by Rye Brewer
“Did you ever think she planned the whole thing?” Gage asked, his tone dubious, like maybe he questioned my judgment.
“There had to be a reason she was tracking you, and why she’s still following you around.” Philippa sneered as she looked at the girl in the chair.
A girl whose name I still didn’t know, who I couldn’t shake from my memory.
“So, I’ll ask her.” I shrugged. That seemed easy enough. Though I knew already, from our last conversation, she wasn’t the very forthcoming type. Maybe the fact she was tied up would sway her into talking.
“She wouldn’t tell us. Why would she tell you?” Gage looked less than impressed with my idea.
“You think she likes you or something?” Scott asked.
“No. I think she knows me a little better than you guys, is all.” That sounded as good as anything else I could think of saying.
“Bull. She doesn’t know you at all, and you don’t know her. Stop acting like you’re in control of everything. You don’t have control over this.”
I couldn’t help the way my jaw clenched when I heard Gage’s tone. Our old argument. Rather than answering him, I stalked back to where the white-haired girl sat. She rose with nonchalant disdain, but she glanced at me with concern in her eyes.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “I swear. It’s okay.”
“Really?” She looked around me to where my brothers and sister stood. “What about them?”
“They won’t hurt you if I tell them not to.”
She clearly didn’t know who I was.
“Good to know.” Her words were clipped, as if she wasn’t going to give me credit for keeping her safe from my siblings.
I liked her attitude. She wasn’t about to show how scared she was, even though I could smell it on her like the perfume humans always wore. Fear. It hung all over her. But it didn’t seem to be fear of me. Or even of my siblings. So, what was it that gave her concern?
“Why did you follow me?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“You can tell me. I want to know. And so do they. I think it’ll go easier for you if you tell me, you know?”
“Easier than what? Are they going to kill me?” She’d practically scoffed her answer.
“They might. I want you to know how serious this is. They might kill you for trailing me the way you did.”
“They might try.” She snickered.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means they can try if they want to.” She stared at me with those beautiful eyes of hers. “You think I don’t know who you are, but I do. I know who they are, too. But you don’t know me, or what I’m capable of.”
“I’ve seen what you’re capable of,” I said, remembering the way she had easily taken care of that oversized werewolf.
She wasn’t kidding around—if she could take one of them, what could she do to one of us? I still wasn’t sure exactly what she’d done, either. One minute, the leader had been right next to her, towering over her, and, the next, he’d been in a heap on the floor. I’d had my own issues to take care of, like two other werewolves, so I hadn’t been able to watch.
“So you ought to tell them to let me go,” she muttered.
I grinned. “It’s not that easy.” I crouched in front of her, hoping none of them could hear me, but knowing they could. It was almost impossible to have a secret around them, since we could all hear each other so well. “Why did you run away from me the way you did?”
“That’s none of your business.” She turned her eyes away from me.
“I only wanted to thank you for what you did.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Jonah? What are you doing over there?” Philippa sounded annoyed. Putting it mildly.
I ignored her. “Just tell them what they want to know. Tell me what I want to know. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Why are you lying to me?” I couldn’t understand it. Stupid me, thinking we’d had a connection or something. Like coming close to death, both of us together, had bonded us somehow. I was a little old to be such a romantic. Scratch that, a lot old.
“Jonah, come on.” Scott was by my side in the blink of an eye, pulling me away. “She’s not going to play nice, so we’re going to have to get rough with her.”
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“You’ll find out.” He pulled me away from her.
Philippa and Gage pulled gloves over their hands. I cringed at what I suspected.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
I had no choice but to watch as Scott untied the girl’s hands, then Gage and Philippa slapped silver cuffs around her wrists. They were bolted to the wall, attached to long, silver chains.
Silver. No wonder they wore gloves.
Except she didn’t wince when the metal touched her wrists. She should have, but she didn’t. She also didn’t say a word.
And I didn’t smell any burning of flesh.
Once they were satisfied she was secure, Philippa and Gage stepped back.
“I think a few days with nothing to eat will change her mind,” Philippa muttered, pulling the gloves off her slim, white hands. “She’ll start talking once she’s hungry enough.”
Our captive’s eyes went wide. I saw fear in them, even more obvious than before. But she still stayed quiet.
I had to admire her strength. And I still couldn’t understand why the silver didn’t hurt her. My brothers and sisters didn’t seem to notice. They were too busy snarling at the girl chained to the wall.
“Come on,” Gage said, pulling me by the arm. “Let’s go. She’ll have plenty of time to think it over.”
I peeked back at her one more time before leaving. How long would they make her wait? How long would it take for her to break?
7
Anissa
I wondered how long they planned to leave me sitting there. Not that it mattered—they couldn’t hurt me with silver, and I didn’t plan on being there long enough to starve. I wouldn’t go through what my sister had suffered. Or, rather, what she had suffered before I’d gone to Marcus on her behalf.
I had warned Sara not to take chances. Yes, we’d needed money, but I was the older sister. I was supposed to provide for us after our mother and her father died in the fire set by the Bourkes. Yet she was the one who’d come up with the idea of selling her blood, though we both knew it was a violation of Canon Six. No member of a vampire clan under the jurisdiction of the League of Vampires was permitted to sell their blood for profit, the way other vampires and even humans did.
There was a big market for vampire blood.
I still remembered when Sara was first born as a human. I’d been human back then, too, the way we were all originally born. My father had died years before in the Great War, and Mother had remarried. We’d been happy for many years. Until the fire. Sara had been my responsibility. Look where that had gotten her. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t keep her safe.
And Marcus had found out what she’d done, just like I’d known he would. It was one thing to go against his laws, but to defy the league was something much worse. He’d sentenced her to a decade in captivity—chained in a dungeon far beneath the mansion.
Without blood.
I flinched at the very idea of it, cringing.
Another one of the humans’ myths about us. Without food, a human died in time. A lack of blood didn’t kill a vampire, however. It would have been easier if that were the case. No, lack of blood turned a vampire into a screaming, pleading, withered shell. It was hell. A hell which, for Sara, would last ten years.
For three months, I’d visited her every day. And every day she’d fallen apart just a little more. She’d tried hard to keep herself together for my sake. She’d even tried to be defiant, since she’d known Marcus would love nothing more than to see her break down.
That didn’t last long.
She had suffered—oh, so much. Chained to a wall behind bars. Out of reach of anybody who might let her feed. She’d grown thin to the point where I could see the bones through her skin. She’d whimpered then she’d wailed. She hadn’t even been able to hold back for my sake. She had screamed and shrieked and begged me for blood. Any blood. Just a drop.
I hadn’t been able to see her after that. It was torment, watching her waste away.
And knowing it would last ten years; that was too much.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sure I could hear her screaming even through the many floors between her cage and my room. She’d haunted me every minute of the day. Eventually, I hadn’t had a choice. I’d gone to Marcus and thrown myself at his feet, begging for his mercy. I would have done anything, absolutely anything, to end my sister’s suffering.
A noise.
Even in the depths of my thoughts, I heard a noise.
I turned my head to follow it, to isolate what had made the sound. Just a rat. The room was dark, pitch black, but I didn’t need light to see. Just like the rats didn’t need light.
I’d been alone for long enough to escape without fear of the Bourkes coming back. They’d been gone for at least an hour, and I hadn’t heard a sound from the rest of the house except for that of the rodents. The cuffs were almost too loose. I guessed Jonah’s brother and sister had been in too much of a hurry to get away from the silver to make sure I was fully secure. That, plus the fact they assumed silver touching my bare skin would be enough to weaken me, had left me in the perfect position to escape.
I felt certain I could get out of there.
Another noise. A louder one. Not a rodent.
He was trying to be careful. He was trying to sneak up on me. He should have known better. A human might make that mistake, but he should have known I’d be able to hear him no matter how quiet he was. I could tell who it was from the cadence of his walk. How odd that I’d already picked that up about him.
“What do you want?” I asked, my voice reverberating in the ghostly quiet room.
The movement stopped then started again. Not as quiet this time. Why bother, if I knew he was there?
He reached my floor. I heard him approaching and tensed without meaning to. I didn’t know what he wanted. I didn’t know how he would deal with me after knowing I’d stalked him.
“Why doesn’t the silver hurt you?”
Not the first question I’d expected him to ask.
I considered staying quiet but didn’t see the point. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “It just doesn’t. It never has.”
“Not ever?” He took a step closer. His sapphire eyes glowing, the golden ring around them iridescent.
“No. Not ever.”
“Who was your father?” He reached my side, standing not three feet from me. “And your mother?”
I stayed perfectly still. “What does it matter?”
“It might have something to do with your abilities.”
“Abilities?” I snorted. “I’m an anomaly, is all. Silver doesn’t hurt me. So what? I didn’t know my father. He was probably killed by one of your clan.”
The memory of who Jonah was, and who I was, reminded me of the war between our clans and the reason why I hated him and all those like him. So what if he was gorgeous? He was a Bourke.
He pulled up a chair and sat down, crossing his long legs. We were face-to-face. “What’s your name? You said you know who I am, but I don’t even know your name.”
It didn’t make a difference, really, so I told him. “Anissa.”
“All right. Anissa. We’re getting somewhere.” His eyes gleamed in the darkness.
I couldn’t let him get to me. I couldn’t let his charm get through my armor. My weak armor. Growing weaker all the time.
“Anissa, why are you following me?” The way he said my name was like a caress. It was like someone holding me in an embrace.
I shook my head vehemently. This was one thing I couldn’t say. “I can’t tell you that.”
“You owe me.”
I let out a soft laugh. “I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me for saving you from those werewolves.”
“The last time I checked, I saved you.”
“They would have taken you wherever they were planning to take you if I hadn’t come to your rescue in that alley.”
“They would have killed you if I hadn’t saved you. We’re even.”
“No, we’re not. You don’t know that they would have killed me, but I know for sure they had you outmatched in that alley. You’d be somewhere else right now, somewhere far away and in a lot of trouble if I hadn’t rescued you.”
“In a lot of trouble?” I asked. “The way I am right now?”
He finally chuckled, seeing my point. “All right, all right. But I didn’t have to rescue you in the first place. I think we can agree on that. So, you owe me at least a single answer. Why are you following me around? Just tell me that much. Please.”
I wanted to tell him. That was the crazy part. I liked him—not just because of the way he looked, but because he had a way of making me feel at ease. He was smart, sharp, interesting. What a change from the way I felt around Marcus. Two clan leaders with drastically different personalities.
The fact was, as long as he was there, I couldn’t get away. I had to tell him something, anything that would satisfy him. Otherwise, he could stay there and watch me starve until I broke down and told him the entire story.
“Just stay away from the league meeting this week. That’s all I can tell you. For both our sakes, stay away.”
He shook his head. “No. Can’t do that.”
I crumbled inside. He was pushing my hand, upping the stakes, and making things very difficult. “Please. You don’t know how much is riding on this.”
“You clearly don’t know, either, if you think my staying away is even a remote possibility.” His eyes narrowed, and he sighed deeply once he put it all together. “You’re supposed to kill me, aren’t you? To keep me away from the meeting. That’s what this is all about.” He sat back, studying me. The wheels in his head were turning, that was evident.
I wouldn’t confirm it, but I wouldn’t deny, either. That was all the answer he needed. I saw the knowing look on his face.
“Did whoever it was who told you to kill me tell you why? Why they want me to stay away from there?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“Of course, it does.”
“Well, it doesn’t work that way.”
“I think it probably does. If you’re a member of the Carver clan—and I guess you are, since you accused my clan of killing your father—then you know why I need to be at that meeting. I have a duty to my clan. I’m the leader. They rely on me to take care of them. Don’t you see that?”
“That’s not my problem. I have much bigger problems, Jonah. You don’t understand.”
“So make me understand. Why be so secretive? There’s no reason for it.” He leaned closer, his eyes burning in the darkness. “I have you chained up in an abandoned house, far away from your clan’s home. I’m the one with the upper hand. Remember that. Just tell me what I need to know.”
I saw the truth in his words, and I heard the steely firmness of his tone. I could see why his clan respected him the way they did. “There’s a lot at stake for me, too. This isn’t just about you.”
“What is it? What’s at stake for you? Maybe I can help.”
I laughed mirthlessly. “I wasn’t born yesterday. You’ll say anything you have to, as long as I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“That’s not true. Try me.”
I thought on this for a long time. He remained unmoving, watching, waiting. I had nothing to lose anymore. I’d been wishing I could tell somebody, anyway. I told him about Sara, about the way Marcus chained her up without blood because she’d done what little she could to support us.
“Nobody helped us. Nobody cared what happened to us.
Sara was only trying to do what she could. But she was never good at lying.”
“Is she still chained?”
“Yes. I agreed to become Marcus’s slayer”—the word tasted bad when I said it out loud—“if he would provide blood to her. He wouldn’t set her free, but at least she’s not starving like some animal.”
“How many have you killed for him?” There was no judgment in his eyes.
“I don’t know anymore. That’s the truth. I don’t exactly keep count, you know.”
“That makes sense. I wouldn’t want to, either.”
I couldn’t tell how he felt about what I’d told him. He had a way of keeping his thoughts close. I was normally able to see right through whatever façade a person tried to put up in front of me, but he was a challenge. How would I feel if somebody told me I’d come close to dying? How would I react?
“It’s not my choice,” I insisted. “If I didn’t feel like I had to do it, I wouldn’t do it. Believe me.”
“I do believe you. That’s the crazy part about all of this. I believe every word you’ve said.”
His honesty stunned me.
Then he felt silent for what seemed like a long time.
His silence disturbed me. “What do you plan to do?”
“Plan?” His laugh was harsh. “I’m supposed to have a plan, right now? I hate to disappoint you. All right. Sorry.” I noticed the way his eyes kept lingering on my wrists. “Can you get out of those?”
I slid my wrists around in them. My unmarked wrists. “Sure. They’re not tight.”
“So it would be possible for you to escape, even without me being here.”
“I guess so. That was my plan, anyway, before you came along.”
He smiled. “Fine. Then you’ll escape, and I’ll go with you, and we’ll set your sister free.”
8
Jonah
Have I lost my mind?
Suddenly, I’m volunteering to help the slayer sent to kill me?
Yeah, I’ve surely lost my mind.
And yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.