Chapter 37 #2
“Our land stood in the way of a Damascus development project. My father, the alpha, refused to sell. We thought that was the end of it. After all, the Thorns and the Damascuses had been close friends for decades. I grew up with Sterling. He’d been like a brother to me.
But it was Sterling who called me away that day.
Summoned me to help him with some important business, and while I was with him, his father burned my land and killed my family. ”
My breath caught in my throat. “Oh, Drayven…I’m so fucking sorry.”
He looked away. “I wanted to die too. But Brenna and I made a pact when we had our first child. We vowed that if anything should happen to either of us, the other would learn to go on with their lives. That we wouldn’t mourn forever.
She was sunshine and happiness, and I couldn’t disappoint her.
But I made another vow on her grave. I vowed not to move on with my life until the person responsible for taking my family and most of my pack was dead. ”
“Sterling?”
“Yes.”
“Then why… Why haven’t you—”
“Killed him already?” His mouth turned down. “Oh, believe me, I’ve tried, but I can’t. When we were ten, we made a blood pact. A stupid oath that bound us to protect one another. I can’t kill him, and he can’t kill me.”
Vampires and their fucking blood pacts. Wait… “Is that why you joined me when I was facing that Wyrm? To force him to protect you—and me by extension?”
“I would have been by your side regardless, but yes, it forced him to act. Forced him to bring down the Wyrm.”
If it had been just me, Sterling would have let me die.
“I can’t break the pact,” Drayven continued.
“But I’ve been told that with time, as long as we don’t replenish it, it will weaken.
So, I’m waiting. And in the meantime, I can be here, a constant reminder of what he did.
I want him to see Brenna in my eyes every time he looks at me.
To remember Tabitha and Troy, the children who once called him Uncle Sterling.
I want him to know that there is no running away from me, and as soon as the bond breaks, I’ll claw out his fucking heart.
” The pain dripping from his words echoed mine, resonating in a way that made me want to wrap my arms around him and cradle him to me.
I moved toward him, and he slid his chair back. “Don’t. I can’t.” He swallowed hard. “You smell too good.”
I relaxed back against the pillows. “I’m sorry.”
He dropped his chin and took a couple of deep breaths before speaking again. “I wanted you to know. To understand why I’ll have to keep a distance.”
“I understand.” Even though it left me feeling hollow and empty. “I just… I hope that in time we can be friends.”
He lifted his head, a wry smile on his beautiful lips.
“No. Ana. I can’t be your friend. Not when all I can think about is pressing you into the mattress and marking you over and over until you’re mine.
” His knuckles whitened and his thighs bunched, and for a moment I thought he’d leap onto the bed and act out his words, and my stomach warmed with need.
But he reined in his emotions, standing slowly, fingers flexing. “I should go.”
I nodded, lost for words.
He stopped in the doorway, his back to me. “You’re in my Advanced Combat class next month. I won’t see you outside of that, and when I do, things will be different. Goodbye, Anamaya.”
He closed the door behind him. Closed it on any possibility of an us, and that was fine. It didn’t matter.
Then why the fuck did it hurt?
I pulled up the sheets, snuggled down, and closed my eyes. I needed a reset, and sleep was the best way to do that.
* * *
I love bedtime stories with Father. He does all the voices, and he always allows one more chapter. I love how safe he makes me feel, and how his dark eyes light up with smiles when he looks at me. But tonight, we’ve come to the end of the book, and he closes it with a sigh. “The End.”
“But is it?” I sit up straighter. “Won’t Penelope have more adventures?”
“Maybe,” he says with a secretive smile. “Maybe there is another book.”
I let out a squeal. “Where? Where is it?”
He chuckles and ruffles my hair. “We can start it when I’m back from my trip.”
I pout. “Do you have to go?”
“Yes, darling. I do. But it’s the last trip, and then I’ll be back, and I won’t ever leave you again.”
“You promise?”
He holds up his pinkie. “I promise.”
“But he did leave you. He left forever,” the rook says from the windowsill.
“Go away. I want to stay here.”
“You can’t. You know you can’t. You have to move forward. You have a job to do, and I can help you. Let me show you. Let me show you so that we can begin.”
My childhood bedroom melts away, and I’m outside Bramble Tower, looking at my window, lit softly by lamplight.
“This way.” The rook flies over my head. “Can you see?”
A girl stands by the pavilion up ahead. Her dark hair falls over her shoulders, sleek and glossy, and her blue eyes are bright and eager.
“Hello?” I hurry closer. “Hello, who are you?”
“You know who she is,” the rook says. “You know…”
Her form flickers, and she’s no longer sleek-haired and bright-eyed, but gray-skinned with dark holes for eyes. Her head is tipped at an impossible angle, and her hair is a rat’s nest of tangles.
“Find me…” she whispers.
I want to run away, but my feet carry me forward, toward her.
“Don’t fight. You have to see. You must see!”
My blood burns, limbs screaming in protest even as I tell them that yes. Yes, I need to know. I need to see.
The woman vanishes, only to reappear inside the pavilion. I don’t want to go inside the gloomy interior. Don’t want to see what lurks in the dark, but I follow anyway, slipping past the ivy veil draped over the stone structure.
“Find me…” She points at the ground, at the planks, once white but now scuffed and speckled with moss. “Find…me…” The hollow sadness in her tone stokes a fire to life inside me.
I have to find her.
I drop to my knees and run my hands over the wood that fits so neatly together. “There’s nothing here. Nothing—”
The rook lands on the balcony, wings flapping in agitation. “Look and you will see.”
But I am looking. I… Oh… Silver lines flicker to life across the wood to form a symbol that’s arcane but unknown to me, and then another line blooms, moving across the wood to create a square.
A seam…there’s a seam cut into the wood, so slender anyone would miss it if not searching for it.
Heart pounding, I trace it with my fingers until I come to a small gap.
Too small to pry open with a finger. I push my nail into it and feel something click.
A soft whirr sounds, and the hatch slips down, then shifts sideways, revealing a space beneath occupied by a bundle of thick cloth.
A blanket?
I look up at the gray figure of the girl who my gut tells me is Selina, then down at the large bundle wrapped in the blanket.
“Find me…” A tear rolls down her cheek, and my chest aches.
“Selina?”
She nods. “Find me.”
Oh Trinity. I take a breath, steeling myself before reaching into the hole to peel back the blanket.
A face stares up at me, perfectly preserved and serene, as if only sleeping.
“Oh… Oh, Selina…” There’s something poking out from the blanket, pressed to her chest. I pull the fabric aside, revealing a crystalline gem.
“Find me,” Selina says again, urgent now. Pushing me to act.
“I have, I… This is you, isn’t it? This dream. It’s you. You’re showing me where to find you. I’ve got to wake up and see, so—”
“Find me now!” She jabs a finger at the gem.
I reach for it, allowing her to guide me to take it. To remove it. But the gem seems to resist, fighting me as I tug, until finally, with a fizz and crackle, it comes free.
The body in the hole snaps open its eyes and screams.
I fall back, dropping the crystal. It shatters, and a shockwave of energy blasts me in the face, lifting my hair and stealing my breath. The stench of death fills my nose.
“Now you see…”
The rook flies at my face, and I fall back, head slamming against the pavilion floor.
“Anamaya? Can you hear me? Anamaya?”
Vitra appeared above me, his face a tight, unreadable mask. “Get up.” He slips a hand under my shoulders, helping me sit up.
Oh Trinity. I remember. I remember it all. “I was dreaming. I saw her. I saw her body.”
“I see it too,” Vitra said, shifting slightly to allow me a view of my surroundings.
I was in the pavilion. Truly here, and the hole was here too. I scrambled toward it, gagging as the stench of decomposition hit me.
“Who is it?” Vitra asks. “Who’s the girl?”
I peered into the hole, at the face with no eyes, head cocked to one side, neck snapped. “Selina Evergreen. The girl no one remembers.”
His face drained of color and he exhaled sharply, “Selina… Yes. Yes, I remember her.” His hand went to his temple. “If what I suspect is true, now that you’ve found her, everyone else will remember her too.”