AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The room was silent as the grave while everyone stared at her, waiting.
“There is a traitor among us,” she declared, and my heart stopped beating.
Chapter Nineteen
What the hell?
“I knew it,” Juan Carlos shouted triumphantly, forgetting his fear for the moment.
“Sit down,” she snapped at him. “I said there is a traitor among us, but it is not her.”
My heart started beating again, and I let out a trembling sigh. Though I’d known full well I had done nothing to betray the council, hearing her words still felt like the stamp on a death sentence. Once she corrected them, I was able to breathe.
“This girl’s heart has been touched by great evil.”
Literally, I thought, forcing the memory of Dr. Kesteral’s hands in my chest out of my mind. Now was not an ideal time to slip into a PTSD-related panic attack, though I could feel one creeping in at the edges of my psyche. It was like a swarm of small, biting insects, nipping away at my calm.
I wanted to reach out for Sig, to use his abilities to soothe myself, but I couldn’t move. If I appeared desperate or helpless now, the others would assume the worst of me. I lifted my head high and kept my gaze trained on Monica and no one else. I would stay sane through this if it killed me.
Be cool, Soda Pop.
“Many of us have been touched by evil.” Juan Carlos sneered. “It doesn’t make her special.”
“Some have been touched, others do the touching.” Monica stepped away from me and surveyed the room. Those who were closest to her looked away, as though it were her blind eyes that saw through them and not her ability to read their blood.
All of them had something to fear.
Arturo alone appeared unconcerned. He languished in his seat, one leg propped up on the opposite knee, and he took in the scene as if it were a play being performed for his amusement. His demeanor was that of a man who thought himself invincible.
The fool honestly believed he was above this situation, or that Monica would not single him out.
She would drink his traitorous blood if I had to rip his throat open myself for her to get at it. Rules be damned.
“There are those here who stink of lies and malice. It’s why I choose to keep myself apart from you. You who are chosen to be our voice. The council of elders indeed.” Her lip curled. “Babes, the lot of you. What have you learned in your hundreds of years, hmm? What do you know of the world that you should consider yourself worthy to make the laws and choose who lives and dies? You are not nature. You are not gods.” She stomped her tiny foot, and though her small stature might otherwise make the gesture seem ridiculous, she managed to instill it with a menacing forcefulness.
“We never claimed to be gods,” Rebecca said, her voice meek. I had to give her credit, because not many around us would have had the balls to speak up.
“Not in words, perhaps, but your actions speak volumes. And not one of you before me deserves the authority you’ve given yourselves. None but him.” Monica pointed to Sig.
No one here would deny Sig had earned the claim to his title. Even a mortal would recognize his power and yield to it, though they might not understand why. Two thousand years of life had made him the man he was, and that was a formidable thing indeed.
He inclined his head towards Monica in an appreciative bow, but said nothing.
“And he has determined she is worthy to have a seat next to him,” Monica continued. “What makes you—any of you—think you know better than him?”
“You knew?” Juan Carlos’s attention was all for Sig now, his anger coming back to a boil. “I thought you protected her out of some infatuation. I thought surely once you fucked her, you’d be done with her, and we could regain some semblance of normalcy.”
Once he fucked me?
“I’ve never had sex with Sig,” I declared, to anyone bothering to pay any attention to me. I was hardly innocent of sharing beds, but I didn’t like being accused of getting it on with someone I hadn’t. There was only one man in this room who’d been inside me, and it wasn’t Sig.
“Maybe if you had, this madness would have ended sooner.”
“Secret is of my line,” Sig said. “Her blood is my blood, and any favoritism I h
ave shown her is based on that, not, as you say, my desire to fuck her. Though one might argue the way you express such desires indicates you are the one who’d like to bed her.”
Oh, ew. Gross.
