by Rye Brewer
Sledge’s claws were extended, his fangs bared. He was ready to tear Vance into pieces.
Only Vance wasn’t just any vampire, either. He was just as strong as Sledge and twice as fast—Sledge had a lot of muscle and bulk, but it made him slow. After Vance hit the wall Sledge threw him into, he seemed to bounce off it, and throw himself against Sledge. It was like that for a while as they flung each other back and forth, breaking tables and chairs, punching holes in walls, sending plaster through the air as they cracked the concrete of the floor.
“Stop this! Now! I mean it! We don’t have time for this!”
I might as well have been talking to myself.
A group of two dozen vampires returned when they heard the noise—who could’ve missed it? They bared their fangs as soon as they saw it was Vance who fought with Sledge—a vampire from another clan—
“No. This isn’t happening.” I pushed them back, into the tunnel. “I’ll take care of this.” I closed the doors, then closed the doors around the rest of the room to shut out anybody else who thought they’d join in the fight. I had enough problems.
I jumped up on the table again—the only table they hadn’t yet broken.
“Stop this!” I bellowed, and my voice carried over the room. I could be good and loud when I needed to. I had to be, in a family full of boys. Being able to make myself heard meant I didn’t get completely ignored while growing up.
They stopped, both of their heads turning toward me.
I wondered if they knew how ridiculous they looked, tangled up together on the floor, scratched and bleeding and panting like animals. “I want you to get off each other and move to opposite sides of the room. Now, before I call the others in here and let them deal with you. I think you’ll like it better this way.”
They shoved each other a few more times, but only half-heartedly. They both wanted to get the last word in, so to speak.
I rolled my eyes as they separated.
I swung around and turned to Sledge. “Okay. I don’t know why you think you can keep doing things like this.”
“Me?” He pointed to himself, still breathing heavy. “Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not. And if you knew me at all, you would know I’m not.” I walked over to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Like I said, we had two dates. That was it. We’re not a couple, Sledge. I’m sorry if I did or said something to give you the idea we were anything more.”
He blinked once, twice, like he couldn’t believe it. “You mean it.”
“I do. And I think you need to think twice before you start anything like this again.”
He shook me off, and I felt his fury as sure as if he’d hit me.
“Forget it. I thought you were worth protecting.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“That’s what you think.” He glared at Vance again.
“You leave me no choice but to ask you to go. I need you to leave, Sledge. Now.”
He looked at me one more time, searching my face.
I wasn’t about to budge—when he saw that, he stormed out of the room, throwing the doors open as he did. I saw others jumping out of his way as he stalked down the hall. He would’ve plowed right through them if they hadn’t moved.
I turned to Vance with a heavy sigh.
He looked amused, and maybe a little impressed with the way I’d handled myself just then.
As a matter of fact, I was impressed, too.
“All right. Take me to my brother.”
15
Jonah
I was in a room that reminded me more of a tomb than anything else.
No windows, for one, so no light. My eyes worked just fine in the darkness, but it would’ve been nice to have some idea of where I was and what time of day it might be. The sensation of being totally separate from the rest of existence was unnerving. It could have been enough to drive me a little crazy.
I ran my hands over the solid rock walls, searching high and low for a way to escape. There had to be a seam, a crack, something I could use to jumpstart my escape.
All I found was a door which there was no prying open, no matter how I tried. Otherwise, the walls and floor were completely smooth. Even the seams where the walls met the floor were solid. The room had been carefully carved out of rock, the way the Sanctuary had. I could’ve still been at Sanctuary for all I knew. I didn’t know where Steward had brought me.
“Come on,” I growled, trying to pry the rock apart. I was a vampire, damn it. I should’ve been able to tear it to pieces with no trouble at all. Instead, all I did was tear my hands to pieces.
The pain was nothing in comparison to the way I felt about being trapped.
I needed to find Anissa. I needed to get us out of wherever we were. I couldn’t wait for Steward to get here, since he might never get here at all. What would happen if one of the other Custodians found out he’d let us feed from him? What if they’d killed him for it? He would never come back then. And I would be trapped forever. I couldn’t let that happen.
I tried again to pry the door open, searching for the opening between the door and the doorframe. No luck. It was obviously under some sort of enchantment. I couldn’t explain it any other way.
“What am I supposed to do?” I yelled, backing away from the door. The sound of my voice bounced off the walls, back and forth, until the room was filled with echoes. I waited for the sound to dissipate, then sighed in frustration.
The door flew open with no warning, and a bright light flooded the room. I threw an arm over my eyes out of instinct since I was so acclimated to the darkness.
Once I lowered it, I watched in awe as a beautiful brunette walked into the room. The light around her reminded me of a halo. She was tall, willowy, and wore a white gown with gold embroidery all throughout. Long, thick, wavy hair reached down to the middle of her back. Her eyes were the greenest emeralds, and her lips were full and ruby red. She was really something striking, which told me I had to be wary of her. Nothing that beautiful could be trusted. I didn’t ask who she was or what she was doing there. She might be able to take something I said and turn it against me.
“My, my, my. All this noise you’re making in here.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue against her teeth. “You really shouldn’t be such a noisy guest.”
When she saw I wasn’t about to let her pull me into her word games, she shrugged. “You’re probably wondering how I know you’re here. Isn’t that right?”
Again, I didn’t say a word. I only watched as she watched me.
She was trying hard to size me up. She wanted to know what she’d be able to get out of me if she chose to play.
I didn’t want to play. I wanted to get out of there, and the door was still open. I couldn’t let her know what I was only waiting for the right moment to force my way past her and out into the… whatever was beyond the room.
“So. A Custodian and a vampire,” she murmured, her eyes taking a long, casual tour of me.
I withstood it because I knew there was no other choice. I waited while she got an eyeful.
“What’s a Custodian doing with a vampire, anyway?”
“What’s a Custodian doing with a witch?” I fired back.
Her eyes widened, but only a fraction and only for a split second. “Well done,” she murmured. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for. You want to know what Steward was doing with me?” She looked both ways comically, then leaned a little closer. “I’m his dirty little secret.”
“His what?”
“Well, I was his dirty little secret, anyway. I’m a former dirty little secret.” She laughed a little, but there was no humor in that laugh. “So he’s not with me, per se. Not anymore.”
“Custodians aren’t allowed to associate with witches,” I said, like she needed to be reminded. I was only stalling, trying to get her off her guard.
She was so close to the door, but I could overpower her even with torn up hands.
“They’re not
allowed to associate with vampires, either, but here you are. I guess Steward isn’t much for following the rules, is he?” She shrugged.
In another world, I wouldn’t have minded her sense of humor. However, she was a witch, and we weren’t exactly friends, either. I didn’t trust witches. And for some reason, I especially didn’t trust her.
I needed to find Anissa. Right away. I had wasted so much time already. She could be terrified, hurting, in pain even. I couldn’t let that keep happening. She needed me.
“It’s been nice visiting,” I said, “but it’s time for me to go now.” I barreled across the room, past where she stood beside the door.
In the back of my mind I wondered why she didn’t try to stop me—
—until an unseen force caught me and threw me backward across the room. I hit the opposite wall with a bone-crunching crash, then slid to the floor.
“Not so fast, vampire.” She sounded victorious as she watched me get to my feet.
I bared my fangs. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m keeping you where I want you,” she replied coolly. “And if you think there’s anything you can do about it, I’d ask you not to forget that magic trumps the so-called strength of the vampire, so don’t even waste your time.”
“Don’t mess with me,” I warned. “You’re starting something you don’t want to finish. Trust me on this.”
Her laugh was like the sound of bells chiming. How could anything so enchanting be so poisonous?
“Don’t threaten me. Your threats mean nothing.”
A portal opened just beside me, and before I could fight it, it pulled me through.
16
Anissa
“I can’t believe this. I mean, could that have gone any worse?” I paced back and forth while a very unconscious Steward laid on the ground at my feet.
“You’ve already said that—many times.” Allonic raised a brow.
“I’m aware of that, thank you very much. I don’t need you to tell me how many times I’ve said something.”
“It’s not helping things, so why do you keep saying it?”
“Because it’s better than screaming or wringing your neck,” I muttered.
“You could try.”
Already Allonic and I were fighting like brother and sister. I wondered if he saw the irony there. It could’ve been that he didn’t know what siblings sounded like when they argued, since he didn’t know what it was like to have one. He didn’t have Sara or me in his life.
“Here.” Allonic tore a strip of cloth from his robe and handed it to me. “There’s a brook nearby.”
“I hear it.” And I knew what he meant, too. I wet the cloth in the brook, then returned to wipe Steward’s face with it.
Steward didn’t flinch. No reaction at all.
“Boy,” I muttered. “You really did a job on him.”
“I thought I was doing it to help you,” Allonic reminded me.
“Why did you?” I asked. “I mean, he’s a Custodian, just like you. Why would you attack him like that?”
“I did it for you, of course.”
“But aren’t you risking an awful lot? We don’t even know each other.”
“But we share a mother,” he said, and his voice was softer than I’d ever heard it. “I feel like I owe it to her. I know she would want me to help you.”
His words touched me deeply. “Thank you for that. I know I haven’t genuinely thanked you yet. But thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
An uncomfortable silence stretched between us, filling in the empty space between our bodies. In that silence was a million questions. A million and a half. I wondered if he would ever tell me what I needed to know. It couldn’t have been easy for him, knowing I was there, maybe even on our mother’s mind when she was with him. Nothing could’ve been easy on him—especially being half-vampire, since the Custodians didn’t associate with vampires.
“I know you want to know more about her,” he murmured.
“You need to stay out of my head.”
“I wasn’t in your head. Not like before, anyway. It was more like… well, I just know you want to know. I’d want to know, too. Besides, you’re slightly single-minded. You don’t let things go until you get what you want.”
“Is that something our mother told you?”
“No. It’s something I figured out about you pretty quickly.”
“I see.” I needed to stop asking him questions about her, especially questions which involved me.
“Why don’t you feed from me? It’ll give you all the answers you need.”
The thought was a tempting one—extremely tempting. I wanted to know more than anything. Then, I remembered what it felt like to feed from Steward. What an unnerving memory. I would have to go through that again.
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“The short answer is no. It would take too long. You’ll be able to see and understand more by experiencing my memories—and not just my memories, but the shared memories of all the Custodians.”
“I see.”
It made sense. I wanted to know more about what happened after the Great Fire, especially. And why she’d decided never to come back to me. I realized it hurt. It hurt a lot more than I wanted to admit to myself. Why wasn’t I enough for her to come back to? Sure, she had her reasons. She must have. But wasn’t I reason enough to at least send word to let me know she was alive?
“All right,” I decided. “I’ll do it.”
He offered me his wrist and I took it in my hand. I was much smaller than him, and his hand dwarfed mine. I looked up at him and he nodded, once. I was about to feed for the second time that day—or maybe the third, since I didn’t know exactly when I’d fed from Steward in relation to the present moment.
I bared my fangs and sank them into his wrist. That first rush flooded me, almost like a wave crashing all through me and filling me with a rush of euphoria. It took concentration—all I had—to keep from losing control and drinking deep to make that feeling last as long as possible.
The memories came quickly, flashing past my eyes as I drank. There she was again. My mother. Our mother. She was burned almost beyond recognition, and clearly in terrible pain. Every movement was almost enough to send her into convulsions, but she crawled anyway. She kept crawling. The sun burned her even worse than the fire had, and she searched for cover in vain.
A Custodian came to her rescue—his robes were a giveaway. He carried her into the Sanctuary, where he laid her down and allowed her to feed. Her burns were deep, so deep. She fed, and as she did, the Custodian shared memories with her.
Years passed. She looked healthier, her skin as healed as it could be after she’d suffered the way she had. And her skin changed, too. She no longer had the same pale skin all vampires shared. It darkened the longer she fed. She was never as dark as the rest of the shades, but she was still markedly different than I remembered her.
I saw her take the Custodian who’d helped her as a mate. She loved him. I could feel it. And he loved her. She was his secret, and he had protected her for so long. She would be dead if it weren’t for him. So they were in love and they had a baby. Allonic. She loved him, too. She was good to him, even if he had to stay hidden the way she did. After all, a surprise baby wouldn’t have worked. He would’ve given them away. He’d grown up there in the Sanctuary, barely allowed to interact with the others.
Mom loved to sketch. That was one thing I remembered about her, the art she used to create. She created sketch after sketch of little girls. Me and Sara. I wished I could wrap my arms around her and hug her, and tell her I was thinking about her, too. That I missed her.
I pulled away from Allonic, unable to see any more. Tears streamed down my face. She’d thought about me and Sara. She had wanted us. She had spent years and years in a cave, just trying to heal. It was all too much to take.
“Your father and my mother,” I whispered.
“Our mothe
r,” he corrected.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. It’s a habit, thinking of her as only mine. And Sara’s.”
He nodded, then looked back down at Steward. “Did he tell you we’re related?” he asked.
“He did. Your father was his cousin.”
“That’s right.”
“Who was your father, though? Did you know him well?”
He shrugged. “As well as I could, considering that I wasn’t supposed to exist.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I murmured. “I sort of know how that feels, at least a little. None of the vampires in my clan accepted me, since I wasn’t full-blood.” And at least he had my mother to love him. I didn’t have anybody but Sara. I couldn’t say that out loud.
“My grandfather is leader, and that leadership would’ve gone over to my father.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s gone.”
“I see,” I whispered. “Does that mean you’ll be the leader one day?”
“Funny you should ask,” he sneered. “No. My grandfather would never hand over leadership to a half-vampire. He hates me. There’s even a few in the Sanctuary actively against my leading.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. We had more in common than I’d originally thought.
We sat in silence for a little while before another pretty obvious question sprang to mind. “Do you feed? I mean, the way I feed?”
He shook his head. “I have fangs,” he explained, and he bared them for me.
It was disquieting, seeing a shade with fangs.
“But I have no bloodlust. I can survive without it.”
I nodded.
“Being a half-blood… it’s not easy. You never feel like you fully fit in on one side or the other.”
“I know, I know. Like I said, I’ve felt that pain. I always wondered why the rest of my clan shunned me. I wondered why I was a little different from the rest of them. Now I know it was because of my fae blood. And my father, well, he expects me to relinquish all vampire ties and join him. Like I could ever forget half of myself.” Something occurred to me. “Our mother. When she drank your father’s blood… Steward said it changed her. I saw the way her skin tone changed. Did anything else change?”