Allegiance

by K. A. Tucker

  “You asked for this?” I studied this creature peering out at me with patience—his face, his hands, his stature. Everything about him appeared human. Everything identical to the painting above the mantle. Except for those eyes. And those eyes held his secret. Those hollow orbs of death. He was the grim reaper. Here to take life.

  “And did you ask that he look like Nathan?” I said without thinking.

  “Of course not!” Another shriek, another crack in her damaged armor.

  I wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the situation, but the sconces were suddenly wobbling and swaying. I balanced myself against the wall. The weight of two hands instantly landed on my shoulders, one on the left shoulder, one on the right. Two hands that belonged to two different vampires. Bishop and Caden. I glanced up in time to see a silent look pass between them, Caden’s of mock apology, Bishop’s a mix of confusion and appreciation.

  Caden quickly stepped away, allowing Bishop full ownership of me. He claimed it quickly, leaning in to ask with genuine concern, “You okay?” I tried to smile and felt my nostrils flare and my lip curl in a sneer.

  Turning back to Sofie, a new question sparked in my mind. “And why did you have him hidden here, then? If he’s only here to protect me?”

  Sofie stared back at me like horns had sprouted from my forehead. “Seriously, Evangeline? You need to ask? I couldn’t have him running loose in the streets! With what he can do? He will kill anyone he deems a threat to you. That could be the man who looks too long at you, or the driver of a car who’s speeding past you or someone who’s merely having a bad day. Anyone! I didn’t want to expose you to him until I needed to. Evangeline—he is like an unstoppable plague.”

  “And what an added bonus for you that this plague looks exactly like your one true love. My, my, the Fates never tire of punishing you …” Viggo delivered the low blow from his new spot halfway down the hall—as far away as possible from this new enemy while still bearing witness.

  If looks could disembowel, I was sure Viggo would be scooping up twenty feet of innards from the floor. I wished Sofie would attack him. Zap him dead with bolts of fire from her fingers. Hell, I was six words from siccing Wraith on him, ordering him to bring Viggo to his knees long enough so I could set fire to him myself. But Sofie only squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I couldn’t have him roaming free so I confined him here. I spelled these quarters to disguise the door and the windows. All the exits. This is the only world that Wraith knows.” Another bitter smile. “The Fates allowed me that much control, at least. I could control him to some degree until he saw you, until he completed the connection. Now … I am nothing more than a potential threat to you …” Her voice drifted off, her words hollow.

  The connection … those times I’d passed by this spot, before I could see the door. That familiarity, that pull—it was the connection the Fates had forged between the two of us, beckoning me. And because the Tribe’s magic coursing through me strengthened each day, morphed each day, it finally broke the barrier keeping us apart. The illusion masking the door. It was all making sense now …

  “I thought there was something missing in this hallway,” Mortimer mused, his brow furrowed in deep thought, his fingers rubbing his chin as he studied the door. Now that I had passed through it, I supposed it was visible to everyone.

  “Will he just … attack people? For no reason?” I asked.

  Sofie heaved a heavy sigh. “He knows his mission is to protect you. While the connection wasn’t complete, he was relatively harmless. He just … sat in that room. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat, he doesn’t need entertainment. He is here for one reason and one reason only. To protect you. Always. Until you no longer need protecting.”

  “No longer …,” I repeated, frowning.

  “Until you die.” The words, delivered with all the sympathy and warmth that Sofie could muster, still turned my blood icy cold.

  “So … that means …”

  “Wraith will be with you for the rest of your natural life, whether it be seventy years or seventy minutes. He’s bound to you forever.” Forever. Such a long time. Or not. But as long I lived, Nathan’s life-sucking ghost would trail me. And that meant I would carry around a constant reminder of Sofie’s lost love, knifing her in the heart daily with his indifference. Being with me would cause her more pain. Soon, she’d be forced to abandon me. How else would she survive this? Shards of pain splintered through my heart. Nothing seemed to be going Sofie’s way.

  “He will attack anything he feels is a threat to you, Evangeline. Anything at all. Nothing can harm him. Vampires, werebeasts—he will leech our strength from us with a touch, weaken us until we can’t fight back, or simply kill us. Mortal beings … they will die.” Sofie’s eyes darted behind me. “Stay far away from him, Julian. I can’t fix you if he decides you’re a threat.” Julian nodded soberly, giving me a sympathetic smile as Amelie’s arms enveloped him. Sofie went on. “And he can sense danger. He can dig into a person’s soul, read their evil intentions. Therein lies the danger, Evangeline. He won’t always ask you before he reacts. He may act on his own assessments of a person, of their danger to you.”

  I glanced haphazardly at Wraith and then at Caden. He is capable of causing fatal injury to you. That’s what Wraith said. That’s what he dug out of Caden.

  Caden was already shaking his head, distress evident on his face. “I don’t … I wouldn’t … not anymore!”

  “He sees it in all of us,” Mage explained. “We are all capable of hurting her. She is human and it is in our DNA to kill her. Don’t take it personally.”

  Awkward silence hung over the entire group until Sofie simply turned and left, half stumbling, dejected, down the hall. When she reached the doors out to the courtyard, I heard her call out, “Don’t worry. Wraith will not harm Evangeline.”

  I almost didn’t catch her last words. I wish I hadn’t. “He’ll protect her from all of us.” And then she was pushing through the doors, disappearing into the wintry outside, leaving a horde of supernaturals and Julian and me alone with this new unstoppable creature. My newest curse.

  “Well … on that note.” Viggo’s shoes slid against the floor as he stole down the hall. “Now that our fearless leader has given her permission, I’ll be happy to go deal with a certain blood-sucking mutant.” Sofie must have released them from their leash while we were roaming the halls and getting drunk. Viggo wasn’t wasting any time for good reason. If Wraith bothered to poke around in his soul—or whatever existed inside him—he’d find enough evil intent to decide to permanently affix himself to Viggo’s arm. He was Contender Number One in the “Threat to Eve” department, and if Viggo couldn’t kill Wraith, as he had every other threat to him—Lilly’s mom included—he would need to keep as far away as possible.

  “Mortimer …?” he called.

  Mortimer couldn’t seem to peel his focus off Wraith, though, a distant grief tugging at his face. For once, I knew exactly what he was thinking. What would it be like to have Veronique turned into a wraith? To have her soul sucked out, her beauty marred, to have her look through him, not recognize him, not love him. It would be enough to break any of us, and Sofie had to live it.

  When Viggo appeared in front of Mortimer’s face to rudely snap his fingers under his nose, Mortimer slammed Viggo’s hand away with such force that it sent Viggo back a few steps. “I heard you!” With a head bow to the rest of us, Mortimer walked away.

  And that’s when it finally dawned on me. “You guys are going back to New York?” Closer to discovering Veronique’s predicament, if you catch and interrogate someone? Another wave of lightheadedness swarmed me. Bishop’s hands found their place on my elbows, steadying me.

  “Someone has to clean up the mess! You children have fun here … with that!” Viggo called out over his shoulder, strolling away.

  “Remember Sofie’s caveat, Viggo. Stay away from the witches!” Mage warned. “As long as they’re in there, they’re not causing us iss
ues.” When Viggo didn’t answer, she looked to Mortimer. “Be the sensible one, please.”

  He nodded. “We can’t get in there, even if we want to. The witches have reinstated the Merth boundary and the entries are heavily guarded. My human spies have tried and failed several times already.”

  “What’d they tell you?” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush before I could stop myself, too eager to know. Of course Mortimer was already snooping. But did he have any idea about Veronique?

  He fixed me with a flat look. “Nothing. They’re all dead.” I listened to his heavy footsteps as he marched down the hallway after Viggo.

  Slowly, cautiously, I exhaled in relief. They didn’t know yet. When they did find out, they couldn’t ever know that I knew. That I was lying. Never! They could never know how I was betraying them. If they did … an allegiance ten times over wouldn’t keep Viggo from snapping my body in two. I would wound Mortimer, an idea I realized troubled me more than death at Viggo’s hands. They can never find out. I must beg silence from Veronique.

  “Lilly, Sofie would like you and your group to accompany them to New York and deal with Jonah,” Mage said, again her authoritative self. “It’s getting out of control. We need the issue eradicated and I don’t know that the two of them are enough.” What was happening in New York? What did “getting out of control” mean?

  Lilly paused and regarded Mage coldly. “I don’t take orders from you.” When she looked over to me, she instantly warmed. “Is that what you would like me to do, Evangeline?”

  “Uh …” She’s asking me? What was I supposed to say? Should I even trust her? This allegiance thing was unsettling. My eyes darted between Lilly—such an unassuming, unthreatening child vampire—to Mage—the all-powerful, ancient vampire—quietly analyzing every detail of her surroundings. If Sofie was already giving Lilly orders, then she must trust her allegiance to me. That was my answer. I needed to trust her.

  “If Sofie said so, then yes, Lilly. She knows better about these things than I do.”

  Lilly answered with a curt but respectable nod of acceptance.

  Lilly was going to New York. Lilly who had pledged her allegiance to me. Lilly, who would do as I asked. This was my only chance … “I need to speak to Lilly for a brief moment, alone.”

  Lilly didn’t miss a beat. “Get our things ready, please, Kait.” Kait and the others marched away without question.

  My side wasn’t so obedient. “Please?” No one moved. “Alone!” It came out in a bark.

  “God! Give a girl a wraith and some crazy powers and she thinks she runs the show …” Amelie muttered. Crazy powers …? She stuck her tongue out at me at the same time as she hooked arms with Julian, dragging him away, seemingly recovered from whatever had hurt her before. No, not whatever, Evie. You. You hurt her. After I dealt with Wraith, and with Lilly, I’d find out what I had done to her.

  My demands hadn’t moved the rest of them. Caden’s mouth opened and then clamped shut with a furtive look at Bishop. He was trying not to appear too possessive but he was dying to argue with me. I wouldn’t give him a chance. I wouldn’t give any of them a chance.

  “Leave now!” Manners were useless with them.

  “I’ll go check on Sofie.” Mage’s dark eyes drifted in the direction of the courtyard. “This must be … difficult for her. And keep Wraith away from Julian,” she reminded. “He won’t bounce back to life like the rest of you.” With that, she quietly walked to the same door Sofie had all but stumbled out.

  “We’ll be around the corner if you need us. Just holler,” Bishop said, throwing a warning glare at Lilly.

  Are you about to do something stupid and get yourself into trouble? Seeing as that’s your usual MO these days, Max asked. He still hadn’t forgiven me for my earlier escape. I’d have to make it up to him. But not now.

  “How can I possibly do something stupid? I have Death chaperoning me. I think I’m good.”

  Max sauntered away with a snort, leaving Lilly and me alone.

  We stood in the hall, four feet away from Wraith’s entrance. Wraith filled the doorframe with his looming presence. He said nothing, he did nothing. He just waited. For an order. For someone to kill.

  “You’ve wanted to ask me something since the cemetery,” Lilly whispered with a timid smile. I couldn’t help but gape at her for a moment.

  I swallowed, nodding. Once these words left my mouth, there would be no turning back. Someone out there would know what I had done, what I was hiding. They could judge me and I was afraid they’d be right. Either way, I had no choice. I needed help. Warily, I checked over my shoulder for eavesdroppers.

  “They’re out of range, if you whisper,” Lilly confirmed in a low hum.

  Still, I leaned in until my mouth was next to her ear. She waited patiently as I took a deep breath. “I need you to find a way into Viggo’s place.”

  Lilly frowned. “Okay, but you told me to listen to Sofie and Sofie says to stay—”

  “Her sister isn’t in the tomb anymore!” I hissed and then caught myself. Baby blue eyes expanded with shock. I watched her struggle to replace the veil of calm. I noticed she had a harder time doing that then the adult vampires.

  “How do you—”

  “I’ll explain later,” I said. “But I know. I know they’re torturing her. And I know that no one can find out what’s happening, Lilly. I mean no one. I’m trusting you to help me get her out.”

  I watched her set her jaw, deep in thought. Tiny hands clasped onto mine and squeezed. “Okay, Evangeline,” she agreed with a curt nod and a comforting smile. “I’ll find a way in there without raising any alarms. I promise.”

  “I mean it, Lilly. No one can know. I don’t even want you telling Kait or the others. I need you to do this one on your own. This is just you and me, kid.”

  Her mouth twisted pensively, the wheels turning in that twelve-hundred-year-old brain of hers. “Just you and me.” She liked the idea of that, I could tell by the twitch of a smile across her lips. “You can count on me.” She leaned in to give me an awkward hug—like she hadn’t given one in a century and didn’t know how—and then she vanished.

  I wasn’t alone for two seconds before Bishop, Caden, and the others showed up.

  “What was that all about?” Caden pressed.

  “Oh … stuff.” How was I to answer that? I dropped my gaze to the floor and spotted a full bottle of port by my feet. Bishop must have put it there before we discovered Wraith’s hideout. I grabbed it and rushed to bring it to my lips, taking a long, intense swallow.

  “Evie! Tell us!” I avoided all eye contact, instead studying Wraith. There he stood, waiting patiently, staring.

  Wiping a dribble off my chin, I finally threw out the first thing that popped into my head. “Ratheus.”

  “What about it?” Amelie asked.

  “Um … I wanted to make sure she knew how bad it was.” That was the one thing I knew about that she didn’t. Still, it was a feeble attempt at an excuse and I knew it the second I caught the glimmer in Caden’s eyes. He said nothing, but I could tell he didn’t buy it.

  None of the others picked up on it, though, ready to move away from this spot. Bishop let out a heavy sigh, draping his arms around my shoulders to clasp in front of me. Leaning in, he whispered, “Next time, I’ll believe you when you say there’s a secret door, okay? How about you don’t feel the need to prove it?” His lip grazed my lobe, sending shivers through my body. Shivers that he shouldn’t be able to give me. Shivers that only felt right when it was Caden giving them to me. Shivers that Caden couldn’t give me while this game of the Fates existed. Maybe he’d never be able to again, if my metamorphosis finished.

  “So what was that back there?” Amelie asked.

  I frowned. “What, where?”

  She rolled her eyes. “When I was holding you and you decided you needed to jump in between Death and a vampire? It was like you electrocuted me.” Her angelic face scrunched up as she rubbed her wrist
. “Hurt like Hell. At first, I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “I don’t know,” I answered quietly. That was a lie. I knew. Maybe it was that time. I stared down at my hands, at my fingertips. They seemed so dainty, so normal. What a deception. They were quickly becoming something deadly. With each passing day, the end was nearing. The disease was waiting to unleash itself, waiting to strike down everyone I loved. And when it struck, who would be the first victim? Would I be touching Bishop or Amelie or Caden when the magic decided to finish off my transformation? Would their faces shrivel up as I watched them die?

  I shook Bishop’s arms off in a panic and leapt forward to press my back against the opposite wall, staring at a line of worried faces. “Please don’t touch me,” I whispered hoarsely. “None of you. Please don’t risk it.”

  “Evie …,” Bishop began, stepping forward, hands outstretched.

  “No!” I shrieked, throwing my arms up to block him. “No … I can’t bear the idea that I may kill—” I choked over that word, “one of you. Please … I just need some space to deal with all this right now.”

  “Okay, Eve. We understand,” Amelie said softly, reaching forward to give Bishop a pat on the back. “Don’t we, Bishop?”

  He nodded, the crease in his brow deepening. “Of course.”

  Caden and Julian stood side by side, watching me quietly, saying nothing. I didn’t have to worry about them. Julian wouldn’t touch me for fear of earning Caden’s wrath, and Caden was good at keeping up pretenses with Bishop. I wished it were as easy for me …

  I dropped my gaze, unable to meet any of them in the eye. I was lying. Lying to every single one of them in one form or another. It was exhausting. I wanted it all to go away. I squeezed the neck of the wine bottle.