by Casey Lane
He’d thought she was dying.
Agony had roared through him. He’d just found her, only to lose her so soon? How had he managed to fail her twice? Allowed her get hurt so soon after she’d changed everything for him?
But she’d shrugged him away, stood up and thrown that arrow like a fucking javelin. It had been astounding. Especially when she’d hit one of the two humans who’d been squatting on the stone wall like deranged pigeons.
Even now, he wanted to rush back to her side, but that probably wouldn’t go down all that well. She’d proven to him time and again she was strong, that she didn’t need his help. It didn’t stop him from wanting to give it to her, though. Plus, Ash had been with her, so maybe it wasn’t the best time for him to visit. He didn’t want her father knowing about what was developing between them.
Sebastian stopped outside the inn, opened the door and ducked inside. Without even stopping to give the taproom a quick once-over, he made straight for the stairs.
“Sebastian!”
He turned toward the sound of his name; a woman was waving at him from one of the leather chairs near the fire.
Sebastian’s mouth dried up. Her hair was snow white, and her skin just as pale; he couldn’t quite see the color of her eyes from where he stood, but he had a feeling they’d be pink. Her pale hair was woven with string, beads and bones, and some strands had been dyed blue and green. She wore a strange tunic over tan-colored pants, and looked about as comfortable as you could get.
It was the woman he’d spotted the other day, and as he drew closer, it was plain she was an albino. He was halfway to the chair opposite her before he’d even consciously acknowledged they were going to chat.
He stopped, noting absently that the fire was burning pathetically low. She was pretty with her pink eyes, this woman. Not beautiful like Aria, but definitely striking. How had she managed to survive to adulthood?
“Sebastian, nice to see you.”
“Have we met?” Maybe she’d heard Milly the innkeeper using his name?
“I guess not.” She flicked away a few strands of hair that had spilled over her shoulder. “Sorry, this kind of thing tends to happen a lot.”
“It does?” He sat down, the leather chair squeaking a little as it molded to his body.
“You ever wonder why all those albino children you’ve been trying to save are hunted down like rabid animals?”
How had she known about his ‘hobby’?
Who was this woman?
“Of course.” He had wondered about that a lot. Why kill defenseless babies? What could possibly be gained? Sure, some of the kids were, well, odd. Not quite living in the present, but saying that they could sometimes see the future. While he’d spent half of his life saving all the kids he could, he hadn’t really stuck around to see how they’d developed in their new homes, but he kept track of their progress. It was crushing to learn that about half of them were dead by the time they turned twenty. Most of their lives were taken by their own hand.
“Have you ever noticed how few humans have eye colors other than Brown?”
He frowned. What had this to do with albino children? “Not really.” He didn’t spend much time with humans.
“Well, if you had looked around, you’d see that it’s fairly rare for humans to have Blue, Green or Gray eyes.”
The way she said the colors... like she was putting extra emphasis on the words. Like names. “So?”
“What is Pink then, if not another color?”
“I don’t get it.”
She sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Argh. Okay. You know the origin story of vampires and weres, at least?”
“That we evolved out of humans?” People didn’t really talk about how the species had appeared – they just had.
She shook her head. “Incorrect.”
“What?”
“Vampires and weres were made by humans. That’s a bit different: being created, versus evolving.”
He laughed. “That’s ridiculous. How could they make us?”
“They don’t have the technology anymore, but they once had.” Her eyes had developed a faraway look, like she was seeing through him into another time. “It was before my day.”
How old was she?
“Look, I have other things to do…” He made to stand up.
“Like saving that half-breed girlfriend of yours?”
He froze. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. I know all about Aria Ash and her issues. I’m willing to help you both, but first, you have to hear me out.”
“I don’t have to do anything.”
“Fine. Leave. But when everything goes wrong, remember that I could have helped you.”
He sat back down. “When what goes wrong?”
“Not yet.” She tapped her leg. “What I am about to tell you is considered to be very secret. If you reveal it to people, they will track you down and kill you.”
“Who will?”
“Hunters.”
He was getting a headache. “Who are the hunters?”
“People with colored eyes.”
“And why do people with colored eyes want to kill me?”
“They don’t right now, but they will if you blab.”
“I’m confused.” Man, more than confused. “Okay, how about we start at the beginning?”
She rolled her eyes. “I was trying to do that.”
“With humans with colored eyes?”
“Yes. You’re finally starting to get it.”
He really wasn’t.
“Let’s try again.”
Her sigh was long-suffering. “So, humans made vampires and weres, but they also made another sub-species of human. They are called the Graced, and they are humans with eye colors other than Brown. You following?”
“Vaguely.”
“So, early on, all four races were relatively close, genetically speaking. It meant they could interbreed; well, except for normal humans. But after years of war and other things I don’t have time to go into, they began to separate out. Vampires could only breed with vampires, and weres with weres. But, back in the beginning, it was possible for them to have kids with each other, and with the Graced – the people with colored eyes.”
“So anyone with colored eyes is Graced?”
“Yes, except for vampires or weres.”
“You have colored eyes.”
“Exactly.”
“But you smell a bit like wolf.”
“My parents were weres.”
Sebastian’s headache was getting worse by the minute. “So you are a were but also Graced.”
“Yes, I am one of the few who are both.”
“But what does being Graced mean?”
“People with colored eyes have special abilities. I’m sure that you’ve noticed that the kids you’ve saved have been…different.”
He didn’t really know what to say to that, so he just nodded.
“People with Blue eyes can read emotions; Gray eyed people can move things with their will, and Greens can read other people’s minds. People with Pink eyes – I do prefer to call them Red, but today is honesty day – can see the future.”
His heartbeat paused for a moment, then kicked back in, drumming loudly. So she thought she could see the future. And the crazy thing? He kind of believed her. Some of the kids he’d saved had told him the same thing.
“Is that why they kill themselves?”
Her expression grew sad. “I can’t see the future of other Pinks, so I can’t say with certainty, but yes, I’d guess that would be the case. Seeing the future, all the possible outcomes, choices, decisions, and how they impact, yes, it would be enough to make someone want it to…stop. Some Pinks only ever see glimpses, some see it all. It can be overwhelming, and some might do whatever it takes to end the visions.”
Sebastian swallowed. He couldn’t imagine what a life like that would be like. Had he done the right thing, in saving those children? “Y
ou said you know about Aria?”
“She was born to a fourth-generation vampire, and a fourth-generation were. They beat the odds. I didn’t know about her until her last brother died, though. I couldn’t see her future with him nearby.”
Xave had been albino. So Xave is dead.
No wonder Aria was furious with the world.
He sat forward. “What’s going to happen to her?”
“Well, I can’t say right now. There’s too many choices to be made.”
“But you told me—”
“That I’d help.” She stood. “Just not right now.”
She turned to leave the taproom.
“Wait, what’s your name?” Sebastian asked.
“Oh, I forgot. It’s Ralia Lovett. You can call me Lia.”
“Lia.” Lovett, he knew that surname for some reason.
“And don’t forget about what I said. You talk to anyone – even Aria – about this, and they’ll find out and hunt you down.”
Then she was gone, leaving him with more questions than answers.
Chapter Twenty
“She fucking killed him!” Monique slammed down her tankard of ale.
The inn was about as shady as they came in Skarva; drugs, food, alcohol and flesh for sale. The only thing it was missing was blood, and that was only because it catered to human, rather than vampire, clientele. Naomi had hidden herself in the next booth over, the thick cloud of tobacco smoke assisting her sight-shield in hiding her identity.
“But you said the shot was true?” asked Monique’s companion, a woman Naomi couldn’t see from her seat.
“Yes,” she snapped. “Vince made sure it was.”
“And she didn’t die? From a wooden arrow to the heart?”
“No.”
“Then it’s the right girl.”
“But Vince is dead.”
“There are casualties in any war. You know that.”
The speaker was stone cold, but her logic was sound. If you fought in this particular war, you couldn’t expect to skate through without any injuries or deaths.
“Too many, if you ask me.”
“Not this again.”
Stubborn silence. Interesting. Naomi wouldn’t have really pinned Monique as the type to have a conscience. Not when she forced her way into people’s minds and stole their thoughts on a daily basis.
“That whole pack was slaughtered. Is that what you want to happen to us?”
“Not all of them.”
“Most of them.”
“I had no idea that the she-wolf would be so protective of her mutant offspring.”
“Most mothers would do anything to protect their children.”
“So I’ve learned.”
Naomi hoped that Monique’s companion wasn’t the older woman from the forest who had looked awfully similar to the younger Green-eyed Hunter. If she was, their relationship was really screwed up. Even Naomi could pick out the undertones.
“Why not just program that wolf she’s spending time with to kill her and be done with it?”
That was more like the Monique Naomi knew: busy trying to make other people do her dirty work.
“He has a natural shield. As did three other members of his pack. It’s phenomenal. They were all resistant. I had to wait until he had left before I could coerce the other pack members into hunting down the children. Even then, the mother killed most of them. The alpha finished them off afterwards. The fact that he’s back in town is a bad sign.”
So Subject 2013 had known the were before? Maybe that explained the nightly forest visits. It had nothing to do with romance at all, and everything to do with a shared history.
“You could have just said no.”
“We want to attack her when she’s alone.”
“She’s never alone.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s true. If she’s not surrounded by servants, her father – who also has a mental shield – is there, or that wolf. And then there’s bloody Naomi Castle.”
Awww, she didn’t know they cared about her that much.
“One of the Castles is here?”
“She’s been following the abomination as well.”
“That isn’t good news. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I gave her a bit of an incentive to stay away, but if she’s anything like that sister of hers she won’t stay away for long.”
Naomi hadn’t stayed away at all. After the migraine had worn off, she’d been back out on the streets, following her quarry.
“I’ll set one of the others on the job.”
“What job?”
“Making sure Castle isn’t in our way.”
Naomi didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
She’d killed someone.
I’m not a murderer.
The facts didn’t lie though, did they? Ari had seen that body sprawled on the ground, the back of his skull shattered on the cobblestones, the arrow protruding obscenely from his chest. She’d done that.
For the millionth time, she fought the urge to vomit, and burrowed into the bedspread and mattress even further. She’d returned to the estate, showered, and then crept into her bed after the city coroner had trundled away with the body. Death was so final, so absolute. And she’d cut short a human’s life – when their time was so brief to begin with.
Guilt gnawed at her.
They shot you with an arrow.
Yet it didn’t kill her, had barely even slowed her down, although they couldn’t have known that would happen.
They deserved it.
No one deserved to die.
If they hurt us or those we care about, then they do.
He wolf was speaking to her.
Why won’t you come out? she thought back.
Can’t. A small whine in the back of her mind. Hurts.
Well, that was it. She was crazy. She was talking to her inner wolf like it was another person. Ari had always thought it as more like a sister than a part of her, and she’d somehow split it into its own entity. Great. She really had broken herself.
The shutter on her window banged and the scent of caramel and figs hit her. She didn’t even emerge from her blanket cocoon. “Did you find the other shooter?”
The mattress dipped as Sebastian sat on the edge of the bed. His voice was low, rough. “No.”
Part of her was happy about that, really happy. There’d be one less death tonight. Sebastian would have killed the archer, no doubt about it. Ari had finally come to understand that he wouldn’t hurt her, but would harm anyone who dared try. Too bad he hadn’t been there for her when she really needed it.
He peered over the top of her blankets, his gaze bright. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
He lay back on the bed, hands tucked behind his head. She rolled over, drawn toward him. He had a new shirt on, and a jacket, although his pants were still the same, and his hair was out, spreading over her pillow like a cloud of raven silk. Her fingers itched to touch it.
“I don’t know why they’re after me.”
“You don’t?” He looked at her exposed yellow eye; she hadn’t bothered putting the patch back on after her shower.
“No one knows, I’ve been really careful.” She had, plus she’d blackmailed anyone who had ever claimed she wasn’t what she seemed.
Sebastian sat up and then took hold of her, blankets and all, before lying back and tucking her against him. She tensed, waiting for something else to happen, but nothing did. Eventually, she relaxed against him. It felt…nice. She’d never really cuddled before.
In the past, all of her romantic relationships had died quick deaths. Inevitability, her partners wanted access to parts of her that were hers, and she couldn’t share the secrets of herself, not without putting other people at risk. When there was no trust, there couldn’t be anything more, and she wasn’t about to hurt someone just so she could get laid. She’d stoppe
d bothering, after a while.
“I can’t think of another reason why someone would want to hurt you.”
With her ear pressed to the smooth planes of his chest, she felt more than heard his words. She looked up at him, her mouth quirking in a half-smile. “You can’t?”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
A soft laugh escaped her. “If we were to ignore my wonderful personality for a few moments, there’s the fact that the Duke of Ashes is my father. He has a few enemies. It wouldn’t surprise me if one of them went after me to get at him.”
It was more likely than someone wanting to kill her because of her mismatched eyes, anyway.
Sebastian gently stroked her hair. “What luck you’ve had.”
That was one way to put it.
His hand swept down her back, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Her skin tingled, the remembered taste of his blood making her crave him in her. How could he evoke such responses from her? He made her feel so alive. Ari propped herself up on her elbow and then leaned down, her mouth an inch from his. “Want to try and change my luck around?”
“You need to rest.” He frowned. “You got shot in the chest.”
She sat up, lifted an eyebrow. “I can show you the scar.”
“You have a scar?” The idea had him sitting upright, too.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” She dropped the bedding around her, and then pulled her shirt off. His eyes went wide, locking on her breasts. Her nipples tightened at the attention.
He shoved a pillow over his lap. “You need to put your shirt back on.”
She fought a smile. “Weren’t you going to check the scar?” She ran a fingertip between her breasts.
His eyes clamped shut. “Shirt.”
Oh, he was trying to be noble. That wasn’t going to do at all. Ari leaned forward and nipped his lip.
“What?”
“I feel fine.”
“You were shot.”
“Want to kiss it better?”