But no, she pushed the memory from her head.
She needed to find Tristan. She needed to apologize, even if he didn’t know what she was apologizing for. Because Tristan could never know what just happened. It would kill him, hurt him more than her powers ever could.
They had broken up, broken apart. But that didn’t mean Kira wanted to lose him forever.
When the elevator slid open again, Kira ran to the car and revved the engine to life. The sky started to darken as the sun disappeared behind London’s buildings, sinking into the earth, signaling the night.
She found her way back to the small pond, hoping Tristan was waiting for her to return. Pushing aside the swaying branches of the willow tree, Kira discovered an empty space filled only with sleeping ducks.
As she continued down country roads, her headlights fought with the misty air. Every shadow caught her attention. Every shape in the distance looked like Tristan, looked like a lone walking figure, until she drove close enough to recognize them as a tree or a gateway or an animal. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes played tricks on her. Every moment of anticipation made her heart race, and disappointment darkened her thoughts the longer she went without finding him.
Kira’s eyes flashed to the GPS. Aldrich’s house was moving closer and closer to her tiny car, or maybe it was the other way around. But Kira felt like it was Aldrich who was creeping up on her, suffocating her and pulling her toward him.
And then, close to the ground, Kira saw something pristinely white through the fog—a T-shirt connected to a still body. She slowed the car, stuttering to a stop. Kira knew it was Tristan. He sat next to the road with his knees bent, head sunk in between them with hands gripping his neck. His shirt was damp from the misty night, and it clung to his strong shoulders.
After what seemed like an hour, he slowly lifted his head up. His normally bright eyes were dark, matching the scene around him, barely shining against the flood of the headlights. They looked bloodshot, if that was even possible for a vampire.
Kira turned the car off. She stepped out, hesitantly. He watched her, never taking his sight from her as she approached.
“Tristan?” Kira leaned against the hood of the car, afraid to get any closer.
“Did you find him?” Tristan asked. His deep voice broke through the silence in the air. Kira knew what he was really asking.
“Nothing happened,” she said. The lie burned her tongue. “I didn’t tell him anything.” Tristan’s muscles relaxed and he let out a prolonged breath.
“Did you figure out a plan?”
“Yeah.” Kira nodded.
“Fill me in during the ride back to the castle,” he said and stood up. Even in misery he was graceful. His movements were fluid, like a panther in the night. But Kira forced her gaze away. Tristan wasn’t hers to admire anymore.
“Tristan,” Kira said when they were both settled in the car.
“Don’t,” he said, “let’s just get through the next day.”
“Okay.”
Kira started the car and pulled back onto the road. For the first few minutes, no one said anything. Tristan stared out the window. Every time her gaze flicked toward him, Kira was greeted with dark hair and the back of his neck.
“So what did you and…” He swallowed. “What did you guys decide?” Kira filled him in—tactical discussions were safe territory. They would go through with the ceremony, trapping Aldrich at his weakest moment. The conduits would come and help with the fight. And Aldrich would run away or Kira would kill him. Those were the only two endings she saw.
“When will we make our move?” Tristan asked, speaking for the first time since Kira started talking. He had been nodding silently along with her words, agreeing to everything she said.
Kira thought about his question. When would be the perfect time to attack? Aldrich and her mother had told her most of the process to becoming a vampire. Aldrich would need to bite her, drink some of her blood. Her neck was the best spot—close to her heart and a major artery—but Kira wouldn’t be offering anything more than her wrist. Then everyone would wait a few seconds for her blood to pass through his heart and circulate through his veins, mixing with the already vampiric blood, blending into his system until it started turning. It was the blood, they said, that turned and gained qualities of a vampire. Blood always had to change first.
And when Aldrich felt Kira’s foreign blood transform to match his, he would cut his own hand and press it against the open wound in her wrist, forcing his blood into her body. Then, like a virus, the vampirism would enter and begin to turn her normal blood. When all her blood had changed, the rest of her body would start to follow.
Kira shivered at the thought, but knew what she had to do.
“When he starts to flood his blood into mine, that’s when you need to attack him. Go for the kill right away,” Kira said. “He’ll expect me to struggle, but not you. Aldrich will be caught completely off guard.”
“You sure you want to risk that? Letting him go so far in the process?” Tristan asked, trying hard to keep any bitterness from his voice.
Thinking of Luke’s steadfast denial that conduits could turn, Kira nodded. “I can fight the change, I know it,” she said softly, trying not to hurt Tristan any more than she had to.
“Then there’s nothing else to talk about.”
“I do have one more thing,” Kira said quickly, before he had time to shut her out again. “Pavia. I need to talk to her again. She’s hiding something, something that might help us.”
“What do you mean?” Tristan asked. His cloudy mood cleared a bit as genuine interest colored his words.
“I think,” Kira started talking, not really knowing what she meant. But then the realization hit. “I think Pavia must have stolen my mother’s memories. When I met her, she showed me her power, just the flash of an old memory. But it makes perfect sense. If Aldrich ever did have my mother, Pavia could have taken her memories and given them to this other vampire woman, the one who looks like my mother. That must be how she knows so much, so many personal details.”
“Yeah.” Tristan tapped his fingers against his knee, thinking. “Yeah, that makes sense. But I still don’t understand how she looks so much like her.”
“Me neither,” Kira said and shook her head. One more mystery for her to solve. “But maybe Pavia does. You need to distract Aldrich tomorrow, distract him long enough for me to sneak back into those tunnels.”
“Right after breakfast, I’ll pull him away and tell him we need to talk in private. I’ll make sure to give you as much time as I can, but I can’t promise more than an hour or he may realize we’re up to something.”
Kira nodded, opening her mouth to discuss their plan a little bit more.
“We’re about a minute away from Aldrich’s hearing distance,” Tristan interrupted.
Knowing time had run out to really make things better, Kira reached her hand across the car, latching onto Tristan’s. “I’m so sorry. You know that, right? I wish things could be different, that we could be together.”
Tristan kept hold of her hand but didn’t respond. Kira turned her attention back to the road and tried not to listen to the seconds tick by in her head. They seemed long and drawn out, passing too quickly but also not fast enough.
And then suddenly, Tristan looked at her and said, “Kira, I know that Luke is upset, but does he have to call you every five minutes? What is his problem? He lost. He’s got to let it go.”
They had passed the line of Aldrich’s hearing. The show had begun.
“I know, Tristan,” Kira said, looking at the hurt in his eyes even though his voice sounded like that of a champion. “I told him I’m changing, that I wouldn’t be able to see him again. It’ll just take some time for that to sink in, I think.”
“Well, he has a day to get it together if he ever wants to apologize for the way he screamed at you.”
“A day?” Kira asked, following the plan she and Tristan had thoug
ht up. Aldrich was expecting the change to happen tonight, but they had decided that that was too fast to put the entire plan into action. The conduits needed a day to regroup, and Kira needed a day to get her feelings under control. They wanted Aldrich to believe the delay was completely organic, not a rallying day.
“Yeah, I think we need to push it off for a few hours,” Tristan said, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand. “I don’t want our new life together to start while I’m angry at Luke. I don’t want anything in my head but love.” His words sounded sincere, but Kira saw the slight glisten to his lashes.
“Me neither,” Kira said, trying to keep the sadness from her voice. “Why don’t you relax for a little while, we’re almost back to the castle.”
Tristan nodded, turning on the music in the car to drown out the silence. They had planned to talk more, to explain more in the car for Aldrich to overhear. But it was too much so soon. Both of their feelings were too raw, and Tristan leaned back in his seat to close his eyes.
Kira hummed along with the songs she recognized and kept going over the plan in her head. Much too soon, the now familiar driveway appeared around the bend. Kira turned in, and Tristan pretended to wake to the sound of crunching gravel as Kira approached the castle.
It was eerie how similar the trip was to the first time Kira pulled in, so similar and yet so different. The ruins to the side of the castle, with their twisting and turning shadows, still frightened Kira. The castle loomed over them, still menacing. The thought of Aldrich still pierced just a little. Kira couldn’t quite cut the fear that he was onto them, that any minute he would walk out enraged and ready to fight.
The only difference was that Kira felt alone in her fight. Tristan was beside her, helping her, but they weren’t a team—not anymore. And Luke, Kira didn’t know what to think about it. Last time she drove to this castle, she was afraid Luke would never speak to her again. Now Kira was frightened because speaking to him, just talking, might not be enough.
And like the first time, Aldrich had heard them. As soon as the car stopped, both doors popped open on their own. The front door swerved open, revealing a silhouetted figure in a dark suit.
“How was the trip?” Aldrich cheerfully called to them.
“Difficult,” Kira said, not needing to lie at all. Aldrich would know if she were lying. The next day would be all about hard to discern half-truths. “But I did what I needed to do.”
Tristan circled around the car and put an arm around Kira, kissing her on top of her head as he did it.
“And how did Lucas take everything?” Aldrich asked.
“As well as could be expected,” Kira said with her thoughts focused on Tristan. “I think it came as quite a shock.”
Aldrich laughed. Kira fought the urge to kick him for finding even the pretend idea of Luke in pain funny. “As long as he doesn’t come around with a false sense of chivalry, trying to save his fair maiden.” Aldrich’s eyes flicked to Kira with a hard look, a warning Kira thought. But maybe she was seeing things.
“Luke definitely doesn’t have any false ideas,” Tristan said with a grin. But he squeezed Kira’s arm at the word "false" and she knew what he was really accusing.
“Yeah, he’s totally out of the picture.” Kira returned the squeeze. Two could play at that game. She may have technically done the breaking up, and she may have technically done the one thing Tristan had asked her not to, but that didn’t mean she was okay with biting remarks. They had twenty-four hours more of the charade, and it was way too soon for bickering innuendos.
Aldrich stepped inside, looking over his shoulder at Kira. “And how are you, Kira?”
She thought about the next day, the battle that was about to begin. “I’m ready,” she said and meant it. Kira was ready for answers, ready for the fight, and ready to take Aldrich down.
“As am I,” Aldrich responded. Flashes of icy blue pierced his nearly black eyes, giving away his excitement. “As am I,” he repeated, this time with a note of finality, just a hint of victory. He blinked and the expression was gone, almost as though it never happened.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to wait a day though,” Aldrich continued speaking. Tristan and Kira were hoping for this. Aldrich had overheard them and was pretending that he wanted to delay things. As Kira assumed, Aldrich was being very accommodating. He didn’t want to scare her off.
“Why’s that?” Tristan asked, pulling Kira up against his body, trying to let Aldrich see he didn’t necessarily want to wait.
“My dear wife…” It took everything Kira had not to flinch at that word. “Has gone to bed. Her excitement got the better of her.”
More likely, Aldrich threw a fit when he first realized Kira wanted to wait to perform the ceremony tomorrow. Judging by the intimate scene Kira had witnessed before, Aldrich would have had no problems taking his frustrations out on the other vampire. But better that than the prisoners.
“Well, I guess we’ll just be going to bed too then,” Kira said casually, probably overly so.
“Actually,” Aldrich said as Kira felt an invisible tug on her shirt, holding her back from the step she had begun, “I was hoping I could speak with you for a moment.”
“Of course,” Kira said smoothly. “We’re about to become family after all.” She turned to Tristan, wrapping her hand around his arm and leaning in for a quick kiss. “I’ll see you up there,” she said, ignoring how tense his muscles were. Tristan slipped free of her hold and stepped slowly up the stairs. He wouldn’t meet her gaze, but just kept on walking. Kira listened all the way, until the quiet thud of his steps disappeared to her human ears.
Aldrich led Kira into the living room down the hall, and she sat down on the sofa across from him.
“Things seem tense with Tristan,” Aldrich said. It was a statement, not a question, which meant Kira wasn’t playing her role well enough.
“Just because of Luke.” She sighed. “He didn’t take it well,” Kira continued, hoping Aldrich believed she was talking about Luke, when really the image of Tristan retreating around the bend and leaving her was playing on repeat in her mind. “He felt so hurt and abandoned.”
“I hope that hasn’t swayed you at all.”
“No,” Kira said sternly, catching the menacing tone in Aldrich’s seemingly kind words. His hand on her knee tightened involuntarily. A minute movement for a vampire, but the ounce of pain in her leg revealed his threat.
“Good, because even a sliver of doubt might stop the turning tomorrow.” He leaned toward her, eyes narrowing as he searched her face for any sign of hesitancy, “and turning into a vampire is not a pleasant process.”
Kira didn’t back down. The icicles in his eyes were probably mirrored by the fire in Kira’s as she responded, “I’m not afraid.” Of you, Kira added silently to herself.
He leaned back, satisfied. “No, I did not think you would be. Unsure maybe, doubtful even, but not afraid.”
“I think Tristan is more nervous than I am,” Kira said, hoping Aldrich would take the bait.
“Ah yes, worried about your safety no doubt. I’ll speak with him tomorrow.” Hook, line, and sinker—Kira thought and kept the grin off of her face. The plan was progressing perfectly.
“I should probably go talk to him a little bit now,” Kira said and stood up. She could only handle Aldrich in small bursts before his superior attitude made him completely unbearable.
“Have a good last night, Kira.” His wink curled her insides.
Kira nodded, keeping her face controlled, and turned away from him, but not before a slow smile spread across his lips. He folded his hands, palms together, and brought both pointer fingers to his lips. His eyes glazed over, lightening with every second, and Kira decided to go as quickly as possible.
When Kira reached the bedroom she shared with Tristan, the curtains were open and a sliver of moonlight dipped between them, creating a perfect pathway to the bed. Tristan lay there, facing away from Kira. She wondered if he was actually
asleep or if his eyes were staring out the open window, wide and watery.
Quietly, Kira inched around the room and changed into her pajamas. She stepped closer to her side of the large bed, wondering why the space there had never seemed as large as it did in that moment.
Trying not to disturb Tristan, Kira pulled the covers back and slipped underneath. At first, she rolled to her side, looking at the silvery lines of the moon glistening against his dark hair.
“Tristan?” Kira whispered, aching to reach across the bed and turn him toward her. His wide shoulders cast a shadow across the mattress that barely touched her outstretched arm, but it might be the only touch she would get from him that night.
“Tristan?” Kira whispered again. Maybe he really was asleep. His body lifted and fell with heavy breaths.
A dull throb started deep in her chest, pressing down on her heart until it felt like a weight was actually resting atop her body. The more Kira stared a foot across from her at the back of Tristan’s head, the wider the distance became. He stretched further away from her, shrinking back from the hand reaching out to touch him. A centimeter from the taut muscles in his back, Kira paused.
If he needed peace, a reprieve from the ache in his own heart, it was the least she could give him.
Reluctantly, Kira flipped over to her other side and fluffed her pillow. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the crook of Tristan’s arm, but for the night she could make do. What was really odd, Kira thought as she hugged the blanket closer, was how cold she was without Tristan’s body close to her. Despite the frost of his skin, Kira missed it. That chill was welcome. It cooled down the heat of her own body. But the chill she felt this night was bone deep, and Kira didn’t even think her fire would get rid of it.
But just as a shiver reverberated up her spine, the swish of skin on cotton warmed her heart. A cool arm encircled her waist, pulling her a foot across the bed and into the hard body that had always felt so soft to her. A tiny kiss, almost from a ghost, landed on her shoulder.
The Complete Midnight Fire Series Page 54
