Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The three of them gathered in what must have been the cells of the castle. Or perhaps a torture chamber, given the sharp, wicked-looking devices along the walls and the chains dangling from the ceiling. The creature’s body was splayed out on a steel table, its head next to it.
“What are we looking at?” Cassius asked, eyeing the dead thing. At least he’d put a shirt on, which did nothing to hide his physique as he crossed his arms over his chest. He’d cleaned the blood from his face too.
Keegan moved to the table. Various instruments littered the top, as if waiting to dissect it. Thalia resisted the urge to shiver.
“This thing is dead, right?” Keegan asked, and Cassius and Thalia exchanged a glance.
“Yes,” Cassius said, eyes narrowing.
“But watch this.” Keegan moved the head closer to the severed neck.
As soon as they were a hairbreadth apart, the muscle and tendons shot out like little vines. Thalia started as the separate pieces of flesh began to reach for each other, almost stitching themselves together the same way Cassius’s skin had stitched itself.
“What the fuck?” Thalia breathed as Keegan ripped the head away, the tendons and muscles falling flat against the table, shriveled up like dried worms.
“Do you think it can come back to life?” Cassius asked, stepping deeper into the room.
Keegan placed the head a good distance away from the creature’s body. “I don’t know, but given the fact it did that, anything is possible.”
“You said it was near impossible to kill, at least the mother. What happened to the spawn near Cupisco?” Thalia eyed the creature.
Cassius looked to Keegan, who shook his head, saying, “They burned it to ash.” Cassius seemed to relax slightly at the information.
Keegan went on, “I sent word to Lord Damien about this spawn. We need to be more vigilant in combing the forest. At least catching them young, we have some sort of chance in killing them.”
But it wouldn’t matter, not if the mother was still breeding in Chaménos.
Thalia shuddered, but she pushed aside Cassius’s sudden concern as she moved closer.
Up close, and without the fear of being maimed, Thalia studied the creature.
It was already as big as a dog; she couldn’t fathom how big the mother must be.
At least the size of a horse. And given the difficulty in killing it …
She pressed her fingers against its flesh, surprised to find it cold and slimy. “Have you figured out what it is?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Keegan shake his head. “This is the first one we’ve been able to kill and keep the remains of.”
She pursed her lips, and Cassius cut in, “Send word to Camilla. She’ll know more than anyone what sort of creature this could be. And clear out the castle, if this thing still poses a threat …”
“Both are already done,” Keegan replied.
Thalia ran her hand over its hide, feeling the strange musculature, avoiding its claws, which were as sharp as blades. She moved around the table until she came to the head.
Its mouth was closed, the tendons of its neck hanging like strips of ribbon. Where eyes would have been, there were merely indentations in its skull, meaning it relied solely on smell. Given its long snout, that wasn’t surprising.
“What about its teeth?” Thalia asked, turning to the two Vampyrs.
“What about them?” Keegan’s lips pursed.
“Its bite causes madness, right?” The two Vampyrs nodded. “What if there was a way to extract the poison so you can test out potential cures?”
Cassius raised an approving brow as Keegan shook his head. “I tried prying the mouth open, but it won’t budge.”
“What do you mean?”
Keegan went to the wall, grabbing a pair of metal pliers. He tried shoving them between the creature’s lips, but he couldn’t pry its jaws apart. It was if the creature’s mouth had been fused together.
“Let me try.” Cassius stepped in. But even with their combined strength, its mouth wouldn’t open.
They stopped only when the pliers snapped in half.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Thalia said as Cassius chucked the pliers into the corner.
He cast her an annoyed look. “I didn’t see you stepping in to help.”
She rolled her eyes, nudging him out of the way so she could get a better peek at its head. Thalia crouched down so she was at eye level, placing her hand on top of its smooth skull. “Why won’t you open?”
The creature’s jaw popped open, its tongue unfurling. Thalia yelped, jumping back and hitting the hard planes of Cassius’s chest.
“How did you do that?” Keegan asked from across the table, his blade drawn. Thalia shook her head, just as confused as them.
Cassius kept hold of her waist, leaning closer. “The poison is still in the teeth.”
Indeed, a greenish sheen seemed to glow within the creature’s sharp rows of canines. He reached out a hand, but Thalia stopped him.
“You shouldn’t touch it.” She gave him a look, then glanced at Keegan. “Neither of you. If the poison is still in its teeth, that means there’s still a chance that if it gets in you, you’ll go mad.”
Cassius pulled back his hand. “When will Camilla get here?”
“I sent a raven an hour ago. But given the flight from Perden, probably two days,” Keegan said.
Cassius cursed, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “We need to get it extracted now. Only so it can be ready for her when she arrives.”
Both Vampyrs stared at the creature. It seemed they would have to pull straws of hay to see who got the task.
“I’ll do it,” Thalia blurted out.
Cassius turned to her. “What?”
“I’ll do it. If its teeth somehow cut me, I’m not a Vampyr; it won’t affect me.”
“We don’t know what it will do to a human,” Cassius said lowly. “The poison could still affect you, just in a different manner.”
Thalia shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?” Keegan asked, curiosity lighting his handsome features.
“In the forest, there was a moment where it had me cornered but it didn’t attack me,” Thalia said, thinking back to when the creature had pressed its snout against her chest. Almost like it recognized her in some manner.
Cassius crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. But I’m doing it; it’s less of a risk.”
They glared at each other, tension rising.
Finally, Keegan broke the silence. “Thalia is right, Cass. It’s less of a risk if she does it. Once those teeth are out, we can at least burn the head. Then Camilla can do what she needs to with the teeth and body.”
A muscle flickered in Cassius’s jaw before he finally tipped his chin. “Fine.”
Thalia turned back to the creature, its mouth open and gleaming. “So where do we start?”
Thalia meticulously pulled the teeth out of the creature’s jaw, putting them in glass jars.
It had rows of teeth, on both its top and bottom jaws, and Thalia had to be careful not to let anything prick her.
While she didn’t think the poison would affect her as a human, she wasn’t particularly keen on discovering whether she was wrong.
Thalia wiped the sweat off her brow, plunking another tooth into the jar. Cassius watched her intently, his eyes near glowing.
Thalia blew a strand of hair that’d fallen into her face. The strand wouldn’t budge. She made a face, blowing harder as she tried to swipe the hair with her arm.
“Do you—” Cassius started, but Thalia cast him a sharp look. He raised his hands in surrender. “Never mind.”
Finally, Thalia managed to get the damn hair out of her face and focused back on the creature’s mouth.
“Your hair is the longest I’ve seen it,” Cassius said from his spot on the stairs.
Thalia glanced up. They hadn’t said much since she’d begun, but she’d heard the occasional scrape of his whetstone against his blade between the plinking of teeth.
He’d sent Keegan away to rest. The golden-eyed Vampyr had seemed reluctant, until Cassius reminded him that not only had they been up half the night tramping after the creature, but he’d also given him his blood.
Keegan finally relented, with the promise to return to switch shifts.
“I started growing it out.” Thalia didn’t add that she started growing it out the minute he’d left. Because she’d always had short hair when she’d been with Cassius, the strands barely brushing her collarbone. Now it hung at least to her waist when she left it down.
“I like it,” Cassius said.
Thalia tried to ignore him, working to extract another tooth. The small pliers she held scraped as she wiggled it out of the creature’s gums.
“What else has changed?” Cassius broke the silence.
“What do you mean?” Thalia’s brows furrowed. This damn tooth—
“Back home.”
Home.
Thalia jerked, pulling the tooth with her. She dropped it into the jar, trying to ignore the emotions rising in her chest.
She worked her jaw, unsure whether or not to share, but at this point, what harm could there be? “Reina is captain now.”
“I know,” Cassius said, and Thalia glanced up at the fondness in his tone.
Of course he knew. He’d been to the damn castle and had seen her himself.
Reina had always wanted to move up. The castle guard wasn’t an easy role, and during Thalia’s father’s reign, women weren’t expected or asked to join.
But Cassius had seen her on the city watch and invited her to join the royal guard, and she’d worked her way up from there.
Thalia swallowed, pushing aside the tightness in her throat. “Marcus is head librarian.”
Cassius chuckled softly. “I know that too. It’s about damn time.” Once more there was a kind of pride in his voice that had Thalia’s chest aching.
“Then I suppose you know everything that’s new,” Thalia got out, turning back to the creature.
“What about you?” Cassius said quietly.
“What about me?”
“What changed besides the hair?”
Thalia straightened, eyeing him, debating whether or not he was messing with her.
But there was genuine openness in his face.
It reminded her of what it had been like when they were together.
When Thalia would complain and gripe about Agripa and her mother’s lack of care over her people.
And Cassius would listen, not judging or pushing, merely being the person Thalia could go to with any problem, any grievance, no matter how small.
Thalia cleared her throat. “Nothing.”
She turned back to the head, pulling out more teeth. She’d made it through the top jaw and now was starting on the bottom.
“You seem calmer,” Cassius said.
Thalia made a face, yanking out a canine with more force than necessary. “Do I?”
Cassius snorted. “Maybe calmer isn’t the word. But more … grounded. Older, more mature.”
Thalia looked up at him, exasperation dancing on the tip of her tongue.
“No shit. That’s what happens when you’re forced to grow up.
When you’re forced to deal with betrayal.
” She stared at him, now finding his gaze guarded, if not a bit pained.
She let out a bitter laugh. “What are we doing here, Cassius?”
“I’m trying to have a conversation with you—”
“No, you’re not,” Thalia cut in. She set the pliers down with a harsh clink. “What is it you want? Do you want to be friends again? Is that it?”
“Yes,” Cassius said without missing a beat.
“Why?”
“Because I miss you,” he said softly. “I miss talking with you. I miss being in your presence. I miss the smell of your jasmine perfume, and the way your nose quirks right before you laugh. I miss how you’d tease Marcus whenever he showed us some new information he’d found lost in the library.
I miss watching you train with Reina. I miss how you used to look at me.
Not with hatred but with something else. I miss you.”
Thalia met his open stare, the pain and regret etching itself across his handsome features like lines in the sand. “Then stop.”
She watched her words land, and Cassius didn’t react. Didn’t so much as flinch. But something guttered in his irises. Something so raw it was as if she’d plunged her dagger straight into his heart.
“We are not friends, Cassius. You chose this. And once the prince returns, this”—she gestured between the two of them—“won’t be of consequence anymore.”
Cassius’s throat bobbed, and he stiffly stood, gathering his blades in hand. He looked over his shoulder at the top of the stairs. “I told you that I don’t regret my decision in turning, but I do regret one thing.”
Thalia swallowed. “And what is that?”
Cassius met her gaze. “I regret that it’s caused you so much pain.
I know you’re not ready to hear what happened, and I respect that—hell.
” He huffed out a laugh, looking to the ceiling.
“It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.
That tenacious fierceness you have when you’ve made your mind up about something. ”
He met her gaze once more. “I still love you. I don’t say this because I want anything from you. Friendship or otherwise. You can hate me for the rest of your life, but that love hasn’t changed, and it never will.”
He opened the door, the coldness of the castle seeping in. “I came to you that night four years ago not to betray you, but because I wanted to say goodbye. I knew you’d try to kill me once you saw what I’d become, but I wanted you to know that I still loved you. Even as this.”
Thalia’s throat had tightened with near unspeakable pain as Cassius quietly left, leaving her stuck with the dead creature and the poison festering on the table.