by Tara Brown
Lydia’s expression changed. “You read them?”
“I did.”
“I am so sorry you had to read that, my dear. He was quite mad for a time.” Lydia smiled compassionately. “I want you to know, I’m here for you if you need anything.”
“Thanks, but how did you know my father?”
“Let’s just say, we ran in the same circles.”
Roland carried in the tea tray. “You mean your circle ran after him.”
“Oh, Roland.”
I took a cup of tea and began sipping it. I didn’t really like tea, but I didn’t want to hurt Roland’s feelings.
Lydia smiled at me over her cup.
Roland sat down, shockingly enough. He never sat or participated in discussions. “Have you told her yet?”
Lydia frowned. “I was waiting for you.”
“Told me what?”
Roland’s face grew serious. “Your father was hunted for a time. If you read the random madness in some of his journals, you must have seen he suspected something or someone was hunting him.”
“I remember that.”
“There is a society of people who are similar to you, Lydia, and your father. Lydia’s people are the governing law.”
Lydia cleared her throat. “We are called the Roses Academy, the Devil’s Roses specifically. We ensure society is kept safe from people like us. Harming anything or anyone is forbidden.”
“Like that girl.” I gulped. “The one who killed my father?”
Lydia explained, “He was dying already. He was suffering. He made Aimee promise to take him when it got so bad he couldn’t stand it. His body would have forced a change in order to survive, and who knows what he would have done. He couldn’t live with that.”
“I’m lost. I don’t understand any of this.”
Roland interrupted, “Of course, you don’t. Your father fought his changes. He hadn’t changed in over seventy years, which aged him. Marcus Dragomir helped him with an elixir to stop the changes but the elixir wasn’t perfect. He became resistant to it. So they made a new one but his body was slowly growing sick from it. The Roses made him agree never to change again, and he was dying as a result of living up to that agreement.”
“They forced him to die slowly and painfully?” I had to be hearing it wrong.
“No.” Lydia put a hand up. “Of course not. Many of us offered him a way out.”
“You offered him death?” Disgust and fear rippled through me. What were they offering me?
Lydia continued, “In a way, but also freedom. He had made himself into what he was, Hanna. You must understand, he wasn’t happy with what he’d done.”
“Why didn’t he choose death when the elixir started making him sick?”
“You and your mother,” Roland spoke delicately.
“He met my mother twenty-five years ago. He wasn’t sick then.”
“No.” Lydia smiled politely. “He met your mother seventy years ago. She was the one who made him agree to stop the changes. He stopped them for her.”
The room spun. Who was my mother?
“This is too much for her right now,” Roland warned.
A knock at the front door interrupted our conversation.
“Excuse me a moment.” Roland got up and walked casually, as if we’d been discussing current events.
I suspected my father was betrayed by them, both of them. They had forced him into a choice that ultimately killed him.
“Officer Paulson is here to speak with you, Hanna.”
I glanced up, blinking when everything moved too quickly. I began sweating as the itch hit.
Roland saw the look in my eyes, rushed across the room, and opened a small jeweled box on the coffee table next to Lydia. He pulled a bright-blue vial from the box, tore the top off with his teeth, and grabbed my face. I tried to fight but his sudden burst of strength overwhelmed me. The bitter drink sparkled as it made its way down my throat.
“What have you done?” I choked.
He looked desperately saddened. “Saved Officer Paulson.”
The itch in my skin was gone, replaced by a fire that burned from the inside.
I wanted to scream out, but I couldn’t. I dropped to my knees and curled into a ball on the floor, waiting for it to pass.
But it didn’t pass. It changed. It went from hot to cold and I shivered with it. Exhaustion filled me as my body fought the change.
Lydia held my hand, chanting something with her eyes closed.
Roland gently handed me a cup of tea. “Sip some of this. It will help.”
My shaky hand reached out for the tea, spilling it. I managed to get a sip in, the tepid liquid helping immediately. “Will I die now?” I asked, terrified.
“No.” Roland closed his eyes, clearly regretting everything. “Not yet, but this will kill you eventually. Your father never took it until he was well over one hundred years old and had changed hundreds of times. You’ve changed twice. Plus, you’re only a few years off from the age you should be. We don’t know what it will do to you.”
“Better dead than a monster, I suppose.”
“Never say that.” Roland shook his head. “We will find the cure.”
Lydia sighed. “We won’t stop until we do. Now before the police officer gets suspicious, let’s try to get you onto the couch. Roland will see him in.”
Roland lifted me to the couch where I sat, taking a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.”
Roland stepped out with Lydia on his heels and Andy walked into the sitting room alone. He was dressed in jeans and a dark-blue tee shirt, and holding a black sweater. His face looked tired. Well, it looked handsome—there was no way around that—but he looked as if he’d been up all night. “Hanna, how are you?”
“Good.” I tried my best to ignore my insides and the pain. “I’m doing okay.”
He exhaled deeply. “Well, there is no easy way to say what’s happened. Your aunt has murdered your uncle. We arrived last night with a warrant, and she was on the floor beside him. He was dead. She’d hit him in the head with a frying pan.”
“Oh my God.” A tear fell from my right eye as I sat perfectly still, taking it in. “No.”
My aunt who had been like a mother.
My aunt who had tucked me in and told my stories.
My aunt, who shopped with me and brushed my hair, had murdered the people I loved most in the world.
Andy sat next to me on the couch and took my hands in his. His warmth wrapped around me was the only thing I felt. “Hanna, I’m so sorry.”
I couldn’t sob. I just sat untouched by it all. My brain refused anything else past its walls.
Tears leaked down my face but no emotion was attached to them. They were no different than raindrops. “Where is she now?”
“Holding cell until she sees a judge.”
“I need to see her.”
He frowned. “No, Hanna. She’s insane.”
“I need this. I truly need this.”
He grabbed a tissue from the coffee table and leaned in, wiping my tears away and kissed my cheek softly. “If you have to, I’ll go with you.” He stood up, offering his hand. I took it, terrified of not only the drug in my system, but also my obvious attraction for him. I ignored my shaky legs. I needed to see my aunt and would ignore everything else until then.
Roland strolled into the room. “What’s happening?”
“Andy is taking me to see my aunt.”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “That’s a terrible idea, Hanna.”
“I know.” I strode past Roland and out of the house, still holding Andy’s hand, nearly dragging him.
He got the door for me and we drove—he drove and I floated.
He pulled into a huge parking lot next to a massive building.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the police station. We have the holding cells here. You okay?”
“No.” I tried to breathe normally. “How old are you?”
He smiled, making my heart beat faster. “Twenty-two.”
“Like really twenty-two?” It was the weirdest question to ask.
“Yup. For the whole year.”
“That’s good.” I wasn’t making sense, at least not to him. It made perfect sense to me. He was real. I was about to have the worst experience ever, I needed real with me.
We got out and I felt as if I floated to the door. The inside of the police station was sterile, void of life and the special secret ingredient that separated people from computers. People worked, maintaining the same even expressions upon their faces. The only color and excitement was in the obvious criminals. Andy walked me past it all so quickly, I was barely able to notice them.
He stopped at an elevator. Other vacant-looking people entered the elevator with us. They never spoke or joked. It wasn’t how I imagined an office at all.
He pulled me off the elevator, leading me to a guard’s desk.
“Hey, Tom.”
“Hey.” The older man in an odd uniform smiled. “Morning, Andy.”
Andy took his badge out and signed some papers.
The door made a buzz and Andy brought me to a room with a small, plain wooden table with four chairs surrounding it.
Nerves filled my stomach.
I hadn’t considered that I might be afraid to see my aunt, but fear crippled me as Andy hauled out a chair and I sat.
He sat beside me, holding my hand.
I had assumed it would be done through Plexiglas with phones, not sitting at a table with her in the same room as Andy.
The door opened.
A tall blonde woman in uniform led my aunt in. She looked terrible. Her long brown hair was disheveled and her face was puffy from crying.
She appeared defeated as she walked into the room until she saw me. Then her face filled with disgust. “I thought I was meeting my lawyer.”
The tall blonde turned to Andy. “You okay?”
“Yup.” The guard walked out of the room, locking it from the outside.
I sat, staring at my aunt. An old part of my heart wanted to jump up and hug her, straighten her hair, and tell her everything would be okay. Most of me wanted to pick up a chair and smash her over the head with it.
Instead, I sat in the chair, returning her scowl.
“What do you want?” she asked and sat down.
I held back my tears. “Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why?”
“Why what? Why did I do it? You spoiled little bitch. I gave you everything, and then when you turned eighteen, you got it all. None of it was mine anymore. I earned it.” She leaned back in the chair smugly.
“It wasn’t anything but money with you, ever?”
My aunt raised her eyebrows, smirking.
“You never loved me, even the tiniest amount? You never cared for me when you tucked me in and sang to me and read me stories? How about when you bandaged my wounds? DID YOU LOVE ME THEN?” I raged across the table, making the itch in my skin worsen.
Andy put a hand on me. “Stay cool, ladies.”
I took a deep breath, struggling to stop the change, inhaling deeply again, watching my aunt fight any emotions. “I would have given it all to you. I didn’t even know about it. Had you asked me for the money, I would’ve handed it to you.”
My aunt broke. She sobbed into her shackled hands.
“You killed them both for money and now you’re dead to me too. You’ve put us in the same boat with no family and no friends. And you took away my peace and safety. You worked so hard to give me those things and then you snatched them away.” I stood and went to the door and knocked. The tall blonde opened it.
I glanced back at the sobbing mess that used to be my aunt, the mother I’d had for nearly a decade.
“I would have given it all to you.” I walked from the room.
Andy gripped my hand tightly, pulling me through the doors and back to the elevator. Exhaustion was coming to take me but I fought it. I needed to go home.
But I didn’t make it.
I passed out long before then.
When I woke, I sat up in my bed, realizing Andy had brought me home and Roland had put me to bed. My brain processed it, but I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. So I closed my eyes and hoped to fall back to sleep again.
Nothing in the world mattered anymore.
Rebecca was dead, my father was dead, my uncle was dead, and my aunt was dead for all intents and purposes. I should have died with Rebecca, not lived on as the monstrous freak I was.
Only six months prior, I was planning shopping trips, prom, my team finishing first in volleyball state finals, breaking up with Jimmy Stratton. All things that made me feel young and alive. The past months had pretty much destroyed all of those things.
A knock at the door pulled me from my pity party.
“Come in,” I said softly, knowing Roland would hear. I swore he was part hound.
“There is someone I’d like you to see.”
“Like a therapist? ‘Cause honestly, I think the sanity ship has sailed and my ticket wasn’t valid.”
“Hanna, please.”
I thought about getting out of bed. “Roland, how did I become this?”
“I believe it was a freak accident, my dear. Your body naturally fought against death with the only tool it had—rage.”
“Who’s downstairs?”
“A friend. Come down.”
“No. Send them up.”
Roland cleared his throat. “To your bedchamber?”
“Yeah, my bedchamber. Roland, you’re so crazy.”
He closed the door, clearly shocked, which made me laugh harder. Maybe I’d finally lost my mind from overload. Before long I too would have my own series of crazy journals.
During my week in bed, Andy had been by a few times to check on me. I had told Roland I wouldn’t see him. I wasn’t ready yet. He reminded me of the bad things I didn’t want to deal with. I wasn’t ready for those other things just yet. My pity party was still a full-fledged rager.
And Marcus had come by, but I didn’t have to tell Roland not to let him in. He handled that on his own.
So I wasn’t sure who was at the door, but I didn’t care. I was done with guests and life and drama and dead people.
Roland opened the door, seeming flustered. I leaned on my elbow, still fully covered in blankets and snuggling my pillow.
“Miss Hanna, may I introduce Aleksander. He is in a similar situation to you, and I presumed he might be able to help you understand your new life.”
“Roland!” I gasped as the sexiest man alive entered. Roland frowned at me and walked from the room, leaving the door open. I yanked the covers up nearly to my chin.
I’d been expecting another old lady. Or maybe the blonde girl who’d killed my dad.
I did not expect this.
He was a god.
He was a beautiful god, with dark-blond hair cut short and styled slightly messy. He had the whitest blue eyes I’d ever seen. He had perfect lips.
And he was massive. He looked like a huge, sexy Viking but in jeans and a tee shirt.
“Hanna, it’s nice to meet you.” He sat in a chair on the other side of the room. His words were like listening to a song on the wind, making me believe they spoke only for me. Everything about him was sex. He could have bottled it and sold it.
His mouth moved but I didn’t know what he was saying. I enjoyed watching him speak, noticing the way his jaw flexed.
I closed my eyes for a second as I imagined him kissing me.
“Hanna.”
I opened my eyes to him frowning at me.
“Sorry.” I sat up, dropping the covers, not noticing I was in a flimsy pale-blue tank top.
“Hanna.” It was as if he sang it. I wondered if he was an angel.
Chapter 8
I like my Viking shaken, not stirred
“Hi, Hanna, I’ve come as a favor to Roland.” He was nervous and gorgeous. He
was like breathing cotton candy, sunscreen, and warm berries. “I—uh, I didn’t know you were—”
“A girl?”
“So old. Roland called you a child so I’d assumed you were twelve. I can wait downstairs where it’s not so—”
“Dark?” I leaned forward, sniffing the air even more. Something about him was driving me nuts.
“Inappropriate.” He swallowed hard but moved closer, appearing to regret every step he took. “Hanna.” It sounded different than it had from across the room. “We need to go downstairs.” He said it as if he didn’t mean it, with no resolve behind his words.
“Go downstairs?” I felt as if I were floating in a dream. I blinked, attempting to snap out of it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You make me feel weird.”
He laughed. “Everyone says that.”
“I want to be near you. Is that weird?”
“No, fairly typical actually.” He blushed and lowered his gaze. “I’ll go and tell Roland we can’t do this.”
“Don’t.” The smile left my face. “I don’t want you to go.”
“For the first time in a while, I don’t want to go either.” He sat on the bed.
Heat flushed over me but instead of thinking or rationalizing the situation, we magnetically pulled to one another. I leaned in, softly brushing my lips against his. He tried to push me back but his hands paused, drawing me into him.
It was the most intense kiss I’d ever had. It showed me the difference between kissing a boy and kissing a man.
“Stop!” He pulled back, shoving me and disappearing with a warm wind. He reappeared across the room.
“How did you—how did you do that?”
“Please excuse me.” He left the room suddenly, leaving behind nothing but the warm wind and the taste of our kiss.
I touched my fingers to my lips, reliving it, the kiss and the taste of him. It was too much and too intense to have been real.
Deciding I needed a cold shower I got up and strolled into my bathroom, still in a daze.
The shower felt amazing.
I had to find out who he was; something about him bewitched me. But also, I needed to figure out how he’d crossed the room in the second it took him to reappear.