by Billi Jean
“Why was Jamie discussing it with Jaxon?”
“Jaxon got a call when he was at our house. Elsa heard some of it and was…not happy.”
He could imagine that was an understatement. Elsa was new to the immortal world and, as of yet, hadn’t officially met Aidan. She didn’t understand their ways. Neither did Faolan. Maybe that is why I enjoy their company. Even Jamie, the Lykae who had bonded Elsa was better company, in his opinion, than most Vampires he now had to deal with.
“So I came to speak with you, Bryson. Before you made a mistake and Elsa grew angry with you.”
Bryson sighed heavily. The boy was always doing something odd like this. “Elsa is too new to understand. If she grows angry with me, I will deal with her. So are you. These are adult matters. Vampire adult matters. Shouldn’t you be at home?” He calculated quickly and realized it must be midnight in LA. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“I wasn’t tired. You should leave now. Before the sun rises and takes her from you.”
“Faolan, enough.”
“No.” Faolan grabbed his arm and frowned fiercely. “You will not go to her?”
“I can’t go to her. She killed Aidan’s father,” Bryson snarled. “You are too young to understand, but not too young to understand loyalty. Would you betray Jamie for someone else?”
Faolan frowned.
“My loyalty was given to Aidan, and, before him, his father, Aaron. I cannot forsake these vows simply because…” He shoved his hands through his short hair and turned away. I want to save her. Because I want her. Isobel, why did you have to be a murderer? “Enough. You should leave.”
“I will free her, then—”
“Like fucking hell you will!”
Faolan’s eyes rounded. Immediately Bryson drew back. Calm down. Calm.
Careful of the boy, he took Faolan by his hand and led him to one of the sofas near the hearth and had him sit. Sighing, Bryson crouched in front of Faolan so they were at eye level. The boy was unusual and unique in ways they were still learning. He met Faolan’s gaze. Large, dark-brown eyes held knowledge and something else—pain, he supposed, but more was there, as if, inside Faolan, an older, wiser soul existed. He shook his head at the thought. “There is nothing you can do. Nothing. She killed Aaron, boy. That kind of crime isn’t forgivable.”
“Why did she do that?” Faolan asked, tipping his head to the side as if he’d been given an unusual puzzle. “How did she do it? Wasn’t Aaron old and powerful?”
Bryson didn’t answer. He had no answer. No one did. Isobel was a mystery to him. He had no knowledge of what made her do the things she’d done back then. He’d never even met the young, beautiful Vampire. I should have. I should have gone to her and not worried what she would think of me, an uncouth common warrior, as her mate.
“No one has ever asked her, have they? Why she did this,” Faolan said, crossing his legs Indian-style. “Or how. Could you kill Aidan?”
“Faolan, sometimes there doesn’t have to be an answer as to why, sometimes what is done is enough. Look at Samuel. We didn’t want to hear his sick stories, did we?”
The boy seemed to consider that for a moment, then dismissed it. “She didn’t torture anyone, did she?”
“No.” He watched the boy shiver in the chill of the room and realized that nothing outside of shouting at the kid would make him leave. There was no reason to freeze him. Elsa would be angry with him if Faolan grew sick from a chill. He stood and filled the room with candles, lighting the hearth with a thought as well. “How did you find me here, Faolan?” And why didn’t my alarms sound?
“You are easy to find. You didn’t shut the door.”
“So my alarms didn’t know I was in or out.”
“You should be out. It will be midday soon. I can go with you if you would like.”
Bryson almost laughed but realized by Faolan’s eager expression he was making a sincere offer. “Ah, you wish to read her mind? I doubt it’s sane.”
“No, probably not, but I could ask her why she killed Aidan’s father. I would not accept she is guilty and not ask why.”
Bryson turned back to the flames. He was exhausted, empty and, worse, knew the loss of Isobel would only increase his agony. Without her— “Faolan, it’s best you go back to Elsa and Jamie.”
Faolan watched the fire in the hearth. “I think you should go. It will be a mistake to let her die with so many unanswered questions. If I were you, I would go.”
“Thankfully, you are not me.” He set up barriers in his mind, ones he knew the boy couldn’t see through. “It’s not my place to go—”
“You are her mate. Isn’t it your job to always watch over her? Shouldn’t your loyalty be to her first, then to Aidan? Jamie says it is. Jamie says Elsa comes first, not Alrick. Derrick is clear on this as well. Is it not a Vampire way?”
“It is a Vampire way, but she—”
“How do you know she killed Aidan’s father?”
“Enough, Faolan!”
He paced to the window and stared out at the expanse of mountains beneath him. The need to go to her was what was keeping him here. Six hundred and seventy-five years ago, he’d never known that misery came from longing for something that you knew you’d never have.
Now he knew. The past centuries had bricked him right alongside her. He’d been outside, but inside where he knew there could be happiness and more, he had only an incomplete feeling, an emptiness that never left him for long.
“If you don’t go to her, you will always regret it.”
Bryson sighed heavily. “If I go to her, Faolan, I will be going against my king, and my friend.”
Faolan was studying him when he turned. The boy was young, but he had suffered much in his short life. “You are too close. You cannot see. But if you do not go to her, then you never will.”
Bryson fisted his hands and steadied the need to leave, to rush to her side and save her.
Faolan got up and walked over, seemingly unconcerned that rage beat at Bryson harder than any other emotion he’d ever felt. Faolan wrapped his arms around him and hugged him as if Bryson was a good person.
“I love you, Bryson. I hope you don’t let her burn.”
Seconds later, Faolan was gone, his small cherubic face with the scars of his own torture vanished as if Bryson had dreamed the visit up. Bryson lifted his head and yelled at the ceiling, raging against something he didn’t understand but couldn’t stop wanting.
Isobel.
Before he could process what he was doing, he pulled free a cabinet by the window. It crashed to the floor, but what he needed was inside, buried where he’d put it over two hundred years before.
* * * *
The sounds around Isobel had grown dim, either from her awareness of her surroundings becoming clearer or her mind settling. Deep inside, where Isobel had buried any hope for her own survival, her own dreams, a wisp of sorrow, nothing more, tried to grow.
She buried it, ruthlessly extinguishing it. She would not beg for mercy.
Aidan had none.
Jorge, will I join you now? Will we forever roam this earth?
No answer came. This wasn’t the same hall in which her brother had burned. This wasn’t the small church set near the banks of a river that emptied into the sea. This wasn’t the ground where he had been staked down, his murdered bride near him so the sun could erase his existence from this world.
His killers had made certain of it.
She knew, even in her dreams, that Jorge was unable to journey on.
Aidan did not choose the same death for me. Does that mean I will not see my brother again, or that I will?
She was held in a tower made of red bricks with a hole where the ceiling should have been. There were no stakes through her arms and legs, no whip marks on her back. No dead beloved at her side.
But there were chains. Heavy, painful chains on her arms that kept her bound to the wooden pole set in the middle of the room.
A shift in t
he air was her only warning that she was no longer alone. “So you will go meekly into death.”
Aquinas.
At the whisper from the shadows, she kept her eyes closed. Revulsion, but also a sudden mad hope rose in her throat.
One of the council.
She didn’t dare move as Aquinas walked closer. His footfalls crunched on the dirt and pebbles lining the cobblestones at her feet. Each step drew him closer. With each second her hatred burned brighter. She wondered how she hadn’t gone up in flames even as she tensed her body in preparation. This is a chance I cannot waste. There will be no other, I must not fail.
Aquinas had been responsible for so much of her pain and anguish. Not all the council revealed itself to her, but him, she knew.
“A pity.” He ran his foul hand along her upraised arm. “I had wondered if you wouldn’t rise up and kill the son. After so long in your wall, I had expected more from you than simply going to your death like a lamb to slaughter.”
His hand didn’t stop at her arm, but traveled down to her breast, where he squeezed hard enough to have brought tears if tears were still open to her. “Indeed, Isobel, the sister of a betrayer, to come to this.” His grip tightened even more painfully but she waited, until he either left or made a mistake.
He laughed harshly and released her.
“But you always were a self-righteous bitch, too high and mighty to obey your own blood-kin. That’s why you were entombed, wasn’t it? Because you wouldn’t heel.” He gripped her between her thighs. “I voted to breed you. Did you know? Perhaps after years of being fucked until you birthed us several babes, you wouldn’t have been so high and mighty.” He moved closer again, and she felt the brush of fabric on her legs as he circled her. “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to come to you, to see the mighty Dragon Guard brought to her knees. The mighty Isobel down on her knees sucking my cock like a good little bitch. Your brother was a useless whelp, unfit to wear the scarlet and black. It was no wonder he rutted with a base whore.”
Another brush of his hand, this one indicating he was in front of her. The heat of his body hinted at a closeness he shouldn’t have allowed. But, above all, Aquinas had always thought more of himself than anyone else ever would.
She didn’t pause but swiftly drew herself upward with the chains, and just as fast, looped the metal links around his neck. He cried out but it was too late. She wrapped her legs around his hips. He fell hard against her, caught in her trap. She bit him. There was no mercy, no rush of accomplishment either as she sucked the life from him. His struggle was fruitless, but fitting as he grappled with a stronger, more intelligent foe than he had ever faced. Aquinas had fought in battles, but always behind the protection of his elite guard. Never had anyone ever caught him and proved that they were stronger.
She did. It devastated him more than if she had thrown him to the worst of the half-Vampires and let them have their way with him.
She drew hard, drinking deeply until his life was in the balance, until he was one sip away from death. Only then did she draw back. With the power of his ancient blood flowing through her starved body, she quickly gained her full strength. She jerked her arms and the chains holding them broke.
As soon as she dropped her legs, releasing him, the mighty Aquinas fell forward like a rag doll. His head slammed into the flagstones. She watched him struggle and crawl away on his stomach. He made mewling sounds, knowing there was no hope of escaping her but still attempting freedom. Intoxicating heat surged to life within her, drawing her power to the front even as she stepped away from the stake she’d thought she would die on. Walking barefoot over the rocky ground, she wound her way around his body until she stood at his head. Only then did she crouch down and grab his hair to pull his head up so he could meet her eyes as he fought to live.
His gray eyes were bloodshot, his expression one of terror and agony. “Isobel, mercy. I will give you anything, anything—”
“You have nothing I want, except your death.”
“Isobel, have mercy, I never meant those things, I never wanted you harmed—”
“No? Well, Aquinas, I never wanted any of this, not you, not your House.” She tightened her grip on his black hair, much as he had on her breast. “But you brought it to me, didn’t you? To my brother, as well. Tell me, Aquinas, are you familiar with vengeance?” She dragged him back to the post. He sobbed and pathetically tried to pull away. She wrapped the chains around his arms to hold him to the post.
“Isobel,” he gasped.
She tightened the chains on his throat and stopped his pleas.
“Vengeance can do more than provide a pitiful satisfaction. Your death, and that of your council,” she spat the word and gained his full attention by drawing down the power of the heavens into her hand, “made one mistake, Aquinas.”
His face was pale with ghastly splashes of blood marring his features. But she knew him. He would have done exactly what he’d said if he had been the one making the decisions. Thankfully, he hadn’t been.
“You and your council let me live.”
She pulled the lightning from where she’d held it, hitting him with every ounce of power she possessed. She would not allow the sun to burn him. He didn’t deserve another second on this earth. As he burned, she watched his flesh crack and his blood bubble, then ooze through his skin, revealing his bones. With one more gasp, he burst into flames.
As his spirit lifted from him, she gathered it to her, drawing it in with her hand so she could swirl the mist of who he was into the air. When she knew she had every fiber of his essence, she flung her hands up and called the wind, scattering the ashes of his body along with the pieces of his soul.
“Accept this offering, brother. There will be more. Then you will be free.”
Another presence drew nearer, one that startled her. The Vampire from where she’d been entombed. She knew the members of the council, all save one. But this man was not evil. As he drew nearer she misted, gaining strength to float above the ground and merge with the moss growing along the shelving high in the tower.
The trick had saved her more times than she could count, but this time, she sensed she may not fool the man who’d leapt from the hole in the ceiling. He landed perfectly without a sign of stress from having had to linger in the sun for seconds before dropping in. He stayed down on one knee, his head bowed, until, slowly, he stood.
At first she couldn’t understand what he was doing here. She didn’t know him—or from what she could see of him and sense of his aura, she didn’t think she knew him. Suddenly, she realized, he was assessing the area. She hid deeper, aware that here was an opponent she may have difficulty besting.
As he walked toward the post, he turned his head, scanning the room as he drew a broadsword from the air. Many of the best warriors kept their blade at the ready, in a place only they knew, and thus could call to it with the simple power of their mind. This man was certainly a warrior, broad-shouldered and heavily muscled. He would have stood in defense of their people under even the most deadly attacks.
He walked slowly and carefully to where she had been chained. When he reached the post and empty chains he touched the wood and bowed his head. “Isobel?” As he whispered her name, anguish and disbelief colored his tone. She almost slipped from her hiding place. Who is this warrior? Why would my death matter?
“How is this possible? Who has…?” He knelt again and touched the ground where Aquinas had left a footprint in the dirt. It was odd, but she sensed something familiar about this ancient, though, even as she thought it, she wasn’t certain if that were true. He had yet to turn and face her, but his profile was chiseled as if from the marble the Greeks adored.
He was also strong, with broad shoulders and long-fingered hands he slid over the cobblestones. All at once he cursed foully and stood, searching around him for something it appeared he thought should be there.
Me?
“Aquinas!”
If her name fell from his
lips with pain, Aquinas’ was growled in rage. He is good. Very, very good if he can sense the tiniest partial of Aquinas remaining.
“I will rip your heart out and feed it to you!”
He spun and punched the pole, cracking it in half so that it fell, revealing large sharp splinters of paler wood from the core as it dropped to the ground. More curses fell from his lips, ones she had never heard, but understood must be reflective of the rage he was experiencing.
At the idea of my death?
She thought he would race off, but instead he seemed to gather himself. His chest and shoulders rose and fell with each of his labored breaths. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides. She waited, uncertain what to think. He began studying the room again, slowly touching a stone or a bit of wood here, a rock there, tracking, she realized. Can he sense what I did?
“Did you kill him? Did you survive? But how?” he whispered.
He shook his head. The light had already gained entrance to the hole above them. She waited, anxious to see his face for the first time. He had neared where she hid, but with another curse, he glanced up at the sun drawing near.
No, not yet. Turn! Turn!
He didn’t. He disappeared, leaving her alone, and oddly…worried.
Chapter Three
“Bryson! Why the hell can’t you— Oh, fuck! Bryson, what the hell, man?” Jaxon shouted.
Bryson rolled his head to the side, seeing Jaxon rushing toward him. He lifted his hand to ward him off, but his arm felt dull and far off as if someone else had hold of it. He managed to wave it and groaned out, “Go away.”
“Oh, fuck, man, what is this?” Jaxon picked up the black box his opium had safely been stored in for centuries and gave him a fuck-me look. A small whiff of the powder floated to him. The call of more was strong. It would keep him under for years if he were careful.
“Bryson?”
Isobel was gone, which meant he hadn’t been in time to rescue her. He hadn’t needed to. She’d saved herself and, if he had to guess, she’d done it by killing Aquinas.
