CHAPTER 11
TWILIGHT WAS FALLING BY the time they made it back to the sector. Dani released Alex’s arm as soon as they reformed inside the hallway outside her apartment, stomach sinking upon hearing the raised voices of her sisters from inside.
“You’re so unfair,” Ava shrieked. The muffled sound of a door slamming carried down the hall.
“I guess it was too much to hope Nadine might have gotten bored and decided to move on for a few months while we were away?” Wincing, Dani rubbed her temples.
“Do you want me to come in?” Alex squeezed her shoulder.
“That will only make things worse.” She took the draught Finneas had provided from the pocket of her hoodie. “I guess we start taking this tonight?”
“I suppose so.” He sounded anything but certain.
“Are you having second thoughts?”
“This is how we protect you,” Alex said firmly. “We also need to find information on the missing fae.”
“So where do we start? I can ask Evan what she knows, and also see if anyone at the factory has heard anything.”
“I’ll see what I can learn from skulking around the castle. The Cavalieris have a big plant that borders the fae lands at the southeast edge of the sector. Luciano has been pressuring Father to enforce harsher penalties after some of their buildings were swallowed up by a hill in the night.”
“Please tell me Finneas made sure the building was clear first.” Dani shivered. “Was it on the fae side? I know there have been disputes all along the sector borders. My father died while trying to make deliveries out in the borderlands in areas that the shifters keep trying to claw back.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen. Ava had just gotten sick. He knew the risks, but it was the best way to earn extra income and we needed some way to pay for her insulin.” She paused, considering. “If the incursions are happening on the sector side of the fence, it would explain why tensions are so high.”
“Also, the fae are none too happy about Cavalieri Industries ignoring emissions standards and pumping pollutants into the air just across the boundary line. Rather than bother with diplomatic envoys, which we all know would have been ignored, they just reclaimed the land.”
“You think Cavalieri may have abducted the people he believes were responsible for destroying his factories?”
“It’s a theory.” Alexander sighed. “Let me work on Lara. There’s some press event her people want me to do tomorrow. I’ll see what I can get out of her then.”
Dani looked away before her face could betray her emotions. She had to get used to this, much as it tore her heart in two. Lara would soon be queen. With time, Alex would forget she had ever meant anything to him, just like all the other girls who had come before her.
Her chest grew suddenly tight. She traced the mating mark at the inside of her wrist. In one week, it would be gone, and with it, the connection that had once bound them.
It was the cost of keeping her sisters safe.
“I wish there were another way.” Alexander pulled her into his arms. For a moment, they just held each other, no words needed, the fierce desperation with which they clung to one another saying everything.
That he hated this every bit as much as she did.
That it was unfair.
That in another lifetime, they would have lived a simple, unextraordinary life, one that she would never have taken for granted, because each imperfect, messy, joyous day would have been spent together, just the two of them.
When at last Alexander released her, she saw that his eyes were red-rimmed.
“I’ll text you tomorrow, after the press event.”
Dani touched his face. “I have my shift at the distribution center, but come by after. I’ll make soup and the Girard sisters can beat you handily at spades.”
“I look forward to it.” He kissed her gently. A second later, he was gone in a swirl of smoke.
Dani slumped against the door, swiping tears from her eyes.
It would all be over soon. Alexander Visconti would marry Lara, she would have Ava’s medicine, and life would be exactly as it had been before.
She’d been perfectly happy before he’d come into her life. She would find a way to be happy again.
Even without Alexander.
She just had to keep telling herself that she would be fine until her heart accepted it.
When she got inside, she found Evan peeling a potato so viciously, she was surprised there was anything left of it.
“Let me do that.” Hurrying over, she took the peeler and the mangled potato from her sister and peeked in the pan on the stove. Carrots, onions and sausage sizzled in a bit of oil with fragrant spices. “Let me guess, Nadine?”
“So, I went to pick Ava up after school today, and she wasn’t there.” Evan began washing the dishes from that morning. “I’m freaking out, right? I check in with her teacher, and she says her mother signed her out shortly after she was dropped off this morning.”
“She didn’t.” Now Dani was peeling the potato too hard. “I thought we talked to the school about that.”
“We did, and they understand the issue, but Nadine is still her mother. As far as the court system is concerned, she’s her legal guardian, so they can’t stop her from taking her own child out of school.”
“I hate this as much as you do.” Dani dumped the chopped potato in the pan and started on another one. “She’s a bad influence on Ava. But you know she never sticks around for long. In a few days, she’ll be gone. We just have to wait this out.”
“Except, I don’t like how easily she’s been able to manipulate her.” Reaching for a dishtowel to dry the pans, Evan lowered her voice. “They got home an hour ago, loaded down with bags of clothes from several of those expensive shops up on High Street.”
Dani threw an anxious look at the cupboard where the canister of coins was hidden. “Did you give her next month’s rent?”
“Of course not. She even got her ice skates. You know how much those cost?”
“I remember. We were looking for a secondhand pair for her birthday.” They’d quickly dismissed the idea as beyond their reach.
“So where is she coming up with that kind of money? Do you know what designer outfits from those posh stores run?”
Dani pulled out her phone and quickly checked her account, fearing the worst. But all the money Alexander had deposited from the night he’d purchased her as a sanguine at the auction house was there, and then some.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” she said at last. “But I also believe in Ava. The past four years have been devastating for her, losing Dad, then seeing Nadine struggling. We just have to keep reminding her that we aren’t going anywhere, because I think that’s what this is about, too, her being angry at her mother every time she shows up for a few days, then leaves. ”
“Is there a reason I’m the one being screamed at?” Evan asked tiredly. “While Nadine gets all the smiles and shopping trips?”
“Because you’re the one she trusts would fight an entire city block of vampires to get to her.
” Dani hugged her sister, then moved around her to put the teakettle on.
“You’re the one she trusts would never leave.
Ava feels safe being angry at you. Her relationship with Nadine is a fragile, broken thing that hurts her every time, and yet she’s still her mother.
It’s our job as her sisters to help her grow strong enough that one day, she’ll be able to understand everything that’s happened to her and recognize that none of it was her fault.
Tonight, I think that calls for some sister time. ”
When their dinner was ready to be pulled from the oven, Dani dished it into bowls.
They ate in their pajamas in front of the fire while the snow fell softly outside.
Evan sketched in one of her notepads. Cinder curled up in her basket, gray bottlebrush tail twitching.
Ava watched the latest videos of her favorite skaters performing at the sector competition on her phone and they listened to the commentators make snarky remarks about blade edges and costumes they thought had an alarming number of feathers.
Squished between her sisters, her latest chapter open in front of her, Dani tried to focus. But try as she might, the words just wouldn’t come.
She was about to put her phone away in favor of zoning out on figure skating when a news alert she’d set for her name popped up. Her hand began to tremble the moment she read the headline, a sick shaky feeling slithering through her insides.
Heroine or whore? Who is Prince Alexander’s latest fling?
Knowing she shouldn’t look, she clicked on the link anyway.
The moment the pictures loaded, she wished she hadn’t looked.
There were images of Alex sneaking in and out of her apartment.
Others were of kisses stolen in the palace hallways.
Then there was the picture the article writer claimed was Dani rolling her eyes while Lara was suffering the effects of an attempted poisoning.
The comments that followed were even worse.
How much do we really know about Daniela Girard?
Rolling her eyes instead of getting Lara medical attention?
Savage. And please, she’s totally faking it.
I guess that’s one way to win yourself a crown.
“What are you reading?” Evan demanded, snatching her phone. When she saw the comments, she swore. “I can’t believe people are actually stupid enough to fall for her act.”
“Here, I’m commenting now,” Ava said, thumbs flying.
“Please don’t. Watch skating videos. If the comments are traced back to us, it will be infinitely worse. Let me text Alex. I’ll see what he says.”
She chewed her thumbnail for a minute, debating what to say, and finally sent over a link to the article and a simple, Did you see this?
Three blinking dots quickly appeared.
Alex: Please ignore the tabloids. They’re all trash.
Dani: You aren’t the one they’re calling a whore.
Alex: I’m so sorry they’re targeting you. If it helps, they’re saying anything sensational they believe will get people to click on the article.
Dani: They made it look like Lara was dying and I was mocking her. She was faking it the entire time and I still brought her a chair.