Chapter 33
DARCIE
“Bella?” My voice comes out as a strangled, broken whisper as my mind struggles to accept what my eyes see. “Is it really you?”
The petite Immortal smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Hello, Darcie.” Her voice is calm. Controlled. “Welcome to Italy.”
“Italy?” I echo. I shift myself to the side, placing myself more completely in front of Gregoy. “Why are we in Italy?”
Bella doesn’t answer. She turns her head toward Henry. “You are needed in the parlor.”
Henry bows low.
My skin crawls.
The warlock disappears through the doorway, and Bella closes the metal door behind him with a clang.
The sound reverberates through the concrete room, sealing us in.
I stare at Bella like I’m seeing a ghost.
She’s changed so much in the few weeks she’s been gone.
Her youthful glow is dimmed, as if someone had snuffed it out.
The blue dress she wears hangs off her frame. Her shoulders look narrower. Her face is hollow. The joyous warmth she always radiated is absent.
A stoic, withdrawn young woman stands in front of me, looking like she’s been carved out from the inside.
And despite that, despite the wrongness of her smile and the emptiness in her eyes, I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life.
Because a part of me…a part I wouldn’t acknowledge out loud…feared the worst after Adir took her.
Seeing her standing here, alive, hits me like a welcome slap to the face.
But something is wrong.
Something stops me from rejoicing that I’ve found her.
“What’s going on, Bella?” I lick my dry lips and look around the dreary room again. “Where are we?”
“Adir’s home in the Italian countryside,” she replies with little emotion. “Henry was supposed to bring you to the main house, but I assume he changed his mind when he realized Gregory had accompanied you.”
I glance at Gregory’s unconscious form, then back up. “You know Gregory?”
“I know of him,” she says. “But we have never been introduced.”
Everything she says is so formal. So…lifeless.
Is this an act?
I search her face, desperate for the Bella I know.
“Why am I here?” My voice rises. “Why are you here?”
No one is with us. Bella is alone. If she wanted to leave, she could use her powers and—
“You are here to help Adir.” Her tone stays maddeningly calm. “As am I.”
My throat tightens. “What are you talking about? You were kidnapped. Why are you helping Adir?”
“Adir didn’t kidnap me. I left Greece of my own free will.”
“That’s not true!” The shout rips out of me, raw disbelief with nowhere else to go. “That’s not—Bella, that doesn’t make any sense!”
Maybe she’s brainwashed.
My mind flashes to the waking sleep Adir put me under after he kidnapped me from the ball—how my body grew heavy and my thoughts blurred—how the world felt like it was underwater. He has the ability to manipulate the mind.
He must have done something to Bella.
That’s the only explanation for the way she’s standing there like a stranger wearing my friend’s face.
“I know this is confusing,” Bella continues calmly, “but I’m helping Adir for the good of everyone. I’m helping him to end the rebellion.”
I don’t buy it.
I remember the vision of Bella on the stone balcony the night she disappeared, and Adir stepping out of the shadows. He’d tried to attack her.
I don’t know what happened next, but there is no way Bella willingly left with him.
So why is she saying she did?
“Adir is the cause of the rebellion,” I say, praying logic will be able to break through whatever spell Bella is under. “If he wants to end it, all he has to do is turn himself in.”
“It’s not that simple,” she counters. “The Council needs to change its policy regarding Immortals and their interactions with humans.”
My insides turn to ice. “Are you serious?”
Emotion sparks in her dim eyes, but it fades just as swiftly. “I am.”
I…can’t believe this.
“How could you do this?” Betrayal sharpens my voice. “How could you do this to your family? To Thane?”
“I am doing this to help Thane.”
I scoff. “I sincerely doubt Thane would consider this helping. He would never approve of you working with Adir.”
“Thane will understand,” she insists. “His role as the leader of his brothers is wearing him down. It is time for the Council to stop using the brothers as their enforcers.”
Her words sound like something Adir would say.
She has to be brainwashed.
I try a different tactic.
“Couldn’t you just talk to Thane about stepping down?” I swallow, searching for the right phrasing. “If you asked him, I bet he would resign. He’d do anything for you. He hasn’t been the same since you left.”
He’s actually been a raging maniac, but telling her that won’t help anything.
Instead of convincing her, my words make her face crumple.
“I have asked Thane to step down many times,” she says, voice tightening. “Despite my pleas, he refuses to do so.”
“Maybe he didn’t realize how much you wanted it.” I take a single step forward, grasping at the fragile hope that she’s able to be reasoned with. “He misses you, Bella. If you go back to Greece, things will be different. He’ll listen if it means you’re back.”
Moisture gathers behind her eyes, and she clasps her hands before crossing them over her chest.
“You’re wrong. He doesn’t care what I think.” Her lips tremble. “Only Adir ever seemed to value my opinion, and look where that got me.”
The second the words leave her mouth, she looks like she regrets them.
I shake my head. “You know Adir can’t be trusted.”
She looks away. “I don’t have a choice.”
I seize the opening. “What do you mean? Why don’t you have a choice?”
For a moment, I don’t think she’s going to answer.
Her features shutter, and I fear she’s going to revert to the unrecognizable stranger who stepped through the metal doors.
“Do you remember the night before you visited Adir in the dungeon? When I came to your room for dinner, and we talked?”
I nod slowly.
Bella had been apologizing for insisting that we go to Portland to celebrate my birthday. She tried to blame herself for my troubles.
And she was trying to tell me something…something that bothered her.
But then Alex showed up, and she left.
“I remember,” I say. “You were going to tell me about something you said you thought was over…but it isn’t.”
Her eyes close with a pained wince.
“Yes. I was going to tell you that I…” She trails off, taking a deep breath. “I was going to tell you that I made a mistake. In the beginning, when I first joined the family…I struggled.”
My stomach knots. I press my lips together and listen, dread growing with each word that passes her lips.
“I was young,” she continues, voice quiet but steady. “And not the best at handling my emotions. Thane and I had been married for almost a decade, and I already noticed how poorly others perceived the brothers because of their role as the Council’s enforcers.”
She opens her eyes and meets my gaze. “I asked Thane to step down. I proposed that he, Lome, and Des stand up to the other Immortals and demand to be released from their duty.”
Her throat bobs. “And do you know what he did?”
She waits.
“No,” I whisper. “What did he do?”
A tear slips down her cheek. “He laughed at me. Thane thought the idea was hilarious.”
I stare at her, struggling to connect the dots.
That happened centuries ago. Why does it matter now?
I can’t believe Bella would turn against Thane after all these years. They are in love. They’re happy. I know they are.
“I don’t get it,” I admit. “What does this have to do with you helping Adir?”
Bella glances at the metal door to gather herself. When she turns back to me, something volatile swirls beneath the deadened calm in her expression.
“Adir saw me,” she says. “After Thane dismissed me.”
The knots in my stomach tighten.
“I was crying,” she continues. “I wasn’t even sure where I was. I only knew I couldn’t stay in the hallway, not where someone might walk by and find me.”
Her voice breaks, then steadies again like she’s gripping it with both hands. “I stumbled into a room, and Adir was there.”
Tears slowly begin to slide down her cheeks.
My thoughts leap from one to another, struggling to make sense of what she’s about to tell me.
But never, in my life, could I have ever anticipated her next words.
With a shaky breath, Bella delivers a confession with quiet finality that makes me question everything I know about the Immortal.
“I had an affair with Adir.”