Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
WE ALL SLEEP DURING THE day, except for Rath. He informed me he was intending to call a meeting with the house staff and let them know they were once again moving back to a graveyard schedule. But the rest of us, myself included, we sleep.
It takes me a while to get there. I lie in my bed, listening for sounds in the house as I see the clock on the desk tick to ten AM. I listen for Anna, hear her shuffling in her room. I listen for Cameron, or Nial. But it’s quiet. Calm. Peaceful.
My new family sleeps and then so do I.
Around seven, I wake to the sound of heated and tense voices. My heart leaps into my throat when I recognize one of them as Ian’s.
Not bothering to change out of my long sleeved sleeping shirt, I barrel out of my room and dart toward the stairs.
Ian stands in the doorway, a heated look in his eyes as he stares at Markov.
“Ian,” I say as I descend, trying very hard not to trip. “You’re back.”
His eyes dart up to my face. “This psycho is a member of your House now?” he demands, holding his hand out toward Markov.
“Ian,” I hiss, taking his hand in mine and attempting to tug him toward the stairs. “Stop. We need to talk.”
“How many of them do you have now?” he demands, not budging one inch. “I’ve been gone just over a week and if I’m not mistaken, I hear five other vampires in this house.”
It’s six, actually. Anna must be out searching for the spy. “Please,” I say, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. “Can we please go talk in private?”
I glance at Markov, who looks pissed. I imagine how hard he’s holding himself back, and know it is for my sake that he’s doing so.
“Come on,” I say, pulling Ian hard toward the stairs. And he allows me. I hold his hand, desperate for it to cling to mine as we ascend, but it doesn’t.
Down the hall, into my room, and the door is shut behind us.
Ian stands with his back to me, his hands fisted in his wild hair. I watch him for a long moment, waiting for him to say something. For him to ask questions or yell at me. But he just stands there with tense shoulders.
“We found Nial,” I say when I don’t get a breath out of him. “He thought he was the only of his kind. He was alone. He’s a doctor and can get the blood the House needs. Anna came to me. There was a…confrontation, with Jasmine two days ago. Markov and Cameron joined me after that.”
“What kind of confrontation?” Ian asks as he lowers his hands. He looks over his shoulder at me.
And suddenly I’m having a difficult time meeting his eyes. Shame claws its way up my chest over what I’ve done.
“I took advantage of Jasmine’s weak spot,” I say.
As I do, I cross to the window that looks out over the back lawn and the river.
Ian follows me. I pull back the curtain and he follows my line of sight to the graveyard.
“Ian, she had my mother dug up and brought her here from Colorado. And then she left her on my front steps.”
I study Ian’s face and watch for emotions. But his eyes are just sharp. “What did you do, Alivia?”
And the coldness in his voice snakes down my spine. It laces into my heart, eats into my brain.
I tell him. About the crowns. The blood. About the headstone. The fight.
Ian’s hands clench tighter and together. I feel it build inside of him with every syllable I speak.
When I’m finished, I keep looking at him. Waiting.
But he doesn’t say a word. He simply stares outside, packed tight as a waiting cannon.
“Say something,” I finally insist. My own jaw is clenched tight, I feel ready to spring, snap.
Ian shakes his head. He lets out two hard breaths. “What…what has happened to you, Liv?” And finally, finally, he does turn and look at me. And his eyes are hard. There’s no hint of red in them, they look flat black. “Who have you become?”
I take a small step back from him, feeling as if he’s punched me in the face. “I’m still me, Ian.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know how. Not when in just a few short weeks, you’ve gone from wanting nothing to do with the House, to creating a full blown one for yourself.”
Acid flashes through my veins. My temperature rises. “Circumstances change people, Ian. Jasmine killed you. And that…” My voice falters, cracks and crumbles. I look away from Ian as a tear breaks out onto my eyelashes. “And that destroyed me. It…it changed things—me.”
I look back up at Ian to see his eyes soften. Not fully. Not in forgiveness. But in pity. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Liv.”
I take a sniff, clearing away the tears that betray the kind of person I need to be right now. “I think it does. And I guess you’re right. Something has happened to me.”
The door to my bedroom opens and there I see Nial’s face. “Are you alright, Alivia?”
There’s genuine concern in his voice. He looks from me to Ian and back again, his eyes communicating with me that if I need him, he will do anything.
“I’m okay,” I say with a nod. My heart swells with appreciation. He holds my eyes for another long moment, and finally, reluctantly, shuts it again.
“You’ve already got them well trained,” Ian mutters under his breath.
“Don’t,” I hiss, the heat instantly back in my blood. “Don’t you go and do that. I am not Jasmine.”
“What is the difference, Liv?” Ian shouts. His voice keeps rising in volume. “Jasmine used them as her monkeys and now they’re yours. What does it matter, who is feeding them the bananas?”
I close the distance between us in three steps, shoving against Ian’s chest. Hard. His eyes flash red but I don’t back down. “I am not Jasmine!” I scream. “I will earn their loyalty because they will have mine. These people…” I pant. “These people have been here for me! And you…you haven’t.”
“You are such a bitch,” Ian says in a breathy low voice.
He shakes his head. “You’re going to use my family against me?
Are you really that selfish that you will demand that I abandon my sister, my dying grandmother, to be at your side?
You have no idea what they’re going through.
Most of the town knows I’m a vampire now.
Do you have any idea what Lula and Elle are going through? ”
It gives me pause. I hadn’t thought of that until now. Most of the town would know, after hearing he’d died, and then seeing him at my birthday party.
I didn’t consider that.
Ian’s eyes turn cold, and he can read the truth on my face. “I will not be your House prince and rule my enemies with you, Liv.”
His words, the brutal truth, knocks me back. My mouth hangs open and the breath has left my chest.
Well there it is.
There it has finally been said.
“You’ve changed, Alivia,” Ian says. His voice is quiet and he backs away from me one step.
The heat dies in his eyes and I can already feel him growing colder.
“The Alivia I fell in love with was a fighter. But she never would have sunk as low as you have with Jasmine. She would have recognized that what she’s doing is no different from what her father begged her to stay away from. ”
Ice creeps along in my veins. It snakes its way around my heart, creating little fractures as it speed freezes.
“What are you saying, Ian?” I ask quietly.
He holds my eyes for a long moment, not answering me. And as I stare into his eyes, I recall so many moments together. Us in the pool outside. Him between my legs on the kitchen counter. The awkward nights in his cabin. Stolen moments alone sleeping in my bed.
And I just know.
“I’m saying I can’t stay here any longer,” he answers. His voice drops. “I’m saying I can’t be with someone I don’t recognize.”
That it’s over.
I swallow hard as the rest of my body goes numb. Finally, somehow, I nod once.
Slowly, hesitantly, Ian walks around me and I can’t watch as he goes. I listen as he opens my door. As he walks into the room that was his. I hear him gather his few things.
And I listen as he walks down the stairs, out the door, and out of my life.
Death was not strong enough to keep us apart. But this game, these politics that I was born into, they’ve ripped it all away.