by Rye Brewer
He wouldn’t budge.
“Keep your hands off me,” he growled, glaring. His eyes were full of hate.
How had it gotten this far? What was going to happen to us?
“I don’t need you to stick up for me right now,” Philippa informed me, glancing over her shoulder.
“Excuse me, madam. I thought I was helping you.”
“You’re no help to me right now. It’s bad enough the two of you are at each other’s throats. I don’t have it in me for you to yank me into your arguments.” She tossed her long hair over both shoulders with an air of superiority.
“Oh, get off your high horse,” I snarled. “He’s right. You’re in pretty deep, too.”
“Not as deep as him,” she argued, pointing to Gage. “How could you do something like that? Gage, there’s nothing we can do for you. Jonah’s right. It’s the worst decision you could’ve made.”
“There’s no defending it,” I added, my eyes boring holes into him.
He wouldn’t back down. “That’s something I’ll have to deal with, isn’t it? I didn’t ask for either of you to defend me. I’ll take care of this.”
“How? By killing the newly created? Because that’s our only option if you want to stay alive,” Philippa announced in her typical, no-nonsense manner.
As enraged as I was, I flinched at her bluntness.
He exploded. “No! How can you say that? I can’t kill her!”
“Then we’ll do it,” she replied, forging ahead in spite of his reaction. “It’s the only way. She doesn’t matter. You do. That’s all there is to it. You made a mistake, and we’ll clean it up if we have to.”
His chest heaved in and out as he breathed, like a bull ready to charge. “How dare you?”
“How dare she?” I asked. “How dare you, more like.”
He looked at me then at her. “If any of you touch her, you’ll pay.” With that, he stormed out before I could stop him.
My heart sank. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like fighting anymore. It was as though someone had removed the stopper and all the anger drained out. I reminded myself that while I was furious with him for breaking the most sacred of our laws, at the heart of my fury was a simple fact: he was my brother. If I didn’t care for him, it wouldn’t have mattered so much. It wasn’t easy to maintain my anger when I considered that.
Philippa sank into a chair, her head in her hands. “I don’t believe this. How could he? I feel sick.”
“Just breathe,” I murmured, only half paying attention.
My thoughts were still with Gage and the beautiful, terrified, dangerously strong vampire he had created. He was right about one thing: he needed to find her before she wreaked irreparable havoc.
In the face of that, my sister’s nausea didn’t make much of a dent in my list of concerns.
“What are we supposed to do about this?” she whispered.
“I have no idea at the moment,” I confessed.
“Do you believe his threat?”
“Do you?” I asked, staring pointedly at her. She averted her eyes. “Yes, I believe him. You’ve seen what he’s capable of when he gets an idea in his head. It was bad enough when he took that little group of his and thought he could unseat me. He did enough damage then, and that had nothing to do with love.”
She winced. “You think he’s in love?”
“It’s the only excuse I can come up with that even remotely explains why he’d do something this ludicrous.” I was in love, too, and I recognized the symptoms. I wouldn’t dare add that out loud, not in front of Philippa.
My thoughts turned to Anissa. I couldn’t help it. Knowing her, she would’ve left not long after I did. The girl was physically incapable of sitting still. What had she found with Allonic? I hated to think of her sticking around to help him without telling me of her plans—another of her lesser qualities. Not that I needed her to check in at all times. We didn’t live ordinary lives, was all, and anything could happen.
“I think I need to find out what’s going on with Anissa. I might be able to hang around the entrance to Avellane, or something. I don’t know.” I was thinking out loud, more for my benefit than anything else. There were so many places she could’ve traveled to, I didn’t know where to start. I certainly didn’t expect Philippa to latch onto my mumblings.
“Do you need any help? I can look around elsewhere, if you’d like.”
I glanced over my shoulder, already halfway to the door. “What? Who are you?”
She blinked. “What’s that mean?”
“It means I have to wonder why you suddenly care so much about her.”
She gulped. “If you don’t want my help, you only have to say so.”
I wouldn’t go that far. The last thing I needed was to alienate yet another one of my siblings.
Instead, I replied, “No, stay here. I need you to keep an eye on the clan while I’m gone, after all. Not to mention the body in the vault.”
19
Sara
“Close your eyes.”
I knew better than to waste time. My eyes slid shut.
Over our endless training sessions, there was one thing I had learned about Stark that I knew was true, without question: he hated when I wasted time. And he considered the slightest hesitation on my part as an attempt at doing precisely that.
Everything else I thought I knew was muddled, full of questions and contradictions. Why was he so kind and almost warm sometimes, but cold and aloof at the drop of a hat? How could he go from looking at me with something I imagined to be kindness, interest, even respect, to sneering at me like I was a bug begging to be squashed? He ran hot and cold. Nothing in between.
At least he took our work seriously, which I guessed was the most important thing. I needed his help, desperately. He knew it—that might have been part of the reason why he thought he could get away with talking to me like he’d talk to a diseased rodent.
“Are you concentrating?”
I bit back an exasperated sigh. “Of course.”
“Because it doesn’t seem as though you are.”
“You read minds now? Is this one of your talents?” I opened my eyes ever so slightly.
“Close them.”
I sighed this time, but did as I was told.
He continued, “I can feel your energy. It diffuses, becomes muddled. When you’re concentrating, it’s…”
“Concentrated?” I asked in a sweet voice.
He only grumbled in reply.
I did what I was told, concentrating my energy the way he had so painstakingly taught me during our time together. I had completely lost track by now, the way a person could lose track of everything happening around them when they chose to focus on one very specific aspect of their life.
Days passed in a blur. Sometimes, I had no idea whether it was morning or night. We often did our work in a windowless cell or dungeon, somewhere the electricity wouldn’t hurt anybody else and could merely be absorbed by the walls.
I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my mother. I had been so happy to be with her after thinking she was gone for good—and the thought of her still made me happy, except it sat a little further back in my mind than I ever would’ve guessed it would. Rebuilding our relationship, soaking up every last second I could have with her… I wanted to. I did. But I also wanted to avoid killing everybody around me with electric bolts whenever I got even the slightest bit excited.
“You’re losing focus again,” Stark muttered, and he wasn’t happy.
The location of his voice kept changing. He was circling me slowly, like a shark. Waiting for me to show weakness before he pounced. I didn’t bother to reply, since it would only lead us to another argument. Instead, I focused harder than ever, just to show him I could.
Which was probably his plan all along.
He must have been pleased, because he continued. “Now. I want you think about something that upsets you. Something you hate. Something unfair. Something frustrating.”
How about you, I thought, suddenly bitter.
He ticked all those boxes. I did hate him sometimes, when he pushed too hard, too fast. When there wasn’t a trace of sympathy or understanding in his endlessly deep, dark eyes. When his handsome face wore a scowl pointed at me. When he reminded me I was a vampire, as though I needed the reminder. As though there was anything I could do about it. Like being a vampire was the worst sin a person could commit. He was so cruel.
The power built in my core, just as he knew it would. I knew it, too. And I still had the vague memory of how that power used to terrify me. I’d feel the buildup, like a generator running deep inside me, running hot and hard, on the verge of blowing up. I’d feel it, and it would only serve to make me panic, which would make the energy built up worse than ever. The whole process would feed on itself until I lost control.
I was in control now. The hours of intense training had earned me that much.
“Visualize,” he commanded. “You’re holding the energy together, in a ball. It’s tight, bright, right in the center of your body.”
I saw it. It was there. Inside me.
“Now, transform it.”
That wasn’t such a simple matter. I could harness the energy, at least, which was a tremendous improvement over the days of letting it ruin me. Transforming it into power, strength—that was something else. I imagined the light glowing away, the ball of energy expanding until it filled my entire body with greater strength than I had ever felt.
Then, it faded. It was still there, but the light was gone. The raging, dangerous aspect had dissipated until it was nothing.
I opened my eyes.
“Well done.” It would’ve been much nicer and a lot more believable if he’d looked sincere instead of begrudging.
“Thank you.”
“Can you still feel it in there?” He surprised me by stepping closer, placing his hands on my shoulders.
We were rarely this close, like I was something he couldn’t allow himself to touch.
“I can,” I breathed, wishing he didn’t make my heart jump the way he did. When was the last time I thought about Scott? And why did Scott come to mind when it was Stark who was touching me, staring into my eyes?
“It’s part of you. Your power.”
I winced and shook my head. “But I don’t want it.”
And suddenly, the brief moment of closeness was over.
His hands dropped to his sides. “That’s not my problem, is it?”
“I thought you were going to help me.”
I watched with a sinking heart as he walked away, leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed. He stood between two lit torches, and their light sent shadows dancing across his face along with the warm glow from the flames. I couldn’t read him.
“What would you call what we’ve been doing here?” he asked after a long, stony silence. “You came to me a girl who couldn’t control even the slightest impulse. You would stand there with your hands under your armpits, just in case the electricity escaped and hurt someone. Right?”
He mimicked my pose with a knowing sneer. I felt roughly two inches tall.
There was a time when I would’ve crumbled. I would’ve buckled under the weight of his glare. Not this time.
I threw my head back. “I didn’t mean that, and you know it. I’m not here to learn to embrace this new side of myself or adapt to whatever I am now. I don’t want any of it. This isn’t what I need most.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked me up and down. “What you need most is a spanking.”
“Shut up. I refuse to let you speak to me like I’m a child.”
He nodded slowly. “And this is what your power is doing to you. Don’t you feel it?”
“What?”
“This new… strength. You’re still the same brat you were before, always letting your impulses guide your actions. A little mouthy, while I’m being honest.”
“Oh, and I wouldn’t want you to be anything but honest,” I muttered.
“But you’re standing up to me, and when you do, it’s not with a burst of emotion or tears or any of that. You’re standing straight and tall. This is new, and it’s encouraging.”
He was so rarely complimentary, I hardly knew what to think.
And then, he ruined it. “You’re less and less like a vampire every day.”
“Why? Why do you do it?” I shouted. The soft, dirt walls absorbed my voice the way they’d absorbed my electricity back when I couldn’t control it.
“Do what?”
“You know what, so don’t act like you have no idea what I mean. You go from being nice to being hateful like that.” I snapped my fingers. “I never know where I stand with you. Why do you hate me so much? I’ve never done anything to make you hate me like you do.”
He opened his mouth as though he was about to answer, then his jaws snapped shut so hard I heard it. His eyes blazed like the torches on the walls. He was fighting with himself. But what was the fight?
I wished I knew. If I did, I would be much closer to understanding him than I was and I wanted to understand him. I had never wanted anything as much, not even my mother or my sister or my freedom.
Not even Scott. Scott was like a childhood memory, like something I used to think was important back when I was too young to know any better. He was sweet and wonderful and had always been there when I needed him, especially when I was at my most vulnerable when I first left Marcus’s dungeon.
But his face wasn’t clear in my memory anymore. When I thought of him, it was as a friend. When I thought of Stark, every dark emotion I’d ever harbored came bubbling to the surface with an intensity that took my breath away. I longed for him and wished he was dead, sometimes both at once.
Instead of answering my question, he chose to address my prior statements. “Listen. I can’t remove your powers. Sorry, that’s not what I’m here for. But there might be a way.”
“Really?” Hope sparked in my chest, dangerously close to becoming a blaze. I was afraid to hope. I couldn’t help but hope.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Relax. I said there might be. Not that there definitely is. There might be someone, or perhaps more than one someone, who knows how to cast a spell to remove your powers. It would take a lot of power and a lot of knowledge, but stranger things have happened. Right?”
“Yes. Such as my sudden ability to shoot lightning bolts from my fingers.” I had long since stopped believing in limits. There weren’t any. The most unreal, unbelievable things were possible.
“Correct.”
“Do you know who this might be? Any ideas?”
Another internal fight. He turned his face away from me, looking at his shoes instead. “I don’t know.”
And I didn’t know if I believed him, but I was too afraid of his reaction to press the subject. He would blow up and might decide not to tell me anything, even if he did know. Or he’d turn to ice, and still decide not to tell me a single thing.
He was that driven to make me miserable, to leave me as I was. Being a vampire was so unacceptable he’d rather force me to exist as a loathed hybrid, someone who’d never have a place anywhere.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked again, trembling this time. Not that any excuse he gave would be enough, but I thought I deserved to know.
20
Stark
Why did she do it to me? Why did she make it so impossible to think like myself when I was around her?
Why did she ask questions I couldn’t hope to answer?
It was as though she saw something in me I had never revealed to anyone else and certainly had no intention of ever revealing to her. A weakness I’d struggled to conceal for so long, a part of my history I’d never wanted anything more than to bury forever. To remember only brought pain. What had I ever done to deserve the torture she inflicted upon me just by existing?
“I don’t hate you.” It was all I trusted myself to say.
She tilted her head t
o the side. How many times had I seen her do that? I knew a question was coming.
“What is it, then? Is my being a vampire such a crime you’d rather I be a hybrid for the rest of my life? I’ve never known anybody like you—which is saying something, by the way, because I’ve known some fairly hateful creatures. Vampires and fae don’t mix. Vampires and shades don’t mix. On and on. I can understand it to a point and chalk it up to ignorance. But you? You take it to the next level, a level I didn’t know existed. Your hate is that deep.”
“You’re right,” I snapped, relishing the sight when her eyes went wide with shock.
She hadn’t expected that. It would’ve been easier for her if I’d defended myself, sworn I didn’t literally hate vampires. I wasn’t there to make things easy. “I do hate vampires, and my hate is that deep. It’s run that deep for longer than you’ve existed.”
“But… I don’t understand. How can you hate me based on something that happened before I existed?”
“I just told you, I don’t hate you personally. I hate vampires.”
“Why can’t you see it’s the same thing?”
It wasn’t the same thing. Not at all. It was only because I liked her as much as I did that there was any conflict in me at all. It was there, and it was all-consuming. Every minute I spent with her was a fight between the nausea her very existence inspired and the urge to take her in my arms. It was like a joke on me, some universal force setting up the pieces of my life while laughing at the pain I’d be caused. There was no other explanation.
“I hate vampires on principle. As a rule. Not you. Just—”
“Just who I am,” she finished with a snarl. “Why? What could possibly have happened that could color your opinion for all this time?”
“Have you ever heard my name?”
She frowned. “What? Why are you changing the subject?”
“I’m not. And I take it you haven’t.”
“No. I’d never heard of you until I arrived here.”
I nodded then sat on an ancient barrel which stood against the wall. It was dusty and dirty and covered in webs—even so, I needed to sit when I told my story. I didn’t trust my body to work along with me when the memories flowed thick and vivid.