When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (35 page)

And even though they all now knew—even though the cell was sealed and no toxin could escape—she wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction of actually witnessing what she was. She wasn’t about to let Lihter or Reinholt win.
She
controlled the change, dammit. She did, and she had for years.

Today, though …

Today, all her fears were pushing up against her. Sliding against her skin, taunting and teasing.
There’s no escape
, the fear whispered.
You’ve delayed it, but you can’t escape it. The day he changed you, he ended you. You knew it. Tiberius knew it. And you were just too stupid to accept it
.

No.

Yes
.

The daemon kept prodding her. The wolf kept kicking her. They were strong. They were determined.

She was losing the battle …

And then he was there. His scent, his touch.

Tiberius took her hands, squeezing them lightly. She squeezed back, taking the power he was giving her, sharing the strength that he offered. With him, she battled back the wolf. No way in hell was she going to change now. No way in hell was the wolf coming out.

Slowly, slowly, a calmness settled over her. Even more slowly, she opened her eyes.

He was smiling at her. And despite the horror of the
circumstances, she couldn’t help but smile back. “Thank you.”

He reached out and stroked her cheek. “It’s been hard?”

She considered lying, but this was Tiberius. She didn’t need to lie to him. “It’s been horrible. They all know,” she said, nodding vaguely toward the guards and the other prisoners.

“They’re fools,” he said. “Ignorant fools.”

She shook her head. “You’re sweet, but you’re wrong. We once thought the same about hybrids.”

“Then we were ignorant as well.”

“We watched Marseilles die.”

“We watched a hybrid that’d gone mad destroy it. You are not mad.”

She managed a half smile. “No. Though sometimes I get a little pissed off.”

He laughed, then pulled her to her feet. His arms closed around her, warm and protecting. “Mmmm,” she murmured. “Let’s just stay this way forever.”

“Okay,” he said.

She tilted her head back so she could see his eyes. “Easy for you to agree, seeing as my forever will be over in just a day or two.”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You shouldn’t joke about such things.”

“I have to. If I let it get to me …” She trailed off with a shrug. “Well, you saw what I was doing when you came in.”

“Even so. And besides, your forever is considerably longer.” He paused long enough for a smile to reach his eyes. “You’re not going to be executed.”

Her brows lifted. “Your faith in Nicholas Montegue’s
legal skills is admirable. But I actually did kill the man. It’s going to be hard to wriggle out of this one.”

“Fair enough. You don’t think Nick’s good enough to get you off. How about me?”

“You?” She leaned forward, tugged at his collar, and peered down his shirt. “You got a legal career hiding in there I don’t know about?” When he didn’t answer, she leaned back. “Seriously, it’s okay.” Not the exact truth, but close enough. “I’m prepared for this. I knew it was a possibility when I went after him. I’ve always known, but it was worth it.”

“I agree,” he said. “He deserved to die. Slower, and a lot more painfully than you managed, in fact. But you’re still not going to be executed.”

She squinted at him, trying to figure him out. “Life in prison?”

“Nope.”

She frowned as she looked harder at his face. Was this a pep talk? Was there a punch line? But no. It was more than that. “Tiberius, what’s going on?”

“You’ve been pardoned.”

“What? By who?”

“By me.”

“Great. As soon as you get me transferred from Division 12 to Division 6, I’m a free woman. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Maybe Nick could—”

“The Alliance chairman can pardon in any division.”

“Well, sure, but—” And then she got it. Without warning, she threw herself into his arms, knocking them both backward. “You’re in? But how?”

“Early election,” he said.

She cupped his face with her hand, a wave of pride surging through her. This was what he’d wanted. What
they’d
wanted, for so long. More than that, it was what the shadow world needed. A man like Tiberius holding the reins.

“I’m so proud of you.” She kissed him, long and hard. Then pushed back, just so she could look at him again. “Chairman. Wow.”

“Caris.” His voice was serious, and she leaned back a bit.

“What is it?”

He took her hands, and she held them tight. Afraid for bad news. Afraid for—well, just afraid.

“I want you at my side,” he said, and the fear started to melt away. “We lost almost twenty years. I don’t want to lose even one more.”

She swallowed, her throat filled with tears, her heart tight in her chest.

“Tiberius—”

“The world now knows that you are a hybrid. The secret is out, and there is no reason to continue to pretend that you went to Gunnolf as a traitor. We can make the truth public, and you can sit at my side.” His words squeezed her heart. “You can be with me as you were always meant to.”

She blinked, and a single tear crept down her cheek. “I want that, too. So much.”

“Good—”

“But I don’t want that life.” She had to push the words out, for fear that if she didn’t, they wouldn’t come. “The public life. I can’t do that. Not now. Not anymore. Not with people knowing what I am.”

“It will get better,” he said. “People will forget. And Orion is so close to finding an antidote, maybe even a vaccine. Those things make what you are less scary.
That and the fact that you’ve been walking around for almost twenty years without the world dying.”

“People aren’t like that, Tiberius.” She squeezed his hands. “But the fact that you believe it explains why you’re such a good leader. You have faith. I don’t. I think people will look at me and see a giant target on my back. And the more I’m at your side the more I’m rubbing it in their faces.”

“Caris, I—”

“Please don’t misunderstand. I love you. And I’m so proud of you. But I can’t stand beside you. I’m thinking an island off the coast of New Zealand is more my speed these days. Lots of beach, you know?”

“I don’t want to lose you again.”

Her smile was bittersweet. “You haven’t lost me. But I can’t be by your side.” She pressed her palms to his cheeks and looked into his eyes. “You’re a born leader. This is your chance. Hell, this is your dream.” She held his eyes for a second, terrified that the tears would come soon, and that he’d see. She pulled him close, taking strength from him, because she knew it had to be this way. She couldn’t be in the public eye. And she could never, ever ask him to step down.

“Caris,” he said, his voice low and desperate. He said nothing else, just pulled her into a long, slow kiss. When he finally pushed away, there was regret in his eyes. But also determination.

“I’ve already submitted the pardon. You’ll be released tonight at sundown. I’ll have a car waiting. Have the driver take you wherever you want to go.”

She nodded. She wanted to make him promise to come see her, but that wasn’t fair to either of them. They
needed to make this break. And this time, she was leaving because of love.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed a kiss to his mouth. “Please. Don’t say anything. And thank you. For the pardon, I mean.”

She got up and moved across the cell, the blanket wrapped tightly around her and her back to him. She stayed there, perfectly still, until she heard the cell door close behind him and his footsteps disappear down the corridor of the detention block.

Only then did she sit on the edge of her cot and let that single tear turn into a deluge.

“The speeches are open to the public,” Luke was saying, “but we can expect that most attendees work at the various divisions. I thought we could start in Paris, then essentially circle the globe. Europe, the United States, Asia, and on.”

He paused, but Tiberius barely noticed. Morag Crill had offered them the use of the governor’s apartment atop the Division 12 headquarters so they could go over the various details necessary for Tiberius’s smooth transition into power. Important stuff, but even so, Tiberius’s head wasn’t in the game. Instead, he was standing at the shuttered window, counting the seconds until the sun sank below the horizon and the shutters lifted to let in the night.

Her car would already be in the parking lot. The guards would be processing her paperwork.

And any minute she’d be escorted down to the parking level.

After that … after that she’d be gone.

“Tiberius?”

He shook it off. “Sorry. Yes. We’ll go country to country. That’s fine.”

“Great. And the speech? We have the theater reserved for midnight. There’s time to fix it if there’s anything you want to tweak.”

Tiberius took the papers Luke handed him and glanced
down. As far as he was concerned it was written in Greek. Not actually a problem since he both spoke and read Greek, but—

“She refused,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“I’m sorry?” Luke asked. “What?”

Tiberius tossed the papers onto the nearby desk, then lifted his eyes to meet Luke’s. “I asked her to sit at my side. To join me again. To step back into the role she once had.”

“She refused?”

Tiberius nodded. “She did.”

Luke’s expression remained unchanged, the diplomatic skills he’d acquired over the years showing themselves. “Do you blame her? She is—well, she would stand out a bit, wouldn’t she?”

“I presume you mean because she’s a hybrid, and not because she’s exceptionally beautiful?”

Luke grinned. “Yeah. Because she’s a hybrid.”

“She doesn’t want the spotlight that goes along with public office.”

“Considering the fear that surrounds hybrids, that’s probably smart.”

Tiberius nodded, letting the words sink in. Then he looked at his friend again. “Tell me honestly, do you fear her?”

Luke hesitated only slightly, then shook his head. “No. Caris is a lot of things, and we’ve had our differences. But you say that she’s learned to control the change, and I believe it. But what I believe and what you believe doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. Not when you’re stepping up to be a leader. What matters is what your public believes.”

“Spoken like a true politician.”

Luke bowed his head ever so slightly. “I’ve picked up a few things over the years.”

“And what if it was Sara we were talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“If Sara wanted to walk away from the shadow world. If she believed that the only way she could be happy was to move to Fiji and live in a hut.”

“A hut?”

“A comfortable hut,” Tiberius conceded.

“She is fond of the ocean.”

“Would you go with her?”

“I would,” Luke said without hesitation. He cocked his head, his eyes widening as he watched Tiberius. “You aren’t saying that you—”

“I must.”

“But you can’t. Tiberius, you’ve just been elected chairman. You’ve been working toward this goal for how long? Thousands of years?”

“I have,” he admitted. “And do you know why?”

“You’ve told me hundreds of times. To help the people. To keep the shadowers in control, the species cooperating. To make sure the humans aren’t abused. To prevent another Dark Ages. Tiberius, you wanted this job so you could be the first line of defense against men like Lihter.”

“Everything you say is true. I’ll even go further to say that I would do a good job of it.”

“Of course you would.”

“And why not? I was born to it. Told I was meant to lead. Told that it was in my blood.” He glanced out the window, wondering when her car would appear. “It is in my blood, Luke. But so is Caris.”

“What are you saying?”

“Another man can lead them. Perhaps I could do better, perhaps not. But another can take the job. Another man cannot take my place beside Caris—I would not have it. Nor, I think, would she. And I know that no other woman can fill her place in my heart.”

Luke watched him, his silence speaking volumes.