by E. M. Moore
Their faces washed out. My gut twisted a little more. They didn’t know how close I was to having a panic attack. Its icy claws were trying to take control, but I was fighting back with everything I had in me. Surely we hadn’t come this far in order to drop everything now. But if not, why did I feel like this? It felt like the day I realized my mom wasn’t coming back.
We turned and headed back. We stopped just outside the last door in our hallway—the one I’d known something was off about. I felt sick. If it was in this hallway… And there was a loss…
All five of us stared at the door, but no one made a move. Then, Christian spoke. “How come you’ve never asked why we chose you? Are you at all curious why, out of everyone in the world, we found you? How we would’ve found you?”
I shook my head, wondering what he was getting at. “I remember asking once. When you first brought me here. You didn’t answer.”
“Why didn’t you push it?”
I shrugged. “It didn’t seem to matter anymore. I was happy here, safe. Asking why you brought me here would’ve been like me asking why I was born. People only ask ‘why’ when they’re unhappy or unfulfilled. That’s not me.” I stared at all of them. They were so close, yet so far away. I just kept talking, trying to reach out to them. “From the moment I met all of you, I’ve been the exact opposite. I used to question things all the time. ‘Why’ used to be my mantra, but when I met you, when you brought me to The Fort, things just seemed to click. Everything that happened to me before The Fort all made sense after I met you four. My mom dying, the foster homes, everything. They were all bringing me closer to you. Why would I ever question something like that?”
Nicolai stepped forward, and pushed the door open. It swung out, creaking every inch of the way. It was the same bedroom we all had except this one was immaculate as if no one ever came in there anymore. There was a faint stale smell. My legs moved forward as if on their own volition. What did this have to do with them choosing me? Call me stupid, but I never once cared. Why would it matter when I got to have them?
But now, I needed to know why the guys were having this reaction. Why were they scaring the crap out of me, and why now? My eyes darted around the room. There wasn’t anything, no decoration of any kind that would give a clue as to who the person was that lived in this room. The only color was the comforter. It was dark green, so my only guess was that it belonged to a boy just like them.
My breath caught in my throat. “A brother?”
A hand on my back steered me toward the bed. There were two picture frames on the nightstand. I moved closer, my eyes immediately focusing on the one with five boys, five young princes all with their shirts off at ten or eleven years old and making what little muscles they could. I could pick out every one of them, except the one. I moved closer, his eyes drawing me in. They were so—
“The other picture, Ri.”
I glanced toward the other picture in the frame and froze. The girl had long brown hair, but it was pulled up in ponytails that day. She’d fought with her mother about it before their friends showed up.
I couldn’t even remember where we were going. Wasn’t that stupid? The last time I saw my mother and my best friend and I had no idea what we were doing, what was so important that we got in the car that day.
Tears were already streaming down my face as I focused on Jake. He had a black ballcap on, hiding his blond hair. Our heads were together and we were giving the camera a thumbs up. Who would’ve thought that minutes from then, our lives were turned upside down? Literally.
I reached out and picked it up. “Why?”
“That’s Trevor,” Christian said, his throat working.
I shook my head. No, that was most definitely wrong. I knew that face. I wouldn’t forget it. “This is Jake,” I said, pointing at the boy in the picture.
I looked up to find Christian staring at me. He nodded. “Jake.” He pushed me backward until the backs of my legs hit the bed. I sat and they all surrounded me. Nic’s throat was working double time. Stephan’s eyes glistened and Connor wouldn’t even look at me. “You recognize him then?” he asked.
I smiled as I looked down at the picture. “And me.” I wiped my face as a tear escaped. My hand hit Christian’s who had reached out to do the same thing. He tried to pull away, but I held on. He looked at our joined hands, his eyebrows raising.
“Ri, baby,” Nic said. “Trev—Jake…” He looked at the rest of his brothers, then back at me. “His mother agreed to give him to my mom.”
I reared back. No way. That wasn’t possible. Mrs. Lawrence loved Jake. They lived on the left side of the duplex while we lived on the right. I went over to their house every day. I never saw anything but love.
“Just listen,” he said, his hands coming up. “It was back when Jake’s father died. He was in the service, do you remember that?”
I shook my head. It was a long, long time ago.
“Maybe we should do this some other time,” Connor said. “She looks—”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I want to know.”
Stephan kneeled in front of me. “When Jake’s father died in the service, his mother went through a depression. To look at Jake reminded her of her husband. It was during this time that she promised him to my mom because she couldn’t take care of him on her own. You and your mother were over there all the time, weren’t you? Your mom never let you go over there by yourself, do you remember that?”
I nodded. Whenever I had memories of Jake, my mom was right there, too, but that wasn’t unusual was it?
“You trust us, right Ariana?” Stephan asked.
“With my life.”
He nodded. “Good.” He took a deep breath and started again. “Jake’s mother couldn’t take care of him. She wasn’t mentally healthy enough which was why your mom was aways there, which was why she had promised him to our mom. But, when Isabelle went to get him, Jake’s mom wouldn’t give him up.”
“A trip,” I said suddenly. “That’s where we were going.” Little pieces of the puzzle started to click together. Mom had woken me up early which was why I fought with her over the pigtails. I was tired. Then, we were in the car and they told us we were going on vacation. Jake and I were so excited. I remembered my mom peeking back and snapping that picture. Then, the car sped up when Mrs. Lawrence’s phone rang. We were going faster and faster until Mom told her to slow down or pull the car over.
“Mom didn’t mean for anything to happen, Ariana. You have to believe us. She said she went to Jake’s house again and you guys weren’t there. She was promised him. It would be like someone stealing her baby. He was her baby. We’d been talking about our new brother for weeks. Isabelle called Jake’s mom. When she didn’t answer, she ran after the car, hoping she’d be able to track it down. That was when she heard it…the accident.”
I cringed, remembering the sickening crunch and metal on asphalt. It wasn’t a pretty noise at all. It was horrific.
“She tried to help, but…”
“Your mother was already gone, Ri. On impact. Jake’s mom died shortly after.”
“She took Jake,” I said, now knowing why I could never find him in my dreams. It was because he wasn’t there. Then, those months afterward when I asked about him and no one knew anything, they weren’t lying like I thought they were. I thought they just didn’t want me to see him again, but that wasn’t the case. He went to the Ravanas. “Where is he?” I asked, my voice high. “Why isn’t he here?”
A tear slipped down Stephan’s cheek. Oh no. This was their loss. Our loss.
“What happened?”
“Trev—Jake,” Nic said again, shaking his head. “He didn’t take to being a vampire very well. Remember how you met Alex Short at the party and he told you he could remember certain things, but not others? It’s the same for all vampires. Some of us remember a lot. Some of us remember nothing. It all depends.”
“Jake remembered everything from his previous life,” Christian clarified.
“Including you.”
“Me?” I asked, my voice disbelieving. “He remembered me?”
All around, tentative smiles appeared. “To be honest, he wouldn’t shut up about you,” Nic said. “When we got older, we sought you out. We found you. We looked after you for a long time.”
Emotion rose up my throat. Me? Someone had been watching out for me all that time and I hadn’t known. The tears came quicker now.
“Each of us saw something in you that turned us into Jake,” Stephan said, almost smiling now. “Soon, all we wanted to do was go check on you. Make sure you were okay. You were such a fighter, still are.”
“How long?” I asked. I was seeing my life in a whole different light now. There were people that cared. One of them was Jake, and the rest of them were standing in front of me right now.
“Twelve.”
I gasped. Twelve. For six years they’d looked after me and I had no idea. “What changed? What happened to Jake?”
My voice cracked and they looked pained. “There was just something in Jake that didn’t take to being a vampire,” Christian said. “His body almost refused the changed. At first it was just mentally, then at the end, it was physically too. He’s the first vampire to ever die of natural causes.”
“Natural causes? That’s not possible,” I said, searching for another answer. They were like superheroes. They had super strength, super everything. They were practically indestructible. “The only way vampires can die is from a stake.”
Stephan squeezed my hand. His glassy eyes blinked. “It’s not. Trust me, I saw it with my own eyes. He just deteriorated right there in front of us. He was a shell of nothing.”
“But you guys can’t die,” I said, voicing my disbelief. “You’re immortal.”
Christian licked his lips, his voice thick. “No one knows what happened. They’d never heard of it before, but all of us were with him until the end, and we’ll tell you the same thing. He just withered away. He was fourteen.”
Stephan wiped at his face. Nic looked away, staring at the wall as he said, “After that, you were like a lifeline for us. All we did was follow you around and make sure nothing bad happened to you. You had a shit life, Ri. One day, we kind of all just got together and realized we wanted you here with us. We used to talk about it when we were younger, but of course, it just couldn’t be done. It was just a dream that we imagined sometimes. Well, as we got older, we decided to say, fuck it. When Lex announced she was retiring, we came up with the plan. We insisted on having an outside guard brought in, claiming that we couldn’t trust anyone on the inside.”
“Which is true,” Christian tacked on.
“That is true, but the main reason was because we wanted you here with us. We’ve always wanted you here with us. All of us,” Nic said, bringing his arms up to gesture around the room.
Images floated in and out of my head. For so long after the accident, I’d thought I lost everything. I didn’t have my mother. My best friend just disappeared. If it wasn’t for them, I’d still be alone. I wouldn’t know there was someone else out there looking after me who cared. If Jake hadn’t told them about me, if he hadn’t remembered our bond, I might still be in that shitty apartment just scraping by, missing my four walls, missing that freedom that I dreamt about, but was sure would never happen to me.
I put the picture back on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I said, forcing down the rush of emotion overwhelming me. “I’m glad you told me.”
The guys all looked at one another, surprise etched into their faces. Connor moved forward. “You’re not mad?”
I smiled at the shocked look on his face. “No. Do you want me to be?” I chuckled when his mouth dropped open. “What is there to be mad at? You just gave me my childhood friend back. Now I know what happened to him. Now I know that his love for me brought me here with all of you. Now I know that all those years I felt alone, you were out there somewhere watching over me. That’s like…a gift.”
Christian shot forward. My back hit the bed and he was on top of me, stealing my breath away with a kiss. Then, he was gone and Nicolai was there. His lips sealed onto mine, making me swim with emotion.
“Alright, my turn,” Connor said. Nic barely moved before Connor’s ocean blue eyes stared down at me. He pressed his lips to mine and my eyebrows rose into my hair. The pure relief on their faces was evident.
He pulled away and then there was Stephan. He grabbed the back of my head and kissed me senseless. He pulled away, his chest heaving in front of him. “We were so scared to tell you.”
“We thought you were going to hate us,” Connor said.
“Well, I just thought she’d be pissed for a little while,” Nicolai countered.
Christian sighed. “She has every reason in the world to escape us, yet she keeps sticking around…” He looked at me in awe.
“You guys don’t listen very well, do you? If I don’t have you, I’m nothing. Maybe you weren’t looking hard enough when you used to look after me. I was alone. Always was. Sure, sometimes I lived with other families, but they never made it into my heart. Not like you guys. I wish all of you would realize that and trust me more. You’re so scared I’m going to run away or figure out this is too hard and leave, but I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to fight for my world. I’m going to fight for what I think is right. You can tell me anything and it won’t affect my decision to stay or leave because leaving isn’t an option. I’ve found my home.”
The guys all tackled hugged me. There were arms and legs and their rich, musky scents. Cocooned under them, I’d never felt so surrounded in love before.
Maybe the only thing that would’ve been more perfect was if Jake was still alive, or if they saved me from my life earlier so I could’ve actually been around to say goodbye to him. They would’ve saved me from having to ask that ‘Why’ question over and over and over again. Why me?
Not anymore. My why’s were on top of me, filling me with nothing but the deepest love I’d ever known.
A woman’s voice cleared her throat. “Boys…”
Chapter Eighteen
Everyone froze, then they were flying off me, landing on their feet across the room. I sat up quickly, smoothing my hair down and making sure no skin was showing anywhere as Isabelle Ravana stepped into Jake’s room. She eyed all five of us, her eyebrow arched high up her forehead. Her face was red and she had the same unnatural lilt to her I’d noticed when she was at the Council meeting. “Is this your idea of being discrete?”
The princes all looked at the floor except for Christian. “What’s going on? Are they still meeting downstairs?”
Her already angular jaw tightened. “You would know if you were down there, wouldn’t you?”
Connor stepped forward. “It was my fault. I wanted to get Ariana safe.”
“Trevor’s bedroom is safe?”
Nicolai walked up and put his hands on his mother’s shoulders. He was at least a head taller than her. She instantly relaxed. “We’re sorry, okay? We weren’t being smart, we weren’t even thinking. It just freaked us out when Checkov started—”
“I understand that, Nicolai. What good are you doing up here though? You have so much say down there instead you leave me and your father to fight your battles. I need all four of you down there right now. If you want her, you fight for her. You don’t go running away from your problems. We’re Ravanas.” Her hands turned to fists at her sides. “We fight.”
My eyes widened just watching her. She was fierce, and protective, and caring all at the same time. She was the kind of person I wanted to be. The kind of person I liked to think my mom was before she’d died. She’d evidently helped out Jake’s mom quite a bit. She probably didn’t even know what she’d gotten herself into.
Stephan hurried to my side. “But—”
“I’ll stay here with her, Son. Go. All of you. Now.”
They turned to look at me before they left. I always hated to see them go, but this was exactly what I was telling
them before. They were of so much use here sticking up for what they believed in. We would be of no use running away from our problems.
Isabelle shook her head once Stephan pulled the door closed behind him. “I love them dearly, but they need to be smarter.” She looked around the room, a sad smile skitting across her face as she looked around.
“Did you know why they brought me here?” I asked tentatively, not wanting to anger her, but I really wanted to know. I related to Isabelle Ravana in many ways. I’d like to think she knew about me before.
She nodded. “All five of them were enamored with you from the start. I couldn’t keep them away from you before, and apparently, I can’t keep them away from you now. They were always sneaking off, going to check on you. When Trevor died, it got worse. They were gone all the time then. It was almost as if it brought the boys together again to see you. Besides the family link, yours was the only other.”
“And Gregor?”
“Of course he knows. He doesn’t agree with it as much as I do. He thinks you’ll be the ruin of them.” She paused. “Not because you can’t fight, but because it takes time to change things, people’s ideals especially. My boys are stubborn and they won’t wait. Now that you’re here, I’ve seen them each fall harder and harder. It’s only a matter of time before something happens. Especially when they don’t think before they act.”
I picked at a spot on the bed. Isabelle moved toward me and I scooted over so she could sit next to me. “Checkov is going to get his way, isn’t he? I heard the audience, and they were scared. When fear comes into the picture, people don’t think with clear heads.”
“Exactly what I’ve just been saying about my boys,” she said, sighing. “And yes, to answer your question, I think he’ll get his way for now.”
“Can’t Gregor do anything?”
“There’s one thing we’ve learned about power over the centuries, Ariana. You can’t abuse it. The moment you start abusing it, that’s the moment you lose all trust. Sure, he could overrule just Philippe, but what if he worms his way into getting the majority on his side? What good would it do to overrule him? They would never listen to a thing Gregor said again.”