Chapter 39
I HELD AVEN A LITTLE longer before we left, something inside me fearful I would be in danger in a room full of vampires with the knowledge that a trusted source has worked against them.
But did she? She was working with Franklin, who wasn’t an enemy to them, just me.
He didn’t intend to kill Bastian; it was me he was after, so will they consider Oksana working with Franklin and the witches as paramount a betrayal as I do?
Comey’s is packed as we slip through the crowd, and Bastian grabs my hand as we ascend the stairs to Nightwalkers, our hearts hammering beneath our chests.
We open the door, and the first thing I see is Cassius on his elaborate throne, Marlowe draped across his lap, her finger on his chin as he looks at her with pure worship in his eyes.
I never thought I would see a light like that burning so brightly inside him, not in a million years.
The speakeasy isn’t currently open, and Nicola is behind the bar with Amerie and Mathius. Oksana walks from Nicola’s office just as we step fully inside Nightwalkers. My lungs swell like two hot balloons at the sight of her. What has she done? What did she do?
“Oh,” Nicola says with surprise in her voice. “Mon cher, I’ve missed you.” She walks to Bastian, still brimming with love from the fact that her son is alive. She kisses both of his cheeks and smiles at me, but our smiles aren’t reciprocated, and worry creases across her forehead.
“Can we be alone with my mother and Cassius?” Bastian asks, looking back and forth between Mathius and Amerie.
“I’ve got someplace to be anyhow,” Mathius says, smugly adjusting his tie and lightly tapping Bastian’s cheek as he exits.
Amerie doesn’t look pleased that she’s being asked to leave, her eyes darting toward Marlowe.
And it is interesting. Does Marlowe get seniority now that she’s with Cassius, even though she’s human?
Yet Marlowe doesn’t move a muscle, and it’s because of the firm grip Cassius has on her thighs.
She’s meant to stay, and Cassius’s eyes tell Bastian exactly that.
Amerie doesn’t say a word walking to the door, but Bastian grabs her hand before she goes.
“I’ll explain everything to you later, I promise.” That seems to soften her eyes a little, right before she descends the stairs.
Oksana hands a clipboard to Nicola, and I swallow hard. “Goodnight then,” she says, sliding her purse on her shoulder, and Bastian closes the door to Nightwalkers then leans his head against it, his face utterly exhausted. “I would like you to stay, please.”
Her eyes dart straight to me.
“What’s going on?” Nicola asks, sitting on the velvet sofa.
“Aster had a vision. Franklin conspired with her aunts to set the fire and also got the protection spell from them. Oksana was with him.” I suddenly feel extremely dehydrated. I guess he’s not going to beat around the bush.
Cassius slides out from under Marlowe, his footfalls stomping as he approaches Bastian and me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Oksana was working with Franklin.”
My gaze falls upon Oksana, her fingers digging into her purse, her mouth slowly opening, plotting. “We’re supposed to believe our enemy’s visions now? Lord Bastian, what’s happened to you?”
With one look, the exhaustion erases from Bastian’s face, replaced by an anger I have come to recognize as the fiercest part of him. He steps forward, his mouth barely moving because of his tightened jaw. “That’s the stance you’re taking, Oks? That’s how you want to play it?”
“Stop!” Nicola shouts, her hand on her forehead. “Stop,” she whispers now, and though she doesn’t age, she suddenly looks older to me, more weary, more downtrodden. Betrayal and loss can do that to you, even if you’re a vampire, I suppose.
I look at Marlowe, her mouth slowly chewing her thumb, the worry in her eyes telling me she doesn’t belong in this mess. I am growing to hate this room and all its memories and fear the new ones that are on the cusp of forming.
Cassius looks at me, his face wrecked with anguish. “What are you accusing her of, exactly?”
“We found out who set the fire and put the protection spell on Franklin. It was Rosemary and Violetta. The elders of my own coven betrayed me. I don’t know why; I haven’t confronted them yet. But in my vision, Oksana was with them all. And we just want to know why.”
Cassius looks to Oksana, the pain so apparent it’s uncomfortable to witness. I knew the Delacroix family trusted her implicitly, but I didn’t know so much emotion was attached to that trust.
“I don’t want to believe this,” he says to her.
“I didn’t either,” Bastian says, and Nicola stands.
“How can we believe what Aster saw actually happened?”
“You can’t, because it didn’t,” Oksana yells, looking to Cassius and Nicola, setting her purse on the sofa. “Maybe she thinks she knows what she saw, but she didn’t see me.”
“You saw her with them?” Cassius asks me.
I look to Bastian, my heart stammering because this won’t help my case, but I won’t lie.
“I didn’t see her.” The three of them sigh in some sort of relief, so I raise my hands in defense.
“I heard her. Franklin said, ‘This one’s dreams are about to come true.’ Then one of my aunt’s told her, if this gets out, she’ll pay with her life.
And I heard Oksana say that she completely understood. ”
“So you heard a voice that sounded like Oksana’s and then you come over here and accuse her of betraying our family?
I’m sorry, but Oksana has been loyal to us for twenty-one years.
We’ll need more proof than that,” Cassius spits, looking to his brother for backup, but Bastian only emits a growl from his throat.
“Aster has no reason to lie—”
“I’m not saying you’re lying, Aster. Please understand. I’m just hoping there’s some kind of confusion in your vision.” Cassius’s eyes soften toward me, and it makes me feel a tick better, yet they still don’t believe me, and that’s not helpful.
“I can try my best to prove it to you. But my mother and I will always see Oksana as a traitor to not only us but to your family as well. Unless there’s a logical explanation she would like to share.”
“Yes,” Bastian seems to plead to Oksana, whose face has grown so pale, it’s like guilt is pulling all the blood from her body.
I know who I heard, I just have to prove it to a room full of vampires.
“Tell us there’s a reason why you were at Aster’s aunt’s house with Franklin when he took the potion that protected him. ”
“I wasn’t there,” she says, doubling down, and now we are at a standstill. Her word against mine. And Cassius and Nicola will believe her. I may be with Bastian, but I can’t erase the twenty years of loyalty she has provided them. I have to prove it.
“If you didn’t do it, allow me to look in your memory then.”
Her eyes dart to mine. “Absolutely not. My most private thoughts…are you mad?”
“I wouldn’t be in your mind. Only your body. Only seeing what you saw. If you didn’t do it, I would think you’d want to prove it.”
“You going in her mind doesn’t prove anything to us,” Nicola says, her hands folding in front of her. “If we can’t see it for ourselves, how do we know it happened?”
I look at Bastian, defeat cloaking my nerves. I didn’t plan what would happen if Oksana denied everything, and it was stupid of me to think Nicola and Cassius would believe me blindly. They don’t understand that magic makes no mistakes, not like this. I don’t blame them.
It’s like Bastian can read my mind when he grabs my hand and pulls my face to meet his and says, “Do what you have to do to get the answers we need.” And then he whispers into my ear, “But please, don’t hurt her.”
I’ll have to go into her mind without her permission, and I don’t need Cassius’s or Nicola’s approval. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to get answers, and that’s what I’m going to get.
I nod at him, not sure how to start, and then he says, “I got your back, baby.” And I almost sway, but I squeeze his hand tightly in mine, grounding me.
He’s got my back. He’s always had my back.
Even in death, and what a feeling to know that if I fall, if I falter, he will still have my back.
I let go of his hand and take slow, calculated steps toward Oksana.
“I’m not going to be reading any of your thoughts; I will be as respectful as I can. But if you’re not going to be honest, then I need to know why you were working with my family against me. I need to know.”
Oksana turns to Nicola, her hands clasped at her chest. “I’ve worked for you as a member of your family for twenty-one years. And you let your natural enemy threaten me. This low-life, peasant trash?”
And there it is. Oksana has always treated me like I was less than her, just as filthy as the garbage on the street. But she’s never said it out loud. Yet, I’m glad she did now because it allows all my anger to fester in my hand as I walk toward her.
Bastian warns his family, his tone sharp as a razor. “Allow it.”
“Gravity,” I whisper as I press a hand against Oksana’s chest. The spell presses her hands, head, and limbs against the wall so I can touch her face and try my best to get into her memories.
She’s not willing, and two spells at once might completely drain me, but there’s no turning back now.
Now that I’m a Seer, it should work. Bastian’s back is against mine, protecting me from his mother and brother.
I place another hand on Oksana’s cheek, allowing me to say the words that will take me to her dealings with Franklin. I don’t know what I’m getting, but I will take what I can get.
“Retrosum, retrosum,” I chant, and the tunnel consumes me, my mind flying to a different place in time. Take me to memories with Franklin Maltese. I envision his greasy, gray hair, leathery skin, and coal-black eyes.
I’m transported inside Oksana’s memories, her thin hands before me, but it’s not Franklin whose eyes are meeting hers, it’s Cassius’s. I shouldn’t be here, but I’m not going to stop now, I’ve come too far.
“Oks, it can never be,” he says, clasping her delicate hands in his. They are downstairs at Comey’s, sitting across from each other on the bar stools.
“You can drink from me every night. I will give myself to you. I…fancy you.”
He drops her hands as if they burn to touch and shakes his head incessantly. “It was one time. One time, and that’s all. You are a part of our family, like a sister to me. I can’t love you back.”
“Then just drink from me again, please. I love you so much, I don’t need your love back. My love will be enough for the both of us.”
“No. I was starving, and it was a mistake. Do you hear me? Oksana, tell me you hear me. Tell me you understand. You are a sister to me. Please.” His face turns tender, grabbing her cheek in his hand.
“I don’t want to be your sister,” she whispers, and his hand falls as he rises.
“I’m sorry I lost control and put you in this position. You will always be a sister to me. Nothing can change it.” And just as he walks out, Oksana falls forward in sobs.
A flash pulls me into another time in space, this time in a home I don’t recognize but assume is Franklin’s, because he sits in a dark room in front of a vanity, combing his hair. I smell the swamp, and the cicadas singing their nighttime song.
“Cassius will never turn me. I’ve begged and begged. You promise, promise you’ll turn me once she’s dead?”
“My word is my bond, baby girl.” The comb pushes through a tangle in his hair as Oksana’s knee shakes from where she sits on the bed.
“And none of the family I work for gets hurt, right?”
“Of course not. I can’t hurt a fellow vampire. They will be fine. Once Aster’s dead, you’ll be turned and be a part of them. Now I know that’s what you really want, baby.”
I’m pulled out, my head falling against Bastian’s back, both spells ceasing at a moment’s notice. I close my eyes, weaker from performing two spells at once, my knees begging to let my body fall. But I won’t show weakness, I won’t allow it. So, I inhale slowly and open my eyes to meet Oksana’s.
Two blue circles, filled with more terror than anger. She covers her face with her hands, her back sliding to the ground right in front of me.
“She’s in love with Cassius,” I breathe out. I won’t hold in her secrets, not with what I have to reveal. “He bit her, and she’s been in love ever since.”