nightwarden wouldn’t be able to get away with anything he did.
Holden snapped at Gentry’s throat, snarling once more. “You’re not even worth the effort,” he decided.
“Look who’s talking,” Dominic sneered.
“I wasn’t talking to you, but I can if you’d like.” He took a step toward the sorcerer, who cringed. “That’s what I thought. Just try to throw a spell at me right now, out in the open. I could gut you quicker than you can blink and be out of here before anybody knew what happened. You’re just as pathetic as your miserable excuse for a brother.”
“Holden, stop,” I warned.
Dominic’s aura went deeper red than ever. Blood red. That couldn’t be a good thing.
I tried again. “You can’t do this, especially not in public.”
“You’re right,” he decided, stepping back but still shielding me. “Come on. We have to get out of here, now.”
I looked at Gentry—how could it be true? But it had to be. He hadn’t denied it.
Holden slid his steel band of an arm around my waist and pulled me to the street, where he hailed a cab and bundled me into it before I had time to think.
There was no thinking when my thoughts swirled around as they did. How could I have been so wrong? It wasn’t like me to take chances like that. I was always smarter. Wasn’t I?
“Do you see now why you should’ve listened to me all along?” Holden asked when we were more than a block away. His voice was tight with fury. His hands shook from the effort it took to keep his claws retracted.
“Please. I can’t do this right now.” My voice was a weak whisper. Almost a whimper.
I had just been through the biggest shock since the Kristoff situation. In many ways, it was like reliving the whole nightmare again.
The feeling that I couldn’t trust anything, that nothing good would ever happen again.
The pain. The deep, ardent wish that if I was about to die, I would just die and get it over with.
Because I didn’t know how long I could survive pain like that.
10
Gentry
How could I have been so blind? So damn ignorant. Amazing, really, the things a person was willing to ignore in favor of maintaining the narrative they’d created in their mind.
Of course, he was a vampire. The sunglasses, even at night. I should’ve picked up on that right away. How many vampires had I crossed paths with over my lifetime? How many of their lives had I ended, for that matter? Their destruction had been my ultimate goal for so long. But I had ignored the obvious in favor of focusing on her.
And if he was a vampire, and he was guarding her, that would make her a witch. Not just a witch, but a High Sorceress. The magic I felt swirling around her was very real, and probably more intense than I had allowed myself to notice.
I was already half in-love with her the day I saw her waiting in line for coffee after dreaming about her as I had. It blinded me.
Dominic’s rage was unlike anything I could remember witnessing.
“You stupid, useless piece of shit,” he snarled, glaring at me like he wanted to strike me dead on the spot before pulling me into a tight alley beside the hospital.
“Excuse me?” I whispered, eyes narrowed. “I think you forget who you’re talking to.”
“Is this what happened to you as result of your powers being stripped?” he asked.
He looked almost nothing like me when he was as lost in rage as he was just then. His face twisted on itself until he became a monster. Or maybe, just maybe, the monster was his real self, and the human appearance was the façade.
“In a way, yes,” I spat back, “and I can thank you for that, brother. Even now, you’re forgetting one important fact. I suppose it’s all a way of making yourself feel better for what you did to me. You like to forget how I took the fall for you. The way you begged me to take the blame when it was all your idea, when you’re the one whose clan planted the explosives in that club. I would never have gone that far.”
“Oh, you would have,” he sneered. “You forget what you were like before you were stripped. You were just like me, brother. You can hold yourself above me all you want because you lost what made you a real
man, but I know the truth.”
“What made me a real man?” I laughed. “If seeking out and destroying vampires for the very fact that they exist is what you think makes you a man, I feel sorry for you.”
“It was good enough for you before. When we were growing up. For decades, brother,” he hissed, lowering his head, looking at me from under dark brows. “You learned just as I did why they need to be wiped from the earth. Some hunt witches, some hunt vampires. We fall into the latter category. They do not deserve to live. How can you turn your back on everything you were ever taught?”
“Something happened to me,” I admitted. “I’m not like you anymore. In many ways. And you’re the one who did it to me, so I suppose I should thank you. If you want to blame anyone, blame yourself.”
“How dare you?” He had the nerve to look offended.
“Are you seriously that deluded?” I asked. “It’s like I’m seeing you for the first time. For almost two weeks, I’ve convinced myself that you kept bringing up the club incident because you felt guilty over what it did to me. But honestly, it’s like your memory of the situation is gone. How can that be? Are you truly that desperate to forget what happened? Did your mind break?”
“My mind is fine. I think you’re the one whose mind is broken. Don’t tell me you could’ve forgotten who you are.”
“It’s not who I am anymore. I’m no longer a sorcerer. You’re the one who saw to that. I confessed to killing dozens of humans—not just the random panhandler, not the sort of crime that could be swept under the rug. This was high-profile. These were wealthy young kids. Of course, it was a sensation. Somebody had to pay. You forced me into it, and you only spared my life because you knew you were guilty, not me. But you took my powers. Damn it, just admit it. Stop kidding yourself.”
Once again, a range of emotions crossed his face. Guilt was the prevalent one. But he pushed it away, as he pushed away every last thing that made him remotely human in favor of the strength of a sorcerer. He was truly lost. I didn’t have a brother anymore.
His pocket watch gleamed as he pulled it from its pocket. “We’re very late. We should go up.”
I backed away. “No. You go. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He rolled his eyes. “Stop acting like a child. You promised you would visit her today.”
“I’ll go later. Once I know you’re no longer up there.”
“What am I supposed to tell her?”
“You are over one hundred years old,” I reminded him, speaking slowly. “Think of something.”
“Gentry.”
“Dominic. I mean it. Go without me.” I stepped aside, leaving the way open for him.
He paused for a moment before walking by, straightening himself up as he did. I watched him smooth his palm over his hair and brush off his suit jacket before walking into the hospital.
And I leaned against the wall to my back and asked myself again how I could’ve been so blind.
The night he came to me rushed back, clear as if it were happening all over again. His panic. He hadn’t meant for things to go that far. The bomb was supposed to go off after the club closed for the night, when only the vampires who lived beneath the club would be present. It was supposed to be his biggest triumph.
And I had railed at him. Oh, how I had eviscerated him with my words. How could you do something like this in my territory? You should’ve kept this to New York, on your side of the country where nobody could blame me for it. No, you coward, you did it here so you could blame it on me if things went south.
Please, please, Gentry. Sweat had rolled down his face in rivulets, soaking his hair, the collar of his unbuttoned shirt. For the first time in forever, he had looked unkempt. You know what something like this could do to all of us. I sit at the head of our world. I’m the only thing keeping us all together, all the clans. It would devolve into utter chaos if anyone found out I was responsible for this.
What about my clan? I had demanded, taking him by the collar and hurling him against the wall. You know how hard I’ve worked to keep things together, to keep us unified. Just when things were going well, you pulled something like this. How could you?
It was to be a gesture of strength! Something to unify all the clans under our family name. One grand gesture to put us back on top, where we belong!
Right. And look what happened. Everyone scatters like cockroaches with the lights flipped on, I had snarled, dropping him to the floor and spitting on him before walking away.
Please, brother. Please, do this for me. When I tell the rest of the clan leaders that you planted the explosives, please. Confess to it. I’ll give you the details. You only have to repeat them when the time comes.
They’ll kill me, I’d pointed out.
No, they won’t! He had struggled to his feet, shaking his head like mad. No, I’ll make sure of it. Remember, I have the final say. And I’ll refuse to take your life. We’ll only strip you of your powers.
You’ll what? The very thought of it had made my blood run cold. No powers? How could I possibly survive? I had never known any other way of living. I had relied on magic for everything, my entire life. I didn’t even know how to fry an egg, and he wanted me to live without my powers?
It’s not a death sentence. He had changed then, from a man begging for help to babbling, wily, desperate con man fighting to convince his mark of something that could mean the difference between life and death for him.
And damn me for a fool, I had listened. I had bought into the entire story of how our entire family, all fourteen branches of the original clan, would crumble into dust if Dominic’s crime came to light. His twisted, pointless crime. Even then, he had started sliding into insanity. It was the only excuse for what he did. I wouldn’t have considered such a scheme, and he was the only sorcerer who’d killed more vampires than me.
I had listened, and I had allowed him to bring me up in front of the other clan leaders and accuse me of being a murderer, of endangering the rest of us by bringing our activities to the public eye. I had risked our safety, according to him. I could’ve brought us all down.
The memory of his hypocrisy was enough to turn my stomach, but I forced myself to replay every memory then and there, sitting under a tree across from Mt. Sinai Hospital while he visited our dying mother. The hateful glares of the other sorcerers, men I had known my entire life. Men who had respected me. The ritual Dominic had performed to strip me of every ounce of magic. The feeling of dying, almost, or what I would imagine dying felt like. A light going out inside me. The sense of lessening, of shrinking.
And he had the nerve to act as though it was his duty. Like I had deserved it. He had fooled himself into remembering things the way he wished they’d gone. I didn’t know whether to pity him or plot his death.
I couldn’t do it, and not because he was my brother or even because I doubted I’d be able to harm him. He had power that was only a distant memory for me. I couldn’t do it just then because Mother was still alive. I wouldn’t break her heart that way.
Once she was gone, however…
He appeared on the sidewalk and didn’t look around for me before walking back in the direction of his home.
I watched him, and for the first time in my long life, I felt nothing toward him. Not even hate. He was nothing to me. Barely even worth the air he breathed.
When I was sure he had gone and wasn’t coming back, I crossed the street and went inside.
The lobby still had that death smell, or it might have been my imagination. I kept wanting to return to my dream of Vanessa, but that time was gone. I could fight as hard as I wanted to get her back—and I did want to, I wanted to so badly, we hadn’t even gotten a chance to be together—but with a vampire standing between us, there was no chance. Not when he knew I’d killed so many of his kind.
I bristled when I imagined how satisfied he was with himself. He hadn’t trusted me, and he was right. And he was very likely reminding her of that very fact as I rod
e up to the third floor in the elevator.
When the doors opened, a scene of chaos greeted me. Nurses and doctors rushed down the hall, muttering and asking questions, and when I stepped off the car, I saw where they were headed. I followed them to her room.
One of the doctors stopped me outside the door. “I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan. Your mother passed away a few minutes ago. It looks as though you just missed it.”
I stared over his shoulder into the room, where medical professionals surrounded the bed. It was oddly silent in there without the monitors making noise.
“Mr. Duncan? Can I do anything for you?” he asked.
“No. No, thank you.” I cleared my throat, turning my gaze back to him. “Her arrangements were already made, if I remember correctly?”
“Yes, sir. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s taken care of.”
“Thank you,” I said again before heading back down the hall, to the elevator.
She was gone. I didn’t even feel the need to look at her one more time before they took her to the morgue. I didn’t want to remember her the way she was then, anyway. Sunken and drawn and in pain.
I remembered the woman who’d danced on top of a piano the day Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, the one who had been my ideal version of glamour and grace for much of my life.
Besides, I had other things to think about.
Such as killing my brother for killing her.
I had never been so sure of anything. He’d done it before I could tell Mother how naughty he’d been.
And Vanessa.
I needed her.
There had to be a reason I had dreamed of her, and I wouldn’t let her go until I found out what it was.
11
Vanessa
“I should’ve done it when I had the chance,” Holden snarled.
I closed my eyes but could still hear his shoes on the wood floor as he walked back and forth.
“I should’ve torn that bastard to shreds. I told you so.”
