Authors: Rachael Wade
“Forget about her. Keep it on.”
“But if she sees it …”
“You don’t see her often anyway. Don’t you dare remove it. I’m yours and you’re mine, and that’s all there is to it.” He rubbed my arm and nuzzled his kiss in my hair. “It’s almost time to end this, baby. By the time the rest of the resistance gets here, there won’t be much she can do about it. I’m sure a ring on your finger is the last thing she’d be looking for. Even if she notices, let her run to Samira all she wants then. For now, we just have to keep up the facade.”
I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, realized my eyelids had grown heavy. “
Mmhhmm
,” I murmured against his chest, feeling myself slipping away.
“Sleep for a little while, love. I’ll wake you up in a bit to take you home.” I started to drift to sleep, Gavin humming “Stairway to Heaven” to me while I sank deeper into my post-wedding bliss.
* * *
Whoever was shaking my shoulder wouldn’t give up. I groaned, and rolled over to go back to sleep when I heard, “Cam.”
Gavin.
“Camille, hurry,” he whispered. Persistent. Alarmed. “I need you to wake up.”
Stifling a yawn, I opened my eyes, tried to adjust them in the dark. It didn’t take me long to see Gavin searching frantically for his pants and shirt.
“What’s going on?”
“Josh just sent me his thoughts. We need to get back. Now.”
“Josh?” I sat up, alarmed.
“Get dressed. We have to get back before things get worse.”
I stood and immediately wobbled, lightheaded from the sudden head rush. Gavin caught my arm to balance me and tossed me my clothes. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?” I began dressing, feeling around for my cloak to hide my ripped sleeve and tattered corset.
“Something’s going on with the blood supply. We went from very low to nonexistent. Everyone’s panicking. The Amaranthians think we’re going to start taking it from them, and our group’s getting desperate, wondering where their next meal’s going to come from.”
“What? In the middle of the night? Where did the blood disappear to? I thought you guys just rationed it out and checked the remainder of the supply earlier tonight?”
“We did. That’s why Josh is freaking out. It just vanished. He said it’s been stolen. Said it had to have been. Everyone’s getting weak, and we need to keep our strength up to fight with the others when they get here. Come on, we have to get back and calm everyone down.”
He slipped on his cloak and barely waited for me to button mine before he took hold of my hand and whisked me toward the door. I gave one last glance over my shoulder at the tan wool blanket we left behind, the only remnant of our night together, wondering if the last few hours would become a faint, fleeting memory buried underneath the chaotic rubble of the latest crisis.
12
GESTURE
We flew down the hill toward the village, and Gavin let me go inside the house first, not wanting to raise suspicion if Scarlet were inside with the others. I slipped in through the back door into the kitchen, and a glance into the living areas told me it was just as I’d feared; she was leaning against the window near the house’s front door, her arms folded across her chest. She had isolated herself from everyone in the living area, surveying the space through hooded eyes and with a bitter scowl etched on her face.
“Cam.” Audrey had noticed me and weaved her way through the crowd to get to me. “She hasn’t said a word since she got here,” she whispered, took my elbow and pulled me into the pantry.
“Who hasn’t? Scarlet?”
Holding up a lantern to our faces, her eyes showed her panic. “Yeah, she’s been watching us all bite each other’s heads off, just leaning up against the damn wall giving everyone dirty looks.”
“Do you think she knows?”
“Well, she knows Gavin’s been gone all night. And unfortunately, his alibi of being out with the others solving the blood-shortage situation is shot to hell.” She tilted her head to peer out into the living room at the escalating hysteria. “The others have all been
here
. Not to mention you haven’t been in sight. She might be a hussy, but she’s not a stupid one.”
“I’m surprised she hasn’t confronted you about where I’ve been,” I mumbled, searching for Gavin in the crowd.
The front door opened and in he came, only to be pulled aside by
her
before he made it two steps in the house. His jaw tightened and he glanced nervously around the room, immediately turning his attention to the ground when he spotted me back near the pantry. Scarlet held him to her side, up against the wall, clutching him by the throat while she whispered something in his ear. He tried to squirm away from her, but something she said made him flinch and froze him in place. Her thin, long fingers skimmed his chest and landed on his bowtie, still a disheveled mess from our tryst and half concealed by his cloak. He’d made an attempt to make his clothes look presentable, but it didn’t do much good. He was thoroughly roughed up from our multiple rolls in the hay, and I was smitten with the fact.
I pulled Audrey by the elbow and ducked us farther back into the pantry, so my spying wasn’t obvious. My stomach doubled up into thick knots while I watched Scarlet continue to whisper in his ear. As if she knew exactly what I was thinking at that moment, her hand slid down his chest and farther south, her fingertips slithering underneath the cloak and over the front of his pants while she bit down on his earlobe. Releasing it from her teeth, she licked and bit his neck and deadpanned me out of the corner of her eye; her mouth curled into a pleased grin, as though reveling in the rage that had surely manifested itself on my face.
I dropped my gaze to the floor and reached to balance myself on the wall. Audrey’s fingers clamped my upper arm and she jerked me out of the pantry and into the kitchen, forcing open the cupboard where she kept her dagger.
“Aud …” My voice was barely audible, my eyes watering, my throat tight.
“That’s it, Cam. I’m taking her out. I can’t take watching that shit and you sure as hell don’t deserve it. I don’t care what kind of blackmail she has on her hands— Damn it.” She blinked, shoving the dagger back in the cupboard in realization. “Okay, maybe I can’t use this, but I can at least give her a piece of my mind.”
“Audrey, leave it alone. We have more important things to worry about right now.” I ducked my head and played with my fingers, twisting them together, trying to shake the image I just saw out of my head.
“Camille, she’s climbing and pawing all over him. She’s practically undressing him in front of you. I’ve had it!” She surged forward.
Before I had the chance to object again, Gabe barreled into the kitchen, stepping in front of us. “Aud, babe, whatever it is you’re about to get yourself into, I’m begging you to reconsider.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the house’s front window, where villagers were still trying to pile into our tiny house. He swiveled his head back to us. “Listen, we’ve got to convince these people we’re not going to start feeding on them to save our own asses. Now. Before it gets rowdier and Samira sics her watchdogs on the people again. We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
“Can’t we get Cecile to help us move everyone into the haven again? So we can handle this more discreetly?” Hearing Audrey say this, I lifted my head and sighed relief that Audrey’s mission was thwarted. As much as I would have loved to see her curse Scarlet out, it was the last thing we needed just now.
“Cecile’s trying to help out in the streets,” Gabe said, “smacking a few people around with her magic to get them to quiet down. But it’s not helping this time. People are only getting more riled up.”
I pushed myself off the kitchen wall. “That’s because they need to listen to someone who
isn’t
trying to take something from them, or exert more control over them. Cecile’s using her magic to shut them up, and we’re human, but we’re on the vampires’ sides right now. They need reassurance from someone who has just as much at stake as they do.”
I slipped past Gabe and Audrey, but not toward the living room—I made my way through the crowd to climb the ladder that led to my sleeping quarters.
“Everyone, I need you to listen to me,” I shouted from the top of the ladder. “People!” I shouted louder over the chaos, to no avail. Gabe and Aud sent me sympathetic glances, then looked frantically to Gavin for help, but he was arguing with Scarlet now in a far corner of the room. I rolled my eyes and darted over to my bed, reached under my blanket to grab my dagger. I was back to the top of the ladder in a flash, gazing down at everyone below, wondering if my words and actions would be enough to calm them. Would they trust me?
Only one way to find out.
With one swift slice, I cried out as I dragged the blade across my forearm, deepening the cut when I reached the inside of my elbow. Like I’d hoped, every vampire in our little group stood to attention, their necks snapping into whiplash when they sensed the fresh blood.
“Camille!” Gavin shouted, his eyes bulging from his head. He looked to the others and warned them with his eyes, puffing out his chest as he pulled his knife and flew to the top of the ladder, the blur of his quick movements making me dizzy.
“Just let me speak.” I yanked my arm away from him when he attempted to grab me and pull me out of sight; his eyes glazed over into a dead black when his fingers grazed the stream of blood. “Back away, Gavin.” I gritted my teeth and stepped farther away from him, turning my attention to the crowd below that had quickly quieted after my gory display.
“This is beyond …” Gavin muttered, running both hands through his hair while he struggled to step back, to distance himself a few feet. “You’ve gone too far, Cam. Don’t do this.” He huffed under his breath again, keeping his head low and his now-gray, pleading eyes on me, his fangs fully visible from the hunting-mode switch that had been flipped.
“I know why you’re all upset,” I addressed the crowd, not bothering to acknowledge Gavin’s disapproval. “You’ve seen Samira’s guards come into your villages and take lives, take your loved ones. And now this. So you’re angry. And usually, when you’re angry about something, it’s because deep down, you’re afraid. I know this because I’ve spent years being scared. And when I came to this place, met Samira …” I surveyed the room and threw my hands up in the air, exasperated. “Well, not even my nightmares could think this stuff up.”
My gaze moved to Scarlet’s voluptuous figure, then swept her face with my undiluted anger. She stared up at me, her eyes a subdued black, their color similar to the slate gray I’d seen on Gavin moments ago. The other vampires instinctively held each other back, restraining one another with an arm on each other’s chest or shoulder, providing a supportive stance for one another.
“I’ve had to say goodbye to everything,” I called to the crowd, “to trade it in for a new life and new love … but it’s not been without a price.” I clutched the silver knife tight at my side, allowing my other arm to drop to my side too; the blood rolled over the curve of my elbow like a thick malt. “I went from a comfortable home in Louisiana and a semi-normal life as a student to this,” I held up my dripping arm, “and I can tell you that I know the pain that comes with saying goodbye to earth, saying goodbye to your humanity. I might have come here human, but I left myself back in that Louisiana bayou. I barely recognize that girl anymore.”
Without meeting Gavin’s certain stare, I maneuvered around him and began climbing down the ladder. He followed me in a flash, was behind me again when I reached the floor below, but didn’t speak. The room was filled with deafening silence, but Scarlet’s glare was loud enough to shatter my eardrums as I continued.
“But what I think prepared me for this was my past—before I ever met Gavin and came into your world. I’d already experienced loss. And when you lose something, you get scared. Scared it’ll happen again, scared you won’t make it back from the shell of the person you’ve become. And then comes the anger … because you’re
scared
.”
“Cam,” Gabe ushered Audrey forward in front of him, both of them slowly moving toward me.
“
Sshh
,” Audrey said, nodding her head to urge me on.
“Whatever’s going on with the blood supply, I can promise you my friends won’t take advantage of you, like Samira’s guards have. You’ve all been working together, day after day, with a common goal—and that goal hasn’t changed. If you’ve trusted my friends for the past few months, you can continue to trust them now. They’ll find a way to get what they need, and it won’t involve taking anything from you. You have my word. They won’t ask, but I’ll give them my blood before I let them take it from you.” I held up my arm once more, flinching when I felt the open flesh gape open with the movement.
“She’s positively insane.” Josh came up behind Gabe, and shook his head and looked at me with childlike wonder, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“You’ve got that right,” Gabe whispered. “Just as crazy as her husband. Quite the pair—”
My voice hitched when I heard Gabe’s comment, then I held back a chuckle when I noticed Josh slap him across the back of the head. Scanning the crowd to make sure Scarlet was still far enough away that she didn’t hear Gabe’s slip, I nodded once more to the crowd to reassure them, and then slipped away to the pantry, grabbing the first rag I spotted to wrap it around my wound.