Across the pyre, my sister’s dark eyes watched me. While the Shifters and Supernaturals around her stared into the burning remnants of their loved ones, she stared at me and only me. Her jaw set in a hard line. Her lips pinched. She was still angry with me for keeping secrets and for the outcome they brought.
I couldn’t blame her for the anger, but she also didn’t know half the things I did. I could thank the Crone for that.
“It’s not her fault,” Valda said.
“Her actions brought this about,” was my reply.
“And mine. And Cirian’s. I’m as much to blame as she is,” Valda answered. She shook her head, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much she suffered through the ages—watching the outcome of her actions as I watched mine now.
“I wish there was another way,” I whispered.
“I know.”
The sun set and the moon rose. The fire weakened as the last of the bodies burned to ash. When it was only soot and charred bones that glowed like embers, the flames winked out.
Through it all I stood there. Even after Shifters began to leave. After Amber escorted Keyla back. After there was not a soul in the field, except mine, Valda’s, and the ancient presence I felt watching over me through the funeral.
“Did you know?” I asked, my voice quiet but still loud in the dead of night. A sweep of cloth over the frozen blades of grass was the only indication that she’d stepped out of the trees. I turned and repeated my question again. “Did you know that this would be the outcome if I went with Milla to the Witch clans when given the choice? Did you know while I was with you it gave my sister the reason and time to attack, whereas if I had never gone with Milla, this would have never happened? Did you know that in choosing to try for an alliance, Lily was going to attack and I wouldn’t make it back in time?”
Her kaleidoscope eyes smoked over with a hazy blue as she let out a sigh. The Crone lifted a hand and beckoned me forward, her joints cracking with the motion.
I stood my ground.
“Did. You. Know?”
Her eyes fell to the pile of ash where grass had once been. The stench of death still filled the air.
“Yes.”
My eyes closed, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why?” I asked. “Why would you lead us into the Witch clans just for this to happen?” I threw an arm wide, my eyes flying open as the anger returned. It was only a shadow of what it once was, though. I was too tired. The fight was too long. The costs of this war were too steep for me to continue to hold onto only rage. Before it had been all-consuming, but now there were grief and guilt and such a deep sadness there to keep it company.
Misery. That’s what they called it.
“You had to make a choice,” the Crone started. “It’s hard to see, and I don’t think you even understand what you were choosing between, but ultimately you chose right.”
“My sister—”
“What little good that was left in her has already been corrupted by Cirian’s soul,” the Crone replied. She wasn’t harsh or cruel, but the words didn’t hurt any less. “You know this. You’ve known it for a time now.”
“I’m tired,” I said eventually after a long pause. Her aged skin fell as she looked at me with pity. “I’m tired of the secrets and the lies. I’m tired of fighting and losing. I’m tired of people dying—of being the reason they die. I’m tired of having the weight of the world on my shoulders.”
“I know, child.”
“Regardless of whether it’s right or fair, I don’t want to kill her . . . but I don’t think I have a choice.” I stuffed my hands in my pockets as the chill settled over us. A light misting of fog blew across the grounds of the residence, sweeping the ashes and smoke across the land.
“Come,” Livina said, her knobby fingers beckoning me forward. We walked into the forest together. “A sacrifice is not payment without choice, Selena,” she said after we had walked a bit. Her thick cloak drifted over the dirt and twigs and leaves without ever snagging. She used the staff as a walking stick. “It may not feel like you have a choice, but there is always a choice.”
“It doesn’t feel like one when my options are find a way to kill her or let the Vampires take over and kill everyone.”
“I never said the choice wasn’t hard,” the Crone continued. “Only that it’s there. It can’t be a sacrifice if you don’t choose to make it.” Those words struck me, and I didn’t know why. “The gods punished us because I refused to sacrifice the person I loved most in this world. Valda and Cirian and I have played this eternal game because of that choice. Cirian burrowing into the Fortescue minds, using them as his puppets to create evil. Valda, watching each of her line die as a result of her actions. Whereas I’m trapped here, in this body of an old woman trying to move the pieces to where they need to be—when they need to be there.” She stared past me, but I got the feeling she wasn’t really looking at the forest. Like she saw something beyond. Something that hadn’t happened yet, or perhaps something from long ago. “I can taste the end. I know it’s coming for me. For us all. Milla sees a great battle on the horizon, with too many endings to count. They all come down to you and what you choose to do.”
“I don’t even know how to kill her,” I said. “Or if she can truly be killed.”
“Nothing is impossible,” the Crone said cryptically.
“You’re not going to tell me more than that, are you?”
She smiled. Aged and yellowed as her teeth were, bleeding at the gums, clearly in pain—she smiled.
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s not the ancient’s wish.”
“I wish the ancients would come down here and tell me themselves what they want and how to do it,” I griped. She chuckled.
“We’re all pieces on a board to them, Selena. You, me, Valda, Lily. They created the world and its children.” Red bled into her eyes, making her look like one of the Made. “I broke the balance and they chose to punish us all. You are the opportunity that has been a thousand years in the making.”
“Here’s the thing I don’t understand,” I said, my breath creating puffs of white. “Why me? Why does the killing have to be by my hand?”
“Because of me,” Valda said.
“You hold the Mother,” the Crone said. “If one of your sisters had been born first, then they would hold the Mother, and the duty would have passed to them.”
I shivered. The idea of Alexandra or Lily being forced into this . . .
“It has nothing to do with me being Nyx’s Blessed?”
The Crone shook her head. “The mother goes to the first born, regardless of your power . . .”
“But?” I asked, sensing the unspoken word.
Livina sighed. “I find it interesting that it was you. I have wondered many times these last years as I watched you struggle and grow, if it was intentional on the ancients’ part that you were chosen and not one of your sisters. You’ve always struggled the most with who and what you are. The ancients picked the child who would have the most difficult time with this choice, and I can’t help but wonder about that . . .” Her voice cracked as it often did, using aged vocal cords. “About you.”
“I don’t know if that really makes it better or worse that it could have been someone else. One of them instead of me.” Above me the night sky filtered through the trees. Bright stars lit the night. Burning prisons for the ancients of old, if my father was right. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the end. Nothing can change it.”
“Would you change it?” she asked. The question startled me. “If you could?” I thought for a moment as we walked deeper into the night.
“I don’t think I would,” I said. “Whether it’s me or them, someone has to do it. I’m not selfless enough to say if it were someone else or some other family—that I wouldn’t push it on them, but my own sisters? No . . . I don’t think I could.” A light wind blew, whipping the strands of hair from my face. It made the trees restless as the branches shifted and the leaves rustled
.
A raccoon scampered by as we approached the lake, though we certainly hadn’t walked twenty miles with her limp. The corner of her lips drew up as I cast her a wary glance.
“Magic,” she said mischievously. Livina shuffled forward to settle on a rock, her staff laying at her side. The wide expanse beyond was a void of black, dotted in light by the stars’ reflections.
“Why did you bring me out here?” I asked cautiously, approaching the flat rock next to her.
“To give you a gift,” she said, turning toward the water. It wasn’t an easy movement for her old limbs. She kicked one leg up at a time before scooching toward the water’s surface.
“What kind of gift?” I asked, no less wary. The Crone had an odd way of being. Last time she gave me a gift it was a riddle foretelling of Lily’s fall.
“The only thing I can give you.” She reached for her staff, falling six inches short. With a wave of my hand the staff lifted and met her fingers. She gave a grateful chuff before facing the water once more.
Livina lifted the wood and the orb at the end began to glow. My chest squeezed.
“I don’t want to see more of Lily—”
“I’m not showing you your sister,” she said. “At least not this version of her.”
The clenching around my heart lessened as I shuffled forward over the rock. As soon as my own reflection was staring back at me, she touched the orb to the water and a ripple spread. In the center, a picture formed.
A baby with gray eyes and blonde tufts of hair that turned black.
Me.
“What is this?” I asked as a second child came into view. Auburn hair marked her as Alexandra.
“My memories,” she said, smiling fondly. “I can’t give yours back, but I can give mine from those years.”
This time when my chest clenched it was for a different reason. Emotion stuck in my throat, making it hard to swallow. “Why are you showing me this?”
A third child came into view. She had honey blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
Lily . . .
“For what you’ve done,” Livina said in a cracked whisper. “For what you will do.”
“This is it, isn’t it?” I asked, barely able to pull my eyes from the lake. “You’re not coming back.”
I read the truth in her eyes before she nodded. “It’s almost time. I must ready myself and make sure Milla is prepared.”
I didn’t know how to feel about that. While I’d only ever met her a handful of times, something about it just seemed so wrong.
“You’ll die when it’s done, won’t you?”
“Yes.” She sounded relieved by the idea. I couldn’t imagine. I wanted to cling to my life and hold on with everything I had. The concept of dying was so permanent.
For a person that could change even matter itself, that permanence was a difficult thing.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to the woman who ruined and simultaneously saved my life. It wasn’t every day this sort of thing happened to me. I told her the only thing I could, for the gift she gave me.
“Thank you.”
She smiled, and it was filled with sorrow.
“I’ve done many bad things in my life and most of them I can’t make right, but you can. For that alone I owe you everything.” My lips parted, but she didn’t pause for me to speak. “I’ve wronged your family so deeply in trying to save them . . . that debt isn’t something I’ll ever be able to repay you, and I’ll go to my grave knowing that. Don’t give me your thanks, girl. I don’t need it. Save it for those that do.”
I pressed my lips together as she started to turn away. I wanted to say something but didn’t know what. Valda nudged forward, and I stepped back, allowing her this moment.
“Goodbye, Livina. I’ll see you on the other side,” Valda told her, the words coming from my lips.
The Crone paused, looking back over her shoulder. Her eyes swirled once more, the color turning violet. “Until we meet again, my old friend.”
The Crone brought her staff down once and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Valda stepped back, and I came forward. The memories of my childhood were still playing across the surface of the lake.
I went back to the flat rock and climbed on top, settling in for the long night while I tried not to sleep. The bitter cold kept me awake enough as the temperature started to plummet. I shifted, resting sideways on the hard stone while I watched my youth play out from the eyes of a stranger.
By the time the dawn approached, the memories faded. The only problem was that it wasn’t the pleasures of the day that awaited me.
Only nightmares.
Chapter 161
His heartbeat was an echo in a chasm.
A war drum before the battle.
A signal to all that were dead and undead of what I’d done.
And they loved me for it.
Ivan the Cruel had ruled for so long that the Vampires didn’t believe he could bring about a new age. They’d lost hope that true freedom was on the horizon. After so long of being in the shadows and told that’s where they belonged . . . the craving for retribution against those that confined them had reached a fever pitch. The need for blood and violence too great to stifle.
I didn’t want to stop them. Oh, no. I wanted to bring them out—bring us all out—into the light. I wanted to upend the very fabric of society that had imprisoned my mind for so long with their morals and conventions.
I wanted to be the harbinger of a new age.
One where I was free. Truly free. Unable to be restrained or controlled ever again.
My attack on the Shifters was only the beginning.
The attack I planned for New York?
That would be their end.
A door slammed behind me, sounding like a gun shot fired into an abyss. Aaron jumped, his wide blood-stained eyes narrowing on the man behind me. The gag in his mouth prevented him from speaking, though he’d tried many times. Cold iron bound his hands behind his back, and metal chains linked his feet to the floor.
Victor strode forward, and I could feel the anger riding him as he came to my side and then stepped in front of me, blocking my view of my prisoner.
I didn’t lower my chin or look at his black oxfords as I once did. I stared straight ahead, his chest filling up most of my view, the darkened bricks of the dungeon in my periphery. Water dripped through one of the cracks in the stone ceiling, falling in a rhythmic beat with my prisoner’s even breaths.
“Flower.” His voice was hard. Victor was in one of his moods again. “I let you have your fun and went to sleep expecting you to wake me on your return . . .” He reached out, grabbing my hip. It would appear forceful to most people, but Victor’s strength was only a fraction of my own.
“I’ve been busy,” I answered, still not looking into his eyes but not looking away. It was as much a power play as anything we did.
His nails bit into the flesh at my side. The edge of them cutting through the soft cashmere sweater without effort. The prick of pain brought my senses to awareness. It made me want to sigh, almost content. I wouldn’t tell him, but the rough way he handled my body made me feel alive again.
“I said you could strike back. Not return with a prisoner. A male prisoner.” The cutting edge of his tone almost brought a smirk to my lips. The bond madness rode him hard. The urge to claim me growing harder to resist. “You’ve been here all day with him. You reek of him. Is there something I should know about?”
I didn’t answer immediately. The truth was my sister’s signasti did nothing for me. The only man that ever had and ever would stood before me, my devil dressed like a dream.
He liked to play games.
Once upon a time those games almost destroyed me. But I learned. I grew.
Now it was my turn to play.
My turn to win.
I kept my eyes glued to his chest and lifted one hand to let my pale fingers trail over the hard planes. Thin material was all that separated us, and t
he tension in the air was palpable. Delicious.
His strong hand trailed up my side and over the curve of my breast. He ran the tips of his fingers over the choker. His thumb brushing across the metal insignia. Cool but not cold against my skin. He took my chin between his index finger and thumb and lifted it, forcing me to look.
“I asked you a question, flower.”
“I’ve yet to decide if it deserves an answer.”
Ire flashed across his features. He didn’t like that response. For once, I didn’t care.
He changed his grip, and to someone else it might look like he was cupping my jaw. His thumb swept under my chin, the pads of his fingers softly pressed into my throat.
My heart began to pound. Loudly.
The noise surprised me, and I stepped back. He stepped forward. Again we repeated the movements until my back touched the rough bricks of the dungeon wall.
Firelight bathed our features, casting it all in pale hues and dark shadows.
Victor leaned forward, his lips skimming my jaw. Warmth heated my core.
“Why are you toying with me, Lily?” he whispered.
“Because I can,” I answered, unafraid. Victor didn’t scare me anymore. He might have once, but now we walked in the darkness together. We played in the night.
He was a monster, but so was I.
Victor inhaled sharply, and I knew what brought it on.
The scent of my arousal filled the air.
“Lily,” he breathed through gritted teeth. “My control is fraying, mistress.”
“Queen,” I corrected him. My Vampire stilled.
Right that second the Shifter managed to get free of the gag and started to speak. “You don’t have to do this, Lily. Your sister loves you. She only wants—”
“Silence.” Victor’s voice cut through Aaron’s speaking. He pulled back enough to look me in the eye. Our noses were close enough the tips nearly touched. My breath fanned his face. “Who is he?”
“My sister’s signasti.”
The way he smiled should have scared me. The silver of his eyes gleamed like that of a blade.
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