I blinked. "Never crossed my mind, actually."
"The Angels gave it to you for a reason. Well, you get it from your vamp DNA-the Ancients gave us physical beauty to better attract our prey. But the Angels enhanced yours for a reason, right? Because Normans respond to beauty. I mean, even before the Ang"dora, you were-"
"What?" I"d never forgotten her words when we"d first fought in Key West. "You were disgusted by me."
"Yeah, because Se-I mean Tristan still wanted you. And you didn"t compare to this." Her hand flipped off the ground, waving at her curves. "How could he not want this?"
I kept my mouth shut, but could hear Tristan"s voice saying something about that not being his style, especially everything that came with it. Even now. He"d picked me.
"I"m sorry you went through all that with him," I said quietly. "I don"t know what it"s like to not be with someone you want-"
"Of course, you don"t. You always get what you want."
"Oh, please. You think I wanted to be the freak growing up? To move around all the time and never have any true friends and no family that I knew of? That I wanted to be thrown into this crazy world with supernatural creatures that shouldn"t even exist? To have my husband taken from me for seven freakin" years and to know that he may never be completely free from his creators who want nothing more than my head? That I want to someday lead an entire society that depends on every decision I make? Whose future won"t exist if I don"t have a daughter against all possible odds? Oh, but wait. I must have wanted to have a boy so I could just hand him over to the enemies and lose him forever. No, Vanessa, I don"t always get what I want." I paused, then couldn"t resist adding, "If I did, you would have been dead two years ago."
My rant was met by pure silence. And then a musical laugh. "Touche."
"But, no," I said quietly, "I"ve never had my heart broken in the same way you have. And I"m sorry about that."
"Whatever. It doesn"t matter now." Vanessa cleared her throat. "Anyway, there"s nothing wrong with using what you"ve got. It"ll make your life a lot easier. Men don"t usually go around shooting beautiful women unless provoked. Such as you had us do."
I ignored her spot-on jab. "We"re Amadis, though. We don"t use any of our gifts unless there"s a good reason."
"And getting out of there alive so we can retrieve the stone is a pretty d.a.m.n good reason."
She was right once again. Another weird moment for the night: Vanessa teaching me how to fight like an Amadis.
"Of course, I don"t recommend that with the Daemoni," she added. "Rape is one of their favorite past-times. You don"t need to worry about Normans-you just proved you could handle them-but Daemoni ..." Her voice trailed off, and then she sighed. "I can"t believe I stayed one for so long."
Statements like these made me wonder whether she really was setting me up or actually helping me, especially because her thoughts and emotions always corroborated her words. In fact, as I thought about it, I couldn"t remember a time Vanessa had actually lied to me. I didn"t always like what she said, but at least she"d always been truthful.
Maybe she"d give me an honest answer to my question about our current topic of conversation. I couldn"t bring myself to ask Tristan because I didn"t know if I could stand to hear the truth from his mouth. I"d been trying to dismiss the nagging thought, telling myself I really didn"t want to know, that it didn"t matter because it was in the distant past. But I couldn"t let it go, especially when the topic kept coming up.
"Can I ask you a question?" I finally blurted. "About Daemoni and rape ... I think I should know ... if Tristan..."
I stammered, as if my tongue didn"t really want to ask the question.
Vanessa turned her head to look at me. "He never raped, as far as I know. He never needed to-women were practically raping him." She chuckled, though no humor colored the sound. "To be completely honest, he drove Lucas nuts when it came to anything with women and children. Seth claimed he was too much of a warrior to be bothered with them, that having anything to do with them was a waste of his time and power. He would only take on the big guys in battles because the younger ones weren"t worthy. But I knew-and I"m sure Lucas knew-Seth had a soft spot. That"s why I fell in love with him." She let out a sad sigh.
I gulped down the lump in my throat. "But I"ve seen his memories-women and children"s faces ..."
"Did you actually see him hurting or killing them directly? Him personally?"
I tried to remember the visions I"d seen on that balcony at the beach house in the Keys, when I"d been trying to convert Sheree and Tristan had taken the evil into his body.
"He burnt down whole villages. There was blood on his hands. And lots of their faces ... the faces of his victims." Tears burned my eyes, blurring the stars above into smudges of light.
"Well, he did always take the credit-or the blame, whatever you call it now. But Lucas used to come back from battles completely p.i.s.sed. He"d rant and rave about what a p.u.s.s.y the so-called warrior was for not showing his domination over everyone." Vanessa snorted. "And then other times, Lucas would brag about how he got to rape all the women because Seth wanted none of them." She shook her head. "Disgusting, really, to hear that from the man who was-" She paused for a moment, as if editing her thoughts. "From Lucas."
I lay in silence, letting the relief wash over me and through me, cleansing my soul from that worry.
"I mean, don"t get me wrong," the vampire continued, "I"m sure he was responsible for many of their deaths. But rape and torture of women and children? That was beneath him."
I could accept that. After all, I already knew he had a dark past, including murder and other heinous acts. I"d forgiven him for it all, but still ... somehow, knowing he didn"t partake in the Daemoni"s favorite past-time, as Vanessa had just described it, made me feel better. And thinking about him doing the right thing, even when he was at his worst, made me love him and miss him that much more.
"We should get going," I said, forcing myself upright.
Vanessa sat up again, too, and eyed the dried blood on my torn pant leg. "What a waste," she muttered.
My mouth twisted into a grimace. "Do you need to feed?"
"Well ... I was just shot. And we have our longest leg ahead of us."
I pushed my sleeve up far enough and slid my dagger across my wrist. She only pulled a few swallows before closing the wound up with her tongue.
"That"s enough?" I asked. I hoped so. My body probably couldn"t handle more, especially when there wasn"t exactly a Burger King or Publix anywhere around.
"I"m good. At least, I am if we can rest for a while longer. What about you?"
"Does it matter?"
She looked around at the barren landscape. "Good point."
We lay down and watched the pattern in the sky slowly shift for a couple of hours before returning to our journey.
The moon never seemed to move as we followed it over the frozen tundra of Siberia. Several hours later, we finally stopped flashing outside of a remote village near the Taymyr Peninsula. With Vanessa in the lead, we hunted the area until we took down a mountain goat, then lugged it to an abandoned cabin-if you could call the rickety structure a cabin-where we"d fuel up and regenerate. We settled in a little after midnight local time, and we would stay until sunrise. Today was the day we"d go to Hades, and we"d both need our full strength. That meant Vanessa would get another meal of me, and I"d need a sizeable amount of the goat that she showed me how to cook over a fire.
Even after being shot, my body aching from all the flashing, and my belly a little full, I couldn"t sleep. And it had nothing to do with my surroundings, because when I closed my eyes, the cabin disappeared and I was home with my two men. My heart ached with longing for them. Tears seeped through my lashes. If I make it through today, I"ll see them again soon.
I"d already decided that if we survived this insane (reckless) stunt, we"d flash non-stop to the nearest airport, call Mom, and have the Amadis jet pick us up and take us straight home. First, we had to survive. And the reminder of what would come in only a few short hours sent my heart into a gallop.
"Maybe if I drink now, you"ll pa.s.s out again," Vanessa suggested after a couple of hours of fighting sleep. She must have heard my heart pounding, sensed my unease. "You"ll be no good if you don"t rest."
Her idea worked. She drank. I ate. Then I pa.s.sed out. She woke me a few hours later, the gray light of dawn seeping through the cracks in the walls. I stretched, feeling renewed and even better after eating more of the mountain goat.
"So," Vanessa said, standing at the door of the cabin, watching the sun rise from behind the mountain. "You ready for this?"
Ready to meet the enemy? Ready to face my likely death?
"Not in the least," I said, joining her.
"Well, then. Here goes nothing." She paused, then added with obvious reluctance, "Keep your mind open to me."
We went over her plan once more, then moved out. I unsheathed and exposed my dagger, ready for anything, and the feeling of power rushed through me.
I"m going to need you now more than ever, Ca.s.sandra.
"I am here as always, but you already have the power you need. Look to yourself, Alexis. The power you and I share resides in your heart and soul."
What does that mean? She didn"t answer, but I felt her with me, and for now, that"s all that mattered.
Wanting to avoid as many people as possible for obvious reasons, Vanessa took us the "back way" known by only the Daemoni elite. As soon as we stepped inside an icy cave, the secret entrance to the underground city they called Hades, my skin p.r.i.c.kled and crawled. Every cell of my being, all the way to my soul, sensed that we"d entered enemy territory. The waves of evil energy strengthened as we descended down a dark tunnel carved into the earth, wide enough for Vanessa and I to walk side-by-side, but Tristan and I probably couldn"t. The air grew colder the farther down we went, but also heavier, pressing down on me until I thought I might suffocate. The energy thrummed in my head, and I could easily imagine the world collapsing in on us.
"You should have warned me you"re claustrophobic," Vanessa said.
I"m normally not.
"Then you"re letting their power get to you. Just breathe."
I nodded and tried to focus on the fact that we"d been lucky so far-we hadn"t encountered a single Daemoni yet. But then I couldn"t help but think how convenient that was. Breaking into the enemy"s compound shouldn"t be this easy. Where were the guards? The locked gates and doors? The ear-piercing alarms to alert them of intruders? Of course, they might not need such mundane security measures. Perhaps we had already set off magical alarms, and they were just waiting in secret foxholes to ambush us.
Unless ...
"Wow, you have serious trust issues, don"t you?" Vanessa broke into my thoughts, already knowing where those thoughts led. "I have the Amadis mark now. The silver didn"t debilitate me. I took a bullet for your a.s.s-three of them, actually-and I haven"t killed you myself yet. When will you start trusting me?"
But why aren"t they coming? Why haven"t they stopped us yet?
"Because they"re arrogant a.s.sholes. It probably hasn"t even crossed their minds that anyone but their most revered would enter this way. They"d never imagine that I"d betray them. If they even know we"re here, they believe what you were just thinking, that I"m leading you right to them. But you"re both wrong."
I still couldn"t help but think she was setting me up, but I repressed those thoughts, hiding them away from her. I still needed her help, and making her angry wasn"t the best way to get it. I couldn"t mask my racing heart so easily, but h.e.l.l, we walked through the lair of my enemy. It"d be racing no matter what.
The packed-dirt floor finally leveled out as a soft light in the distance grew closer. We were almost at the end of what I was about to determine an endless tunnel. Just as the corridor widened into a large room with sconces of fire on the walls, Vanessa pulled me against the wall. Little particles of dirt crumbled away as we pressed against it.
"Anyone?" she asked.
Although I"d kept my mind open to mind signatures and knew there were none nearby, I mentally scanned the area again. And bit back a gasp. Two strange vibrations in my mental realm, one nearby and one several hundred yards away. My first thought was Weres in animal form, but no, Weres still had clear mind signatures with their human brains. These were more like something trying to be a mind signature, but not quite ... there. Faeries? Possibly, but I didn"t think so. It was more like they hid behind veils, as if cloaked. I focused harder, trying to break through the veils, and finally the signatures became clearer. I knew them both.
Kali, I answered Vanessa. But that"s not all.
Chapter 25.
I peered over Vanessa"s shoulder with a small smile as the owner of the closer mind signature came around the corner, although at first, he couldn"t physically be seen. When he came to stand in front of us, he removed the cloak.
Before I could do the same, Vanessa jumped at him and threw her arms around his neck.
"Shhh," Owen whispered as he extricated himself from the vampire"s embrace. He tapped his blond temple, and I opened my mind for all of us, although a sense of unease p.r.i.c.kled the back of my neck. Something wasn"t right here.
Have you been following us the whole time? I asked.
"I knew you"d lead me right here," he answered with a smirk.
"And you made it!" Vanessa said. "When I"d told you about the village before, I never thought you"d actually find it."
"I"m not stupid. I waited there, knowing Alexis wouldn"t resist your offer."
My eyes tightened as that feeling of unease grew. So are you here to help us? Or do you still have your own agenda?
Owen peered at me for a moment. "If you"re here to find the sorceress, our agendas are the same, aren"t they?"
With a clear connection to his mind, I knew that"s all he thought about. Not anything about this being some kind of trick or set-up. Not from Vanessa, either. But the thought still niggled its way under my skin.
Yeah, I guess so.
If we were here only for my personal agenda, I"d do everything I could to avoid Kali and just get my pendant back. But I needed to find her to find the pendant, and, besides, I had the faeries" agenda, too. If Owen felt the need to kill the sorceress once we found her, well, he"d be helping me out. My fingers traced the slight protrusion from the inside pocket of my jacket, where the little jar for Kali"s soul was hidden. The faeries must have given it some kind of protection for it to have survived in one piece after everything I"d already been through.
"Wait," Vanessa said. "Does Kali even have the stone?"
I tried to latch onto the sorceress"s thoughts and share them, but the powerful mage wasn"t stupid. She knew how to block me. Which meant she knew I was here?
"More like she doesn"t trust anyone," Vanessa said. "She probably shields herself at all times, especially this close to the Ancients."
"She"s the best place to start," Owen said. "Anyone else nearby?"
I shook my head.
Are you going to cloak us? I asked Owen.
"It will make moving more difficult. We need to be able to see each other, especially if we get ambushed."
I nodded with understanding. At least, most of me understood, but a tiny part of me still suspected.
"As long as you keep your mind open to new approaches, we"ll be fine," Vanessa said.
Let"s get on with it then.
Staying close to the wall, we crept our way in the direction of Kali"s mind signature. The large room ahead was a junction of four tunnels, including the one we"d just come down. We went through the opening to our immediate right.
"I"m not surprised this is where she is," Vanessa said. "She"d stay away from the crowds."
From there, we blurred to Kali"s location, a small room carved into the earth. A fire blazed in a grate on the far side and more sconces hung on the walls, lighting up a workbench with scattered vials, herbs, and old books with ancient-looking handwriting.
A young-looking woman with bright red hair that flowed thickly down her slender back had been sitting at the workbench, but she"d jumped up just as we"d arrived, an emerald green cloak, the same color as her eyes, billowing around her. Kali"s mind signature came from this woman-the body she must have taken over now. Her snake-like eyes fell on Owen.
"I knew you"d come," she said. But rather than fear or concern, joy filled her voice.
And Owen smiled back at her as he fell to one knee and bowed his head.
"Of course," he said. "You"ve always been my one and only master."
Owen, stop it! I yelled at him. She"s controlling your mind.