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Chapter twenty-one

Rae had been running her whole life. Though what she’d told Aidan had been the truth. Humans recruited into the factions were taught to never run from an immortal, to never draw their attention. The past week had been evidence enough of all the reasons why that was such a monumentally bad idea.

And it had been the truth when she’d told him humans were the only ones who’d accepted her. Then Nim had come along to her shop, looking for a job, and Rae had known at once she was a Witch. Had always had a gift for sensing it.

Maybe it was because she’d been missing her own family; maybe it was because Cillian hadn’t long been buried, but the sight of Nim’s awed face at the pieces that had been spread out across Rae’s bench and the elation she’d made no attempt at hiding had been enough to remove the help wanted sign from the window.

There were barely any Witches in Demesia now. It was partly why she’d always been so protective of Nim. But more than that, Nim had become the sister she’d never had, and in many ways, the Witch had reminded Rae of her little brother, Seylan. Though he wouldn’t be little anymore.

The lights of the city blurred into one as they drove past, a different vehicle from usual, but still, Aidan drove.

This one was larger, in the same style his First Unit used, two of their vehicles in front, two behind.

They were on their way to one of the five testing facilities pulled from Zeke’s data, and for the first time in her life, Rae had been glad for the presence of so many Vampires.

She wouldn’t send any members of Omnia into what would be almost certain slaughter; they were better suited to picking off Vampires one by one, as they had been since the faction’s inception.

Rae didn’t work Omnia the way the other factions did; her recruits wouldn’t recognise each other if they passed in the street.

It was safer that way. Most never dealt with her directly either or never knew she existed.

Like Bax, many thought she was simply a cadet, and even Nim believed they made the jewellery for all the factions equally.

Aidan had said nothing since leaving the manor.

Reed was still there somewhere, Rae had been told by Orion, the Vampire who led Aidan’s First Unit.

Though she hadn’t been able to speak with the shifter yet, and something told her that was intentional on Aidan’s part.

He was keeping something from her, and she’d need to find a way to keep him busy if she was going to get some answers.

She tightened the holster at her thigh, her shirt scraping against her sutures with the movement.

She thought about the way Aidan had stitched her up the night before.

How she’d wanted to tug him into the shower with her, just for one very sex-deprived moment.

How she’d touched herself thinking about him, hoping to chase away the stupid fucking thought with an orgasm instead. It hadn’t worked.

“What are you thinking about?” Aidan asked, snapping her out of her fantasy. His grip seemed to tighten on the steering wheel, long fingers curling around the leather.

Fuck, Rae. Get your shit together, she told herself. “Doesn’t that get annoying?”

“What?”

She turned her attention to him, but he kept his fixed on the road. “Knowing what everyone is thinking and feeling.”

“Not with you. You’ve got me locked out tight.”

“Hmm.” Not tight enough, it would seem, because of that knowing smirk he’d shot her. Asshole.

Her PAD buzzed, and Rae swiped down on a message from Baelin.

Schematics , the message read, followed by a blueprint of the facility. Is he still being a dick?

Rae huffed a quiet laugh before she shot a message back. Always. And then, because she couldn’t help herself, Why do you stay?

Baelin had stopped in to check on her not long before they’d left, Quinn at his side. To check she wasn’t about to try and flee, Rae suspected. He said he hadn’t spoken with Reed, and though Rae believed him, there had been something off about the Vampire, something that weighed on him.

He’d asked about her injuries. Rae had told him Aidan had patched her up and about how much of an asshole he’d been about her meeting Reed alone. The Ascendant had thrown his head back and laughed at that.

Dots appeared on the screen of her PAD as if Baelin was typing, and then stopped.

“What’s up with Baelin tonight?” Rae asked, concern surfacing before she shoved it down.

He is not your friend, she reminded herself.

Tried to remind herself of all the ways Vampires had treated humans as their blood bags, treated the other Orders as beneath them for years, that the Vampire beside her was the one with the power to change all of that.

Aidan shot her a glance. “It’s a difficult night for him. To say any more than that would be… unfair to Baelin.”

Rae studied him, wondering if everything she’d ever heard about him had been a lie.

Vampires chose their Ascendants for their loyalty.

For their strength. Because they were deemed the most worthy of holding things together for their family.

But in the short time since knowing both of them, Rae sensed it was more than that.

Some sort of bond that preceded Baelin being Aidan’s Ascendant, something that had brought them together in their past. She’d thought Baelin reminded her of Seylan when they’d met, but she realised now that perhaps Aidan saw him as a brother too.

He’s good, Rae , came Baelin’s belated reply. Better than any of them .

It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t an endorsement of his skills. It was one friend, vouching for another, and something about the simplicity of that sent a knot of guilt to lodge in her throat. Rae coughed it away. She couldn’t afford to feel anything for any of them.

“It’s empty,” Aidan breathed a heartbeat later.

“What?”

“The facility. The whole fucking site is empty.”

He went quiet, and she knew he was giving his instructions to the other Vampires.

“We’re getting closer,” he said. “No point leaving the cars so far away in this weather.”

Rain came down, thick and heavy, and Rae was inclined to agree. The original plan had been to take a service tunnel the humans used for their power lines to come up into the heart of the facility, but it was in an area of the First District too narrow for their vehicles.

Rae had received a report back from one of her operatives only a few hours before; the facility had been manned at that time.

Which meant they’d cleared out before nightfall.

She pulled up Omnia personnel files on her PAD, reading through the cadet’s details until her attention snagged on something.

The operative’s sister had been missing for a week.

Fuck. “They were tipped off,” she muttered.

“By who?”

“One of mine, I think.” Rae couldn’t bring herself to blame her cadet for that. The fault was hers for not screening him better. For being distracted.

Aidan was quiet, likely passing on the information again. Zeke’s data had provided test subject names, with dozens of matches to missing person lists Rae had access to. But no information about who the data was going to ; that was too much to hope for.

They stopped a block away from the facility beside an access point for the service tunnel, the metal door hanging wide open.

Rae hadn’t told her operative any of their plans, had only asked that he report back with any activity.

She hoped whatever he’d given Torrin and the others had been enough for them to hand back his sister.

That the girl was still alive when they did.

Baelin greeted her as they exited the cars, swiping rainwater from his eyes. “They’ll sweep first,” he explained, following Rae’s gaze as she watched one of Aidan’s units enter the service tunnel. Behind him, Aidan instructed his First Unit, the rain drowning out his words.

The air hummed, and Rae took a step closer to the tunnel, a shiver running down her spine.

Something wasn’t right. She pressed a hand to the outer wall, closing her eyes to feel for traces of magic.

Aidan’s abilities had been tampered with repeatedly in the last week; she wasn’t going to rely on him.

Her eyes shot open, and Baelin’s gaze locked on hers. “What is it?” he asked.

“Get them out!” she cried, just as an explosion rang out and Baelin slammed into her. A shrill sound sang in Rae’s ears, and it took a moment for her to realise the Vampire was above her, his body pressing hers into the wet ground. “Baelin,” she rasped, all the air knocked from her lungs.

For a too long second, he didn’t move. Then he coughed, and Rae loosed a breath beneath him.

“What happened to staying out of trouble?” Aidan snapped as Baelin’s weight shifted off her.

She rolled to her feet, eyes fixed on Aidan, on the way he pulled a glass vial from his inside jacket pocket, bit off the cork, and brought it to Baelin’s lips, a thin line of crimson trickling onto his lower lip. Blood.

Are you hurt? he asked her without taking his eyes off his friend.

I’m fine. Though Rae didn’t doubt he already knew the answer. Is he?

Another vial. Another cork spat into the dirt beside them, and had Rae not been spending so much time with him, she might have missed the look of concern that flashed so briefly across Aidan’s face before he schooled it to neutrality.

This time Baelin reached for the vial, knocking back the contents and glancing over his shoulder. “I liked this shirt.”

Sometimes the similarities between the two of you are alarming , Aidan said dryly in her thoughts.

Rae huffed a laugh, but the sound quickly withered away when she looked back at the entrance of the service tunnel, the black scorch marks around the door. No one was running in after the unit that had gone ahead, and that told Rae everything she needed to know. They were dead.

No survivors , Aidan told her, confirming her suspicions.

She felt the hint of remorse in his tone, the frustration at not having sensed what was going on in the tunnel.

Whatever advancements had been made with the test subjects, it was already messing with his Provident abilities far too much for Rae’s liking.

Trading one group of power-crazed autocrats for another would do Demesia no good at all.

Baelin grumbled something about the rain and reached for his PAD, inspecting the smashed screen where it had been in his back pocket. The back of his shirt was singed in places, probably even the ends of his hair, if Rae had to guess.

“Let’s get you back to the manor,” she said to Baelin, forcing down the guilt that was crawling up her spine. He is not your friend, she reminded herself for a second time—but he’d saved her life, without hesitation.

Aidan pulled his Ascendant to his feet. “Orion will take him.” The First Unit was already moving around them, hands on weapons, eyes searching out into the dark.

“Ascendants always travel separately. It’s a safety thing,” Baelin explained when Rae began to protest.

It made sense. Travelling together meant one target, and both the Vampire Lord and his Ascendant could be taken out in one hit. Baelin shrugged away help as Evander offered him a hand.

“Thank you,” Rae told him, hoping he knew just how much she meant it.

He knows , Aidan told her.

“Stay out of my head, Vampire,” she snapped, but there was no bite to it.

He opened the door to his truck for her to get in, and she caught the way he checked her over as he fastened her seatbelt, as if he were searching for injuries she’d already reassured him weren’t there before he shut the door after her.

Aidan didn’t get in, and Rae didn’t take her eyes off him as she watched him speak with another of his units, a hand to the shoulder of another Vampire as he murmured something. The Vampire nodded, and Aidan returned to the car, turning up the heat as the engine started.

“I’m sorry about your unit,” Rae said once he put the vehicle into reverse, the rain coming down harder.

Four fewer Vampires for her cadets to deal with would have felt like an unprecedented success on any other day, but watching the way Aidan had spoken to the other Vampire like he’d been consoling him, even Rae wasn’t that much of a heartless bitch. Or at least she hoped. Maybe she was.

“They knew the risks.” There was no emotion in his voice, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw the way a muscle feathered in his jaw, the tension rolling from him.

“Even so.” The guilt coiled tighter, and she willed herself to keep her feelings neutral so close to Aidan.

He’d broken off from the other vehicles; only one followed this time.

Another safety precaution, Rae presumed.

“I’ll hold a seeking ceremony later,” she told him.

She’d conjure up some bullshit, make him believe whatever show she put on for him.

Make it look like she truly was searching for his magic.

She just needed to buy some time before he grew tired of their arrangement.

Needed to keep him on her side until Nim was safe, and almost getting his Ascendant killed wasn’t exactly a mark in her favour.

Rae knew with each day that passed that it was less and less likely they’d find Nim, the memory of those cells and what had occupied them all she saw every time she closed her eyes.

But she’d be damned if she was going to give up on her friend before she left.

Omnia had their instructions. Rae was almost ready; she just had a few more pieces she needed to slide into place.

A flash of lightning lit up the dash, a dark shadow darting across the road in front of them as thunder boomed. She caught Aidan’s frown, her fingers closing around her switchblade, just in case.

“Shit. Hold on,” Aidan told her, the taste of his magic familiar on her tongue as the command washed over her.

Another flash and the car smashed into something, careening onto its side and rolling and rolling and rolling until Rae didn’t know which way was up, until her vision darkened, and everything went black.