Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
IWALK DOWN THE STAIRS when a whooshing sing-sound grabs my attention. I turn into the foyer to see Raheem in the middle of the ballroom.
He wields a sword. He’s dressed in loose, linen pants that tighten around his ankles.
A similar shirt and colored keffiyeh. He holds the single-edged sword, poised, his focus sharp.
Suddenly, he slices it through the air, a metal hiss singing loudly.
He pivots elegantly, twirling as he cuts through the air.
Raheem is graceful and controlled. The way he moves, it reminds me of a panther.
Suddenly, he catches sight of me and he stills instantly. Our eyes lock for a long moment, and I’m sad his beautiful dance has ended.
“Please don’t stop on account of me,” I breathe. I want to come closer, but for some reason I do not dare.
“Would you like to try it?” he asks. There’s a certain degree of hopefulness in his voice.
I swallow hard. I hesitate. But finally, I nod.
I cross the space and enter the ballroom. Carefully, Raheem hands the sword over.
It’s heavy, heavier than I expected. It’s exceptionally long, so it’s awkward to balance. “Like this,” Raheem says, holding his hands over mine, standing behind me, showing me how to properly hold it. His skin is rough in patches where callouses have worn in and smooth in others. His touch is warm.
He keeps his hands over mine as he slices through the air, hardly even jostling me as he does. “Knees bent,” he says quietly into my ear.
I do as he says and our bodies brush. A spark of electricity ignites in my navel.
He helps me cut through the air once more. “Very good,” he says low.
I glance over my shoulder at him. His dark eyes meet mine and hold. And I’m feeling things. Things that I thought I buried deep.
“How did you find out about me?” I ask, because I cannot handle the intense feelings wrapping around the two of us.
The spell relieved, Raheem moves my hands again in a stabbing motion. “It was an anonymous letter sent,” he says. “They informed the King the moment you arrived.”
So it wasn’t Jasmine. Wasn’t any of her then House members. Someone from town, maybe.
“You’ve watched me this whole time?” I ask as the two of us twirl before slicing in a downward motion. “That picture you left me, it was taken just two weeks after I arrived.”
“Yes,” he answers simply. And there’s so much weight behind it.
I consider what he has seen since he began watching me.
Me being brought back to my Estate after Ian trained me.
Me running into the lion’s den when I went to Jasmine’s ball.
So many moments of Ian and I being together when we were so afraid of anyone catching us.
Me as I desperately clung to a normal life by getting a job and doing what normal people do.
And then, me finally offering my life and not succeeding.
“You have done extraordinary things as a human, Alivia Ryan,” Raheem says quietly as his grip on me tightens just slightly. “But just as a caterpillar, you are about to go through a metamorphosis, and turn into something astonishing.”
“Do you really believe that?” I ask, so very desperately wanting someone to believe that of me.
“With every fiber in me.”
THE ARRIVAL OF THE KING makes me nervous, but I can’t say it scares me.
But that sky? The swirling clouds? The thunder that ripples through the sky without a trace of lightning?
Curses. These things that can happen, things that I, and no one as far as I know, can understand?
Curses scare me.
What have I done?
Because from what I understand, the curses are given out as punishment.
King Cyrus was cursed with craving the blood of his own former kind for messing with nature and science.
He and his wife were cursed with her repeated death for him forcing vampirism on her.
The Hanging Tree was cursed for what the people of Silent Bend did to my uncle over a century ago, as well as his land.
What have I done?
And what is to come?
The fear of the sky is profound throughout my House. Come dark, which comes earlier due to the cloud-swirled skies, when everyone wakes, no one says much of anything. And when they do, it’s in hushed tones. The feeling that we are being watched by a giant eye is wicked and terrifying.
So, everyone works to distract themselves. The staff is gone, so someone has to keep things running.
I cook. My vampires survive off of blood, but they still eat. So I will feed them.
Samuel, Nial, and Cameron work on the pipes, insulating them and thawing areas that have started to freeze. Anna and Markov chop wood and tend to the many fireplaces spread throughout the house, attempting to fight back the cold.
It’s nearly impossible to keep the house warm with the almost negative temperatures and those fierce winds.
There’s an empty box sitting on the dining table. Inside it was a pair of light-blocking goggles for each of my House members, as well as a pair for me, which I will probably need in a few days. I handed them out, and they were received with excitement.
They’ve worked through the daylight hours without issue since.
Forty-eight hours. And, with each passing minute, I feel the weight on my shoulders growing heavier and heavier. My heart breaks into random sprints. Over and over.
My cell phone dings as I put some rolls in the oven and I find a text from Luke.
Town is fifty-two percent evacuated. Assuming it will be more by mid-afternoon.
It’s six in the morning, he must have just started driving around town.
Thanks for the update, I text him back.
“The Sheriff?” Lillian asks. She sits at the counter, watching me work.
I nod as I turn to the green beans I’m slicing. “People are leaving, slowly.”
“There’s nothing more you can do about this, Alivia,” she says, that warmth and caring so specific to her coming through in her voice. “You couldn’t have stopped the danger that is coming, no matter what you did.”
I nod, though I don’t really take her words in.
Just as I finish slicing the last few beans, my hand slips, and I nick my thumb.
Red oozes quickly to the surface. I pull it toward me and a heavy drop of it splatters to the countertop.
I glance up at Lillian. Her eyes widen slightly, her nostrils flaring. She bites her lower lip and closes her eyes for just a moment.
But she looks up at me quickly, and I swear I see a hint of fear in her eyes. She’s thirsty, but she won’t risk having to be punished like Samuel was. She won’t drink of my blood again, nor will any of my other House members.
“I’ll go get you a bandage,” she says, quickly leaving the kitchen.
And once again, I’m alone.
With every passing day that I gain more control over my House, the more respect and the more like a royal I feel I am seen as, the more lonely I get.
Because Ian’s words echo in my head. Loyalty.
How true is their loyalty to me? Am I no different than Jasmine?
Do they follow me out of fear? Because I hold the most power?
Will I ever have another genuine relationship again in my life?
The loneliness squeezes my chest.
And for a moment, I feel as if I’m suffocating.
I can’t do this.
I can’t be a leader.
I cannot stand up to a King.
I cannot live the rest of what will be an eternal life manipulating and planning and strategizing.
I can’t do this.
My breath starts coming in and out of my chest far too fast. My skin feels too tight, my throat too small to breathe.
I stumble out of the kitchen. I break through the ballroom and my body isn’t sure which direction to flee.
So without thinking, I walk out one of the back doors. I stumble through the snow. It’s nearly a foot deep now, but I trudge through it, sucking in the cold air harder, deeper, faster.
My vision tunnels and something hot and sharp bites the back of my eyes.
I can’t do this.
I’m going to be alone the rest of my life.
I don’t want this.
Further and further down the property I trudge.
I have to leave. I have to get away. I need to go back to Colorado.
I can hide there. I can just keep being a baker there.
With my few friends who’ve never once called me since I left.
With my old crappy apartment. I can go back and be normal there. I can live out a mundane life and then…
And then I can die an old woman. Only to resurrect four days later, and live an eternal life as an old, wrinkled woman.
I can’t ever, ever run away from this life.
I collapse in front of the small fence that surrounds the three-person graveyard.
My uncle. My mother. My father. They’re all here. I need them. So very much.
“Henry,” I cry out into the empty, still air as I collapse into the snow on my knees.
Tears overtake me and I let them come out in sobs.
“Henry. Why? Why did this have to happen to us? Why aren’t you here?
I need someone to tell me how to do this, because I can’t.
I just…” I suck in air as the tears continue to roll down my face and I let the monster of the panic attack eat me alive. “This is too much.”
I fall forward, barely catching myself on my hands as I sob, my hot tears dropping into the snow and melting it. My face begins to numb and I can’t feel my knees or hands as the snow and the temperatures freeze them.
Minutes, hours. I don’t know how long passes, but it’s all just one long circle of self-loathing and pain and uncertainty.
And I just cry all the harder when a semi-warm hand rests on my back. I don’t turn to see who it is. I don’t want it to be anyone because someone’s presence means I have to be Alivia Conrath again, and I have to be strong and lead and I just can’t do it this second.
But the owner of the warm hand doesn’t say anything. No words of concern or comfort come. The hand just stays there as I continue to cry. My shoulders shake and my nose runs and soon I’ve got hiccups.
Slowly, the hand pulls more and more of me to them until I’m cradled against a warm body. I don’t open my eyes, though, because as soon as I do, I’m going to have to feel shame that one of my House has seen me weak. I’m going to have to return to the reality I cannot run from.
So I keep them closed. Even as I feel us stand. Even as I feel us start walking back for the House.
Even when we walk back inside, and up the stairs.
And I keep them shut when I’m laid on the bed, and someone pulls my boots off. When that someone crawls back in the bed with me, tucks their arms around my trembling frame, and pulls me close.
I keep my eyes shut and pretend I’m nothing at all.