by Sarina, Nola
My Lady shrugged. “You cannot really blame me, can you? He’s a bastard.”
I blew out a heavy breath. Much as her reasons stung, they didn’t matter anymore. “Jack and Sychar are here?”
“Yes. And they’re safe. Jack’s resting, healing from his wounds. I’m glad he’s here. Safe from Festus, for now.”
“Why do you care?”
“Because you need him. You’re untamed, and you need somebody to quiet your screaming heart. You can’t be with Sychar, Three. That’s too dangerous.”
“I know, I didn’t mean... we’re just friends.”
“But would it stay that way, if I allowed your friendship to continue?”
I froze. “Our friendship isn’t going to continue?”
Vashni nodded. “Correct. I’ll wipe it from his brain. You’ve left me no choice.”
I felt like someone dropped an anvil on my chest. My friendship with Sychar would be blanked from his mind like my memories of my creator. Everything we shared would be gone. But he would still be there, and I would still be there... how could I bear it? I put my head in my hands and groaned.
“He wants to see you.”
“Sychar?”
“And Jack. But I would let Jack rest for now, if I were you. He’s trying to be stronger than his body can withstand.”
I shuddered. Vashni wanted me to say goodbye to Sychar, my best friend. Oh, how it hurt.
“Sychar is such a good man, Three. He deserves a proper farewell, even if he doesn’t know it’s coming.”
I glared at her. “Why should I help you with this? What fucking reason do I have to hurt him this way?”
Vashni’s eyes distanced, the silver pupil of age fogging over in her black eyes. “Because Fate demands a high, high price of Carlo. And it has nothing to do with you, I’m afraid. He has a future to live away from your influence.”
Carlo. Sychar’s human name. “How do you know what Fate demands?” My voice lashed with anger.
Vashni snorted, and I couldn’t believe my ears. Vashni, snorting? “Levitiqas and his damn prophecies. He knows things. It’s the only reason I’ve left him alive this long. That, and it would devastate my Child if I killed him.”
“Levitiqas has a prophecy about Sychar?”
Vashni smiled. “Yes. About Sychar and a human girl he’s going to bite, someday. But not about you.”
A human girl. Samantha. I held my breath.
“He told me about her. And it’s okay, Three, it’s what he’s meant to do. I will keep his secret, so Levitiqas has no opportunity to derail him from his path. But his path cannot involve you.”
A dry sob threatened to wrench my chest wide open. “Why?”
“Because you love him, and it will distract him from her.”
“I don’t love him like that.”
“All forms of love are as powerful as the next, and the last. Had I known you two were seeing each other in any way, I would have split you up sooner.”
Her tone was absolute. There was no arguing this. Her fingernails would sink into Sychar’s spine, and she’d leech away his memories of me, of our friendship.
“And what of me and Jack?” Would she take my memories of Sychar away, too, or of Jack?
Vashni rubbed her temples, timeless stress sagging her beautiful, pale-over-tan features down. “I don’t know. How long until Levi arrives to kill you, Three? And how long until Festus arrives, furious with all of you?”
I drew my knees up. It was all too much. I didn’t much care if Levi killed me, but even with Sychar’s memory of me wiped, Festus would not likely dismiss the beating he delivered.
Vashni was beside me, stroking back my unruly black curls from my face. I peered up at her and felt so lost. And even this woman, the first woman, couldn’t guide me through the jumble of my feelings.
“Go to Sychar,” Vashni said. “And then to Jack.”
I nodded and rose to my feet, and gazed at my Lady, disappointment scourging me from the inside out. “I can’t even say how sorry I am. Or how thankful that you saved me.”
Vashni smiled, sadness darkening her features, and I left.
Damned
Sychar sat in a spare room of the palace, reading a book. He glanced up at me when I walked in, and sped over to me so fast the wind he made ruffled my hair.
He smiled at me. “Good to see you on your feet, Captain Delirious.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh, God, I didn’t say anything embarrassing, did I?”
He laughed. “No. Not much, anyway. My lips are sealed.”
I tossed him a smirk. “Thank you for saving us. We’d be dead without you.”
Sychar sobered immediately. “I know. And you probably still are dead. But I told about Samantha, so at least we’re all dead together.” An empty-hearted smile didn’t touch his eyes.
I stared into his eyes for a long moment, studying him. He had no idea what was coming, and it wasn’t my place to tell him. I stared until I couldn’t bear the youth in his eyes any longer, memorizing him, memorizing this look. He’d never again look at me with kindness in his eyes, if we saw each other again at all.
Yes, we were all dead. Dead to each other, anyway. By tomorrow, if we survived, Sychar would only think of me as any other Maid: off-limits and not worth his time. My breath drew ragged in my chest, scraping over injury and sorrow, and I closed my eyes.
“Hey, Three, it’s okay. Jack’s alive. If we find a loophole, a way out of this, we’ll take it. If not, I’ll at least get a few more shots off on Festus when he gets here to kick my ass.” He grinned. “Totally worth it. Tearing his jaw half-off was fucking awesome, and I’m sorry you missed it.”
He was lying. Nothing was worth this price and we both knew it, but there wasn’t anything we could do to stop it. The pain was turning me inside out, and even more vivid pain was imminent. It wasn’t fair. It hurt too much to say goodbye to either of my forbidden men, my lover or my friend, and these were probably my last stolen moments with both. I shook my head and threw myself into his arms.
Sychar stiffened with surprise at the contact, but then curled his arms around me and rubbed my back, unafraid to touch my scars, and I shook in his embrace.
“Okay. Enough, now. No sorrow. We made our beds, and we’ll lie in them with dignity. Okay?”
I nodded and pulled away. “Okay.” I’d face the terrifying Levi with as much strength as I could muster, and trust that Vashni knew what she was doing. Even if it meant ripping my heart out of my chest, my best friend from my life.
Sychar jerked his chin at the door. “Go find Jack. I don’t know how long we have. Levi’s not as fast as me, but he’s fast.”
I squeezed his fingers, brought his palm to my lips and kissed him. Sychar’s breath hitched as I did, and his eyes tightened. He shook his head, battling something... I wasn’t sure what, exactly. It didn’t matter. This friendship was over.
And then I released him, and in the silence of our parting I swear I heard my heart break again.
Creator
I stepped into the hallway and caught my breath against the wall. I had to get myself together before I saw Jack. He didn’t need to know how much this hurt: saying goodbye to Sychar. The last thing I wanted was for my last hours with Jack to be with possessive-Iceberg-Jack. Playful Jack or Sexy Jack was much more bearable.
“One, two, buckle my shoe.”
I groaned and planted my forehead against the hallway’s stone wall once, twice, three times, rattling the chandelier in the connected room. Rachel’s bullshit was the last thing I needed, right now. I turned, prepared to mop the fucking floor with her blood-soaked hair when I was done with her. But when I saw her, I sucked in a gasp and stepped back.
Festus stood in front of her, and Rachel snickered quietly behind him. She’d delivered him directly to us, brought him right into the palace.
“Three, four,” Festus whispered, his eyes lit with fury and a nasty slash across his cheek, trailing down his neck, was healing with a
faint black stripe. “Shut. The. Door.”
I didn’t have time to brace before his foot came off the ground and planted into my solar plexus, and I lost my breath and flew back into the air by the force of his kick. I hit the floor and slid backward, winded, furious, and then I stopped against someone’s feet.
I looked up. Jack! He was livid, his injured eye healing, but his face still blackened, and my heart soared at the sight of the man I loved. Then, my heart stopped altogether. He stepped over me as I struggled to draw a breath and stalked straight to Festus.
“You want her, you go through me,” he said.
No!
“With pleasure.” Festus’ face twisted at the challenge – a delighted grin mixed with a snarl - and he slammed his hand forward into Jack’s stomach.
All the way into his stomach. Through it and out the other side, blood spraying off flexed claws sticking out the soft tissue of Jack’s back. Jack made a strangled sound, and then Festus jerked his hand out of his body. My lover crumpled to the ground, and Festus snarled with a satisfied grin on his hideous face. He opened his mouth, unhinged his jaw, stuck his hand inside and sucked Jack’s blood off his wrist and fingers.
I screamed.
And then Sychar was upon Festus and it was a flurry of iron violence. Sychar pinned him to the wall and fists cracked on steel, and I scrambled forward to Jack, my scream ripping through the palace.
No! No, Jack, no.
He was still trying to draw breath, and the wound was on the side of his center, away from his vertebrae. Blood pooled around him and I gathered his head into my lap, afraid to move him any more than necessary. I was soaked with blood. So was he. So was everything.
Not only blood. Anger. Scarlet fury rippled into my vision and I stared up at Rachel, who watched the brawl between my best friend and my lover’s killer with glee on her face.
“Three, do something!” Sychar screamed, and landed another volley of fists on Festus’ face at a speed so fast I could barely catch it.
Festus stumbled back and then growled at Sychar, his rage rumbling through the palace. He flung his fists out to the side with a roar, and then charged Sychar.
I gasped. Sychar stepped back into a lunge, braced, and met Festus’ assault with a metallic crack that echoed in my head. The two men grappled, and Festus’ hits were brutal, but Sychar was always a step ahead of him. My friend twisted his elder brother around into a headlock, but Festus slipped out of it, furious, and growled again, the black veins of his neck and face straining against his skin as they bulged.
Sychar stole a glance at me. “Dammit, Three, do something! Save him!” Festus crashed into him again, and Sychar’s steel back crunched the brick wall when he hit, crumbles of mortar and stone raining down.
Save him? I looked down at Jack, who blinked his incredible, jade eyes, searching me, lost. He was no longer breathing.
Save him. The most dreaded sin, versus the most unthinkable loss. Jack’s eyelids fluttered closed, and the choice was easy – Sychar would do it for Samantha. I turned Jack onto his side, opened my mouth, sank my front fangs into his jugular and my back teeth into his spine, and pulled hard.
Rachel hissed as I broke every law known to Vespers – biting and draining a hogger - but Vashni’s voice echoed through the hallway with a lecture and I was shoved aside in the fight. I didn’t let go of Jack. I rolled with him as we were knocked aside, covering his body with my arms. I drained his blood from his jugular, ignoring how delicious he tasted and the way the stubble of his chin enticed heat to slide into my core with each gulp of his crimson life. It was me and Jack, at that moment. I could have been stabbed in the back and not cared one bit.
And then his body was empty, and the room was silent, as I bit harder, allowing my venom to flow into his bloodstream unrestrained. The release throbbed through my body like an orgasm, and Jack jerked beneath me like I’d electrocuted him.
When my sinuses were empty, I pulled away, checking Jack’s body. Vesper poison worked quickly, and his wound knit back together with a vicious, starburst-shaped black scar on his stomach. I imagined the back looked worse, but I didn’t care. I stroked his cheek, and the red disappeared from my vision. He blinked at me, solid black eyes and strong, pulsing black veins over his pallid temples. He was alive.
He was a Vesper. My Vesper. And I would be his.
He tucked my bloody hair behind my ear and grinned at me, his arrogant smile even sexier with fangs. Festus had dared to kill this beautiful man. Well, fuck you, Festus. I saved him. And if we die now, it was completely worth it.
I glared up to gloat at Festus and froze, stunned.
Rachel was on the floor in a heap, unconscious, and her black blood was spattered across Vashni’s beautiful face. She’d put her subordinate down for us, to get Rachel out of the way for what we needed to do. Sychar and Festus knelt before Vashni, facing me. They twitched and couldn’t focus their eyes, and I knew by Vashni’s stance that she had her fingers dug through their bite scars, controlling their actions and thoughts. She stood behind them with anger on her lips, which peeled back over her fangs in a disappointed sneer.
Oh, fuck. The moment was here. My heart rocked with vacillating surges of relief and horror. Festus couldn’t hurt Sychar. Jack was alive. But Sychar wouldn’t remember me.
“It’s time for you to run, Three,” Vashni said. “So I can blank them before Levi arrives.”
Blank them? Both of them?
“They will remember that Sychar beat Festus here and killed you both for your crimes. And I supervised it all, and was very proud of this wonderful boy, who never engaged in a forbidden friendship with a Maid.”
She was going to bury it all and let us live. And leave. Relief and regret: that’s all I could feel, and they twisted with each other in my thoughts. Jack’s face beneath me, alive. Sychar’s face before me, contorted with agony. I didn’t know how to let go of him. I didn’t know if I could.
“It’s time you stop longing for your past,” Vashni told me, nodding to Sychar. Then, she cast a sorry smile at Jack. “And move on with your future.”
My past? I stared at Sychar, agony for his pain rippling through my chest as he made a strangled groan. The taste of his palm lingered on my lips with the flavor of Jack’s blood. My best friend grunted with agony.
“I bet they were blue,” Sychar said of my human eyes.
“That’s part of our curse: that our masters can steal our histories from us.”
Sychar’s territorial anger flashed into my mind, and I twitched. His memory was as broken as mine.
“I keep you secret in my head.”
I felt the echo of Sychar’s palm on my scars, his cool hand giving me strength to love Jack. I searched the pain in his helpless eyes and tried to process the flashes of memory that spun through my head. Nothing made sense, the images awakening my broken mind through my sorrow.
“I could have loved you, Three, had we been different creatures, different people.”
He was Levitiqas’ most rebellious Gent. His memory of his first year as a Vesper was as blank as mine. We were different creatures once. Different people.
A Vesper and a human – a creator and a creation.
Sychar and me.
It flooded back to me like the crash of a tsunami. I lost my breath and my arms fell to my sides. Sychar had touched me before, long ago in the dust of history, when he saved me the first time: his ice-cold hand on my freshly branded back, Vesper touch salving charred human skin. His terrifying, black eyes, and the fangs that granted me immortality – the image was as clear to me as the scene before me, as if burned into my memory.
I couldn’t move, paralyzed by shock. Jack scrambled up to help me.
“You don’t want Jack to have this life,” Vashni said, both of the restrained Gents grunting as she tightened her grip. “Go.”
“Let’s go,” Jack whispered. He grunted as he flexed his broken arm, and the cast splintered off with his new strength. “Come on, T
hree, let’s get out of here.”
Jack’s voice was an echo in the vacancy of my heart. Sychar and me. Vashni scoffed, and her shout was hollow in my head as she screamed, “Go!”
Jack took me under the armpits and drew me up. I was too shocked to fight him as he led me away. I glanced over my shoulder and watched Vashni lay the Gents on their backs, both groaning. She climbed over Sychar, exhaled into his mouth, and he drew gasps of her hypnotic breath. Then, Vashni began to whisper.
I knew his memories were gone as she filled his mind with fabricated tales of my demise. I tore my gaze from the scene, wishing once more for tears to wash the sorrow away.
Jack led me out into the night. Above ground, I gazed back at our palace: crystal walls designed to hide us through the glass-like panes from accidental visitors who might stumble upon the place in the forest, glittering in the night. The immaculate palace had been my home for so long. I’d never see it again.
We reached Vancouver and I had a good look at Jack’s healed injuries, thrilled that his arm functioned normally despite all his injuries. Vesper venom was just that powerful. We stole a car, and I let Jack drive. We drove nights and hid days. I didn’t know how to speak to him. I was still so rattled from the changes in my life, and he just whispered soothing words to me whenever the silence stretched on too long between us. The pain of all I’d lost was too exquisite to show Jack. I didn’t want him to know how much the truth hurt.
But amidst my sorrow, my soul celebrated the victory. I was free. Jack was alive. Gratitude began to push forth through the shock, and I found my voice again.
“I love you, Jack.”
“Damn right you do, Three. And I love you back, so fucking much.”
Through the grief I was relieved, too. Jack held my hand without fail for the entire journey, stroking my knuckles, his temperature closer than ever to mine. He wasn’t savage and unpredictable, like me. He was just confident and certain: dominant. His silken, Vesper hand was heavy, comforting my sorrow and reminding me of the future ahead: unknown, and together. We could go anywhere we wanted. We could do whatever we pleased. And no one would drive us apart ever again.