by Kate Martin
Out of breath, but not really needing it, I lay perfectly still beneath him, waiting, hoping. His blue eyes had ghosts behind them again, and I wondered if I had pushed too far. Sometimes I forgot. Forgot that as complicated as this was for me, it was infinitely more complicated for him. I didn’t remember all the hurt. He did.
I reached up to touch his face, to tell him it was all right, that we didn’t have to go any further when he was suddenly kissing me. Kissing me like I was air and he was a drowning man. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him close and arching against him. And as his hand ran down the length of my side, finger tips playing light patterns over my hip, my doubts floated away, and I found myself lost in him.
He was warm, as if he had just fed, or come in out of the sun, and I wanted more of that. To feel his warmth against my own cold body. I pushed at his shirt, ruching it up out of my way and pressing my hand flat against his hard stomach and feeling the muscles there flutter.
His heart beat once. Then again.
His lips mapped the lines of my throat, then my collarbones. Just as I became frustrated with the limitations his shirt presented me, he knelt up, tore it off, and threw it aside. Mine went next.
I sat up, and once again we were kissing. All lips and tongues and teeth. My fangs lengthened, and the points of his scraped against my mouth. Playing with the soft hair at the nape of his neck, I used my hold there to keep us close, even when his lips left mine and paid close attention to the sensitive spot just below my ear. It went straight to my knees. Thank god I was already on the bed. Emboldened, I once again traced the waistband of his pants with my fingers, delighting in the way his own knees seemed to buckle when I did. I was on my back again, his body stretched over mine, his face pressed to my throat. Our chests rose and fell against one another’s, and his heart beat a third time. I pulled his face to mine, kissing him once more, unable to stop myself. When he reached for the clasp of my bra, my own heart thumped, and it felt like the entire house shook.
Wait, no. The house had actually shaken.
Rhys and I both froze, hands and mouths suddenly uncertain.
“What was that?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a raspy whisper. “An earthquake?” We didn’t really get such things in New England, but it had happened before . . .
“No,” Rhys said, pulling away from me slightly. “I think it was worse.”
“The VFO?”
He shook his head, sitting up, and turning his head as though listening to something far away. “Julius.”
He was off the bed and dressed once again in a matter of seconds. I followed suit, not knowing why or what was happening, pulling back on the tee that matched my shorts, and trying to tell myself not to admire the way Rhys’s black hair was still mussed from my fingers, or the way his shirt twisted around his body in his haste.
We darted down the stairs, straight to the study where Cade stood just outside the door in the hall. He held up a hand as we approached. “Rhys, wait.”
“What the hell happened?” Rhys didn’t seem inclined to wait. Cade ended up physically restraining him, his hand pressed to Rhys’s chest.
“Give him another moment.” As far as I knew, Cade didn’t have a relaxed expression, but this was worse than any other I’d seen. His grey eyes were like storms, and the line of his mouth looked pinched and angry, with a hint of sadness.
I came up beside Rhys, taking his arm, and gently pulling him back. He let me. “Is it serious?”
Not once did Cade look at me. He and Rhys seemed locked together by that intense gaze. “He will explain. Kassandra, it might be best if you went back upstairs.”
“Why?”
“We have received a message from the Council, it has caused Julius to lose his temper.”
Lose his temper? For all the muscle and imposing scariness of the General, I had never seen him so much as become ticked off. Certainly the worst I had seen was mildly annoyed. Nothing seemed to faze him. What would have caused the whole damn house to shake?
“He’ll want to speak with you,” Cade continued, speaking to Rhys.
My Rhys had gone rigid against me, but he nodded. “Of course. Kassandra, go ahead, go upstairs. I’ll join you later.”
He had curled his hand into a fist, the veins stark against his skin. I had a million questions, but they all died in my throat. Everything was clearly not all right. No one was going to tell me what happened. And there would certainly be nothing I could do. Not now, at least. I had to trust them. Had to trust that if I needed to know, I would be told. “Okay,” I said, taking my cues from Cade who had finally looked at me. I could have sworn an apology lay in that gaze. I kissed Rhys’s shoulder, then released him slowly. “I’ll wait upstairs.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
It hurt to leave him there. Physically hurt. I could tell something was wrong, something he already knew about, or at least suspected. Back in my room, I sat on my bed, on the rumpled sheets that served as a reminder of the violent change my night had taken.
I couldn’t hear anything downstairs. If they were talking, they had blocked it somehow. I curled up on my side, my head at the wrong end of the bed, and waited.
Chapter Nine: The Storm
I woke with a start, ice cascading down my neck and along my spine until my toes curled. The sheets around me felt like hot lava in comparison. I threw them off, arms flailing and legs kicking. Rhys caught me by the wrists, awakened by my struggle. The back of my hand collided with his soft cheek once before he was successful in gently restraining me.
“Kassandra,” he said, firm yet calming. “Look at me. Wake up.”
Oh, I was awake. I was so very, very awake. I couldn’t tell him that, though. My mind raced far too fast. I dropped my head back to the pillow and stared straight up at him. My wrists still encased safely within his hands, I grabbed his face, partly to reassure myself he was real, partly to make sure he listened. “Something’s wrong.”
Rhys shook his head, taking my hands in his and drawing them down, weaving his fingers with mine. “No, Kass. Everything is fine. You’re safe, I promise you.”
“No. Something’s wrong. I feel it.” I kept my eyes on every shadow, afraid some evil creature would jump out at any second and steal him away.
He paused to rethink his next words. He knew as well as everyone else that these feelings were not to be brushed aside. “Kassandra, you’re overreacting. It was probably caused by a dream.”
He didn’t even believe that. I could see it in his eyes. I pulled him back down to the bed and rolled over until I was tucked up against his side. “I don’t remember dreaming,” I said, holding myself up on one arm so I could still see his face. “And I’ve never gotten a feeling from a dream before. That’s a terrible excuse.”
He sighed, his posture illustrating his surrender. “You can’t blame me for trying. But what could have possibly set you off? You were sleeping soundly.”
Ugh. He had been watching me sleep—again. A hobby he seemed to enjoy on a regular basis. This wasn’t the first time I had caught him in the act. How many times did I have to tell him how slightly creepy that was? However many, now wasn’t going to be one of them. The chill reintroduced itself, giving me goosebumps. “I don’t know. I just know that something terrible is about to happen.” This was worse even than when Sara had been in danger.
He brushed my hair from my face. “Nothing is going to happen to you. I swear it.”
I forced down the lump of fear that tried to strangle me and focused on the feeling, trying to decipher whatever meaning it carried. “It’s not me. I’m not in danger. At least, not yet.”
“No one’s going to hurt you.”
I buried my face in his shoulder for a moment, breathing in his scent to ground myself. “You keep saying that, but . . .” I stopped. His chest didn’t rise and fall with the habitual breathing he usually practiced. I waited; waited for him to draw breath, for him to move, but he didn’t. He was still a
s stone. I pressed my hand to his chest, over his heart; my desperation made it more of a slap. The action must have alerted him to his mistake. He breathed in.
I sat up. “You know something.”
“You’re the psychic, not me.” He made a feeble attempt at a smile. I wasn’t laughing.
“You don’t have to be.” Panic held me, choked me. And then I remembered. “The General. He told you something. Something happened today that made him lose it. You keep assuring me that I’ll be fine, and you don’t lie to me, so it must be the truth, but that means . . . that means someone else is in danger.”
Rhys sat up so quickly I had no choice but to fall onto my back. He leaned over me, taking my face in his hands even as I pushed and grabbed at his chest. “Kassandra, stop.”
I couldn’t hear him. My mind raced, the chill wracked my body, and I knew, knew, with absolutely no uncertainty who my stupid ability was trying to warn me about.
“It’s you! You’re in danger. And you know it. You didn’t tell me!” I punched him hard in the chest.
He had the grace to look hurt. “Please, Kassandra, let’s not do this now.”
“Not do what?” Pushing him back, I sat up. He reached for me, but his hands still just short of my mine. “What’s going on? Tell me now.”
“I would rather not.”
“That’s not fair. What did the General tell you?”
“I’m not in any immediate danger. Will that satisfy you for now?”
“No!”
“Please?”
He took my face in his hands again, gently stroking my cheek with his thumb. He looked so desperate, so tortured, that whatever response had begun to creep up my throat died and floated away. My heart broke seeing that expression. I’d never felt that kind of pain before, like someone had smashed my chest with a hammer. I didn’t want to cause him that in return. I bit my lip to keep from saying anything else and tasted blood. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
“I don’t want to remember tonight this way,” he said. “I know it’s hard, I know it’s unfair, but please, let’s just pretend everything is fine.”
I had to swallow before I could speak. “But it’s a lie.”
“So then we lie. We lie for tonight, and in the morning we’ll have more than enough truth.”
“Do you promise you’re not going to leave me?” I couldn’t bring myself to think beyond that simple word, “leave.” The awful feeling that had woken me had already promised far worse than that.
He looked me straight in the eyes. “I promise my life is not in immediate danger.”
I didn’t like that promise at all. We had both phrased too carefully. “Okay,” I said, not sure how much more I could take, “you can start lying to me now.”
I didn’t sleep. Neither did Rhys. With the view outside my window waiting to gain color with the rising sun, we both remained still in my bed, staring at one another and saying nothing.
Rhys wasn’t a very good liar.
I had contemplated ways to freeze time, to keep the sun from rising and the new day from starting. But clearly I had no such power. The sun would rise within the hour. I feared it as though it would burn me to ashes.
The streets had been silent all night long. I remembered when kids had once trolled the streets, looking for mischief and trouble. Apparently not even the boldest of them were willing to risk becoming food for the night creatures. There hadn’t been so much as a trashcan falling over in the hours I had spent listening.
So when a motor came close, then closer, I heard it loud and clear.
Two motors. Both sophisticatedly quiet, barely enough to wake a human, and both headed undoubtedly towards my house.
I touched Rhys’s face, tracing the lines of his cheeks and the curves of his eyelids, afraid to speak. He didn’t say anything in return, but his arms tightened around me. I ran my fingers over every inch of his face, memorizing the way his jaw met his ears, and the perfect distance between his eyes. I brushed his hair back and found a small scar at his hairline, thin and nearly two inches long. I had never noticed it before. Was it from his human life, or vampire? I didn’t ask. My voice seemed heavy enough to break the glass silence between us and alert the world to our presence.
The motors grew closer, then went silent outside.
My door opened without so much as a knock. Rhys stiffened, looked at me for one second more, then shifted his gaze beyond me. I kept my back turned to the door.
The scent of sandalwood came from the hall. The General.
I thought he began to speak, but no words followed. Rhys stared at him for what seemed the longest time, then he simply nodded, and sat up.
My body turned to ice at the loss of him.
Scrambling up, I pressing against his side, taking hold of his arm like it was my only life-line to the world. The scent of sandalwood had left us. “Rhys, what’s going on?” My words sounded as heavy and loud as I had imagined.
Rhys pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “Remember what I told you. My life is not in immediate danger.”
“That doesn’t mean it won’t be later. Tell me.”
He smoothed my hair and looked me in the eye for the first time since the General had made his appearance. “An accusation has been made, and I must answer for it. We have to go downstairs now, before they suspect the worst.” He slid off the bed, still dressed from the night before and offered me his hand.
Slowly, as if moving too quickly would shatter my fragile reality, I took that hand. I wanted to ask what accusation had been made, but my fear, and the ice on the back of my neck, paralyzed my voice.
Rhys was tense, and he didn’t breathe. Kissing my temple one more time, he led me from my room.
I had never hated the hall, the stairs, so much.
Everyone was in the front hall. I could smell them. Fire and gunpowder, jasmine and water lilies, perfume, sandalwood, and the clean scent of Millie.
But there were other scents; scents I had never encountered before. Sunshine—I couldn’t think of a better comparison—and bread, though maybe it was closer to fresh wheat. A number of other, weaker scents lingered beyond those, but I didn’t care to place them. When we reached the last three steps I could see the new vampires clearly, as well as one whom I hadn’t detected.
Cordoba. His scent absent, as always. He wore the same uniform I had first met him in. Pristine and adorned. His scarred face made my thoughts immediately wander to his now deceased initiate, Malachi. I didn’t care if Bartolome Cordoba was the General’s old friend. I didn’t like him, and nothing good ever happened when he showed up.
Beside him were two golden, pale and perfect creatures, both dressed in white. The man stood not much taller than Rhys, and certainly not as tall as the General or Cordoba, but his posture held no less command. His hair was the kind of white blond one usually only ever saw on babies and toddlers, but this man was very much grown. Not a child, like me. He had probably seen close to thirty years in his human life. His cornflower blue eyes reflected centuries, if not more, of knowledge and experience.
The woman matched him. There was no better way to describe it. The top of her head reached just above his chin—perfect dance partner height—and her long sunshine-colored hair hung to her narrow waist. Her white pants-suit gave her the look of crisp, clean business. At her throat, a silver cross imbedded with diamonds glittered.
I would have thought them twins, but the man held the woman’s hand, and judging by the way his fingers curled about hers, as reverently as Rhys’s curled about mine, I knew they were not siblings.
No one spoke when Rhys and I finally reached the bottom of the steps.
Instead, Cade moved to stand in front of us, Madge on his left, Millie to his right. Isaac, who I hadn’t scented before, lingered by the open front door. The General and Aurelia stood closest to our guests.
A barricade.
For the first time, I glanced at the three non-descript vampires on the f
ront walk, barely visible through the door. They all wore the same black uniform, plain with no adornments. Their belts, however, were lined with chains—gold chains.
I gripped Rhys’s hand harder.
The General spoke first. “I don’t like this.”
“You think we do?” the woman answered him. “We did the best we could, you know we did.”
“The accusation is ludicrous.”
“We gave you three days warning. Three days to prove innocence. You could not.”
The General turned to Cordoba. “Tabitha is an initiate of your fledgling. Your creature. You know her mind. You know this is a lie.”
Cordoba just shook his head. “Then we must prove it a lie.”
I watched the veins in the General’s neck and arms pulse and bulge. I hadn’t known such a thing was possible for vampires. I wondered if I was about to witness the loss of temper, the rage, first hand.
But I still didn’t know what was going on.
The blond man held up one pale hand as though it were a flag of truce. “Let us get this bad business over with. The sooner we leave, the sooner you may begin your thorough investigation.”
Aurelia placed a hand on the General’s shoulder, it stilled whatever move he had been about to make. “We have already begun our investigation. Do not mock us, Demitri.”
Demitri shook his head. “Mockery was never my intention. I know well what you are capable of.” He turned, and suddenly his eyes were on me, and Rhys. It felt like the weight of the world. “Rhys O’Shea, you have been accused of a crime violating our sacred law, written in blood, and kept in blood. Under the conditions of subsection fifty-nine you are hereby arrested, to be taken to Infragilis and held until further verdict has been made.”
Nothing he said made sense. For a moment I even wondered if he had spoken some old, dead language I didn’t know. But in the next my mind cleared, and I knew the words were familiar, just used in an alien way. Under my hands, I could feel Rhys draw breath for the first time in what seemed forever. I tightened my grip, knowing he was preparing to leave me.