by J. L. Myers
Kendrick and I dropped into the two seats in front of the desk, while Dorian moved to stand before our mom. He took hold of her hands and squatted beside her. “Mom,” he said, his silvery-blue eyes focused on hers and his pupils dilating. “Who was our father? What was his name?”
“I’ve told you…” Mom broke off, her face turning expressionless. The light in her eyes dulled, staring into Dorian’s which were now entirely extinguished of color by enlarged, glossy-black pupils. The compulsion was working. “Athobry,” she said without emotion. “Your father was John Athobry.”
“Ask her what he was,” I whispered, fearing I’d break his hold on her.
Dorian’s gaze didn’t shift from hers but the set of his jaw tightened as if to say, shut up, I know what I’m doing. Then he smiled. “Was John Athobry a vampire…or a werewolf?”
Mom’s brows pinched. “Your father was human. He…” She inhaled sharply and her blank stare broke from Dorian’s, shooting to Kendrick then me. The color drained from her face.
Kendrick leaned forward. “What is it, Ms. Lamont?”
“Oh no,” she breathed, hands pulling from Dorian’s to grab for the framed photo, before pressing it to her chest. It was the one of her cradling us as infants. “He’s dead.”
“Who killed him?” I demanded, clutching the desk’s glass edge.
“What?” Mom replaced the frame on the desk as the light returned to her eyes. “Why are you asking me this? You all already know the answer.”
“Good one, Amelia.” Dorian shot me a glare. “You’ve got like the opposite of compulsion. Anti-compulsion or something.”
“Dissuade,” Kendrick said. “It’s the opposite of persuade.”
“Compulsion?” Mom reared, looking shocked and incensed all at the same time. “Were you—?”
Dorian’s hands cupped her face, forcing her to look at him. “No. We would never compel you, Mom. We would never manipulate you like that.”
Mom shook her head, blond tresses fanning around her oval face. “My children would never manipulate me.”
At her compelled words a twinge of guilt squeezed my heart. Had we gone too far? Was there another way?
I got to my feet, about to air my doubts when Kendrick’s voice spoke in my mind. You know she’d never tell you the truth. She probably doesn’t even know it herself. And we need to know what happened. Right now this is the only way.
Dorian glanced my way. “Is there a problem?”
Unsure, I shook my head. “No. Let’s get this over with.”
Dorian’s intense eyes returned to our mom. “The story you believe of how our father died, and how we were all turned into vampires, is a lie. You were there. You saw everything that happened. Now I need to you remember that night. Not what you were compelled to believe happened, but what really happened. What you saw with your own eyes. Dig into your memory. See the truth.”
“The truth,” she said in a quiet but level voice. “I saw it all; a monster in our home, starving for blood with sharp and deadly teeth.” She broke off with a gasp, terror transforming her beautiful face. “No,” she said, beginning to sob. “No.”
I reared off my seat and leaned across the desk. “You remember,” I said, trying to keep my voice from startling her.
She was still under Dorian’s compulsion, but her gaze shifted to me. Her eyes were wide, too much white surrounding the terror in her pupils. Those were the eyes of someone who knew something almost too horrific to accept. The eyes of someone who knew the truth.
“You know who did this to us. Don’t you?”
Tears pooled and she blinked, plunging them down her cheeks. “Yes,” she whispered, making no move to wipe away the wet streaks. “A vampire killed your father, tore him to bloody shreds. Then he attacked me. I was left for dead.”
Dorian gave her a slight shake, forcing her to look at him. A muscle ticked in his clenched jaw. “No. That’s what you were compelled to believe. That’s not what happened. Think harder. Who attacked you? Who killed our father?”
“A rogue vampire,” Mom said in monotone, her expression blank again. Her hand lifted, fingers slipping inside her blouse and nails worrying at her shoulder blade. “I did it to keep you and Amelia safe.”
“It’s no use,” I said. “We can’t break through what Caius compelled her to believe.”
Ignoring me, Dorian repeated the question, pulling on Mom’s arm. As he did, her hand over her back shifted, drawing her blouse’s thin fabric to the side and exposing her bare shoulder. I skirted around the desk and studied her flesh. There, on the pale, poreless skin was an intricate gold symbol that glimmered even in the room’s low light.
“An alchemist mark,” Kendrick said, coming up behind me. He’d never seen one in the flesh, but through my memories, he knew what they looked like.
Dorian’s gaze found me over our mom’s shoulder and slid sideways, as if to say, we’ll talk out there.
I nodded and pushed Kendrick toward the door, stepping out into the foyer as Dorian replaced Mom in her office chair. His voice was audible as we hovered outside. “Mom, once I leave you’ll resume whatever you were doing before we came in. You won’t remember our interruption or anything we discussed.” The light touch of his lips meeting her cheek reached my ears. A moment later he closed the door behind him and directed us upstairs to my bedroom. Once inside and with the door shut, Dorian asked, “The mark, do you know what it means?”
“No.” I shook my head, and Kendrick, already knowing what I was going to say, threw me my iPhone from the bedside table. “But I know who will.”
~
I rushed through the open gate fronting our property and over the quiet road that saw only a car or two every half-hour. It was late in the evening, not quite midnight but close enough that commuters had long since found their way home from work. Any lingering beach bums had bailed with the arrival of another freezing winter’s night.
My bare feet bounded over the gravel beyond the diagonally painted parking lot and hit the soft, grainy feel of dry sand. Reaching Ty and what I hoped was an explanation of Mom’s alchemist mark filled me with nervous anticipation. A wide path bordered by a wooden railing and beach flora led the way down to the gentle crashing waves. The water lapped in slow repetition, silver lit in ripples by the moonlight from a cloud-streaked sky. The beach was almost abandoned, bar a small bonfire to my left before a rocky incline. Crouched on a piece of driftwood was a guy. His black hair whipped with the intensifying wind, but he made no attempt to push it back. Instead, he glanced up, a lingering smile painting his perfect lips.
As he rose to full height, I rushed forward and leaped over the crackling fire to land in his arms. He held me tight around my waist, his free hand pressed into my back. Then my feet met the cold graininess of sand as Ty’s arms released. With a blank look on his face he glanced out at the roll of tiny waves. Nervous at his body language but unable to hold back, I let my fingers trail down his bare chest before hooking through the loops of his jeans. “I’m always happy to see you, but why couldn’t you explain the mark over the phone? Couldn’t you find out what it meant?”
Ty sighed, shoulders rising and falling. “I have someone I need to introduce you to.” His focus shifted from the glittering water to glance over my shoulder.
At that moment, I heard footsteps crunching in the sand behind me. My head twisted, following his line of sight over the fire. Wind batted at me, flinging my hair over my face. I pushed it back impatiently, twisting it to one side.
There were two people walking along the beach toward us. They weren’t hand in hand or anything, but there was a close awkwardness between them as they walked, shoulders not quite touching. Under a red skirt the girl wore black leggings and ankle boots. A fur-lined jacket covered her top half with a hood that sheltered her face from view. The boy was… I squinted, making out his dark hair and the familiar lines of his face as he glanced up, blue irises shining silver against the moonlight.
“Dor
ian?” I threw a glance to the empty beach behind him, and then to the girl he was with. He’d known I was meeting Ty here to figure out what the mark we’d found on our mom’s shoulder meant. And he was using the same space to hit on a girl? “What are you doing here?”
Dorian half waved, but his face remained impassive. “Sorry we’re late.”
The girl beside him lifted her pale hands, freeing her tangle of red curls from the seclusion of her fur-lined hood. She shook her head and smiled, releasing a cascade of red over her shoulders. “Hi, Amelia. Ty.”
“Vanessa?” I almost choked on her name. She was an inquisitive and intelligent girl, and way too smart to fall for Dorian’s single-minded charms. So what was she doing here? Why had Dorian brought her into our secret meeting? “Um, hi.” I shot a quick glance at Ty. He was even tenser than before. I frowned back at Vanessa and Dorian. “What are you two doing here?”
Ty’s broad hands found my shoulders and squeezed. His lips met my ear, his hot breath tickling my neck. “I need to introduce you to an alchemist. The one who marks my pack.”
So, Vanessa knows who the alchemist is? I already knew she’d been marked to hide her blood’s scent, but I hadn’t given much thought to how much she actually knew about it all. She’d confessed to knowing about werewolves, but had seemed oblivious to the existence of vampires. “Okay,” I said slowly. “So where is he?”
Dorian shook his head. “It’s not a he. It’s a she.”
Vanessa walked around the crackling flames and held out her hand, as if we were meeting for the first time. “Hi, I’m Vanessa Aquinas. The alchemist assigned to Ty’s pack.”
I stared at her hand for a long moment, frowning as if it were the strangest thing I had ever seen. Vanessa’s Ty’s alchemist? In the past I had wondered how this pixie-faced girl had fit into the strange pack of werewolves, how much she knew about them—and about us.
Vanessa’s hand dropped, and she crouched back onto a piece of driftwood. “Don’t be mad at Ty,” she said. “He wanted to tell you before you went to the Armaya, but I made him promise not to. I was still suspicious of your motives, even though Ty swore you had none. I just didn’t want to reveal all my cards without being sure.”
Ty pulled me down with him onto the driftwood behind us. Warmth from the fire coated my face as I frowned at Vanessa. “My motives?”
Vanessa bit her lip, but it was Dorian who spoke as he sat beside her. “She knows we’re vampires.”
I spun on Ty. His close nakedness distracted me, and I shook my thoughts clear. “You told her?”
Ty shook his head. “I didn’t have to.”
“Look,” Vanessa’s voice forced me turn back and face her. “Alchemist children are raised with full knowledge of werewolves and vampires. Our purpose is to keep a balance, to hide both races’ existence from human knowledge by helping the wolves to keep rogue vampires from drawing attention. My family comes from a long line of alchemists and raised me to follow in their legacy.” She tugged at the edges of her jacket, drawing it together as if chilled despite the fire’s heat. “That’s the reason I warned you against Ty before Marika’s, uh…involvement. I know the dynamics of each race and the feud that’s bred into them. Your feelings for each other aren’t normal. So I had to be guarded. I had to make sure you weren’t plotting some kind of race revenge.”
I remembered Vanessa’s warnings and her attitude changing from friendly but intrusive to prickly and suspicious. She’d never lacked confidence in shutting down Ty’s pack. Even Troy, who hated authority as much as he hated vampires, always backed down at her icy stare. I thought again of the mark across Marika’s neck, and the flash of gold which I later realized was an identical mark along Vanessa’s neck. A mark to block her blood’s scent. Something inside me clicked, remembering how Marika had used the mark while imprinting me to seduce Ty. “You,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Vanessa. “You marked Marika. Without you she wouldn’t have been able to trick Ty.”
“I did,” she said, red curls blowing across her neck and looking like a vibrant, living scarf. “Though I didn’t know marking her would create such drama.”
My gaze became incredulous, but before I could speak Dorian cut in. “Vanessa told me what happened and I believe her.” They exchanged a quick look before glancing away from each other.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked Dorian “You’re my brother.”
“I promised I wouldn’t.” Dorian shrugged, but wouldn’t meet my eyes. “And I didn’t want you to hate Vanessa like you did Marika. Especially when what happened wasn’t her fault.”
“Vanessa thought,” Ty said, “that Marika wanted to keep her growth into a lycan to herself. She would never have interfered if she’d known what her plans were.”
Remembering her harsh tone and skewering gaze as she reprimanded both Troy and Marika after the fact, I guess I believed her. I sighed and pushed the memories of Ty and Marika almost naked in my bed to the back of my mind. “Fine. Whatever. It’s in the past, and we have bigger things to worry about now.”
Ty caught my hand with his, the look on his face questioning. Realizing his previous tension had been over keeping something else from me, I squeezed, lifting my free hand to rub up and down his scarred bicep. Of all the things I knew about Ty, there was one thing I couldn’t question. Ty was nothing if not loyal to the end. That was a trait I loved about him, and one I could never blame him for. “So, do you know what my mom’s mark means?” I asked Vanessa.
She stopped biting her lip and smiled. “It’s a corruption of a mark that wards against a vampire’s compulsion—this version makes vocal compulsion possible. Though the compelling vamp would need to be pretty powerful for the embedded belief to remain so intact like with your mom. Being a vampire opportunistic mark, I’ve never given it anyone before. Given my alliance with the wolves, I never would.”
Dorian, Kendrick, and I didn’t doubt that Caius was behind this mark that kept his lies as the truth that Mom remembered. Defeat weighed down my shoulders. Knowing the danger, we’d previously decided to keep Caius’s attempt to kill me from Mom. We’d even planned to erase any memories Dorian had stirred through our earlier interrogation.
Would she ever be able to access those real memories, to see Caius for the monster he truly was? “So, as long as Caius is compelling her she’ll never be able to remember the truth?”
“No, that’s just it,” Ty said. “That mark is temporary. It would have to be re-administered to keep working.”
“It must last for a long time then, right?” For some reason I felt like everyone around me knew the answers and was holding back in telling me.
“No,” Vanessa said. “Each mark’s life-span differs depending on who’s marked and the technique of the one doing the marking. It could last days, a week, sometimes even a few weeks. But no more.”
My head shook back and forth. None of what they’d said made sense. Caius had always been there while I was imprisoned at the Armaya. There hadn’t been any time where he could have left and gotten back without me noticing. Weight filled my stomach, making me feel sick. “It’s not possible. Marcus said he hasn’t left.” I sucked in sea air and clutched Ty’s forearm. “How could Caius have been here since Kendrick and me got back?”
“Amelia,” Dorian said. I spun to see him shifting awkwardly on the driftwood. The light from the bonfire’s flames cast an orange glow over his pale face. “Caius hasn’t been here.”
“He sent an alchemist,” Vanessa said.
Ty’s rough hand squeezed my thigh. “Which means he’s got others doing his dirty work. And I think you were right. Someone was watching you the other day.”
Amelia, the deep sound of Kendrick’s urgent voice spoke through our bond. Get back here, and bring Dorian. There’s something you need to see.
I tried to source the problem, but his thoughts were foggy. All I knew was that he was standing behind my mom’s desk with something vital clutched between his fingers. Okay. I purse
d my lips and patted Ty’s thigh. “Dorian and I have to go. Kendrick’s found something.”
“Is everything alright?” Dorian questioned.
Instead of replying to Dorian, my focus centered on Ty. Stiff alarm had frozen his expression and his hand released mine, moving to my hip. “I’ll come with you.”
No, Kendrick said with total conviction. Just you and Dorian.
Even though I had no idea what Kendrick had to reveal, I could read into his emotional state. There wasn’t any immediate danger. I glanced up at Ty through thick lashes, a rich caramel that was a few shades darker than my blond hair. “No, there’s no danger,” I said, then motioned to Dorian. “He’s in Mom’s office and there’s something he needs to show us.”
Dorian glanced at Vanessa, and then shifted his gaze swiftly to Ty. “Guess we’ll catch you guys later.” He rose and began moving back up the beach.
“I better go,” I said to Ty. I felt bad for leaving but I needed to know what Kendrick had uncovered. “I’ll call you later?”
Ty pressed his lips together, a shadow of a smile curving them. “Sure, later.”
Ty leaned in and joined our lips. The light touch sent a flood of desire through me. It dared me to say, the hell with Kendrick’s secret reveal, while wrapping my arms around Ty’s neck and drawing his body against mine, matching his gentle kiss with one fueled by unrelenting passion. In the split second of my conjured desires, Kendrick’s stomach knitted at those very thoughts, making me feel terrible and a little nauseous. Apart from that, Vanessa was right there, arms folded over her chest and watching after Dorian. As if she wanted to have as much space between us as my brother had already gained. I let my lips brush against the stubble on Ty’s cheek. Then before I could waver, getting distracted by the pulse of blood coursing through the fat vein along his neck, I stood and bounded after Dorian.
No longer needing to hide our vampire speed from Vanessa we shot up the rail-bordered path and through the pooling light across the vacant road. In seconds we had covered the driveway and exploded through the front door, stalling only once our feet had met the soft carpet in Mom’s office.
