“Och, lad, cool your jets.” Carden’s usually easy confidence sounded strained. “The Rising is a joyful time. The cargo is never checked. What’s this then?”
“You been under a rock?” another voice asked. “The coup on Sonja’s territory means heightened security for us.”
“Which raises a very interesting question,” Charlotte said. “I wonder if we can trust you, Carden. Your timing does seem very convenient.”
“He’s with me,” Ronan said tightly.
“Yes, well. You’ve shown bad judgment before.”
“Time for you to get out, McCloud,” the sentry said.
But Carden only laughed. “You wish to unload the cargo here?” He’d laced the words with playful disbelief.
Oh, Carden.
I’d been so annoyed with him, with his overbearing ways, but now he was
my
Carden. He was doing all he could to protect me, but what was this forced nonchalance costing him?
“I’d get out if I were you,” Charlotte said lightly.
“Now, McCloud.”
Carden whispered under his breath, an anxious
shite
that made sweat break out in cold pinpricks up my spine. But when he opened the door, he was all calm and casual. “How might I be of service, lad?”
Another voice burst in now, ragged and accented, accompanied by a hand slamming the hood. “Take him.”
There was a shout. Carden cursed.
Then a male voice in a close snarl, “I’ll know where your true allegiance lies if I have to torture you for the next five hundred years.”
At least I thought that was what he said. I could barely make out the words through the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Dread was pumping through my veins, making my insides feel thick and slushy, chilling me to my core.
There was a scuffle.
“I can do it,” Carden snarled inexplicably, and I was desperate to see what was happening.
Was Carden pulled from his seat or did he get out himself? Either way, I felt his sudden absence like a cold, black hole. I no longer even had our bond to strengthen me. Without him, I wouldn’t survive. There were just too many of them. What had I been thinking trying to sneak in here?
My hand was resting on my boot. The misericordia. I could use it. I could kill everyone in my path if it came to it. It’d be suicide, but at least I’d be bringing as many of these monsters down with me as I could.
“Now the only thing missing is that little pet you share.” Charlotte sniffed and sniffed again, then said with exaggerated wonder, “Or
is
she missing?”
I was a sitting duck back here. Why wasn’t Ronan speaking up? He could’ve created some diversion. Was he going to just let this happen to me?
The reality of my situation hit like a massive, bitter-cold wave, smacking me. Rolling over me.
Everyone had told me all along just how valuable my blood was, and I’d refused to listen. Even Charlotte had warned me, dared me. But she’d have known. She’d have been waiting for me. Now I’d be dragged into these festivities, drained dry. My heart served up on a platter. And that would be that.
Game over.
“Did you bring me a present, brother?” Charlotte sniffed again, more deeply. Something poked my leg. “Ooh! What have we here?”
I was dragged out by my foot, unceremoniously pulled from the back and hauled out the passenger-side door. I’d tucked my chin at the last moment, but I landed awkwardly, on my side, and my skull hit the tarmac hard.
“Careful not to kill her,” was all Ronan had to say about it. “Her blood is too valuable.”
Careful not to kill her.
That was it. Not a peep more.
I heard him get out of the car, and I was letting the tears flow now. It wasn’t even the knowledge that I was headed to my certain death—I’d been expecting that since I’d landed on the Isle of Night.
I cried for the loss of Ronan. Who I’d thought he was. Who I’d thought I was to him.
I was lonelier than alone. I was utterly bereft. I had nobody.
There was my mother, I supposed. Though she was surely beyond my reach now. And anyway, who knew who she’d be? Who knew if she ever even spared me a thought?
All I knew, all I had, was this very moment, and at this very moment, nobody cared.
Even Carden—he might’ve stayed and thrown himself between me and the guards, but I knew with certainty, he’d be measuring his options until the bitter end. Weighing my life against the greater cause. He’d said it himself:
these girls are a small loss in a single battle, when what we fight is a war.
And what was I? Just another girl, after all, in a series of girls over centuries.
Well, screw that. If I was going to go down, I’d go down swinging.
I wiped my eyes and felt blood and tears smearing across my face. I rolled to my feet, then popped up.
Ronan was instantly by my side. For a second, my heart swelled to think he’d changed his mind. That this surreal and horrific abandonment was just some terrible misunderstanding.
We were a team again.
But when I bent to pull the misericordia from my boot, he swept his hand out and grabbed my arm, jerking me so hard my head whipped sideways. His fingertips were bruising, curling to the bone.
“No,” he growled, and then a surge of power hit me. I’d experienced his abilities before, but not like this. He blasted me with his power, and I couldn’t move. For a few seconds, I couldn’t even breathe.
It surged through me—his will, his persuasion—but this time, I felt something more. A cacophony of intense emotion roiled from his hands and shot through me in bolts of excruciating pain. Light exploded in my head.
It was too much. This was a violation.
It was unbearable. Was this a flash of the true Ronan? It was fury. All chaos and white noise.
I stumbled back a step and had to wipe my eyes to see. My mouth was suddenly full of too much saliva, and convulsively, I swallowed and swallowed again. I refused to gag like a sick child in front of these monsters. “Don’t…do that…again.”
But he did grab me again, and I glared at him. Power was pulsing from him, shivering over my skin, and I shook it off. Shook him off. “I said, stop it.”
“Lovers’ quarrel?” Charlotte had appeared at my shoulder.
“He’s not my lover,” I snapped.
“Is he not?”
I turned to him. I raked him up and down with my gaze. In my heart, I said my final goodbye.
I thought I knew him, but I’d been so, so wrong. He’d never been my friend; he’d always only been in service to the vampires. From the first moment I set eyes on him—this had been one long betrayal.
Steadily, coldly, I said, “I could never love someone like him.”
“Truly?” Charlotte stepped closer and peered from him to me and back again. She tilted her head, studying him with a little
tsk-tsk
. “Poor little Ronan. Nobody ever did love you back.”
What did she mean? I stared at him, willing him to look at me, but he’d turned away and refused to meet my eyes.
Charlotte turned to the guards, and in a brisk voice said, “Take my brother. I’ve decided he can’t be trusted.” She snapped her fingers at me. “And bring her in with the offering. She’ll round out Jacob’s feast nicely.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I was the first girl they dragged inside. It took two guards, and if I hadn’t been trailed by a dozen others dragging nearly as many Acari behind me, I could’ve gotten free. These guys were strong, but they weren’t Vampire—more like a Synod version of Tracers. That I was denied the opportunity to bring them down frustrated me beyond endurance. Instead, I had to satisfy myself with dragging my feet as I busted out every curse I could think of, in four different languages.
But that was me being stupid and childish again—a road I’d been walking for almost two decades and probably what had gotten me into this situation in the first place. It was time to grow up, I chided myself.
Reborn, remember?
Being reckless wouldn’t get me out of this mess. Being smart would. Smart and strong.
I still had fight in me—I was far from done. And, ironically, it’d been vampires who’d trained me for just this situation.
I focused on my breath, forcing my heartbeat to slow. As we walked, I turned my attention to the factory itself. It was a warren of pipes and hallways in a palette of white and black and gray. The only pops of color to be found were on the occasional warning signs scattered throughout, with admonitions in Norwegian to
Beware
and
Keep Out
.
There were workers around, too. Not many, but they were a grim lot—all human, decked out in crisp coveralls and hardhats.
So, it was a working factory. Which meant those pipes had natural gas running through them. I made a mental note, just in case I needed to blow this place off the map.
Which I’d never do, I realized—not with all these human workers inside. I’d been changed by the vampires, but not that much. I refused to become a monster myself. It was an attitude that could very well kill me, but the reborn part of me—that lone, hard kernel of Annelise I shielded like a sputtering candle flame—thought that was okay.
For a while, I managed to keep track of where we were going, constructing a mental map in my head. But the longer we traversed the labyrinth of colorless hallways, the more I lost my bearings.
By the time we reached the freight elevator, I was completely turned around.
I hesitated upon seeing it. It was one of those old-fashioned lifts with scrollwork and smoked mirror paneling, and I knew by now how old-fashioned things generally lead to old-fashioned bloodsuckers.
But the guards shoved me in, stabbed the door-close button, and we went down. And down. There was a little click and flash of light with each floor we passed, and I counted up as we descended. When we finally got off, we were five stories underground. I pushed from my mind the thought that this meant we were as many stories beneath the sea.
I was taken to a dimly lit dining room, and it was a jarring departure from the antiseptic brightness of the factory. Here, there was neither a human face nor hardhat in sight.
Instead, rich, velvety brocades draped every surface. Candelabras were scattered about the room, resting atop thickly carved side tables. Arrangements looking like they’d been pulled straight out of a Baroque painting had been placed around the room, featuring dozens of dark roses, their scent hanging heavy in the air, plus bowls of fruit, decanters, a few skulls.
Nice.
Did I just say that out loud?
Crap.
I think I said it out loud, because about half a dozen pairs of cold, dead eyes slowly turned to me.
Vampires—of the old and craggy Dagursson variety—were lounging in upholstered chairs around a table on which a massive feast was spread. The Synod of Seven, I presumed. And, I noted with some interest, they were all men. Female vampires were more powerful than their male counterparts, so why the testosterone fest?
They all wore the same thing: monklike cloaks with hoods pushed back and sleeves that drooped as they drank from chalices of something that might’ve been wine or blood. An empty chair was set between each one, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess who the guests of honor were going to be.
Seven vampires, seven empty chairs. This had
last stop
written all over it.
Rough hands grabbed me from behind and foisted me toward the table into a seat.
Next to Jacob.
Ancient German monk, sadist, and ballroom dancing enthusiast. I’d know Jacob anywhere. It was in one of his dungeons that I’d first met Carden, so long ago now. I’d dressed up like a maid and rescued my Scottish vampire from under his nose—a fact which, I’m sure, hadn’t exactly made Jacob my greatest fan.
“I see the girl who pretended to be a scullery is actually one of the true blooded,” he said in his thickly accented voice. He steepled his fingers as he stared at me. “How wondrous that you stumbled into my little web. They claim you are smart,” he added with a wry smile, “but it seems to me you’ve been more lucky than bright.”
I’d show him lucky.
But I made myself school my features. I wasn’t going to be reckless Drew any longer.
His attention went back to the door and he snapped his fingers. “Quickly, quickly now.”
One-by-one, the other girls were led inside. Kenzie and Regina, a Watcher named Clara, two Guidons, and two new girls.
A cold plume of dread spiraled through my belly. There were eight of us. And there were seven chairs.
“Stop,” Jacob commanded. He rose and stepped to the girls, who were barely standing, slumped against their captors. Slowly, he went one by one, inhaling deeply the neck of each captive. He paused at one of the new girls—so new, I didn’t even know her name. “This one is expendable.”
I hopped to my feet. “Wait—”
But it was no good. One of Jacob’s lackeys slashed her throat without hesitation.
I was shaking as I dropped back into my seat. The other girls were led to their own chairs, where they all slumped, looking catatonic, obviously drugged.
I sent up yet another silent curse at Ronan. How could he betray us like this?
“Surprised to see your friends?” Jacob’s aged skin pulled into countless wrinkles as he focused on me, studying me. “Or, wait. Are they your friends? I was under the impression that you had none. Well, there’s Carden, I suppose.” He waved a dismissive hand. “But he’s being taken care of.”
Carden.
I’m the one who got him into this. And he was suffering for it.
The misericordia pulsed in my boot. Time telescoped, and suddenly, I knew—everything I’d endured, every move I’d made, every decision, it’d all lead to this moment.
I would stake Jacob.
His death might not take down the entire Synod, but it sure would cripple it in a major way. The power vacuum on the Isle of Night was nothing compared to what would happen if I were to rid the Synod of its leader. The impact would reverberate across all the isles.
Could I do it?
I hardened myself just a little bit more. I’d sensed I was a goner when I stepped into that elevator, but contemplating one’s own death was one thing—it was quite another to run headlong toward it.