“Isn’t that what the High Council’s in place for?” I asked. “To make sure one Alliance or Alliances don’t get out-of-hand?”
He nodded. “Again, that’s the way it was until John managed to infiltrate and buy out the majority of the members on the High Council. They’re no more than a formality now, corrupt men ruling for the highest bidder. There’s no Alliance large enough to challenge John and he’s pulling more Inheritor Alliances into his, making it only more difficult to surmount a coup.” He picked at the corner of the quilt, trying so hard to keep his expression flat, but his eyes gave him away every time.
“The repercussions of them going unchallenged have been disastrous: economic disaster in the United States, political unrest in the Middle East, genocide in Africa, organized crime in South America, environmental disasters and human trafficking in Asia . . .” his head fell, swinging lower than I’d ever seen it “that doesn’t even begin to take into account the microscope level things they’re transplanting in communities around the world: hate, racism, murder, gangs, rape, drugs . . . in other words, the execution of morals as we know them.”
“None of that is your fault,” I said, shifting. “It is them and them only. You can’t wear the guilt of all they’ve done like a second skin.”
His face creased, looking more like a grimace that took its time to blossom. “Actually, if you subscribe to me being the chosen one, it is my fault. Ever since John and his Inheritors started tipping the balance towards mayhem, the Council’s been practically begging me to fulfill my supposed higher calling.”
“Which is what?” I asked, looking for specifics. “Other than saving the world?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I’ve been too scared to ask for the details.” The form of the man before me was one I wasn’t familiar with. Slumped, curling into himself, shame painting his face, it was a first I’d seen him so and I was determined it would be the last.
“So enough with the heavy,” I said, nudging him. “What say you to that change of venue?” The revelations spilt out over the blanket had me wanting to fold it up and tuck it away for eternity.
“That sounds perfect,” he said, his back straightening. “Mrs. Hayward-soon-to-be.”
I exhaled. “Maybe you weren’t paying attention to the newsflash your father just so merrily delivered, but I don’t think there’s a chance in you-know-what that I’m going to become a Hayward in the next few hundred millennia.”
He rolled his eyes as if I were talking about something as silly and inconsequential as my fondness for lederhosen. “We’ll talk about that later, but first”—his eyebrows danced—“let’s race.”
I chuckled and shook my head. Darn he was good at lightening the mood, a hundred times better than me. “Okay, but this time wait until I finish counting to three—” I wasn’t sure if he heard the last part because I’d already taken off and was firing ahead with all engines burning. I wasn’t above cheating, at least the kind that gave me an edge over him in a foot race. The house was in sight when a stream of bluish-white light rushed past me, like a comet falling in the night sky.
He had the gate swung open and was leaning against the fence with a smirk on his face when I screeched to a stop in front of Joseph and Cora’s. Looking ever so innocent, and quite pleased with himself, he motioned me through the gate. “You were saying, my love?”
I skirted past him. “You’re impossible,” I whispered.
“Impossibly fast you mean,” he whispered behind me.
Although it couldn’t have been later than ten or eleven, all the lights inside were off and I’m sure Joseph and Cora had retired early to grant William and me a semblance of privacy.
He turned to me, about to pick me up as we journeyed up to the second floor roof, but this was likely the only time I’d ever refuse his offer. I winked and leapt onto the roof like I’d been doing it was second nature. He was beside me the next second. “You’ve been spending way too much time with Patrick,” he said, easing open my bedroom window without making a sound. “After you.”
I grabbed the top of the window sill and swung in, feeling a little immature in my attempts to be a show-off, but I’d learned a lot this past month in strength training and I was eager to show the man who seemed capable of anything and everything what I was capable of.
Not playing coy about it, I headed straight for the bed, but his arms wound around me before I made it to my destination. “You know, I really love the sound of Mrs. Bryn Hayward,” he said, his mouth against my ear. “Dawson is quite lovely too, but Bryn Hayward just has a certain something about it.”
I twisted in his arms and looked him hard in the eye. “Did you really not hear what your dad said tonight?” I asked, not regulating my voice. “Or are you just choosing to ignore it?”
“I heard everything he said tonight, Bryn, and I’m not choosing to ignore it either,” he said, running his hands up my back until they reached the end of my ponytail. “I’ve taken their decision into consideration and have made my own decision.”
“What decision is that?” I asked, already knowing.
“We did it your way, Bryn. I petitioned the Council every chance I got and their answer has been no every time.” He tugged at my ponytail gently, lowering his voice. “This time a very final no, as we were both informed of. So now it’s time to make our decision as to how much longer we’re going to let the Council be the puppeteers of our lives.”
I looked down and felt myself fumbling for words. “Yeah, but this time they said—”
“They said no,” he answered.
“But they might say yes the next time,” I fired back, not ready for this battle because I knew he was right. We’d never be granted a Betrothal and I’d promised him I would give up and leave with him if the conventional means failed. The thing was, I hadn’t anticipated the conventional means to fail us so quickly.
“They said no, my love,” he whispered, his eyes filled with apologies. “I’ve made my choice and you know what that is. Now you must make yours.”
My throat tightened to the point my rebuttal couldn’t make its way to the surface. I would have far preferred the tongue-tie effect brought on by a different activity.
“When I meet with the Council in the morning for my mission orders, I will speak with them one last time regarding us, but I’d like your promise that if they deny us once more . . . you can let me know what your choice is.”
Words were still impossible, so I just nodded my head when I wanted to be shaking it. I wasn’t ready for this crossroads, but either way, I had to be prepared to tell William tomorrow if I was ready to run away with him for the rest of our eternities.
“Then let’s not speak another word tonight,” he whispered, winking at me while pulling me down onto the bed on the first and last night of our reunion.
CHAPTER THREE
WEAK SPOT
I felt warmth and a male presence, but neither was being emitted from the one who should have been beside me at this unholy hour in my bed while I was a quarter of a yard of lycra away from being naked.
“So how is it?”
“How’s what?” I grumbled, blinking my eyes open.
“Waking up to the sight of the man you’re secretly in love with.”
I tossed a pillow at his face. “Anyone ever mention you’re a bit full of yourself, Patrick?” I asked, adjusting the mess of hair off my face. “Don’t you ever knock?”
“Not when my student is fifteen minutes late for her morning training,” he said, eyeing my training attire that had ended up in a pile in the corner. The swimsuit, to my dismay, had stayed on.
“And I thought I told you yesterday there would be no training when William was home,” I said in my no-nonsense tone, although all it did was invoke an eye-roll from him.
“In case love has blinded you,”—he scanned the room with exaggeration—“William is currently not home, but is in front of the Council as we speak making yet another plea to be granted pe
rmission to marry the girl of his dreams, while I’m stuck here trying to train her.” He retrieved my clothes from the floor and chucked them at me. “Both rather impossible endeavors if you ask me.”
I pulled at the pants that had landed on my head and tossed them aside. Despite the smile he’d said it with, Patrick’s comment struck a nerve. “It is impossible, isn’t it?” I whispered, verbalizing what I’d known all along. “There really isn’t a hope in the world we’ll ever be allowed to be together.” I covered my eyes before he could see the tears forming.
With a rush of air, he was beside me, tugging my hands from my face. “I’m an idiot, the insufferable, malignant kind. I’m sorry.” He lowered his head to look into my eyes. “There’s always hope as long as you keep fighting. Never forget that, Bryn.”
The distant clap of thunder rumbled through the room, foretelling of a summer storm approaching. “When it comes to a fight, there isn’t anyone I’d rather have in my corner than William.” Patrick’s voice boomed above the echo of thunder. “He’ll never give up. Don’t you give up.”
I paused before responding, not able to stop the barrage of my deepest fears coming to mind. “What if one day he wakes up and decides he’s tired of fighting and that I’m not really worth it in the end? Maybe he’d rather live in peace with another woman than with me in a constant state of chaos.”
Patrick leaned away from me. “I really can’t believe you’re saying that. It makes me sick to my stomach.” He burst up from the bed and walked to the opposite side of the room, as if putting as much distance between me as possible. “How could you even let that enter your comprehension when my brother was on some fool’s mission for two hundred years looking for some woman from his dreams? How can you sit here and doubt, even in the slightest, his devotion to you?”
“I don’t doubt him,”—he raised his eyebrows, so I continued—“but sometimes it’s hard to understand why he fights so hard,” I explained, lowering my eyes. “For someone like me.”
“For someone like you,” he repeated, before chuckling. “I think you’re the one with delusions if you can’t understand why my brother would go to the ends of the world for you or why you’ve caught the eye of more than one love-struck lad in our Alliance.”
I sighed, glad that Patrick’s outburst had been extinguished as quickly as it’d burst to life. “Enlighten me.”
He shrugged, wandering back to the side of the bed. “You’re special.”
“I’m special?” I repeated, not buying it.
“More than you know.” A hint of pink spotted his cheeks. “Just don’t forget—as long as you both keep fighting, there’s hope.”
I nudged him. “You’re a lot smarter than you look.”
His hand curled around an imaginary dagger, pulling it from his heart with as much theatricality as a Shakespearean actor. “If I didn’t know you were head-over-heels mad for my brother, I’d think all the teasing and cold shoulder turning I get from you stems from a secret crush you have on me.”
I could have choked, but decided to play the overdramatic role with him. “That’s it! You’ve uncovered the truth at last. Why would I want William when I can have you?” I made it a point of looking him up and down, trying to look unimpressed, but everything about Patrick’s finely tuned exterior made my work of looking disgusted a failed attempt. “Nice work, Sherlock.”
His smile didn’t falter, but something in his eyes did. “See. That’s just it. You’re an open book. You don’t hide your feelings, which is admirable, but it’s obvious to everyone what your weak spot is. And when people know your weak spot, especially your enemies, they can use it against you.”
I didn’t need to ask him what weak spot he was referring to. I only had one and it hung like a target with flashing strobes over my heart. “Sorry, that was mean. You’re going to make someone very happy one day,” I offered, not able to comment on the topic he’d slapped in my face. “It’s just there’s never been anyone but William. I’ve never looked at you, or anyone for that matter, in that way.”
He waved my apology away. “Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I was the last male on earth and you were the last female—”
“Not a chance,” I interrupted, trying not to cringe from the image of Patrick and me wrapped around each other in whatever post-apocalyptic world he’d drummed up in his twisted imagination.
“If your life depended on it?” he pressed.
“Not even close.” I did an internal humming in an attempt to drown out the images flying through it.
“My life depended on it?” His face hung in the balance, waiting to form around my answer.
“Sorry, Charlie. Besides you’ve lived a long, full life.”
His eyes narrowed for an instant, before they widened to their capacity. “His life depended on it?”
He had me and he knew it. I glared my response.
“You’ve got a weak spot the size of Rhode Island,” he said, grinning from his victory.
“Since you’re the expert on the matter, what’s yours?”
He paused, caught off guard, but Patrick could recover himself with such skill it was an art-form. “If I told you, you could use it against me.”
“Does anyone know?”
He shook his head.
“Not even William?” I found this hard to believe. These two shared everything . . . except girlfriends and underwear. Hopefully.
“Especially not William,” he emphasized, looking like he was shuddering from the thought of it.
“But—”
“You’ve got five minutes,” he said suddenly, interrupting my oncoming assault of pulling it out of him. “Get dressed and I’ll see you out there.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I bargained, throwing the covers off.
“Ten,” he said. “And that’s my final offer.”
“I’ll take it,” I said as he stepped out the door.
I grabbed my linen training pants to slide them on, but given my mind was focused on everything but the task at hand, my foot caught the inseam and tore a six inch hole through the left leg. Lovely. I could already tell this day of training was not going to bode well for me.
CHAPTER FOUR
REVENGE
“You need to focus,” Patrick commanded, extending his hand to me.
“Would if I could,” I snapped, letting him pull me up. “Do you think I’m enjoying getting my pride handed to me on a silver platter?”
“That’s the third tree you’ve shattered in the past hour when my kicks have gone un-deflected.” He brushed away the dirt on my shoulders, looking me up and down for damage. “William’s gonna kick my butt when he finds out about the beating you took today.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said, rolling the top of the Blue Spruce over to the pile where the remains of the other two rested. “Although I might blame you if your dad discovers the mess I’ve made in his training arena.” I lifted the shredded log and heaved it onto the pile.
I referred to the circular clearing on the far north corner of the Hayward’s land as a training arena, although I used the term “arena” loosely. Apart from the two Immortals that exchanged spars and kicks that reverberated off the surrounding mountains, the arena was nothing more than compacted soil surrounded by a circle of trees as packed-in as spectators at a boxing match at the MGM.
“Come on, Bryn. Enough trying to lighten whatever’s going on.” Patrick had snuck up from behind and spun me around. “I’ve never seen you miss a kick—let alone three in a row. What’s going on up there?” he asked, tapping my head.
“Nothing.” I bit my lip, stalling. “Everything. Take your pick.”
“I can’t be as easily appeased as my brother who becomes bewitched by your every word. Explain, please.”
I shook my head. “Sometimes this whole thing I’m putting myself through seems like a waste. The training, studying, making like a good little Immortal—what’s it all for when the Council will never grant William
and me a Betrothal?”
“You’re missing the whole point,” Patrick said. My forehead creased, wondering what the “whole point” was. “You’re not doing all of this for them, you’re doing this for him.”
“I have no idea what you mean. Like usual,” I added. “Explain.”
“Let’s put you following the ancient tradition of our Alliance’s training program aside,”—he eyed me as if this should have been obvious, glaringly obvious—“let’s reverse you and William’s roles several months ago and what if you were the only person standing between him and John Townsend?” He tapped my temple. “See any real-life benefit to all this training now?”
I exhaled, knowing he was right, and there were few things I hated more than Patrick being right. I’d been so focused on every other reason I was being forced to go through the training, I’d missed the critical reason I needed to learn it: to protect him. Hadn’t this been the vow I’d made to myself that night after waking from a coma-like-state that had nearly taken both our lives? The very same night I’d discovered the gift that festered inside of me could take an Immortal life?
“Again,” I said, circling back to the center of the arena. “Let’s run through the drill again.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Haven’t I inflicted enough damage on you for one day?” The tone of challenge in his voice was obvious.
“Again!” I yelled over at him, more angry with myself than my teacher.
He hopped up from the felled tree and jogged over to me. “Suit yourself.” He smiled and cracked his neck as I took my readied position in front of him.
He crouched, readying himself. I side-stepped to the right, anticipating his high kick from the left that had knocked me senseless several times already.