Chapter 36
Daxen
”I’ll tell you what, the Irish are a bunch of drunk assholes, but their stories are on point,” Riven mutters, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms out with an exaggerated groan.
”What now? I can’t handle any more drama today.”
I push a stack of books to the side and rub my eyes. Words are starting to blur.
After our little breakthrough with what Riven is now referring to as “The Prophecy,” I spent the last few hours rereading all the copies I could find of The Song of Light in case we missed anything.
Riven scoffs. “Do I need to remind you that no one was being dramatic today except you?”
”I was not being dramatic,” I grouse.
Just because the Omega couldn’t handle harsh words doesn’t make me a monster like Riven implied.
Fine. He didn’t imply it. He straight-up called us monsters. But he wasn’t there when we pulled Caelan’s silver-infected body out of Varenthrall’s. He didn’t have to hold his screaming packmate down in the back of a vehicle while he was burning alive from the inside out.
I’ll never forget those screams.
“I found a few stories written in an old journal by young Miss Sorcha Byrne.” Riven pauses. “I suppose she wouldn’t be young anymore. She’s actually probably dead. These entries are over a century old.”
”Get on with it, Riv.”
Every time he found something he thought was interesting, the lead-up to the reveal took forever.
He shrugs and sets the book down. “Not much to tell. Sorcha claims her grandmother said their family was something called Watchers. There are a couple of entries where she talks about ley lines in the area. I was cross-checking, and they seem to match up. Which gives credence to her grandmother’s tales. ”
He stands, throwing another log into the fire. Sparks fly over the grate, and it pops and crackles before settling down.
Damnit. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but somehow I knew it would.
“Byrne?” I ask with a defeated sigh.
“Why? Do you know her?” Riven raises a brow. “I wasn’t aware any of your dalliances had been from Ireland around then, Daxen.”
He never turns it off. The desire to squeeze information out of every conversation.
Rather than responding, I make my way to the stack of journals I found yesterday.
I’ve been telling myself all day that they’ve always been here and I just never noticed, because the fact that random journals appeared the same day as Benedict’s set my teeth on edge.
I snatch one off the bottom of the small stack and set it in front of Riven before I pour myself a drink and fall back into the soft leather of the couch, watching the fire crackle in the hearth.
“What’s this?”
“Found it yesterday.” I eye him over my tumbler. “I’ve only flipped through to see if I recognized who they belonged to.”
I point at the book in his hands. “That is the journal of Bríd Byrne. Dated from the 1860’s. So, more than likely, she’s Sorcha’s grandmother.”
Riven drops down next to me and snatches the journal. “Why didn’t you think to bring this up this morning?”
I groan and throw my head back. “Because I was freaked the fuck out, alright? And yeah, before you say anything, I know how that sounds coming from me.” I drag a hand down my face.
“I kept telling myself they weren’t relevant.
Figured if we hit a wall and had nothing left, I’d bring them out and act as if I’d just found them. Or remembered them. Or… whatever.”
Riven stares at me with his mouth parted in shock.
“Spare me the judgment. I’ve been spending the last two weeks trying to duct-tape this place together to keep it from falling apart.”
I take a long drag of my drink. “I know you think I’m too hard on the Omega…
and maybe I am. But I’ve got two Bastards in Chicago, our Last Shield running everything on his own and delegating most shit to me, one packmate on life-support and the other turning everything into a circus act in a self-appointed attempt to keep me from spiraling. ”
I pause, jaw tight. “Vae thinks I don’t see him watching her.
I have to be hard on her because if I let up for one damn second, she’ll slip through the cracks, and Caelan will never get justice.
We may never get the rest of the names on that list. Her father could walk away unscathed, or worse.
She could sweet-talk her way into escaping. So yeah, I’m a fucking asshole. It’s—”
“It’s the one thing you have control over,” Riven cuts in, proving how see-through my actions really are.
“Yeah,” I wince, rolling my glass between my palms. “And we all see how well that’s going.”
Riven hums low in his throat, fingers tapping a beat on the back of the couch. Finally, he faces me and very seriously says, “I’m sorry I punched you.”
“No, you’re not.”
Riven’s smile is a little bit feral. “No. I’m not. You have a very punchable face.”
I laugh. Somehow, it was exactly the right thing to say.
“Alright,” he slaps his palms on his thighs. “Let’s see what Nana Byrne had to say about ley lines.”
I spend the next half hour sipping my whiskey and watching the crackling fire. I can’t tear my gaze away from it tonight, drawn back to its beauty time and time again. There is something so untamed about fire. It is wild and free in a way that nothing else in this world is.
It is also one of the only ways to kill a vampire. Maybe that’s what makes it so beautiful, the fact that it is also so incredibly deadly.
“Oh fuck,” Riven’s gasp makes my gut knot with tension.
“What?”
“Nana Byrne is your new patron saint… because guess who just helped me crack the code about the Gate.”
I straighten. “What the hell do you mean?”
“This journal. She was tracking disturbances happening on ley lines all over Ireland.” He taps a finger on a page, then flips to another. “Said it was her duty to watch. To make sure nothing came over. But here…” he flips to one of the more recent pages and spins it around for me to see.
“Read what it says,” he encourages.
I narrow my eyes dubiously. “This better not be some ancient Blood Rite that will make it so I can only piss under a full moon.”
He rolls his eyes. “You can’t do Blood magic, you dramatic prick. Just read it.”
Knowing he has a point, even if he’s going to be dramatic about it, I do what he says.
“Granny always said to mark the lines. I use iron nails and set them at intersections, and lately the nails have been moving. Not by much, but enough to give me pause. Mam says these lines aren’t made by man.
Not by vampire nor beast, neither. She says they’re meant to guide.
Roads for the Folk to find their way back when the time’s right.
Not before. I thought it was the lines that mark the way to the Veil.
Mam says no. Says, ‘It’s a Gate, Bírd. And when it stirs, when the locks turn, they’ll reach across. ’
I pray it doesn’t happen in my lifetime. I don’t know that I want to meet the Folk.
No matter, though. I’ll keep this record. I’ll mark it down and teach my daughter and her daughter, and on down the Byrne line—just like my mam’s mam did for her, and hers before that.
Even if it scares me.
Last night, Granny said something I can’t shake: “The Gate’s not a pattern. It’s a weaving. And if those threads start to fray and we’re not ready… gods help us all.”
I set the book down and lean back. The sense of unease in my gut deepens.
Unlike me, Riven is excited. There is a huge smile on his face that hasn’t faltered as I read, and he is damn near bouncing on his toes.
“Dax—”
I hold up a hand to stop him. I need a second. I turn my focus back to the fire, swiping a thumb over my bottom lip while my mind spins. After a few moments, I pull my gaze from the flames and meet Riven’s.
“The Gate. It’s the ley lines.”
He nods enthusiastically. “I knew it. I knew the ley lines had something to do with it. But I didn’t think—Fates, that means if the Gate opens…”
“We have no fucking clue what’s on the other side, Riv,” I snap. “It could be something, or this could all be bullshit.”
I shake my head. “Why now? You and I have been around for a long fucking time. Why have we never heard of this Gate until now?”
Riven shrugs, picks the book back up, and flips through the pages. “No idea. Just because we haven’t known about it doesn’t mean it’s untrue, or hasn’t always existed. No one understood Gravity ‘til Newton, but that didn’t stop shit from hitting the ground when it was dropped.”
I snarl and reach for the stupid journal, but he yanks it away before I can touch it.
“This is just one example. An example, I might add—” he pins me with a look, “that someone wanted you to fucking find. How long have you assholes lived in this place, hmm?” He looks around him with exaggerated movements.
“Two hundred years? Longer? And in the last forty-eight hours, you’ve found multiple items when you needed them that have led us to answers we’ve been looking for.”
“Debatable on the needing them part, but I take your point,” I mutter.
Riven grabs his suit jacket from the back of a chair. Tucking the journal under his arm, he gathers the rest and gives me that signature soul-sucking smirk.
“I’m going to let you sit on all this for a while, because honest to the gods, you look like you’re going to cry. I’m going to take these,” he holds up the rest of the journals, “back to Redmark. Who knows what other shit is in here now that you’ve bothered giving them to me.”
I get another unimpressed look when I do nothing but roll my eyes.
“Take a shower.” He all but orders me. “Drink some blood because you look like shit. Talk to your fucking packmate like a real man instead of cosplaying an emotionally stunted broody antihero in a shitty Wattpad.”
That shocks a laugh out of me. “Vae loves those Wattpad stories.”
”That does not at all surprise me,” he laughs. Then, more seriously, “Get your shit together, Daxen. I’d hate to punch you again when I drop by tomorrow.”
He is halfway out the door before he hesitates and spins back to me.