Silence.
It was the first thing that greeted me, and my heart began to beat. Blood rushed in my veins and a pounding filled my ears. I raced down the halls. A sickly-sweet scent filled my nostrils. I wasn’t even to the double doors when my stomach plummeted. Nausea made my head swim as I stumbled forward the last few feet.
Death. So much death. It filled the room—filled the residence. Blood and dust and bone scattered the empty tables. I spotted Ash’s father. The gaping hole in his chest said it all. Beyond him, Scarlett and Liam lay together. The end of their houses.
In all the carnage, Ash was nowhere to be found.
His scent was here but fading.
Our bond was weak, but not gone.
I searched inside myself, looking for that other side—but found only darkness. The sudden loss overwhelmed me. I fell to my knees and the sound of a creature in such immense pain startled me at first, because I didn’t realize the sound was coming from me.
My fists clenched against the wood floors and panels broke apart beneath my fingers as I clawed at them. I screamed and the windows shattered like pieces of my heart. I shook, and the residence trembled with me. My grip on my power—my sanity—was slipping.
I’d lost my parents.
I’d lost my sister.
I’d lost my signasti.
I’d lost my home.
There were so many words that could probably describe what I was feeling. There were certainly so many thoughts. Feelings. Overwhelming wasn’t a strong enough description of the literal soul-crushing experience.
A floorboard shifted.
I didn’t realize what it was at first. I saw, but it didn’t register as a brown head popped up.
It was only her voice that brought me back from the edge of ending it all.
“Selena, is that you?”
My breath caught in my throat. My vision cleared. She sat in a hidden compartment under a wooden table. Her golden eyes glowing. Her fear bringing her ability out, stifling my own power.
I’d thought she was dead. I thought everyone that had been in this room was dead to my sister’s all-consuming power. I didn’t realize she hid.
I didn’t know there was hope.
The mansion stilled and without the rush of power, my grief-stricken haze lifted.
“Keyla?” I whispered.
Her face crumpled as she crawled out of the hole she’d hidden in. Tears streaked her face and red rimmed her eyes and she tried to scramble out from under the table, avoiding the bodies of Shifters as she did so. I stood up and walked toward her. Keyla pulled herself free of the table and stumbled forward, her legs picking up speed the closer she got.
She barreled into me, throwing her arms around my shoulders as she buried her head in the crook of my neck where it met my shoulder. Wet tears soaked my shirt as sobs racked her body.
“He’s dead,” she moaned. I held her tight, clinging to her as she clung to me. “She’s killed him!” she continued in a strangled cry. “She k-killed my dad.”
“Shhhh,” I breathed. Her pain resonated with my own.
The difference was she was a bystander in all of this. A child who did nothing and couldn’t have stopped it.
I could have . . . but didn’t.
I pressed my lips together and rested my cheek on her hair. We stayed like that for a few moments, rocking back and forth as she let it out and I held her together. It was painful to see her this way. Not as much as what came next, because deep down I knew . . . this was it.
The final straw.
She stole Ash from me, and I had to find a way to get him back before it was too late. For months now the signs had been pointing to this, but I didn’t want to see it. Even when the Crone asked it, when Milla asked it, when the ancients asked it—I denied them all.
And once again, it cost me more than I was prepared to pay. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, but I was the only one with the power to change that.
Keyla’s sobs slowly quieted. Her spasms stopped. She leaned against me as the numbness of grief sunk in, and I knelt, sweeping an arm under her knees. I curled the other around her back and turned, cradling her to my chest as I walked away from the dining hall where the worst of the crimes against the Shifters had been committed.
She didn’t need to see this anymore. There was nothing that would bring back that room or the dead Shifters in it, her father included. I wished he’d taken the time to tell his kids he was sick while he was still here. I wished he’d warned them of the inevitable. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for her . . . for Ash. Then again, death was death. Whether by sickness or slaughter it was the permanence that made it so difficult for the living when their loved ones were gone.
I knew a thing or two about that kind of loss. I felt it myself, even now. Not for the Alpha or Scarlett or Liam, or for the hundreds of Shifters that died today in the dining room alone . . . though I should. I felt it for Ash, though he was still living. I felt it for Lily because I knew she wouldn’t be able to any longer.
I felt it for myself because the truth was staring me in the face.
Fate would take everything from me for the recompense it was owed. My debt or not, the ancients would find a way to reap what my bloodline sowed.
Either I paid the price, or the world did.
Milla had all but told me that, and I would laugh if it wouldn’t lead to crying, because it was my choices that brought us here. I’d suspected long enough she was in Vilicky Novgorod. While near impenetrable, it wasn’t impossible. Nothing was.
And yet I didn’t go to her.
I didn’t save her.
So she damned herself instead.
Keyla sniffed, the air between the nostrils whistling like a screech as she wiped her nose on my dirty shirt.
“Keyla?” another voice asked as we turned the corner, the group pouring out of the elevator. Keyla turned her head and her eyes began to water when she saw Amber standing there, her expression that of relief. “I’m so happy you’re okay—”
“He’s gone,” Keyla whispered, her voice scratchy. “They’re all gone.” Amber’s face started to fall as Keyla made no move to go for her and instead turned and clung to me further. Golden eyes chiseled into hard gems; Amber looked up at me.
“What happened here? Why are so many people dead?”
How did I answer that? How did I tell them my sister was the reason so many friends and family were torn apart?
“The residence was attacked while we were gone,” I started, my voice hoarse from screaming. I kept talking while I still could. “The Alpha was killed. Scarlett and Liam were killed. Ash . . . Ash was taken.”
“Taken?” Amber whispered. She looked from the broken railings of the second and third floor, to the bloody handprints that decorated the walls here and there.
“By Vampires.”
“This is why Ash took off. This is what . . .” Alexandra turned away from me, trying to collect her thoughts as she was already coming to the conclusion I didn’t want to say.
“The visions . . . they’re getting worse the—” My words choked to a stop as I started to explain what the Crone did and how it affected me. Valda’s curse inhibited any who didn’t already know from being told, and the words sat on my tongue.
“The?” Alexandra repeated. Anger coated her tone.
“I can’t say,” I answered, swallowing hard. “All I can tell you is that the Vampires attacked, and a large number of Shifters were killed. They came here to send a message.”
“Killing the Alpha isn’t sending a message—” Alexandra started.
“The message wasn’t for my father,” Keyla said. “It was for her.” She looked up at me, and it amazed me that this child who knew the truth about why Lily came was clinging to me. I couldn’t understand why she would find any comfort in me anymore, but she clearly did, and I wasn’t going to turn her away.
“What’s she talking about?” Amber asked, her voice splintering apart as she took in the reasoning why her hom
e had been attacked.
“While we were away, something happened in the High Council. My sister was killed . . .” I paused, not knowing how to continue. How do I tell them the truth I’ve been holding back for so long? “She came back.”
“What do you mean she came back?” Johanna asked.
“I mean she pulled the dagger from her heart and it started to beat again.”
“That’s not possible—” Oliver started.
“But it happened,” I said without an ounce of spite in my voice. We were beyond the anger and spite. Desperation was all I had left. “Ivan killed her, and she came back and destroyed him. She’s in control of Victor and the High Council now.”
“Did she do this?” Alexandra asked. I bit the inside of my cheek because I didn’t want to say, but of course that’s why she asked.
“Yes.”
That single word was her doom. I knew after this there was no coming back. They wouldn’t support me, and I didn’t know if I could even support myself.
“How?” Alexandra asked. Her expression was shuttered, her words harder than steel.
“How doesn’t really matter right now when we need to help the people—” I started.
“How. Did. She. Kill. Them?” Alexandra said, her voice rising. I swallowed hard as her dark flaming hair fanned higher and the demon’s apathetic tone crept into her voice.
“Her power’s grown. After all that’s been done to her, something twisted. The Vampires broke her and the way the pieces came back together again . . . she’s not who she was. She’s vengeance and death and ultimately—she’s destruction.” With every window in the mansion shattered and the cold of late December seeping into the walls, a chilled breeze drifted through and Keyla shivered.
“How long?” Alexandra asked. “How long have you known what she really is?”
“A month . . . maybe more,” I said under my breath. Guilt and shame ate at me.
“You knew the road she was going down for a month and let us believe she was some sad, lonely Vampire being tortured—”
“She was,” I snapped.
“She just killed hundreds of Shifters!” she screamed at me. “I don’t have to run through the rooms to see that when I smell it.” Fire erupted up her arms, and if she noticed she did nothing about it. “We don’t even know who’s all dead yet—”
“She was tortured!” I shouted. Alexandra stepped back. The fire winked out. “She was starved and beaten and forced to eat children to survive. Her master—her signasti—is the Dark Prince. She was abandoned and left alone in the High Council’s clutches for months. Of course she turned down a dark path. After what’s been done to her I don’t blame her for hating me. I hate myself enough for not saving her while I still had a chance.” My voice cracked at the end, and I looked at Tori. “You asked me if it were my sister instead of your brother how I’d feel. Despite what she is, I love her—even though I am the reason she became this way. I love her, and I wanted to save her so badly . . .” Tori’s eyes watered and there was pity in them. “I didn’t tell anyone what she was becoming because I wanted to believe she could come back from it. I’m sorry I lied by omission and this is what it brought down on us. I didn’t mean for this to happen . . .”
No one said anything as Alexandra took one look at me and turned on her heel. The front door slammed. Tori didn’t look at me as she ran up the stairs and took off down a hallway, leaving Alexandra to stew on her own.
“I need to go find my mom,” Amber said, shaking her head. Her eyes were glassy and her steps shaky as she bolted from the room at a speed the rest of them likely couldn’t follow.
“Someone needs to check on the Shifters. There will be injured that need tending to. Dead that need to be buried. The children without a parent need to be gathered together until we can find out who is dead, missing, or alive,” Johanna said. Her golden eyes stared at me intently.
“If the Alpha is dead and the heir is missing, it falls on you to lead them, Selena,” Blair said. I was already shaking my head before she finished her sentence.
“I’m a little busy with—”
“Selena,” Blair said. I sighed, adjusting Keyla as I turned to directly face her. “His people were just killed. His father was killed. You and Keyla are the last things they have to hold onto. With the Alpha dead, that makes Aaron the new Alpha—and you by default.” My teeth clenched together but I didn’t argue with her. “Keyla isn’t old enough to lead them, but someone has to. They won’t accept me or Johanna or Alexandra or even Amber. You are his signasti, and the only one with a claim to lead that’s strong enough to make them listen.”
I didn’t want to, and if we were all being honest, I wasn’t the ideal choice for a leader. I never have been. Almost any one of them was better suited. Blair and Johanna and Alexandra and Amber, all included. Amber wasn’t strong enough to take on the powers we were facing, though, and Keyla didn’t have the age or fortitude to handle what was coming.
I hated it because I never wanted to lead. It seemed like so long ago that I was just a girl trying to protect my sisters from the world and from themselves. That I was no one, just a girl bound to exceptional power.
Now I was a Fortescue. I was a matter manipulator. I was a Konig. I was an Alpha.
I was the world’s last chance.
Keyla leaned in and whispered, “I believe in you. If anyone can get my brother back, you can.”
The words hurt me as much as they solidified my decision—if it could even be called that. I’d made a lot of shit decisions that led us here. Time and again the Crone told me a choice would have to be made. I chose wrong before, and now I was going to fix it.
I had no other option.
It was time to go to war.
Chapter 21
Sleep called to me around six in the morning, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t close my eyes and see what was becoming of her. What she was doing to him. Maybe it made me a coward that I couldn’t watch the consequences of my actions. I wasn’t sure, but of all the horrors I’d seen, something told me if I closed my eyes that these would be the worst.
That these would truly break me.
Keyla slumbered in a fitful sleep beside me in the large canopy bed. I laid on Ash’s side where it still smelled like him. I let his scent wrap around me and comfort me and my demon while we watched over Keyla. Her brown hair was splayed out and she looked so innocent. So meek. If I didn’t know of the immense power she hid I would never have guessed. If I hadn’t felt it myself, I’d never have believed it.
Footsteps approached the door and I pulled myself from the soft mattress and padded toward it. My fingers grasped the cool metal. It slipped in my clammy palm as I turned the handle. Johanna stood in front of it, hand poised to knock. She lowered it to her side and raised both eyebrows.
“Have you slept at all?” she asked, peering past me into the dark room.
“No.” The word was curt and the response probably rude, but I didn’t have enough working brain power to do better. Her brows drew together in concern. I stepped out into the adjoining living room and closed the door behind me. Keyla didn’t stir.
“If you don’t sleep—”
“I won’t have to see things I can never unsee,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
Understanding flashed in her golden eyes. She nodded once, tugging at the sleeve of her long shirt. “You won’t be able to avoid sleeping forever, you know,” she said eventually.
“I’m aware.” I sighed. “But it doesn’t mean I won’t try. Why are you here?”
She looked like she wanted to say more but decided against it. Johanna extended her hand. In it was a folded piece of stationary.
The scent of sickly-sweetness that faintly drifted from it made me tense.
There was only one thing that smelled that way.
I swallowed, but my throat was dry. My arms dropped back to my sides.
“Have you read it?” I asked. Johanna nodded. Her expression was
solemn. “And?” I prompted, hoping for better but knowing it was only worse.
She handed me the note. I grasped the stiff paper between my index finger and thumb. The texture was rough, almost chalky. It absorbed the dampness from my finger as I flipped it open. My stomach clenched as I read:
My Dearest Sister,
I trust you’ve received my message by now. You left me to die. I wonder if you will do the same for your signasti. I’ll be in Central Park in three days’ time when the sun goes down.
Every second you’re not there is another drop of blood I take from him.
I look forward to seeing you again. Tick. Tock. ~Lily
My teeth threatened to crack from how hard I clenched them. I’d known she was planning to play games. They’d become her favorite pastime in recent months. Her only real joy. I’d known I only had so long before she turned her sights my way and finally enacted this grand ploy she’d been dreaming up.
I thought I’d be able to stop her before it came to this. I thought I had more time. But now we were here, and in three days I had to come face-to-face with my sister and kill her. Again.
Somehow.
“She wrote this in blood,” Johanna commented. I didn’t need to lift it to my nose to know she was right. Even dried, the note stunk of their undead scent and made my stomach turn.
“How was it delivered?” I asked.
“She sent a messenger. I found him first. His head has already been removed,” she answered pragmatically in a detached voice.
“Have you told the others?”
“Not yet.” Her answer surprised me. “I thought you deserved to be the first to know.” I nodded but couldn’t find it in me to tell her thank you.
“We need to figure out a plan,” I said. “She’s moving pieces on the board so fast I can’t keep up, but now that she has Ash I have no choice but to try.”
“If you slept you might see what she was actually planning,” Johanna said, testing the waters.
I nodded, releasing a strained breath. “I know, but I’m not prepared for what I’m going to see. She slaughtered a room full of Shifters without trying. She killed the Alpha with barely any effort. All these months I’ve been planning to get her back and she’s simply been biding her time, growing stronger . . .” I let the words trail as I shook my head.
Vessel of Destruction (Daizlei Academy Book 4) Page 16