by Rye Brewer
It was all exactly as I remembered. A warm breeze immediately caught my hair, making it swirl around my head as it did to Sirene’s. Elena woke, cooing happily. A relief. We’d seen what happened when she was upset.
“A different world,” Anissa murmured, shaking her head. “It’s easy to forget there are different realms which exist all at once, all moving along at the same time.”
She turned to Sirene. “I wonder if Sara will visit. Or if Stark has seen her recently.”
“Sara?” I asked, my ears picking up at Stark’s name as they always did.
She nodded enthusiastically. “My sister. She was training with Stark.”
“Training? Your sister is a witch?”
She shrugged. “The same situation as we’ve had with Elena, here. She drank from the same tainted batch. Now she’s elemental, and she’s been training with Elewyn in order to hone her power.”
It was a knife through the heart, hearing that name again. I hadn’t heard it since the day Stark told me he was leaving me for her. I could picture Elewyn in my mind. That imperious glare, that cold manner, the way she talked down to everyone who wasn’t either her brother or Stark.
When I managed to get my breathing under control, I asked, “So, Elewyn is helping your sister? Is this what you’re telling me?”
Anissa nodded.
I chuckled then sighed. “Elewyn never helps others unless she plans to get something in return. What is she getting from your sister?”
Anissa blinked, taking a step back. “What could she possibly get from Sara?”
My throat constricted from the force of emotion rising up in it. I fought to speak over it. “That depends. What is she to Stark?”
When she frowned, I knew I’d hit my mark. So there was something between him and this new witch, was there? Why was I in the least bit surprised?
Something, I did not know what, told me to look up at that very moment. To the balcony several floors up.
Where Stark was standing.
I froze in place.
27
Stark
Standing on the balcony where Sara and I had argued during that first training session brought back a lot of memories. All I needed was a storm like we’d had that day to make things perfect.
And Sara, of course.
Everything made me think of her. Worry about her. Wonder how she was faring under Elewyn’s tutelage. Was Elewyn treating her fairly? Was she upholding her end of the bargain? Or was she merely drawing things out in order to keep us separated?
Did Sara even care either way?
I gritted my teeth and knew if I hadn’t such control over my power, I might have let loose with the sort of elemental display Sara had treated me to in the early days of her training. I wished the question of her feelings for me wasn’t a question at all, but there was no forgetting the ease with which she’d dismissed my being away from her. She hadn’t put up a fight when presented with Elewyn’s caveat, the demand that I not be around.
That eagerness to comply was like a seed. The smallest little seed which had planted itself in my brain and was now flowering into something much bigger, something with vines which curled themselves around my thoughts and tainted even the happiest memories.
Did she care at all? Had she only been using me in order to control her power?
I wanted nothing more than to see her. To prove to myself once and for all whether she wanted me or not.
Elewyn might have planted seeds of her own in Sara’s mind since we’d parted, too. I couldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt after knowing the depths she was willing to sink to. She never understood I didn’t want to be with her, not really. Always reaching for something that was never there.
My heart had always belonged to Branwen in the old days. I still hadn’t gotten her out of my head, even after all this time. My doubts over Sara only served to push thoughts of Branwen to the forefront of my memory.
I’d never had to question Branwen’s feelings for me. She had never left me guessing.
I shook my head and walked the length of the balcony then back again, willing myself to focus on the present. I had more than enough to concern myself with.
Like Gil Riviera. It had been less than twenty-four hours since my dinner with him in Rome, in that little back room at the restaurant.
I’d always thought him a decent man and a good soldier, but that was when I’d been more deeply involved with the Order. Before I saw the error of my ways. He’d become little more than a heretic, his eyes blazing with anger when I warned him away from pursuing Gage Bourke.
“How dare you presume to tell me what to do?” His icy tone had barely masked his rage. “You are the one who walked away from what you started. How is it that you’re aware of my pursuing this Bourke vampire?”
I’d merely straightened the cuffs of my shirt before taking another sip of the excellent wine I had already charged in Gil’s name. “I still have connections within the Order.”
I’d left it at that.
The fact was, I’d recognized the Bourke name from the first, having remembered my ill-fated acquaintance with Scott Bourke on Shadowsbane Island. That fool. I’d made the connection quickly and had felt compelled to warn Fane. But I’d never learned the name of the vampire Gage had turned. Gil didn’t believe that—not that I cared much one way or another what he believed.
So long as he believed that hunting a Bourke would be a dangerous undertaking. Which he hadn’t.
The presence of a portal in the courtyard caught my attention.
I watched as three figures emerged from inside the swirling energy field—and immediately recognized my sister.
Who was carrying a baby.
My heart soared in spite of the dark turn of my thoughts. My niece or nephew. I couldn’t pretend to be thrilled Sirene’s baby was part-vampire, but she’d seemed happy when last I saw her, late in her pregnancy. She’d made it out all right, looking better than ever. I could hardly contain my relief.
And Anissa was with her. I would know her white hair anywhere. The sight of her made my thoughts return to Sara. Was she why Anissa was visiting? Did she plan to make the trip to Shadowsbane? If so, perhaps she could get a message to her sister for me…
Branwen.
When I recognized her, all thoughts of Sara were squeezed from my heart by the vise which suddenly gripped it.
What was she doing here?
It all came back as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. The tears. The accusations. Her claims I had gone behind her back, had betrayed her with Elewyn.
I had done no such thing. I would never have so much as looked at Elewyn, much less cheated on Branwen with her, if it hadn’t been for…
Dracan. Of the Witch Senate.
I was glad he was dead, just as glad as I’d been when I saw his body lying on the floor along with the bodies of the rest of the Senate. I’d imagined him dead so many times.
Starting with when he first threatened to kill Sirene if I didn’t end my relationship with his granddaughter, Branwen.
He had been that intensely against our being together, no matter how deeply in love we were. He’d cared nothing for that, and we had been naïve enough to believe he might. Only when he dangled my sister’s life in front of me—whether or not he knew I’d already lost a sister was never confirmed—had I gone ahead with mercilessly breaking Branwen’s heart.
And I’d pretended to move on to Elewyn, only because I’d needed some sort of cover which would protect Dracan. He had to believe Branwen was ignorant of his machinations.
She looked the same, but then she would. A tiny little thing, with the same cloud of dark hair, the same luminous eyes that seemed innocent and ancient all at once.
Her grandfather had torn us apart. Her grandfather was dead…
“No,” I whispered, denying myself the pleasure of indulging such thoughts.
For one, Branwen hated me with a passion, had ever since I left her. For another, I had to
focus my energy on keeping Gil away from Gage and his vampire girlfriend or whatever she was to him. That was more than enough for me to concern myself with. I didn’t need Branwen muddying the waters.
Until she looked up and our eyes locked and I forgot everything but her for that split second.
28
Genevieve
When I was a little girl, I used to sleep beside my father’s wolfhounds.
Father hated it, had warned me time and again to stay away from them. They were animals, beasts, well-trained though they might have been. He ought to know, as it had been he who’d trained them.
There was never any telling when an animal would lash out, biting the hand that fed it. He’d drilled this into my head, referring not only to the wolfhounds but to all of the beasts of the woods which surrounded our home.
But the hounds were my friends, I would remind him. They liked me, perhaps even loved me. They’d never been anything but gentle with me, hairy beasts though they may have been. Great, giant Russian wolfhounds who’d kept me warm during endless, brutally cold Balkan nights. My dear, sweet friends. We’d huddled together, and they’d accepted me, just as if I’d been one of them.
I would wake up in the morning to find my father’s beloved, familiar face staring down at me, where I was, still curled up on the stone floor of the back room where the hounds spent the night. He would always try to look angry, stern, but the gleam in his eyes and the smile which revealed itself through his thick, black beard always gave him away.
I could never tell Anton about those early days of my human life, as wolfhounds had been used to hunt wolves—and he, of course, was a wolf. He didn’t need to know. He only knew that I enjoyed lying in bed beside him while he was in his wolf form. It reminded me of those early days, my childhood. Happy memories of a happy time.
Anton wasn’t interested in comforting me or taking me back to my early days. He preferred sleeping in his wolf form while we were together in order to listen for trouble, should it approach. His hearing as a wolf was far superior to his human hearing. I’d reminded him time and again there had never been so much as a whisper of trouble in all the nights we’d spent together, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
I humored him because it comforted me.
And so it was in the cottage after I’d fed from him. It was night, the day having been spent together, rekindling what had never died out to begin with. He slept behind me, his wolf form curled around mine while I went into stasis in order to refresh myself.
I could almost imagine living a life with him in moments such as this, when it seemed as though we were the only two people in the world. Just us, in a little cottage no one had lived in for at least a half-century. It had been used for parties when Anton and his brother were younger, wilder, but those days were long gone, too.
Not that I wanted to live in a cottage. Far from it. The castle in which Anton had spent his life was much more my speed. That great, rambling, exquisite old gothic monstrosity. I could see myself throwing balls and banquets in rooms dripping with crystal and gilt, diamonds dangling from every feasible part of my body.
I imagined glorious nights together, roaming the castle grounds with no need to hide ourselves. Watching from the balcony as Anton ran across the grounds in his wolf form, admiring his beauty and agility. Days spent reading through the hundreds of books in Dorian’s infamous library.
Being able to love and be loved without reservations.
Being able to hunt if I pleased. Outside the rules of the blasted League. Drinking from any creature that caught my fancy, human or no. It had been so long since I’d lived in freedom.
That was what appealed most to me about Anton, I realized. I could be free with him. I could let loose any of my darker thoughts, could share my mind with him. I could also let down my walls and be vulnerable for the first time in as long as I could remember.
I could be with him in complete happiness, all because he reminded me of my childhood friends.
Anton’s sudden snarl pulled me from my thoughts, propelling me into full wakefulness. I sat up, breathless with surprise, turning in time to catch sight of his glowing eyes before he shifted to his human form.
“What is it?” I gasped when he jumped out of bed and peered out the window.
“Intruders,” he whispered.
“Who?” I scrambled out of bed, relieved that I was still clothed. All the easier to make a quick escape.
“Shifters.” He went to the cupboard, where he normally stored a few pieces of clothing, and shoved an outfit into my hands. “Here. Take these in case I need to shift back to the wolf to reach you, so I might dress once we’re out of danger.”
“Where do you want me to go?”
“Do you remember the waterfall we went to, just beyond the cave?”
“Of course.” I would never forget that day, one of the most beautiful and special of my life. When I had known for certain I loved him.
“Go there now. I’ll meet you.” He grabbed me by the arms, pulled me to him for one brief, hard kiss before bending to open the trap door. “Hurry. Course there. I’ll meet you as soon as I can.”
I had one more chance to look up at him from the bottom of the stairs before he closed the trap door.
29
Anton
I was buttoning my shirt by the time the front door burst open.
My parents. I should have known.
“Who are you hiding in here?” Margaux demanded, storming about the small space. “Did you think you could keep this a secret from us forever? I can tell someone is here!” She was a tornado, tearing around, throwing cupboards open as though I had stashed a lover there.
“Since when is it any business of yours how I spend my time—or with whom?” I asked, finishing my buttoning and turning to face her. “And unless this supposed guest of mine is invisible, I would say it looks as though I’m here alone. Perhaps I wished for a little private time to myself.”
“When you have virtually an entire wing of the castle to yourself?” she all but screeched. “You are given all the freedom you could ever want, and yet you insist on sneaking off like this!”
“It’s none of your concern. You barge in here without so much as bothering to knock, just as you do in my office? What gives you the right?”
Her chest expanded as she pulled in a lungful of air. “This land, the castle, and all the buildings surrounding it are your father’s and mine. Not yours. Not yet.”
“I thought I was the heir to the name and rulership of the clan,” I sneered.
“Yes—and your responses thus far are hardly what I would expect from the future leader of the De Clerqs.”
“I’m hardly a child. I do not need you to follow my every movement, to judge what I should and should not be doing with my time.”
She glowered at me, fists clenched as though she wished she could strike. Mother or not, there was no comparing us in size and strength—in human form or otherwise. And she knew it.
Instead of hitting me, she turned to my father. “Is there nothing you feel you ought to say right now?” she hissed.
My father, who had not moved an inch since entering the cottage, merely looked from her to me. “I will see you at three o’clock tomorrow at Shifter Spire.”
This chilled me far worse than anything Margaux could’ve said or done. Only the most important clan business was conducted there, normally while in the presence of other high-ranking members of the clan. I’d witnessed banishments, sentencings, even whippings in my very early days.
And he wanted to see me there.
I raised my chin. “So be it. Three o’clock.”
He spoke not another word, but, instead, took my mother’s hand and led her from the cottage. Her smug face was the last thing I saw before they turned away to begin the trek across the estate, up to the castle. Fog swirled around them, eventually swallowing them up.
Still, I waited until it seemed they were really gone, with no intention of doubling
back, before stripping off the clothing I’d just thrown on, opening the trap door, and dropping through to the tunnel floor.
And then, I let the wolf take over.
My own scent filled my nostrils the moment I did, still heavy in the air in the minutes since Genevieve had passed through.
They couldn’t smell her because she’d fed from me. She carried my scent as a result. Oh, it must have driven Margaux crazy. I smiled nastily to myself as I ran the length of the tunnel, knowing the dips and cracks in the floor by heart, remembering where I needed to lower my head to make allowances for a low ceiling.
That was why vampire usage of synthetic blood was such a thorn in the side of my kind. Unless a vampire fed from a living source, they carried no scent. We could not track them. This was why Dietrich had been involved in something to do with getting rid of the sources of synthetic blood.
He’d still never told me exactly how he’d planned to go about it. Only that it had to do with humans and blood. And vampires, of course.
And it had gotten him killed.
The question of whether someone else had taken charge of his work in the event of his death crossed my mind, but it was merely a background concern when so much of my focus had been consumed by the need to find Genevieve.
When the tunnel opened into the cave, I followed it until I reached the mouth and then, the forest beyond. The fog which had obscured my parents was even thicker here, and I hoped it hadn’t left Genevieve hopelessly lost.
My scent was still heavy in the air. I lifted my head, sniffed, and followed the path she had taken. It seemed as though she’d guided herself well.
Naturally, she would have. She excelled at everything she put her hand to. Yet another aspect of her personality I found supremely attractive. I loped through the forest, less anxious than before but still in a hurry. Nothing mattered more than her safety.