Page 12 of Beta Hybrid

‘I want a direct answer before you get fed,’ I tell him sternly. ‘How is she in contact with them?’

Callen growls. ‘I don’t know that, either.’

‘Hmm. You’re not as useful as I thought you’d be.’

‘You know what?’ Cai turns to me. ‘Why don’t I make you lunch, instead? Seems like this is a waste of time.’ He holds out a hand to help me down from the roof.

Callen yells, a sound of agonised frustration. ‘No! Zenna.’ He draws my name out. ‘Poor Aidan.’

I blink. ‘What do you mean?’

Callen licks his lips. ‘You’re gone. Drusilla knows, and Evelyn was responsible for you. So was he. You know they’re to be punished for that.’

My blood runs cold.

I hadn’t thought of that.

‘No.’ I look to Cai, but his jaw is clenched. He reaches up to me, licks my arm so the wound closes, and hauls me into his arms. ‘We’re not doing this,’ he says firmly. He wraps me up close to him.

‘No. What if she’s hurting them, because of me?’

Cai starts to pull the metal of the bed back up, over Callen.

‘Oh, poor little Aidan, only a witch. He can’t handle the kind of torture Evelyn can. Imagine the poor guy, Zenna. Tied up. Drusilla biting and biting. Not the good kind. Not the kind that makes you want to fuck. No—the awful, feeding kind—’

Dread clenches my stomach.

‘Shut up,’ Cai snaps.

‘Cai,’ I whisper.

He shoves the metal over the truck bed, but Callen doesn’t cry out this time. Instead, he calls calmly, ‘You need to let me go! I can go back. I’ll protect your little friends. I can get them out. Bring them to you…’

Cai winds an arm around my waist to lead me away, but I plant my feet.

Don’t say anything, he warns me. We’ll talk about it. I promise.

The fresh air of the rocky woods has been sucked out of me, picturing the Tomb, that awful place. Wondering where Aidan and Evelyn might be. Locked up. Tied up. Tortured. Beaten. Bitten?

Cai rubs my back in slow circles as he leads me back to camp. It’s going to be okay, Zen. He leads me to our tent and sets me among the pillows and blankets, then ducks back out. A few minutes later, Jana enters the tent and lies down with me, telling me that Cai is making us all lunch.

‘I have to ask,’ she says quietly. ‘What was it like down there?’ Her voice is soft, aching for me. For what I suffered.

I imagine Aidan. A guy who so desperately tried to protect me, reassure me. The guy who told me that my vines make me special. Never to let anyone call me less than. The one who checked on me when I woke with a scream from a nightmare. The guy who took my hand and did everything he could to help protect me, even help me fight, to help protect myself.

Whatever freedom he felt down there, safe, with Evelyn, is gone. Drusilla knows he either helped me, or is responsible for, my escape. Now he’s being punished.

‘It’s like being buried alive.’

That night, Cai talked with Noah about sending Callen back as a double-agent, but the obvious problem was brought up. What’s to keep Callen on our side? What’s to stop him from sending every vampire in the Tomb out here to slaughter all of us? The answer, thus far, is nothing. So Aidan and Evelyn’s rescue is put on hold, and cold guilt grips me.

Instead, Noah said if we insist on finding the remaining Origins, he can help with at least one of those. It turns out his father, who lives higher up in the mountain and doesn’t like the noise, has a connection to his Origin. They can send Alaric a message, offering an alliance, and ask him to put them in touch with the others, or give us their location. Alaric’s reply will come, Noah says, when he is ready, not before.

My parents are another matter. I finally have their names: Andrea and Nicholas. But no clue where they are. So, that leaves me in this rocky, woody mountain that I both love and don’t. The area, the freedom and the air I could bathe in for the rest of my life. The people, Noah and his pack, I am not quite so sure of.

But I need to train. So the next week follows the same steps.

The mornings start with Divina.

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