It was so matter-of-fact, cold even. It had come to this: my loving family would have to die to save my life. It didn’t seem quite fair that they should have to sacrifice so much for me. The moments when we were happy and having fun lately were heavily outweighed by the cold reality of fear.
Grey and I would have to leave soon. I seemed to be trying to convince myself that it was right to abandon my family, but what choice did I really have? Stay and endanger them, or leave and abandon them? I was a liability—to everyone. Even Grey, but he made his choice, and I was selfish enough to let him stay with me because I needed him too. At least with Grey, as long as we were touching, no one would be able to follow my scent.
It would have to be tomorrow night, before Adomnan could escalate things further. I would have to say my goodbyes without actually saying goodbye. With me gone, they could all return home to the safety of the Rock, and Mother could watch Nia grow. They could be a whole family again. I would just have to avoid Mund. He would see right through my lies, he knew me far too deeply. The others I could fool.
When we returned to Baran’s house, Grey and I resigned to my room. “I have to get something from my house before we go,” Grey said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He silenced my questions with his lips and disappeared out my window. He looked up at me in the blue light of the night. It cast a cold hue onto his skin that made him look sad. I watched until he was far gone, hidden by the trees. It felt final, watching him leave. Would he be able to return from his father’s, or was this goodbye? Every move we made seemed like the end.
“Tomorrow,” I said.
I kept myself busy by sorting through my things so I wouldn’t worry about him. Anything to set his face out of my mind and let me be blank until he returned. It didn’t work. Everything I touched was a reminder of him or what I was leaving behind. I set out the necklace Grey had given me, the ring from mother, and Calista’s journal. I decided that was all I would need on my journey.
I slipped the photo of Grey’s mother inside the journal and disappeared downstairs to hold Nia in my arms for the last time. Her tiny body warmed my mood. She opened her blue eyes and smiled. “Sweet Nia, I’ll love you forever,” I said. She understood. I knew she did. “I will find you again one day.”
I decided to hide in my room until Grey returned for me. My window was still open, inviting the cold inside. I went to close it, but a note lay on the sill in Grey’s handwriting.
Tonight at dusk. I’ll meet you at our spot in the woods.
He must have thought it was risky too return and then leave together. It would draw too much attention from the family. Hopefully, they wouldn’t come looking for me until morning.
I stood in front of the mirror as I put on the leaf necklace. I ran my fingers over the metal, feeling its sweet song. It filled my heart with warmth. What had Brenna felt when she wore it? Had it reminded her of Grey, as it did me? I closed my eyes tight and saw Grey’s chiseled face looking back at me; he haunted my thoughts.
I unzipped the red dress and let it fall to the floor, puddling like blood around my feet. It felt like a metaphor for the death of this chapter in my life. I looked into the mirror at the stranger before me: part woman, part child, and every bit wild. There was fierceness in my eyes I had never seen before—that of a killer. All I was missing was my family lineage on my neck to prove I was an animal.
I chose my favorite pair of dark jeans, a brown mock-turtleneck hiding my necklace underneath, and my sage-green cropped sweater. I secured my sweater with a bronze pin Baran had given me for Christmas, holding the sweater shut at my bust. All unremarkable pieces of clothing, nothing that would draw attention or be memorable. I didn’t want to leave any sign of where we went.
The journal was still on the bed with my leather jacket. It was nearly time. My breath caught in my throat time and time again. I was sick with the thought of leaving my family behind. I told myself it was the only choice, and I knew it was true. I had to go. I had to protect them. This sacrifice was mine and mine alone.
The light slowly crept out of the sky as I left notes for them on my pillow. One to Tegan and Mund, thanking them for being my only friends for so long; another for Gwyn and Quinn, for coming to my aid; one for Mother, as she was the light in my life; one for Baran, to whom I left my dowry so the riches would elevate him back to his royal status; and finally, I left a note just for Nia, telling her how much I wished I could watch her grow.
I breathed in my home one last time; the warm smells of family swirled around my senses, intoxicating me with their memories. Each scent a reminder of them. With that, I silently crawled out onto my windowsill, closing the window behind me, and I dropped down into the snow. Disappearing in the swirls of fog that rose off the ground, I ran through the trees slowly at first—my heart heavy with the choices I had made. But soon my need to see Grey overwhelmed my sadness.
The brisk run passed quickly, and I found myself at the waterfall. It looked as if it had been frozen in time. The icicles stabbed down toward the earth below, and the fog swirled around my body with every small movement I made. I became deathly still as I studied each crystal of ice that angrily reached out toward me—each different from the ones before, but each dependent on the others for its survival, like a freeze frame of a war.
I heard Grey’s quiet, careful footsteps as he approached from the south. All my worries washed away with the knowledge that I was his. The sweet escape of his love. I turned to the direction of the sound, but the fog was far too thick to see more than his silhouette as he approached. The swagger of his step made my heart beat with anticipation. I ran to him, eager to close the distance between us, the snow crunching under my feet with each step. Then I came to a screeching halt.
I was no more than ten feet from being face to face with Grey’s father. Over his strong back was a crossbow with silver-tipped arrows. A variety of silver knives hung at his hip, each one etched with the Bloodsuckers’ mark. There was almost a medieval beauty to the sharp objects that would likely seal my fate. His dark eyes looked back at me with contempt; it was clear he hated my kind, our breed of human—as we feared his.
“Beg for your life,” he said, his eyes burning into mine.
“Oh, I’m sorry, should I be scared now?” My lip curled up slightly in a smile as my eyes narrowed. I was ready for this fight—he deserved to die. But my mind repeated one question over and over again: What had he done to Grey?
His face didn’t flinch at my retort. Instead he emptied the space between us, standing no more than a foot away, towering above me. I had to crank my head back to see up into his face. I couldn’t step back to get a better look at him; it would be seen as weak. I swallowed hard. I wouldn’t back down to someone so inexplicably cruel to the one I loved.
“Grey will be here,” I said.
His laugh was malicious. I growled so fiercely, it almost startled me. His face returned to its cold, emotionless appearance as he studied my face and tiny frame—sizing up the fight, no doubt. But I was ready.
“Grey finally sees you for what you are. A dirty animal that needs to be euthanized.” Every word he said came out dripping with sickness, and it pierced my heart. It was the truth; I was an animal, and maybe I didn’t deserve Grey’s love. Still, I knew our love was true.
“You’re wrong. Our love transcends space and time. No culture or creed could ever keep us apart. Even death is just the beginning.”
His hand flew back and firmly struck the whole side of my face. I fell to the ground. The sharp ice cut the delicate skin of my hand, and my blood seeped from the wound. His silver ring cut my lip. My vision flickered. I held my face as the throbbing started in my cheek. I marveled at his strength. I didn’t know what hurt more: what he said or what he did. But I hated him to the deepest part of my soul, and I blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over.
“Grey can’t save you. I already took his life for being a traitor. He wasn’t pure, his blood was tainted.�
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Was Grey really dead? I couldn’t feel him anymore. I tried desperately to feel Grey’s emotions, his anger, fear, anything, but I couldn’t feel him. It was as if his soul had been ripped from mine, and I was left to die at his father’s hands. I tried to shift, but my body just shook. Robert admired his eight-inch silver blade and the detailed etching for a moment before placing the cold metal at my throat, instantly causing my body to seize as it poisoned me.
“The power of your enemies lies in their blood,” he read. “And I will take your blood and let its warmth flow through my veins, and with it, your power.”
He grabbed my bleeding palm and licked the blood. His eyes sparkled with hunger as his fingers tightened their grip around my wrist. Who was really the predator and who the prey? He lusted for our blood. My blood foamed and burned where it mixed with his saliva.
“Grey confused his urge to drink your blood with the passions of love,” he said.
“Just like you did, Robert? You loved Brenna, but instead of following your heart, you viciously murdered her and drank her blood in front of her son. You’re disgusting, and Grey is nothing like you. He is not a killer. He is a wolf.”
He pierced the skin of my throat with the very tip of his blade, causing my body to convulse in tiny tremors. The silver blade wove its trickery in my mind. I shook my head, trying to shift, but I couldn’t connect my mind to my body. Pure silver caused enough short-term paralysis to make shifting temporarily impossible. Not only had the silver touched my skin, but it had mixed directly into my bloodstream. The effects would take even longer to wear off, possibly even days.
Suddenly, Adomnan smashed Robert’s body into the rocks. Robert screamed with hunger and annoyance, but Adomnan held his throat. I watched the fight as though it were far away, a memory, not something happening right in front of me.
“You dare to touch one of us? To taste our blood? To take what is rightfully mine?” Outraged flowed through Adomnan’s still-calm voice.
Robert smiled. “I’d be happy to take your blood as well, though it’s not as powerful as hers,” he said. There was no fear in Robert—he didn’t seem to realize the monster he was up against. Robert had murdered too many, and his confidence blinded reality. Even I knew how this would end.
With one swift move, Adomnan’s fingers curved around Robert’s esophagus and tore it from his body, using it to lift Robert’s body like a duffle bag. There was the smallest gasp from Robert’s lips, but it was only residual air left in his throat—there was nothing left of his forsaken soul.
Adomnan wasted no more time with the human. There was no saving his soul, either. It was clear no life mattered to him. He left Robert’s limp carcass at the base of the rock, painting the snow with his dark blood. He truly had broken his vows to Old Mother. Eamon and Bento stood above me, watching me as they had many times before. But this time, there was something else behind Eamon’s blue eyes.
“You were easy to capture,” Adomnan said, bringing my mind back to the present. “Do you realize how many times I could have taken you?”
“Why didn’t you then?” I asked.
He replied dryly, “I enjoy the hunt too much, but this time I had to intervene. I couldn’t let a human taint what is mine.” He wrapped his long fingers around my arm at my armpit, pulling me to my feet. “Even in these rags, you are truly something to behold. I’m sorry it has come to this, but you’ll learn to love me. In time.”
“Come to this?” I said. “You chose to hunt me like a dog.”
“We tried to negotiate for you with your father. I would have made you a proper wife, but he denied us. But I always get what I want in the end,” Adomnan replied. He looked around the trees, nervous suddenly. “We must move.”
He began pulling me by my wrist through the trees. I ran as fast as I could, but I stumbled to keep up with their long strides. His grip didn’t falter. The hole in my heart was deeper than any hurt they could inflict. I was already dead, they just didn’t realize it. Without Grey, I felt desperately alone, and the silver poisoned my blood. The fog swarmed around our bodies, almost consuming us as we fled through the forest toward the north. I couldn’t see Eamon, but I felt his eyes on me and could hear the light bounds of his steps in the snow. Their light steps didn’t make an impression as they ran, but my stumbling would look like a wounded animal wandering through the forest, looking for a place to die.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
21
Captors
I carefully set Calista’s journal in the snow on one of my falls, quietly leaving it behind. It had far too many secrets that would destroy a pure soul, much less Adomnan’s evil heart. He could annihilate the entire world with the knowledge in her journal. Adomnan’s strides pulled me back to my feet, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process. I looked back in the direction we came, but the fog ate our path. The journal was lost to the wilderness.
Grey had betrayed me. Our souls were meant to be together, but he left me on the earth alone to die at his father’s hands. It was as much as I could endure. Instead, Adomnan would take my life—maybe not in blood, but he would take my being. Grey’s soul abandoned mine, and now I was left to the wolves. I almost had to laugh at the cruel irony. Instead of the Bloodsuckers taking my life, I seemed to have handed myself over on a silver platter to Adomnan. I couldn’t yet say which was worse.
I fell to my knees, tripping on uneven ground. The pain vibrated through my knee. “Clumsy little thing,” Adomnan said, dragging my body back to my feet without ever missing his own stride. “It’s a good thing you have me to save you,” he said. His smile was as repulsive as his anger. I could see only glimpses of his brothers through the fog, but I could smell them.
My heart was miraculously still beating despite the fact it was broken. I was lost in despair as the trees continued to whip by. If I cared, I could have noticed the small differences between each tree, each one a unique life. But to me in those moments, they were nothing more than a repeating pattern. I was less and less aware of my surroundings, how many hundreds of miles we had run, and even less concerned with the cuts and bruises that covered my body with each fall. My body ached with the pain, but my mind disregarded it.
Soon, we ran across the border into Canada, and dawn broke as we reached the east coast of Newfoundland. The icy water was frozen at the shore. I should have been trying to escape, but I just didn’t have the will. I had nothing left to escape to.
I had lost everything. Grey was gone and I was alone. He couldn’t have survived—he would have stopped his father. He would have come for me. I used to hear his heartbeat, and now there was silence. The place in my soul where he used to live was numb.
“I’ll be back, my beloved,” Adomnan said as he pushed me down to my knees in the cold snow. “Watch her,” he said to his brothers. He disappeared into a small wooden shack.
Eamon walked to my side, but Bento kept his distance as he searched the horizon for anyone who might have followed us. Eamon seemed fascinated with me. It was almost creepy. If he didn’t blink, I would have thought he was the walking dead. His velvet jacket was still smooth and perfect, as though he hadn’t just run eight hundred miles through a forest.
“You loved that human, didn’t you?” Eamon said.
I heard the words, but I didn’t understand the question. I felt an icy chill from him. But if they were going to sacrifice me, it would be at Carrowmore, not here on this desolate, frozen ground. I was safe, for now. I just stared wide-eyed at Eamon.
Adomnan returned moments later, and Eamon stepped away. It was eerie how closely he watched my every movement. Why did he want to know if I really loved Grey? What did he know of love? It was obvious none of them had ever felt love and their lives were empty. My mother loved me with everything she had; I couldn’t imagine growing up without the shelter of her admiration. What was it like to never feel the love of a parent, a friend, a partner?
“I have arranged a plane to take her hom
e,” Adomnan said. I shuddered to think what their home might look like. “Eamon, take her inside and find her something to wear that isn’t covered in blood. Bento, you come with me.” He spoke as though I weren’t there. That was typical of his kind. Women weren’t to be talked to when other males were present. How our kind survived for so long with such ridiculous rules, I would never know.
I followed Eamon toward the shack. It looked like nothing more than an old abandoned building, no more than one room with a rusty, snow-covered roof and an outhouse. It was a trade post. The smell of the smoky fires surrounded us inside. It was filled with animal furs, spices, and meats. Two wrinkled old human men sat at the counter. They looked up at us, startled at first—they knew what we were—but they quickly went back to milling about, trying not to pay us any mind. Eamon flipped back a thick bearskin rug on the floor to reveal a hidden door. With a creak, he lifted the wooden panels, and the floor opened up. From what I could see, it was well lit down the wooden plank ladder, but I couldn’t see how big the room was below.
“After you,” he said. His voice was welcoming in a way.
I carefully put my foot onto the first rung of the ladder, expecting it to break under my weight. I slowly continued down, step after step, into the cavity below until I could no longer see daylight.
Eamon quickly shut the door behind us, but there was plenty of light coming from below. Reaching the last step, I turned around and saw what had to be miles and miles of a city. It stretched on for as far as I could see. Every building and home was hobbled together with random parts. This was an entire hidden world with inhabitants that may never have seen the light of day.
“Welcome to the Netherworlds,” Eamon said.
It wasn’t that different from the Rock of Cashel, with its hidden labyrinth of tunnels and rooms, but this was poor, damp, and dark. The shacks went on as far as I could see down earthen tunnels. Hundreds of poverty-stricken wolves must have lived here. Two elderly women sat scrubbing old rags in dirty water, their skin gray with filth. A group of three men leaned against a tin shack with a holey roof. They appeared to be in their mid-twenties and they had horrible clawed scars all over their bodies. They wore ripped jeans and no shirts, but one wore a necklace of wolf teeth. An Asian man stood a few shacks down, pretending not to watch us pass. Though they all saw me, I knew they wouldn’t intervene with Adomnan’s plan. Eamon was halfway down a block before he realized I was still standing there, staring like a child.
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