by Lizzy Ford
I’m hungry, though, and pause before closing the door. I’ve been so wrapped up in the insanity that is my life, I haven’t eaten all day.
He’s followed me, which I can sense. “You don’t answer texts but you do house calls?” I ask him and fold my arms across my chest. I face him, realize I’ve exposed my scars again, and then place my arms behind my back.
“You don’t have to hide whatever happened,” he says.
“It’s none of your business.”
“It can be, if you want it to.”
“Am I missing something? Are we friends now?” I ask, puzzled.
“If you want to be. The candidate on trial is the only one who can talk to you during the trial days. On the seventh day, any of us can.”
He’s just following the rules. Figures. Maybe there’s a rule about them being required to be my friends, too.
Why am I so angry with him? Do I even know?
“Tristan’s people vivisected me,” I say and hold out my arms.
“Interesting.” Ben’s jaw clenches, and he examines the scarring visually. “I take it he what? Was too busy to make sure you were safe?”
“Don’t you start. Your ex tried to kill me and I wandered around the forest alone for two days under your watch!”
He’s trying hard not to snap back. The alpha before me does not do well with direct confrontation. We glare at one another. I wait for his assertive side to emerge. He manages to contain it for once.
“Good boy,” I say dryly. “I’m collecting souvenirs from the trials.” I rub the scar running down my forearm.
“You remind me of Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas.”
My mouth drops open, and I stare at him, speechless. There’s not a chance in hell he not only knows my favorite ice cream but also my favorite movie. I know for a fact we didn’t discuss these two particular items during our texting or talks. Did he figure this out when the three of them stalked the upcoming Kingmaker?
Or … is there something else going on here?
God, why am I so angry with Ben right now? We parted on good terms or so I thought. That doesn’t stop me for reaching for the apples stacked on the counter. I grab three and fling them at him, too frustrated to know what else to do.
He catches each effortlessly with his animal reflexes, without looking away from me or even blinking.
Fed up, I march past him to the study and slam the door, hoping he takes the hint and leaves me alone.
Or stays.
Or leaves.
Stays.
Leaves.
I rub my face with trembling hands. What the hell is wrong with me today?
He taps at the door to the study.
“Go away!” I cry.
“Ice cream.”
I hear the tinkle of a spoon tapping the edge of the bowl.
I’m a sucker for a sexy man bearing food. After a moment of internal debate, I open the door and accept his peace offering.
“What’re you doing here, Ben?” I ask more calmly.
“Jason told me he wrote you a note.”
My insides seize at the mention of the letter that stung so hard, I can’t get the gaping wound it left to heal.
Ugh. Maybe that’s why I’m upset, or one of the reasons. Tristan helped me with my emotional turmoil for a week. I didn’t realize I was such a disaster until I’m alone to deal with my feelings again. Turning away from Ben, I return to the desk and perch on its edge to start eating my ice cream.
“He shouldn’t have interfered with the trials. I explicitly asked my family to keep their distance,” Ben continues.
“He told you what he wrote?” I ask.
“No. Only that he asked a favor of you.”
I toy with my ice cream and swallow a large bite before answering. “It’s okay,” I lie. “He meant no harm.”
“It wasn’t his place,” Ben replies firmly. “Whatever it is he asked or said, I’m officially rescinding any attempt he made to curry favor.”
“You don’t even know what he said.”
“It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t part of the trials.”
“Ben, he wrote to me because he loves you and wants the best for you and your clan,” I say before I can stop myself. “He was right about everything.” I stab my ice cream with the spoon. I’m not hungry anymore. I set the bowl aside. “You should see the letters my father left me. Now those are zingers!” I try to laugh and end up close to crying. “Anyway, be happy you have someone who loves you enough to dare address a Kingmaker on your behalf.”
I’m envious of him for having someone who cares this much that he’d risk a Kingmaker’s wrath to plead Ben’s case. My father is the only person who ever loved me, but I can’t shake the idea, formed during this trial, that he didn’t love me enough to warn me. He told me how sorry he was after the fact, after I’d been condemned. He would never do what Jason did and boldly dare to influence my decision, because he loved someone so much, he had to.
Tristan did a great deal to water down and soften my emotions. Without him, they’re raw and jagged once more and I’m more confused than ever.
I feel Ben’s intent gaze but don’t look up, instead focusing on my book piles. The answers to everything lie in those piles, hidden right before my eyes.
I’m starting to hate books.
The silence is taut and awkward. I can’t define what I feel or why seeing Ben again affects me when I thought I’d be over him by now. Then again, can you ever really get over Ben or Tristan?
“You redecorated,” Ben says. “Books not talking to you?”
I snort. Even now, Ben just knows. “No, they’re not.”
“Are you okay, Leslie?”
I meet his gaze, not expecting the soft question spoken in his low growl. “No,” I reply and fold my arms around my chest in a self-hug. “I’m not.”
“Good.” Ben studies me. “You shouldn’t be.”
We gaze at one another, and I begin to suspect another reason I’m angry. It’s not him. I’m angry with myself. Looking back at my first trial, I knew nothing of what I do now about how much these guys really go through, of how much they really do care. Being bonded to Tristan, forced to feel what he does, has left me more sensitive to the daily struggle the clan leaders experience and to the difficulty in deciding to end the life of a clan member. These leaders are selfless with their time, their hearts, their feelings, their lives, and they suffer alone with the decisions they make.
During our trial, I judged Ben for being who he is and doing what he does, the same way the entire Community judges me for my last name.
None of this is right.
“How did you know I love the Nightmare Before Christmas?” I ask to break the tension.
“I didn’t. It’s my favorite movie.”
I laugh. “No way.
He shrugs. Amusement is in his amber gaze. “Why not?”
“And rocky road just happens to be your favorite ice cream?” I challenge.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes. It is absolutely impossible to believe, especially since Tristan knew that, too.”
“Your dad told us.”
I freeze. “What?”
“He loved you, Leslie. Whatever this is about,” he lifts his chin towards the disaster of a study, “he really loved you. It was the only good trait he had.”
“He told you guys about me,” I murmur, touched by the idea. My father couldn’t reveal anything to me, but I’ve read nothing yet about restrictions on what he could share with the candidates.
“He tried. I found out during our trial he didn’t know you very well.”
No one did, before the trials. It was easy to keep my wild side, my rebellious nature, repressed when it came to my father, since he groomed me to suppress who I was from humans and supernaturals. It was natural to hide from him, too.
“That’s why you had shit loads of Snickers in the break room?” I eye Ben.
&
nbsp; “Yeah.”
It’s kind of cool but also disturbing. The truth is, this game is rigged. Against me. Except I don’t know what outcome people are expecting. The only outcome I can imagine is everyone hating me.
Even Ben, who didn’t have to show up today with ice cream but chose to anyway. He has no idea I have to pick an entire clan to exile or he wouldn’t be anywhere near me.
“I hate it when you’re nice,” I say in frustration, all too aware of the looming evil that I may not be able to stop. “Hypothetically, what would you do to break the Kingmaker curse? How far would you go?”
“I would do what I had to,” he responds.
He’s purposely being vague and I take a minute to rephrase. “Is it bad enough to justify breaking it at any cost?”
“Depends. Define any cost.”
I roll my eyes. “How ‘bout if it cost you a lot of wolves, if say … in turn, it stopped your infertility problem?”
“I would never make that decision lightly.”
“But you would make it.”
“Only if there were no other way,” he says carefully.
“Okay. What if it cost your life?”
“Easy. Yes.”
“What if it was way worse. Like, what if you inherited the curse and lived in a state of misery for all eternity, but everyone else was okay?”
He laughs. “My life, my heart, my soul. I would give them without hesitation if it broke the curse. My wolves, however, are a different matter.”
His answers are too perfect. I seek some way to trip him up. “Ah, how about this one? What if it cost the life of your mate?”
“My plan is never to have a mate.”
“But what if you did? And you had to kill her?”
For the first time since he arrived, Ben is guarded. He’s either uncomfortable discussing the hypothetical death of his non-existent mate, or I’m close to something. I’m not sure which it is and am also uncertain if he knows what I’m trying not to say. Tristan almost seemed aware of the scenario in the Final Trials when I tried to ask him a hypothetical question similar to this.
“Only a Kingmaker can and should decide how to handle the Kingmaker curse,” Ben answers at last.
I don’t like this response.
“You need a break,” he assesses. “We’re going for a walk.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do!” I snap.
“Go get a jacket. Fall finally hit.” He’s amused as he pushes himself away from the doorway and heads to the front door.
I hate werewolves. I’m cursing him under my breath as I fumble to tug on my shoes and grab my jacket. But I go, because I kind of need Ben’s friendship, even if it leaves me deeply troubled. For now, he is someone I can talk to. When this mess is over, I don’t think that will be true.
It’s nice having a friend, though, even if it’s a werewolf who makes my head spin and my heart ache.
Chapter Thirteen
I’m getting closer to sitting in my father’s chair. The morning after Ben’s visit, I’m drinking coffee while sitting on top of the desk. There are moments such as these when I’m glad my father isn’t here, so he can’t see the mess I made of the library he cared for his entire life.
I awoke to my first day as a vampire to find the Book of Secrets has already revealed the Reference list of books for the vampire clan. It’s twice the size of Tristan’s – somewhere around fifty five pages – and contains a catalog of hundreds of books. I ignore everything but the last book listed and spend two hours rummaging through the piles on the floor to find the book that will introduce me to the man I’m meeting today.
For once, I want to be prepared. I renew the vow I made before Tristan not to let anyone else fuck up my emotions or make me believe there’s good in this world. There’s not. This world is fucked up, and someone’s either going to try to kill me for real once they realize what I might have to do, or the community will slay me after. I’m cursed, and nothing good can possibly come out of the insanity of these trials.
I just have to remember what’s at stake, in case I tumble into love with the third candidate as easily as I did the first two. It feels like a losing battle or, as I’m almost firmly convinced, a rigged game where the three candidates are playing against me. I hurt too much from Ben and now Tristan to want to go through this pain again, and I don’t know what to do with the emotional turmoil I can’t shake.
To get a leg up on the vampire, I start from the rear of the last book on the list, the latest written, and open it.
“What now?” I grumble as my eyes fall to the writing.
My father’s neat printing fills thirty pages – and has been crossed out. It looks like he took a ruler to each sentence. The lines through the words are perfectly straight, though the writing beneath them remains readable if I squint.
I start above the point where the crossed out writing first appears.
“Gia’s accidental death, while tragic, nonetheless likely paves the way for her younger brother, Rio, to ascend to the position of clan leader. Unlike the other clans, the vampires choose a successor through a popular vote, but Gia’s family has held power for four generations of leaders. It’s unlikely their people will vote out Rio during such a time.”
That’s the end of Gia and her tale. My father begins discussing Rio, the potential new leader, but this is also where he went back to strike out all the information. I flip through the pages, pausing to read a sentence here and there. This section is all about Rio. Going to the end, I find the end of the chapter and the start of a new one, this one without any lines through the writing.
“It has long been rumored, but never confirmed, that the vampire clan has a double hierarchy: the current clan whose members are no more than ten thousand years old, and the original clan, whose numbers were said to be in the single digits and whose ages stretch from eleven thousand years possibly to those as old as the race itself, which is rumored to be some hundreds of thousand of years old and predates modern man and all we know of the current world.
There’s no record of this secondary hierarchy and if it exists, no Kingmaker has met one of these older clan members in two thousand years of history. I can find only vague references within the detailed histories. It’s worth adding that the original Kingmaker histories were lost about a thousand years ago, and what we know of the time before then comes from oral histories recorded from the different clans. If the vampires wished to conceal the existence of an ancient clan from us, it was entirely within their power to do so.
In short, it was not possible for us to confirm the suspected existence of the older clan until now.
The vampire clan’s announcement that Rio would not ascend to Gia’s position was followed by a second: Myca is the name of the vampire who is taking over the clan. He is a complete unknown, a supernatural who appeared from nowhere, with no history, and whose age is estimated by the ancient members of the fae – the second oldest clan – to be around twenty thousand years. The vampires are in complete agreement, for the first time in history. His accession was not only unanimous, but his candidacy was put forth by the vampire council before Myca arrived to the city.
I have found no mention of Myca in the records and do not know if this is even his real name. The most ancient of the fae believe him to be from the middle race of vampires, those who came between the ancient clan and current clan, and who went into hiding when the curse first fell upon the Community. Their numbers, according to the fae, are estimated to be likewise small, perhaps two dozen, if that. But this is all supposition, because no one but the vampires truly know, and I cannot verify this.
Every vampire, ancient or not, must adhere to the conditions of the agreement made two thousand years ago at the onset of the curse. I cannot help but believe Myca might, somehow, know about the Final Trials, or that someone within the vampire clan does and brought him out of hiding for the express purpose of somehow affecting the trials. Why else wait until now to call forth a leader fr
om an ancient clan whose existence was unknown until today, whose magic might be powerful enough and old enough to disrupt the Kingmaker curse during the Final Trials? Is it even possible to change the course of the Trials, even with magic that’s ten times older than the curse itself? To what end is Myca’s sudden appearance?
Most importantly, does he know the purpose for which he was brought out of hiding, or is this a complicated chess move by the vampire council, which has long loathed the curse and Kingmakers?”
I turn the page eagerly, absorbed in my father’s explanation for once instead of skeptical of what he has to say about the clans.
The next page is blank. It’s the end of the book.
“You son of a bitch!” I snarl at the damned book and slam it shut. The one time I feel like I’m getting somewhere, when the secrets are about to spill out … I curse and drop the book on the floor.
Restless, I sigh and stand. I’m working on digesting this newest information and trying to find any point where my father made a wild assumption, as he did with Ben and Tristan, that might ring false. Is it possible for anyone outside the Kingmakers to know of the Final Trials? Could Myca’s nomination be coincidence?
I swipe the book off the floor and reread the section about Myca.
My father’s logic doesn’t seem completely crazy this time. Maybe he didn’t know enough about Myca to assume anything terrible. Although, a twenty thousand year old vampire sounds a little far fetched.
I set the book down then check the Book of Secrets to see if anything else has appeared. Nothing aside from the References is visible, so I pull the small trunk out of the bottom drawer of the desk and dump its contents onto the desk.
“Tristan,” I say, touching the flute. “Ben.” I sort the two that seem to be talking to me and wait for a third to identify itself, possibly as Myca’s.
Nothing does. The amulet at my chest grows warm once more, and I absently tug it free from my t-shirt so it’s not against my skin. I push the weird items around, not at all understanding what they do, why my father had them, or why Tristan freaked out when he saw his. They seem pretty harmless to me.