by Rye Brewer
“You did this to me!” I lunged at him with those claws. I wanted him to feel as bad as I felt.
His hands closed over my wrists, and he held me off as I struggled to hurt him.
I should’ve been able to do it easily—I had broken that lock, hadn’t I? I should’ve been able to tear him apart. My strength must have worn off. Was that what he’d meant by finishing my change?
I threw myself against him anyway, struggling to pull my wrists free, and thrashed back and forth.
“Stop! This is pointless! I don’t want to hurt you!” He pushed me into the wall hard enough to make the plaster crumble around me.
The shock of it took the fight out of me. I tried to catch my breath.
His eyes flew open wide. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that!” He reached for me.
I snarled and swiped at him with my claws out.
He jumped back with a hiss, his teeth elongating.
The door opened.
We both turned to see who came in.
I couldn’t believe my eyes—he looked just like Gage. Tall, red-haired, handsome.
I stared at him and wondered if seeing double was another side-effect of the whole vampire thing.
Gage froze. “Jonah.”
The newcomer’s jaw dropped. “What the hell is going on here?” He was staring at me, just like I was staring at him.
“I-I—” Gage sputtered.
The guy in the doorway pried his eyes away from me and stared at Gage.
“What have you done?”
14
Anissa
I turned to Felicity, and my face must’ve held all the questions in my head because she nodded slowly.
“I know. I had hoped he’d be awake by now, too.”
“He’s been out this entire time?” I whispered, but I didn’t need an answer.
It was obvious. I was starting to wonder if he would ever wake up. Did he harm himself permanently? If he had, it would be all my fault. I had practically pushed him into trying to control two spiritwalkers at once. I’d never forgive myself—and I’d never, ever be able to face my mother again.
“You’re still the only one who knows he’s here?” I asked.
“Just me and the ones who helped me bring him here. They’ll stay quiet as a favor to me,” she murmured.
I noticed how she hung around by the door, like she wanted to give me space as I stroked the back of Allonic’s hand. It would be too cruel if I lost him forever. We might not have had a typical brother-sister relationship, but it was the only one I had.
“Thank you for making this sacrifice,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder. “I know it isn’t easy for you.”
“I haven’t had to do much,” she replied. “I’ve tried to treat him as best I can.”
“I don’t mean that… though that matters very much, too,” I added hastily. “I mean keeping him here, keeping him secret. I’m sure it’s not easy for you, with my father and all.”
“Oh, him. Well, I know how to handle him.” She smiled softly. “His bark is worse than his bite. Isn’t that the human saying?”
“It is.” I nodded, and she was right. Though his bark was bad enough.
I stood, brushed off the knees of my jeans—this place needed a good sweeping, but the fact it looked untidy only made me feel more confident about Allonic not being discovered.
“I should get going now, before I’m missed. I couldn’t leave him here without at least letting you know I was thinking about him. And you.”
“Thank you.” She took my hands and squeezed.
“I’m the one who should be thanking you.” I wanted to hug her, really, but didn’t think the gesture would be appreciated. Instead, I slipped out with the intention of sneaking back to the penthouse. But I would be back, if only to feast my eyes again.
The moon was high in the sky, and the walls of the Hermitage gleamed like they were part of the moon, too. My heart ached with the beauty of it. I wished I had more time to enjoy everything as I hurried across the footbridge, glancing down at the fish whose scales had taken on a silvery sheen in the moonlight.
I was too busy admiring them to notice the body I slammed straight into.
I rebounded off the man’s chest and almost hit the ground. He caught me just before I did, and I stared into his eyes. His hard, angry eyes.
“Father,” I gasped. Of all the people to run into. Literally.
“Daughter,” he growled in reply, straightening me.
I gulped. “How are you?”
“How am I?” he asked, dumbfounded. “If you cared how I am, you would’ve come to see me on your own. I wouldn’t have needed to go looking for you, when I have so many other concerns to fix my attention on.”
“I’m sorry.” I smiled sheepishly. “I was going to pay you a visit, really, I was. But like you just said, you’re so busy…” What a pathetic excuse. I groaned inside.
He flashed a disapproving frown. “Right. What business do you have here?”
“I wanted to visit Felicity. Marigold told me she was here. I thought I could wait her out, but I guess it’ll make more sense for me to come back another time, when she’s not in reflections.”
He pursed his lips as though deciding whether I was telling the truth.
I willed myself not to give myself away. How was it lying was so easy with anybody but him? I had relied on my poker face for so long, too. Something to do with him being my father, even if he hadn’t raised me.
“Are you sure you didn’t come to visit with the shade?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I just about died. “What?”
“You heard me, Anissa. You came to visit with the shade Felicity is hiding.” His eyes probed. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t say a word. He left me speechless.
“Come with me,” he said, sounding resigned. “Let’s take a walk.”
I hoped against hope he wanted to take me to the city of trees, but no such luck. We walked back across the footbridge, past the gazebo, through the pearl-inlaid doors. My mind spun out of control the entire way. What was he going to do? Who told him? One of the guys Felicity swore was trustworthy? What would he do to her? Or to Allonic? I hardly cared about myself—I was the one who’d gotten us all into this, and I deserved his wrath. But not them.
What surprised me most wasn’t that he knew Allonic was here, but that he knew exactly where to find him. He didn’t even pause to take stock of where he was along the way, and it was all I could do to keep up with him. He didn’t slow down to match the pace of the fae who were there to meditate. He didn’t have to. He was Gregor, my father and the leader of the fae.
Felicity sprang to her feet when we entered the room and stood in front of my brother. She had lit a few oil lamps since I left. They glowed around Allonic’s makeshift bed and lit her fearful face.
Gregor’s face darkened with anger, but, instead of raging, as I expected, his shoulders fell. “I’m disappointed in you,” he murmured, turning to Felicity.
“It’s not her fault—” I started, but one cold glare from him shut me up.
“I’m disappointed in you, too,” he fired back. “I don’t want to hear your lies right now. You should’ve at least asked permission to do something like this or asked my counsel. I might have come up with a better plan than this. How were you hoping to get him out of here once he wakes?”
I glanced at Felicity, who shrugged. “I hadn’t considered it yet. So far, he hasn’t even fluttered his eyelids.”
“Who told you?” I cut in. I wanted to know who needed to die.
Gregor sighed. “As if I don’t know everything that happens around here. No one needed to tell me. I sensed a change in the energy around the Hermitage. I haven’t felt shade energy in quite some time, but I remembered it clearly enough. And there was undoubtedly a shade in Avellane. What I didn’t know before running into you, daughter, was who sheltered the shade. When I saw you, and you said you w
ere looking for Felicity… It hardly takes a genius.”
I winced. Of course. I gave it away. How was I supposed to know he was all-wise?
Felicity hadn’t moved from her spot in front of Allonic’s body.
“Please, step aside,” Gregor commanded.
She did as he’d asked without putting up a fight. She knew better.
He moved closer—so did I, though I hung back a step or two. Something told me he wanted his space as he gazed over the length of my brother’s sleeping form.
Allonic’s chest barely rose and fell. When was he going to wake up?
“What’s wrong with him?” Gregor asked.
“He was helping me with something,” I said, giving a shrug to Felicity.
Would he accept that?
The knowing glance he threw over his shoulder told me he didn’t. “Helping you with what?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have no doubt,” he grumbled. He faced Felicity next. “Have you been treating him?”
She nodded eagerly. “I’ve been reciting incantations in hopes of restoring his mana.”
I had no idea what that meant and didn’t think it was the right time to ask. In context, it probably had something to do with energy flow or that sort of thing.
She continued, “I’ve also been doing what I can to feed him milk, honey, and round cakes. He’ll open his mouth a bit when I try to pour milk over his lips, but he seems to reject it out of hand. I’m sure it’s only a reflex. I worry, though, how long he’ll be able to live on no food or drink.
I winced, rubbing my temples.
What was I supposed to do next? How would she respond if she knew she was caring for a shade-vampire hybrid? It was one thing for me to be half-vampire. I was also half-fae, and Gregor’s daughter on top of that, which sort of gave me a pass.
Gregor leaned in, reaching for Allonic’s still, smooth face. In the low light from the oil lamps, he seemed to glow a burnished bronze instead of the deep, rich color his skin normally was. Maybe that had something to do with his condition? I had no idea. There were too many questions.
All of which were ripped from my mind when Gregor’s fingertips grazed Allonic’s temple. His eyes immediately flew open, glowing an angry amber, and his fangs descended as he hissed in surprise or pain or a combination of both. I had no idea.
Gregor withdrew his hand and fell back a step, frowning, He turned to me then to Allonic. Then back to me. “We need to talk.”
15
Allonic
There was nothing in any world I’d ever visited that matched the disorientation of waking up in this room.
For the briefest of moments, it brought back a memory from childhood. Being small and unwilling to go to bed when my mother told me to. What was it about children that they so often refused to go to sleep when told to? Were they afraid of missing out on what they perceived would be much more interesting, some secret thing adults did?
At these times, when fatigue would settle over me in spite of my most ardent attempts to keep it at bay, I would wake up to find myself in bed. It was a disconcerting experience, to be sure, the inability to recall how I’d come to be where I was. One moment, I’d be awake, playing, and the next, I’d be under the blankets, with my head on the pillow, fresh out of a dream.
This was the same feeling when I awoke in the presence of the white-haired man who stood above me with an expression of surprise on his weathered face.
This was not the face of my mother, not the loving countenance of one who sometimes happened to be there when I opened my eyes as a child. And this was not my room. I bared my fangs before I knew what was happening, frightened and confused and still slightly foggy. Where was I? What happened?
“We need to talk.” The white-haired man had a deep, booming voice. A voice which commanded respect, or at least the ears of anyone nearby.
I knew he couldn’t be talking to me—mostly because his face was turned away.
Toward Anissa.
She was here.
I could breathe more easily. My fangs retracted—I had no use for them here. If she was with me and she didn’t appear as though she felt threatened, there was no one for me to attack. I wasn’t sure I’d know how to use my natural weapons in an attack, at any rate. I’d never done it before. I used shade skills. And the man was fae. How would my skills fare in battle against a fae?
The man with the white hair and commanding voice led Anissa from the room. She glanced back at me just once, a sort of wide-eyed expression which told me she wasn’t sure what was about to happen. That made two of us.
This left me alone. No, not alone. There was one more person in this small, cramped little space.
I looked at the oil lamps burning around me and wondered who’d lit them. Her?
Once my eyes adjusted, what they registered across the room was enough to take my breath away. Had I been confused before about how I’d wound up on this little makeshift bed with its thick, soft blankets and deep cushions? Had I been concerned with anything other than the vision of pure loveliness staring at me with large, clear, caring eyes?
She, like the man who’d led my sister away, had white hair. Like Anissa’s, too. Except her hair flowed to her waist, woven into an intricate braid which glowed even in the near darkness. Her skin reminded me of cream and was so pure and perfect I was certain, for a moment, I was imagining things. Or dreaming. Perhaps I had a fever, and she was nothing more than a hallucination.
“What…?” I cleared my throat, my voice raspy and weak. “What happened to me?”
She frowned—an expression which did nothing to lessen her beauty. “You don’t remember?”
I thought back, but thinking made my head throb. There was no specific location to the pain, nothing to give the impression I’d suffered a head injury, but the pain was there nonetheless. Even so, I tried. “I was… in a meeting?” I asked, glancing at her.
“You were at a meeting of the League of Vampires,” she confirmed.
And with that, it all came back in a rush. Yes. The meeting, the spiritwalkers. I’d felt my strength, my very consciousness draining away as I controlled two of them at once. I’d never attempted anything of the sort before, and for good reason. What happened to me was hardly a surprise. Nonetheless, I’d done everything within my power to help my sister.
My tongue darted over my parched lips. “And who are you?” I had to know.
There were so many other questions, many other concerns. How would I get home? Was I strong enough to get there? I didn’t know if opening a portal to ShadesRealm was possible from Avellane, which was where I assumed we were at the moment. With my consciousness somewhat more intact, I pieced together that the white-haired man was Anissa’s father and we really were in the fae kingdom.
When would I get the chance to feed again?
Her smile was radiant. It nearly lit up the room. “My name is Felicity.”
Naturally. A name befitting someone as lovely as she. This was entirely new to me, feeling so taken in by a woman so immediately on meeting her. Feeling taken in at all. Romance had never been something to cross my mind, or even baser notions such as lust.
My life had been one of near-solitude, almost monastic in its stringency. I’d never so much as entertained the idea of being with a woman. What woman would want me? A hybrid, a nobody. Always on the outside.
“Felicity,” I repeated.
Funny how she lit up parts of my brain which hadn’t been used for as long as I could recall. The weight of her gaze on me, with its care and its warmth, caused me to question everything I’d ever assumed about myself and my relationship with the rest of the world—or worlds, as it were. “And I’m in Avellane, correct?”
Her eyes flew open wide. “How did you know?”
“I deduced it. What stuns me is the fact I was permitted to breach the barrier—I thought only the fae were permitted through the entrance.”
“Anissa has her ways… as do I,” she ad
ded with a slight, self-deprecating shrug.
I glanced around again. The room was plainly decorated, in spite of the comfort in which I rested, and the window cut into what appeared to be marble which composed the outer wall and allowed me to see out over green, lush fields and a veritable forest of tall, thick trees in the distance. “Where are we, exactly? What is this building called?”
“The Hermitage,” she replied. “It’s the most private place I could think of.”
“You thought well,” I offered. I would say anything if it meant seeing the look of pleasure settle over her face at the assurance she’d done a good job.
“And your name?” she asked, seemingly out of nowhere. It seemed strange my sister hadn’t shared my name when she arranged for my care, but it could’ve been a conscious choice. Something intended to keep my presence a secret.
“Allonic.”
“Allonic,” she repeated, and she made it sound like music. Almost an enchantment. I felt myself sinking into her, deeper and deeper. What was she doing to me? Was this a result of what had happened back at league headquarters? Or perhaps the aftereffects of whatever treatment Felicity had used to treat me? I would’ve sworn I was under the influence of something.
“You’re a shade,” she nearly whispered, like she was afraid to make such a bold statement though it was clearly true. Her cheeks colored slightly pink, as though she were shy. It only made her all the more charming to me.
“I am,” I confirmed with a slow smile.
“You’re the first shade I’ve ever seen.”
And she was the first woman I’d ever seen and experienced such deep stirrings toward, so I assumed we were even on some level. I resisted the impulse to ask her what she thought of me. Since when did impulses ever surface in me?
“Is there anything I can get for you?” she asked, and I noticed the way she clasped her hands. Tight, almost urgent. She wanted to be a help, was anxious to be one. That touched me, too. Deeply.
