Lilac grinned. “Say goodbye to your boyfriend.” Her eyes were raking over Carden like maybe it might be her turn.
Thankfully Carden remained by my side, standing just as rigidly as I was. Frankly, I’d been wondering whose side he was on.
It gave me strength.
“I want to see my mo—” I began, but his hand on my arm silenced me.
“No,” he said to Freya, and for an instant my heart swelled. He was going to help me after all. But then he said, “Jacob already suspects our intentions. But how much will he appreciate your gift if he thinks you’ve brought him Annelise? She’ll be our ticket inside. Her scent will ease our passage across the border. Once we’re inside, I’ll keep her safe and hidden. You will have the appearance of generosity and goodwill. Then, while your courier delivers the goods, I’ll get Annelise off the island. She’ll disappear, and you’ll blame me.”
Freya considered this for several moments. “I don’t understand what is in it for you, Carden. Why keep the child close? What purpose does it serve you?”
He grinned. “Maybe I’m just a sentimental bastard.”
But Freya didn’t smile as she studied him. “You go to find the mother,” she concluded with exaggerated disappointment. “After all I’ve said.”
But Carden was undaunted. “You say you want to keep the peace, not endanger it. You need your courier to cross the border unmolested. You need Jacob to accept this year’s offering. And I say, the merest whiff of Annelise will ensure safe passage. I do believe it is the best of all possible strategies.”
Freya softened just the slightest bit. “I need your word you won’t do anything foolish where Birgit is concerned.”
He gave her a deep bow. “Please grant a faithful servant this one request.”
Something in me relaxed just a little. I knew Carden. He was Mr. Honorable. And just now while he was fawning with loyalty, he hadn’t explicitly given his word.
But then he added, “If you allow Annelise to see her mother—merely see—then she will go with you faithfully.”
WTF? My mouth went dry. I will?
This was so not in the plan.
I began to protest, but there was a strange intensity to the look on Freya’s face that kept me silent. She looked nervous. Anxious. Like she actually feared my rebellion.
Maybe I really was strong enough to get myself out of this. To get my mother out of this.
I’d pledge my loyalty, just as Carden did. But unlike Carden, when we reached the end of the game, I’d change the rules.
“Just this one thing,” I pleaded. “Then I’ll come with you.”
Not.
Finally, Freya gave Carden a slow nod. “Fine. You will keep the child under wraps. Her scent will ease your crossing, but she is not to be seen under any circumstances.”
Oh, I was going to be seen all right.
Because I had a goal. And it was very clearly different from their goal.
I was going to save my mother if I needed to kill Jacob and every Synod monster in my path to do it. Because I would get off this rock. Out of this hemisphere. Back to some sunny, hot place. Even stupid inland Florida would do.
My fury was ignited. And so was my hope.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“From now on, Carden McCloud, you will do as you’re told.” Freya snapped her hood back into place. “I must go. I’ve already wasted enough time. The courier will arrive within the hour. He will bring you to Melkøya. But first”—she shooed toward the houseful of dead Nazis—“you will clean up your mess.”
The moment she and Lilac vanished into the night, I turned to Carden. “We’re still going to save my mom, right? You were just placating her to keep me with you?”
He sighed, and it was a horrible, weary sound, like he was under siege from me or something. “Saving Birgit isn’t out of the question,” he hedged.
I opened my mouth to pick that statement apart, but he stopped me. “Don’t say it. I’m doing the best I can for you.”
The best he could for me. Because his very best was reserved for his own kind? I heard myself say, “You’ll never leave her, will you?”
There was a horrible pause that told me more than any words ever could. Finally, he asked, “Don’t we have other concerns at the moment?”
I only shrugged. Carden was batshit loyal, and I knew I figured in there somewhere, but it was hitting me how I probably wasn’t at the tippy-top of his list.
I swallowed my concerns. I was done playing their vampire games. I’d keep the peace and accept whatever help I could get.
After that, it looked like I’d be on my own.
Which meant I needed to harden myself even more. I needed to prepare. To get an idea of the full picture. Up till now, I’d let people like Carden and Ronan shoulder too much of the responsibility. But it was on me now to know everything.
As we headed back into the house to begin our vile cleanup, I changed the subject. “Please tell me this gift isn’t what I think it is. I’d like to know what—or who—this courier is going to show up with.” I couldn’t control much in this world, but I could set my expectations.
The beleaguered look that washed over Carden’s face told me all I needed to know. The gift would be exactly what I thought it was. Just one more horror in a spectacular canon of horrors.
And I’d deal with it like I always did.
“Never mind,” I muttered. “Let’s just get this over with.”
I saw in Carden’s eyes that he was done fighting—against this world, against me—and apparently I was done too, because we cleaned up in total silence after that, clearing bodies, stacking them in a frozen culvert, concealing them under a pile of icy branches and chunks of snow.
He speared his shovel into the newly formed snow bank and finally broke the silence. “We’ll let Freya’s people clean this up come spring. ’Tis their fault we were caught in a trap anyhow.”
I didn’t get a chance to reply before the sound of an engine carried to us through the still night.
My heart instinctively kicked into high gear. What hideous surprise was rattling up the drive?
I thought it and then it appeared, a tidy Euro-version of a box truck. It glowed white in the moonlight and was a bit dinged up, but it was the cargo space in the back that held my attention.
“What the hell?” I whispered to myself. I’d learned when I broke into the keep what the vampires craved. Whose hearts they consumed in order to transition from Tracer to Vampire. Whose blood they drank to sustain them.
I’d suspected what Freya’s offering would be, but seeing that cubelike cargo area—large enough for boxes…or bodies—brought home the truth.
As the truck shuddered to a stop, Carden walked straight for the back, and I was right at his heels. After a few sharp slaps of his hand, he unlatched the door.
I stood beside him. I had to see for myself.
It creaked open. And sure enough, over half a dozen girls were inside. Their bleeding bodies littered the floor, lying atop a tarp. Gotta keep the vehicle clean, right?
“I’ll get her for this.” I clenched my jaw thinking of Freya, of her betrayal of her own sex, and I had to choke back the sudden clench of emotion in my throat. “These are just girls.”
I could tell from the softer, younger features of a couple of them that they were brand-new Acari. But there were older girls, too. There was a tangle of blue-catsuited legs belonging to a couple of Guidons and one Watcher. Then I saw two faces that sent a stabbing pain through my chest.
My old proctor, Kenzie, was there. She’d once saved me from attack when Yasuo had lost his mind in a late-night poolside showdown. And there was Regina, too—the petite, curly-haired Acari whom I’d come to consider a bit of a protégé. Ronan had recently saved her from bullying in the dining hall, but it hadn’t been enough to rescue her from this. The Isle of Night was rich with bullshit irony like that.
It was like a veil of red dropped over my eyes, because the next thing I k
new, I’d leapt into the back of the truck and was on my hands and knees in front of her.
As my eyes adjusted to the dark space, I detected a fine thread of steam puffing from her nose with every exhale.
I gasped. “She’s alive.” I scampered from body to body. They had varying degrees of injuries, but every single girl was breathing. “All of them. They’re alive.”
“Aye, they’re Freya’s wee gifts.” Carden’s voice was thick with scorn. “Come, love.” He put his hand out for me to take. “Best you ride up front.”
His scorn wasn’t enough. Judgment wasn’t nearly enough. This situation demanded more.
I clambered closer but ignored his outstretched hand. I hissed, “We have to help them.”
I expected outrage from Carden or even sympathy, but the expression that met mine was hard and as cold as the polar night air. “Get out of the truck, Ann.”
My jaw, my stomach, my heart…it all fell in disbelief. “You’re going to allow this?”
He snatched my arm and practically dragged me back out of the truck. “What would you have me do? You ask too much already. You cannot have your every whim met. Some things are not possible, Annelise.” He slammed the door shut and relatched it. “They aren’t pure of blood. We could save them, and then what? They’re weak. These are the girls who have failed. Sonja wanted their hearts, which would’ve been a fate far worse than this. But they were salvaged—at great risk to Freya’s operatives on the Isle—and would you make their risk count for nothing? Think of these as sacrifices. For a greater good.”
“Who are you right now? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. They’re not sacrifices, they’re girls.”
“You know well who I am. What I am. And what of you, Annelise? Are you so innocent?” His expression softened. “My love, please listen. This is a dangerous game we play. We are in deep. And we cannot lose. If Jacob and his people win, the consequences would be dire indeed. This”—he hitched a thumb toward the truck—“would be nothing compared to the carnage that the Synod wants to unleash.”
“I know, but…” I deflated, my voice tapering out. “It’s Regina…”
“I love you, Ann. God help me, I am yours to command. You want to save these girls? Fine. I will kill the courier myself. But—” He stressed the word, reaching for me, and this time I let him take my hand. “—You wish to see your mother, correct?”
At my pained nod, he went on. “Then you must choose. Because if these girls aren’t delivered on schedule, then you’ll not get even the slightest glimpse of Birgit. Because the vampires will be raging. Freya will be raging. What do you think will happen when she goes before Jacob to pay her obeisance and her offering doesn’t appear? She may want you on Eilean Ban-Laoch, but even that would be too great a transgression for her. If you took this from her, she’d find you and use you as a token of her respect instead.”
He took my shoulders, holding me tightly. “I will not let that happen. I will bring you inside because I love you. Because it is what you desire. You will look upon your mother. But this”—he spared a quick glance into the back of the truck—“this is too great a risk. To me, you are worth an entire truckload of girls.”
“But I’m not. I’m just me. Why should I be more important than anybody else?”
“You are,” he said fiercely. “You wee fool. Have you not figured it out? Your blood, and yes, even Lilac’s blood, it’s richer. Closer to those of our ancestors. It’s why you’ve always been stronger than the others. Why Alcántara wants you alive. Why Sonja wants you dead. Your blood would reinvigorate their stock. And it would certainly be more than enough to buy another year of peace between Freya and Jacob. It’d give us another year to gather our strength. To build our army. Because this is a war we fight, Annelise. And these girls, yes, I know it’s hard, but these girls are a small loss in a single battle, when what we fight is a war. A war that’s spanned centuries.”
I wanted to believe him. To feel in my heart what he felt. I wanted to stand tall with Carden by my side. But how could I when this was his worldview?
His voice gentled. “Listen, dove. Our world is not black and white. It’s never so easy as that. Not even when I walked this earth as a man was the world that simple. Don’t forget the good Freya has done. How she saved me. Spared me that I might care for my family.”
He was entrenched, and there was no getting him out. Not so long as he pledged himself to Freya. I swayed into him. “I just wish things were different.”
Carden shifted me so that he could catch my eye. “I work for Freya. Like it or not, you do too now. I know it’s hard to accept, but trust me when I say she is the lesser of many evils.”
He was kneading my shoulders in a way that was supposed to reassure me, and ever so subtly, I found myself receding from his touch. “You’re right. We can’t let Jacob win. It’s just…this isn’t my war.”
“Aye, love. But it’s mine.”
I put on my game face. Gave him my accepting nod. But inside I grieved. I railed. Because I did not accept this. Would not.
I’d save my mother and then I’d run as far and as fast as I could from here. And if they killed me…well, anything would be better than living among this evil. Because once this war was fought, I was sure there’d be another, and another, and another. That’s just how it was with creatures who craved power as these vampires did.
“Okay,” I said, letting him steer me toward the front. “I get it. But I don’t have to like it.”
“And I do?” Carden mused, but his usual cavalier humor rang false in my ears.
I kept my eyes to the ground as I tried desperately to arrange my features into something brave. Something cold and strong and standing alone.
There was the creak of cold metal as Carden opened the passenger door. He greeted the driver. “So you’re the new errand boy.”
I looked up.
Behind the wheel was Ronan.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I staggered backward and bumped into Carden, who caught me by the shoulders. “Get in,” he said, jealousy pulling his voice taut. “I’ll padlock the back.”
My vampire wouldn’t like seeing Ronan affecting me this way.
But affect me he did. Betrayal seared through me at the sight of him.
I understood why Carden was here. I got his motivations. He was a vampire in the midst of a war. He was a creature of honor and loyalty who owed a debt to someone he called his queen.
But Ronan? Ronan was my friend. Probably my best friend. Often my only friend. He had a heart—an actual live, pumping one. He’d always been…well, he’d been my hope. The one ray of light that’d kept me alive, literally and figuratively.
His presence here was incomprehensible.
The deception, the agony of it, slammed into me like a physical thing that wedged deep under my skin, wending through me until the feeling lodged somewhere in the vicinity of my heart and made it hard to breathe.
Seeing Ronan behind the wheel of that truck threw everything I knew, everything I understood about myself, into doubt. My friendships, my trials, my triumphs…none of it meant anything if Ronan was actually this person. This person who could drive a truckload of girls—girls he’d taught—into the enemy’s innermost lair, serving them up for this absurd vampire celebration like they were a selection of canapés.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said, not bothering to mask the venom in my tone. “I hear you’re the one who saved Lilac. You remember her, right? The one who kept trying to kill me?”
I climbed into the truck and dove straight for the back cab area, clambering onto the tiny bench that served as a backseat. Being in this close a space with him was bad enough—I couldn’t bear if I had to sit next to him.
I adjusted myself on the hard, narrow perch, and tore into him. “But I guess that’s what you do, right? Run errands for vampires. Serve them. Maybe it’s Sonja, maybe it’s Freya—does it really matter as long as you make it out alive? I guess this is who
you’ve really been all this time.”
Still no reaction from him, so my voice rose in intensity. I was letting it all out, all the terror and heartbreak that’d built up during my time on the Isle, I let it all rip. “All your talk of caring about me, looking out for me, it’s all been bullshit. Pretending to be sad when you lost your so-called friends—remember Amanda? Tracer Judge?—it was so perfect how you pretended to be so sad when they were killed, but they’re the ones who died, right? Not you. Because you never risked anything. Because all this time you’ve been this…this…person who throws girls into the big old vampire wood-chipper, and then afterward you pull out the ones who are still breathing and take them to where they’re needed most. Supper’s on, right?”
He was silent. But I needed him to talk, dammit, so I pressed, “What are you even doing here? You knew I’d be here. Aren’t you ashamed to show yourself in front of me? Why did you come?”
He turned, and damned if I hadn’t situated myself too close. His face was inches from mine, his words exploding in a tormented rasp. “You think I’d really just let you go?”
The earnestness, the anguish in his voice was a fresh spear through my heart. Because I knew now.
It was all a lie.
Carden swung his large body into the passenger seat, and I flinched away so abruptly, I thumped my head on the back of the tight space. “Dammit,” I hissed.
He looked from me to Ronan, and something like distrust sharpened his features. But then he slammed the door and kicked back in his seat like he was on a chaise in the South of France instead of a box truck headed for an industrial island infested with ancient evil.
“Did you have any trouble?” he asked Ronan.
The Tracer gave a tight shake to his head.
The truck rumbled back to life. Ronan put it in gear and put the safe house behind us.
There were a few beats of silence before Carden, sounding impatient, pressed, “You can’t tell me Fournier just let you go.”
“Fournier is dead,” Ronan said curtly. “Alcántara is in charge.”
Reckoning (The Watchers Book 5) Page 13