Blood Traitor

by Kim Loraine

  “We’re so glad you’re here, Olivia.”

  I took his offer of a handshake, his large, warm palm engulfing my smaller one completely. “It wasn’t much of a choice. Logan threatened someone I care about.”

  “Logan threatened a vampire who was holding you hostage.”

  “He wasn’t holding me hostage…anymore.”

  Hector shook his head and sighed. “I think it’s time for you to see the truth of Cashel Blackthorne’s betrayal, Olivia.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He cocked his head toward the tent. “Come inside so I can tell you everything.”

  I hesitated, not trusting anyone anymore. “I’m not an idiot. You could do anything in there.”

  “I promise, I won’t hurt you.”

  A laugh left my mouth before I could stop it. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  He turned to the flaps of the tent and rolled each one up until the interior was completely visible from outside. “You’re free to leave whenever you want. I’m not going to force you to do anything. But if you give me a chance, I’ll show you the truth Cashel has been hiding from you.”

  “How?”

  “If I’m right, you’re so clouded under the power of his compulsion, you don’t have any clue how much he influenced your thoughts. I’m going to break that influence and raise the curtain so you can see the truth. Then you can make your decision with a clear mind.”

  My memories drifted to the conversation Logan and I had in the cabin. “It should hurt every time…” I whispered.

  “See, part of you already knows. Come on. Let me show you. Don’t make your choice until you have all the information.”

  Taking a heavy breath, I nodded and stepped inside the large tent, ready to find the truth.

  2

  Olivia

  My hands shook as soon as I crossed into the tent. Hector’s hulking form had me backing away out of instinctive distrust. I’d been hurt by a leader before, I didn’t want it to happen again.

  “It’s okay, Olivia. I swear I’m not going to harm you. Have a seat and I’ll explain how we’re going to do this.” His words were slow and calm, reminding me of a teacher I’d once had.

  “The last time I was alone with a man who said that, he stole my blood without my permission and invaded my mind. Forgive me if I’m a little hesitant.”

  He straightened his shoulders and shoved both hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “I get it. I really do. They took so much from everyone here, you know? Every single person in this camp has been a victim of the Blackthornes.”

  Shock rolled through me. “What?”

  “Ask anyone in the camp, they’ll share their reason for taking up their weapons. Each of us has lost someone. Spouses, siblings, children. Logan lost his sister. My wife… I lost her one night without warning.”

  “And you’re sure it was all done by the Blackthornes?”

  “They rule this area, so by extension, any vampire here is a Blackthorne.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but now wasn’t the time to argue. “If you knew Cashel, or Lucas or Callie, even Sorcha, you might think differently. Elias was a twisted son of a bitch, but the rest of them… I think there’s more to them.”

  “Sit down, Olivia.”

  I did as he asked, if only to get this over with. Maybe if I showed him some trust, he’d do the same with me and what I was saying about the Blackthornes. “Fine. How do we do this? Are you going to hypnotize me?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “No. In order to break through the compulsion they’ve put on you, we have to force your mind to do something to defend itself.”

  That made me nervous, but I also understood. When Cashel helped rid me of his father’s unwanted control, he’d had to break into my mind and pull the compulsion out.

  A sharp prick in my arm had me letting out a yelp of protest and surprise. Cool liquid surged through my veins, making my heart race and my blood feel like it was filled with cold fire. My breaths came in sharp gasps, and I worked to calm my heart. I hadn’t had a panic attack in a long time, but this was different. This was more intense, bone deep, painful.

  “What…what did you do to me?” I fought for every breath.

  “Lie back, Olivia. Let the adrenaline take charge. Your brain will go into fight or flight mode, and the anxiety attack will reverse the compulsions.”

  I couldn’t stay upright and keep breathing. My chest ached, my vision grew fuzzy, I needed to close my eyes and give in to what my body needed. Hide. Protect. Survive.

  Lying back on the cot, my limbs shuddered, teeth chattering with threatening shock. I closed my eyes and willed myself to relax. Instead, I saw Cashel. I felt him kissing me, felt his cock driving inside me, but most of all, I felt the tremendous pain of his teeth sinking into my skin and the violation of his feeding. Over and over, time after time, I saw the truth of what he did. I saw him taking my blood, taking the pain, and then I lived the pain. I screamed. My throat was raw and aching, skin slick with sweat, fingers white from clutching the blanket. Then I saw the moment he told me he’d never control my mind. The lie in that promise nearly broke me.

  Cashel stole my memories, stole my understanding of the truth, stole me from the world. He betrayed me.

  “What the fuck are you doing to her?” Logan’s voice boomed in the tent, but I didn’t open my eyes. Tears leaked from the corners of my closed lids and spilled down my temples and into my hair. My heart was breaking piece by piece with the revelation of each of Cashel’s lies.

  “She needs to understand.” Hector’s words were strong and confident. “If she’s going to get out of his thrall, she has to realize what he’s done.”

  “Not like this. She’s hurting.”

  “She’ll be fine. Olivia is strong, you and I both know that.”

  I used to think so, but now I wasn’t so sure. I felt like a broken puppet, used and tossed aside. Logan wasn’t wrong when he said Cashel was done with me. I’d served his purpose. That was why he hadn’t come for me. He didn’t want me anymore.

  Strong arms scooped me into a cradle hold, and the heat of Logan’s body quelled some of the shaking in my own. He smelled good. Like leather and pine. And right now, that was what I needed. Someone to hold my pieces together while I fell apart, because with the truth of Cashel’s betrayal, I wasn’t okay. In fact, I was so far from okay I didn’t know if I’d ever find that place again.

  “She’s done. She needs some peace,” Logan said.

  Hector didn’t argue, and when I opened my eyes, I found his, pity hiding behind strength. “I’m sorry you had to find out like this, sweet girl. I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

  “Didn’t you, though?” Logan asked.

  He walked away, me in his arms, and didn’t let Hector answer. Instead, he took me back to a tent that wasn’t mine. It was slightly larger than the one I’d woken up in, with a small shelf filled with various weapons and a few old western paperback novels. Logan’s space.

  “You were right,” I said through a tight throat. “About it all. He did use me. He hid the pain but he promised he’d never control me. He lied.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A bitter laugh escaped me. “No, you’re not. This is what you wanted from the beginning.”

  “True. But I don’t want to see you sad. Believe it or not, I want you to be happy, to have all the things you deserve.”

  “You don’t even know me. We spent some time in a car together, that’s it.”

  Somewhere during this, I stopped shaking and started getting angry. I took a long, slow breath and fought the urge to rage at him for the shitshow my life had become.

  “I know you better than you think.”

  I cocked my head and raised my brows. “Really?”

  “You have anxiety attacks because of the trauma in your past. You sleep on your side, curled up like you might fall apart if you don’t hold yourself together. You miss your mom so badly you won’t l
et yourself think about her.”

  I shrugged. “Those are observations.”

  “Your real name is Rosella, but you haven’t gone by it since you were five.”

  All the air left my lungs. “How did you know that?”

  “We’ve been looking for you and your mom for a long time. Just like the Blackthornes were, but they got to you first. I’m sorry for that. We failed you. We never wanted you to have to endure the torture of living with them.”

  “You didn’t just fail me. You failed my mom.” Tears sprung to my eyes, regret burning in my throat.

  “I can’t bring her back, but I can promise you, we’ll get vengeance.” He took my hand and squeezed. “Together.”

  I stared at his fingers, long and rough with scars from countless fights, his tanned skin such a contrast to Cashel’s. An ache began in my chest before I pushed it away. He’d used me. Cashel had used me, and I’d been powerless to stop him. I could never trust him again.

  Logan brushed his thumb over mine and I looked into his eyes, making my decision then and there. “Teach me how to fight.”

  “On your left,” Logan shouted, his voice low and tight.

  I ducked and spun out of the path of the man who was charging me. Pulling a stake from the holster at my side, I readied my defense and popped to my feet. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, making my blood hum with pins and needles. I hated this part. It was the moment my body tried to pick between falling into a full-fledged anxiety attack or controlling my situation. I still wasn’t able to tell which way things were going to go.

  But my rival was back at it, rushing me without giving me much choice on what to do. It was kill or be killed. I aimed to kill.

  With a harsh scream, I ran straight into him, the stake pressing into his chest until I couldn’t go any farther. Time stopped. I held my breath. And then Logan began clapping.

  “Well done. That was the first time you didn’t get yourself killed five seconds in.”

  Stepping back from my opponent, I pulled the stake from his padded vest and returned it to my holster. “I didn’t get myself killed this time at all.”

  He shook his head and reached out to brush his fingers across my throat. They came away red with a mixture of corn syrup and food coloring. A sure sign Knight, the hunter masquerading as a vampire for this training, had dealt me a killing blow of some kind. Dammit. Again, I would have ended up dead. I was still a danger to them even after all the practice sessions and training Logan and Knight had done with me.

  “Got your carotid. Sorry, Liv.” Knight grinned and shrugged. “Next time.”

  “I didn’t even notice.” I reached up and dragged my hand through the fake blood. “He was so fast.”

  “That’s the idea. You might have gotten him, but he got you in the end too. Stake and run. Don’t linger.”

  I fought a disappointed sigh. “We’ve been at this for weeks. I’m not going to stay here and be a liability.”

  Logan took my hand, his warmth something I was now accustomed to, even grateful for. “You’re not. You’re important to our cause, and to me.”

  Something about the way he said those words had me fighting a wave of loneliness and grief. Cashel had said the same on more than one occasion. He’d made me feel so much more than I’d been prepared for. But he’d lied to me too.

  “I’m tired of being important because of my blood. I want to be normal. I want to be a woman living her life, not the pet of people who want something from me.”

  “We don’t want anything from you other than to keep you from falling into their hands again. But you need to learn how to defend yourself. Not only against the Blackthornes. Every vampire clan who catches your scent will be after you. If you can kill them, you can live as normal a life as possible.”

  I turned away, staring down at the flowing mountain stream cutting a path through rock and earth. It was small but mighty, and that’s what I wanted to be. Balling my hands into fists, I fought off the lingering pain of knowing Cashel had abandoned me just as easily as he’d lied. I let him go and turned my focus inward, to being strong, to preparing myself for a life without him.

  “You’re right. I know. I just want to be able to move forward now. I need to be able to.”

  His hand trailed along my shoulder, brushing the hair away from my neck and over to the other side. “I can help you with that…if you want.”

  Full lips were all I could focus on. The bottom one slightly larger, both closing in on me, about to kiss me. My heart kicked into overdrive, and I backed away quicker than I intended. “What are you doing, Logan?”

  “Kissing you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m… I can’t.”

  His expression darkened. “Why? Because of him? He’s not here. He didn’t come for you. He doesn’t want you.”

  That hurt. He might as well have slapped me. The burn of loss gripped my heart and caused tears to clog my throat. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “Fuck, Liv, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “No. You meant exactly what you said. I know you think because of everything I’ve learned, I should let him go.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and offered me a disapproving glare. “I do. He deserves death for what he did to you. Instead, you’re punishing yourself for everything that happened. He held you captive. He stole your pleasure, invaded your mind, and dammit, he as good as raped you.”

  Defensive anger bloomed in my chest. “He never raped me.”

  Logan dragged a hand over the dark stubble on his jaw. “How do you know? He invaded your thoughts and colored everything about your feelings.”

  “He made me feel good. Spared me pain when he fed. That’s different.” The words sounded forced even to my own ears. I didn’t know the truth when I believed that. Was I just making excuses for a man who’d abused me?

  “How do you know that was all he did? There could be so much more that affected you.”

  “There’s not. I’d have remembered.”

  But would I? I wasn’t sure. Everything was turned around, and I couldn’t remember how I’d gone from hating Cash to loving him. Had he done more to my mind than my session with Hector had revealed?

  “Just remember, you also thought he’d never meddle in your thoughts, but here we are. It’s not your fault you feel like this. It’s his. He manipulated you.”

  I closed my eyes against the pain the truth brought me. Logan was right. He’d been right so many times. Sinking to the ground, I sat on a large rock at the water’s edge. “It doesn’t feel like that.”

  Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a phone before he took a seat next to me. “I need to show you something. I… I didn’t want to upset you when you were already heartbroken, but I think this is the only thing that’s going to help you.”

  Confusion swirled in my mind. “What are you talking about?”

  He swiped across the screen a few times before offering me the device. “Just press play and watch.”

  I stared down at the phone, brows pulling together in disbelief. A cold rush of dread traced its way down my spine. “That’s…my old house. That’s where my mother died.”

  He put a hand on my arm. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  My stomach twisted and rolled, nausea clutching at my throat, but still, I pressed my finger to the button, and the video began to play.

  3

  Cashel

  I’d been trapped in this dungeon for weeks, starved and held in this cage, save for the moments someone came to torture me. My shoulder burned with searing pain from the brand they’d given me. A traitor mark, large and prominent. A reminder of what I’d done. That would have been bearable if it ensured Olivia was safe, but with every day that passed, I could feel my connection to her dwindling. I couldn’t track her now even if I tried. Which meant I couldn’t keep her safe either. She was farther from me than she’d been since I found her, and I only had myself to blame.

  “You lost her,
” Eliana’s voice in my head was unwelcome and infuriating.

  “Fuck off.”

  “My, my, you never used to speak to me with such vitriol, Cashel. In fact, if I remember it right, you used to whisper my name like it was a prayer and I was your saving grace.”

  “Things have changed.”

  The bars of my cell clanked loud enough to startle me back to the real world. I stared at the man standing in the open door. “Talking to yourself now, Blackthorne?”

  I stood tall, ready to fight again no matter how famished they’d made me. “Back for more?” I asked.

  He laughed. “There’s nothing that pleases me more than bringing you excruciating pain. But tonight you meet your fate. Come on. You’ve been summoned.”

  “My sentencing?” I asked, a mixture of relief and terror gripping me. I was too weak to defend myself if they planned to take me down, but part of me just wanted all this to be over.

  My jailer didn’t answer. He pulled my arms behind my back and closed a pair of silver cuffs around my wrists before covering my head with a hood and nudging me forward.

  Each step felt like I was weighted down with cement. I needed to feed. Desperately. By the time we reached the executioner’s circle and they pulled the black hood from my head, the world was dark around the edges, fatigue creeping in and threatening to take away my sense of reality. I fell to my knees at the center of the circle, the members of the council standing watch, hoods covering their heads, hiding their faces. Eliana had broken a cardinal rule by outing herself as a member of the secret council, and she knew it. But why risk her position?

  “Cashel Blackthorne,” the vampire at the dais in front of me said. “You are aware of the charges brought against you.”

  It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t answer. Instead, I stared hard at the figure I sensed was Eliana, praying she’d find some mercy. There was nothing radiating from her other than hostility. The entire group of council members burned me with their unseen gazes. I knew what the verdict would be because the truth was, I was guilty. Together, Olivia and I had killed my father and my brother, both driven mad by sun sickness. But I couldn’t die here. It couldn’t end like this. I had so much left to experience with Olivia by my side if it wasn’t too late to get her back.