War of the Chosen

by Elizabeth Dunlap

Why in the name of all that is holy was Knight the only creature on the planet that could help me with my mission?

  The universe was being unnaturally cruel.

  “Juice?” A stewardess had appeared next to us with a tray of drinks in very expensive wine glasses. I grabbed some orange juice and chugged several gulps of it. Knight took one with grape juice. He held it tenderly by the stem and swirled the purple liquid around with elegance before taking a refined sip.

  “So,” he said, putting the wine glass down on his armrest and folding his hands in his lap. “Why are we going to Europe?” I had to tell him eventually, but it was too soon. We had to be out of the country first, just to be safe.

  I raised an eyebrow at his probing. “You were literally standing next to me when I said why. Lycan negotiations? The turned? War? Ringing a bell?”

  He tilted his head. “I know why you said we’re going to Europe. What I don’t know is the real reason.” I tried not to stare too hard at him while retaining eye contact so he wouldn’t call my bluff. He blinked, looked away, and leaned back into his chair. I sipped more of my drink, wishing it was wine. “You can trust me, Lis. Whatever it is. And the fact that I have to say that to you…” He shook his head and tapped a fingernail against the bottom of his glass. “I thought we were closer than this.”

  My lip trembled when I formed my next words, and my heart pulsed with pain. “We aren’t.” I felt him shift his weight in his chair and I couldn’t look at him.

  His hand shook when he picked up his glass. “Okay then.”

  It took all my willpower to not cry. I shoved headphones in my ears and put my favorite playlist on repeat to block all the feelings rushing over me. Knight shifted in his chair to lean his head against the top of it. He sighed deeply and said something I couldn’t hear with my headphones on, but I could read his lips.

  “This is going to be a very long flight.”

  On that we were in agreement.

  With the same songs playing over and over, I drifted in and out of sleep. I dreamed of a house. It was old, battered from years of neglect, but it felt like home. In all my long years, it was a house I’d never seen before. Why did it feel so familiar?

  I walked through the rooms, each one holding remnants of the people that used to live there. Some pots, a tattered sewing kit, a baby bonnet. I picked up the white cloth and traced the delicate stitching with my fingers. Kitty came to my mind, but I couldn’t see her.

  The steps outside barely held my weight, the tells of time making them unstable. Where was Kitty? I could feel her here. I had to find her.

  Kitty? Kitty where are you? I called out to the empty field in front of the house. A dark shape drew my gaze and I ran to it. My stomach plummeted in fear before I reached the figure. It was suddenly before me, a corpse I couldn’t identify, like their face was clouded from me. A small girl hovered over the corpse’s side. She looked up at me, her face and neck sticky with blood. Her smile turned my heart cold because this girl was my Kitty.

  She stood to show her blood-stained frock. “Look, Mommy. I killed them for you. Now you don’t have to be sad.”

  The corpse’s face wasn’t cloudy anymore when I looked at it. Cameron’s ashen face stared back at me, lifeless in death. I recoiled in horror, only to trip over another body. This one was Olivier. The more I looked around, the more bodies I saw. Every vampire I knew was a rotting corpse.

  The girl Kitty came up to me and reached out a bloodied hand. “Are you proud of me, Mommy?”

  Corpses. Faces. Carnage. All the things I feared. My daughter was a monster. Make it go away. It’s not real. This can’t be real.

  I woke with a bloodcurdling scream, back on the airplane with music blaring in my ears. Knight was right there, ripping my headphones off and putting his hands on my shoulders to keep me in my seat. It was just a dream. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. Was it real? Oh gods, it can’t be real.

  “It was just a dream, it was just a dream,” I repeated to myself in a mantra to rid myself of the images.

  “Is everything okay?” a stewardess said in a worried voice. I couldn’t process her words. It was just a dream. Just a dream.

  “We’re fine. She has PTSD, it causes outbursts sometimes,” Knight lied. “Sorry for the upset. I’ll calm her down. Thank you.” The stewardess’s smell got further away.

  Just a dream.

  “The bodies,” I choked out. “They were all dead.” I felt Knight switch to the seat next to me and tuck some of my hair behind my ear.

  “Sssh, it’s okay, Lis. It’s not real. You were dreaming.” He leaned closer and pulled me into his lap.

  “Kitty killed everyone. She…” I sobbed and gasped for air. “Oh god… what did I give birth to…”

  Knight’s soft lips pressed against my temple and it calmed me down slightly. I pulled away from his face and the fog lifted enough for me to focus on him.

  “It was just a dream?” I asked him feebly, petting his hair to keep from sinking into the darkness again.

  “Only a dream,” he confirmed. I leaned back in and tucked my head against his neck and my arms around his body. I stayed that way until I fell asleep, and the nightmares did not return.

  CHAPTER 6

  If you asked me to recall the details of that day, the smells, the airports, what Knight said to me during our layover, how much money I spent feeding Knight airport food, what the second plane looked like, how it felt being back in Florence after centuries, I could not tell you.

  My mind replayed the nightmare over and over in a countless cycle, my fears laid bare and the haunting face of blood-stained Kitty looking up at me. That couldn’t be the future. The future I feared, yes, but not the future that would come to pass, surely. Surely.

  The only thing I could sense was Knight’s hand holding mine on and off. When it wasn’t there, I felt like I was drifting at sea, floating away across the vast waves. His hand in mine, I felt a pinch of clarity, but not enough to bring me out of it. I had to choose to do that, and I wasn’t ready to surface. If I did, if I crawled out of this abyss, I had to face that my dream could become a reality if this didn’t go the way I planned. Mayhap that was why I’d had the dream, to remind myself why this was so important, so that one day I wouldn’t have to kill my child.

  Kill Kitty. I could never do that. Not ever. I’d let her raze the world to the ground and I would still hold her to my chest with love. That revelation brought me to the streets of Florence. I was somehow sitting at a café in a large city square. In front of me was a plate with a flaky pastry that smelled of cherry jam and cream cheese. Across from me was Knight devouring his own pastry. He finished his, licked his fingers with far too much gusto, and then reached for mine.

  I slapped his hand away. “Not a chance.”

  He looked surprised that I was lucid, and smiled warmly. “Hey, you. You okay?”

  “No,” I admitted quietly. I picked off a piece of pastry and brought it to my mouth. It tasted buttery and decadent. “How long was I … away.”

  “Since yesterday. We’ve been in Florence for about ten hours.” He licked his fingers again to make sure he didn’t miss any bits of pastry. “I was pretty worried you’d go into a frenzy on me, but I got you to drink some blood from a straw.”

  “Your blood?” My stomach said no, but I had to wonder how he felt about that now.

  He shook his head. “Tried it. You wouldn’t drink.” I stared hard at the red jam on my food. It’s not blood. Don’t slip away again. “That’s not off the table, by the way. You drinking from me. You’ve been on bagged blood for weeks, you’re bound to be weakened. Why didn’t you get a new companion after you had your baby?”

  “Too busy.” It was true, but I’d also not wanted to bring any new humans into this war. If we lost, they’d be slaughtered by the enemy. Not that I intended to lose. “I appreciate the offer. It’s kind of you. I will have to take you up on it, I’m afraid. I can’t look weak in front of the Lycans.”
/>   “It’s no trouble,” he said quietly. He almost looked hurt. Why? Because I wasn’t eager to sink my teeth in him?

  I got up and took a large bite from my pastry. “We should go. We’re late.”

  “Late for what?” he asked as he scurried to keep up with me. I passed him bites of the pastry to keep him quiet, and navigated the city, partly from memory and partly with the help of google maps, to the airport car rental station.

  The receptionist greeted us cheerfully. “Welcome to Florence,” she said in her native tongue. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “Great. She only speaks not-English,” Knight complained. “If only one of us spoke-”

  I interrupted him by addressing the woman in Italian. “We have a car under the name Jasmine Heart. We apologize for the late arrival.”

  “Not a problem,” she responded. “I shall get it for you immediately, Miss Heart.” She started typing away on the computer so I turned to Knight with a smile.

  “You speak pasta? Who knew. I bet you speak all the languages. I should be impressed.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him. “I don’t speak every language. Do you know how many there are?”

  He contemplated. “More than ten?” That earned him an eye roll.

  “Miss Heart, here are your keys.” The receptionist handed them to me and had me sign a paper before coming around the desk and leading us outside. I’d rented a small convertible, and Knight eyed it with suspicion.

  “You and your tiny cars,” he muttered. He dumped his bag into the trunk next to mine and jumped into his seat.

  “Watch your… this is expensive leather!”

  “Yes, and I’m worth it. Where are we going?”

  “Hell.”

  “Yay. I’ve been needing a tan.” He slipped on some sunglasses – when did he get those – and turned to me. “Pedal to the metal, baby.”

  The engine revved when I started it. “You’re such a dork.”

  “Just trying to cheer you up,” he said seriously. “You really scared me, Lis.”

  I absently rubbed the steering wheel in my hands. “I know.” I pulled out my own set of sunglasses and put them on. “Buckle up, princess.”

  “That’s more like it!” He put up his hand for a high five.

  “No, I mean buckle up. If your head goes through the windshield, I can and will drink you dry.”

  He slowly lowered his hand with a pout. “Noted.”

  We sped out of the parking lot, through the city, and into the countryside. The green hills rolled past us, the nostalgia palpable inside my head and bringing up memories I’d tried hard to bury.

  Florence was the city that changed me forever. It was a story for another time, and another life, but focusing on it took me away from the ghost of my fears.

  “I haven’t been here in a long time,” I said after over an hour of silence. Knight looked at me, but he didn’t say anything. My fingers worked the leather on the steering wheel again to offset my anxiety. “I was with Olivier and her nest of vampires. We ruled over Europe, from city to city, leaving only carnage in our wake. Funny, I know, coming from me. It ended badly, that’s why I’ve stayed away.”

  “You hunted humans,” Knight guessed, his tone faded and absent.

  “Yes. It was the way we were back then. Not all of us, just the renegades. The small nests that had no allegiance to the Council, or anyone for that matter. Not even each other sometimes.”

  Knight put his arm across the seat, his hand just barely touching my shoulder. “What happened?”

  I sighed and tried to focus on the countryside. I’d brought it up, I might as well tell him. “They…” My nails tore into the steering wheel leather on accident. Knight’s hand slipped to clasp my shoulder and rub it gently. “They killed a child. A girl. Her name was Babette. Her father made beautiful pastries at their home when he could afford the flour, but no one would hire him because he had a skin problem. Rosacea, most like. In those days it was akin to being sickly, so they were poor. She was all he had. And she died in an alley, scared, chased by a dozen vampires. They drained her dry, and they didn’t care. They didn’t…” I broke off and the emotion from the memories, combined with all the stress I’d been dealing with, rose to the surface like vomit.

  Knight’s hand moved again to take one of my hands on the wheel before I crushed it on accident. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not okay. I will never forget her face, drained of blood and empty, lying in a dirty puddle. She didn’t deserve that.”

  “She didn’t,” he agreed. “But you didn’t kill her.”

  “I didn’t, no. And I will never kill a child as long as I live. Her father… killed himself afterwards. I buried his body myself, right next to where I’d laid Babette to rest.”

  Why did I bring this up in the first place? Maybe I’d needed to tell someone, after all this time. Tell someone my biggest regret.

  “Is that where we’re going?” he asked, his hand still clutching mine tightly. I shook my head. “You didn’t have to tell me that, but thank you for sharing it. I know it hurt.”

  “I’ve never told anyone how painful that was. Not out loud. I’ve held it in for a very long time.” I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said all that. It has nothing to do with here and now.”

  “You can tell me anything,” he assured me. “Whatever you like. Whenever you like. I don’t care.”

  I took my hand back. “I know.”

  By the time we were close to our destination, I’d shook off the memories, the worries from my nightmare, and the flurry of feelings Knight inspired. I was filled with anticipation to see the person we were visiting, and it wasn’t a Lycan, or a vampire.

  “You’re excited,” Knight commented with a smile.

  I smiled back at him. “Now that I’m done being melodramatic, it’s time for the main event. You get to meet someone from my past.”

  “Former lover?” His tone said joke. His face said otherwise.

  “Ha ha,” I responded with a glare. The sign appeared before us and I shifted in my seat with eagerness.

  Chateau Granger.

  I turned onto the dirt road and rolled down the driveway, grapevines on either side of the car in rows upon rows. They were all well-tended and brimming with clusters of fruit. At the end of the drive was a large barn where the wine was made, and a small stone house that looked out of place with the luscious estate.

  Standing in front of the barn, glancing over a clipboard, was who we’d come to see. My heart leaped at the sight of him and I couldn’t get to the barn fast enough. As soon as the car stopped, I scrambled out of it and ran to him.

  He looked up from his work in utter shock and dropped his clipboard. “Lisbeth! Mon cheri!” He held his arms out for me to jump into. Taking care not to break him, I hugged him as hard as I could, even lifted him off the ground before wrapping myself around his neck. The scent coming from him was like coming home, and I wept with joy against his shoulder. He tried to pull away after the acceptable amount of time for a hug, but my tears turned to sadness. “Lisbeth,” he breathed. “What has happened to you?” He pet my hair gently, his arms holding me tightly.

  Eventually, I had to let him go, or I’d break him in half on accident. I pretended to be taking in the scenery so I could wipe my eyes.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Lisbeth?”

  I turned back with a sniff. “Of course, I’m sorry. Galen, this is my friend, Knight. Knight, this is my former companion, Galen Granger. He came to the Order with Renard three decades ago. I haven’t seen him in twenty years.”

  “You have not aged a day, cheri,” Galen joked. “And you are a bad woman, knowing where I live and never coming to visit.”

  “I’m here now?”

  He laughed, his face showing all the age lines he hadn’t had when he was with me. They suited him. “Fair enough.” He ran a hand through his short sandy curls that were fast becoming gray. “Come, I w
ill show you my home.”

  Galen led us up a path with hand crafted wooden stairs to the small home on the top of his estate. Two rocking chairs sat on the front porch, one showed daily use and the other did not. Through the front door was a large room that had a kitchen, den, and dining room all in one space. The floorplan was open and spacious with natural light coming from large uncovered windows. It felt clean and full of sunshine. It suited Galen.

  He went to the kitchen to grab a pitcher of water and pour us all a glass. I noticed picture frames on a table next to the door. Galen with a beautiful woman, looking very happy. She had bright hair like fire, and skin covered in freckles. I walked to one of the photos and picked it up.

  “Your wife?” I asked him. He came up to me and traded a glass of water for the frame.

  “Melissa,” he explained, putting the picture back on the table. He handed Knight the other glass of water. “She’s gone now.”

  “I’m sorry.” He smiled and waved slightly to say it was okay, and while I could see the pain in his eyes wasn’t fresh, it also wasn’t gone. “Children?”

  “No, it’s just me here. I had hopes that Renard would come one day.” He took a sip of his water and looked away.

  “He told you?” I asked.

  Galen nodded and set his glass down. “That he is a vampire?” He chuckled under his breath. “I cannot say that I am surprised. He fell in love with Olivier the moment he first laid eyes on her, so what was he supposed to do?”

  “Die?” Knight prompted.

  I shot him a glare. “Really?”

  Galen smiled though. “Would you condemn the one you love to live forever without you? And when I say forever, I mean forever.” I looked away. “Renard also told me about Arabella.” I met his eyes even though I didn’t want to. “She used to play here every weekend. Sometimes more often than that. She’d climb the trees and read books in the branches. When she told me she was going to become a companion, I thought, her future is set now. Ten years of her life and she could become anything she wanted.”

  My eyes fell in shame. “I’m sorry, Galen. I didn’t protect her. I failed you, and Renard.”