“No, thank you.” I put my hand up to stop wherever that sentence had been going. I had enough on my mind without going there in my head.
To my total consternation, the guy winked at me. “As you wish.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, we need to figure this out before he gets back.” Alcántara was scaring me, but could he be as bad as the vampires we’d just fled? He’d said they were the bad guys, and what sort of evil creatures killed a bunch of priests, anyway? Maybe he was just jealous I’d brought Carden. “Do you think his mood is some sort of a guy thing?”
“Don’t work yourself into a lather. Something about that girl you mentioned upset him.”
“Lilac? That’s preposterous. I killed her.” Didn’t I? But of course I did. “And I’m pretty sure it was because of his help that I was able to do it.”
“I was killed, too, once. And yet here I stand.”
I stared dumbly at that. I guess if you lived forever, you got pretty nonchalant about things like killing and death.
“Don’t hurt yourself thinking, little one.” He scruffed my hair and then wandered up the beach into the cave. When he came back out again, he was carrying the dinghy—by himself. He held it over his head effortlessly, as if toting no more than a giant basket.
I hopped to my feet. “Do you need help with that?”
“From a big, strong girl like yourself?” He smiled. “I can manage.”
I scowled. If he was trying to take my mind off things, he was succeeding. “I’m stronger than I look.”
“You’re but an infant, new to the world.” The gleam in his eyes told me he was trying to get a rise out of me.
Unfortunately, his taunts weren’t good enough to distract me. I followed him down to the shoreline and sat down, battling the feeling of defeat that kept threatening to swallow me. Shutting my eyes, I tipped my face up, desperate to feel the sun warm my skin. “Sure thing, old man,” I said, my mind a million miles away.
The skies had cleared a little bit, and watery light cut its way through the clouds. It should’ve been shining down on me as I made my escape, sailing into the horizon.
Carden had a boat. Check that. We were bonded—we had a boat.
Escape was still an option.
So why was I sitting on the sand? This McCloud certainly seemed as though he’d be game for anything. One thing was for sure—he wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to get back to the Isle of Night. In his cell, he’d wanted to die before being rescued by Alcántara. Was our bond the reason he stayed with me now?
I realized then that it was more than just the bond that had me lingering by his side. Discovering other vampires—a global community of them—cast a different light on this new world of mine. Yet it hadn’t made things clearer. Rather, the true order of things was only now resolving into shape.
Were there others who desired escape badly enough to die for it? Would my friends, even the vampire Trainees, eventually long for such a thing? And that was precisely what kept me there, on that beach, my body already turned back toward the direction of Eyja næturinnar.
I needed to go back. I needed to see it through.
Headmaster told us once that the Watchers’ aim was to defend, to protect, and sometimes to kill. Did I need to return and one day live up to that motto, except in service to my friends?
I thought of them—the first and only allies I had in the world. Emma and Yasuo. Ronan, Amanda, Judge, even Josh…I feared they’d need my help dealing with some greater evil that had yet to reveal itself.
I heard the chuff of sand and shallow splashing as Carden dropped the boat at the edge of the water. I listened as he brushed off his hands, and then there was silence.
I opened my eyes to find him staring at me. His intensity brought the memory of our kiss, burning in the front of my mind. For him, it’d just been a by-product of feeding—not from any desire for me. I’d finally experienced my first kiss, and it was no more than someone else’s biological function.
And now this daylight scrutiny was making me feel exposed. “What?” I demanded.
“Your hair—it’s like sunlight.”
I gaped. The compliment—if that was what it was—was totally unexpected. “Excuse me?”
“I’ve been many long years without sunlight,” he said gravely. “A man craves it.”
The statement implied a few things, and I didn’t understand any of them. It gutted me, making me feel more vulnerable than I had in any fighting ring. I found my tongue. “That’s just the bond talking.”
He smiled broadly then, enjoying my obvious discomfort. “Probably. But if I’m going to suffer a bond, I may as well enjoy myself.”
“Suffer? If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead. And if it weren’t for the bond, I’d…” I petered out, reminding myself to beware of our connection. Had it made me so comfortable, I’d almost confessed my original plans for escape?
He raised a brow. “You’d?” His knowing look told me he’d either guessed the truth or felt it somehow. “I think we have something in common, you and I.”
“Whatever could that be?”
“We both prefer going it alone.”
This was dangerous territory, and I needed to tread carefully. “You don’t know me,” I told him warily.
“True enough.” He looked past me, and his face became a blank slate. “It’s time.”
I turned to see Alcántara walking down the beach toward us, with some kid in tow. As they got closer, I saw that he’d tied the guy’s hands behind his back.
“What the—?”
“Hush.” Carden stepped in front of me and called to Alcántara, “We’re ready to push off.”
Alcántara strode straight to the boat, shoving it into the water. Carden joined him, and I took the opportunity to study our new passenger. He was no more than fifteen, sixteen tops, and his obvious terror was disturbing.
“Hey,” I said to him.
He cast me a skittish glance. “Who are you people?”
Who were we? Now there was a good question. “Don’t worry,” I said, unsure what else to say. “It’s cool.”
He hopped from foot to foot, shivering. I saw he had a pair of baby fangs, like a brand-new Trainee might. I hoped I was right, and it really was cool.
Alcántara beckoned us into the boat. This time it was Carden who rowed us out to the trawler, while Alcántara glowered silently at the boy. “You are a pretty one,” he told him finally. “Qué lindo. And a pretty boy like you would capture quite a ransom.”
The kid looked ready to pee his pants.
“But I see no need for such crassness,” he continued, his tone generous and grand. “I would rather you please enjoy our hospitality. I have many questions about the way of life on your island. You gentlemen seem to have quite the compelling array of female visitors.”
My blood ran cold. It was the Lilac thing that had him acting this way.
We rowed alongside the larger boat, and Alcántara stood, sweeping his arm as if welcoming the kid onto a Carnival Cruise instead of a stinky old fishing boat. “You don’t mind going for a little ride.” It was a statement, not a question.
Once aboard, Alcántara dragged the kid belowdecks, and instinctively I began to follow. Carden stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. We stood frozen like that until Alcántara disappeared down the stairs into the shadows.
“You’ll want to be elsewhere,” Carden murmured.
My mouth went dry. I remembered the terror I’d seen in that kid’s eyes. I tried not to think about it as I listened to his screams.
All night.
We made our way back home, the boy shrieking so loudly I could hear him over the chugging of the trawler. I don’t know what, if anything, Alcántara was able to torture out of him. I tried not to think about how he was just a kid like Yas, or Josh. Or me.
He was dead by morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I hustled to the dining hall, needing to talk to someone. I was home again, yet I’d never felt so displaced in all my life. I knew I couldn’t tell anyone about the bond, but still, I needed to talk to someone about something—anything to feel real, to normalize this unsettling and, frankly, invasive relationship in which I found myself.
I skipped the lunch line, grabbing only my allotted shooter of the drink, and made a beeline for Emma. But when she and Yasuo spotted me and flinched apart, something inside me cracked, just a little. They had a real affection for each other, whereas I seemed destined to find myself in disturbing entanglements with vampires.
But then, for the umpteenth time, I wondered what would happen when Yas became a full-fledged vampire. I’d found myself with a front-row seat to their deadly game, and it was all too clear they played for keeps.
I shoved it all aside, though, pasting a pleasant expression on my face. And it wasn’t so hard, really. I’d been prepared for good-bye forever, and was genuinely happy to see them. “Hey,” I said.
Emma gave me one of her quiet smiles. “Hey yourself.”
“Welcome back, homegirl.” Yasuo patted the empty seat next to him. “Sit down—we’ll celebrate your triumphant return.”
I gave him a sly look. “What, no parade? No gifts for the returning warrior?”
“Looks like you got one better.” Yas waggled his eyebrows. “Seems your reward is a new vampire buddy.”
I stiffened. Had he sensed the bond? What did they know? I searched their eyes; then my shoulders eased. They didn’t know anything. And of course they didn’t—how could they?
I forced my mouth into an easy smile. “Yeah, Car—Master McCloud is okay.”
Yasuo caught my almost slipup and gave me a probing look, wickedness dancing in his eyes.
But his expression was wiped clear when Emma announced, “He’s quite attractive.”