by Reilyn Hardy
“I’m fine,” he said, still breathing hard. “It happens, when our bodies start to heal themselves. Don’t worry about me, I’m indestructible.” He started to get up but then immediately went back down. “Or well, give me a minute.”
I wondered if this is what Rhiannon jumpstarted when she kissed him. A vampire being so close must have triggered all sorts of things, and a werewolf can’t defend himself if his insides are turning into stew.
“At least you’re okay,” I said.
He tried sitting up again and this time he succeeded. He wrapped the blanket around his body.
“Yeah but you won’t be if we don’t get out of here.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Just trust me —” he shoved me forward toward the edge of the woods. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
the thealey massacre
I could hardly sleep.
Every time I did manage to fall asleep, I was woken suddenly by my own fear. The smallest foreign noise — it was like I was half asleep the entire time. Not fully awake, not fully asleep. There was an in-between, and I couldn’t get myself out of it.
Jace didn’t seem to sleep much either. We shared a room again. I think he didn’t want to let me out of his sight, and every time I glanced over at him, he was staring at the ceiling.
I was positive he knew I was awake because I kept shifting around on the hard mattress, but we never spoke. Things were off, but I had to trust he would tell me when he felt it was right to and though I hoped it would be the right time soon enough, I couldn’t exactly be angry about it. I still hadn’t told him the whole truth and it was hypocritical of me to expect him to tell me everything when I wasn’t even doing that myself.
Still, when morning came, we didn’t talk about last night. In fact, he acted like nothing had happened. I wished I could do that. I wished I could just pretend that a vampire didn’t grab me and try to fly me away. But he didn’t want to talk about it and if Jace didn’t want to give me any answers, he wasn’t going to.
I knew that much by now.
When we went into Rubies & Speared Boar later that day, and I tried to focus on Rhiannon instead. I wanted to be able to help her now more than ever, but I couldn’t understand a thing Jace was doing, and it didn’t help that he wasn’t telling me anything.
“Jace, we need to get her out of there,” I said while he ordered two mugs of stout, boiled sausage with walnut bread and sharp cheese, and a side of roasted pork. “How hungry are you?”
“I know.”
“You know? Why’d you get her locked up in the first place?” I was doing my angry whispering again. I don’t know why I bothered. “Can’t you break her out?”
“If she could break out, she would have already. If she isn’t strong enough, neither am I. I have a plan, all right?”
“Well? What is it?”
“That’s for another time. I’m definitely not telling you here,” he said as his food was placed down in front of him. He bit down on his bottom lip and smirked up at the barmaid. She just shook her head and started muttering something about him being far too young as she walked away. “Just listen,” he told me once she was out of earshot. “There’s a lot to listen to. I don’t come in here for the attention, Mae. I come to hear what they say. People talk, they love to gossip and you’ll be surprised what some will say when they’re drunk enough.”
I tore a piece of the walnut bread and listened just as he told me to. I tried to zone in on specific voices once I picked up on them, and paired them with their rightful faces. It wasn’t easy. I managed eventually and he was right, there was a lot to listen to. I wasn’t sure how I missed it all these past few days, I suppose I was distracted.
An older woman, Aldrira, heavyset with tangled silver hair and small, sharp green eyes was rambling on and on about a star that had fallen into the Shattered Lands. The woman she was talking to, Inyenel, had ears of an elf. Only she wasn’t an elf, at least not fully. Her skin was too dark. Thick gray hair and dark hazel eyes, she kept her mouth closed unless she was taking sips of the ale in her mug. I could tell her focus wasn’t on the conversation she was having, but on — Miko.
My jaw clenched. Jace grabbed the sleeve of my shirt and shook his head at me. I sat back in my seat and continued to tear off pieces of the walnut bread.
She was having a heated conversation with Tobo, the same man who has done nothing but make things harder. I didn’t like him much at all.
By the looks of it, she wasn’t exactly fond of him either.
Miko’s thick, dark brown hair was still pulled back in a messy ponytail that was swiped to hang over the front of her shoulder and her hand was gripping the handle of her sai behind her. He was unfazed by her. Tobo was more focused on the food in front of him, much like Jace was. Only Tobo was devouring his without even using utensils.
“You owe me for disposing of that body, Tobo!” She was trying to keep her voice at a low tone, but it was obvious that her frustration was getting the best of her.
“I will give you your payment when they’re all dead and disposed of.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal!”
I shifted in my chair a little, trying to get a little closer without being obvious and I noticed men dressed similarly to Tobo, keeping their attention on Miko. Tobo might not have seen her gripping onto the sai behind her back, but they did, and they were equipped with many weapons of their own. I knew that if I didn’t do something to warn her, something bad was going to happen.
I got up quickly and walked over to her as fast as I could without taking another look at the men planning to ambush her.
“Miko,” I said as I scratched the back of my ear, not sure how to go about this. “I need your help with something.”
“Who are —” she turned around fast and her hair nearly whipped me in the face. She began with a venomous tone only her words wavered off when she noticed who I was, and looked behind me at the men closing in on us. She turned back to Tobo. “I’ll come back later.”
She left the counter with me and they stopped in their tracks, hands releasing their grasps on their weapons.
“I can take care of myself, you know,” she told me.
“I have no doubt about that, but not today, yeah? I don’t want Tobo’s blood in my stout.”
She was trying to suppress a smirk at my words.
“What’s his problem?” I asked as we walked back to our table.
“Tobo?” She shrugged. “Men are —” she took one look at Jace who was busy stuffing his face and rolled her eyes. “Disgusting pigs,” she finished. She plopped down on the seat at the table just as I sat down. “Exactly why I prefer women.”
“I’m not a pig.”
“But you are disgusting — Mr. Vampire Hunter,” she said mockingly and threw a napkin at him.
He sat up.
“And you’re a thief.”
“Well, someone’s in a bad mood.” She said as she grabbed hold of Jace’s mug. He snatched it back from her before she could take a sip.
She put her hand up in surrender and sat back in her seat.
I felt like I was at a table with children. I slid my own mug across the surface to her and rested my arms on the edge in front of me.
“So they’re going to kill her?” I nodded toward the window, acknowledging Rhiannon who was still laying at the bottom of the cage.
Miko raised an eyebrow and grasped the mug with her hand.
“I suppose I should know better than to think any conversations in a pub are actually private — but yes, eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“They’re planning to sacrifice her during the Harvest Moon —” she told us and Jace sat back in his seat at the mention of it. I think he was mumbling something but I couldn’t hear him, “— assuming she lasts. There’s a festival here in Thealey. It’ll be good fun, I’m sure. You two should stay.”
“What’s a Harvest Moon?” I asked.
“First full moon before the Autumnal Equinox,” he replied.
“But that’s months away. She’s barely —”
“I’m sure if you two stick around and she desiccates in her cage, Vampire Hunter here can find us a new one.”
“We can’t stay and you know why. Where’s the book, Miko?”
She shrugged and averted her eyes.
I knew she had it. But instead of continuing to press, I looked out of the window. Things weren’t black and white, and I couldn’t stand to see Rhiannon like that. I didn’t care what she had done in the past.
Our past doesn’t define us.
“What do you think they’re going to do with her till then?” I asked.
“Torture her, probably. You’ve seen the way they treat her.”
I did and I hated it.
“Tobo’s convinced that the sacrifice of a vampire during the Harvest Moon will shine over the path to Glasskeep.”
Jace started choking on his food.
“What?” He croaked as he tried to clear his throat.
“There’ve been rumors for a while now that Glasskeep is full of riches. Some say that’s why Lady Caliswen created the werewolves to destroy the vampires. Protect the riches from falling into the wrong hands. There was the massacre, but then the werewolves turned against the munfolk —”
“That’s a lie,” he growled.
“I don’t care if it’s true or not, I just want to get paid. I got rid of the vampire body so it wouldn’t lure more here and he won’t pay me.”
“You do realize we need a vampire to get to Mithlonde, right?”
“Oh, I’ve given up on that. There’s dragon blood in the trade for the right price.”
“What do you need dragon blood for?” Jace asked.
“None of your business,” she snapped.
“Well, what’s that on your wrist?” He asked, eyeing the metal contraption curiously. I looked at it too. It’s whole appearance was odd, not because her hand was missing, but because someone with a hand couldn’t wear it. There was a hole in the very center, with several latches going around the cuff.
Miko hit it against the table and Jace looked up at her.
“You’re rude.”
“You called me a pig so you started it.”
“Real mature,” she pursed her lips together. “My father was supposed to kill me when I was younger, and my mother was killed by elven guards. Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m not supposed to be alive because I’m an abomination. A halfbreed. A disgrace to the Elves.” She tucked loose strands of hair behind her ear. “But my dad was different. He loved me, and he loved my mom. So, I went back for him when I was older and I found where they were keeping him prisoner. I lost my hand, but I freed him.”
She turned her wrist over, staring down at the metal cuff she wore.
“My dad made it for me a few years ago. Elves are savage and ruthless and without mercy, but they’re crafty.” She held out her arm and admired the contraption on her wrist. “I’m very thankful for it. With alterations to every day items, I can hook them to it and use them like you all would.”
She stole from me, but as Rhiannon had told me, things aren’t as black and white as they seem.
“Are you?” I asked.
“Am I what?”
“Crafty,” I said simply. “I mean, would you be able to break open someone’s cage?”
“Mae —” Jace started and I ignored him.
“You mean —” she glanced out of the window we sat beside. “Her?”
I nodded.
She shook her head and dropped her arms into her lap.
“It’s impossible. Tobo has people watching her around the clock since you got attacked. Can’t say it didn’t cross my mind to let her out and maybe get her to bite him.”
I sighed and looked at Jace but he only shrugged.
“We have to keep her alive somehow. Until we figure out how to get her out.”
“He shouldn’t have gotten her locked up to begin with.”
“Leave her, Mae. Let’s go.”
“What are you playing at?” I asked. I was tired, I was annoyed. Miko was right, Rhiannon wouldn’t even be in that cage if it wasn’t for him and he had yet to tell me his reason.
Maybe he didn’t even have one.
“Come with me,” he said and got up.
“Will you just tell me what you’re doing?”
“Not until you come with me.”
Without another word, he made his way for the door.
I turned back to Miko.
“I hope whoever you need dragon blood for is okay.”
She was caught off guard by my words. But I didn’t say anything else and I left before she had a chance to say anything to me. Dragon blood was rumored to be able to cure nearly anything, and I meant what I said. She was a fighter, and life had been cruel to her.
Life had been nothing but cruel to all of us.
I started toward the inn, but Jace caught me by my sleeve and shook his head. “We’re not staying there anymore,” he said.
“What? Why not? Nerwenye —”
“Already knows.”
“Then where are we going?”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t tell me. He just led me through the rows of homes in Thealey.
I hadn’t been through the neighborhood part of the town and at first I wondered how he knew where he was going, but then I remembered this wasn’t the first time he came here.
It was weird when you realized you could know someone for years and still not really know much about them at all.
There was still so much about Jace I didn’t know, and so much he didn’t know about me. But we never talked about what either of us were like before we met at the fence.
Maybe it was better that way, but as I was coming to realize, the past never stays buried. Not his, or mine.
He stopped abruptly in front of one of the houses and I nearly walked into him. It was the same as all the rest that were lined in that row but he started up the stairs. They all looked rundown, old. Two floors, single wood walls. Nearly identical doors on every home.
My focus returned back to Jace who reached into the potted plant and dug out a key from the dirt. He ran his finger along the carved markings just above the doorknob and turned to me.
“These markings keep this place hidden and protected from vampires — they can’t hear us, see us, smell us. My grandfather did this a long time ago,” he said and opened the door.
I followed him into the dark house.
He was avoiding looking at me but I didn’t say anything. I figured it was best not to.
“I was trying to avoid coming back — I was trying to avoid outing myself entirely, masking my smell with the ogres —” I knew it, Tobo must have been part ogre too, “ — but you were out there with Rhiannon and you were attacked. I didn’t have a choice.”
“I’m sorry, Jace.”
He shook his head. “It’s not your fault. I should’ve told you the second I had the chance. That’s on me.”
I crossed my arms uncomfortably as my eyes wandered around the house. It was untouched, but it looked like it had been lived in. Just that they had gotten up and left one day.
But I knew better than to think that was what happened.
“We were being watched,” he said finally while he dug through the cushions of the couch. “I thought you would’ve picked up on that. I could smell him, near the woods that day we got here. He didn’t smell like her — and I knew — I knew that if he knew she was helping us, that if she even had the thought of helping us — me — he’d kill her.”
I frowned.
“But how did you know she was going to say no?”
He looked at me then and shook his head again.
“I didn’t. But I didn’t think anyone would be watching us either. If he wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have done it, Mae. I would’ve tried harder to convince her.”
“You did th
is to protect her and she doesn’t even know.”
It all made sense. We were being watched and in case he had to change, she would’ve been safe from him in her cage just as she had been. It didn’t look like he was trying to protect her at all and that was exactly what he wanted.
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her. So keep it out of your thoughts, yeah?” He tapped his temple, he was holding something in his hand now. “She can get into your head.”
Yeah, I knew.
“She thinks you abandon people, Jace. What did you do to her to put that in her head?”
“Different time, same situation.”
“I’m not following.”
He handed me what he had dug out of the couch. It was a picture. It was of Jace, younger than when I had met him, his hair cut short. He was scrunching his nose, his eyes were closed, while Rhiannon kissed him on the cheek. It looked like he had taken it himself.
“I was eight during the Thealey Massacre. My family got slaughtered by vampires.” He sat down and wiped his face. I was stuck where I stood, my feet were planted. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t even move.
“I was trying to run back here when this woman landed in front of me. You would’ve thought she was something out of a dream, the way she looked. Hauntingly beautiful. She circled me, cornered me. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I had a feeling. Then her eyes darkened, fangs grew and her jaw detached. She was going to bite me, and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop her. My family was gone, and I wasn’t a wolf yet. So I closed my eyes and I waited for it.”
He started rubbing his jaw with his fingers and inhaled deeply. Jace started to twist the ring that was on his pinky finger. He shook his head then and looked up at me.
“But it never happened. Instead, I heard a crack, and there she was, standing there. The youngest of them all. Of all that I had seen, at least. Blonde hair in curls, darkened though still sparkling green eyes — lips painted with fading blood. She left her family to take care of me and by the time I was twelve, I realized what exactly she had given up, and what she was risking the longer she was with me. The longer she cared for me — a werewolf. She was constantly on the run — we were on the run — and I could see the fear in her eyes when she’d look at me, that she’d try to mask with a quick smile.” His gaze dropped down to the picture in my hands. “But I had grown to know her. I knew she was scared, and — and she wasn’t going to die because of me.”