Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3)

by Washington, Jane

  “Um,” I managed, before pushing open my own door and running after him. “Quil—Miro?”

  “Don’t, Seph. Just don’t. You don’t know what you’re asking for. If you open your mouth again, you’re going to regret it.” His voice was hard, heavy, and it held no trace of the kind friend that I had always felt I could turn to.

  “What kind of a threat is—”

  He growled low in his throat, spun around, and cupped the base of my skull, pulling my mouth to his. Something inside my chest exploded, fissuring out to my arms, forcing them up and around Quillan’s neck. My own reaction was more confusing than his sudden kiss. I didn’t have those feelings for him, I didn’t want his lips pressing into mine, his body backing me into the tree, his hands tugging my head back…

  He tore himself away from me, swearing colorfully. “That backfired,” he groaned out.

  I slumped against the tree, my hand hovering over my mouth. “You did that deliberately!” Even to me, the accusation sounded utterly ridiculous.

  He shook his head, backing further away, turning to face the road. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” He spoke to the road. “You weren’t supposed to like it. It was supposed to be a lesson.”

  “Since when was that the best way to shut a person up?” I asked, unable to do more than slump against the tree, completely torn apart with emotion. What the hell was going on? “And I didn’t like it!”

  He laughed, the sound carrying over the asphalt, mocking me with the dry undertone. “This is so messed up. This is so wrong. I need to figure out what’s happening to us.”

  “Why aren’t you looking at me?”

  “Seriously? You’re asking more questions?”

  “What?” I swallowed. “I’m banned from all questions now?”

  He turned and walked back to me, his eyes narrowed. I would have been afraid, except that Silas had turned me into an exceptional beast-tamer, and… well, Quillan didn’t scare me. I ran at him, colliding with his chest. I had meant to knock him over, but he had easily twice my body mass, and I was sure that it was only the shock that had upset his balance. Either way, he wasn’t going down alone. He grabbed me at the last second and I toppled forwards as he fell backwards, both of us landing with a painful thud in the grass. I recovered first, rolling over and sitting on his stomach while he continued to lie there, stunned. I grabbed his hands and held them against the ground, either side of his face.

  “You’re being a bully,” I ground out. “Knock it off.”

  His torso vibrated with a laugh, and I blinked at him as it spilled from his lips, turning his face into something warm and familiar. Before I knew it, I was laughing too, and I had released his hands to slump against his chest, the tense and ugly emotion that had been building inside me bursting like a too-full bubble, simmering down to nothing.

  “I’m going crazy, Bossman.” My tone came out soft, but there was something underlying my words. It was unmoving, demanding, pleading, exhausted: it was my heart, bleeding into a plea. “I need you to tell me. Trust that I can protect this information from Weston, because I will. I promise. I’ll take what you tell me right to my grave because I’d rather die than let that man sift through my brain. I’d rather die than give him the ammunition to hurt anyone else.”

  “I’ll tell you,” he answered, quicker than I would have expected, his voice so soft that I might not have even heard it had my head not been leaning against his chest.

  I didn’t move an inch. I couldn’t, and I knew, inherently, that I shouldn’t. We had been tugging back and forth over an invisible line since the day we met, and it was time for one of us to release the rope. I knew it was going to be me, and maybe that made him stronger than me… or maybe it didn’t. Maybe the real strength is in letting go; in succumbing to a fragile hope that everything will be okay, even when all of the evidence suggests the opposite.

  Maybe I was the strong one after all.

  I couldn’t pull away from him anymore, so I let go. I allowed our bodies to subtly strain closer; to press together in an elimination of unwanted space; to share the kind of bond-given comfort that strikes a match against your bones and digs its silky fingers into your sore muscles. It felt as if we were melting into each other, our separate bodies dissolving into smoke to share air on common ground, and I knew that he couldn’t deceive me in that moment any more than he could deceive himself. Somehow, I had given in to the bond more with Quillan than I ever had with the other three. That surprised me, because Quillan was the one who I had fought against bonding to the most.

  “Seph,” he croaked out, his hands finding my face and lifting until I was meeting his eyes. “I’m not the Voda Heir. You are.”

  I stared at him, my brain pulling up and short-circuiting. Of all the theories I had entertained about what they could possibly be hiding from me, that had not been one of them.

  “I-I’m w-what now?” I spluttered.

  “I can’t be the Heir. It’s a secret my father’s family has managed to keep for centuries; that’s why Zevghéri society still believes me to be the next Voda, but the truth is… that became impossible as soon as Silas was born with a mark matching mine. The Voda has always been either an Atmá or—on very rare occasion—a normal Zev. Never a member of a pair. Can you guess how that was achieved?”

  My brain was still struggling with the shock that tripped it up, trying to prevent me from moving forward in the conversation, but I scrambled to think of a response anyway. “Because… because the Voda… doesn’t stop. He keeps having children until he has the right heir. Like Weston.” I furrowed my brow even though Quillan was nodding. “But Weston has had plenty of normal kids. Why can’t one of them be the heir? Like Clarin, or Poison?”

  “Because of the Voda power. It goes to the first born male by default, and will only transfer to another offspring under one single condition: an Atmá is born.”

  “Weston hasn’t fathered an Atmá.”

  “No.”

  “Weston hasn’t fathered me.”

  “No. But he fathered your pair. When the first born male of the Voda is a member of a pair—”

  “The Voda power is transferred to their Atmá…” I finished, catching on.

  Quillan only nodded to confirm my epiphany. “That’s why you can do things that not even a Zev should be able to do, let alone a human; it’s the adaptability of the Voda power. You learnt how to play the piano simply from watching Noah’s fingers against the keys, and I’m sure there was more that you discovered without ever telling us. The truth is, your body and mind should be able to adapt to almost anything. Pain will only ever be a temporary hurdle for you; time will be the only thing you will need to master anything at all that you set your mind to. I told you last year that you were a miracle. I meant it.”

  Everything suddenly made sense: the reason Weston put his own pair—Yvonne and Tabby—through so many failed pregnancies, marrying and divorcing them in turn, before moving on to other women. The reason for Weston’s infamous Atmá-hunt. Even the reason that Tabby hadn’t yet turned me over to Weston… I was the Voda Heir… for some reason, her sense of duty to Weston was just as strong as her sense of duty to me. Either that, or else she really did crave Weston’s approval so much that she wouldn’t dare to utter a thing unless she was sure… but I somehow doubted that.

  Tabby was on Weston’s side, but she was also on my side.

  I suddenly felt the weight of the secret, and I wondered that it didn’t sink me into the ground with how heavy it felt. I had imagined that knowing would free me in some way; that it would clear my confusion and lift me to an elevated understanding, but Quillan was right; if I was lost before… I was vanquished now. I wasn’t just the searched-for Atmá to Weston’s golden boys. I was Weston’s worst nightmare manifest. I was a threat to his secret society of not-quite-alien people, his rule over them, and the future of everything.

  I was supposed to be the next Weston. The next leader of a people I barely knew anything about
.

  I was suddenly, thoroughly, ruined.

  A car door slammed, snapping my head up and frightening away the skittish tangent my mind had gone on. I recognised the black Lincoln before I recognised Noah, and by the time Cabe had climbed out of the car, it was too late to move. They approached us and I curbed the urge to scramble to my feet—because that would only make me look guilty. People jumped out of their cars to roll around in the forest all the time. It was normal. Yeah, you’re totally pulling this off—

  “What the hell are you two doing?” Cabe asked, scratching his head.

  Quillan cleared his throat, bringing my attention to the fact that I was still holding his wrists against the ground. I jumped off him, tugging my cardigan back over my shoulder, since it had begun to slip off. He got up, picked a leaf off my sleeve, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Fighting,” I supplied.

  I shot Quillan a questioning look, and he seemed to understand what I was asking. He nodded his head slightly.

  Noah and Cabe knew the secret. Or at least… they had known.

  “Oh,” Cabe was still frowning, “okay then.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Looked like something else.”

  Despite his easy reaction, his eyes were suspicious as they swept covertly over me, as though searching my person for evidence of wrongdoing. It pained me to see the doubt in his bearing—the closed-off way that he crossed his arms over his chest, and the tilt of his head as he examined us. Noah was hovering back, his reaction as unreadable as Cabe’s was obvious. His hair had been cut recently, the pure, light golden colour reflecting light from the sun even though his gloomy nature tried to chase all brightness away. His hands were hidden inside his pockets, but his biceps were bunched-up with tension. I tried not to stare at him, but it was obvious that he had been spending more time in the gym. His chest had widened, his shoulders gaining breadth; I was pretty sure I could even see the muscles flexing beneath his shirt as he fisted his hands in his pockets. He had been going to the gym a lot, it seemed. Maybe too much. He probably had things to work through, and Noah wasn’t exactly a ‘talk about your feelings’ kind of guy.

  He also looked angry all of a sudden.

  He had caught me staring.

  “What are you two doing here?” Quillan finally asked.

  Cabe turned to him. “I got an alert on one of Silas’s computers, saying that his GPS had been switched on all of a sudden. We followed it here.”

  I glanced at Noah, because he still hadn’t said anything. He was watching me, his eyes narrowed. I mustered up a glare in response, because I was done with being pushed around by the guys for one day and Noah was the pushiest of them all. Whenever he wasn’t touting his complete distrust of me and trying to talk the others into giving me up, he was hovering in the shadows, glaring at me. It seemed that Noah wasn’t one to easily forgive—though I was positive that if I thought I had seen someone torture several men to death, I probably wouldn’t forgive so easily either. It only served to prove that Cabe was just as devilish as I had always suspected, because he no longer seemed concerned with the incident.

  Noah strode past Cabe and landed right in front of me, grabbing my chin and forcing my head up. He examined me far too thoroughly, his blue eyes brimming with force the same way the sky swelled with terrible premonition whenever a natural disaster was looming. His grip was too tight, but I curbed my complaint. He hadn’t been this close to me since the day of the accident. Once his examination was over, he dropped my chin and rounded on Quillan, pushing against his chest.

  “Don’t fuck with us,” he growled, shoving Quillan again. “What the hell is this?” Another push. “What the hell is up with you two?” Quillan was backed up against a tree now, his handsome face etched with surprise. Noah shoved him one last time. “You can’t get involved with her!”

  I ran up to them quickly, needing to wedge myself between them since Noah didn’t want to back off.

  “Hey?” I tried pushing Noah the same way he pushed Quillan, but he wouldn’t budge. He simply stared down at me, his teeth clenched hard enough that I was surprised he could make any sound at all, but he could, because there was a rumbling sound of fury vibrating from his throat. “Noah!” I raised my voice, letting my impatience leak through.

  We definitely weren’t at a point where I was free to chastise him for anything; in fact, we hadn’t made much progress at all since the boat-house incident. If Kingsling wasn’t dead, I was sure that Noah would have dragged me back to my basement prison by now. Instead, he had been trying to come to terms with the fact that Silas had willingly sacrificed himself for me—while Quillan had willingly sacrificed his twin for me, and Cabe had saved me from the very imprisonment that he had helped to force me into. I could tell that all of those things frightened Noah, because he didn’t understand the reason behind it all, and none of us had a good explanation to give him. Apparently, we didn’t even have good explanations to give each other.

  “Do you love her?” Noah ignored me completely, spitting the words out like an accusation. “Is that why Cabe rescued her? Why Silas saved her? Because of you?”

  “Actually,” Cabe interjected, watching me while Quillan and Noah stared each other down. “I don’t think it makes sense for Silas to willingly enter into an eternity of torture for Miro’s girlfriend. Deep breaths, dude.”

  Noah jerked back, apparently surprised at himself. He glanced at me, his brows furrowing, and I edged away from all of them now that there was no immediate threat of a fight. Something was definitely going wrong. The bond was spiralling out of control. It had pushed me and Quillan together and turned Noah and Quillan against each other. It was twisting who we were and playing games with our emotions.

  Great. Just what we needed.

  I ran back to the car, shutting myself inside as though the distance would force everyone back to normal. I found Silas’s phone on the floor and picked it up, clutching it to my chest.

  “Where are you?” I breathed the words on a plea, turning to stare out the window.

  The phone beeped then, as though answering my question. I glanced down at it, clicking on the message that flashed on the screen.

  Silas thought you might find something on here useful.

  -Jayden

  Tariq’s chattering was distracting me from my brooding and I was sure that he was doing it deliberately. I reached over and turned up the radio on Quillan’s Porsche, hoping to drown him out.

  He smirked, raising his voice, and Clarin decided to join in the fun, planting his chin on my shoulder and turning his face to the side so that his breath tickled my neck when he spoke.

  “Why are you ignoring your fake brother, Seph?”

  “Stop calling him that,” I snapped.

  “Yeah, Clarice,” Tariq chimed in. “I’m more of a real brother than most real brothers out there.”

  “Quit calling me Clarice, fake brother.”

  “Children, children!” Poison shouted over the noise. “Can’t you see that Seraph is trying to pretend we’re not here so that she can brood about how much her life sucks right now? Show a little respect.”

  “Poison…” I warned.

  “Yeah, cupcake? You need assistance?”

  I sighed, and then turned the radio up even louder. Tariq reached over and smacked my hand before switching the radio off.

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he reprimanded me. “It won’t help the situation. We can have another brainstorming party this afternoon if you want.”

  I shook my head, though I felt bad for rejecting his efforts. The four of us often got together—sometimes with the addition of Quillan—to try and find a solution to my two current dilemmas: saving Silas, and winning back Cabe and Noah without somehow making them distrust me even more. So far, though, we couldn’t land on a definitive course of action for either.

  “I’m sorry,” I eventually said, forcing a little bit of false cheer into my voice. “I’m fine. I’ll stop moping.”
/>
  “Good.” Tariq patted me atop the head and then turned to the backseat to say goodbye to Poison and Clarin as I pulled up to the high school.

  Poison climbed into the passenger seat after Tariq left, and we settled in for the long drive to college, which turned out to be just long enough to drive Poison partially insane.

  “I’m done. Ugh. I can’t believe you’re going to put yourself through that drive every morning,” she whined, jumping out of the car as I parked. “I’m never staying the night with you again. Even if it’s for another pity par—er, brainstorming party.”

  She grabbed her bag from the backseat, which slid out of the car with Clarin attached to the other end of it. He unhooked his arm from one of the straps, grabbed his own bag, and the three of us made our way toward the main building. There seemed to be a commotion around the entrance. We had to push our way through the people to see what had caused it. I recognised the back of Noah’s head, and the side of Cabe’s profile—and was unsurprised to find that they were at the center of all the attention. Noah seemed to be leaning into a girl with sleek black hair cut into a low bob that curled around her chin.

  Amber.

  His arm was beside her head, notched against the outside of the building entrance, his eyes intent on hers. I realised, then, that she was crying.

  As though feeling my stare, her tear-filled gaze swung in my direction and her whole body immediately tensed up. She was clenching her fists, her eyes having narrowed to slits, spitting out some kind of venomous emotion that I didn’t particularly care to define… though I was pretty sure it was loathing.

  “Uh oh,” Poison muttered, grabbing my arm and attempting to drag me backwards. “This is about to get Jersey Shore real quick.”

  “What are you talking about?” I whispered, digging my heels in.

  “Amber’s father was Dominic Kingsling, Seph.”

  That was all Poison needed to say. I understood the rest: Kingsling had died, and I had been there to witness it. I was shocked enough that Poison had managed to drag me back a short distance, but Amber was already striding toward me, literally pushing people out of her way to reach me. I dug my heels in again—not out of stubbornness, but because it wasn’t fair to run away. I may not have killed Kingsling, but there was no doubt in my mind that he had died because of me. Because he had almost killed me, and Silas had bloodied many a pavement for much less. I deserved whatever piece of mind Amber was about to give me.