by Ash Krafton
"There is no traitor, Soph." He blew out a big breath and slapped his legs. "Haven't you figured it out yet? Marek got caught because he wanted to get caught."
"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. Why would he—?"
"Because." He balled his hands into fists. "It was the plan right from the beginning."
I mustn't have heard it right. "He planned it? You mean..."
Rodrian avoided my eyes. "You weren't supposed to be there. You were supposed to stay here until he came back but you didn't. You went to that stupid Expo thing, you got nicked, and you nearly got yourself killed."
I was suddenly standing without remembering doing it. Disbelief made me numb. All I could think was What's wrong with Rodrian? He needs to shut up.
"Did you ever wonder how we managed to rush the place and wipe out the vamps? How was it possible we were all there at that precise moment? It was planned, Sophie."
Why was he still talking? My insides trembled and my foundation threatened to crumble beneath me. Rodrian kept right on as if he weren't destroying me, my foundation, brick by brick.
"You just...got in the way. You weren't supposed to be there. Marek didn't know it was going to happen that way."
Some dark hot molten thing had replaced the air in my lungs. "What way? The way he almost killed me?"
"No, Soph. How could he have known at the exact moment he was pushed past reason, you'd be the blood waiting for him? Vamps don't make distinctions when they feed. It's only heat and blood. It's like trying to single out one chicken in a full coop. You were only blood and heat to him."
Tears scalded my cheeks in a sheet, bitter and angry.
Rodrian lifted his head, his face twisted with guilt as he spilled his secrets and watched the effect they had on me. "It's the worst thing that could have ever gone wrong. He figured you were smart enough to figure it out on your own, eventually."
I held my breath, trying to suppress the sobs that were knotting my chest. It didn't work. "So nice to know he had such a high opinion of me."
"Sophie, he told me...it was after you tracked us down at the new club. He was relieved it was you. He was prepared for a terrible risk but he wouldn't have survived if it hadn't been your blood. He took in a part of your essence and it gave him unimaginable strength. It kept him from being destroyed. Does that make you feel any better?"
"No." I looked at him as if he'd sprouted horns. I re-membered the pain and the grief and the loss. I remembered being abandoned and the taste of the revitalizer Pontian forced me to drink so I wouldn't die from hypovolemic shock. "It doesn't. It only makes me angry."
"Angry? How?"
And then it took over—a dark hot emotion that dwarfed me. Anger. True anger.
Everything that had happened wasn't some unfortunate turn of events. Marek had planned it. This was betrayal, defined past any lingering doubt. The anger erupted and spurted out, seeking a target.
It found Rodrian.
"Because! We were supposed to have a life! We were supposed to live happily ever after! It was perfect and we had hope and all my pain was finally gone and he left. On purpose! Knowing that whatever paradise we had, he'd end it. And now I have nothing." I sucked air through gritted teeth, sounding like an animal, my hands clawed and fisted to keep from pummeling the truth into him. "I have been an empty shell that, for the last year and a half, held nothing but loss. I didn't even have my best friend anymore because he killed him, too, and that makes me angry."
Rodrian sprang to his feet, the tipsiness completely vanished from his copper eyes. "Oh no, Soph. It wasn't like that."
"It was. I lived it. You don't know what it was because you weren't there either." I pressed my hands into my eyes. Hating myself for drinking, for remembering, for being vulnerable. I hated Rodrian for making me trust him and love him so much I couldn't blame him.
I should be blaming him. He, of all people, could have been honest with me. All this time I poured out my heart and prayed for events to reverse their unfortunate selves. All this time he knew the truth and he lied to me.
I whirled but he got in my face, grabbing my arms and twisting me so I couldn't look away. I resisted, squirming until he issued a frustrated sigh and seized me with a ruder-than-usual compulsion.
Oh, no. He did not just do that.
I pulled up my shields, sliding a layer between us, using it to chip away at his compulsion.
He held onto me, narrow-eyed with determination.
Leaning into my barriers, I poured a shitload of HOW DARE YOU into them. I got close to breaking free of him, and smiled viciously, feeling him pull back.
Suddenly he released a pulse of power so tremendous it banged my barriers back at me, rocking me with a physical blow that left me gasping for breath, still pinioned under his mental grasp.
Defiantly I glared up at him, choking back the sobs. "Give me one good reason why you ditched me, too."
"I couldn't be there," he said. "I didn't trust myself."
"You didn't trust yourself?" Eyes wide and mouth agape, I bunched everything I had and shoved at my barriers, striking his own power and breaking his compulsion. "It destroyed me, Rode. My life nearly ended in more ways than one and you were having self-doubt issues?"
"Sophie, you don't know the whole story and you're drunk. Don't jump to conclusions until you can think about it."
"About what!" I thumped my fists onto his chest, hard enough to make him back up half a step. "I lost everything I wanted!"
"And you don't think about anything except what you want!" He paced away and threw his hands up in disgust.
"Oh, I've been so self-centered." I sneered at him. "Tell me, Rodrian, did you lose everything?"
He gave me the dirtiest of looks out of the corners of his bright eyes. I saw the glint of teeth.
I'd pushed him to a bad place. I knew it. I couldn't stop. "Haven't I paid enough attention to you, Rodrian?"
"No." He shook his head, his hair tumbling from behind his ear, spilling over his eyes. "You haven't."
"Poor baby! Why was I so neglectful? Oh, that's right, you abandoned me. Keeps coming back to that, doesn't it?"
"You want to know why?" He turned fully toward me, his head lowered so he had to look up at me. His eyes were completely alight, the brightness so sharp against the locks of hair that hung down. "You weren't safe from me."
I should have been alarmed at the predator seething back at me, but I was surging with anger and getting reckless. "Well, sorry to inform you, but Marek didn't leave enough for seconds."
"Yes, he did."
He grabbed my shoulders again and descended. Too fast. I didn't even have time to worry. His face was so close. His mouth was so close. His teeth—
My throat wasn't the target.
He kissed me with a desperation I'd never felt before and that kiss demanded a response. I reached up and pulled him down against me, tasting his mouth and feeling his power and his desire lace around me, through me. It was a jolt of electricity that left a trail of heat behind.
Abruptly he broke away, breathing heavily, eyes wide with some unnamable emotion. Our bodies were still close together and his power seeped into me. Disbelief, righteousness, fear. He seemed to wait for me to give a sign, any sign, of what he could do next. One signal from me and he'd run with it. I knew what he wanted. It would be so easy to say yes.
I swallowed. Hard. Twice. His eyes begged for any excuse to take me. My breath shallowed into panting and I swayed on my feet.
What did a girl do when she was drunk, heartbroken, and incredibly aroused by a beautiful man? Certainly not what I did. All the wine I'd swallowed had decided that enough was enough and it wanted out.
Rodrian sped me toward the sink before I ruined the rug and even held my hair back, handing me a wet rag when I finished embarrassing myself. He chuckled softly as he got me upstairs and carefully aimed me toward my rooms from the hall.
Although I couldn't feel him once I passed through the wards, I suspected
he tarried in the hallway, listening to make sure I'd gotten in okay. I think I'd mumbled thank you, but I wasn't sure the words actually made any sound.
His power, however, remained a living memory, sharp and clear as I fell into dreamless sleep. I just wished I'd been sober enough to remember what it'd tried to tell me.
Hangovers sucked, especially when accompanied by the lingering fog that traps your thoughts inside your smoggy brain, preventing you from getting any real peace. All the water in the world couldn't rehydrate me because my soul was leaking. I'd betrayed myself.
I couldn't have prevented that kiss but that wasn't why I beat myself up. It was because I failed to act. I didn't tell him to stop. I didn't take it farther. I barfed, which is a definitely involuntary response. What a coward. I couldn't even act upon my convictions, whatever the hell they might have been at that point.
Hangovers sucked, especially when accompanied by senior staff meetings where Tom Butchman singled you out and asked you for your input and you provided the room with a working definition of the word "agape."
Hangovers especially sucked when all you could think about was how much unfun a meeting with Eirene would be, when all you wanted to do was collapse in bed with a bottle of migraine reliever and a box of tissues and an unsympathetic cat.
The night air was brittle, the kind of cold that made fingertips split and nails break. Not that I worried about a manicure or anything. I just hated new reasons to bleed.
Eirene didn't seem to mind the cold; I guessed it suited her personality. It also gave her an excuse to wear ex-pensive fur. I already knew Eirene's definition of saving the world didn't extend to Weres, but apparently it also excluded baby seals.
I wasn't as sumptuously garbed. My flannel-lined pea-coat only reached halfway to my knees; my denim jeans weren't quite thick enough to keep out the winter bite. I hadn't thought to add a layer of Under Armour when getting dressed for tonight's meeting.
The light of a near full moon slid down through the artificial forest of cityscape as we crossed the parkway. After the night's intense barrier exercise, Eirene had suggested a walk to refresh ourselves. Personally, I wanted to crawl under my bed and die for just a little while but I guessed I owed her that much.
Chester Memorial Grove wasn't Central Park by a long shot but it could have passed for a piece of it. It covered a four city block square just outside of downtown, where the buildings weren't as tall or struck as close together, acting as a buffer to the parkway and I-95, which stretched past Balaton on the far side. Naked trees stretched skinny arms and crooked bony fingers into the cold night, basking in moon glow and streetlight, a strange shade of silver and gold.
The expression Eirene wore was inappropriate for walking through the cold, dark, and spooky. She looked as pleased as a genteel lady strolling through a summer garden. I wore a frozen determined smile over jaws clamped down to keep from chattering.
I was beginning to suspect she was a little nutty.
Dorcas plodded dutifully behind us. A few backward glances revealed she wore the same look she always did: unassuming, invisible, unremarkable. I guess Eirene was enough personality for both of them. What a depressing thought.
"Ah," Eirene said. "Beautiful night."
I shrugged and set off another chilly shudder. "At least it's not snowing."
"You don't like snow?" Her voice warmed and lifted with surprise. "Hmm. I like snow. It reminds me of home. The winters are very good there. Long nights, black skies. Lots of reasons to stay indoors. Lots of reasons to be outside. The snow would fall for weeks, piling up, covering roads and blocking doors. I like the snow."
"I guess snow is nice," I admitted. "The whole 'no two snowflakes are alike' thing."
"A silly myth. Of course they are alike. If you hold out your hand and catch only ten of them, you cannot make assumptions about the countless ones falling around you." She waved a knowing finger at me, and the streetlights glittered off her black eyes. "Never be fooled by what you see. It's what you do not see that will kill you."
The park was deserted except for the three of us. Not surprising, since it was past last call. Even the bars were closed by now. Our footsteps clacking sharply on the cement walkway, we headed along the diagonal path toward the center square. A World War II monument had been erected there, a great wall of black marble graced by ever-greens. It was bright and optimistically solemn in the after-noon but I had no idea what it might look like in midnight shadows. Unfortunately, it seemed I'd find out.
"You are progressing well in your control," Eirene said. "How do you feel?"
Besides exhausted and numb? "Better," I said. "People are starting to feel like people again. I'm not walking around in a sea of others' intrusions."
"Very good!" She clapped her hands, the leather gloves muting the sound. "That is exactly how you should come to think of it—intrusion. You are not an open target, waiting for the barrage of every passing emotion. You have a station, an elevation above the masses. You will allow what you choose. No one should make you accept them."
I appreciated her praise—a rare thing for her to validate me in such a way, considering how abysmal I'd felt when first meeting her. Despite my progress, I burned to know more about the rest of the Sophia world. "Do you think we can begin discussing the Canons or the Circlet? You only mention them in passing and I know there is so much more to learn."
"In time, in time. Tonight is for enjoyment. We have several nights remaining until I must depart."
"Depart? So soon?" Wow. Never thought I'd utter the words. "But we haven't really—"
Suddenly, she put her gloved hand upon my arm, her other hand up in a gesture to be silent. She looked around. "We are being followed."
Swell. Three women alone in a deserted park at night. Unless Eirene or Dorcas knew Jiu Jitsu, we were in trouble. Her eyes fixed upon something in the darkness under the trees and I dug into my pocket for my cell phone. The cold had long numbed my fingers and I could barely get them to work. "What is it? Do you see someone?"
Dorcas pulled up to stand alongside Eirene, her expression utterly unreadable. Eirene looked tense. Great. Miss Non-Emoting Ice Queen showed a genuine response and it was worry, of all things. I peered through the darkness toward where they were staring. Nothing except shadows.
And a flash of white eyes. And another.
I backed away and pulled at Eirene's arm. "Eirene," I hissed. "Vamps! We gotta run!"
"Run," she echoed. "They are here to kill you. They do not recognize me. Go. Run. I'll delay them."
"What? No! We all go!"
"Go," said Dorcas. Her voice seemed to take on actual sound. "My mistress knows what she is doing. Go before it's too late for you."
Fine by me. I had no death wish. I ran.
I took off across the park, running on pure adrenaline, following the northbound path that would come out near the underpass.
The path led me away from downtown, toward less densely packed city where help might be harder to come by. But I was running away from vampires. It would have to be a fair trade.
I burst out of the park onto the city sidewalk and ran north. The underpass was a quarter block away and separated from the park by a narrow dirty path that had been trampled into the snow. I plowed through a muddy puddle, the water sending up an icy spray that soaked my leg and made me curse.
The underpass was dark, lit only by the fleeting headlights of speeding cars. Each flash of light illuminated lumpy shapes against the far walls. Homeless, I realized, huddled desperately against the cold, insulated by walls of stuffed plastic bags and precious dry cardboard. I hoped they'd forgive my rude intrusion but, since I was running for my life, I wouldn't let it chew me up too badly. I focused only on reaching the brightly lit distant gas station.
Once out of sight of the park, I slowed. My pant leg was soaked through and cold water had dripped into my boot, leaving a sharp ache of sensation. I paused to catch my breath and glanced behind me, looking for Eirene. No on
e. The lumpy outlines of the homeless remained silent and still, more like scenery than humanity. Nothing. No one.
Voices made me look toward to the far end of the underpass. Three young guys, perhaps coming from the club that was a few blocks away. They loped along with a bouncy walk that reminded me of my burnout friends from 1989. Barks of sporadic laughter, sound of someone spitting. Classy.
I resumed my walk toward the gas station, head nonchalantly up, walk brisk and purposeful without looking panicked. All I could think of was digging out my cell phone but I didn't want to advertise that I had things in my pocket in case one of the guys was a mugger. I hated the city for making me afraid of being alone at night. There had been vamps back there, for crying out loud, doing God knew what to Eirene, and I was worried about a couple of guys?
Indignantly, I raised my head a little higher and marched.
As I neared the group, one of the boys stopped laughing and shook back his choppy blond hair. "You okay, lady?"
"I'm fine." I smiled and didn't slow down.
"Your pants are wet."
I kept walking.
He passed me but suddenly shot out a hand and grabbed my arm. "Didn't you hear me? Your pants are wet."
I swallowed panic and tried to gently twist out of his hand. "Yes," I said. "There's a puddle back there. Look out for it."
He didn't let go. "Maybe you been running. You sure got soaked."
I finally succeeded in pulling free but, as I backed away, one of the guys slid behind me. Where was a car when you wanted one to go by? He poked my back with a finger, not hard enough to hurt. Panic zipped through me. "She ain't running anywhere now, is she?"
Like hell, I'm not. Deciding to take my chances with the traffic, I threw myself away toward the street. A car blasted its horn and swerved to miss me.
The one behind me grabbed my arms and wrenched me back. He jerked my head around to face the other two, who stared me down with bright eyes, shades of brown and green. DV, I realized when one leaked his power. They'd been working hard at locking it down before.
