Pushing him aside, for now, I turn to Jane. She’s regarding me warily as though I might sprout wings and fly away. Hell, I can’t blame her. She was introduced to a whole other world within a few hours.
I would be terrified too.
“So,” I start, walking across the room. It’s lined completely with books, the dark wooden shelves reminding me of the study back in Salem. This one is a bit more modern though, with high, leather-backed reading chairs situated in the middle, and a large mahogany desk off to the corner.
The crimson carpet is thick and plush beneath my bare feet.
“So,” Jane repeats, turning in a slow circle so her back isn’t to me. I recognize the calculated movements because it’s probably what I would be doing too. “You’ve never been good at beating around the bush,” she adds.
The bit of normalcy is enough to push through the grief and shove me closer toward the conversation looming before us. “You must have some questions for me.”
“You could say that. But I think you’ll probably have quite a few more for me.”
I turn toward her, eyebrow raised in question. “Why?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious why I don’t seem all that surprised to learn that you’re a killer?”
“A killer? What the hell is going on?”
“You’re a hunter. You kill supernaturals.” She walks toward me, no fear, no hesitation in her steps.
“You knew?”
“I knew. From the moment we first met.”
I blink rapidly as though the action will erase the words she just spoke to me. Surprise quickly turns to anger, though, and soon, my earlier shock has all but vanished. “You knew? This entire fucking time?” How many chances did she have to come clean? To talk to me about what was going on?
Jane and I met before I fully understood what was happening to me. Which means, she knew what I was before I did.
“You knew when Delaney died? Do you have any fucking clue how alone I felt?” I roar at her, clenching both fists at my side to avoid slamming them into something. Since I still have no clue where we are, I’d rather not destroy anything.
She’s a traitor!
She deserves to be punished!
My vision wavers, blurring at the edges, and I suck in a deep breath.
“Do you not think I wanted to tell you? To talk to you about all of it? To offer any kind of comfort. I couldn’t.” Jane’s eyes fill with tears as she stares at me.
How is this woman—someone I’ve known for nearly my entire life—such a stranger to me now?
“And why not?”
“Because I promised your grandmother that I wouldn’t.”
“Perfect. So she knew about you too? Did Delaney? Did all of you assholes know except me?”
Her silence is even more of an answer than any words could have been. “Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You’d better start giving me some full fucking answers, Jane,” I warn.
Jane turns away from me and takes a seat in one of the leather high backs. When she gestures to the one in front of her, I cross my arms and stay rooted in my spot near the door. She sighs. “I am over five centuries old,” she says.
My eyes widen, and I gape at her. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not a supernatural. I would have sensed it.” Right? I mean, I guess I didn’t sense Elijah, but that’s because his witch half lets him slow his heartbeat so it sounds like a human’s. Is it possible—“Wait, are you a witch?”
Jane nods.
I cover my mouth and turn away. The one part of my life I thought was normal is actually supernatural. How fucking fitting. “How? How are you hiding your magic? How did we grow up together? Were you stuck as a child for most of those years?”
“I should clarify, my soul is over five hundred years old. This body is only thirty-seven. Like you.”
“You think that’s clarification?” I laugh darkly. “Are you serious?”
“The cliff notes version of my fate is that I pissed off some powerful witches. They wanted to punish me for eternity, so they cursed me and then burned me at the stake. Each time I’m killed, I’m reborn into a new body but with all of my previous memories.”
I stare at her, unable to move from the spot I’m standing in. What she’s describing is—awful.
“Every time I turn nineteen, they come for me again. They come again and again and again. It never mattered how far I ran, how hard I hid, they always found me.” She begins to pace. “Imagine this, Rainey. Imagine being an adult with over five centuries worth of memories, only you’re trapped in a child’s body so no one—not even the parents who brought you into the world—take you seriously. They don’t believe you when you tell them over and over again that you won’t live to see twenty.”
It would be horrible. But she already knows that, so I don’t say a single word.
“Your grandmother was the first person who believed me. The first to show me the least bit of kindness. She promised to block my magic from the outside world so no one would be able to sense it. As long as I didn’t access it, the witches tracking it would not find me.”
“Who else knows?”
She swallows hard. “Elijah.”
“Elijah knows all of this?”
“He does.”
Rage burns hot. We promised each other, no more fucking secrets. And this entire time, he’s been sitting on this.
Traitors!
Both of them!
Kill them!
Burn them to the ground!
I shake my head. What the hell is happening to me? “So you two just kept this massive secret from me, then? Just laughed about it behind my back?”
“No, of course not.” She moves toward me. “We want to help you, Rainey.”
I step out of her reach. “Help me with what?”
“What’s happening to you.”
“And what the hell is happening to me?”
“Do you remember what happened at my café this afternoon?”
“I told you. I remember talking to you and then the man—warlock—came in. He attacked Minnie, and I don’t remember anything else after that.”
Jane reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone. After tapping on the screen a few times, she holds it out. Charred ground fills her screen, nothing left behind from whatever fire ravaged it. “That was my café, Rainey.”
I don’t say a fucking thing.
She lied to me.
Convinced Elijah to lie to me. Or who the hell knows? Maybe he was the one who did the convincing.
Either way, the two most important people in the world to me kept things from me. What else do they know?
Have they opened the box?
Seen what was inside?
“You burned it down with the snap of your finger and the whisper of a word.”
I gape at her. “There’s no way.” I wipe sweaty palms on my jeans.
“You did,” she confirms. “You shouldn’t have been able to. It should have been impossible for you to do that. Do you know the fire marshal said he’d never—not in over thirty years—seen a fire burn that hot? There was nothing left. Not even bones. Minnie’s body will never be recovered, and that warlock?” she laughs darkly. “He was reduced to ash right along with her.”
“I don’t understand.”
We promised to help you.
And help you we did.
An onslaught of voices fills my head, whispering things I can’t even understand. Like mutterings of insanity. Over and over again they whisper.
We promised to help you.
And help you we did.
We promised to help you.
And help you we did.
“You are no longer just you,” Jane says, her voice slipping through the psychosis. “When you opened that box back in Salem, you released evil into the world. Evil that hitched a ride inside of you.”
I bark out a laugh. What she
’s saying is insane, right? It has to be. Possession? That’s the thing of nightmares and cheap Hollywood movies. “Jane, you can’t be serious.”
“Deadly,” she bites back. “And if we don’t figure out how to help you, I will have to put you down.”
Kill her, they all urge.
Before she kills us.
Before she traps us again.
Kill the witch!
“Put me dow—” Pain surges through my brain, and I grasp the sides of my head, falling to my knees. My eyes burn, my head feeling like it’s moments away from exploding as I’m assaulted with memories of fire.
Of screams.
Of death.
I fall to the side, my vision so fucking blurry I can’t see a damn thing. Jane’s voice calls through, resonating within my mind, one single thing for me to hold onto.
“You are not well, Rainey. The witches inside of you? They will do anything to gain control of your body. Of your mind. And they won’t let go unless we can force them out.”
“Why is this happening to me?”
“Because you are who they’ve been waiting for.”
30
Elijah
Pain brings me to my knees. I brace myself, sucking in deep breath after deep breath as my head burns. At least that’s what it fucking feels like.
Rainey. I start to crawl, moving over the hardwood toward the den where I left her and Jane. The silver blocks all magic—or at least it should. So I’ve been unable to listen to anything they’ve talked about.
Which apparently has turned into a curse rather than the blessing I thought it might be. “Rainey?” I call through the pain.
Finally, as quickly as it came, it vanishes.
Relief washes over me, so I push to my feet and run the rest of the way down the hall. Rainey is curled into herself on the floor, eyes shut, face and body taut. Jane stands above her, staring down at her friend.
“What in the bloody hell did you do?”
“Nothing. She passed out.”
“I felt—”
Jane’s mismatched gaze meets mine.“What? What did you feel?”
“Pain, like I was being burned.”
“Probably the witches trying to stifle her memories.”
“Witches?” I glare at her. “What witches? What the fuck have you not been telling me?”
“We need to be careful what we say around her,” she says, her tone dry and completely void of all emotion.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Without answering me, Jane turns to leave the room. I reach down and gather Rainey into my arms, carrying her out of the den, down the hall, and setting her gently on top of my bed. She looks so slight, so pale against the dark sheets, and seeing her like this—it’s tearing me the fuck apart.
Though not as bad as I’m going to rip Jane apart if she doesn’t give me some fucking answers.
Hands curled into fists, I leave the room and head back down the hall. Jane is waiting for me in the kitchen, staring out the window.
“You’d better start giving me some answers, Jane,” I warn. “Or I’m going to decide I have no use for you.”
She turns toward me and leans back against the counter, crossing both arms over her chest. “It wasn’t just magic in that box,” she says. “When Rainey opened it, she unleashed over a dozen black souls—including the soul of the original witch.”
I gape at her, feeling all the blood rush from my face. “What the hell do you mean she unleashed them?”
“They were trapped in that box, and when Rainey cracked the seal, she let them out.”
My thoughts begin to race back to what Stella told us. That Rainey was being haunted, that someone was trying to rip her through the veil and to the other side. I’d briefly thought it might be Delaney—especially since she is who Rainey dreamt of. But what if the truth is far more sinister?
What if Rainey is being haunted by these evil witches, and they are trying to pull her down with them?
“A seer told Rainey that she was being haunted—that spirits were trying to drag her through the veil and into the otherworld. And a fae told us that she believes the original witch has made her return.”
“And you didn’t think to mention this before now?”
I narrow my gaze. “Because you’re one to talk about keeping secrets?”
She groans. “Fine. I don’t trust you. You don’t trust me. But can we agree that when it comes to Rainey, we both have her best interests at heart?”
Crossing my arms, I continue glaring at her. “Do you? Because last I checked, you threatened to kill her.”
“I will kill her,” Jane confirms. “I will drive a silver blade into her heart and hold her as she bleeds to death because that’s what Rainey Astor means to me. She means so damn much that I will sacrifice my best friend if it means saving her from a life of pain—of evil. I know you care for her, Elijah. The question is, do you love her enough to save her? Or are you so selfish you’d rather go down that dark path with her?”
Jane’s words resonate with me in a way I am not prepared for. I’ve been down in the dark before. I’ve killed without remorse—slaughtered without hesitation—and I reveled in it. To free the beast inside would mean to stop living against my basic instincts. It would mean giving in to the part of me that yearns for blood.
But Rainey—the woman I love more than the bloodlust—is good at the core of her being. Her soul, while damaged from pain and loss, is clear. Her hands are not coated in the blood of innocents as I am.
Can I condemn her to a life of evil? Can I let her turn into a monster as I am?
“If it comes down to it, I will be the one to kill her,” I choke out, the words poison on my tongue.
Jane laughs darkly. “You and I both know you aren’t strong enough for that. The bond won’t allow it.”
I blur toward her, gripping her throat and pinning her against the refrigerator. “You put a dagger in her, and I’ll save your hunters the trouble of finding you.”
I release her and step back.
“If the fae told you that the original witch has made her return, that’s not something that surprises me. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Evil that strong can only be contained for so long. Chances are she made a break for it as soon as you two uncorked that particular bottle. And if the seer told Rainey she was being haunted, chances are she sensed the other souls that were trapped in that box.”
“What are they trying to do? Why are they following her?”
“Because they want to come back, and Rainey just so happens to have the power they need in order to make that happen.”
“But she doesn’t realize she has it.”
“No, but if they manage to drag her soul into the otherworld—into the veil—it’s possible that she won’t be able to get back.”
“Which would mean—”
“Her body would be the perfect puppet.”
My chest tightens, my throat constricting, making it nearly impossible to breathe. “How the fuck do we keep that from happening?”
“We can’t allow Rainey to access that power again, Elijah.” She runs her hands over her face. “Shit, this is such a mess.”
I’m flabbergasted and pissed the fuck off. “You knew this entire time that she was being haunted, that they could use her this way, and you kept it to your fucking self.” My hands clench into fists. “I should kill you for it.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you not to tell her.”
“And a lot of good that’s done.”
She glares at me, and I turn away, unable to stare into her mismatched eyes any longer. She may have had her reasons, but they’re bullshit, and I never should have gone along with them. I should have trusted Rainey could handle whatever was tossed her way.
Instead, I tried to protect her, shield her as Aoife warned Rainey I would.
And it fucking backfired. “Why were the bloody souls in there to begin with?” I turn back to Jane.
&n
bsp; “They were trapped. The original witch spent decades offering permanent immortality to those who would offer her their souls.”
“Witches are already immortal.”
“Only if they aren’t killed. But you remember that there was a time when witches were being hunted—burned at the stake. The original promised them vengeance, a chance to live again.”
“Like you?”
“In a way. Though, she never meant to follow through on it. She knew she was going to die, and she needed their immortal magic to burn in order to revive herself.”
“She was going to use their power to bring herself back to life?”
Jane nods. “All she needs are her bones, a spell in her book, and the power currently residing within Rainey.”
“And you think she’s haunting Rainey, waiting for a chance to access the power?”
Jane nods. “I don’t understand how she plans on getting it, Elijah. But I do know that the longer it takes for us to find a way to reclaim those souls, the more likely it’s going to be that she has a chance to overtake Rainey—for good.”
“So that’s what happened in the café. That wasn’t Rainey.”
“My guess is Rainey was so beside herself she invited them in. It wasn’t until she saw you that she pushed them out.”
“Invited?”
“You said she’s been hearing voices.”
“Yes, but—”
“Rainey would have done anything to kill that warlock after what he did to Minnie. I know her. She doesn’t kill without reason—but she has no hesitation when it comes to carrying out her own brand of justice.”
“How many souls were in that box?”
“Twelve plus the original.”
“So thirteen.”
“Thirteen,” she confirms.
Thirteen dead witches. That can’t be coincidence.
I take a deep breath and try to calm the panic rooted inside of me. So, not only does Rainey have the blackest magic inside of her, she’s being haunted by the soul of not just the original witch—but twelve others looking to gain access to it. “Will the silver protect her here?”
Blood Captive: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Vampire Huntress Chronicles Book 2) Page 24
