16. Rachel’s Plan
Rachel didn’t say a word. She didn’t smile. She was on a mission. Grabbing me roughly, she spun, putting her back to the fire. With her arm around my neck in a deadly headlock, I became her shield. “Stay away or I snap her neck, you parasites!” she shrieked.
“Please!” a new voice cried out.
Unable to turn my head, I strained my eyes to the right. A slender, red-haired woman stepped into the clearing and moved toward the crowd of angry tribesmen, her hands held up in surrender. Sofie! They parted enough to allow her past, closing in quickly behind her.
Sofie’s mint-green eyes fell on me for the first time since the day she sent me from the atrium into my safe haven. She had apologized to me then. Now I saw that same pleading, contrite look in her ghostly pale eyes. “Stand down!” she ordered, her voice confident. She turned her attention to the chief. “Let us come out from the shadows and no one else will get hurt. Otherwise, many more will die, I can promise you that.”
Let us come? My heart, pounding against my chest wall, skipped a beat. Who else was here?
The chief, kneeling over the fatally wounded tiger, paused as if weighing his options. Then he barked an order. Every tiger dropped to its belly in submission. The tribesmen followed suit, dropping to one knee.
Satisfied, Sofie sang out, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Who was it?
From the jungle stepped two tall figures in custom suits. Viggo and Mortimer. Even in the depths of a tropical forest, they had found me. They approached slowly until they stood about thirty feet away from Sofie and from Rachel and me, the last point in a perfect triangle.
“Of course you’d bring that lunatic with you!” Sofie scoffed, earning a growl from Rachel that rumbled in my ear.
“And aren’t I glad that we did!” Viggo exclaimed, adding, “My darling Rachel, that maneuvering was fantastic! Your battle skills are top-notch.”
“I was highly motivated,” she purred, her grip on me tightening until I found it difficult to breathe.
“Hello, Evangeline,” Mortimer called. I hadn’t heard that booming voice in a month, and would gladly miss it for a thousand more. But he didn’t wait for my response, his attention quickly zoning in on my unadorned chest. “Where’s the necklace?” he demanded.
Three sets of brilliant irises bored into me, Sofie’s minty green ones wide with genuine surprise.
I swallowed, mustering as much courage as possible. “Here,” I answered in a quavering voice, holding up my arm. I let the pendant drop so it dangled from its chain in front of me. Sofie’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “I don’t want it. You can—” I didn’t even finish offering it before a gust touched my cheek and the pendant disappeared from my grasp. Just like that.
“I don’t believe it!” Viggo exclaimed, staring down at the pendant now in his clutches. So quickly, so smoothly, I couldn’t even tell he had moved. That was that. They had what they needed from me. Was it enough to let me be?
It didn’t matter because now Rachel had me, and it wasn’t the pendant she cared about.
“Let her go, Rachel,” Sofie warned, her surprise quickly buried, her tone cutting.
“I don’t think so . . . Come near me and I’ll snap her neck, you puke-eyed witch!” Rachel shrieked, grabbing a fistful of my hair, so violently that she ripped several strands out at the root. “Tell him to come out. Only him,” she hissed at Sofie.
Him? Could it be . . . My pounding heart stopped altogether.
The crowd parted. A tall, lone figure stepped from the dark jungle, moving past the ring of tigers and tribesmen to glide toward me like a dream. Firelight caught the jade in his eyes.
Caden.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that Rachel’s claws dug into my flesh, ready to tear me to pieces. What mattered was what was going on in Caden’s mind. The fears and doubts that I had buried deep to survive in my exile exploded to the surface. Had he changed his mind about me? Had time and distance dulled his feelings? Did he ever truly care? For these few seconds as he approached, my hope hung from the edge of a cliff, seconds from either falling or being pulled to safety. I held my breath.
Our eyes locked. I saw Caden’s eyes. The stunning green eyes I remembered, the eyes I thought I had lost forever. In that one look, every ounce of doubt, every moment of fear, every horrific memory washed away. As if pulled by a magnet, my body yearned toward him, desperate to feel him close again.
Rachel yanked me back. “No, no, little girl. That’s far enough.” Her grip around my neck tightened. “Is there anything you want to say to your dear human?” she called out to Caden. “Last chance.” She said it so airily, as if she were offering the last bite of a cookie before she took it for herself. But she wasn’t offering a cookie. She was promising death. After all this, after all we had been through, after lifting the curse, Rachel would end me.
“We have bigger issues than petty revenge, Rachel,” Sofie called out softly. “We’re on the brink of a war.”
War? What did Sofie mean?
Rachel’s fingers dug into my neck like tiny daggers. “There’s always time for revenge.”
“She’s suffered enough.” Sofie’s tone was pleading, and her eyes brimmed with distress.
A vicious cackle in my ear tensed my shoulders. “She hasn’t even begun to suffer.”
From the corner of my eye, I noticed Caden shift his weight and flex his hands by his sides, as if ready to make a move. Unfortunately, so did Rachel. She pulled me even closer, until her body pressed up against my back, until we were like one. “Any sudden moves and I’ll snap her neck like a twig. You’ll never make it here fast enough to stop me,” she warned. Her arm loosened its grip and her hand slid to my chin to pull my head back until my neck was exposed. With her mouth grazing my ear, she whispered, “You thought you could outsmart me? Lie to me and get away with it? Say good-bye, little human.”
I swallowed, tears now streaming down my cheeks.
“You’ll never get out of here alive if you kill her,” Caden warned. “You might have a chance if you don’t—”
Rachel giggled softly. “Who said I was going to kill her? But make one move toward us and I certainly will.”
“Rachel, you won’t—” Caden began.
She cut him off. “Come on! You’ve got front row seats to watch!”
Oh God. Watch what? Rachel ripping my teeth out, one by one? I felt faint, my legs weakening, but Rachel gave my body a swift jerk up as she continued talking.
“Then you’ll see me leave with her. If you don’t follow, you might see her again. Follow, and I’ll hand you her heart. Simple.”
She had it all planned out. She would do whatever she wanted to me—it no doubt involved torture in front of an audience—and then she’d escape. At that moment I dearly wished I would lose consciousness. But of course, it was one of those few times that I wouldn’t.
Her fingertip caressed my neck. “Why would I give her a quick death when I could drag it on for years?” she drawled. Another surge of panic tore through me. What did she mean?
Sharp pain rocketed through my body as Rachel’s teeth clamped onto my neck, the ferocity of the pressure making me sure she’d rip a chunk of flesh out. I gave a strangled gasp as the pressure intensified, my eyes catching the panic on Caden’s face. Sofie had dropped to her knees, her hands covering her mouth and nose, her green eyes wide with anxiety.
Rachel was drawing on my blood so fiercely that my limbs grew heavy in mere seconds, my energy draining away. Was that her plan? To bleed me dry? That didn’t make sense . . .
The pressure abated suddenly and a familiar burn began coursing through my limbs. It brought disturbing memories back from that first attack on Ratheus, when the blonde vampire had pumped venom into me. Rachel’s plan finally hit me. I can drag it out for years, she had said. She wanted to turn me so she could stalk and continuously torture me.
Suddenly, the situation didn’t seem so bleak. The pendant was off, the curse gone, and if I could get away from Rachel, I’d have what I wanted—to be with Caden forever. Sure, I’d have to deal with an eternal game of cat-and-mouse, but I’d have Sofie and Caden by my side to help fight her.
Just like that, I wasn’t afraid anymore. Rachel was giving me what I wanted. My mouth actually curved into a smile. Now, I welcomed the venom. I craved it. Rachel’s fangs in my neck wasn’t pain. It was bliss. Don’t worry, I tried to communicate as my eyes rolled lazily up to land on Caden. Everything will be okay.
On the brink of unconsciousness from the massive loss of blood, I was only faintly aware when Rachel retracted her fangs and released her grip on me, shoving me away from her as she let out a howl of agony. My legs immediately buckled, too weak to hold me up. I would have dropped to the ground, had it not been for strong arms swooping in to scoop me up. I felt my body sail away from the heat of the fire.
Rachel continued to scream, just as the blonde vampire had cried out before he was poisoned with his own venom, only Rachel’s screech was ten times worse. What was happening? Unable to summon the strength to move my head, I let it roll to the side to see Rachel. She was on her hands and knees, her face contorted, hateful, glowing eyes fixed on me. She opened her mouth to let out a skin-peeling scream just as Mortimer appeared beside her. Grabbing her by the throat with his powerful hands, he lifted her and launched her backward into the center of the pyre. Her shrill scream abruptly stopped as the flames enveloped her body.
A hand slipped behind my head and lifted it up, ever so gently. I found myself staring up at Caden, his face a mixture of happiness and confusion. No hideousness, no blood lust. Just the Caden I knew. My Caden. And then I lost consciousness.
When I came to, I was lying on a soft surface, staring up at a white ceiling, the sound of a loud engine humming in my ears.
“It’s about time,” a familiar male voice whispered in my ear.
I rolled my head toward it. Caden was lying beside me, his head propped on his arm, watching me intently. “Caden!” I croaked, and immediately began coughing, my throat parched.
“She’s awake!” a raspy voice called a second before a curly mop of hair appeared to hover upside down over my face.
“Here, sit up.” Cool fingers slid behind my neck and helped me into a half-sitting, half-lying position. I was on a bed, I could see now. Wrapping his arm behind my back, Caden pulled me toward his muscular body.
Sofie appeared with a tall glass of cloudy, urine-colored liquid in her hand. Those pale green eyes gazed down at me with a look I hadn’t seen in years—the look my mother used to give me as she tucked me in at night. Adoration. My heart suddenly warmed, the urge to wrap my arms around her neck overpowering. “Apple juice. Drink,” she murmured in that gorgeous French accent I adored so, handing me the glass and smoothing my hair back off my forehead as she sat down beside me.
I took a big mouthful while my eyes roamed the room. It was tiny, containing nothing but overhead compartments and a double bed. Textured silver and white wall paper covered the walls. Wait . . . I’d seen this wallpaper before. We were on Viggo’s jet. “How did we get here?” I asked between gulps.
“Not easily. You’ve been unconscious since last night,” Sofie explained, adding with a grimace, “We had to leave the island rather quickly. Rachel’s stunt burned some bridges for me.” Memories of Rachel flooded back then. My hand flew to my neck to feel the bandages. “It should heal nicely with time,” Sofie offered with a sad smile.
Rachel’s venom . . . I frowned in confusion. “But Rachel turned me, didn’t she? I shouldn’t need to be healed. When will the transformation start?” I asked. I didn’t feel any different, but I had no clue how this whole process worked.
Caden leaned forward, laying a soft kiss on my cheek. “Drink up,” he said. “We need you strong.”
I obeyed the order, my eyes unable to leave his face, my fingers reaching up to trace his slender nose and soft lips. Was this even real? He leaned forward to press his mouth against my fingers, closing his eyes and inhaling. Worry flickered through me as I remembered the last time he had caught my scent, but it quickly vanished as his eyes opened again, the beautiful jade eyes that I could lose myself in. “How did you learn to control it?” I asked, tears welling in my eyes. Tears of delight, of relief.
Caden guiltily averted his eyes. “By drinking a lot of blood. A lot.”
I grabbed his chin and forced his face back to me. “Good.” I smiled, trying to tell him it was okay.
He leaned in to press his forehead against mine. “Thank you for understanding,” he whispered.
I leave you alone for an hour and this is what happens, Max’s voice grumbled in my head.
“Max! They found you!” I exclaimed, struggling to turn around.
Tell Curly Locks to move it! Max muscled his way in, earning a grunt of protest from Amelie. Ignoring her, he affectionately nuzzled against my cheek.
“How was the rubber?” I teased, smiling.
Rubbery . . . . You broke your promise. You were supposed to keep out of trouble.
“I know. I’m sorry, Max. The chief told me he could undo the curse if I got on the platform, so I did and—”
“You agreed to go up on that pyre?” Sofie suddenly trilled. “Dear God, Evangeline! And here I thought they forced you onto it . . . Have you learned nothing about reserving a shred of doubt?” she scolded, running her hand through her hair, shifting it into a wild mane. She sounded like . . . a mother.
“He said he could get the pendant off! What else should I have done?” I answered defensively.
“You should have waited for me to figure it out!” Sofie threw back.
“Well, given Viggo and Mortimer showed up before you, I’d be dead if I’d done that. Now, at least I’m free. Viggo and Mortimer can have Veronique and I can have,” I paused to gaze over at Caden, “what I want, forever.”
He hesitated just a second then, ever so slowly, leaned down to kiss my forehead. “You always had me, forever . . . pendant or not.”
But Sofie didn’t let it go. “You shouldn’t have done it, Evangeline.”
I couldn’t miss the grave disappointment in her voice. “What’s the big deal? It worked! See?” I gestured to my chest. “It’s off!”
“Oh, Evangeline,” Sofie moaned, rubbing her face with her hands. “There’s something you don’t understand about that tribe. I should have warned you not to let them touch you with their magic, but I didn’t expect this. Why didn’t I expect this!” she admonished herself.
I swallowed, a sick feeling rising in my stomach. “But they got the pendant off . . . ”
“Yes, they did,” she conceded softly. “Because their magic counters mine. It undoes what I’ve done.”
“You knew they could do that?”
“Yes! I guessed it, anyway. But it’s not that simple. If it was, I would have taken you to them years ago!” As Sofie spoke, Caden’s grasp tightened around me, as if protecting me from the news she was delivering. “I didn’t know this would happen, but after I saw how Rachel reacted, it made total sense that this is how it would work.” I had no idea what Sofie was trying to say. She must have seen it in my eyes, because she paused before saying, “You’re full of this tribe’s magic now, magic that opposes vampires and witches. It won’t let you be turned.”
I heard her words and yet they didn’t make sense. Not turned? Won’t let me? So Rachel’s venom didn’t work, after all . . . “Well, when can I be turned, then?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Never, maybe.” The room started to spin. “I can’t even heal you! It’s like there’s some sort of antibody for anything done by vampires and witches, coursing through your veins. I had no idea you’d do something so foolish . . . if I had, I would have warned Max.” She paused to reach forward and squeeze my leg with one delicate hand. “But we’re lucky it played out as it did. If Caden had tried to turn you—”
I gasped, my eyes widening as I finished her sentence in my head: Caden would have died. I instinctively tightened my grip on him, needing to feel him next to me, to be sure he was alive. A fresh batch of tears welled in my eyes.
“Come on,” Amelie murmured, taking Sofie by the hand and smacking Max on the rump. “It’s getting crowded in here.”
Sofie’s eyes flitted to Caden and a silent exchange passed between them, one I couldn’t read. The others quietly left, shutting the door behind them, leaving me alone with Caden. He pulled my head to his chest and wrapped his arms around me, running his fingers through my hair until my sobs lessened and my tears dried up. “Here, you should lie down. You lost a lot of blood.” He lowered me down to the bed and pulled a navy blue wool blanket up to cover my body. I was still dressed in the revealing tribal garment.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, my voice hollow, as I gazed up at him. Sadness passed across his face but he said nothing, his eyes roaming my face, his fingertips grazing my cheek, running along my lips, as if he couldn’t keep his hands off me. And why should he? I was finally with Caden again, I realized. As if possessed by some crazed, hormonal person, I suddenly couldn’t control myself. My hands flew behind his head and yanked him down to me with surprising force. I pressed my lips up against his as tears began streaming down my cheeks again, the sound of an invisible clock ticking away in my head. I was already running out of time.
Eventually, Caden reached up to gently untangle my hands from his hair. He broke away from my kiss and lay down beside me, chuckling. “Slow down. I’m not going anywhere.”
I curled up against his chest. “No, but I will . . . soon.” I wasn’t sure which was worse—wearing the pendant or not. Either way, I had no control of my life. “It’s impossible.”
Caden kissed the top of my head and wiped the tears away from my cheek. “No, Sofie will figure it out. She’s smart like that.” He sounded so confident. “Nothing is impossible, remember? You taught me that.”
I stretched my arm out to drape it over his side, reveling in the feel of him. I had Caden. For how long, I didn’t know, but he was here, with me, something I’d feared would never happen. I needed to be happy with what I had. “At least Rachel is gone,” I said half-heartedly, trying to sound optimistic. “And Ursula. And Viggo has no more use for me. So life can kind of get back to normal. We’re mega-rich. We can go buy a nice condo with Amelie, Bishop, and Fiona and leave all this behind. Until I get too old and wrinkly for you, anyway,” I added bitterly.
“Evangeline,” Caden whispered, his voice cracking. I slid away from his chest to look up at his face. Raw pain stared back. “Fiona’s gone.”
I flinched as if he had slapped me. “What do you mean . . . ” A vision flashed in my mind—of a destroyed atrium, strange witches, and Fiona’s dead violet eyes staring up at me. I sat up. “It was real?”
“What was real?”
“I . . . I saw it,” I stammered. “I saw Fiona in the atrium!”
Caden was shaking his head. “Wait a minute; you’re not making sense. How could you see her?”
“I saw the witches and the atrium, and burned bodies, and—”
“What?” Caden looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye on my forehead.
I barely heard him; I kept babbling on about the weird atrium nightmare I had while on the platform. “And that voice—Veronique’s voice—and the statue . . . ” I gasped aloud, groping forward for Caden’s arm as realization dawned on me.
“What?” Caden was growing impatient; he grabbed my chin and pulled my face to look straight at his. “Tell me. You’re scaring me!”
“I think Veronique’s free,” I whispered. It had been real. When the chief reversed Sofie’s magic, he must have also reversed the tomb spell and somehow, because of my link to her soul, I saw it firsthand. She would be free, he’d promised. That didn’t just mean her soul. It meant her physical body.
Caden’s eyes widened, then darted to the closed door. He lifted his finger to his mouth to indicate that I needed to be quiet. “Why would you think that?” he whispered.
By the time I finished quietly describing the vision, Caden was squeezing the bridge of his nose. “This is bad. This is so very bad.”
“Who were those witches, Caden? What happened over there?”
Caden put his arm around me and squeezed me close to him, whispering in my ear, “Don’t mention anything about Veronique to anyone just yet.”
“Why?”
“Because, it’ll set off Viggo and Mortimer.”
Viggo and Mortimer . . . weren’t they long gone? How would they find out?
Caden gave me a strange look. “Come on. You may as well see for yourself.” He scooped me up in his arms and pulled me off the bed, blanket and all. I reveled in the feel of his body as he carried me through the narrow hallway into the main cabin.
The joy didn’t last long. My blood instantly turned to ice as my eyes landed on the two well-dressed vampires sitting across from Sofie in the main cabin. Viggo and Mortimer. A wooden box, which I presumed held Veronique’s pendant, sat between them. Of course they were here. They weren’t out of my life yet.
Mortimer’s dark orbs zoned in on me just as the memory of him tossing Rachel into the fire hit me. “Why?” I blurted. I could have been asking anything.
But Mortimer knew immediately what I meant. “I figured I owed you that much,” was all he said, that same vacant stare giving me nothing to read, yet every answer I needed. Killing Rachel was his peace offering.
“She was quite annoying, wasn’t she?” Viggo piped in, rolling his eyes dramatically.
My attention shifted to Sofie, my eyes asking, Is this an act?
Viggo answered for her. “We all got what we wanted. You have nothing more to worry about from us. We have no more use for you.” He added, as an afterthought, “Except maybe that hundred million you swindled from us.”
“She earned it! Leave it be!” Mortimer boomed, turning to level a warning glare at his adversary. What had happened between these two?
“She certainly has,” a new voice said. It belonged to a tiny Asian-looking woman who strolled into the cabin, smiling at me.
My jaw dropped as she handed Sofie a bag of blood and tossed another to Max before sitting down beside Sofie. Max didn’t seem at all concerned; he caught the bag with his teeth and hunkered down to suck on it. Sofie thanked her with a wink, earning a wide-eyed stare from me. What were they . . . friends? What had happened over the last month?
Amelie’s giggle pulled my attention to the opposite side of the cabin, where she sat cradling Julian’s head in her lap, smiling slyly down at him. Julian was still visibly pale and weak from his injury, but he gazed up at her with a goofy grin, so utterly and obviously enamored with her that it was almost comical. “How long was I unconscious for?” I asked absently, frowning as I took in this development.
“Long enough for Amelie to sink her hooks into him,” Caden answered.
That wouldn’t take long. Of course Julian would fall head over heels with Amelie instantly. Who wouldn’t? They would make a cute couple, I decided. Except for the fact that he belonged to a cult that wanted to eradicate every last vampire, and she’d probably kill him the second she found out. Small detail.
“Are you okay with them being together?” Caden asked quietly.
I turned to see a strange look in his eyes. Fear? What was it? I had never seen it before. He must be sensing my anxiety over Julian’s secret identity. I needed to hide it better, or I’d get Julian killed and that wouldn’t help matters. Soon enough, though, Amelie would find out, I was sure. All she had to do was see the tattoo. And then what would happen . . . she’d be crushed. I forced a smile, pushing the thought from my mind, and squeezed Caden tightly. “Of course!”
“Hey, little human,” a hollow-sounding Bishop called out. I turned to find him sitting by himself in a dark corner of the plane, the playful smirk I treasured replaced with a cold, lost stare. There was an empty seat beside him, one that Fiona should be sitting in. Bishop without Fiona was like . . . the world without the sun.
“Can you put me down?” I asked Caden.
He did as asked. Giving his hand a squeeze, I walked over to sit down beside the heartbroken vampire. “I’m so sorry, Bishop,” I whispered hesitantly, a giant knot forming in my throat.
Bishop’s jaw tensed. He gave me a nod and reached out to squeeze my hand. Then he turned to look out the window, his eyes closing—shutting me and the rest of the world out. The old Bishop was gone. Probably forever.
With a sick, hollow ache blossoming in my chest, I quietly stood and walked back over to wrap my arms around Caden, tears welling in my eyes. I fought them this time. There was no time for tears right now. “How did this happen?”
Caden sighed. “Sofie? Where do you want to begin?”
Sofie gestured at two empty chairs beside her. Clinging to Caden, with a wary eye on Viggo and Mage, I walked over with him to sit down.
For the next hour, Sofie and Mage—her new “BFF,” it seemed– told the entire story, from the moment Sofie shipped me off to the mountains to finding a badly-mangled Max in the swamp next to a pile of half-eaten crocodiles. I caught myself glancing over at Julian whenever the Sentinel was mentioned, and each time, I met Caden’s frown. Be careful, Evangeline. You’re going to give Julian’s secret away.
By the time Sofie finished, I was sure all the color had drained from my face. I had to swallow a few times to keep the bile from rising to my mouth as the nausea kicked in. “Ratheus is Earth?” I whispered.
Caden pulled me close to him. “I’m so sorry, Eve. I didn’t know. I swear it.”
I reached for his hand and pulled it to my cheek, closing my eyes to revel in his touch for a long moment while I thought. Right now, right at this very moment, Sofie’s sister was out of her statue and vulnerable to a horde of crazy witches and the Sentinel. She could be dead already. If Viggo or Mortimer found out—I looked up to see cold blue eyes dissecting me. He’s trying to read me! He wouldn’t be able to read anything definitive through my sheer terror right now, thank God—those two would do whatever it took to get her out, even if it meant blowing up a square block of Manhattan. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if Sofie would act more rationally. And how long would it take before she figured out that the tribe’s magic had reversed the tomb spell? Caden was right. I had to keep this to myself.
“So what’s the plan? Are we going back to New York?” I asked vaguely.
Sofie shook her head. “Veronique is safe while she’s in that statue. They’ve kept the attack under wraps, but if we go back there now . . . who knows what kind of spectacle they’ll make.”
I averted my gaze to my hands and bit my bottom lip, distressed by the knowledge that I was betraying Sofie by not telling her what I knew. I now had two volatile secrets to keep. Suddenly the fact that the Death Tribe’s magic coursed through my veins, preventing me from getting what I desperately wanted, seemed trivial. A repeat of Ratheus was coming. “What are we going to do?” I whispered, unable to keep the distress from my voice.
Sofie’s answer was calm and clear. “Simple. We change fate.”