Vindication_League of Vampires

by Rye Brewer

  “Cari?”

  I lifted my face from the pillow with a sigh. “Yes?”

  “I didn’t want to leave things the way they were,” Micah murmured from the other side of the curtain. “Might I come in?”

  “Of course.” It was strange, thinking of the tunnels as his. They weren’t his. But it still felt as though I was living in his home, and it would be rude to ask him to leave me alone.

  He kept his distance, hovering by the arch carved into the rock. “I’m sorry for upsetting you back there. I know what it means to want to rescue the person you care most about in the world. I still remember it all too well.”

  I softened. “What an idiot I am. Oh, Micah, I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you’ve been through something like this before.”

  He nodded slowly, his arms folded across his chest. “I wanted to go after her, too. I wanted to make them all pay for thinking they could so much as touch her. It all but tore my heart from my chest, knowing the pain she was in, knowing how terrified she must have been. Knowing there was nothing I could do about any of it. That feeling of complete helplessness.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “And all because of me.”

  “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  “But you didn’t do anything,” he reminded me. “Cari, you didn’t ask for any of this. Gage made his choice, and I’m sure he would make it again if given the chance.”

  I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t know about that.”

  When he sat beside me, I didn’t move away. He reached for me, touching a strand of hair which had come loose from the bun at the nape of my neck. “I can’t see how he could’ve chosen otherwise. In his place, I would’ve done the same thing. How could I not?”

  I ducked my head, strangely uncomfortable but comforted at the same time. It felt good to be touched, to be consoled.

  It also felt like I was betraying Gage.

  Micah, oblivious to what was going on in my head, was still comforting me. “I don’t know what I would do without you now. That might not be right, and I’m sorry if it seems disrespectful, but I can’t help it. You’re special to me. I feel as though… well, I feel as though you were meant to be here. If Gage was going to be captured, this is the best place for you to possibly be. You’re safe. You’re cared for. You’re valued. You’re one of us.”

  One of them.

  Was I? I wanted to be—or thought I did, at first. When we’d hunted together, and I felt so alive. I belonged then.

  How did I ever think it mattered without Gage?

  Micah draped an arm around my shoulders, drawing me into a hug.

  I allowed my head to rest against his shoulder—it was nice, and he did care. Gage wouldn’t mind. He would want me to find comfort where I could. He’d be glad to know I wasn’t crying, for at least a little while.

  Wouldn’t he?

  5

  Micah

  What the hell was it going to take for her to forget about him?

  I held her as close as I dared, highly aware of how sensitive she was. She was still human enough to feel unfaithful whenever we were too close. I sensed it in the way her body changed, the way lines appeared between her brows when she struggled to contain a frown.

  I was so certain she’d fall into my arms. What was going wrong? There was nothing like planning something and envisioning it going a certain way, then watching everything fall apart. None of the joy I’d expected to experience had come to fruition.

  Though knowing Gage suffered, alone and in the dark, that helped somewhat.

  “Promise me,” I whispered in her ear as she rested against me.

  She smelled of sweetness, freshness. Vitality. Everything I had missed for so long. That scent brought back memories long since hidden deep in my heart.

  “Promise what?” she whispered, her voice still thick with tears.

  Wasn’t she tired of crying yet?

  “Promise you won’t try to find him.” I cupped her chin in my palm, lifting it so our eyes met.

  She was luminous, radiating light and beauty and purity. My lips nearly ached with the need to kiss her.

  “It’s really that important to you, isn’t it?”

  “What a silly question.” I smiled, my barely retracted fangs tight against the inside of my lips. “Yes. It is that important to me, cheri. You are that important. I couldn’t lose you now. You’re my responsibility—and, if you don’t mind my admitting it, my salvation.”

  “Salvation?” she echoed, frowning.

  I sighed as though it were a secret I was hesitant to share with her. I even averted my eyes, looking down at the floor. “There are… many things which I’ve struggled against lately. A feeling of uselessness. Sameness. Never being able to leave this closed-in place which reeks of centuries of death. I know you can smell it, too. Don’t pretend you don’t.”

  She laughed softly. “I won’t, then.”

  “I miss being part of the world,” I continued. “I realize our kind can’t be in the world the way humans are. I know I’ll never feel the sun on my skin again. I resigned myself to that long ago. It was more the loneliness which ate at me.”

  “Lonely? Here, among all the others?”

  “It isn’t the same as feeling… connected.”

  “I know what you mean.” We sat in silence for several seconds, as I waited for her to pick up the message of what I was trying to explain. She didn’t—or, even worse—she didn’t feel compelled to speak up.

  What was it going to take?

  One of the worst things I could do was push too hard. She had already pulled away once.

  “I’ll leave you alone now. I know you want some time on your own. But please, whatever you need. You know where to find me.”

  “Thank you.” She sat with her shoulders slumped, hands clasped in her lap as I walked out into the tunnel.

  Part of me did feel sorry for her as I headed back to my room. She looked so lost.

  Naomi was waiting for me, stretched out on her side across the bed. “Fancy meeting you here,” she murmured with a wide smile. “It’s been a while.”

  “And I don’t recall telling you it was safe to come to my room right now.” I ducked my head back out into the tunnel, making certain Cari wasn’t heading my way.

  “Relax. She’s in there, crying over Gage. Which is exactly where I warned you she would be if you pulled any of your tricks.”

  I glared at her. “You’d better watch the words coming from your mouth. You ought to know better by now than to test me.”

  “Come, come. Since when are we such bad friends?” She pushed herself up on one elbow.

  In the light from the candles which Cari had lit at some point, her dark skin seemed to glow with an entrancing energy. I had always been a sucker for Naomi’s beauty, not to mention her charm and composure. And her wicked sense of humor.

  I was in no joking mood, as I sat on the bed and took her chin in my hand. Just as I had with Cari only minutes earlier, only without the tenderness I had shown Cari.

  “What are you driving at, cheri? Are you trying to say that I arranged this somehow? That what happened to Gage is my fault?”

  Her wide, clear, frank eyes stared into mine. She didn’t flinch, didn’t cringe. She showed no hint of reaction to my growing ire.

  “Well? What is it?”

  She was maddening. I never could see into her head the way I could see into others’ heads. It wasn’t clairvoyance, exactly, but rather an ability to read expressions and the motivation behind a person’s tone of voice. It was a gift I’d used even in my human days.

  It was useless against her.

  “Nothing at all, Micah,” she whispered, speaking slowly, deliberately. “I must have been mistaken.”

  “You’re right, you must’ve been.” I dropped her chin, and all but shoved her away. “Sometimes, I think you forget your position in my life.”

  She sat up, crossing her long legs with a g
raceful movement. “And what position would that be, exactly? It always seems to change, depending on your mood.”

  “I told you to watch yourself.”

  “And I’ve told you many, many times that I don’t like being told what to do,” she smiled, but there was an edge to it. “Even by you, mon cher.”

  It was time to stop playing games. “Was there any other reason for you to visit?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you think? Why do I need any special reason? I never needed one before, did I?”

  “No…”

  Her hand slid up my arm, reaching my shoulder. “I’ve been all on my own for weeks now, ever since they arrived.”

  “I thought you liked Cari.”

  “Oh. I do. Very much. But I mean, she’s no substitute for you.” She ran her fingers around the curve of my neck.

  I flinched away.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I snapped.

  Her hand returned to rest on my shoulder. “I know how you meant it. I thought you enjoyed my sense of humor.” She pouted a little. “I don’t know how to take you lately. You’re not yourself.”

  “You know the stress I’ve been under.”

  “Stress of your own creation.” There was an edge to her voice once again, and a sharpness in her eyes as her fingers dug into my neck, her hand curled around the back of it.

  One second she was caressing me, the next she was ready to crush my bones.

  “I fear you don’t know your own strength.”

  “I know my strength.” Her eyes were hard again as she leaned closer. I could smell light perspiration on her skin, and the lingering scent of her latest kill. She had been hunting, and recently. That explained her sudden aggressiveness. Or so I told myself.

  “What is it you’re really trying to say?” I whispered, searching her eyes for some clue. “Since when do you come to my room with the intent of snapping my neck? It isn’t normally my neck you’re concerned with.”

  “Stop playing. You don’t want me. Stop pretending you do, all to keep me subjugated to you.”

  Her words stunned me. Not because they weren’t true—yes, she helped fulfill my baser needs, but the hours we spent together had gone from an exciting dalliance to a way of keeping her quiet.

  It was the fact that she knew it which left me chilled to my core.

  “Why do you say these words which could only hurt me?” I whispered, hoping to at least contain her bitterness long enough to solve the problem of what to do with her.

  Just like that, the pressure on my neck ceased, and her touch went back to being a caress. Nothing more. “You’ve hurt me for a long time, Micah,” she murmured, her eyes going watery with unshed tears. They sparkled in the candlelight.

  “It was never my intention.”

  “I’m certain it wasn’t.” Her hand slid to my chest, which she patted. “You only consider that which is best for you. It isn’t that you actively seek to harm those you use in order to achieve your aims. You simply don’t consider them at all.”

  There was simple truth in her words, spoken in the soft, defeated cadence of a woman who had arrived at a sad truth long since, and had merely done her best to live with it in the years following.

  I chuckled, putting on an air of confusion. “You make me sound like some mastermind. A puppeteer. As if you all dance on the strings which I control.”

  She shrugged. “Aren’t you? Don’t we?” She scanned the room without moving her head, those intelligent eyes sweeping over the sparse furnishings. “I think I’d better take to spending every night in my room. Always. Even after you’re finished with your new toy.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I warned as she stood.

  “I like the girl,” she sighed, turning toward me. “I truly do. I’m certain that if we were both human, living in the same time and place, we would’ve been friends. I would like to be her friend now, if possible. But we both know that can’t be so. Don’t we? Because she isn’t long for us.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked, suddenly intrigued and perhaps a bit apprehensive. What did she know that I didn’t? Had Cari been talking with her or any of the others?

  “Isn’t it obvious? For someone who’s made paying attention to the habits and tendencies of others his entire life, you’re rather blind when it comes to the simple things.”

  I frowned.

  When it was clear I didn’t follow, she sighed heavily once again and folded her lean arms. “Listen. She’s not going to be with us long. I feel it in my bones. She’ll either make a rash mistake out of grief or rage and get herself caught, or she’ll run away in search of her precious Gage. Either way, you will be the one responsible for what becomes of her.”

  “Me?” I scoffed. “I, who’ve opened our home to her? I, who took a chance by taking them in? It might have meant ruin for all of us, but I couldn’t allow them to flounder without a friend. And you tell me it’s my fault should something happen to her?”

  “Enough.” She sounded tired.

  More so than I had ever heard her in the decades since we’d first met.

  “Just… enough, Micah. I only ask that for your sake, and for hers, you give a great deal of thought to what you may or may not have done. And what it may or may not mean further down the line.”

  She cut me off before I had the chance to protest, adding, “I won’t stand in your way. I never have before, have I? You’ve been free to work your plans, pulling the strings as you see fit. But do not expect me to keep quiet when I see such blatant cruelty being perpetrated in front of me. Understood?”

  We stared at each other for a long, heavy minute. The only sound in the room was that of our breathing as we challenged each other.

  I’d never thought of Naomi as an opponent before—and, frankly, wasn’t certain whether I should think of her as one now, either.

  The only wise action, I decided, would be to give in to her terms. No sense in dragging out a pointless argument which might only serve to reveal more of what I’d worked so hard to conceal.

  “All right,” I agreed. “I understand. And I appreciate your honesty.”

  Her laugh was rich. “No, you don’t. Of all the lies you’ve ever fed me, Micah, that might be the biggest of all.” She was still laughing when she left, the sound echoing after her.

  I felt as though I’d been hit by a speeding bus. What was that about? What was she trying to say? That she knew what I’d done to Gage?

  Could it mean she knew what I’d done to Xavier, too?

  No. That was so long ago. Fifty years, at least. She couldn’t still be holding on to that old heartache.

  Could she?

  I’d held on to Georgina for twice as long. I always would, until I drew my final breath.

  6

  Felicity

  It pained me to witness Gregor’s pain.

  Why did fate have to be so cruel? I had never been much of a believer, having seen too much over time to put my faith in some all-knowing force guiding our lives in spite of our choices. I didn’t like the notion of there not being a path, but the one our feet started down the day we were born.

  Even so, it seemed as though there was a plan at work in our lives, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  Gregor and Tabitha, for instance.

  What was the purpose of their being reunited, only to be pulled apart again? Wasn’t it enough that he’d nursed an undying love for her up to that point? That he would never forget her, that their love would come back just as fresh and new as ever every time he looked at their daughter?

  No, it wasn’t. Not for the force which had brought them back together again. He had hoped. He’d become almost a new man, one I’d hardly recognized. A childlike gleam had shone in his eyes. He’d hoped.

  He had hoped.

  Which made his fresh heartache that much more potent. The wound which had only half-healed was torn open and deeper than ever.

  I watched him from my seat on the other side of the hearth.<
br />
  We’d sat in silence since Anissa and Jonah had left, unable to muster the energy for conversation.

  What was there to discuss? Certainly, we could talk about the wedding, but that only brought up the question of whether Tabitha would be present for it.

  We both knew she wouldn’t be.

  Though he did a good job of showing enthusiasm while they were with us. In their absence, he seemed to fold in on himself. A shadow of the man I once knew, someone I’d butted heads with more times than I could count. He didn’t appear to have any of that old bluster in him as he stared into the fire.

  “It will be a beautiful wedding,” I ventured, choosing my words carefully. “They’re a beautiful couple.”

  “They are. It will.” He leaned back against the cushions behind him with a sigh.

  “You’re a good father for wanting to give her a lovely day. She deserves it. She’s strong and brave. Like someone I know.” I flashed him a small, tentative smile, which he returned. A good sign.

  “I wonder how brave,” he sighed. “I don’t feel very brave at the moment. I feel useless, weak. Like there was nothing I could’ve done to protect…” He couldn’t say her name. That would make everything too real.

  “Perhaps there was nothing you could’ve done at all, no matter what. There were other forces at work in this. I hope we find out one day just who or what was behind this. I hate to think of the culprit going unpunished.”

  “I would never allow that,” he vowed, his eyes flashing as a bit of the old Gregor came out.

  “I know you wouldn’t. But so long as we know nothing about what went on, what’s the chance that the responsible party will ever pay for what they did?” I tented my fingers beneath my chin, elbows on the arms of my chair.

  We fell into yet another long, stormy silence.

  Allonic might have been able to help, if he hadn’t disappeared. The fact that he was missing at the same time as his mother didn’t do much to soothe my already frayed nerves. Had something happened to both of them at once? Was the blood we’d found not just Tabitha’s blood? What if he had gone there in search of her and whoever or whatever had killed Tabitha was waiting…