by Ella M. Lee
Ren, I responded.
What? I felt the inquisitive word.
Bitten, I conveyed. Blood. Pain.
His concern was so overwhelming that I sagged against the counter. Injured?
I pulled the towel away and inspected myself in the mirror. The bite was shallow. It would stop bleeding soon. I could hide it with my hair.
Fine, I said back, caressing the thread reassuringly. Safe.
I didn’t feel safe, not really, but I couldn’t think of anything else to tell him.
A pulse of anger and annoyance and frustration clanged down the thread, and I smiled. Ren didn’t want to see me hurt, and his protectiveness warmed my heart.
I showered and changed clothes. The bite would scab over with time.
When I got back to my room, I lay down and curled up under the covers, shaking.
I had too many missions here now. Retrieve the dagger. Stay away from Weston. Avoid El.
Weston was out for now, and probably would be until sunrise. Shaw and El were probably around, hopefully occupied with each other.
I cuddled up against the thread. I reached out, stroking it. It wasn’t polite, and it would likely startle Ren, but I wanted to feel close to someone. I hadn’t realized what a few days of closeness would do to me, hadn’t realized what would happen when it was taken away, and I was alone and scared again.
Judging by the tightness of the thread, I had startled him, but he reached out, too. Suddenly, I didn’t mind feeling like he was touching my soul, like he was somehow making it his.
Encouragement made its way down the thread, and I smiled faintly. I got an image from it. A lion. Strength, power, grace. Like my name. Ari, the lion.
I only lingered for a few more minutes before forcing myself out of bed. I was about to turn left out the door, to scour this place for the dagger once again, when something made me turn right.
I walked to Maggie and Jess’s door. When I knocked, it opened a sliver. Maggie peered out at me before widening the gap.
Hannah sat on the edge of Jess’s bed.
“Is she…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence. She was clearly alive. She was clearly not okay. What other questions were there?
Hannah cleared her throat. “She’s…hanging on. It’s not good.” No commitment in those words, not even a hint of emotion.
Weston wouldn’t care if he killed her. Shaw would bring in another dozen girls every time he lost a few. There was an endless supply of Maggies and Jesses and Hannahs and Aris in the world, weak and vulnerable and there for the taking.
I sighed, close to tears again.
“Is there any way to keep them away? Any of them?” I asked, hoping there was some set of rules in this house I could bend to my will.
Hannah shook her head. “No. They can do whatever they want.”
I couldn’t wait to be done with this stupid task, done with this stupid world, done with blood and fear and death.
But there was another part of me…the part that had pulverized a vampire with my bare hands.
Would Ren’s truce allow him to hold Weston down while I pulled out his organs and crushed them one by one?
Chapter 38
I was at a loss.
I scoured the house again until sunrise, the same with the garden, the driveway, and the large annex that was little more than an elaborate barn now fallen into disrepair.
I’d have to branch out farther into the property, which meant I’d have to wait for sunset again. I could try to take apart the spell and breach the doors or windows without tripping the alarms, but I didn’t want to risk it. Technical, difficult magic was too hard without Ren walking me through it, and I didn’t know how we’d do that with limited communications. I was also a little afraid that El was still hanging around, and that she’d sense me messing with the spell or see me out in the daylight.
No, better to wait for the shadows of night. I could take care of the treacherous swamp with Ren’s power. I’d just have to be very careful to keep myself calm, and quiet, and composed. I didn’t have too much time left. I was hoping to get the dagger in the next twenty-four hours. Anything longer, and I risked a vampire wanting to feed from me.
The first tendrils of desperation crept through me.
Thought this would be easy, didn’t you? that tiny voice taunted me. Thought the demon would be right about this, huh?
I told it to shut up, but I couldn’t quite forget the words.
I tossed and turned in bed, running over the map of the Shaw estate in my mind. A few outbuildings spread around the main house, most of them in disuse. Maybe one of them was a secret storage facility where they hid important demon daggers.
I was on the edge of sleep when a bloodcurdling scream woke me. Adrenaline spiked through me, and I flew out of bed to the door. The screaming continued, echoing down the hall from the direction of the bathroom.
I angled toward it, ignoring the part of me that told me what a terrible idea that was, because I recognized the voice.
Hannah.
Hannah, covered in blood.
Hannah, crying.
Hannah, kneeling on the bathroom tile, her eyes fixed on the bathtub, her mouth opened wide.
The bathtub was filled with blood and sunk into it was Maggie’s body.
Her eyes were glassy, her head thrown back, her dark curls soaked. Her arms each had long gashes down them. Self-inflicted wounds.
I looked for the weapon, and my eyes fell on a large pair of rusty garden shears. Of course no knives or razor blades existed in this house—vampires didn’t want humans killing themselves—but these had probably been forgotten out in the garden, or left in that guesthouse where Maggie had found Jess.
I lunged for Hannah, clamping my hand around her mouth and dragging her back from the body.
She struggled, still screaming into my palm.
“Close your eyes,” I said.
She shook her head, terrified.
“Close your eyes,” I commanded again and turned her into me, away from Maggie.
She sagged, and I let go of her mouth. She sobbed against me. “I have to… I have to…”
“No,” I said, holding her. “There’s nothing to do. She’s dead.”
“I could…”
“No,” I repeated.
I didn’t think she’d woken any of the vampires. It took a lot to wake a vampire in the day—a direct bodily attack, really. Anything short of that and they’d sleep through it.
“Come on,” I said, hauling her up. She dripped blood.
With shaking hands, I wrapped a towel around her to keep the blood from the hallway floor. When I got into the hallway, there were other open doors. Girls poking their heads out tentatively. I shook my head at them, not even sure what I was trying to convey. I didn’t know any of them; this was my first time even seeing some of them.
I guided Hannah to our room then slipped out again, going to Maggie and Jess’s room.
Jess was dead. She’d bled out, or her heart had given out, or something. I could only imagine that Maggie had seen this, and her own actions were triggered by it.
I stood in the room for a long time, trying to figure out what to do, but no ideas came.
I returned to my room and stayed awake with Hannah until just before sunset. I’d gotten her tea from the kitchen and cleaned most of the blood off her. She didn’t speak at first, but finally she said, simply, “Why?”
I didn’t have an answer.
“Should we leave the body there?” she asked.
I didn’t have an answer to that, either.
Finally, I said, “Don’t go near it. Wash the rest of the blood off yourself. Somewhere else. Another bathroom. I’ll take care of the blood here.”
Our eyes met for the first time, and she understood what I was telling her. Don’t attract vampires.
But we didn’t say anything else to one another. What was I supposed to say? Things wouldn’t be okay. Not for her. Maybe not even for me.
&
nbsp; Something in my chest felt like it had cracked open. Maggie couldn’t have been that much older than me. And Jess, not much older than Maggie. It took practically every fiber of my courage and stoicism not to beg Ren to come get me. He could walk in here, and pick me up, and carry me out.
But as much as I liked Ren, and as much as Ren liked me, he wouldn’t do that. Not without a dagger in my hands.
Hannah was back, huddled on her bed. I’d changed our sheets and washed the floor with bleach and prayed I’d gotten everything cleaned up.
“I’ll take this to the garbage bin in the kitchen,” I said, referencing the pile of dirty paper towels I’d used to mop up the floor. Hannah’s eyes were closed, so she was either asleep or ignoring me.
I was just coming out from the sitting room between the kitchen and entranceway when I caught sight of a wisp of black hair and pale skin. I pulled back instantly, shrouding myself in the shadowy room, where the heavy velvet curtains were drawn against the fading daylight.
I pressed myself into an alcove between two bookcases and counted the seconds while my heart raced.
It was still afternoon, so that had to have been El.
Maybe she hadn’t noticed me. Maybe she wasn’t bothering to look for me—or any humans at all.
I froze, barely breathing, waiting. Just when I was about to relax and attempt to call up some demon-sensing magic, a shadow passed through the doorway so quickly that I barely caught it.
I gasped as El appeared in front of me, her hand cinched around my throat, my back pressed into the wall.
Her bright eyes blazed, and her mouth was set into a hard frown.
“There you are,” she said. “I knew he’d send you here. It was the only plan he had.”
My mind raced. What could I say? Could I do anything to help this situation? Would she haul me in front of Shaw and reveal me for the traitor I was? Or would she just kill me right here?
You don’t have a lot to lose right now, the tiny voice whispered. Try to escape. You have Ren’s power. You aren’t her equal, but…
The conditional bond didn’t care about El. She already knew me and Ren. Revealing my mission or my powers in front of her wouldn’t matter.
I grabbed her arm with both hands and wrenched it down, dislodging her. She stumbled back, stunned. It had taken a lot of effort to move her, and I imagined I’d only succeeded because she was surprised.
Her wide eyes swept over me in disbelief, her brows raised, her lips parted in awe. She uttered a single, guttural word in the Baphometic language. Knowledge pinged in me. She’d just used her kind’s word for “soul bond.” She recognized the connection between me and Ren.
She took another hesitant step back, and confusion swept through me. I waited. Was she going to attack me? What should I do if she did? Could I attack Ren’s sister? Would he hate me for it? Would I be dead before he’d have a chance to hate me?
But El only drew herself up to her full height—taller than me by several inches—and studied me more intently. Her eyes lingered on my face and then my chest, almost like she could see the thread in me. There was some sort of debate happening behind her shadowy gaze.
She shook her head. “My brother would never forgive me if I killed you, but you’d do better to leave all of this behind.”
“I can’t,” I said.
She cast her eyes upward in thought for a moment. “Conditional bond? I can override that. I can nullify the conditions. I can get you off the property.” She gestured with one hand past the windows. “That’s what you want, correct? A way out?” She raised a brow at me. “My brother said you were eager for freedom. Walk away now. You don’t need to die for my family’s personal matters. Our father will die, and if my brother and I are lucky, we’ll be able to blame it on vampires after he takes the throne. They have the dagger, after all. How convenient.”
El really didn’t want Ren to get this dagger back. It seemed a lot like she’d set this whole thing up. Her sarcastic tone told me she was pleased the dagger had somehow ended up in the hands of royal vampires. She knew it was here. She might even know where it was.
But she was hesitating. She had her own plans, but she also didn’t want to completely ruin her relationship with her brother. Why? Did she respect him? Fear him? Love him?
I swallowed. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she wasn’t going to kill me herself. I didn’t have any loyalty to her. I had loyalty to Ren, whose soul was now mine—at least for now—and I wouldn’t betray that. He hadn’t betrayed me, after all.
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, the words not nearly as confident as I’d hoped.
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re going to die here.”
Over Ren’s dead body, I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to taunt her.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said.
“Reconsider,” she said.
“No.”
She glanced toward the windows at the far end of the room. “The royals will be waking.”
I saw the plan behind her eyes. She didn’t need to kill me, because she could get a vampire to do it for her. All she had to do was keep her eye on me until I was dead, and all Ren’s plans would be ruined. He wouldn’t have time to form a new one before the dagger’s effect on his father was complete.
“I’m used to dealing with vampires,” I said, shrugging.
“I’ll be sure to tell my brother how brave you were,” she said, giving me a final once-over before sweeping out of the room.
Screw you. I’m going to tell him myself.
Chapter 39
I stayed in the sitting room until the sun was well set. My weak knees and upset stomach prevented me from moving. Ren pinged the thread with concern, but I had no idea what to say. He clearly hadn’t understood my attempts to tell him about El. The only thing I could do was move forward with the plan. As a Baphometic royal, El couldn’t touch the dagger herself while on the property. If I could get my hands on it, I’d win the game. I needed to find it quickly, before she hatched a plan to get me killed, or alerted the royals to the dagger’s vulnerability, or some other thing I had yet to think of.
I was just gearing up to move, to resume my search, when—
“There you are,” Weston drawled.
He was beside me before I could move. He grabbed my arm and wrenched me toward him. I stumbled.
“I’m sorry we got interrupted last night, but now I have plenty of time,” he went on.
I opened my mouth to scream, but faster than I could see, he wrapped a hand around my throat.
“None of that,” he said darkly.
I brought my hands halfway up to claw at him when a light in my head went dark.
Off, the tiny voice said.
It knew what to do. It had been the one getting me through Franklin’s attacks for a year. It knew how to take care of me.
I went limp, not moving. Hannah implied that Jess had gotten badly hurt because she’d resisted. Weston was interested in me. He liked my blood; that was why he was back here hunting me. If he got to feed from me with minimal resistance, he’d likely leave me alive for more.
He dropped me onto the floor of the sitting room, and I winced, pain shooting through me.
The thread came alert, tightening, concerned, but it stayed calm and quiet. Ren was doing his best not to disturb me, like I’d asked him.
Weston pulled at my arms, and I stumbled back to my feet, compliant.
I needed to get through this, and then get the dagger. It would be a setback. I’d need to lie low for a day, probably, to recover. But then I’d find it. I’d find it, and I’d get the hell out of here. And I might burn the whole place down on the way out just for fun, even if Ren had said I shouldn’t. I wasn’t going to die. I wasn’t going to let El ruin Ren’s plans or screw my chance at freedom.
Weston dragged me out of the house, half-stumbling, and across the garden to the distant blue guesthouse. The one where Maggie had found Jess.
Don’t look, the tiny v
oice whispered, but I was never very good at following its instructions.
My eyes remained firmly open.
This guesthouse wasn’t in disrepair. There were lights, and a couch, and a desk, and a bed. Weston dragged me to the bed, to its messy, blood-stained sheets.
Panic rose in me, like an animal trying to claw its way out.
Off, the tiny voice commanded again, more firmly this time.
I shut down again as Weston threw me onto the bed so hard that my head hit the wall and my brain reverberated within my skull.
More concern flooded the thread, but I couldn’t seem to find it in me to care.
Weston clambered onto me. I dared one look at his face, to find him in full vampire mode. His eyes as dark as night, his fangs long, his skin veiny.
I could grab him, maybe, crush him, hurt him. But he was a royal vampire. Ren had said my portion of his powers likely wouldn’t do much against any older vampire. The only thing it might do was piss him off until he killed me like he’d killed Jess.
That panic ripped through me again, but then it settled, like a wave drawn back out to sea.
One swipe of Weston’s talon had my shirt ripped to shreds.
“Lovely,” he said, his tone rough and hoarse and full of need.
I closed my eyes as his fangs ripped into the flesh just below my right collarbone. This time, I did bring my arms up feebly, instinctually, trying to push him away. He caught my wrists and laughed, holding me in place with muscles that felt like stone.
A second bite, and I screamed, writhing. Pain flooded me again.
The thread pinged. It ricocheted with so much of Ren’s panic that I gasped, coming alert.
Off, the tiny voice said again, but I couldn’t this time. I couldn’t. I didn’t move, but I also couldn’t make myself fade away.
Damn it.
Instead, the only thing I could do was cling to the thread.
Ren! I cried, clawing my way down it. The gold was so faded I could hardly see it.
Ari? I got back the shape of my name, the feeling of it, pressing against me. ARI?
Ren, please, I begged, clinging harder, tearing my nails into the thread, swamping it. I’d gotten so good at turning myself off that I’d forgotten how much it hurt to be present for this sort of thing. I needed to get away, any way that I could.