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Rhiannon murmured in soft agreement. “I’m still in the dark about my father. I have no clue who he was, or what I am. I’m just…a woman who once killed a little girl with my fire, and my mother is a vampire, working for an evil queen.” She sounded lost and frightened.
“Are you thinking about Leo?” I sat up, gathering the covers around me to wrap them tight against the cold.
Rhia let out a forced laugh as she scooted over next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Leo? I don’t know if I ever really knew him. I thought I did, but now I think…I was in love with the idea of being in love. Or maybe I loved the man I thought he was, but in reality it was a sham. He let me believe he was who I wanted him to be. Not once did he ever tell me he was interested in being a vampire.”
I hated sticking up for the scum, but there was a part of Leo that I understood. The all-too human side. “He probably knew how you felt. He wanted you to love him and said the right things, made the right moves…Don’t we all do that at times?” I paused, wondering whether I should ask the next question. But since we were having an impromptu girls’ night, I decided to go ahead. “And what about Chatter? Did you ever talk to Leo about him?”
She shook her head. “No, never.”
“But you thought about him.”
Rhiannon let out a soft sigh. “I met Chatter in the woods a few times when I was a teenager—I don’t think Grieve knew, we kept it secret. But I couldn’t believe we had a chance.” She looked up at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody else. And I always remembered him. How caring he was, how gentle, how I trusted him and he never let me down. He gave me my first kiss, out there in the woods, when I was fifteen. But I couldn’t tell him about the little girl. I was too ashamed. I thought he’d hate me, so I never went back again.”
Luna had been listening to us, watching us in the dim light of the twenty-five-watt exposed bulb that lit our chamber. She pushed herself to sitting, too, huddling under the covers. “I listen to all of you and I think how lucky I had it. My family loves me, even if they don’t understand me. I’ve never had a great love, but I’ve never had great loss, either. I’ve only sung about it. I guess I’ve lived vicariously through my music.”
I reached over and took her hand. “You are holding up remarkably well. And we’re grateful—and glad—you’re here.”
She crossed her legs. “It’s nearly midnight. I should call Zoey. It’s morning where she’s at.”
“Where are the Akazzani located?” Peyton asked.
Luna shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. I don’t even know myself. But I do know the time zone difference. It’s midmorning where she is.”
“Go ahead. I don’t think we should keep this secret any longer. Myst is determined to spread her contagion. If we don’t survive, someone outside of New Forest should know what’s going on. That’s why we’re going to the Consortium, too.” It was time to spread the word. If Lainule was right, Myst had other cells of the Vampiric Fae scattered around the world.
Luna moved to a quieter spot in the room and flipped open her cell phone. Not wanting to make her any more uncomfortable than she might already be about asking for her sister’s help, I turned to Peyton.
“Did your father say when he was going to be here?”
“Around eight or nine.” She rested her chin on her knees. “I really don’t know what to expect, so I’m trying to expect nothing.”
I stared at my feet, poking up under the covers, and wiggled my toes against the cherry stone warmer. It was toasty, and I tried to relax into the warmth and coax it up my body.
“This is just too bizarre. It feels like a million miles and a thousand years since I left La La land to return home, but in less than two weeks…everything I ever thought was true has been turned upside down. To say I feel lost is an understatement.”
Rhiannon nodded. “I’ve been getting used to the weirdness over the years, I guess. My mother…she kept track of the odd events going on. But now…” She pushed back a long strand of the coppery red hair that hung down her back.
My cousin and I were fire and ice. I had hair as black as the night, sleek and hanging straight just past my shoulders. My eyes were emerald, and I now realized their color came from my father. At five feet, four inches, and 140 stocky, athletic, curvy pounds, I was a fireball of muscle. Rhiannon was taller and willowy, lithe like a dancer, with long curling red hair and hazel eyes. She was the spitting image of Heather.
Aunt Heather used to call us amber and jet when we were little. But we called ourselves twins. We were born on the same day, on the summer solstice—Rhiannon under the sun, during the waxing half of the year, and me under the moonlight, after the year switched over to waning. We were twenty-six now, and I wondered if we’d make it to our next birthday.
“I promise you, we will put her to rest.” It felt horrible to say, but I knew the fact that Heather was now a vampire weighed heavily on her mind.
She nodded to me, her face a frozen mask. I wondered what she was thinking, but she chose to remain silent, scooting over to me. I lifted up my covers and let her slide beneath them. We pulled her blanket over the top of mine and the added warmth felt good. I wrapped my arm around her and she rested her head on my shoulder.
Luna returned then. “Zoey will be here as soon as she can. She’s breaking a lot of rules to help us, but she thinks there are some more texts hidden away and she’ll sneak out what she can. She said she can get away in a couple of days. I didn’t ask how. I got the feeling it’s another one of those things I’m not supposed to know about.”
As she crawled back under her covers, shivering in the chill night air, I glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’re well past the witching hour. We should get some sleep. And pray that tomorrow we start sorting out this mess. At least Lannan will be all beddy-bye then and I won’t have to deal with him. Honestly, if he were human, I’d slap him with a lawsuit for stalking.”
Peyton barked out a sharp laugh as Rhiannon and I snuggled down under our blankets, holding hands like we had when we were children. I hoped there were no spiders or rats around, but the long weariness of the day, the fear of returning to the Veil House—it all compounded to summon me into sleep.
As the soft sounds of Luna’s and Peyton’s breath came whistling by on the slipstream, Ulean swept around my cousin and me, a gentle shroud of protective energy.
Thank you. I’m afraid.
Ulean whispered gently next to my ear. There is much to fear in the dark. There are monsters under the bed and in the closet, and now they walk abroad at will. But there is life here, and hope. I sense change on the wind. Others will offer help. As with Lannan, do not write them off simply because you dislike them.
Her voice—I say her loosely because Elementals truly have no gender—trilled lightly in my ears, blowing around me like a soft billowing cloud. I sank into her cadence, letting her words lull my mind.
