Chapter Five A Fate Worse Than Death
Chapter Five
A Fate Worse Than Death
I wake to strong arms around me.
For just an instant, my heart leaps in anticipation, and my eyes snap open to find—
Blue irises.
“Reid,” I breathe, and it tastes like disappointment.
Expression fierce, he holds me in a bridal carry and watches Lou at the door, where she stands with her back to us and her hands planted on her hips, entire body bristling with indignation. I look away hastily. I focus on Reid’s jaw instead. He must’ve caught me when I collapsed, and—and that was quite gallant of him. Quite nice. He appears to be feeling better since I closed the veil. His color has returned, and his movements feel steady.
Peering up at him through my lashes, I hold my own body perfectly still and inconspicuous. Perhaps I could simply—simply close my eyes and pretend I haven’t awoken. No one would need to know otherwise. No one would ever suspect. It would be for the betterment of everyone, really, if I just stayed silent—asleep, even—while Lou handles our unexpected caller. Yes. I nod inwardly and squeeze my eyes shut once more. Lou seems much stronger now too, so I should probably just—
“I know you’re awake, Célie.”
Low and pleasant, too pleasant—almost conversational—Michal’s voice sends gooseflesh down my nape. I shiver despite myself. The last time I heard that voice, I hovered above him, watching as he dragged his broken body to my own, as he brought his blood to my lips and whispered, Please stay. He turned me into a vampire that night. He broke his every conviction to save me.
Then he sent me away.
I keep my eyes firmly shut.
“Come now, pet,” he says, coaxing, his eyes boring almost painfully into my cheek. He must see how I shiver at the endearment—how Reid’s arms tighten around me in response—because his voice darkens slightly as he says, “You’ve never been a coward before. Don’t start on my behalf.”
“You don’t get to say that.” Lou’s sharp voice cuts like a knife through the heavy tension in the room. Whatever ailed her during the séance has clearly passed. “You don’t get to speak to her at all. We had an agreement , Michal, that you’d respect her wishes and leave her alone—”
“—with the provision that you’d care for her.” Though he speaks to Lou, I can still feel his gaze; it remains fixed upon my face, willing me to look at him. And a small, shameless part of me wants to do just that. The larger part, however, is just as cowardly as he says—because I can’t look at him now. After everything that happened between us on Requiem, I just can’t . “A mistake, clearly,” he murmurs, “as it seems you’ve indulged her death wish.” Then, softer still, and directed at me, “When have you last fed?”
My throat closes in answer, but as always, Lou rises to the occasion, despite the feeble thrum of her heart. Every muscle in Reid’s body tenses as she snarls, “She doesn’t want to talk to you, and if you really think she has a death wish, I don’t blame her. You’ll talk to me now. And how dare you make assumptions about how we’ve cared for Célie? You have no idea what she’s been through—”
“And you do?”
At the dangerous note in his voice, gooseflesh creeps farther down my spine. Though that larger part begs me to keep my eyes closed—to ignore him in hopes this entire situation will just go away —the smaller part knows Michal better. If he came here, he came for a reason, and he won’t leave until revealing it.
Just like that, I can no longer resist the temptation. Still holding my breath, I peek at him through my lashes.
And there he is.
All my thoughts take flight at the sight of him, a portrait of fury come to life—so much larger, somehow, than in my memories. So much darker. Like an avenging angel or primordial deity. Cloaked all in black, his silver hair loose, he shouldn’t exist in such a mundane place—shouldn’t exist outside myths and legends—yet he does.
And he is devastating .
“There’s nothing you can do for her, Michal,” Lou says, bristling at his unspoken challenge. “You should leave before I get angry.”
“Spoken like a child,” Michal says, “who has never seen true anger.”
Lou’s fingers twitch. “I am not a child—”
“Then invite me inside.”
“Not a chance.”
Dripping wet from the rain and wreathed in night, Michal grips the doorframe with thinly veiled restraint. Arms rigid. Shoulders bowed. The wood still buckles under the pressure, however, and hairline cracks feather outward from his fingertips. He glares at Lou with a threat of violence. “There are remains of a pentagram on your table, Louise le Blanc, and your kitchen tastes of roses and blood. Though I dare not assume the damage you’ve done tonight, Célie should not require your husband to remain upright.” Those black eyes find mine then, as lightning flashes behind him. They glitter with malevolence—at me, at Reid, at the broken candles and bloody pentagram behind us. “You’ve been very foolish,” he says quietly, “endangering yourself and everyone around you.”
Heat washes through me at that. Sharp, vitriolic heat. It purges all instinct to hide. Indeed, it purges all instinct to do anything except wrap my hands around his throat. “ Me? ” I snarl, pushing from Reid’s arms between one blink and the next. Only Michal’s eyes are fast enough to follow the movement—which they do, narrowing to slits as I stagger beneath a wave of light-headedness. I push Reid’s hand away when he tries to steady me. “That’s rich coming from the vampire who swore never to create another because—and I quote—ours is a fate worse than death . Do you remember that, Michal? Or”—I lurch closer, sidestepping Coco and Beau as they too reach out to help me—“do you just not care about my fate? Did you not care about Mila’s ?”
Michal’s face hardens instantly.
Too far.
But—no. I shake my head viciously. I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care if I hurt him. This is all his fault, and my fangs lengthen as I stumble into Lou, as she snakes an arm around my waist and smells like temptation. Like oblivion. With a violent throb of my head, I push her away too. Because she cannot touch me either—no one can ever touch me again—and I clench my mouth shut, yearning to wrench each hideous tooth from my jaw. To break them, to shatter them. To ground them to dust beneath my boot.
When I tilt forward against the doorframe, stars erupt across my vision, and the wood cracks beneath Michal’s hands. Eyes blazing, he strains forward slightly as if trying to reach me, but an invisible force holds him back. And I relish it. I relish that control. “You left me,” I whisper. “You turned me into this ”—I gesture to my face, my body, both familiar yet not—“and you sent me away.”
“I’m not the one who left, Célie,” he says darkly.
“I never wanted to be like you.”
“Should I have let you die instead?”
“I did die!” The words burst from me like a dam breaking, and I flatten my hand on my bodice, directly above where my heart should beat in my chest. Where it will never beat again. As always, Michal tracks my every movement, but this time—this time he swallows hard and looks away, as if he can no longer stand the sight of me. I can no longer stand it either. “This body—it doesn’t belong to me, Michal. It is aberrant to me. It craves blood—just like you and the rest of your wretched kin—which means I can never trust it.” When he opens his mouth to argue, I shake my head again, stars whirling, and speak over him. “You said so yourself—vampires lose control when they feed; it’s why you were so angry with me after I healed you in that attic. You knew I put myself at risk. You knew you could’ve taken more than I wanted to give, and you were right.” My voice rises at the last, breaks at the last, and intolerable pressure builds behind my eyes as I open my mouth to say, “ God , you were right”—
And choke on an open flame instead.
The words blister my throat, hotter than Hellfire, and I gasp in pain, in shock —the only sound I can make as I clutch at my collar. I expect to see smoke. There is none, however—no fire either—and Michal’s eyes soften inexplicably as he watches me. They fill with pity. With remorse. Almost like he—like he knows what I just tried to say.
“What is it, Célie?” Lou’s hand hovers, outstretched, as if she stopped herself from touching me at the last second. “What happened?”
“I c-couldn’t— I tried to—”
Michal’s fingers tighten on the doorframe. He tears his gaze away to stare resolutely over my shoulder. “Speak the Lord’s name?”
Even a mention of God sends a phantom flame through me. Wincing, I stare at Michal in horrified disbelief as my own fingers wrap around my throat. As they cradle it helplessly. “H-How did you know that? What is h-h- happening to me?”
He still refuses to meet my gaze. His jaw, however, clenches. “Vampires cannot speak of holy ones.”
“Then how did you ?” Coco asks accusingly.
“I’ve had many years to practice.”
The floor starts to tilt again as I consider the implications of such a phenomenon. “You mean I can n-never say H-H-His”—but fresh flames shoot up my throat, and I cry out, doubling over—“n-name again?”
“It’s all right, Célie.” Unable to stop herself now, Lou places a comforting hand on my back. It still reeks of blood. “You don’t need to say his name to believe.”
The others’ voices quickly join hers in a chorus of bittersweet lies.
“Yes,” Coco says. “Everything will be fine. This changes nothing—”
“Just breathe, Célie,” Reid says. “Just breathe .”
But I can’t breathe—I don’t need to breathe—and I—I—I claw at my chest, at my too-still heart, and will it to beat again. Yours will be a fate worse than death.
Michal’s words echo back to me as if from very far away, in another time. In another life.
“I’m sorry, Célie,” he says now, and he means it.
I know he means it.
My chest still heaves with anger as I lift my head to look at him, tears spilling down my cheeks. And in this moment, I might hate him—this beautiful, terrible angel who plummeted to Hell and dragged me down with him. How could I have known what awaited us when I promised to stay with him? He didn’t tell me—I didn’t ask—and now both of us must pay the price. My sister’s old adage rises through the roar in my ears as he finally, finally , deigns to look at me, his black eyes glinting with unspoken emotion.
You can’t get something for nothing, you know.
A bitter laugh rises in my throat, following the trail of Hellfire. “You might think I have a death wish, Michal, but we both know you’ve already granted it. I am dead. I’ve been dead since the moment I met you.”
His expression shutters at the words.
It becomes perfectly, infuriatingly unreadable.
“Célie,” Odessa murmurs.
I didn’t notice her move behind me, and my body reacts instinctively; with a hiss, I tense and half turn to defend myself, stopping short at the sight of her concern. Concern. My lip curls. As if she cares about what happens to me, as if she doesn’t long to return to Requiem and her monstrous kin. I want to snap at her too. I want to strike, to bite —to goad someone into fighting back—yet I whirl to Michal instead, snarling, “Why are you here ?”
He stares at me for a long, impenetrable moment. Then—
“The dead have risen on Requiem.” Despite Odessa’s gasp, he speaks the words calmly, almost coolly, and releases his hold on the doorframe. “Scores of them. Your blood spilled in the grotto during our confrontation with Frederic, animating both the isle and the waters surrounding it.”
Absolute silence meets his pronouncement.
Animating. I frown at the word, but before I can ask, Beau clears his throat from where he hovers near the kitchen table. “Dead as in—er, different than how you are dead, right?”
Reid glares at him.
Coco, however, recoils suddenly and whispers, “Revenants.”
Michal’s gaze snaps to hers. “What?”
“Revenants,” she says, louder now and wide-eyed. “There have always been whispers among les Dames Rouges, but no one except La Voisin ever—and even she—” Forcing herself to pause, to collect herself, Coco swallows hard and looks directly at me. “I saw the spell once in my aunt’s grimoire. When I asked her about it, she shooed me from her tent and forbade me from speaking of it. I think it was the only spell she ever feared.”
The first tingles of dread lift the hair at my nape. “What exactly is a revenant?”
“A person who has returned. A reanimated corpse. One who has died and risen again with the express purpose of terrorizing the living, particularly those the corpse in question once knew.”
A cold fist of terror squeezes my heart as the two of us stare at each other in dawning realization. Filippa.
“Oh,” Beau says in a small voice. “Is that all?”
“No.” Michal clasps his hands behind his back, surveying all of us with hideous apathy. “I assume even you grasp a basic understanding of your kingdom’s geography. Requiem shares the Eastern Sea with Belterra, which means—”
Understanding spills over me like ice water, and I gasp at the sheer shock of it. “My blood could’ve traveled here too.”
Michal nods curtly. “Yes.”
“The grave robbers,” Lou says abruptly, turning to Reid with wide eyes. “You don’t think it was really—?”
His brows snap together as he considers the possibility, and my stomach plunges to the floor. “Shit,” he breathes.
“Wait a moment.” Beau steps forward, and his entire demeanor shifts as he looks between us. His gaze darkens. His jaw hardens. He points a finger at the dark street behind Michal, and all traces of the frightened young man vanish, leaving someone else entirely in their wake. “Are you saying revenants could be crawling through Belterra right now?” When Michal nods again, Beau walks straight forward until he stands beside us. “What exactly does terrorize the living look like? Are these creatures—are they hurting people? Why haven’t we seen one?”
No one wants to answer that, so I answer it instead. “Because you’ve been trapped inside this house with me.”
Beau looks instantly contrite. “Célie—”
Something shuffles overhead before he can console me, however, and a split second later—too fast for even the vampires to react—a shadow drops from the roof, plunging a skeletal hand into Michal’s back.