“WHAT? NO HUG for your uncle?”
Pain obliterated the coldness in my chest, closing my throat and making it impossible to speak. This is not happening. This is a horrible dream.
He took a step and threw his arms in the air. “Look, I can walk again. Aren’t you happy for me?”
Tristan let go of my arm, and before I knew what was happening, he and Ben had Nate restrained between them. Nate did not struggle, but fangs grew from his mouth as he continued to smile at me. “I have a message for you from the Master. Eli was his favorite and he was very upset to lose him. The Master thinks it’s only fair that, since you took one he loved, he should take someone you love.”
Roaring filled my ears, and I staggered backward. I did this. I’d brought these monsters into our lives. I’d killed Eli, and now Nate had paid the price for it. Because of my actions, the person who had always loved me, the one I should have kept safe, was gone. Grief suffocated me and I gasped for breath, even as I wished it would kill me so I didn’t have to live with this pain.
My legs buckled and someone caught me from behind. “I’m here, malyutka,” Nikolas said against my hair. I stiffened and tried to pull away from him. Nate was gone because of me; I did not deserve to be held or comforted. Nikolas had warned me I was going to get Nate or one of my friends killed if I wasn’t careful. How could he stomach being near me, knowing what I’d done?
Instead of letting me go, he pulled me closer, whispering words I couldn’t make out over the pounding of blood in my ears. It was futile to struggle against him, so I stopped and stood woodenly in his arms, waiting for what I knew was to come.
“Nikolas, it’s good to see you again,” Nate said jovially. Every word was a lash flaying open my soul. I felt tears behind my eyes, but for some reason they did not come.
“I wish I could say the same,” Nikolas replied evenly. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Nate.”
“Don’t be. I’ve never felt so whole or so strong.”
Tristan motioned to someone, and Niall and Seamus strode over to place restraints on Nate. “What . . . will you do with him?” I asked when they started to lead him away.
Nate made a scoffing sound. “What do you think they will do? You are vampire killers, after all.”
Tristan walked over to me, and the sympathy in his eyes was almost too much to bear. “We will question him about the Master.”
“And then?”
“He will die,” he said heavily. “I promise it will be quick and . . . ”
I didn’t hear the rest. Black dots swam before my eyes and sounds became muffled like I was under water. I swayed in Nikolas’s arms. “Let’s get you inside,” he said gently.
“No, I need . . . I need to be there.” No matter what he was now, I couldn’t leave Nate to die among strangers. He deserved better than that.
Tristan rubbed his brow. “It won’t happen today. It usually takes a few days to get them to talk. He won’t hold out long without . . . sustenance.” New vampires need to feed daily. Tristan was going to starve Nate until he gave up the information they wanted.
The thought of Nate drinking blood horrified me. But he had done it already, hadn’t he? Vampires don’t finish the transition until they drink from a live human. Another life lost because of me. When would it stop?
Not until the Master dies . . . or I do.
“You are turning blue from the cold, little one,” said Desmund quietly, and I wondered vaguely how long he had been there. “Let Nikolas take you inside, please.”
I nodded and let Nikolas turn me toward the building. At the top of the steps, a crowd had gathered as almost everyone from the dining hall spilled outside to see what was going on. I refused to let Nikolas carry me, and I looked straight ahead, trying not to see the looks of shock or pity on the faces I passed. Inside the hall, I spotted Jordan, Olivia, and Michael standing together. Olivia’s eyes brimmed with tears and, for once, Jordan wasn’t wearing her cocky smile. Michael looked stricken, and I knew he was remembering his lost family. I wished I could offer them words of comfort, but my lips were as frozen as my heart.
Even Celine, who stood alone at the bottom of the stairs, looked at me without her usual sneer. Imagine that, I thought numbly. She might actually have a heart after all. Not that it mattered, not that anything mattered anymore.
I barely noticed my surroundings as we walked to my room. Nikolas didn’t try to talk to me, but he kept my hand in his the whole way. I’d thought of him as my anchor once, and that was what he was to me now. He was the only thing keeping me from coming apart in a million pieces and drifting away.
Later, I would have only a shadowy recollection of entering my room and curling up in a shivering ball on my bed. Voices came and went. I lay there wrapped up in my misery thinking about Nate in a cell below. Only he wasn’t Nate anymore. The man who had raised me and loved me was gone, and in his place was a monster. Pain radiated from my chest to every part of me, and I pressed my face into the pillow, praying for the oblivion of sleep.
When I did finally sleep, Nate haunted my dreams. He called to me, begging me to save him, asking me why I let this happen to him. I saw him rising from his wheelchair, his green eyes now red and blood dripping from his lips. At his feet was a blond teenage girl, and I recognized her as one of the girls who had disappeared from Portland months ago. As I stared at him, he became my dad, his face gray and lifeless. Why, Madeline? Why did you do this to me? he beseeched in a rattling voice. His face blurred and he was Nate again, clutching the hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest. You’re just like her. She killed my brother and you killed me.
“Shhh.” Nikolas held me while I sobbed against his chest, his hand rubbing my back until I cried myself out. He moved to sit up and I clung to his shirt, but he only tugged a quilt over us and pulled me back into the circle of his arms. Emotionally drained, I fell asleep again to the soothing sound of his breathing and his heartbeat against my cheek.
The next time I awoke, it was morning and I was alone on the bed. I touched the spot beside me and the heat lingering there told me Nikolas had not been gone long.
“How are you feeling?”
I pushed back the quilt and found Jordan sitting by the window. My eyes felt swollen and gritty, and my voice was hoarse when I spoke. “Okay.” It was a lie, and we both knew it, but I could not put the truth into words.
“Shit, that was a terrible thing to ask. Sorry.” She came over to sit on the edge of my bed, and her tired eyes told me she hadn’t gotten much sleep either. “Nikolas had to take care of something, so I said I’d stay with you. You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, I’m glad you’re here.” The last thing I wanted was to be alone.
“Good.” She fell silent for a long moment. “I’m really sorry about your uncle.”
“Thanks.” I pushed myself up to sit against the pillows. My hand rested on the quilt, and I traced the outline of a hummingbird sewn into one of the squares. My grandmother made the quilt to pass on to her children and grandchildren. Nate had never dated much or said anything about wanting children of his own, but he was still young and there’d been plenty of time for him to start a family. Now the Grey name was going to die with him. My throat tightened painfully, and I swallowed hard, fighting tears. How could there be any left to cry after last night?
“Are you hungry? I brought you some food because I figured you wouldn’t want to go down to breakfast.”
The last thing I wanted to think about was food, but I knew I had to eat. I nodded, and Jordan went to retrieve a covered tray. She laid it across my legs, and I picked up a piece of buttered toast to nibble.
“Here, this came for you.” She handed me a cream-colored envelope, and I knew immediately who had sent it. I opened it and read the short note written in Desmund’s elegant handwriting.
I am here for you. Desmund.
“It’s from Desmund Ashworth, isn’t it?” Jordan asked in a hushed tone. “I’ve heard of him – everyone has – but no one’s seen him in like a hundred years. He never comes out of his wing, and no one is stupid enough to go up there. I always heard he was insane and dangerous.”
I hated to hear her speak of Desmund that way, but I couldn’t fault her for it. Until recently, he had been exactly as she described him. But something told me he would not be going back into seclusion again.
“He was sick for a long time, but I think he’s better now.”
She helped herself to a strawberry from the fruit bowl on my tray. “You’ve been here less than a month, and yet you and he looked like old friends at dinner. How did that happen?”
There was no reason to hide my friendship with Desmund, so I told her how we met and how I began to visit him. I left out the parts about his illness and my efforts to heal him. “Everyone stayed away from him because of his reputation, only I didn’t know about it. I thought he was a rude person with a bad attitude.”
“Never a dull moment with you, is there?” she quipped. Her grin quickly faded. “I’m sorry – ”
“It’s okay, really.” My eyes traveled around the room, and I forced myself to look at the pictures of Nate. I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and think about what he had lost. He was the victim here, not me. “Have you heard anything about . . . him?”
Jordan bit her lip like she was unsure how much to tell me. “They have him in a holding cell, and I heard Tristan spent half the night down there with him. They are pushing him hard for information about the vampire who changed him, but so far he’s not talking.”
I didn’t want to think about what methods they were using to get Nate to talk. I had to remind myself again it wasn’t really Nate in that cell, and Tristan was doing what was necessary to find the vampire who had done this.
Laying aside the tray, I pulled back the covers and got out of bed. I couldn’t stay in this room, surrounded by memories of Nate and wondering what was happening to him. I grabbed some clean clothes and went into the bathroom.
“Where are you going? Nikolas said to stay with you until he got back,” Jordan called through the bathroom door.
“I don’t think he meant for me to stay locked in my room.” I was a mess last night, so I didn’t blame Nikolas for thinking I shouldn’t be alone. But I needed to get outside, breathe fresh air, and clear my mind, or I would go mad.
Freshly showered and changed, I pulled on warm boots and a coat and headed out. “I’m going to the menagerie,” I told Jordan when she made to follow me. “Nikolas will know where to find me.”
Outside, the air was crisp and it looked like another inch or two of snow had fallen overnight. I stomped snow off my boots at the menagerie door and went inside to find Sahir using a long pole to shove a tray of raw meat into Alex’s cage.
“Sara, I didn’t expect to see you here today,” he said, walking toward me. “I’m sorry about your uncle.”
My throat threatened to close off again. “Thank you.”
He motioned for me to follow him to his office. Inside, he closed the door and turned to me. “I know there is nothing that will ease your pain right now, but I have news you will be glad to hear. One of our teams may have located Minuet’s flock.”
“Already? Where?”
“Uganda. They are still trying to verify they have the right flock since it’s very difficult to communicate with griffins. Don’t say anything to Minuet. I’m not sure how much she understands, and I don’t want her to get excited until we know for sure.”
I felt myself smile for the first time today. “Thank you for telling me, Sahir.”
We left his office, and I stopped by to say hello to Minuet and Alex before I took Hugo and Woolf for a walk. The hounds chased each other around and rolled in the white powder like puppies, blissfully unaware of the grief pressing down on me. I usually loved walking in the snow, but there was no joy in it for me this time. How could I be happy and enjoy this day when Nate had only days left?
We didn’t go far from the stronghold. Tristen had extra warriors patrolling the woods, a stark reminder that the Master knew I was alive and living at this stronghold. I wanted to stay close for Nate anyway. I couldn’t make myself stop caring, even if he was a demon now. That would be a betrayal of the memory of the wonderful man who had raised and loved me. The vampires had taken him from me, but they would never take that away.
When I came back from my walk, I discovered that as much as I wanted to be close to Nate, I could not bring myself to go back into the building. I spent a few hours at the menagerie and then wandered around the grounds. Maybe if I kept moving, it would keep the terrible pain in my chest from suffocating me.
Nikolas found me walking by the river, and as soon as I saw him, I realized I’d been waiting for him to come for me. Watching him approach, I felt a moment of brilliant clarity and the world fell away until there was only him. Last night when my world fell apart, it was Nikolas I clung to, him I needed. I didn’t know if my feelings for him had grown deeper because of the night in his apartment or if I was finally seeing what had been there all along.
I love him.
Any other time that revelation might have terrified me, but losing Nate made me see that I could no longer take the people around me for granted. I didn’t know if Nikolas loved me or if I was ready to declare my love for him, but whatever this thing was between us, it felt right.
Wordlessly, he wrapped me in his arms, and we stood like that by the rushing water for several minutes before he pulled away and gazed down at me. “How are you holding up?” he asked, brushing my hair back from my face.
“I’m okay.”
He smiled sadly at the lie and took my hand. “Come, I have something for you.”
“What is it?”
He squeezed my hand as we neared the main building. “I know nothing can take away your pain or undo what’s happened. But if you could have anything else right now, what would it be?”
I didn’t need to think about it. “I’d want – ”
“Sara!”
“Roland!” I let go of Nikolas’s hand and threw myself at the dark-haired boy running around the corner of the building. Roland caught me up in his arms and squeezed me until I couldn’t breathe. I laughed and cried at the same time.
“Hey, I’m here too.”
Roland set me down and Peter swept me up in a hug. I was a blubbering mess by the time he let me go.
I wiped my face on my sleeve. “How did you guys get here?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“Nikolas called me last night and told me you needed us. He had a private jet pick us up in Portland this morning.” Roland’s blue eyes reflected my pain. “He told us about Nate. I’m so sorry, Sara.”
I nodded, too choked to speak.
“I’ll let you three catch up,” Nikolas said, and I grabbed his hand before he could leave.
“Thank you,” I whispered, unable to say how deeply moved I was. He knew exactly what I needed, and he’d flown my friends halfway across the country for me.
I lost the battle with the tears again and one scorched a trail down my cold cheek. He reached up and wiped it away with his thumb. “I’ll be close if you need me.” I nodded, and he left us alone.
Roland watched him go then gave me a crooked smile. “So, you and Nikolas?”
“I . . . it’s complicated,” I said even though I knew that wasn’t true anymore. Watching Nikolas walk away, my aching heart swelled with emotion I could not put into words.
“Took him long enough,” Roland quipped, and he and Peter exchanged knowing looks.
I glanced from one to the other. “What do you mean?”
Roland’s breath released a thick cloud of steam in the frigid air. “Sara, no one takes their job that seriously.”
I let his statement sink in. “Why didn’t you say something to me?”
“And make it easy for demon boy? Where’s the fun in that?”
I was too surprised by his revelation to scold him for the “demon boy” remark. Was I the only person who hadn’t seen something between me and Nikolas?
Roland put an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go inside so we can thaw out. Is it always this bloody cold here?”
“It gets this cold in Maine.”
“Yeah, but not in November. If I’d known it was like this, I would have brought a heavy coat.”
I laughed through my tears as we walked toward the main entrance. “Roland, you’re a werewolf. How can you be cold?”
He let out a snort. “Do you see any fur? I’m freezing my butt off right now.”
The main hall felt like an oven after being outside so long, and I didn’t realize how cold I was until I stepped inside. A few people stared at us when they passed, and at first I thought it was because of Nate, until I remembered that the Mohiri and werewolves didn’t exactly care for each other. My friends were probably the first werewolves to ever walk through these doors.
“Are you guys hungry? Lunch is over, but I can get us something to eat.” If there was one thing I knew about werewolves, it was that they were always hungry.
“I wouldn’t turn down some food,” Peter said. “But only if you eat, too.”
We entered the dining hall where a few stragglers from lunch watched Roland and Peter with open curiosity. Ignoring them, I went to the door that led to the kitchen to see what I could scrounge up. The kitchen staff must have heard about Nate because they gave me sympathetic looks and told me they would fix something for us. Ten minutes later, two of them carried out three heaping plates of food and set them in front of us before they went back to get us something to drink.
Roland stared at his plate of steak and mashed potatoes. “This is what you have for lunch?”
“Sometimes.” I scooped up some of my potatoes. “They have everything here.”
He put a piece of steak in his mouth and made a moaning sound. “Oh man, this is amazing. If I’d known you were eating like this, I would have come to visit sooner.” His eyes widened as he remembered the reason he was here. “Ah hell, Sara, I didn’t mean – ”
“I know you didn’t.” I smiled despite the ache in my chest. Grief is not a fleeting emotion. This pain would be inside me for a long time, and all I could do was learn to live with it and hope that, someday, I’d be able to breathe again without hurting.
We talked mostly about the people we knew back home for the rest of the meal. After our late lunch, I took them up to my room where we could be alone. Roland and I sat on the bed with pillows piled behind us like we used to do at his house. Peter stretched across the foot of the bed with his head propped up on his hand, looking like he didn’t know what to say next.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Roland asked quietly.
“I don’t know how.” How could I begin to describe how it felt to see Nate standing there as a monster? How it felt when he told me the Master had done this to him because of me?
It took me a while to get the story out. Roland and Peter listened without interrupting while I told them about Nate’s phone call a few days ago and how he had arrived last night. Roland’s hand covered mine while I relived every horrific detail, and I knew I couldn’t get through this without him and Peter.
We spent the afternoon remembering our childhood and sharing memories of Nate. I cried a few times, but I drew strength from their presence and our shared history. Late that afternoon, Tristan came to see me, looking like a man who carried the world on his shoulders. I introduced him to my friends and he graciously welcomed them. He told us he’d given Roland the room across from me and Peter’s was down the hall so they would be close to me. Tristan told them they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted. Then he pulled me aside to ask how I was doing.
“I’m okay I guess. How – how is he?”
“He’s hungry, but we haven’t harmed him. So far he hasn’t told us anything helpful.”
I tried not to think of Nate somewhere down below, hungry for human blood. “Do you think he will?”
Tristan shook his head wearily. “If we kept him down there long enough, maybe.”
“Why would he come here, knowing he would” – I swallowed hard – “knowing he would die?”
“My guess is he was compelled by a mature vampire. New vampires are as susceptible to compulsion as humans.”
It was the perfect revenge. Make Nate a vampire and send him here so I would have to kill him or watch him die.
“Sara, he’s asking to see you,” Tristan said, and his expression told me how he felt about it. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I wanted the decision to be yours.”
“Maybe he wants to say good-bye.” Even though I knew better, a tiny spark of hope flared.
“He’s not Nate anymore, not the Nate you knew.” Tristan ran a hand through his hair. “He will only try to hurt you as much as he can before he dies.”
I stared at the floor. I ached to see Nate, but I wasn’t ready to face the evil thing living in his body. “How long before you . . . ? How long does he have?”
“A day, two at the most. By then we’ll know if he is willing to talk. If he was compelled, he may not be able to reveal anything.”
Panic gripped me. A day and I would lose him forever? “Couldn’t we hold him for a while and see if he talks? Maybe if he gets hungry enough he’ll – ”
Tristan gripped my shoulders firmly. “Is that what you want, to keep him down in a cell, slowly starving to death? Because that is what will happen, and I can tell you it’s not a painless way for a vampire to die.”
Tears filled my eyes. “But – ”
“I wish more than anything that I could fix this and take your pain away, but keeping the vampire alive will not help you. It will only prolong your grief, and I will not do that.” His words were hard, but his eyes were gentle. “The Nate you loved would not want that for you, and he would expect me to do what I can to shield you from that kind of pain.”
I pressed my trembling lips together and turned away from him. “Tomorrow. I want to see him tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll arrange it.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
I stared out the window for a long moment after I heard him leave. Why did people always say they were sorry when you lost someone? It wasn’t like they were responsible for your pain.
“You all right?” Roland asked.
“No.” I was too tired and drained to try to pretend my world wasn’t falling apart. I faced him and Peter. “Will you come with me tomorrow to see Nate? I’ll understand if you don’t want to.”
“Of course, we will,” he said without hesitation, and Peter nodded.
I went to sit beside him on the bed again. “I’m so glad you guys are here. I don’t think I could get through this without you. The people here are nice, but they didn’t know Nate.”
Roland took my hand in his. “We’ll be here as long as you need us . . . and longer if they feed us steak every day.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “You and your stomach.”
“Speaking of food,” Peter cut in. “It must be almost time for dinner.”
The last thing I wanted was to be around everyone, but I couldn’t expect my friends to go to dinner without me. “Give me a few minutes, and then we’ll go down.”
I was in the bathroom, splashing water on my face, when I thought I heard a knock on the door. Drying my face, I walked out to find Roland and Peter sitting at the small table with a large covered tray between them.
“A girl named Jordan brought dinner for us,” Roland told me. “She said to tell you to let her know if you need anything, but she doesn’t walk dogs. You have dogs?”
I shook my head at Jordan’s thinly-veiled joke; leave it to her to try to make me laugh. However, I didn’t think Roland and Peter would find her werewolf humor funny.
“Just the hellhounds,” I said.
Peter made a noise. “I wouldn’t exactly call hellhounds dogs. By the way, when do we get to meet them?”
“I’ll take you down tomorrow.”
“Cool.” He lifted the cover off the tray. “Hmm, these look awesome.”
Jordan must have known something about werewolf appetites because the tray held five huge double hamburgers with the works and a large basket of fries. Her comments were soon forgotten as the boys dug into the food. I took one burger and nibbled at it, and by the time they had polished off the other burgers, I had barely eaten half of mine. I gave the rest of it to Roland who finished it in no time.
Peter picked up a napkin-wrapped bundle from the tray and looked inside. “A blueberry muffin? Strange thing to bring for dinner.”
My heart swelled at Jordan’s thoughtfulness. She acted the tough chick all the time, but she was a lot nicer than she let on. I took the muffin from Peter and broke it into three even pieces before I laid them on the floor beside my bed.
“What the – ?” Peter’s eyes grew wide when the first little fiend appeared and snatched up his prize before retreating beneath the bed again. “You have imps in a demon hunter home . . . and you’re feeding them?”
I watched the second piece of muffin disappear. “They came from home. They stowed away in my stuff.”
“And you let them stay in your room?”
“Why not? They practically lived in my room back home.”
Peter made a face. “Because they’re demons and they would steal the fillings out of your mouth.”
“They’re pretty quiet and they don’t mess with my things. Although, I don’t know how it’s going to work when Oscar comes to live – ” My breath caught. Nate was supposed to bring Oscar when he came for Thanksgiving. Nate, who had been in the middle of his transition when I last spoke to him on the phone, and who had walked around our apartment as a vampire and touched our things, defiling our home. Fresh pain stabbed my chest. A vampire would show no mercy to an animal, especially one I cared about.
“What is it?” Roland asked.
“Oscar and Daisy – he probably killed them,” I said in a cracked voice.
“You don’t know that. Animals sense evil, so they might have run away when Nate turned.”
When Nate turned. I had seen Nate as a vampire with my own eyes, but hearing it from Roland made it all suddenly, agonizingly real. Nate was gone, and my life would never be the same again.
I pushed away from the table and ran to the bathroom where I promptly threw up the little bit of food I’d eaten.
“Sara, you okay?” Roland called through the closed door.
“I just need a minute.” I splashed cold water on my face and stared at my pale reflection in the mirror. My lips were almost colorless, and the shadows around my eyes made my face look tired and sickly. But my haggard appearance was nothing compared to the damage inside me. If it wasn’t for the constant ache in my chest, I would have believed my heart was broken into pieces.
“I’m really an orphan now,” I whispered to the ashen face staring back at me.
I would give anything to bring Nate back. But there was no bad guy to barter with this time, no sacrificing myself to save Nate. The Master had seen to that. He didn’t take Nate to replace Eli. He took him to torture me and to show me that no one I loved was safe from him. How many more would he hurt to get to me? Would he go after Roland or Peter next, or maybe the kids at my old school?
I couldn’t live with that.
My hands gripped the edge of the sink until they turned white and I shook with helpless rage. Stop it. That is exactly how he wants you to feel. I was playing right into his hands, and if I didn’t do something about it, he would win. Anguish and fury built in me. I remembered my dad’s mutilated body and I imagined what Nate had gone through. Heat spread through me, and I watched my hair lift off my shoulders as tiny blue sparks skimmed across my skin.
Is this why he fears me? I could knock out a baby vampire and my power was getting stronger every day. Someday, I’d be able to take down an older vampire . . . maybe even one as old and strong as a Master. I needed no weapon because my touch was lethal to demons.
I was, in essence, the perfect demon slayer.
And I knew what I had to do.
