Page 104 of Chain Me
“How?” I whispered. “Doesn’t yours…help you somehow?”
He nodded. “It’s more than just enchanted by petty magic. It contains my blood. When you wore it, I could sense you even while halfway across the world. And while I wear it, I can control the urge to feed.”
I swallowed hard as my thoughts spun, replaying all of the times he’d forsaken the necklace around me. Namely the night he returned when, by his own admission, he nearly killed me.
“We both know how hunger can affect you,”Yulia had told him during a hazy conversation I barely remembered.“I should have talked you out of ever giving up that stupid amulet in the first place…”
“Mero never relied on his totem the same way,” Dublin continued. “He spoke of a future. Of a life beyond this curse we’d been stricken with. The fool even mused of children born mortal. The only price would be his soul. His eternity. While he could never die, his seed would grow, and spread, and prosper. It was his dream. But Raphael was not pleased.”
He turned, starting to pace. I doubted he was even speaking to me anymore. No, this tale ripped from his soul unabated was for his benefit alone.
“He considered it a betrayal, and in my selfish, callous addiction, I let myself believe it. Gratitude toward my old friend for showing me the light of redemption became hate. How dare he believe that we could change? How dare he threaten the world we had spent countless years creating?” He demanded the question of no one, his face upturned skyward. “Blinded with rage, I hunted him down, finding him in the Americas. I killed his lover, slitting her throat right before his eyes. He would see reason then—or so I convinced myself. He would surely realize it. Chasing happiness, and mortality and pointless joy was futile. We were Gods among men, how dare he forsake that?
“But I quickly realized that there are no gods. No Heaven. No Hell. Just pain and redemption. And as I watched Mero mourn for a woman whose life was but a speck of dust in the stream of time, I realized that my grip on power was just as futile as his lust for freedom. Neither path would lead to salvation. Just destruction.”
He turned to me, running his finger across my throat. “In his grief, my old friend found a mortal to corrupt to his will.”
“James,” I whispered. My mysterious ancestor.
“Yes. I’m sure Mero spun his aim as some grand crusade against evil, but that was merely a lie. He wanted a bloodline to poison. A fertile bit of soil within which to plant his revenge. Yet I didn’t want to fight that war with him. Call me a coward, but I alas, I was tired…”
He bowed his head, his eyes downcast. “So I went to Raphael. I traded my time in exchange for his avoidance of the Grayne. I let Mero plot in obscurity, telling myself that his promises of revenge were nothing more than fantasies. And I still believe that.” He turned to me again, an eyebrow raised. “Do you want to know why? Because if my affections were the result of some twisted curse, I imagine I’d be easily wooed by a creature like your sister. I’d succumb with no resistance, hypnotized. But you…”
Step by step, he advanced on me and there was no escape. “I resist you, and you tempt me further. There is no mindless surrender. You claw your way through me like poison. There is no ease with you. I’m tormented. In lust, you torment. In pain, you torment. In happiness even…you torment me.”
He trailed his lips across my forehead, lingering there. “I am the soul at your discretion. No curse could inspire that. You claimed Saskia told you I thought of your sister? How could I not? Let’s say she is missing. That Mero has her. That he is using her as a pawn to lure you to him, knowing you would never abandon her. Killing her without your knowledge would easily solve the threat she poses to you. And yet…” He sighed and withdrew. “I know you would never forgive me if I took her life. So I haven’t. He knows as much. I am sure of it. He knows exactly how to win this game.”
My breath caught. I couldn’t avoid asking, “Do you know where she is?”
“I suspect she’s in hiding,” he said. “And not only from me.”
“Oh?” Fear gnawed at my stomach. I’d been able to ignore it until now—but as if conjured by his mere mentioning, weeks of pain descended. My sister. God, I wanted to face her. Demand my own answers. See her face.
Did she ever love me?
“Well, you’d think she could send me a letter, or a phone call, or even a goddamn homing pigeon just to let me know that she was still alive.”
“Would that change anything if she had?”
“It would certainly make it easier to hate her,” I blurted. Only he could do this to me—drag out the truths I wasn’t even aware of myself. I eyed the rose in my grasp, ripped a petal from the beautiful mass, and watched it dance in the still air. “As it stands, she can’t even bother to send me so much as a postcard.”
Something in his silence made me look up, but for once, he didn’t seem willing to meet my gaze.
“You wouldn’t keep her from me,” I insisted. Why did I sound so damn terrified? Georgie’s abandoning me was one thing. But if he had purposefully led me to believe…
“Here.” He reached into his pocket. “I found this in your crypt. I suspect it had been there for at least a few weeks before then.”
I froze as he shoved something into my hand. It was small, soft. A crumpled piece of paper. Written on it was a simple message scrawled in painfully familiar handwriting.
Elles. I wish I could smile in that scrunched-up way I used to back in the days I could easily charm you after stealing one of your biscuits. I understand that this is different. I’m trying to find my own way to answer your questions. But remember what Mother always said—above all, blood remains. Remember that and you will always be able to find me. — Georgie.
God, it was the exact thing she’d say at a time like this. Clueless, mocking, and coy. Heat burned behind my eyes, impossible to fight back.
“Where…” The answer came to me before the words finished leaving my throat. The urn. Telltale signs of dust coated the edges of the paper.
He’d stolen it, perhaps that very day I’d mentioned our hiding place.
Teeth bared, I whirled on him, “I should kill you for this. Were there more?”
