Forever Trilogy 3: Angel Eyes Read online

  Guardian Dent was the last person to step out of the truck. He offered Genevieve his arm, and she took it. Together the three of them made their way into the ballroom, passing us in the entrance without a word.

  We followed them as they walked slowly through the ballroom. Genevieve and Guardian Dent led the group, with Amelie just behind. A part of me wanted to so badly to tap her on the shoulder so that I could ask her about Corinne, but the answer to that question was painfully obvious. I would only be asking in some desperate attempt to tame my own guilt.

  We had only made it about halfway through the ballroom before Genevieve could no longer continue. Her legs gave out on her, Guardian Dent had only just managed to keep her upright, and she was placed into an empty chair. She and my grandmother locked eyes for a few moments and then my grandmother pulled up a chair beside her. She took Genevieve into her arms and we all listened as Genevieve’s cries echoed in the ballroom. They grated at my conscience like nails on a chalkboard.

  When she had calmed enough to talk, she encouraged us all to pull up chairs, so we did so.

  “I want to thank you,” she began, “for bringing me here. I won’t lie to you. A large part of me wishes that I had met the same fate as the rest of my haven, but I couldn’t bear to waste the sacrifice of those who worked so hard to get me out of the city.”

  “You know that you have a home here,” my grandmother replied. “I would have come and got you myself if that’s what it took.”

  Genevieve took her hand and kissed it. She turned to me. “And thank you as well.”

  Amelie’s head shot up. “Don’t thank her.”

  Genevieve’s eyes hardened. “Amelie, what did we discuss on the plane. We are all on the same side.”

  Amelie’s eyes watered as anger reddened her cheeks and forehead. “If that’s true, then why weren’t they attacked? Why is her haven the only one still standing?”

  Every head turned toward me and I felt myself shudder. I had no reply for that accusation.

  Guardian Dent came to my rescue. “It’s because they’re afraid of her. She’s not just our heir, she’s our guardian angel—“

  “She’s the reason my entire family is dead,” Amelie interrupted. Her eyes moved from Guardian Dent to Genevieve. “Tell them, your majesty. Tell them what it sounded like to hear so many people begging for their lives, to hear little children screaming for their mothers. I still hear it, even now. And when I close my eyes, I can see it too. The bashed in skulls, arms and legs separated from bodies… I didn’t believe them when they told us that she was an angel, that she was Merline come back to life. But now I believe them. She’s the angel of death, and she has plagued the whole world with vampires.” Finally, she turned to face me. “I will never forgive you, Ana. I hate you with everything that I am.”

  Guardian Dent grabbed a chair and slammed it onto the floor. “Dammit we were attacked! Three weeks ago. If you recall, we asked the other havens for help, and every one of them refused. If you had stood with us then—“

  “She’s right,” I spoke, cutting Guardian Dent off. And with that I stood up and walked out of ballroom.

  **********

  As much as I had longed for sleep before, it wouldn’t come to me now. I was stuck lying on my side, staring over at the small sliver of moonlight sneaking in through the bottom of the curtain that covered the glass wall in my room.

  I didn’t regret walking out of the ballroom. Between Tristan’s return to being monster, and deaths of so many innocent people, my heart had taken as much of a beating as I could possibly bear. The pain of it all had just become too much.

  Tomorrow would be different. I was done with crying. And I was done with feeling sorry for myself. Tomorrow, Daemon was no one’s problem but my own. I had no idea how I’d go about finding him, or even if I was strong enough to kill him as a fallen angel, but I was going after him. Either he was going to die, or I was. It was just that simple.

  I was through with being weak little girl, and I was done with running from my purpose. Tomorrow, everything about me would be different.

  “The hell it will.” Leia’s voice sounded from the darkness on the other side of the room and had startled me.

  I sat up in my bed, staring into the black until I could make out two dull orange orbs. “What do you want Leia? It’s hasn’t been a very good day.”

  Leia’s eyes came closer and then she pulled open the curtain, flooding the room with moonlight. She sat down on the bed next to me. “Did you forget that there was a conversation that you and I were supposed to have tonight?”

  I did forget. “Can’t it wait?”

  “No it can’t!” she shouted.

  I shrunk back in my bed.

  She attempted to smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have gone through a great deal of trouble to make peace with Daemon. We have an understanding, he and I.”

  “What kind of an understanding? He killed fifteen hundred witches!”

  “But he didn’t attack Brighton, now did he? As I said, we have an understanding. You see, he was faced with a big problem when your forest fire sent the vampires away. Many of them came back speaking of how there were angels protecting Brighton. They wondered if they were in danger being retaliated against. Daemon had almost lost control of them all. He needed something major to reassure them in his rule. He needed to show them that havens still belonged to him and that he was in control. So we helped him plot the attacks on the other havens—“

  “What? You… helped them murder all those people?”

  She nodded, continuing to smile. It sickened me to my stomach.

  “How could you do that?”

  “Easy. There will come a time when I will need your help. I told him that he didn’t have to worry about you anymore. That you belonged to me now.”

  “I don’t belong to anyone. And I’m going to kill Daemon, I don’t care what you have to say about it.”

  Leia’s face twisted up into a nasty expression. “You will do as I say, or your precious Darren will die a most terrible death.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “Leave him out of this.”

  “I’m sorry Ana, but it doesn’t work like that. I’ve saved his life twice now. You’ve pledged your allegiance to me. What has been done, can very easily be undone.”

  I swallowed.

  She continued. “The angels of heaven can no longer wait for you, Ana. The vampire situation has become a bit dire, don’t you think? And when they come, we shall have our revenge. We will smash them out of existence, and you’re going to help us.”

  “I won’t. You can threaten Darren all you want. I know he’d rather die than have me involved with killing angels.”

  “Oh? Did I only mention Darren’s name? Well allow me to make a small correction. You’ll want to listen very closely to this, Ana. If you betray us, this haven will burn. That I swear to you. Do you want the destruction of yet another haven on your hands?”

  The faces of Amelie and Genevieve skipped through my mind. “No, I don’t.”

  Leia’s face relaxed into a calm smile. “I didn’t think so. Now then, you’re going to sit tight until I return, okay? I think you have a Miss Honeybee contest coming up. Exciting stuff!”

  I didn’t answer. My mind was still spinning. How had this happened? Why hadn’t London chosen to warn me about this?

  Leia stood up from the bed. The look in her eyes told me that she was searching through my thoughts. “She did tell you, silly. Didn’t she say that you only had three days? From the night of your coronation, am I right? Hmm, if my math is correct, that’s the exact day that Daemon and I came to our agreement.”

  I gasped.

  Leia laughed. “Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter Nine

  Struggle

  *Tristan*

  I would have given anything to have access to Ana’s thoughts right now. In the lifetimes before, she took the news of even a single vampire attack extremely hard. It pained me to think o
f the amount of guilt that she was heaping onto herself after what happened to those other havens. I could only hope that Darren was there with her, holding her as I would have. But would he know what words to say to ease her mind?

  I sighed. I should be there.

  “You’re doing all of this for her,” I reminded myself. I had said the words aloud to pull myself out of my own head. If the taxi driver was listening, he didn’t comment.

  The taxicab slowed to a stop in front of a rundown club that looked to be long past its glory days. It was set off by itself, surrounded on all sides by fields of dirt. I hadn’t seen another building for miles.

  “That will be seventy two dollars and forty seven cents.” The cab driver stuck his hand through the gap in the clear plastic that separated us.

  I handed him a hundred dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

  He offered a gap-toothed grin and nodded. “Welcome to Phoenix, sir. Enjoy your stay!”

  I stepped out of the car and stared at the building for an extra moment. The exterior was black, and “The Love Shack” was written in violet neon lights that flickered across the top. Aside from the slender man next to the entrance, the place looked abandoned. I knew better.

  I approached the man, stepping over the velvet ropes that led up to the entrance. He was still human, I could smell the blood in his veins. He was also a cocaine addict, I could smell that too.

  “Costs twenty bucks to get in, sir.”

  I didn’t acknowledge his request. I walked straight past him and into the club. He didn’t give chase.

  Seventies music boomed in my ears, apparently someone had thought it wise to put speakers right next to the entrance. As I continued further into the club, I noticed a few middle aged couples twirling on the hardwood dance floor. A couple of older woman seated at the bar called me over. I ignored them as well.

  I was searching for the lookout. I had assumed that he would stick out, but the vampires hidden here had done well with whoever it was that they’d chosen. I had no idea who he/she might be. There was no alternative but to shake down the bouncer. I had hoped to make my entrance a bit more subtle.

  I saw him leaning into the doorway when I turned back for the entrance. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie. Once our eyes met he turned his head quickly, retreating out of the doorway.

  When I joined him outside, the walkie-talkie had mysteriously vanished.

  “Have you come to pay the twenty bucks, sir?” His voice was shaky, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I let my canines creep down out of my gums, and flashed them to the man. That got his attention.

  “What-what did ya want?” he asked.

  “Where’s the real entrance?” I grabbed a hold of his shirt, and he peed into his pants.

  “I’m n-not sup-supposed to t-tell outsiders,” he stuttered. “Either you kn-know about it or ya don’t.”

  With the front of his shirt balled up in my hand, I lifted him off the ground. “I’m giving you one last chance.”

  He was trembling. “P-Please sir, they’ll kill me.”

  “Tell me what I want to know!” I shouted.

  “Now, now,” spoke another voice from behind me. “There’s no need to go gettin’ all hostile and whatnot.”

  I dropped the bouncer, and he scurried off into the building. I turned to face the stranger who’d spoken to me.

  There turned out to be five strangers behind me. None were human.

  “What’s your name son?” asked the oldest. He had been the oldest when he changed anyway.

  “Tristan Wilder,” I replied.

  The man laughed. “Not the Tristan Wilder? I thought that the great Tristan Wilder had been put down like a gimp horse by The Source.”

  “Obviously, your thoughts were incorrect.” The fact that they even had to question my identity proved that they were very young vampires, created after the war. Still, they were remarkably well preserved, whoever their maker, he was one of “The First.”

  One of the vampires decided to test my identity. He lunged at me, and I removed his head from his body. It took a moment to completely calm myself, as the act had stirred at the monster inside of me. I had to be extra careful not to go too far. Without Ana’s help, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to bring myself back.

  The man laughed. “Hell, you certainly fight like Tristan Wilder. But I’m afraid that begs for another question. If you are who you say you are, then me and you, we’re on different sides of that line in the sand, ain’t we?”

  “Not anymore.”

  One of the others was laughing now. “Guess he got tired ‘a chasin’ witch tail. Decided ta’ come on home.”

  Now they were all laughing. Ana’s reaction to my attack on her and Darren had made me fearful of letting myself go again. Even if it was just pretending. I kept seeing the hurt in her face, kept hearing her tell me that she hated me. But I wasn’t being convincing enough. There was no way that I would have tolerated any of this in the time before Ana. If I was going to pull this off, I was going to have to push myself to the edge. I took in a deep breath. I could only hope—pray that I didn’t fall over…

  With a growl, I rushed the group, striking them all down before any one of them had time enough to react. I had broken arms and legs as though they were twigs, and every one of those vampires now lay at my feet.

  “I am Tristan Wilder, second of the Four. You will bow to me, and you will show me respect.” The urge to finish them off burned in my chest, and the longing to see them suffer further for their lack of respect had nearly prompted me to do just that. But I resisted. Barely. The beast within me, long sleep, was awake now. I had to stay in control.

  They were all too willing to tell me where the second entrance was now. It was no wonder I couldn’t find it inside the club, it had been moved out back. A great many years had passed since Aiden had me meet up with him here. So much had changed since then.

  It was literally a hole in the wall. A large piece of the painted brick was missing on the back of the building, allowing easy access to a back room where a door in the floor led down to a basement.

  Bingo.

  Doubt crept into my mind. This would be an even bigger test than before. Who knows how many vampires were down there, and I would need to convince them all that I had returned to the old ways if I was going to find a way to get to Daemon. I feared that it would require me going further than I was comfortable with.

  I snatched open the door. Stairs led down into darkness and then back into light near the bottom, where another door stood guard. I descended quickly, pausing once I had reached the light. The walls down here were made of dirt and explosives had been packed into them every couple of feet. If there was a threat of this place ever being discovered, whoever was in charge would have no problem throwing the switch that would set off these explosives, thus collapsing the tunnel and sealing the vampires in. It would mean a long and painful death as those vampires slowly succumbed to starvation, but remaining secret was paramount.

  I had planned on taking a moment to gather myself at the door, but it opened on its own. A young vampire, a female, waved me inside, and I stepped back into my past.

  It was a very large basement, perhaps as big as the entire club above it. Several pillars reached up around the room, and square wooden tables filled in all the spaces in between. The monitors spaced out across the walls displayed images of what was happening outside, so I was certain that they had all seen and heard my encounter with the five vampires who had come out to greet me.

  It was dead silent save for the whispers being passed from table to table. I moved toward the center of the room, pretending not to be repulsed by what I was seeing. Young men and women were tied these tables, with bite marks all over their bodies. Some of them were still conscious, and they called out to me for help. It was everything I could do not to rip them free.

  “Kneel!” I shouted. Heads waved back and forth as vampires looked around to see what the oth
ers were doing. This could go one of two ways. Either they’d kneel and acknowledge me as one of “The Four,” or they see me as the enemy and attack. There was well over fifty vampires gathered here, and though I had been gifted with the ability to fight, these were odds that even Daemon himself couldn’t readily overcome.

  It began. One, then three, then seven of them kneeled. Thirty seconds later, they had all dropped to a knee. All save for one.

  “The Tristan I knew wouldn’t have left anyone alive who disrespected him the way those five did.” The vampire that spoke to me had served in the Second Army once. My army.

  I needed to think quickly. “Consider it a show of loyalty.”

  A cruel smile spread across his face. “Perhaps.”

  “It’s Henry, isn’t it?”

  The vampire nodded. “That’s correct.”

  “Well, Henry, I have noticed that you have yet to kneel.”

  The vampire laughed now. “This is my place. I don’t kneel to anyone here. Not even you, General.”

  Murmurs were heard around the room, and vampires had begun to stand up again. I had to act, or risk losing everything, including my life.

  So I ended his.

  The vampires shouted their approval, banging on the sides of the tables.

  “Tell Daemon that his General has returned to him,” I announced, and I walked back to the door, ignoring the pleas from those people strapped to the tables. I had to get out of there, the blood was beginning to have an effect on me.

  I was up the stairs in an instant and ran until I was far enough away that I was certain that I was alone. I sat down in the dirt and closed my eyes, willing monster’s pull on me to fade.

  I kept hearing the voices of those people in my head, and everything in me wanted to go back. I wanted so badly to save them, equally as much as I wanted to taste their blood.

  Was I up to this?

  Chapter Ten

  Fun

  *Ana*

  The day after Genevieve and Amelie arrived, a vampire approached one of the guardians protecting our border with an envelope meant for me. That guardian had presented the letter to Guardian Dent, and Guardian Dent had decided to read it aloud during that afternoon’s regularly scheduled Council Meeting.