Tempt

  He left me with that chilling assessment. And Lucia, who was probably just as chilling.

  She stared at me with those almost-white eyes, and I felt as if I had to speak or I would drown in the silence.

  “Think we’re going to find her tonight, Lucia?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

  She ran to me and clasped her hands on my cheeks.

  “What are you…?”

  I gasped and shut up as a sea of images popped into my head—one after another, too fast for me to cling onto any particular one. One stayed long enough for me to see a woman who looked vaguely familiar, then it passed, only to be replaced by a dozen more. Lucia faded before me, and it was as if I stepped right into one of the images.

  A housing estate, late at night. Deathly dark and still, streetlamps flickering. Becca, her face bloodied, her fangs bared.

  I saw myself, my expression determined, my stance ready for an attack. When she ran, I ran, too, my dagger gleaming blue in a sudden stream of moonlight. Instead of attacking me, Becca leapt over me, leaving me scrambling to stop. I looked back in horror as she moved for Lorcan. I raced after her, but she gripped him and tore out his throat before I could reach her. I watched myself grab her—Lorcan’s blood spurting over me—and slice her throat. The blood and gurgling stayed with me long after the vision faded.

  “Holy fuck.” I spat, feeling as if there was blood in my mouth. Lucia had let go of me, and I wiped my face. My hand came away bloody. A little blood dripped from Lucia’s eyes, too. “Holy fuck.”

  I cleaned myself off at the sink, breathing deep, unable to stop shaking. It had been as if I were there. I had felt everything. I’d been sure of the cool night air, the scent of blood, the life leaving Lorcan’s body.

  “Can I stop it?” I asked when I joined Lucia again. She stared at me then sat on a mattress, her shoulders drooping in a picture of pure despair.

  Waiting for Lorcan to return, I decided I wouldn’t tell him what had happened. I didn’t know how Lucia had shared her vision with me. I could only hope it wasn’t set in stone. I might not have known the twins well, but I didn’t want to watch one of them die. Peter had said catching Becca might ultimately require bait, but I couldn’t do that to anyone.

  Hours later, I realised one of the images I had seen had been of Lucia as a child. In the arms of a much younger, very terrified Helena.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You could just leave me with the map,” I said. “No real reason for you two to be out here.”

  “It’s our responsibility to accompany you,” Lorcan said, pulling Lucia along.

  I walked fast, trying to figure out a way to get rid of them. Through Lorcan, Lucia had revealed the name of an urban council estate where Becca was supposedly about to hunt. I had no way of knowing if Lucia was lying about the estate, or sending her own brother to his death. Either way, I had to be on my toes.

  I still hadn’t shaken the painful sensation of Lucia’s vision. I had absorbed her misery completely. All I could do was hope I managed to keep her brother alive. After all, the vampires wouldn’t need half a gift.

  We wound through a number of identical-looking streets until I suspected we were completely lost. Everything looked the same.

  “We’re almost there,” Lorcan said, excitement making his voice high. The twins looked only a little younger than my age, but Lorcan sometimes acted like a teenager. His excitement was infectious because my own body felt ready to take off.

  The twins weirded me out, but I didn’t want Lorcan to die , particularly if his death occurred from my mistake. Lucia would be forever alone in the world if anything happened to him. She couldn’t function without him. The odd time he left her alone, she retreated into her silent shell, apart from when she sent me disturbing visions. I saw how useful someone like Lucia could be. Unfortunately, the vampires did, too, and yet still didn’t value her.

  Lucia kept her silent eyes on me, and the sensation of her stare was like ice chips down my back, as though she silently screamed at me not to let her down.

  I just didn’t know what she wanted me to do.

  A sudden scream, swiftly silenced into a quiet whimper, came from about a street away. I quickly delved into the other planes and figured out Becca’s exact location. Lucia’s directions had been right on target.

  “She’s close by. Both of you leave, right now. Just run.”

  I set off into a sprint, hoping that leaving the twins behind would circumvent the vision. I didn’t dare look back at Lucia to see if I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t afford to doubt myself.

  My feet pounding the pavement, I tried to block the images of a murdered Lorcan and focus on Becca instead. It didn’t matter that I was in a strange place. All I had to do was get the better of Becca, chain her up, and drag her arse back to the vampires. I probably should have drunk some blood first, but I figured being away from the succubus would automatically give me a boost.

  In some ways, that was a fair assumption. The further away I made it from the succubus, the better I felt, more energetic, less weighed down by a heavy heart. Carl’s condition pricked at my conscience, but I could tell he was still alive. The thread between us was stretched very thinly, but I could still sense him out there. I dreaded cutting that thread because I knew it would hurt me as well as him.

  I scented the blood before I saw the body—an elderly lady in her hallway, the front door wide open from when Becca burst in. An old woman, maybe somebody’s grandmother. Suppressing a twinge of guilt, I backed away, hearing footsteps behind me.

  Lorcan. “I can help,” he insisted.

  “No! Go home! Protect your sister, you idiot!”

  “She’s fine. I…” His gaze flickered toward to the house again. “Oh.”

  With dread in the pit of my stomach, I gripped the dagger, slowly turning to face Becca as she stepped over the old woman’s body to approach us. This was it. This was the moment. A couple of streetlights flickered. Lorcan gasped as Becca bared her bloody fangs. Steadying myself, I held my breath as Becca lowered her head and ran at me like a bull.

  Exactly like the vision, I sprinted for her, except I leapt in the air a split second before she did, aiming my dagger’s curved tip at her gut. Our bodies collided, the blade pierced her skin as I twisted it, and her fangs managed to gash my arm, but the pain was fleeting.

  Fumbling, I grabbed her hair as we crashed to the ground, but she ripped herself out of my grasp, leaving me with a clump of straw-like hair in my hand. She made a strange howling sound, then got on all fours and leapt away.

  “What. The hell.” I was too surprised to even follow her, especially when she pretty much crawled over a wall to get away, leaving a trail of too-dark blood in her wake. I had to follow her path to find a patch of grass to clean the dagger. Pulling the remaining hair from my fingers, I turned back to Lorcan. He was paler than usual, and his heartbeat had rocketed.

  “It really is a beast,” he whispered.

  “Looks that way. We better get back to your sister.”

  “Can’t you track it from here?”

  I hesitated. “Yeah, but your sister’s alone. She needs to see you’re okay.”

  He stared at me as I passed but followed in silence until we got back to Lucia. She sat alone on a bench, rocking herself with jerky motions. I sat next to her.

  “She’s gone. Any chance of a heads up?”

  Her head shot up, and when she saw her brother, she ran to him and gripped his hand, acting as though nothing were wrong. He didn’t even notice how concerned she had been, and I wondered how much she really told him, and how much she blocked off to protect him. Seeing her visions had been a horribly trippy experience, but it had definitely helped.

  The three of us were shaken for different reasons—Lorcan for catching his first glimpse of the beast, Lucia for seeing her brother’s death narrowly avoided, and me for a whole host of reasons. Lucia could help me save people, legitimately help me avoid bloodshed. But I coul
dn’t even take her with me. Then, there was Becca, like an animal on all fours, worse than anything I had ever seen in a horror film.

  “What will they do when I capture her?” I asked Lorcan, but really, I was talking to Lucia. “I mean, really. You saw her. There’s no taming her. So what exactly are we talking here?”

  Lorcan opened his mouth to speak, but Lucia’s fingers tightened on his, and he looked at her with surprise in his eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was an urgent whisper.

  “We think they’ll use her to get ahead. They’ll run tests on her first, maybe try to replicate her in a more controlled way, then set her loose on their enemies and let her kill as many as possible. They have the money to invest in her. But there are too many outcomes, none of them good.”

  “So she needs to die. That’s the only way?”

  He hesitated, but Lucia nodded fervently. I fidgeted with the cross around my neck while I thought. It didn’t feel wrong to me. It felt as though I would be putting her out of her misery and protecting humans at the same time.

  “Then, that’s what I’ll do.”

  He stepped toward me. “They’ll kill you. They’ll use this as an excuse to spark something bigger. They’ll call it a betrayal.”

  “Kill me. Probably. Unless they don’t find out what really happened.”

  His eyes widened. “You want us to lie to them?”

  “It’s the only way. I kill her, but you tell them she crossed the water again. I go home and persuade the Council to claim she gets killed over there the following night. It’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “You don’t understand! They won’t allow disobedience. They won’t kill us. They’ll torture us. We can’t defy them. They own us!” I expected him to carry on, but he snapped his head around to stare at his sister. They both gazed at each other for a few minutes, and by the way he clenched his jaw, it didn’t look like they were in agreement.

  I waited for them to decide, hoping they could be brave, even though it might cost them much.

  “She says… she says we can help you if you help us.”

  “How?”

  “She says you have to find the Phoenix, that we were never supposed to be here. She thinks the Phoenix can help us, can protect us. The Phoenix hides the slaves and the wanted. If we do this thing for you, then you’re indebted to us. We might be part-fae, but we can still hold onto a favour. If you don’t help us, you’ll suffer. That’s how a deal with fae works. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “Yes, but… do you mean the Féinics?”

  He glanced at Lucia again and nodded. “That sounds better. Right, that’s it.”

  “Wait. Is the Féinics a person? I heard the term before, referring to rebels or something.”

  “I don’t know. It has no face. There isn’t a clear image. Lucia’s seen bits and pieces over the years, though. All I know is, we’re supposed to go to Ireland to be protected. Or we’ll die as slaves.”

  We shook hands on it, and a thrill of energy shot up my arm. Seeing my expression, Lorcan laughed. “Told you.”

  “Does Lucia see anything else? Is tonight a good night? Because I really need to get home.”

  “It hides. It fed, so it can afford to. Tomorrow, if we’re on time. How will you… kill it?”

  We strolled out of the estate, and the atmosphere between us was better than it had been since we first met. Hearing their story made me desperate to help them, and I wasn’t sure if it had to do with the fae deal, or just my own fight for the underdog. The twins were undeniably weird, but they were a weapon of sorts, and they had been rejected by their own kind, too. My inconvenient protective instinct reared its head again.

  Lucia kept looking at me as though she wanted to tell me something, but she didn’t touch me, and I wasn’t sure if that was because she didn’t want Lorcan to know I saw her visions. Maybe she wanted him to believe she needed him. Either way, I wasn’t going to interfere.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “My dagger is like weaponry kryptonite to vampires, but you saw what it did to Becca. It made her bleed, but didn’t stop her from moving.”

  “I have a sword,” Lorcan blurted, then flushed, sending little pink dots onto the apples of his cheeks, marring his porcelain-white complexion.

  “They let you have a weapon?” I asked.

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. Years ago, we found it in our hallway, like someone came in the night and left it there. It looked old and a bit rusty, but when I touched it, writing lit up on the blade, and I felt… different.”

  “I think that means it’s yours, like it only works properly for you,” I said slowly, recalling how I felt when I touched my own dagger. “Maybe the fae didn’t completely desert you.”

  He shrugged. “Who knows what it means. I’m not so sure that I care to find out. We’re going to be walking for a long time. I hope your feet are up for it.” He looked at my boots doubtfully. They did look a little heavy and bulky, but they were the most comfortable things I owned. Plus, they gave my kicks a little extra oomph.

  “You’re just changing the subject,” I said with a smile.

  “Not at all.” But there was a ghost of a grin on his lips.

  “So, this deal, then. Does it work like that with all fae?” I was curious, but also needed to make sure I didn’t unwittingly engage myself in deals with mischievous fae like Finn, the bartender in Gabe’s bar.

  “From what I’ve heard, it’s similar. Of course, pure fae are stronger. Much stronger.”

  “What can fae do? I’ve met a couple, but I haven’t actually seen any in action.”

  Lorcan shrugged. “There are different kinds. Most fae are long-lived, and they all have some kind of natural magic, but it differs after that. They’re the main faction in Europe, the ones the vampires are most afraid of because they command the werewolves.”

  “Werewolves? You mean the shifters?” I screwed up my face in confusion. Esther hadn’t mentioned being under the thumb of the fae.

  “No, no.” He shook his head, and his face lit up. Whether he admitted to caring or not, he was definitely interested in all things fae. “The shifters change into animals, yes. But the werewolves are different. They shift, but they’re infected with a madness. Years ago, the fae managed to… domesticate them somewhat and use them as protection against the vampires.”

  “They don’t still do that, do they?”

  “There are rumours. Either way, the vampires are more likely to align with the fae because they fear the wolves. People say the werewolves are hidden by the fae, ready for the day the vampires step out of line.”

  I recalled Becca going on all fours. “Think an army of beasts would be a good match for the werewolves?”

  He stared at me, his face paling. “Let’s hope we never find out.”

  “How do you know all of this stuff? If you haven’t grown up with the fae?”

  His dark eyes seemed to twinkle. “I ask a lot of questions, make a lot of deals. We learned a bit about other species while we were on the market. There were a lot of children there.”

  “Did they hurt you?” I bit my lip, regretting the question.

  “Not really. They needed us healthy, just in case. There were women there—some had grown up in the market—and they looked after us. Only the children who lose their value are allowed to be harmed.”

  “Where is this market? Who runs it?”

  He shook his head wearily. “It was a long time ago. All I remember is that it was underground. Always dark. We didn’t see anyone but the women who took care of us. I can’t even remember being handed to the vampires. I can’t remember getting to the market, or leaving. There’re empty spots in my head.” He rubbed his forehead, looking stressed. “But we were there longer than most, I remember that.”

  “How long ago was it?”

  “At least three decades. I think they may have taken our memories from us.”

  My mouth dropped open. “No way are you that old!” r />
  He laughed. “I did tell you the fae age well. We won’t live as long as them, but we’ll do a lot better than a human. As long as you keep your end of the deal before the vampires get tired of us.” I sensed the fear in his voice and wondered what life was really like for them. If maybe they already knew how it ended for them with the vampires.

  “I would have helped you anyway,” I said.

  He gave me a long, hard look before speaking again. “We know. But the deal makes us allies. None of us can back out, no matter how scared we are.”

  He gave me a meaningful look, and my heart seemed to soften and melt away. They made the deal to trap themselves into performing, not me. A lump in my throat stopped me from talking, and I looked away from the twins. No matter what happened, there were still people willing to put themselves out there to help others. Part of me felt as though helping the twins would give me my humanity back, maybe clear away the darkness I felt hovering over me all of the time. I wouldn’t let them down if I could help it.

  I was about to thank them when a shout startled all three of us. I glanced around to see a group of drunken men following us. I shrugged and carried on, well used to it, but then I looked over at Lucia. Her eyes were wide with fright, and I got the feeling that we weren’t going to walk home without trouble.

  “Lorcan,” I said under my breath. “Start walking ahead of me with Lucia. If you see a taxi, flag it down. Don’t turn back. Don’t look around. Just get yourselves home.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue. Move. Take care of your sister.” I glared at him, and he inched away from me, keeping a tight hold on Lucia. I slowed and nodded at Lucia when she looked back at me. She was so child-like, it was a shame that she had to see awful images in her head. If that was how it worked.

  As I expected, the men kept following, shouting the entire time. I widened the distance between myself and the twins, hoping to distract the men from them. I could sense their moods. Dark and lustful. I knew they would target the petite, delicate Lucia before me. The shouts rose, and one of the men ran ahead of me.