by Kresley Cole
He never got a chance to see how hurt she'd been, or how she'd recovered, because another scene arose.
Kaderin's boots clicked as she sprinted down foggy back alleys. The rookeries she passed were filled with Lore beings, their deadened eyes staring out of the mist. It was London in the eighteen hundreds.
Her sword was strapped securely over her shoulder, and her thin shackles were tucked into her belt at her back. She was tracking two vampires, brothers, and her ears twitched when she sensed them. She drew her sword, but they were fast as they suddenly traced around her. One delivered a crushing blow to her head from behind, the other dealt a hit to her temple that nearly blacked her vision completely. A trap.
They let her stumble away for a goddamned block. Playing with her.
Tired. I just want to sit, she kept thinking in a daze. Just for a second. She finally collapsed, falling to her back.
The vampires returned, one holding her down, the other raising his sword above her neck. And she felt not even a trickle of fear. As they bent over her, their eyes became more apparent to her dimmed vision. Red, dirty eyes, staring down at her. No, she didn't feel fear, no revulsion—just nothing.
Another vampire materialized, likely wanting to see the momentous kill. The brothers' attention was drawn away for an instant. It was all she needed. Earlier, she'd fallen back onto the shackles. Without warning, she whipped them out and cuffed their wrists together. They struggled to break free, but somehow the metal held even with their obvious strength. They tried to trace in different directions and couldn't.
As she rose, the third vampire fled. She tilted her head at the two, and murmured, "I told you I'd kill you," then let instinct take over—
He bolted awake at the sound of her shrieking, the loudest he'd ever heard, and clamped his hands over his ears. When the windows began to crack, he lunged for her and forced his hand over her mouth. Her fingers shot out, claws bared to snatch at his heart, but he caught her wrists in his free hand.
She was staring at him but seemed unseeing, her pale face lit by a series of lightning strikes just outside. He pulled her into his arms until she finally stopped fighting. But then she began softly weeping. His whole hand pressed the side of her head to his chest.
As he sat back in the chair with her in his lap, his dreams came over him in a rush. For ages in the past, Kaderin hadn't felt?
And now she clearly did.
No wonder she'd been so confused the morning they'd met. He didn't understand how this could have happened to her, but he'd experienced her lack of emotions. He couldn't imagine how difficult it would be to recover them.
"You've made me feel," she'd hissed at him that first morning.
Could I really have had something to do with this?
Her shoulders shook, and his shirt grew wet with tears, and it was killing him. "Brave girl," he murmured against her hair. "You are safe." No wonder she was vicious. She'd had to be to survive. "It doesn't have to be like that anymore." Eventually her breaths grew quick and light as they did when she slept.
He'd begun to recognize that although she was perfect on the surface, his Bride was wounded, scarred inside, and now he knew why.
And he'd seen only a few nights in her life.
He knew she feared at every hour that he would become like those who had toyed with her in a filthy back alley and had savaged her army of young Valkyrie. She dreaded seeing his eyes turn red.
When she clutched his shirt in her panting sleep and nuzzled his chest, realization hit him sharply. Staring out over her head to the valley below, he suddenly knew that he was meant to be here at this very moment, to comfort her, to protect her.
All the choices he'd made to direct his life—and all the choices that had been taken from him—had conspired to bring her to him. His seemingly endless years at the castle, though he'd been alone and weary, had been a worthy sacrifice to ultimately have her.
Sebastian was meant to call her his own. The good and the bad. She'd been made for him, and he for her.
Tomorrow, Sebastian would face Nikolai again. He could no longer deny that Nikolai's decision for him had been a fated one.
20
Cave of the Basilisks, Las Quijadas, Argentina Day 10
Prize: Two eggs of the Basilisk, each worth thirteen points
T he crackle of flexing scales and the sibilance of a forked tongue sounded behind Kaderin, echoing throughout the cavern system.
With her sword sheathed at her back, she sprinted, her night vision taking her from one underground chamber to the next. She'd covered every inch of this hive of tunnels dug through solid rock in antiquity.
Yet she'd been unable to pinpoint the exact position of the three beasts she'd heard stirring down here. Nor had she been able to find either of the eggs, or an alternative exit.
Each tunnel had a high-ceilinged chamber at its terminus. In the chambers were the old nests of a basilisk, a giant scaled dragon with dripping fangs the size of her forearms and a lethal tail, corded with muscle.
She had checked every nest for eggs but found none. There was another cavern system in the mountain a ravine over—the prizes must be in that one. The only things she'd found here were the ancient remains of female human sacrifices, and more recent ones from archeologists of the ill-fated variety.
The name of the area, Las Quijades, meant "the maxillary bones." Many thought the region was named after the bandits that used to run rife through these valleys, who gnawed on cow jawbones. Or they assumed the name referred to the abundant dinosaur fossils discovered here.
Neither was correct. The basilisk young killed by ripping the jaws from the heads of those human sacrifices.
The archeologists who dug here didn't understand that not all the dinosaurs were embedded in rock yet. They would explore, deeper and deeper, and then a team would be eaten, and the government would say they were lost in a flash flood—
No more scales flexing. Silence. In the lull, Kaderin's ears twitched, detecting footsteps—running, with a quick footfall but heavy in weight. Bowen. It had to be.
She'd known they would have a confrontation and had suspected the high point value of this task might attract him. But she'd been greedy for those points as well, and there were two eggs. Ah, but just to make things more interesting, Cindey was on her way here as well. Kaderin had spied her renting a Jeep in San Luis, the closest town, just before she herself had set out.
A sudden quake of the entire tunnel. A basilisk was angered and ready to kill, signaling its fury by swatting its massive tail against the tunnel walls. Each hit sent boulders tumbling, forcing Kaderin to run around them, leaping and dodging, shuffling her feet through the ancient bones.
Though basilisks were fearsome, they moved slowly in their hive, and she knew she could kill one, possibly two, at a time. But she didn't want to—she had an affinity for monsters.
Kaderin herself was a bedtime warning to low-creature young in the Lore: "Eat your grubs, or Kaderin the Cold will sneak under your bed to steal your head."
Turning back for the entrance, she sprinted past walls with ghostly cave paintings until she reached the three-way junction at the entryway. The sun was shining a welcome, illuminating a different type of cave painting there. Before being sealed in, each sacrificial victim had been given a reed filled with a type of paint. She would place her hand against the wall, blowing the paint around it, leaving the outline. The handprint was the only monument she ever received. There were thousands of them—
Kaderin caught sight of Bowen across from her.
A face-off. Time seemed to slow. He'd taken out half of the competitors, and all of the strongest ones except for Lucindeya and Kaderin and Sebastian. She knew he sought to remedy this with her right now.
His eyes glowed in the dark—just as hers did—and his expression was full of menace. A jagged cut marred his face and showed no sign of regeneration. Exhaustion seemed to weigh on his shoulders. The witch's curse. It was true.
Her
head jerked to the right—the direction of her only escape.
When he began sprinting to the entrance, she recognized immediately what he intended—imprisoning her just like the others. She dug her toes into the gravel, shooting forward into a focused charge.
She was fast for a Valkyrie, but even cursed, he beat her there. In the sun once more, he glanced up. She'd be able to escape before he could bring down the rocks, she'd be able to—
Casting her a cruel smirk, he dug into his jeans pocket. Dread settled over her. He slid out that diamond necklace. She hadn't bothered to train against this...
It glittered in the desert sun, radiating sharp blue and white points of light. I revealed my weakness, handed it to him. Entrancing light, seemingly endless.
He tossed it in her direction. Just to touch it... When it was still in the air, her gaze locked on it, following it down until it landed at her feet on the loose gravel. She froze, transfixed, dropping to her knees as though praying to the stunning necklace. Something so fine couldn't be left in the dirt. Not this. She scooped it up with both hands, running her thumbs lovingly over the stones.
She could hear Bowen straining outside, cursing in Gaelic, could hear his claws scraping down boulders to dislodge them. But she couldn't pull her eyes away.
Not until the cave went dark in a series of deafening booms, and the glittering ceased.
That morning, Sebastian had left Kaderin sleeping peacefully. Then, as usual, he'd traced to her flat to shower and drink.
As he dressed, he'd reflected that he'd made no discernible progress with Kaderin over the last week. If for no other reason, he needed to go to Blachmount because he was ignoring a resource he badly needed—his brother was wed to a Valkyrie. One who was blood-related to Kaderin. Which meant information there for the taking.
Once he'd forced blood down, he traced to Nikolai's shuttered office, finding him perusing papers. Though usually so reserved, Nikolai didn't bother hiding his pleasure at Sebastian's arrival. He quickly stood and said, "Sit. Please."
Sebastian took the seat he indicated, but being back here again made his shoulders knot with tension.
"We've heard you entered the Hie," Nikolai said, taking his own seat once more. "The first vampire ever to do so. We were quite astonished."
Sebastian shrugged.
"Myst goes on the computer each day and checks the results. She has a half-sister in the competition. Is she your Bride?"
"Yes," he admitted. "Kaderin."
"Myst has told me Kaderin is—how did she put it?—'gorgeous to a near freakish degree.' And a stalwart fighter." His tone hopeful, Nikolai asked, "Do you love her?"
"No. But I recognize that she is mine. And that I am meant to protect her."
"It's enough. More will come with time," Nikolai said. "We've wondered what made you decide to represent Riora."
Sebastian shrugged. "I align with no one, and she demanded that. It was a gamble."
"You could have said the Forbearers or King Kristoff."
Sebastian felt his expression tighten. King Kristoff. Sebastian had never been able to understand how Nikolai could have died at the hands of Russians, then, on the same blood-wetted battlefield, sworn allegiance to Kristoff—who was a Russian, vampire or not.
"It was only an observation. The invitation to join us is always open." Nikolai added, "Every single time I kill a red-eyed vampire, I am glad that I did."
"You've encountered them?" Sebastian asked.
"I've warred against them. We are gaining momentum." Nikolai steepled his fingers. "Sebastian, I've always respected your intelligence. We would welcome your counsel gladly. After the Hie, naturally."
After experiencing Kaderin's dreams, fighting against the Horde began to have distinct appeal, but Sebastian planned to take Kaderin somewhere away from constant war and death. The last thousand years of her life might have been hellish, but he'd be damned if he'd allow the next thousand to be. He said simply, "Don't plan on my participation."
Nikolai nodded, but Sebastian knew this was far from over. "About this competition, and the rumored prize," Nikolai began. "Have you thought about using it to save our family?"
Of course, Sebastian had. Even after all this time, the guilt was unrelenting. When called to protect his family, he'd failed—five successive times. "I don't believe it will work," Sebastian said. But if it would, if he could somehow undo the past...
It wasn't reasonable to blame himself, it wasn't logical, but he couldn't seem to stop. Conrad had felt the same—before he'd lost his mind, at least.
The aristocracy of Sebastian's culture was raised to revere the military and to fight. Yet fate had given him an invisible enemy bent on wiping out his family, for which there was no defense, no battle. He'd had to sit, watching impotently, as everything he loved died.
Sebastian had been a favorite big brother to four younger sisters. He'd been nearly old enough to be their father and was essentially more of one than their own preoccupied father. With each of their little crises, they'd run to Sebastian. He'd plucked splinters and dried tears. He'd taught them science and astronomy.
When they fell sick and their young minds had comprehended they might actually be dying, they'd looked to him to fix it.
And seemed bewildered when he couldn't. As if, instead, he wouldn't.
"You can't go into the past to change the future," Sebastian said absently. "Not without creating chaos." Part of him had wanted to believe in the key even though it flew in the face of reason, and even though the goddess had no evidence that time travel was possible.
But if Sebastian allowed himself to believe he could get his family back and then had his hopes disappointed... He didn't think he could take losing them twice. To this day, he couldn't bear to remember the night they'd died. Seeing the despair in their eyes, and then, when he and Conrad had fallen, to hear their faint, terrified cries.
Both he and Conrad had wanted to die that night with their family. The country was in shambles, wracked by plague and famine. They were done. They'd fought, they'd done their best. They should have been allowed to die.
And their sisters? They'd been as delicate and fair as the four older brothers were dark and fierce and would have starved before they voluntarily tasted blood. They couldn't even have contemplated it. "Why did you try to turn the girls?" Sebastian asked. He had no anger in his tone, but now that he was steady and rational, he wanted to hear Nikolai's reasoning. He wanted—for the first time—to understand it.
"I had to," Nikolai bit out, averting his gaze, but not before Sebastian saw his eyes had wavered black. "The thought of them dying so young tormented me."
"They might have been frozen into perpetual childhood, never to see the sun again."
Nikolai faced him. "We do not know that they wouldn't have aged to adulthood, as natural-born immortals do. It was possible."
"And our father?" Sebastian asked. Their father had been longing to reunite with his wife from the day she'd died in childbirth eleven years prior.
Nikolai's expression grew weary. "I've never been noble like you, Sebastian. Survival and living are what I revere. They might have lived—to me, the rest is incidental. And after all this time, I see we still disagree on that subject."
Sebastian stood to leave. "We do."
Nikolai stood as well. "Think about the order, Sebastian."
Sebastian supposed he should get this out of the way. "I can't join your order." He shrugged nonchalantly. "I didn't quite forbear, as it were. I've tasted blood from the flesh."
21
W ith the blessing gone, Kaderin had been helpless to move, to attack Bowen, to flee, only wanting to behold the stones and faceted lights. Even now, as she petted them, her heart ached to see them shining again.
The basilisks' hissing, wet roars made her shake herself. The beasts were miles down, far away from the bright entrance, but clambering toward it now. They'd be in no hurry, though, likely thinking that Kaderin was a sealed-in sacrifice.
/> With a shuddering exhalation, she forced herself to toss the necklace away, then rose and surveyed her predicament. The bastard had done a fine job of barricading the entrance.
Even with her strength, she couldn't budge the boulders. She ran into them, tackling them, shoving her shoulder against them. Nothing. She couldn't use her sword. It was not thick and weighty like Sebastian's. She'd have to dig.
She figured she'd lose her claws with every four inches she dug into the rock. She would grow them back within a few hours. The top boulder's diameter was at least sixty inches.
Ergo... let's do the math... I'm screwed.
Worse, the chamber's darkness had begun weighing heavily on her—the way one felt when saddled with a ponderous hex. She gave a bitter laugh. She was now officially a vicious Valkyrie assassin—who was scared of the dark.
The wraiths had never creeped her out, she found the basilisks kind of endearing, and she could be thrown into a cage with a thousand contagious ghouls and not blink an eye—as long as the cage wasn't gloomy and oppressive.
If she had action, she could ignore her fear, but simply sitting here with nothing to do but contemplate it...
She had two alternatives. She could wait for the vampire, hoping he ignored her last irate demand that he leave her alone. But even if he did come to the rescue, he wouldn't be able to trace her where she needed to go—which was mere feet beyond these boulders. She'd wager that Sebastian hadn't previously visited any Argentinean cave entrances.
Besides, how long could she wait for him to save her? Sooner or later, the basilisks would make their way to the surface.
Her second alternative was to begin digging. These rocks are the only thing standing between me and that prize. She dropped to her knees once more and stabbed her claws into the rock. Two inches down, she lost her first, then another. Damn it, this was futile. A wasted effort in a dark, foul place. She was about to lose those thirteen points.
The rock dust made her eyes water. Yes, the rock dust made her tear up—
