Chapter 26 #3
“I should let you rest,” Cyrus suddenly says and he’s instantly next to the door to my bedroom. “We’ve all had a long journey and I’m feeling a little road weary myself.” He doesn’t look at me when he says this. “We have a big night ahead of us.”
Without further explanation, he closes the door behind him.
I have no other explanation for what he just said. He’s going to kill me come nightfall.
This is it. My final hours.
My heart rate spikes. My palms sweat.
I want to be held. I want to be left alone.
I want to live.
I want to get it over with.
My head spins.
Minutes pass. I sit at my window, staring outside. Hours. The sun rises, reaches the peak behind the clouds. Time becomes meaningless.
A soft knock sounds from my door and my head whips to it. I have no idea how much time has passed since the King left my bedroom, but surely night has not fallen yet.
“Come in,” I answer quietly.
It’s Anna who enters my room, closing it behind her.
“I’ve found them,” she says, her eyes hard, her jaw tight. “Jasmine and the Bitten.”
“Where?” I manage to choke out. My throat feels tight and I’m having a hard time concentrating on what she’s saying. My death has consumed me.
“Mayor Jackson’s Estate,” she says. “I finally caught a scent of Trinity. Found a bunch of blood at the church at the end of Main Street. I’m sure she turned someone. But I followed the trail. Back to his house. I could hear them inside. I believe Jasmine is holding the Mayor hostage.”
This is something I need to deal with. This is going to explode. I remember once Raheem saying their entire existence is frowned upon. So Jasmine having an entire hoard of them is going to have consequences. For her and myself.
“Thank you, Anna,” I say. “You never let me down.”
“What would you like me to do about it?” she asks. Her eyes flash red and her hands roll into fists.
I shake my head. “Nothing. For the moment. I have other things to take care of first.”
She looks at me with the hint of disbelief in her eyes. She’s ready for action. She’s a fighter and not one to sit back and see how things may play out.
But I have something to do first.
“Get some sleep, Anna,” I tell her, more a command than a request. “We’ve all had a long few days. You’ve earned it.”
She studies me for a long moment, and I think she knows. She understands. But she will let me do what I will do.
“Alright,” she says, and I hear the hesitation in her voice. But she steps toward the door. “Sleep well, Alivia.”
I only nod to her, and slowly, she closes the door behind her.
I need to stop this. Everything. Jasmine. The King’s presence here. The constant threat of so many deaths because he and his Court are here. I need to stop prolonging the one thing I have control over.
I lock my door. It would never keep out a single person in this house. Any one of them could force their way inside with a simple shove. But it’s for me. Locking the old away.
The marble floor in my bathroom is freezing. It sends a wave of goose bumps over my skin as I walk into it. I shed my beautiful dress that Lillian made me. I pull on a long nightgown. It’s beautiful and I’m sure old. White and gauzy. It floats around me, letting too much frigid air caress my body.
But it won’t bother me much longer.
I go to the cabinet that holds the small amounts of medication I possess. And my eyes lock on the bottle that appeared in it three months ago.
It has no label. No descriptor of what it is. There is only one single, black pill inside the small orange container. But I have no doubt what it is.
Or who placed it there.
Rath has loved me so well and been so loyal. He’s taken care of me in every possible way.
My hands tremble slightly as I reach for it. My heart races and gallops before my fingers finally close around it.
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
The bottle is suddenly open. The pill is in my hand.
I look up at myself in the mirror. Studying myself.
The hazel eyes. The dark, long hair. The flaws in my skin.
All I see is someone who is utterly alone.
But what other way is there for this to happen?
Don’t think.
The pill is between my lips, and I wash it down with a swig from the faucet. Wiping the back of my hand across my mouth, I stare at myself in the mirror again.
Goodbye, human Alivia. Goodbye to turning twenty-four. Goodbye to being old.
A small creaking sound pulls my attention from myself to my bedroom.
I know the sounds of my door. And that wasn’t the right sound.
My feet pad over the cold marble, and I peak around the corner, back into my bedroom.
Ian climbs through my window, letting in a flood of gray light, and lands on the floor without a sound.
Shock and horror fill my expression.
Him. Here. With everything that’s happened. With the King in the next bedroom over.
“Liv,” he whispers. And there’s everything in his expression.
All the fear, the lust, the anger, the desire.
It threatens to break his face. He crosses the room to me in a blur of a movement.
Instantly, his hands are on my hips, his eyes just a breath away.
“I know what I’ve said before and I just…
I just can’t let you stay here and die. Leave with me.
Today. Tonight. Let’s just go, right now. ”
“Ian,” I whisper. My heart is racing. Thundering.
I’m sweating. From fear. Because Raheem gave me a warning to how the King would take to another man being involved when I might be his wife.
But also, this sweating. The way my brain feels slightly hazy around the edges.
I know the pill is taking hold quickly. “You cannot be here. If he finds you. If he hears you…”
“I don’t care,” Ian breathes. One of his hands comes up to cup my cheek and his nose brushes mine. “We can stop this. We can have a few good years. Let’s go be together. Away. From all of this.”
Tears bite at the back of my eyes. I want that.
So badly.
I bring my hands to either side of his face. And I am not in control of myself when I lean forward and my lips are on his. This feels like home. This is always where I was supposed to be.
With Ian Ward.
But pain fills my chest. “I would have left with you. All I wanted was for you to take me. We could have gone, and had forever.”
Ian’s eyes find mine, and I see it all there. Nothing has really changed. “I could never wish this on you. You must live because you can, Liv. Don’t waste this life.”
I take half a step back from him, my hands falling from him. “And you could never see that I cannot run from something I was born into.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Liv,” he says, sounding desperate. He clings to me, trying to pull me closer, but I don’t allow him to. “Your father didn’t accept it. He stayed away from this twisted and demented world. You don’t have to do this.”
My eyelids droop. My heart, which hammered and raced just a minute ago, slows. It calms. The beats come slower and slower.
And Ian hears it. Because suddenly his eyes grow wide and they stare at my chest.
“What did you do?” he suddenly asks. Horror fills his face. His grip on me slips momentarily and I stumble before he grips me tighter.
A single tear slips out onto my cheek. “I wanted you to do it. I wanted you to be able to accept me. As I am. As I was Born. Please,” I beg. My hands reach up to cling to his shirt. “Please do it, Ian. Before it’s too late.”
He shakes his head, his eyes still big and wide. “I…”
My legs give out and I drop, Ian catching me just before I hit the floor.
“Liv!” he lets out a terrified gasp.
And suddenly, I’m the one who is terrified. Because it was so loud, him saying my name so desperately.
My vision goes blurry and I can make out little more than shapes.
“Please,” I say. Just as I hear the door to my bedroom burst open. I see two shapes and hear shouts and things breaking. The support holding me up is gone and I feel as if I shatter on the floor.
My hearing has gone all muffled and my eyes fight to stay open, even though I can’t see more than blurry orbs.
More noise. So angry. So much that’s instantly gone wrong.
This was supposed to be quiet. And alone.
Suddenly, it’s a crowd and a brawl. Someone will die.
I just know it.
And not just me.
Run, I silently beg Ian. Please run.
My eyelids slide closed, but I can feel it, my heart will still beat for a few minutes.
I feel myself yanked from the floor, harsh and painful. But not as painful as the fangs that suddenly sink into my neck. I’m already numb, so I don’t feel myself freeze. I just feel the sucking, the pulling. I feel my blood leaving my body. Quickly.
I feel the cold that comes over me.
Feel one beat.
Two.
Slower and slower.
Please run.
Two beats.
One.
None.
THE END OF BOOK TWO