by Sara Thorn
“Tell me about your home,” Cassius asked.
“My home?” I asked.
“Yes, your world. Tell me about it. I’ve never been there. Only Athan has ventured outside this world.”
“Why haven’t you ever left Mystreuce?”
“For fear of what would happen in my absence,” he answered solemnly.
I tried to think of some of my favorite things about living on Earth. I told him about the pulse of living in the city, the way the seasons change, and the seventeen different flavors of lattes that I had tried in my life, living in Boston. My ramblings were scattered and of varying significance, because it was difficult to boil down all the aspects of living on Earth in just a few sentences.
“Tell me about your dreams,” Cassius said.
My dreams? Lately, my dreams have been infiltrated by him, not really something I wanted to share.
“Yes, the things that you dreamed of doing in your life there. The things that you aspired to do and be in your world.”
That was an even more difficult question for me to answer. I had wanted to graduate, to join a professional dance company, to dance on the stage of the Boston Opera House, but now I was trapped here, possibly forever. I had worked so hard to reach my goals, and I had almost made it—almost. I hated Cassius for keeping me prisoner here and keeping my dreams out of reach…at least I wanted to hate him.
He opened his eyes and leaned over onto his elbow to look at me as he asked the question again. “Please,” he said.
I’d never heard him say please to anyone, especially not a slave.
“Tell me what you always dreamed of doing.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I answered dismissively. “None of it matters anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Cassius said as I looked in his fathomless eyes and watched as his brow furrowed. “It matters to me.”
I laughed, and it sounded just as harsh and pointed as I meant it to. “It only matters to you that I dress up in the pretty clothes you give me each day, and dance at your parties, and don’t try to run away.” I was being truthful and also a bit intentionally hurtful.
It wasn’t right that I was taken from everything I had worked so hard for. And it wasn’t right that I was here in a place that could easily relieve me of my life at any moment. But then again, when I lay on this hill and looked up at the beautiful sky and into Cassius’s stunning eyes, it was hard to say that none of this was worth it. There was at least a small part of me that found this world compelling enough that I had started to lose track of some of the pieces I’d left behind. Still, I didn’t want to give up on all my dreams, not just yet.
“I wanted to dance on the stage of the Boston Opera House. I’m sure that dancing on some stupid stage seems like no big deal, but it was something that was important to me. Ever since I was a little girl, I have dreamed of dancing on that stage. And as fancy as your main hall is, as beautiful as this world is, it’s still not the thing I’ve had in my heart to do since I was like seven years old.”
I shifted my gaze from his and allowed myself to wallow in self-pity for a solitary moment. I wasn’t the kind of girl to get knocked down and feel bad for myself, but I figured I deserved at least a minute, sixty seconds, to mourn what I had lost.
Cassius was quiet for a long while before he spoke again. “I will take you,” he said.
“What?” I asked. “Take me where?”
“To dance on the stage of the opera house in your world.”
Chapter Twelve
For the next several days, all I could think about was that night on the hilltop with Cassius. The days came and went, the dancing spun around me in moments that all blurred together. I spent most of the afternoons with Quinn, who still hadn’t given a very believable answer about where he had gone the other night when he had disappeared, but he seemed preoccupied with other things on his mind, so I didn’t pester him about it too much.
At night, after the revelries had ended, Cassius and I always ended up sleeping beside each other in his bed. Some nights, he was more inebriated than others, but every night, he slept carefully on his side of the bed on top of the blankets. He, too, seemed to be preoccupied. We hadn’t had much time since the night spent on the surface to talk further about what he had said to me. He was going to take me home.
Granted, Cassius said he would take me to dance on the stage of my childhood dreams, but he had no intention of letting me stay there in my world.
Athan and Dregon seemed preoccupied, too. It was almost as if everyone was working on the same yet opposing purpose. There were whispers in the corridors between the slaves, and there were even more whispers in the fae quarters. Even Quinn’s roommates seemed less cordial to see me when I stopped by to hang out with Quinn during the day. It was almost as if they suddenly didn’t want to be associated with anyone who wasn’t a fae like them. There was a lurking heaviness in the air that seemed to be breeding an invisible sign of trouble to come.
“It will be easier than anyone thinks to lop the head right from his shoulders,” one of the girls in my room was saying as I walked in. A hush immediately fell over the three of them as soon as they saw me in the doorway.
“Whose head?” I asked.
The girl who had been speaking opened her mouth but was quickly interrupted by one of the others.
“Keep your mouth shut,” she scolded. Then she turned to me. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my room,” I said, not realizing that I probably wasn’t welcome here anymore since I hadn’t spent a single night in this room in days.
“We heard that you had moved into Cassius’s room with him,” she said. “Honestly, we couldn’t believe it at first, but then we asked Quinn, and he said it was true.”
One of the other girls looked at me with her mouth hanging wide open. “You two aren’t…” Her face crinkled up in disgust, and she couldn’t finish her sentence. “I mean, he’s definitely very handsome and all, but my God, Mara, he’s not even alive.”
It dawned on me that they were trying to ask if I was sleeping with Cassius and not in the slumbering sense. It infuriated me to hear the way they were talking, and it made me even more furious that I was getting angry instead of agreeing with them.
“And on top of that, he kidnapped you. How could you sleep with someone who kidnapped you?”
I felt my face get hot, and as hard as I tried to bite my tongue, I couldn’t stop myself from lashing out on these girls, these poor girls who were just as stuck here as I was. “First of all, Cassius isn’t dead, you bunch of dimwits. He’s not even a regular vampire. He has a heartbeat and is very much alive. Secondly, Cassius wasn’t the one who kidnapped us—Athan did. And thirdly, even if I were sleeping with him—which I’m not—it would be none of your Goddamn business.”
All three girls looked at me speechless with eyes wide enough that their eyeballs could have rolled out of their sockets. I turned around when I heard Quinn clear his throat at the door.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Mara?” he asked.
I expected his face to look upset, or at least a bit stunned, but instead, he looked fairly amused.
“What was that about?” he asked me as we walked down the hall together.
“You interrupted before I was able to find out whose head they were referring to,” I sulked. I didn’t feel like explaining my little temper tantrum to Quinn, mostly because I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself. But also, I did want to know what the girls had been talking about, and now, I had lost my chance.
“Okay, now you’ve totally lost me,” Quinn said as he rubbed his temple with his fingers. “What head are you talking about?”
Good, at least I have managed to successfully change the subject and take the focus off of myself.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “When I walked into the room, the girls were talking about how easy it would be to lop someone’s head from their shoulders. I was trying to find out who, b
ut then things got, well…off-topic.”
“They were talking about Cassius,” he said as he shifted his eyes back and forth in the hallway. He seemed to be looking to make sure we weren’t overheard.
“What do you mean?”
“Athan is continuing to build his forces. Everyone is in whispers about it. You should see his new recruits; they’re already fully trained and a force to be reckoned with. He’s secretly plotting his half-brother’s assassination.”
“Well, it can’t be that much of a secret,” I said sarcastically. “Not if everyone already knows about it.”
“True,” Quinn agreed. “But it’s the how and when that are the troubling mysteries.”
“What does Cassius say about it?”
“He seems unbothered.”
I rolled my eyes. How can anyone be unbothered by an impending assassination attempt on their life? Maybe he’s just pretending to be aloof. Quinn and I walked toward the fae quarters together. There was going to be yet another revelry tonight, and this time, Athan and Dregon, along with all of Athan’s followers, were expected to come. Apparently, it was a tradition they had in which Athan brought the new recruits to one of Cassius’s parties to indulge in before they were fully committed to service for Athan. I didn’t quite understand why Athan didn’t just throw the party for his own recruits in his own dwelling, but apparently, he wasn’t much of an “events guy.” I found the whole thing to be extremely unsettling to have all of Athan’s forces here, with a lingering threat against Cassius’s life. We were halfway to the fae quarters when I saw Cassius in the hall talking to one of his servants and leaning over her with his arm against the stone wall. He was smiling, and even from our distance, I could hear his words slurring as he asked her what would be on the feast for the party this evening.
“Isn’t it still morning now?” I asked Quinn. It was still hard for me to get my orientation of day and night here straight, although I was getting better at it.
“Yes,” he said as he shot a disapproving look toward Cassius. “It is.”
I marched up toward Cassius and noticed the servant girl’s relieved look as he turned in my direction and enabled her to scurry off down the hallway.
“You’re drunk,” I said to him with a frown.
“Possibly,” Cassius smirked.
“How can you be drunk already? It’s morning.”
“Don’t be hypocritical.” Cassius struggled with getting the word “hypocritical” out of his mouth in one try. “Weren’t you just saying something about how the days and nights here are all a blur anyway.”
“Don’t use my own words against me,” I said. “You’re hosting another party tonight, and Athan and all of his—”
“Goons?” Cassius laughed as if in mockery of me.
“Yes,” I said, getting angrier by the moment. “All of his followers will be here with a not-so-subtle desire to remove your head. Do you really think it’s a wise choice to be completely intoxicated by the time they arrive? How do you expect to protect yourself?”
“I don’t need protection,” Cassius grumbled.
Why you selfish, arrogant, fool, I thought to myself. I felt my face start to get hot, and I ignored Quinn’s tap on my shoulder as he tried to get me to back down.
“And what about all of your people then?” I shouted into Cassius’s face. “What about your slaves and servants, your entertainers, and all of the people of Mystreuce who know you should be the true ruler of the vampires. You’re just going to let all of them fall into the hands of Athan and his violent whims?”
“How dare you lecture me!” Cassius roared.
It was the first time I had ever seen him get really, really angry, and he was, by all means, terrifying.
“Come on,” Quinn said as he pulled me away. “We need to go.”
“No,” Cassius said as he grabbed my other arm, making me feel like a rag doll in the middle of a playground fight. “She needs to come get ready.”
“She can get ready with me,” Quinn said.
“Are you challenging me?” Cassius said as his eyes narrowed.
“No,” I interjected. “He’s not.” I slid my arm out of Quinn’s hold in order to avoid further conflict and wrapped it under Cassius's shoulder since it was obvious that he would stumble all the way back to his room if I didn’t help him.
“Mara,” Quinn said as I started to walk away.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m fine. I’ll try to sober him up a bit before the party.” I tried to bite back the fear that had just rushed through me and to think about the side of Cassius that was up on the hilltop with me instead. But I didn’t forget that the man I was half-carrying back to his room was nothing short of a dangerous and unpredictable vampire who could slaughter me in the blink of an eye if he desired.
Once we were inside his room, I helped Cassius over to his chair to sit down and went to fetch a cup of strong coffee from the table. But when I turned around to bring it to him, he was already standing and looking into the fireplace.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Thinking,” he said. His voice sounded different now, clearer.
“About what?”
“I’m thinking about how best to keep everyone safe tonight and how to keep a few more days of temporary peace with my half-brother.” Cassius's speech was no longer slurred; in fact, he sounded completely calm and cognizant.
“You’re not drunk at all, are you,” I said.
“No.” He turned to look at me. “I’m sorry if I scared you in the hall. It had to be believable.”
“I don’t understand,” I said as I set down the coffee cup and walked over to the fireplace toward him. The embers were starting to die out, and the hearth was in need of restoking.
“I am well aware of the whispers. Dregon will attempt to kill me at some point in the near future,” he said.
“Then why invite them all into your home?”
“Why did the witch make her house look so appealing? Why is the spider’s web so alluring? The best way to capture your enemy is to invite them into your home and feed them so full of the idea that you are ignorant, that they carelessly believe their plan to be infallible.”
“Wait, so you’re planning to act like a drunken fool during tonight’s party, just so that you can spy on them from your throne?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
I went and sat down on the side of the bed, right near the newest pile of clothes that I would be expected to put on for tonight’s festivities. I didn’t know what to think. Cassius was the powerful and rightful ruler of this place, and yet, he cowered behind a façade of drunken foolishness, a façade that was possibly a cover for cleverness. My mind was in knots. I wasn’t sure whether to think Cassius was cunning or cowardice, arrogant or noble.
I both hated him and wanted him, and I was resolute not to let myself feel anything toward him at all. I would dance at the party tonight as he commanded me to do, and I would hope that there was no attempt to murder the man who held the reins on my fate, for he was far kinder than the alternative. And if all hell broke loose, and Cassius’s people were sacrificed to Athan’s cruelty for the simple reason that Cassius refused to push his half-brother from the rule he was unfit to preside over, then it would be every person for themselves. I would blame Cassius for his failure to protect us, and I would attempt to run away and find a way to get back to my world. As I was busy hashing the haphazard plan out in my head, I didn’t notice that Cassius came to sit next to me.
“Mara,” he said as he reached for my hand that rested on the mattress between us. He didn’t often use my name. It made him sound more like a man than a vampire, and that scared me. Not because I was afraid of him, but because I was afraid of how I felt about him. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
I felt myself falling into his ebony eyes, and I had to keep myself from drowning there. “What else can you do as a Dhampir?” I asked.
Cassius looked at me with confu
sion.
“Do you drink blood? Human blood?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you alive?” I asked.
“Partially.”
“How many people have you killed?” I persisted.
“Why do you want to know these things?” Cassius was trying to be patient, but I could see the concern growing at the edges of his face.
“I just need to know,” I answered.
“But why?” His voice seemed softer than I had expected, and it made me uncomfortable as his hand rested on top of mine.
“Because I need to know if you are more man than you are monster!” I shouted at him.
Cassius looked startled at the volume that shot out of my mouth, and his fingertips flinched slightly against my hand as if I had hurt him. Before I knew what he was doing, he picked up my hand and placed it against his chest. He didn’t say anything, just stared at me as he pressed my open fingers against his pec. I knew what he was doing; he was letting me feel his heartbeat, as faint as it was.
“I am a man, Mara…and a Dhampir, and there are things that should probably scare you about both. But I will protect you, and I will also take you back to dance on your stage…I promise.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassius played the part of irresponsible fool well. The entire night was a whirlwind of music and lively conversation, along with the dizzying gyration of dancing and the disorienting fog of drunkenness. Cassius was so duplicitously guileful that it would have been impossible for anyone to have known that he was constantly watching and listening behind his grinning face and sloshing wine glass.
