Before I could control my eyes, I felt them bulge out of their sockets in surprise. Damn it! She’s on to me. What was I supposed to do now? Maybe I could somehow negotiate with this loon … Her mouth curved into an inhuman smirk. “Yes, I thought so. How long have you been here?” I didn’t answer. A jagged fingernail dragged along the length of my cheek, stopping at the edge of my eye socket, disturbingly close to my bottom eyelid. She stared at me, penetrating, searching, violating me.
“Are you watching what we’re doing to your sister, Sofie? Are you enjoying it?” I cried out as her fingernail pushed down, further and further. Searing agony shot through my eye. She intended to dig it right out of its socket!
“It’s not Sofie. It’s someone named Evangeline! Please stop!” Veronique cried out.
My stomach sank. Veronique had just tossed me into a tank of hungry sharks! Then I remembered that it wasn’t my body lying on that metal table with a blowtorch by my feet and a fingernail at my eye.
Cruella’s brow furrowed. She stood, her fingernail lifting from beneath my eye. “I do not know an Evangeline … who is that?”
“I don’t know,” Veronique whispered. Cruella’s hand reached down to assume her eye-gouging position. “But she knows Sofie!”
With a pause and a decision, Cruella smiled down at me. “Well, Evangeline, make sure you let Sofie know how well we’re treating her sister.” She gave Stan a nod.
My back arched as searing hot pain fired throughout my body.
My blood-curdling screams lasted long after the pain had vanished. I couldn’t stop kicking my feet, sliding them back and forth over the cool satiny sheets to put out the flames. By the time I registered that I was in my room in the chateau, a giant werebeast stood over me in my bed and a ring of anxious faces surrounded the foot of it.
“What’s wrong?” Sofie asked, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Burning. Fire. Torture,” I answered in sputters, throwing off the covers to inspect my feet in the moonlight. Nothing but smooth pale skin. You’re safe, Evangeline. Safe. Safe. Safe.
The pain. The smell of burning flesh. It lingered in my nostrils. Though it wasn’t happening to me, it was real. They were torturing Veronique. While I lay in satin sheets, circled by her sister and those I loved, Veronique lay on a cold metal table, circled by the enemy, enduring unimaginable pain. A wave of nausea battered my senses. I was seconds away from bolting to the bathroom to throw up. No one could last long with that level of suffering. No one. And yet, I had to keep this secret. Sofie could not find out or she’d start a war and so many more lives would be lost
Hang in there, Veronique, I silently pleaded, biting down on my lip before the truth exploded out of my mouth.
“A nightmare?” Sofie pressed.
My head bobbed up and down, numbly, wishing for the safety of Caden’s arms. He didn’t move, though, instead studying me with a worried expression.
Sofie leaned down, her hand smoothing my hair in a motherly gesture. “About what?”
I bit down harder, madly searching for a lie that would justify my traumatic awakening. What if I revealed too many clues for the shrewd vampiress and she figured it out? Finally, I just shrugged.
She offered me a compassionate smile as her cool hand cupped my chin. “I told you not to worry. Everything will be fine. We’ll figure this Tribe magic out.”
I nodded again, dropping my gaze to my hands folded in my lap, hiding my face so she couldn’t see the tears welling. No, it won’t, Sofie … So much is not fine.
“I’m such a rotten friend. I’m sorry I haven’t been around more for you,” Amelie spoke out from her place beside Julian. “Especially with what you’ve been going through. We’ll do something tomorrow, I promise. Just the two of us. Okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled, more to appease her. Her blond corkscrew curls bounced as she nodded with satisfaction, a rascally twinkle battling with worry in those emerald jewels. So happy. So oblivious, wrapped in Julian’s arms.
Rage flared within me. Stop it! That voice screamed. Every day that this charade between Julian and Amelie continued, the harder the truth would be. Julian needed to walk away, to break up with her, to tell her he’d lost interest. Something. Anything. I shut my eyes, hoping to reset my emotions before I accidently endangered Julian.
The bottom corner of my bed sank as a weight settled on it. Caden was perched stiffly on the edge of the bed, glaring at Julian, the muscles in his strong jaw rigid with tension. Instantly, I realized my mistake. He hadn’t missed my reaction to Julian and Amelie and he was reading it as something different. Jealousy, on my part. I need to get better at guarding my reactions around Julian, I scolded myself. I covered my face with my hand, trying to block out all the ways I could lose my mind.
Sofie’s heels clicked as she slowly backed away. “Okay, well; let me know if you need anything.” She turned to walk toward the door, her fingers gripping Amelie’s elbow as she passed, a signal for them to leave. At the door, she stopped and turned. “Max?”
No, the stubborn beast growled.
“Max, can you give me a moment alone?” I scratched the back of his ear affectionately. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that …
With a heavy exhale, Max leapt off my bed and strolled past Sofie. I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.
A soft click, and I was alone with Caden. Our eyes grazed each other for a moment and then he looked away. I immediately sensed the shift in the air between us. Something was definitely different now. Before, I could touch him, I could hold him, I could be with him. Now, there was an unspoken boundary. An invisible divide—a barbed wire fence that kept us sitting side by side but growing distinctly apart. The barbs had hooked onto my heart, choking it, tearing it apart with each passing hour.
As I stared at him, at his mess of tawny brown hair, at the way he focused out the window on something unseen in the night sky, the ball of anxiety in the pit of my belly flourished. I couldn’t tell him what was happening! Worse, what was happening to Veronique, that I was witnessing and saying nothing about. What would happen if he knew? Either he’d tell Sofie, which I knew was a tragedy for the greater good of all, or he’d make me promise to keep quiet because of the greater good of all. Just like binding Bishop was for the best. As rational as that side of him was, I couldn’t bear the callousness of it.
And so I remained quiet, allowing a wall to grow between us—the invisible wall of lies and pain that grew in size and density and stabbed my heart with its severity. A wall that, I was afraid, would soon be impenetrable. Tell him everything! That voice pleaded within me. Oh, the euphoria of pouring my heart out to him, of divulging every last secret that burned my soul. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t form the words that would end Julian, that would either force Caden to betray me or forever taint my view of him.
And so I bit my bottom lip to keep quiet, so hard I thought I might draw blood. Blood that would spark an uncontrollable urge for Caden, and would then kill him. I could feel the fissure in my sanity widening, threatening to break into a million pieces, never to be reassembled. I am a liar. A betraying, lying, fragile human …
I had to fight the overwhelming urge to lunge at him, to expunge all my anxiety, my agony, my everything with him. If only for a night, an hour, a minute … While I still could. While my touch wasn’t instant death. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even speak. So I just sat there, staring at him, accepting that I had lied to him before, and that I’d lie again. I stared at the moonlight shining in through the windows, dancing along the dazzling curves of his profile. I stared as awkward silence suffocated me.
Caden was the first to speak. “How’s your arm?” He slid closer to me, his long fingers stretching out, closer and closer, almost to me …
A vision of his lifeless corpse on my bed, dull green eyes staring into nothingness pulled my arm back involuntarily.
“No.” With a scowl, Caden closed the distance, intentionally grabbing onto my knee, his thumb and forefinger squeezing around it tightly. He raised a knowing eyebrow.
I exhaled softly, soaking up the relief. I hadn’t killed him. Yet.
With that test out of the way, he gently lifted my injured arm beneath the elbow, appraising the fresh wound, still red and swollen. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s sore, but I’ll live.” I thought I heard his teeth grind against each other as he glowered at it. What if … I swallowed the swirl of rising panic. Spidery red veins seared my mind. “It’s not still bothering you, is it? My blood?”
He shook his head fiercely. His eyes flickered to my face, a hint of shame in them. “I was right there and she still got to you. I’m just so angry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I hesitantly reached forward, my own fingertips running along his index finger. He didn’t react at first. I was afraid I had overstepped this new unspoken boundary. But then his long fingers laced between mine. My pulse quickened as those intoxicating jade jewels seized me, demolishing me with their intensity, lifting me up, up into the clouds, into heaven, into oblivion …
“What was your nightmare about?”
And I was tumbling downwards, anxiety slamming me against the hard, cold, uncaring ground of reality. My voice caught as I whispered one name, a name that left a bitter taste on my tongue. “Veronique.” It was the truth and yet a blatant lie. Another lie …
Caden slid his arm around to my opposite hip and pulled me close to him, welcoming my forehead against the ridges of his chest. He rested his cheek affectionately against the top of my head. “I’m sure she’s fine. There’s no reason they’re doing anything to hurt her. She’s too valuable,” Caden promised in a low whisper, his hand running through the length of my hair, stroking it gently.
You’re so wrong, Caden. Tears seared my eyes. I swallowed a sob. “I hope not.” Another lie to Caden. Two major lies in one night and I had sworn I could never tell him one.
I want to forget everything. Make me forget everything, for just a little while. My hand expanded, fingers stretched out across his chest, raking his muscles, skimming down along the ripples, wandering over his chest, his biceps, his stomach, his belt …
“I should go,” Caden whispered, grabbing my hand, his body growing rigid. A snake of tension constricted inside me. Reluctantly, I pulled away, rubbing residual tears away with the back of my hand. He moved to stand up.
“Wait!” My hand flew to his leg, grasping his outer thigh. I tempered my voice, asking more tentatively, “Can’t you stay a little while longer? Please?”
“Bishop’s all alone.” As if that explained everything, he was on his feet.
I swallowed my fear, forcing the next question out. “Is that why? Does it have anything to do with … before?” With Julian?
He towered over me like an angel, his tall, muscular body more appealing to me than ever before. I didn’t know why. Maybe because I was losing him … “Yeah. A little bit,” he admitted. The snake squeezed tighter, threatening to crush my vital organs, to end me. A single tear escaped, rolling down my cheek. I smeared it away with the back of my hand, not wanting him to see me cry.
Too late. The muscles in his neck tensed as he swallowed. He looked away, focused on the window. “It’s not right or fair that it bothers me, but it does. I can’t help feeling like you’ve betrayed me, even though I have no right. I’ll get over it but … it will take some time.”
“How long?” I asked. Inside, I was dissolving in misery.
“Evangeline.” His voice cracked, full of desperation. After a long pause, he shrugged. His voice turned hard and cold. “We have bigger issues to deal with right now.”
Bowing my head, I sank into the bed, clenching until my nails dug into my palms. I recognized practical Caden, the guy who’d kept me at arm’s length back on Ratheus. I thought I’d chased him away for good, but he was back again. He was assembling his own wall. A brick wall, not as agonizing as my barbed wire fence of lies, but still substantial. I wanted to scream at it, to tear it down, throw the pieces away, smash them, burn them. Instead, I nodded.
“Everything will be fine with us. I just need some time.” Time. Something we didn’t have. Leaning down, his cool lips first grazed my forehead and then planted a lingering kiss on it. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” With that, he vanished into the night, leaving me alone with my crumbling sanity.
When Max ventured in, the tears were still falling.
***
I woke up empty, drained. Luckily, I hadn’t endured another round of Veronique’s physical torture. Now, it was only my own mental torment that loitered. I wondered which was worse. Max was gone again. Likely out hunting. He had spent hours silently mopping up my tears with his snout. As much as I appreciated him, I appreciated the time alone.