“You betrayed Rhys. You betrayed all of us. I’m not having it. I’ve had enough of you playing with his affections and putting all that we have worked for in jeopardy. I swore that I’d finish you if I ever saw you again. Even if Rhys kills me for it. You don’t deserve to be in our company.”
Her words came from a place of jealousy. She’d made it no secret over the years that she was attracted to Rhys. He’d ignored her advances, and she resented me for it. Even though I would have paid any price to have Rhys’ attraction to me transferred over to her.
She screamed a curse at me. I found myself being lifted out of bed and slammed against the stone wall. I crashed to the floor. The full effect of the damage she’d just done coursed through my body. I reached for the back of my head and felt blood trickling from an open wound.
She jumped onto the bed, preparing for another attack. I ducked underneath the bed and pulled myself out the other side. I raced out of the door and down the corridor. But I was slow due to my injury. She caught up with me and, gripping my neck, pinned me against the wall.
Her hands grew hotter and hotter until my skin burned. The pain was unbearable. I screamed and tried to lash out at her, but I was growing weaker by the moment.
Just as I started losing consciousness from the pain, she released me. I fell to the floor, clutching my neck.
Rhys wrestled her to the ground. His tall, muscular frame dwarfed her as he gripped her neck.
“Coward!” he hissed. “You know she has no powers to fight back.”
She choked. I sat up. Rhys performed the same spell on her, his hands growing hot and choking her on the ground, the smell of burning flesh filling the corridor.
Her brother Efren came rushing toward Rhys, attempting to pull him off her. Rhys knocked him away.
“No, Efren. She needs to learn this lesson once and for all. For too long she’s held a grudge against Mona.”
“And can you blame her?” Efren yelled. “Mona’s run away from you so many times, how can we ever trust her again? Hell, I don’t trust her. Now damn you, Rhys. Let go of my sister!”
Finally, Rhys stood up, still glaring down at Tiarni.
“Lay a finger on her again, and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
Rhys bent down to my level and placed a hand around my neck. I winced as he examined the damage. Then he muttered beneath his breath and I felt my charred skin grow smooth again. Kissing my throat, he picked me up in his arms and carried me back to his quarters.
“I told you not to go wandering about,” he said. “It’s not safe right now. You’ve only just returned.”
I felt too weak to explain that I hadn’t been wandering.
Tiarni sobbed in the distance as he shut the door behind us. I expected him to lay me back down in my bed, but instead this time he brought me into his large bedroom. The warm orange glow of his bedside lantern soothed to my eyes.
He laid me down on his bed and sat down beside me, caressing my forehead with his fingers. I closed my eyes, tensing beneath his touch.
“You can sleep here tonight. I have matters to attend to.” He stopped touching me, and got up to leave. Before he left the room, he turned round to face me, his eyes boring into mine, and said, “Efren is right. You have a lot to prove. More than ever before. Don’t break the rules again. Or you know what I’ll have to do.”
Chapter 15: Kiev
The moment we left the boundaries of The Shade, my migraine returned full force. And soon after, I was coughing blood again. I should have expected it. I would have had to be dense to not conclude by now that it had something to do with the spell the witches had placed over The Shade.
I tried to hide my symptoms as best as I could from my siblings. We had more important matters to focus on. I tried to distract myself from it as best as a man could distract himself from the feeling of heavy clubs beating against his skull.
We arrived at Matteo’s island the next evening. Since all three witches came with us, we didn’t need to travel by ship. We all gathered in the courtyard and they used their magic to transport us there.
I ran to the main gate as soon as we appeared on the beach. As soon as the watchmen at the wall noticed us, they would put the whole island on red alert.
“Let me in! It’s me, Kiev,” I shouted, knocking.
The gate opened slowly and Brett’s face appeared.
“Kiev?”
He opened the door wide just enough for me to step inside, then slammed it shut. Several vampires approached, eyeing me curiously.
“Bring Matteo and Saira here immediately. It’s urgent.”
Three of them raced away and returned with them several minutes later. Matteo stepped forward and stared at me.
“Matteo, the rulers of that island—The Shade, they call it—are my brother and sister,” I said, wincing from the pain in my head.
“What? How?”
“It’s too long of a story to tell you now. But they’ve agreed to hand over a witch. And they have all come to make peace with you.”
“You brought them here?” Matteo’s chest heaved as he spoke the words.
“Yes. Yes, Matteo.”
He took a step back, a shocked expression on his face. The vampires behind him exchanged mutterings.
“They agreed to let you have one of their witches,” I continued, barely hearing my own words over the throbbing in my skull. “She… she can stay with you as long as you can keep her here.”
Matteo paused, raised both hands to his face and rubbed his temples, pacing up and down. Lorena appeared in an opening in the crowd and launched herself at me, wrapping her legs round my body and kissing me hard. I broke away and pushed her away from me irritably.
“I’m so relieved you’re safe. I was worried about you,” she breathed.
“Not now,” I snapped, clenching my jaw and trying to breathe deeply.
She looked hurt but didn’t attempt to hold onto me.
Matteo stopped short and looked at me disbelievingly.
“They may be your siblings, Kiev. But I don’t trust them. Not one bit. Why couldn’t they just send the witch with you? Why did they all have to come here?”
“They’re here because they want to apologize to you for whatever caused a rift between your two groups in the first place. And they also want to thank you for taking me in.” I stepped forward and gripped his shoulders. “They’re my siblings. Trust me on this. You don’t have to even allow them to enter inside the wall if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”