Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Promises to Keep

Now he brought her back to her home, dragging her like dust in his wake as he blinked out of Kendra’s home and reappeared in Brina’s living room across town. He shook his head at the doors she had left wide open after she had ordered the slave who’d cut her down out of her sight.

“Do you have a lady’s maid?” he asked as he poked through her wardrobe, searching for something more acceptable to wear back to Kendra’s gala.

“No,” she lied, though of course she did. That servant had been a gift from her brother. Brina’s whole household would certainly fall apart without Brina’s lady’s maid. But she had also been the only one with the temerity to cut Brina down earlier, and Brina didn’t want to face her just yet.

Kaleo looked at Brina with a familiar expression that asked, Why must you be so difficult?

“I don’t want to go back to the party,” she announced when Kaleo pulled out a crimson sheath dress that was perfectly his taste and absolutely the opposite of hers.

He sighed in frustration. “Brina, I am trying to help you. You obviously can’t be alone right now.”

“I’m better alone than with you .”

He grabbed her arm when she tried to sweep past him. “Get dressed, Brina. Come back to the party. By the time you get back here, your studio will be repaired and you can pretend none of this ever happened.”

Will a clean dress and a canapé bring my brother back, too? she wanted to demand.

No. She knew better than to mention Daryl to Kaleo, who would only use it as an opportunity to twist the knife. Kaleo didn’t care about her grief or her dead brother. He cared about his image , and the fact that her breakdown reflected poorly on him. Now her “tantrum” was causing him to miss his precious party.

“Believe it or not,” she snapped, “playing dress-up and hanging paintings I despise to make you feel better is not my priority.” If her heart could beat, it would have been pounding with the exhilaration of standing up to him. If only she had done so when he had first swept into her home that afternoon, demanding that she and her art put in an appearance. Though if she hadn’t been at the party, she wouldn’t have met that intriguing stranger. “Who was Exequías’s toy tonight?” she asked, cutting off Kaleo’s saccharine retort. “I haven’t seen him before.”

“If I heard right, he’s a witch, and a hunter,” Kaleo replied, shaking his head at her abrupt change of subject. “They’re better left alone.”

Her own laugh was so sudden, so sharp, that it made her jump. “Oh?” she challenged. “And what was the name of that witch you wooed, back before Midnight fell? You know the one. You took her from her family. Left behind her human husband and two darling infants … mm, Rachel and something. I can’t remember the boy’s name. How many times did Rachel try to kill you?”

Her words finally hit their mark.

“Fine,” he whispered, his temper coming out not in volume or violence but in his words. “Go throw yourself at the witch. If nothing else, I’m sure he can help you kill yourself.”

Kaleo disappeared, leaving her to absorb the echo of his words.

I’m sure he can help you kill yourself .

She turned that last sharp retort over in her head, examining it. Before the witch had come to her, she had wanted to kill herself.

What had he done to her?

She thought back to her suicide attempt, and shuddered. At the time, it had seemed like the only option. Now the heavy yoke of grief wasn’t gone , but she could start to see past it, as if the witch’s magic had lanced the worst of the poison from her spirit.

“THAT WAS BRINA?” Jay asked as Xeke led him away. The vampire’s arm across his shoulders was meant to look possessive, so Brina would let him go. Jay was grateful that it helped him stay upright despite the pounding in his head.

“She tends to conveniently forget that laws such as freeblood status exist,” Xeke said quietly as Jay walked with him back to the room where they had first spoken.

Freeblood laws had been an invention of the original Midnight, back in the sixteen hundreds. Humans could be abducted into the empire by anyone’s whim, but witches and shapeshifters were given the right to remain free as long as they abided by Midnight’s laws.

“Daryl was her brother?” Jay asked, confirming.

“I’m surprised she’s noticed he’s dead,” Xeke answered dryly.

Jay winced. “She has.”

“Should I assume this all means you are no longer in the mood to follow through on that delightful offer you made earlier?” Xeke asked.

Jay considered it. He was shaken, having reached too deeply into Brina’s madness, and now felt raw and vulnerable.

“Rain check?” He closed his eyes a moment, trying to focus, and felt his body sway.

“Are you all right?” Xeke shifted his arm from Jay’s shoulders to around his waist, taking some of his weight. “You look faint.”

“I’ll be fine. I should head out.” He needed to be anywhere else, far away from so many ancient minds pressing against his.

“Are you driving?” Xeke asked.

“Yeah,” Jay answered. He didn’t want to drive. Should he take Xeke up on the offer to stay at his place, though? “The couch would be fine,” he said.

Xeke chuckled, and said, “Why, yes, I do happen to have a couch where you can crash.”

“Sorry,” Jay said. “I’m unfocused. It’s hard to tell what you’ve said out loud.”

“Most telepaths can’t read vampires,” Xeke said.

“I’m not a telepath,” Jay answered. “I’m an empath. Similar talents, different mechanism.”

“You can explain the difference to me later,” Xeke said. “For now, you look about ready to fall over.” He reached into Jay’s jacket pocket to retrieve his car keys. “I’ll drive.”

“Thanks,” Jay whispered.

He took a few steps, and then felt himself being lifted.

Jay shut his eyes.

“You are one mellow witch,” Xeke observed.

“You’re relaxing to be around,” Jay replied.

“You’re not helping my ego.”

“Your ego doesn’t need help.”

By the time the car had warmed up, Jay was asleep.

He dreamed of the barren wasteland he had found in Brina’s mind. As he walked across the scalding sand, his skin started to char, peeling and flaking into black ash like a Hollywood vampire in the sun.

He woke alone on a comfy sectional sofa. A note on the coffee table said:

I had to get to a screening. Feel free to stay as long as you like, and help yourself to anything from the kitchen. Your car is in the parking lot .

—Xeke

Was the excuse genuine, or had Jay’s host left because he wasn’t sure how his hunter guest would act once out of Kendra’s territory?

Intrigued by this chance to learn a little more about a man he had long admired, Jay began to look around. Instead of a bed, the largest room boasted a bank of three computers, one of which had been left on, with a video camera plugged into it, and was now flashing the message Import Successful .

Hoping for a sneak peek at Xeke’s next work, Jay pressed Play. The video was raw footage of an interview.

“It’s a controversial subject,” the woman in front of the camera was saying. She looked vaguely familiar to Jay, but he couldn’t place her. “Even today, many serpiente consider Anhamirak and Ahnmik gods . People do not like having their gods studied scientifically.”

Now Jay recognized her—she was one of the parabiological researchers working with SingleEarth to investigate the history of serpiente shapeshifters. SingleEarth’s scientists had established that vampires, most witches, and all shapeshifters had a link to a particular elemental power called Leona, an immortal being of immense power. Scientists were still trying to figure out what made all her magical descendents so different from each other.