by Susan Harris
I burst into the ballroom and slammed the doors shut after Jack came in behind me. The music cut off, and every eye looked at me as I opened my mouth and said one word. “Rogues.”
Screams began to take over as Prince Kristoph and the underage vampires were ushered from the ballroom to the saferoom Katerina had built. She could not lose another son.
My father grabbed me hard on the arm and yanked me toward Atticus St. Clair. I yanked my arm away from my father’s grasp. Tristan Callan glared at me as I backed away from him.
“I can fight, Dad. Uncle Jack has been training me.”
“Your uncle is a cripple and a drunk. Do as you’re told and go with Atticus.”
“No. I’m staying.”
My dad growled. “The last time you refused to do what you were told, Nickolai was killed.”
The doors burst open, and rogues filled the room as my father started forward. I made to follow him when Atticus caught my elbow.
“This way.”
We stole around the gathered members of the royal guard to where Jack stood, a sword in his good arm. He glanced down at me, saw the dagger in my hand, and swapped our weapons.
“Use your speed to best them. Aim for the back of their knees or for their heads. You keep going until you cannot go any more, and then you go again. You understand me, kiddo?”
I nodded my head as the fighting began and did as Jack told me—as he’d trained me—until blood soaked my skin, my muscles burned, and my brain screamed at me to flee. I steeled my resolve and swung my sword to decapitate another rogue. Just then, an awareness prickled my skin, my eyes darted across the room, and my heart stopped.
Nickolai Romanov strode into the room, and I knew it was him as much as I knew myself. He was shockingly handsome, as I always imagined he would have been had he lived, and I wondered if I had dreamed him into reality as the fighting halted and the rogues came to stand behind their king.
“Mother!” Nickolai called out, and by Eve, my knees threatened to buckle. “Do you not wish to come and greet your prodigal son? I have come home to claim my throne.”
Katerina pushed through the crowd, and a cry of anguish ripped from her throat the moment Nickolai cast his crimson eyes on her. I pushed my way through the guard, not stopping when Jack called my name.
“What, no hug, Mom? That’s cold.”
What was cold was his tone, as if the vampire who sired him meant nothing to him. His face was expressionless as I slipped under another arm and stuttered to a stop in the open space between us. I inhaled a breath, and Nickolai’s eyes clashed with mine. Gone were the cerulean blues I had dreamed of for so long; the eyes that now held mine were not of the boy I loved with all my heart.
“Ryan Callan.”
He said my name like it was a promise, like a decade of death and blame did not lay between us. Nickolai stepped forward, and I retreated a step.
“We thought you were dead,” I said, detesting the tremor in my voice.
Nickolai smiled. “I was reborn. Have you ever wondered, Ryan, what it would be like to drink from a human until their heartbeat slowed, to drink from them until you felt their heartbeat no more, and then to drink even more?”
“I’m not a murdering monster, so no. What happened to the boy who couldn’t kill spiders? Who nursed a bird back to health?”
Nickolai snarled as if he didn’t want to be reminded of the person he used to be. Some of his rogues dragged my parents and the queen forward and pushed them down to their knees. A growl rang out through the guard, which was quickly silenced as the rogues made quick work of anyone who dared resist, the sound of bones snapping sending shivers through my spine.
“Nico, my son, please. This is not who we are. I love you.”
Nickolai smirked as he dismissed his mother with a wave of his hand. Before anyone could breathe, a rogue slashed the queen’s throat. My mother cried out as my father surged forward, but Nickolai moved quicker, using his bare hands to snap my father’s neck.
I was frozen, stuck in a moment I couldn’t get out of. I knew Nickolai was going to kill them all and would not stop until every true Sanguine vampire was dead. Who had bred such hatred for his kin into his heart?
I felt something press into my hand and a voice whisper in my ear, “Jack said take this and end it. Take this and kill him before he kills you. He said to tell you that he loves you, kiddo, and he is so fucking proud of you.”
I slipped the dagger up my sleeve and let loose a sob as Nickolai drove a sword into my mother’s chest, the great Imogen Callan falling on top of her husband. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye, and even if they hated me, I still loved them.
I stepped forward, letting my bloody sword drop to the ground. My heart was racing as I steeled my resolve and took another step forward.
“And what of me, Nickolai? Do you plan to kill me like you killed those we all once loved?”
Nickolai’s lips curved into a breathtaking smile that made me weak in the knees. “I plan to do what I have wanted to do since I was a boy. I intend to make you my queen. What say you, Ryan? Do you love me enough to follow me into darkness?”
I forced a smile as I strode over to Nickolai, stepping into his touch as his hand gripped my hip, but this Nickolai didn’t smell like my Nickolai because he wasn’t my Nickolai. My Nicky had died ten years ago, and this monster just wore his face.
“I love you, too, Nickolai. I have always loved you. Now, kiss me so they will all know I’m yours.”
His mouth was on mine before I had time to catch my breath, and he kissed me like he needed it to breathe. He tasted wrong, like ash and blood, but I let myself be kissed by him as I slowly slid the dagger from my sleeve.
I tasted my tears in the kiss as I angled the blade and shoved upward, driving the sharp blade into the place where his heart had once beat with such life and zest but now held only cruelty.
Nickolai jerked back, his lips forming an O before he collapsed to the ground. I sank to the ground beside him, a river of tears falling from my eyes before I felt the kiss of death on my skin and I felt no more pain.
Screams tore from my throat as I slipped from one nightmare to another, yanking hard at the restraints until my skin split and the pain reminded me this was a real nightmare, and I could not survive it. Dresden stepped away from me as Maxim, looking visibly pleased with himself, asked Dresden if he could make me stop screaming.
Before Dresden could utter a command, my voice gave out, my throat sore as I clamped my mouth shut and blankly stared at my hands. Maxim knelt in front of me and unclasped the restraints. I had the strangest urge to strike out at him, my eyes glancing over Maxim’s shoulder to where Nickolai stood, his chest bleeding the same color of his eyes.
“What is she seeing?” Maxim asked, looking to Dresden for answers when I offered none.
“I am unsure,” the fae declared. “I cannot see inside her mind unless I am touching her, and I fear if I did so now, it may kill her.”
I lifted my gaze to Dresden in a silent prayer than he would kill me. Everything I held dear had been taken from me. I felt hollow, empty. I felt like a shell that happened to still have a beating heart. The words I wanted to say lodged in my throat, and I begged him with my eyes.
Dresden simply shrugged and walked away, muttering that two days in my mind had taken its toll and he needed to rest. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I would never wake up and this grief in my heart would disappear. Maybe, if I were lucky, I would disappear.
I didn’t so much as flinch as Maxim freed my ankles and helped me up, offering me a cup of blood, but I knew if I drank it, I’d only be sick. I stared into nothingness, listening to the steady rhythm of my heartbeat, detesting the sound with every single beat.
Maxim cupped my cheek, forcing my gaze to his, and for a moment, I was almost certain he was conflicted about whatever he saw in my eyes. He watched me cautiously as if he expected me to suddenly drop the pretense of compliance and strike out at him.
&n
bsp; Rogue Nickolai smiled at me over Maxim’s shoulder as I watched him snap my father’s neck and stab my mother on a loop like a film I couldn’t tear my eyes away from.
“Part of me wants to have you lash out with that sharp tongue of yours. Maybe I was rash to have Dresden invade your mind like he did. I did not expect this, but now we can forge ahead with a new future, Ryan—one where you are not in so much pain.”
Maxim didn’t see it in my eyes, didn’t know that I was now simply made up of nerve endings and pain. Dresden had stripped away my humanity, had stripped away all the feelings for people who’d kept me sane even through my darkest days.
Little-boy Nickolai tugged at my hand, and I glanced down at the boy and growled, thankful when he immediately disappeared. But I knew he was there, just out of my peripheral, waiting to creep up on me as I clamped my mouth shut to suppress the scream that lingered in my throat. Instead of releasing that scream, I let Maxim steer me out the door to the hall, where he paused and studied me for a moment more.
“Perhaps if you continue to behave, Ryan, we can see about moving you to a cell of your own, or even a room.”
Then he asked Adam to walk me back to my cell. Adam tried, but failed, to rouse a response from me as we walked along the corridors. When Adam opened the cell door and ushered me inside, I went straight to the corner, slumped down in the shadows, and hugged my knees to my chest.
Edison called my name. I didn’t reply.
“What the hell did they do to her?”
“Dresden did as Maxim asked. He went into Ryan’s mind and forced her through something that would break her apart. She’s been like this since she stopped screaming. I managed to get some blood for her, but Ryan won’t drink it.”
Edison growled. “Why the hell would you help her, rogue?”
My eyes lifted to observe them both as Adam looked at me and said, “Sometimes, a vampire becomes a rogue by force, not by choice.”
I blinked, and Adam was gone. Edison was crouching in front of me, and I inhaled, scenting him to be sure he was real. He reached for me, and I recoiled, simply because I was trying to hold on to what little control I had left. I was teetering on the edge of oblivion.
“It’s okay, Callan. Five by five. I get that fae bastard has made you doubt things. You need to remember that you are Ryan Callan, Badass Supergirl, who does not bend when people try to break her. So, you do what you need to do to stay sane. But I’m not going anywhere. You fight Ryan, you fight like hell to survive.”
I blinked as emotion stopped him from continuing, my head tilting slightly as rogue Nickolai grinned at me over Edison’s bowed head. He grinned at me with blood encrusted on the curve of his bottom lip, and I shuddered as he uttered the words that had kept me going through all this time.
“I have loved you since before I understood what love was. I have loved you even when you could not love yourself, and I will love you until the end of time and then some. I will not stop. I will cross oceans and countries to find you, Ryan Skye Callan. Until my dying breath, I am yours and you are mine.”
And now they were tainted words, spoken by the epitome of what I hated—from the lips of the rogue I could have let myself love. Rogue Nickolai vanished with a smug look of satisfaction as Edison returned his gaze to mine, a wet sheen now lingering in his eyes as he sank down in front of me, setting the blood between us.
“I got you, Ryan. You have survived far worse than this. I need you to be okay. You have to be okay.”
We stayed like this for a long time, until Edison could no longer stay still, grew restless, and paced the cell. Time became obsolete, a mere passage of long, drawn-out breaths, of heartbeats so etched in trauma that each one startled me. It felt like a foreign object in my body, placed there and thumping to try and convince me I was real.
Hours, maybe days after he began to pace, Edison stopped suddenly. The door opened, and I watched Adam slip inside the room and hand Edison more blood, blood that I still could not bring myself to drink.
Edison came to sit beside me, nudging me ever so gently on the knee. It was something he had been doing gradually, as if with each touch, he could tether me to this world instead of the other.
“So, Adam keeps slipping me perfectly good blood that you won’t drink, but today I need you to drink something for me because it’s a special day. Merry Christmas, Ryan.”
I lifted my head as I considered that right now the court would be celebrating the holidays, exchanging gifts and spending time with loved ones. I considered the gift hidden under my bed, bought long ago for Nickolai, one that I would never give him because Nickolai was dead and I had killed him.
Shifting my eyes from Edison, I stared at a spot on the wall and wondered if this was even real.
8
Nickolai’s lips curved into a breathtaking smile that made me weak in the knees.
“I plan to do what I’ve wanted to do since I was a boy. I intend to make you my queen. What say you, Ryan? Do you love me enough to follow me into darkness?”
I forced a smile as I strode over to Nickolai, stepping into his touch as his hand gripped my hip, but this Nickolai didn’t smell like my Nickolai, because he wasn’t my Nickolai. My Nicky had died ten years ago, and this monster just wore his face.
“I love you, too, Nickolai. I have always loved you. Now, kiss me so they will all know I’m yours.”
His mouth was on mine before I had time to catch my breath, and he kissed me like he needed it to breathe. He tasted wrong, like ash and blood, but I let myself be kissed by him as I slowly slid the dagger from my sleeve.
I tasted my tears in the kiss as I angled the blade and shoved upward, driving the sharp blade into the place where his heart once beat with such life and zest, but now housed only cruelty.
Nickolai jerked back, his lips forming an O before he collapsed to the ground. I sank to the ground beside him, a river of tears falling from my eyes before I felt the kiss of death on my skin and I felt no more pain.
My eyes opened slowly, and I glanced at my overturned hands as if I might see as well as feel the warm of Nickolai’s blood on my palms. The visions that haunted me were not limited to my dreams, for even when my eyes were open Nickolai mocked me with eyes of sanguine red and a cruel, unfamiliar smile. I was stuck in a continuous loop of nightmares that felt entirely real.
Edison’s head was leaning against my shoulder, and the feel of it, the intimate touch of friendship, seemed almost too much to bear. His continuous attempts to drag me from this hellish existence made no difference as time had ceased to exist for me. I just longed for this brutality in my head to end.
But I knew I was going to be broken some more before Maxim was finished with me.
As Edison slowly awoke beside me, his breathing becoming shallower as he roused, he lifted his head and ran is knuckles along the underside of my chin, ignoring the flinch and rumble of a growl in my throat. He knew I would never harm him, and he sat forward to look back at me, a little smile playing on his lips.
“Good evening, sunshine. You could have at least made an attempt at breakfast this morning.”
The old Ryan would have returned his sarcasm with a quip of her own, but I couldn’t find it in me to even acknowledge his attempt to lure me from my melancholy. I blinked my eyes slowly, and Edison sighed.
Pushing to his feet, he began his daily pace from wall to wall. Then he dropped to the floor and did pushups. I knew he was trying to build up his strength, and perhaps I should have been doing the same. But I didn’t have anything left to fight for.
After a while, he stopped and glanced at me. A figure winked into view next to him, and I let loose a hiss at the sudden appearance. My eyes darted to where the ghost of Krista stood, her concern shining in tearstained eyes.
“Oh, Ryan. You’re wasting away.”
She reached out to touch me, and I snapped my mouth in her direction. Krista hesitated before she slid down the wall across from me. My eyes stayed on the ghost as little
-boy Nickolai reached for the strands of her hair. A growl ripped from my throat, and little Nickolai pouted before he disappeared.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m running out of options,” Edison mumbled as he watched where my eyes landed. Then he sank down in the middle of the room and cleared his throat. “Krista? I’m hoping like hell Ryan is seeing your ghost right now because I think you might be her only hope. I can see her dying inside, Krista, and I can’t bear to watch it anymore. Please, please, if you know where we are, please do whatever you can to get a message to my brother and Nickolai. I don’t think she can take much more.”
Tears fell from Krista’s eyes. “I’m trying, Edison. I’ll never stop fucking trying.”
Then she was gone, and I went back to staring into nothingness. I barely lifted my gaze as the door to our cell opened and Maxim stepped in. For a moment, regret flashed in his eyes as he observed me. Then Edison, who had already scrambled to his feet, stepped beside me to guard me.
“Good evening, my little butterfly,” Maxim said, ignoring Edison. “Come. We have some things we need to do today.”
For the first time in a while, I gingerly got to my feet, my legs stiff. I took a step toward Maxim, when spots darkened my vision and I felt myself tilt toward the floor. Edison clasped my arm to steady me and I snarled, the feel of his hands on my aching skin too much of a reminder that I was alive. I tried to step free of him, but when I moved the ground came up to meet me, and I fell into Edison’s arms.
“Has she still not fed?”
“She hasn’t done much of anything, you son of a bitch,” Edison snapped. “Is this what you wanted?” He lifted me into his arms, my head resting in the crook of his shoulder.
Maxim stepped back, and two of his rogues came in as if they meant to take me from Edison. When one tried, I snapped and chomped down hard on his fingers. The rogue shrieked, jerking his hand back as blood seeped from the wound.
