Chapter Ivy
Ivy
Ivy dashed up the stairs to Veldmoor’s front door, but as her hand hovered over the handle, she felt a light touch against her elbow. Still rattled from her encounter with the Hunter, she flinched. She whipped around to see Finare, whose gaze was filled with worry.
“Are you going to tell Leseldh?” Finare whispered.
Ivy inhaled shakily. On the drive home, the pit of worry in Ivy’s stomach rapidly swelled, threatening to swallow her whole. She was concerned about how the other two Idthraki Vampires would react to tonight’s events. Imagining the fallout was enough for her to shake her head.
She pulled what she hoped was a mask of neutrality over her features and made her way inside.
She hoped Leseldh would be tucked away in his study, or perhaps out working, but fate wasn’t on her side.
As the front door whispered closed behind Finare, Leseldh appeared in the library’s doorway to the left.
“How was Sabor Sanguine?” Leseldh’s face was set in an impassive expression.
“It was uneventful.” Ivy kept her tone light.
“Really? You were gone for some time.”
“We decided to have a drink or two.”
Not a lie, we just had them… elsewhere, Ivy thought. Leseldh held Ivy’s gaze for a long, silent moment, as though he was searching for signs of deception, or waiting for her to crack. Ivy’s heart thrummed in her chest.
“Do you remember what I told you, Ivy?”
“What’s that?”
Leseldh fell silent once more, and for a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer. She could sense the storm gathering. She didn’t want to be around when it broke.
Movement caught Ivy’s eye, and she turned to see a swirling black vapour slip under the front door. The vapour expanded into a cloud, before materialising into the shape of a raven. Flying in and landing on Leseldh’s shoulder, Phaedra’s eyes pinned Ivy with a stare that made her stomach lurch.
“Phaedra is never far away.” Leseldh’s words were the anchor that dragged devastation through her.
Ivy blew out a sigh. In her eagerness to escape her chaperone, she forgot that her surveillance came in many forms. She dared a glance in Finare’s direction, and frustration was evident on his features. He’d overlooked it, too.
She opened her mouth to respond, but Leseldh continued before she could utter a single syllable.
“Let me be very clear, Ivy. If you are given permission to leave these walls without Voresta, I expect you to at least have the courtesy to be where you say you will be.” Leseldh’s tone was measured, but there was an undercurrent of menace that was unmistakable.
Ivy’s terror was amplified when his caramel-coloured eyes shifted to shimmering gold.
Unable to meet his molten gaze for a moment longer, she looked to her feet and whispered, “I’m sorry, Leseldh.”
“Finare, I’d like to speak with you. Ivy, you are dismissed.” As Leseldh’s words echoed through the otherwise silent house, shock rocketed through Ivy’s body.
She’d never been outright dismissed by Leseldh before, and it felt like a slap to the face.
Failing to come up with a suitable response, she simply stormed towards the stairs.
She heard a door shut behind her and glanced over her shoulder.
The library door was now closed, and Finare had been swept inside with Leseldh.
Ivy couldn’t see Phaedra as she glanced about.
However, given that she’d just witnessed her emerge from a black cloud, she couldn’t be sure where she was.
Nonetheless, her curiosity won out and she urged her feet back towards the library door quietly.
Listening in was easier than she expected, thanks to her enhanced Vampire senses.
She just hoped that since they were embroiled in conversation, they’d be too preoccupied to realise she was there.
“Phaedra tells me that the Hunter paid a visit tonight.” Ivy could hear the dangerousness in Leseldh’s tone. It made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“He was at Lunarian, yes.”
“He wasn’t just at Lunarian, Finare. He attacked my Resonant!” Ivy was sure Leseldh’s roar could have been heard from across Noctis, and the pure fury in his voice flooded her with alarm.
This rage was a disturbing facet of his personality that she’d had a taste of when they encountered Drachen at the theatre, but now she was starting to understand the breadth of that anger.
“You shouldn’t have gone out without me, Finare.” Voresta’s voice carried through the closed door, and it was then that she realised Voresta was also in the room. They were lying in wait for their return, and it reinforced the foolishness of her actions.
“What’s our plan now?” It sounded like Finare was trying to redirect the conversation to more useful topics.
“We protect her. At any cost.” Although she was still irritated by Leseldh’s dismissal, she felt a thrill at the possessiveness in his tone.
“He’ll only have until her Ascension to strike.” Voresta’s words piqued Ivy’s interest. Ascension?
“That is still a year away,” Leseldh rebutted.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near her.” Voresta spoke with a passion that took Ivy by surprise, but she remembered Leseldh’s words about his loyalty to him. She doubted his passion had anything to do with her.
“Finare, if you jeopardise my Resonant again, there will be consequences.”
The threat was plain, and it sent a spear of remorse through Ivy’s heart. She was the one who orchestrated tonight’s activities, yet Finare was being reprimanded for it.
Leseldh demanded a recount of the night’s events, and not wanting to relive it, Ivy made for the stairs once again.
Her guilt chewed at her as she returned to her room, and she found herself running a bath to sort through her muddled emotions.
She shouldn’t have beguiled her way out of the house tonight—she should have just suffered Voresta’s unpleasantness and perhaps she might not have crossed paths with the Hunter.
The Hunter. She couldn’t shake the image of those bright-red eyes as they stared her down.
His towering presence and sheer strength reminded her that although she was more powerful as a Vampire, she was still so utterly fragile compared to him.
What was it he said to her? Something tells me that you’re just a baby.
The confidence she’d gained in the last few weeks rushed out of her, leaving her feeling like a deflated balloon.
Scarier still was the animosity that radiated off him.
It was a different calibre to the display she pictured in her mind from Leseldh just moments ago.
There was an animalistic ferocity to the male that frightened her to her very core, and his talk of redemption…
it was a terrifying motivator. She knew that the Hunter would stop at nothing to ensure her Ending.
Worse yet, according to the conversation downstairs, he had a whole year to achieve that.
She didn’t know what fact caused her more dread—having to evade a Vampire intent on claiming her Ending for an entire year, or that she’d have to do it under Voresta’s watchful eye.
If Leseldh wanted her protected, why didn’t he do it himself?
But what was this talk of Ascension? In all her time with Finare, Voresta and Leseldh, none of them ever uttered that word before.
Irritation boiled under her skin when she thought that such information could be withheld from her, and for what reason?
She needed answers—keeping information from her only made her more vulnerable.
Fear tightened her chest when she relived tonight’s encounter.
When she could turn her thoughts away, she faced frustration that she’d been lied to through omission.
It also hurt that Leseldh would dismiss her after such an incident, when his comfort would have been a soothing balm for the wounds that had done more than mar her throat.
But the feeling that really set her turbulent thoughts roiling was her aching need to go to Leseldh. Despite his cutting words, his rage and his deception, she still wanted to feel the warmth of his embrace. She remembered laying in his bed with him and longed for that comfort now.
Instead, she lay in her own bed, struggling to find sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw another pair crushing her with their blood-red gaze.