by Rye Brewer
“Oh, please,” I spat. “You had a choice, a very obvious one. To allow her to die. We’re not responsible for what happens to humans, Gage. That’s none of our business.”
“She was the way she was because of me,” he said, running his hands through his hair until it stood up in messy tufts. He looked like a wreck—it was obvious he had been through a lot. “She would never have mixed with those Euro-trash shifters if it hadn’t been for me. I mean, she would have met them—at the club—without me, but they were using her to get to me. They hurt her, assaulted her, butchered her, because they thought she was more deeply involved with me than she actually was.”
He let out an animal cry of pure despair, and the sound almost brought me over to his side.
Almost.
“But do you see what this means for you? You have a brand-new vampire out there, Gage. You know how strong the bloodlust is at this stage. And you made this happen. What’ll you do when somebody finds out who created her? There’s nothing to be done! They’ll kill you for this.” The gravity of my words and the truth behind them settled between us, wiping out all sound but that of our breathing.
“What happened to the door?” Philippa walked in, eyeing what I had just done.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. I didn’t feel like dealing with both of them at once.
She tilted her head to the side with a frown. “Last I checked, I live here.”
“I thought you’d be downstairs,” I replied, raising an eyebrow. Meaning the vault.
She blushed until her cheeks were roughly the same shade as her hair, but didn’t back down. “Where’s Anissa?” she asked instead of pursuing the topic at hand.
That was new. I couldn’t have predicted she’d ask something like that. As if they were friends now. “Why do you want to know?”
“Is she in your room?” She was on her way across the living room and down the hall before I could answer.
I rushed after her. “Probably. Why is it so important for you to talk to her?” I raised my voice in hopes Anissa would hear—there was no telling what she was doing that she might not feel like having Philippa walk in on.
“It just is, Jonah.” She flung the door open on an empty bedroom.
Even I was surprised as we walked in. She turned to me with an inquisitive expression.
I looked away from her—the way she looked at me, like she was offering a challenge. Why didn’t I know where Anissa was? I happened to cast my gaze toward the bed, and spied the note propped up against my pillow. I tore it open.
“What’s it say?” Philippa asked.
“As if it’s any of your business, she went to visit her father.” I didn’t need an explanation why.
Allonic was there, in Avellane. While Philippa knew him, I didn’t think she needed to know about his situation. Knowing my sister, she’d barge her way into Avellane to find him.
“Why would she do that?”
“Why is this a concern of yours? I don’t have time for this right now, Philippa.”
Once again, she didn’t answer my question. She did, however, follow me back to where Gage waited for us in the living room, pacing back and forth in front of the doors to the balcony with his hands clasped behind his neck.
“What’s the matter?” she asked Gage, going to him. “You look terrible.”
“Thank you,” he grumbled, then looked at me. “I have to find Cari. Being here is a waste of time.”
“Who’s Cari?” Philippa asked, looking at the two of us.
“Gage’s pet,” I snarled. I couldn’t help it. He made me that furious—and even worse, I felt helpless. I couldn’t do anything for him this time. There was no rescue, no last-minute reprieve.
“Watch your mouth,” he growled before lunging at me. Philippa threw herself in front of him, making him pull up short. His fangs descended, glinting dangerously.
“I’m one of the only friends you’ve got right now, brother,” I reminded him. “Are you sure you want to attack me? I’ll admit, I misspoke. She’s not just your pet. She’s your death sentence.”
Philippa spun toward me. “Wait. What?”
“Tell her,” I said, nodding to her. “Tell Philippa what you did.”
The light left Gage’s eyes—she was always his favorite, his closest sibling. He knew how it would break her heart.
So, I did it for him. “Cari is the human our brother turned into a vampire.”
Her eyes opened almost comically wide as her skin went as white as a sheet of paper. She turned slowly, like the news weighed her down. “Tell me this isn’t true,” she whispered as her entire body began to tremble.
Instead of offering an apology, as I would’ve imagined, he snarled, “Oh, and you’re so perfect?”
Both of our jaws dropped.
She gasped in surprise. “What?” she sputtered.
“You heard me. If you’re so perfect, if you’ve never done something that went against the rules, how do you explain the Ancient’s body in our vault?”
“This is out of line,” I warned, as I kept one eye on Philippa.
She swayed a little, as though she might faint. It was against Gage’s nature to lash out at her that way, and she didn’t know how to process it in tandem with news of what he’d done.
He acted like I hadn’t spoken. “Oh, and let’s not forget about your murderous boyfriend. He killed his father, didn’t he? I’m pretty sure that’s the story I heard.”
That would do it. She would lose all strength and collapse on the spot, I was sure—so sure, I was even ready to catch her when she fell.
Only she didn’t. Instead, she roared, “You shut your mouth! You have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“And neither do you!” he roared in return, towering over her. But she wouldn’t back down.
“That’s enough from you,” I warned, standing behind her to push him away.
He wouldn’t budge.
“Keep your hands off me,” he growled, glaring. His eyes were full of hate.
How had it gotten that far? What was going to happen to us?
“I don’t need you to stick up for me right now,” Philippa informed me, glancing over her shoulder.
“Excuse me, madam. I thought I was helping you.”
“You’re no help to me right now. It’s bad enough the two of you are at each other’s throats. I don’t have it in me for you to yank me into your arguments.” She tossed her long hair over both shoulders with an air of superiority.
“Oh, get off your high horse,” I snarled. “He’s right. You’re in pretty deep, too.”
“Not as deep as him,” she argued, pointing to Gage. “How could you do something like that? Gage, there’s nothing we can do for you. Jonah’s right. It’s the worse decision you could’ve made.”
“There’s no defending it,” I added, my eyes boring holes into him.
He wouldn’t back down. “That’s something I’ll have to deal with, isn’t it? I didn’t ask for either of you to defend me. I’ll take care of this.”
“How? By killing the newly created? Because that’s our only option if you want to stay alive,” Philippa announced in her typical, no-nonsense manner.
As enraged as I was, I flinched at her bluntness.
He exploded. “No! How can you even say that? I can’t kill her!”
“Then we’ll do it,” she replied, forging ahead in spite of his reaction. “It’s the only way. She doesn’t matter. You do. That’s all there is to it. You made a mistake, and we’ll clean it up if we have to.”
His chest heaved in and out as he breathed, like a bull ready to charge. “How dare you?”
“How dare she?” I asked. “How dare you, more like.”
He looked at me, then at her. “If any of you touch her, you’ll pay.” With that, he stormed out before I could stop him.
My heart sank. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like fighting anymore. It was like someone had removed the stopper and all the anger drained out.
I reminded myself that while I was furious with him for breaking the most sacred of our laws, at the heart of my fury was a simple fact: he was my brother. If I didn’t care for him, I wouldn’t have cared so much. It wasn’t easy to maintain my anger when I considered that.
Philippa sank into a chair, her head in her hands. “I don’t believe this. How could he? I feel sick.”
“Just breathe,” I murmured, only half paying attention.
My thoughts were still with Gage and the beautiful, terrified, terrifyingly strong vampire he had created. He was right about one thing: he needed to find her before she wreaked irreparable havoc.
In the face of that, my sister’s nausea didn’t make much of a dent in my list of concerns.
“What are we supposed to do about this?” she whispered.
“I have no idea at the moment,” I confessed.
“Do you believe his threat?”
“Do you?” I asked, staring pointedly at her. She averted her eyes. “Yes, I believe him. You’ve seen what he’s capable of when he gets an idea in his head. It was bad enough when he took that little group of his and thought he could unseat me. He did enough damage then, and that had nothing to do with love.”
She winced. “You think he’s in love?”
“It’s the only excuse I can come up with that even remotely explains why he’d do something this ludicrous.” I was in love, too, and I recognized the symptoms. I wouldn’t dare add that out loud, not in front of Philippa.
My thoughts turned to Anissa at that point. I couldn’t help it. Knowing her, she would’ve left not long after I did. The girl was physically incapable of sitting still. What had she found with Allonic? I hated to think of her sticking around to help him without telling me of her plans—another of her lesser qualities. Not that I needed her to check in at all times. We didn’t live ordinary lives, was all, and anything could happen.
“I think I need to find out what’s going on with Anissa. I might be able to hang around the entrance to Avellane, or something. I don’t know.”
I was thinking out loud, more for my benefit than anything else. There were so many places she could’ve traveled to, I didn’t know where to start. I certainly didn’t expect Philippa to latch onto my mumblings the way she did.
“Do you need any help? I can look around elsewhere, if you’d like.”
I looked over my shoulder, already halfway to the door. “What? Who are you?”
She blinked. “What’s that mean?”
“It means I have to wonder why you suddenly care so much about her.”
She gulped. “If you don’t want my help, you only have to say so.”
I wouldn’t go that far. The last thing I needed was to alienate yet another one of my siblings.
Instead, I replied, “No, stay here. I need you to keep an eye on the clan while I’m gone, after all. Not to mention the body in the vault.”
19
Sara
“Close your eyes.”
I knew better than to waste time. My eyes slid shut.
Over our endless training sessions, there was one thing I had learned about Stark that I knew was true, without question: he hated when I wasted time. And he considered even the slightest hesitation on my part as an attempt at doing just that.
Everything else I thought I knew was muddled, full of questions and contradictions. Why was he so kind and almost warm sometimes, but cold and aloof at the drop of a hat? How could he go from looking at me with something I imagined to be kindness, interest, even respect, to sneering at me like I was a bug just begging to be squashed? He ran hot and cold. Nothing in between.
At least he took our work seriously, which I guessed was the most important thing. I needed his help, desperately. He knew it—that might have been part of the reason why he thought he could get away with talking to me like he’d talk to a diseased rodent.
“Are you concentrating?”
I bit back an exasperated sigh. “Of course.”
“Because it doesn’t seem as though you are.”
“You read minds now? Is this one of your talents?” I opened my eyes ever so slightly.
“Close them.”
I sighed this time, but did as I was told.
He continued, “I can feel your energy. It diffuses, becomes muddled. When you’re concentrating, it’s…”
“Concentrated?” I asked in a sweet voice.
He only grumbled in reply.
I did what I was told, concentrating my energy the way he had so painstakingly taught me during our time together. I had completely lost track by now, the way a person could lose track of everything happening around them when they chose to focus attention on one very specific aspect of their life.
Days passed in a blur. Sometimes I had no idea whether it was morning or night. We often did our work in a windowless cell or dungeon, somewhere the electricity wouldn’t hurt anybody else and could merely be absorbed by the walls.
I couldn’t even remember the last time I saw my mother. I had been so happy to be with her after thinking she was gone for good—and the thought of her still made me happy, except it sat a little further back in my mind than I ever would’ve guessed it would. Rebuilding our relationship, soaking up every last second I could have with her… I wanted to. I did. But I also wanted to avoid killing everybody around me with electric bolts whenever I got even the slightest bit excited.
“You’re losing focus again,” Stark muttered, and he wasn’t happy.
The location of his voice kept changing. He was circling me slowly, like a shark. Waiting for me to show weakness before he pounced. I didn’t bother to reply, since it would only lead us to another argument. Instead, I focused harder than ever, just to show him I could.
Which was probably his plan all along.
He must have been pleased, because he continued. “Now. I want you think about something that upsets you. Something you hate. Something unfair. Something frustrating.”
How about you, I thought, suddenly bitter.
He ticked all those boxes. I did hate him sometimes, when he pushed too hard, too fast. When there wasn’t a trace of sympathy or understanding in his endlessly deep, dark eyes. When his handsome face wore a scowl pointed at me. When he reminded me I was a vampire, as though I needed the reminder. As though there was anything I could do about it. Like being a vampire was the worst sin a person could commit. He was so cruel.
The power built in my core, just as he knew it would. I knew it, too. And I still had the vague memory of how that power used to terrify me. I’d feel that buildup, like a generator running deep inside me, running hot and hard, on the verge of blowing up. I’d feel it, and it would only serve to make me panic, which would make the energy built up worse than ever. The whole process would feed on itself until I lost control.
I was in control now. The hours of intense training had earned me that much.
“Visualize,” he commanded. “You’re holding the energy together, in a ball. It’s tight, bright, right in the center of your body.” I saw it. It was there. Inside me.
“Now, transform it.”
That wasn’t such a simple matter. I could harness the energy, at least, which was a tremendous improvement over the days of letting it ruin me. Transforming it into power, strength—that was something else. I imagined the light glowing away, the ball of energy expanding until it filled my entire body with greater strength than I had ever felt.
Then, it faded. It was still there, but the light was gone. The raging, dangerous aspect had dissipated until it was nothing.
I opened my eyes.
“Well done.” It would’ve been much nicer and a lot more believable if he looked sincere instead of begrudging.
“Thank you.”
“Can you still feel it in there?” He surprised me by stepping closer, placing his hands on my shoulders.
We were rarely this close, like I was something he couldn’t allow himself to touch.
“I can,” I breathe
d, wishing he didn’t make my heart jump the way he did. When was the last time I thought about Scott? And why did Scott even come to mind when it was Stark who was touching me, staring into my eyes?
“It’s part of you. Your power.”
I winced and shook my head. “But I don’t want it.”
And just like that, the brief moment of closeness was over.
His hands dropped to his sides. “That’s not my problem, is it?”
“I thought you were going to help me.”
I watched with a sinking heart as he walked away, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed. He stood between two lit torches, and their light sent shadows dancing across his face along with the warm glow from the flames. I couldn’t read him.
“What would you call what we’ve been doing here?” he asked after a long, stony silence. “You came to me a girl who couldn’t control even the slightest impulse. You would stand there with your hands under your armpits, just in case the electricity escaped and hurt someone. Right?”
He even mimicked my pose with a knowing sneer. I felt roughly two inches tall.
There was a time when I would’ve crumbled. I would’ve buckled under the weight of his glare. Not this time.
I threw my head back. “I didn’t mean that, and you know it. I’m not here to learn to embrace this new side of myself or adapt to whatever I am now. I don’t want any of it. This isn’t what I need most.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked me up and down. “What you need most is a spanking.”
“Shut up. I refuse to let you speak to me like I’m a child.”
He nodded slowly. “And this is what your power is doing to you. Don’t you feel it?”
“What?”
“This new… strength. You’re still the same brat you were before, always letting your impulses guide your actions. A little mouthy, while I’m being honest.”
“Oh, and I wouldn’t want you to be anything but honest,” I muttered.
“But you’re standing up to me—and when you do, it’s not with a burst of emotion or tears or any of that. You’re standing straight and tall. This is new, and it’s encouraging.”