Chapter 12 Arya
The morning sun was bright and piercing as it finally crept over the ledge of my open window to shine on my face. I’d been lying awake in my bed for some time, sleep continuing to evade me in this dreary place. Without classes to attend or tasks to perform, it was hard to develop any type of schedule here. There wasn’t really anything for me to do .
Except for be alone with my thoughts.
Hadrian was…different than I’d always imagined him. I could certainly see that he had darkness in him, but I’d also seen other things. Like the way he was with Alex, I could almost believe he was a loving human father. And the way he looked at me, like I was something precious to him, once lost and finally found.
What if everyone was wrong about him? What if I was wrong about him? I didn’t have the best track record for judgment.
I’d thought Kendall was a good guy when he’d been siding with the vampires all along. I’d thought Tobias truly cared for me when he’d only been assigned to seduce me by his father. I’d thought Adina really had a wounded side when she was, in fact, pulling a cruel prank on me.
And I’d thought my mom was nothing more than a normal, if not eccentric, human when all of the signs for the opposite were so painfully obvious now that I knew better.
But at the same time, a little of all of that was true. There was right and wrong on both sides of each coin—except where Adina was concerned; she really was just an irredeemable bitch. Kendall did believe he was doing the right thing. Tobias at least believed he loved me. And my mom, at her core, was a normal woman trying to do the best for her daughter.
How was I to know what was right and what was wrong when there was so much gray? The path to Hell is paved with good intentions. Didn’t we all have good intentions? Even the general, whose cruelty I’d seen no match for, saw an end that he thought justified the means. And who was I to judge when I’d made so many mistakes.
I regretted hurting Tobias. Yes, he’d hurt me, but he tried to fix it. He’d bared his soul to me and confessed everything. I’d heard the truth in his words, but I’d been so pigheadedly vengeful that I broke his imprint on me. Something inside me died the instant the bond severed, and I’d been silently grieving its loss ever since.
I missed him. Part of me still hated him, but I missed him so much. And worse, I missed that I no longer needed him the way I did before. I hadn’t realized at the time how safe the bond made me feel, but now that it was gone, I felt oddly defenseless, like I was freefalling with nothing to catch me.
A small voice sounded from outside my door, and my ears perked.
“Is she up yet?” It was obviously Alex.
Agnes’s matronly voice was trying to dissuade Alex, but she wasn’t getting very far with him.
“It’s okay. I’m up,” I called as I slipped off my bed and went to open the door.
“Do you wanna have breakfast with me?” Alex asked, and my heart melted once more. Not only was he adorable, but he was so polite. It was hard to think I was speaking to an eight-year-old.
“I’d like that,” I said with a smile.
Agnes pursed her lips.
“Let me just go get dressed and I’ll be right over,” I said, remembering I was still in my pajamas.
Alex nodded, and he and Agnes left while I changed.
It still amazed me how much trouble Hadrian had gone through to make me comfortable. I still thought of my room as a gilded cage, but as I pulled the sky-blue cashmere sweater over my head—perfect for the cold halls of the citadel—I couldn’t help but appreciate the amenities available to me. Every item of clothing was of the best quality and fit me perfectly. Though how Hadrian knew my size before I got here was a mystery that made me a little uneasy.
I pushed the thought aside and made my way to the room below. My guards barely acknowledged me in passing, almost looking bored. Maybe with a few more days, they’d relax enough to let me do whatever I wanted without their attention. I just had to keep playing the obedient daughter—though I feared it would be very easy to forget it was an act.
The table was already set with waffles covered in strawberries and whipped cream, crispy slabs of bacon on the side. My mouth watered as I sat beside the little boy waiting patiently for me to start.
“Where’s Agnes?” I asked, looking around as I sat across from Alex.
He wrinkled his nose. “I told her I didn’t need her this morning. I’m spending the day with you.”
I smiled as I cut off a bite of waffle. “And you can just do that?”
Alex nodded and smiled, his own mouth full.
I lifted the fork to my mouth and bit down on sweet, creamy, crispy goodness, closing my eyes as I savored it. The Dome had great food, but it was more utilitarian, stuff that could be easily cooked and served for a large group. But this? Every meal here was an indulgence.
“What? No pancakes today?” I teased.
“Nah,” he replied with a shrug.
“Do you get waffles for breakfast often?” I asked as I swallowed another bite. “Because I could eat these every day.”
Alex smiled and looked down. “No. Not every day. But today kinda counts as a special occasion.”
“And why’s that?”
He looked up at me, his cheeks reddening even as he met my eyes. “Because it’s the first day I really get to spend with you.” He looked back at his plate and poked the bacon with his fork.
We’d had a few days together, but always interrupted by his classes. Apparently today would be different.
“I’ve never had a sister before,” he commented softly.
My lip pouted as my wax heart melted further. “Aww, Alex, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s not so bad most of the time.”
“What...?” I paused, unsure how to ask about his mom, especially when the loss of my own hurt so much. Finally, I decided to just bite the bullet. “Where’s your mom?”
His face clouded, his cherubic features hardening. “Shifters killed her. Father says they would’ve killed me, too, if he hadn’t discovered what was happening.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Father says when I’m old enough, I’ll become a vampire, and then I’ll be able to take revenge. If I want.”
I felt the color drain from my face. To hear Alex talk like that—as if becoming a vampire was the most natural thing in the world—dispelled my growing comfort. “Do you...want to become a vampire?”
Alex pushed his plate away, glancing at the hidden servant’s door. “Wanna go for a walk? I’ve got something pretty cool I wanted to show you.”
I took the last bite of my breakfast and swallowed. “Sure. Lead the way.”
He led me to the stairs, and we made our way to a large room filled with the pillars—I’d since figured out there was only one of those.
The guards followed at a distance and Alex soon pulled ahead, making me hurry to keep up. When we reached the elevator, Alex swiped his card. But when the door opened, he darted in, hit a few buttons, and darted back out, tugging on my hand to pull me toward the far end of the room and using the pillars to hide us from the guards.
Clever little guy, losing the guards like that.
My brows furrowed as I tried to figure out where Alex was taking me. After the guards went down a flight of stairs to try to catch us, he took me upstairs—the same ones we’d just come down—to a blank wall. Squinting, I saw the faint outline of a door, hidden in the same manner as the servant’s entrance into Alex’s room.
Alex pushed on a stone, and the door eased open, revealing a bright late morning sky. This was the door to the roof, the one I’d been looking for ever since I’d arrived. To think I’d passed it so many times with no idea it was hidden in plain sight!
I wrapped my arms around myself as I stepped outside, the chill winter air poking through the holes in my sweater.
“Oh, hold on,” Alex said, and he darted back indoors.
I had a moment of panic as the door closed behind him, and I wondered if maybe he was playing a trick on me instead of the guards. But Alex came back a moment later with a couple of blankets, and he handed one to me.
“It’s almost always cold up here, so I keep some blankets near the door.”
“Do they know you come up here?” I asked, gratefully tugging the heavy fabric tighter around my shoulders.
Alex looked at the ground and kicked at a loose stone. “You’re the first person I’ve brought here. You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
I nodded. “Cross my heart. In a place like this, it’s probably nice to have a spot you can call your own.”
Alex smiled wide, warming me more than the blanket could. “We can talk more out here. The guards will be busy for a while trying to catch up to the elevator. And being vampires, they won’t be able to come out now that the sun’s rising.” He nodded toward the sherbet hues on the horizon, and I smiled.
“What you were asking before,” Alex continued, “about wanting to become a vampire?”
I nodded in patient encouragement.
Alex stared eastward, and I waited, not wanting to burst the moment.
“I don’t know.” He turned back to me, pulling his own blanket tighter. “In some ways, I do want to be a vampire. I mean, they’re so cool! Super-fast and strong and smart. And Father says I’ll be the best of them all. I’m the next Denholm heir. I’ll get born with like, ten times the power. Or however many Denholms there are.”
“That does sound pretty cool,” I said. “But you’re still not sure?”
He met my gaze, the golden glow catching in his blue eyes. “It kind of scares me. And I’m not sure I want to take Father’s place as leader of the vampires.”
I nodded. “Big shoes to fill.”
His little forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Don’t tell anyone that, either.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He looked back toward the horizon, the cherry pinks and soft peaches chasing the last of the evening from the sky. “I think I’d miss sunrises most of all. Do you think Father misses the sun?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” I couldn’t begin to imagine what actually went on in that man’s mind, and questions like this had me morbidly fascinated with wanting to know.
“Arya?”
“Yes, Alex?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
My heart squeezed and my eyes stung with emotion. “Me too.” And I actually meant it.
It was strange. With my harpy wings, I could leave right now, but I didn’t feel the same desperation anymore. I missed my friends, but the Dome had never really been home to me. To be honest, I never really had a home. Mom moved us around so much that I never really got to settle anywhere.
Alex needed me, and this place was growing on me. This was certainly better than being the general’s attack dog, starved and abused and manipulated. Maybe I really was right where I was supposed to be.
I fingered the turquoise necklace, feeling oddly grateful for this peaceful moment.
* * *
Alex and I spent most of the day exploring the citadel. I half-heartedly looked for other escape routes, but I wasn’t too disappointed when I didn’t find any.
The guards caught back up with us but didn’t say anything about our excursion. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be the first to admit their mistake, and since I was still here, no harm, no foul. At least I knew what to do if I ever decided I wanted to leave.
When we made it to the lobby and I spotted Kendall slipping down the stairs to the Initiate quarters, I knew I needed to go further. If I was really going to consider embracing this life, then I needed answers, and despite the tension between us, I felt Kendall was my best bet at finding the truth.
“Alex, I think I want to head downstairs for a bit.”
He crinkled his nose. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I know Hadrian doesn’t let you go down there. Do you mind if I leave you alone for a bit?”
He brought a finger to his chin and hummed. “I suppose. As long as you’re back in time for dinner.”
“Six o’clock, right?”
He nodded.
That left nearly two hours. It should be enough. “I’ll be there.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” I said and was rewarded with another beautiful smile.
Quick as lightning, Alex wrapped his arms around my waist, then dashed off to whatever play he had in mind.
I stared after him for a moment. The boy seemed so starved for affection. Had I been like that when I was his age? I didn’t think so. Even though our respective upbringings were similarly strict, I never felt deprived. I had always known Mom loved me, and she was always there.
I wondered if Alex felt like Hadrian loved him. I’d seen the two of them together, and Hadrian was affectionate toward him—a side of the vampire leader that I never expected to see. Was Hadrian actually capable of love? And if so, did that make him less of a monster than what I’d been made to believe?
I shook off the thought, not quite willing to go down that rabbit hole.
Gathering my courage, I headed downstairs to the Initiate quarters. My guards hesitated, looking at each other with questions in their eyes as if wondering what kind of trouble they’d be in for letting me wander through. But there was no way to escape beyond the main level from what I could tell, and Hadrian hadn’t forbidden me to enter the Initiate quarters. After all, what harm could letting me mingle with humans do—humans who were just as loyal to Hadrian as the vampires were?
Ultimately, they must have come to the same conclusion because they didn’t stop me, only trailed me like a pair of pale shadows.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see—maybe students lined up like cattle, waiting to give blood to thirsty vampires—but the room I stepped into was rather normal. Almost mundane. The modest furniture looked comfortable, the common area warm enough, the human students lounging around looking relaxed. At least until they spotted me. Then they buried their heads again, as if by not looking at me, I wouldn’t be in their space.
After a few awkward seconds, I decided to speak up. “Does anyone know where Kendall stays?”
A few startled glances met mine, but no one responded. I was about to go search on my own when a petite girl whose head barely reached my chin stepped forward.
“He’s on the fourth level down,” she said without making eye contact.
“Thank you.”
The girl merely nodded, dipping into what felt like a small curtsey, and quickly swept back to the chair she’d been in.
This treatment was so vastly different from that of my fellow students at the Dome that it left me feeling shell-shocked. These people obviously felt like they couldn’t talk to me, their fear evident in their stiff postures and apprehensive silence. While it was preferable to being ridiculed and mocked, I didn’t want to be feared. I wondered if I would ever find a place where I was just treated like an equal by my peers.
With a sigh, I followed the stairs down until I reached the fourth level. It wasn’t until I was there that I realized there was still another set of stairs leading deeper. I turned toward it, curious about just how many levels there were when a hand caught my arm.
“I don’t recommend going that way.” It was Kendall, his voice low, his hand around my arm just tight enough to tell me how serious he was. My guards eyed him warningly, but I waved them away.
“Why not?” I asked, casting another curious glance toward the stairs.
Kendall looked around the common room, which only had one or two Initiates in it, and at the guards still standing on the stairs leading to the next floor. He nodded his head to the side. “Come on.”
I planted my feet. “Not until you let go of my arm.”
Kendall let go and held his hands up in submission. “You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“Do I?” Even though I had sought him out, I still didn’t trust him to get too close.
Kendall’s handsome features crushed, but he nodded. “I understand your hesitation. Can we talk? Alone? I’ll even let you cut my tail off yourself if I so much as look at you funny.”
Okay, maybe I enjoyed being feared a little bit, at least where Kendall was concerned. After what he’d done, he should be afraid of me.
I followed Kendall into a hallway as necks craned to watch us go. Doors dotted either side of the long hall, and I wondered just how many humans were housed here.
At last, we reached the final room in the corridor, and Kendall opened the door, stepping aside so I could enter before him. I nodded to the guards, who took up some wall space in the hall as I went in with Kendall.
The furnishings were stark—a bunk bed, a couple of cubbies with drawers underneath, some chairs and a small table. It wasn’t much, but then again, the rooms at the Dome hadn’t exactly been luxury suites. Truth be told, the only real difference here was that the walls were all the same dark obsidian as the rest of the citadel, casting a permanent gloom on pretty much everything.
Kendall closed the door and sat in one of the chairs, and I followed his lead, sitting in the other.
“So what are you doing way down here?” he asked, looking at his fingers in his lap.
“I just...” I took a deep breath. “I’m trying to decide...”
“Whether to trust me or not?” he supplied.
I shook my head. “I’ve been spending time with Alex—”
“And the little guy has stolen your heart,” Kendall said, the corner of his mouth pulled into a half-smile.
“Yeah.” I grabbed a strand of my hair and gently tugged, curling it around a finger. “I was brought here against my will, but now? I need the whole story. I thought maybe you’d be able to help.”
Kendall sighed and leaned back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. “If you’re looking for me to badmouth Hadrian, you’re fishing in the wrong pond.”
“No. I just... Are they happy here?” I asked, pointing at the ceiling. “Are you happy here?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it happy, but they’re not un happy,” he replied. “And I’m confident I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
I frowned, unsure of how to ask the right questions to get the answers I wanted. “I guess I mean, are you treated well here? Are the other humans treated well?”
“For a place that’s run by vampires, I’d say we’re treated very well,” he answered. “Every human here has earned the right to be considered as a potential fledgling. No one is abused, not even when the vampires feed off of them.”
I blanched, the thought turning my stomach.
“Hey vampires gotta eat, just like the rest of us,” he said.
“I know, it’s just…kinda gross,” I said. “Do they… Have they…”
“Fed off me?” he finished for me.
I nodded.
“No. Shifter blood is repugnant to them. They prefer human blood.”
Something inside me relaxed. Despite Kendall’s betrayal, I didn’t like the idea of him being bitten and drained by a vampire.
“You say that the humans here are taken care of, but everyone is so scared of Hadrian. And upstairs, they seemed afraid of me.”
Kendall crossed his arms. “Yeah, well you’re walking around with a couple of vampire guards. Besides, no one wants to get on Hadrian’s bad side, and since you’re his daughter...”
“I get it. I just don’t understand why they fear him if he really isn’t hurting any of them.”
He shifted in his seat. “He’s united the vampires, the first time that’s ever happened, as far as I’ve heard. I imagine you have to be at least a little ruthless to keep so many vampires under control. He’s built himself quite the reputation, and I’m sure he’s earned the fear they show him.”
I nodded as I chewed on my lip. His reasoning made sense, though the whole atmosphere of fear still bothered me.
“Are you afraid of Hadrian?” I asked.
He laughed. “Terrified. But he’s kind of charming, too. Like, if Hadrian likes you, everything is right with the world.”
I was starting to understand that. I’d had a taste of that the other day when I saw the pride in his eyes aimed at me. It had felt really good, and I found myself softening toward him despite myself.
I cocked my head as another question entered my mind. “Why can’t I go downstairs?”
Kendall gave me a wry smile. “That’s the dungeon.”
“So he really does have a dungeon.” He’d mentioned it the night I was brought here, but I hadn’t seen it, and it had pretty much disappeared from my thoughts. But knowing it was just below me sent a shiver down my spine.
“Hadrian has a lot of things, but yeah, he has a dungeon. Like I said, you’re not going to get a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires to behave by patting them on the head.”
“No. I guess not,” I mused.
“But hey, it’s not like it’s full or anything. Most of the time when someone goes down there, it’s only for a day or so before being restored.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about all of it, but at least I was getting the truth—both the good and the ugly.
Kendall sighed. “Look, my advice is to keep your head down and your ears open. You’re smart. And you’re Hadrian’s daughter. You’ll be fine. Heck, you could probably do something relatively stupid and still be fine. Unlike the rest of us.” He smiled at me like it was a joke.
I stood as I returned his smile, though it didn’t quite meet my eyes. I felt the strong need to be alone again, to think over everything I’d learned. “Thanks. That gives me a lot to think about.”
Kendall stood too, grabbing the door for me. “Any time. Really. My door is always open.”
“Thanks,” I said again. I walked into the hallway, tugging on another strand of hair.
“Arya?”
I turned to face him.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he said, sincerity shining in his beachy eyes. “For everything. I hope we can move past it.”
I nodded once, then continued back the way I’d come, the guards trailing me once more. I wanted to go to my room and just think for a bit.
Hopefully I’d be able to sort through everything by dinner, because there was no way I was going to disappoint my “date.”