by Rachael Wade
Gliding toward me, she took my chin in her hand. “If you truly desire to take Gavin’s place, I will spare him his sentence of servitude and admit him to Amaranth where his curse will be lifted, as he has requested. You may serve in his place. Unless, of course, you prefer the other option.…”
“No.” I met her hazy stare, ready to commit. I knew I was interfering with Gavin’s plans, but it would be worth it, if it meant letting him go free, seeing him human again, just as he wanted. What Samira presented to me was more of a trade, more desirable even. If I accepted the offer, I’d still have a chance to be with him again, would be here to witness the destruction of the evil incarnate that stood before me. I needed no more convincing. “Change me.”
“It is done. You’ll be escorted to his living quarters immediately.” With a quick swirling of her lifted skirt, she retired to her throne and gestured to the wolves. As I turned to follow them toward the doorway, she called at me to stop, leered at her long, sharp nails as she spoke.
“One more thing, my pet. I almost forgot. In choosing to take another servant’s place, you are marked. You belong to me, which means you will not have the privilege of living in exile.” She met my eyes with a smug smile. “Just so we’re clear on that.”
CHAPTER 16
Fight or Flight
The wolves led me up an exhausting spiral stairway to the castle’s highest tower. When we reached the top of the staircase, another large guard in a gray hooded cloak met us with an aloof stare.
“Dali. Akim. Release,” he instructed the animals. They obeyed, retreated elegantly back down the stairway to return to their queen. He let me walk ahead of him, leisurely strolled a few feet behind me. We passed cell after cell, each wooden door sealed shut with only a single opening to see through and complete with rod iron bars. Living quarters? This was a prison.
I didn’t know how I would react when I saw him, and I was far more concerned with how he would react when he saw me, knew I’d have to talk fast and convince him to comply with the deal I made with Samira. What he was here to attempt was far too risky, and although I wasn’t sure of the fate he held in Amaranth, I knew it might cost him his life. I had to at least try to make him see the reality of the situation more clearly.
The guard came from behind me and snatched my arm, spun me around to face one of the cell doors. Reaching into his cloak, he retrieved a pair of chain handcuffs and grabbed my wrists, forced them in front of me to bind them.
“You have five minutes.”
“Only five minutes?”
“Not open for negotiating,” he breathed in my face, his fangs hovering near my neck.
He sorted through his keys until he found the correct one and lazily slipped it into the door’s keyhole, turned the latch with ease.
“Here’s your prince.” The door swung open and he rolled his eyes, shoved me from behind into the cell. Snatching the door shut and locking it behind me, he left me with my missing piece. The moonlight aided my vision in the dark cell, glimmered through a barred window on the stone wall. My eyes adjusted quickly and I focused on a lump of matter pitifully hunched over in the corner. The anticipation in my heart instantly dropped. Propped up with his head down, there sat Gavin on a scattered bed of straw, weak, with tattered clothing and a ghastly bruise on his face.
I shuffled forward, in disbelief at his condition. “Gavin, wake up. Are you okay?” I kneeled down and shook him, thankful to see his eyes roll open.
“No, no, no.” Drowsy, he flinched, horrified to see me. “You can’t be here. Camille, tell me I’m hallucinating. You can’t …” he reached for me, his face heavy with disappointment when his hand touched my skin, felt it was real.
“I came here for you,” I said. “You never should’ve taken off like that— Are Gabe and Audrey all right? I thought you weren’t being punished, but you’re starving and locked up.” I reached for his face, eyed the dreadful cell walls.
“Stop. What the hell are you doing here?” He pulled himself up and stepped close to me now; his eyes darted from the cell door to the cell window. He immediately grabbed my handcuffs and gave them a sharp yank, let my hands free. The effort exhausted him. “You’re going to get both of us killed, what were you thinking?”
“I know, calm down, that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. I ran into Andrew on the way here, but he’s dead now. And I worked things out with Samira.…”
“You met Samira?”
“Yes. I know this is dangerous, but listen—”
“You can’t be here,” he repeated, scanned our surroundings again. “You shouldn’t be so close. I haven’t fed—”
“You have to listen to me. We only have five minutes.”
“Five minutes until what?”
“Until they take me back to Samira. She’s going to change me, I told her I’d take your place if she let you go. You won’t have to serve her. She’ll lift your curse.” I swallowed and placed my hand on his chest, let him know I wasn’t afraid.
His body stiffened. “Change you. Camille, no. No, you don’t understand. You can’t work things out with her, she doesn’t do deals. She’ll kill you anyway.”
“You don’t know that. She was certain, she said I’d be of use to her and that I could serve in your place. She didn’t seem to have a problem with making a deal. Besides, she said I’d have to change or be killed.”
He shook his head, weakly paced back and forth. “I can’t believe this.” Seeing Gavin crawl out of his skin was an image I wasn’t used to. “She doesn’t bargain, doesn’t negotiate. Everything she does is for herself, do you understand that? She doesn’t compromise, she doesn’t play fair. She deceives. We have to get you out of here. Now.”
“Gavin, I can’t leave you here. This whole plan you had to come here and save the vampire world is insane. This won’t bring your parents back, it’s too big for you. I came here to catch you in time, to beg you to forget this whole thing and just leave. I might not be able to talk you out of it, I know—I understand what coming here means to you. But if you’re going to go through with it, you have to let me be here with you, you have to let me help. If I let her change me, you’ll be freed from your curse right away. The more time you spend serving her, the more time she has to become suspicious of your intentions, or she could just decide to kill you. Your life is in danger, you can’t waste any time. I can be here and wait for you until you do whatever it is you came here to do. This is what I want.”
I didn’t think it possible, but the torment on his face deepened. “I knew what I was doing,” he said. “She agreed to let me serve inside Amaranth, just like I wanted her to. My curse would be lifted after I helped lead her people, and then everything would be in place for my plan to work! She won’t hurt me, not yet. But now? Now, you walked right into her trap, you gave her exactly what she wants. She won’t change you, she’ll keep you until I give her what she wants, and then she’ll kill you!”
“How do you know that?” I stepped in front of him and stopped him from pacing.
“I just know.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I know,” he jerked his thumb to his chest, “because that’s what she did to my parents. Bargained with what they loved most: with me. She kept me alive until they did what she wanted, and the minute they did, she tried to get rid of me. I escaped, so she got rid of them instead. She will kill you.”
My heart sank. Of course he knew better than I did what she was capable of. If I’d only trusted him in the first place, let him do what he came here to do. But he left me regenerate, and I was indebted to him. My efforts might have been in vain, but my motives convicted my heart.
“Please, let me do this,” I said. “Go into exile and let her take me, or get out of here, it’s your choice. But I’m here now, and I’m either going back home with you, or I’m going to be here to watch you bring her kingdom down. So whatever you do, do not ask me to cower away and let you walk into a suicide mission.”
“I’m not asking. You’re leaving. You’re powerless here, changed or not, do you get that?”
“I’m not leaving. Not unless you come with me.”
He turned from me and looked out the cell window toward the moon, at the eerie shadow that unhurriedly began casting itself across it.
“That shadow wasn’t there when I got here,” I mumbled, eyed it nervously.
“It’s not the earth’s moon. It’s … like an hourglass. It tells the Amaranthians when the crescent cycle is almost over. The portal will close soon, we have to go.” He turned back to me. “You leave me no choice, I’ll leave with you, we’ll have to escape. There’s no way you’ll make it out alive on your own. But this isn’t over, I have to come back. I’ll have to go into hiding, regroup.…”
I rushed forward to hug him. “Run with me. You don’t have to come back. It doesn’t matter what you are, we can start over.”
“This was never supposed to happen, Camille.” He gently held me in his arms, lowered his voice. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be with you. Not until I’m freed from this. I need to do this. Not just for myself, but for my parents. I owe it to them, please try to understand.”
“There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t. This is my fate and you can’t alter it. I’ll leave with you to keep you safe, but you can’t keep me from this. I need you to understand.”
He brushed his fingers through my hair and kissed my forehead, brought me home again. “What possessed you to do this, love?” He spoke calmer now, held me tighter. “I’ve missed you so much, you have no idea. I’ll never forgive Joel for letting you escape.”
“It wasn’t Joel’s fault. I tricked him.”
“What has gotten in-to you?”
“I just know what I have to do now.”
“And what is that exactly?”
“To stop fighting against the current. There’s no going back for me. Unless it’s with you.”
Taking my face in his hands, he scooped me up and kissed me fiercely, picked me up and wrapped my legs around his waist, then trapped me against the chilly stone wall, radiating with intense need. “God, you smell good,” he breathed, his mouth moving over my neck and chest, his hand over the curves of my body. His frenzy consumed me and I gave in, rolling my fingers through his hair and around the back of his neck, more than happy to surrender. Keys faintly jingling in the corridor interrupted us.
“Damn it.” He tried to pull his mouth from mine but gripped my thighs tighter, his body’s heat compelling me to pull him closer. He glanced at the cell door to find the guard’s whereabouts.
“Where did that come from?” I exhaled, winded. Allowing him to loosen his grip on me, I slid down the wall to try to stand, weak in the knees. “Not that I’m complaining, but … you just can’t do things like that,” I panted, fanning myself.
“Couldn’t resist. You don’t make it easy on me, you know,” he adjusted his shirt, examined the bars on the window next to us. He carefully slipped me out of his arms and grabbed the bars with his hands, pulled back and forth to test his strength.
“Gav—”
“Sshhh.” He placed his finger to his lips, pulled me close again. “We have to be quiet. I’m really weak, but I think it will be just enough.”
“What will?” I whispered.
“I need for you to tell me again why you came here, and why you want to be with me. I need you to explain why you want this life with me.”
“Gavin, we don’t have time for this, we can talk more later-”
“Tell me, Camille. Explain it to me, please. Don’t rush, just concentrate.” His eyes locked on mine, patiently prompting me.
“Don’t rush? You’ve got to be kidding me,” I snapped under my breath, snuck glances toward the cell door, knowing any minute that monstrous guard would come bursting in.
“He’s around the corner. Don’t worry.”
“Okay,” I breathed deeply, careful to keep my voice low. “I came here for you, to make sure you were safe, to see you again.…” I fidgeted with my hands and searched his eyes like a child doubtful of her answer in a classroom. What was he thinking starting a conversation like this? We needed to break out of here, to run, and fast, but I was a sucker for his scorching eyes, so I complied.
“I realized I am completely in love with you, and that my life will never be the same since we ran into each other in Paris. I’ve realized there is no going back, and that as convoluted as this whole thing is, bolting from it is not the answer. Because my mind will never let me forget.”
“Go on,” he closed his eyes as he listened.
“I know now that my heart won’t let me tame it, as much as I try to. It’s programmed for you, and if you’re missing …”
“If I’m missing …”
“It won’t work right. The idea of my life with you had to die for me to see how I want to live.”
The sadness that manifested around the lines of his face began to soften, and light crept across his features. A smile replaced the anguish and now he stood beaming, triumphant. His arms and chest shook, and he struggled to keep his eyes shut. “And how do you want to live?”
“I don’t want to live like Arianna did, or like my mom does: refusing to accept reality, refusing to let myself be whole. I want to move forward. No more walls, no more regret, no more wasted time. I want another chance to be with you.”
“And when did you realize this?” He opened his eyes now, stood serene and still.
“When I saw a picture of you human. I saw all of the life in your eyes, that it was enough to keep us both alive, no matter how defective we were together.”
Elated, he leaned forward and swept me into his arms. My legs dangled to the side, my hands draped around his neck. Shocked to see his strength return, I began to feel lightheaded. My eyes heavy, I let him carry me toward the window.
“Camille Hart. What on earth am I going to do with you, my brave little introvert.” He peered down at me, adoration in his eyes.
“You could kiss me again.”
The jangling keys grew louder.
“Hold that thought.”
We heard movement near the door, watched the guard’s disgruntled face come into view through the small window. As the guard fumbled with the keys to open the cell, Gavin quickly shifted me in his arms and turned his back to the cell wall, aligned himself with the barred window. Facing the cell door to keep the guard in his view, he adjusted his posture and braced himself. “Forgive me, love. Hold tight.”
Before I had a second to ask, he flung us backward into the window with all of his might, and crashed through the bars with ease. His head and shoulders hovered over and protected me as we broke through the wall while chunks of stone exploded all around us. We hurled into flight, rocketed forward at lightning speed, gave gravity no chance to pull us downward. Spiraling through the air, we launched away from the castle and sailed over the beautiful sea of green.
The wind blowing my hair in every direction at once, I turned to peek over his shoulder, caught a last glimpse of the guard’s enraged face through the broken castle wall where we left him.
“They’re coming,” Gavin shouted as we made our way closer to the portal door. “Be ready to run when I tell you.”
I watched the same gardens and lush landscape fly past us, the castle no longer in sight, and I knew we were getting close. Dizzy, I fought to keep my eyes open. He suddenly dropped to the ground and landed us in a wide-open area of land, in front of a cozy, familiar garden.
“This maze leads you to the door. I took your energy, but I’m already getting weak, I need you to start running. I can keep you in sight and see what’s coming from behind us. Go!”
“I … don’t remember going through this. How will I know the way?”
“It’s for intruders, so they get lost. There’ll be more guards ahead, looking for us, and I need to keep what strength I have left. I’ll tell you the way, just go!”
&nb
sp; I turned and darted through the maze’s entrance, hurried around the corners as Gavin shouted directions from behind me. The darkness added to the disorientation, and I fought against the dizziness. “Gavin?” I stumbled and slowed my pace, prayed it wouldn’t be much longer.
“Right here love,” he swooped in behind me, wrapped his arm around my waist to guide me. “Almost, hang in there.”
“Where are they? I thought you said they’d be here—”
“Camille! Right, then left! Hurry!” He flung me forward, turned to face the angry guard we’d escaped from. He appeared from overhead and collided with Gavin in midair. Hearing the impact, my adrenaline kicked in and I knew I had to run faster than I ever had before. I stopped cold when I saw the guard grab the silver knife from his cloak, watched helplessly as Gavin struggled to gain control of the weapon.
He dodged it as the guard stabbed at his chest, skillfully missing the attempted strike. He gave his attacker’s arm a hard blow and sent him flying backward into the trees, knocking the knife from his hand. Kneeling down to grab it, he froze.
“Camille! Wait.” His face lit up and he looked off into the distance, concentrated on something I couldn’t see.
“When you make the left, run to the center of the fountain and don’t move. Stay right there, do you understand? Go! There are more coming!”
“What about you?” I screamed, ready to flee.
“I’ll be fine, now leave!”
Though every instinct told me to stay, to help him, I had to trust him, I had to!
I bolted and banked a hard right, heard another dreadful crash from his direction. Peeling left toward the picturesque fountain, I yearned for the day vampires were only a figment of the imagination. What would we do when—or if—we escaped? The thought of life after an escape made me tremble, but I was certain the fate Samira had planned for us, if we stayed, was far worse.
When I reached the edge of the fountain, I spun around, looked for any signs of enemies. I could still hear Gavin scuffling with the guards in the near distance, and wondered how long I was supposed to wait for him. If Samira caught us now, the deal would be off. And I didn’t want to be around to suffer the repercussions.