Chapter 49
Sam
Mark’s words kept repeating in my head. They were a nice sentiment and for a moment, they made me feel strong. Now, as I stood on the balcony of the cupola, I was fighting the urge to fly away from this place and find Lock. I didn’t know where he was, but I thought if I focused on our connection, I’d be able to find him somehow. It must’ve been what they were counting on.
He was right, though. That would only get me killed, which didn’t do Lock any good either. I was weaker than when I faced off with Davi and Erla. At least that bitch was dead, but when I found them, I’d also have Vas, Nia, and Sibon to worry about. Even with the entire coven, I couldn’t see how that left us with tolerable odds.
I was supposed to talk to all of our vamps. Stand up in front of them and use words I couldn’t come up with. Sure, I’d accepted this as my future, but Lock was meant to be with me. Under no circumstances would I want this role without him. I didn’t want anything without him.
Crouching, I dropped my face into my hands. Crying was weak and didn’t help, but I was struggling to do anything else since I woke up half a day ago. If it wasn’t distress over Lock’s absence, it was Joseph’s face plaguing my mind. I’d spent four years away from him with only occasional memories popping up. Now, I couldn’t fucking escape. I missed him so wholly, it felt like I’d never draw in a full breath again.
“What happened to declarations of murder and blind confidence?”
Straightening in a flash, I drew smoke into my hands and whirled on the intruder. Clad in black cargo pants, a t-shirt, and laced boots was a figure standing on the railing. Literally standing on it, one foot flat on the bar and the other in front of it with his toe up. Vas had his hands in his pockets casually, as if he wasn’t up here doing some crazy shit, even for a vampire.
“Murder is still on the table,” I warned.
“Forgive me if I’m not afraid.”
I sent a wall of smoke toward him and he smiled before simply stepping off the railing. I expected him to shift, but he appeared to float in the air fully formed. My smoke hit something invisible in front of him, thinning in each direction and going around him.
“Know your opponent, Sam. It can be as great a strength as any of your others.”
“Well, don’t wait for me to pass the sharing stick. Start spilling the beans.”
Two people joined us, coming up on either side of me. Mark put an arm over my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. Raf ignited his own smoke, the heat so intense that it created a mirage around his arms.
“Little flame,” Vas purred. “In the time it took you to arrive, I could have taken her already. Or killed her.”
“Do not threaten her,” he warned. “I will kill you this time.”
“I don’t need to threaten her. She’s already doomed.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, trying to step forward, but Mark held onto me. “Why the hell are you here?”
He flexed his hand, seeming to study his nails. There was a ring on most of his fingers. One of them connected his index, middle, and ring finger, which just struck me as uncomfortable, but it looked pretty cool. On his wrist, there was a silver bracelet that wound all the way up to his elbow like a snake. With his entire vibe, it was impossible to imagine he was seven hundred years old.
“I’m just checking in,” he drawled. “I must say, I was surprised to hear that you killed off that boy. That’s brutal.”
Raf sent his smoke forward and Vas dropped out of the sky. I rushed forward, hoping to watch him fall like a fiery comet coming into orbit, but he’d only gone just below the railing. He rose up to our level again, holding his hands out in a placating gesture.
“It was a compliment, but clearly tensions are high.”
“How are you floating?” I demanded.
His nose wrinkled. “I’m not floating.”
“He binds matter,” Raf explained, keeping his narrowed gaze fixed on Vas. “He creates solid material using what already exists in the universe.”
“Well, why can’t I see it?”
“Not all matter is visible to the human eye,” Vas chimed in with a wink. “Or vampire eye.”
“So, it’s invisible.”
“Invisible, translucent, too far beyond our understanding to truly know. Even I cannot see some of its forms, but I can feel and distort them. Does it truly matter in the end?”
“Neat. You still haven’t answered my original question.”
“Perhaps if you find your manners and invite me in, we can have a discussion.”
“I’d rather yeet myself off the edge without my smoke form.”
He muttered something in a language I was not at all familiar with. “Is this how young people of your generation behave?”
“Maybe you’re just boring.”
“Mm. Better to be considered boring than a fool. To answer your question, I’ve come to learn what your plan is.”
“Oh, this is your move. The little pawn has been sent to make demands and offer up pretty lies to lead us into your trap.”
He raised a brow, which helped to break up the monotonous expression he generally wore. The guy was sporting a resting bitch face ninety percent of the time.
“Is that what you think?” he asked.
“You want to know what I think? I want to slice off each of your pretty features and make a mask that I can present to my fiancé when I rescue him from your hobgoblin mistress. And I will rescue him. One day, I’ll make sure that each of you rots in a pile of your own shit for the rest of eternity.”
He walked toward us, using the invisible building blocks he’d created. Maybe I’d call him the Lego vampire. I’d think of something.
“I believe it’s time that you consider your actual options here.”
“There’s only one outcome I’ll accept.”
“Then you will fail. It’s too late for any of you to get out of this. If you fight, you will die. If you sit around here buying time, she will amass an army to level this place.”
“What are you suggesting? Let me guess. We should surrender.”
“Yes,” he replied firmly, taking another step.
Mark moved to block him. I blew him and Raf to the side, putting up a current of air to keep them from getting through.
“If I surrender, we die. How is that any better?”
Vas looked at the two men fighting to break through my barrier.
“Worst case scenario, your friends live. Best case, I convince Sibon to use you instead of consume you.”
“I don’t see how that’s a benefit in any way.”
“For seven hundred years, I have served her. It may not be the existence others would strive for, but it is better than many. Serve her, do what Ser and I have done, and survive. You and your mate can live for centuries.”
“This wasn’t on the table before,” I pointed out. “You told Raf he should kill me.”
“Killing you would not save him now. You did, however, kill Erla and take her Flame. Beating her is not possible, but you did manage to weaken her defenses, which means she could be more amenable to a compromise. You can give Ser back and offer yourself.”
Running my tongue over my canines, I considered the implications. Lock wouldn’t go for it. He would view it as imprisonment, slavery. He’d be right to think that, but when the alternative was death…
“Is this coming from you or her?” I asked.
“Me. She values my judgment and if it’s what you want to do, I’m certain I can convince her of the merit of this scenario.”
With a sharp nod, I released the wind. Using that much magic still pained me and I could only hope it was a temporary feeling.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Don’t wait too long.”
He leapt backward onto the railing and dropped down just before a blade flew through the air. Raf caught it, glaring at Mark.
“Sorry,” Mark shrugged. “It was meant for the other guy.”
“What the fuck was that?” Raf demanded, grabbing my biceps.
I shook him off and turned to walk into the cupola. They both cut me off before I reached the elevator. Dropping my head back, I stared up at the glass. Mere weeks ago, I’d shattered the entire ceiling during my awakening. How did time feel like it worked differently ever since I met Lock?
“You can’t do whatever the fuck you want,” Mark said.
“Actually, I can. This is what it means to be the leader, right? Sure, I can ask everyone to fight with me and maybe they’d choose to do that. But it also means evaluating things from every angle, considering every outcome.”
“This shouldn’t even be an option, Sam.”
“It’d be remiss of me not to recognize it as a valid course of action.”
Raf shook his head. “I won’t let you give yourself to her, nor will I return.”
“Let’s be real. If I go, so will you.”
His eyes followed me to the elevator and I wasn’t free of that gaze until the doors closed. Putting a hand over my eyes, I tried to keep myself from panicking. Lock would know what to do, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t here, which made this my decision. He’d be disappointed if he saw me now.
When I stepped off the elevator, I came face-to-face with someone I didn’t want to see.
“Ruth,” I greeted dryly, even though I tried to put some pep in my voice.
“Samara. I haven’t… How are you?”
Resisting the urge to put her head through the wall, I shrugged. “I’m trying not to think about it, so thanks for making me start over.”
“I apologize. It wasn’t my intention.”
Fuck, I hated her accent. And her pretentious words. From what I’d heard, she wasn’t happy to be here, nor was she grateful to be saved from her rapist and the town that would have condoned it. That was fine. She could leave, for all I cared.
When I began walking down the hall toward the kitchen, she hurried after me.
“Samara, I hoped we could talk.”
“No.”
“Please. It’s been four years.”
“And here I was, not sparing a single thought for anyone back home.”
“You didn’t think about Joseph?”
Whirling around, I grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. She sucked in a wheezing breath, her eyes wide. My lower lip stung where my fangs cut into it and she seemed to be trying to avoid looking at them. My eyes felt like they were burning as I regarded her meek disposition.
“Do you fear me?” I taunted.
“Yes, I do.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“You could kill me in half a second. I’m not stupid enough to think you wouldn’t.”
“I’m slightly offended by that,” I mused, dropping my hand. “You’re my sister, after all.”
She stared at me like I was the idiot here. “You killed our parents, most of the town, our brother, Joram, and-”
“Joram,” I repeated firmly, “Was an asshole, not to mention a rapist.” She flinched, but I ignored her reaction. “If you had any sense, you’d see that I did the world a favor. Aside from that, I took my revenge, and I fucking deserved it. I was being generous by giving you a chance to build your own life after what happened to you, but feel free to jump on a plane and go back to what’s left if that’s what you want.”
“Do you really not care about your own family? Your sister?”
I turned, leaving her against the wall. “Family has nothing to do with blood. The moment I stepped out of that cellar, I let go of everything in that town, including you. And you know what, Ruth? It was fucking easy.”
Not giving her a chance to respond, I shifted into smoke until I reached the kitchen. I swiped a couple bottles of blood, then stared at them for a long moment.
Fuck that.
I reappeared on the sidewalk, walking in the shadows. A man trailed his eyes over me for a second too long, so I grabbed his arm. The next moment, I deposited him in a dark alley. He looked around frantically, but I stayed just out of his line of sight.
“W-what do you want?” he asked.
Coming around to his front, I crouched, bringing the tip of my blade up to caress his cheek. The way he was shaking made it prick his skin and he whimpered. I closed my lips around the drop of blood on the knife, cocking my head. He struck me as the type to catcall women, then call them whores for ignoring him. Now look at him. Trembling and ready to wet himself.
“I’ve had bad fucking day,” I told him.
“S-sorry. What d-do you want f-from me?”
“Right now, I want to feel alive, but that’s not going to happen until I’m sharing a moment like this with someone else. So, I guess I just want someone else to feel the sort of pain I do right now.”
“Please. I’ll do anything. Do you want money?”
“Everyone always offers that. Greed is one of the deadly sins, isn’t it? I don’t remember. It’s been a long time since I picked up a Bible. Are they in the Bible? Whatever, I don’t care.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“Of course.”
“Oh, god.”
“Don’t worry. First, I’m going to make an example of you.”
For the first time, I understood what had possessed Lock to inflict such carnage when he lost me. I wasn’t seeing red, specifically. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw blood. Rivers of it. Maybe it was a prophecy- a self-fulfilling one, at least.
Lock wanted me to embrace the monster inside. I was going to unleash that bitch just for him.