Chapter 25 #2
His goofy grin brought my guilt right back. He’d certainly enjoyed our first kiss. “Will you marry me?” he whispered, running his hands over my shoulders and down my arms. “I’ll convince the king.”
I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. This would hurt. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” I turned for the house. My heart slammed in my chest. I didn’t want to see the pain written all over his face. I couldn’t bear it.
I spotted Vander in the kitchen window staring back at me. His expression was unreadable, stone. He vanished.
“I’m not giving up, Sira.” He caught up to my side. “Even if you stay an assassin, I want to be with you. We’ll make it work. You can come here some days and I’ll go there.”
A moment later, Vander was on the back steps. I stilled, catching sight of the protection knot I’d carved him hanging against his chest. The white stood out stark against his black uniform. Had he pulled it out to show my family?
Kace stopped beside me, and I followed his gaze straight to the carving. “Did you make that for him?” The tone of his voice was chilling.
“Yes, but—”
Kace shot forward and tore it off Vander’s neck. The leather strap holding the pendant had snapped and it dangled between his fingers. “Your kind doesn’t get to wear our symbols. You’re not from here. You don’t belong here.”
My pulse drummed in my ears. Boom. Boom. Boom. “Kace, that symbol is mine as much as it is anyone’s here and I can give it to whomever I want!”
Vander breathed deeply and clenched his hands at his sides. The darkness in his eyes frightened me. It would be too easy for him to hurt Kace. My face burned hot but frost ran through my veins.
His knuckles turned white with his grip. “He is not one of us. He’s one of them. The same people you hated. He’s not even human!”
“I don’t care! Give it to me right now.” I held out my palm and glowered.
“I’d rather burn it than see it on him.”
“Kace,” I snapped, indignantly.
A low rumble came from Vander’s throat. “Give it to her before I make you regret your choice to tear it off me.”
I grabbed for Kace’s wrist. He slipped it behind his back and stepped away. I couldn’t believe he was doing this.
“You’re acting like a child. Give me the pendant. I carved it. It’s mine to give.” I jerked his arm using all my strength and pulled his hand to the front of his body. Then I pried at his fingers.
Kace didn’t realize how strong I was. His eyes widened as we fought against each other. “Sira, stop.”
My father, Ivarr, and my grandmother filed out the back door. “That’s enough!” my father boomed.
Kace tried to peel my hand off his wrist and dragged me sideways. My boot caught on a stone. I lost my footing and my hip slammed into the ground. My hand landed onto a thorny weed, and I hissed as it poked through my skin. “Ouch!”
Breathing fast, Kace took hold around my bicep. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Suddenly he was torn away from me. Vander had him by the front of his shirt, then slammed him onto his back and jerked the pendant from his grasp. “Don’t ever put your fucking hands on her again.”
I sprang up and shoved myself between them, driving my backside into Vander. “It’s over. Done,” I commanded. My pulse crashed wildly. I reached back and gripped Vander’s hand, hoping to hold him if he tried to dart around me. He gave me a reassuring squeeze, as if to tell me I didn’t need to worry.
“Aesira.” My father towered next to us. “Go inside and help your grandmother and sister close the shutters. It will be dark soon. Ivarr, get the animals in the barn.” I gritted my teeth, eyes flicking between him and the two men I found myself between.
I didn’t want to be treated like a child, but this was my father’s house. “Now.”
Reluctantly I pulled my grip from Vander’s hand. His fingers slid along my palm, and it sent a shiver up my arm. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t dare. Everyone would see.
Like they didn’t already know.
I took my grandmother’s arm and helped her up the back steps. Kayda was standing near the kitchen window, leaning over the sink to watch everything.
“Got yourself into a little love tangle, I see,” Grandma said with a smile. “As much as I like Kace, my coin is on the assassin. Kayda can marry the chieftain’s son if she’s not ducai like you.”
My jaw dropped and Kayda giggled.
“Grandma,” I said, surprised. Kayda would gladly marry Kace. We both had an infatuation with him, we’d talked about him for years.
“Kayda, go start on the shutters,” Grandma added, throwing her thumb over her shoulder.
She groaned but left the room while Grandma and I took her place at the kitchen window. She cracked it open and gave me a sly smile.
My father shoved his finger into Kace’s chest. “Vander is a guest in my house. You had no right to take his property. I haven’t seen my daughter in nearly a year, and I don’t want her not to come back here because you make her feel unwelcome.”
“I wasn’t trying to do that, sir.”
“No, you were making an ass of yourself. If Aesira gave him the protection knot, that is her choice, not yours.”
“I love her, Havar. You know I do. If she gave that to him, then...”
I stiffened, more concerned with how Vander would feel knowing how important the protection knot was to those of us in Neverglade when given by a woman to a man.
It meant that was where her heart lay and she needed it protected.
When I’d started the carving, I hadn’t consciously thought of it that way.
I’d always liked it, and I did want to keep him safe.
“It’s her choice. You need to go home and cool your head.”
“Who would have thought one little carving could cause such a debacle,” Grandma crooned with a low laugh. “Men are territorial creatures. You should have known what Kace would think when you gave that to your assassin.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Kace at all when I gave it to him,” I muttered.
Grandma gently squeezed my wrist. “I wouldn’t either if that man was who I spent all my time with. He’s a real looker.”
My eyes widened and I laughed.
“I was young once too, you know. This only made you more desirable to Vander, make no mistake.”
“You think so?”
“Certainly.” She raised her gray eyebrows. “But I thought he was your trainer and nothing more? A friendship pendant then?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s right,” I said sheepishly.
I turned back to the window to see Kace stalking away. Some part of my heart ached, watching him leave; things would never be the same between us. A piece of my young life left with him.
My father rounded on Vander, face full of fury. I leaned forward, my breath clouding on the glass. With Vander’s back to us, I couldn’t see his expression and it was killing me. I was ready to bolt out there and defend Vander if I had to. Not that he would need it.
“And you,” my father started. His shoulders relaxed and he nodded toward the house. “Thank you for watching over her. I apologize for some of the things Kace said. He’s young and devastated Aesira was taken from us. But you are welcome here any time.”
The tension that had coiled around my chest loosened and I could breathe normally again.
Side by side, they started toward the house. I glanced up at the sky. The sun would set soon.
“I understand. Aesira was fairly forthcoming on what she thought about ducai and those of us in Nighthaven when she first arrived there.”
My father chuckled. “Was she? That’s my girl. No offense.”
Vander laughed with him. “None taken. I believe she said something about being the feed. I’ve always wished there was more we could do.
The city simply isn’t large enough to hold everyone in Lothleton, and we’d run out of food quickly if it was even attempted.
I do what I can myself by killing vampires. ”
“That’s all anyone could ask of one man.”
They were almost to the back steps and my grandmother tugged on my arm. “Better go help your sister. We don’t want to look like a couple of snoops.” She pulled the shutters closed and latched them.
“Of course I’m snooping. This has everything to do with me,” I called over my shoulder.
I snatched a lit candle off the table, hurried out of the kitchen and dashed up the steps to the second level.
Kayda stood at the top of the stairwell.
We smirked at one another, but the night was approaching. “Hurry before it’s dark.”
“I’ll start in Grandma’s room,” Kayda added.
I turned into my old room. It was strange that I fell right back into routine.
Light the lamp, pull the shutters, lock the latch.
Move to the next window. Recheck for security.
Listen for the screams. The hairs on my arm stood as that old familiar fear of the monsters that hunted in the night trickled in my gut.
I hadn’t felt it in a long time. It was like I’d never left.
I turned and gasped, throwing a hand to my chest. Vander stood shadowed in the doorway. He arched his eyebrow. “Jumpy?” he said, sauntering inside. The low lantern light cast shadows on him. “Afraid a vampire might get in?” He smiled.
“Ha, funny.”
Vander picked up my first wooden horse carving, inspected it, then set it down. He ran his palm over the metal shutters and rattled the latch. There was something different about him as if a new light had awoken in his eyes. “Was this your room?”
“Yeah.” It was exactly as I’d left it. Except for someone had made the bed and picked up my dirty clothes from the pile I’d left in the wicker basket by the door. I was surprised Kayda hadn’t taken my tall mirror, she’d always been envious of it.
“You have a nice family. I like your father. He’s a good man.”
“He’s a great man,” I agreed.
“Your friend, however, I don’t care for.”
“He’s not usually like that.”
“I understand why. I think I’d go a little mad if I lost you too.”
My core heated. My breath caught. The line between want and need became more blurry every day. So did his game. Why did he want to toy with me?
“What did you say to his offer?” he asked.
I was hot despite the cool evening air. “You heard?”
He nodded, eyes smoldering.
“Then you must have heard my answer.”
He leaned against the bare spot on the wall and sighed.
“I should tell you to accept it. I should tell you to go to the king and plead to be with Kace so you can get the life you told me about. The one you wanted before you went through The Rite. There is a chance King Sigurd will allow it if I put in a word for you. He is family to me. But Aesira...”
Whenever he said my name with such reverence it was like he drew on a power that put me under his spell. My nails dug into my palms. I found my feet bringing me close to him. Like he silently beckoned me, those tethers tightening the line between us.
A quiet knock on the doorframe shattered that magic. Kayda stood in the doorway. “Sese, Dad wants to see you downstairs.” Her eyes flicked to Vander and she left in a hurry.
Vander pushed off the wall and gestured for me to go ahead. We found my father at the kitchen table. The chair legs scraped on the floor as he pushed back and stood. “It’s dark. Are you two staying? I can make up a bed for you in the living room, Vander. Aesira would sleep upstairs.”
“Thank you for the offer but we need to get back to Nighthaven,” Vander replied.
Father shifted his weight and ran his hand down his beard. “It’s hard for me to let her walk out that door after dark.”
Somewhere nearby a vampire screamed and goosebumps ran down my body.
Vander nodded. “I understand but I’ll keep her safe. Vampires don’t typically hunt assassins. We hunt them. Aesira is advanced enough that I feel confident taking her out after sunset. If I didn’t, we would stay.”
Father let out a long breath and pursed his lips. “I guess I have to let my little girl go, don’t I?” I hurried forward and hugged him around the middle. He sniffled and kissed the top of my head. “We’ll see you again soon, I hope.”
“As soon as I can.” I missed him already. “Stay safe. If we see that vampire I heard a moment ago, we’ll take care of it.”
He chuckled and let me go. “Just get yourself back to Nighthaven in one piece.”
“I will.” I quickly hugged the rest of my family and didn’t drag out the goodbyes. The tears were already threatening. I didn’t want to start bawling.
With the cool night surrounding me, I heard my father latch the door behind us. I blinked back the moisture in my eyes as I stared at my old home.
We fell into a steady run on the road out of Neverglade. In the distance, I spotted Kace in the night-watch tower. He waved and that guilt started again. I waved goodbye.
“Aesira! I love you!” His voice echoed off the nearby house. “Be careful!”
“Goodbye, Kace! You be careful, too!”
Vander tugged up his mask and picked up our pace. We were just outside Neverglade, passing the last farm, when shadows moved from one grove of trees to another. My skin pebbled in warning. Vampires.
“Pull that blade, Bonecarver,” Vander said.