Eternal Shadows (29 page)

“When you’re older.” She patted me on the head like a child. I swatted her hand away. “I see you’ve been found out.”

I sighed. “I should have known better than try to keep it from her.”

Millie shrugged and I heard the sound of shopping bags rubbing together in her hands. “Friends are like that. What will it hurt for her to know?”

“Nothing, I guess. What did you buy?”

“Clothes. Same as you. And Sara.” She winked.

“Oh God.” I turned and headed towards the house. I’d had enough.

Millie followed me, laughing the whole way.

We had barely gotten through the front door when Madge intercepted us, her expression drawn in a way I had never seen before. Millie immediately dropped her bags. “What’s wrong?”

Madge’s gaze flicked back and forth between Millie and me. “You’ll have to see it for yourself. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Her eyes settled on me. “Rhys needs you. In the study.”

I was down the hall and at the study door before the contents of my shopping bags could spill out across the front hall floor. Everyone was there. The general and Aurelia and Cade, Cordoba and his two lackeys at his side. The table that so often held all the business of the day stood like some sort of portent of bad omens—and caused my neck to prickle. A single box sat open on its dark and polished surface.

Rhys sat in a chair against the far wall, paler than I had ever seen him, his knuckles white and tense against the arms of the chair. I didn’t need any special ability to tell me something was wrong. I ran to him, placing myself between him and table, blocking his view. Almost afraid to touch him, my hand hovered just shy of his cheek. “Rhys?”

He blinked a few times, then looked at me as though he hadn’t seen me before, or as if he didn’t know me. Panic surged through my veins. I searched my memory for anything that had gone wrong, for something that would make the general retract his release of Rhys’s mind. Aside from the common bouts of grief that came with remembering a painful past, Rhys had been happy. I hadn’t done anything worthy of being erased again. Had I?

Then he took my hand, grabbing it in a flash so quick I missed it until his fingers were curled painfully around mine. I breathed again.

“Please, don’t look,” he said.

“Don’t look at what?”

“The box.”

I couldn’t help it. I turned and looked at the wooden box that looked just like all the others that had sat on that table. I knew what the others had held. What made this one any different?

The others hadn’t done this to Rhys. That cold feeling on my neck grew.

Aurelia stepped away from the general’s side, her hand trailing along the edge of the table. “She should see. She should know.”

“Please, Aurelia. Don’t.” Rhys’s voice was all desperation.

Aurelia didn’t seem moved. “Come here, Kassandra.”

Squeezing Rhys’s hand, I pried his fingers loose, and did as asked. The box had been left open, I could see inside the moment I stepped up to the table. Nestled in a bed of cedar chips was a plain, white bone. Human, that I could tell, maybe from an arm. Sophomore year biology. Yeah. I hadn’t done very well on that test.

“It’s not vampire,” I said, hoping that was what Aurelia had wanted of me, that I had passed her test.

No such luck.

“Yes. It is human. Touch it.”

“No thanks.”

The expression on her face told me that she hadn’t really been asking. Oops. With a deep breath, and repressing the urge to look back at Rhys, I reached towards the bone.

It felt cold, as though made of ice. My vision blacked for a moment and I felt like I was falling though a deep, never-ending cavern.

Rhys’s arms were wrapped around me, holding me up, when my vision returned.

“Are you all right?” he asked, doing a poor job of masking his anxiety.

I read the binding of a few books on the walls, confirming my vision had returned, then nodded. “I think so.” I found my feet and stood on my own, though Rhys did not let go, and I made no attempt to make him. I looked at Aurelia. “It’s cold, and I felt like it was trying to drag me—somewhere. What is it?”

Cade grumbled from his place in the corner. “You shouldn’t have made her do that. It is unnatural to touch a previous body.”

“A what?” I looked at each of them in turn. Cade didn’t look away, Millie’s eyes were trained on the box
, and Madge had averted her gaze to the legs of her chair. Cordoba watched me like I was a lab rat in the middle of a maze. Aurelia and the general remained expectantly silent. “Am I supposed to know who that is? Is it—me?”

“Touch it again,” Aurelia said. “Be prepared this time.”

Cade pushed away from the wall he leaned against. “She may not see anything. You can see it, I can see it, but we are disconnected. Touching it a second time—”

“Will tell us whether or not she was simply not prepared, or if she truly cannot see.” Aurelia’s patience with Cade had thinned and it showed in her tone.

“It’s okay, Cade. Thanks anyway.” Reaching towards the box meant putting the scarcest space between Rhys and myself. It felt like a universe’s worth. I held my breath just before my fingers brushed the smooth surface of bone.

Pain lanced up my arm, across my back, down my face and through my chest. I heard screams, cries, and laughter.

Reality returned with me, once again, held up by nothing more than Rhys’s arms. This time, his hand was locked around my wrist. He had pulled my hand away from the bone. I didn’t know what had happened when I touched it, didn’t know what I had done, what he had seen, but I knew the pain and the screams. I knew without a doubt.

I sank against Rhys’s body and stared at Aurelia. “Eva. That’s Eva’s bone.”

Rhys’s entire body tensed.

“Yes,” Aurelia said.

“Where did it come from?”

“It arrived just as the others did.”

“Someone saved her bones?”

“At least one.”

“Why?” Rhys trembled now. I think I held him up more than he held me.

Cade answered me this time. “They are making a point, showing us what they have done in the past. Reminding us. They may even be hoping to disorient Rhys.
The VFO would want to protect Malachi. If they can prevent us from going to the council, then they can buy him more time.”

“Which is why we will not change our plans. We leave tonight,” the general said, watching Rhys over my shoulder. “This is not the only box to arrive this week.” His expression hardened. I wouldn’t have wanted to face him in battle all those centuries ago. “At least one to every member of the council who associates hi
m or herself with the Alliance. We suspect war is on the menu in a very real sense. That, too, will have to be discussed at the council. The results may not be favorable.”

“You mean since some of the council sympathizes with the Freedom Organization,” Millie said from her seat by the window.

“Yes.” The general picked up a glass of blood from the bar at the side of the room and swirled the contents. “It also means the council may well become divided before we get the order we desire.”

Aurelia looked like a Greek statue where she leaned against the wall, the light from the window beside her illuminating the lines of her face. “If that happens, then the word of the other members of the council will no longer hold weight and we will not need their permission to do what must be done.”

Cordoba finished the blood in his own glass, his grip on the delicate stem tight. “Decisions of this sort have always been put to a vote of the complete council.”

“Times are apparently changing,” Aurelia said. “We cannot count on certain members to see things our way. But we cannot leave ourselves and the entire community vulnerable to exposure or possibly worse.”

Madge staggered out of her seat beside her sister, grabbing the arm of the chair to steady herself once on her feet. “You mean, you will order Malachi’s death whether or not the council sanctions it?”

The general shook his head. “No one is saying that, sweetling. If those of us who remain loyal to the cause vote against the death order, then it shall not happen. But either way, I will not leave my family in danger.”

Madge fell back to her seat, her eyes wide in disbelief. Millie reached over and tried to take her hand, but she didn’t allow it.

What was with her? I wished now I had pried more when Millie had wanted to talk to me about her sister’s problems. Maybe then this would make sense.

I caught a slight movement on the other side of the room and saw Viviane shift her eyes to look at Isaac. He didn’t look back, but shrugged one massive shoulder. They made me nervous. Day and Night, side by side. It wasn’t quite natural. There should be only one or the other. Light couldn’t exist in the darkness and darkness could not live in the light. Yet Cordoba had created both for himself. I rubbed at the back of my neck.

Cordoba had watched the exchange between his initiates, but I couldn’t read his scarred face. Clearing his throat, he set his glass aside. “Well, then, Julius. Shall we prepare to leave?”

The general nodded. “I have already made arrangements. We must be gone by nightfall.”

“Good. Come then, Viviane, Isaac.” He swept out of the room and they followed in silence.

Allies or not, I couldn’t make myself like them. They reminded me of the scary vampires I’d always seen in the movies. Even the general didn’t frighten me the way they did. I had no doubt that Viviane, and probably Isaac, too, spent much of their nights hunting unsuspecting humans.

Why was that different from knowing Madge, Cade and even Aurelia hu
nted instead of keeping a feeder? I wasn’t sure, but it probably had to do with trust.

Rhys’s voice startled me when he spoke right against my ear. “So who’s going? You wouldn’t have called us here like this if you didn’t have some plan that involved the rest of us.”

“You know me too well.” The general moved to the head of the room, in sight of everyone, and clasped his hands behind his back. It was time for orders. I’d seen my father do the same thing hundreds of times. “It is obvious Aurelia and I must go. Rhys, you will come with us.”

I felt him stiffen against my back. I turned so I could see his face.

“What? Why?”

“Because you were present at both incidents and have been wronged personally by Malachi and his clan. We will need your testimony. Besides that, you know the council, and you know the effect you have on them.”

Rhys frowned. Every inch of his face drew down. I’d never seen him so distasteful of anything. “I have no interest in them.”

“They have interest in you. You will come.”

“Then Kassandra comes, too.”

“She cannot. She has graduation to attend, and she will be a distraction to
Osgar, you know this. We cannot bring her, it will put her in danger.”

Rhys didn’t release my hand as he stepped forward. I was forced to follow. “And she won’t be in danger being left here with us gone? Someone just sent me Eva’s bone!”

“That is why Cade will stay behind. He is more than old enough to deal with Malachi should he show his face, which I doubt he will. Millie and Madge will stay, and Bartolome has agreed to leave Isaac as well. With his scent around Malachi will not try anything. Kassandra will be safe.”

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck twitch. Over what, I had no idea. I glanced at Rhys. He stared down the general, almost as though he could change his mind through sheer will. He couldn’t. It was the other way around.

The general just sighed, his expression the softest I had ever seen it. Yet his urgency to make Rhys comply was clear in his eyes. “Rhys, she will be safe. I need you with me.”

I heard Rhys’s teeth grinding together. “How long will we be gone?” he asked.

“You know how these things are. We must leave now.”

Rhys looked nothing less than distressed at the idea of being away for so long. Honestly, I wasn’t too keen on the notion either. I had one memory from my life as Bryn and I wanted more. Now that I had a taste of the past, I felt the full weight of everything we had missed together. I didn’t want to miss another minute. But by the expression growing on the general’s face, Rhys’s presence at this meeting was crucial. He would order Rhys away if he had to. I wouldn’t let it get that far. Rhys had to go.

Even if I did have one of those intuitive feelings creeping up on me. Something was about to go very wrong in this house. But the farther away Rhys was the better.

I touched his cheek, hoping the physical signs of my premonition weren’t showing. “It’s okay,” I said. “Go ahead. You need to go and I’ll be here when you get back.”

He stared at me for a long moment, and I could see the war raging behind in his beautiful blue eyes. Then he kissed me, long and deep. The same way he had kissed Bryn in that ancient memory I possessed. I traced the points of his fangs with my tongue and felt my own respond in kind. I wanted to kick the rest of them out of the room and spend whatever time remained kissing more than just Rhys’s lips, but that was about as unlikely as my becoming human again.

Just when I thought he might never stop kissing me, he traced the line of my jaw with his lips, then whispered against my ear, low enough so no one else would hear. “What is it? What do you know?”