Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Adrienne was dressed in the same clothes she’d left in.
Her face was smeared with dirt and blood.
I barely paid any mind to the cut across her face—that could be healed in a matter of moments.
But there were deeper wounds here that I could do nothing to soothe.
Not a single image came to me, not even a whisper of a thought.
Whatever happened to her had forced her mind to close up tight.
Her mouth trembled as her shoulders did, lips tensing into a thin line, as she worked to swallow back the tears standing in her eyes.
Slowly I scooped her into my arms. Though she did not fight me, she didn’t melt into my hold the way she had before. Her spine went rigid, knuckles straining white against her fists, and a soft huff slipped through her locked jaw.
Ralph’s voice had roused me from my daylight rest, screaming inside my mind: Adrienne’s face, covered in blood, the way he’d found her walking empty-handed into the small center of the outer city dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
I hadn’t cared that the sun was still peeking through the sky—it had barely bothered me as I’d darted from my coffin and toward the estate.
But no amount of Ralph’s warnings had prepared me for this.
Every fiber of my being told me to take her through the bedroom and into the bathing chamber.
To run her a bath and brush her hair and fill her with my blood and my seed until we could never be parted again.
Instead, I took her to her music room, settling her onto the settee beneath the window.
Bernard appeared through the door a moment later carrying a tray laden with supplies.
“Bring some tea,” I murmured to him.
He nodded, slid the tray onto the side table and disappeared.
Adrienne didn’t so much as move from where I’d sat her, even when I dragged the table a little closer and the legs scraped across the floor.
She stared at her hands, her tangled hair hiding her face from view.
I grabbed one of the many cloths on the tray and dipped it in the steaming water before sitting beside her.
“Look at me, my heart.”
When she didn’t move, I drew her face toward mine. Her eyes squeezed shut, hands fisted in the wrinkled fabric of her skirts. I swallowed the urge to repeat myself, to push her to speak.
The first pass of the cloth over her face barely did anything to disturb the dried blood across her pale skin. I re-wet the fabric and pressed it over her cheek, waiting for the warmth to release some of the worst of it.
A few times I opened my mouth only to shut it again, my throat clicking with a swallow. The silence was deafening as I worked, choking on all the words I wanted to say.
Tell me what happened.
Tell me who did this to you.
Do not leave me again.
Please.
Stay.
Eventually Bernard returned with tea, placed it on the tray and took back the ruined cloths saturated with blood and dirt. But when I picked up the brush he’d left to comb through her hair, she grabbed my wrist.
“Stop.” Her voice was nothing more than a rasp and almost at once her hand fell away.
I set the brush down, watching as her eyes opened. They were bloodshot and tired—full of so much sadness it made my throat ache with something other than thirst. Though I’d told myself I wouldn’t, I heard the words I’d shoved away. “Tell me what happened.”
Adrienne shook her head and rose from the settee, turning her back to me. “I will not.”
My teeth ground together and I stopped the growl right before it left my throat.
If she would not tell me then I could not force her.
As if in a trance, she padded toward the pianoforte, settling on the bench with stiff, almost mechanical movements.
But she did not play, only stared at the keys as if she was seeing something else entirely.
A single image slipped through her walls to me: a windowless room, tiny fingers moving over keys drawn into thick dust across a tabletop.
“Adrienne…” I breathed.
The first note sounded, followed by a flowing melody I’d only heard the beginning of.
All the pieces of my heart fractured into fragments so small I feared they would never come back together again.
But that was not the greatest fear I felt as she played, as her face contorted in pain, as her breaths came in quick gasps.
I feared for what had been broken in her and all the things that now would never be.
I pointed to the map stretched across my wide desk. “He headed north, I believe.”
Callum and Mateo hunched over to stare at where I pointed, the latter humming thoughtfully while the former nodded. For weeks we’d been holed up in these rooms looking at maps and discussing where I believed Seth would be and what they might find.
“I do not understand why you cannot come with us,” Callum murmured, running a hand through his hair while he fell into one of the wingback chairs.
Agitation rippled across my shoulders, though it was nothing new.
These days I was made up of nothing but tension, nothing but a vibrating ball of fear and anger and helplessness.
After the night Adrienne returned home from All Souls, she’d all but returned to normal.
To anyone else she appeared her regular self, but her smiles did not reach her eyes.
Though she tried to hide it, every time I touched her she tensed as if bracing herself for some unfathomable impact.
I’d replaced the clothes and valise that had been taken from her—I refused to believe the excuse she gave that she’d “lost” them.
There had been no ritual or extravagance as I gave her these things.
I’d merely set the new case on her small table in the parlor of Risqeu before settling in to watch her stare at the fire in the hearth.
Each time I saw her she encouraged me to drink, though I did so less and less for fear of taking advantage of her mental state. And with each passing night her frown deepened until it finally seemed to be a permanent part of her face.
“It would be wiser for me to stay away,” I answered Callum. “Thousands of years have passed since Seth last walked this earth.”
Mateo raised a dark brow. “Would it not be wiser for you to be there, then? For the first thing he sees to be a familiar face?”
Where is your courage, Eamon? Seth’s haunting voice rang through my ears. If you stay still too long, you will begin to grow roots.
Those were the last words my maker had spoken before he kissed me and set out into the forest. Mael had already begun his descent into madness, refusing to listen to reason or caution.
I’d been convinced with time he would see the error of his ways, that if I was patient and stood by his side he would come to understand one could not lead through violence and fear.
How wrong I’d been.
Perhaps it was a mercy Seth had not been there to see it. But he would see it now. He would open his eyes to this new world and witness the terror and destruction his son had wrought. Both his sons, for I had done nothing but stand idly by.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears and I shook my head. “Trust me, it is better I am not.”
I gave them both tense smiles as they nodded, looking again at the part of the forest I’d seen Seth walk into on the northernmost border of the country.
The night was young enough they would make it in there with plenty of time to search and return—or else dig into the earth to wait out the day until they could begin again.
“Move with caution,” I warned. “And clear your minds.”
Both males nodded solemnly as I pulled them into my embrace one at a time.
Mateo squeezed me tight and I did not need my gift to feel the grief clinging to him like a second skin.
The loss of Jules would stay with him for the rest of his existence.
Callum was next, the scent of Lilith faint but very much there in his hair and on his clothes.
They had not sealed their bond, but they would soon.
“When you return, I will ensure Lilith comes to the full moon ball,” I told him as we parted. “That way you may have some time together without fear.”
He nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Uncle.”
I brushed my lips across his brow before ushering them toward the window. “Go, quickly. I’ll be here when you return.”
After they were gone, I wandered back to the music room. Adrienne’s scent permeated every surface, the ghost of her standing over my shoulder as I sat on the bench and ran my hands over the keys. Tonight, like many nights recently, I stayed away from her, wondering if it was for the best.
Where is your courage, Eamon?
But as I played, my hands scattering across the keys and finding the haunting variation she’d created there between the notes, I ached for her more than I ever had before.
The bond, even if only invoked, was permanent.
Just as Mateo’s grief would always be with him, so would Adrienne always be with me.
And I dreaded when that longing would become loss, when her scent would be nothing but a memory.
For the first time in millennia, I gave myself over to tears.
Not the singular ones that I occasionally shed, but the sobs I’d held back for lifetimes.
I cried until the dawn began to rise, until blood streaked my face, until the keys were red, until my shirt was soaked and the music was nothing more than discordant notes.
A hand closed over my shoulder, turning me with a strength so powerful it made me dizzy. I gasped, staring wide-eyed at the pale skin and dark hair before me, the gold eyes swirling with unearthly magic. Eyes I had not seen in millennia.
Seth touched my cheek from where he stood beside the piano bench, thumb dragging through my tears.
I rose to my feet, fear climbing its way through my chest until it sank its claws into my throat.
But my maker only smiled sadly at me, leaning forward to kiss my mouth in the way of the ancients, before pulling me into his arms.
The scent of earth clung to his unforgiving skin, colder and harder than ours could ever be.
For a moment I was again a human man held in his arms as he carried me from the ruins of my village and the bodies that surrounded me.
I could practically feel the wound through my chest—the arrow I’d taken pulsing with each beat of my heart. His lips brushed my ear.
“All will be well, ahnak makayna. It is time for you to release your fear.”