Lavender grimaced and rubbed her shin, though I hadn’t kicked her hard. “I was only joking,” she whined quietly as she tweaked my nose with a free hand.
True, Ethan had spent the night, but we hadn’t spent it together like that. We flirted. We teased. It was harmless. I peeked to where he stood at the window and cast my eye over his strong form as he and Ric were talking between themselves. My mind had been so messed up over the past weeks that I couldn’t see right and wrong at that point. He wasn’t like me. Yet, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have those arms around me. What his skin would feel like against mine.
An image of the couples during the Equinox popped into my head and I flinched so violently that my knee clonked against the underside of the table. “Where are Alistair and Daniel?” I said, changing the subject and definitely, definitely, not thinking about anything seedy.
“They still haven’t arrived back,” Willow said, setting a bowl of porridge down in front of me.
“I wouldn’t worry though.” Lavender squeezed Willow’s hand as she walked past. “Knowing them, they’ve either gotten distracted or gotten lost.”
Willow smiled as best as she could but it didn’t hide her concern entirely. From what Lavender had told me during our evening chats, it wasn’t unusual for Alistair to disappear for a few weeks at a time. It happened often enough not to warrant concern, so why she seemed so nervous about their absence now was beyond me. There was still too much I didn’t understand.
Ric and Ethan still babbled on like children in the background while Lavender changed the topic. She and Willow were arguing over this herb and that treatment while dishes were washed and I ate. The chaos of the room would seem too cluttered to some. To me, it was nice, like there was a smidge of normality for once. It was peaceful. Unfortunately, to me, peace was unnerving; the peak of something wonderful about to plummet into discord.
I felt fortunate that it did indeed last for a while. We sat and chatted and argued about unimportant things. Then a cloud came over. You could feel it before the heavy footsteps sounded in the front hall. The front door burst open and raised voices sounded, carrying into the lounge as Alistair and Daniel entered in a violent debate. Willow was up and in a hurry to calm their frenzy before I had time to register what was going on.
“What happened?” she demanded.
“We’ve been too placid these past seasons,” Alistair snapped. “That bastard’s army has grown right under our noses and we were none the wiser.”
I suddenly felt awkward. Alistair was angry – very angry – so much so that he hadn’t noticed me sitting there amongst the others. I had half a mind to sneak out but his incessant pacing made that impossible.
“We should have gone after them the night we crossed the barrier. They were weakened by our advances and then we called off the attack and let them heal.” Daniel’s eyes flicked to me. Clearly he was aware I was present.
That was his way of saying, ‘had she not survived that night, we could have pushed forward. Instead we chose her wellbeing and let the monsters get away’, or something along those lines. Guilt came and passed quickly. No way. I wouldn’t feel guilty because I survived that night. There would be other chances-
“How do you know-?”
“There’s more,” Alistair interrupted. “They have a new senior.”
“How is that different to an army of them?” Lavender squeaked, almost regretting asking.
“He’s ten times stronger than the other young ones.” Daniel paced. “He’s taken the place of Thomas.”
“Impossible,” Ric scoffed. “Stephan wouldn’t let a young one into their rank. I’ve seen it before.”
“Who is it?” Ethan’s face was pale, his expression peculiar.
“They call him Roan,” Daniel scoffed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MY HEART SKIPPED. It was only a name. There had to be hundreds of Roans.
“He’s strong, easily matching up to those ten times his status at less than a year old. Obviously he’s mindless, takes orders without question and without fear, unlike a lot of the new ones. It’s like the Gnathian in him was just winked out.” Alistair rubbed his eyes tiredly. “It makes him very unpredictable.”
“What did he look like?” My voice shook. Oh Daeus above, there was a large chance I’d vomit but I had to know.
Alistair finally noticed me and I saw the burning fury in his eyes that I was there. Before he got a chance to snap at me, however, Daniel brushed him aside and answered for him. “About my height, short, reddish-brown hair, a few burns around the upper chest-”
I didn’t hear the rest. I didn’t need to. It was a limited description but it had to be my brother, my Roan. Ric caught my eye as he tried to understand my sudden panic. Of course, he’d been there. He probably knew exactly who they were talking about. The others jolted back into debate and I locked eyes with him, nodding my head toward the kitchen. I got to my feet shakily and made my way across the room as Ric followed. I wasn’t only going to vomit; I was going to scream.
"You've got to be kidding," I said quietly. "Roan was the one? I'd 'made friends with the wrong people' - Stephan meant my brother?"
Ric nodded. "I guess so."
"Don't 'I guess so' me. You knew of him. You came after me that night. You must have known what I meant to him," I hissed.
"I promise I haven't lied to you about this. The night I...collected you, I was instructed to do so with very little information. Up until then I'd been in Vremia training a small group of young ones." Ric shifted.
"You trained them-?" I started but stopped myself.
"Some of us have sacrificed a lot for this cause," he said darkly. His voice deepened as he tried his best to stay quiet. "My body. My soul. In that time I had to revert back to the beast I was born again to be. I didn't have the luxury of a conscience in a place where you're slaughtered for showing a trace of weakness."
"I know, I'm sorry. It slipped out." I knew it wasn't his fault. "It's just - you really didn't know anything more of what he was to me?"
Ric shook his head. "No, nothing. Stephan commanded. I obeyed. That was our relationship." He leant against the kitchen counter and ran a hand through his hair. "We met with the young one - Roan - initially a couple of nights before the Equinox. As it was, Ethan had gotten to him first and he was pretty banged up. He kept saying your name over and over. Kept asking us why Stephan didn't kill him when he had the chance."
"That was-"
"That was the night Stephan made his final bargain. Either he took his place alongside the rest of us then and there, or we'd be back for you," Ric said. “I hadn’t been there the night Stephan spared him but I’d heard afterward that he had a second family. The ones killed weren’t his only ties to the Gnathian world. After that they sent scouts to observe and gather information, anything to use against him.”