Authors: Sierra Dean
Her eyes, which I should not have been able to see so well in the dark, were glowing like stoked coals, orangered and getting brighter. The pupils seemed wrong too, but I was so alarmed by the fiery irises focused on me I couldn’t spare a thought for much else.
The girl snarled, and it didn’t sound like anything I’d heard in all my years chasing monsters. The rumbling growl sent a warning signal to my stomach, making my guts twitch nervously. My hands stayed level and steady though.
“Put the rocks down,” I instructed. Whatever she was looking for, I was certain I didn’t want her to have it. Maybe I should have been more specific about how she put the rocks down, however, because she decided to hurl them at my head with shocking force.
I had to raise my hands, gun and all, to block the assault, but even so one of the stones caught my forehead over my eyebrow before I could deflect all the projectiles. The whole incident lasted only two or three seconds, but when I looked up again she was already in motion.
She moved with the eerie speed of something supernatural. I chambered a bullet and steadied the gun, attempting to predict where she would be in the second it would take for the bullet to find her, then I fired. Her howl told me I’d landed a hit. When she stopped moving, there were three feet between us, and she was holding her bloody shoulder. But the wound seemed to be her secondary concern. She was glaring at me with murderous intent, her red eyes glowing like a raging fire.
The girl snarled again, then stumbled backwards. “I won’t forget this,” she promised before she threw herself into the window. An explosion of glass and wood framing burst outward, and she seemed to move in slow motion, flying out into the night sky. Cold wind rushed in to fill the vacuum, slapping my loose curls against my cheeks and dragging them over my eyes as an all-too-effective blindfold. Shaking the tendrils out of my line of sight, I dashed over to the window, keeping my gun up and ready when I peered out the broken hole.
The ground was littered with glass, gleaming on par with the frozen atmosphere, but there was no sign of the girl.
“What the f—”
The sound of the shattering window had barely left my ears when the museum alarm finally went off.
My knees were bouncing excitedly, and I couldn’t stop wringing my hands together. I was sitting in a red leather wingback chair, and I was only staying seated because I’d been threatened with the wrath of God if I didn’t stop pacing.
More specifically I’d been threatened with the wrath of a half-fairy, half-god Oracle who was running out of patience with my anxiousness.
Calliope was crouched in front of me, trying to still my hands while she dabbed the cut on my forehead with a damp cloth. I can’t imagine what a maniac I must have looked like when I stepped into the doorway of the Starbucks on West 52nd and 8th with a bleeding head wound.
I also hadn’t stopped talking since I’d been transported into Calliope’s waiting room, but I had no idea if what I was saying made any sense. I just kept talking because she hadn’t said anything to interrupt me, and I didn’t have the common sense to stop on my own.
She folded the cloth and placed it on the arm of the chair, then put one hand on each of my knees and squeezed them, too hard for me to mistake it as a gesture of comfort. My restless bouncing ceased immediately, and the words I’d been spewing turned into a raspy sigh. I really looked at her for the first time since I’d arrived.
In another lifetime, Calliope had been Marilyn Monroe, but it was hard to think of them as the same person. She still had the wide-eyed youthful innocence in her appearance, but her hair was ink black and she radiated power and intelligence instead of charming naivete. Today she seemed tired, and there was a weary strain around her eyes. Once she was seated on the arm of the chair, she started stroking my hair, and I realized she hadn’t spoken since I’d gotten here except for when she made me sit. Not that I’d given her a chance to get a word in edgewise.
“Do you know what she was?” Calliope asked, like she’d read my mind.
“Creepy.”
“Aside from that.”
“No, I was hoping you might have some insight.”
“Do you have anything to go on other than average looking and glowing eyes?”
“I think I said
dowdy
.”
Calliope arched a brow at me and tugged one of my curls. It reminded me of something Sig might do to bring me back to the topic at hand. She wouldn’t appreciate being compared to her ex-lover, so I buried the thought.
I touched the cut on my forehead which had already scabbed over. The tissue was tender, but it would be completely healed in an hour or so.
“No,” I replied at last. “I don’t have anything.”
“Could be a fire fae. Or a spirit-possessed human. Half-demon perhaps. There are any number of things. She could have been a witch, even. Some spells have physical manifestations.”
Making a mental note to ask
Grandmere
if she knew any spells that would give the caster ember eyes, I shifted the subject radically.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Mmm?”
“How much do you know about the Tribunal?”
Her whole body went still, and her tone was cold when she asked, “
Why
?”
“It’s not about… It’s just… I think I’m changing.”
“Changing?”
“Lately I’ve found it’s getting harder and harder to calm the urge to feed on humans.” I watched her closely, trying to see if her demeanor would change after the confession.
“Are you worried you wouldn’t be able to control yourself?”
“No.”
“Then feed on humans. What’s the issue?”
I suppose it was foolish to think Calliope would understand my hesitation. After all, she fed on virgin blood and aura energy. Taking sustenance from humans made sense to her because it was how she survived. It was a way of life for the vampires as well. I think only the wolves could relate to my squeamishness, and that was because they still associated themselves with humanity.
“I can’t.”
“It’s natural enough.”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “No.”
When I looked back over, she was staring at me intently. “You’re afraid.” Her gaze bore into me, making me shiver in spite of the roaring fire across the room. “The power of the Tribunal frightens you because you aren’t sure you want to give yourself over to their world.”
Well, there was no sense in arguing with an Oracle, especially since she was always right.
“Yes.”
“Is that why you won’t feed from a live human? Because to do so means you will become what Sig and the Tribunal want you to be?”
I swallowed hard. “Probably.”
“Oh, Secret.” She touched the crown of my head delicately. “I should have been honest with you long before now, but Sig said it would only confuse you. But I think you’re stronger now than you were all those years ago.”
“What’s wrong?” I couldn’t hide the quiver of worry from sneaking into my voice. Her buildup made it seem like she was about to tell me I had a terminal illness and was living on borrowed time. Although in my line of work all time was borrowed anyway.
“Do you know how I do what I do?” she asked.
“How you…oracle?”
Her hand dropped from my hair, and she leaned her head back. “Fore—” She sighed, and I was familiar with the sound. I made the same exasperated exhalation whenever I was with my vampire protegee Brigit. Not a good sign. “Close enough,” she concluded.
“I assumed you had visions or something.”
“Not exactly.” Calliope grabbed my hand and turned it palm up. “All mortal beings have a path. And most of them will follow it precisely as it is laid out for them.” She trailed a manicured fingernail over the long line down the middle of my palm. “For
most
people I can tell what will happen to them because I can see their path.”
“Ohhh-kay.”
She ignored me and grabbed my other hand, putting the palms side by side. “You aren’t like most people.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“All right.” She traced the line on my left hand. “Yours is a destiny divided.”
I looked at my palms, hoping they could explain what her cryptic words meant. Her nail followed one line, then moved to the right hand and trailed along the middle line there, which was significantly longer, bisecting the entire palm where the one on my left hand was only about two inches long.
“What do you mean by divided?”
“You have two potential destinies.”
“That’s impossible. You just said everyone has a path, we follow that path, live our lives and die. A person can’t
have
two destinies.”
Calliope pressed my hands together and put them in my lap. They began to tremble.
“No. I said most people, not everyone.”
“So what are my paths?”
“You are part of two worlds, Secret. Each one of them represents a path. Whichever world you choose to align yourself with is the path you will be on. I cannot see all the way, and you haven’t chosen your path yet.”
I unclasped my hands and stared down at them. “What is the line in the middle?”
“Your lifeline.” She held up her own palm, and it was utterly smooth, not a line in sight. As a true immortal, I gathered trivial things like lifelines didn’t come up very often for her.
“One of mine is shorter than the other.”
“Yes.”
I didn’t say anything. Part of me wanted to ask her which path was which, and what it meant that one line was so much longer, but I had a pretty good idea. The long line must be my vampire life, and the short one if I choose to stay with the wolves. I pressed my palms back together.
“What if I keep going as I am now? Living in both worlds.”
“Is that what you’re doing, Secret? Living? Or are you being torn apart?”
My eyelid twitched, and I got to my feet abruptly, hurt by her words. “I didn’t ask for this, you know. I was born this way, and I’m doing the best I know how with it.”
Calliope nodded and watched me, but there was sadness in her eyes I couldn’t ignore.
“Tell me which one to choose,” I asked, holding my hands out to her.
She rose and came to stand in front of me, taking my hands in hers and squeezing. “When the time comes, you’ll know.”
I pulled my hands away. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know which path is the right one.”
“I won’t until you do.”
“Awesome. Cal, I love you, I really do, but have you ever heard the phrase
no news is good news
? If you can’t tell me my destiny, and you don’t know the right path for me, why did you tell me any of this at all?”
“You need to know that a time will come when there will no longer be one option or the other, and it will have been decided for you. If I tell you there are two paths, it is in your power to guide your destiny and not have it guide you.”
I heaved a sigh. She meant well, but the last thing I wanted to hear was that my life was going to get even
more
complicated.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more,” she added.
“So am I.”
“But you can’t escape this. You
will
have to choose.”
Turning away, I moved towards the exit. “I guess I’ll burn that bridge when I get there.”
“I’ll see you soon, Secret.”
Looking over my shoulder, I gave her a weak smile. “You would know.”
Dinner was turning into an unmitigated disaster.
Unlike Desmond, who was gifted with otherworldly cooking skills, Lucas was not a natural in the kitchen. I was sitting on a high barstool, elbows perched on the central island, watching as he dug himself deeper and deeper into the grave of embarrassment. I could have offered to help, but I wasn’t exactly the most skilled chef myself. I didn’t need to be. There are only so many ways one can serve blood. Hot, cold or fresh from the tap. And it took thirty-eight seconds to make a steak to my satisfaction.
Lucas and I had been in his kitchen for almost an hour, and by now I felt like we were filming an outtake reel for a home-cooking show.
“Lucas, it’s really sweet—”
“I’ve almost got it,” he said, rushed panic edging his voice.
Perhaps it was better to avoid soothing his bruised ego.
He opened the oven door and smoke billowed outwards. The only time I’d ever seen someone burn something so badly it smoked was the last time Nolan used Keaty’s kitchen and managed to ruin French fries. Cupping my chin in my hand, I let out a huffed sigh, which masked the laugh I was having a hard time keeping in.
With no oven mitt, he reached in to pull out the tray containing our dinner. At first I assumed he couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to grab a blistering-hot metal rack with his bare hands, so I didn’t say anything. But as he got closer, I realized he was just flustered enough to have forgotten Kitchen Basics 101.
“
No
,” I shrieked, vaulting myself over the island and kicking the oven door shut. The metal door skimmed Lucas’s hand, and he jerked it back, giving me a hard look. My hip was pressed against the oven, ensuring he didn’t make another grab for the door until he understood what an idiot he’d almost proven himself to be.
He looked from me to my empty stool, which was still wobbling from my sudden exit, and his eyes widened. Over the island, a hanging rack of copper pots was swaying, creating a jangling symphony of metal against metal.
“How did you…?”
“I’m pretty fast when I need to be.”
“But…”
The oven mitts were on the marble countertop next to the stove, and I shoved them into his hands. “You might want to remember those next time.”
A squeak from the kitchen door made us both look up. Dominick Alvarez stood in the open door, arms crossed over his chest, his blond hair flattened on one side and sticking up at the back like he’d just rolled out of bed. He was glowering at us with a serious, disapproving expression that was belied by the mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.
He couldn’t have appeared more different from his brother. In fact, he could have easily been mistaken for Lucas’s brother instead of Desmond’s.