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“I’ll get the van,” Lawson said. Edon remained frozen, a statue, stricken, lost. “You guys, wait here.”
“I’ll come with you,” Bliss said hurriedly. She ran to catch up with Lawson. “What’s the deal, Lawson? Why’d you let her out of there—you don’t know if she’s telling the truth. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
“I can’t abandon her. Back in the underworld, she was the head of our pack,” he replied. “She bested me at the trials. She was our alpha.”
“Well, alpha dog or not,” Bliss said, “she’s a real bitch.”
Ahramin was kinder and softer upon being reunited with Rafe and Malcolm. She ruffled the younger boy’s hair and smiled at Rafe. They piled back into the van and decided to drive to find the nearest campsite, Bliss in the back between Edon and Ahramin, who barely said a word to each other, Lawson and Rafe up front, with Malcolm in between, while Rafe drove.
“How did you guys end up hanging out with a vampire?” Ahramin asked, lighting a cigarette and rolling down her window. “You do know that’s what she is, don’t you?”
“I’m human,” Bliss said with an edge to her voice. Where had Ahramin even found a pack of smokes? She’d walked out of the hospital in nothing but a cotton gown, but somehow she’d commandeered Edon’s leather jacket and found his secret habit. Bliss frowned. She’d seen girls like Ahramin before, knew what they were like. She wasn’t going to let her push her around, alpha or not. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Bliss was the one who led us to you—without her, we’d never have found you,” Lawson said, his voice firm. “You owe her.”
“If you say so.” Ahramin shrugged, then coughed noisily.
“How did you survive?” Lawson asked Ahramin, turning around to address her directly. “We all know what happens to a hound without a collar.”
“What happens?” Bliss wanted to know.
“They die,” Ahramin replied cheerfully. “It’s pretty gruesome. The collars become part of a hound’s soul, so when they rip it off, it’s like ripping your heart out.”
“Why are you here, then?” Bliss asked sharply.
“Maybe it’s because I held on to a little part of myself, even after the change,” Ahramin said quietly. “All I know is that when I woke up, I wasn’t dead. Losing a collar would have killed a hound, but maybe it’s because I was never completely a hound. When they turned me, I fought the transformation as hard as I could—and I think that somehow, I was able to hang on to a little bit of my soul. Of course, when the mortals found me, the Red Bloods sent me to the nuthouse. They said I was insane and maybe I did go out of my mind a little after everything that happened.” She coughed again, a raspy, horrible choking noise.
“Quite a story, it seems awfully convenient,” Bliss said. “That there’s no going back except for you…”
“I believe you,” Lawson interrupted.
What was he doing? Bliss wanted to punch him. He accepted Ahramin without question—it was maddening. She didn’t understand him, and felt a twinge of jealousy. He’d wanted to kill her, but with Ahramin—this hellhound—he was as cowed as a puppy.
“But you want to know about Tala,” Ahramin said coolly.
“Yes.” The air in the van was tense, and the smoke didn’t help.
Bliss could tell how difficult it was for Lawson to hold it together. He’d been filled with hope on the drive to the hospital, and now his hope had been dashed to the rocks. Steady now, she thought. Steady.
“Before I tell you what happened to my sister, first let me tell you what the transformation was like,” Ahramin said. “No one ever tells you what really happens in the pen. When they turn us into hounds. They strip you down. Not just to the skin, but to the soul. They make you forget—everything. They plunge the collar into your body, so that the silver leaches inside, becomes part of your blood. It’s why all the hounds have silver eyes with crimson pupils. The poison becomes part of your body. You become the poison.”
Edon made a strangled noise and tried to reach across Bliss to put a hand on Ahramin’s arm but she shrugged it off impatiently, as if to show she didn’t need any consolation.
“Then you hear it—all the time—Romulus’s voice, in your head. In your dreams. He becomes part of you. It’s…inescapable. Do you know what it’s like, being a slave to someone else’s will?”
“Yes,” Bliss said curtly, thinking of the way Lucifer had used her. “I do.”
Ahramin ignored her. “They didn’t make me come for you in the beginning. In the beginning I was just another drone. Another hound on a leash. Finally, they said it was time. They wanted to know how we had done it, and where they could find you. They’d tried without me, of course, but had been unsuccessful. Now they wanted my help. I had to track you down, bring you back, or Romulus would have my collar. For a while, like I said, I still remembered enough of my life that I was able to resist them at first.”
She tossed her cigarette out the window and lit another. “But I had to give in at the last minute. It was too painful. You know what they do, you know what they’re like. I had no choice. I agreed to lead them to you. We looked for you everywhere. Finally I got the scent. You stayed too long in one place.”
“Tala…I need to know what happened to Tala…” Lawson interrupted.
But Ahramin continued her monologue. “So she did become your mate. I thought that might happen after she escaped with you. Still, she was such a plain little thing…you never even noticed her before. You never cared for her in the underworld.”
“What happened to her, Ahramin? What did they do to her?”
“They did what you might imagine.” She shrugged. As if it were nothing. But her eyes were shining with tears.
