Finally Kent seemed to acquire the upper hand, pinning the girl with his knee in her back and holding her hands behind her so she couldn’t scratch at him any longer.
Absently reaching one hand up to his neck where she’d gotten him, he held her firm with the other, a grin of proud accomplishment on his face. “You’re not going to go anywhere so you might as well sit still!”
Devan smiled then laughed. It was clear to her that the reason he’d momentarily tamed the young lady was not because of his own prowess, but instead that the girl had finally noticed Devan and seemed to be mesmerized. “Who are you?” Devan asked, her lips still curled.
The woman didn’t answer immediately and instead continued to peer at Devan with penetrating eyes. Finally she tugged her head up and down, frowning with exertion as she tried to escape again. She was obviously strong, bucking him nearly off her and finally yanking one arm free of his grip. She leveraged that hand against the ground and shoved herself over, sending him sailing backwards and into a tree. His body slid to the ground, and he seemed dazed for a moment before bounding back to his feet in a single movement.
Devan recognized the coiled muscle tension that suddenly rolled into Kent’s shoulders as he crouched low and faced the young girl. Without thinking, she stepped between them, holding her hand up to Kent and turning her back on the girl.
“No, Dev! She’s a vampire!”
“How the hell would you know that? You’re not a dhampir, and besides, she’s just a young girl,” Devan argued as if she were an authority, turning her body to follow Kent as he tried to flank her. She wouldn’t let him get around and held herself between them, intent on protecting the girl.
“I’m not a ‘young’ girl, Devan! We’re the same age,” the woman hissed, incensed by the very suggestion, then turned her attention to Kent. “And I’d never hurt her so just back off!”
Now both Kent and Devan stopped their posturing and turned to face the woman, astonishment evident on both their faces. The girl stood up taller, defensively, then brushed a hand through her golden hair. Devan noticed her nails no longer looked so dangerous. Kent had told her the basics about vampires and their ability not only to lengthen their incisors but also to grow their nails into razor-sharp claws. She deduced at that moment this girl was no longer looking to harm either of them.
“Only a vampire would have that kind of strength, Devan,” Kent cautioned, but his earlier aggressiveness had melted to be replaced by restrained concern.
“I understand that, Kent. I can put two and two together.” She looked hard at the girl, mulling over the situation, before sighing heavily. “It’s cold out here. Let’s go inside so we can figure out what the hell’s going on here.”
Reacting like a chastened teenager, the girl kicked a stone in front of her as she followed Devan towards the cabin. Kent stayed a few paces behind, watching the stranger with suspicion. Once inside, Devan gathered a blanket from her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then she reentered the room and motioned that the girl should seat herself at the breakfast bar. Her eyes darted back and forth like a caged animal for several moments before she finally complied.
“What were you doing skulking out there around the cabin?” Kent demanded harshly.
Neither he nor Devan sat down, both of them keeping guard in front of the young woman. Despite her earlier diffusion of the intense situation, Devan was cautious, uncertain of what was really happening and not ready to believe what her mind was telling her. She mimicked Kent’s expression, staring the blonde directly in the eyes to demand an answer.
“I wasn’t skulking. I was trying to get to Devan. Hell, you’ve got her locked away in this box with all those protections. I just need to talk to her.”
“It’s not as if she hasn’t been outside in three days! You could have just approached like a normal person. How long have you been watching us anyway?”
The blonde glared at him with an ugly expression. “You just told her I’m a vampire and you guys haven’t been in the habit of leaving this cabin at night. You figure it out.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “You set a trap for me. You dropped that one protection to get me to come through.”
Devan took a step forward, “How did you find me, Jill?”
The angry expression in the woman’s eyes dissolved into glassy pools of lavender. “I thought…I thought by your reaction that you…that you didn’t remember me.”
The indentation sharpened between Devan’s eyebrows as her frown deepened. She watched as the girl turned to look behind her and grabbed a notepad. She hastily scribbled onto the paper and held it to Devan’s face.
Aronel
“Dammit,” Devan whispered, realization crackling in her mind.
“Dev, how do you know her?” Kent insisted.
Jill Provost had been her college roommate. She was a business major while Devan was pre-law. Devan had found herself intensely interested in business, though her father wouldn’t even consider a deviation from his plan that she would become a lawyer like himself. So, in unspoken defiance, she’d taken to studying both her own course load and tagging onto Jill’s studies. At the end of their junior year Devan confided to her good friend that she’d one day break from her father and create her own business, a piece of herself, and she’d call it Aronel. The Aronel Company—Lenora spelled backwards. Her mother’s name. She’d joked to Jill that the hidden meaning would turn her father inside out when he discovered it.
She reached behind her, feeling for a chair. Not finding one within arm’s length, Devan instead stepped forward and placed both hands against the bar, two stools away from her old friend.
“You didn’t know, did you? Tell me you didn’t know,” Jill pleaded, staring at Devan with an expression that was steely and sharp.
With a shaky breath, Devan glanced towards Kent, hoping to find some security there, but his confused and alarmed face only made her feel sick. She looked back at the woman. “Did I know what, Jill? I don’t understand any of this–what did you know?”
A cleansing breath escaped from the girl’s pale lips and she rested back against the edge of the bar. It seemed as if she’d been captive to something for years and years and was now finally released from it. She smiled tenuously. “He told me you knew, that you’d planned it, that the two of you had worked together.”
A long silent moment passed. Jill and Devan looked at each other, memories replaying in both their minds. Nearly four years of memories of good times that ended suddenly when Jill withdrew from the university and left without so much as a goodbye. And now here she was, looking like the same 21 year old she’d been that last time they’d spoken. Unchanged except for a hardness in her eyes and a paleness to her skin.
“I need you to leave us alone, Kent,” Devan said, though not breaking sight with her friend.
“Uh, uh. No. I’m not leaving.”
She turned and smiled at him. An apologetic smile. An endearing smile. An only slightly condescending smile. “She won’t hurt me, Kent. Trust me.”
Kent stepped towards her slowly, looking directly at her, into her. “I’ve tried to be as forthcoming with you as possible, Dev. I’ve answered the questions you’ve posed, and Langston and I have let you inside a very tight circle. I need to know what’s happening here. It’s not about me trusting you. You have to trust me.”
It wasn’t easy for her to let go. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed on it a few moments while she looked at him. She could feel herself pulling a piece of him into her soul. Something inside her was sucking at all the emotions he was feeding her. Want. Caring. Worry. Strength. Solidity. Yes, she needed to let him in. It was far beyond time and she knew it.
“Can we at least sit down?” she asked.
He nodded and his lips hinted at a smile. As he headed towards the couch, Devan deviated first to the refrigerator and opened a half-empty bottle of chardonnay. Jill smiled and nodded at her friend’s questioning glance. She poured two glasses.
Jill tossed him a look of disdain. “Just because I don’t need to drink doesn’t mean I can’t.”
Devan gave her a quirky glance. “You don’t need to?”
Shrugging her shoulders, the young blonde padded towards the loveseat. “No, but we always used to have a drink during talks. It just feels right this way.”
When Devan too approached the loveseat and sat down, Kent hauled himself back to standing. “That’s okay. I’ll get my own,” he huffed and headed off towards the kitchen.
“You never drink.”
“There’s always a time to start,” he murmured as he popped the top off a beer he found in the refrigerator. After taking a large swallow, he held the bottle out and glared at it. “Where the hell did we get all this anyway?” His expression became even more confused as further realization dawned on him. “None of us have left the lodge in three days. Where did all the food come from?”
Devan sighed. “We’ve been eating ‘all the food’ for three days now, Kent. Where’ve you been?” Rubbing her hands over her eyes, she took a moment to think and then looked up again. “This story gets more complicated the more I think about it. The truth is I own this place. Not just this cabin, this entire lodge property. Or actually The Aronel Company owns it, but I own the company. When I checked in I gave the caretaker a list of what I wanted and–here it all is.”
He avoided looking at her and instead continued staring at the bottle. Taking another huge swig, he reached into the fridge and grabbed a second, then trudged back towards the couch, the two bottles clinking against one another in his hand. When he was comfortably seated, he turned to the two women expectantly.
Devan began with college. Jill had been her assigned roommate at the dorm; it took them at least several months to warm up to each other. They seemingly carried on totally separate lives in a single room.
“I hated her,” Jill giggled. “Rich bitch–remember?” Devan nodded. “I thought she was uppity and that she believed she was better than me. I was just barely hanging on, desperate to keep my academic scholarships so I’d be able to stay. Turned out she was just shy. You weren’t much of a people person.”
“No I wasn’t. But you helped with that. Jill was the epitome of the gorgeous college blonde. All the guys loved her, and we got invited to many, many a party. I helped her with her studies and she helped me to socialize. She was probably the main reason Father convinced me to move out of the dorm my sophomore year. Wasn’t he surprised when you moved into the apartment with me?”
“Damn! Ol’ Ed’s expression when he came to visit on his way to Europe over Spring Break was priceless.”
Devan’s face, laughing a moment before, turned serious, somber, and pensive, “Yes, priceless. I’m sure that’s why he began sending Robbie to visit more often, to keep an eye on me. And it worked to an extent. I never could seem to say no to Robbie, and there was always some function, some event to attend just when you and I had plans. I missed the trip to Cancun.”
Jill shrugged and kicked Devan’s leg affectionately with her bare foot. “You didn’t miss much. I probably threw up for three days I got so drunk off my ass.”
Kent cleared his throat to get their attention. “Who’s Robbie?”
Both women looked at each other in silence for a few moments.
Finally, Devan glanced up and pierced him with her gold-brown eyes. “Does the name Robin Weir mean anything to you?”
Cursing under his breath, he closed his eyes as he finished off his first beer. “Robin.”
She smiled apologetically. “I knew when you mentioned his name. I knew he was your friend. Your partner. When I was young, I thought it was so cool to date an older guy. Father approved, so how could I not latch onto that? He was in college at that time–or at least that’s what I was told. If he’d been your friend all that time ago, he must be as old as you are. An intern—I was told he was an intern. We went to all the galas, the charity functions, we toured orphanages, met all sorts of children–the children. They were drawn to him, and I found that–” She swallowed and her voice turned hollow when she opened her mouth again. “I found it endearing. Imagined the babies we’d have together–the ones we’d adopt one day after we were married.”
“And I was just as enamored with him as the children were,” Jill confessed, her head down despairingly. “When he turned on the charm, well…I wasn’t going to keep my scholarship that last year, Dev. I was going to have to transfer home and hope I could scrounge up enough money to finish my degree there. Robbie gave me a way out.”
“I don’t understand. Tell me what happened. You left and I knew he was involved, and I thought he’d cheated. His charm couldn’t hide his guilt so I knew. I knew you and he–”
Jill took her friend’s hands. “We never did anything. That wasn’t it at all. He offered me a job. He said I’d be back in a week but that I couldn’t tell anyone. Said I’d make enough to pay for the next semester and then some. I had no idea what it really meant to become–”
“A supplicant,” Kent finished for her. “A human supplicant.”
Devan peered at him in askance.
“I mentioned it to you once, just in passing, but there’s a vampire hierarchy, Devan. Not all can afford or even have the right to a magical host. A vampire can choose to roam constantly for blood or they can obtain a single human supplicant. Sometimes it’s an arrangement between the two parties. Sometimes the supplicant is hired, a business proposition. Sometimes–sometimes it’s more like slavery. Jill, you were a supplicant.”
“I’ll kill him,” Devan whispered first. Then she growled, “I’ll kill him!”
Kent might not have been able to see and sense her aura or her magic, but he clearly recognized the rage searing under the surface at that moment. “Calm down, Dev. Robin’s just a wannabe really. You can believe that any deals he made for human supplicants were made under the Org’s radar. He was always trying to work his way up. We’ll find him, and when we do, if you want to teach him a lesson, I’ll give you that shot.”
The gold in her eyes had disappeared and both irises were totally black now.
Jill stepped in. “You don’t understand, Devan. I went willingly. I thought…I thought I was going to be a paid companion. I didn’t know what that meant, but–”
Devan shook her head and stood, beginning to pace the room. “Wrong is wrong. Evil is evil. It doesn’t matter whether the ‘buyers’ were pedophiles or vampires. It doesn’t matter if you believed you were to be a paid companion or a supplicant. The meanings are the same. Robbie used me. My father used me. They both made me complicit–complicit to an act that’s abhorrent and evil. I wasn’t just his daughter. I didn’t just live under his roof and benefit as his heir to that dirty financial empire. I befriended some of those children. When I was their age, they would come into our home and I…I would entertain them. Biding time until the…the supposed parents came for them. Later Robbie and I visited orphanages–he…he had me–I helped…I helped choose some of those children. Some of those beautiful, precious children were bought because I picked them out of a crowd! And then he sold you, Jill, into bondage! I’ll damn well kill them both!”
Kent and the girl didn’t speak. They just watched in awe as Devan walked back and forth, her movements erratic and anxious. Jill might not have realized what was happening right away, but he did. Her hair was changing, lengthening, moving. During their earlier chat, she’d reached up and twisted it behind her, though not tying it securely into a knot as had become her practice. Now it was flowing down her back, past her backside, and the ends were curling and uncurling in succession like the strands themselves were breathing.
Standing and approaching her carefully, Kent placed his hands on her shoulders and looked at her. He wasn’t sure what to do. Langston might have focused a soothing calm towards her and helped her to meditate, to balance, but he didn’t know how to do that for her, not
with the wall that prevented him from reading her.
“Man, Dev, you look really good,” Jill said, a thoughtful look on her face. “You never would grow your hair out when we were living together. I begged you, but you insisted on leaving it short. It’s awesome!”
And where Kent was at a loss, Jill broke the tension. She provided just the right distraction, and a twinkle sparked in Devan’s eyes as she smiled wryly at Kent. He squeezed her shoulders and winked. Then he had to struggle to let go of her. His fingers ached to feel her beneath his hands again, even if just a casual touch. Still, he released her and was heading back to his seat on the couch when the cabin phone rang.
All three of them looked stunned for a moment. Devan glanced at the clock in the kitchen and saw that it was nearly 2:30 in the morning.
Kent turned sharp eyes towards Jill and the blonde shook her head even before he spoke. “Who knows where you are? And how did you find us anyway?” His tone was hard, accusing.
Then realization went off in Devan’s mind. She tossed both hands up and slapped them against her thighs even as she hurried to answer it. “It’s Langston! Langston?”
When she sank into the chair like her legs had turned to jelly, Kent knew it was indeed his friend. He rushed towards her and reached for the phone.
“Her voice crackles with energy, even from this distance. What are you two doing awake at this hour?”
Kent ignored the not-so-subtle suggestion in Langston’s tone. “It’s a long story. Tell me what’s happening.”
“I have located them. Gerry is still unconscious. She does not appear to be injured, but she hasn’t received any sustenance in days. I cannot be certain, but I would suspect her state is self-induced. A protection of sorts. Perhaps to prevent Adriel from accessing her mind. I will continue trying to break through. There are some spells in the Grimoire.”
The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Page 11