Unseen (The Heights, Vol. 1) (43 page)

Rhyse’s voice barreled in before he did.
“Yes, you are my girl, and your shielding is nonexistent. Sit down
next to Logan.”

“I can’t. I need to go back to the city.”

“No.”

“
Somebody
once told me I wasn’t a
prisoner.” She put her hands on her hips. “You can’t just keep me
here forever.”

“Who is Parker?” he asked.

“What?” she whined.
Damn it.

“You are thinking of someone named Parker.
Again, you were not shielding so no, you do not get to go out.” If
he’d seen
why
she was thinking about Parker, she’d already
have cuffs around her wrists and ankles, so her shielding couldn’t
be
that
bad.

“Excuse me for thinking I could let my guard
down here.” And for being stupid.

“The only time you may let your guard down is
when you and I are the only people in the room, and we are both
naked.”

Logan groaned. “How about that’s the only
time you say stuff like that, too?”

Addison took a few steps back. “Try again,
Rhyse.” After a moment of impatience, he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, she said, “See? You
still have no idea what I’m getting you for your birthday. Because
I shielded. You like fuzzy slippers, don’t you? D’oh! I spoiled the
surprise.”

“This is not a joke, Addison.”

“Let me say goodbye to a few friends before I
go into hiding. That’s all.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, because she
still hadn’t decided what to do. But she needed freedom to think
about it, to plan it, away from the confusion being with Rhyse
brought.

“I will bring them here, as I did Logan.
Though that turned out differently than I had expected.”

“For power’s sake, Rhyse. I’m not a child.
I’ll have my phone, and I will call you every hour on the hour to
tell you how much I miss you.”

“You mean,
us
,” Logan added,
laughing.

“I am
so
not enjoying you two as
friends,” she said, grimacing. “Wasn’t your head going to explode
earlier, Logan? Conserve your strength because it’s only going to
get worse.”

He groaned at the thought, hopefully
forgetting all others.

“The witches are being human,” she said. “I
can shield, and you probably have kingly shit to do.”

He sighed. “I will be busy tonight;
therefore, it will have to be before dawn tomorrow. Unlike last
time, you will call every hour on the hour. If you do not, I will
send a demon after you.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Logan said, echoing
what she’d been thinking.

“I have very little sense of humor. And
about this, I have none.”

Addison waited up for Rhyse to get back from
wherever he needed to go. This nocturnal thing was going to take
some getting used to

He came back a few hours before dawn. “I
hoped I would be here sooner, but there was much to discuss.”

“Want to share?”

When he held her eyes a little too long
before shaking his head sadly, she thought he must know what she
was planning. Maybe he’d already picked through Logan’s mind. She
hadn’t worried, because Rhyse would only see what the seer was
currently thinking about—and Logan had barely stopped smiling, so
her guess was that he probably hadn’t stopped thinking about cold
beer and hot sand.

If Rhyse
did
know, she’d find out
right after Rhyse started yelling at her and right before she
started yelling back.

He pulled her close and kissed her. “Do not
go. I have not had my fill of you yet.”

“I was actually just going to take a bath,
but I’ll keep that in mind.” She held his face between her hands.
Maybe they should have it out right now. He’d obviously heard
something he wasn’t happy about, probably involving her, and since
he wasn’t covered in blood, it wasn’t that everyone knew what she
was.

So it had to be something about the Rising.
Stupid, stupid prophecies.
Once you’re in one, any privacy
you have goes completely out the window.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

He paused before answering, then he kissed
her deeply, holding her as if he’d never let her go. But eventually
he did. “Whatever happens next…please be careful.”

“Aren’t I always?” she joked. His only
response was a darker shadow sweeping over his face. “Rhyse, are
you sure everything is okay?”

“I almost lost you. I am just beginning to
understand what that would do to me.” He looked away briefly, then
turned her towards the stairs and swatted her on the butt. “Go take
your bath.”

“Wanna join me?” Great. Fill any awkward
pause with the suggestion of sex. Don’t actually share what’s on
your mind, the huge revelation. Just fuck him so you can forget it
for a little while. Very productive.

“Soon. I must go see how Logan is doing
first.”

“Damn, and here I thought all this was
irresistible.” She wiggled in a circle.

“Believe me, my pet, it is. But when we are
together, I want my mind to be on you, not on the man in the
kitchen.”

She laughed. “Hurry up, then.” With one last
look, he walked away.

Addison stayed in the bath, waiting for him,
trying to figure out what to say, afraid of what he’d say back. But
he never showed up. Obviously, he wasn’t telling her something. Not
that she could be angry at him for keeping things from her,
considering she was keeping things from him.

She dried off and crawled into bed, waiting
for him to appear. She could’ve gone to look for him, but something
held her back.

Funny—they’d felt every bit of each other’s
bodies and taken turns almost dying in each other’s arms, but the
truth was keeping them apart.

Rhyse didn’t go to find Logan as he’d told
Addison he would. After his visit to the oracle, he needed time to
think, to plan, and to grieve. For the rest of the night, he stared
out the window, watching innumerable snowflakes fall and join the
thick pillow of white covering everything. Did it protect what lay
beneath, or did it smother?

For well over three hundred years, he’d
walked the earth, yet he’d never felt as heavy as he had coming
back here. Or as lonely. For someone who only recently learned how
good it felt to be cared for, to care for someone, he was surprised
how quickly it had become integral and how much power it had over
him. Thankfully, Addison hadn’t seemed to notice the depth of his
sadness.

He’d gone to the oracle to learn if there was
anything he could do to make sure Addison remained safe. But by the
time he reached the oracle’s chamber, he already knew.

In a vision, he’d seen his future and
Addison’s role in it. Because they were connected, a part of one
another, he sensed strength and fear warring within her while
another war raged in front of her. He’d also seen where he was
standing…and where he wasn’t.

But timelines could change or be redirected—a
lesson he’d forgotten. Instead of mourning the loss of what he
wanted, he would create it, inasmuch as he could.

The oracle told him little he hadn’t already
seen or heard. There would be trials for both Addison and him—some
would touch the other, most would not. Because there was so much he
could not control—including her—it was absolutely imperative he did
everything he could before she realized what he was doing.

Rhyse called Logan into the library just
after sunrise. “You should know I am incredibly irritable right
now; therefore, anything you say will be taken personally and may
very well cause a violent reaction.”

Logan stopped in the doorway. “Then I think
I’ll go to another part of the house.”

“Wait.” Rhyse looked at the seer, the toy,
uncomfortable with what he was about to ask, a request and not an
order. Although if Logan said no, the violent reaction Rhyse spoke
of earlier would indeed come to pass. “I must ask you to do
something for me, for Addison, although she cannot know the idea
came from me.” It pained Rhyse to know he would be incapable of
doing what needed to be done in the future.

Her
future, not his.

“I haven’t heard a question yet,” Logan said
suspiciously.

“Would you—?” He paused. Requests and favors
were too new to him, and he didn’t know how to phrase it. “In times
to come, Addison will need someone near her, someone she can trust.
Obviously, there are few she can.”

Logan opened his mouth but no sound came out,
not even a verbalization of the disappointment so clearly stated in
his eyes.

“You cannot leave her. She needs you.”

Logan’s shoulders slumped, probably as he
realized he had no choice.

“I am…sorry,” Rhyse said. Sorry he’d reneged
on his end of their bargain, sorry he would put Logan back into
peril, sorry that this was the only way to keep her safe. That
he
couldn’t keep her safe.

“I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever said
that word, isn’t it?”

“No, but it has been a few hundred
years.”

“That’s something, I guess,” Logan mumbled,
running a hand through his hair. “What do I have to do?”

“I do not know yet what your role will be. I
was given only glimpses of what is to come. I will not be there to
protect her, but I saw you standing at her side.” He bit back his
curse, not knowing how literally he could take the vision. Was
Logan a friend fighting alongside her, or was he by her side in the
way Rhyse never wanted anyone else to be? That was
his
place. No one else’s. Ever.

Until he knew what it meant, until the future
was determined, he had to make sure
someone
was beside her.
And as much as it made him want to murder the seer where he stood,
toss him against the wall and watch his blood drip down the stone,
wasted, he couldn’t.

“I don’t have a choice here, do I?” Logan
asked.

“I will teach you to shield so well that your
mind will be impregnable, even to a wipe. I will provide for your
every need. And eventually, when and if the danger to her passes, I
will free you.”

“Fuck, you don’t…” He sat down hard and
stared at the desk in front of him. “Nine wipes in seven years,
Rhyse.”

“I understand your trepidation—it is not your
fight. But neither was the fight at the Treaty celebration, yet we
fought alongside each other as allies, not enemies. This is
different, but your courage is not.”

“That wasn’t courage. That was fucking
terror. You think I would turn my back on a demon?”

Rhyse shook his head. “Nor do I think you
would turn your back on a friend. Not when you might be the only
one who can keep her alive.”

“What about you?”

His exhalation was labored, even though he
had no need to breathe. “In the vision, I was too far away to help
her.” On the other side of the wall, the war, the rows of bodies,
unable to cross the fire that blazed between them. What he’d seen
would remain burned into his retinas, despised. A reminder of his
inadequacy.

“Fuck,” Logan grumbled. “I don’t know. I care
about her. I
love
her, but I can’t go back to that. The box
and the—Fuck! ” The desk shook under his fist when it landed. “It’s
going to take some time to teach me, right? For whichever direction
I go in? I need to know how to shield when I help her, or when I
run for it and live free for a couple days before you find me, or
when you gut me for saying no. Sound about right?”

“Sounds exactly right.”

“Motherfucker.” He threw his hands up. “Yeah.
Okay, yeah. If she’s really going to do this, then yeah, I’ll be
there for her.”

Still unfamiliar with showing appreciation
for the actions of others, Rhyse simply nodded. “Whatever is coming
will not be easy for anyone in our world. In return for your help,
I do not intend to send you back to the houses. Choose any
career-path you wish, and I will make it happen. If there is
anything else within my power to give, it is yours.”

“I have a—” He took a breath and looked Rhyse
directly in the eyes. “One of my clients said she would get me out
of the box and into the disposal program. Turns out she didn’t
offer out of the kindness of her heart.” His laugh was bitter.
“Actually wasn’t that surprising once I remembered she doesn’t have
a heart. She did it because she doesn’t like to share—she enjoys me
saying ‘no’ to her and her alone. Wants me at
her
disposal,
if you know what I mean.”

Rhyse waited, uncertain what Logan
desired.

“She says she’s in love with me. Obviously
bullshit, because vamps are incapable of love. At least, I
thought
they were.” The seer swallowed. “Until I saw you and
Add together. Do you? Do you love Addison?”

“I…” Did he love her? A small word that when
spoken had enormous consequences. Especially now. He suddenly
thought of an equally important word: Yes.

Yes, he loved her. “That is something she and
I have not discussed; therefore, it would be wrong to talk to you
about it first. What I can tell you is that I care for her a great
deal and will never deliberately do anything to hurt her.” He
nodded to the scars on Logan’s neck, the ones Addison had told him
about. “However, you are wise not to believe your client feels the
same about you.”

“She’s my price. I help Addison, but I want
that vamp bitch to pay for every drop of blood she took, from
every—” He shifted uncomfortably, holding himself together by force
of will alone. The man had lived a hundred years in only
twenty-five, and in that moment, Rhyse committed himself to
lessening Logan’s burden. Because whatever the seer had seen or
felt, whatever had been taken out of his memory, were things Rhyse
was ultimately responsible for.

Rhyse nodded. “How painful do you want it to
be?”

“Very, very painful.” His voice was deep and
filled with a quiet rage. “But
I
want to be the one to do
it, when I’m ready.”