Trial by Heart (Trial Series Book 4) (2 page)

Erish Girin disappears.

I blink and look around, squinting to see into the dark corners for any moving shadows. The percolating coffeemaker and its rich scent fill the kitchen.

I wait a full twenty minutes for the pot to fill and for Erish to return.

He doesn’t.

“Guess I know how to piss off a cursed spirit,” I mutter and rub my face.

Pouring coffee, I then retrieve my phone and cautiously search the house for Erish. He’s nowhere to be seen, and I pause in the messy study, eyes on the Book of Secrets.

I promised Ben not to touch it again, but I’m itching to explore it for information about Erish and what he’s revealed to me.

My attention goes to the stacks of books detailing the histories of the clans through their leaders. If Erish was in charge of the mind of every Kingmaker who kept these records, then the books weren’t being written for the purpose of documenting history. Why would a
curse
track the leaders of the clans? My father claimed every generation of Kingmaker has spent his or her life trying to find more information about breaking the curse.

Does that mean Erish wants it broken, too? Is he trapped in his personal hell, repeating the mistakes he made two thousand years ago with every new generation of Kingmaker? If he wants it broken, why does he seem defiant, if not arrogant?

Is there a more sinister reason for spying on every leader of the Community for the past two millennia? Was he trying to make sure no one else conspired to break the curse? Maybe it was the Kingmaker he was trying to keep in check to ensure none of my predecessors tried to conspire with anyone else in the Community.

I have the feeling he’s not going to answer this kind of question and lean against the doorway, struggling to recall what we talked about when I was buried alive. The memory is a little fuzzy, probably because I was an emotional wreck and on the verge of suffocating towards the end.

But … I remember him saying something odd when I told him the Community wanted the curse broken. He said if the entire Community wanted it gone, it
should
be possible.

My phone pings, and I take it out of my pocket.

Can we meet?
Ben asks in the message.

The last thing I feel ready for today is the intense, moody alpha, even if my heart does begin to race when I see his name across my screen. If any of them can handle Erish, it’s Ben, but that doesn’t make me remotely willing to risk it.

Tomorrow?
I reply.

He answers with a
sure
and a time and address at the lake.

Tucking the phone away, I sip my coffee then make a decision. “Erish!” I call.

The house is silent.

For whatever reason, the shadow man doesn’t want to talk to me. I’m sort of relieved, sort of freaked out, and starting to wonder again if I imagined him. No matter what, I need some sleep. The coffee isn’t working.

Despite everything, I also don’t want to show up to meet Ben looking like I do now – a legitimate madwoman with blood shot eyes and talking to someone who doesn’t exist. I’m too tired for the kind of coherent conversation we need to have.

“I can do this.” I don’t have a choice, just like I don’t know how I’m going to pick myself up if I shatter for good anytime soon.

Chapter Two

Pure exhaustion knocks me out when I don’t think it’s possible for me to sleep. I wake up sometime later, not long before dawn. Moonlight outlines my blinds, and I sit when I’m awake enough to realize I’m still alive. No vampires tried to bury me or wolves to kill me last night, and the curse doesn’t seem to have hold of my mind yet.

These should be good things, but I’m filled with dread rather than relief.

I dreamt again, though this time, it was a faded, broken dream. Something to do with my mother, whose face is the only part of the dream I can remember.

I’ll be forever grateful to Myca for showing me the memory of her face. Seeing her in my mind’s eye somehow makes this mess less horrific.

“If you’re here, tell me!” I snap at the darkness. After my panic attack, I’m in no mood for another meltdown or to be randomly scared shitless by the shadow form.

“I’m here,” Erish says quietly from one corner of my room.

I shiver. Knowing he’s been staring at me with his soul-less eyes while I slept definitely makes me feel a little ill.

“If I meet the candidates, can you hurt them?” I ask the question before I get distracted or he storms off.

Silence.

“It’s part of the trials to meet them again,” I remind him.

“I know the rules better than you,” he responds. “Not as such.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

“Right now, it’s a no.”

What the hell does that mean? It’s not like I’d know if he lied.

“Why don’t you go read the histories?” he asks.

“You can see and read what I can, right? You know I promised Ben not to.”

“There are answers in the Book of Secrets I can’t reveal to you. They might help you break the curse, if that’s what you really want.”

Ugh. I’ve suspected there might be something I’m missing. Erish is the final key to the puzzle. But I did promise Ben. Even if he’s lied to me since we met, even if my guilt is unfounded, I can’t go back on a promise to the werewolf. I feel like I owe him more than one favor after how I treated him and the Jenny incident.

“What do you mean, if that’s what I really want?” I ask Erish instead.

“Everyone thinks they want the curse broken until they learn the price,” he replies.

“Slaughtering a clan.”

“Exactly.”

I have a way around that. At least, I think I do. I feel like I need some more information before I can make a definitive decision, though. As in, if I go through with the plan I’ve started to form, will it work, or make things worse? I don’t want to cause any other clan to suffer the way the vampires did when they tried to defeat Erish a thousand years ago.

I don’t think Erish is going to be candid if I lay out the plan and ask him his opinion. I don’t have a good enough read on him yet.

“Do you want the curse to break?” I ask him. 

“I cease to exist if it does.”

“So you really die. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Not when a demon owns your soul and is waiting for you to die, it’s not.”

“What the hell did you do?” I demand and roll out of bed.

“Like you said when we were put to earth. Something stupid.”

There’s a quiet note in his voice. It’s not quite humility – I don’t think he’s capable of such an emotion – but it’s soft and almost sad. “I can’t think of anything, ever, anywhere, in any world or scenario, that would make me curse my entire family and every supernatural in existence,” I tell him.

“You are not me,” he observes.

“Definitely not.” I stand and pull on a sweatshirt, making a mental note to turn on the heat. “You killed Jenny. You swear you can’t hurt any of the candidates?”

“As long as they don’t try to hurt you, I’m harmless for the time being.”

“You just kill everyone else who gets in the way.”

“Semantics.” He laughs. “Only if your life is threatened can I act against someone outside the trials.”

“Like Jenny.”

“Yes. Bitch had it coming. I was there when you met her, you know.”

I roll my eyes. I definitely inherited my temperament and attitude issues from my father’s side. “Do you usually
exile
the candidate who’s supposed to die in the trials, or am I supposed to?”

“After this part of the trial, I do, using your body.”

I don’t know why I experience relief knowing my father didn’t kill one of the women he might’ve cared about the way I do the three candidates. He was a good person. Everything bad or twisted or otherwise not fitting the image of him I have – this shit belongs to the curse in charge of his mind.

Maybe the man I remember him being – kind, wise and doting if somewhat aloof – is accurate after all. The trials have made me doubt everything about him, about his love for me and the kind of person he was.

“So those bizarre narratives in the histories about Tristan grinding up dead fae and Ben culling his wolves … that was you when you possessed my father? Part of your attempt to influence my perception of the Community?” I ask Erish. “My father would never write that shit.”

Erish doesn’t respond. I’m starting to think that’s a sign I’m right. What about the Book of Secrets? Did he force the Kingmaker’s who wrote its passages to lie? And if so, what did they lie about? More importantly, how the hell am I supposed to identify truth from lie?

If I let my mind go down this thought path, I’ll snap for sure. I pat the amulet, comforted by the physical reminder that there’s at least one person, if not three, on my side. The talisman beneath my fingers is warm and exactly where it belongs – standing between me and a sadistic ghost. I trust the candidates more than I’ll ever trust the Book or Erish, even if my father asked one of them to assassinate me.

“One day down and you still don’t know what to do,” Erish purrs.

For once, I don’t react. I whip my door open and turn on the lights as I walk down the stairs to the main floor. The scent of orange cleaner reaches me, and I follow it into the kitchen.

Myca’s people were here. They didn’t just clean the floors – they replaced them, down to the old carpet in the living area.

“Thank god,” I murmur. The stench would’ve eventually driven me crazy, if Erish doesn’t first.

I send Myca a quick text then answer a note from Tristan before I dump the old coffee and make more. It’s six in the morning. I don’t feel exactly refreshed, and I’m not ready for another day of Erish.

Uncertain what I’m supposed to be doing, I decide I’d rather focus anywhere than on the unnerving shadow with an attitude.

Settling onto the couch, I pull out my notebook and start a new pro-con list for each of the three decisions I’m supposed to be making: leader, lover and … ugh. I cross out the word
exile
on the third page and instead write,
Daddy’s Assassin
, referring to the candidate my father placed in charge of murdering me if I fail to break the curse. Returning to the leadership page, I write the candidates’ names down one side and start listing out the advantages and disadvantages for each.

“Ben’s moodiness and violent streak are going to be an issue,” Erish observes from somewhere behind me.

“He’s only violent when he needs to be, and he’s managed to build an empire despite the moods,” I counter.

“He’s not polished enough to lead yet. He should’ve known Jenny was involved in drugs. His father would’ve known the day she started. He was a good alpha. In another hundred years, maybe Ben will be where he should be, but he’s not there yet,” Erish says, sounding puzzled. “I’m not sure how he’s brought the wolves this far.”

“This is my list, not yours.”

“I’ve been around for two thousand years. I know a thing or two about what makes a good leader.”

I’m not about to humor the opinion of a man whose poor judgment led directly to a curse spanning twenty centuries, but I also can’t help secretly agreeing. Everything Erish says is true. Ben is an incredible person and a good leader, but I’ve often wondered how he was so blind to what was in front of him. The night he texted me for hours with silly little questions, too, has often perplexed me when I compare our in-person interactions. It sometimes feels like there are two of him.

“Maybe he has some sort of personality disorder,” I murmur.

“By definition, anyone who is half man, half beast is the very incarnation of a dissociative personality disorder.”

 “Sometimes you sound so reasonable,” I respond. “Then I remember how bad you fucked up and think, why the hell would I ever listen to you?”

“Truth is truth, no matter what the source.”

Ben and Erish couldn’t be more different. Then again, a week isn’t long enough to know someone completely, I remind myself.

I can’t bring myself to diagnose Ben with a personality disorder, but I do write
sometimes violent
in the column for Ben’s disadvantages of becoming Community leader.

I move onto Tristan.

Erish is silent as I complete the rest of the list for each candidate, which I take to mean he agrees with what I write. When I’m done with the leadership page, I lean back and drink my coffee, frowning at my work.

“They’re all almost perfect,” I complain. “Why can’t the Community vote for their own leaders?”

“Because it’s against the rules.”

“So, what?”

“You can play by the rules and lose a few people here and there, or your can break the rules and lose everyone. It’s your choice, but I’m going to recommend following the rules.”

Erish’s casual explanation horrifies me. Myca said half his clan was massacred when they led a revolt against the Kingmaker’s. This curse, and its rules, are pretty serious.

How the fuck am I supposed to break it if the penalty for trying is killing so many innocent people?

I flip to the second page, still unable to wrap my head around choosing a husband in the midst of all this. I sense it has something to do with ensuring the Kingmaker line remains unbroken, so Erish can continue to torment every supernatural in existence as long as there’s a Kingmaker to possess.

“This list is troublesome, too, and it’s not just one of them this time.” Erish’s voice is nearer, and I hunch my shoulders instinctively.

“Agreed. They’re all incredible men,” I reply. “I’d be honored to choose any of them.”

“I feel quite the opposite. None of them is your mate.”

I twist and squint until I see the shadow man shifting along one wall of the living area. He’s pacing, but slowly, as if he’s thinking, too.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “I thought I just picked the person I like the most.”

“One of them is …
should
be, destined to become your mate.”

“You’re telling me it’s preordained?”

“Somewhat.”

“That’s stupid. The Community doesn’t have preordained mates.”

“Not for everyone. Just for a Kingmaker, to ensure there’s always an heir,” he says impatiently. “Your father should’ve chosen someone. He didn’t.”