by Anna Santos
“Vampires can’t be trusted.”
She lost it. Jumping on him, she grabbed him by his neck and crushed him against the wall of Philippe’s previous holding cell. She wasn’t joking around. The wall shook with the impact. Jo lifted him with her fangs out.
“You are an idiot,” she growled. “No wonder Aria wants to leave you!”
“Jo, I can explain,” he claimed, putting his hands on her shoulders.
“Save your fucking breath,” she said, letting him go and turning around to face us. “Let’s get out of here. I hope you can control your angel, darling, because we need a ride out of here.”
I nodded, waking up from the state of lethargy I was in because of her outburst with Cedric.
“Aria, we need to talk,” Cedric yelled.
It was too late. I had controlled my fire and grabbed Philippe’s hand. Jo had put her hand on my shoulder, and we teleported out of there to the only place I could think of.
When we reappeared in Philippe’s living room, he was going to tell me something. I could guess by the look on his face. But my eyes captured the group of vampires in front of us that got startled by our arrival. The words never left his mouth.
“Where have you been?” Sean asked, pulling the other vampires away, so he could reach us. “I’ve been worried sick!”
“I’ve been…busy,” Philippe said, turning around to face him.
“The angels are going to attack the graveyard, and you told me to assemble all our warriors and wait for orders. I did that. We have the group leaders here, and we were trying to reach you to know what you wanted to do. Do we stop them from entering the graveyard or not? Mara and Margaret have urged the witches to leave their mausoleums. They are reluctant in letting the angels go in and destroy everything while they search.” Sean stopped talking to take a breath.
“And we have trespassers. There are packs of wolves in our city,” one other vampire informed.
“What will we do?” Sean asked Philippe who looked pensive.
“If Cedric wants a war, we will give him a war,” I said to him.
“What?” Philippe and Sean talked at the same time.
“What she said,” Jo intervened. “But I’ll be damned if I won’t convince some of the vampire kings to desert him!”
“We’ll go to the graveyard to talk to the witches and the specters,” Philippe said. “Whether they like it or not, it was a specter who was distributing the drug to kill vampires. We need to make sure that there isn’t any Clarity hidden there. We will try diplomacy first. If that doesn’t work, we will probably have to fight gargoyles, angels, and vampires.”
“Werewolves, too,” Sean added. “We’ll be outnumbered.”
“The witches and specters won’t go down without a fight,” Jo assured them. “And those cocky angels have no idea of what a witch can do,” she whispered darkly as she grinned.
I felt a shiver running down my spine. Jo was scary when she was mad.
CHAPTER FOUR
ARIA
I felt betrayed and cheated. How could Cedric say all of those things to me? I was shaking while trying to draw air into my lungs and listen to Philippe and Josephine chatting. She was angry, but Philippe was weirdly calm despite Cedric locking him up and sentencing him to die. I wanted to ask him how he was, but we didn’t have time for that. War was coming. Even if there were few reasons to start one, I knew that it was no time to be a coward and try to find another solution. Cedric wasn’t being reasonable. I didn’t want to fight him, but something inside of me was stirred up, and I was no longer going to put up with his narrow-mindedness.
I was spacing out, barely hearing what was going on around me, when Cedric appeared in Philippe’s living room with William by his side. Narrowing my eyes, I jumped from my seat as the others did when they noticed his arrival.
Is he going to attack us?
Everybody in the room turned to him and growled, even me.
“Calm down. I’m here to explain myself,” Cedric urged, placing his hands in front of him.
No one moved. No one would without Philippe’s order. They looked at him to see his reaction.
“You are not welcomed here,” Philippe said sternly, putting me behind him. My head was spinning. Was Cedric crazy to come here?
“I want to talk to Aria, not you. I brought William, so he could explain why I had to make you mad,” Cedric said, apparently speaking to me.
I was peeking out from behind Philippe’s arm and resting my hands on his back.
“I told him to do it.” William placed himself in front of Cedric. “We need to talk privately,” he added with a calm voice and tormented eyes. He looked troubled by everything that was happening as if it was his fault.
“What do you want to do?” Philippe studied me.
Pursing my lips, I looked at William, again.
“Aria, we can explain everything,” William assured.
“Can we use your office?” I asked Philippe.
“Only if I can listen to what he has to say. I don’t trust Cedric.”
I nodded. I had no intention of being in the same room with Cedric without Philippe.
“Fine by me,” Cedric said immediately. “I just want Aria to listen to William.”
“Jo,” Philippe was going to say something to his maker, but she stormed up the stairs and disappeared behind a door, probably her bedroom.
“I want to talk to Josephine,” Cedric said, following her with his eyes.
“I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” I muttered as I climbed upstairs to listen to what William had to say.
Moments after, the four of us were in Philippe’s office. Cedric sat on one of the chairs, letting William do the talking. He looked pensive, and it intrigued me. He looked sad, too. But I wasn’t going to fall for his sadness anymore. I was mad at him. Mad by his attitude, his words, and the things he said and did to me.
“Aria needed to be furious in order to feel the need to reconnect with her powers,” William blurted out.
I snapped, “Why, so Cedric could control me again?”
“No. That wasn’t our intention,” William countered.
I aimed my eyes at the prince. “Wasn’t it, Cedric?”
“I have to confess that I thought it would bring you back to your senses,” he replied. His eyes were on me, but it didn’t seem as if he was paying much attention.
“Back to my senses,” I mused. “We have different opinions about that, don’t we?” I was being sarcastic. I had every right to be.
“Okay, let me explain,” William demanded, gesturing his hands to get our attention. “I told Cedric to make you angry. I don’t know what he told you. The goal was to do something terrible, so you would want to awaken your powers.”
“So, you told him to arrest Philippe and Jo,” I said coldly, finding their plan to be evil.
“That was my idea,” Cedric said. “It worked perfectly. You are glowing again.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I rose from my seat. “Have you some death wish that I don’t know about.” His plain face rattled me. I looked at William instead. “I’m still waiting for an explanation.”
“It was necessary to save you,” he explained. “Just sit down, Aria, and let me tell you why we had to make you evoke your angel.” William’s politeness and tenderness calmed me down.
“I’m fine like this,” I said.
Philippe grabbed my hand and slightly tugged on it, so I sat down next to him. “Listen to what they have to say.”
I nodded. Philippe’s arm surrounded my waist, and I leaned closer to him. He was acting protective. I couldn’t blame him after what Cedric did.
Philippe broke the silence. “The fact is that Cedric committed a critical error by sending me to his dungeons. I get why you wanted to get rid of me, but you shouldn’t have dragged Josephine into this whole situation.”
“I have my personal reasons for keeping Jo there,” Cedric muttered.
“I don’t give
a damn about your personal reasons!” Philippe yelled at him, startling everybody with his outburst. “She is the kindest person I know. You didn’t need to treat her like that. Not after what she did to help you.”
“I’ll properly explain myself to your…mom,” Cedric said, annoyed and sarcastic at the end. “Now, can we focus on what we came here to talk about? Or don’t you care about Aria’s survival anymore?”
Philippe recoiled in his seat and looked at him as if trying to decide if Cedric was lying or not.
“I don’t know what you are implying,” Philippe said. “However, I’m here to listen to you. Aria wants to let you explain, so you can do so. But do not think for a moment that I’m going to forget what you did to me.”
“I did what I had to do to save Aria,” he claimed, disdain for Philippe reflected in his eyes. “I don’t like you, but it was never my intention to leave you there until dawn. I just wanted to scare you a little and make Aria think that you were in danger. She…”
“She was rejecting her angel,” William stepped in. “But the angel is a part of her. Aria, if you reject her completely because you are afraid of her, then when you become human again, you will have a shattered soul—a wounded soul that can kill you. The angel is a part of you. It isn’t a foreign being that possessed you. It’s a part of your personality that surfaced and got stronger. If you reject that, you are rejecting a part of who you are and, therefore, you are wounding your soul.”
“You had to accept your angel, so you could feel whole again. You don’t need to be afraid of her. You aren’t now, are you?” Cedric asked.
I pondered their words.
“You were suffering. Are you in pain, Aria?” William asked.
I shook my head.
“I examined your blood. Your defenses were fighting the angelic essence like a virus. It would eventually shut down your heart again and kill you. It was all in your head as I didn’t find any type of drug that was capable of doing that. It was your brain, your soul, your will that was rejecting your angel, because you saw her as an enemy. But she isn’t the enemy. She is a part of who you are. There is a warrior in all of us, a strong personality that kicks in when we are in danger or something is putting us down. There are many characteristics in us,” William said with a smile.
I understood him perfectly. “Cedric said all those things on purpose.” I looked at Cedric. “Or did you mean everything you said?”
“Some,” he replied. “I’m not perfect. You hurt me. But I didn’t wish you any harm. I wanted you to wake up your angel and stop fighting her. Do you want me to lie and tell you that I wasn’t hoping that you would realize that you love me and don’t want to leave? I wanted that. It’s natural since I’m not coldhearted, and I waited for you for a long time. But if you want to be free, I’m not going to force you to stay with me. It would be useless.”
“You were mean,” I told him as my body tensed again with the memories of his actions. “You shouldn’t have locked up Philippe and Jo. You shouldn’t be so biased to their intentions to help you. I understand that you think you are protecting me and your people, but there are other ways to find the person who kidnapped me and created the Clarity drug.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Still, Aria, if your love for me didn’t work to wake up your angel, then I hoped that your love for Philippe would.”
I got red from head to toe and stole a peek at Philippe sideways. “Seriously?” I asked, annoyed by Cedric’s capacity to keep embarrassing me in front of Philippe.
“I’m not judging you,” Cedric said.
“You already judged me,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at him. He may have done that to help me, but it didn’t erase everything he had said to me. Some of his accusations were what he was really thinking and feeling.
“I don’t approve of your choice,” he said mildly. “Yet there’s nothing I can do, is there?”
I stared at him for a long, quiet minute, trying to calm myself down.
“We are on the same side. Stop looking at me like that,” he said.
“You were going to kill them.”
“I wasn’t going to harm Jo. I’ll explain myself to her. It’s something personal.”
I leaned forward with my eyes ablaze with anger. “There isn’t any plausible excuse for what you did to her. She trusted you. Guess you have a tendency to let everybody down.”
“I had my reasons. You may think I was being selfish, maybe I was, but don’t think for a second that Philippe is better than me.”
“I don’t. He’s a vampire. What’s your excuse?”
“I thought I was protecting you from yourself,” he answered. “And I don’t trust Philippe.”
“You can kill me if I do something bad to Aria,” Philippe intervened, talking before I could. “But if I’m willing to trust you, then the least you can do is return that trust and initiate negotiations instead of attacking the graveyard.”
“Before we leave, I want to talk to Jo,” Cedric said, getting up.
“Before you leave for where? We need to talk about the attack,” I reminded him.
“We are all late for a meeting,” he clarified.
“Jo will talk to you if she wants to. You need to work for it. If you think you are stubborn, she’s two times worse,” Philippe said, getting up and offering me his hand. “What meeting are we attending?”
“If you are on my side, for once, then it is time to prove it.” Cedric faced Philippe. “I’ve arranged a meeting with the representatives of the graveyard in your church. We need to get going.”
Philippe and I stood still, next to each other, looking at Cedric. We were probably thinking the same thing.
“It’s not a trick,” Cedric said, rolling his eyes as if we were overreacting.
“It’s not,” William confirmed. “Philippe is safe.”
I held on to his wrist. “He isn’t going anywhere without me.”
“You shouldn’t be at this meeting. They might feel threatened by you,” Cedric said.
“Aria isn’t staying by herself in my house or yours. She’s not leaving my side, either,” Philippe replied.
I looked at him and witnessed how serious he was.
“Fine. Can I talk to Aria in private before we leave?” Cedric didn’t look pleased, and I couldn’t care less. There was no way in hell that he was going to leave me behind, without knowing what was going to happen at that meeting.
“I’ll be fine,” I mumbled to Philippe before he could protest.
“I’ll go talk to my men and Sean. Meet us downstairs,” he said, squeezing my hand. He left with William trailing behind him.
“Tell Jo to join us at the meeting,” Cedric said as Philippe was about to close the door.
I crossed my arms. “What do you want to tell me?” He could have explained himself. Still, I didn’t trust him.
Ruffling his hair, he spoke, “I want to ask you for forgiveness.”
“For what exactly?”
“For lying to you and for being too possessive and paranoid. I understand that I should have been more…understanding and shouldn’t have blamed you for everything. It’s partially my fault. I’m still learning how to deal with my emotions. It’s not a good excuse but…I don’t want you to hate me. If you truly want to be human again, I’ll accept your decision. Right now, you need time to think about your decision. Let your anger toward me calm down. We were in love. Maybe we still are and can save this.” He reached for me, but I evaded his touch. Cedric pursed his lips and heaved a sigh. Putting his hand inside his pocket, he proceeded to say, “I know that I’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me, too. I care about you and want you to be safe. You are a beautiful person with a beautiful soul. Giving up our bond because I omitted a detail about my curse…would be a mistake.”
“A detail…” I squinted to soothe my rage. “Why weren’t you honest with me?”
Cedric half-shrugged. “It was a calculated risk. I thought that I had more chances to make you fall in
love with me if I didn’t tell you that you could leave and reject me. If we had more time to get to know each other, we would see that we matched. Wouldn’t you leave immediately if I had told you that you had that choice?”
“Probably, yes,” I agreed. “But it was my choice. If you couldn’t trust me to choose you, you shouldn’t trust me with your life in a trial that can turn you into stone and kill you. Not just kill you, make you disappear forever.”
“I’m sorry. I was tired of being alone. I wanted someone to love and someone to love me. A family.”
His words made me sad. It was hard to stay mad at him when he opened up his heart.
Cedric stepped closer but didn’t try to touch me. “You don’t need to tell me anything right now. I don’t want to pressure you anymore. We are going to the meeting, and I’m going to do my best to prevent a war and stop being stubborn. I promise.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“But you have to promise me that you are going to think about us. If you give up our angel, you are giving up on us. You’ll go back to being human…”
“What’s wrong with being human?”
“Nothing. But you’ve accepted your angel, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“She isn’t influencing your decisions. Your feelings and hers are the same now. Even if you want to give up everything, that’s okay. I just want you to be sure about that.”
“It’s not because of Philippe.”
Cedric put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s partially because of him. You shouldn’t lie to yourself. Lying is useless and it will make you suffer longer. Even if it’s because of him, you should love whoever makes you happier.”
I frowned. “Are you trying to manipulate me again?”
“No.” He smiled gently. “I’m beginning to understand that we can’t rule over our hearts. He was stupid for rejecting you. Maybe he had a plausible reason. I don’t know. I hate his guts.”
I shook my head. “Philippe…”
Cedric interrupted me. “I don’t regret saving you and having you as my mate. Far from that. I loved every bit of time we’ve spent together. I’m glad I met you. Even if I did a huge favor to that jerk and fished you out of the river for you to go back to him.”
