RYLEE (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 1)

by Shannon Mayer

  Maybe it wasn’t to him, but it was to me.

  I jogged away, down the beach toward the few lights we’d seen as we’d landed.

  Doran warned me about only taking blood from Liam. As a Guardian, Liam was strong enough to be my sole provider. Which was bad enough as it was, taking his blood. Shame burned in my gut. I’d always fought the monsters, I’d always killed them. Broken their hold on their captives, taken their heads and not felt a single bit of remorse.

  And now, I was one of them. The truth that had been circling me crashed onto my shoulders. Six months I’d avoided the reality that was now mine. That I lived off blood, I needed to take life to survive. Caring for five children under the age of two, getting our family back into some semblance of normalcy, all of it had allowed me to avoid really examining my existence. Even so, the darkness had swirled around me like vultures, waiting to pick me apart piece by piece.

  I slowed until I stood completely still, unmoving with the weight of who and what I really was holding onto me, pressing me into the sand. My throat tightened and I closed my eyes. I was not a Tracker. I was a vampire, and a reluctant one at that. A vampire who didn’t want to take blood? This was not going to end well. I began to understand the balance Doran spoke of. I had to take blood to live, and if I didn’t, my mind would fall apart. I realized then that since I’d taken the blood of the TSA agent directly from his neck, I had felt more myself. More normal.

  A moan escaped me at the thought of blood. Both desire for the liquid life and horror at how badly I needed it. Wanted it. I almost turned back to the others, to the flask of Liam’s blood that would allow me to go on, to pretend I was normal. Of course, that had been lost in the crash so there was no going back to my hidden ways. There was no way I could pretend I wasn’t a monster anymore.

  Frozen where I was, the sound of crying whispered across my ears, brought to me by the soft ocean breeze. Without realizing it, at first, I walked toward the sobs. The island wind coiled around the girl and then seemed to offer the scents up to me. Desperation, sadness. Hopeless. Resigned.

  Broken.

  I found her at the edge of the water. She wore a white shift dress that clung to her. Shivers wracked her body despite the warm air and she had her head on her knees as if she could curl in on herself.

  The part of me that was vampire recognized the weakness in her, the ability to cut her from the herd without anyone blaming anything but her own self. I dropped to a crouch and reached a hand out, touching her on the elbow. She startled and turned huge brown eyes to me.

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” She whispered the lie and we both knew it for what it was.

  “It’s hard to drown on purpose,” I said. My eyes were locked onto the throbbing pulse in her throat. The steady bump of blood against the skin that barely held it from spreading over the sand. I swallowed hard and looked away. “You want to die?”

  “Yes,” she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. This is too hard.” Tears slipped down her cheeks and I tried to think of how bad it would be to want this. To want to let go of your life and embrace the other side of the Veil with both hands.

  The air in my lungs stilled, and I was suddenly back on the slab, blood running out of me, family circling me. Holding me up with their love. A tear slid down my face and I held a hand out to her. “Life is always worth fighting for. No matter how hard. No matter how . . .frightening.” I said the words but I didn’t really feel them. Because I understood her all too well. I understood the feeling that maybe the world would have been better off without me. That maybe I should have tried harder to force Alex to go back and offer my life in his stead. But I hadn’t. I couldn’t even do that right.

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what I live with, the monsters in my head.” She sobbed. “You don’t know what I’ve seen, what’s been done to me. Who I’ve lost.”

  “Life is more than loss, more than pain.”

  “That’s what everyone says, that’s what they told me. But I don’t believe them.”

  “They love you. Your people love you.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I don’t have to know you to know it’s true.”

  “They don’t know me. How can they know me? How can they love me when I’m such a fool, when there is so much about me that is ugly and dark? So much that is not worth loving?”

  I stared at her, unable to disengage, to know where her words and mine separated, where she spoke and where I spoke.

  She was me, I was her. I looked into a mirror where my heart was laid bare and every fear, every terror-filled dream spilled out of her mouth. Her eyes fluttered closed. “I couldn’t even do this right. I couldn’t even end things and leave this world on my own terms.” Snot ran from her nose but it was like she didn’t feel it. A shudder rippled through her. “I prayed I would die. That something would happen. But God hates me. He couldn’t even give me this.”

  Her words snapped through me. Maybe I was meant to kill her. To find peace for both of us, for me to make my first kill one of compassion, and to do it for a person who no longer wanted to live anyway so it wasn’t really the same as taking a life. I was giving her something.

  I took her hand and pulled her into a hug. I wasn’t sure if it was for her or me. Pretty sure we both needed it, even if I would never admit it. I tipped her head with one hand and she didn’t fight. Just lay limp in my arms. She was too close, and my instincts took over. I gently buried my fangs into her neck. She didn’t let out a single protest.

  The blood flowed and it tasted like coconut milk and honey, like the wind that had teased her hair as she ran on the beach, of the warm sand she’d buried her feet in, like laughter and tears, love and pain. The sound of her mother calling her name with so much love it hurt me to hear that single word. All of it, crushed over my mouth and into me, filling me; I couldn’t stop, even if I’d wanted to.

  I drank her down, gulping the blood, feeling her life flood through me. I was everything I’d hated. Everything I’d feared. And I couldn’t stop. Her death hovered on the edges of my vision, I could feel her failing, feel her heart giving up.

  Her pulse slowed, and then picked up again as if she would fight me, as if even now, she knew life was worth it. Her hands came up between us and she tried—however weakly—to push me away.

  It took everything I had to remove my mouth from her neck. I stared down at her. She was weak, but if I stopped now, she would live. But what kind of a life would it be, thinking she was a monster? That she was everything she hated? Or were those my own thoughts?

  I pressed my forehead to hers. “Do you want to live?”

  She drew a ragged breath. “Yes.”

  “Then I will give you a gift,” I whispered. With the strength of her blood pulsing through my veins, I let my influence loose in my voice, for the first time giving it everything I had, more so than with the TSA agent. I’d seen into her heart, seen the compassion and the power she had yet to tap into. That was partly what she feared, the power of her own being, the strength of her own heart.

  I smiled at her, though I felt it wobble as I spoke, struggling to find the right words. Fuck, I was no poet, no wordsmith. So I tried to sound like Lark. She was better at this kind of shit than I was. The whole “Confucius says” way of talking.

  “Emmy,” her name flowed off my lips, “you will live and find love. Go and find your passion and with it, change this world. You will change lives with your heart, my friend. Don’t ever doubt it again.”

  Her brown eyes fogged for a moment and then cleared at a lightning pace. “You’re an angel come to save me. To show me the path.”

  I shook my head, a bitter laugh escaping me. “I’m no angel.”

  She touched my face and our roles reversed. “The darkness in you is your strength, no matter how you try to deny it. The monster you fear in you will save lives. Embrace it.”

  I scooped her up, t
he world around me seeming like some strange dream. I packed her up the beach so she was away from the water. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. My grandmother had the sight. So do I. I knew you were death incarnate when you first spoke. I did not fear you. I don’t fear you now.”

  “You wanted to die,” I pointed out as I set her down, her back against a log.

  “No. I didn’t. Not really. You have given me the strength and focus I need. I won’t let your gift go to waste.” She smiled, reached up and took my hand. “Believe in yourself, Rylee. You will be stronger when you finally accept your gifts, and your flaws.”

  I backed away, saying nothing more. Not knowing there was something else to say anyway. I lifted a hand in farewell. She would live, and I had a feeling it wasn’t the last time I’d see her. I walked for almost half an hour before it hit me.

  “Shit . . . she knew my name, too,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Whose name?”

  I snapped a fist out, connecting with Cactus before I could even think to stop myself.

  He yelped as he went down, clutching his hands to his face. “Damn it, Rylee! That just healed.”

  “Don’t fucking well sneak up on me!” I shouted and stormed past him. Eve and Nigel were deep in conversation as I approached the glowing fire. Eve glanced at me and I shook my head. Didn’t want to talk.

  She bobbed her head ever so slightly and went back to talking to Nigel about the roles of Harpies in the Elemental world. How they were used often as familiars in the past, but had fallen out of favor. The story was halfway through, but I couldn’t focus on it. I couldn’t focus on anything, but Emmy’s words. Her pain, and how I’d been able to ease it. How she’d seen me as an angel, as ridiculous as that was. I snorted and Nigel lifted an eyebrow. I looked away. Angel. I was a monster, a fucking vampire who would take life to sustain my own.

  Monster. Monster. Monster.

  Wasn’t I?

  CHAPTER 10

  THE WIND PICKED up as we drew closer to the mountain known as the Pit. I covered my eyes, shading them from the glare of the sun. Below us to the south side of the mountain was a monstrous orchard in full blossom. Even I knew it was out of season for blooming things, and the thing stood out. Pale pink petals floated on the air, as if in a constant state of flowering and then dropping the petals.

  “Eve, see that cherry tree orchard?”

  “Yes. Should I land there?”

  I looked back at Cactus who nodded. “Best place to start.”

  Eve swung around the mountain once before landing at the base of the mountain. She gave a shudder and yawned. “That was a long flight.”

  I got off her back and stretched my legs. “Cactus, how are we getting in?”

  He pointed at the door with his eyebrows raised. “The door?”

  I turned and frowned. All I saw was dirt, the side of the mountain, some scrubby bushes. “Haha. Seriously, how the fuck are we getting in?”

  “I forgot because you can talk to Nigel,” he smiled, “I assumed you could see the entrance. Most entryways like this are hidden from the humans and most supernaturals.”

  Nigel barked, drawing my attention to him. “I don’t think you should go in there.”

  I ran a hand over my weapons, making sure they were all attached. “I didn’t ask your opinion, mutt.”

  “You should. I’m trying to keep you alive. I say send the Salamander in without you to bring the kid out. I’ll go with him.”

  “Why is that again, the keeping me alive business?” I countered. Call me cynical but there was no reason for Nigel to attach himself to me. Unless he wanted something. I narrowed my eyes as the thought took root.

  “Don’t be giving me snake eyes.” He snapped his teeth at me. “I have my own reasons for seeing you through this.”

  But why would he want to go with Cactus and leave me behind?

  Cactus stood next to the mountain and ran his hand over it. The air around him shimmered and the dirt solidified into a door made of black obsidian. Eve squawked. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  I strode forward. “Nope.” I paused at the door and looked back. “Eve, go around to the east side of the mountain. In case anyone comes out this door, I don’t want you to be the first thing they see.”

  “Got it.” She strode away, head bobbing in time with each step. I trusted her to keep out of sight if anyone showed up. She’d learned a lot in the last couple of years.

  Three steps later and I stood next to Cactus as he ran his hand over the black material. “You ready?”

  “Ready as ever. You think you can find the dungeons?”

  “I’ll show you where the queen’s dungeons are. From there you’re on your own. I need to do what Lark sent me in for.” His green eyes were earnest and I gritted my teeth against the snappy comeback that rose in my throat. Because as much as I hated it, he was right. Now was the time to part ways.

  “Let’s do this shit then.” I motioned at the door. Cactus touched a few spots that didn’t seem any different than the rest of the door, but the obsidian slid upward. We stepped through, Nigel hurrying ahead of us. His tongue was out and he panted like crazy. “You going to have a heart attack on us?”

  “Scenting the air,” he said through bared teeth.

  Cactus motioned for me to look at the door as it slid closed. “Nigel, can you get her back to the door?”

  “Of course.”

  “How?” I parried.

  He rolled his eyes. “You have a rather unique scent. I’ll follow your footsteps backward when we have to leave.”

  I looked at the soot on the floor, scuffed it once with my boot. “Fuck, I hope you’re right and you can smell through this ash. It’s thick as mud.”

  Cactus snapped his fingers. “More than that, I may not be here to open the door for you. I’ll try to get back, but there is a chance . . . Lark has asked me to do something dangerous. I might not make it back.”

  Fuck, he was serious. “How do I get out?”

  He took my hand and ran it over the door in a triangular motion. “Feel those depressions? You need a Salamander to run their hand over them in this pattern,” he swooshed my hand over the door again, “while touching their ability with fire. Understand?”

  I nodded. “And if they can’t?”

  Cactus shrugged. “I hope you are better at talking your way out of things than Lark.”

  I grimaced and Nigel laughed. “I’ve known Rylee for only a few days and even I know she won’t be talking her way out of a wet paper bag.”

  A sudden thought stopped me from saying something in response to Nigel. “Cactus, shouldn’t there be guards here?”

  He nodded and walked away from me. “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m going to go find out what I can, and you are going to go find your kid. The fact there are people missing here is in our favor, and we aren’t going to question it for now.”

  I tried to take note of where we were, and what turns would take us back, but it quickly became apparent that the Pit was designed to confuse intruders. Twisting and turning, the place seemed to wrap around itself several times before we stopped in front of a large set of golden doors. Engraved in the door was a giant dragon-looking thing. Like a wingless dragon with giant curved horns on its head, gemstones for eyes.

  “Firewyrm,” Nigel said. “They’re native here. Or they were.” He cocked his head to one side as if listening. “Throne room is empty. This is our chance.”

  Cactus hurried forward and I moved to his side as he opened the door. The entire throne room was covered with gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pretty much every gemstone I’d ever known existed. It glittered and shined brightly in the torchlight.

  Nigel kept at my side. “Hurry.”

  I perked up my ears and caught the sound of feet stomping toward us. “Cactus, where?”

  He pointed to the left of the throne and a large brass door. “There. Go!”

  I bolted, my
boots loud on the floor, at least to my ears. Nigel skidded across the floor, sliding into the door. I grabbed the handle, twisted with a half prayer on my lips. It opened and I leapt through, Nigel with me.

  “Don’t slam it!” he whispered.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I whispered back. I carefully closed the door, holding the handle so the closure mechanism wouldn’t click.

  I leaned against the brass once it was closed and listened, my ear pressed tightly to the metal.

  “You have been naughty, Cactus. Leaving me when I needed you.”

  “My Queen, I came as soon as the banishment was lifted,” Cactus replied.

  “Too late,” she snapped. The sound of metal on flesh and the thump of a body on the floor. I caught myself opening the door. Nigel grabbed the back of my jeans and tugged.

  “He has to do what he has to do. As do you.”

  “What the hell, you think you’re Yoda now?”

  He let me go. “I don’t know who Yoda is, but if he would have said that then yes, I agree with him.”

  I shook my head. But his tug had done the trick, he’d caught my attention and kept me from making a stupid mistake. I wasn’t here for Cactus. I was here for Belinda and the kid was far from out of danger.

  I stepped away from the door and deeper into the dungeon. Curls of steam filled the air and Nigel sneezed. “I can’t pick up any scents in here. There is something preventing me from getting a bead on anything.”

  I swallowed hard. This was a gift I had. If I was going to be a damn angel, time to get with the program. I drew a deep breath and held it in my mouth, letting the smells roll over my tongue. Tasting them as I’d done in Belinda’s room.

  A man in the far end of the dungeon, a Salamander was near death. Another man was closer to us, but that was it. “Nigel, this isn’t the dungeon where the kids would be kept, is it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But it would make sense for it to be accessed through here.”

  He had a good point. I went to the wall and began to run my hands over it, looking for a seam, a crack. Something that would give me the heads up that we were on the right track.