Asylum

by K. A. Tucker

  “She’s awake!” a raspy voice called a second before a curly mop of hair appeared to hover upside down over my face.

  “Here, sit up.” Cool fingers slid behind my neck and helped me into a half-sitting, half-lying position. I was on a bed, I could see now. Wrapping his arm behind my back, Caden pulled me toward his muscular body.

  Sofie appeared with a tall glass of cloudy, urine-colored liquid in her hand. Those pale green eyes gazed down at me with a look I hadn’t seen in years—the look my mother used to give me as she tucked me in at night. Adoration. My heart suddenly warmed, the urge to wrap my arms around her neck overpowering. “Apple juice. Drink,” she murmured in that gorgeous French accent I adored so, handing me the glass and smoothing my hair back off my forehead as she sat down beside me.

  I took a big mouthful while my eyes roamed the room. It was tiny, containing nothing but overhead compartments and a double bed. Textured silver and white wall paper covered the walls. Wait . . . I’d seen this wallpaper before. We were on Viggo’s jet. “How did we get here?” I asked between gulps.

  “Not easily. You’ve been unconscious since last night,” Sofie explained, adding with a grimace, “We had to leave the island rather quickly. Rachel’s stunt burned some bridges for me.” Memories of Rachel flooded back then. My hand flew to my neck to feel the bandages. “It should heal nicely with time,” Sofie offered with a sad smile.

  Rachel’s venom . . . I frowned in confusion. “But Rachel turned me, didn’t she? I shouldn’t need to be healed. When will the transformation start?” I asked. I didn’t feel any different, but I had no clue how this whole process worked.

  Caden leaned forward, laying a soft kiss on my cheek. “Drink up,” he said. “We need you strong.”

  I obeyed the order, my eyes unable to leave his face, my fingers reaching up to trace his slender nose and soft lips. Was this even real? He leaned forward to press his mouth against my fingers, closing his eyes and inhaling. Worry flickered through me as I remembered the last time he had caught my scent, but it quickly vanished as his eyes opened again, the beautiful jade eyes that I could lose myself in. “How did you learn to control it?” I asked, tears welling in my eyes. Tears of delight, of relief.

  Caden guiltily averted his eyes. “By drinking a lot of blood. A lot.”

  I grabbed his chin and forced his face back to me. “Good.” I smiled, trying to tell him it was okay.

  He leaned in to press his forehead against mine. “Thank you for understanding,” he whispered.

  I leave you alone for an hour and this is what happens, Max’s voice grumbled in my head.

  “Max! They found you!” I exclaimed, struggling to turn around.

  Tell Curly Locks to move it! Max muscled his way in, earning a grunt of protest from Amelie. Ignoring her, he affectionately nuzzled against my cheek.

  “How was the rubber?” I teased, smiling.

  Rubbery . . . . You broke your promise. You were supposed to keep out of trouble.

  “I know. I’m sorry, Max. The chief told me he could undo the curse if I got on the platform, so I did and—”

  “You agreed to go up on that pyre?” Sofie suddenly trilled. “Dear God, Evangeline! And here I thought they forced you onto it . . . Have you learned nothing about reserving a shred of doubt?” she scolded, running her hand through her hair, shifting it into a wild mane. She sounded like . . . a mother.

  “He said he could get the pendant off! What else should I have done?” I answered defensively.

  “You should have waited for me to figure it out!” Sofie threw back.

  “Well, given Viggo and Mortimer showed up before you, I’d be dead if I’d done that. Now, at least I’m free. Viggo and Mortimer can have Veronique and I can have,” I paused to gaze over at Caden, “what I want, forever.”

  He hesitated just a second then, ever so slowly, leaned down to kiss my forehead. “You always had me, forever . . . pendant or not.”

  But Sofie didn’t let it go. “You shouldn’t have done it, Evangeline.”

  I couldn’t miss the grave disappointment in her voice. “What’s the big deal? It worked! See?” I gestured to my chest. “It’s off!”

  “Oh, Evangeline,” Sofie moaned, rubbing her face with her hands. “There’s something you don’t understand about that tribe. I should have warned you not to let them touch you with their magic, but I didn’t expect this. Why didn’t I expect this!” she admonished herself.

  I swallowed, a sick feeling rising in my stomach. “But they got the pendant off . . . ”

  “Yes, they did,” she conceded softly. “Because their magic counters mine. It undoes what I’ve done.”

  “You knew they could do that?”

  “Yes! I guessed it, anyway. But it’s not that simple. If it was, I would have taken you to them years ago!” As Sofie spoke, Caden’s grasp tightened around me, as if protecting me from the news she was delivering. “I didn’t know this would happen, but after I saw how Rachel reacted, it made total sense that this is how it would work.” I had no idea what Sofie was trying to say. She must have seen it in my eyes, because she paused before saying, “You’re full of this tribe’s magic now, magic that opposes vampires and witches. It won’t let you be turned.”

  I heard her words and yet they didn’t make sense. Not turned? Won’t let me? So Rachel’s venom didn’t work, after all . . . “Well, when can I be turned, then?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Never, maybe.” The room started to spin. “I can’t even heal you! It’s like there’s some sort of antibody for anything done by vampires and witches, coursing through your veins. I had no idea you’d do something so foolish . . . if I had, I would have warned Max.” She paused to reach forward and squeeze my leg with one delicate hand. “But we’re lucky it played out as it did. If Caden had tried to turn you—”

  I gasped, my eyes widening as I finished her sentence in my head: Caden would have died. I instinctively tightened my grip on him, needing to feel him next to me, to be sure he was alive. A fresh batch of tears welled in my eyes.

  “Come on,” Amelie murmured, taking Sofie by the hand and smacking Max on the rump. “It’s getting crowded in here.”

  Sofie’s eyes flitted to Caden and a silent exchange passed between them, one I couldn’t read. The others quietly left, shutting the door behind them, leaving me alone with Caden. He pulled my head to his chest and wrapped his arms around me, running his fingers through my hair until my sobs lessened and my tears dried up. “Here, you should lie down. You lost a lot of blood.” He lowered me down to the bed and pulled a navy blue wool blanket up to cover my body. I was still dressed in the revealing tribal garment.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, my voice hollow, as I gazed up at him. Sadness passed across his face but he said nothing, his eyes roaming my face, his fingertips grazing my cheek, running along my lips, as if he couldn’t keep his hands off me. And why should he? I was finally with Caden again, I realized. As if possessed by some crazed, hormonal person, I suddenly couldn’t control myself. My hands flew behind his head and yanked him down to me with surprising force. I pressed my lips up against his as tears began streaming down my cheeks again, the sound of an invisible clock ticking away in my head. I was already running out of time.

  Eventually, Caden reached up to gently untangle my hands from his hair. He broke away from my kiss and lay down beside me, chuckling. “Slow down. I’m not going anywhere.”

  I curled up against his chest. “No, but I will . . . soon.” I wasn’t sure which was worse—wearing the pendant or not. Either way, I had no control of my life. “It’s impossible.”

  Caden kissed the top of my head and wiped the tears away from my cheek. “No, Sofie will figure it out. She’s smart like that.” He sounded so confident. “Nothing is impossible, remember? You taught me that.”

  I stretched my arm out to drape it over his side, reveling in the feel of him. I had Caden. For how long, I didn’t know, but he was here, with
me, something I’d feared would never happen. I needed to be happy with what I had. “At least Rachel is gone,” I said half-heartedly, trying to sound optimistic. “And Ursula. And Viggo has no more use for me. So life can kind of get back to normal. We’re mega-rich. We can go buy a nice condo with Amelie, Bishop, and Fiona and leave all this behind. Until I get too old and wrinkly for you, anyway,” I added bitterly.

  “Evangeline,” Caden whispered, his voice cracking. I slid away from his chest to look up at his face. Raw pain stared back. “Fiona’s gone.”

  I flinched as if he had slapped me. “What do you mean . . . ” A vision flashed in my mind—of a destroyed atrium, strange witches, and Fiona’s dead violet eyes staring up at me. I sat up. “It was real?”

  “What was real?”

  “I . . . I saw it,” I stammered. “I saw Fiona in the atrium!”

  Caden was shaking his head. “Wait a minute; you’re not making sense. How could you see her?”

  “I saw the witches and the atrium, and burned bodies, and—”

  “What?” Caden looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye on my forehead.

  I barely heard him; I kept babbling on about the weird atrium nightmare I had while on the platform. “And that voice—Veronique’s voice—and the statue . . . ” I gasped aloud, groping forward for Caden’s arm as realization dawned on me.

  “What?” Caden was growing impatient; he grabbed my chin and pulled my face to look straight at his. “Tell me. You’re scaring me!”

  “I think Veronique’s free,” I whispered. It had been real. When the chief reversed Sofie’s magic, he must have also reversed the tomb spell and somehow, because of my link to her soul, I saw it firsthand. She would be free, he’d promised. That didn’t just mean her soul. It meant her physical body.

  Caden’s eyes widened, then darted to the closed door. He lifted his finger to his mouth to indicate that I needed to be quiet. “Why would you think that?” he whispered.

  By the time I finished quietly describing the vision, Caden was squeezing the bridge of his nose. “This is bad. This is so very bad.”

  “Who were those witches, Caden? What happened over there?”

  Caden put his arm around me and squeezed me close to him, whispering in my ear, “Don’t mention anything about Veronique to anyone just yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, it’ll set off Viggo and Mortimer.”

  Viggo and Mortimer . . . weren’t they long gone? How would they find out?

  Caden gave me a strange look. “Come on. You may as well see for yourself.” He scooped me up in his arms and pulled me off the bed, blanket and all. I reveled in the feel of his body as he carried me through the narrow hallway into the main cabin.

  The joy didn’t last long. My blood instantly turned to ice as my eyes landed on the two well-dressed vampires sitting across from Sofie in the main cabin. Viggo and Mortimer. A wooden box, which I presumed held Veronique’s pendant, sat between them. Of course they were here. They weren’t out of my life yet.

  Mortimer’s dark orbs zoned in on me just as the memory of him tossing Rachel into the fire hit me. “Why?” I blurted. I could have been asking anything.

  But Mortimer knew immediately what I meant. “I figured I owed you that much,” was all he said, that same vacant stare giving me nothing to read, yet every answer I needed. Killing Rachel was his peace offering.

  “She was quite annoying, wasn’t she?” Viggo piped in, rolling his eyes dramatically.

  My attention shifted to Sofie, my eyes asking, Is this an act?

  Viggo answered for her. “We all got what we wanted. You have nothing more to worry about from us. We have no more use for you.” He added, as an afterthought, “Except maybe that hundred million you swindled from us.”

  “She earned it! Leave it be!” Mortimer boomed, turning to level a warning glare at his adversary. What had happened between these two?

  “She certainly has,” a new voice said. It belonged to a tiny Asian-looking woman who strolled into the cabin, smiling at me.

  My jaw dropped as she handed Sofie a bag of blood and tossed another to Max before sitting down beside Sofie. Max didn’t seem at all concerned; he caught the bag with his teeth and hunkered down to suck on it. Sofie thanked her with a wink, earning a wide-eyed stare from me. What were they . . . friends? What had happened over the last month?

  Amelie’s giggle pulled my attention to the opposite side of the cabin, where she sat cradling Julian’s head in her lap, smiling slyly down at him. Julian was still visibly pale and weak from his injury, but he gazed up at her with a goofy grin, so utterly and obviously enamored with her that it was almost comical. “How long was I unconscious for?” I asked absently, frowning as I took in this development.

  “Long enough for Amelie to sink her hooks into him,” Caden answered.

  That wouldn’t take long. Of course Julian would fall head over heels with Amelie instantly. Who wouldn’t? They would make a cute couple, I decided. Except for the fact that he belonged to a cult that wanted to eradicate every last vampire, and she’d probably kill him the second she found out. Small detail.

  “Are you okay with them being together?” Caden asked quietly.

  I turned to see a strange look in his eyes. Fear? What was it? I had never seen it before. He must be sensing my anxiety over Julian’s secret identity. I needed to hide it better, or I’d get Julian killed and that wouldn’t help matters. Soon enough, though, Amelie would find out, I was sure. All she had to do was see the tattoo. And then what would happen . . . she’d be crushed. I forced a smile, pushing the thought from my mind, and squeezed Caden tightly. “Of course!”

  “Hey, little human,” a hollow-sounding Bishop called out. I turned to find him sitting by himself in a dark corner of the plane, the playful smirk I treasured replaced with a cold, lost stare. There was an empty seat beside him, one that Fiona should be sitting in. Bishop without Fiona was like . . . the world without the sun.

  “Can you put me down?” I asked Caden.

  He did as asked. Giving his hand a squeeze, I walked over to sit down beside the heartbroken vampire. “I’m so sorry, Bishop,” I whispered hesitantly, a giant knot forming in my throat.

  Bishop’s jaw tensed. He gave me a nod and reached out to squeeze my hand. Then he turned to look out the window, his eyes closing—shutting me and the rest of the world out. The old Bishop was gone. Probably forever.

  With a sick, hollow ache blossoming in my chest, I quietly stood and walked back over to wrap my arms around Caden, tears welling in my eyes. I fought them this time. There was no time for tears right now. “How did this happen?”

  Caden sighed. “Sofie? Where do you want to begin?”

  Sofie gestured at two empty chairs beside her. Clinging to Caden, with a wary eye on Viggo and Mage, I walked over with him to sit down.

  For the next hour, Sofie and Mage—her new “BFF,” it seemed– told the entire story, from the moment Sofie shipped me off to the mountains to finding a badly-mangled Max in the swamp next to a pile of half-eaten crocodiles. I caught myself glancing over at Julian whenever the Sentinel was mentioned, and each time, I met Caden’s frown. Be careful, Evangeline. You’re going to give Julian’s secret away.

  By the time Sofie finished, I was sure all the color had drained from my face. I had to swallow a few times to keep the bile from rising to my mouth as the nausea kicked in. “Ratheus is Earth?” I whispered.

  Caden pulled me close to him. “I’m so sorry, Eve. I didn’t know. I swear it.”

  I reached for his hand and pulled it to my cheek, closing my eyes to revel in his touch for a long moment while I thought. Right now, right at this very moment, Sofie’s sister was out of her statue and vulnerable to a horde of crazy witches and the Sentinel. She could be dead already. If Viggo or Mortimer found out—I looked up to see cold blue eyes dissecting me. He’s trying to read me! He wouldn’t be able to read anything definitive through my sheer terror right now, tha
nk God—those two would do whatever it took to get her out, even if it meant blowing up a square block of Manhattan. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if Sofie would act more rationally. And how long would it take before she figured out that the tribe’s magic had reversed the tomb spell? Caden was right. I had to keep this to myself.

  “So what’s the plan? Are we going back to New York?” I asked vaguely.

  Sofie shook her head. “Veronique is safe while she’s in that statue. They’ve kept the attack under wraps, but if we go back there now . . . who knows what kind of spectacle they’ll make.”

  I averted my gaze to my hands and bit my bottom lip, distressed by the knowledge that I was betraying Sofie by not telling her what I knew. I now had two volatile secrets to keep. Suddenly the fact that the Death Tribe’s magic coursed through my veins, preventing me from getting what I desperately wanted, seemed trivial. A repeat of Ratheus was coming. “What are we going to do?” I whispered, unable to keep the distress from my voice.

  Sofie’s answer was calm and clear. “Simple. We change fate.”

  ###

  Look for Book 3 in the Causal Enchantment Series, coming 2013

  Table of Contents

  1. Safe

  2. Exile

  3. The Sentinel

  4. Enemies and Allies

  5. Transformation

  6. Werewolves and the Possessed

  7. And So It Begins

  8. The Tribe

  9. Illusions

  10. Untangle

  11. The Race

  12. Visions

  13. Lying in Wait

  14. Freedom

  15. Kamikaze

  16. Rachel’s Plan