He just chuckles and sets to taking stock of what ingredients we have on hand.
I let him do his thing. He takes his time going through the supplies at hand. He grabs this and that. And he starts cooking something up on the stovetop.
“How has it been being back in Mississippi?” I ask.
It feels like forever ago. It really does. When he and I drove to Silent Bend, Mississippi so we could get the cure when Eshan was a Bitten for just a few days. We cured him, and then Eli made the decision to stay at the House of Conrath, where he belonged.
It seems like a whole lifetime ago.
“Strange,” he says as he goes about cooking. “My history there is long, but the dynamic is so different. There are a lot of people that live there. Alivia isn’t the unsure, untested girl she once was. It’s organized and busy and efficient. I don’t feel needed there like I once was.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
I want to know. There’s so much history to Eli that I never knew about, this whole life he had as Rath that was hidden from me. I want to understand. But he’s a man who greatly values his privacy and secrets.
“I used to run the entire estate,” he explains, a little to my surprise. “I lived my entire adult life on that plantation. Learned who I was as a man there. Worked there, in many capacities. After Henry was killed, I took care of it, helped Alivia learn how to run things.”
“You knew Henry Conrath, then?” I ask in surprise. I struggle to swallow the last bite of my sandwich in my surprise.
Eli looks back at me and nods. “He was my best friend,” he says. His tone is dark. There’s a hint of…regret in it.
“Was?” I say quietly.
Sharply, Eli’s eyes flick back up to mine.
“Alivia told Cyrus and I that he’s still alive,” I confess. I say the words so quiet. This castle is full of ultra-sonic ears. I won’t betray their secret to everyone. “Do you still mean that Henry was your best friend?”
Eli turns back to the food, and he doesn’t answer me for a good thirty seconds while he considers. “He was. That’s just one more way that the House of Conrath is different.”
“Is it because he’s always leaving?” I probe. I tuck one knee up into my chest, wrapping my arms around it.
He gives a small shrug. “Henry almost never left the estate before his assassination…attempt.” The sentence comes out awkward, like he doesn’t know how to define what happened to Henry when he was supposedly dead, but wasn’t. “I came and went, running the estate’s errands. And he and I had a lot of time together. But after he…died, after he came back and we found out he was alive, he wasn’t the same.”
The food hisses, and it smells amazing as he stirs it in the big pan. “I think death was freeing for Henry. He entirely escaped the world he resented for so long. He didn’t want to be a part of the politics and the games. I think he got a taste of anonymity while he was supposedly dead. It never went away after he came back. Henry was my best friend and I will always love him, for who he is and what he did for me.” Eli pauses, and I know, there is so much to this story that I will never understand.
“But Henry Conrath is a selfish man,” he says. There’s resentment in his voice, and I know it’s hard on Eli for it to be there. He doesn’t look at me when he confesses these words. He stares at the food, every muscle in his body tight. “When he should be at his daughter’s side, not only making up for the first twenty-three years of her life that he missed, but guiding her in becoming the leader she needed to be in this world, he’s off in the world. None of us know what he’s doing. Where he goes. He comes and leaves as he pleases, with no explanations and no promises of when he will return.”
It’s fascinating how different people perceive others. I see the conflict in Eli when he talks about Henry. Eli knows the good about the man, but the negatives are weighing awfully heavy, tipping the scales.
But when Alivia talks about her father? It hasn’t been much that I’ve heard. But she loves him. Loves him. I don’t know if she doesn’t notice his faults like Eli does, or if they just aren’t that important to her, but I know she forgives him always.
I hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes every time.
Almost as if it were on cue, I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I know it’s her. Just ten seconds later, she rounds the corner and steps into the kitchen.
She smiles, as if seeing the two of us together does something. Maybe validates her asking him to uproot his life and watch over me for sixteen years. Maybe it’s just seeing two family members who have such a deep relationship without her involved.
But she looks happy to see us together.
“Something smells good,” she says. “Dinner’s on you tonight, Rath?”
He offers a small smile and turns to prepare something else.
“How about some cookies to go along with whatever smells so delicious?” she asks, looking over at me and winking.
My mom. Is making. Me cookies.
So weird.
“You like to cook?” I ask as she digs through the pantry.
“I love baking,” she says. “I worked in a bakery for years before I moved to Mississippi. It’s actually kind of nice having so many people living in the House, there’s always someone to make a treat for.”
I smile, imagining her covered in flour, surrounded by her House members, like Christian, and Cameron, and Anna.
I might be her biological daughter, but they’re her real family. And that’s okay.
“So where’s Ian?” I ask the question that’s been knocking at the back of my brain since I first found her here.
She sighs, measuring out ingredients without even pulling up a recipe. “I made him stay back at the House,” she says. “Nial needed some help managing affairs.”
Eli—nope, he’s Rath when he’s around Alivia—looks over at her with this total dad look. “That is not what happened.”
A little laugh huffs over my lips.
This is funny.
Like, really funny.
Eli was always my friend, like an uncle or something.
But he is totally a father figure to Alivia.
“What happened, for real?” I say.
I’m smiling. And it feels good. It’s been forever since I smiled.
Alivia glares at Rath, totally annoyed he ratted her out for fibbing the truth. Finally, she gives this sigh and turns back to her work. “Fine. I may have shot him with a nerve agent when he wouldn’t agree to stay.” She dumps the sugars into the commercial-sized mixer. I laugh, covering my mouth to try and hold it in. It doesn’t do much good. She looks over her shoulder and glares at me, trying to suppress a smile. “And then Christian and Nial may have helped me lock him in this well-prison room in the middle of the house. I told Nial not to let Ian out until he agreed to stay home and not try to come after me.”
“You’re holding your own husband prisoner at your house?” I say, trying really hard not to laugh my head off.
“I couldn’t have him follow me here and get tied up in this war!” she defends with a laugh as she dumps a huge brick of butter in with the sugar and turns the mixer on. “He’s fought in more than a few battles, plus he was a hunter before he even Resurrected. You wouldn’t believe the ego on him. He would have gotten himself killed on the first day of the fight.”
“I’ll be sure to let him know you had so much confidence in him,” Rath says dryly.
“You will not,” she says, brandishing a spatula in his direction.
I can’t hold it in. I lose it. I hold my stomach, I’m laughing so hard.
It’s ridiculous. And funny. And so normal.
I needed this so bad.
Just as the mixer finishes blending all of Alivia’s ingredients together, I hear footsteps on the stairs again. A moment later, Cyrus enters the kitchen.
Everyone freezes for a moment, and the light mood instantly pulls tight.
Cyrus looks around the kitchen. At me. At Rat
h. At Alivia.
“Is that chocolate chip cookie dough?” he asks. His voice sounds very serious, and very deadly.
“Yes,” Alivia answers very nervously.
He doesn’t look away from her as he reaches into a drawer, digs out a spoon, and very quietly stalks toward her with a spoon.
I think my heart is stopped.
He’s staring at her like he could blink and she’d explode with his mind powers.
Never breaking the eye contact, he dips the spoon into the huge mixing bowl, and scoops out a huge mound.
He takes a small nibble. And a small smile curls on his mouth.
“Delicious,” he says, still deathly serious.
Alivia hasn’t taken a single breath since he walked into the kitchen.
“Cyrus, knock it off, you asshole!” I yell, breaking the quiet. I throw an apron, which was sitting on the table, at him, hitting him in the head.
He instantly laughs, licking a huge chunk off the spoon and turning away from Alivia.
He was so messing with her.
That man and his games.
Physical or mind games, he’s always enjoyed them.
Alivia looks at me over his shoulder as he walks toward me. You really love this maniac? she mouths.
I can only smile and shrug.
“Who’s hungry?” Rath asks, turning the stove off.
Chapter 19
If the war is going like I assume it is, no one has time to give us updates. They’re all fighting for their lives. So we’ll sit here, wondering what is going on. Who is winning. What the fate of the world will be.
But we don’t get to worry about that too much, because at about two in the afternoon, Alivia knocks nervously on our bedroom door.
I scramble to grab clothes, rolling off of Cyrus. His eyes widen in panic, pulling the covers over him.
I can’t find my pants, or my shirt. I grab the sheet off the bed, wrapping it around myself.
If I’m down to my last days, I’m going to spend every second I can being happy and experiencing bliss. I’ve waited twenty years to have sex. And now that I have it with the most incredible man on the planet, someone who also happens to be my husband, I’m going to enjoy it. A lot of it.
I wouldn’t have opened the door for anyone other than Alivia today. And only because we are waiting for her to deliver such important news.
“Trust me, I so did not want to knock on this door,” Alivia says, blushing hard when I open the door just a bit. She takes note of the fact that I am only wearing a sheet, my hair is a mess, my skin is flushed, and I definitely smell like sex. But she keeps her eyes down, and I can practically smell the embarrassment on her. “But I knew you would want to know the second I got in touch with Henry.”
Cyrus joins my side, a blanket wrapped around his waist. He puts his hand on the door, opening it a little wider, standing behind me.
“Where is he?” he instantly asks.
Alivia’s eyes flick to Cyrus’ naked upper half for just a moment, and I wonder if it’s a sight she’s seen before. I know they didn’t do anything, because Cyrus wouldn’t unless he was sure she was Sevan. But I know she also kind of broke Cyrus’ heart by making him hope.
“He wouldn’t tell me where he is right now,” she says. Her face is so red. “But he agreed to meet you somewhere. He’ll be on Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, by tomorrow morning.”
I look up at Cyrus as my heart jumps into my throat with excitement, and fear. “I’ve always heard of the Canary Islands, but honestly I have no idea where they are.”
“Off the coast of Morocco,” he answers. He turns from the door and goes straight for the closet. “Get dressed. We’ll leave now.”
“He’ll meet you at this address,” Alivia says. Turning back to her, she hands me a paper. “He wants just the two of you coming. No guards, no Court members. He doesn’t even want me coming.”
“I understand,” I say with a nod. I reach forward, taking her hand in mine. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Alivia. I can’t tell you what all of this,” I wave the paper with Henry’s address, but really, it’s everything—her telling us all her father’s secrets when Cyrus could kill him for it, “means to us.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I can tell by her pale face that she’s still afraid that Cyrus will do something to her father, now that he knows Henry is still alive, and that he has a cure that could change everything. She pulls me into a hug. “Of course,” she says into my hair. “I know it’s not what it would normally be, but you’re family.”
She releases me and I smile at her. I feel something in me warm. I feel a little lighter when I look at her.
“Come to the airport with us,” I say. “You and Rath have done enough here. You have your husband locked up in a well at home.” We both laugh at that. “You should go home and be with the rest of your family.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, looking at me with uncertainty. “Kinda’ seems like you could use all the help you can get around here.”
I smile. “We’ll manage. You’re needed at home.”
She nods and turns to go get her things. “Just don’t call me back within days of me getting home this time. International travel is a bitch.”
I laugh, shaking my head at her. She winks at me, and turns to go get her things.
In twenty minutes, I’m dressed, packed with an overnight bag, and Cyrus, Alivia, and I make our way up to the heli-tower. The pilot, ever reliable, and thankfully still alive, waits with the engine running.
I take Cyrus’ hand when we’re in our seats, our luggage stored, and we’re buckled in. We both watch, paying careful attention as we rise into the air.
There. Just barely through the trees, just beyond the mouth of the canyon, I see forms. Bodies. I see fighting.
It isn’t over. It won’t be over for days. Maybe weeks.
Maybe I won’t even get to see it resolved. Maybe I’ll be dead by then.
* * *
Our privately chartered jet lands on Lanzarote at just after nine o’clock. We hire a driver who takes us to a beautiful hotel overlooking the ocean. But I can’t even enjoy it. My stomach is on fire. My mouth is the driest desert in Africa.
Cyrus watches my back while I hunt down a man lying in an alley. He hardly even stirs when I sink my fangs into his neck.
I should cringe away from him; he smells disgusting and looks like he hasn’t showered in about three weeks. But I just need blood. Now. I’m so thirsty I don’t even care if he’s clean.
I drink and drink. And it literally takes every ounce of strength I have to release him when Cyrus lays a hand on my shoulder.
I let him go, panting hard, looking down at his neck and the two small trails of blood that slip down his neck. My fingers curl into fists so I don’t grab him again. Every beat of my heart is screaming finish. Take it all. You’re still thirsty.
But I don’t want to kill him.
I don’t want to turn him.
“Come,” Cyrus says. He slips his hand into mine. Gently, he pulls me away from the man. I get to my feet. They follow Cyrus, but my eyes stay glued on that man, on where I can see his pulse beating under the skin on his neck.
I don’t go back, though. I let Cyrus lead me away.
We make our way back toward the hotel. In the courtyard that looks over the ocean, there’s a live band playing. There isn’t a singer, they just play upbeat music. There are couples dancing, looking so happy and light and normal.
Gradually, the burn in my body becomes a little easier to ignore. My brain goes back to normal. I can think again. I can feel.
“Come dance with me,” I say, tugging Cyrus toward the dance floor.
He smiles, and I love that there’s hunger in his eyes. Just like that.
The song is dramatic, like a tango. In this moment, I let myself be Sevan, not Logan, because Logan doesn’t know any actual dances, but Sevan has done these kinds of things over and over.
I slip my ha
nd into Cyrus’, and his wraps around my back, pulling me in close. I meet his eyes as we slip into the first step, and he burns me with his intensity. He takes a large step backward, and I match him, keeping our bodies touching along every surface possible.
We slip into a dramatic spin, his hands never leaving my waist, my back, my thigh. We side step and he drops me into a dramatic dip.
I let my head tip back, my hair brushing the ground. Gently, I feel Cyrus lower his head, and then his lips are pressing between my breasts, exposed by the plunging neckline of my dress.
A wicked grin is on my lips as he raises me up. I wrap a hand behind his neck, touching my forehead to his as he takes steps forward, and I match him step for step.
He spins me, pulling me back to his front against him. Wrapping his arms tightly around me, he sways our bodies.
And as the song comes to its crescendo, coming to an end, he spins me once more. I drape backward, easily caught in his arms, and I raise a leg, wrapping it up around his hip.
And the music stops.
Two people clap, and I hear others whisper.
I look to the side, and see a group, a family maybe, whispering, looking at Cyrus and I with questioning and fearful eyes.
The news cast. Jersey Adams very clearly showed mine and Cyrus’ faces.
That familiar feeling of fear spikes in my stomach. One I haven’t felt since I wore Sevan’s skin.
But not everyone recognizes us. Most are clapping. Most hoot and holler.
I straighten, looking around to see all the other dancers and the diners off to the side had cleared the dance floor everyone was watching us.
I blush, waving at their excitement and enjoyment. I’m embarrassed I hadn’t even noticed we were giving a show. But I certainly keep an eye on the family who recognizes us.
The moment I meet their eyes, every single one of them takes off, back toward the hotel.
Cyrus smiles and pulls me into him. He kisses me, gentle for the crowd, but firm for the intensity of the dance we just shared.
Someone calls out to us, and I swear I don’t know what language it is, but somehow I understand the words, the translation happening instantly in my head.