Chosen by Blood (32 page)

“Bullshit,” Wraith hissed.

Knox nodded. “It’s worth a try. We don’t know how wraiths experience physical sensation, but maybe perception is a part of how their bodies react. On some level, her brain knows it’s cold so her body produces frostbite.”

“Or,” O’Flare said, “her body reacts with pain, based on her mind’s fear of being touched.”

“That’s it,” Wraith said. “You obviously want me to kick your ass. Both your asses.”

Knox put himself between Wraith and O’Flare. “Do it,” he said with a glance at Lucy.

Something very close to fear radiated from Wraith’s eyes. “I don’t want a mage doing anything to me.”

Lucy ripped off her ski mask and raised an insulted brow. “You can room with me, but you can’t let me help you?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Wraith snapped, obviously starting to feel ganged up on.

“Then let me try. You can trust me, Wraith.”

The two females stared at each other for several long minutes before Wraith nodded. “Fine. But not in front of them.”

Lucy nodded, steamrolling over Knox’s and O’Flare’s instinctive protests. “Let’s go over there,” she said, pointing to a small grove of snow-covered trees they’d just passed. Silently, Wraith turned to follow her.

“Stay in view,” Knox commanded.

As they waited, their stillness made the cold sharper. The wind cut into Knox’s face and he absently noted that even O’Flare’s smooth good looks had transformed into that of an old man’s, with a layer of frost covering it. Within minutes, the snow started to come down harder, creating a whiteout that was making it difficult for him to see Wraith and Lucy. He caught the whiff of something familiar and tensed.

Mint.

“We need to get moving,” Knox called. “Now.”

“I’m almost done,” Lucy’s voice answered.

Although it was no more than ten seconds before he saw them walking toward them, the tension inside Knox had mounted. Briefly, he conferred with Lucy, who simply said, “I invoked a spell to warm her skin and coupled it with an enchantment to make her believe she’s not cold. They seem to be working. Her skin looks better. But I don’t think they’ll last long. She won’t allow it, even subconsciously. She’s too strong-willed.”

Knox nodded. “Thanks for trying.”

He turned and began walking, leading them forward. Hunt, however, quickened his pace to catch up with him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

Grabbing him by the arm, Hunt pulled him to a stop. “Bullshit. I can’t read minds, but I can see you’re freaked out. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Knox gritted out. “I just had a feeling, when we were waiting for Lucy and Wraith to approach, that we were being watched. And I thought I smelled mint.”

Hunt’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Mint? In this storm? Here?”

“Like I said, I don’t know what’s going on. Let’s just keep moving forward.”

When Knox began walking, pushing forward despite the chill that now made it hurt to breathe, Hunt fell in line behind him. Knox hadn’t lied to Hunt, but hadn’t told Hunt his full concerns, either. Only a few nonvamps knew that mint was a scent that was associated with the royal vamp family, one that exuded from his mother, himself, and his brother in waves usually too subtle to pinpoint. Felicia had once mentioned it to him, however, indicating that humans could in fact isolate the smell.

Because Felicia had been able to smell the mint scent shouldn’t have made him afraid that he’d smelled it now. Somehow, however, the two thoughts wouldn’t separate themselves in his head. Knox’s feeling of trepidation was related to something he’d smelled. Somehow he knew it was related to someone on his team, but only the one who wasn’t with him.

Felicia.

 

 

In Bianca’s chambers, Felicia paced back and forth in front of the Queen, who sat on the chaise in her waiting room, fiddling with the bowl of caramels that Felicia had brought her on her last visit. “We need to get hold of Knox,” Felicia urged. “We need to tell him what Thomas heard.”

Bianca shook her head. “Thomas misunderstood. He’s only ten, Felicia.”

“He didn’t misunderstand, Bianca. He knew too many details. Was too scared of lying to you.”

“Zeph would never stand for talk of mutiny against myself or Knox.”

Felicia stopped pacing to stare at Bianca. “Maybe not the Zeph you know, the one you’ve raised and loved, but what if Zeph isn’t himself? You said yourself how weak he’d become, only to show marked improvement these past few weeks while Knox has been gone.” Of course, that could be because, like Knox, Zeph had visited an immaculate, but given Thomas’s revelation . . .

“Zeph’s improvement doesn’t mean anything. Even without feeding from an immaculate, I myself am subject to unpredictable phases of recovery.”

“But what if Zeph really has come to believe that the way to save himself—the way to save the clan—is to put the clan under new leadership? Not by overthrowing Knox directly, but by creating a situation that results in the U.S. acting against the clan, therefore forcing Knox to choose—the U.S. government or his clan.”

“If Knox was capable of being swayed against his clan, that would have occurred a long time ago, Felicia. Zeph knows what decision Knox would make given that scenario and so do I.”

Felicia couldn’t help staring. Was Knox’s mother actually saying what she thought she was? “Even if he believed Zeph was killing innocent humans? I don’t think so. Knox stood aside when his father was branded a traitor, not because he chose vamps over humans but because the evidence supported that conclusion. I don’t believe he’d abandon humans if he were to find his own brother was having them murdered. He would not allow himself to be manipulated in such a way.”

Bianca stood and drew herself up to her full height. Tiny sparks of red began to flash in her eyes, warning Felicia that she was close to losing reason and control. “This whole conversation is ridiculous given that Zeph has done nothing for me to suspect him.”

Ignoring the fear that had made her pulse start to beat against her chest, Felicia tilted up her chin. “You honestly believe Thomas’s reference to a cure was a misunderstanding? That it’s not something you should investigate given Zeph’s recent health and all the things I’ve told you about the team’s mission?”

For a moment, Bianca seemed uncertain. She rallied back, however, clearly torn by what she viewed as disloyalty to her son. “If, as you’re thinking, Zeph had accessed the antidote to purify human blood, why wouldn’t he have shared it with me? Why would he have let me continue to suffer?”

“If he felt he were acting for the benefit of you and the clan, with the ultimate conclusion being enough human blood to feed you all, he could justify keeping the source from you for now.”

“You really believe Zeph is in league with the North Korean government? That he’s capitalizing on the torture of Others, including vamps, to persecute humans and rekindle war between the vamps and the U.S.?”

“I’m not saying I believe it. Not yet. I’m just trying to process through all the possibilities.”

“Well, forgive me, but the last time someone processed through the possibility that someone in my family was a traitor, my husband was beheaded. I’m not about to let something like that happen again.” Slowly, Bianca walked to the door that led to her sleeping chambers. She stood stiffly, her back to Felicia, for several long moments. Then she said, “I think it’s best if you leave now.”

“All right.” Felicia moved to the outer door, trying to check her frustration and remember how hard it must have been for Bianca to hear what Thomas had said. “If it’s all right, I’ll check in with you later—”

“No, Felicia,” Bianca said, turning toward her. “I meant you need to leave the Dome. Right now. I’ll tell the children that an emergency came up.”

A wave of emotions crashed over her, the foremost being hurt. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Felicia said stiffly. “You know how much I care for your family—”

“Apparently, caring means nothing to you humans if you can actually think my son capable of what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m trying to understand what Thomas heard—”

Bianca narrowed her eyes. “Thomas is an impetuous boy who doesn’t realize what his stories mean. You, on the other hand, are a fool to think that Knox would ever choose humans—that he would ever choose you—over one whose blood he shares.”

Backing up, Felicia opened the door to the hallway. “Knox shares my blood,” Felicia said softly, nodding her head when Bianca’s eyes widened. “That’s right, Bianca. I fed him. He drank from me. My blood flows inside him now. It doesn’t mean he’ll choose me over his clan, but he’s not a blind follower, either. He may think he’d do anything for his clan, but I don’t. Because before he’s anything, before he’s vamp or human or half-Other, before he’s lover, son, or father, Knox has always been two things—honest and honorable. I’ve always believed he got those two traits from you. Now? I’m not so sure.”

Felicia stepped into the hallway and shut the door. For a moment, she leaned her forehead against it, blinking back her tears. She rubbed at her temple, trying to soothe the ache that her racing thoughts brought, but the gesture didn’t help. Suspicion and doubt, fear and hurt, disbelief and betrayal—each of the emotions ricocheted through her like a bullet, making her understand Bianca’s anger at the same time she cursed her inability to see beyond her loyalty to her son.

“Did you really expect differently,
Aunt
Felicia?”

Felicia gasped and jerked around at the question.

The myriad of emotions she’d been feeling vanished, leaving only one of them in its place. Fear. It expanded within her, clogging her throat, suffocating her breath, and blurring her vision as she stared at the vamp in front of her.

Zeph.

A
fter Knox and the others had been walking for several hours, the snow had stopped falling and the sun had even come out, letting them cover significant ground. It was early afternoon by the time they approached the rise at the outer perimeter of the compound. “Let’s stop here and take a breather,” Knox ordered.

No one complained.

Knox rolled his shoulders, trying to throw off the tension that proximity had brought with it. The closer they’d gotten to their target, the grimmer they’d all become.

All of them, including the fresh-faced mage, had seen combat before. They wouldn’t be here otherwise. Knox couldn’t say for sure, but given the slide show of memories running through his head—of pain, of sweat mixing with blood, and of cries from both the innocent and guilty alike—Knox would bet the others were probably going through the same thing. The familiar, ever-present tension that he’d carried with him for years after the War, the one that had faded but had never completely gone away, that sharp edge of paranoia and awareness that enabled him to lead others, returned full-force and for one major purpose—survival.

As he stared at the individuals who made up his team, instinct had him assessing each of them for signs of weakness and deceit. Physically, they’d all seemed to hit their stride. Even Wraith seemed to be doing better after the mage’s spell. He narrowed his eyes, watching as O’Flare attempted to check on her face, only to have the wraith turn and dismiss him. There was so much anger in her, so much mistrust, but Knox knew it had been rightfully earned. Although he saw the regret radiating from O’Flare, Knox doubted he’d ever get past the wraith’s defenses again. With that thought came others, including the memory of what he’d smelled earlier and more irrational fear concerning Felicia. Knox didn’t just open his mind this time—he ruthlessly probed those of the individuals around him.

Hunt was lost in distant memories, while Wraith was occupied with the pain of more recent ones. Lucy was mentally preparing for the events to come, praying she wouldn’t have to kill but accepting that it was a possibility. O’Flare was thinking of his grandfather who, it turned out, really did come to him in visions. None of them emitted so much as a drop of treachery or deceit against him.

With a sigh, Knox backed off.

When he looked up, O’Flare was staring at him, his narrowed, heated gaze both accusatory and understanding. “I need a minute alone,” he said abruptly. Turning, his gaze dared Wraith to say something—anything—sarcastic, but with a slight flicker of her eyes, she looked away. He stomped off and into a grove of trees, out of their sight.

Hunt shrugged. “Nature’s call,” he said mockingly, but sounding wearier than he ever had.

“No,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “He’s preparing to kill.”

Wraith frowned. “How do you know that? Did he say something to you?”

“No, but I read his bio. His mother was a shamanic princess with the Sheyote tribe. It’s from her he got his psychic abilities.” A faint sound, whisper soft but rhythmic and melodic, drifted from where O’ Flare had disappeared. Closing her eyes, the mage smiled. “The Sheyotes use a shamanic ritual to prepare for battle, a choreographed dance where each one focuses inward even as the ensemble moves as a unified whole—circling, slicing, and turning.” She opened her eyes as O’Flare’s chants grew slightly louder, mixing with the sound of footsteps, lunging, and shifting snow. “It’s supposed to mirror the process of being and becoming, the eternal cycle of life and death, the belief that death is not the end but just the beginning.”

They were all looking toward O’Flare and the occasional blur of movement they could see through the trees. Wraith wrapped her arms around herself. “You have some weird obsession with death dances or something?”

Lucy shook her head. “No. I just research what interests me. I learn about the things I care about.”

Knox stiffened, as did Wraith. The females stared at one another before Lucy shrugged. “He’s done.”

In under a minute, O’Flare returned, his eyes bright and his face slightly flushed. His expression, both placid and exhilarated, shifted into annoyance when he noticed the wraith staring at him. “What?” he asked irritably.