Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-eight
Emery
“Estrelle?” I asked gently and carefully sat on the edge of the bed.
I gazed at her wispy gray hair, the lines marring her paper-thin skin, and the shadows under each of her eyes.
Her still-intelligent brown-amber gaze that reminded me so much of her sister.
She looked far older than Esther, but I wasn’t surprised if this was how she’d lived for the past thirty years or more.
She stared at me. “I’m a friend of Esther’s. ”
“Enough,” Alessandro snapped out, and Estrelle cringed back, wrapping her arms around her middle and rocking back and forth. I rounded on him.
“What the hell are you doing? Why is she here?”
“Because it is impractical to use human females to breed,” Alessandro said, like it was nothing. “But she has succumbed to the heat curse. She went into first heat at twenty-five human years, but that has been her only time.”
“But chained?” I spat out and reached out for her hand. Estrelle looked at it like I was going to bite, and Alessandro stared at her in disgust.
“She would’ve been a queen,” he said with a sneer.
“But she betrayed me with my heir. Death is too easy for such, and I cannot allow her to shift.” Was that what the collar did?
Something crossed Alessandro’s face I couldn’t put a name to.
He was supposed to be free of emotion, but he definitely felt something. Even if it was just hate.
“I don’t understand,” Ben said, bewildered. “How can she be my mother?”
“She isn’t mine?” Even I could hear the longing in Rhys’s voice.
“No,” Alessandro answered coolly. “The human slave that birthed you died like all the rest, but fortunately, you survived.” He paused. “You were the only one. I believe it was because you were bred with a weak human you inherited all my gifts. The shifter genes poisoned my other.”
He meant Ben. Even I was stunned by his callousness.
Ben took a hesitant step forward. I tensed, because I just wasn’t sure about any of this. “Stay near me, Ben,” I said. Ben nodded and tentatively reached for Estrelle’s hand, but she snatched it back.
“No, no, no,” she chanted and continued rocking. It broke my heart.
“If the pack had known about her abilities, they would’ve locked her away,” Alessandro said. He said it like it was something of no consequence.
“Abilities?” I repeated. Esther told me Estrelle had strong visions, but she never mentioned she could do anything else. And I remembered the conversation I had with Esther about witches all those weeks ago. How she intimated that her grandmother had talents, and that Estrelle took after her.
“Come,” Alessandro said to Rhys, ignoring my question. “You don’t need to be concerned with this.”
“Wait,” Rhys said, and the four silver-skins stared in amazement because Rhys hadn’t immediately obeyed his father. “I want to know why she’s here. How did she betray you?”
“Do as I say,” Alessandro snapped.
“No. You insist I’m your heir, so prove it and explain.” Rhys’s eyes flashed, and Valentin stepped toward him. Rhys glanced at Valentin and snarled. “Try it.” Valentin stared at Rhys in shock and looked at Alessandro for direction.
Alessandro smiled. “Good. There may be hope for you yet.” He glanced at Estrelle. “She is responsible for your brother.”
I opened my mouth to say something like I was pretty sure it was a joint effort, but on this occasion, I managed to close it without any words of wisdom escaping.
“What do you mean, responsible for me?” Ben asked.
“She took you away from me. You have my blood, but she may have bound your talents. It’s the other possibility.”
I stared at Estrelle in astonishment, but she acted as if she wasn’t even listening, just continued rocking where she sat. Alessandro sent her a disgusted look.
“That’s impossible,” Rhys said. “She’s just a shifter.”
Alessandro shook his head. “No, she’s far more. I knew when I tested her. Her susceptibility to my powers was extraordinary. The wise ones of our coven had foreseen a witch, and I knew it was she. She could have been amazing. We could have ruled the earth together. But her mind was weak.”
“She’s been here in this room all this time?” Rhys asked.
Alessandro nodded. “She’s no innocent. Who do you think stopped the females from going into heat? Petty revenge on me that backfired and will be responsible for the shifters dying out and the humans being enslaved.”
Rhys opened his mouth to say something, but Alessandro grabbed his arm, and all three vanished.
I took a breath, then glanced back at Estrelle. She raised her head and turned her full focus on Ben. In that moment, she didn’t look confused. She just looked haunted.
Ben swallowed. “He says you’re my mom.” And he reached out again.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, and Ben drew his arm back and jumped up like he’d been shot. The hope on his face blanked, and he stepped away, then his eyes fell on the untouched food. Taking a hunk of bread, he sniffed it.
“Ben,” I said nervously. “I don’t think—”
“It isn’t poisoned.”
I whipped my head around to stare at the woman who’d spoken. “How do you know?”
Ben carelessly tossed it back on the plate.
“Because they want me alive. I don’t eat until they force me to.” She looked at Ben. “Alessandro has tried many illusions to fool me, but I think you’re the most creative.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing this was getting out of hand. “You’re Esther’s sister? I’m Emery, Phoenix’s mate.” Although she wouldn’t know who Phoenix was.
She turned to me. “You’re no shifter. That’s why I know you’re an illusion. Don’t bother.”
“I’m a human omega, apparently.” I wrinkled my nose. Was that what Esther had decided on? “I honestly have no idea if I have any shifter in me because I was adopted, but we have a blood bond, and I just gave birth to a daughter.”
Estrelle sucked in a breath, and her eyes widened. “You’re the blood-bonded?”
“Wait,” Ben said and came closer to me. “You’re a guy,” he said accusingly. “I thought you’d adopted her or something.”
It would have been funny if—oh fudge, it kind of was still funny. “That’s why you always saw me sitting down or covered with blankets, and also, to my eternal shame, why I had to avoid you after you moved in with Matthew and Isla.”
“You’re the blood-bonded?” Estrelle whispered. “That cannot be. I told no one what I foresaw. He cannot…”
“That’s what the pack says,” I said, thinking Estrelle didn’t sound as confused as she had been. “Esther told me about you,” I said. “About the lilies.” If she could have gotten any paler, she would have
“Esther?”
I nodded. Hesitated. “And Simeon,” I said gently. And her lips parted, but no sound came out.
Ben inched closer, and she stared at him. “I don’t know for sure, but either way, you cannot touch me.”
“Why?” I asked. Because Ben thought she was rejecting him, but I thought there was more to it.
She looked at the door, then back at me. Then, shook her head. “I was desperate,” she whispered. “I just wanted to end the rape, even if they killed me. I hoped they would kill me.” I took her hand again. “I wanted to stop my own heats. I had no idea it would affect the others.”
“We’re going to get out of here.”
She glanced at Ben, who was staring at her.
“How do you know?” Ben said. “I always knew my father wasn’t my dad, but I really thought my mom was my mom.”
“Your scent,” she said simply.
Ben looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded. I knew that was true.
“Tell me you were happy,” she begged. And I saw Ben gaze at her for a long moment.
“Very happy.” Her eyes lit up even as a tear escaped, and I could have kissed Ben for lying.
“You’re putting on an act.” I knew she was. I had no idea how she kept it up, but Alessandro thought her insane, and she was far from it.
“Am I?” she said quietly. “Maybe I don’t know what’s real and what’s an illusion anymore.”
“Why can’t I touch you?” Ben asked, with open agony on his face.
“Because I don’t know what will reverse the bond. I was young, and I was desperate. Mari agreed to take you to safety, to the shifters, so I just did what I thought.” She paused. “And I have no idea how to reverse it.”
Then Alessandro, Valentin, and another couple of vampires I didn’t know appeared and grabbed for us, and Estrelle started screaming.
Phoenix
Shifters could run fast, not as fast as silver-skins, but once I’d identified Em’s scent, I sped up.
I knew Matthew was just managing to keep up, and I had to keep slowing to make sure I didn’t lose him.
I also knew that my blood bond made me faster, but I was afraid I would lose Em’s scent if I didn’t hurry.
And after what seemed way too long, I abruptly stopped, gazing at the building in front of me.
I wouldn’t classify it as a palace or a castle, despite its size.
It looked more like a dungeon, but above ground.
Carved into the rock, but no windows, or towers, just stone, one after another, and a bleak mist hung in swathes from the rock surrounding it.
Matthew came to a stop beside me and stared. “Really?” he said doubtfully, and I agreed.
“I once heard humans lived here,” I said, wondering if they’d built it. I couldn’t see Alessandro soiling his hands. But if it was humans, they would have needed windows and doors.
“Now what?” Matthew asked, and I inhaled.
“I’m going to follow his scent.” That was it. The start and end of my plan. I glanced at Matthew. “I think—”
“Nope,” he said. “Let’s face it. However he does it, Emery will be with Ben.” Which was true. “So we just walk in the front door?”
“Can you see a door?” I asked doubtfully. Wondering if my plan—if you could call it that—was going to fail before we even got inside.
Matthew seemed to consider that as we eyed the smooth stone surface with no obvious entry points. “We know they’re masters of illusion. If I were you, I’d just follow my nose. It got us this far.”