Chapter 17
“Come on, Callum. We’ve got too much to do for you to sleep all night.”
Callum’s eyes creaked open. He had a vile hangover, a splitting headache that felt like an ice pick jabbed somewhere through his brain. He needed blood—and he needed someone to bring it to him.
“Tess?” he croaked, his voice still scratchy from sleep.
“Is that who you fucked all day? She left hours ago, and we should have too. Let’s go. ”
Octavia snatched the blankets off of him, and he looked up in shock—his vision was cloudy, but there she was, wearing wide-slung trousers, a silk shirt, slouchy overcoat, and a soft cloche hat. How did she get here? Or did he get back to New York somehow?
“Did the blue light come again?” he asked, confused.
“Oh God, don’t tell me you took absinthe.” She sighed and put her hands on her hips. “Do you know what year it is?”
He shook his head; he really didn’t. Where was he? The bedroom looked familiar—he could make out the burgundy jacquard of the bed curtains, a series of clumsy charcoal drawings tacked to the wall.
“Are we in Paris?” he asked.
“ Oui, bien. ” She rolled her eyes. “We’re meant to return to London tomorrow with a package for Konstantin. I can’t get it on my own, and you’re utterly useless.”
Now he remembered—he’d kept this place for a while in the ’20s, up near Montmartre, where it was dark and easy and the streets overflowed with women and wine. He relaxed at the realization, happy to be able to place himself, but something was still bothering him.
“What’s in the package?” Callum asked, suddenly desperate to know what object was so important to Konstantin he’d send his two most trusted lieutenants across the English Channel to retrieve it.
“Ugh, who cares ?” Octavia flopped on the bed. “A long-lost vial of the blood of Cleopatra, stored for centuries in a golden box.”
“That’s not it.” Callum bit his lip.
“Of course that’s not it, I just made that up!” Octavia’s exasperation only grew with each passing moment.
“That’s the package we need,” Callum told her. “We have to steal it, and then we have to run. We can go live in Seoul, like we always wanted.”
“My sweet, stupid brother.” Octavia leaned down beside him. “He found us in Seoul, remember? He can always find us.”
Callum closed his eyes, and it was dark again. His head was still pounding—no, that was the music. The nightclub in Prague, eleven years ago. It was dark and hot and stank of cigarettes.
“Callum.” Konstantin looked pleased. “I’m glad you came.”
Konstantin wore all black, like he always did, like an absolute cliché. Callum stood six feet tall, but his sire still towered over him, his expression set firm, his eyes glittering with anticipation.
“Couldn’t miss this, could I?” Callum laughed uncomfortably.
“I know how much you’ve struggled to control your true nature.” Konstantin put a hand on Callum’s shoulder. “After tonight, you won’t have to anymore.”
Callum nodded tightly. Ever since Callum was a boy, Konstantin had always told him that they were just alike: powerful, unapologetic, brutally violent. That’s why I chose you, Konstantin told him. Because I saw myself in you.
Callum knew how much he owed to his sire—his wealth, his immortality, his salvation from an impoverished childhood he might not have survived. But he didn’t want to be like Konstantin. And even more—he felt a compulsion to protect Konstantin from his own darkest desires. That was why Callum had to do this—had to stop Konstantin from setting in motion a course of events that could never be undone. It was one thing for Konstantin to be the most powerful vampire alive, but entirely another for him to murder humans en masse with no attempt to hide his identity and no fear of repercussion.
Callum had a plan. He separated from Konstantin and the others and made his way down a back hall toward the club’s storage room, away from the humans mindlessly dancing with no idea of what was about to happen.
Strange bedfellows, Callum thought as he picked up the jug of kerosene and pile of rags Felix had left for him. He hated Felix Hawthorn, the smug little killjoy—but in this case, they wanted the same thing.
“Konstantin didn’t ask me to come to the club—if I show up there, he’ll know something is off,” Felix had pleaded. “You have to do this, Callum. You’re the only one who can stop him.”
All Callum had to do was start a small fire, set off the club’s sprinklers, and this whole mess would be over before it started. The humans would file into the street, clothes wet and cigarettes lit, and Konstantin and his followers would be robbed of the darkness and tight quarters they needed for their attack.
Callum soaked a few of the rags in kerosene, then pulled a silver lighter out of his pocket. Click, spark, and that’s the end of all this.
But the second the flames went up, Callum knew something was wrong. It was like the whole place was a tinderbox, the walls crackling, the wires sizzling within, the fire moving through the ancient electrical system too fast for anything to stop it.
The smoke was black and thick—Callum’s eyes teared and his throat burned as he tore through the club, telling people to leave, trying to find Konstantin—but it was too late, too late for everything: the vampires already attacking, the fire roaring all around them, and Callum’s sire nowhere to be found.
“Konstantin!” he screamed, over and over, his voice parched and raw. The smoke couldn’t kill a vampire, but the fire would—if Konstantin had passed out from smoke inhalation somewhere in this building, his body would burn to ash.
Callum searched as long as he could—until the walls started crumbling and the blaze was too hot to bear. But he couldn’t go, he had to find Konstantin—he couldn’t let him die, because if he did, it would be all his fault—
“Callum—”
Was that Konstantin? No, a woman. Octavia?
“Callum, can you hear me? Callum!”
Callum forced his eyes open—he was in his rooms at Nantale’s compound, his vision bleary, his body slick with sweat. Tess was there, looking as worried as he’d ever seen her. Why was she worried? She didn’t care if he died.
“Oh god, you have a fever, you’re burning up,” Tess fretted. She rushed over to his bath and ran cold water over a cloth, which she laid across his forehead—it felt cool and smelled of eucalyptus.
“What are you doing…here?” he asked weakly. His dreams—hallucinations?—had been so vivid, he’d felt the fire all around him, the choking stench of the smoke, the panic as he searched for his sire.
“Nantale said I had to take care of you, remember?” Tess looked worried. “Do you want me to go?”
He looked up at her with confusion. His whole body felt swollen and wrong, like the poison was liquefying him from the inside out, heating him until he boiled and burst.
“I feel hot,” he slurred. “Too hot.”
“Okay,” Tess said, as if steeling herself. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to draw you a hot bath—I know, it sounds awful, but it will help break the fever—and I’ll make you that clove tea.”
He shook his head. “You don’t—have to.”
“Don’t be silly,” she clipped, already in motion. “I can’t just leave you like this.”
“You should have left me when you had the chance,” Callum mumbled, his mouth dry and thick. “Then neither of us would have to be here.”
Tess looked back at him for a long moment, but she didn’t respond. Maybe she hadn’t heard him over the water from the bath.
“How is he?” Nantale was stately and reserved as always, but Tess could sense she was deeply worried. They were standing in the hallway outside Callum’s rooms, speaking in hushed tones while he slept.
“I don’t know,” Tess answered. “The fever got a little better after a hot bath, but he seemed very weak. Do you know when Sylvie and the others will be back?”
“Tomorrow, I hope?” Nantale folded her arms. “Unless something has happened to delay them.”
Tess nodded, a knot of dread taking hold in her stomach. She was afraid for Callum, but also for herself—if he died, would Nantale assign someone else to work with Tess to figure out a way off the Isle? Or would she give up hope—and give her clan the green light to use Tess’s blood to sate their hunger? Maybe she’d allow Tess to leave the compound and go home—except the crystal bridge was gone, so Tess couldn’t go anywhere. Tess imagined living out her mortal life in this place, subsisting on whatever food she could find in the northern woods, hoping no vampire came across her. A quick death would probably be preferable.
“I know Callum can be difficult,” Nantale said quietly. “But you must understand, he is my most trusted ally in this clan.”
“He’s a brilliant fighter,” Tess murmured.
“It’s more than that. Do you know what it was like in the early days on the Isle? Does it say this in your books?”
“I know there was a lot of violence, but not much more than that.”
Nantale nodded. “That’s true. Felix and his clan made clear rules in this place: Join or die. If we didn’t like them or what they stood for, they killed us off one by one.”
Tess frowned—that didn’t track with the Felix she knew from Blood Feud, nor with the man she’d met.
“Callum is the one who came to me to suggest we form a clan, who convinced the rest of the group to follow me—and as you may have noticed, this is not a group who likes to do what they’re told.”
“Why didn’t you want to join Felix?” Tess asked.
“Those robots?” Nantale wrinkled her nose. “I never took orders from men as a mortal—I’m certainly not going to start in my sixth century of life. Felix claims to want to protect vampires, but isn’t that what autocrats always say? ‘Only I can keep you safe.’?”
That’s exactly what he told me, Tess thought.
“But…” Tess suddenly felt nauseous. “If Felix isn’t trying to keep his clan safe, why does he need a clan at all? What’s the point?”
“ Power is the point.” Nantale gave Tess a sharp look. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen this, girl, even in your short life. A man who thinks his desires are the only desires, who’ll justify taking what he wants by any means necessary?”
Tess nodded numbly. “I’ve seen it.”
“Felix is drunk with it. If Callum hadn’t been brave enough to try to stop him…” Nantale’s expression was dark. “I owe Callum a debt of gratitude to protect his life with mine. I appreciate you doing what you can to care for him—and I won’t forget it.”
Nantale took her leave, and Tess quietly went back into Callum’s room—he was still sleeping fitfully. Tess didn’t know how she was going to keep him alive until Sylvie came back; cool compresses and hot baths and warm rabbit’s blood were all well and good, but none of them could stop the poison inside him. And when Tess thought about him dying…she was pretty sure it was more than just fear for her own future that made the idea so upsetting.
“Tess?” Callum’s voice was hoarse.
“What is it?” She rushed to his bedside. He looked wan and exhausted, and she had to suppress an urge to brush his hair back from his forehead. “Do you need another compress? More blood?”
“Maybe some water?”
She grabbed a glass from his cupboard and filled it from the tap, then brought it over to him. He struggled to sit up, then drank deeply—he exhaled hard, coughing.
“Take your time,” she said gently.
He nodded, then took a smaller sip.
“I need to tell you something.” Tess shifted uncomfortably in the chair next to his bed.
“Christ, Tess. Another secret?” he grumbled. “It’s like Pandora’s bloody box every time you open your mouth.” Tess felt a surge of affection for him—even at death’s doorstep, he was adorably ornery.
“Not a secret.” She bit her lip. “An apology.”
Callum’s face turned more serious. “Go on.”
“I should have told you about Felix. It’s just—I’ve been confused. With what Blood Feud says about you, what he said about you…I didn’t know if I could trust you, if I was stupid not to trust him instead. But I believe you’ve been honest with me. And I’m sorry I lied to you.”
“I understand why you lied.” Callum looked up at her. “The way I’m portrayed in your books…A lot of it’s wrong, but a lot of it isn’t. I can see how you wouldn’t trust a man like me.”
There was a heaviness in his voice, a sadness Tess wanted desperately to ease.
“It’s not just you,” Tess said softly. “I, um. I’m not really a trusting person.”
“Yeah, but at least you tried to give me a chance, which is more than I did for you.” Callum looked down in disgust. “Leaving you alone in that forest? That was shameful. Especially when I think of what Felix could have done to you.”
“You don’t really think he’d hurt me, do you?” Tess frowned. Even if Nantale was right that Felix was drunk with power, Tess still had a hard time believing he’d harm an innocent.
“He would if it served him. If he knew you were valuable to me, to our clan? He’d torture you to death just to cause me pain.”
Tess’s breath caught in her throat—Callum would be in pain if she was harmed?
“What is it with you and Felix?” Tess asked. “Why do you hate each other so much?”
“What do your books say about it?”
“Not much. Just that Konstantin preferred you and Octavia, that you were his only sires, his favorites. The books make it seem like Felix was trying to protect the vampires on the Isle from you.”
Callum sighed. “The first bit is right—Konstantin did prefer us. To be honest, we never paid Felix much thought. He was always trying to push his agenda on Konstantin: his idea for a vampire hierarchy, sheriffs, order, that whole scheme. Felix said it was a way to expand Konstantin’s power, but Konstantin never wanted that. He liked to keep a lean operation, move in the shadows, do what he pleased.”
“And make you do what he pleased,” Tess pointed out.
“True,” Callum acknowledged. “As long as Octavia and I did what Konstantin wanted, there was no question about the pecking order—it was us first, then Felix far behind. No matter how hard he worked, he wasn’t as powerful as us, and he wasn’t Konstantin’s blood sire, either.”
“That must have driven him crazy.”
“Expect it did, poor lad.” Callum smiled grimly. “But things changed when Vee and I fell out with Konstantin.”
“Wait, did that happen in Korea? In Seoul?” Tess asked.
“Yes.” Callum looked alarmed. “Was that in Blood Feud, or did Felix tell you?”
“No, neither,” Tess assured him. “Octavia mentioned it in one of her notes. But it didn’t seem relevant to getting off the Isle, so I didn’t think anything of it.”
“It was her idea to go to Korea, back in the late nineties,” Callum said. “Nineteen nineties, that is.”
“Thank you for clarifying.” Tess smiled. “You’d never been?”
“It was easier to stay close to Europe, in case Konstantin needed us. Longer flights are hard to navigate with daylight—especially before you could just look up a flight schedule online,” Callum explained. “And our father…”
“He was Korean, right?” Tess asked. “A ship worker?”
Callum nodded. “We knew nothing about him, and the name Yoo was far too common to track. We looked different from every other kid in the orphanages, every worker at the factories, every aristocrat Konstantin introduced us to, and none of them let us forget it. We found the best way to deal with the looks and the comments was just to ignore them, act like we were exactly the same as everyone else, even though of course we weren’t. We felt like our father abandoned us, left us to the care of strangers with nothing but a target on our faces.”
“What a horrible feeling,” Tess murmured. “What changed? What made you want to go to Korea?”
“Do you know about the Hallyu?” he asked. “The Korean wave?”
“Vaguely,” Tess answered. “This one girl I knew in college was super into K-pop.”
“Korean culture was exploding, reaching us in Europe far more than ever before. Vee and I started watching K-dramas, then we met a Korean expat in Paris who introduced us to Korean music—and we loved it. We felt like we had to be a part of it. So we figured out a series of night flights, and we just went.”
“What was it like?” Tess asked.
A hazy pleasure fell over Callum’s face—Tess had never seen him look so relaxed.
“Every place we went, we felt like we belonged. Vee made friends with designers, musicians, artists, like she always did. Eating the food, traveling the country, meeting all these people, even a few vampires—we couldn’t get enough. We started coming back more and more, staying for longer periods of time. And being so far from Konstantin…”
“He didn’t have so much power over you,” Tess said quietly. “The distance gave you freedom.”
“Precisely.” Callum eyed her. “It was the first time we felt like we could be ourselves, make our own choices instead of only ever obeying him. So around ten years after that first visit, he asked us to come to London to do something for him, and we just…didn’t.”
“I bet he loved that,” Tess muttered.
“Yeah, hardly. He turned up in Seoul a few days later, told us he’d never been so disappointed in anyone, to have his own sires turn our backs when he needed us most.”
“Needed you?” Tess was puzzled. “What for?”
Callum sighed. “He said he was working on something big—biggest thing he’d ever planned. Said he couldn’t do it without me, that I owed him for all he’d done for me and Vee. So I agreed to go with him, but only if Vee could stay in Seoul.”
“You protected her.” Tess shook her head with wonder. “Of course you did.”
Callum looked up at Tess—there was an intensity in his gaze she couldn’t quite read, but it made her whole body feel warm.
“So, um.” She swallowed hard. “So what happened next?”
“Oh.” He looked down, breaking the moment. “Turned out Konstantin’s big idea was to attack a nightclub.”
“The one in Prague?” Tess frowned.
“You know about it?” Callum raised his eyebrows, and she nodded. “Of course you do. Anyway, Konstantin meant it as a coming-out party of sorts. A statement to let humans know vampires exist, to be afraid. I was furious with him— this was why he dragged me back from Korea? To murder dozens of helpless humans for some harebrained show of force? I decided I had to stop him, to foil the plan somehow. Then Felix came to me with an idea.”
Tess narrowed her eyes. “Out of the blue?”
“Too convenient by half, wasn’t it?” Callum laughed, but the sound was dark and hollow. “Should have known it’d go sideways, but it seemed simple enough at the time. He suggested I start a small fire in the back of the club, set off the alarms to derail the attack and keep everyone safe. It made sense to me, so I went along and did it. Except…”
Tess already knew what happened next—she’d read at least a dozen articles about it in her Feudie days, looking for clues of vampire involvement.
“The club burned to the ground,” she said softly. “Did Konstantin die inside?”
“Konstantin, a few other vampires, half a dozen humans.” Callum grimaced. “Once they got the fire out, I stayed searching for him as long as I could, until dawn. Even afterward, I combed the city for days, desperate for any sign of him. For all he was a terrible man, for all the times I hated him…he still saved me, you know? He picked me and Octavia, gave us this whole other life.”
“Oh god,” Tess said, realizing. “So when you felt relieved about being here on the Isle, being out from under Konstantin’s thumb—you must have felt so guilty too.”
“And that was Felix’s plan all along.” Callum gritted. “With Konstantin dead, he could finally take over, claim all that power for himself. He blamed me for the catastrophe at the nightclub, made sure Konstantin’s whole crew stayed loyal to him. That’s how he started his clan. And he thought I’d feel too guilty about what I’d done to fight him.”
“Except you did.” Tess clenched her fists. “Nantale told me—you were the one who rallied this clan to follow her and fight back.”
“Couldn’t bloody well let him win, could I? Not after what he did.”
“And then you saw him with me in the orchard.” Tess exhaled heavily. “No wonder you were furious.”
“I thought it was the same bit again,” Callum mumbled, his words starting to slur again—Tess could see he was fading. “Using my emotions against me.”
“What emotions?” Tess asked.
Callum closed his eyes—he was clearly in pain. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
“But you didn’t try to stop me.” Tess shook her head, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“?’Course not. Your decision.”
He opened his eyes, and Tess was struck, not for the first time, by how extraordinarily handsome he was. She thought about Felix, how he’d pushed her from their first meeting to move into his castle. Callum had never pushed her once—never put the slightest pressure on her to do anything she didn’t want to do. Callum gazed at her with his striking gray eyes, and Tess felt so pulled to him, so close to him.
Was she afraid of him because of everything she’d read in Blood Feud ? Or was she afraid because it was becoming impossible to ignore how she felt about him?
“You must be tired.” Tess cleared her throat. “I shouldn’t have made you talk so long. You should get some rest.”
“You’re not the boss of me.” He grinned through his exhaustion. “You can’t make me do anything.”
“Wanna bet?” She swallowed her emotions and smiled. “I’m making you go to sleep right now.”
“Will you stay?” he asked softly. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Of course,” Tess said, her voice tender. “If you need anything, I’ll be right here in this chair, okay? I promise.”
He propped himself up slowly, sliding over to the far side of the bed.
“Don’t be thick.” His breath was labored. “You can’t sleep in a chair.”
“Oh.” Tess felt suddenly tense—she hadn’t shared a bed in years, not since Columbia. “No, no, um—that’s okay. I wouldn’t want to disturb you.”
He smiled sadly, like he could see right through her. “Still lying to me, love?”
“Yeah.” Tess nodded. “I am.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he murmured.
Tess’s chest felt tight. “Me neither.”
“It’s your choice,” he said again. “It’s whatever helps you sleep.”
Tess thought of all the nights she’d lain awake, at war with her memories, praying for sleep—an hour, twenty minutes, anything at all.
Callum didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted her to rest.
“Okay,” she whispered.
She climbed into bed beside him, relaxing into the soft mattress, pulling the heavy covers over her body. He settled down on his side, facing her, and she did the same. Callum blinked heavily—once, twice—his thick lashes fluttering in the moonlight. It was marvelously strange, sharing a bed with a vampire from her favorite story. But the weirdest part about it was that, for the first time since arriving on this island—and maybe for a good deal longer than that—Tess didn’t feel afraid.