Dark Craving: A Watchers Novella (9 page)

“You mean if I followed her every whim without question?” I shrug it off, this moment between Carden and me. “I work for Freya. I don’t worship her.”

“You do more than work for her; you’ve a pact with her. A devil’s bargain—isn’t that what they call it? You’ve made a deal but get naught in return.” He gives a considering pause. “But that can’t be true, can it? We all want something. And I keep trying to figure what it is you get from all this. You say you want to protect Annelise, but you know I’ve got that covered. Maybe you just want to stay on
Eyja næturinnar
because you want to figure out how to make a vampire of yourself. Is that it?”

I speak before I think. “Not hardly.” I soften the words with a laugh.

Carden doesn’t smile with me, though. Instead, an uncharacteristically serious look crosses his face. “I want you to admit something.”

I brace for it. Now will he ask about Annelise?

“Your power,” he says. “Can you use it on vampires?” His words come easy, but his vivid gaze is pinned on me. “Will you be able to use it on Dagursson?”

It’s something I’ve wondered a thousand times, and the answer is, I don’t know. I suppose it’ll be tested soon enough…when I face Dagursson.

But as I begin to reply, I spot a glint in Carden’s eye—a hunger to know the strengths and weaknesses of someone who might become as much enemy as ally. “No,” I lie. “I can’t use it on vampires.”

“Then Godspeed, my man.” He gives a very Carden-like shake of his head, both apology and amusement. “I expect Dagursson to be dead by the end of the week. Or…”

“Or I will be?”

But his attention moves over my shoulder. He claps a hand to his chest as a broad smile spreads across his face. “And here I thought the sun rose in the east.”

I turn. It’s her. Annelise.

She looks from him, to me, and back again. I suppose he is a vampire—her bonded vampire—and I suppose it
is
wise to give such a creature your full attention, and yet I can’t help the jealousy that roils through me. She belongs to him.

For now.

“Acari Drew,” I greet her formally.

“Tracer Ronan,” she replies with a studied detachment that hollows my chest. Is this her being afraid? Does she worry how her bond might betray her feelings?

I stiffen, poised to protect her in case of the worst. But Carden doesn’t seem to sense anything. Instead, he pulls her into his arms, drags his fingers through her hair, and tips her face to his. Now he’s kissing her forehead.

I have to look away. Is he doing this for my benefit? Marking his territory like a dog?

I sense more nuzzling, then he proclaims, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night. Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright.’”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter.

But he heard me. I think maybe I wanted him to. “What’s the problem, boy? Not a fan of poetry?”

“Poetry.” I give a dismissive scowl. As if this isn’t secretly killing me.

Carden says I should try to be happy? Fine, I know what’ll make me happy: Annelise. She is the pleasure I’ll seize.

“That’s a poem?” Annelise asks. There’s a whiff of wonderment in her voice that makes me bristle.

I study her, the way the morning light hits her at an angle. Her hair has darkened this long winter, now yellow from a yellowish white. Beauty like the night? Annelise is more than that—she’s like the sun.

“Oh, aye, I’m full of surprises. That was Lord Byron.” Carden turns to Annelise. “He lived life…what is it you say?”

She shifts her weight. Balancing herself or trying subtly to pull away? I can’t tell. “He lived large?”

Carden’s laugh is joyful and heartfelt. “Aye, just so.”

I want to impale the bastard then and there. My wrists flex automatically, feeling the handmade stakes I keep ever hidden beneath my sleeves.

“You’d better get to the dining hall before the good stuff goes,” Annelise tells me. There’s a look of alarm on her face—she’s seen my gesture, just as she’s seen my secret stakes before.

She’s trying to get rid of me. I’ve been a fool. I begin to shutter my emotions.

But then her hand darts to mine and squeezes. “I’ll find you, Ronan. Later.” Intensity lights her eyes in a secret message.

She’s changed me. And I’ll change everything for her. But first, she’ll need time. She’s the one who cheated on a vampire—she’s probably all kinds of anxious.

I carry a warmth hidden in my heart, reserved for her alone. I free it now, Carden be damned. I free it into the light of day, letting it fill my eyes as I return her gaze full on.
I’m here,
it says silently
. I wait. Forever if need be.
The sentiment I give voice to, though, is significantly more banal. “What, precisely, do you characterize as the good stuff? Would that be tinned oats or expired yogurt?”

She understands. Knows I won’t pressure her. I imagine I’m the only one able to see her relief; it relaxes the set of her shoulders, eases something that had become pinched around her eyes. “Blood pudding,” she answers with a shudder.

“A delicacy,” Carden says, yet again inserting himself. He’ll always be there, inserting himself. He’s undead.

I can’t have her yet, but I can protect her. I’ll do this thing. In the end, I forgo the dining hall. Today, I decide. Not tonight but
today
I assassinate Dagursson. Perhaps Carden is right—perhaps it will kill me. I have no choice. All I know is I must keep Annelise safe.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I burst into the Arts Pavilion
and head straight for Dagursson’s office. At first I wanted to do this for Annelise, but now? Now I’m doing it for
us
.

I’ll appease Freya by killing the vampire, and then, if Ann wishes it, she and I can run away. We could go wherever she desires. I’ll find us a new place. I could find my family—Dagursson knows where they are. We could stay with them. It’d be on a faraway island where the sun shines. I only need to get the information from the vampire before I kill him.

I reach his door and pull back my shoulders. I wondered how to kill him, which ruse I could use to get inside, but in the end, my only plan is that there is no plan—there’s no cover story clever enough to prevent the old Viking from suspecting me. And so I’ve got my urumi around my waist, stakes up my sleeves, and an old metal lighter in my pocket. My only hope is to take him by surprise.

I flex one hand as the other finds the lighter, my thumb poising on its small steel spinner. I’ll threaten his scrolls. He’ll tell me of my family. I’ll find them, and they’ll give us shelter.

Briefly, I seek inside myself, reaching for my power. I don’t summon it, not yet, in case the vampire is able to sense it, too. Maybe it won’t be enough. Maybe it’ll kill me.

Annelise.
Her name is mantra in my head.
For us.

I shove the door, and it opens with a
slam
. I’m powerful, driven. I’m a knight of old, storming the castle.

“Tracer,” the vampire shouts, scolding. “Does Alcántara not teach manners to his errand boys?” He thinks I’ve been sent by another vampire. Of course he would. He’s too arrogant to believe a mere mortal would think to take him on. It’s a perfect ruse—it’ll buy me time.

“Insolence, all around,” he mutters. “The moment we let go of the ancient ways, we open the door to corruption and dishonor.”

I scan the room, assessing his position without even thinking. He’s seated at an old rolltop writing desk—legs tucked under, shoulders hunched over. The old Viking is impossibly fast but would need to move around furniture to get to me. Maybe it’ll be enough to slow him. Maybe it won’t.

“Well?” He puts down his pen and stares. “Tell me what the Spaniard wants so I can get back to my translations.”

I walk straight to the far corner of the room. He tracks my gaze, sees what I see. The thing he values above all other things. What he’d do anything to protect. His scrolls, several of them, stacked on a nearby table. Threatening them is my only shot at answers. Will it be enough to make him speak?

Dagursson gapes in disbelief when I reach his worktable. “Whatever Alcántara wants, I assure you, it’s not there. Does he have a message for me or not?” He heaves a put-out sigh and scoots back his chair.

“Alcántara,” I say quickly, “says no need to get up for the fool boy.”

He leans back, bemused by this unexpected reply. “Would the ‘fool boy’ care to explain?”

I’m at the table. It’s time. I graze my power with an invisible touch.

His eyes shrink to slits in his desiccated face. I sent a pulse of my power, and he felt it. I have to bite back an astonished grin. This changes everything.

“What game are you playing?” Dagursson’s gaze flicks to his scrolls, suspicious now. “Don’t tell me Hugo has developed a sudden taste for reading.”

I grab one at random. “He wanted me to get this.”

Dagursson shoots to his feet. “What does he want with the Normandy scroll? Does he…” But my lighter is in place, dancing beneath the ancient parchment. The instant he spots it, he bares his fangs in a hiss. He seems to grow, to rise, his energy looming over me, making it hard to breathe.

My heart slams in my chest.
Annelise, Annelise, Annelise
, it repeats with every beat.
Whatever happens, this is for you.
“Move and it burns,” I tell him. The steadiness in my voice amazes me.

“What dirty, petty, childish trickery is the Spaniard up to now?” His eyes are brighter than any flame, riveted to my hand. “I tire of his political games.”

He’s stuck on this idea that I’m only here at Alcántara’s behest. Though it’s the thing keeping me alive at the moment, the assumption that I’m incapable of my own motivations rankles. He’ll see.

He shifts, and I shout, “Stop,” the word a harsh scrape in my throat. I ease the lighter closer to the scroll, close enough to make the tan parchment glow golden. “Sit down. I have questions.”

“
You
have questions? You don’t ask questions. And you don’t…order…me.” There’s a ripple in the air—the mere sense of motion before it’s even visible. He’s leaping toward me.

I don’t hesitate. I kiss flame to scroll. The thin, ancient parchment lights instantly. A warm, sweet smell, like incense, fills the room. I toss it in the bin and snatch up another scroll at once, daring him to move. “Sit or I light this one, too.”

Dagursson roars. But he’s stopped, just on the other side of the table.

“Sit,” I repeat, shouting to be heard. The scroll is crumpled in my fist. It’s close enough to the flame that I smell it. “I could burn these all day. So back up and sit down.”

Already I’ve made it further than I thought I would. I could survive this—survive to be with Annelise. I think of her, summon my strength. I’ve never stretched like this before. I reach deep for my power, repeating her name in my mind like a mantra.
Annelise.

I think of her as I draw my power, and an internal dam breaks. Sensations swamp me. The taste of metal floods my mouth. A chill ripples the back of my neck. And, above all, a darkness beckons, just out of reach—my power, not truly touched before this moment. But I feel the vastness of it yawning within me at my core. It’s immeasurable. Terrifying. Seductive.

Dagursson grows silent. “Ah, you use your powers.” He purses his lips and shuts his eyes, inhaling dramatically. “How thrilling.”

The parchment smolders in the small trash can, and I wave the other scroll over it. “Now sit back down or I toss this one in the bin, too.”

He gives me an ominously blank stare. “Don’t think just because you’re Alcántara’s pet I’ll show you mercy.”

I shrug. “I imagine you wouldn’t.”

He glares down at his feet, as if he might find an answer there. “You’re using your tricks. On me.”

“Looks that way. Now sit.” I impart the command with every ounce of force at my disposal.

He pauses, seeming to fight it for a moment, but then, with a courtly nod of concession, he returns to his desk. He begins to shuffle his papers into neat stacks, as though I’ve merely interrupted his work rather than breaking protocol in the most radical of ways. “Did Hugo help you refine that little trick?” he asks finally. “You still haven’t told me what he thinks to accomplish here.” He adds under his breath, “Only a coward sends a child to do his business.”

“I’m the one asking questions here.” It’s not an answer, but I need to continue to play along with his suspicions. I’ll eventually run out of scrolls to burn, but if Dagursson thinks I have knowledge of treachery within the Vampire Directorate, maybe that’ll be enough to get him talking. “I’d like some information.”

“What information could you need or understand?” His voice reeks of condescension. “You’re a child.”

“Yeah, a child with a lighter.” I flick it again and enjoy seeing him flinch. He didn’t expect this. He thinks I fear him. He’s wrong. “
Now
are you ready?”

“You think fire will make me speak?”

“No.” I walk toward him. I dig deep now, deeper even than before. I touch his shoulder and feel a burst of power, like a magnet jumping to meet its opposite pole. “I think
I’ll
make you speak.”