Authors: Melody Johnson
I waited until I’d returned to work and my life was back under control before visiting Nathan again. Walking up to his apartment door the second time was a nightmare. I feared that I’d failed, that he wouldn’t forgive me, that I’d lost him forever just like my parents, and that fear made me sick.
I knocked. Seconds felt like hours.
He opened the door and stared at me.
I couldn’t find the words. I’d practiced my apology the entire taxi ride to his apartment, but when the moment came, I couldn’t speak. My throat was so clogged with fear and tears and regret, I couldn’t have spoken even if I’d found the words, but I didn’t have to. He took one look at me, and he knew.
He wrapped his arms around me, and I broke.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried into his shirt.
“I know. Thanks for coming back,” he said into my hair. His voice was suspiciously rough, too. He forgave me because we were family, and no matter my crimes against him, if I was genuinely sorry, he’d forgive me anything because that’s what family does. Family stands by your side in the storm, fights for your life when you’re drowning, and forgives you when the tide ebbs even if you don’t deserve forgiveness.
I looked around at the variety of people—using that term loosely—gathered in Bex’s dining room. We weren’t a family by any means—not in love, selflessness, or devotion—but we’d been brought together as a united force against my brother, the only real family I had left. With the exception of Meredith, my partner at
The Sun Accord
whom I’d always considered more sister than friend, the people in this room were the only people who had my back.
I was sitting in one of Bex’s plush dining room chairs, my hands on the table to keep my balance as the room spun and dipped and swirled in dizzying loops around me. I sipped on a glass of apple juice that Bex had graciously offered when it became evident that I was struggling to remain conscious. Dominic had stopped my bleeding, but I was still weak and lightheaded. Looking around at the silent, distrustful tension between everyone—Bex glaring at Walker, Dominic eyeing Bex, Walker keeping his distance from everyone, and everyone here because of me—I felt the last, frayed threads of my ambition to find and save my brother sever under the sharp, undeniable reality of our situation. We were in the eye of the storm, safe for the moment, but preparing for battle, but the battle was against Nathan. God help me, was there anything left of Nathan in that creature worth saving?
“My God, it’s hopeless,” I said under my breath, more to myself than anyone in the room. “I don’t even know the creature he’s become. How can we hope to save him?”
“I know exactly the creature Nathan has become,” Dominic said. His voice was low, but it resonated in the silence of the hall.
I met his gaze squarely. “What?” I whispered, shocked. “How do you know?”
“It’s not just me,” Dominic said, raising his palms innocently. “I believe most of us, with one look at Nathan, would recognize the creature he’s become.”
Walker stepped forward. “I’ve seen some crazy shit, but I’ve never seen anything like that thing before tonight.”
“It’s because that thing is an abomination,” Bex hissed. “It needs to be put down.”
“That abomination is her brother,” Walker snapped.
“And it needs to be put down,” Bex repeated, a terrible finality in her voice.
“I know it doesn’t seem possible, but some part of my brother is still alive inside him. It’s not enough to communicate or see reason, but it was enough for him to bite from my neck instead of my heart like he did everyone else.” I met Bex’s eyes. “I think he recognized me—not as his sister, he doesn’t think on a level able to comprehend family and friend from enemy—but his compulsion for human hearts wasn’t enough for him to kill me. Something made him alter his pattern.”
“Lucky you,” Bex said waspishly, and she looked away.
I sighed. “What I’m saying is that a part of him might still be my Nathan, and if that’s true, than he might still have a chance. We need to stop him no matter what, I get that, but maybe we can save him.” I cleared my throat, trying to control my emotions. I turned to face Dominic. “And you,” I pointed my finger at him. “All this time, you couldn’t find my brother. You supposedly searched for him throughout the entire city—”
“I did search for him, and I found nothing,” Dominic said, his voice carefully neutral. “Until tonight.”
“This doesn’t count as you finding my brother. I found him!”
“I believe your brother was the one who found you,” Bex murmured.
I crossed my arms and turned on Bex. “And with one look, you recognized Nathan, too? Because he certainly doesn’t look like the Nathan I knew, and he doesn’t look like any creature I know.” I looked back and forth between Bex and Dominic. “What the hell is he?”
“There is no official name for them,” Bex said on a sigh. “Most of us refer to them as the Damned. A coven had a serious uprising of Damned vampires years ago, but they’re typically rare.” Bex’s voice turned quiet. “I’ve never seen one in the flesh before tonight.”
“He’s a coven-turned night blood,” Dominic clarified. “A rogue vampire drained him and attempted to complete the transformation instead of giving him to a Master. Their transformations produce single-mindedly bloodthirsty creatures, incapable of thought or emotion. They only feel the burning ache to slake their thirst, and they specifically crave the blood pumping directly from the aorta.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Rogue vampire? Or did you mean to say
rebel
vampire?”
Dominic crossed his arms. “What are you implying?”
“Jillian once bragged that she could transform a night blood into a vampire.” As the words left my mouth, I realized that the answer to the mystery of my brother’s disappearance had been staring at me all along. “Jillian tried to turn Nathan into a vampire, didn’t she? But instead, she got that… that…” I stammered, struggling for an appropriate word. “…abomination,” I said, finally borrowing Bex’s description.
Dominic rolled his eyes. “Considering Jillian was executed for her crimes against me and my coven, for her crimes against you, it’s not as if I can interrogate her, now can I?”
“Swear to me on the sun that you executed her.”
“Excuse me?” Dominic said, his body suddenly still as stone.
“You’ve told me time after time and again that she was executed, but you’ve never sworn to it.”
“That’s like you swearing to become friends with Ian Walker. It’s unnecessary to swear something that’s already been done.”
“I know that Jillian is alive, Dominic,” I said, my voice barely audible.
Dominic crossed his arms. “And how would you know that?”
“She told me.”
He was silent for a moment, and when he did speak, his voice was measured and soft. Much softer than mine. He could slice clean through silver with the softness in his voice.
“You’ve spoken to Jillian.”
“Not exactly,” I evaded, loathe to admit the truth. “It’s more a one-way conversation.”
“When?”
I sighed. “All the time. Lately, every day.”
Dominic made a strange noise. “Forgive me, Cassidy, but I’m not following. You speak with Jillian every day? Even now, while you’re here in Erin, New York?”
“I don’t speak to her. She speaks to me.”
“I don’t know which is more impossible,” Dominic murmured, and it sounded as if he were talking to himself. “You penetrating the depths of my coven, where I’ve imprisoned Jillian, or Jillian escaping from the silver I’ve buried her under.”
“Kaden escaped from his imprisonment. I wouldn’t be shocked to find that Jillian had escaped from hers,” I said wanly.
“Jillian has
not
escaped from her imprisonment,” he snapped, his anger a palpable weight in the air between us. “She is buried deep beneath the coven, under layers of silver and surrounded by rooms into which she is uninvited. Even if she managed to escape her confinement, she would never be able to navigate the labyrinth of that underground unscathed, nor without feeding. It’s been three weeks since she’s had a drop of blood. I doubt she’s even conscious.”
“I can hear her talking inside my head.” I winced at how crazy that sounded. “So at the very least, she’s conscious.”
“That’s how she speaks to you? Inside your head?” he asked. Even
he
sounded shocked.
I felt small, stupid and crazy, and all my self-doubt—the insanity of hearing Jillian’s voice inside my head, of craving blood, my wasted efforts and dwindling hope of saving Nathan—erupted in a boiling, leveling geyser. When all my other emotions had been drowned by anger, Dominic remained standing, staring at me and waiting on my response. His innocent, inquisitive expression made me want to punch a dent into his beautiful face.
“This is your fault,” I said.
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“You were supposed to have excecuted Jillian for her crimes against you and your coven.
For her crimes against me
,” I said, throwing his words back in his face. I could feel my voice building up to a scream, and I didn’t care if I sounded irrational. It felt good to scream. “Isn’t that what you said?”
Dominic’s eyes flicked to Bex and then back to me. “I don’t think now is the time to—”
“You’re right
; three
weeks ago would have been the time to excecute Jillian,” I snapped. “You wouldn’t allow me to witness her execution because of my ‘weakened condition,’ as you put it, but that was just a ruse. You lied to me.”
“Cassidy, I—”
I slammed my fist on the table. “Did you lie to your coven, too? Did they trust you when you assured them that Jillian was dead?” I was on a rant now, and I couldn’t stop. Dominic’s ears had pointed and his fangs were lengthening, and Walker had positioned himself with his back against a wall, as far from the kill zone as possible, but like a derailed train whose tracks led off a plummeting cliff, I couldn’t stop. “You need all the allies you can get to survive the coming Leveling; I wonder how your coven will feel, especially those most loyal to you, when they find out the truth, when they realize that you put them at risk. When they realize that you lied!”
Dominic gripped my shoulders and pulled me out of the chair to face him, eye to eye. “Jillian was like my sister!” Dominic shouted. His voice was grave and guttural and echoed through the great hall like thunder. “She was my second, the person I would have entrusted with my coven, the person who I entrusted with my life!”
“And she betrayed that trust!” I shouted back.
“Consider everything you’d be willing to overlook for your brother. Nathan has killed innocent people. He’s dismembered their bodies, tortured them, and eaten their hearts. His crimes are worthy of excecution, but even after witnessing the horrendousness of his crimes, you ask Bex and I to have mercy.”
“Don’t try to twist this around,” I said. “That creature isn’t Nathan. He didn’t choose this life.”
“Nonetheless, he is the one responsible for his victim’s deaths, but as his sister, no matter his crimes, you can’t be his executioner, can you?” Dominic asked.
I pursed my lips.
“Can you?” he insisted.
“No, I can’t, but—”
“Jillian is my family. I loved her as my sister for centuries. Literally, centuries. That kind of love, loyalty and devotion doesn’t just disappear, no matter what she’s done to betray it. That is the bite of unconditional love.”
I shook my head. “But you lied about it. You told me she was executed. You
assured
me that I was safe from her, but you left me vulnerable to her in ways that neither of us could have imagined.”
Dominic nodded. He set me back down on the chair gently and knelt in front of me. “And when you realized that she was still inside your mind, you should have told me.” His hands were soft and caressing on my shoulders now instead of punishing. “It seems we are both at fault for things we should have told each other.”
I narrowed my eyes on him “One more at fault than the other,” I said stubbornly.
He shook his head, but when he smiled, his fangs had retracted to their normal length. “Perhaps.”
I raised my eyebrow, but I let his noncommittal agreement settle between us.
“How long has Jillian been speaking to you?” he asked.
“Since I connected with her mind three weeks ago,” I confessed. “It feels like a single thread still links us, and she won’t let go.”
“Jillian has been whispering in your mind for three weeks, and you never thought to tell me? You never thought that might be pertinent?” he asked, and there was a sudden sharpness that sliced through his tone.
“No,” I said, suddenly feeling on the defensive. “It was pertinent to
me
, but I didn’t think that you’d care. Frankly, I thought I was going crazy.”
“Even if you were crazy, your mental health is my concern, is it not?”
“I suppose.” I blinked, surprised at the intensity of his expression. He was livid. “I just didn’t think of it. You never asked.”
“Asking one if she is hearing voices in her head is not a commonly asked question,” Dominic hissed. “That is something you would need to be forthright with me about.”
“I didn’t think that you—”
“That’s precisely the point! You didn’t think, but this is more than just about you. It’s about Jillian. If she has latched onto your mind then she is not as contained as I had assumed. If you can hear her, can she hear you?”
I swallowed. “Yes, I believe so. I can also sense her suffering, so she might be able to feel my emotions, too.” I frowned at that. “Although, come to think of it, beyond burning agony, she doesn’t feel much of anything.”
Dominic raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps because she is in complete darkness and silence. She has no sensory input where I imprisoned her.” He swiped his hand roughly over his face, his frustration plain. “Except for the sensory input she’s feeding from you.”
“Feeding from me?” I asked. His words resonated inside me, feeling suspiciously like hope. For the first time, I realized that maybe the thirst for blood I’d assumed was my own addiction was actually hers.
“You drank Bex’s blood,” Walker said, his eyes wide. “And you liked it.”
“I’ve been craving blood lately,” I admitted. “But I thought the craving was mine, that my repeated exposure to vampire blood was somehow addicting me to it.”