“I’m asking you to help me now. I don’t deserve anything at all from you, but I hope with all my heart that you will help me to correct my mistake. I can’t change the past, so I’m begging you to help me make things right for the future. Just think about it.”
With that I stood up and walked up to the stairs. The people sat in silence, watching me as I walked. I could only hope that they heard me, that they understood that I really would do everything in my power to make things right.
**********
I spent the day in my room. I was thinking about my time with Tristan, how happy I’d been. I was so hopelessly in love and I had forsaken everything to stay wrapped up inside of it. It’s only now, as Ana, that I can see the other side—the effect it’s had on the world while I enjoyed an almost perfect existence.
The suffering caused by vampires had never touched me in the lifetimes before this. Not personally. The victims had always “that person” or “those people.” I would hear about things and feel sad for a time, but it was all too easy to forget again. I had only to lose myself into Tristan’s love, and all was right with the world. This life had been the complete opposite. My very first encounter with a vampire had killed my mother and nearly killed me. I had watched Darren, Chris, Duncan, and Guardian Dent all die at the hands of vampires. Taylor was just the latest of a long list, really. The only difference was that Taylor was first one that I hadn’t been able bring back somehow. My loyal and selfless best friend had her life cut short because of my choices. Her dreams and ambitions instantly void. The long reach of my self-centeredness had finally come around to collect.
The sun was sinking into the horizon when I noticed someone slipping a piece of paper under my door. I rolled over to the other side of my bed and stepped over to the door. The sheet was folded and when I opened it, it read simply…
Yes!
-Your Haven
Chapter Twenty
Rendezvous
*Ana*
I spent the evening sitting in on plans for the funeral ceremony for the victims of last night’s attack. I wouldn’t have gone, but they insisted that I be there. It was unsettling to see the sheer amount of people affected by just last night, but I toughed it out. It was the very least I could do.
When it was over, I went back to my room. My mother came by and sat with me for a little while. She was feeling nostalgic and we laughed about some of the times she and Lexy had shared. Amelie came up after that, and she spoke of how heroic Corinne had been in last moments. She also found it in her heart to forgive me somehow. I wasn’t sure, if the situation were reversed, that I could have been so gracious. When she left, I thought that maybe my grandmother might follow; her speaking to me for the first time in weeks had prompted me to set out a little hope.
I waited patiently on the edge of my bed, staring at the door. When the clock hit ten, I knew that ship had sailed. With a sigh, I stood up and went into my closet for a robe.
“Ana?” a familiar voice called.
My body froze, and then shivered.
“There you are. Why are you hiding from me?”
I turned around to find Taylor standing in my doorway.
“Well, shucks,” she said. “I’ve gone and gotten myself killed. Gosh, being a friend of yours is a curse, isn’t it?”A dull orange sparkled in her eyes and she smiled.
“You’re so cruel…”
“Oh you ain’t seen nothin’ yet— But for tonight, at least, I come as a friend. I have somebody who wants to see you.”
“I’m not helping you anymore. I don’t care who you threaten.”
She rolled her eyes. “Guess I’ll just tell Tristan that you weren’t interested in his help.”
“Tristan?” I replied.
“It’s a loooong story. I’ll fill you in when we get there.” She stepped away from the doorway of the closet and I followed her into my bedroom.
“How… how do I know that I can trust you?”
“Oh sweetie, you don’t.” She stepped out onto the balcony and spread her wings, letting them reach a full blaze. The light drizzle that peppered them seemed to have no effect at all.
“Wait, I’ll come with you. Just stop looking like her.”
Leia’s body shifted back into her normal look. “Better?”
I nodded.
She put her back to me and leapt off the side of my balcony, dipping and then rising, a streak of fire in her wake. I swallowed hard and then followed, wondering if I wasn’t she wasn’t leading me straight into a trap.
Chapter Twenty One
Hurt
*Tristan*
I was standing in the burned out basement of what used to be a house. The basement’s all that remains. It’s not hard to be reminded of that pit, being down here underground. The biggest difference is that I’m waiting to meet with the love of my life. Not Daemon, the vampire that ruined it. It truly made all the difference.
Rain trickled in from the hole in the ceiling where the concrete steps would have risen up to meet the main level. I had climbed them at least two dozen times to get a glimpse of sky, checking the horizon for their approach.
Daemon had been furious with me ever since I suggested this campaign. Until our armies arrived here from Europe, he was staying with a wealthy business man in Boston, one of so many whose favors he had acquired with the promise of eternal life. Both Udric and I had accompanied him there, but only Udric was invited to accompany him on his “nights on the town.”
Still, Daemon was very curious as to where I might be going when I requested a couple of days of leave. I told him that I wanted to scout ahead, to determine, if I could, where Nathena had gone wrong. He had agreed, but insisted that Leia come with me. He trusted her above anyone else it seemed, and it was his intent that she keep an eye on me.
His mistakes were adding up.
“Tristan?” Leia called, her legs appeared on the concrete stair.
“Over here,” I called.
Leia set one of her fingertips ablaze, illuminating the darkened basement.
A second pair of legs appeared next, and my heart rate doubled. I watched the rest of her slowly emerge: her arms, then her neck, and finally the delicate profile of her face. She turned to look at me, and the light made her silvery eyes come to life. They held me and I was still. Awestruck. How could I have ever imagined that someone else could assume her place? It was her soul that I was in love with, and it seemed to be shining right out of her eyes.
But Ana cut those eyes away from me, her face suddenly unsure. It was then that I remembered what had happened the last time we were together. “I hate you Tristan!” were her last words to me.
Her heartbeat was racing.
She chose to remain close to the stair, her arms crossed and shivering, her thighs pressed tightly against one another. By then I’d regained enough of my senses to realize that she was wearing soaking wet pajamas and it was middle of November. I took off my coat and started toward her.
It startled her to see me coming at her and she glanced toward the stairs more than once. She didn’t meet my eyes, but she held her ground. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said defiantly. That it even needed to be said, it stabbed at my heart.
I placed the coat around her shoulders and her eyes looked into mine, searching. “You’re back? You found a way to take back control?”
“He never lost it,” Leia smirked.
Ana looked to Leia, and then back at me. When I didn’t offer a rebuttal, she started to shake her head. “I don’t understand… What’s going on?”
“How about I show you,” Leia said. “It’ll save us all a lot of time.”
Images and sounds popped into my head, and I realized that she was showing me the same things that she was showing Ana. Having searched my mind back at Daemon’s compound, she knew everything about me and London’s plan and took us from the planning stages to up until my challenge of Daemon.
And then she showed herself in Ana’s skin, wrapped up
in my arms. She showed her the agreement we’d made, how I’d kissed her afterwards…
Leia gave her a wink when it was through and tucked her arm under mine. I could have shouted, but I did my best to stay calm. Leia could still ruin Ana’s chance to destroy Daemon, or worse, Leia could still get angry and go after her.
Ana looked as though she were going to be sick. She was hurt, I could see it, but was doing her best stay strong. She didn’t meet my eyes after that.
“So much tension,” Leia laughed. “Let’s just get to the reason we’re all here.”
“Why am I here?” Ana asked in a ragged tone.
I cleared my throat. “The attack will be tomorrow night. Daemon will be leading us right through this field. Have your warlocks here well before midnight to cut us off. You’ll have friends on the other side.”
“We’ll make sure you win,” said Leia, “but you won’t be killing Daemon in this lifetime either.”
“But?”
“Be grateful,” I said. “My future’s with her, Ana.”
“You should go,” I added.
Ana’s head dropped and I could see tears now. “Thank you,” she said finally.
I told her to keep the coat and she started for the stair. Leia was just behind her. As I watched her ascend the concrete steps, her voice chimed in my head. “Is all of this an act too, Tristan?”
“No,” I replied.
Leia whipped her head toward me with a darkened grin. “Good answer.”
Chapter Twenty Two
Warning
*Ana*
When we arrived back on my balcony, Leia followed me into my bedroom. “He has feelings for me, you know.”
I turned around quickly. “The only thing he loves about you is the fact that you can look like me.” The thought of the two them together in bed made my stomach turn.
Leia laughed. “You were in his head that day, but you didn’t see everything. He told me that I was beautiful. He said that to this face—my real one. I make the sacrifice to look like you because I know that it’ll make him happy. He deserves someone in his life that won’t put him number two.”
Her words had begun a familiar ache in my heart. As I much as I loved Darren, hurting Tristan was something I regretted. “What do you even want him for? I thought all you cared about was your stupid revenge.”
Leia’s face hardened and she stepped closer. “You’re new to this whole “fallen angel” thing, so let me break it all down for you. At first, it feels like you’ve been given the most wonderful gift. You join the human world, and it’s fresh and exciting. You can do things that no else can do. ‘Who needs heaven?’ you say. You stay young, and you stay healthy forever. The problem is, no one else does. The friends you make, the boys that capture your whole heart, your children... they all wither and die. And you, you’re left all alone.”
“You make more friends, and maybe you even fall in love again. In time, they’re gone too. Finally you can’t stand it anymore, it’s too painful to keep losing the people you care about. You start to embrace being alone, because as long as you’re alone, you can never be hurt.
“By the time you happen upon another fallen angel, you’re both so scarred, so demented, so diminished from what you once were in heaven that you can never make a real connection. Being with other fallen angels only reminds you of just how much you’ve lost. Just how far you’ve fallen.”
“And one day, amidst your scheming, you come across something that’s too good to be true. You find boy who whose heart is kind, and whose mind is pure. His body is eternal, and he gives you a smile in the back of truck that sets your soul ablaze.”
“But nothing’s too good to be true, is it? Because his heart will belong to another. But you know what?” She leaned in close to me, so that her lips were next to my ears. “You’ll strike her dead to keep him. Remember that.”
She drew her head back so that she could stare into my eyes. Satisfied her point had been made, she turned and flew up off of my balcony.
Chapter Twenty Three
Prelude
*Ana*
As much as it bothered me, I couldn’t worry about Leia and Tristan right now. Not when I had the responsibility to get the haven ready for a vampire attack in a little less than twenty four hours.
I ran straight downstairs, running around the halls frantically, until I found Helena.
“Call everyone. Tell them the vampires will be here tomorrow night.”
I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. I just paced back and forth in my room. I kept thinking this could be it. This might be day that it all ends. I didn’t care what Tristan and Leia said to me last night, I was going after Daemon. The vampires would be destroyed tonight, even if it cost me my life.
At six o’clock the following morning, I could already see people filling the large field beyond the gardens. With so many people staying in the havens right now, I wondered if we’d have room for them all if they decided to come to Wintre.
When nine o’clock rolled around, I wondered why no one had called me down yet. Surely everyone was here already, right?
I decided to see for myself. As I descended the stairs, I could see that the house was swarming with activity. People were running back and forth through the halls, in and out of the ballroom.
I saw Chris moving quickly and I latched onto his arm. “What’s going on?”
His eyebrows jumped. “You haven’t heard? Duncan called in his orders. There’s a lot we have to get done for tonight.”
“You mean he’s coming?” I replied. “He’s gonna be our Chief Guardian?”
He nodded.
“That’s great!” I half shouted.
He smiled. “Yeah, it is. I didn’t want that kinda pressure on my dad. The job gets to him enough when things are peaceful.”
A silent moment passed and both of us asked one another “How you are holding up?” at the same time. “You first,” I followed.
Chris took a breath, and then said, “When I’m busy, great. When I’m not, not so much.”
“I miss her, too,” I said. “Like crazy.”
Someone stepped out of the ballroom and called for the box Chris was carrying, so he nodded me a goodbye.
When Duncan did arrive a half hour later, I hugged him and didn’t let go. He seemed a little embarrassed to be receiving such a public show of affection. After all, he did try his very best to barbeque me once. But that didn’t matter now. We both had the same goal; protect the haven. And no one was better suited to lead us into battle than Duncan Mathalbane.
Duncan and I sat in meetings for the majority of the morning and early afternoon. Not once did anyone question how I’d gotten my information. Duncan was right, you only had to be right once.
My mother asked if me to take a late lunch with her and I accepted. I fully intended on going with the boys tonight, so I could understand her wanting me all to herself for a bit. But instead of us heading to the ballroom or into the “never ever used” dining room, she marched me right to the front of the house. It wasn’t until we turned down the hall with the photos of Brighton’s previous heirs that I realized we were headed to my grandmother’s study.
My mother didn’t bother knocking, choosing instead to kick the doors open. It certainly got woke me up.
“You!” my mother said, “are without a doubt, the most stubborn woman I have ever known. You have held a grudge against Lexy for how many years? It ends today— right now.” My mother stood there, with her hands on her hips looking from my grandmother to me. “Well?”
My grandmother turned her head and threw up her hand. “Go away. Both of you.”
I could feel myself getting annoyed. I flooded her mind with all the happy times the three of us had shared with one another, with me as both Ana and Lexy. When I was done, I walked around her desk and pulled open her top drawer. I took out only item she kept there and slammed it on the desk. It was the photograph she’d shown me on my first day here as Ana. In it,
my mother and Lexy held hands, smiling at the camera in matching dresses of red and green.
“The three of us won’t always be here,” I said. “Why waste these moments?”
My grandmother did her best to fight off the tears that threatened. But once they fell, her walls seemed to come down with it, and she put up her hands. “Come to me, my girls.”
We did. And we cried. And we laughed. But what I most grateful for, was the fact that we talked.
**********
It was nearly six when the guardians had finally gotten everything done that Duncan had asked for. I knew this because I had asked Darren to meet me in my room as soon as he could get away. He looked exhausted when he stepped through my door.
I took him by the hand and led him to my bed, where he could relax. He didn’t fight me. He kicked off shoes and laid his head back onto the pillows. I crawled onto his stomach and laid my head onto his chest.
I could hear his heart beat; it was strong and steady, just like the boy it belonged to. I wanted to ask him how he felt, if he was still worried about dying. I wanted to tell him that I loved him and to hear him tell me that he loved me. I wanted to see that handsome smile of his, to have it send my heart fluttering as it always did.
But none that happened because no sooner had his head hit the pillow, he was asleep. He looked so peaceful, and more at ease than I had seen him in a while. It seemed a shame to disturb that, so I didn’t.
In another hour we’d be leaving for war.
Chapter Twenty Four
Pawn
*Tristan*
Udric and I led the charge. We moved quickly through the trees, more than six hundred vampires at our backs. Somewhere near the rear, Daemon made the same run, only he was surrounded by two dozen of the Faithful.
Some god.
Udric looked over and smiled as though he had just read my thoughts.
Forever Trilogy 3: Angel Eyes Page 11