Chapter 31
31
ESME
I walked back to Brogan's house in the strange glow of predawn, twisting my hands in front of me, my mind still buzzing from my conversation with Alice, and wondering why Brogan hadn’t waited for me.
I’d known he was there at the cemetery. I’d sensed him through our bond before he even came through the gate. But I didn’t say anything in front of Alice. I didn’t want his presence there to spook her.
The city’s scents wrapped around me—stale beer and damp stone, the acrid bite of cigarette smoke, the faintest trace of chicory coffee from a café waking before the sun. On any other day, I might have found comfort in them. But tonight, they felt distant. Hollow. Ghosts of a world that kept moving while I stood frozen in my failure. Wind rattled the wrought-iron balconies, and the flickering glow of a streetlamp flickered as the darkness dissipated.
But I barely noticed.
My designer boots struck the uneven pavement in sharp, nervous steps as I walked blindly down the street, the sound swallowed by the damp air. The January chill curled around me, slipping through the thin fabric of my jacket, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver with foreboding.
I'd failed.
My family had ignored me, turned their backs when I needed them most. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle a sob. The coppery scent of my own blood still clung to my fingertips, a bitter reminder of what I’d given—and what they'd refused to take. Clenching my hands into fists, I stuffed them into my pockets, my jaw tight as I walked past shuttered bars and empty courtyards, trying to hold back my tears.
A crash echoed from a nearby alley—a trash can tipping over. Something scurried into the shadows and I jumped, my breath hitching in my throat in terror, half expecting Marcus to pounce out of the shadows at me.
But it was only a rat.
However, my time was up, and Marcus was waiting. He'd made it perfectly clear what would happen if I failed, and I knew he would carry through on his threat.
The thought wrapped around my ribs like a vice, making it hard to breathe, and I quickened my steps. I needed to get back to the house so I could see Brogan one more time, because despite Alice agreeing to help me, I knew the power of the djinn. I'd seen it firsthand. And I had very little faith that we'd be able to do anything to stop him. So, yes. I wanted to spend what little time we all had left with the male I'd somehow fallen in love with without even realizing it.
Through the thick silence, a deep, resonant sound rolled over the rooftops.
A church bell.
The tolling filled the spaces between my scattered thoughts, settling into my bones, steady and sure. I closed my eyes for half a second, letting it pass through me like a prayer I didn’t know how to say.
Something inside me shifted. Just barely.
My ancestors had abandoned me, yes. And I was out of time.
But I wasn’t alone.
I exhaled, opened my eyes, and kept walking with renewed purpose.
"Esme," a voice behind me sliced through my thoughts, smooth and dangerously melodic. I spun around to find Marcus, his lean frame draped in shadows as he leaned casually against the gate that led to a courtyard only a few houses down from Killian’s. His eyes gleamed with furious delight.
No. No, no, no . I was almost there. I was almost in Brogan's arms.
Marcus’s brown eyes, deceptively warm and familiar, dropped to my empty hands, lingering there for a tense moment before rising to my face. He didn't ask me where the book was, but his expression was expectant.
"I don't have the book.” I stood my ground, though my voice tremored with fear. "I've tried to find it, but it's…I…" My voice trailed off. There was no excuse I could give him that he would accept.
His laughter was soft, almost affectionate, but his eyes—that was where the real story lay. They were suddenly cold, unyielding. "You barely even tried."
I shook my head. "I did! I did try!"
He cut me off with a slash of his hand through the air. "No, you didn't." Then his demeanor changed completely as he sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging with disappointment. "I thought so much more of you than this."
Anger rose up suddenly. "I don't know why," I snapped. "I was nobody to you until you suddenly showed up at my home and demanded something we didn't have. Then killed my family when we couldn't magically make it appear. You showed no remorse! Just shrugged off the lives of my loved ones like they didn't matter!"
"That's because they didn't," he said. "They were nothing to me. Just as you are nothing."
He closed the distance between us with inhuman swiftness, his hand gripping my arm in a vice as I screamed.
But it was too late.
The world warped around me—a sudden, disorienting shift—and the chill of early morning dissolved into a gray void, an in-between place, a dimension neither here nor there but infused with power that tore through my skin and ruptured my bones as I screamed again.
Marcus's grip turned brutal, his smile never reaching his eyes. They burned with an insatiable desire for control and retribution.
"You keep disappointing me, Esme. Here I thought, for a moment, you had a bit of spine." His voice was silk over steel as he forced me onto my knees. My stomach lurched as the ground beneath us dissipated into an endless expanse of nothingness. I expected to fall right through, but instead, I landed heavily at his feet, my bones still solid after all. Pain exploded behind my eyes, and everything went black.
I awoke hours or days later, I had no way of knowing, and found myself kneeling at the djinn’s feet. I didn’t know how I was upright, but my spine was stiff as a steel rod through no effort of my own.
Marcus leaned down, his breath hot against my ear. “There she is…I’m glad you could join our conversation again.”
Fighting to keep my eyes open, I glared up at him.
“I don't like to be disappointed, Esme. Yet, there is something about you."
Through my tears of terror, I saw his head tilt to the side, not a hair out of place as he studied me kneeling prone at his feet.
"Yes. I still think you can be useful to me. But you need to learn that I will not tolerate laziness, and that, unlike you, I carry through with my promises."
"No," I begged him. "Please. I'll find your damn book. I just need more time." I tried to get up off my knees, but I couldn't move.
"Time," he mused, softly. "It usually means very little to me, you know. But with this…eh, I've wasted enough of it. And as for the promise I made you—” He sighed heavily. “—this is something I must carry out, so you know you can trust me. That I always mean what I say. Do you understand? That when I tell you something, it's true." Bending down, he cupped my cheek. "I need you to know that you can trust me, Esme."
It was a bunch of bullshit. I'd learned the hard way to never trust a djinn.
Something on my face must've given away my thoughts, because his fist slammed into my face with the force of a hammer against stone. Pain erupted in my jaw as my head snapped back, helpless in its recoil. A cascade of stars scattered my vision, turning the dim room into a glittering abyss. I scrambled to throw up my shields. I didn't know if Brogan could sense me, wherever we were, but I wanted to protect him from this, if I could.
Marcus, his cruel eyes alight with a twisted curiosity, stood back, observing me like I was a rare exhibit at a mad scientist's gallery of curiosities. My head fell forward, and from the corner of my eye I saw his fist come at me again. This time, pain exploded in my cheek. Then my temple. Again. And again, as I knelt there, unable to move or defend myself. Each punch was strategically measured, not enough to shatter bones outright, but engineered with a perverse precision to prolong my agony, drawing out every second of my torment like a conductor with each note of a symphony.
"And Brogan, the vampire whose blood now runs through your veins," Marcus's voice was a purr, both inviting and repulsive. "He'll be the first to feel my wrath, and you'll watch each moment of his long, painful death, knowing it's because you failed to give me what I need." It wasn't a threat. It was a promise, as he'd said.
His foot lifted, crashing into my stomach, and I coughed, struggling to suck in air as the pain spread like wildfire.
"And then," his eyes locked onto mine, glowing with an internal flame, "we’ll see how much blood the rest of them can sacrifice before they join your man-whore.”
His fist found my chin again, snapping my head back with a force that made my neck scream in protest. I tasted blood, coppery and warm, trickling down the back of my throat. I felt my shields slipping, and tentatively, I reached out for Brogan, grateful when I felt nothing. Heard nothing.
Gradually, I retreated into my mind, removing myself from the visceral reality of my body's suffering, seeking refuge in memories and thoughts distant from here and now.
You can trust me, Esme, the djinn's words echoed mockingly, a twisted solace in his promise of violence. I wanted to laugh, and maybe I did. There were a number of sounds coming from my throat, none of which I recognized. I wondered if his anger was so all-consuming that he would forget his promise and allow death to take me.
Dios mío. The pain was a constant, relentless tide, and I swam deeper into the waters of my consciousness as I pictured Brogan's face, remembering the way he danced under the club lights, his cocky smile, and the first time he kissed me. I clung to the feeling of his presence, the soft murmur of his deep voice as he pressed his body against mine and made me his.
As I floated in my fantasy world, I lost all track of time. The hard ground beneath my knees, the chill of this nowhere place seeping into my bones, yet somehow, it all felt far away, as if I were watching it happen from outside myself.
Then, abruptly, the storm of pain ceased, and gradually, as if guided by some distant beacon, I floated back to awareness. My mouth hung open, my skull felt shattered, my ribs hurt, and I wasn't sure how I was still breathing at all.
My eyes, blurry and swollen, met Marcus's. He stared down at me, but he wasn't seeing me. His eyes were glazed over and his face wasn't contorted with rage as I might have expected, but instead held a myriad of emotions—longing, hunger, and something akin to regret.
Before I could process this change, he grabbed me, his grip on my upper arms firm yet strangely devoid of hostility. Once again, we hurtled through time and space as I struggled to breathe. My stomach flipped, my surroundings blurred, and then?—
We crashed back into reality. I struck the ground heavily among the cobblestones, the familiar smells of New Orleans filling my lungs as I gasped, fighting to stay conscious. The old tombs of the cemetery rose around me, and Marcus’s silhouette loomed over me, his figure blocking any view of the sky above.
When he spoke, his voice was filled with suspicion.
"Alice?"