Chapter 33
“No, Rion, stop!” Rowena called after me, grabbing my arm as I pushed to my feet. Every part of my aching body protested the movement, but the pain was second to my fear knowing Leonora was closing in on Calia. For fuck’s sake, she could already have her hands on my wife.
How much time had passed? Minutes or hours? It mattered not. Each wasted second was too much to bear.
I stumbled to my closet, bracing a hand on the doorframe to steady myself. The clothes I wore were sodden from sweat, clinging to my skin. I reached into my pocket, pulling the small, pink hair tie onto my wrist before stripping down to change. Rowena rounded the corner, covering her eyes just in time.
“Rion, think about this before you run off to play savior!” she begged. “You know damn well it’s probably some sort of trap. Leonora knows what matters to you. You think this is a coincidence? You’re injured. You’re in no way ready to fight our mother, and we can’t know?—”
“I will not leave her. You know better than most what our mother is capable of.” I slipped on a black tee and jeans, tracing my finger over the hair tie to remind me what I had to lose.
She blocked my path. “You’ll get yourself killed, Rion. That will be your fate if you walk out of this house.”
“Without Calia, there is no life for me. Either way, it seems my options are grim.”
She placed a hand over her heart, looking at me with all the pain in the world written across her face. For a moment, just a moment, guilt stirred as I stared into her tear-limned gaze. Knowing she was trying to save me from myself, I should have held my tongue. Only Jasper had grasped the depth of my despair, but I saw the moment Rowena’s keen mind finally understood.
She shook her head. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I said simply, letting her see every fractured, broken piece of me.
Calia’s almost death had irrevocably changed something inside of me. It did not matter that she was alive and well, nor that I knew the truth of what she was and what we could have been together. She was the gentle breeze ruffling my hair on a balmy summer’s night. A lover’s kiss to chase away the demons playing in the dark recesses of my mind. A steady heartbeat thrumming in my chest, keeping me from letting go entirely.
She was everything.
Rowena looked at me momentarily, studying me as though I was a stranger. Perhaps I was. I had certainly never made it easy for her to know me, choosing instead to keep her at arm’s length because I could not bear the thought of disappointing someone else. “Oh, Rion…” I hated how her voice softened and reminded me of what else I stood to lose if I was too late.
“Stop, Rowena. This conversation is over.” The declaration was more for me than her. The look on her face was breaking my fucking heart. She grieved for me, the brother who was so lost to grief that nothing could save him. “I am leaving.”
“No!” Her voice echoed through the air, a plea, but I had heard enough.
I had tasted my fair share of unsolicited advice on grief, the world dictating how I should behave. The shackles of guilt still clung to me like a curse. The weight of my mother’s venomous bullshit threatened to suck the air out of my lungs, and I was done with it all.
“Godsdammit,” I growled, pushing past her. “I understand your intentions, but my wife is at the mercy of that cunt, and I will be damned if I sit around and twiddle my thumbs, as you so eloquently put it.”
Calia’s fate hung in the balance. I did not know what my mother would do with unfettered access to her blood. While she may still need my participation to complete the ritual and break the curse, Leonora knew I would give myself over without protest to ensure no harm befell my wife.
She was, after all, my greatest weakness.
Rowena ran in front of me, grabbing my arm and digging her nails into my skin as she sought my attention. “I get it, brother, I really do. I’m just as worried about what could happen, but Calia is smart and resourceful.”
“This has nothing to do with being smart,” I snarled, ripping her hand away and storming past. Power rippled through my blood, and I felt the maelstrom of rage fighting for control. I never understood why I was like this. Why my emotions took over, blinding me to everything save for rage. I possessed no logic, no rational thought. I allowed feelings to make my choices, and those choices nearly always ended with bloodshed.
My mother certainly never cared—forcing me further into that darkness with each abuse rained down upon my flesh.
But I would let my emotions guide me now, holding the line between complete madness and utter desperation and hoping it would be enough to ensure Calia’s safety. Maybe it would be, because now one of the emotions was love.
I paused, turning to face my sister. “Leonora will stop at nothing, Rowena. You know it just as well as I.” A combination of the two was sure to spell disaster. She had shown her hand and had nothing left to lose. “Do not ask me to sit by in hopes the others are enough to stop her.”
She took a step forward. “And what would you do if I did?”
Was I in any shape to take on the full force of our mother? Of course not. I knew that. Felt every single ache and twinge of pain with the slightest movement. Fighting would be near impossible, and it very well may mean my death.
But to sit here and hope and do nothing? That death was inevitable.
Especially if we arrived too late.
I pulled her body to mine in a bone-crushing hug. “You cannot stop me,” I whispered, feeling her tremble beneath my touch. She pulled back, staring into the face of a monster who would stop at nothing to save the person they loved most.
Rowena realized too late that my embrace was not of comfort but necessity. She fought against my hold as I let my instinct take over and guide me. No matter how mad she would be with me when I got back, it would pale in comparison to the havoc I would unleash should anyone keep me from my wife.
Before she could blink, I sank my elongated canines into Rowena’s arm and allowed the blood lust to take over.
I racedthrough the streets of Kallistos at break-neck speed, ignoring the chorus of ‘fuck yous’ and squealing brakes that followed. Rowena had relented calling me after her other twenty-five calls had gone unanswered. She undoubtedly attempted to reach Jasper or Sloane to warn them I was coming, but it did not matter now.
Perhaps if they had not wanted me to follow them, they should not have left the map of the safehouse location behind like utter idiots.
And then there was Rowena—face gone slack as I gained sustenance from her. I had never taken blood without consent, let alone from another vampyre. Consuming the blood of our kind was often frowned upon, though not against the law, and was often only used in dire situations.
Imbued with the natural power flowing in our veins, vampyre blood was so much richer than that of any other creature. It increased our healing powers tenfold. We did not need to take much. In fact, the amount required was equivalent to a spoonful. I had taken far more than a spoonful.
My fingers flexed around the steering wheel, testing for signs of weakness. Despite what I had taken from Rowena, my body had not returned to its normal state. As though it had not wanted to heal at all.
Or perhaps it had been unable to, prohibited by whatever trap my mother had laid.
The small estate loomed ahead. My stomach dropped at what I beheld. Though I did not have the opportunity to explore much of the area when I had been here previously, I could sense the rotten magic coiling through the land all the same. Where there had once been lush, wild fields of tall green grass, now stood thick black weeds. If it had not been for the absence of smoke, I would have thought the earth charred.
The cottage stood untouched in the derelict space, its cheery exterior becoming an ominous beacon of the evil lurking within.
My car came to a screeching halt next to Jasper’s, sending a cloud of dust billowing into the air. I was out in an instant, prowling toward the doorway without consideration of my surroundings. I paid no heed to how my skin began burning beneath the last of the setting sun, the flaying pain inconsequential compared to the thought of being too late.
The house was deathly still. Through the door, the living room looked as though it had been hastily searched before being abandoned. Drawers jutted out from their confines, some broken and splintered on the ground. Their contents had been rifled through, now littering the space. It was ordinary junk—the type amassed by people who had spent their life living. Oddly disturbed, I realized how little of me filled the mansion I called home. It could have been a museum.
Nothing in that prison was mine except for the bad memories that haunted the halls.
The basement hatch was wide open, a discarded rug pushed to the side. I stepped closer, peering into the inky darkness below, recoiling as the overwhelming scent of copper hit my senses.
Blood.
There was no time to question whose it was as a scream pierced the evening air and rattled the cottage windows.
Gods… Oh, gods. Was I too late?
I took the basement stairs two at a time, allowing the resonating agony of my footfalls to guide me where I needed to go. It was Calia, I knew it in my fucking bones. But where was she? Where was?—
Overhead, the stream of light from the cottage cut off, plunging me into complete darkness. The hatch had been shut—the telltale sound of a lock clicking into place. I stumbled on the last step, barely avoiding a face-first tumble to the ground with an outstretched hand.
“Shit,” I cursed, pushing off the wall. My palm came away sticky, the scent of copper overwhelmingly close. Reaching into my pocket, I gripped my phone and turned on the light to examine the space.
The wall was stained crimson, the blood still fresh as it crept down the cold brick walls. It pooled beneath my feet, saturating the bottoms of my shoes. The scent began clouding my senses, urging me to hunt.
To kill.
I needed to find my family, but I was stopped by a still, prone form slumped on the floor. My hand gripped their shoulder, stiff with rigor, and turned their face towards mine. Brielle’s face stared up at me with dead, milky eyes.
One hand clutched at her slit throat while the other was outstretched, as though she had spent her last moments reaching for something or someone. Another scream sounded from the darkness, and I hesitated, looking between the body and whatever awaited me in the unknown.
I hated leaving her like this. She did not deserve to lie in the dirt in a pool of her own blood, but I could not linger. I reached out, grazing the tips of my fingers over her eyes to close them. It was not enough, but it was the least I could offer for what she had given.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “For everything.”