Морган Райс - Betrayed

“I don’t need it to be sanctioned,” Caleb said. “Our marriage was a mistake. It was 600 years ago. You really need to let this go. I don’t need a governing body to tell me I’m allowed to separate.”

“Oh, but you do,” Sera said. “Without their sanction, you’re violating our law. You’re subject to punishment, and always will be.”

Caleb laughed in derision. “You’re really delusional, aren’t you? Do you really think I fear punishment, whether from them or anyone else? I have never lived my life in fear of authority.”

She stepped closer to him, out of earshot of all the soldiers now looking their way.

She whispered, “I can tell them more. I can tell them about you and that human. Caitlin. You violated our sacred law in sleeping with her. You know the punishment.”

Caleb stared back, his eyes becoming cold with rage.

“And more than that,” she said, “even more, I can tell them that you turned her. No one sanctioned you to do that, either. And that is something they would never accept. They would kill you for that, you know.”

Caleb clenched his jaw.

“Then tell them,” he said, calling her bluff.

She stared back at him, cold and hard. He knew that she would never tell. If they killed Caleb, that would leave her with no one to obsess over. She needed him alive. As much as she wanted to blackmail him, they were empty threats.

And even if she did tell them, he really, truly didn’t care. He was done answering to vampire organizations. He would live his life now as he wished. The security of his coven no longer meant as much to him as it once did. He wasn’t here to beg for their pardon. He was here to warn them, to save them. If they didn’t want his help, he would be just as happy to leave this place for good.

He desperately missed Caitlin already. He could feel it, like a tangible thing, sitting in his chest.

He hated being away from her. And he hated even more that while he was away from her, he had to have Sera clinging to his side, this crazy woman who simply refused to accept reality.

Caleb turned and walked through the door, entering the inner stone courtyard of the cloisters, Sera right beside him. She just wouldn’t quit. The two of them strutted down the arched, stone corridor, side by side, her pretending for all the world that they were a couple.

They walked down another corridor, turned through a small, stone archway, and found themselves on a wide landing, about to descend a staircase. There, waiting to greet them, was Samuel. Caleb’s brother.

Samuel was flanked by a dozen vampire soldiers and his face was grim.

Caleb stopped before him, and their eyes met. They were as close as brothers could be, yet outwardly, they never showed it. They didn’t embrace each other, didn’t even shake hands. They just stood there, a few feet away, staring at each other, each nodding back to the other with a look of mutual recognition and respect.

“Caleb,” Samuel said flatly.

“Samuel,” Caleb answered.

“You have come back to us,” Samuel said. “That is good. We need you now.”

“I have much to report to the council,” Caleb said. “I only hope that they are willing to hear it.”

Samuel nodded back, ever so slightly. “As do I,” he said.

Samuel’s men parted ways for Caleb and Sera, and as the two of them walked down the winding staircase, Samuel’s men fell in behind them. The entire entourage walked through the lower level of the cloisters, through a room of sarcophagi, through a room of artifacts, until they finally reached the roped off, circular staircase.

The two guards standing before it stepped aside, pulled back the rope, and opened the wooden door. Caleb entered, followed by the group, and soon they were all descending, lower and lower beneath the cloisters.

They entered a huge, subterranean chamber, hundreds of feet long, wide and high. Unlike other times he had been here, the room was completely filled with the vampires of his coven. Caleb had never seen it so crowded. Usually, there were but a few dozen vampires lounging about. Now there seemed to be at least 1000 of his coven members, vampires he hadn’t seen in centuries, all filling the room, pacing and agitated, talking to each other in harsh tones.

As Caleb and his entourage entered, the chaos seem to slowly focus on them. The chamber parted ways for them, and it slowly quieted. A hushed silence of anticipation spread.

They knew were Caleb was headed. At the far end of the room was a raised dais, on which sat the Grand Council, a panel of seven judges. Their coven’s leadership. Usually the Council met in a side chamber, but on nights like tonight, when there was unprecedented crisis, they met in the large chamber.

As Caleb suspected, there they were, sitting there, already glaring harshly down at him. Caleb could not remember a single time in thousands of years when their expression held anything but judgment. He suspected that tonight would be the worst of all.

These men were of the old guard, and over the centuries, Caleb had been feeling that they were no longer the right men to lead his coven. Their judgments were archaic, of another era. They were too rigid, too uncompromising. Of course, they claimed their rigidity is precisely what had kept their coven alive for so many thousands of years. But Caleb was, of late, feeling just the opposite. Their rigid attitude, he felt, was actually endangering their coven in these quickly shifting times.

Caleb already suspected what they would say in response to his report. To take no action. To wait it out. To not get involved. Their standard method of action. Always conservative, safe, patient.

Always against change.

They would be especially angry with him this time, because he had proved them wrong. Weeks ago, Caleb had insisted that the Sword existed, and that Caitlin could lead them to it. They had shot him down, had insisted that such a Sword was just a fable, a child’s tale. Now, clearly, he was right.

This is probably why these thousands of vampires hushed at the sight of him, afforded him such respect. And probably why these judges looked even more harsh than usual.

The room was now absolutely still as Caleb stopped before the panel, just ten feet away. They glared down in silence.

Caleb knew he should bow down in reverence. But something inside him just didn’t feel like it anymore. He owed these people nothing. They had cast him out, and he was not there to ask for anything. He was there to save them. Whether they deserved it or not.

Their expressions hardened.

“Caleb of the White Coven,” began the lead judge, in the center of the panel. “We summoned you to give us a report. But first you must answer for your past crimes. You violated the law in leaving us without permission. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Caleb stared back, insolent.

“I have returned here tonight to warn you, and to save you. Not to ask for your forgiveness,” he snapped.

The crowd erupted in an astonished gasp. No one ever spoke to the judges like this.

“SILENCE!” yelled an administrator, banging the stone floor with his iron staff. Eventually, the room died down.

“Really?” said one of the judges. “And to save us from what, exactly?”

“Have you not seen what’s going on outside your gates?” Caleb asked. “Have you not seen the war that is even now spreading across Manhattan?”

“We have seen it. You are not the only one with powers of observation. And of what concern is it to us?”

“Concern?” Caleb asked, dumbfounded. Had these people really become that complacent, that indifferent? Had they really hardened their hearts so much towards the human race?

“If you think this war will be limited to humans, you are gravely mistaken,” Caleb continued.