‘Not long.’
‘And are you going to kill me when you’re done?’
His silence, his steady gaze, evoked her irritation too much.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘is that why you killed Ellen? Did she not do as she was told either?’
He stared at her, shock evident in his eyes. And something else.
But he didn’t deny it.
Only in that moment did she realise how desperately she needed him to deny it.
‘I think the word you’re looking for is murder,’ he said. ‘That’s what it’s called when you plan it, isn’t it? When you know what you’re doing?’
Panic sliced through her chest at his confession. ‘So it’s true?’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
He turned away and swam fluidly and silently back over to the side.
Only when he had exited the pool, when he had gathered up his clothes and left the room, did she realise she was treading water alone.
Chapter Fourteen
J
ask stood outside the poolroom, his hair drying in the breeze as he toyed with the leather-strapped pendant at his neck.
Ellen’s pendent that represented the bloodline that may as well have died with her that day.
Hearing the facts of his soulmate’s demise uttered so cuttingly, so callously, had evoked only a defensive backlash from him. Not least coming from Phia. He’d wanted to shock her for her intrusion – for daring mention what she knew nothing about with such condemnation in her eyes. And clearly he
had
shocked her.
But it had been the truth.
And she’d seen as such, judging from the alarm in her eyes – worse, the repulsion. But he hadn’t expected that repulsion to wound him so intensely. He hadn’t expected the disappointment in her eyes to hurt.
Someone had been speaking out of turn. And he’d find out who.
But first he needed to be there for Blaise, having been in the process of following her when he’d caught a glimpse of Phia entering the poolroom.
As he looked towards the tunnel that led to the outbuilding, he knew that was where she was. She’d been so distressed when he’d bumped into her in the foyer that he’d had to lead her away, not least with Phia watching on from the dining hall.
Blaise had been building up to going down there for too long now, and despite Jask’s insistence that she didn’t need to face it alone, he knew that’s what she would do.
He headed across to the tunnel, through the courtyard and past the tree. Entering the building, he made his way down the steps and along the passage.
Taking a left down into the containment rooms, he opened the third on the right – the one Nero always used.
Always ahead of the rest of the pack, Nero’s morphing was out of sync by two weeks. His kind were rare, but a gift in terms of getting the balance right every time for the rest of the pack during those times when the concoction needed altering.
This time it had failed.
Blaise was sat against the wall to his left, her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them as she stared ahead at the open cage, her long brown hair almost covering her face.
‘Do you want me to leave you be?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘No.’
Jask closed the door behind him and crossed the room to join her.
Slipping in behind her, she shuffled forward to allow it, before nestling back between his splayed legs as he wrapped his arms around her.
She rested her head back against his chest, her attention on the cage unflinching.
It had been filled with her screams the last time they’d been in there.
It had been routine at first – giving Nero the concoction. Only this time something had gone wrong. This time something was out with the mix. Not only had there not been a high enough dosage of aconite to help stop the morphing; there had not been enough turmeric to counteract its toxicity. So not only had he morphed; he’d been in agony – dying shortly after.
The time most likely for errors to occur was always around thirteenth moon when the balance was so volatile. But none of them had truly been prepared for it to happen to their pack – the first time it had happened since they’d been forced into the confines of Blackthorn with the regulations.
It had been a horrendous way to go. And Blaise had been stood there watching it all. Blaise who had been devoted to her soulmate for twenty years.
If it hadn’t been for losing Nero, all of them would have taken the concoction in just over a week. And it would have killed nearly all of them – certainly the ones who had avoided ever morphing before.
But that was no consolation to Nero now, and certainly no comfort to Blaise. In the five days that had followed since the incident, nothing had been of comfort to her. The pack were there for her, as they always were for each other, but what she really wanted had been cruelly snatched away.
It would have been a tragic enough incident before the regulations, but now it was a disaster. In the past, they would have been able to travel far and wide to find whatever herbs and spices they needed – anything they hadn’t grown for themselves. But nothing got into Blackthorn or Lowtown anymore without going through analysis at the Midtown and Summerton borders. What were once common herbs and spices were now rarities or no longer accessible beyond Summerton, not least due to the fact the TSCD had zero-tolerance policies on exchange and selling of herbs in order to keep the witches in check.
Only now he knew it was more than that – reinforced by Solstice’s suspicions back in the dining hall. The authorities tolerated the lycans’ ways, but only because they knew it wouldn’t last forever. One day, the herbs they already monitored each month would eventually stop growing or they’d have insufficient and fail to access what they needed – like turmeric. Then it would be either the meds, or morph and be slain.
Now the herb regulations didn’t feel targeted at the witches at all. Now it felt much more personal. And the authorities would already be on the road to success if Rone and Samson hadn’t found Phia in the ruins.
As angry as he still was with him, he had to face the fact that Rone had come good. He felt a glimmer of pride for the first time ever – something that felt even more uncomfortable than his overly stern hand with the youth.
‘I say we morph,’ Blaise finally said. ‘If we stop avoiding what we are, the Global Council would have nothing over us. Screw the regulations; let’s run amok on the streets. Let’s break down those barriers. No other species is physically stronger than a lycan morphed. Let’s show them once and for all.’
‘Blaise, you know this is about survival. They will shoot us dead in the streets before we even get that far – those of us strong enough to even survive the morphing. This pack has too many who have never attempted it. They won’t know what they’re doing, where they are, their own strength. You cannot run an army like that and an army is what it would take. The consequences don’t bear thinking about.’
‘And what happened to Nero doesn’t bear thinking about.’
He could hear her heaving breaths, the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she started to get upset again.
He wanted to promise her that one day it would be different. That somehow they would get out of the cage that was Blackthorn and Lowtown. But he couldn’t.
But he could tell her Nero hadn’t died in vain. That there was some hope – at least for the immediate future.
‘The serryn can get us what we need,’ he said.
She was still for a moment. Then she turned in his arms. ‘What?’
‘After what happened to Nero, Corbin and I went to see a witch. We’ve got lucky. He told us there’s still a supply of turmeric here in Blackthorn. That a witch has a secret stash she has kept concealed from the authorities. That a serryn can demand it.’
Blaise frowned. ‘That’s why you have her here?’
He nodded.
‘She’ll help us?’ Blaise asked.
Bolshie, stubborn Phia who had no intention of playing ball whatsoever.
Yet.
‘I’m making sure of it,’ he said.
And as she turned back around, he held her with a renewed determination that this would not happen to the rest of his pack.
That despite the odds, he
would
succeed. No matter what it took.
Chapter Fifteen
S
ophia sat on the bench, a blanket she had found in the foyer wrapped around her upper body as she stared up at the clouds, the moon an ethereal glow behind them.
The quadrant was deathly quiet, only a handful of lycans having passed her in the past hour. She scanned the barbed wire skirting the fence ahead then returned her attention to the exit tunnel where she knew Jask was on duty in the outer room beyond.
Movement to her left caught her eye as Rone emerged through the tunnel from the courtyard. He strode along the path behind her, sending her only an almost undetectable nod as he passed on his way back up the steps and into the lobby.
Sophia stared back ahead at the exit tunnel.
She should have just sloped away, but she couldn’t. She had a job to finish. And before that she wanted, needed, final answers.
And in the three hours since he’d left her alone in the pool, she’d practised several lengths to rebuild her confidence. She’d also found the perfect place for their final confrontation.
Dropping the blanket, she crossed the quadrant, marched through the tunnel and to the gate.
‘I need to talk to Jask,’ she declared to the lycan marking it.
She was braced for persuasion, but he opened it without question, letting her through.
She stepped through the corrugated door he had equally opened for her, her attention immediately locking on the table ahead.
She hated the way he took her breath away. How he made her pulse race just to look at him.
Jask was sat with six others, all in the middle of a card game. She caught him mid-laugh before he knocked back a mouthful of beer – a laugh that seemed cold considering his earlier confession in the pool.
She hadn’t been able to get it out of her head – how he had just admitted to it. Why she had been so taken aback, she had no idea. She knew his reputation. She knew the rumours. The façade of the responsible pack leader was no mask for the brutality of the creature required to make sure his own survived that long in Blackthorn. He was no different to the others – to the other third-species underworld leaders who ran the district with a merciless hand. He was of the same ilk as the likes of Kane Malloy and Caleb Dehain – eyes and looks of an angel and a core as rotten and corrupt as the district they inhabited.
And
that’s
what she’d keep at the forefront of her mind to finish the job.
She hovered awkwardly until he met her gaze, his eyes narrowing slightly in curiosity before he returned to his game.
She stepped closer to the table, the lycans with him glancing at her but seemingly not daring to linger for too long.
‘Something you want?’ Jask asked, his attention on his cards.
‘Can I talk to you?’
He threw down a card and leaned back, resting his arm on the back of his companion’s chair. ‘About what?’
‘In private?’
A few of the lycans smirked.
They wouldn’t be smirking soon.
‘If you ask nicely,’ he said, before taking a mouthful from his bottle.
She exhaled tersely at his taunt.
‘Please,’ she said, the very word grating as she uttered it, as she swallowed a jagged lump of pride.
He knocked back another mouthful of beer before discarding his cards onto the table. ‘Sure,’ he said, standing.
He led the way out of the door, beer still in his hand. Closing it behind him, he turned to face her. ‘Let’s hear it.’
She looked across at the guard ahead. ‘Can we go for a walk?’
He knocked back another mouthful of beer, licked it from his lips as his eyes narrowed contemplatively on hers.
To her relief, he cocked his head towards the tunnel.
As they exited into the quadrant, she walked the path alongside him, her arms folded so he wouldn’t see the tension in her hands. Fortunately he didn’t press her to speak for a little while, which only granted her more time to get him where she needed to.
But it didn’t last.
‘Are you going to get to the point?’ he asked as they passed the pool, heading towards the tunnel that led to the courtyard and outbuildings. ‘Only I’m on duty.’
‘I wanted to apologise,’ she said, grateful that he at least kept walking.
‘For what?’
They exited the tunnel and passed the greenhouse – exactly where she planned to make her escape as soon as she possibly could.
As soon as she’d said her goodbye – in more ways than one.
Her pulse rate picked up a notch. She had to stay calm – steady breaths and steady pace. She couldn’t raise his suspicion one iota.
‘For being so insensitive in the pool,’ she said. ‘I clearly offended you for you to walk away like that.’
She led the way past the oak and the outhouse before continuing to the single-storey derelict building behind it.
‘You’ve done nothing but offend me ever since I brought you here, serryn. Why apologise now?’
‘Because some things are unforgiveable.’ She glanced across at him before she wandered around the back of the building. She stepped up to the chain-link fence and gazed out beyond the demolition site to the distant glow of Lowtown.
Jask moved in alongside her. ‘Forget about it,’ he said, as he wrapped his fingers through the wire and took another mouthful of beer.
She had to keep him there long enough. She had to keep talking. ‘Do you ever go into Lowtown?’
He handed her his bottle so she could take a swig.
She would have preferred something stronger, but she accepted.
‘From time to time,’ he said.
She took a mouthful and handed it back to him.
‘You?’ he asked.
‘From time to time.’
‘The fact you apologised tells me you understand what family means. Do you have family back in Summerton?’
She nodded. But she didn’t elaborate. Sharing her story was a no-go zone. Not even Daniel knew. But then that was part of the agreement in The Alliance – no one ever disclosed anything. It was the most essential component to prevent ever being traced.
‘Is the serryn need in you
so
great that you can turn your back on your own?’
‘We all have things we have to do in life.’ She glanced at him before looking back ahead through the wire. ‘You should know that. Besides, they’re better off without me.’
He turned to face her side-on, leaning his shoulder against the fence. ‘You say that like you mean it.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Did you do something?’ he asked, before taking another swig of beer.
She backed up against the wall. This was the time for
him
to open up, not her. ‘I was always doing
something
.’ She slid down to the floor and crossed her legs.
He settled down alongside her as they both gazed out over the darkness, the distant thrum of bass emanating from the hub from far beyond the compound behind. She rested her head against the wall and stared up at the night sky, the clouds sweeping past the half-moon, any hint of stars clouded by pollution.
It was nothing like lying on a blanket of green in the hills of Summerton, staring up at the clear sky as Leila explained all the constellations. Explanations that inevitably ended up with her talking to herself as Sophia and Alisha instead opted to roll down the hills, their squeals and laughter breaking the peace.
And all that time, Leila had been hiding a secret – if she’d ever known what she was. There was still the chance she hadn’t. But too much was falling into place.
Back when Sophia had first discovered a vampire had been responsible for their mother’s death, everything had changed. Like dye in a clear pool of water, the need for vengeance had polluted her veins. Her search for vampire weaknesses had inevitably led her to discover the existence of serryns – a rare species of ancient witch whose blood was poisonous to vampires. Seductresses who would hunt them down, torture them and kill them.
The prospect had excited her at the time, and she’d become fixated on trying to find one despite rumours they were now extinct. She’d openly told Leila of her intentions, but Leila hadn’t shared her excitement. Infuriatingly, her big sister had told her to let things go or, worse, had met her rants with pure silence.
She’d never understood why Leila didn’t have that same need for vengeance. Now all she wanted to know was why, if she had known what she was, she hadn’t done anything about it.
But at the time, she’d had no reason to think anything of it. Instead, she’d ignored her big sister more and more as her trips to Lowtown became more frequent.
On her first venture into Blackthorn, she’d met Daniel. He and a couple of the others had rescued her when she’d been cornered by a vampire. They took him out swiftly, efficiently and bloodily.
She’d been enraptured by their control, their fearlessness. Less than a month later, she’d joined them. And she’d never looked back.
But now her head ached with the need for answers about her family. To find out what had been going on whilst she’d been away those past ten months.
That was personal though – this was business. And the former wasn’t going to happen until the latter was dealt with.
She’d made a pact. A pact with The Alliance, who had given her a purpose, put a roof over her head, honed her skills and set her on the path to vengeance that she so desperately needed.
And here she was alone with one of those very underworld leaders that they spent weeks, months even, planning to get access to. She’d been handed an opportunity like The Alliance never had. There would be consequences, of course. Rone would know it was her – that The Alliance had been responsible. Whether he would disclose how he knew though and that, subsequently, he had allowed it to happen, was unlikely.
She reached down to the heel of her boot, where her folded blade was concealed in the opposite heel to the pins. It might have been small but it was effective. Right angle, right force, right place and he’d be gone.
She’d return to The Alliance not only as their ultimate weapon, but with one underworld leader down and only two to go. She’d like to see Abby’s face then.
But as she looked across at him sat silently beside her – those beautiful azure eyes locked on the demolition site ahead, that stunning profile, that body that had made her feel like no one else had, that mind which seemed to somehow tune seamlessly into hers – she wavered again.
The reminder, the truth of what a monster he was, was exactly what she needed to make her plans easier.
‘So you meant it when you said you murdered your mate? You weren’t just saying it?’
He met her gaze, albeit fleetingly. He knocked back the remains of his beer. ‘Why?’ he asked, returning his gaze ahead.
‘Did she do something wrong?’
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘She made a mistake wanting to be with me.’
She placed her numb hands flat against the cold, stone ground. ‘How did you kill her?’
‘In a blood bath,’ he said. ‘More blood than I’ve ever seen.’
She studied his eyes to try and work out if it was a wind-up – but the eyes that glanced back at her emanated nothing but truth.
‘Did she betray you in some way?’
‘She would never have betrayed me.’ He moved to stand. ‘Ever.’
But she caught his forearm, her fingers barely reaching either side, reminding her how badly a one-on-one battle could end for her.
‘Then why?’ she asked.
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘Who wouldn’t be? An alpha murdering his mate – it’s not exactly commonplace, is it? You’re supposed to be the most loyal of all your species.’
‘According to the rumours?’ He pulled his arm free and stood. But instead of walking away he turned to face her. ‘Your kind knows nothing. Nothing about us. Nothing about the truth. You and your Summerton education. You’ve no sense of the real world, just like the rest of them, serryn or not.’
She stood up, needing to be as close to eye level as she could. But she kept the wall behind her for balance. ‘Don’t patronise me, Jask. I’ve lived here long enough. I’ve seen what it’s like.’
‘Really? And yet you
still
justify your actions.’
‘I can justify them
because
of what I’ve seen.’
‘Because of what
your
kind has created. You think you know what it’s like because you
choose
to live within these boundaries? Take a look around – a
real
look around at this so-called temporary measure. This was never going to be anything other than one giant experimental pod; one third-species-sized rat maze. They created this to
make
us implode – to make us exactly what they want us to be. Like a caged animal in a zoo being prodded with a stick, they stand back and justify how aggressive we are so they can give cause to keeping us contained. And then
you
come into the mix. You’re not even one of them. You talk about my kind being some kind of half-breed – what are you? Human with extra skills? No, you’re nothing but the second species to them. And when they’ve finally found a good enough reason to wipe us off the earth, they’ll start on you. For as long as your kind are in charge, we’re all fucked.’
‘You’re wrong,’ she said, the breeze blowing against her already chilled skin. ‘It was
your
kind that upset the balance by coming out in the first place. We contain you because we’re the best species on this planet at self-preservation – and we
will
win in the end.’
He stepped up to her, pressed his hand to her shoulder, trapping her against the wall. ‘Is that right?’
She held his gaze as he slipped his hand between her arm and her side, sliding his fingers down her ribcage, finding the soft flesh that would give him the easiest upward thrust to her heart.
‘Like now?’ he asked. ‘Your arrogance, your need to be right, your need to justify your actions pressing you that one step further with a species already about to snap? Do you know how easily I could tear your heart out from you right now if I chose to?’
Her breath hitched, the feel of his now lethally extended talons digging into her flesh through her tunic. ‘You need me,’ she said, searching for a reason for him not to, for one moment believing,
really
believing, him capable.