by Rye Brewer
I sank to my knees out of exhaustion, holding my head in my hands.
I never knew real pain until this moment. Not even when my siblings and I lost our parents. That was nothing compared to watching Cari die.
I wanted to die with her.
She gasped.
I looked up to find her eyes open wide, staring at the ceiling.
Her blood-tinged eyes.
5
Philippa
I was still reeling. My brother Jonah telling me that my ex-boyfriend Vance, had killed his father... No, not Vance. Valerius, the original ancient vampire who’d possessed Vance’s body in order to get revenge by murdering Lucian, Vance’s father. And now Vance was under arrest and being held. I may have been reeling, but that didn’t mean I was frozen with inaction.
If there was one thing I was known for—at least, one thing I was willing to admit I was known for—impulsiveness would have to be it.
I had never been one to wait when taking actions was an option. All too often, I moved ahead without a plan in place and trusted things would work themselves out as I went along.
I didn’t think of it as a character flaw, though I knew my brothers did. Especially Jonah. So, I had no doubt, when I pushed my way out of the vault, he’d either try to stop me or roll his eyes and chalk up my actions to just another example of impulse taking over for sense.
But it wasn’t pure impulse, not really. He didn’t know what it was like to sit for hours, staring at a dead-but-not-dead body and think. So much thinking.
Enough so I’d already gone down every possible road in my head, planning what I would do if this happened. If that happened. If he or she said or did this. If one of my family members was caught in the middle. If, if, if.
You didn’t plan for what you’d do if Valerius killed Lucian, the nagging voice of doubt reminded me as I coursed my way to League Headquarters.
I had traveled there more in the last months than I had in my whole life, combined. When Vance and I were together, I had always badgered him to spend time in the city with me instead of out there. Near his father’s mansion. Even then, it was like I could tell something was wrong. I’d known Lucian my whole, long life, and I had felt there was something off with him no matter how many hoops he’d jumped through to prove it wasn’t so.
I wished I’d done a little more listening to my instincts back when it counted. Things could’ve been different, or so I told myself. Maybe it was easier to blame myself, to think there was something I would’ve been able to change, than to admit there were too many forces at work which were out of my control.
What could I have changed? I had no way of knowing Valerius was waiting in that underground tomb. I had no knowledge of his age-old grudge against Lucian. I didn’t even know what Lucian did to my family until fairly recently. What were my instincts supposed to do?
Still, I couldn’t stomach the idea things were out of my hands and always had been.
I wished I could stop thinking, thinking, thinking. I wished the trip to headquarters was shorter so there wouldn’t be enough time to blame myself. I wished I could figure out how to free Vance, instead, since blaming myself for allowing such a terrible thing to happen wasn’t going to do it.
It was a relief when the spires of the old cathedral came into view, and I didn’t slow down until I was almost on top of the place.
Funny, but the energy wrapping itself around the building had changed. Or maybe it wasn’t quite so funny. I had never known the League of Vampires without Lucian as its head, so I had never felt any other energy, or presence, or whatever it was, encasing the cathedral. I had never given any thought to its existence until it was gone. Because Lucian was gone.
A world without Lucian in it. The idea seemed laughable.
I craned my neck to stare up at the towering spires and the glowing, vaulted windows. It all appeared the same, but it may as well have been on another planet. There was something off. It seemed the same, but it would never be the same again. And that was a good thing. It meant Lucian was no more, and that was the best thing I could imagine.
Almost the best thing I could imagine. There was one much bigger thing. I only had to figure out how to manage it.
With that in mind, I stepped in through the double doors.
Immediately, three guards were on me.
“Do I look as though I’m here to hurt somebody?” I glared at each of them in turn.
I recognized them as Lucian’s personal guards. They had to feel pretty low, knowing they had left him open to the attack. Even so, it didn’t give them an excuse for jumping down my throat, as far as I was concerned.
“Looks can deceive,” one of them snarled.
I would allow that. Looks were deceiving. As far as they knew, Lucian had been murdered by his own son.
“I’ll grant you, but I’m not here to do any harm. I want to see Vance.” His name stuck in my throat.
What would they think if they knew who they were really holding in one of the cells deep underground?
“Why should we allow you to visit a prisoner?”
“Because I’m asking you to. This is me, asking.” I stood with hands planted on my hips, and my blood pressure rose steadily the longer they tried to stall me. “I can demand, if you would rather. Especially considering the fact my brother is interim leader in place of Lucian. A quick phone call is all it’ll take.”
The three of them appeared confused. Torn between their long-standing loyalty to Lucian and the loyalty they needed to show Jonah.
There was no room in my heart for pity. “Come on. I don’t have all night. And I want to see him alone,” I added at the last second. Why not keep pushing while they were teetering back and forth?
“Impossible.”
“Are you sure?” I slid my phone out of my pocket and held it up, finger poised over the screen. “A quick phone call.”
Moments later, two of them led me down the long, winding stone staircase which led to the dungeons. A cathedral with dungeons. One of Lucian’s additions after the league took over the property. The sort of touch only he would think to add.
The air turned dank, filled with a scent I could only describe as wet. The smell of centuries of rainwater working its way through the stones which made up the underground levels. Mold, too.
Torches lined the wall at regular intervals. The skittering of tiny rodent feet was somehow louder than the beating of my heart, which was saying something considering the way it thumped like a bass drum with every step I took. This was definitely a different area than the one Anissa’s brother Allonic had been held in.
Who would I find down there? What would he say?
We reached the cells, which looked like something out of one of those medieval theme park restaurant places. Rusty iron bars, impossibly thick webs full of what I didn’t even want to imagine, dark-red stains on the walls inside the cells which I decided not to consider the origin of. There were so many cells, too. How many did Lucian imprison down here? Then I wondered if he was even the one that had this area built. Did it predate his leadership? If so, how many did the leaders before him imprison?
I waited in one of the empty ones, standing in the center with my arms wrapped around me to keep from accidentally touching anything. Just the thought made my skin crawl. And Vance was in a cell like this one, when he didn’t deserve it. The thought almost made me choke on my tears.
And there he was. Dirt streaked his face and clothes and caked under his nails. He hardly even looked like himself. I couldn’t read his eyes. Who was he? I could barely breathe, waiting to find out. His face was a blank page.
Until we were alone.
Once the guards were gone, a slow, knowing smile spread across his face.
My heart dropped. “It’s you,” I whispered.
“Depends on who you mean by me.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Perhaps I do.” He shrugged. “Well? Don’t I get a little appreciation for what I di
d?”
I shook my head. “Nothing’s that black-and-white.”
“It seems that way from where I’m standing.” He spread his hands as far apart as the shackles on his wrists would allow. “He was nothing but a plague on your family. He specialized in making you miserable. I would appreciate a little gratitude instead of the look on your face.”
“Why would you kill him publicly like that? It’s the one thing I don’t understand.”
“You know why it was so important for me to end his miserable existence,” he growled.
“Yes, but why do it in front of everybody? You had to know it would end here, in the dungeon. Chained up. For somebody so ancient, you didn’t put much thought into your methods.”
His features twisted into a sneer. “Don’t tell me how to conduct business, girl.”
I winced inside. Making him angry wouldn’t help anything, especially since we had business to conduct. “Well, you’ve done what you set out to do. I have to hand it to you. You know how to make a splash.”
“Thank you.” He tipped his head in acknowledgment.
“Now that you’re finished, and Lucian is dead, you can release Vance.”
One corner of his mouth curled up in a smile. “I was waiting for that.”
I bristled but did my best to hide it. “So? Why are you still in his body?”
“Because I’m nowhere near my actual body, naturally.” He tilted his head to one side. “Do you think I can float around, aimless, bodiless?”
“I have to admit, I hadn’t thought much about it at all,” I snarled through gritted teeth.
The body was still safe in the vault, which was a relief, but how was I supposed to get him back to it when he was imprisoned?
“Now that Lucian is no longer breathing, I have a new goal: recovering my own body and reuniting with my love.”
I fought to keep a grimace from my face. His love, Nivia. My mom. Both in the same body. But not the same person. The two of them were intertwined in my head. Mom’s sweet, loving smile. Nivia’s cold, ruthless spirit.
My stomach turned. “Where is she? Do you know?”
He nodded. “She’s on the hunt for her body as well. While this body is… adequate,” he observed, looking down at himself, “it’s not the same as inhabiting my own. She feels the same way.”
The memory of those few short moments with Vance, when Valerius had let him come to the surface, flashed through my mind.
If Vance was still in there, was my mother in her body as well? What would happen when Nivia found her original body and inhabited it again? Would I get my mother back?
“There’s something else I need, as well,” he continued, and his voice deepened with anger. “My bone dagger.”
“Noted.” I blinked. “What bone dagger?”
“The one I used to kill Lucian.”
“All right. I’ll make a note of that. You want your dagger back.” Like that had anything to do with me.
“You’d better because you’re going to have to get it for me.”
“Excuse me? And I would do that why?”
He bared his teeth. How could he look so much like Vance and so little like him all at once? “Because if I don’t get it back, you won’t get Vance back. It seems pretty simple to me.”
Of course. Just one more hurdle to overcome. “What’s so important about it?”
“It’s what I used to kill Lucian. I would think that alone would be reason enough.”
“You want it as a souvenir?” I asked, one eyebrow cocked.
“I want it because it’s obviously a powerful weapon,” he snapped, eyes blazing.
How many times had I stared into those eyes when they gazed at me with something like love?
“It can do to any magical creature what it did to Lucian.”
“All right. I get it. What do you want me to do about it, though? I wasn’t even here when you used it. I have no idea what happened to it.”
“I know exactly where it is,” he snarled, and his lip curled up like he was talking about something truly disgusting. “That white-haired fae bitch took it.”
Anissa. I should’ve known. One more obstacle, and she was the one who’d set it up for me. My brother, Jonah, wondered why I had a problem with her—case in point. She couldn’t mind her own damn business. Sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong, filching things she had no business touching.
He smiled when he noted the recognition on my face. I could just imagine how disgusted I looked as I thought about her.
“I can see there’s no love lost,” he murmured.
“It’s none of your business.”
“My business is getting my dagger back. It’s your business, too, because you’ll never see your precious Vance again if I don’t. This is as close as you’ll ever get.” He spun slowly, smiling the whole time. Showing off.
“Enough,” I snapped. How was I going to get through to Anissa? I wasn’t even sure where she was. And Mom. What about her? Not to mention Valerius’s body in the vault. I was in a web, much like the ones decorating the dungeon. The harder I struggled to get out of it, the tighter it held me.
I left without another word, gesturing to the guards that I was finished. They could take him back to his cell and leave him there to rot for all I cared at the moment. The snide, evil monster. Taunting me like that. Using Vance against me.
“Philippa? Is that you out there?” A female voice, almost shrieking, carried down the corridor. “Please! Help me! You have to get me out of here!”
Genevieve.
I almost wanted to double back and take a good, long look at her for the sake of posterity. She had always been so poised, so untouchable. Perfect. She had fallen far. She’d be as dirty as Valerius. It must’ve been a special kind of torture for her.
“Please! Get me out of here! I had nothing to do with Lucian’s murder! Please, please, do something for me!” she pleaded.
Have a little dignity, I thought with a nasty smile. Genevieve may not have gotten Lucian killed, but she was hardly innocent. A nice, long stay in a filthy dungeon was just what she deserved.
There was no time to gloat over her misery. I needed to talk things out with someone. How was I supposed to manage everything that needed to be done to get Vance back? And even if I did, how would I get him out of prison?
Gage.
He would be the perfect sounding board. And it would’ve been nice if I’d known where he was, too. But that was just as big a mystery as anything else. He was busy gallivanting around someplace.
6
Cari
The first thing I felt was burning. Like my body was on fire. All through me, invisible flames roared and burned, and I writhed in agony. My muscles cramped, and there was nothing I could do to make it stop.
My heart raced out of control. I thought it would explode right out of my chest. My head was in a vise. I rolled it from side to side, grimacing, desperate for relief. What was happening to me?
The last thing I remembered was blacking out. And then the burning agony of a million fiery swords stabbing me all over. I thought the pain was over when I blacked out. No. It was only beginning. Why wouldn’t somebody just let me die already?
“Cari!”
I looked to my right at the sound of my name. “Gage?” What was he doing there? And in a cage or something? “When did you get here? Oh, my God, what’s happening to me? Am I dying?”
“No… not anymore.”
Not anymore? What did that mean? I didn’t get the chance to ask before I writhed as a fresh wave of fire washed over me and a tearing sound made me stare in surprise at my wrists.
I’d broken the leather restraints. The same thing with my ankles.
I was free.
The first thing I did was pull what was left of my dress together in front.
I faced him again.
He didn’t seem surprised.
“What’s happening?” I whispered before nausea attacked me and I bent over th
e table, spewing my guts up.
It was red.
Blood?
I was throwing up blood.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I wiped them away with the backs of my hands—which came back bloody, too.
“Oh, my God!” I shrieked as I jumped off the gurney with a shriek, backing away from the blood I had just hurled onto the floor.
I stared at him, standing there in the cage. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked, shaking all over.
The pain was still there, but the shock and confusion were worse.
“The first thing you have to do is free me,” he said.
“How can I do that? You’re in a cage! Where’s the lock? Is there a key?” My mind raced a million miles a minute, and I babbled on and on.
“Focus,” he hissed. “You can break me out. Here’s the lock. You can break it.”
“I can’t do that! What, are you, crazy?”
“Cari. Look at me.”
I did.
He gripped the metal bars and stared into my eyes. “Cari, I didn’t have a choice. You were dying. You were so close. I had to save you. I couldn’t let you go. So, I… I let you drink my blood.”
“You let me… what?” No. It was unbelievable.
“I gave you my blood. And it turned you into… what I am.”
Memories floated through my head. Vampires. Spying for vampires.
“No. It’s not true,” I said, shaking my head so hard it hurt.
“Yes. It’s true. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I could’ve avoided all of this. But you’re a vampire now.”
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even look away. It seemed like he was telling me the truth.
“I don’t understand,” I whispered through more tears.
Tears of blood. My God, I was crying blood.
“I know. I can tell you all about it, but you have to get me out of here.” He peered up at the open skylight.