Dark Seraphine (The Seraphine Trilogy) (38 page)

“How long have you been spying on us, Sir Creepy Guy?” Keta asks, her eyes narrowed.

“Long enough to hear how much you adore me, Keta,” Seth says, easing to my side and sliding an arm around my waist. 

“You leave a bad taste in my mouth, Seth Alton,” Keta says, her shoulders squared.

“Yes, well, I didn’t say a word about how
badly
your dress hurts my eyes; But then, some of us do have manners,” Seth says just before he turns around and kisses me. Keta spins around and stomps off back toward the ceremonial hall.

My knees weaken
,
and I find myself struggling to keep them straight. He is my reason for living, my soul. The person who taught me how to walk over fire, the one I love.  Th
e pull I resist daily
, the person who turned me from a frightened girl into a warrior boy in one night.

* * *

“My sweet little flower. It’s so good to hold you again.” Seth moves my face closer to his. Hidden inside the wine room upstairs in the local tavern, we make up for the week's worth of time missed since Seth has been gone.

I don’t dare
breathe
, probably couldn’t even if I wanted. Something deeper than darkness lies in the way he moves, tal
ks, and stares at me. An abyss, that’s what I see in
his eyes. And when he glances at me, I fall
in
deeper each time.

When did I become such a weakling? I was never this way before my parents died three years ago. Being utterly dependent on another human being signifies weakness father always said. Yet
,
here I stand
with my
chest aching,
and my
hands sweating as I become the very thing I fear the most—a soft girl. I turn into a puddle of batting eyelashes and sappy heartbeats. Each time he touches me, I scatter into a thousand drops of water splattered all over the floor.

“What do you need me to do?” I whisper. His lips brush across mine, tickling them. Shivers wrack my body, my soul. He pulls back and smiles with his eyes. I have already figured out how much he enjoys toying with me this way. Seth Alton isn’t the type of guy who doesn’t understand the way he affects people. But what I don’t know is just how far I will go to make this last forever.

“I need for you to show me,” he says, easing his lips down the side of my cheek and toward my neck, his breath a flame igniting the fire inside me. And when he starts nibbling so very close to my jugular vein, I almost take him right then and there.  Control. If I am to be a Caducean, then I will need to learn control. Otherwise they’ll catch on to my secret.

“Show you what? I don’t have the secret to winning the lottery, or anything,” I say through gasps, anxious to control my shaking limbs.

He pulls back and stares into my eyes a long moment before he says anything. “I need for you to show me how much I mean to you.” And then his face goes blank, distant. Sure, guys are known as masters of mood swings when it comes to hiding emotion. But Seth’s ability to turn his feelings off in a flash frightens me. I make a little laugh because I don’t know what else to do right then.
H
is face stays bland and serious. My s
mile fades, and
an uneasy feeling creeps along my neck.

A guy demanding the love proof test almost never turns out to be a good thing. Oh hell.

“What, dare I even ask, do you mean?” I say.

His black-blue eyes, the ones that don’t reflect anything, rest on my face. The expression on his is serious.

“I want you to assassinate the head alchemist,” he says as if he just asked me to attend the prom.

The silence between us is like a river. Only I’m sinking to the bottom, my chest filling with a bucket of anxiety, his love an anchor weighing me down.

I met Seth six months ago. He saved me that day in the forest when I was out hunting with my brother. I had fallen and twisted my ankle, and a wild boar was about to spear me. Heart thudding, I could almost taste my death. But Seth stepped between us, lifted the creature by the horns, and flung it into a tree the way a child might toss an old doll.

Seth quickly consumed my world after that. Like me, he lost his parents at an early age, so our bond was a natural one. He was the disease that girls like me always claimed we were immune to. My vaccination expired faster than I thought it would though. Soon, we were inseparable. Never mind
the spotty appearances he made throughout the weeks. Forget that he never explained why he wanted me to pose as a boy among a sacred group of warriors. Red flags are easy to ignore when love comes knocking on your heart’s aching door. Especially when love arrives in a tall, dark-haired, and well-built package with an attitude tied around the outside.

“Do you have any clue about what happens to Caducean traitors? I’ve already accepted Gabriel’s blood even though I’m a girl. You asked me to spy. I’ve done that. What more do you want? My very soul?” I say. But I already feel love’s delicate fingers reaching into my mind, clouding and tempting it, making me weak.

“I don't want yours
, no—only the lead alchemist's soul and his key. The one that opens Gabriel's artifact room,” he says.

I smirk, make a
light
laugh, and hope he's joking. “All right. That sounds tons easier. I kill Mabry after I take the Archangel's key. Oh, and that would be the one he practically sleeps with every night.” I wait for his laugh. Instead, he glares at me a short moment and a chill settles over me.

Seth sighs, stands,
and then
turns his back to me. True, h
e asks me to do the impossible.
But sitting there watching his back this way frightens me. I
inhale sharply and hold it inside me. I stand and reach toward him.

He turns his eyes back on me, only this time something zips inside them. Gold flashes. I gasp and take a step back. He steps forward, pulling me into his arms, caressing me gently. Resolve melts away before he even says his next words.

“Have you ever wondered what really happened to
your parents?” he says in a velvety smooth voice.

This conversation surprises me. Everybody in Bardonia knows what happen
ed to my parents. So I scoff a little
before I say, “You’re kidding right? They were killed by the fallen, Bernael’s men.”

Seth makes a sound, something similar to a laugh
and shakes his hea
d. He’s not the type of guy who
’ll bring something up without good reason. “The alchemists had them killed. It’s true that Bernael’s men did it. But the protection house you lived in, its location was hidden by an invisibility spell.”

Swallowing hard, I keep my green eyes locked on Seth’s. My mind becomes a room closing in on me, and I don’t like where this is going. “And?”

“And…how did they manage to find the house? No one can break through an alchemist’s invisibility barrier.” He moves closer to me, wipes away the tear rolling down my cheek. The answer is painfully obvious
,
but I dare not say a word.  “
Mabry was the one who made the call to have your parents butchered.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and picture Father's calm face and hear Mother's cheerful laugh, things that always calm me down when I'm afraid or angry. My parents used to argue and fight big time. She’d always yell about how he was endangering his children each time he took something through the doorways to the human world—something that turned him into a target for the fallen. A thing the men butchered my mother to take.

The day the fallen had stormed our house, my brother, Tobie, and I hid under the floor, watching through the cracks, praying our hiding spot was enough to silence our gasps and thudding hearts. Covering my brother’s eyes, I followed the trail of blood rolling across the floor overhead as it trickled through the cracks and plopped down on my face.

The world spins and stops, leaving my stomach filled with nausea
each time I think about what Seth
just said. It’s as though I’m yarn, and life keeps twisting me inside a wheel. Each time I think I can handle the pain, the loss, the wheel turns and pulls me in a new direction.

Trembling, I turn away from Seth. I truly believe he didn’t tell me this news to hurt me. But now that I know, I want somebody to hurt the way I do. Why would Mabry do such a thing? What was it my father had that would tick off two rival groups enough to have him killed? The drive inside me—that thirst for revenge mixed with pain and loss—chills me to the core. Tears hide behind the stone wall I put up. I’ll rip my eyes out before I let them fall.

Seth eases up behind me. His body creates a warm current that flows over mine. “Why don’t you ask the head alchemist that question? That is, after you take the Archangel's key,” he says.

I spin around. This new ability, this way he just read my mind is yet another thing I learn that he can do. Combined with everything else, Seth’s little surprises rattle me. Only Royals can read minds. Who is Seth Alton, this boy I love so deeply?

“You—you just read my thoughts. How did you do that?” I say.

“Easy enough. Magic, of course.”  He flashes a smile that keeps me from exhaling and eases his mouth down to mine.

I hold a hand up between us. He stops and focuses on my face. “What are you?” I ask. Part of me knows his answer doesn’t really matter. Love is a deep and dangerous minefield. You can step on one bomb, no bombs, or set them all off at once depending on the path you take to the other side.

He eases my hand away, moves his lips to my neck. “Some call me the alpha. Others like to say I’m the omega, the first and the last of my kind.”  His breath tickles my neck
,
and I shiver like never before.  “Either way, I’m the one who will help you avenge your parents' deaths. After you take the key and get in the artifact room, you'll need to look for a small vial shaped like an hourglass. I hear the alchemist keeps it on a fancy display out in the open, so getting it should be easy enough. W
hen you're done with the alchemist
,
then bring the vial back to me,
and we’ll leave this place.”

“But what about Tobie? And grandfather won’t eat if I’m not there to remind him,” I say. My stomach tightens
,
and my chest fills with flutters. Plotting someone's death doesn't come as easily for me as it does Seth.

“Your brother is pledging his life to Gabriel. He belongs to the Caduceans. You know how possessive that group can be now,
don’t you?” He lifts my chin,
so I stare into his dark eyes. “I want you to be clear about who your enemy is. I need you by my side.”

His mouth finds mine, parts my lips, kisses me with hungry passion. This is the kiss of a dying man, a passionate one that says your very soul depends on how well you will remember it. If it wasn't for Seth, I'd have been killed by a wild animal. I owe him so much more than I can repay.

Images of my parents' frightened faces shuffle through my mind. My entire being fills with a mixture of anger and desire, a dangerous combination for the butterfly-toad warrior in me. I feel as if I either need to run outside and break something, or explode from the way Seth’s kisses make me feel powerful. The path across my minefield is clear. Tonight
,
the alchemists will pay for destroying my family.

* * *

When I walk into our little cottage, Tobie is gone. Grandfather sits beside the fireplace
and stares
at th
e painting on the opposite wall;
the one with the lavender rose in the middle. The heat and burning wood smell comforts me, reminding me of all the good times Tobie, grandfather, and I had. And it makes this decision the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. But first I need to clarify a few things.

Grandfather’s face contorts into the strangest expression as he sits. How could I even consider leaving him this way? I force my feet to ease toward my room, guilt and anger still tearing at me inside.

“Your mama had the most beautiful smile. It’s where you get yours from, you know. She painted that picture there. Did you know that, gal?” he says without looking at me. I shake my head and move to the sofa in front of him. I consider asking him about Father’s involvement with the fallen, but the pained look on his face stops me.  “Your mother said the lavender rose is the ultimate temptation. It’s not all full of pride like the red rose, or delicate like the white one.”

I keep quiet. These are the most words he has spoken in almost three years.

“It was her calling card, that there rose,” he says.

“Calling card?” I ask.

“Every assassin has a symbol, and the lavender rose was hers,” he says in a strong voice, his wrinkled face stern. 

“Mother wasn’t an assassin. It’s illegal for women to practice the fighting arts. Say she was this killing machine, then why didn’t she defend herself against the fallen?” I ask,
my
chest
tightening,
and
my voice rising to match his. Surely grandfather is lying. How could mother have kept such a secret? But then, I am the daughter who manages to do the same thing every day.