by Amy Miles
Fane grips his shoulders, forcing Nicolae to release his grasp on Sadie’s hand. “I know it hurts and that you would do anything to save her, but…”
“No,” Nicolae holds up his free hand, his voice threatening to give out on him again. “I know what I’m asking for.”
William glances between them, his rocking slowing to a halt. “Are you saying there’s a chance she can live?”
“Maybe.” Fane’s expression is troubled as he turns to William.
Nicolae’s gaze trails down to the floor, noticing how Sadie’s blood has seeped into the cracks of the aged hardwood floor as Fane responds. “It doesn’t always work. She has to possess the right bloodline. I’m not even sure she would be strong enough to survive the transformation. She’s lost too much blood.”
Fane waits for Nicolae to look up from Sadie and acknowledge him. “Sadie might not survive.”
“She’s dead either way,” Nicolae replies, his voice choked with tears.
“But if you could save her, she’d become like you? An immortal?” William gently brushes aside wisps of bloodstained hair from his sister’s face.
“Yes,” Fane nods stiffly. He looks to Nicolae. “If I do this, and I’m not saying I’m going to, but if it works, I can’t guarantee that she will remain pure. She might not be the girl you knew.”
Nicolae’s eyes darken as his expression grows rigid with determination. “Just do it.”
Two
Nicolae paces at Sadie’s bedside, his frustration mounting with each tick of the grandfather clock that stands like a sentinel against the wall opposite Roseline’s bed. His hairline is damp with sweat, his bare skin still caked with dried blood. His disheveled uniform began to stink a day ago, but he has hardly noticed. He absentmindedly chews on a cracked fingernail only to grimace at the taste of blood and dirt in his mouth. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Magic cannot be rushed.” Fane blots Sadie’s cheeks with a damp cloth, cooling her feverish skin. Although William has grumbled several times about the chill in the air, Fane refused to stoke the fire and risk Sadie’s teetering health for William’s comfort. Her breathing has slowed so much that he doubts Nicolae can sense its presence. Her chest lies eerily still.
“You said a few hours, a day at the most. It has been nearly two days, Fane. Something should have happened by now.”
“She’s still alive,” Fane reminds him, with forced restraint. “Be thankful.”
“You call this alive?” Nicolae stabs a finger at Sadie’s still form. The sheets and mattress bear rusty streaks of dried blood, a reminder of just how long Sadie has remained in this catatonic state.
Fane sighs and rises from his position on the floor. His clothes are rumpled, stained from hours spent kneeling at Sadie’s bedside. He groans as he reaches toward the ceiling, his neck popping and cracking audibly as he stretches. Nicolae notices that Fane’s long hair, previously tied back by a leather thong, has fallen haphazardly about his shoulders, further evidence of the stress burdening the immortal.
He tosses his cloth back into a bowl of pink colored water on the side table as he approaches. “I warned you this might not work. It would appear that her body is fighting the changes. I can’t predict what will happen to her, but I do know what will happen to you if you keep refusing to eat or sleep. You are human, Nicolae. You can’t keep going like this.”
“I’m fine.” Nicolae’s shoulder bumps against Fane as he brushes past, refusing to leave Sadie’s side. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and knows how gaunt his cheeks have become, how purple the skin is under his eyes, but it doesn’t matter. “I won’t leave her. Not again.”
“Sadie is strong-willed. If anyone can pull through, it’ll be her.” Fane crosses the creaky wood floor and dumps the bowl of water out of the window. It splatters against the stone courtyard below. “If I were a betting man, I’d say Sadie will wake before morning.”
When Nicolae shivers at the frosty breeze that slips through the window, Fane locks the glass panes, sealing out the blustery night. When he turns back, he finds Nicolae with his head hanging dejectedly. “This isn’t your fault, you know? If you’d been here, you might have shared the same fate.”
Nicolae’s jaw clenches as he vigorously shakes his head. “It was my job to protect her. She needed me and I wasn’t there for her.”
“I feel the same way about Roseline. For so many years, I’ve felt like she was my responsibility. Not that she would have ever let me take care of her; she’s independent for that.” Fane sighs as he leans back against the wall, closing his eyes. “We should have known there was something wrong with Malachi.”
“We did.” Nicolae frowns. “We knew, but Roseline was too stubborn to listen.”
Fane’s lips twist into a pained smile. He opens his eyes and stares at the exposed wooden beams that run the length of the ceiling. “She has always been like that. From the first day I met her.”
Nicolae sinks down onto the bed beside Sadie, careful not to disturb her. He can’t stand to be apart from her, not when death seems to be hanging on her doorstep. He likes to think that, even in this coma-like state, she can hear his voice, sense his presence and maybe it will be enough for her to fight to survive.
When Nicolae clears away the strands of stray hair from her forehead, he tries not to notice the blood that still clings to her hair or the pallor of her skin. “What was Roseline like? In the beginning, I mean.”
For a moment, he thinks Fane might ignore his question, but instead Fane moves toward an oversized armchair near the window. The leather creaks as he sinks into it and his face is cast in shadow.
“She was sweet, innocent.” A wry smile crosses the immortal’s lips. “Her laugh was different then, more like the giggle of a girl with a childhood crush, but there was a buried pain within her as well. Seeing your entire family slaughtered before your eyes changes a person.”
Nicolae sinks down next to Sadie, resting his head atop hers.
“Roseline always feared the monster within her, always waiting for the savage desires to overtake her. She was too strong for that, too determined to prove Vladimir wrong.” Fane’s voice turns harsh as he crosses his arms over his chest, as if trying to repress years of anger.
“I wanted to kill him each time he touched her. I used to dream about it, plan it, but I couldn’t risk messing it up. I knew if I did, Vladimir or Lucien would make her suffer for my mistake.” He falls silent for a moment, his brow furrowed. “She always tried to hide her wounds from me. I’m not sure if it was her pride or for my own benefit, but I always knew.”
Pursing his lips at the raw pain in Fane’s tone, Nicolae wishes he’d never asked.
Fane leans his head back against the chair and stares up at the ceiling. “She saved me all those years ago. I was like her in many ways, horrified by what I’d become, desperate to end it all. I was contemplating suicide the day I met her.”
“Is that even possible?”
Fane rolls his head to look at Nicolae. “Anything is possible, but would you really want to light yourself on fire?”
“Good point.” Nicolae watches the emotions playing across Fane’s face. It is strange to see this side of the man he grew up hating. Nicolae had never stopped to consider that the evil Fane lived with would haunt the immortal just as much his own parents death did with him.
His gaze drops to Sadie’s still face. “Do you think she will be like Vladimir? If she survives?”
Fane shakes his head. “No, but she will struggle. We all do. Blood calls strongly to us, but we don’t have to let it control us. Roseline is the strongest person I know. I can’t think of anyone better to show Sadie the right way to live.”
“But she’s not here,” Nicolae protests. He stops and blinks, grimacing as he looks up to meet Fane’s hollow gaze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said”
“No.” Fane rises from his chair. “It’s the truth. Sadie needs Roseline.”
Nicolae watches his f
riend move toward the door. Fane opens the door, pausing with his back turned toward the room. “Once Sadie is on her feet, we will need to leave. It’s not safe here anymore.”
“And Roseline?”
Fane shifts so that Nicolae can see his grim profile over his shoulder. “She’s a fighter. I know she will last long enough for us to find her again. She has to.”
***
Strong winds tousle Gabriel’s hair, biting at his cheeks. Small ice crystals cling to his blond strands, clacking together as he wills the numbness to return. He is adjusting to the cold, just as Elias said he would. Staring out over the thick Siberian forest before him, he can’t bring himself to feel anything more than guilt mingled with a heavy dose of remorse.
Why did he leave Roseline behind?
He bows his head, ignoring the whistling winds that whip through the tall mountain pines, as he clamps his eyes shut. He should have gone to her, said something, tried to explain…but he didn’t.
Even now, he can’t help but wonder if he made the right choice. Elias’s argument was annoyingly sound back in the courtyard of Bran castle: leave now and save Roseline later. Of course he had to choose this, but if that’s true, why does it feel like he has abandoned her?
Now he is the one who has been abandoned. Elias dropped him off here several hours ago, when the sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon and the cloud cover was sparse. Now the clouds have begun to roll in, thick and heavy with unfallen snow. Seneh is gone too, although Gabriel can’t really remember when he left.
He spent most of the afternoon moping, kicking at buried tree roots and staring blankly at the wild landscape surrounding him. Animals scurries from treetop to treetop, no doubt foraging for food.
Frustration soon melts into boredom as the hours pass. He paces back and forth, muttering to himself under the thick canopy. Dry pine needles jut up from the snow at awkward angles, attacking his calves as he sinks into the snow with each step. He can’t wait to see Elias or Seneh so he can give them a piece of his mind.
It’s not the abandonment that bothers him the most. It’s the lack of answers, the secret looks the two angels share when they don’t think he’s watching. Something is going on. Something that has made both angels flustered enough to leave him here alone, in a strange land, completely unprotected.
Gabriel’s shoulders tense at the sound of a footfall behind him. He drops to a crouch, peering into the woods back over his shoulder. The muffled light of the forest plays tricks with his mind as he searches for any hint of a sound or movement of color. He inhales to check for Seneh’s scent, but it is not an angel creeping up on him now. It is a human.
He turns his face to the side and sniffs the air again, realizing that he can’t even pick up a scent. The forest falls silent around him. His heart beats in his chest as he counts the seconds that pass. Two minutes pass without a single hint as to where the person is located.
Whoever is out there knows how to hide.
His muscles coil as he struggles to decide if he should run or turn and fight. If he runs, his dark robe will easily be seen against the snow. If he fights, he fears how far he will have to take this.
Gabriel has never had to kill before. Although he knows he is capable of it, he doesn’t look forward to the time he is forced to. Hopefully today isn’t that day.
He begins to grow restless as the forest falls into an eerie hush. Even the woodland animals seem to have disappeared. He knows the human must sense his presence too, otherwise they would have come out by now.
When the footfall finally lands again, he blows out a silent breath of relief, as he spies a hint of brown protruding unnaturally from the side of a tree less than ten feet behind him. With the grace of a mountain lion, Gabriel spins and leaps.
A startled cry rings through his ears as he connects with the concealed figure, knocking them back into a snowdrift. His shoulder slams into a buried tree root before he slumps to the ground. A jagged crack forms along the equator of the aged trunk and with a mighty groan, the tree plummets to the ground. Powdery snow rises in a cloud around the fallen tree.
Gabriel leaps back into a crouch as the hooded figure staggers to their feet. He braces, preparing for the unexpected.
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“Huh?” Blinking, Gabriel slowly rises as the person draped in heavy furs lowers their hood.
He stares in awe at the beautiful blonde standing before him. Defiant but calm, she gazes back at him with large azure eyes rimmed by long lashes. Her skin is the palest he has ever seen, almost blending in with the snow all around. Gabriel glances at her pink lips, noting that they are slightly parted but still, not trembling from fear or the cold.
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Gabriel runs his hands though his snow dampened hair as he watches the girl. She obviously knows these woods, where to step and how to travel with hardly a sound. He is impressed with how well she snuck up on him, but this only makes him wary. If she is here it means there may be more people about.
She’s just a girl, a human. It’s not like she’s dangerous, he tries to argue, but his trepidation remains.
“Who are you?” He asks, ignoring the uncomfortable tightness in his chest.
When she cocks her head to the side, her chin is lost in the folds of animal skins that drape over her shoulders. The wind brutally whips her hair, but she hardly notices. “You English?”
Her speech is broken, but Gabriel nods in understanding. “Who are you?”
“My name Katia. You?” She pokes a sharpened stick toward his chest.
“Gabriel.” He steps closer and watches as her eyes narrow, her stance stiffening. Her lips press into a flat line, her jaw set as her fingers curl tightly around her stick. Everything about her stiff stance screams experience and skill. This girl knows how to take care of herself. “Are you lost?”
She shakes her head. A mass of blonde curls dances about her shoulders. Her cheeks have grown rosy now that her face is unprotected by the furry hood. She sizes him up, then lowers her stick and leans against it.
“There,” she says. She raises a gloved hand to point toward the tree line at the bottom of the mountain. Gabriel narrows his gaze, trying to spy out a building among the trees but he can’t find any trace of one.
“Are you alone?”
Katia’s gaze hardens as she raises her spear, ready to attack. Her breath puffs rapidly past her lips, hanging in a fog before her. He can hear her elevated heart rate and smell the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins. “I fighter.”
“No,” he holds his hands up to show he is unarmed. He smiles awkwardly, struggling to find a way to reassure her. “No fight.”
She shifts in the snow, her fur lined knee-high boots sinking a couple inches. “You alone?”
Gabriel scowls and looks to the gray sky above. Releasing an impatient snort, he nods. “Apparently.”
“You come. Eat.” She motions for him to follow her as she abruptly turns and heads back the way she came.
Gabriel frowns at this unexpected acceptance. Is this some sort of a trap?
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he calls.
From nearly fifteen feet ahead she turns and stares pointedly at the sky. “Storm come. Very bad.”
“I’ll be fine.” His voice is lost to the rising winds. With a knowing smile, she turns and plunges down the slope of the mountain, skiing across the snow with impressive ease. It’s obvious she has done that before. Numerous times probably. Gabriel grumbles under his breath, searching the blanket of clouds overhead once more before following her lead.
The mountain is steep, no doubt treacherous during the best conditions. He marches behind Katia, amazed at her stamina and sure footing, despite the rapidly dropping temperatures. Her shoulders never hunch against the cold and her pace never slows.
The scent of pine pervades his senses as they move steadily down the mountain. Icicles dangle from the branches, clacking in the ris
ing winds. The terrain is ever shifting as new snow is blown into deep slopes.
The trek back to the small timber cabin takes most of the afternoon and well into the evening. He spies the first signs of the homestead just as the skies begin to darken. A wooden fence marks out a plot of land, which although vacant of animals, shows evidence of hoof prints and chicken scratches in the snow.
A feed trough runs along the northern stretch of fencing, its contents frozen solid. A small barn, barely large enough to hold a tractor, sits beyond the cabin. An outhouse stands to the right of the cabin.
The homestead is quaint but uniquely self-sufficient. Katia catches his curious gaze as she stamps snow from her boots on the wooden plank porch before unlatching the roughly hewn pine door. Heat pours forth from within as she slips inside.
Gabriel closes the door behind himself, careful to make sure the latch falls into place. The winds howl beyond the wooden walls, blustery and fierce. He pauses beside a window for a second to watch the snow tornadoes that carve a path through the pasture.
“Shoes,” she says sharply.
He turns to find her stoking the fire, the embers barely glowing red beneath the ash of the previous log. Glancing down, he realizes that the snow has dropped off him in clumps, melting into a puddle on her dirt floor.
“Sorry,” he mutters as he slips his feet from his sandals. He looks around for a towel to clean up his mess but quickly realizes that the task would he hopeless as mud clings to the hem of his robe.
Apart from the earthen floor, everything in the cabin appears to be spotless. Metal pots and pans hang from bent nails along the far wall. A small porcelain tub sits on a rickety table, no doubt used as a washbasin. A small shelf, probably carved from the towering Siberian Pines just beyond Katia’s homestead holds two metal cups, bowls and plates. A curtain, made from dingy canvas, hangs at the window.
“You’ve got a nice place here,” he says, pulling his robe up over his head. The heat from the new flames is stifling as he removes as many layers as he can while still remaining decent. He can’t imagine how unbearable it will be once it’s at full burn.
