Page 61 of Never Run from an Immortal

Halfway through marking out a piece of silver, she decided to make a tag for Quinn too. They were gifts. So they’d have a little piece of her with them when she was gone, but also because, selfishly, she wanted to be able to find them again.

The movements calmed her. The familiarity of the tools, the repetitive motions. She filed by hand because it soothed some of her anger. For Ru’s tag, she’d pierced his name into the silver. Quinn’s, she settled on simply engraving the letter Q, filling the recess with some black enamel. Dawn had long since come and gone by the time she was done, the pieces already imbued with magic and sitting on her workbench.

Rae had one more piece left to make, one she wasn’t ready to work on just yet. As she tidied away her tools, she reminded herself what this was all for. Who. And how much her people stood to gain if she succeeded. It would all be over soon, and Rae thanked the Goddess for that, because being in one place fortoo long had started to stifle her. She’d always been a flight risk, another moniker in her mother’s repertoire.

She paused by the door, questioning whether to get some sleep before she headed out into the city to tie up a few loose ends, but knew the faster she was out of the manor, in the daylight, the better chance she stood of getting everything done. Aidan wouldn’t risk exposing himself to follow her.

More regret threatened to surface, but Rae swallowed it down. The sooner this was all over, the sooner she could join Seylan. Maybe Nim would want to come with her too. Start over. But Rae knew that was not the case. Knew Nim would never understand what she was trying to do. As she made her way into the city, a small part of her couldn’t help but get stuck on the fact that for a while now, she hadn’t understood either.

Chapter thirty

It had taken every shred of self-control Aidan possessed not to run after Rae when she’d left the natatorium, but as the last few hours of night stretched on, he could feel her working out her feelings on her pieces of silver, and he wished he had. What she’d asked him to do… her words had played on repeat in his thoughts since.

She’d looked so fucking beautiful in his arms, cheeks stained pink, her lips swollen from kissing him, the sounds she’d made he wanted to hear again and again. His canines extended at the thought, and he had to down half a dozen bags of blood from one of his stores just to quell the worst of the hunger. Feeding from her would blur every remaining line between them, but it didn’t stop him imagining it, imagining all the ways he wanted to take her again and again. A quiet part of him knew it went far beyond physical desire. When he’d found her down in Cormac’s basement, her fear consuming her, all he’d known for certain was that he would do anything to snuff it out.

Sometime after dawn, he found Baelin at the far end of the manor in the main security room. The raid on the test facilities was still a few nights away, but this couldn’t wait. It was a conversation he should have had with his Ascendant a long time ago.

“My lord,” Baelin said in greeting as Aidan entered the room he spent most of his time in.

“Don’t start with that bullshit,” Aidan told him, slumping into the sofa pushed back along the far wall and pulling a pre-rolled joint out of his top pocket.

Baelin should have been sleeping, but like Aidan, the Vampire slept very little, something that had given them ample opportunity to have this discussion over the years, and few excuses not to. Aidan took a long, slow drag of his joint, taking in the sight of the security room. Five screens—two vertical—keyboards, drives, and humming devices sat across an arced desk wrapping around Baelin’s chair. The room would have been dark, but the screens illuminated everything, though there was very little to see. Baelin had nothing on the walls, no piles of junk lying around. Everything was tidied away in the cabinets along the wall opposite, and Aidan knew that though the desk looked like a messy tangle of wires and hardware, Baelin had his own order to it all.

One screen showed a top-down view of the city in black and green with small flashing dots; another ran lines of code, waiting for a prompt. Baelin turned to face him, and Aidan handed over the joint.

“Baxter’s been difficult to track.” His Ascendant took a drag before blowing out a puff of smoke, passing the joint back to Aidan.

“Rae just left.” Aidan rubbed at the scar on his chest. She’d gone out into the city on foot, and like a damn fool, he’d almost gone after her. She’d be back for Nim. This time. Aidan alreadyknew Quinn had gone out after her and would be keeping a close eye, reporting back to Baelin. He kept his attention on her regardless, on everyone she interacted with, everywhere she went.

“Quinn has eyes on her. She’s meeting Omnia cadets.” Baelin’s eyes glazed a little, not from the weed, but as if he were seeing through Quinn’s eyes, Aidan knew. With how few Elymas remained, Aidan had always understood what a privilege it was to be able to watch Baelin’s connection with the daemon, to be permitted to witness it. A gift he had never taken lightly.

Aidan knew precisely who Rae was with. Knew Baelin knew that too. But he appreciated the update all the same. He gave the unit members stationed in the surrounding security rooms a silent command to take a walk, wishing he had a glass of visk for this conversation. He took another drag of the joint instead. “We need to discuss my lineage.” No point evading it any longer.

His Ascendant waited. Aidan felt his friend’s relief, though he’d always made it a point never to pry on Baelin’s thoughts, never to press. When Baelin didn’t say anything, Aidan blew out a breath. Vampires were known for their fondness of tradition, and though Baelin had always seemed to loathe it as much as he had, Aidan still found himself hesitating.

“Quinn has an excellent sense of smell,” Baelin said when the silence stretched on, holding out a hand for the joint, “but a well-guarded Elymas secret is that daemons can sniff out other Orders.”

Aidan’s eyes flicked up to meet Baelin’s. “You knew all this time.” He couldn’t help the upward turn at the corner of his mouth. The words came slow at first, but he told his Ascendant all of it: about his Fae mother, his family. The secret his uncle had almost killed him for. The secret he had to protect until the time was right.

Baelin listened in silence, nodding thoughtfully. Aidan felt no disgust from his friend, no distaste. Only understanding, and a weight he hadn’t realised he’d been carrying lifted at the admission. He should have done this years ago, but if Aidan didn’t return from the facility raids, he needed his Ascendant to continue what he’d started. Too many lives depended on it now.

When he’d finished, Baelin silently made his way to the wall of cabinets and pulled out two glasses and a bottle of visk. He poured a double measure in each before handing Aidan a glass. Aidan raised an eyebrow at his friend and waited.

“To something better,” Baelin said, a hint of hope and pride unfurling from him.

Aidan chuckled, the tightness easing in his chest. “To something better.”

They discussed the schedule for the units, their rotation for the rest of the week and the facility raids in a few nights’ time.

Aidan didn’t need reports; they were always readily available to him with nothing more than a thought, but he respected his team, and he preferred to have them deliver the information to him this way. At first, they all suspected the same: that he was testing them somehow, testing their honesty and their integrity against what he could feel and understand if he simply slipped into their minds. It certainly always began that way, but it was never how it ended.

“Orion is pleased with Reed’s integration so far,” Baelin explained.

Aidan nodded. The Shifter was the first Fae to enter his ranks, but Reed had taken to it remarkably well, and the other Vampires, for the most part, had tolerated him. When the Fae had first thought to request it, Aidan had been keeping a close mental eye on him, not long after Rae had found him in the Second District. Within the span of less than one night, Aidan had been certain Reed would make a strong asset to his team,and with Beck’s inability to control himself near Rae, it was a logical solution.

Hours passed, and still, the Witch hadn’t returned. Aidan knew he should get some rest, but until Rae was back inside the manor, he couldn’t. When the day had first begun, he’d cast a wide net around her, but as the day progressed and exhaustion set in, he found himself searching the minds of fewer and fewer citizens as Rae passed through the streets of Demesia.

“You knew about Rae then too,” Aidan said after a while, tracking her progress towards Silver Star. Baelin must have known Rae was a Witch all along, likely before Aidan even had.

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