by Tricia Barr
Gratitude for the girl swelled within him. He hadn’t received such a gift since Gemma had made him a daywalker.
Next thing he knew, Rainbow jumped onto his lap and nuzzled him and then Kenzie, humming away in his middle C purr.
“Rainbow?” Kenzie said, pulling away from Leif and running a hand along the cat’s gray fur.
“He came after me,” Leif said. “After I was caught, I thought he was the only creature left in all the world that cared about me.”
Kenzie playfully slugged him in the shoulder. “That’s not true. Some of us just... take a little longer.”
They sat there on the couch, petting a very happy Rainbow, like a little family enjoying an evening together. But they were in the most dangerous place in all the world, and after some time, Leif placed a hand on Kenzie’s. “You’ve done a wonderful thing for me today, and I’ll never forget it. But the longer you stay here, the more dangerous things will be. If what you say is true, and you and Myreen plan to escape the citadel, do your best to keep me informed. I will do what I can to help.”
Kenzie hesitated a moment before getting to her feet, as if she wanted to stay with him. She took the watch off her wrist and handed it to him. “Here. So we can contact you.”
Leif took it and nodded to the door. “I’ll see you soon.”
Kenzie flashed him a half-smile. “You better believe it.”
Chapter 34: Myreen
Myreen’s fingertips roamed Ty’s ribs like spider legs, digging in every now and then to throw him into a fit of helpless giggles. His laughter rang like windchimes. It was fast becoming her favorite sound in the world, and she had no intention of relenting any time soon.
Agnus, who had just entered Ty’s room and now stood in the doorway, cleared her throat loudly. Myreen was sure that if she looked up, she’d see a disapproving frown wrinkling the woman’s shrew face. God forbid Ty should have any fun.
“Myreen, your father wants to see you in the Conference Room,” Agnus said when Myreen didn’t acknowledge her presence.
Myreen’s fingers stopped their siege on Ty’s abdomen, her eyes staring blankly at his black tufts of hair that had been disheveled by his rolling on the floor.
Draven never called for her. When he wanted to talk with her, he always came to her in person. This couldn’t be good. Something was up. Did he know about her and Kenzie’s plans?
“Best not keep him waiting,” Agnus said, snapping Myreen out of her pause. “And Ty, you have a chess game in ten minutes.”
Myreen stood and pulled Ty to his feet. “I’ll see you at dinner,” she told him, hoping it was true. Then, before she left the room, she called back, “Have fun playing chess.” She made a funny face as she said the last word.
Ty smirked and waved goodbye, and she left the room, her blood a crescendo in her ears as she headed for the main floor with her guards in tow. A million paranoid what ifs flitted through her mind as she traipsed down the stairs, her guards following close behind. For all her former arrogance over being Draven’s daughter, she suddenly wasn’t so sure that she mattered any more to him than a fly on the wall. If he knew she betrayed him, or that she was planning to, she wouldn’t be safe from his wrath.
But she couldn’t let herself get too worked up. This meeting could be about something completely innocent, and if she came to him with a racing pulse, he’d get suspicious—if he wasn’t already. No, she had to be calm. She had to behave as if there was no reason for suspicion.
She took a deep, soothing breath as she approached the Conference Room so that by the time she reached the door, her heart rate had returned to normal.
She opened the door and entered. Draven sat in the same seat as yesterday when she’d come to beseech him on Kol’s behalf, and when he saw her, he smiled and opened his hand toward her former seat. She came forward and lowered herself into the chair, all the while analyzing his blank expression as he looked at her.
“I noticed you weren’t at Kenzie’s Initiation ceremony yesterday,” he said, leaning forward and steepling his hands in front of him. “You missed my transformation into a daywalker. And here I thought we were growing close.”
Of course he’d notice that she wasn’t there. Not that she particularly wanted to watch her best friend making her father even more lethal, but he definitely expected her to be there—he’d even sent a fancy e-vite, though she had a feeling one of his underlings did that for him. And had she not been preoccupied, she would’ve been there, right alongside Ty.
“What else was so important that you had to miss such a momentous historical event?” One of his perfectly arched eyebrows raised, and she could hear the edge of imminent accusation in his tone.
“I was upset over your decision about Kol,” she said with a smooth voice. “I needed time to process.” She chose her words carefully. None of what she said was a lie, and if she didn’t lie, her pulse wouldn’t jump.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
Myreen’s breath caught in her throat. “What?” she managed to ask without stuttering.
“Answer the question, Myreen? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
I think you’re a lot of things, but you’re definitely not an idiot. She shook her head.
“I thought I smelled you down there, but I told myself it was just your scent clinging to my clothes.”
Her mind flashed back to that moment in the dungeon when Draven stopped right next to where she was hiding. He had known she was there. Crap!
“You went to see him right after I gave you my decision. For what purpose, Myreen?”
His eyes began to glow red, and she couldn’t bear to look at them. He was terrifying.
“For what purpose?” he yelled, making her jump. She’d never heard him raise his voice before—he was scary enough without needing to.
“I needed to warn him that worse punishment was coming,” she confessed. “I needed him to know that I had at least tried.” Again, not a lie. She hadn’t gone down to the dungeon with the intention of getting Kol out and going with him. No, she’d made that decision after.
“You love him, don’t you?” Draven accused.
Her eyes darted to his, the question catching her off guard. She didn’t know how to answer that. Not to Draven, or to herself.
“You’re a fool,” he sneered. “Have you not seen the way he clings to that dragon girl that came with him? He’s obviously gotten over you, the little hatchling.” His words were meant to cut her, to slice her up, and she couldn’t deny the sting they inflicted. Even with what she now knew about the curse, it wasn’t easy to see another girl so close to Kol. “You’re a Denholm. You’re my daughter. You don’t pine over someone who clearly doesn’t want you.”
“Why not? You pined over my mother for sixteen years after she left you,” Myreen shot back, anger at his degradation clouding her fear. “Or was your love for her just a lie?”
Not a second after the words left her lips, something struck her hard across the face. Her hand instinctively rushed to cover her throbbing cheek, and she saw the blur of his white hand still raised from his slap.
“You will not talk back to me,” he hissed in a dangerously soft voice. “I am your father, and you will speak to me with the respect that title deserves.”
She pressed her hand against her cheek, refusing to look at him and fighting back tears.
“Yes, I continued to love your mother after she ran away, and I will love her until the end of time,” he continued. “But she didn’t reject me. She ran away out of fear and confusion. This boy clearly doesn’t see that you are superior to him in every way, and that he should worship the ground you walk on. He is an arrogant dragon brat, just like the rest of his filthy bloodline. Even if he did love you and wanted to join our cause, I wouldn’t let you be with him. He’s beneath you. If you must consort with a shifter and not an appropriate suitor of noble vampire blood, then give your affections to Kendall. He is a mer, and a noble at that
. He’s not worthy of my daughter, but at least he comes close.”
Every vile word that came out of Draven’s mouth boiled her blood hotter and hotter. If the moon wasn’t currently waxing, her ursa might have rampaged out of her then and there, despite the soothing influence of the turquoise. That Draven thought he could control her in matters of the heart made her furious. And what was worse was that he wanted her to be with Kendall.
“There will be no more dungeon rendezvous for you,” he said with finality.
Again, her eyes shot to him.
“Clearly, your guards aren’t doing their job, or you would never have made it to the dungeon in the first place.” Suddenly, Draven vanished from the seat in front of her, and the horrifying sounds of snapping bones and squishing liquid preceded two short-lived, agonized screams. Myreen spun in her chair to see Draven standing over the corpses of her guards, their oozing hearts in both of his hands. She didn’t want to, she told herself not to, but she couldn’t help but look at the bodies of the vampires that been her shadows since she arrived. The image of their shattered chests burned into her memory. She fought the urge to throw up.
Draven tossed down their hearts and stepped over their legs, taking a red handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiping his hands with it as he returned to his seat.
“I don’t enjoy hurting people,” he said as he continued to wipe the blood from his fingers.
Liar! she hissed in her mind, the rest of her body frozen in shock and horror.
“You will be given four new guards. Please, be a good girl and don’t make me hurt them, too. If I have even a suspicion that you’ve been to see the dragon again, I’ll kill him and make you watch.”
Then he rose from his seat, leaned over her shoulder and planted a kiss on her forehead. “See you at dinner,” he whispered, then left her in the room with the guards whose hearts she might as well have ripped out herself. Their deaths were on her hands as surely as they were on his.
***
Myreen didn’t go back to her room. She knew she could be too easily found there, and she didn’t want to be found. She wanted time to think. So she went to the only place where she could be truly alone, where even her guards couldn’t follow her: the girls’ bathroom in the Initiate quarters. She went inside and curled up in one of the stalls, so that even if one of the Initiates came in, they wouldn’t bother her, especially with her four new guards standing watch just outside the door.
Draven really was a monster. He murdered his own guards right in front of her, and they hadn’t done anything wrong, save for not reporting all the times she slipped away from them. There was no need, since she always came back. But she wasn’t going to dwell on the guilt over their deaths. She wasn’t the one who killed them. Draven was. He really was heartless.
She sat in her stall for at least an hour, trying to shake off the shock of his brutality. She needed to have a clear head for what was to come. The escape needed to happen tomorrow at noon, when the sun was at its highest and the vamps couldn’t come after them if they caught on. She needed to be ready.
When she was finally calm and all the tears had dried, she left her stall and looked in the mirror. Her reflection was not the same girl it used to be. The mildly rebellious blue streaks of her over-sheltered youth were still there, but the face looking back at her was the face of a woman who had seen suffering and pain and death—and was stronger for it.
Just before she was about to turn away, she noticed something. On her arm. There was a strange little red dot. She looked at her upper left arm, only then noticing the slight itch. Had she been bitten by a bug? With how cold it always was here, she didn’t think mosquitos could survive, much less compete with all the other bloodsuckers.
She rubbed at it, and the skin beneath hurt. Odd for a mosquito bite. Whatever. She had more serious things to worry about than a minor irritation. She left the bathroom and went straight to Ty’s room. Her guards were good little dogs and didn’t follow her in.
“Hi, Myreen. Wanna play?” he asked with that innocent smile she adored, and she knew she was doing the right thing.
She knelt to his level and grabbed his shoulders, then, using her siren voice, said, “Tomorrow at noon, you will follow Kenzie wherever she takes you. You will not argue or make a sound, and you will forget this conversation.”
The glazed look came and went, and then she said, “I’ll play later. Right now, I need to use your servants’ access. Don’t tell anyone, okay?” She put her finger to her lips.
Ty gave her a mischievous smile. “Okay.”
“Thanks, kiddo.” She ruffled his hair and hurried to the hidden door in the wall.
Thankfully, they were back in their original quarters, the vampires making quick work of the repairs needed after the shifter attack. She’d never opened the hidden door before, too afraid a servant might be coming out and catch her, but tonight she had no such fear because she knew she would handle it if she had to.
Luckily, there was no one in the narrow, dark corridor, just an empty winding staircase. Myreen securely closed the door behind her and practically flew down the steps, descending as quickly and quietly as she could. At the bottom of those steps was an elevator, and she rode it to the bottom. When the door opened, she found herself in a short corridor. Another hidden door stood at the end. She cracked it open and peered through it. The bright kitchen on the other side was empty, so she pushed through. She hurried through the Grand Hall, descending to Kenzie’s room, trying to be invisible so no one could place her.
She knocked on Kenzie’s door, and when she answered, Myreen handed her a note that read: Tomorrow at noon. Destroy after reading.
Kenzie briefly looked at the note, then nodded and muttered something, and the paper was instantly consumed by flames. Myreen nodded back and Kenzie closed the door.
“Myreen. Pleasure seeing you down here.”
Ugh, not now.
She turned around and cast narrowed eyes on Kendall.
“And no guards?” he asked, wearing a friendly smile.
“Didn’t you hear? Draven killed them,” she said flatly.
“What?” His expression instantly changed from playful to concerned. “Did they hurt you?”
She laughed dryly. “They didn’t do anything wrong, except give me an ounce of freedom. Apparently, that’s worth getting your heart ripped out, so maybe you should keep your distance.” She spun and walked away.
“Hey, wait.” He raced ahead and stopped in front of her. “What’s going on? Something’s wrong.”
“Oh, and you didn’t see it coming? I thought you were Draven’s pet seer.”
He held up his hands defensively. “The visions don’t work that way. I can’t control what I see.”
“So you didn’t see Kol getting tortured and nearly killed down in the dungeon? Well, I did. That’s why Draven killed my guards.”
“You went down there? After I warned you not to?”
She scowled at him even more dramatically. “I had to. Kol was down there. I know you guys had it out for each other at the Dome, but he’s one of us. I couldn’t just let him suffer.”
“So, what? You thought you’d break him out?” Kendall looked exasperated. “Myreen, when are you going to get it through your head that he’s no good for you?”
“And you are?” she snapped. He must have known that Draven wanted her to be with him. Even more reason for him to want Kol out of the way.
His brows puckered and his shoulders slacked. “You know how I feel about you. I thought—I hoped—that if I gave you space, you’d come around, and you’d see that we were meant to end up here. Then Kol swooped in and dragged you right back under his toxic wings. You have to let him go, Myreen. Not because I want you to choose me, but because he’s going to get you killed if you keep trying to save him. Draven will never let him leave, and the longer you hold onto that hope, the longer you’ll suffer.”
She was angry at Kendall for what he’d done, but she c
ould see the depth of his feeling for her reflecting in his beachy eyes. As much as she wanted to hate him, she didn’t. They’d been so close, once. He made bad choices—siding with Draven being the worst of them. But she’d experienced first-hand how persuasive and charming Draven could be; she’d almost fallen for his nice-guy routine. Looking at Kendall, she almost wished she could take him with them. If he stayed, they would be enemies from this day forward, and that thought hurt.
She looked around, making sure they were alone. “Do you really care for me?”
“More than you could ever know,” he professed, intensity blazing in his eyes.
She took his hand in both of hers and pleaded at him with her eyes. “Then come with me. I’m leaving this place tomorrow and I’m never coming back.”
“You’re leaving? How?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“Never mind the how for now. Just say you’ll come with me. You don’t belong here.”
“And go where? Back to the Dome to pretend we’re not all sitting ducks?” He shook his head and withdrew his hand. “I understand you and Draven are struggling to connect, but this is where you belong, Myreen. Draven is your dad, and Ty is your brother. They’re the only family you have left. There’s nothing for you at the Dome but hollow friendships and death.”
She was losing him. He was going to say no and expose her plan. She had to say whatever she could to bring him with her, anything to get him out of this place.
“Fine. Then we won’t go to the Dome. Draven told me my mom was a princess of a still-submerged mer colony. That she came to land to convince her people they needed to move topside, but she never went back. Let’s go find them, together. Please.”
“Of course I’ll help you find your colony.” His pitch was high with excitement, and it filled her with hope. “I’m sure if you talk to Draven about it, he’ll fund the whole expedition. He’d probably even offer to support their migration.” And her hopes fizzled out like day-old soda.
“There’s nothing I can say to make you leave here, is there?” she said, her tone heavy.