The way Nathaniel had held me in the car the night before didn’t possess any tension whatsoever. Or any animosity. But he was still a vampire. A fallen witchling. The lowest of the low in our hierarchy. He couldn’t be trusted. He fed on witchling blood the same as he did human blood. I could never let my guard down around him.
My heart hammered in my chest, causing my sides to ache even more. Was I even capable of attacking?
‘What the hell?’
My magic faded back into my skin. I shook my hand, trying to get it to show some sign of life. Nothing. I had spent up more than I realized against Isaac. My magic hadn’t fully recovered.
‘Come on! After all the times it damn near gave me away, it chooses now to abandon me?’
I was in my sister’s house, her kids were upstairs, and there was a vampire, one of our worst enemies in the entire world who had already threatened my whole family, sitting at the kitchen table. It wasn’t like I could get away. I had no choice. I turned into the kitchen, slowly surveying the situation and praying Nathaniel didn’t have something nefarious planned. And that he hadn’t threatened my sister in the same way he had me. Or lured her into complete submission.
“Harper,” Madison said, placing down her coffee and weaving away from the table as he walked over to me. Her arms enveloped me with so much care. My disappearance had really shaken her.
It was then that I saw the back of his head. Dark brown hair, clean-cut, and a black suit. Nathaniel wasn’t sitting at the table. It was someone else. Someone I hadn’t met before but who shared Nathaniel’s taste for tailored suits.
“Are you alright? How are you feeling?” Madison asked.
I struggled to pull my attention away from the kitchen table as the gentleman turned away from his coffee to look at me. He was drinking coffee? That ruled out him being a vampire.
“Other than the bruised ribs, I’m alright,” I said, doing my best to reassure her.
She seemed to take the hint and loosened her arms. Not that I minded. I had to constantly remind myself that her hovering was because she cared and not because she was intentionally trying to drive me crazy. There were worse things in this world than having a loving sister. No matter how much we fought as kids, she always looked out for me. But why the hell did she drive up to my house with Nathaniel yesterday? What had he said to her? And who was this guy getting up from the table and walking directly toward me.
“Harper Ashwood, we finally meet,” he said, extending his hand.
‘Finally?’
“It’s a pleasure,” he said.
I took his hand.
Madison must have left a window open or something because I felt a light breeze strike my body. Almost like a small wave of energy.
I suddenly became acutely aware that I was standing there in a bath robe and giving the term bed-head a whole new definition.
This wasn’t an ordinary man. Nor was he a completely unfamiliar one. His eyes held something inside them. Something I had seen before.
The memory of the man in the street with old clothing came rushing back to my mind. The one that looked like he was from another century. The one who opened up the tunnel behind me and sent me rushing home.
No. This wasn’t him. But the similarity was there. Something had changed. His cheekbones were higher. And his eyes were a bit softer.
“Nice to meet you too,” I said.
My hand fell back to my side as he gently let go. The electricity vanished with it.
Wait. My magic. It was stirring in the palm of my hand. I raised it to see a swirl of gold light wafting through my fingers like a web.
I glanced back up at him with stunned eyes. “Your…?”
“My name is Eli Matthews,” he stated very matter of factly.
Matthews? I heard that name before. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if I should curtsy or bow. Was there a protocol when meeting witchling royalty? Hell if I knew.
“You’re a vixra. Matthews is one of the high ranking family names.”
He seemed a little surprised by how blunt I was, but I’ve never been one to not tell it like it is. Until Nathaniel came around and I had to start keeping secrets.
His mouth smirked at my candor. “Would you please sit down,” he said with a smooth accent. His was different from Nathaniel’s. It was less…brutish. Less rough. Classier.
He really didn’t need to ask me to sit down. My chest was hurting and I wanted to get off my feet almost as soon as I stood up from the bed.
Madison went over to the coffee pot to get a cup for me as I sat down at the table.
Eli took my chair and brought it out to seat me properly. Like a true gentleman. Like someone who was brought up with manners. But let’s be honest. How many guys do that these days? These weren’t normal manners. They were…old fashioned.
“Eli showed up this morning. All the way from Eastern Europe,” said Madison as she poured milk into my coffee and brought it over. “He said there was some sort of disturbance in the way the vixra monitor everything that goes on.”
Monitor? They monitor the other witchlings? What was this all about? Had I broken some unknown witchling law that I wasn’t aware of? Was I in trouble?
Eli took a sip of his coffee before speaking. I watched the way he sipped it. Slowly. Quietly. His table manners were refined even when sipping coffee. He didn’t look a day older than twenty-two or twenty-three. Normal twenty-two year olds didn’t drink their coffee like that. They gulped it down. They would inject the caffeine directly into their veins if possible. At least that was how Caleb would joke about my caffeine addiction.
“Tell me, Miss Ashwood,” he said. “Are you familiar with the tunnels used by the vixra for ease of travel?”
Uh oh. How did he know about that?
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. Only to remember that shifting caused instant pain in my chest.
“Vaguely, yes.” Could I say the truth in front of Madison? Did she know about the tunnels? How much had Nathaniel told her? I didn’t know what I could and could not say.
Eli must have seen my nerves written all over my crinkled forehead lines because he seemed slightly amused by my response.
“Please don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I ask because we keep close track of who has access to them and how they’re used. Our abilities can be for very powerful purposes and I need to know that they’re being used responsibly. We sometimes lend our magic to those in our trusted circle and we must be sure they don’t take advantage of the privilege.”
“Is Nathaniel in your trusted circle?” I asked. I knew it was blunt, but I needed to know. Even though I wasn’t sure of how much I could say in front of Madison without Nathaniel doing what vampires do best. Slaughter.
My eyes unconsciously veered over to Madison to gage her reaction.
“You can speak candidly in front of your sister. I’ve given Nathaniel permission to give her certain details of what’s happening.”
She returned my gaze with eyes that were… comforting. Too comforting. Why was she trying to send me signals that she was perfectly fine with all of this? That she wasn’t scared out of her mind like I had been for days? What had changed?
“And yes,” he continued. “Nathaniel is in my trusted circle. Not the circle of the entire Matthews family but mine, certainly. He has done a great deal to earn my trust which is why I permit him the use of a small amount of my blood to grant him certain abilities when he ingests it. It allows him the necessary tools to accomplish certain tasks I have asked him to do for me.”
“Certain tasks?”
“Yes. I told him to investigate how vixra blood is being misused by the Catach-Brayin. It is my belief that certain amounts of it are being distributed to vampires for the wrong purposes.”
Wrong purposes? Oh my god.
“Isaac. The vampire who kidnapped me and Emily. He was using vixra blood. There were flames coming out of his hands. And he had use of the tunnels to get around. The day Nathaniel and I met, Isaac used them to rip u
s out of one tunnel and into another. Then he attacked us.”
Emily. She was still back there. Why hadn’t I remembered until now?
A light throb erupted at the back of my head reminding me how hard I hit it.
“Yes. He is most certainly one of them. I’m not sure how he got a hold of vixra blood, but I told Nathaniel to find out. I asked you about the tunnels, Harper, because of a very peculiar note in one of my grandfather’s journals. They were given to me after his passing. He made a note of how he saw a young woman one night in Washington D.C., back when it was being rebuilt following the war of 1812. He instantly knew the young woman he saw wasn’t from his time. After all, it was my grandfather who first started experimenting with the creation of the vixra tunnels. The young woman was wounded. Lost. Frightened. A kruxa who was trapped in a time that wasn’t her own. He sent her back through the tunnels and placed her here. In Dilton, Georgia, summer 2018. Although, he didn’t know where it was exactly at that time given that Dilton hadn’t been founded yet, he used the most recent tunnel that had been opened as a guide to bring you home. Then when I learned how vixra blood was being misused along with our tunnels, well, it didn’t take long to put the two together.”
“Your grandfather?” I asked. There was no way that man could have been his grandfather. The clothing was too out of place. His grandfather wouldn’t have been wearing something that came out of the 19th century. But then again, Eli said that I was the one out of time.
I was right. Isaac hadn’t just transported me and Emily to another city. He had transported us to another time entirely.
“Yes. From what I understand you and your sister have a very limited knowledge of the vixra and how our kind weave magic. Our history is different to that of the kruxa even though we all come from the same source. The vixra have a far greater concentration of magic in their veins. It causes us to age slower. About five years for every single year to be exact.”
He aged slower? Meaning it was his grandfather I saw. And that explained the striking resemblance.
“Emily. I told Emily to run. She’s lost back there.”
Eli shook his head. “I sent Nathaniel back to search for her. He will return with her and make sure she’s safe.”
“Harper,” Madison spoke up. “What happened when you met with Officer Parker? Did you sense anything about those murders that I should know about?”
I stiffened. She knew I was helping Officer Parker. Great. Just great. I would get an earful for this. Maybe not right now in front of Eli, but definitely later.
I turned to look at her. Her eyes were full of curiosity. As if she had wanted to ask me when I first walked in but she restrained herself. She was the one who told me not to help Officer Parker.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked.
She sighed. “I think it’s my business to know if I have to uproot the girls. Nathaniel said that he would make sure they left us alone but I have my doubts.”
“You didn’t want to know anything about those cases and now you want the details?” I spat.
She groaned. “Of course, I wanted to know the details, Harper. Who do you think gave Officer Parker the idea of asking you to help out with the cases?”
‘Oh. Holy. Shit.’
Eli took a sip of coffee, completely disinterested in witnessing a family quarrel.
Madison leaned back into her chair with a heavy sigh. “You were so distraught, Harper. You weren’t leaving the house. I’d come over and see you hadn’t even gotten out of bed for days. You would have the same clothes on Monday that I saw you wearing the previous Wednesday. You’ve been locked in your grief and you needed a distraction. Something to give you purpose. I figured helping Officer Parker with those cases would help you along.”
“Why did you act like you didn’t want me having anything to do with those cases?”
“Because I knew if I suggested you do it, you wouldn’t. When have you ever taken my advice? Even when we were teenagers you would always do the opposite of what I said just to be rebellious when mom had me babysit you. I knew if I told you not to help him, that’s exactly what you would do. And you desperately needed to get out of that house. It was trapping you in your grief. You needed purpose again.”
‘Son of a bitch.’
Eli cleared his throat beside us. “The murders of young women involved with the Catach-Brayin have piqued the interest of the vixra, Miss Ashwood,” he said, clearly wanting to move the topic away from a family dispute. “I gave Nathaniel my expressed permission to use the vixra tunnels to see if Tobias Vallas might be behind them. Nathaniel’s regrettable current state makes my family less willing to trust him, but I do.”
‘His regrettable current state? That’s an elegant way of saying he’s a dirty vampire.’
“Nathaniel has done a great deal for me and in return I allow him the advantage of using a very small amount of my blood to grant him certain abilities. I don’t give my blood to just anyone. Nor do any other vixra. In fact, many of the vixra would disapprove of my giving it to him. But I do so for a very specific reason. The Catach-Brayin are the most powerful vampire coven in the Western world. Their coven master Tobias Vallas is a dangerous man. A man who gained power because he was willing to do whatever it took to survive. There are some vixra who believe he has found a way to make his coven and his place as the head of the Catach-Brayin much more powerful.”
Madison shot me a knowing look. One that told me Eli had already given her the run down on all of this. Her eyes glinted with a hint of apprehension.
“I believe someone among the vixra is giving Tobias vixra blood,” Eli continued. “And Tobias is trying to have it distributed. I don’t know who is giving it to him. I don’t know why they are giving it to him. And I don’t know the full purpose Tobias sees in giving it to others when keeping it for himself is clearly a better solution that would grant him more power than any other coven master in the world. I’ve appreciated having Nathaniel as a friend because it has permitted me the ability to know exactly what the Catach-Brayin are up to. There have been many centuries when vampires ran wild, threatening to expose all witchlings and causing chaos that took years of damage control to undo. Nathaniel allows the vixra a window into what is going on in their coven so that we can have some sort of small control over them. We must contain the chaos. We cannot stop it entirely, but we can place a wall around them so they can’t destroy and pillage the way they once did centuries ago. Nathaniel allows me to help in that effort.”
I sat there in stunned silence. Nathaniel was a sort of double spy. He had to play two roles. One where he was loyal to Tobias Vallas and another where he permitted the vixra enough information to control the Catach-Brayin.
Eli took a deep breath. He was about to ask me to do something. And given his position as practical witchling royalty, and my witchling peasant status, there was no way I could say no. Just my luck given that I was feeling fresh out of favors as of late. I’d done enough to get myself killed at least a few times now. Yet somehow, it wasn’t enough.
“Harper, I want to know who among the vixra is distributing their blood to Tobias. I want to know how it’s being used and for what purpose. The only way vampires can gain access to the vixra tunnels is through the consumption of vixra blood. Which of course, the vixra will not tolerate. But discovering how this is being done and why will involve a great deal of discretion. I understand that you’ve already placed yourself in unnecessary danger to help Nathaniel, and he can be quite the brute in order to get what he wants.”
‘If by brute you mean threatening me every so often, yeah, he’s a brute alright.’
“But I swear he will do no harm to you or your family. Nathaniel must obey the will of his coven master. At the moment, his coven master wants to contain any information regarding the recent murders of young women attached to his coven. If you can help Nathaniel with this task, I have a feeling you may also find out more about how vampires have obtained vixra blood to misuse our ma
gic. I have a feeling the two might be correlated.”
It was my turn to be a little uneasy. I sat back in the wooden chair at Madison’s kitchen table and let my finger trace around the hot coffee mug, feeling the steam rising from the warm liquid that was just barely starting to work it’s own magic on awakening my senses.
“How do you know Nathaniel won’t harm my family?” I couldn’t help but ask. He was claiming to have control over a deadly vampire with erratic impulses. But then again, from what my mother told me, the vixra often thought of kruxa as being just as unpredictable.
“I will give Nathaniel orders to protect them and to not let anything happen to you. If he wants continued access to the tunnels, he will do as I say. But to be quite honest, Miss Ashwood, I don’t think he needs my orders to require such motivations.”
Huh? What was he saying? That Nathaniel would protect me even if he didn’t order it? The man held a knife to my throat the first time we met.
“There hasn’t been a time when I met with Nathaniel when he didn’t threaten me,” I said.
Eli wore a grin on his face. His chin angled downward as a sly smile crossed his face, as if he was in on a secret that I didn’t know.
“Let’s just say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he won’t let any harm come to you or your family. He has ties to the kruxa that date very far back.”
“But he can walk in the sunlight,” I spat. “Vampires only walk in the sun if they-”
“Kill a kruxa. Yes, I’m very much aware. I give you my word, Harper. You have nothing to worry about from Nathaniel. He won’t let any harm come to you or your family. He has strong motivations for keeping you alive.”
“You mean he’s using me?”
Eli scooted the chair out and stepped away from the table. “I regret that I don’t have time to sit here much longer to convince you of my sincerity. I’ve sent Nathaniel back through the vixra tunnels to the place where my grandfather saw you so long ago. He will find your friend. Emily Larsen, the youngest daughter of Congressman Carlton Larsen, correct?”
I nodded, knowing that I had probably overstep my boundaries by speaking to him the way I did. My sarcastic mouth knew no bounds and definitely never acquired the sort of southern hospitality that people down in Georgia were often known for.
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