by Rye Brewer
“One little kiss. What could that hurt?”
“Plenty, and you know it. Let go of me, damn you!” I threw my body against his, hoping to knock him off-balance. No such luck. All it did was get me even more flustered, which was the last thing I needed.
“Am I really that repulsive?” he asked, and his breath tickled the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
I closed my eyes and shivered, cursing my heart for betraying me. His deep, throaty chuckle told me he knew what I was going through even as I struggled with him.
I had to do something, anything to make it stop. “Okay, fine. One kiss.”
He straightened up, looking down at me with surprise all over his face. “Really?”
“Really.” I turned my face to the side. “A kiss on the cheek.”
He laughed. “I guess I have to take what I’m given. I didn’t specify the kind of kiss, after all—even though you’re the one who’s losing out in the end.”
I lowered my eyelids, keeping my emotions a secret, knowing I was probably failing, and hating how easy it was for him to manipulate me.
I was surprised to feel a soft kiss just a moment later. It was sweet, gentle.
It made me smile.
The doors opened and in walked Sledge.
Of course.
He had impeccable timing. I pulled my wrists from Vance’s hands, as the surprise of Sledge walking in was enough to loosen his grip.
“Get your hands off her!” Sledge roared.
“His hands are off me!” I raised Vance’s hands up. “See? He’s not even touching me anymore. Stop this. It’s ridiculous.”
“You think I’m gonna be okay with watching him paw you like that? I know you don’t think we’re anything, Philippa, but I have more respect for you than that.”
Right. That was why he made a fool of me in front of everyone by pointing out my smudged lip gloss.
“Knock it off. I mean it. I’m sick of this, so you might as well drop it.” I looked at Vance, who was clearly ready to fight again. “Come on. We’re going, now that you’ve been paid up.”
“Going where?” Sledge asked, fists clenched at his sides.
In any other situation, it would have been flattering to see two guys fighting over me. I’d seen it before, actually. More than once. And I’d always liked it. Just not so much right at that moment.
“Just tell Scott I’ve gone to get Gage,” I ordered. “And no, I don’t need you to come with me.” He was worse than an overzealous guard dog.
19
Jonah
The ground was cold and hard beneath me. I couldn’t shake the fog in my head right away—getting thrown through a portal wasn’t easy, and the witch hadn’t been gentle with me, either.
I took a deep breath, then another. The air was cold, too, and damp. I was tired of dampness—we didn’t feel it the way humans did, but it still wasn’t pleasant.
I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. A mist covered the ground, cloaking everything. Otherwise, it was dark.
Pitch black.
Even my vampire eyes could hardly make out the shapes all around me. Large, looming shapes. I couldn’t quite tell what they were.
I took a chance and stood up, still looking around. I kept my ears tuned in to any sound, but all I heard was the beating of my heart and the sound of my breath. Maybe the mist deadened any other sound on the ground.
I took a chance and moved one step, then another. I came closer to one of those hulking shapes. They didn’t move, any of them. I realized what I was looking at. The back of a mausoleum.
I was in a graveyard.
I looked around, and knowing where I was helped my mind make the connection between what I saw and what I was looking at. Shapeless forms became angels, looking down at me with their stone eyes. Condemning me.
I made out the tops of headstones, the iron doors of one after another family crypt.
At least I knew I was in a graveyard. I just didn’t know where or why I’d been brought here. Or how I’d get back, for that matter. What was the purpose of any of it? And to think, I was so sure hiding in the Sanctuary would mean we were safe for a little while.
I heard a sound, like a footstep over stone. I fell into a fighting stance, one foot just behind the other, claws extended. I had no idea what to expect, or who. Had the witch sent me there to kill me?
Another footstep, then another. They were coming from just behind a crumbling tomb roughly twenty feet from where I stood, a sprawling thing that must have been built for a very wealthy family. It might have been whole and impressive centuries earlier, but had fallen into disrepair, just like everything around me. Anything could be lurking there in the mist. I readied myself for whatever was coming.
When I saw exactly what was approaching, I let out a shuddery breath. It felt like I’d just been kicked in the stomach by a horse. All the breath left my body. I felt sick.
When I was finally able to speak, I said only one word to the man who’d stepped out from behind the tomb.
“You.”
The word echoed off the walls of the other tombs and monuments, almost an accusation.
You, you, you.
He nodded in the darkness. “Son.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
He didn’t look much older than he had when I last saw him—of course, he wouldn’t. We didn’t age quickly, after all, and I only looked a year or two older in human terms than I had on the day my parents disappeared. All those years ago. Wondering where he was. No answers, no clues, nothing. Hoping for the best but only able to believe the worst. After all, wouldn’t a parent let their child know they were still alive? I’d let go of hope a long time before then, needing to take over and lead the clan. I couldn’t lose myself in worry and doubt, could I?
“What happened?” I managed to sputter, reeling a little, swaying on my feet. He looked like he’d been through a war. His eyes were tired, lined. That was what had changed most about him, I decided. He’d always been so youthful, both in his smooth, young face and his shining eyes. Those eyes didn’t shine or twinkle as he looked at me.
“It’s a long story,” he murmured.
Like that was enough of an explanation. It wasn’t enough, not at all. Nothing would ever be enough to fill all the emptiness he’d left.
“And Mom?” I couldn’t help hoping again. If he was here, she might be, too.
But he shook his head, eyes lowering a little.
Fresh pain pierced me, just as real and raw as it was the day they disappeared. It was like losing her all over again, that confirmation that she was really gone. She would never come back. Knowing I would never see her face again, never see her smile, was like a knife in me. A white-hot knife, silver, burning me from the inside out.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a second to steady myself. There was too much to ask, too much to learn, to let myself fall into despair.
“Would you like to tell me where you’ve been all this time? Do you think I deserve to know?” I looked him over.
He wore a long, gray coat—or maybe it wasn’t gray, but it looked that way in the near perfect darkness. Under that was a button-down shirt that had seen better days and a pair of those cargo pants with all the pockets that the humans loved so much. Leather boots on his feet, battered, dirty.
He emanated a power that I didn’t remember him having. It was almost tangible. What had he been through? Where had he gone?
“Not that you don’t deserve or didn’t deserve,” he said. His voice was still the same, wasn’t it? Still that same evenly measured tone. The same warmth. Yet, I heard fatigue in it, too. A soul-weary exhaustion. “It’s only that I was trying to protect you.”
“Protect me? From what? From whom?”
“Things you didn’t need to know about. Things I would still rather you not know about, only my hand has been pressed. I’ve had no choice but to reach out to you, even though I can’t afford to be found.” He shook his head. “
I couldn’t afford to let you know anything about me. It would put you in jeopardy.”
“About you? What could you possibly have done that I wouldn’t be able to know about?”
He had always been the strongest, most honorable of all the Bourke clan. I had looked up to him, idolized him. He was my ideal from the time I was old enough to have one. And in the years since he’d disappeared, I’d done everything I could to pattern myself after him. And all he could tell me was that there were secrets I wasn’t supposed to know about.
“It’s not what I’ve done, so much as what they say I’ve done.”
“Who’s they?”
He shook his head, looking more tired than ever. “It’s enough to say that I had to go rogue,” he murmured. “There was no other choice. It was for your safety, your protection—just like it’s for your protection now that I hesitate in telling you what needs to be said. It’s dangerous, but it would be far more dangerous if I let things go as they are.”
“You’ve been rogue?” I couldn’t imagine it. He must have traveled deep underground to keep himself away from those who would recognize him. He was one of the most revered clan leaders of his day. I wondered what it was like for him for all those years, hiding, going from place to place in hopes no one would recognize him. Keeping away from us.
He nodded. “I’m no longer Dommik Bourke,” he said, and there was such grief in his voice I could hardly stand it.
“You’re not?” I felt like an idiot, standing there asking one, two-word questions.
“I haven’t been Dommik Bourke in a very long time. Not since I left you and your brothers and sister. Since then, I’ve gone by another name. One you may have heard over the years.” He took a deep breath, like he was pausing for effect. Or giving me a chance to steel myself for what was to come. “I’m known as Fane.”
No wonder he had given me a chance to prepare. I was stunned, speechless, almost horrified.
Fane.
A name everyone in our world knew. Like one of the superheroes humans cared so much about.
He was a legend, one that moved only under the cover of darkness. A name to be feared, to be respected. One usually spoken only in whispers.
“You’re Fane? How is it possible? I mean… I mean, Fane is… he’s like a myth. He’s a legend. He has power unlike those of the rest of us. And that’s… that’s you?”
He nodded. “It’s all true.”
“They also say he’s… you’re solitary.”
“Also true.”
“And that he set fire to the Carver clan and fled.”
“That’s not true,” he smoothly fired back.
Hope bloomed inside me. “Who, then?”
“Someone who set the fire, then pointed an accusatory finger in our clan’s direction.” His voice was tinged with the pain of betrayal, though so many years had passed.
I couldn’t make sense of it. “They still think we did it,” I said. “So why did you have to flee? I mean, we’ve survived the accusations. No, we’re not allied with the Carvers, but…”
“But if I had stayed, you wouldn’t even be in the position you’re in. Trust me on that.” He sighed, leaning against the crumbling marble. “If your mother and I had stayed, the entire clan would have been in trouble—but especially you kids. I couldn’t let you suffer that sort of danger. Your mother and I had to leave. There was no other choice.”
He stared off into the distance, almost as if he could look back into the past. “Elena didn’t want to go away, but she knew that no matter the pain it caused her, there would be more pain if you suffered because we’d stayed. She wanted to leave word, too. I did as well. But there was no way. Any clue we gave you as to our whereabouts could’ve led to us. And it could have put you in danger.”
“What about years later, once everything calmed down? I could see wanting to stay away while the fire was still a fresh memory, but now? You couldn’t have sent word, reached out somehow, just to let us know you were alive?”
I was desperately glad he wasn’t dead—nothing would change that—but all the old pain kept coming back to life inside me. I couldn’t get the pain and the relief to coexist peacefully. The pain kept coming back, along with memories of aching for my parents every day, my imagination going wild as I pictured what might have happened to them. Nothing in real life could’ve been worse than what I held in my imagination.
“If anybody knew I was alive—even you children—there would have been trouble. Deadly trouble. It was better for everyone to think I was dead. If I were alive, you would all be perceived as threats.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If it were known that I had survived, others might think that I could work through you. That I could lead the clan through you. There would be a question of whether you were doing my bidding, carrying on my legacy. I couldn’t have that, don’t you see? It was painful for me, and doubly painful for your mother, but that was how it had to be. I’ll never not believe that.”
He sounded again like the honorable father I had remembered for so long. Someone who would make a supreme sacrifice for the sake of those he loved.
“If there’s so much danger, why did you summon me now?”
He grimaced. “I was tempted when I first heard of the tension brewing between you and your brother.”
How was it that even after so many decades of existence and so many of them without my father, I could still feel guilty when he used that tone of voice? The disappointment was almost palpable.
He continued. “And then again, I heard you’d left your rightful position and gone rogue yourself.” He shook his head. “That was very foolhardy.”
“I know, but I made my decision with a clear head.”
His jaw tightened. “That’s neither here nor there at the moment,” he muttered. “Finally, the last straw came when I heard about some detective work your brother has been doing.”
“Gage?”
He nodded. “It seems he’s delivered himself into a precarious situation, thanks to his sleuthing.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Lucian.”
20
Jonah
“Lucian? What does he have to do with any of this?” The more he spoke, the more confused I became. It was like listening to riddles, on and on.
“Plenty. And your brother has gone straight to him.”
“But why? Why would he do that?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I only know that he’s in trouble now.”
Should I even care? I told myself I should, but it wasn’t easy to stir up any concern. Still, if my father—Fane, I corrected myself—thought it was worth reaching out to me after so many years, there must have been a real threat.
“How are you aware of so much?” I asked. “You’ve gone rogue. How do you know about the problems I had with Gage? How do you know about my leaving the clan?”
He smiled just a little. “I may have gone rogue among the vampires, but I haven’t cut off communication with all creatures. I managed to find a way to make myself indispensable to a high-ranking witch or two. Maybe a few other types of supernaturals.”
I didn’t want to know how he’d managed to do that. Certain things a son didn’t want to know about his father.
“Thanks to witches,” he continued, “I get access to perks like the Passages.”
“Passages?” The more he revealed, the more confused I became. I’d never heard of them before.
He nodded. “A series of interconnecting paths which occasionally use portals to connect. Like underground, but not. Just a different dimension.”
There was still so much to know, so much I wasn’t aware of. Was I ever a solid leader when I was in dark about so much? Had I been kidding myself all along? I must have been. Portals connecting different dimensions. I guessed I was somewhere along one of those paths he talked about.
“So that was how I got here,” I murmured.
H
e nodded. “Yes, I was sure this was somewhere you wouldn’t be discovered with me.”
“Who was the witch who sent me here? One of the ones you’re so indispensable to?”
His face was blank, unreadable. “She owes me.” That was all he would say.
I wasn’t about to press him. I didn’t want to know.
Thinking about the witch made me think about trying to get out of that sealed-up room, trying to get back to Anissa.
Anissa.
She was still out there somewhere. I had to find her.
“I need to get back to where I came from,” I said, suddenly in a hurry to go.
But I didn’t want to leave him, either. Not after so long apart, not when there were so many more unanswered questions between us. I could hardly stand it. Still, there was no choice.
He should understand that, I thought, considering that years earlier, he didn’t want to go, but had no choice. He had to do what he thought was right.
As a second thought, I added, “How can I find you later?”
He sneered. “What’s the rush? Eager to return to the half-br—”
“Don’t.” I stared him down. “Don’t call her that.”
So what if he was the legendary Fane? I wouldn’t let him talk about her that way. I wouldn’t let anybody do that.
He only nodded slightly. “And what about your brother? What about Gage?”
“What about him?” I asked.
“Don’t you want to know about the trouble he’s found? Don’t you want to know what needs to be done?”
I shook my head. “He abandoned the clan and rebelled against my leadership. If you know what happened, then you must know about that.”
He absorbed that without moving or even blinking. Whether or not he understood, I didn’t know. He kept his thoughts on the matter to himself. A born leader. He knew when to stay silent.
“I’ll take you back to the place Marianelle brought you from. You can’t return without a witch who knows—”
“Understood.” I cut him off out of irritation. I was tired of waiting. I was tired of talking about Gage. I needed to find Anissa. She was all that mattered just then.