CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Muffled shouts drifted through the air like ghosts of a war already lost. I couldn’t register the words.
The breeze curled around my neck and lifted my hair like withered hands; it was softly dying, far too still for what marched along the horizon.
My feet were paralyzed on unstable ground as I stood on the balcony, looking beyond the blue dark, what was bathed in silver as the bloated moon hung high.
They broke through the distant tree line. Hundreds. Thousands? My heart stuttered as I looked upon what was born of Alaric’s silence. His army surrounded the manor, and they quickly descended upon us.
I fell back into my body with a jolt.
“Charlotte!” Pari was shaking me with wild eyes. “We need to get them to the safe room.”
I blinked a few times, turning around to see Mother clutching Olivia’s shoulders. For the first time in a long while I saw something other than disdain draped over her seraphic features. Fear.
I nodded absentmindedly, unsheathing my obsidian dagger.
Each step grew heavier, like wading through a dream.
I entered back into the sitting room shrouded in a fog I couldn’t escape.
Society members poured through the halls, some broke off to enter various rooms including this one, guarding the windows as the army neared closer.
One was moving slower than the rest, he wasn’t as frantic as the other hunters. He moved with purpose.
He stopped before one of the floor length mirrors cloaked in a white sheet. With one swift motion, he tore the sheet off and tossed it aside. The glass dulled, the reflection swallowed up by an unfolding dark. An eternal abyss devoid of any light. And out stepped newborn after newborn.
“Run.” I didn’t even hear my own voice, but everyone else did as they followed my eyes.
As we tore down the halls, I spotted several other members tearing the sheets off of the mirrors, several more newborns coming through. We’ve had far more vampires within the Society than ever expected.
The air grew thicker each step we took down the spiral stairs.
The stone damp with moisture. The ground trembled above us as explosions set off throughout the expanse of the property.
The stairs to the safe room were well hidden and deep underground.
Elsie was already there along with several other staff members.
Olivia clutched my arm as I turned to leave with Pari. Her eyes welled with tears.
“It’s alright, Olivia. I have to go.”
“Why do you have to go? You can’t fight with them.” Her lip trembled.
I took in a shaky breath, one that I wasn’t able to expel fully. This night would fracture my world leaving behind irreparable damage. And I have hidden long enough. “I’m going to end this.”
Her eyes widened as my mother’s narrowed. I looked to Elsie as I passed by her. She reached out squeezing my hand and giving a sharp nod, her vibrant green eyes on fire. Her son was up there.
The secret entrance to the safe room stairs was tucked away within one of the smaller sitting rooms, of which a couple members guarded the entrance, quickly dispelling of any newborns that tried to pass. The sheets still covered the mirrors in here.
I slammed the hilt of my dagger into the glass with a strangled cry. Pari quickly caught on and did the same to another mirror as I took care of the last two.
As we went to leave, a hand grabbed hold of my arm.
“Miss, you cannot go out there. You must go back to the safe room.” It was one of the members guarding the door. I didn’t recognize him. He must have been new.
“Let. Me. Go.” It was the most forward I had ever been—apart from with Sebastian and Alaric—the most rude too, but we couldn’t waste any time. The longer this went on, the more deaths stacked up, the heavier the weight grew upon my chest.
“Let her go,” Pari said curtly, both our eyes narrowed on the member.
He looked to his partner for backup, though he only shrugged. Adam. He had been with the Society for years. He knew me well, which included all of my oddities. Perhaps my reputation has finally proved to be useful.
The member let me go, shaking his head in confusion.
I held in a breath as we stepped out into the hall.
Bodies littered the floor, some Society members, a lot of newborns.
The members were highly trained. The newborns, though stronger than humans, couldn’t have received as much training as the Society demanded, and it was evident in their erratic, uncoordinated movements.
They were humans once. Their lives were taken.
And Alaric hadn’t prepared them enough for war, leaving them to fall quickly.
They were just disposable numbers that could always be increased.
Alaric’s newborn army far surpassed the total members we had, but one member could take out three newborns within seconds.
And all I could see was people dying. My hands were coated in warm blood, forever staining my skin, though I hadn’t even lifted my dagger once. Pari took down any newborn that got in our way. And it filled my hands, spilling over onto the floor, soon to drown me.
I rejected Alaric’s bond.
He told me escaping him would hurt.
And each life lost was a knick across my skin, one sharp sting after another, breaking open pale flesh, marring it in crimson. Until everything burned as I bled out slowly.
“What are you going to do?” Pari asked once we had a moment of silence.
“They aren’t attacking me.” Not a single newborn neared close to me, and I had a feeling they had been ordered not to touch me. “I’m going to find him.”
She caught what glinted in my eyes. A finality. A goodbye. Her shoulders sank. She wilted like a flower burning in the summer heat. She wrapped her arms around me, her blood drenched hands staining my white gown. It was a poor choice for today.
“I will see you soon,” she spoke firmly, refusing to accept the inevitable.
“I love you, Pari.”
“Don’t you dare,” she ground out. “I will see you soon.”
I choked back a sob. “I will see you soon.”
My theory was right as I stepped into the riot of bodies clashing on the main floor.
My presence repelled the newborns, each one giving me a wide berth as they slinked by.
I vaguely remembered Sebastian pulling me in close and telling me something when the chaos first broke out, but I couldn’t remember what he said.
I was already well lost in my haze then.
I think he wanted Pari to take me to the safe room as well.
He’d lose it if he saw me within the thrall, but I had to find Alaric.
I had to end this. My grip tightened on the hilt of my dagger until my arm trembled.
I floated through the throng, drifting out the back door, pausing within the center of the expansive marble veranda that overlooked the open land beyond. Our home had turned into a battlefield. Blood stained the grass. Cries rang out. Glass shattered as bodies rained down.
“Charlotte!”
My attention snapped over to James.
It only took a second of holding his eyes for the newborn to rip out his throat.
I didn’t even notice the scream that tore through me until my breath ran out.
I didn’t realize I had sunk to my knees until I felt the warmth seeping through my dress as blood bloomed around him.
I held him in my lap, stroking his hair out of his face.
His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn’t speak through his injury.
I placed my fingers to his lips. “I’m so sorry, James.”
He shook his head, the movement choppy and forced.
“I love you,” I said between sobs.
He brought a shaking hand up to mine, squeezing once before it fell away.
The light in his eyes grew faint, narrowing to a pinprick in the dark, until it was nothing at all. Until he was gone. And I rocked him back and forth. My tears spilled from my face to his.
Grasping hands rooted around my chest with spindled fingers, clawing at all that was fragile.
The ache expanded the more they took. My eyes held the ones that saw through me, boring into me until I snatched the hands that aimed to take, snapping their wrists.
I let out a guttural scream at the life taken in my name.
My brother. Someone I loved.
After a moment of hollow silence, the riot came back to me in a deafening roar. I set him down gently, rising to my feet with a burning I could no longer contain.
When it snapped into place, I felt him. I needed to find him quickly. I accepted the tracking spell without a second thought. I saw through his eyes as he surveyed the destruction of his making. Of course he’d stand tall above everyone else.
The roof was only accessible by thin, rickety ladders situated at each corner of the manor. I stalked towards the nearest one, towards the outskirts of the raging chaos. The din stretched out behind me the further I went. The glow of spreading fires faded as I stepped into darkness.
As I looked up to the towering rungs of the ladder, my chest opened up into a cavernous ache. I choked back a sob. I wanted to say goodbye to Sebastian. The ring around my finger seared into me at what I was about to do, branding me with eternal loss.
And I knew he could feel me. It was how he found me when Alaric forced the bond.
And I could feel him. It was a faint thrumming within my very marrow, a gentle hum of energy.
He was filled with a wrath that fled from him like lightning, in the midst of battle, striking down every newborn around him.
I knew in a moment he would feel my fear and a breaking, the beginning of my unending sorrow.
I didn’t have much time before he’d try to stop me.
I lifted my skirts, white veiled with the blue light of the moon, now covered in scarlet.
It was difficult to climb the ladder with one hand holding on to my skirts, so I settled on biting into the fabric to free up my hands.
The manor was three stories, three high stories.
I was well past halfway now, and one slip would send me careening to my death, or at the very least, wishing for it.
The chilled, autumn breeze brushed over me like the reaper’s whisper. I clenched my teeth to force out the fear as I neared the top, replacing it with a vengeance that had been long starved.
As I climbed over the edge of the roof, my breath of relief as my feet met solid ground was short-lived. A vexation cut through me. He had the arrogance to have his back to me. He knew I was here. He knew I’d be furious. And he didn’t find me the least bit threatening.
With each slow step towards him, my resolve faded. My grip on my dagger loosened. I would never win, not now. I needed him vulnerable, and I couldn’t give away my hand. I needed him to trust me, to think I had given up and given in to him.
Sheathing my dagger felt like a final breath.
I stood beside him, looking upon the horror before me. I waited a moment for even breaths, painting a mask of indifference over my face. In one swift movement, I stepped up onto the ledge of the roof and swung around to face him, my back against the open air.
Our eyes clashed. At first, I thought he was angry, but my mouth almost fell open as I deciphered what it really was. Fear.
“What are you doing?” His tone was calm, each word placed with ease. But he had leaned forward ever so slightly, his body tensed, ready to spring forward.
I just wanted to get his full, undivided attention, which was clearly successful. But now I had the devious urge to test him. I stepped back, my heels at the very edge of the roof.
He grew even more rigid, his fists clenching. “Charlotte,” he bit out. He could no longer hide himself from me now. I saw it all.
Alaric didn’t really need me. He didn’t need me to be his queen. I had thought he just found entertainment in torturing me, in controlling me. It was just a game, something he wanted to conquer. But now I knew. He actually cared for me, and that was the most unsettling thing of all.
I shook off the confusion, the swirling emotions, and kept my tone firm. “Stop this now. Call off your newborns, and I’ll go with you.”
Any bit of fear was wiped clean as his eyes hardened. He tilted his head like a carnal beast. “You think you can threaten me?” His tone drove a chill deep into bone.
I drew my foot back, hovering it over the drop below. The breeze wrapped around my ankle, eager to take. He lunged, grasping for my hand as I snatched it out of his path just in time.
“Yes.” I smiled smugly. “I believe I can.”
He sneered, letting out a ragged breath. “Fine, Charlotte. Get the fuck down.”
I didn’t move, and I was losing my balance. “Call them off.”
He shouted an order to someone I didn’t even realize was there, hidden away in the shadows. The newborn nodded and headed towards one of the ladders.
“There. It’s done.”
I placed both feet back on the ledge. He held his hand out to me. A wicked grin spread across his face. My lungs couldn’t hold a full breath as I placed my hand in his.
A strong sense of triumph radiated from him, but buried deep below that was something peculiar.
Complete devastation.
And it ate away at that torn part of my soul, until it was a gaping maw stretched into a cry that echoed undying.