CHAPTER 26 #2
He laughs this time, devoid of humor, gesturing around us at the carefully orchestrated feeding rituals. “All of this exists because of her.”
“Well, what stopped you that day?” I ask, the memory too vivid to escape. “Don’t come at me with that change of heart crap again or—”
“I was given a name and description. You were a slayer, so I naturally assumed you were human. I didn’t know who you really were until I saw you that day.”
“You didn’t know?” A bitter laugh escapes me, but it’s more like a gasp than a genuine laugh. “You were close enough to my mother that you would commit a massacre to save her, but you didn’t know who her children were? So much for mindless devotion. Pathetic.”
He turns and looks me in the eye then, pinning me with his stare, and my blood boils before I even register what he’s saying. “She never told me she had children.”
I blink. Once more.
“Why not?” I ask, unable to keep the hurt from my voice. Were we not worth at least a mention?
“Protection, perhaps.” He gives a half-hearted shrug, a sigh escaping him. “Or preparation. Your mother played a long game. Moves were set in motion decades before they’d bear fruit.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No,” he concedes. “But it’s all I have to offer. Seena kept her secrets close, even from me.”
My features crease with quiet sorrow. I don’t want to believe it, but there’s no other story that makes more sense. If he didn’t know she had children, he also didn’t know she had a husband. A lover, maybe, but not a mate. Saul was right—our father’s death was collateral damage.
The pull of both fury and pity tug at me from opposite directions. Every instinct in me demands I scream, lash out, and brand him a killer beyond redemption.
But the thought that there may have been hesitation, that his hand wasn’t entirely free, gnaws at me. That he did it with the intention to save my mother, even if it weren’t for me.
I hate that I’m beginning to understand his side, his reasoning.
It makes me sick.
I clear my throat, pitching my voice just slightly higher and more polite. “Please tell me about her.”
“What do you wish to know?”
There’s no hesitation in my mind. “What was she like?”
He takes a drag from his cigarette. “Brave. Clever. Defiant. Fiercely committed to her visions.” His eyes glaze over, fixed on a memory only he can see.
“She believed vampires could be more than predators, that humans and vampires could coexist if given the right structure. That we have a responsibility to build something lasting. The Ravens were her answer to that challenge.”
“Is that why she left us? To commit to her visions?”
His gaze drops to the ground, not in avoidance, but in the implied recognition of a truth he can’t seem to bring himself to say aloud. He bites down on his lower lip, clearly holding something back. Words.
He believes she did.
“Tell me about them,” I say, desperation seeping through my tone. “Her visions.”
He takes another drag, dense smoke curling between us like a living barrier.
“Well, she saw futures branching like rivers from every choice we make. Some brilliant, some dark. All of them uncertain.” He stubs out his cigarette in a porcelain ashtray.
“She believed in balance above all else—that for every force, there must be a counterforce.”
I lean forward, hungry for more details. “What was she balancing with the Ravens?”
“Freedom. The right to exist without being owned or controlled. To decide your own path.” He gestures vaguely at the alcoves around us.
“This arrangement isn’t perfect, but it is honest. The bloodmaids choose to be here.
They are compensated fairly. No one dies.
And no one is turned against their will. ”
“Noble intentions,” I say, not believing that’s all there is. “Speaking of compensation, where does all the money come from? Bloodmaids aren’t cheap, and neither is maintaining a place like this.”
His eyes narrow, probably in assessment of how much to reveal.
“We’re mercenaries, Seraph.” He meets my gaze. “We take contracts from people who require specialized services.”
“Assassinations?”
“From time to time. More often protection, information gathering, or retrieval of valuable items.”
“Guns for hire, huh? Whatever pays the bills.”
“Don’t you hunt vampires for a living?”
I almost tell him that’s different, but I’m suddenly not quite sure it is. Besides, I’m not here to argue logistics with him. I’m here to fish for information. To listen and not judge. “Fair enough.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, just enough to quietly challenge me. “We choose our contracts carefully. Not everyone with coin gets our services.”
I raise my brows, more skepticism than surprise. “I’m sure you have standards.”
“Higher than you might think.” He shifts, angling his body toward me. “You seem unusually interested in how we operate. Curious about the work, or the man giving the answers?”
My face sours into a grimace. “Neither. Just curious about how I could become your undoing.”
“How romantic,” he says with a suspicious indulgence. “There is a concoction for that kind of finality.” He lets the words hang, the tease folded into the danger, and for a moment, I can’t tell whether he’s playing me, warning me—or both. “Bane brew.”
“Right.” My laugh is a bit too sharp to be genuine. “And why would you tell me that?”
“Because it requires an ingredient you’ll never find.”
I roll my eyes, but inside, something electric sparks to life.
Bane brew.
The name sears into my memory, each syllable a promise I intend to keep.
After all this time searching for a way to destroy him, he’s handed me the method himself.
He thinks I won’t have it in me, but he forgets I’ve devoted my life to finding him.
I’ll find the elusive ingredient, no matter the cost.