by Rye Brewer
She nodded, though she still shook slightly. “I only wish… I wish I didn’t like it so much.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking it, either.” I rolled her onto her back, so I could look down at her. “I mean it. It’s our instincts. I haven’t hunted like this in a long time, since before we reached the treaty with the humans. It’s a feeling I had forgotten. I have to admit the hunt is addictive.”
“You’re not just saying that?” The hope in her eyes was so touching I could hardly stand it.
“I’m not.” I kissed the tip of her nose. It was all true. I enjoyed hunting, too, although I couldn’t help but worry about how it affected the clan if Cari was left unchecked.
I worried about her, too. About whether she’d ever be able to live life the way I’d learned to live it. I’d been civilized for so long. Mostly because of my family and the league. Cari didn’t have that luxury.
I looked around the room—comfortable, well-appointed, but still a cave that served as a mass grave—then back at her. “Are you happy here?”
“Yes. As happy as I can be, I guess. You’re here.”
That was a good sign, at any rate. “If we weren’t here, would you still be happy?”
“Where would we go?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. It’s merely a thought—you know, what would happen if we had to move on?”
“But what about Naomi and Jerome and Peter? Bianca and Joli?”
“What about them? You’ve spent a lot of time with them, yes, but I moved on without my family, too.” And they weren’t family to her—though at least she hadn’t mentioned Micah. “Don’t worry about it. I’m only speaking hypothetically. What if.”
“All right.” She frowned as she stroked my cheek. “Are you happy? I guess I haven’t asked you that, and that’s wrong of me. I’m sorry. You matter, too.”
“As long as I’m with you,” I whispered.
18
Gage
We were out again, the following night, in a larger group than usual. Micah had bragged about what an incredible job Cari had done in coursing to catch her prey, and, since then, the rest of the clan had clamored to witness her in action.
And she loved it. I felt as though I was watching from the outside, moving at the edges of the group, unable to get close to her. But not Micah. He got as close to her as he wanted—touching her hair, patting her back or her arm, letting his hand slide down to her waist.
I always managed to catch his eye and move closer to her when he did that sort of thing, and he smiled as though he couldn’t be blamed for flirting a little.
“It’s the French way, mon ami,” he’d explained once.
“You weren’t born in France, mon ami,” I’d reminded him with a tight smile.
We moved in a pack, in twos and threes to make us appear less obvious, but always together. Micah had decided to patrol along the banks of the Seine that night, and, walking hand-in-hand with Carissa, the Eiffel Tower sparkling up ahead was almost enough to make me forget who we really were and what we were actually doing here.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, eyes shining when she gazed at me with a smile. “I’ve always wanted to see it.”
“We’ll have to go to the top sometime,” I offered.
Anything to do something normal with her, something people actually did besides hunting and hanging around the catacombs. I never knew how good I’d had it before, back in New York. To think, I’d been so dissatisfied for so long. I’d never be able to return to that relatively simple life.
“I would love that.” She leaned in for a kiss.
It was a brief kiss as Micah cleared his throat over her shoulder. “Excuse-moi, you two, but we’re out here for a reason.”
I could’ve ripped his head from his shoulders and kicked it into the river. Mostly because his reminder seemed to flip a switch in her. She became somebody else—no longer the sweet, smart, funny, charming girl I had fallen in love with, the girl I knew was still in there.
The bloodthirsty vampire in her nodded, her golden hair bouncing.
His eyes glowed with pleasure when he looked down at her. “You’re ready to do what you’re so talented at?” A half-smile curled the corner of his mouth.
“I am,” she murmured with a smile of her own.
“My talented Carissa.” His voice was a deep, sexy caress. And it set off the rage I’d been barely holding back to this point. But instead of attacking him, letting his blood baptize me, I glanced around for a target.
There was a couple walking along the banks. I made a beeline for them without waiting for the others to catch on to my plan. Not that I had a plan. An intent, really. I needed a way to vent my rage, as simple as that. I waited until they disappeared into the shadows under a bridge before I closed in. It was likely they had ducked under there to have a private moment.
They should’ve been paying attention.
I took the woman first, pulling her away by the hair and slicing her throat with my fangs before either of them knew I was nearby. He stopped in his tracks when she did—they were still holding hands—and opened his mouth to curse, or scream, or call for help.
I used her arm to pull him to me and clamped an iron hand over his mouth to keep him quiet while I fed, and he pissed himself. The girl’s slender body jerked and thrashed against me, but not for long before she went limp.
When she was finished, I turned my attention to him. He’d passed out from fear and horror long since, but his heart was still pumping blood fast and furiously, so it was hardly difficult to feast on him. As I drank, I remembered what I’d always enjoyed about this, about taking what I wanted. People thought they were strong, invincible, but I was stronger. Smarter. Faster. I could hurt them. Kill them. Use them to keep myself alive and healthy, because I was superior. Yes, this was the way it was always meant to be. Anything else was unnatural for a creature like me.
He dropped at my feet when I was finished, drained dry, sprawled out on top of his dead lover. The deep shadow under the bridge turned them into nothing recognizable. They could easily be a pile of garbage, or a pair of homeless vagrants who humans went out of their way to ignore. I licked my lips, catching the last drops of blood lingering there.
“Wow.”
I looked up to find Cari watching, mouth hanging open.
“I’ve never seen you like that before.”
“And?” I asked, still breathing heavy and feeling a little heady after drinking so much at once.
Everything around me was clearer, sharper. More.
She came to me, reaching out to catch one droplet of blood which had dripped onto my chin.
She raised her finger to her lips and sucked. “I think we’re going to have a lot of fun here,” she whispered.
19
Anissa
It all felt like a dream. Like a terrible, horrible, unimaginable dream. Only I couldn’t wake up.
The trickling of water over the outside of the prison’s walls was the only sound I heard outside of my own breathing. Breathing that I forced myself to do slowly, taking one careful breath at a time. Measuring the length of inhale, of exhale. The only thing I could control.
Otherwise, my world was spiraling, and I was getting farther away from the light at the end of the tunnel with every passing minute.
So, this was it. This was the end of the road for me—at least until the Senate saw fit to let me go. There was no telling when that would be. Fane had mentioned the word “centuries” when we’d discussed this place. Centuries of waiting. I tried to imagine it and had to stop when tears threatened to overwhelm me.
All that was missing were my weapons—I could still feel the rough-handed guards going over me, searching for any contraband. They’d found a treasure trove in my boots. For the first time in as long as I could remember, the supple leather only held my feet.
Luckily, they hadn’t found the weapon used on Lucian that I’d snatched and tucked away at the Bourke high-rise
.
Also, at least they hadn’t taken my ring. I looked down at the beautiful band with its stones that still sparkled even in the semi-dark holding cell until tears blurred my vision. What would my parents say when they found out? And they had been so happy together, too. I was ruining that, all because I’d been too pigheaded to listen to reason. Pride had always been one of my greatest flaws—along with stubbornness.
I hoped my mother didn’t mind waiting a few hundred years to finish planning my wedding.
I hoped Jonah didn’t mind waiting.
I thought about Samara and Elazar. She had waited for him all this time. Jonah would wait, too. That was the sort of man he was, the sort who stuck by his promises and refused to turn away when the going got tough. I didn’t think I’d love him half as much if he wasn’t so dependable, honorable. But I’d let him go if it came down to it. I loved him too much to make him wait for me. It wouldn’t be fair to him.
I was thinking too far ahead, and I knew it. A tendency I thought I had broken myself of in the months after the Great Fire, when I thought we had lost our parents forever. The years had spooled out ahead of me, unthinkably dangerous and fraught with uncertainty. I had finally realized that taking the entire future in one large swallow was the surest path to madness. One day at a time was the only way to tackle the unknown.
What could I do in the present? Not much. I could stop torturing myself with thoughts of Jonah, for one. And my parents, for another. That was all in the future, and I couldn’t control that. I could only keep myself sane and together.
Which made it unfortunate I happened to hear a familiar voice echoing down the corridor.
“What’s the meaning of this? Where is my daughter?” He sounded as though he was about ready to tear the prison down, stone by stone.
I leaped from the bunk and went to the cell bars—the Senate hadn’t taken into account my fae blood and the fact silver didn’t hurt me. When I wrapped my hands around them, straining to see where the voice was coming from, I didn’t feel a thing.
“Hello?” I called out, trying to raise my voice over his.
He came on the run, Felicity on his heels.
I didn’t know if I was thrilled to see them or horrified. “What are you doing here? How did you find out so quickly?”
“Find out? I didn’t find out anything about this until we arrived! What’s the meaning of it? Why are you in a cell like some sort of common prisoner?” Gregor’s voice rose progressively over the course of his rant until he was nearly screaming, tendons standing out on his neck.
Felicity tried in vain to quiet him, but he waved her off.
He wouldn’t be able to wave Stark off the way he did Felicity.
Stark, who at the moment, was hurrying down the corridor, waving his arms. “Do you want to bring the entire Senate in here ahead of time?”
“Ahead of time?” Gregor bellowed.
Stark held a finger to his lips then glanced over his shoulder.
The cells around mine were empty—Scott had to be farther down the line, away from me. I assumed they wanted to keep us apart because they thought we were friends. Hardly.
“Quiet, please.” Stark frowned. When he seemed sure we were alone, he whispered, “There’s something about to happen. Something big. I wish you weren’t here.”
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Stark countered with a scowl. “You’re not a witch.” He glanced at Felicity. “Neither of you are. You’re fae. What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to know the same thing,” I muttered, then turned my attention to Stark. “My father. His advisor—my friend,” I added at the last moment.
“How did you know Anissa had been convicted?” he asked.
“Convicted? Of what?” To his credit, Gregor kept his voice down this time, but his eyes were wide, stunned.
So were Felicity’s.
“You’re not here because of what happened? Because the Senate sentenced me to prison?” I whispered.
“Sentenced?” Gregor’s face turned as red as a tomato. Almost as red as blood.
Felicity’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Anissa.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Stark assured them, awkwardly patting Felicity’s shoulder. He was so distracted, always peering over his shoulder as though he were waiting for someone to come running down the corridor. “We’re about to do something that will take care of the Senate for good.”
“You’re what?” I asked, aghast.
“It was Elewyn’s idea. I was coming down here to warn you that we’d be in to free you, and then we’ll need you in the fight. It’s the only way, Anissa.”
“I’ll do it if it means being free,” I replied without having to think about it. I wouldn’t mind taking out every single one of those evil, sneering witches, no matter what it took.
But what of Gregor and Felicity?
I looked at them, torn. “You should hide or get out of here or something.”
“How can we do that?” my father demanded. “Do you think I would allow anyone to imprison my daughter? Do you think I would run and hide when matters are difficult? I’ll be on the frontlines, daughter. Wait and see.”
“Please, please, I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. Don’t do this on my account. They’re powerful witches.”
“I’m inclined to agree with her,” Stark murmured, grimacing.
He clearly didn’t want to insult my father, I could tell. He was smart to know how dangerous something like that could be.
Gregor might not have been a witch, he might not have been able to encase a person in ice the way Stark could, but he was powerful in his own way.
My stubborn father shook his head.
So that was where I got my stubbornness.
“Absolutely not. I won’t step down now. My daughter will be free. I’ve decided it.” There was no arguing with him once he’d made up his mind this way.
“Just be careful,” I urged him, even as my heart glowed.
He loved me. It wasn’t his way to come out and say something like that, point-blank—he demonstrated his feelings, instead.
Felicity nodded firmly, too. She would fight along with us.
“Why did you come here, anyway?” I asked. “You see how dangerous it is. Look what happened to me.” The glance they exchanged made my heart seize. “What is it? What did you come here to tell me?”
“Anissa…” Gregor let out a heavy sigh, eyes leaving my face and hitting the floor.
“What is it?” I gripped the bars tight enough to hurt. “Tell me.”
Felicity picked up where Gregor obviously couldn’t. “We went to your mother’s room in the tower in ShadesRealm. She never came to Avellane—it was two days before we went to search for her.”
“No. No, no, don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.” I squeezed my eyes shut, leaning my forehead against the bars.
I couldn’t handle anything else. I would die. It would literally break my heart, and I would die. If I lost my mother after I had just found her…
“She wasn’t there,” Gregor choked out. “But there were signs of a struggle. Blood. Quite a lot of it.”
“No. This isn’t true.” If I kept saying it over and over, I might believe it. Not my mother. Not her.
“I’m sorry, but it is,” Felicity whispered.
“I can’t lose her again. I can’t, I can’t.”
“I know what you’re feeling.” Gregor’s hands closed over mine.
I laced my fingers with his before opening my eyes. The devastation written all over his face nearly tore my heart to shreds. No matter what I was going through, he was feeling it a hundred times over. The image of his happy face, the joy radiating from it when he was with her. A man so clearly, so completely in love. And she was gone. Just like that. Blood all over her room.
“Father…”
“I know.” He nodded, sorrow etched into every line around his eyes, his frowning mouth.
>
“What about Sara?” I glanced at Stark then back at Gregor. “Does she know?”
“No,” my father admitted.
“I don’t think she should hear about this right now,” Stark urged, standing close to the two of us and lowering his voice to a whisper. “It will be difficult enough for her to control her powers while we’re fighting without having this hanging over her. She’s still too volatile, too untested.”
“I agree. If we’re about to do what we’re about to do, she shouldn’t hear about this yet.” My heart was so heavy, I wasn’t sure I would be able to fight the way they needed me to.
But then I looked at Gregor again, at the pain in his eyes, and I remembered everything that had been done to us. The way my parents couldn’t be together. The way my mother had almost died—after Sara’s father definitely had. The way Sara had broken the law to keep our heads above water, and the things Marcus had made me do to keep her from suffering with no blood.
All the loss, all the pain. The pain Jonah would go through when he found out I was in prison for some endless sentence.
All of a sudden, I was ready for a fight. I wanted one. I could hardly wait to get started.
20
Anissa
I didn’t have to wait long before two guards approached my cell.
My visitors hurried away toward the entry hall, and I stepped back to allow the door to swing open.
We waited for another two guards to lead Scott from his cell. He appeared considerably more sedate than he had before.
It occurred to me no one had warned him of what was about to happen. Well, he’d find out.
When we reached the entry hall, there was another situation brewing.
This time, it had to do with Gregor and Felicity being there. The Senate had entered, presumably to deliver our sentences, and the six of them glared at the new intruders.
“What do you think you’re doing here, Gregor?” Dracan demanded.
