“Turns out I know a lot.” She grinned brightly. “She’s being held prisoner— Oops!” Her eyes widened dramatically. “I slipped.”
She knew my mother? It was impossible. “Prisoner? I don’t believe you. Why would anyone imprison my mother?”
“Surely Carden told you.” She stared at me in a moment of prolonged silence, then burst into tittering laughter. “You don’t even know, do you? Oh, this will be a treat.”
“You’re lying.” Carden had said he didn’t know how to find her, and he wouldn’t lie to me. It was Charlotte who lied. “I don’t believe you.”
“I can see that.” She wiped her eyes, still shivering with amusement. “Tell you what: I’ll let you know how to find her. I’ll even give you a head start. But I’ll get to her first. You’ll be too late to help your dying mommy.”
CHAPTER THREE
My mother. I had to save her. I had to leave. Now. No matter the cost.
But first, I had to find Carden.
I stormed to the dining hall. My vampire wasn’t lying to me. It was impossible.
No, I’d find him and tell him what I’d learned. Charlotte told me my mother was being held prisoner by the Synod vampires in some faraway compound.
I knew those vamps. The Synod of Seven were a bunch of old-school German vampires, led by the baddest of them all, an ancient monk named Jacob, who made Alcántara look like The Count from Sesame Street. Jacob was the sort of guy who considered teetering stacks of skulls a decorating choice. Plus he had a penchant for ballroom dancing, and as far as I was concerned, it didn’t get any more sadistic than that.
I’d saved Carden from Jacob’s dungeon—it was how I’d first met my Scottish vampire. Carden had snapped Jacob’s neck as we escaped, but Jacob was super old and super powerful, and something told me he wasn’t dead.
Carden would want to go, I knew. And not just because it was me, and he’d want to help. He hated those vampires. He and I would leave, tonight. We’d save her together.
An intense surge of emotion wavered my vision as I thought of those I’d been unable to save. Emma, Yasuo. My best friends. I’d been unable to help them, though something deep inside me had known all this time that their fates had been sealed the day Emma chose not to fight me in Alcántara’s brutal Directorate Challenge.
I just hadn’t expected the final retribution to come from Charlotte. Ronan’s sister. I still reeled from the discovery that she was alive. There’d been a day when Ronan had loved her—more than anything. He probably still did. Could I infiltrate Jacob’s dungeons, rescue my mother, and maybe kill Ronan’s only remaining family in the process?
I found Carden outside the dining hall, right where we’d agreed to meet. Back when my biggest concern had been things like memorizing verb declensions in old Norse and finishing my mythology paper on time.
A muscular arm snatched me from behind. “Such a face you pull, dove. Won’t you give us a smile?”
I pulled away—I needed to get this out. “My mom is a prisoner?”
His face went blank.
My heart sank. “Wait, did you know that?”
“I know—”
My stomach churned. I’d thought Carden was always honest with me—but did that only apply to the things he chose to tell me? “You know? You know?”
“I know your mother is in no immediate danger.” The cadence of his calm and measured words felt patronizing.
The clock was ticking. I didn’t have time for patronizing. “Immediate danger—what does that even mean? No, Carden. We need to leave, like, yesterday.” He’d known this and hadn’t told me? It made me feel lost. At a loss. I struggled to find my next words, but all that came out was, “What are you thinking?”
Even to my ears, my voice sounded shrill, and he snugged me close. “The walls have ears,” he whispered. “Come, you must eat.” He began to pull me into the dining room. “In any case, you can’t go running off with an empty belly. I’ll explain my mind over food.”
Something hardened inside, and I pulled away. “Explain here.”
A group of Trainees walked past, watching us intently.
Once again, Carden wrapped that hard arm around me. “You are surrounded by enemies. Now, come, sweet. We will act as we always do. You will nourish yourself, and we will discuss this calmly.”
My traitorous belly fluttered with hunger. I hesitated, but the call of those shooters of blood I’d come to rely on was too strong, and I fell into step. “Fine. But we’re going to make it quick. Then we’re getting out of here.”
I’d worried the dining hall wouldn’t be the best setting to have a confidential conversation, but as we entered and the noise enveloped us like a hot, curry-scented blanket, I realized the ambient sound would drown our words out, blocking any potential eavesdroppers.
The moment we had our trays and sat nestled at a table in the corner, Carden tangled his fingers with mine. “You know I’d follow you to the ends of the earth.”
I was not in the mood for his charms and untangled my fingers from his. “Not now.”
He looked taken aback. I’d never had any qualms about giving my tongue free rein, and yet I’d never spoken to Carden like this.
But the issue was too important. I knew where my mother was. I grew up thinking she’d been a Florida housewife who’d died young. But not only was she alive, she was a part of my messed-up world. The coincidence was exhilarating. Overwhelming.
Had Ronan known? Because my recruitment couldn’t have been a coincidence.
That my biological mother and I had both been found and imprisoned by these vampires—it was the biggest connection ever. We both, somehow, through our choices, had found ourselves in the darkest place in the world.
All the clichés suddenly felt true. I truly was my mother’s daughter. And I had to save her. No matter what. At all costs. Period.
“Fine, lass. I’m listening. Why the sudden urgency?”
I told him. I had no choice. I confessed everything.
Well, not everything. I think he’d probably kill Ronan with his bare hands if he knew we’d kissed. And I would keep Ronan’s counsel and remain silent about the truth behind the misericordia and his involvement. But I had to tell Carden about Dagursson, about his relationship with Charlotte.
About how members of the Synod were now holed up in some stronghold in Norway, where they were holding my mother hostage. Charlotte was going to find them—not to rescue my mother, but so she could have the pleasure of killing her in front of me.
I told him. And then silence.
“Carden?” He wasn’t jumping into action the way I’d hoped he would. Charlotte had implied he was the one lying. But surely he hadn’t known this. “Did you know that about my mom? You didn’t, right?”
I tried to catch his eye to gauge what was going on in his head, but he was too busy staring at my tray. “You going to eat that…that disc?”
“This?” I speared said disc onto my fork. “Yeah, Salisbury steak.” I bit off a chunk, eager to eat and run. Speaking as I chewed, I detailed the plan. “I spoke with Tom, and he said he can get us on a boat to the Shetlands.”
“Us?” Carden was eyeing me like I’d begun speaking Greek. “Tom?”
“The Draug Keeper. That Tom.” As I cut my meat into smaller chunks, I elaborated, “From the Shetlands, we’ll catch a floatplane to Reykjavik. Then onto a cargo ship to Hammerfest, Norway. Fun fact: Nazis took over Hammerfest during World War II. I guess there must’ve been some vamps among them, because they didn’t want to leave once the war was over. Those crazy-ass Synod vampires—you know, like Jacob and the ones who held you hostage? Apparently there’s a whole nest of his crew nearby.” I paused to catch Carden’s eye. Was this all news to him? I still couldn’t tell. “Just stop me if you know all this already. Anyway, the vampires all live on an industrial island off the coast—it’s called Melkøya. Did you know that was such a thing? Industrial islands, I mean? The place is just one big factory. Apparently, it’s the endpoin
t of an undersea gas pipeline.”
Did he know this? For all I knew, he’d been to Melkøya before. For all I knew, he’d already seen my mother there.
I took another angry bite of my steak, even though my appetite had fled. The blank look he was giving me made my belly twist. “Do you like the plan?”
“This is no plan. There is no plan. Because you’re not leaving.”
“Of course I’m leaving.” I let out a little nervous laugh. My heart was beating double-time now. What was his problem? We were always on the same page about things. What was going on? “I assumed you’d go with me. I mean, hello? My mother is alive and being held prisoner?”
He leaned back from the table, kicking his feet out. “It’s too dangerous. It’ll be the time of The Rising for those fools.”
Hearing his calm statement made my world flip over on itself. “So you…you knew? You know about this island, about everything?”
“Be at ease, lass. I don’t know everything. All I know is the Synod holds some fool summit at the advent of every polar night. That’s what they’ll be about. Travel there is impossible. The reward isn’t worth the risk.”
“Excuse me? The reward? This isn’t some prize—”
His hand whipped out, grabbed my own, and held it almost too tightly. “Do you know why they have your mother? Why they keep her? She is of an ancient and powerful bloodline. Have you ever wondered at your own appeal to the vampires? At your own strength?” I opened my mouth to reply, and he cut me off. “No, it is not because of your innate talents,” he scoffed, “much as you’d like to think it.”
“No need to be mean,” I grumbled.
“This is no time to be peevish, Annelise. There are many talented people on this earth. But your mother, you…you hail from some very powerful ancestors. And to feed from your blood—”
I sat upright, said blood chilling in my veins. “You feed from this blood.”
Uncertainty scratched at the very recesses of my soul.
His features hardened. “Do you doubt my affections? Don’t forget—you fed me first.” He softened. “But aye, what you say is true. Your blood holds power, just as mine holds power for you. And would you say that’s the only reason you choose to be with me?”
Would I still choose him without the bond we shared? If there were no blood fever?
Thoughts like that were unproductive. Carden was here, now, with me. I deflated, feeling silly at my momentary spurt of doubt. Now was not the time to go crazy girlfriend on him. “No, you’re right. That’s not why I’m with you.”
“And so you see? You can’t go. You’d be in too much danger. Your mother is a prisoner, yes, but she is not in mortal danger. She is too valuable to them alive. As you would be. They would only want to imprison you, too. And your heart is younger than hers. Think what would happen were they to use you to do more than merely feed vampires, but to create them?”
Despair washed over me.
But…my mom.
What was she doing now? Would she recognize me if she saw me? Would we resemble each other? I had to see her. I couldn’t bear this. I needed to rescue her from what surely was a fate worse than death.
A handful of Guidons swanned into the dining hall, and I canted my head to the side to avoid being struck by a wayward tray.
“Listen,” I told him with renewed intensity, “with you helping me, I’d have a shot, right? You and I could totally save her. Or need I remind you how good I am at rescuing people from Jacob’s dungeons?” I nudged him, a reminder that I’d saved him from exactly that.
He sat back again, arms crossed with finality. “I cannot allow you to go. Trust me when I say that now is not the right time. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?” I put my fork down and stared at him. I’d had to raise my voice to be heard over the rising din. “Last I checked, I was in charge of my own self, thank you very much.”
“Not so long as we’re bonded—”
Bonded, bonded, bonded. Wasn’t that supposed to make me stronger?
I leaned forward, and my whispered words came out a frustrated hiss. “You said yourself the bond was a partnership. A thing that deepened our relationship. Not something that hobbled me. This isn’t the eighteenth century, Carden. I haven’t gone off to some man’s home never to return to my own. I’m shocked family doesn’t mean more to you.”
His features hardened in an instant. “Shocked? I’m shocked you’d think yourself capable of so ridiculous a plan. Shocked you’d be so foolish to have faced Dagursson and Charlotte alone in the first place.”
“I lived, didn’t I?” I was tired of trying to prove I was stronger than what he took me for.
“Aye, and lucky you were indeed. Why didn’t you ask me for help? What would I have done if something had happened to you? You, a child, facing two of my kind alone—”
Now he was just making me feel dumb. “I’m not that stupid,” I snapped.
The moment the words were out, I knew I’d made a mistake.
He put words to his realization, slowly and coldly. “You weren’t alone.”
I gave the barest shrug and braced myself.
“Because you were with Ronan,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
I was shaking my head before he finished speaking. “I can explain. Dagursson was going to kill Ronan. I was right there, outside his office. There wasn’t time to find you. It all just…happened.” I needed to explain this just right, but it was hard to concentrate. The noise from the next table had gotten loud enough to draw my eye away from him. “Can’t these people chill for two minutes?”
I scooted around in my chair to see what was going on. My eyes went straight to Regina, despite the fact she was the smallest person in the room. She was like a little black cloud, if clouds were comprised of scowls and nerves. I’d have sworn she had a neon kick me sign hanging over her head.
Is that how I looked? Because, yet again, there was something about her that resonated with me. Maybe it was the height thing, her being short like me. Why else had I gone to her defense in the first place? More than that, I’d come to consider her a bit of a protégé. We’d developed a rapport, bolstered in large part by the fact that she was the one who’d come to find me when Ronan was in the process of being slowly killed by the torture-happy Dagursson.
And now the Guidons had descended on Regina and were messing with her in the usual dining hall bullying ways. Sprinkling bread crumbs into her hair. Pulling her tray away again and again, just at the last minute. Slowly drizzling her drink onto her plate, her shoulders.
“I am so sick of this,” I murmured. I’d been unable to save Emma or cure Yasuo. And I couldn’t rescue my mom right this minute. But I could help Regina. I scooted my chair back and shifted my weight forward, sliding my feet into place. I didn’t care what gaffe the poor girl had inadvertently perpetrated, she did not deserve this treatment. “I’m over it.”
The weight of Carden’s hand on my forearm held me back. “You’ve done enough to call attention to yourself. Every move you make tempts fate. Now please, love, stop being contrary.”
I froze. I was done taking orders.
But then he spoke again, his voice low and cold. “This is not the way to save your mother.”
I glanced back at Regina, at the glop of cream soup that’d made a swath of her curls hang flat and beige. “But—”
His fingers tightened into a grip. “You cannot.”
My shoulders fell. I was trapped. Trapped in this dining hall. And, as long as I was bonded to a vampire, I was trapped on this island. Trapped in this strange, sadistic world until someone more powerful than me decided otherwise. I forced my muscles to go lax.
This was one time I wouldn’t be able to help poor Regina. She was on her own. We all were.
Defeat and anger warred inside me. But I needed to keep my priorities in mind, and right now my only priority was my mother. I dropped back into my seat, mumbling. “What’s the saying? Lie back and thin
k of England?”
Carden’s expression warmed, a smile curling the edges of his hard mouth. “Never that, lass. She’s not my queen.”
With a heavy sigh, I stole one last glance at the hazing going on at the other table.
I was so sick of these people. Sick of getting hassled. Of watching other kids get hassled. Or worse, seeing how fear turned them into feral and sadistic little tyrants. All in the name of survival of the fittest. “Darwin would’ve loved this place, I swear.”
He chuckled.
The reassuring sound made me turn back around in my seat. I supposed Carden was right. I needed to lie low, which meant I shouldn’t get involved.
I pushed the steak around on my plate. Picked up my fork. Put it down again.
“You need nourishment.” Carden gently took my hand and wrapped it back around the utensil. “Now tell me why you insist on being so defiant. I have told you your mother is in no immediate danger. We will find her and save her in good time. What put this fool notion into your head, that you might just leave and reunite with her as though you were a normal woman and not what you are?”
What I am? Suddenly my throat was too tight to speak. I wasn’t the one knee-deep in half-truths, and yet he spoke to me like I was the troublesome one.
“How can you be so certain about this island dungeon? Ye wee loon, thinking to go off half-cocked.”
He was being his casual Carden self, but the dismissive tone made me anxious to explain myself. “Charlotte gave me a list—”
“She wrote you a list?” He made it sound like she and I were planning our grocery shopping or something.
“Not like that,” I said, on the defensive. “It was a list of numbers.”
“Numbers,” he repeated.
“Geographic coordinates,” I explained. I hadn’t given up hope—I still wanted to convince Carden I was in earnest. Because with or without his help, I would go forward with my plan. As it was, I was still disheartened I’d been unable to help Regina. I needed to assert some agency in my life—especially when it came to this, my mother, the most important thing. “She said it’s the exact location of where my mother is being held. I mean, she might be lying, but—”
Reckoning (The Watchers Book 5) Page 3