Chapter 35 Arya
My fingertips roamed Alex’s ribs like spider legs, digging in every now and then to throw him into a fit of helpless giggles. His laughter rang like wind chimes. It was fast becoming my favorite sound in the world, and I had no intention of relenting any time soon.
Agnes, who had just entered Alex’s room and now stood in the doorway, cleared her throat loudly. I was sure that if I looked up, I’d see a disapproving frown wrinkling the woman’s shrew face. God forbid Alex should have any fun.
“Arya, your father wants to see you in the Conference Room,” Agnes said when I didn’t acknowledge her presence.
My fingers stopped their siege on Alex’s abdomen, my eyes staring blankly at his black tufts of hair that had been disheveled by his rolling on the floor.
Hadrian rarely called for me. When he wanted to talk with me, he always came to me in person. This didn’t bode well. Something was up. Did he know about my and Shea’s plans?
“Best not keep him waiting,” Agnes said, snapping me out of my pause. “And Alex, you have a chess game in ten minutes.”
I stood and pulled Alex to his feet. “I’ll see you at dinner,” I told him, hoping it was true. Then, before I left the room, I called back, “Have fun playing chess .” I made a funny face as I said the last word.
Alex smirked and waved goodbye, and I left the room, my blood a crescendo in my ears as I headed for the main floor with my guards in tow. A million paranoid what ifs flitted through my mind as I traipsed down the stairs, my guards following close behind. For all my former arrogance over being Hadrian’s daughter, I suddenly wasn’t so sure that I mattered anymore to him than a fly on the wall. If he knew what I was planning, I wouldn’t be safe from his wrath.
But I couldn’t let myself get too worked up. This meeting could be about something completely innocent, and if I came to him with a racing pulse, he’d get suspicious—if he wasn’t already. I had to be calm. I had to behave as if there was no reason for suspicion.
I took a deep, soothing breath as I approached the Conference Room so that by the time I reached the door, my heart rate had returned to normal.
I opened the door and entered. Hadrian sat in the same seat as yesterday when I’d come to beseech him on Tobias’s behalf, and when he saw me, he smiled and opened his hand toward the empty seat. I came forward and lowered myself into the chair, all the while analyzing his blank expression as he looked at me.
“I noticed you weren’t at the party last night,” he said, leaning forward and steepling his hands in front of him. “You missed the celebration of my transformation into a daywalker. And here I thought we were growing close.”
Of course, he’d notice that I wasn’t there. I had felt particularly festive after hearing him torture my mate.
“What else was so important that you had to miss such a momentous historical event?” One of his perfectly arched eyebrows raised, and I could hear the edge of imminent accusation in his tone.
“I was upset over your decision about Tobias,” I said with a smooth voice. “I needed time to process.” I chose my words carefully. None of what I said was a lie, and if I didn’t lie, my pulse wouldn’t jump.
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
My breath caught in my throat. “What?” I managed to ask without stuttering.
“Answer the question, Arya. Do you think I’m an idiot?”
I think you’re a lot of things, but you’re definitely not an idiot. I shook my head.
“I thought I smelled you down there, but I told myself it was just your scent clinging to my clothes.”
My mind flashed back to that moment in the dungeon when Hadrian stopped right next to where I was hiding. He had known I was there. Shit!
“You went to see him right after I gave you my decision. For what purpose, Arya?” His eyes began to glow red, and I couldn’t bear to look at them. In that moment, he was terrifying.
“For what purpose?” he yelled, making me jump. I’d never heard him raise his voice before—he was scary enough without needing to.
“I needed to warn him that worse punishment was coming,” I confessed. “I needed him to know that I had at least tried.” Again, not a lie. I hadn’t gone down to the dungeon with the intention of getting Tobias out and going with him. No, I’d made that decision after.
“You love him, don’t you?” Hadrian accused.
My eyes darted to his, the question catching me off guard. I didn’t know how to answer that. Not to Hadrian or to myself.
“You’re a fool,” he sneered. “Have you not seen the way he clings to that dragon girl that came with him? He’s obviously gotten over you and moved on.”
His words were meant to cut me, to slice me up, and I couldn’t deny the sting they inflicted. Even with what I now knew about Tobias’s true feelings, it wasn’t easy to see another girl so close to him.
“You’re a Denholm,” he snapped. “You’re my daughter. You don’t pine over someone who clearly doesn’t want you.”
“Why not? You pined over my mother for sixteen years after she left you,” I shot back, anger at his degradation clouding my fear. “Or was your love for her just a lie?”
Not a second after the words left my lips, something struck me hard across the face. My hand instinctively rushed to cover my throbbing cheek, and I caught the blur of his white hand still raised from his slap.
“You will not talk back to me,” he hissed in a dangerous whisper. “I am your father, and you will speak to me with the respect that title deserves.”
I pressed my hand against my cheek, refusing to look at him and show him the mortified tears that stung my eyes.
“Yes, I continued to love your mother after she ran away, and I will love her until the end of time,” he said. “But she didn’t reject me. She ran away out of fear and confusion. This boy clearly doesn’t see that you are superior to him in every way and that he should worship the ground you walk on. He is an arrogant dragon brat, just like the rest of his filthy bloodline. Even if he did love you and wanted to join our cause, I wouldn’t let you be with him. He’s beneath you. If you must consort with a shifter and not an appropriate suitor of noble vampire blood, then give your affections to Kendall. He is a mer and a noble at that. He’s not worthy of my daughter, but at least he comes close.”
Every vile word that came out of Hadrian’s mouth boiled my blood hotter and hotter. If the turquoise necklace was dangling around my neck, my ursa might have rampaged out of me then and there. That Hadrian thought he could control me in matters of the heart made me furious. And what was worse was that he wanted me to be with Kendall.
“There will be no more dungeon rendezvous for you,” he said with finality. “Clearly, your guards aren’t doing their job, or you would never have made it to the dungeon in the first place.”
Suddenly, Hadrian vanished from the seat in front of me, and the horrifying sounds of snapping bones and squishing liquid preceded two short-lived, agonized screams. I spun in my chair to see Hadrian standing over the corpses of my guards, their oozing hearts in both of his hands. I didn’t want to—I told myself not to—but I couldn’t help but look at the bodies of the vampires that had been my shadows since I arrived. The image of their mutilated chests burned into my memory. I fought the urge to throw up.
Hadrian tossed down their hearts and stepped over their legs, taking a red handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiping his hands with it as he returned to his seat.
“I don’t enjoy hurting people,” he said as he continued to wipe the blood from his fingers.
Liar! I hissed in my mind, the rest of my body frozen in shock and horror.
“You will be given four new guards. Please, be a good girl, and don’t make me hurt them, too. If I have even a suspicion that you’ve been to see the dragon again, I’ll kill him and make you watch.”
Then he rose from his seat, leaned over my shoulder, and planted a kiss on my forehead.
“See you at dinner,” he whispered, then left me in the room with the guards whose hearts I might as well have ripped out myself. Their deaths were on my hands as surely as they were on his.
* * *
I didn’t go back to my room. I knew I could be too easily found there, and I didn’t want to be found. I wanted time to think.
So I went to the only place where I could be truly alone, where even my guards couldn’t follow me: the girls’ bathroom in the Initiate quarters. I went inside and curled up in one of the stalls, so that even if one of the Initiates came in, they wouldn’t bother me, especially with my four new guards standing watch just outside the door.
Hadrian really was a monster. He murdered his own guards right in front of me, and they hadn’t done anything wrong, save for not reporting all the times I slipped away from them. There was no need, since I always came back. But I wasn’t going to dwell on the guilt over their deaths. I wasn’t the one who killed them. Hadrian was. He really was heartless.
I sat in my stall for at least an hour, trying to shake off the shock of his brutality. I needed to have a clear head for what was to come. The escape needed to happen tomorrow at noon, when the sun was at its highest, and the vamps couldn’t come after us if they caught on. I needed to be ready.
When I was finally calm, and all the tears had dried, I left my stall and looked in the mirror. My reflection was not the same girl it used to be. The mildly rebellious blue streaks of my over-sheltered youth were still there, but the face looking back at me was the face of a woman who had seen suffering and pain and death—and was stronger for it.
Just before I was about to turn away, I noticed something on my arm. There was a strange little red dot. I looked at my upper left arm, only then noticing the slight itch. Had I been bitten by a bug? With how cold it always was here, I didn’t think mosquitos could survive, much less compete with all the other bloodsuckers.
I rubbed at it, and the skin beneath hurt. Odd for a mosquito bite. Whatever. I had more serious things to worry about than a minor irritation. I left the bathroom and went straight to Alex’s room. My guards were good little dogs and didn’t follow me in.
“Hi, Arya. Wanna play?” he asked with that innocent smile I adored, and comfort warmed inside me at the knowledge that I was doing the right thing.
I knelt to his level and grabbed his shoulders, then, using my siren voice, said, “Tomorrow at noon, you will follow Shea wherever she takes you. You will not argue or make a sound, and you will forget this conversation.”
The glazed look came and went, and then I said, “I’ll play later. Right now, I need to use your servants’ access. Don’t tell anyone, okay?” I put my finger to my lips.
Alex gave me a mischievous smile. “Okay.”
“Thanks, kiddo.” I ruffled his hair and hurried to the hidden door in the wall.
I’d never opened the hidden door before, too afraid a servant might be coming out and catch me, but tonight, I had no such fear because I knew I would handle it if I had to.
Luckily, there was no one in the narrow, dark corridor, just an empty winding staircase. I securely closed the door behind me and practically flew down the steps, descending as quickly and quietly as I could. At the bottom of those steps was an elevator, and I rode it to the bottom.
When the door opened, I found myself in a short corridor. Another hidden door stood at the end. I cracked it open and peered through it. The bright kitchen on the other side was empty, so I pushed through. I hurried through the Grand Hall, descending to Kendall’s room, trying to be invisible so no one could place me.
I knocked on his door, and as soon as he opened it, I rushed inside, closing the door quickly behind me.
“Arya? Pleasure seeing you down here,” he said with a curious and slightly hopeful look in his eyes.
I suddenly realized how this looked, but I didn’t care. I had to try one last time.
“And no guards?” he asked, wearing a friendly smile.
“Didn’t you hear? Hadrian killed them,” she said flatly.
“What?” His expression instantly changed from playful to concerned. “Did they hurt you?”
I laughed dryly. “They didn’t do anything wrong except give me an ounce of freedom. Apparently, that’s worth getting your heart ripped out.” My lip began to quiver, so I sucked it between my teeth.
He put his hand on my shoulder, and I let it remain because I honestly needed the comfort. “Wait, what happened?”
“You didn’t see it coming? I thought you were Hadrian’s pet seer.” I didn’t intend to snap at him, but the anger I still held over his betrayal triggered the beast in me.
He held up his hands defensively and took a step back. “The visions don’t work that way. I can’t control what I see.”
“So you didn’t see Tobias getting tortured and nearly killed down in the dungeon? Well, I did. That’s why Hadrian killed my guards.”
“You went down there? After I warned you not to?”
I scowled at him, resenting the implication that he had any kind of control over me. “I had to. Tobias was down there. I know you guys had it out for each other at the Dome, but he’s one of us. I couldn’t just let him suffer.”
“So, what? You thought you’d break him out?” Kendall looked exasperated. “Arya, when are you going to get it through your head that he’s no good for you?”
“And you are?” I snapped.
He must have known that Hadrian wanted me to be with him. Even more reason for him to want Tobias out of the way. It was a mistake to come here. I was tempted to just turn around and leave.
His brows puckered, and his shoulders slacked. “You know how I feel about you. I thought—I hoped—that if I gave you space, you’d come around and see that we were meant to end up here. Then Tobias swooped in and dragged you right back under his toxic wings. You have to let him go, Arya. Not because I want you to choose me, but because he’s going to get you killed if you keep trying to save him. Hadrian will never let him leave, and the longer you hold onto that hope, the longer you’ll suffer.”
Despite my anger toward him, I could see the depth of his feelings for me shining in his beachy eyes. As much as I wanted to hate him, I didn’t. We’d been so close once. He made bad choices—siding with Hadrian being the worst of them—but I’d experienced firsthand how persuasive and charming Hadrian could be; I’d come dangerously close to falling for his good dad routine. Kendall wasn’t the bad guy here. He was just misguided.
“Do you really care for me?” I asked, making my voice as soft and imploring as possible.
“More than you could ever know,” he professed, intensity blazing in his eyes.
I took his hand in both of mine and pleaded with my eyes. “Then come with me. I’m leaving this place tomorrow, and I’m never coming back.”
“You’re leaving? How?” he asked, taking a step toward me.
“Never mind the how for now. Just say you’ll come with me. You don’t belong here.”
“And go where? Back to the Dome to pretend we’re not all sitting ducks?” He shook his head and withdrew his hand. “I understand you and Hadrian are struggling to connect, but this is where you belong, Arya. Hadrian is your dad, and Alex is your brother. They’re the only family you have left. There’s nothing for you at the Dome but hollow friendships and death.”
I was losing him. He was going to say no and expose my plan. I had to say whatever I could to bring him with me, anything to get him out of this place.
“Fine. Then we won’t go to the Dome. Hadrian told me my mom was a princess of a still-submerged mer colony, that she came to land to convince her people they needed to move topside, but she never went back. Let’s go find them together. Please.”
“Of course, I’ll help you find your colony.” His pitch was high with excitement, and it filled me with hope. “I’m sure if you talk to Hadrian about it, he’ll fund the whole expedition. He’d probably even offer to support their migration.” And my hopes fizzled out like day-old soda.
“There’s nothing I can say to make you leave here, is there?” I said, my tone heavy with defeat.
“No,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders and rubbing my skin with his thumbs. “This is where I’m meant to be, and so are you. Stay with me. Forget about the dragon who doesn’t see how amazing you are. Forget about the people at the Dome who shunned you. Forget about whatever allegiances you feel obligated to keep with people who never appreciated you. And just...stay. I know you’ll understand that I can’t let you leave.”
I sighed. “And I can’t let you ruin my plans. I’m sorry, Kendall.” Then I broadened my throat and said in my musical siren song, “You never saw me tonight. We never had this conversation. You are now very tired and need to go to sleep.”
Kendall yawned loudly, turned around, and climbed into his bed. I watched with remorse as he quickly settled into slumber.
I could’ve done to him what I did to Alex. I could’ve forced him to come with me. But I hated doing that to Alex as it was. No one should be forced to do anything against their will. Kendall was old enough to make his own choices, and he chose to stay with Hadrian. I had to accept that this was goodbye.
I cracked open his door to look into the hall, and after making sure it was empty, I crept out and quickly ascended the stairs. I peeked out the entrance of the Initiate quarters into the lobby. To my immense gratitude, the space was empty as well. All I had to do was get across the room without being seen and pass through the kitchen to the servant’s door, and then I was home free.
I slunk into the lobby and darted across the lobby toward the kitchen.
“Begin working on this right away.” The sound of Hadrian’s voice made me freeze on the spot, panic momentarily seizing my muscles.
I cautiously looked over my shoulder, and my body relaxed when I saw the lobby was still empty behind me. My sweeping gaze fell on the door of Hadrian’s office, which was left slightly open. He’d never let me go in there, and damn if curiosity wasn’t burning inside me to see what he was hiding.
No, I just need to get to my room. Who cares what he’s got in there. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“I’m surprised Arya gave it to you so quickly,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. “I really thought it would’ve taken her more time to come around to our way of thinking.”
The mention of my name emblazoned my curiosity to a fever pitch. Ah, dammit!
I tiptoed backward and hovered behind the door, daring to steal a glimpse through the small gap in the door—and instantly pressing my hand over my mouth to stifle my gasp of horror.
The adjacent wall was adorned with plaques and racks of various, well-preserved shifter body parts. A pair of harpy wings, a naga tail, dragon claws. This was worse than I could’ve ever imagined!
Hadrian was truly diabolical. These were pieces of actual people, and Hadrian had stuffed them and lacquered them like they were kills from hunts. Tears spilled down my face as I could practically see the ghost of the person still attached to every appendage. A sweet young harpy girl, hanging dead from her racked wings. The dragon claws conjured images of Tobias’s face. Is this what Hadrian planned to do with him when he was done torturing him?
My heart swelled with sorrow, slitting in a million places and seeping blood for the pain these poor creatures must have suffered. What kind of monster could not only do something so horrible but then enjoy sitting amongst these reminders of those acts every day? It was beyond deplorable.
I’d seen enough. I wanted to go back to my room and try to remove these images that were undoubtedly carved into my mind for all time.
“In fact, she did not give it willingly,” Hadrian said with a sigh, and I remembered the reason I’d been drawn here in the first place. I closed my eyes and just listened. “Despite all the goodwill I’ve showered upon her, she remains loyal to the shifters. She’s very strong-willed, just like her mother. She needs to be broken, but that will take time—too much time. I took it from her this evening after she confessed to visiting the Dracul boy without my consent. She doesn’t even know I did it.”
Cracking open my eyelids, I glanced down at my arm, rubbing at the mound that I’d assumed was a bug bite. Now that I knew better, I saw it for what it was, saw the little pinprick that was just the size of the tip of a needle.
Omigod. Violation rotted through my insides, making me nauseous and disgustingly chilled. He’d taken my blood without my consent, without me even knowing.
“How long until you can create a serum from her blood?” Hadrian asked.
“Give my team a day. Maybe two. But you’ll have it, I promise. And you’ll be the world’s first hybrid.”
“I made the right choice turning you, Adam. You’re invaluable to our cause.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Footsteps grew louder on the other side of the door, and I spurred into action, rushing on swift feet into the kitchen. I didn’t so much as look back or slow down until I was through the small corridor and safely inside the elevator.
My stomach twisted with disgust, fury, and panic. Hadrian had the one thing he wanted most: my blood. And once his lackeys converted it into a serum, he’d become a hybrid. He wouldn’t need me anymore, and there’d be no reason for him to maintain his fatherly facade.
The escape had to go perfectly tomorrow. If it didn’t—and maybe even if it did—we were all doomed.