by Anna Santos
“Whether I live or die, either way, I’ll die of remorse if I’m the reason he’s gone.”
“Aria, what are you talking about?”
“I tried,” she said, holding on to my hands. “I swear I did. I tried.”
“What?”
“I tried to please him. I tried to be what he wanted me to be. But…he doesn’t get me. It’s so much easier to talk to you. You don’t ask anything in return. You don’t want me to be something I’m not. Even if you were a total jerk when we first met.”
“What are you trying to say?” I asked, out of breath, my heart beating fast and stinging inside my chest. The feelings and the expectation were too much to bear. I loved her. I wanted her to be happy. She wasn’t.
“I want them to take out my angel and give her to someone else,” she mumbled and closed her eyes in pain. “I want Cedric to be happy. Even if I die, tell him to take my angel and find someone else to love.”
“It doesn’t work like that, Aria.”
It was Cedric who said those words. I felt Aria’s body trembling and her eyes opened in fear.
“We need to have a serious conversation,” he said in a cold voice.
I wanted to punch him. He was always cocky and stern, but listening to him talking to Aria like that was making me have homicidal thoughts.
“So how does it work, Cedric?” I asked, annoyance in my voice. I got up to face him. He was the reason why Aria was having suicidal thoughts. “Why don’t you enlighten us and tell us how Aria can go back to being her former self?”
“This is between Aria and me,” he said. “Please leave.”
I stared at him with menacing eyes and a clenched jaw. Then I looked back at Aria. I wanted to make sure that she wanted to talk to him. If she didn’t, there was no way in hell I would leave.
“I’ll be fine. You can leave. I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” I told her, walking towards the door.
“You need a bodyguard now?” he asked Aria.
I glared back at him. Aria said nothing. She was staring at her hands. She looked scared or nervous.
I got out of the room and closed the door.
One of the nurses appeared in front of me. “Mr. Duchamps, there’s a man downstairs who wants to talk to you.”
I frowned at her words. Only Sean knew I was there. “What’s his name?”
“He didn’t say, just that it was extremely urgent.”
I looked back at the closed door. I didn’t want to leave Aria alone. “Can you stay here and call me if the girl inside asks for me?” I asked her, looking into her eyes and enthralling her.
She nodded.
“Now, about the man downstairs, what does he look like?”
“I can’t say, sir. I don’t remember his face.”
That was odd. “Where did you say he was waiting?”
“In the lobby.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right back,” I told her as I made my way there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
PHILIPPE
There was no one waiting for me in the lobby. I was going to walk away when a small child grabbed my hand and guided me to an empty and dark waiting room. In a corner, there was a specter in his tunic, half-concealed by the darkness. It was Kayden, the evil necromancer who was surely behind Aria’s kidnapping. I had Mara and Margaret working on that angle and, seeing him there, told me that they could be in danger. Or maybe, he wanted something from me. After all, I supposedly owed him a favor.
“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” I said, following him.
I looked back since the kid had closed the door behind us and had disappeared. Using a kid to guide me there was creepy, especially because the child had had white eyes and a scary expression. It had probably been a specter hosting the corpse of some dead child. Kayden had some twisted sense of humor.
“And why is that?” he asked in the dark, guttural voice of necromancer.
“Are you going to deny that you’re the one behind Aria’s kidnapping?”
“I honestly have no idea why you’re so upset,” the dark creature said nonchalantly. “Everything I did made it possible for you to have what you wanted.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, confused about his reasoning. “I didn’t ask you to kidnap Aria, and I certainly didn’t want anything bad to happen to her!”
“You said that you wanted a way to make her fall in love with you. Well, you’ve got your wish,” he said, coming closer to the light from the window. I saw his scary face distorted by what seemed to be a smile. “Now, now, before you demonstrate your lack of understanding and ask me how I managed to do that, let me speak. I know you’re in love, and love makes us do stupid things like you wishing I were dead or trying to kill me yourself, but we’ve already talked about that, haven’t we?”
“You’re getting on my nerves,” I warned him, disliking his sarcasm.
“You got to play the hero in the shining armor, didn’t you? You saved her. Isn’t she in your debt or, at least, thankful for it? Doesn’t she see you differently now? You’ve put your life at stake for hers. I think I rather deserve a thank you instead of your wrath.”
“As much as I’m following your reasoning, you’re neglecting the fact that I know all too well that you didn’t kidnap her to help me. In fact, I’m aware that you manipulated Gerard into betraying me. He also tried to kill me. So I’m sorry if I don’t believe a single one of your excuses.” I crossed my arms.
I was upset, but I was using that unforeseen visit to know more about his plans.
“Gerard was a fool. I didn’t tell him to kill you. In fact, it didn’t take much to make him want to betray you. He had already had his plan set before I made him my minion. I delayed his plan to kill you since I’d rather have your support than have an idiot like Gerard ruling over the vampires. He’s reckless and stupid. Speaking of the man, where is he?”
“Dead, as you might know by now. Didn’t Margaret tell you?”
“I don’t like witches. She was his mistress, but she had her own agenda. I’m glad to see you’ve found her sister, and she doesn’t want to kill you anymore. You’re collecting enemies, aren’t you, Philippe?”
“What else is new?” I asked, sighing with impatience as I sunk my hands into my pockets. “What do you want from me? I have to confess that I’m intrigued by your visit since you’ve tried to kill me and hurt my mate. Unless you came here to apologize… But it wouldn’t make any difference. I’m set on destroying you…”
He interrupted me, raising his skinny hand. “Stop right there. You’re normally more cunning than that. You’re bluntly telling me that you want me dead. That’s not good for our alliance.”
I glared at him, unsure if he was stupid or if he was being ironic. Either way, the damn creature was out of his mind if he thought I was going to be his ally. I wouldn’t join forces with evil creatures like him, and I was planning to kill him since he’d tried to hurt Aria.
“Kidnapping Aria was necessary,” he said sternly.
I wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore.
“It served your purposes and mine.”
“It didn’t serve my purposes at all! You terrorized her. Your plan was stupid. And you had other intentions behind your actions. She was held captive. Her angel was trapped under some dark spell, and someone stabbed a needle in her neck. How would her death serve my purposes?” I was yelling by then. “What was in that needle? William said it had a drug in it. What was it, and does it have an antidote? What did you and the guy who was hurting her want?”
“There were no drugs in that needle. The drugs—which we gave her before then—were harmless. They were used to calm her down. The second needle served another purpose. My associate and I were concerned by her power. However, I wouldn’t allow her to kill the girl. We had no intentions of harming the human.”
“Her? It was a woman?”
“I thought you already knew that. Aria sa
w her; you fought her.”
“Aria has been…sleeping.” I didn’t want to go into further details.
“You’ve been here all day. Aren’t her parents better?”
“Don’t change the subject. We were talking about the reason why you kidnapped Aria.”
“I’ve told you already. I wanted to make her fall in love with you after you saved her.”
“You had no idea that I was going to find her and save her!”
“I was going to tell you where she was. I didn’t think that Cedric and you would join forces and find her before my partner took what she wanted.”
“I’m sorry for ruining your plans, then,” I said sarcastically.
“Well, I can fix this problem. I will require your help.”
“You’re crazy if you think that I’m going to help you.”
“Hear me out.”
My fangs came out. “What did you want from Aria? Answer me!”
“Calm down or the humans will hear us.”
“Then tell me what you wanted.”
“We wanted her angelic essence,” he blurted out.
“Angelic essence...” I arched an eyebrow, unfamiliar with the term.
“Yes, something they have in their spine, it’s the key to their power. My associate wanted a sample to test it.”
“What for?” Cedric had said that they wanted her angel. Of course, I’d believe even Cedric over a specter. He was probably playing mind games with me and wanted to gain my trust for some other dark purpose.
“What do I know? I’m a mere warlock and a creature who plays with magic. I know nothing about science.”
“Science?” I was even more intrigued. “Weren’t you trying to steal her angel?”
“I guess,” he said, shrugging. “It wouldn’t harm her.”
“It would!”
“No, she would become normal. Maybe a bit…well…different. When we take everything out, they don’t die. They simply become different.”
“I think you’re stalling me. Whatever you wanted to do to Aria had something to do with her angel and how powerful she is. Don’t sugarcoat things. The fact is that you tried to hurt her, and you’re behind the making and distribution of Clarity. You’re killing hundreds of vampires. You’re being chased by the other kings and packs of wolves. If you came here looking for an ally, you won’t find one.”
“Hold it right there. I’m not behind the deaths of the vampires. I didn’t create Clarity. I was taking that drug off the market. And for your information, Clarity wasn’t designed to kill vampires in the first place. That’s a nasty side effect. Clarity was created to cure vampires, hence the name. Yet as you know, it doesn’t work—yet. So when they found out about the side effects, they used it as a weapon. Since I’m not that into charity and have no desire to cure dark creatures of the night, it makes no sense that I would ask someone to create it.”
My mind processed the new data he was giving me. He could be lying. But a drug that could cure vampires was something new and unexpected.
The creature was smiling. I was probably looking pale and surprised.
“Who do you think benefits the most from curing vampires? Who do you know that wants to erase vampires from the face of the Earth?”
I had nothing to say to him.
“After a cure is found, there’s no reason for the existence of vampires, is there? The truces would be over. They wouldn’t allow anyone to feed from humans even if they weren’t aiming to kill them. Vampires would be chased and cured, immortality wouldn’t be an option and, then, who knows, they might even try to cure werewolves or witches.”
“You’re telling me that the angels are behind the creation of Clarity? That they’re the ones distributing it?”
“I’m not telling you anything. I’m giving you clues, and it’s up to you to connect the dots.” He walked back and put his hand atop a chair. His hand was white, almost translucent. It reminded me of the flesh of vampires when they don’t feed for a long time.
“Besides, you saw her, didn’t you?” he asked.
I frowned at him.
“My associate.”
“So it was a gargoyle. But why would Cedric kidnap his own mate?” I asked, finding his reasoning absurd. He had to give me more than that to believe that Cedric would do something like that.
“Who said anything about Cedric? I didn’t. There are other angels, other fractions that aren’t pleased by the truce with the vampires. Angels are not all on the same side. There are some who are unhappy and want a change.”
The plot was twisting. Cedric was the target, not Aria. She was his mate; therefore, she was a way to get to him. She was also a powerful weapon apparently, as far as I understood. Cedric had become stronger since he’d become an angel. Losing Aria would mean that he would die or lose his powers.
“They wanted to kill her,” he added. “But I struck a deal with them. They would let the girl live. They would just take her essence, and I would give her as a gift to you. It was a win-win.”
“So Aria was kidnapped because she’s Cedric’s mate.”
“Not just because of that. They targeted her because she’s one of the most powerful angels on Earth. They wanted to study her essence to understand how they could replicate her powers. They wanted to map her celestial DNA and comprehend if she was the key to crafting the formula to cure vampires.”
My eyes widened. That made perfect sense; I couldn’t argue with that. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m warning you. They weren’t successful. They’ll try again. Cedric is strong. Since he got his wings, they are no match for him. The two of them would pulverize any attempt of rebellion to dust. Therefore, she must be put down or neutralized. I believe you don’t want her to die, do you?”
I shook my head. “I won’t let anyone harm her. You better tell them,” I said, balling my hands into fists. I was getting upset at the thought that they were still plotting to hurt Aria.
“They don’t need to harm her. That’s why I’m here. You’re the solution to our problems, Philippe.”
“How?”
He made a weird noise with his mouth. It was sort of a laugh but more guttural and creepy. “There’s a way for her to become human again. She needs to fall in love with you. You need to seduce her. Make her yours. Steal her from Cedric. She was yours in the first place. Once the time comes, and she doesn’t love Cedric, he’ll die and she’ll become her pathetic old human self again.” He was enjoying the sound of his own voice and the evil behind his words.
I said nothing.
Sighing, he added, “I’ve done everything to make you understand that we’re on the same side. I proved myself to be your friend. You can have your mate back and live happily ever after. All you have to do is take her from Cedric’s arms and make her yours. If you don’t do that, she’ll die. They will find a way to kill her. Do you want that?”
“No,” I said.
“You should thank me, don’t you think?”
I ground my teeth. “Everything you do has an evil intention behind it. You came to warn me because you need me. You don’t want her to go after you for what you’ve done.”
“No one knows what I’ve done.” He laughed.
“Are you sure?” I asked, amused by his cockiness.
“Are you talking about the attack on the graveyard? That’s a win for me. You see, I was trying to find more allies against the angels. After that attack on the sacred ground, and the killing of innocent magical creatures that had nothing to do with Aria’s kidnapping, I’ll find a lot more friends. Did you think I would stick around, waiting for him to find me? Or that my men would say something I didn’t want them to say?”
I stepped back with wide eyes. “You planned all this.” He was perverse and smart. That was a bad combination. I, of all people, should have known that.
“I’ve told you. It’s a win-win.”
“You’re twisted!”
“You aren’t much better yourse
lf. Now, to prove that we can be friends instead of enemies, I’ll let Mara and Margaret live. I’ll release them, and they won’t be killed in the graveyard. What do you think? Would you like that?”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I’ve lived for so long because I’ve been smart. You’re quite the intelligent man, too. I like that about you. We can do great things together.”
“Have you harmed them?” I asked in a stern voice. I didn’t want them to get hurt. Mara had left this all behind to stay safe. Margaret, I couldn’t care less about, but Mara was my friend and she‘d been trying to help.
“They’re fine. I’ll release them as a sign of my goodwill. So you can know that you can trust me.”
“Why are you trying to gain my trust?”
“The vampires of Paris need a smart leader. I like the way you think, and I’m sure—once you get your mate back—you’ll come to your senses and join me in my quest to eradicate the gargoyles from this world.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’ll kill you, but not before I take my time hurting your mate before your eyes.”
I was going to swing a punch at him, enraged by his words and his manner, but before I could touch him, he’d vanished in a mist of blackness. I growled, upset; I’d wanted to catch the bastard. Then I reminded myself that I had a more pressing matter to attend to.
Cedric was going to attack the graveyard once it was dark, and a war would start if someone didn’t do anything to stop it. I rushed out of there, reaching Aria’s room. There, I found Camille and Jo outside the room, sitting on chairs in the hallway, having a friendly conversation.
“Is Cedric still talking to Aria?” I asked, out of breath, as restless as if I’d been chased by the scariest creature imaginable.
“Yes, they’re still inside,” Camille said, smiling. “Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I need to talk to him. It’s urgent.”
“You better not interrupt them,” Camille warned. “I’ve already heard something crashing inside, and Aria doesn’t sound pleased.”
Josephine only nodded, agreeing with the cute blonde angel.
