Allegiance (18 page)

I stifled a yawn, exhaustion suddenly weighing me down.
Must be all the blood loss
… “What do you think she’ll do?”

“That’s not for you to worry about, Eve.” Sofie voice grew distant and my legs began to wobble. A hand gripped my good forearm as I stumbled and she led me toward the door. “You need your rest now. It’s been a busy day.”

“I’m not,” I fought to get out but an enormous yawn cut in. This couldn’t be blood loss. Why was I suddenly so tired? The white pill! “Sofie, Ivan gave me a sleeping pill …” My words were becoming garbled, blending into each other. Things began to sway and shift and blur.

“So they do listen to me sometimes …” she said, and I could hear the smile in her words.
Great,
Sofie can’t use magic so she’s drugging me now
… “Can you take Evangeline up to her room? I don’t think she’s going to make it on her own,” Sofie said to someone. I have no idea who. And then my body felt like it was folding into itself as utter relaxation took over.

I cracked open my eyes and instantly raced to squeeze them shut, to secure them against the blinding light shining over me. Still, the light burned, penetrating the thin shroud of my eyelid, threatening to roast my corneas. I rolled my head to the side to fight against it and crippling pain shot along the back of my neck, triggering a domino effect of agony. From head to toe, every inch of my body throbbed, every nerve felt like it had been tested. What the hell had happened? The last I remembered, I was with Sofie in that room, talking about Lilly … Then I realized she drugged me … and I must’ve fallen asleep.

That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t there anymore. I was with Veronique.

A loud clunk sounded and the burning light disappeared. Relief. With great effort, I rolled my head back and lifted an eyelid to see the culprit—a giant fluorescent bulb hovering a foot above my head. My fingers slid along the surface beneath me. Based on the cool, smooth feel, I was on a metal surface. Perhaps a table of sorts.

“Veronique?” I whispered and then coughed, the word scraping against my dehydrated throat. I had never been so thirsty in my entire life.

“Yes?” she croaked. A gasp followed. A gasp for water.

I struggled to swallow a few times but couldn’t even form the saliva needed for that. “What happened to you?” I finally managed to force out.

Of its own accord, or Veronique’s accord, my arm lifted to meet my line of vision. It held there, trembling, long enough for me to see the gauzy sleeve—no doubt once a pristine white but now tattered and stained with dry blood—slide away to reveal blue and yellow mottled skin peppered with burn marks. There was more damaged skin than not.

“Oh my God!” I cried out, triggering an excruciating coughing fit. They were going to torture her to death. I had to get her out. How did I get her out?

My head flopped to one side to take in large concrete blocks and no windows. Underground, but was she still in Viggo’s place?

A door creaked open and I felt Veronique’s body spasm with terror. Forcing my head back over to the other side, I watched as two women and a man strode in. I recognized the black-and-silver-haired woman from the first time—the one with the whip. She reminded me of Cruella de Vil. The other woman, with long mousy brown hair and a sour expression, was new. The man, also new. I immediately saw the tattoo on his thumb. The Sentinel’s mark.

“Are you ready to tell us what we want to know, Veronique?” Cruella asked, a vicious grin curling her lips.

I felt Veronique press her lips together. Stubborn girl. Brave. Stupid, given the circumstances but still … brave.

With an annoyed shake of her head, Cruella said, “Very well. Stan?”

The man sauntered forward until he stood at the end of the table, towering over me. I heard a small click and a whooshing sound that brought back memories of a gas stove element. With a raised eyebrow and too much enjoyment dancing on his face, he revealed the bright red cylinder in his hand. A lit blowtorch …

I broke out in a cold sweat, already feeling the lick of that single tiny flame against my skin though it hadn’t neared me yet. “What do you want to know?” I blurted out, desperate to buy Veronique some time before the next round of barbarity began.

“No! Don’t tell her anything!” Veronique cried out in defense.

The two witches’ eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Uh oh …
Cruella bent forward to study me, her face so close I could count the stitch holes of a tiny silver scar above her left eyebrow, so close the smell of stale coffee on her breath curled my nostrils.

“Do you think she’s finally cracked?” the other one asked. “Split personality?”

Cruella paused, sucking on her top lip. She shook her head slowly. “No … it’s more than that.” Her brow arched curiously, her head cocking to the side. “Sofie? Are you in there?”

Before I could control my eyes, I felt them bulge out of their sockets in surprise.
Damn it! She’s on to me
. What was I supposed to do now? Maybe I could somehow negotiate with this loon … Her mouth curved into an inhuman smirk. “Yes, I thought so. How long have you been here?” I didn’t answer. A jagged fingernail dragged along the length of my cheek, stopping at the edge of my eye socket, disturbingly close to my bottom eyelid. She stared at me, penetrating, searching, violating me.

“Are you watching what we’re doing to your sister, Sofie? Are you enjoying it?” I cried out as her fingernail pushed down, further and further. Searing agony shot through my eye. She intended to dig it right out of its socket!

“It’s not Sofie. It’s someone named Evangeline! Please stop!” Veronique cried out.

My stomach sank. Veronique had just tossed me into a tank of hungry sharks! Then I remembered that it wasn’t my body lying on that metal table with a blowtorch by my feet and a fingernail at my eye.

Cruella’s brow furrowed. She stood, her fingernail lifting from beneath my eye. “I do not know an Evangeline … who is that?”

“I don’t know,” Veronique whispered. Cruella’s hand reached down to assume her eye-gouging position. “But she knows Sofie!”

With a pause and a decision, Cruella smiled down at me. “Well, Evangeline, make sure you let Sofie know how well we’re treating her sister.” She gave Stan a nod.

My back arched as searing hot pain fired throughout my body.

My blood-curdling screams lasted long after the pain had vanished. I couldn’t stop kicking my feet, sliding them back and forth over the cool satiny sheets to put out the flames. By the time I registered that I was in my room in the chateau, a giant werebeast stood over me in my bed and a ring of anxious faces surrounded the foot of it.

“What’s wrong?” Sofie asked, her eyes wide with alarm.

“Burning. Fire. Torture,” I answered in sputters, throwing off the covers to inspect my feet in the moonlight. Nothing but smooth pale skin.
You’re safe, Evangeline. Safe. Safe. Safe.

The pain. The smell of burning flesh. It lingered in my nostrils. Though it wasn’t happening to me, it was real. They were torturing Veronique. While I lay in satin sheets, circled by her sister and those I loved, Veronique lay on a cold metal table, circled by the enemy, enduring unimaginable pain. A wave of nausea battered my senses. I was seconds away from bolting to the bathroom to throw up. No one could last long with that level of suffering. No one. And yet, I had to keep this secret. Sofie could not find out or she’d start a war and so many more lives would be lost

Hang in there, Veronique
, I silently pleaded, biting down on my lip before the truth exploded out of my mouth.

“A nightmare?” Sofie pressed.

My head bobbed up and down, numbly, wishing for the safety of Caden’s arms. He didn’t move, though, instead studying me with a worried expression.

Sofie leaned down, her hand smoothing my hair in a motherly gesture. “About what?”

I bit down harder, madly searching for a lie that would justify my traumatic awakening. What if I revealed too many clues for the shrewd vampiress and she figured it out? Finally, I just shrugged.

She offered me a compassionate smile as her cool hand cupped my chin. “I told you not to worry. Everything will be fine. We’ll figure this Tribe magic out.”

I nodded again, dropping my gaze to my hands folded in my lap, hiding my face so she couldn’t see the tears welling.
No, it won’t, Sofie … So much is not fine
.

“I’m such a rotten friend. I’m sorry I haven’t been around more for you,” Amelie spoke out from her place beside Julian. “Especially with what you’ve been going through. We’ll do something tomorrow, I promise. Just the two of us. Okay?”

“Okay,” I mumbled, more to appease her. Her blond corkscrew curls bounced as she nodded with satisfaction, a rascally twinkle battling with worry in those emerald jewels. So happy. So oblivious, wrapped in Julian’s arms.

Rage flared within me.
Stop it!
That voice screamed. Every day that this charade between Julian and Amelie continued, the harder the truth would be. Julian needed to walk away, to break up with her, to tell her he’d lost interest. Something. Anything. I shut my eyes, hoping to reset my emotions before I accidently endangered Julian.

The bottom corner of my bed sank as a weight settled on it. Caden was perched stiffly on the edge of the bed, glaring at Julian, the muscles in his strong jaw rigid with tension. Instantly, I realized my mistake. He hadn’t missed my reaction to Julian and Amelie and he was reading it as something different. Jealousy, on my part.
I need to get better at guarding my reactions around Julian
, I scolded myself. I covered my face with my hand, trying to block out all the ways I could lose my mind.

Sofie’s heels clicked as she slowly backed away. “Okay, well; let me know if you need anything.” She turned to walk toward the door, her fingers gripping Amelie’s elbow as she passed, a signal for them to leave. At the door, she stopped and turned. “Max?”

No, the stubborn beast growled.

“Max, can you give me a moment alone?” I scratched the back of his ear affectionately. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that …

With a heavy exhale, Max leapt off my bed and strolled past Sofie.
I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.

A soft click, and I was alone with Caden. Our eyes grazed each other for a moment and then he looked away. I immediately sensed the shift in the air between us. Something was definitely different now. Before, I could touch him, I could hold him, I could be with him. Now, there was an unspoken boundary. An invisible divide—a barbed wire fence that kept us sitting side by side but growing distinctly apart. The barbs had hooked onto my heart, choking it, tearing it apart with each passing hour.

As I stared at him, at his mess of tawny brown hair, at the way he focused out the window on something unseen in the night sky, the ball of anxiety in the pit of my belly flourished. I couldn’t tell him what was happening! Worse, what was happening to Veronique, that I was witnessing and saying nothing about. What would happen if he knew? Either he’d tell Sofie, which I knew was a tragedy for the greater good of all, or he’d make me promise to keep quiet because of the greater good of all. Just like binding Bishop was for the best. As rational as that side of him was, I couldn’t bear the callousness of it.

And so I remained quiet, allowing a wall to grow between us—the invisible wall of lies and pain that grew in size and density and stabbed my heart with its severity. A wall that, I was afraid, would soon be impenetrable.
Tell him everything!
That voice pleaded within me. Oh, the euphoria of pouring my heart out to him, of divulging every last secret that burned my soul. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t form the words that would end Julian, that would either force Caden to betray me or forever taint my view of him.

And so I bit my bottom lip to keep quiet, so hard I thought I might draw blood. Blood that would spark an uncontrollable urge for Caden, and would then kill him. I could feel the fissure in my sanity widening, threatening to break into a million pieces, never to be reassembled. I am a liar. A betraying, lying, fragile human …

I had to fight the overwhelming urge to lunge at him, to expunge all my anxiety, my agony, my everything with him. If only for a night, an hour, a minute … While I still could. While my touch wasn’t instant death. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even speak. So I just sat there, staring at him, accepting that I had lied to him before, and that I’d lie again. I stared at the moonlight shining in through the windows, dancing along the dazzling curves of his profile. I stared as awkward silence suffocated me.

Caden was the first to speak. “How’s your arm?” He slid closer to me, his long fingers stretching out, closer and closer, almost to me …

A vision of his lifeless corpse on my bed, dull green eyes staring into nothingness pulled my arm back involuntarily.

“No.” With a scowl, Caden closed the distance, intentionally grabbing onto my knee, his thumb and forefinger squeezing around it tightly. He raised a knowing eyebrow.

I exhaled softly, soaking up the relief. I hadn’t killed him. Yet.

With that test out of the way, he gently lifted my injured arm beneath the elbow, appraising the fresh wound, still red and swollen. “Does it hurt?”

“It’s sore, but I’ll live.” I thought I heard his teeth grind against each other as he glowered at it. What if … I swallowed the swirl of rising panic. Spidery red veins seared my mind. “It’s not still bothering you, is it? My blood?”