Aaron spun toward him, his face twisting with disgust. “Do you know so little about your own kind?” he asked, his eyes a deep, steely obsidian. “Don’t you care at all about your own species?” He practically spat the words at him. “There’s been a vampire colony in Tokyo for a quarter of a century, and you don’t know about it? There were hundreds of vampires that lived there!” He shook his head. “Perhaps you’d know that, if you weren’t so busy killing your own kind.”
Kallias laughed bitterly, “Oh, and you care? Is that what you expect me to believe? We all know you better than that, Aaron. The only person you’ve ever cared about is yourself. If you cared about our species as much as you claim to, you wouldn’t have killed off your own kind so mercilessly in your rise to power.”
Aaron stepped closer to him. “I left you alive. Have you forgotten that?”
“That wasn’t mercy,” Kallias growled at him. “That was cruelty.”
Kara returned her phone to her pocket and lifted her eyebrows at them. “Oh, fucking hell,” she groaned. “Either rip each other’s throats out already, or kiss and make up. If we have to watch this every day, at least make it interesting.”
Kallias scowled at her. “I didn’t ask any of you to show up at my house.”
“No, but I’m not really the ask-for-permission type, am I?” Kara replied. “Especially not when it comes to protecting the woman I’ve sworn to protect.”
“You’re doing a little more than protecting her, don’t you think?” he said.
“Well,” Kara countered, “if you’re not satisfying her, someone has to.”
“Oh, dear God,” Rose groaned, banging her head against the doorframe.
“Do we have confirmation yet?” Aaron asked Kara, ignoring the lethal anger that was currently radiating from Kallias. “Is there hope for any of them?”
Kara looked at him, and her features softened with sadness. She shook her head. “My spy from that colony, Sakura—she sent a distress signal to one of my other spies while she was being burned alive.” She sighed, “No one escaped.”
“Then, we have no choice,” Aaron declared. “We must prepare for war.”
“No. We can’t,” Kallias argued. “Innocent people will die. I thought you were trying to prevent a war, not start one. That’s why we killed Alana, wasn’t it?”
“We didn’t kill Alana quickly enough,” Aaron said bitterly. His dark gaze shifted toward Kara, Erik, and then Rose. “You all let your feelings get in the way.”
“You’re just jealous because we still have feelings,” Rose muttered.
Aaron continued, “By the time Erik killed her, the damage was done. She gave the Assassins of Light what they wanted: a cause for war. War has already begun. Hundreds of vampires died tonight. We cannot stand by and do nothing.”
“You can’t tell me, without a doubt, that they’re dead,” Kallias told him, desperate to change his mind. He pointed at Kara. “The only proof you have is what she says, and she’s a liar. The only thing you can trust a liar to do is lie.”
“You can trust me to lie well,” Kara muttered. She waved a hand at the television. “I wouldn’t lie about something that you can see right in front of you.”
“See?” Kallias said. “She doesn’t even deny it. She knows she’s a liar.”
“I run a spy network,” Kara reminded him. “But if this is your argument, fine. Yes, I’m a liar. But why in Odin’s name do you think that I’d lie about this?”
“Same reason you do everything,” Kallias snarled. “For personal gain.”
Kara swept her gaze up his tall form, her eyebrows lifting at the tightness of his muscles, at the aggressiveness of his stance. “You’re a bit tense, aren’t you?”
“Can you blame me?” Kallias asked. “With you lurking around, waiting to take what you want, regardless of the consequences? Are you even aware of the consequences, Kara? Have you ever stuck around long enough to find out?”
She looked away, her eyes flashing with pain. “No,” she admitted.
“Of course not,” he said, “because all you care about is what you want.”
Rose suddenly stepped in between them, her back to Kara, her front to Kallias, as if she were shielding Kara from Kallias’s words. She’d moved so quickly that they never even noticed her move. “Kallias, stop it,” she demanded.
Kara looked down, watching as Rose’s hands trembled, as her skin paled. She felt Rose’s panic. “Rose, you should’ve stayed where you were comfortable.”
Kallias just stared at Rose, his eyes wide. “You’re taking her side?”
“Her side?” Rose repeated. “Listen to yourself. There are no sides, Kallias, because no one’s fighting you. You’re so hostile and angry. This isn’t like you.”
“Of course it’s like me,” Kallias snarled. “It might not be like the person you believe me to be, but this is definitely like me. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to accept, but I have news for you, Rose: we can’t all be as good as you are.”
“Is that what you think?” Rose asked. “That I’m good? Because most of the time, I don’t feel good. I feel like a failure, usually. Sometimes, I think I’m a monster. And right now,” she paused, sadness glistening in her eyes, “especially right now, when I know I’ve hurt you, I feel like the worst person in the world.”
Kallias watched her with a frown. “Of course I believe you’re good.”
“Then, why can’t I believe in the good in you?” Rose asked. Her words came out soft and shaky—a whisper. “Why can’t I believe in the good in her?”
Whatever softness she’d briefly glimpsed in his brown eyes hardened in an instant, as if it’d never been there. “The good in her,” he repeated, scoffing at the idea. “There is no good in her! She’s a liar, Rose. Her entire life is built around evil. She’s a spy and an assassin. She’s killed people. Probably more than you can count. And she betrays everyone. You can’t trust her. She’ll end up hurting you.”
“I don’t believe that,” Rose said. “I don’t believe she would hurt me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah?” he said bitterly. His voice sounded so sharp, all of the sudden, so full of anger, that it actually hurt Rose to hear it. “I bet the first woman she loved believed that, too, and look at what happened to her.”
“Fy faen,” Kara breathed. She’d whispered the curse, barely loud enough to hear, but the pain in her soft voice seemed to echo throughout the room.
Erik glanced at her as he sensed her agonizing emotions. With a worried frown, he turned his attention toward Kallias. “What are you doing, Kallias?”
Rose felt the overwhelming shame and sadness that Kara felt, as intensely as she would have if it were own, and she didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know what to do. “Do you mean Alana? Alana manipulated and abused her.”
“She hasn’t told you, then,” Kallias said. “Of course she hasn’t. Because she’s a liar.” His voice had turned cruel now, and a small smile pulled at the edges of his lips. “No, it wasn’t Alana. Alana was the second woman she loved. There was one before her.” He looked past Rose, at Kara. “What was her name again?”
Kara trembled, her fair skin turning paler than usual, as she tried to fight his telepathy, as she tried to push him out of her mind. “Get out of my head.”
“Oh, there it is,” Kallias said darkly. “Hadleigh. Queen Hadleigh.”
“Kallias,” Erik said, “do yourself a favor and stop. Before it’s too late.”
Kallias looked at Rose. “Hadleigh trusted her, too, and guess what Kara did? She did what she does best: she betrayed her. For a conquest. She betrayed the woman she loved, just so she could conquer her kingdom. She killed her.”
Rose frowned, her stomach sinking with dread. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why not?” Kara breathed. Her voice came out as a strained whisper, so full of guilt that Rose thought, for a moment, that she could feel the thickness of the guilt on the back of her neck. “I’m the one who li
es, remember? Not him.”
Rose turned toward her, and it struck her speechless for a moment—the sight of Kara, so broken and ashamed, the ages of self-loathing visible in her light blue eyes. Rose felt as if everything she knew about Kara had been turned upside down. Because…above all else, Kara was confident and certain and unapologetic.
And yet, right now, she looked the exact opposite. She hated herself.
Rose refused to believe it. “There must be more to the story.”
“There’s always more to the story,” Kara said, shrugging helplessly. She stared at her boots, unable to meet Rose’s gaze. “It doesn’t change what I did.”
“That’s the reason, isn’t it?” Rose whispered. She tilted her head to the side so that she could see Kara’s face, beneath the curtain of sleek, blue and black hair. “You said that you wanted to die…the night Alana killed you. Is that why?”
“Can you blame me?” Kara said. Her voice cracked, as if she were on the verge of tears, but before even one tear could fall, she straightened. “I need to go upstairs for a moment,” she told Aaron. “I need to make some phone calls.”
Aaron, for once, didn’t challenge her—even though he knew that she’d lied, even though everyone in the room knew that she was lying. “Go ahead.”
Kara turned and left the room, leaving before the first tear could fall.
Rose waited until she heard the sound of Kara’s door closing, upstairs, before she spun toward Kallias. He took a step back, clearly taken aback by the anger that turned her eyes red, flashing like a spark of fire. “I know that I ripped open some wounds for you, especially when I died, so I’m trying to understand your anger, your frustration, your…manipulation, even. But this…was too far.”
Kallias laughed in disbelief. “You’re angry with me? For telling the truth?”
“It wasn’t your truth to tell,” Rose said, her brows creasing. “It was hers.”
“She was never going to tell you, Rose. Don’t you see that?” Kallias said.
“There are a lot of things that I don’t want people to know about me,” Rose said, her hands shaking, one of those memories very fresh on her mind at the moment. “And I sure as heck wouldn’t want someone telling those things to everyone in the freaking room!” She waved her hand wildly, gesturing at the silent crowd of vampires, who watched uncomfortably. “You told me that you believe very strongly in not abusing your power. Does that go out the window when you’re angry? Because if it does, well, that sounds a lot like Alana’s argument.”
Kallias shook his head angrily. “I’m just trying to protect you, Rose.”
“You keep saying that,” Rose said sadly, “but I feel less and less safe with you every day.” With a sigh, she turned and headed toward the door. Surprisingly, she didn’t have to squeeze through this time. Everyone moved out of her way.
Kallias watched her with a worried frown. “Where are you going?”
Rose stopped in the doorway and glanced back at him. “To talk to her.”
“After what I told you?” Kallias said. “Don’t you see she’s dangerous?”
Rose shrugged. “Kallias, the only person I don’t feel safe with right now is you,” she said. “I thought I knew you, but…I can’t predict what you’ll do next.”
He straightened, his brows twisting with pain. He watched as she left the living room and trudged sadly up the stairs. “What the hell just happened?”
Erik rolled his eyes. “You screwed up, you fucking idiot,” he snarled.
Kallias turned toward him. “You’re taking her side, too?”
Erik scowled at him. “I spent almost every second of my first hundred years around Alana and Kara, and do you know something? No matter how much Alana liked to humiliate and manipulate Kara, she never mentioned that night.”
Kallias just shrugged. “I don’t know what that has to do with me.”
“Well,” Erik said, “as your best friend, allow me to alleviate your idiocy. If Alana thinks that something is too cruel, then it’s probably safe to assume that it’s too cruel!” He sighed, “Look…if this is about your fear of losing Rose, you need to deal with it. Quickly. Because right now, you’re just losing her faster.”
15
Kara’s Darkest Secret
Rose quietly slipped into the room and eased the door closed behind her, sympathy burning in her bright blue eyes as she watched Kara. Kara sat on her bed, her back against the headboard of the bed, her long, leather-clad legs drawn up to her chest. Her face rested against her knees, and there was so much sadness in her body language that Rose would have been able to see it, even if she weren’t bound to Kara. “I’m so sorry, Kara,” she sighed. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
Her shoulders lifted in a sad, depressed shrug. “Why not? It was true.”
“It was your secret to tell,” Rose said, walking toward her, “not his.”
Kara looked up at her, and that sad, defeated look on her face stunned Rose. Because it felt so wrong to see Kara this way. The woman who was always confident, always strong, always resilient. This face—this weak, despairing face—looked like the face of someone else entirely. “Why are you still here? You know now. You know the worst thing I ever did. Why would you still care about me?”
Rose sighed, “I don’t know which is more astounding. The fact that Kallias thought this would change my mind about you, or the fact that you did.”
Kara shook her head in disbelief. “If you knew, if you really knew, you would never forgive me,” she mumbled. “I know I could never forgive myself.”
“Try me,” Rose said. She circled around the bed and climbed onto the empty side, sitting next to Kara, her arm brushing Kara’s arm, her thigh brushing Kara’s thigh. She watched as Kara’s gaze shifted toward her and darkened with hunger. It didn’t matter the situation. Blood bonds reacted to touch, regardless.
“What do you mean?” Kara asked slowly, her voice soft and lilting.
“Tell me every terrible detail,” Rose said, “and see if I can forgive you.”
“I do love a challenge,” Kara said with a weak smile, “but I doubt I’ll like the consequences of this challenge.” She sighed, “But if you’re sure, I’ll tell you.”
Rose reached out and slid her hand into Kara’s hand, feeling the warmth of Kara’s palm against her own, and then, she intertwined her fingers with Kara’s.
Kara stared at their joined hands, a surprised smile forming on her lips.
“I’m sure,” Rose told her, offering her an encouraging smile.
Kara’s smile faded. “Okay,” she sighed. She stared at their joined hands as she spoke, as if she were afraid that this would never happen again, as if she were afraid that Rose would never touch her again once she knew the whole story. “I had a mission. We planned to raid a kingdom. It was said to be impenetrable because it was surrounded by a wall, which was consistently manned by skilled archers, and protected by soldiers. But I knew I could get in, and I had a plan—to take it over from the inside. First, I let their soldiers capture me. I made them think that they had bested me in battle. I made it convincing, and they fell for it.”
When Kara paused, sighing heavily at the pain building inside her chest, Rose squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to tell the story, if you don’t want to.”
Kara looked at her. “No, I want you to know,” she stated. “You deserve to know. You’ve believed in me…in a way that no one ever has. I don’t want to keep wondering if that will change when you find out. I’d rather find out now.”
“I’ll still believe in you. I promise I will,” Rose said. The pain that she sensed in Kara broke her heart, and she wanted so badly to soothe that pain. So, she slid closer and rested her head on Kara’s shoulder. “I promise,” she breathed.
Kara closed her eyes and let out a soft, pleasant sigh, as if Rose’s action had eased her pain somehow, as if the sensation of Rose’s body against hers had mended her wounds in some small way. She tilted her face down and
kissed the top of Rose’s head. “They imprisoned me in their dungeons,” she said, returning to her story. “When they stripped me of my armor, they realized I was a woman, which was quite a shock for them. Their laws forbid the execution of women, so they imprisoned me until they could figure out what to do with me. The king wanted to starve me to death. It technically didn’t violate the law, according to his weird logic, so he thought it would be a good solution. But his wife disagreed.”
Rose closed her eyes, relishing the scent of Kara’s skin, the warmth of Kara’s body. Even as Kara revealed her darkest secret, Rose felt safe next to her.
“His wife, Queen Hadleigh, was so sweet and gentle,” Kara said with a fond—but sad—smile. She leaned her head against the top of Rose’s head, inhaling the scents of honey and vanilla that clung to Rose’s skin and hair. “Kind of like you,” she whispered into Rose’s hair. “She snuck down to the dungeons every night—and let me just tell you: those dungeons were no place for a queen—and she brought me bread and water. I might have died down there, if it weren’t for her. But I noticed the way she looked at me as she nursed me back to health.”
“She was attracted to you?” Rose assumed, her voice quiet and curious.
“Mmm-hmm,” Kara said with a weak smile. “So, as I regained my health, I started to flirt with her, charm her, maybe even turn her on a little bit. You know how I am.” She nudged Rose playfully, and Rose laughed and nodded. “She started to fall in love with me, and surprisingly, I started to fall in love with her, too. That wasn’t part of the plan.” She sighed sadly. “The thing is…I could have stayed there. She would’ve kept me alive somehow. She loved me, just as I loved her. I could’ve just forgotten about my mission. My father would’ve assumed that I’d died and went on home. It wouldn’t have been an easy life, imprisoned in that dungeon, but it would have been a happy one. Because I would have had her.”
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