Elle shut her eyes in the blackness. There was only one thing she could think of that was lined with satin and that was made exactly to fit around a person. A scream began to build from deep inside as blood rushed to her ears and then she realized something else.
Elle couldn’t hear her heartbeat.
Not at first. No pounding to accompany the blood rush. Then, faintly, thud. Breath held, she waited for another thirty or more seconds before there was another thud.
That was when she grasped she didn’t need to breathe. Not like before, anyway. She suspected she could now hold her breath for minutes, since there was no sense of urgency, no need to inhale, no constricting, horrible urge to take a gulp of air.
Hands dropping to her sides, Elle tried to think back, to remember what had happened. Why she’d ended up in a coffin. Eventually there were flickers of light behind her eyelids, then faint images, pale and watery, as if they belonged to someone else.
Slowly, one formed, the brightest so far, and it was awash with red-tinged, fiery pain.
That bastard!
*
Clay heard when Elle woke up. He’d been waiting for it, ever since he’d managed to piece Emmie’s hints together. How the girl had known that Elle was undergoing the transformation when no one else had realized, he didn’t know. And he wasn’t going to ask.
Her heartbeat was slow, really slow, but that was normal for Chosen vampires. They weren’t like born vampires whose heart rates were faster—but then, non-Chosen vampires could age. He may have heard that she was “alive” earlier, if he’d been standing as close to the coffin as he was now—which was right next to it, with a hand resting on the smooth wood.
It was actually a very attractive coffin, and from the smell of it, it was also made out of Mirama hardwood—which was nearly impossible for a vampire to break due to their “allergy.”
How…convenient.
Clay just hoped Elle would stay where she was. He didn’t think the people in the room would react well if she started banging on the inside of the coffin, or if by some fluke, she flicked the lid open and announced her undead existence. The city guards would probably try and restrain her, thinking she would fall into a bloodlust, and her family would no doubt try to stake her.
Especially her grandmother.
Clay bit back an audible sigh. When had his life become so complicated? He should have stayed in Gorke. He began tapping his fingers on the wood, gently, but loud enough that Elle should hear him.
Graceds—or more accurately, half-bloods, with Hazel eyes—did not become Chosen or Bitten. When they did, and if they were discovered, they were hunted down and eliminated. The hunters liked to say it was because Graceds became unstable; dangerous. After all, they could not predict what would happen to their “abilities” when the change took over. But Clay knew it was a thinly veiled excuse. Most Hazels didn’t have any abilities; being Chosen shouldn’t change that. The Graceds were just trying to protect their secret and their powers. They didn’t like the idea of a vampire Graced who could be controlled by their Chooser. They also didn’t want the vampires to learn about their existence; that it was possible—difficult but possible—to breed vampire offspring off them.
After all, Graceds had been part of the reason for the Civil War, almost thirty thousand years ago. Breeding and food; that is what had driven the vampires and weres to fight. First, there’d been wars over their favorite food source: humans. Then, when the skirmishes had brought vampire and were numbers dangerously low, they’d begun capturing Graceds to repopulate their numbers. Back then, the bloodlines had been less diluted and Graceds could breed easily with weres and vampires. After all, vampires and weres were descended from Graceds.
Since then, the Graceds had been protecting themselves by slowly killing off all the old wolves and vampires and preventing anyone from knowing they had any abilities. They’d destroyed cities, wiped out towns. So much had been lost in their purging.
Despite that, their secret was badly kept.
Clay knew about them, and he was pretty sure the king of this stupid little country did too, and from that, who knew how many aristocratic vampires as well. But it wasn’t his problem—correction, hadn’t been his problem. Now, because of Elle and the kid, it was.
Clay stopped tapping and resumed stroking his hand over the wood.
“What are you doing here?”
Clay looked over his shoulder at Elle’s grandmother, who stood to his right with both hands resting on her cane. She looked like a wrinkly, ugly bird, with her head tilted to the side. She even had a brooch with a feather pinned on it to complement the whimsy.
“Paying my respects.” Clay smiled and showed his teeth, just to annoy the old crone.
“You don’t even know the girl.” Her eyes narrowed and he felt a little tickle inside his skull.
Blood, he hated it when she attempted to read his mind. She couldn’t, but it didn’t stop her from trying. His hand stopped moving on the coffin. Elle had had some Green in her Hazel…could it be…perhaps it was her who was trying to read his mind? He wasn’t sure if she could, wasn’t sure if it was even possible for her to; he began to think about her staying still and him coming to help her later.
This is what her Chooser should be doing, he thought, and blocked the anger he felt. He sure hoped her grandmother couldn’t hear Elle’s mind; otherwise his plan would be in shreds.
Now he just had to stop her from climbing out of her coffin and onto a stake.
Easy.
Chapter 28
Elle was going to kill that idiot vampire when she got out of her coffin. She was going to find the sharpest, hardest and meanest stake she could find and then she’d end him.
How dare he try and Choose her.
He hadn’t tried, her mind whispered, he had succeeded. Why else would she be in this box?
Oh, go and sit on a pole, she snapped back.
Suddenly, she had to control the urge to laugh hysterically. Here she was, trapped in a bloody coffin after having been Chosen, and she was arguing with herself?
Crazy is as crazy does, her mind said.
Oh, shut up.
She dropped her hands back to her sides and began to listen for noise outside the coffin. Maybe, just maybe, she hadn’t been buried yet. Elle really didn’t want to have to dig her way out of the grave.
Now she was paying attention, voices began to trickle through the wood:
“She’ll be dearly missed—”
“Can’t believe Elle’s gone—”
“The vampire must have really mucked up. That’s twice he’s failed to Choose someone—”
“What are you doing here?”
Wait, the last had been Gran.
“Paying my respects.”
And that was Clay, she’d bet her last paycheck on it. Literally. Last. Paycheck. She felt like laughing and crying.
Wait—I’m at my own funeral. She started trying to hear what people were saying, but Gran’s voice was the loudest. Elle figured it meant that Gran was standing near the coffin.
“You don’t know my granddaughter, so there’s no point in wasting your time here.” Good old Gran, Elle thought, hating weres without reason. Just like I used to do.
Something made a rasping noise over her head. Elle realized it was the sound of a hand running over wood. Was Clay or Gran leaning on the coffin? Maybe she should say something…
“I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but if you can, keep your mouth shut and stay in the bloody coffin.”
The words couldn’t have been louder if Clay had been in the coffin with her. Startled, she jerked a little and heard his fingers start drumming on the wooden lid.
He’s…he’s thinking at me. How does he know I can hear him? she wondered.
“I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but if you can, keep your mouth shut and stay in the bloody coffin.”
He was set on repeat, she thought. He doesn’t know I can hear him. Hopefully Gran
couldn’t hear him, either.
Clay spoke aloud, “Is it wrong to want to pay my respects to your family then? We do go way back.”
Elle froze. Clay and Gran went way back. What did that mean?
“I want you out of here.”
“Hello.” That voice had to belong to Emmie, high and sweet and full of trouble.
Elle felt tears well in her eyes. How would her little sister have coped, thinking that she was dead? Elle had promised Emmie she would look after her; she’d lied.
“Emmie, go away,” Gran snapped.
Please Emmie, Elle thought, pretend you don’t know Clay. Listen to Gran for once. The last thing they needed was Gran poking around people’s heads, trying to sort out what was going on. Blood, Elle didn’t know half of what was going on, that was growing clearer by the minute.
“How do you know Gran?” Emmie asked Clay.
Clay’s internal monologue stopped for a moment. “I met her when she was a lot younger.”
“My sister is in there.” Her voice sounded a little wet, so Elle figured that Emmie was crying. It broke her slow-beating heart.
“Emmie, go back to your mother,” Gran said.
“Did you know Elle?” Emmie asked, ignoring Gran.
So, Emmie wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t know Clay —but she was going to pretend that Elle hadn’t known him. It made her head hurt.
Elle could hear a rustle of cloth moving in the direction of the coffin. She could hear the whole room, breathing, talking, crying, farting; it would have driven her nuts if she wasn’t concentrating so hard on the conversation taking place next to her coffin.
“I met her once or twice,” Clay said.
Elle thought, He’s just put me in the shit. Good thing I’m dead.
“Did you think she was funny? I think she’s funny.”
Gran made a moaning noise.
“Y-yes.” Clay had hesitated. The bastard. She was perfectly hilarious. She had a great sense of humor.
“Did you think she was pretty?”
Of course she was… Wait. What was her sister doing?
“Of course.” Clay was tapping on the coffin again.
Then she heard Clay think, “I think you’re pretty hot without your clothes on, but I don’t want to say that to your sister.”
She wanted to hit Clay, and ask him how in the blood he knew Gran. And why he was thinking at her. Ask him why he hadn’t told her about it all before.
“I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but if you can, keep your mouth shut and stay in the bloody coffin.”
“Oh will you just shut up already,” she thought, “I can hear you and I haven’t said a bloody thing.”
She thought she heard a snort which turned into a cough.
Had Clay been able to hear her?
“I think Elle is pretty,” Emmie continued.
Elle concentrated a thought at Clay. “What in the name of blood is going on out there?”
“Your gran looks ready to strangle Emmie. And me.”
“So it’s my funeral, right? You, I can understand Gran wanting to strangle, but why Emmie?” Elle hadn’t appreciated that Greens could talk to each other, mind-to-mind. She might have, if she ever thought about it, because it sort of made sense. Greens were locked to other Greens, but if they focused a thought out, well then, it might work. But she hadn’t thought that Greens could chat back and forth with Nons or weres.
“Emmie, your mother wants you.” Gran again.
“Because Emmie keeps avoiding Olive’s, ah, subtle, hints to go away.”
“I can hear that,” and she could, Gran was chiding Emmie again to step away from the coffin, “but why does she want Emmie to go?”
Emmie’s voice came smoothly through the wood. “No Gran, Mother doesn’t want me, because she’s talking to Captain Mikael.”
“I’d say it’s because she doesn’t want me to notice the imp’s eye color, but she’s already pointed the girl out to me before.”
Elle’s heart stopped beating entirely. “WHAT?”
“Ow, loud much?” She heard him take his hand away from the coffin entirely.
“We need to move the coffin, and you’re in the way.” Gran’s voice was growing brittle with exasperation.
“What do you mean? When did she point out Emmie? How do you know Gran? How do you know about Graceds?” Elle asked, ignoring his complaint.
“Where are you taking Elle?” Emmie’s voice was strained. Elle could picture her sister’s expression.
“Look, there’s a lot to explain and not really the time to do it here. Just accept that I know. I’m going to help get you out of the coffin without Olive knowing.”
“Why?”
“What, is that your word of the day? Because she’d bloody well stake you if you announced your newfound undead life. And you know it.”
“The coffin has to go into the next room to await the cremation.”
Cremation?
Oh, no.
One billion times no.
Gran was going to burn her alive?
“I’ll give you one guess why she’s going against Graced custom and cremating you.”
She stretched her mind out to her gran’s, but shied away at the last minute from the green, glittering swirl. She wanted to see what was in her grandmother’s thoughts, but she didn’t want to risk letting her gran know that she was awake.
“I’m guessing she’s worried that I really was Chosen.”
“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed.”
“No!” Emmie shouted.
“You don’t have a say in it, young lady.”
Emmie started crying then, in earnest. She was hiccoughing and spluttering.
“Maybe she just needs to say good-bye,” Clay said.
Gran snorted. “She needs a good spanking.”
You bitch, Elle thought.
“When the coffin is taken into the next room, you should let her say good-bye properly. Maybe that will help.” Clay sounded reasonable, calm, as if he couldn’t give a crap about Emmie or her.
And maybe he didn’t. No, she thought, he didn’t. No maybe about it.
“What do you think this funeral has been for?” Elle could almost hear her gran roll her eyes.
Emmie started wailing. “You can’t burn her. She’s my sister!”
“She’s dead.” Gran hissed the words, but Elle heard them and she didn’t doubt that Clay had, too.
The coffin moved slightly as something was thrown against it before thuds echoed in her prison.
“No! No!”
“By the blood,” Gran muttered, “you’re causing a scene. Step away from the coffin.”
“Come on,” Clay said and the thumping stopped. The coffin started moving, but Elle couldn’t tell which way.
“We’re going into the back room,” Clay thought at her. “You will have all of one minute to get out of the coffin and get hidden.”
“Leave the child here,” Gran said, her voice still close by.
“Look, Olive, you’re not exactly the grandmotherly type. Give the kid a chance to say good-bye.”
“Fine. She will have two minutes.”
“Your grandmother is sure in a rush to burn you.”
“Yeah, she’s a real gem. Wanna keep her?” Elle thought back.
“Blood no. She’s all yours.”
“Yay.”
Chapter 29
Clay had decided to push the coffin himself. Thankfully, it had been set on a bier with wheels, which made this ruse a whole lot easier. The funeral director was huffing in annoyance behind him, but sometimes being a hulking wolf had its benefits. The flowers on the casket were really over the top and made him want to sneeze, but he kept control of his nose. Barely. Unlike Emmie, who had ruined his best handkerchief by blowing a bucketload of tears and snot onto its once pristine glory. She was keeping up with his steps and was almost glued to his buckskin-covered leg.
It was a shame that Emmie had acted familiar with h
im—even though it was true. He was sure that Olive’s mind was spinning now, trying to work out when he’d met Emmie. But Clay figured she’d decide that he had wanted to meet the girl who would be the future mother of his offspring. The fact he had no interest in siring anything was beside the point. Hopefully, his professing to know Elle had been taken by Olive as an annoyance, rather than a truth. Either way, he could always say he’d seen her at a bar fight. It was true, after all.
Ah well. Thank the blood Olive couldn’t read his mind. He loved his quirky genes. Although, it was odd that Elle could hear him and Olive couldn’t. Maybe it was because she was no longer human. He’d have to think on it, later, when he wasn’t trying to sneak a newly woken vampire from her own funeral.
As he moved the coffin slowly, he caught the eye of the funeral director, who had moved in front of him and stood before the rear doors to the room. The man’s black suit was still immaculate, but his bushy brown sideburns looked a little ridiculous next to the shiny plate of his bald head. At least the director didn’t stare at him like the other humans in the room did—both the Graceds and the Nons—as though he was going to steal the body and do horrible things to it. Or maybe they were just sad that this was the last time they’d be in Elle’s company.
He was betting on the former. Elle’s guard partner, the big guy—Kyle, was it?—was staring at him with a kind of intensity Clay found disturbing. Being a werewolf sucks sometimes, he thought. Sure, he did plan on stealing the body, but he wasn’t going to do horrible things to it, just naughty things. And he didn’t think that Elle would protest too much. Not after he’d saved her newly dead hide.
Over his shoulder, he said to Elle’s grandmother, “Look, Olive, you’re not exactly the grandmotherly type. Give the kid a chance to say good-bye.”
The wrinkly face scrunched alarmingly and she thumped her cane on the polished wooden floor, her green dress swishing with the motion. The funeral director winced at her action; the cane had come close to Clay’s foot.
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