He steps forward, placing his hands on my shoulders.
“I’ve spent the last sixteen years watching over you, Logan,” he says. “You’ve given me purpose, something to focus on. But this is your time,” he says, his eyes gathering weight. “You have others around you. You have those in your service. But what I know is this: that you don’t need anyone but you, my Queen.”
He takes half a step back, and dips into a deep bow. And when he rises, there’s determination. “It is time I return to my own home. It is time that I returned to the House of Conrath, where I belong.”
I look over to Alivia. Her eyes are filled with tears and her lower lip trembles. Without a word, she crosses the space and wraps her arms around Rath. Neither says a word, but I feel it, the unspoken forgiveness that flows between the two of them.
“Thank you,” I say, offering Rath a little smile as he looks over Alivia’s shoulder at me. I turn my gaze to the rest of the House. “Thank you all for your hospitality. It was nice to meet you. Until we meet again, I suppose.”
Looking over at Eshan who waits beside me, I turn, and we walk down the big, wide steps down to the cars that wait for us just outside the doors.
“You even talk different now,” Eshan says.
“What do you mean?” I ask him, my brows furrowed.
He pins me with a look. “You talk all formal now. Older words. And you swear a lot less.”
Holy shit, he’s right…
I laugh, shaking my head and ruffle his hair.
Smith steps out of the house, immediately slipping into the driver’s seat. He’ll be bringing Cyrus’ car back to this house once we all get on the plane.
The four of us load our bags into the trunk, and squishing in tight, we climb in.
The weight of what is coming distracts everyone into silence as we navigate to the nearest airport. It’s a private field, one that accommodates the private jet Alivia arranged to take us back to Greendale and then across the globe to Austria.
We pull onto the tarmac, easily finding our waiting jet. Smith parks beside it and we all pile out, gathering our bags, which an attendant loads into the plane. With a quick goodbye to Alivia and Ian, Smith climbs back in the car, and takes it back to the House of Conrath.
“How am I just supposed to go back to normal tomorrow?” Eshan says as our bags are loaded. “Never mind how pissed mom and dad are going to be. I just spent four days as a vampire, learned my sister is a couple-thousand-year-old Queen, and that a seriously badass King is my brother-in-law. How the hell am I supposed to just go back to a normal life?”
Ian clamps a hand down on his shoulder. “You count yourself as damn lucky. You enjoy a drama-free life.”
Alivia huffs a laugh, takes her husband’s hand, and leads him into the belly of the plane.
“You’ll be fine,” I say, offering Eshan a reassuring smile. “And for what it’s worth, I somehow doubt you’re just done with all this craziness.”
He smiles excitedly, and I wonder how much of this reality ever hit him. If he remembers that he killed someone. If he remembers what it felt like to drink a human’s blood.
I hope he doesn’t.
He scrambles into the jet, going off about how cool it is that Alivia has a private jet at her beckoned call.
I’m about to head in when my cell phone rings.
I pull it out to see Larkin’s name.
“Any updates?” I ask without a greeting.
He lets out a breath. That slight moment of hesitation sets my blood cold. “I’ve caught the perpetrators,” he says, his voice grim. “They’re in custody.”
“That’s great,” I say with relief. “I’m actually on my way back right now.”
“There’s something more, my Queen,” he says solemnly. “I caught them leaving your parents’ home.”
And now all the blood has disappeared from my veins. My internal organs have turned to ash.
“There was a reason the attack on Cyrus was feeble,” Larkin says. “I do not think it was him they were truly after.” There’s a long pause. And I feel the air grow heavier. “I think they were actually looking for you, Sevan. And now they’re trying to draw you back.”
“What do you mean?” I breathe.
One more pause, and I can’t breathe anymore.
“They killed your parents.”
And the world goes silent as a high-pitched ringing sets off in my ears.
Chapter 34
I think I blacked out mentally.
One moment I was talking to Larkin on the phone.
The next a car was picking us up from the jet and the humidity was gone and the landscape was familiar. Security from the House of Valdez was swarming.
I blinked, looking around.
All the faces were solemn. Alivia. Ian. Eshan was totally stark white.
Did I tell them all? Did we talk about it? Do they know?
I snap into myself as we turn down our street. Everything comes crashing in as my childhood home comes into view. The red brick. The driveway where I used to draw pictures with chalk. The grass I started mowing when I was twelve.
I think they were actually looking for you, Sevan. And now they’re trying to draw you back.
Darkness gathers in my chest as we park at the curb. Black ink spreads through my veins. A thunderstorm rolls in through my brain.
I open the door and stalk across the grass. I shove the door open with enough force to crack the doorframe.
But my determination depletes as I see the blood.
A smear of it goes from the front door, through the living room, around the corner. Just past the corner, I see my father’s wheelchair turned over.
“No,” I breathe in horror.
I slowly step forward. Through the living room. I turn that corner.
So much blood.
It’s smeared all over the kitchen. A bloody handprint is on the pantry door. Track marks from the wheelchair cut through streaks of red.
This was an animal.
They played with my parents.
They toyed with them like mice.
I turn when I hear sound.
“Eshan, no!” I yell, holding a hand out to stop him from seeing it all.
But his eyes are wide, looking around in horror.
“No, no,” he says, his lips quivering. “Where are they? Where’s mom and dad?”
I pull him into my chest, which is difficult considering he’s inches taller than I am. “I will deal with this,” I promise him. “I will make them pay.”
From the basement, I hear Larkin call my name.
My eyes ignite and I feel my fangs lengthen. Ian and Alivia hesitantly step inside, taking in the carnage. “Stay with them,” I tell Eshan, pushing him toward Alivia.
I can feel the power ripple through me. The strength of the rhino. The speed of the cheetah, the stalking abilities of the jaguar. It flows through me, created by Cyrus so, so long ago.
I open the door leading down, and step onto that first stair.
I smell it.
Their fear.
It’s intoxicating. My blood sings for theirs, to spill every drop of it, to see it wasted into the dirt.
I step off the stairs and turn into the dim light of the unfinished basement.
Larkin did me proud.
He holds them captive.
A huge stake is driven through each of their wrists, through their ankles, and one through their stomachs, nailing them to the wooden studs behind them. Blood is pooled on the ground beneath them, some dark and congealed, some fresh and wet.
But the moment I see their faces, I feel the fear and the past slammes into me with the force of an avalanche.
* * *
Waking in the absolute dark with nearly no air was terrifying.
Using the strength I didn’t know why I had, to fight my way through the wooden box was terrifying.
Having a crushing force of dirt collapse in on my face was terrifying.
Digging my way through that dirt was terrifying.
Climbing out of the ground and finding myself in the outcasts graveyard was bone chilling.
But the burn in my throat, the way my nostrils flared, smelling the air: that was instinct.
I knew where I was going. I knew the way back to the village and where everyone slept. But they didn’t have names. They were only bodies with the solution to my burning.
I took one and I drank and I drank until the burning was only an ache in my throat.