by M. Leighton
What I saw both confused and concerned me. It was Lilly. She was lying atop a cot that sat in the center of a circle of dozens of white pillar candles. She was still fast asleep, lying on her side with her pink lips parted ever so slightly. My heart squeezed at the sight of her. I didn’t know what it was, but something about Lilly touched me—deeply.
But why was she up here? In a hidden room, surrounded by candles?
The questions had no sooner entered my mind when I heard a woman’s voice break the silence.
“Mmm, that smell. I can almost taste your sweet blood, warm and sticky, flowing over my tongue like silk.”
I stilled instantly. I wasn’t even breathing. I thought at first the woman was talking to someone else, but then, with a lightening bolt of panic that shot straight to my toes, I realized that I recognized the voice. And she was talking to me.
Just as I was turning to run, I felt a breeze stir my hair. And when I looked up, I was face to face with a beautiful red head that I’d seen before. My head swam dizzily, my mind rebelling against what I concluded.
No! It can’t be! It just can’t be, I was thinking, but all the while, that other part of me, the rational calm part, was telling me that it was very much true.
“Heather,” I whispered, stunned beyond description.
“Bravo,” she said, moving around to my back.
I was in shock. Savannah’s mother was standing right behind me. I recognized her from the photos in Savannah’s room. And her name was Heather; Mr. Grant had mentioned it. She was the same Heather that Bo had been searching for, the one and only. Though I had no proof, I was certain of it. I knew it, knew it without a doubt, knew it in my bones. It was her. And she’d found me. Again.
It jarred me when I finally placed that vaguely familiar floral scent. I’d smelled it, the scent of roses, in my bedroom when I’d been attacked and bitten, as well as at Denise’s house when I’d gone to visit her and caught someone there. It had been this woman—Heather.
Savannah had been right. Her mother had visited her. What Savannah didn’t know was that her mother is alive. Sort of. She’s a vampire. Somehow, though she was unable to see anything else, Savannah could see vampires.
And then I remembered yet another alarming thought. She could see Devon, too.
My racing mind stopped its erratic flitting when I felt the hair at my neck move. Soft, warm fingers brushed it away and my focus was once again sharply concentrated on the person at my back.
I knew I needed to flee, to get out of there, away from her, but I couldn’t just leave. I wasn’t the only one at risk. As terrified as I was for myself, for what she might do to me, I had to consider Lilly. If possible, I was even more horrified at what the woman might do to her. She was just a child.
Before I could follow my fears to any kind of conclusion or come up with some sort of plan to get us out of there alive, I heard the quiet words that I’d heard once before. And I knew what was coming.
“Shh,” she breathed. Then, in the husky voice I’d heard at Denise’s, she promised, “It will only hurt for a moment.”
And then I felt the stab of sharp teeth penetrating the skin of my throat. With a panic that vibrated through my body, ringing in every cell and fiber of my being, I knew I had to fight, but I was paralyzed. I couldn’t even lift a hand to wipe away the single tear that had slipped from the corner of my eye to slide down my cheek.
The one comfort I had was that Sebastian would eventually have to come back home. If I could just make it until then…
My hopes were dashed, however, when I heard another voice, a velvety tone that rose above the buzzing in my ears.
“There will be time for that later, Heather. Bring her here.”
It was Sebastian.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Sebastian?” I squeaked.
Behind me, Heather withdrew her teeth and laughed, a mirthless sound. Her warm breath tickled my ear and made me shudder.
“That’s what you call him, yes.”
Taking my arm in a vise grip, Heather guided me none-too-gently on into the candlelit room. Standing on the other side of the long, narrow space was Sebastian.
He was leaning up against the wall beside a spiral staircase that disappeared into the darkness behind him. In one hand, he held a large book. I recognized it from the display in his office. It was the book about vampires, the one that he’d partially translated.
“Sebastian, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Sweet Ridley,” he said, shaking his head. “Poor sweet, clueless Ridley.”
Despite the precariousness of my situation, my hackles rose at his patronizing tone. I bristled silently, waiting for him to continue, cautioning myself to keep my mouth shut.
“I could’ve spared you some of this if you’d only sipped from your drink, like you did that first night. Only you didn’t and now, here we are.”
“What is going on Sebastian?” I repeated.
Sebastian paused. “How shall I explain this?” he asked rhetorically, his question more to himself than to anyone else in the room. “Let’s just say that you are a vital part of my experiment.”
I gulped.
“What experiment?”
“My experiment to see if you’re the one, of course.”
“The one what?”
“The one for Bo.”
Airflow in and out of my lungs stopped. “Bo? What’s Bo got to do with this?”
“Bo has everything to do with this,” Sebastian said, pushing himself away from the wall. “Haven’t you figured it all out yet? Don’t you know who I am?”
Sebastian strode slowly to the center of the room and stopped, facing me. A smug grin tipped one side of his mouth.
A loud sound, like a single flap, popped in the otherwise quiet room and a puff of air feathered my face. Though Sebastian’s form didn’t change, on the wall behind him, a shadow appeared. It was the shadow of two large wings arising from his silhouette, the span reaching from one end of the long room to the other.
“Wh-who are you?” I whispered.
“My true name is Constantine, but you may still call me Sebastian.”
A thousand inconsequential things flooded my mind, as if my body’s only mechanism of defense was to drown out the reality of what I was seeing, of what I knew to be true, with minutia.
“Constantine,” I repeated dazedly. “But you’re dead.”
He laughed, a malicious snarl that made his beautiful face suddenly ugly.
“That’s what they say,” he muttered nonchalantly. “That’s what I wanted them to say.”
“But- but…” I couldn’t even formulate an intelligent question. I was desperately trying to recall everything I’d heard about Constantine, to glue all the bits and pieces together into some kind of discernible picture.
Sebastian cocked his head to one side and flexed his shoulders, the shadow of wings behind him disappearing. He rolled his eyes back to me.
“Well, I was going to explain it all to you, but why not just wait for our next guest to join us?”
As if on cue, I felt the familiar tug of Bo’s nearness, and while part of me was thrilled to feel his presence, the rest of me was terrified for his safety. I had to warn him.
Before I could lose my nerve or tip them off as to my intent, I lunged toward the door, surprising Heather, who lost her grip on me.
“Bo, get out of here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
That was all I managed to get out before a hand clamped painfully over my mouth. But it was enough. I knew Bo had heard that. His hearing was too sensitive not to have picked up on it.
“Bring her here,” Sebastian commanded. “He’ll come. Nothing she can say will keep him away. In fact, her shrill warning will only make him hurry, make him sloppy. I couldn’t have planned it any better.”
With one hand over my mouth and the other across my waist, Heather pulled me back against her, picked me up and carried me across the room to Sebastian. He tip
ped his head, gesturing to a place against the wall. Heather continued past him to the spot where Sebastian had been, near the stairs. She stopped, but didn’t release me.
Sebastian turned back to the door, reaching behind him and pulling a long thin blade from a sheath I hadn’t seen strapped to his back. He held the blade out in front of him, twisting it slightly in his grasp, the razor sharp edge catching the light and reflecting it.
I was strangely captivated by the play of the candles’ flames in the gleaming silver. It was the flicker of those lights that shook me from my fascination.
A gust of wind threatened the flames and pushed the hair back from my face.
I looked up and Sebastian was gone.
Next, I saw blurry streaks darting across the room, like cyclones stirring the air. I heard grunts and sounds of struggle, grappling, but still I couldn’t make out any distinct shapes.
The ache in my chest and the tethers tugging at my soul assured me that Bo was in the room. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him. I felt him like I felt the hand across my face. My heart raced in fear for him, in fear for us all.
But then, with a thump that rattled the rafters and shook dust from every crack in the room, Bo appeared. He was affixed to one of the exposed wooden beams that supported the ceiling. The silver hilt of the knife was protruding from his chest—right over his heart.
Sebastian appeared next, only a fraction of a second later, standing right in front of Bo. With one quick movement, he tore Bo’s shirt front open and turned to walk casually back to the center of the room, dusting his hands off as he went.
I couldn’t stop the scream. It bubbled in my throat, burned in my chest, trembled on my tongue, but ultimately, it was smothered by Heather’s hand.
“That ought to release some of that poison. Nasty stuff, isn’t it, Bo?”
Bo was gasping and pulling at the blade, to no avail. There was no doubt that the metal had pierced his heart. As I watched, the telltale gangrenous blackness crept out from the handle and spread across Bo’s chest, assuring me that there was no doubt about the poison either.
“Now,” Sebastian began amicably. “Shall I make some introductions?” He looked from Bo to me and back again. No one said a word. I suspected that no one probably so much as breathed. We all waited to see what bomb Sebastian would drop.
“My name is Constantine. I am your father and you are my son. Boaz, the son of the angels.”
My heart, my very soul, dropped into my shoes. Remembering the wings that had arisen from Sebastian’s shadow, it made much more sense now. He was a dark angel, a fallen angel.
It’s true! It’s true! Dear God, help us, it’s all true!
Bo and Boaz were one and the same. Bo was the son of two rebellious angels. Bo was the boy who can’t be killed. He was the boy destined to kill his father.
Beneath the thin sheen of sweat that covered Bo’s face and the cracks that marred its perfect texture, I saw him pale.
“My father?” It took Bo only a fraction of a minute to put it all together and, in him, I could sense a storm building. “So, you’re the one…” Bo trailed off, his eyes darting toward me, only they didn’t look at me. They looked behind me. “And you must be Heather.”
She said nothing, though I imagined that she was smiling. She seemed devilish that way.
“Ah, is that the click-clack of puzzle pieces I hear, finally falling into place?”
Sebastian mocked.
“But how? Why? Why would you hurt innocent people?” Bo managed.
“Don’t be naïve. No one’s innocent. The people I chose to be your ‘parents’
were simply the most convenient choices to fill the position, as they all have been.
And the how, well, if you must know, my blood is more powerful than anything you can imagine. Feeding it to you was ridiculously easy and it made controlling your memories like child’s play. And humans? Even more so. Isn’t that right, Ridley?”
He looked back at me and I could do nothing but stare in astonishment, mouth agape under Heather’s fingers.
Sebastian turned back to Bo. “She had no idea that she was drinking my blood. You’d think that losing hours of her life might’ve made her suspicious, but she’s just as adorably oblivious as you always have been.”
I felt blood heat my cheeks as it flooded the skin of my face. I’d wondered about those couple hours I couldn’t remember that night, when I’d awakened on the couch downstairs. Naively, not once had I considered Sebastian might have had something to do with it.
Idiot! I scolded myself.
“You’ve done this before?” Bo asked incredulously.
I could tell that Bo was having a hard time with the information, especially just having suffered such a devastating wound. It was a miracle he could think at all.
“Of course. How do you think you’ve spent the last few hundred years?”
Sebastian chuckled, a series of sardonic barks. “Oh, that’s right. Your memory is…
well, it’s a little faulty now. Has been for a while. I guess it’s all the tampering. Not that it matters now anyway. You’ll be immune to it in the future since you’ve had the blood of your mate, but you’ll never get those memories back. Or erase the painful ones from this life.”
Sebastian’s eyes glowed with pleasure, his handsome face a cruel mask. He actually enjoyed torturing Bo, enjoyed telling him hurtful things and watching him squirm.
Bo closed his eyes. At first I thought he was in pain, and he was. Only this pain was of the emotional variety. He was still grieving for the only parents he’d ever known.
“And the woman who was my mother, will you kill her?”
“Not yet. But ultimately, that will be up to you.”
After giving it a couple seconds to sink in, Sebastian continued. “Well,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I suppose it’s time to get this show on the road.
That’s all the time we have today for a heartfelt reunion. Now, we must get down to business. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, so you know that I’m here for one thing and one thing only: to kill you.”
According to Lucius’s stories and the translated texts in Sebastian’s office, killing Bo was an impossibility. But even so, it still terrified me to hear an angel talk about taking the life of the man that held my heart.
“Go for it,” Bo ground out between labored breaths.
“Well, there is a little something that I must learn first. That’s why I’ve asked sweet Ridley to join us,” Sebastian said dramatically, sweeping his arm toward me.
“If you hurt her…” Bo spat.
“What was that?” Sebastian cupped his ear theatrically. “I couldn’t quite make that out. I guess it’s the silver dagger sticking out of your heart. Makes it hard to understand you.”
“I’ll rip you apart,” Bo huffed weakly.
“Mmm, let’s save that for another time, shall we?”
Sebastian walked back toward me, stopping at my side.
“She’s quite stunning, you know,” he said, reaching out to take a lock of my hair that had fallen down across my breast and twirl it around his finger. “It must be a father-son thing, the love we have for beautiful women.” Sebastian faced me full on and said quietly, “And their love for us.”
Reaching around me to a small table that sat to my right, Sebastian took hold of an oddly familiar wooden stake. I don’t know why it seemed like I’d seen it before, but I was certain I recognized it. He hefted it in his hand, as if testing the weight, and then he turned and hurled it across the room at Bo.
With a loud thump, the stake buried its tip in Bo’s side, to the right of his navel, evidently penetrating his body to embed in the wide beam behind him. When he cried out in agony, it felt as if I had been impaled as well. His pain lanced through me in a physical way, piercing my guts like a scalpel.
“No!” I screamed, but once more it was smothered by Heather’s hand.
Sebastian faced me again. “Not e
nough? Would you like to see more?”
With that, he reached for another stake and, in one fluid motion, pivoted and threw it unerringly at Bo. This one landed deep in his left thigh.
Bo must’ve gasped in anguish and gotten choked. He coughed and sputtered, blood spewing from his mouth.
The room swayed before my eyes so I squeezed them shut, unable to watch, unable to bear his torture.
Viciously strong fingers grabbed my face and my eyes flew open. Sebastian was glaring down at me, his lips thin and set in a straight, angry line.
“More?”
In horror, I watched as he took yet another stake from the table and flung it at Bo. It penetrated his knee with a splintering sound. I knew it wasn’t the stake giving way; it was Bo’s bone.
“Oh, God, please,” I mumbled behind Heather’s hand.
Sebastian turned back to me, rage etched on every sharp angle of his face.
“God? You dare to call on Him in my presence?”
Furiously, Sebastian grabbed another thick chunk of the familiar whittled wood from the table. I shook my head desperately, but still he turned and launched it at Bo. I watched his arm extend and his hand release the stake, each motion slow and exaggerated, as if he was moving in molasses. I saw every rotation the projectile made on its way to Bo. I heard the hiss of Bo’s breath as it neared him. I felt the way he braced himself against the pain, felt it as surely as if it were happening to me.
As the wood buried itself in Bo’s right shoulder, blood spurted out, droplets flying through the air and peppering his gorgeous face. I surveyed his broken and bloodied body, my heart wrenching inside my tight chest. The anguish I felt for Bo began to meld with another sensation, one that I’d felt before. It was more than fear, more than love, more than helplessness or anger. It was a sweet hurt that I immediately recognized and embraced.
Yes, the terror was there and the rage, but also the feeling that an old friend—
a trusted friend, a powerful friend—had arrived to lend a hand. And with one shaky breath, I let her have her way.
Inside me, she built more quickly this time—the familiar pressure in my chest that oozed into my stomach, where it churned angrily. Within seconds, she had flooded my veins, mingling with my blood and carrying my tie with Bo to the surface, where it throbbed and pulsed just beneath the covering of my flesh.