by Tijan
“You drank his blood. There are ramifications for that—ones that won’t be foreseen until much later, but they’ll still be there when you’ve forgotten your worry.” Relief, release, and now doom.
“I’m tired. I want to wake up.”
“Every circus has a snake charmer. Who’s yours? What snake slithered in your tent?”
I gasped awake and bolted upright in bed. I didn’t need to find my bearings. Everything rushed back at me at breakneck speed. I was in Roane’s bed. His sheets were a welcoming cool touch against my naked skin and I turned to see him at his window, gazing outwards. His black pants rode low on his hips. There was no shirt in his hand this time, only worry in his eyes.
I swallowed tightly because I felt what he felt inside.
Resignation and fatigue. Underneath that was determination. He was going to win. He’d always known it and now it was time to remind everyone else.
“What’d you dream about?”
I curled against the headboard and wrapped the sheets around me. I felt exposed. “A lot of ramblings and crazy talk. There was a circus theme this time.”
“Circus?” Roane frowned, but never moved away from the window.
The fairytale wasn’t worth mentioning. “The Immortal told me that there was a snake charmer in my tent.”
“You talk? You have conversations?” Roane looked taken aback.
“Yeah, anyway—the snake charmer sent a snake inside the tent.”
He crossed to sit beside me on the bed. He sat with his back towards me and I watched the corded muscles on his back. He was primed and ready to go.
“I think… I’m the tent. The Immortal told me that, but someone was inside of me.”
Roane swung his hypnotic eyes toward me.
I grinned and rasped out, “No, not you. She meant like an empath was inside of me. Sometimes… it’s been known to happen. If an empath is skilled enough, they can find someone and look outward—look at where they’re at. I did it. I had Blue do it to Kates for me.”
“You think that someone was inside of you to see where you are?”
“I know it.” The moment my eyes had opened, everything flooded to me. “Kates told me that Blue was in a coma. If I’d gone further inside of her I would’ve seen that Kates hadn’t put Blue in a coma. She took her captive. Blue was being held in the same castle where they took me with Emily and Adam. I didn’t search inside of her enough.”
Roane stood and crossed to his closet. I watched as he flung open the doors and quickly rifled inside. “Tell me more.” The command was thrown over his shoulder.
“Blue was inside my head. They made her go in when I had my shield down.”
Roane paused and looked at me.
I swallowed painfully. “She got inside and they’re coming here.”
“That’s what he intended the whole time.” Roane suddenly stopped and straightened to his fullest height. Each muscle on his back stood out, primed and livid.
In that moment, I was suddenly aware of how Roane was a vampire. He was a predator and now he’d go against another predator. Roane was a Hunter. Their skills went unmatched by other vampires. It was why they were chosen to be the hunters of their own kind, but… Lucan was his human brother. And he led, what Kates believed to be, a revolution.
“They had no intention of you delivering a message to the Immortal. Let me guess, they have her boyfriend and they hoped she’d give herself up for him?”
I nodded. “How’d you know?”
“I can read thoughts. The girl they think is the Immortal has no idea what a shield is—and your shield was down too, Davy. I read that they’d taken Adam and Emily. I know that Kates used you.”
“Did you read inside of my head what your brother really intends to do with the Immortal?”
Roane paused.
“He wants my blood because he wants his Family to have the Immortal’s powers. He’s hoping to have an army of unstoppable vampires so that they can reverse the decree. The one that states they can’t hunt, bite, or kill humans. The one that started the Hunters in the first place and the one that’ll allow Kates to do all the slaying she wants.”
I looked at my hands, lifted them upwards, and gasped as I saw a glimpse of the sparkling diamond blood that I’d dreamt about. My eyes closed and then my normal skin was back. But I swore….
“No,” Roane clipped out. “My brother doesn’t just want to reverse the decree. My brother wants to rule the entire Vampire nation.” He lifted his eyes once again to me. Then he reached inside his closet and pulled out a lethal sword. He strapped the sword diagonally across his back and lifted a gold necklace over his head. It hung on the apex of his chest. I wondered at the significance when I saw that a small leaf emblem that dangled from the chain.
“Well…,” I searched for something to say. “At least he’s ambitious.”
Roane clipped out, “His ‘ambition’ just sealed his fate.” Then his jaw clenched, unclenched, and clenched again. “He wants you. He can’t have you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Gregory came for me. He knocked once and announced his presence through the door.
“I’ll… give me a second.” I glanced around with a heavy head, drooped shoulders, and my heart was… not in my chest, but I moved my body as if it still belonged to me. Gregory knocked once more before I opened the door. “Okay. I’m ready.”
He nodded with that same look in his eyes that I’d seen the first time. They were shrewd and he still looked at me in distaste, but I might’ve detected a small bit of sympathy. I wasn’t sure. I was just happy that it wasn’t Wren.
Gregory led me out. As we passed a circular stairwell in the middle of the hallway, I heard the buzz downstairs. The floor shook underneath my feet. The excitement in the air was addictive. I felt their thirst for blood. Every muscle in their bodies was stretched to the fullest from their anticipation.
A war was brewing.
As soon as we hit the outside air, something reeled inside of me. I felt another frenzy of excitement, rage, and carnal desire. Unlike inside, this frenzy was twice as bad. I looked out and saw one thing. I shouldn’t have been able to see Roane, but I did. He stood on a hill, a dark figure among the shadows around him. He was a vampire and at that moment, I felt with confidence that he was the best.
There was no wind. The night was still, eerily so, but I felt the frenzy of activity from Roane’s Family behind me. I felt it from the oncoming army too. Roane stood between the two armies and I wondered why he stood where he did.
As I got into the back seat, Gregory shut the door. As he slid beside me from the other side, I grasped his hand and shot inside before I realized what I had intended.
He wanted revenge. It was what he thirsted for, almost more than anything, but he’d been given an order. He intended to fulfill that order and I choked back tears as I heard Roane ordering him to protect me, keep me safe, and fulfill that duty above anything else. It cost Gregory, but he intended to see it through.
I almost shot back out of him, but I gritted my teeth and remembered my mistake with Kates. I looked further and saw the reason he wanted revenge. Raitscliff.
I remembered Roane’s words. ‘Raitscliff has vowed your death since Hartsdale.’
Now I understood.
Raitscliff had turned Gregory’s daughter. He sought revenge by murdering Raitscliff’s second in command. Both vampires wanted the other’s throat now.
I shuddered from the rage inside of Gregory, but I went further and got a rush of memories, emotions, and even worse, I heard his little girl. She laughed softly, delicately when he crooned as a proud father for her to sleep. They were both human in this memory. Then there was another memory where he held his arms out for her as she took her first steps.
She had golden curls and the warm brown eyes like her father. Then I saw when she’d been changed into a vampire for an enemy Family. As I started to pull out of him, I brushed against another thread of emotions. It was
one of his beliefs. He believed in Roane. He believed so fully, it brought tears to my eyes.
I gasped again and this time, I was inside of Roane. I saw through his eyes and felt inside his body. I felt his strength and fierce resolve. I didn’t stop to wonder how I was inside of him, but I was. I stood on that hill, cloaked in darkness. I felt freed as an animal of the world, possibly the best.
Roane didn’t relish his darkness. I felt a surge of sadness, but I didn’t search through that. I couldn’t, not yet. I looked out through his eyes. Unlike the dark reddish tint that I’d seen through Kates’ eyes, his were crystal clear. His vision was magnified to make out a single droplet on a blade of grass. He saw everything.
He was chillingly patient as an army of vampires approached with the symbol of a lion painted on their bodies. They were on foot, silent and lethal. Their bodies weaved in and out of the shadows that were overcast from the woods surrounding Roane’s home. They hoped for a surprise attack.
They failed.
He sniffed the air—Raitscliff. Roane took another long shuddering sniff and something pricked inside of him. There was no Lucan in the approaching army. Sixty beasts led by Raitscliff. He had forty behind him. The odds were favorable for the Roane Family.
“Get out of me, Davina!” Roane snarled and then shoved me out.
The car had pulled away, but I hadn’t noticed. Gregory watched out the windows.
“What does Lucas intend to do?” My voice was scratchy.
Each muscle in his thick neck shifted until Gregory peered at me squarely. He had no idea that I’d been in there and that I knew what made him tick. “Lucas has a plan. He always has a plan. It should not matter to a human such as yourself.”
I straightened in my seat. “I might be human, but I’m the reason all of this is happening. I don’t care what you think of me. I care about what happens tonight. I want to know what Lucas is planning.”
Gregory stared at me. “We both know what he plans.”
Lucan’s death.
“Lucan isn’t back there. He’s not going to Lucas’ house. It’s just Raitscliff—”
Gregory didn’t move. He did nothing and yet, I felt his attention snap. It was now solely directed on
me.
I continued with a dry mouth, “I… you know what I am.” It wasn’t the time to waste words. “You know what I can do. I was inside of you. I know what he did and I know what you did doesn’t measure against what he did. It was wrong. I’m not a vampire. I don’t understand you … people. To be honest, I don’t care to ever understand, but I have a proposition….” Here we go—
“It’s the luck of the Irish. Don’t do it, yee lads.”
I clasped my eyes closed and cried out, “I’m not dreaming. There are rules. You can’t invade my head now.”
The Immortal laughed gaily. “I don’t have to be lucky to be Irish. I’m the Immortal. I’m you, Davy. You’ve got the luck of a lass.”
“Go away!”
“Now, now,” it tsked me. “Ye caun’t go tound screaming tah yaself. Peeple tink ya crazy, that’s wat tey tink.”
I glanced at Gregory. He thought I was crazy.
“You can’t do this to him. You will not take away this man’s last purpose.”
I turned away and tried to whisper into my hand, “He’s a vampire.”
“The soul isn’t kept in a neat locked box. The soul is imbedded into the body. The body remains and part of the soul still remains. He has a purpose. You will not tempt him and you will not remove that last purpose for his being.”
Gregory had stilled.
I whispered back to the Immortal, “His purpose is to kill. That’s what vampires do.”
He growled deep in his throat. Then the Immortal lashed at me, “You are ignorant. That is unforgivable! His purpose is hope. He has hope in Roane, at what he believes Roane will achieve. You will take that away.”
Huh?
“His daughter and enemy are his weaknesses. You will not take his hope by exploiting his weakness. You are not that type of person.”
“I’m not a person.”
“You are wrong. You are the last person I need.”
Talk about hearing my own doom. I sighed and said instead to Gregory, “Can you just take me home?”
His big beefy hand jerked at my question. “Did you mean what you said? Is it really just Raitscliff back there?”
I jerked a shoulder up. “I lied. I wouldn’t know that anyway.” I wondered if he bought my lie and I, for once, had no idea what he wondered in return. A moment later he relaxed beside me. Then I heard the slight crunch of gravel beneath the tires and the wind against the window.
Absentmindedly, I noted, “The wind’s picked up.”
Gregory turned his thick neck. “I’ve known a few Immortals. It took them years, some lifetimes, before they could do what you’ve done in two days.”
Something told me he hadn’t bought my lie. I didn’t reply back. What could I say?
‘You’re the last human I need.’ The words haunted me and a fresh shiver crawled down my spine. I felt it all the way through my body and to my gut. Something didn’t bode well for me… but I’d have to figure it out later. A war was about to break out and I knew that I needed to do something about it. I had to stop it, but I had no idea how to do that. Pre-Immortal age, I would’ve sought out Blue… .and then the light bulb turned on. Blue was awake. Blue was not in a coma. And I could talk to Blue—but not in the physical sense.
“Stupid!” I should’ve thought of that before.
Gregory didn’t spare me a look. It was a good feeling. We had become acclimated to each other.
I closed my eyes, hunkered down, and sought out Blue. It only took a second before I found myself in her head. She was not so blue, though. She was furious and seeing red wherever she looked. Her arms were jerking in rhythm, scraping away at something, and her teeth were gritted. Then I remembered that Blue wasn’t a vampire. I couldn’t communicate with her.
‘They can’t know about Davy. I can’t tell them.’
I sucked in a panicked breath.
‘Jacith sent me for a reason. I can’t let them know Davy’s the one.’ Blue continued, ‘I told them Lucas’ position. He can handle them. Everything is not lost. They still think the other girl is the Immortal. Everything is still safe. They cannot be divided.’
How did Blue know? What did Blue know? What did she mean when she said we couldn’t be divided? We already were.
Before I pulled completely out of Blue, I heard a different voice from inside of her. It was deep, ominous, and I almost felt the immortality from it. ‘He will need her at the end otherwise all will be lost.’
The deep voice sent shivers down my spine and something took root inside of me. I needed to be there, at whatever it was. I needed to be beside Roane. With that thought, the decision took over my body. I looked down and watched as my body turned into a glowing beacon. I was faintly aware of Gregory’s jerk in reaction.
The Immortal was taking over.
I swallowed tightly as I didn’t know if I wanted it or if I was just along for the ride. Either way, I closed my eyes tightly, and knew the next second would decide my fate.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
Something burst inside of me and I felt my body shoot into the air. Gregory twisted around me like I was in the eye of a tornado. He quickly faded from view. Then I was in the air and everything started to circle around me. Looking down, I saw the Raitscliff Family beneath my feet. I could barely make out the symbol of the lion until they suddenly started to circle so fast it was a constant blur. It was like a colorful wall and I gasped when a lion burst out of the blurred wall. It lifted its head and let loose with a deafening roar. It closed its massive mouth and then hung its head before it vanished.