by Leia Stone
The only person who had this number was Sterling.
I opened the archaic flip phone and hit the green button. “Hey.”
“Let’s meet at the place. Now.”
My eyes bugged. “Right now?”
“NOW,” Sterling pressed; there was a wild tone to his voice. Something had him unhinged.
Crap.
“I’m on my way!” I snapped the phone shut and looked to Luka, who had concern etched all over his features.
“I … gotta go, I’ll be back in an hour.” I tore out of the room and into the hallway.
“Need help?” Luka was a blur behind me.
“I’m good,” I told him as I grabbed my purse and slipped a stake inside from my hunting bag, which sat by the door.
“If Liv wakes up, tell her I went to meet Sterling and I’ll be right back.”
Luka’s eyes went stormy. “Sterling the ex?”
I nodded. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the look of jealousy that passed across his face.
With my mind fully on Sterling and what he might have uncovered to pull me to our meet-up spot a day early, I fled Luka’s apartment and that amazing, steamy kiss.
Chapter Fifteen
I threw my Beetle into park and jumped out onto the sidewalk at Riverfront Park. It was bustling with activity on this hot summer day with a ton of families out and about. The snow cone food truck had a line of twenty people. I tried to peer past them and onto the bridge where Sterling would know to meet me. After we talked about whatever it was he wanted to tell me, I was totally inviting him to start the new hunter firm with Livvie and I. It felt so right and I was so excited about the prospect of being able to be in control of who I hunted and why.
I peered around, past the laughing families and people on bikes but saw no sign of Sterling. Where was he? I glanced at my burner phone when something caught my eye on the bench near the duck pond.
It was a small cardboard box, and on this side facing me was the House of Rose logo…
He must have left the package and bolted. Maybe he was worried about being followed. Crossing the space quickly, I slowed as I reached the box; the lid was popped slightly open. When my gaze fell on the crimson fluid dripping out of the bottom right corner of the box, my stomach dropped.
No.
It was like time stopped. I reached for the open box flaps, pulling them apart, and my gaze fell on the head of the only man I’d ever loved. A bloodcurdling scream ripped from my throat and it felt like my soul left my body.
Sterling.
Dead. Beheaded in the way that we beheaded the vampires. Who would…?
Maz? Did Maz catch him sneaking around and … no, she wouldn’t, right? A thousand thoughts smashed around my brain and I must have blacked out, because before I knew it, I was back at the snow cone truck, no memory of even running there. My hands shook as sobs wracked my chest and I looked around the park, lost in my thoughts. The vision of Sterling’s dead face was burned into my mind, torturing me.
A kind older woman with a red snow cone approached me. “Miss, are you okay?”
I was bawling, legit ugly crying in public, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to stop it.
Sterling.
The memory of the night I first told him I loved him washed over me. I could smell him in that moment, taste him, feel him. And then the guilt that I’d dragged him into this whole thing bubbled up inside of me. He was dead because of me.
I was halfway down the street to my car, sucking in huge lungfuls of air as cars and bike riders and passersby stared at me like I was a lunatic. I stopped and leaned against the wall of a building, trying to catch my breath.
Then the sobbing stopped as if it never started and then full blown rage consumed me.
How. Fucking. Dare. She.
How dare Maz kill Sterling just for finding out her stupid secret. She wanted to preach about evil and sin and then she went and fell in love with money! The greatest evil of all! She used all of us in the name of God to squirrel away millions. I would expose her if it was the last thing I did. And after that, I’d take her head.
It had to be Maz, it had to be.
Using the back of my hand, I wiped my tears and shook myself.
I needed to tell Liv and we needed a plan. Because if Maz took out Sterling … we were next. I prayed Vasquez hadn’t been pulled into this, because even though he was a cheating douchebag, I didn’t want him dead.
God, please help me and protect me. I sent up a silent prayer to the big man upstairs. I might be currently confused about the details on how God worked, but I knew God was real and it wasn’t his fault Maz perverted his word and brainwashed us to kill in His name.
With renewed strength, I pushed off the building and beelined it to my car. I slowed my pace when my gaze fell on the scrawny bike messenger. He looked my age, leaning up against his bike and tapping his phone. There was a manila envelope in his hands. He looked up at me expectantly.
“Aspen? This your car? The guy said you would have bright red hair and drive a yellow Beetle.” The dude stepped forward and I flinched, ready to take his damn head if he tried anything.
He extended the manila envelope to me and I took it.
“Later.” He looked at my no-doubt puffy red eyes and backed up, getting back onto his bike and riding away.
I stared at the top of the envelope and my hands shook as I saw my name scrawled in Sterling’s neat handwriting.
Looking over my shoulder to make sure I wasn’t being watched, I slipped inside my Beetle and took off. I wasn’t sticking around here for a second longer than I needed to. The image of Sterling’s head in the box was still flashing in my mind no matter how much I tried to dislodge it. Weaving in and out of traffic, I pulled into the first church parking lot I could find and threw the car in park.
I didn’t know what was in this folder, but I wanted to be alone when I read it. If it was from Sterling, then I really wanted to be alone.
Reaching into the envelope, I pulled out a stack of papers, focusing on the handwritten note on top first.
Aspen,
If you are reading this, it means I’m dead and Vasquez activated my fallback plan of sending this to you via courier. He will have gone into hiding, don’t worry about him.
I paused, my eyes becoming too blurry with tears to read any further. A silent sob wracked my chest as I wiped my eyes on my t-shirt and kept reading.
After you and Liv left, I stayed up all night and kept digging. I found out the most disturbing information you could ever imagine. Aspen … I was never a great boyfriend, but I want you to know that I did love you and this information will shake you. Please prepare yourself.
I put the note down, my heart hammering in my chest as fear rose up inside of me. Why would he say that? How bad could it be? I mean, what was worse than finding out your religious leader was a fake and embezzling money? It was not lost on me that the first time Sterling said he loved me was just right now in this letter. Maybe it was something he could only bring himself to do if he thought he was going to die. As sad as that was, it still brought me comfort. I let out a shaky breath, praying for strength as I read the rest of the letter.
After reading this information, please burn it. Then move to another country and forget you ever saw it. This evidence can never be brought to light or it will seal the death of thousands of hunters all over the world.
Move to another country? Seal the deaths of thousands of hunters? What the heck was he talking about?
I … I love you, Aspen. Please just be happy. Do whatever it takes to be that.
Sterling
P.S. Maz froze both of your bank accounts and drained them. You’re on your own.
I burst into sobs, clutching the papers to my chest. Maz froze Liv and my accounts … that meant no startup money for our new hunter service. I was genuinely scared to keep reading, but I knew that I must or Sterling will have died in vain.
Pulling the papers back, I set the handwritten n
ote aside and stared at the top page.
My eyes skimmed over everything so fast I wasn’t really sure what I was reading. It had my name and my birth weight as a baby.
Aspen Rose
Born July 16th, 2002
7 pounds 6 ounces
I stopped at another name. Something Maz told me they had no information about.
Breeder: Marilee Rose.
I frowned at the word breeder. My mother? Was that … my mother? Why would she be called a breeder…?
When I got to the next line, my entire body stiffened.
Genetics: 86% human, 14% Fey
The air froze in my lungs as I stared at Sterling’s cursive note. Not human? he’d scrawled.
I shook my head, as if it would wake me from this dream.
Not human? I was not human?
I went to the next page and saw…
Olivia Rose
Born October 1st, 2002
Birth Weight: 6 pounds 5 ounces
Breeder: Genevieve Rose
Genetics: 88% human, 12% Fey
Liv. No … this wasn’t … this couldn’t mean.
I flipped to the next page and bile rose in my throat as I scanned it. The DNA modification shots we received when we were little … those were a lie too, just saline. They were to cover up our fey powers that made us just fast enough and just strong enough to hunt the vampires, but human enough to pass as one out in the real world.
When I reached the final page, I didn’t think it could get any worse … but it did.
Aspen Rose, healthy female hunter baby.
$10,000
It was a transaction receipt, signed by Maz herself.
I was bought. Like property, like cattle, like a slave. Maz Rose bought me and Liv and all of the supposed orphans in her care and then brought us up to be assassins. Killers.
A scream ripped from my throat as the anger bled out of me. I’d never been this mad, this hurt, this shocked in my entire life. Maz Rose, my mother, my grandmother, my mentor, my everything. She bought me, conditioned me to think I was fighting evil in God’s name, and lied to me. My chest tightened as I struggled to suck in enough air. I couldn’t breathe. I rolled down my car window, sticking my head out of it as dizziness washed over me. I just wanted to breathe.
Sterling. Dead.
Maz. Lied.
Me. Not human.
Slave.
Fey.
My mind spun and I felt like I was going to pass out. I had no more purpose. I had no money. I wasn’t even a damn human. The depression of all of these thoughts weighed down on me until it felt like I was buried alive. Nothing felt real anymore, nothing but Liv and Luka. Those were the only two people in my life who hadn’t lied to me.
‘Getting weird vibes from you. You okay?’ Luka’s voice bombarded my mind and I swallowed hard.
‘Yeah. Be back soon.’ This crap show was something you told someone in person. I couldn’t deal with Luka right now.
I wiped my cheeks, rolling my window back up with shaky hands.
My gaze flicked across the street to my bank. I had to know if what Sterling said was true. Had Maz taken all my money? If she took mine, had she taken Liv’s too? How? How could she do that? I never put her on my account.
My hands shook as I opened my car door, leaving it in the church parking lot as I jogged across the road, dodging honking cars. I clutched my ID and bank card tightly as my heart hammered in my chest. All the hunters used this credit union. Maz said we had a guy on the inside and they gave us perks like zero monthly account fees and free retirement account set up and management. Now I was wondering if this guy on the inside watched our money and reported to her.
I had about seventy-eight thousand dollars in my checking account last time I looked, and double that in savings. Not to mention the ROTH IRA I’d opened. I had averaged twenty grand a month in hunter bounties over the past five years and had my eye on an eventual early retirement. If it was gone … if there was nothing left…
“Hello, how can I help you?” the nice-looking blond woman asked from behind the counter. I never came in here, I did all my banking online, but without a smart phone I was going to have to go old school.
I handed her my card and ID. “Can you tell me my account balance please? For both checking and savings.” My voice cracked. I was so clearly on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
She gave me a long look, probably taking in my red-rimmed eyes and messy hair.
Taking my card and ID, she nodded, starting to type away at her computer.
“Pin please.” She indicated a keypad that sat on the counter. I put in my four digit pin and then held my breath.
Her eyebrows knitted together. “Miss Rose, you closed your accounts yesterday.” She frowned. “Your balances are zero.”
No.
A sob ripped from my throat and the woman stepped backward a pace. “Are you … okay?”
“Where did the money go? Did I come in and take it out in cash? Did I transfer it? Where is it!?” I growled, slamming my fist on the counter.
The woman’s blue eyes widened to saucers and she looked over her shoulder to a male teller. “It was wired, transferred to your other bank account, I presume?” She ended the sentence on a question, like Why does this chick not know where her money is?
I didn’t need to ask about the IRA. It was gone too, and so would all of Liv’s money. My entire life savings … gone. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe I didn’t want this lying blood money anyway.
“Can I … help you with anything else?” She pushed my cards back to me.
“No.” I grabbed them and turned, storming out of the bank, feeling completely and utterly hopeless. Now I was jobless, homeless, and broke. I had nothing, no purpose. Except … Luka. Luka needed me. He needed to become king, and he needed me to help him do that. Liv and I needed a place to hide out while I figured out my next move. Maybe going with him into Magic City wouldn’t be that bad after all. At least Luka never lied to me. Suddenly that kiss with him felt like the only real thing in my entire life.
I drove like a bat out of hell back to Luka’s apartment, and parked my car two blocks away. I jogged the rest of the way, peering over my shoulder the entire time to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
I took the steps up to his floor three at a time. All the while I had the papers from Sterling clutched in my hand and I couldn’t stop the looping thought in my head:
I’m not human. I’m not human. I’m not human.
I would tell Liv what Sterling had unveiled and we would go hide out with Luka in Vampire City for a month while I helped him become king. Then Liv and I would come back to Spokane and bring Maz and the entire House of Rose down in flames. Yes, this idea was the only thing keeping me from going insane right now.
I bolted up the last few steps and yanked the door open to Luka’s apartment. I felt so raw right now, so fragile and misunderstood. It was actually a comfort when my gaze fell on Luka, standing in the kitchen staring down at a piece of paper.
Upon seeing Luka, I sighed in relief and he looked up at me.
“Liv and I will go with you,” I told him and he smiled, “and you have to see this.” I stepped closer to him, holding up the papers in my hand. He was my person now, one of the only people I could trust, which was crazy considering I had tried to kill him last week. But I knew once I told him about the part fey thing, he would help me figure it out and not judge me for not being a hundred percent human.
He didn’t take the papers I tried to hand him. He just looked uncomfortably at me, his smile faltering, face pinched in anxiety.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He coughed into his hand, glancing over my shoulder. “Uh—”
“Hi, sugar plum,” a female purred, adding as much venom to the words sugar plum as possible.
I spun, looking into the eyes of a strikingly beautiful blond female vampire. She had that alabaster skin and unbreathing thing going on, not to mention the red
tinge to her lips. She wore a midnight-blue evening gown like she was going to a ball or something, her hair pulled into a slick bun at the nape of her neck.
I swallowed hard. “Umm, hi? Who are you?”
Now that I felt it, I realized Luka was bleeding anxiety through our bond. I’d been too busy losing my mind to sense it coming off of him.
A feral grin graced her lips and she extended her hand, fingers downward, as if she meant for me to kiss the top. “I’m Cassara Blane, Luka’s betrothed.”
My brain short-circuited in that moment.
Betrothed?
Wasn’t that an old fancy word for engaged?
I reached out and shook her hand lightly, in shock, and then spun to Luka.
‘You kissed me knowing you were engaged!’ I roared so loud in his head that he flinched.
‘It was arranged at birth and I had no say. I thought … she was dead.’ He blanched, looking horrified.
No say? Bullshit.
This day absolutely could not get any worse.
‘Then tell her to leave now,’ I prodded him, hoping he sensed the wild tangle of emotions within me that were close to completely spinning out.
He winced. ‘I can’t. I need her.’
And that was the moment my heart broke into a thousand pieces. Had I really deluded myself into thinking a vampire could fall for me? The emotion clogging my throat and the tears welling in my eyes told me that yes, yes I had.
“Well, the car is waiting to take us to Vampire City, Lukie. Your … feeder … can follow behind us,” Cassara said with disdain as she looked at me like I was a cockroach.
Feeder.
Luka paled, as if that were possible, and turned to face me.
‘Aspen … I … need you. Please. Are you still with me?’ His tone was one of complete and total pleading, his face too. He basically turned into a twelve-week-old puppy, and even popped out his bottom lip at me.
I was in too vulnerable of a place to resist him. I had no one, nowhere to go, and no money. Liv and I needed a place to lie low while I figured out this whole not-entirely-human thing. But after that kiss … after that kiss with Luka … everything had felt different between us, and now to find out he was engaged! It ripped my chest wide open.