by Amie Gibbons
“Don’t talk to me all normal,” I said. “We are so not okay. Let me out of here.”
“Or what?”
My jaw dropped. “Or you can kiss any chance you had with me goodbye.”
“So you’re saying I haven’t yet? Even after all this?” He waved the knife around with a whirl and winked.
“No, I mean…” I tossed my hands up and screamed.
“Feel better?”
“No! No, you crazy asshole! You’re holding me in some kind of mental prison so I can watch you torture someone. This is in no way okay.”
“She deserves it.”
“That’s not for you to say.”
“Then whose is it to say? We don’t exactly have a police force here.”
“You should.”
“Then I’d be the one running it. I’m the oldest. When I say someone must be punished after they are proven guilty, the others go with it.”
“That’s fear, not agreement.”
“But if we had a police force, Jade would have been caught and tried or whatever, and punished, just like she is now. The only difference is when you send people to be punished, you don’t have to watch it.”
“Let me go, Carvi.”
“I still haven’t heard the or what. You say or I never get you, but considering your track record saying no to me, I doubt that. And if it was going to happen, it’d be after you saw what I did, and not now. Or am I mistaken? You did say you were traumatized.”
“Why? What did you do to her?” another voice asked.
I screamed and turned.
Grant stood behind me and the air rushed outta me so fast I wondered if you could pass out in a vision.
“Sir? Are you… real?” I asked.
“Yes, Ryder.”
“How… how are you in here?”
Carvi laughed and I shot a glare at him.
“You’d been gone. I came to investigate,” Grant said. “We’re leaving.” He grabbed my elbow.
I opened my eyes in the real world and fell to my knees crying.
Grant kneeled next to me and pulled me into his arms.
“It’s okay, Ariana. It’s going to be okay,” he said, petting my hair.
I pulled my legs in and he shifted so his were straight and he could drape me over his lap as he leaned against the wall. I rested my head on his shoulder and he held me tight.
“I think I just realized how bad Carvi can be, sir,” I said.
“Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn’t.” He went back to petting me.
I angled my head up. “Sir?”
“When he tried getting into my mind, I caught a glimpse of his.”
“And?”
“And he’s capable of pretty much anything.”
“Including hurtin’ me?”
“Yes, if it suited him. I’m sorry, Ryder.” He kissed my forehead. “Anything having to do with that man is tainted. You have to remember that.”
“Is that why you said no to me?”
“That’s part of it.” He rubbed my arm. “I can’t let myself see you that way, Ryder. Obviously the age difference is nothing compared to your other men.”
I almost chuckled.
“But you work for me. That never works. And I… I love you as a friend, and sometimes a child. Ariana, if anything happened between us, that relationship would be destroyed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I will always be here for you. I will always have your back.”
I leaned away so I could look at him. “I will always have yours.”
He nodded and I rested my head against him again, letting him pet and rock me.
“Oh, now isn’t this sweet?”
I jumped and pushed to my feet, turning to face Carvi with my arms crossed.
Grant stood too, gun out and up as fast as a vamp.
Yeah, pullin’ the weapon was probably a better response than trying to scold the vamp.
“And what exactly do you think you’re going to do with that, Grant?” Carvi asked, leaning against the hall wall and smirking at us.
He twitched a finger and the gun disappeared from Grant’s hands and appeared in Carvi’s.
Grant paled and Carvi’s grin grew.
“I already told Ariana, she doesn’t leave without my say so. She’s my prisoner until I decide to let her go. And I haven’t yet.”
“You pull me back in there, Grant will just get me out,” I said.
Carvi burst out laughing and Grant’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“You don’t get it, do you, lea?” Carvi asked. “What will it take for the lessons to start to stick? I told you, to break someone, you have to give them hope of escape, then crush it.”
Sand grew outta the carpet and swept across the hall, dissolving the walls and leaving wide sky and hot, dry air around us.
I stared at Carvi, horror eating a hole in my stomach.
We weren’t back in.
We’d never left.
Chapter ten
“Carvi, please,” I said. “What do you want?”
He took a deep breath and tossed the gun into the air. It disappeared.
“Right now? I can tell you. You won’t like it,” he said.
“What?”
“I want my brother back. Not just because I miss him, but because he’d be my partner in this instead of just another piece of prey.”
Anger flashed through me and I stared him down.
Ohhhhh, wrong thing to say, buddy.
“Carvi,” I said, imagining my power welling up in this mental world, “I. Am. Nobody’s prey!”
Energy shot outta me and sent him flying backwards, landing in a heap in the sand.
He stood up, shaking his head comically, eyes flashing, the golden irises practically glowing.
Uh-oh.
He launched himself across the sands fast as a cheetah and tackled me. I hit the sand with an oomph that knocked the air outta me and he buried his hand in my hair, yanking my head to the side.
“I should’ve done this that first night,” he said.
My blood ran cold at the look in his eyes. He didn’t look hot or turned on, or even like he was reminding me he was the boss.
His eyes held nothing but hard, cold animal logic.
I was a threat.
So I had to die.
I couldn’t even scream as he pulled my hair harder to drag my head to the side and struck like a snake.
The weight of the vamp vanished off me.
I sat up as the sands slurped away, leaving me sitting on a perfectly manicured yard with rose bushes clustered in one corner.
I looked around as I pushed to my feet. The grounds were large and encompassed more than a normal suburban lawn, but weren’t quite to the level of the updated antebellum estate I grew up on.
The house was a large, quite plain lookin’ peach two story with a flat façade and perfectly symmetrical windows on each side.
Grant and Carvi were gone.
“Where’s...?” I asked, turning in a circle.
No one.
I growled.
I hadn’t done anything to deserve this. His brother died protecting me. But it was his choice. It was his choice to save me, if not to die.
But his last words.
“I told you Milo’s last words, right, Carvi?” I asked the air. “He asked me to look out for you. I think he knew what would happen to you if he were gone. He knew you were strong enough to go on, sure, but I think when he asked me to look out for you, he was askin’ me to do that more emotionally than anything else. He loved you. Loved you as only family can. Maybe you’re not trying to punish me for him dying to save me. Maybe you’re trying to punish me for me trying to fulfil his last wish, and care about you.”
I waited.
Nothing.
“Carvi!” I called. “You can’t just leave me in here. You need me for this weekend. You need me for a lot of times beyond that. And if you want me to learn not to poke into your past or whatever,
not gonna happen. I’m gonna keep trying to get to know you and, yeah, get past those walls, cuz someone’s gotta. You’ll rot if they don’t. I think your actions here prove that.”
Still nothing.
Did he really leave me here?
I sighed and walked up the path to the house, trying the knob without knocking.
I mean, this was some weird mental walk, it wasn’t like manners were my first concern.
The hallway beyond the entrance looked familiar. I walked further in and the walls moved, leaving me in the same room where Carvi was tossing Jade around.
But no one was here.
My heart rate picked up.
Didn’t Carvi say something about things being in Jade’s mind that could hurt me?
Despite what Grant said, Carvi didn’t actually want me hurt, right?
Wait, what makes me think that was actually Grant?
That whole thing could’ve been Carvi playing with me. Maybe Grant never busted in and tried to rescue me.
“Now you’re getting it,” came from behind.
I hiccup-squeaked and jumped and the room changed, turning into some kind of rumpus room with wooden walls, a pool table, Bavarian beer steins lining the backwall, and Carvi standing next to the table with a pool cue in his hands.
“It wasn’t real,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” Carvi said.
He wore biker leathers and a jacket with patches all over it, and his dark blue hair spiked up eighties’ style.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“We’re in my head,” Carvi said. “Well, sort of.”
“Carvi, don’t we need to be getting back to the summit? I mean there’s vampires waiting there for us and probably gettin’ pissed at being kept sitting there.”
He waved a hand. “I’m having my second take over. He told them all to carry on while I took care of Jade. And things are slower in here anyway. We’ve been gone a few minutes there.”
“Aren’t they gonna have a problem with you punishing Jade like that?”
He bent over and lined up a shot, knocking the white ball into the bunch to break them. One ball rolled in.
“You’re solids,” he said.
A cue stick appeared in my hand and I rubbed my forehead.
Carvi took another two shots before missing.
A beautiful waitress with high curly brown hair and too much eye makeup walked over with two lines of what looked like a set of bourbon flights.
She left the tray on the standing table next to me and tossed Carvi a grin.
He nodded and walked over to me, picking the first glass up.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Of course you don’t.” He held the glass up to the light, twirling it. “Mint julep. This is my favorite southern drink. It’s perfect.”
“Carvi,” I said, “what is this?”
“This is us taking a time out, lea,” he said. “I can’t explain it, but for some reason I’ve started to associate this place and time with you.”
“I don’t even think I was born at this time,” I said.
He nodded. “This was in nineteen ninety-two. It’s down in the gulf, a bit west of Mobile. This is the last time I was away from my brother for a good chunk of time. We’d been having some problems getting along. The last time it happened, he took off and I ran Miami, so this time it was my turn for a break. It wasn’t anything bad, just what comes from running a business with family for too long. God, I had the best time during that year off.”
I sighed. “If you’re tryin’ to take a break from me, why am I in here with you?”
He sipped the drink and nodded at me.
I held down a grin and picked up my glass.
After what he did, I didn’t want to smile.
I took a sip and had to sigh.
It was a good julep. I’d always loved them. First time trying anything harder than wine was a mint julep.
I was thirteen and mama made a huge pitcher of them for a barbeque and didn’t watch it close enough.
“It’s good,” I said. “I still don’t get this.”
“We need a little palate cleanser,” Carvi said. “I think of that, this place comes up.”
The waitress came by with some waters and a basket of fried appetizers and left them too.
“Why this place?” I asked, looking around.
It wasn’t a dive bar, not really. Very clean, and the quality of the booze said it was a nice one, but still, looked kinda skanky.
Speaking of.
I just realized I wasn’t in my ball gown anymore.
I was in a short black leather skirt with a red corset that made my boobs look near Jessica Rabbit, torn lacy leggings, and black biker boots. My blond hair was big and curly and I felt it out with my free hand.
It was at least six inches high.
Very nineties in the South, yeah.
“Because this is where, for almost a year, I wasn’t a vampire. I wasn’t king. I was just Carvi. It’s where I picked up the name. I worked as a bouncer for the bar. You slice up a few drunks with a knife and suddenly it’s your thing.”
“Wait,” I said, picking up the next drink, an old fashioned by the smell of it, and taking a sip. “I thought you got Carvi as short for Carvagio?”
“No,” he said. “I picked Carvagio as the new name to explain where Carvi came from. Most vamps who knew me before then forgot my real name with a few spells. Took a while, but I cleared it out of them.”
“Why?” I asked, putting my glass down and walking to the table.
I’ve never been big on pool, but I theoretically knew how to play.
I lined up the shot and hit the white ball.
It slammed into a cluster of them and three went off in different directions, none going in.
Carvi crossed his arms, staring at me, finally saying, “Because a little before that, a Fae used my name in a spell. She was trying to control me. If I hadn’t been what I am, it would have worked. We are at war with the Fae, lea, have been since before either of our species can remember.”
“Okay,” I said as he leaned over and took his shot. “And that has what to do with anything?”
The balls cracked loud enough to startle me as the white one sent a few on trips. Two made it in.
He lined up the next shot and paused, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He lit one and took a puff, letting the smoke curl out slowly.
If my poor lungs and I didn’t hate cigarette smoke so much, it would’ve been hot.
“The Fae have a specific smell,” he said, takin’ another puff. “But they are very good at covering their tracks. You have to know what you’re looking for if a Fae is trying to pull a fast one. You do know they are known for their glamour, yes?”
I nodded and he held the cigarette out to me. I shook my head.
“To get through one of their spells takes extreme measures,” he said. “You have to catch them, or what they have spelled, off guard, you have to break them.”
He put his cigarette in an ashtray I’m not sure was there before, bent over and took another shot, making it in again.
“Break them?” I asked, picking the straight bourbon up and sipping it.
It was almost as good as my favorite bourbon back home, little bit too much burn, but other than that, strong and sweet.
“Exactly.” He met my eyes and took another shot, finally missing.
I stepped up and he got behind me, leaning over me to help me line up the shot.
“How many girls did you get into bed using this move?” I asked, shaking my head.
“I don’t need moves, lea,” he whispered. “Panties drop with a whisper.”
He ran his hands up my arms and I shivered.
“Carvi, please don’t switch back like this,” I said, voice more broken than I liked. “I can’t go back to flirting and… not after what you just did to me.”
“I lost my temper, but I was trying to teach you…
at first.”
He rested his hands on my hips.
“No, you were trying to hurt me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He let me go and I took my shot, actually sinking a ball.
“Because,” he said, grabbing his cigarette again as I straightened and walked around the table. “Because I’m not perfect. Because I lash out when I’m like that. Because I want you to accept that part of me. Because I want you to never accept it since that makes you more fun to play with.”
He shrugged as he took a long draw.
“You seem pretty honest and open now,” I said.
“That’s why we came here. This was the last place where I was just me, and everyone was fine with it. Here, I can be more myself. It’s like I get a mental block out of my way. When I attacked you… I would have killed you. If you die in here, your… your body doesn’t die immediately, you go into a coma. In here isn’t purely mental, it’s the astral plane. Your spirit is actually here, and it can be injured enough to count as dying. Hell, you go far enough towards the line to get caught or get hit with enough energy, your spirit can die too.”
“The line?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not important now. I’ll explain later.”
“Short version?”
“The line to the Other Side. Ghosts have been known to get sucked in. Maybe not dead, but I bet they wish they were. And I’ve killed ghosts on this side before.”
“You can’t kill ghosts! Can you?”
He smiled. “Not on our plane, you can only banish them from there, but on this one? Yeah. Spirits can be destroyed, captured, funneled into energy. I’ve done all of that and more.”
I took a deep breath. Wow, whole new world.
“Are you going to turn on me again?” I bent and took the shot. Missed.
“Probably,” he said. “I will try to remember what I know in this place.”
“And what is that?” I walked over to stand in front of him.
“That love isn’t just a weakness,” he said, taking one last drag before grinding out the cigarette in the ashtray, “it’s a strength. That people can know me and not use it against me. That I can trust someone else besides Milo.”
“What made you leave?” I asked.