Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter
Thirty-Four
I don’t get back to the room until after midnight.
Aliz is sitting at her desk, going through some of the books we borrowed from the Palau Collection during the early days of the mark, back when neither of us knew Palau was, in fact, Elia.
She seems surprised to see that I’ve returned, and in a way, I am, too.
I didn’t wait to see how she reacted to her compelling me.
My neck itches, and I try my best to ignore it. Our argument, unfinished, hangs in the air between us.
My friends are at their usual table in the far corner of Ambrose Hall, playing cards. Stephan is drinking beer; the vampires, blood. I wait for them to bombard me with questions about my new life as a Familiar. But no such questions come.
I glance at Julia, her face serious as always as she picks up a card from the pile spread across the table.
They’re playing Go Fish, and as soon as I join, Ife steals my two queens.
Julia hasn’t told any of them about the Familiar’s mark.
She doesn’t even look at my neck while we sit.
I want to squeeze her arm and thank her, but I shouldn’t.
“So, what are you all wearing to the ball?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s a surprise,” Ife says, picking a card.
“I wanted to go as a zombie cheerleader,” Julia says, the choice slightly out of character. “But apparently that’s not formal enough for Elia.”
“And you, Cassie?” Stephan asks.
“Also a surprise,” I say. I’ve not thought about it yet.
My cards are absolutely crap, entirely mismatched.
But then I ask Ife for her nines, and after gritting her teeth, she tosses three my way.
I smile back at her, placing my first set upon the table.
We play another three rounds before I hear them behind us.
Elia’s arrival is heralded by the clicking of her stilettos upon the tiled floor.
Then, a familiar pair of hands rests on my shoulders.
My muscles loosen, the burning itch in my neck fades.
I look up, and Aliz stares straight back down at me.
Despite our proximity, she still feels miles away.
Her gaze shifts across the table, and confusion creases her brows.
I don’t understand the expression until I see Julia, and the ice that she doesn’t even try to conceal from her gaze.
“Invitations,” Elia says, handing out little red envelopes while I feel tension growing between Aliz and Julia. But luckily enough, neither of them says anything.
Our bedroom window is open, the night free of clouds.
I catch a glimpse of the waxing moon. The ball is on Tuesday, and I feel more helpless now than I did when I first found the mark.
I hear the door unlocking and quickly slip behind my bed’s curtains.
Aliz doesn’t say a word when she steps inside.
You’re always lying.
I know she suspects me. I’m not entirely sure what she suspects, but she hasn’t looked at me the same since our fight.
The pain in my chest is greater than the mark’s sting.
I don’t want to be her Familiar, but I don’t want to ruin her, either.
She doesn’t deserve this. Tugging at my bed’s curtains, I look across the room.
The black divider is pulled across, blocking her from view.
Things are worse now than when we first met.
At least then, although we couldn’t stand each other, I could still see her.
And even though we still sleep side by side to avoid our nightmares coming back, that is the extent of our proximity.
We don’t speak. I swallow hard and make my way across the room, stopping just outside her curtains.
“Can we talk?” I ask.
“Sure.” Her voice is nasal.
I lift one curtain and find Aliz staring down at me from her coffin. Her eyes are bloodshot.
“I probably shouldn’t talk,” she says. “I don’t want it to happen again.”
I take in her features. The urge to reach out and grab her hands burns through my veins. But I ignore it. “All right,” I whisper.
I already know what I want to say. I know what I’ll be giving up, but there is no alternative.
Unless we magically find another cure before Tuesday night.
“This might be a lot to ask from you,” I start, trying to keep my voice composed.
Sure of myself. “But if the mark becomes permanent”—I touch my neck, fingers trembling against my skin—“will you sire me?”
Aliz’s eyes widen, and before I can make sense of her expression, she bends over, hiding her face. I hear a deep inhale before she says:
“You know, you’ve told me a lot of lies. But when you said you’d rather die than become a vampire, I knew you were telling the truth.”
My chest stings.
“Only if we don’t find another cure,” I say.
I reach out to touch her knee. For a second I think she’s going to push me away. Instead, she grabs my wrist and pulls me close, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
“We’ll fix it,” I say, voice cracking. It could be worse.
I could hate her. I could have more to lose.
But if we’re not able to perform the cure, I’d rather give up my mortality than my free will.
And if anyone is going to turn me into the monster I’ve spent the last four years fighting, I want it to be her.
She pulls back slightly, brushing my cheek. Her eyes search mine, and I nod. In a matter of seconds I’m melting into her, her lips just as hungry as they were during our first kiss.
I climb up onto the coffin, pushing her down. The wood creaks as I undo the buttons of her waistcoat.
“Am I still not allowed to touch?” I ask. I tug the last pearly button of her shirt open. Beneath it, she’s in a cotton vest, nipples hard against the fabric.
“I want you to,” she says, breathless.
“But?”
She sits up suddenly, her shirt falling down her toned arms, while pushing me back in the process.
“But I still don’t trust myself,” she whispers, hiking up my skirt.
“You smell too good.” She traces the contour of the mark with her fingers, a slow line from my neck down my torso, and although the thorns end just beneath the waist, Aliz continues, following her fingers with her lips, managing, in just a few minutes, to undo all my worries.
The full moon is hidden behind thick clouds right outside our window. Soon it will be at the same spot where it was when Aliz and I first performed the blood contract. Somehow, that night feels years away already.
While Aliz is showering, I strap on my weapons, just as I did when I went to Inverness. Three silver daggers to my thigh, but no cross this time. My stake, with my real name etched into the wood, I slot into a pocket that Elia has sewn into the white wings that go with my costume.
Its cut is not too dissimilar from that of the dresses I wear to blood parties.
And considering what I’m going to do, perhaps it’s appropriate.
The fabric is pleated chiffon, with a layer of silk underneath it.
I pull the dress on. It has long, off-the-shoulder sleeves, with a golden thread crisscrossed up the length of the fabric.
By the end of the night, if things go our way, it’ll be dyed crimson with blood.
I’m struggling with the zip of the dress when the bathroom door creaks open. Aliz walks out, towel around her shoulders, wearing a white vest and a pair of black leather trousers. Her hair is still damp, sticking to her forehead.
“Could you give me a hand?” I ask, the zip stuck halfway up my back.
Aliz nods. I’m not used to her being so quiet.
She’s been communicating in texts, afraid of accidentally commanding me again.
I only heard her voice in the middle of the night, when we got carried away, her lips on my neck, and her hand between my legs.
She draws the zip all the way up and does a few buttons that I hadn’t noticed were there.
“Thanks,” I whisper while she reaches for her phone.
What are you dressed as?
“Cupid,” I say, putting on the wings. “Elia said she wore this same outfit eighty years ago.”
Aliz’s gaze stops on the spot where the Familiar’s mark starts, well hidden beneath a coat of tattoo concealer. “What’s your costume?”
I run my fingers along the leather waistband of her trousers. My dress may be eighty years old, but Elia has kept it impeccable. Aliz’s trousers, on the other hand, look lived in, with tears hastily sewn shut here and there. She hesitates before she texts me again.
It’s a surprise.
Before I can complain about the vagueness of her answer, she asks if I want her to do my hair. “Sure,” I say. I sit on my desk chair, and she slowly pleats my hair into a crown, leaving a few loose strands to frame my face. “Do I look decent?” I ask as she tilts my head.
“Like an angel,” she whispers, momentarily forgetting her self-imposed silence.
“I suppose the wings help.”
She kisses me, but I try to keep it chaste, pulling back before we can get carried away. I can’t let her find the weapons strapped to my thigh.
I will tell her.
Regardless of what happens tonight, once midnight passes, whether I am free or the blood contract becomes permanent, I will tell her all that I’ve kept from her.
Even if it costs me everything, even if she never looks at me again, I will not tell her another lie.
At least once, I want to hear her say my real name.
What are you thinking?
I stare at her text, then back at her, my throat dry. If I tell her the truth now, I will ruin everything. So, I say the one thing about myself that isn’t a lie.
“I love you,” I whisper.