by S. J. West
I’m completely unguarded with no idea who I should turn to for help. Thankfully, I have people around me who are more equipped to handle situations like this than I am.
I see Jhann Nysas run up behind the man with the knife and wrap his right arm around my assailant’s neck in a chokehold to stop the man’s forward progress. Wren Icefall grabs the same man’s wrist and twists it. I hear a distinct snap as the man’s bones are broken. The knife he’s holding falls to the floor with a loud clatter.
Ireen Draconid ends up being the biggest surprise of the evening. As if defying gravity itself, she launches herself into the air and delivers an almost fatal roundhouse kick to the other guard’s head, causing him to fall to the floor unconscious. At least I think he’s unconscious. Either that or she just broke his neck. When she lands squarely back on her high-heeled shoes in a swirl of chiffon, she looks at me and smiles triumphantly.
“You sure do throw one hell of a party,” she tells me, smiling from the exhilaration of it all while she catches her breath.
By this time, more guards are rushing through the doorway to help, but the situation has been mostly defused. Alden and Nadia are still wrestling on the floor, but Shael has the gun he used safely in her possession.
I begin to bend down to check on Julian, but before I can, he rises to his feet and walks over to where Alden and Nadia are still fighting. Without any warning, Julian grabs Alden by the front of the throat and slams him onto his back on the floor.
“Look at me!” Julian orders harshly as he studies Alden’s face, more specifically, his eyes.
“Damn it,” Julian curses under his breath. He places his face directly over Alden’s and says, “I order you to return to your normal self and disregard whatever orders you were given. Nod your head if you understand me.”
I watch as Alden begins to blink his eyes rapidly, as if he is just waking up from a deep sleep, and nods his head as per Julian’s instructions.
I hear a woman scream behind me and turn just in time to see the man who was trying to kill me with the knife run the blade’s edge across his own throat.
I gasp in surprise and disgust as blood gushes from the man’s neck like a geyser.
Julian quickly stands in front of me to block the dying man’s body from my view, but it’s too late. The image is forever a part of my memories now.
As Julian wraps his arms around me, I feel my body begin to tremble not so much from fear, but from shock caused by the whole situation.
“I can’t live like this anymore,” I tell him as my emotions become a jumbled mess mixed with fear, anger, and tiredness. “It has to stop, Julian. It just has to.”
“I know,” he agrees as he tightens his arms around my shoulders, providing me with the illusion of safety. “If it’s any consolation, Alden and the others didn’t have control over their actions, and the list of suspects just got very small.”
I pull back enough to look up at Julian’s face.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“Alden was under a vampire’s compulsion,” he reveals. “I suspect the others were too.”
“Why would a vampire want to kill me?” I ask. “And which one?”
“I’m not sure,” Julian says, looking in Alden’s direction. “But we might have all the answers we need sitting over there.”
Julian lets me go so we can walk over to Alden, who is still sitting on the floor looking dazed and confused while rubbing the back of his head with one hand.
When we approach, he looks up at us and asks, “How did I get here, and why does my head hurt so damn much?”
Julian bends down on one knee in front of Alden and asks, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Alden thinks about Julian’s question as if he’s trying to recollect a distant memory.
“I remember watching a corrupted version of a video the person who hired the werewolf and the warlock posted on the dark web,” he says. “Our tech guy was able to pull it off of the werewolf’s computer, even though the link no longer existed. A version of it was still on the hard drive, but we couldn’t make out the face, only that the person was female because of the voice. Then we traced the video to a particular IP address and went to the house where it originated from. When she opened the door, I couldn’t believe that she was the one who had been behind everything.”
“Who was it?” Julian asks, his voice becoming as cold as ice. “Which vampire compelled you and the other two to kill Sarah?”
Alden looks into Julian’s eyes. “It was Evie.”
Julian immediately begins to shake his head. “That can’t be,” he denies. “Evie isn’t even in New Orleans. She lives in Rome. And she would never try to kill me, much less one of my companions.”
“It was Evie, Julian,” Alden insists. “I’m not lying to you about this. The memory of her face is as clear as yours is to me right now. Evie is the one who’s been trying to kill Sarah.”
Julian remains silent for a few seconds as he lets this new revelation sink in.
Confused by their conversation, I have to ask, “Who exactly is Evie? And why would she want to kill me?”
The first thing that comes into my mind is that this Evie is a past lover of Julian’s and wants to kill me out of jealousy. A woman scorned and all …
Julian stands to his feet but continues to look down at Alden.
“What’s the address where you found her?” he asks calmly. “I need to find out what’s going on, because this makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“It’s on Dauphine Street,” Alden tells him.
After he tells us the house number, Julian turns to me and says, “I need to go back to New Orleans and find out if what Alden remembers is true.”
He starts to walk away, but I grab one of his arms and stop him.
“Who the hell is Evie, Julian?” I demand more forcefully. “And why would she want to kill me?”
“She’s my friend,” he replies, looking hurt and confused as he says the words, because friends don’t try to kill you and those you love. “That’s why this doesn’t make any sense, Sarah. Evie is the kindest of us all. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less try to kill one of her closest friends. I need to go back to Earth. I need to understand why she’s doing this to us.”
“I’m going with you,” I declare, letting go of his arm. “Let’s go.”
As we start to walk out of the room, Nadia quickly walks up to be by my side. When we approach the doorway, I begin to feel a pressure build in front of me that forces me to stop walking. Julian and Nadia exit the room with no problem, but I’m being blocked by something, and I suspect that something is magic. I stop trying to leave the room and turn around to find Galan Firestorm standing a few feet away from me.
“You can’t leave,” he informs me rather smugly. “At least not until you choose someone to marry.”
“You have got to be kidding me!” I say in exasperation. “We finally know who’s been trying to kill me the past few days, and you’re trying to force a decision out of me right this second? Have you lost your mind as well as your common decency?”
“A deal is a deal,” Galan replies, folding his arms in front of his chest, symbolizing that he’s an unmovable force to be reckoned with. “All you have to do is choose someone to marry to gain your freedom.”
I have a few choice words I want to say but refrain from such profanity because I doubt anyone here would regard it in a favorable light.
“Well, it won’t be your son,” I tell Galan with a great deal of satisfaction.
“Then who will it be?” he asks, clearly disappointed but sticking to his guns.
It would probably surprise everyone to know that I have planned for this contingency and have already decided which person I will pick to marry—not that I have any intention of ever marrying the man. But to satisfy everyone involved and buy me some time to find a way out of the situation, I know the perfect person to choose.
“I select Jhann Nysas,”
I announce. “Now, would you please lower the barrier keeping me in here so I can leave?”
“Since you’ve now lived up to your end of the bargain,” Galan replies, “you have satisfied the condition of the spell. You can exit the room anytime you wish, Princess.”
“Thank you,” I reply irritably as I quickly turn around and walk over to Julian and Nadia.
I look between both of their confused faces and say, “I’ll explain my plan later. Right now, I want to get out of here.”
I don’t wait for them to respond as I head directly for the elevator.
Once we’re inside and on our way down, both Julian and Nadia begin to bombard me with questions about my decision.
“Quiet!” I yell at them. “You should both know that I have no intention of ever marrying Jhann. For one,” I say, looking at Nadia, “he’s in love with you, even though he’s trying to hide his feelings for you for some reason. And secondly,” I say, looking up at Julian, “I love you. There’s no way in hell I would marry someone else when you’re the only man I will ever want to share my heart or my bed with. Now, get those looks of shock off your faces and try to help me come up with a solution so we can all get what we want in the end.”
“I may have one part of the solution to your dilemma,” Nadia tells me, “but we’ll need to tread carefully. We’ll also need to have Shael on board with what I’m proposing we do.”
“I don’t think her cooperation will be a problem,” I say. “What’s your plan?”
The door to the elevator opens.
“We’ll have time to discuss it later,” Nadia tells us, stepping out of the door and into a stone hallway. “Let’s solve one problem at a time. The sooner we can make it safe for you to return to Earth, the better.”
I couldn’t agree with her more. Together, we walk down the long dark hallway. This floor feels more like a dungeon than anything else. There’s a hollowness inside the walls that only a great deal of pain and suffering can leave traces of behind.
“What is this place?” I ask Nadia, feeling a chill of loneliness and despair drag its fingers down my back.
“It’s the basement of the castle,” she tells me.
“Was this place ever used as a dungeon in the past?” I ask.
Nadia glances at me. “Yes. This is where the portal to Earth is, because the mage who created it was being held prisoner here at the time.”
We turn the corner at the end of the hallway and walk into a room lined with Valengard. There must be at least twenty of them evenly spaced around the room, standing completely still and deathly quiet. They watch our every move but remain silent.
The portal itself reminds me of a whirlpool of water with the light of the sun shining through it, causing a prism effect of colors.
“I assume we just step through it?” I ask Nadia.
“You are assuming right. Julian, why don’t you go through first? I’ll go in last.”
Before Julian walks through, I grab his arm and force him to look at me.
“Don’t you dare use that fancy super speed of yours and go see this Evie without us,” I tell him, knowing that’s exactly what he plans to do, even if he hasn’t said as much yet.
“It would be better if I confronted her alone,” he tries to argue, but I’m not having any of it.
“Promise me you won’t go to her without me,” I say. “We’re in this together, and I’m the one who’s been the target of her attacks. I want to know why she’s been trying to kill me, and I want to hear her explanation with my own two ears.”
“All right,” he relents. “But if I sense that your life is in jeopardy, I’m getting you out of there, and I won’t be asking for your permission first.”
“I’m fine with that.”
Julian walks through the portal and disappears. I quickly follow him just to make sure he doesn’t try to leave me behind, even though he said he wouldn’t. The room we enter actually looks identical to the one we just left, including the Valengard standing watch around the perimeter of the room. Once all three of us are back on Earth, Nadia instructs us to meet her at the front of the house where she’ll bring a car around.
I have no idea where the front of the house is, because the last time I was here, I was totally blind and on the verge of death. However, Julian seems to know exactly where we’re going. He takes one of my hands and leads me through what looks like a historical mansion to the first floor where the front door is.
While we wait for Nadia to bring the car to us, I ask Julian, “Are you mad at me for choosing an alfar to marry? You know that I had to do it. They were never going to let me leave that room without making a decision.”
Without making a verbal reply, Julian pulls me into his arms and kisses me. Okay, I definitely like his response, but it’s not exactly an answer to my question. However, I don’t complain. It feels like forever since he last kissed me, and the taste of his mouth is like sucking on a pot of golden honey that’s been warmed in the sun all day long. I feel my heart begin to race inside my chest as I wrap my arms around his neck, never wanting the kiss to end. I hear a car horn blare to gain our attention, but I don’t let go of Julian. I haven’t had my fill of him yet and not even an impatient Nadia will make me end our kiss early.
When I finally do pull away from Julian, I look into his eyes and say, “I guess that means you’re not too mad at me for what I did.”
“I’m not mad at you,” he whispers, leaning forward to kiss each of my cheeks tenderly. “I’m just mad at the situation is all. We both knew they would try to push you into a marriage with an alfar. I just didn’t realize it would happen so soon.”
“We’ll get it straightened out,” I tell him. “You have my word on that.”
Julian smiles like he wants to believe me but fears powers beyond my control might interfere with my plans for our future.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go figure out what’s going on with Evie. What Alden told us just doesn’t make any sense to me. After you meet Evie, you’ll understand my confusion over this.”
As we walk down the brick steps of the mansion together toward the black Mercedes Nadia brought around, I say, “You said she was a friend of yours, right? So does that mean she’s one of the good vampires and not a wild one?”
“Yes, she’s a good one. She’s quite famous in Italy as a concert violinist. Though she rarely ever visits the States. I’m not sure why she’s here now.”
Apparently to kill me is what I think but not what I say out loud.
“I guess we’ll find out,” I reply instead.
On the drive to Dauphine Street, Nadia gives us more details about her plan to poise Julian in a position where marrying him in Alfheim might be possible.
“But it all hinges on you finding a way to make Julian human again,” she tells me. “They’ll never let you marry him while he’s still a vampire. You have to give them the hope of having an heir for House Moonshade one day. Since vampires can’t sire children, no one there will support the marriage, no matter how much you love one another.”
“Then we’ll just have to figure out how to make that happen,” I say confidently. “We have no other choice.”
“You’re so sure that there is a cure,” Julian says in wonder. “How can you be so positive? I’ve looked for hundreds of years and come up empty-handed.”
“I know it because I can’t see our story ending any other way. We’re meant to be together, Julian. You said it yourself that you’ve never been this close to discovering how to become human again. I think you’re almost there because you found me. I’m your lucky charm.”
I hear Nadia make a derisive snort from the driver’s seat.
“You don’t think I’m lucky?” I ask her.
“Well, let’s see,” she says thoughtfully. “Julian has almost lost his life at least twice now, not counting what happened to him in Alfheim to save your life. And you’ve almost been killed how many times now since the two of you got together? Four or f
ive times? I don’t know what counts as being lucky in your world or what kind of twisted life you’ve led up to this point, but none of that sounds at all lucky, if you ask me.”
“She kind of has a point,” Julian reluctantly agrees.
“I swear, you two,” I say with a disappointed shake of my head at them. I press my back against my seat and cross my arms over my chest to pout. “Why do the two of you want to focus on the negatives all the time? We’ve survived everything so far, haven’t we? That’s got to count for something.”
“I knew it,” Nadia says, looking at me in the rearview mirror almost accusingly. “You’re one of those glass half-full kind of people. Always looking on the bright side, even if there isn’t one to be had.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being that way. One of us has to be the optimist of the group.”
“I love that you’re optimistic about things,” Julian says, placing a hand on one of my thighs. “It’s not something I’m used to being around, but I am finding it quite addictive.”
“We’re here,” Nadia announces as she pulls up to a two-story historic home on Dauphine Street.
“It’s strange,” Julian says, looking at the painted brick house with brown shutters. “I can’t feel Evie’s presence. If she was anywhere in the city, I should be able to feel her.”
“Maybe she isn’t here,” I suggest.
“Odds are she is,” Julian replies, still looking baffled. “After Alden was compelled to kill you, he would have headed straight to Alfheim after she gave him his instructions. I don’t think she’s had time to get far enough away so that I can’t sense her presence.”
“Well,” I say, looking at the house, “let’s see if she’s home and go from there.”
We all get out of the car and walk up to the front door. We don’t have to knock or even push the doorbell to announce our arrival.