A Portrait of Pain

by Jane Washington

  “That’s no concern to someone who can’t die,” I finally replied, walking back to the window.

  I could see where Silas’s car had stopped; they hadn’t gone too far away. The small row of houses stood taller than the rest, claiming the only straight piece of road leading up to the top of Le Chateau. They were only specks in the distance, but I could feel her, and that made them seem closer than they really were. She used to keep herself shielded from us, but since bonding to Noah and Cabe, it seemed to have become more difficult for her.

  I felt her all the time now.

  Not that it mattered. She had haunted most of my waking thoughts since the day I met her. This was no different, she was simply putting a little bit of active participation into the haunting.

  “You think Danny did this?” Jack asked, calling my attention back to him. He had raised his head, and his eyebrows.

  “He’s the only one with the motivation to do it. Last year he surrounded the high school in explosives, what makes you think that he gives a crap about the number of Zevghéri people affected by his war with Seraph? And what makes you think his war is even with Seraph anymore? He killed Weston and ran away; he could have stayed and fought, he could have tried to kill her and Silas—”

  “He was outnumbered,” Obasi stated, his deep voice tired.

  “And injured,” Nahab added, always one step behind Obasi.

  They were always together, those two. For as long as I had known them. Obasi would speak, Nahab would follow.

  “You’re all forgetting …” Adie broke in quietly.

  Since Adie usually projected his words with a booming tenor, we all turned to stare at him. The longer I stared at his dejected expression, witnessing the guilt and hurt that flickered in his eyes, the more obvious the answer became.

  “Takeo.” Jack sighed. “And Alice.”

  “Alice would never,” Adie growled, his face contorting, turning a shade of red to match his hair. His voice was loud once again. “He’s keeping her alive, but that doesn’t mean that she’s helping. She wouldn’t.”

  None of us answered, because none of us knew what to say. It was possible to betray those that you were bonded to—just as possible as it was to betray anyone. Adie seemed sure that his Atmá would not turn against us, but we didn’t have any evidence of that. The only thing we knew for certain, was that Takeo had betrayed us, and Alice was with Takeo.

  Jayden pushed through the doors, stuffing his phone back into his pocket and looking as weary as the rest of us. “That was one of our contacts in the State Department. They were supposed to have a list of known sorcerers, with a whole bunch of evidence to back up the claim, but he finally got his hands on the list, and there’s only one name on it.”

  I swore roughly, tunnelling my hands straight back into my hair. I needed to cut it again, so that I wouldn’t be able to pull on it anymore. This was getting worse by the second.

  “What name?” Somehow, I already knew the answer. We all did.

  “Seraph Black.”

  “So this is Danny’s doing, then,” I growled.

  “Maybe,” Yas allowed, casting another look at Adie, “but he probably has help.”

  “Whoever did this needed a lot of help. From some very important people.” Jayden echoed my thoughts aloud. “I’ve been wiping minds as per protocol whenever a person breaks from our society. It can’t be a disgruntled former Zev. It has to be either Takeo, Danny, or … one of us.”

  “What?” Sophie asked, spinning to face the room fully. It was the first time she had spoken since entering the room. She and Sophia were usually the quiet ones, watching from a corner. Taking everything in. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I need to be sure; I need to examine everyone’s mind.”

  A wave of protest swelled from every direction, but I stayed quiet, watching the specks in the distance. I was sure that this was Danny’s doing. He knew that he was outnumbered, that we were going to stick ourselves to Seraph until he was dead. He wouldn’t be able to get close to her again, so he was going to use the humans to destroy her, even if it meant destroying our entire society.

  “There is another option,” I muttered, pulling out my phone.

  Somehow, they heard me, because the room dropped into immediate silence. Maybe they had been waiting for me to speak up, to offer the solution.

  “Miss me already?” Silas goaded, answering the call.

  “I need you to bring Seph up here. Let the others finish without her.”

  He grunted out something that might have been an acknowledgement, and I waited while he seemed to move the phone away from his mouth. “The Voda is summoning you,” his voice was only partly muffled, which meant that he had deliberately let me hear that. The dick. I couldn’t hear her reply, but Silas returned a moment later, muttering that they were on their way, and I hung up the call. Everyone was watching me; I had no idea what they were waiting for, but it was clear that they were waiting for something.

  “How’s it going with you five?” Jayden eventually spoke up.

  He seemed smug, as though he took a secret pleasure in knowing how difficult our situation would be. I thought I understood his bitterness: not as clearly as Seraph seemed to understand it, but enough. I would be bitter if I didn’t have her. That was enough to help me understand.

  “Fine,” I grunted.

  Silas had begun to rub off on me, and me on him. It was unfortunate, because I hadn’t wanted to change, but some things were unavoidable. All of the stress was hardening me, and Seraph was softening him. He was still bat-shit crazy, but he smiled more, and he hadn’t shown his pathological alter ego since pushing Cabe off the bridge. He was a changed man, for now … and I was picking up everything that he seemed to be shedding. Maybe Seraph was the cure; maybe I needed to give in like the rest of them.

  “Just fine?” Jayden’s tone was leading: leading me into an argument, or a confrontation of some kind. Leading me away from the salvation of my own thoughts.

  Dammit, I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be down there, with them. Picking out houses; fooling ourselves into thinking that this was a fresh, new start.

  “We’re managing,” I told Jayden—and let’s face it, the rest of the damn room. They were all listening so hard that their ears were almost turning red. “There haven’t been any issues so far.”

  Jayden had the nerve to laugh, but Jack reached over the chair separating them and smacked him in the chest. Jack was a big guy, his arms almost twice the size of Jayden’s, and he had easily ten years on him. The smack looked like it hurt.

  But Jayden wasn’t ready to give up just yet. “No issues?” he continued, rubbing his chest, his smile tense. “So … no more attempted murder?”

  “He didn’t do it deliberately.” I worked to keep my voice even, to keep a cool head while they all stared at me. “They were fighting, it was an accident; can you stay out of our business, Jayden? It has nothing to do with you.”

  If he had been curious about my bond for the sake of the Zevghéri people—because my being bonded to Seraph technically made her the Voda—I might have indulged the conversation. I might have. But Jayden wasn’t interested in that. He wanted a reaction of some kind.

  “You’re right,” Jayden said, turning toward the door as it burst open. “I’ll wait until she comes to me for advice again.”

  Silas strode into the room, Seraph a few steps behind him. I tried to ignore the tightness in my chest, the way warmth spluttered into my body as though her presence had lit a match against my skin, lingering with the anger left over from Jayden’s last comment. It was the bond, but it was also her. She glanced my way, our eyes meeting for a moment, and I fooled myself into thinking that I wasn’t completely lost. She had that effect. Her eyes were a vision of conflict: her stare could be warm and cold, all at once. Sometimes, they were deep: the kind of eyes you could trip into while that velvety colour wrapped around you. Sometimes, they were shallow: closed off and solid, like ice; shi
elded against you and everyone else—but just like ice, the barrier was only so thick.

  I lived to watch it shatter.

  “Miro,” she said softly, as she and Silas came to stand either side of me.

  It was stupid, but I liked her there. I nodded to her, and then motioned the desk beside where the Sophies were standing.

  “Can one of you bring her the things she’s going to need?” I asked.

  Sophia—always the first to act for Seraph—started rummaging around the drawers, pulling out paper, pens and pencils. She gathered everything into her arms and brought it all over to Seraph, who just stared at the materials. I could feel the uncertainty inside of her, pattering against her ribs, so I just tilted my head at Sophia, indicating the glass coffee table in the middle of the ring of armchairs. She moved to clear the table and set up for Seraph, who was now watching me again, a question in her eyes.

  “Someone is leaking information about us to the humans,” I told her. “We need to figure out who it is.”

  She turned back to the table, her delicate brows drawing together. She knew what I wanted her to do, but she was trying to figure out how she could do it. Maybe it wasn’t possible—none of us really knew. We hadn’t seen a forecasting ability like hers in centuries, and there was barely any documentation on how to train or harness it. All we knew were the legends of the Original Atmás, and Seraph didn’t seem to be at that level of power, so it didn’t really help. When her mind was made up, she walked to the table and knelt before it. I could tell that she didn’t like everyone watching her, but they weren’t sensitive enough to get up from their chairs and give her some privacy. Silas leaned over, his voice low as Seraph tore out a blank page from one of the notebooks that Sophia had brought over, placing it on the table.

  “I thought we weren’t going to involve her in this shit,” he accused. I could tell that he was clenching his teeth, because it sounded as though he was squeezing the words out.

  I only jerked my head in the direction of Jayden, who wasn’t even watching Seraph, like the others. He was watching them—every other member of the Klovoda—his eyes narrowed in concentration and suspicion. Silas must have understood, because he fell silent. Seraph was reaching for a pencil now, her fingers shaking. She seemed to be having some difficulty breathing, but that wasn’t unusual; she often fell into a state of near-hyperventilation when one of the visions overtook her. It was a good sign. Her slender shoulders pulled together, her posture vulnerable as the scratch of the pencil over paper started to fill the room. I tried to remind myself that she wasn’t vulnerable, as I watched her. That I couldn’t pick her up and disappear with her, hiding her away from all of these people and all of the threats that they presented.

  She was strong. Unbelievably strong.

  Silas drew closer to her, and I followed, peering over her shoulder. We were careful not to make any noise, or to put ourselves in her line of sight. The others followed our lead, keeping quiet and still as she became absorbed in her task. She was outlining a face. A male face, with close-cropped hair and a rounded jawline. I frowned, waiting for some of the details to fill in.

  “I need to take this,” Obasi announced, rising from his chair with his phone in his hand.

  He was halfway across the room when Seraph’s hand faltered. Nahab followed Obasi, not even sparing a glance for Seraph, who was blinking as though broken from a trance. Yas muttered an exasperated curse beneath her breath and I caught Sophie shaking her head, but Jayden sprang up from his seat and rushed to Seraph, leaning over the table to get a better look at the half-finished drawing.

  His curse was sudden and loud. “It’s Obasi. She drew Obasi—go after them!” he demanded, pointing at the doorway Obasi and Nahab had just exited. Yas, Adie, and the Sophies all jumped up, running for the doorway, but Jack stayed, moving beside Jayden to look at the drawing. Seraph pulled herself to her feet, backing away from the table. She flicked her eyes from me to Silas, and then walked quickly to the door of the room. Both of us followed her—knowing, somehow, that it was what she wanted. She led us to the side of the mansion, where the old fire stairs were stacked up to the roof, and she didn’t speak until the cool air was whipping at our faces.

  “I saw both of them. Nahab and Obasi,” she told us, moving to the edge to peer down.

  I leaned against the stone wall on her right, and Silas moved to her left. They were both looking down, watching for signs of cars or people fleeing below. There were no signs of either, so I watched her instead.

  “What were they doing?” Silas asked. I could see the tick in his jaw, the infinitesimal tell that told me he was minutes away from ripping someone’s head off.

  It was almost touching, because I knew that he was angry for me. Since I was now the Voda, anyone betraying the Klovoda was betraying me, and anyone betraying me was betraying him.

  “They were watching a tape.”

  “You didn’t draw the whole scene.” Silas turned away from the view, his glare zeroing in on her.

  Typically, she turned her head away from him and looked to me instead.

  Nice try.

  “What are you leaving out?” I pressed.

  She puffed out a small breath, leaning her arms on the wall and lowering her head to her wrists. She stared at the ground silently for several moments, her back shifting with each draw of breath.

  “I didn’t want everyone to see what was on the tape,” she finally admitted, her voice muffled.

  Silas made a choking sound, his eyes widening slightly. He turned on his heel, striding for the door leading back to the fire stairs without sparing us another glance. I caught him in a few strides, my hand on his arm.

  “Hold up, Rambo,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”

  “You’ve seen it?” Seraph was still standing by the wall, her face white. She was staring at Silas.

  “Course I’ve seen it.” He sounded offended. Knowing Silas, he was insulted that Seraph thought there was actually a piece of semi-accessible information out there that he didn’t know about.

  “Seen what?” I shook him a little bit, and he wrenched his arm out of my grip, spinning to face me.

  “The footage from the club.”

  I narrowed my eyes on his face, trying to read behind the words he had said. I was clearly missing something major.

  “You really don’t want to know,” Seraph added, her voice glum.

  She was probably right, but it was my job to know everything now.

  “Come on.” Silas grabbed my arm this time, pulling me toward the stairwell again. “There really aren’t any words to describe it. You might as well watch it, since they’re planning on making it public now anyway.”

  “Want to stop by my room and go through my underwear drawer, too?” Seraph muttered, following us from the roof.

  I stopped, my eyes closing as the air depleted from my lungs. It finally clicked. We had all felt the same thing when Seraph was inside that strip club. And she was with Cabe …

  “I think you’re right.” I planted my feet so that Silas was forced to stop, too. “I don’t want to see this.”

  I must have stopped too suddenly because Seraph ran into my back. I turned to steady her, but she squeezed past me, breaking Silas’s grip and grabbing my arm herself. She pushed Silas until he resumed walking, dragging me easily behind her. Silas smirked at me over his shoulder.

  “You have to see it,” she said as she marched on. “He’s right … if they’re trying to make it public—and I’m pretty sure they are—then you’re going to want to see it now. Before Danny broadcasts it around the college or something.” Her tone was final; she had managed to convince herself the second I started doubting.

  “So Danny was there? In your forecasting?” Silas questioned.

  “He was there,” she confirmed. “Amber Kingsling, too.”

  “God knows how much information that girl managed to get her hands on after Dominic died.” I pulled out my phone, drafting up a quick t
ext to Jack. “Just those people?”

  “No.” She tightened her grip on my arm reflexively. “Takeo and Alice were there too, and Adie’s right … Alice doesn't agree with all of this. I don’t know how Takeo is convincing her to stay quiet …”

  I could feel the sudden tightening in her chest, the quick inhalation that filled her lungs, and knew that she was thinking about the possibility of her pairs betraying her the way Takeo had betrayed Alice. It wasn’t a naïve fear to have. Silas was being the perfect example of a doting bond-mate, but Silas had always been a ticking time bomb; it wasn’t hard for him to change his face, but it was supremely difficult for him to keep the mask in place for long. Seraph knew that, at least in part. Maybe she was waiting for him to snap again. Or maybe she was waiting for me to snap.

  Noah and Cabe had been cemented to her side since regaining their memories, which I had to admit I found at least a little bit surprising. Not on their part—they had dived after Seraph right from the start—but on her part, because she hadn’t seemed to return their feelings as strongly. Not until she almost lost them. Not until she made the decision to keep them. Had she made a similar decision to keep Silas?

  And me?

  Silas pushed into the room he had set up as an office in the weeks after Weston’s death. “Sit,” he commanded, pointing to an office chair tucked up beneath one of his desks.

  Seraph assumed that he was talking to her, and sat down. He turned to the screen, and I tried to hide my smile, because he had actually been talking to me. He often ordered me to do shit, and when I didn’t obey—I never did—Seraph always assumed that the orders were for her. He never corrected her. I think he liked it; the fact that she reacted to him even when he wasn’t talking to her. There weren’t any other chairs, so I leaned against the desk beside Silas’s monitor, turning to watch the screen. Seraph wheeled her chair over to us, and I glanced down at her knees, which were only an inch away from my legs. She was wearing jeans, a pair that I assumed my brothers were as well-acquainted with as I was—since they seemed to be her favourite item of clothing, other than those paint-splattered shoes. There was a tear in the knee, stretching right along the length of her kneecap. It didn’t make much of a difference when she was standing up, but her whole knee slipped out when she bent her leg. She rolled the chair another inch forward, her eyes intent on Silas’s screen, and then her knees were touching me.