by Myers, J. L.
His next words escaped in a rush. “I called as soon as I could. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to leave you.”
“Ty, where are you?” I knew I had resolved to fix things with Kendrick, but I couldn’t leave Ty in such despair. I had to at least prove to him that I was fine. “Can I see you?”
“No!” Alarm rang in Ty’s voice. “I mean, it’s not safe. I’m not stable.” He sighed, a terrible rattling sound. “Tomorrow afternoon. Meet me at Mount Major, below the bluff beside the river.”
The same forest Kendrick and I hunted in. My throat felt dry and I swallowed, recalling how hard it had been not to kill my prey. “Okay,” I said, blinking away the memory. “I’ll see you then.”
Pushing my anxiety aside, I hung up and bounded downstairs. Dorian and Kendrick were both in the kitchen, busy stuffing their faces. The space was in disarray. Littering the limestone counter was an omelet-rimmed mixing bowl, a bacon-spattered frying pan, burned toast, and scattered eggshells.
Dorian glanced up at my entrance. Then his eyes slid sideways to Kendrick who had ceased eating to sit motionless and stiff at the breakfast bar.
It’s time. With a deep inhale, I planted my hands on my hips and walked over to him. “Kendrick, I need to speak with you, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
Kendrick’s eyes flicked to me, his expression provoking. Irritation scratched beneath my skin. The urge to slap that look off his face grated on me, but I thought better of it. Instead I grabbed his hand, pulling him from the bar and out the terrace doors. He stomped with reluctance and yanked the hood of his boarding jacket over his head as I led the way. Down the stone path to the hedge-bordered alcove, I forced him onto the stone bench. It was the same one Ty and I had sat at before the auction. Memories of that day lifted in my mind. It was the day I had learned how wolf transformations worked. It was the same day Ty had unintentionally shattered my heart.
With great effort, I forced all thoughts of Ty and that day from my mind and focused on Kendrick. He sat at the end of the bench, elbows resting on his knees and resentment pouring from his hunched stance.
I reached forward, placing a gentle hand across his knee. “I know you’re still mad at me, and I understand why.” Kendrick frowned, lips parting as if he were about to rebut, but then thought better of it. Instead his head turned, meeting my staid expression. Taking the silence as encouragement to go on, I said, “I should have told you. Not kept all this from you. But with everything between us…I just didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had. I never, ever, want to be the cause of your pain.”
The slightest warmth returned to my best friend’s face. “I know it’s not fair that I’m still…upset. I don’t want to be. But just the thought of you and him,” he spat the word then hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I can’t understand what you see in him. You know it will never work.” The anger from his expression had completely subsided. He turned on the bench to face me, drawing his posture straight. A light breeze had picked up, rustling the leaves of the surrounding hedges. “When your mom finds out—and you know eventually she will—she is going to freak. Besides, you could outlive him ten times over.”
The sun peeked over the barricading hedges. Water pooled in my eyes from the blinding orb coupled by his stinging words. Like trying to see underwater, my vision turned misty. I turned my head away. Everything he had said was the truth. A normal relationship could never work. How could Ty and I stay together when we’re so different?
After meeting Ty’s dad, I knew my mom would be just as against our relationship as he had been. Plus with her position on the Portsmouth Vampire Council, I didn’t even want to consider the complications. Tightness constricted my throat. Uncle Caius. What would he do? Being a royal like Kendrick, and one of the reigning Pure Bloods, he’d have to be explicitly against our union. Ty and I were supposed to be mortal enemies. And the aging issue was another huge hurtle that we still hadn’t covered in realistic detail.
Unable to look Kendrick in the eye, I stared at the lush grass while breathing in its freshly cut scent. A sigh escaped my throat as the weight of the heavy task ahead of me settled in. “I know it isn’t going to be easy. But it will work. It has to.”
“You’re deluding yourself if you think this will last,” Kendrick expressed not unkindly. Blinking, I forced my misty eyes up to meet his somber expression. “But what I’ve said in the past is still true. I love you, Amelia. My feelings for you will never change. I will still be here when he’s dead and gone.”
Every factual word he spoke caused a maddening anger to well up my throat. The thought of giving Ty up was too agonizing to bear. I freed my hands from Kendrick’s and sprang to my feet. “You don’t know anything!”
I began to stalk away, but Kendrick clutched my wrist, stopping me. “Amelia, wait,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you.”
My anger fizzled at his gentle words. It wasn’t him I was angry with. It was the situation. The one I had created by allowing myself to fall for a werewolf. “I’m not mad at you.” I dropped back down beside him. “I just don’t know what to do.”
Kendrick smiled and draped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against him. “I know what might help.”
He wanted to help us? For a moment I wondered what his true motives were. A second later I chastised myself for the thought. Kendrick was anything but deceptive. Sure he’d kept things—like being a vampire—from me in the past. But anything he’d ever hidden had been for my protection. I looked up at his hope-filled eyes. “What’d you have in mind?”
“There’s an arts and psychic fair in town tomorrow,” Kendrick said. “You could get your fortune read, get some answers.”
I recalled the flyer that had been taped to my locker on Tuesday and frowned. “You believe in that crap?”
Kendrick arched a single brow. “Don’t you?”
I bit my lip, considering the possibility. This world held monsters who were strong and powerful, with mind-bending capabilities. Anything was possible.
“Either way,” Kendrick chimed in. “It can’t hurt.”
I studied his expression. It was open and honest, and his tone had been level. Any lingering suspicion I felt towards his idea evaporated. I smiled. Our friendship was repairing. Kendrick almost seemed his old self again. The tension-fueled angst that had crippled his expression and body language had now fully dissolved. “You’re right. It can’t hurt.”
~
Kendrick emerged from the passenger side of my black A5. A hood and cap sheltered his face, and his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his boarding hoodie. Yesterday we’d spent the night watching a snowboarding documentary followed by the latest season of Supernatural. Now it was early the next morning and we had just arrived at the Arts and Psychic Crafts Fair.
“Can’t you feel that?” Kendrick asked while looking over my denim shorts and thin, cardigan-covered purple tank. He glanced up at the sun which had broken through thin, dispersing clouds. Its intensity grew by the second.
I shook my head. “What, the sun?”
“The tingling,” he said, picking up the pace through the packed parking lot toward the community hall. “It feels like my skin’s crawling.”
I frowned. Royal vampires, as far as I knew, weren’t affected by the sun’s rays like turned vampires were. “But you’re a royal. Aren’t you immune?”
Kendrick flashed a playful smile, fangs glinting through parted lips. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel uncomfortable. Royals, and well, you and Dorian, can endure sunlight. But it’s still not a natural royal trait.”
This was news to me. “What do you mean?”
Above the front entrance of the hall was a large awning. Kendrick moved into its shade and slouched against the sheet metal wall. “At the dawn of time,” he began in a storyteller’s voice, “all vampires were slaves to the sun, forced to rise only in darkness. Then the Dawn of Reckoning came and our ancestors were
given a choice. Banishment to hell or align with light. Those that didn’t fall were instilled with a conscience and a soul, a linked connection to humanity. They were the first royal vampires, the original Pure Bloods. They were gifted with the ability to withstand sunlight, as a show of good faith.” He squinted, glaring at the intensifying sun, as if his look alone would snuff out its golden heat. “That’s enough history for one day. Let’s get inside. It’s like an inferno out here.”
I followed after Kendrick through the glass doors as he pulled back his hood. Align with light… The words held a weight within me that I didn’t understand. I was about to question Kendrick further on the subject, when a wall of incense slammed into me, burning my nostrils and causing my lungs to clench. Kendrick’s nose wrinkled at the same onslaught, and we both coughed. “This is your great idea?”
Kendrick pounded a fist against his chest, clearing his throat. “Superior sense of smell… I guess I didn’t think it through.”
A chiming sounded, and Kendrick jerked before retrieving his iPhone from his hoodie. He peered at the screen and grimace. “I have to take this.” Then he walked a few steps away, turning his back.
With a shrug, I glanced around, my lungs and nostrils slowly adapting to the onslaught of scents. The hall was flooded with an assembly of slow-moving people. Row upon row of cloth-draped tables filled the space. Each sported a variety of artsy things and cheap jewelry. Some of the stalls even came equipped with hippie-looking tents.
The cluster of people in front of me dispersed, and my eyes fell on a woman. She was positioned at a stand in the front corner of the hall. Heavy wrinkles marked her face and she had crazy gray hair. Her beady, black eyes watched me intently, and a smile thinned her lips.
“Why do you need to know?” Kendrick’s elevated voice cut through the blurred sounds of hundreds of flapping mouths.
I broke from the old woman’s piercing gaze and turned to watch Kendrick. His back was still turned, shoulders visibly stiff and muscles along his neck taut.
He nodded and slipped the brim of his cap up, scratching his head as if frustrated. Then he pulled it back down into place “Yes, I understand. I believe she is…” He hesitated, head crooking to the side and voice dropping. His next words were lost to the rising chatter of people between us. He hung up and shoved the phone back into his pocket before returning to my side.
“Everything okay?” I asked, curiosity sparking within me.
Kendrick sighed and nodded. The tension that had stiffened his shoulders was gone, yet his face remained detectably strained. “It’s just royal stuff. Nothing you need to worry about.” He slung an arm around my shoulder. “Now, let’s get your fortune read.”
After meandering around most of the stalls, we somehow found ourselves back in front of the tent I’d noticed earlier, though the old woman was nowhere in sight.
“This one looks interesting.” Kendrick motioned to the black tent positioned behind the table. Silver-embossed stars decorated its gauzy fabric.
Surprisingly, this was the only tent in the whole room that was decorated with stars. Most of the others had been plain black or white. Only a few had been printed with moons or glitter that resembled the Milky Way. Fronting this tent, much like all the others, was a table. As with the others it also housed an assortment of gemstones, polished and smooth. One piece in particular caught my eye. It was positioned right next to a stand of personalized business cards printed with Madam Rosalie, Fortune Telling Extraordinaire. The amethyst pendant was tear-shaped and held by a spiral of gold. It was suspended from an adjustable cord necklace. Under the hall’s domed lighting, its semi-transparent surface gleamed in an infinite spectrum of purples. It somehow reminded me of the delicate jewelry box Caius had given me. I’d almost forgotten I had the thing. I frowned. The jewelry box had held such a magnetized draw when I’d first seen it. Yet when I’d found it gifted in my room, the draw had been gone. It could have been any other meaningless possession.
The gray-haired woman stepped from the tent, drawing my eye. Her beady eyes smiled and her voice emerged raspy. Almost like I imagined a fairy tale witches would. “Reading for the pretty girl?”
I was still unconvinced on the whole fortune telling gig. But this was the reason we’d come here.
“Only thirty dollar,” the woman added.
“It’s now or never,” Kendrick whispered into my ear while nudging my side.
With a toothy smile the ancient woman drew open the curtained entrance to the tent, then stood aside for us to enter. Within the tent’s round walls was a small foldout table draped with black cloth. A cane chair sat at either end, and a deck of tarot cards occupied a neat pile in the center, flanked by two lit candles. The scent of vanilla wafted from their flickering flames.
“Sit,” the woman demanded, handing me a business card that I shoved into my short’s back pocket. “I am Madam Rosalie.”
I followed her direction. With only two chairs available, Kendrick waited just inside the entry.
“Now, take my hands and close your eyes,” she instructed. “I must find your center.”
I frowned and collected her frail hands. The skin was so thin that blue veins bulged above jutting bones. “Don’t you just have to deal some cards out?” I asked.
Madam Rosalie exchanged a quick look with Kendrick then closed her eyes. A pasty smile tugged at her dry lips. “You are here about a boy, yes?”
Vague and broad… An easy assumption. I frowned, watching her still pinned shut eyes. “Yes…”
“This boy will alter the path of your life,” Madam Rosalie said. “Deliver you unto danger.”
A sudden ripple of tingles passed through our joined hands and we both gasped at the shock. I went to pull away, but the fortune teller’s hands clung even tighter to mine. “Your future,” she said, then paused, eyes moving behind closed eyelids, “is not set. Many hold a hand in your fate, in your imminent death.”
Iced fingers crept up my spine and my heart skipped a beat. “My death?”
Madam Rosalie’s eyes flew open. The flickering candle flames reflected in her glossy pupils. “It is not set. But you must beware.” Her gaze shifted with a sly slide of her eyes to Kendrick, then back to me. “Those you trust most are not always what they seem.”
“Amelia, I’m sorry,” Kendrick grunted from right behind as his hand found my shoulder.
The shock of his closeness caused an involuntary bolt to strike through my chest. Hadn’t he been standing at the entryway?
“I truly thought this was a good idea,” he went on. “The last thing I expected was to encounter the biggest whack-job in town.”
The fortune teller’s eyes snapped to Kendrick, skewering with vehemence. “Hush boy. I am not done!” I went to pull my hands free, but she clutched my fingers tighter. Her beady, black eyes bore into mine. “Beware the blood that runs in your veins…”
Bone-seeping dread caused my heart to slam against my ribs. This woman is delusional, I told myself, though the voice inside my head was anything but convincing. I snatched my hands free and threw the thirty bucks down onto the table, rising with shaking legs. “That’s enough!”
Kendrick caught my hand and began pulling me from the tent.
“WAIT!” Madam Rosalie’s voice commanded.
The edge to her raspy tone stopped me in my tracks, and I turned, pulling my hand free from Kendrick’s.
Madam Rosalie was on her feet rushing our way. For such a frail-looking woman, she was quick. My eyes lowered. Dangling from her outstretched hand was the purple pendant I had been admiring outside. “You must take this,” she insisted. In my brief hesitation, she caught my hand and placed the amethyst against my palm, closing my fingers around it. “It will…”
“We don’t want your stupid trinket,” Kendrick said, hand hooking around my arm.
He began to pull me back and I frowned at him. “Kendrick, wait.” I wasn’t sure what prompted me to stop; getting away from this nutbag and her premon
itions of death should have been a priority. But there was something compelling about the pendant. It was much more than it being my favorite color. I just couldn’t leave without it. I reached into the pocket of my denim shorts and pulled out a few crumbled tens. “How much?”
“My gift,” Madam Rosalie said, dipping her head. “But once you put it on, never take it off.”
I barely had time to utter thanks before Kendrick reclaimed my arm, forcing me back through the curtained entrance. “C’mon, we’re leaving.”
“The light,” Madam Rosalie’s escalating voice reached me through the thin material of the tent. “You must accept the light. It is the only way to save him!”
~
I bounded down an embankment, purple-laced Vans biting into freshly fallen snow. The pendant the creepy fortune teller had given me only hours ago, bounced against my chest. I wasn’t sure why I was wearing it. In this moment I didn’t care. The sound of a crackling river reached my ears. I was late. Ty would already be waiting. And there was something I was dying to ask him.
The tree-lined embankment gave way to a small clearing that resembled a winter wonderland. Snow-topped pine trees bordered one edge of the entirely snow-sheeted clearing. On the opposing side was a fallen, moss-covered tree. It acted as a bridge over the current-rippled steam. Winter had come early to the forest. Ice-crusts had already begun to form across its banks, budding a foot in on either side of its glassy water.
Ty, as I had already expected, was waiting. Perched in the middle of the fallen log, he was dressed in just a pair of black pants. His face was sullen as he looked up, acutely aware of my approach in that way of his. His snow-drenched, raven hair hung in his eyes. “Amelia, I’m so sorry. I must have fallen asleep.” His complexion paled, and he swallowed, wincing.
I walked the line of the broad log and dropped down beside him. Grief contorted his expression as he reached out to graze my arm with rough fingers. “Please believe me, I never meant to hurt you. Are you really okay?”
With a reassuring smile, I removed my dark, blue-violet cardigan and tied it around my waist. “Of course I’m fine.”
