Vampires & Vinca (Hawthorn Witches Book 4) (11 page)

“You really left school?”

I took a deep breath, wondering when I was going to be done saying it. “It’s just a semester. Don’t flatter yourself.”

She didn’t say anything, but a little sad smile graced her lips, and she came to sit by me. As horrible as it was, I wished that she was a cat again. Her emotions had been easier to read when she purred.

“You got all As?” she asked.

I raised my eyebrows. “Yes.”

“Even with all this crazy shit going on?”

I sighed. “Yes. Well, there was this one class, and I probably would have made a B because Vince was always better at teaching me the complicated math stuff, but I aced this other assignment they had us do at the start of the semester…” I frowned, thinking back to Tristan as he comically nudged his head while I tried to place my stake. “So yeah, I got all As.”

There was a twinkling in her eyes, and her smile broadened. “I knew you would. Did you ever think about taking classes online?”

I stopped. I hadn’t considered it. “You think Kendra would go for that?”

“She seemed to like the idea when I brought it up this morning,” Gates grinned.

I lowered my head to the work table, holding my hands behind my neck. I thought that I had finally turned the bend. Things were going to get better, and maybe things would go back to normal.

And then the greenhouse panels above us exploded.

Chapter 13

They dropped down around us like stones falling from the sky. I don’t know what came over me, because Gates was by far better able to defend herself, but I pushed her behind me.

“You can’t have her!” I said quickly. And then, over my shoulder, “If you have anything, Gates, now is the time!”

But to my utter astonishment, Gates was gone. I was speaking to the air, and I brought my attention back to the three figures in front of me.

When they stood, I recognized Samuel immediately. He stood at the left, though, and the man in the lead terrified me more than any of the nightmares I had grown accustomed to in the last weeks.

His face was thin like a skeleton, and his hair was so blond it might as well have been white. His entire face was devoid of color or shadow except for the darks of his eyes, surrounded by only the faintest trace of a ring of blue, and his mouth.

His mouth was red, and not like the color that lips were supposed to be. They were blood red.

“Anise Hawthorn,” he said, turning a quick glance on Samuel to confirm my identity. “You will speak for your family?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “You’ll need to speak to Kendra.”

“Shame,” he whispered. I jumped in surprise but his bony knuckles were already gripping my arms, and I could smell the foul decay on his breath. “Then I’m going to need leverage.”

I heard someone shout something in Latin, and then something wet hit my face. The creature before me screamed in rage and I smelled the burning of his flesh. I started to panic, sure that Kendra had just tossed acid on both of us, but the pain never came.

The creature shoved me so hard that I thought I would hit the ground, but I ended in Samuel’s grip. He held me with one arm, and I saw the glint of a blade by my throat.

“How dare you!”

“Draven,” Kendra said in warning. “You’re looking unwell. Poisoned recently, by one of your many fans?”

He glared. I stared. This
thing
was my uncle.

“I am here to take what is mine!” he snapped. “You promised me the book!”

“I promised House Luthor the book,” Kendra said evenly. “Though you apparently already know I’ve fallen short on that, as well.”

Draven was breathing hard. Even as he skin bled and continued to sear, I was surprised by how fast he regained his cool.

“I’m not an unreasonable man, Kendra,” he said. “We will negotiate the terms after you’ve had time to consider what the book is worth to you. Until then, I will be taking those things that do not have contested ownership. This girl is the daughter of Alice Luthor, and I am reclaiming her.”

In the blink of an eye, I wasn’t in the greenhouse anymore.

Chapter 14

I thought I was in the Other Side for a moment. It was dark, and humid, and I could hear the wind. But as my eyes settled, I saw old furniture, and the sight of my own reflection in a mirror nearly gave me a heart attack. I ran to the first door I found and cast it open, only to be nearly blinded by the brightness outside.

A hand gripped my arm again, and I blinked in surprise.

It was Samuel. “You are to stay in your rooms until summoned.”

He pushed me back inside and shut the door. I heard a lock click.

I searched the wall until I found the switch, and turned on the lights.

The room was grand, and luxuriously decorated, though most of the furniture was covered with a thick powdering of dust over the protective storage cloths. There was a closet filled with over-the-top dresses in styles from centuries past, and a bathroom. Outside the heavily draped windows, there was what I guessed was a four-story drop to the street below.

I was in the city. Which city, and how I had arrived there, I had no way of knowing. But it was dark outside, and in Colorado it had been noon. I had crossed time zones.

My cell phone was gone and no amount of shouting seemed to draw attention from the passersby below.

Going to the one spell I knew I could manage, I tried to call Charlie.

I tried for hours. He never came.

They brought me food that I didn’t eat. A woman came in and took my measurements, and then she brought me clothes—modern ones—that would fit. Another young woman brought me towels and toiletries. None of them spoke a word.

I was afraid to even touch the things they offered me. Kendra had told me that vampires were witches dabbling in something extra, and I didn’t need a curse or a charm laid on me. I worried they would try to make me more compliant, or wipe my memory, or make me tell them about Lyssa and Gates and Charlie.

I sat in a corner, terrified, until Samuel came in.

“What you’re wearing is unfit for a Daughter of the House,” he said. “You should put on the clothes your benefactor has offered.”

“I won’t,” I said.

He nodded. “Master Draven will see you now.”

We walked down long hallways, and took an elevator to a higher floor. Turning two corners, we came to a large set of gold and green French doors, and Samuel opened them without knocking. He gestured me in without entering himself, and then closed them behind me.

I stood still as a statue as I looked around the room. When my eyes finally found Draven, sitting still behind a desk across the vast space, he was giving me a similar assessment.

Some color had returned to his thin cheeks, and I noticed a few more yellows in his bleached hair. He looked more human than he had before, and I wondered if it was makeup applied on my behalf.

“Annie,” he said genially. “Please, sit. We haven’t been introduced properly.”

I didn’t move. He stood to walk over to me, and I saw that he was wearing a night robe over comfortable clothes, and he had slippers on his feet. It was the last thing I expected from someone who had been so intimidating.

“I apologize for earlier,” he said, holding out his hands and shaking his head. “I’m afraid I have a conflicted history with your aunt. I’ve waited a long time to meet you, though. Have you been treated well since your arrival?”

I cocked an eyebrow. Hours earlier, this man had practically thrown me to the ground and then declared me leverage in his negotiations.

“You could have done better for a hostage,” I said. “I don’t have the book, and she likes Lyssa more. She won’t want me back.”

His eyes squinted a little. “Because you’re touched by the darkness?”

I felt my stomach give a jolt. Kendra had warned me that being an ex-demon might get me killed, and I supposed I was about to find out.

“You didn’t think I would know?” he asked gently. “Vampires are much more sensitive to the energies around them, and what happened to you has left more than a physical scar. If your aunt doesn’t want you, then it’s just as well. You’re wanted here. The damage done to you can be fixed, though apparently Kendra has you under a different impression.”

Neither Charlie nor Kendra had even mentioned the possibility. I had been going along assuming it was something binary, and you either were or you weren’t an ex-demon. The idea that there were degrees of ailment, and that the lesser ones could be remedied, had piqued my interest.

But I wasn’t going to be bought so easily.

“It’s not like that,” I said cautiously. “She wouldn’t trade me for the book, I meant.”

“Let’s not talk about the book,” he said quietly, going back to his desk. He gestured for me to follow, and not wanting to yell at him from across the room, I was forced to get closer. “The book is an old ugliness between me and Kendra. It has nothing to do with us.”

“Then what do you want to talk about?” I asked.

He hesitated, clasping his hands in front of himself on the desk. “Your mother.”

“My mother?” I felt my throat tighten. I didn’t like talking about her out loud at all, let alone with a complete stranger. Those memories were private.

“Was she happy?”

I stared at him, trying to decide if he was turning the screws to dig at my emotional state, but he just sat there, impassive.

“She was my sister, Annie, and she was stolen from me. I don’t know if Kendra told you what she did, but we were close until the day she forgot all about me. I just want to know if she was happy in her new life.”

That wasn’t the way Kendra had told the story, but then, I was well aware that Draven might be trying to win my loyalty. I kept my responses measured.

“She was happy,” I said.

“You and your sister had a good upbringing?”

“Define ‘good’.”

He raised an eyebrow at me in amusement. “You were happy.”

“Yes.”

“And your father? How has he been all these years?”

I pursed my lips, shaking my head. I didn’t know what relationship Draven had had with my father before, but I wasn’t going to give him anything he could use now.

“My father is out of the picture,” I said. “And he has been for a while.”

He had invited me and Lyssa to come out to his new place in California for the holidays. There was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening now.

“You would do anything to protect your family,” he said, cocking his head to the side. “We have that in common. We are family, you and I.”

I only raised my eyebrows.

“You have cousins,” he went on. “Great aunts and uncles, and until relatively recently, grandparents. I would like for you to know them.”

“I would like to settle your dispute with Kendra first,” I said.

A smile flickered across his face. He stood and offered his hand. “You’re wiser than I am, perhaps. I’m glad to have met you, Annie.”

It seemed rude not to shake, but my paranoia was still in overdrive. I wasn’t touching anything I didn’t have to in the presence of people better at magic than I was. With an understanding smile, Draven withdrew his hand and then waved me off toward the door.

When I arrived there, though, I turned back to him. “Why do you want the book so badly?”

He raised his chin. “It contains certain spells. It’s rumored to, anyway. It can end the wars I’m fighting and bring whoever commands it an unconditional immortality.”

I nodded. I left, and Samuel escorted me back to my room.

I mulled over the encounter for a long time afterward, and it was good, because I needed something to keep my mind awake. I wasn’t sleeping in a house of vampires.

Tired and hungry, I was finally forced to admit that I might benefit by turning my studious mind from college to more magical concerns. If I had bothered to learn anything about vampires in the weeks they had been hanging an ax over our heads, I might know what the real threats around me were.

He was trying very hard to make me sympathetic to his cause, and he seemed to know I was all about family. I even bought that he had worried about my mom when she went missing, but he had forgotten one important detail.

He hadn’t asked about Martha at all, and it was weird. She was his sister, too.

I eventually got thirsty, so I went to the bathroom and pulled my hand inside my sleeve to turn the tap before drinking.

Night passed, and my door opened again the next morning. This time, Kendra and Charlie stood behind Samuel, ready to collect me.

“I’ve been calling you for hours,” I said to Charlie in agitation.

He frowned and snapped his fingers. We were back in the greenhouse.

“I looked,” he said. “I couldn’t find you. I thought you were dead until Draven asked to meet.”

Kendra had grabbed me by the shoulders. “Did you eat anything while you were there?”

I shook my head. “I drank some water.”

“From a cup?”

“From the tap.”

The relieved look that washed over her nearly made me faint. She held me tight by the shoulders as she kissed my forehead and then hugged me, and then Gates came over and hugged me, too.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a high whisper. “She taught me how to make myself invisible with a charm, but I could only do me. I was still standing right there…”

I shook my head. “It’s okay. You did good. I’m fine.”

I spent that day reading about vampires. Apparently they were known to hide blood in food, as they could read some of the thoughts of anyone who ingested it. It was part of the loyalty pledge Kendra had told me about. Charlie told me that Lyssa had worried about me relentlessly, but that it was better we didn’t speak directly until some spell work Kendra had done had time to cure. She was doing extra work to protect Josh and Rosie.

I didn’t confront them about what Draven had said regarding the damage that had been done to me, but it did keep me awake that night. He had said that he could fix me, but I didn’t trust him.

Kendra had struck a deal to trade me for Martha, and after Draven hadn’t asked about her, it didn’t sit right with me.

Vince knocked on my door that night. Gates had called him in a panic when I was taken hostage, needing anyone to turn to while Kendra and Charlie were busy trying to buy my freedom.

He kissed me when I opened the door. I let him. We had almost parted permanently on a very bad note.

I let him stay the night at my place, not caring a damn about what I would say to Kendra in the morning. She would get over it. I needed someone who would understand that my life wasn’t normal now, and Vince understood. Maybe it was more that I finally understood him.

I thought we were back together, but in the morning, he wasn’t next to me. I found him reading an open IM on my laptop in the living room; Tristan had written, asking when he could pick me up for the party, and I felt my heart sink.

“You like him,” he said. He wasn’t angry. He was crushed.

I crossed my arms. “Yeah. I kind of do.”

He looked over at me and nodded, and then back at the screen.

“Vince—”

“I’m sorry I let this happen,” he said, standing up suddenly. “You were mine to lose. I lost you.”

It was odd, because I felt the same way about him. I couldn’t say exactly when things had started to fall apart for us, but I knew that they were well and truly broken now. I hugged myself tighter, and shook my head as I looked at the floor. Without lying, there was nothing I could say to make it better.

He already had his coat on, and his hand was on the door. “I understand, Annie. But I still want you back. When you’re ready to decide, I will always want you back.”

He left. I tried to call him five times that morning to tell him I was going to end it with Tristan, but he never answered. He knew better than to trust what I said in an emotional moment. And part of me felt like letting him go. Letting
both
of them go. No one needed the damage I brought into people’s lives. It was better if I was alone.

So I got dressed, and I ate my breakfast. I responded to Tristan’s email that I wasn’t going to make it to the party after all. Then I went to the greenhouse to learn a few things about killing vampires.

This was my new normal.