“The refusal to feed. You’re mad at Evangeline for keeping shit from you when you’ve known her all of one week. Yet, we’ve been friends practically our whole lives and here you are. Hiding shit from me as if I’m nothing more than a stranger to you.”
“Let go of me, Quinn.” It’s not a request, nor a statement as a friend. It’s a command from the right hand of the Blood Order. He hesitates, pain written across his features. And it kills me to hurt him like this. But this isn’t his battle to fight. He lets go, reluctantly, stepping away to let me pass through the threshold.
I pull the door open, stepping out into the night. “She lied to both of us,” I say over my shoulder.
“What?” he asks, confused.
I pull my hood up over my head, slipping my veil in place. “You said she kept the truth from me. But it was both of us. All of us, that she lied to. Does that not anger you, too?”
Several moments of silence pass between us. Me, facing the promised violence of a night within the ungoverned district. Quinn, refusing to leave the confines of the clubhouse at the bedside of a hopeless angel.
“No,” he says at last, huffing out a breath. I can almost hear the way he must be shaking his head in disappointment at me. “No, I’m not mad. Because she didn’t lie to me, Aamon. You just didn’t think to ask the right questions.”
So he knew, then. Or at least suspected. And chose not to say anything to me. I ball my fists at my side, nodding once before stepping into the chilled night air. The only sound that greets me as I walk away is the click of the door as Quinn shuts it behind me.
When I slink back into the clubhouse, it’s after four opponents, two black eyes, one broken rib . . . and one unfortunate life lost. That’s the reality of fighting in the rings at the Market Ebon. The price to enter is your life. And the victory is getting to keep it.
My wounds are slow to heal, and I eye the fridge as I enter the common area. The ache in my bones begs me to feed. But the blood in the fridge isn’t what I thirst for and I know it will taste like ash in my mouth. Instead, I make my way down the hall to the left.
I pray that Evangeline is somehow miraculously unattended. Whether it’s because I’d rather not get shit for my current state or because there’s a pang of jealousy in my chest at the thought that anyone else has spent their night with her, I’m not sure. I pause just outside her door,lifting my head and inhaling slightly. The scent of her blood still lingers in the air. I bare my fangs in response, doing everything I can to keep from tearing through the door.
I roll my shoulders, suppressing the hunger before pushing the door open and walking in. The overhead light is off, only a soft glow coming from the partially open bathroom. To my surprise, neither Sterling nor Quinn are here. Laurel is, though, leaning back in the chair Sterling had occupied earlier.
“Aamon,” she yawns, sitting up straighter and closing a book nestled in her lap. “I hadn’t expected you back so soon. Quinn said you were gone for the night.”
“I was. I had some commitments in the rings I had to fulfill." I'm lying. Andras summons me to the rings as often as possible, but since Evangeline’s arrival, he’s been far more lax with his orders.
Laurel nods, either not recognizing the deceit in my words, or not caring enough to challenge them. “She’s been stable, no significant change. I’ve tried to make her as comfortable as possible while I dig for a solution.” She holds up the book for me to see. There’s a stack of similar looking titles beside her chair as well.
I lean against the desk, elbow propped against the arm at my chest and fingers brushing over my chin. “There’s no known way to treat her?” I ask, already knowing the answer. If there was, Laurel would have done so.
“Not without Angel’s Trumpet, if that’s even what they were using on her.” She sighs, shaking her head. “I don’t know what I’m doing here, Aamon. All of this is just a stab in the dark at this point. There’s no manual for this.” She gestures down towards Evangeline’s body in frustration. “They’ve been suppressing the Arcane inside her for far too long. It’s a miracle she’s lasted this far. I’m not entirely sure what all they were doing to her . . . but her body, as well as her aura, are showing significant signs of trauma.”
I swallow, my muscles flexing responsively. If I ever get ahold of Raziel, I will make him pay for the pain he’s put her through. And between now and then, I will make it my life’s mission to collect a detailed list of his wrongdoings, just to ensure he is properly repaid.
“Do you know what kind she is? How the Arcane has manifested inside her?” I ask. Laurel hadn’t witnessed her as I had. But even so, I’m lost on what she could be. I’ve never seen anyone touched by the Arcane like that before.
Laurel levels a judgemental glare at me, nearly rolling her eyes. “As if you don’t already know.”
I’m taken aback at her accusation. My brows pinch together as I stand a little straighter. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re telling me you can’t feel her power calling to yours? Come now, Aamon. Use that brilliant intuition of yours.”
“You’re saying—she’s—”
Laurel nods, turning her attention back to Evangeline. “Like calls to like.”
A vampire.
It hits me all at once. The reason we’ve been so caught up in her orbit, so drawn to her power. It’s not just the Arcane that recognized itself in her. It’s the manifestation, too. Our crew is strong, powerful. We are about as close knit as crews get inside the Blood Order. So having her show up, her power, her allure as one ofusdisrupting the order . . . it suddenly all makes perfect sense.
She belongs to us, our power calling to hers. But she’s also our opposite. Our enemy. An enigma wrapped in an anomaly wrapped in the strongest manifestation of the Arcane I have ever personally felt.
But it can’t be. “I’ve never seen a vampire like that before, Laurel. Are you sure?”
Laurel sighs, as if frustrated by my distrust. “She’s not fully turned. Whatever her father was doing to her has kept the Arcane from manifesting fully. But . . .” She leans forward, peeling back Evangeline’s top lip to reveal two pearly white fangs that Iknowhadn’t been there previously. She has my full attention now as I stand, stepping forward and leaning over the end of the bed post to get a better look.
“What the fuck?”
