Forever Trilogy 3: Angel Eyes Read online

  “My intentions are only to take my place among the Four.”

  Udric laughed. “The Four? Haven’t you heard? We two, are all that’s left of “The Four.” Brighton seems to have a way of swallowing us up. But not you, I see. Not even a death sentence from Daemon himself can kill the “great” Tristan Wilder.”

  I was growing impatient with this conversation. “Will Daemon grant me an audience or not?”

  Udric leaned back in his seat. “But of course. You are, after him, the highest ranking vampire alive.” A wicked smile played under his lips. “I’m sure that he’s already thought of some fantastic plan to use your return to further convince us all of his utter magnificence.”

  “Now then,” he continued. “There will be no further need for us to continue with this charade. We both know that your motives are one hundred percent insincere. I only hope that whatever it is you are planning will weaken him enough so that I myself might seize power. You will not have me as an enemy so long as you don’t go trying to kill him.” He laughed. “It’s been far too long since we’ve had a good revolt on our hands.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Resistance

  *Ana*

  The pain in my arm had become unbearable— to point that I had become dizzy. I could barely see straight by the time I had reached Wintre. I crash landed through the glass wall of my bedroom.

  I had been aiming for the balcony.

  It was dark when I awoke in my bed, and I could just barely make out my mother’s outline next me. Darren was sleeping in a chair pulled up close to the bed.

  It took moment for my brain to reload. The memory of helping Leia and the others attack those angels came storming back into my mind, followed by London’s words to me: “I haven’t forsaken you, Ana. You’re going to get the chance you’ve been looking for. Daemon is coming to Brighton. Be ready, Ana. Please, be ready.” London had died delivering that message to me, only this time I wouldn’t be able to take solace in fact that she had safely returned to heaven. There was a reason that angels bonded with human souls when they came down to earth, it gave them a way back to heaven should something happen to them. Those angels in that field hadn’t bonded with anyone. They simply no longer existed.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I refused to break down. London had to have known what she was doing; as an angel, she had always possessed the gift of foresight. She had sacrificed herself in order to help me to fulfill a purpose that I had run from for far too long. No more being weak. No more feeling sorry for myself. I was rededicating myself to what I had promised to do before. From now on, I was no one’s pawn.

  I pulled myself out of the bed, surprised at how little pain I felt in my left arm. Genevieve must have come by with her healing magic. She wasn’t as gifted a healer as an angel, but she was pretty close. I headed over to the curtain and pulled it back, and both sunlight and a light breeze found my face.

  Darren’s hand fell onto my shoulder, startling me.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “I’ll be okay,” I replied.

  “Ana, what in the world happened to you yesterday? You said that you’d forgotten something and you never came back. Half of the haven was out looking you.”

  “I did something that I regret, but it led me to London. She had a message to for that I really needed hear…”

  Darren’s head jerked in surprise. “London? Wh-what did she say?”

  “That Daemon is coming to Brighton. And I doubt very seriously that he’s coming alone.”

  **********

  For only the second time in my life, I gave the order for an emergency Council Meeting.

  Helena looked stunned when I said the words to her, and I think that she was waiting for me to say that I was kidding or something. When she asked if I wanted to clear it with my grandmother first, I kindly reminded her that I was the heir, not my grandmother. And not even that could get my grandmother to stop by my room to see what was happening. That was fine. She’d just have to find out the same time as everyone else.

  It wasn’t until two o’clock that Guardian Dent showed up at my bedroom door. His son was with him and both wore matching frowns. “What’s the emergency, Princess? My men haven’t reported anything.”

  “There’s going to be another attack, and this time Daemon himself will be leading them here. We need to be ready.” London’s warning wouldn’t go in vain. Not again.

  Guardian Dent’s face dropped. “May we come in?”

  I stepped aside and let them through.

  I went over and took a seat on my bed and Chris sat down beside me. His father paced the floor in front of us.

  “How did you come about this knowledge?”

  “Last night, when you all were looking for me, I met up with an old friend and she warned me.”

  “I don’t mean sound disrespectful, but you’ll have to do a better job of explaining yourself than that. The people have embraced this peace offering from the vampires. It doesn’t excuse what happened in the other havens, but it does keep their families safe. And that is their number one priority. If you go to them with talk of war and no clear cut proof, they won’t be very receptive to that. They’ll undoubtedly think that you are the one inciting it.”

  It was silent for the minute that followed.

  “I… met with another angel. With London. I don’t know if you knew that she was an angel too, that all conjurers are, but she was the one who told me. I don’t have anything else to prove to them that we’re in danger. Just my word.”

  Guardian Dent crossed his arms and shook his head. “Then you had better be damned convincing, Princess.”

  Another half hour would pass before I was summoned down to the Council Room by Helena. As we walked, she kept cutting her eyes toward me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “It’s not my place to second guess you, but do you really mean to dissolve the peace agreement that you and Daemon signed?”

  “No. I’m saying that Daemon means to dissolve that peace agreement, and that we need to be ready for that.”

  Helena started to say something more, but stopped herself. She nodded instead, but it was obvious that she was very apprehensive about this move.

  She wasn’t alone. As we approached the center of the house, we encountered the mass of witchfolk that usually waited for whatever decision was made in the Council Room. I wasn’t sure who had let the information slip, but after a quick scan of the thoughts in the room, it was clear that every one of them knew what I was planning to do. Murmurs and distrustful stares surrounded me, and I began to doubt whether or not these people would believe me at all.

  The urge to run back to my room was very much in my head. I fought it because I had to, I couldn’t let these people die. I couldn’t let Daemon win.

  As I approached the hidden door, someone took a hold of my hand. It was Amelie. She whispered three words before we disappeared into the clock. “No more peace.”

  The Council Room was silent until Amelie and I stepped inside, hand-in-hand. Commotion exploded within its walls, and I found myself shaking as I approached the floor. My grandmother called for silence, and eventually, she got it.

  “What is the reason for this meeting, since you felt the need to keep it hidden from the Elder Witches?”

  The meeting had just started, and already I was being undercut by my own grandmother. A quick trip into her mind revealed to me that as close as she had come to forgiving me once, she was just far in the opposite direction. Her heart had hardened towards me, probably forever. That realization struck another blow at my confidence. I would have no allies in this room today.

  “Well…” she pressed. The people seated in front of me grew more impatient as well.

  I cleared my throat. “I am here—“

  “Speak up, child!” my grandmother shouted. Snickers sounded in the seats, and some began to shout for the meeting to end.

  Genevieve stood up in the front
row, and the room went silent. I hadn’t even realized that she was here. “Is this how Brighton treats their heir?” Her words were meant for everyone but her eyes bore a hole into my grandmother’s. “There will be silence from here on out. You be will be informed of when the proper time arises for your thoughts to be heard. That goes for everyone present. Now then, please continue, Ana.”

  Grateful for her intervention, I took in a deep breath. “I have been warned by another angel that Daemon doesn’t intend to keep up his end of the peace agreement. He’s going to attack, and if we aren’t ready, we’ll all die.”

  Even Genevieve’s reprimand couldn’t silence the reaction those words incited. People muttered under their breath, and uneasy faces filled the room.

  “We’re going to have to make changes. We’re going to need to invite anyone who wants to fight to come to Brighton. Almost everyone here lives in large houses across huge amounts of land. Everyone can afford to take some people in. But we’ll still have to keep up appearances during the day, so that means we still go to school and we still go our jobs if we have them. It’ll be almost as it was before the peace agreement, but we can’t afford to let ourselves get complacent this time. We need to be ready for anything.”

  I took another deep breath and then started for the exit. Guardian Dent stood up in his seat. “Don’t you wish to hear our concerns, Princess?”

  Genevieve had already given me an example of the authority an heir was supposed to command, and I drew upon that example. “I’m not asking whether or not you agree with me, Mr. Dent. I’m giving you an order that I expect to be followed. Immediately.”

  I continued up the stairs as the room sat in stone cold silence. It wasn’t until I had stepped out into the hall that I could breathe again. I had no idea if the stunt I had just pulled would actually work. I just knew that I desperately needed it to.

  Heir or not, I understood that I was just a kid to them. I needed an ally whose opinion they wouldn’t question. I needed Duncan Mathalbane.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Homecoming

  *Tristan*

  The ocean passed quietly below us as the night settled in. Personally, I had never like planes. Not even private ones. I suppose I was old fashioned in that way, I believed that a trip should take time. It should be enjoyed as an event in itself, not just dead time between destinations… Maybe I was just kidding myself, my ill mood probably had much more to do with the world I was returning to than anything else. Part of me worried that I would lose myself, just as I had before. This time, Ana wouldn’t be there to whisper my name, to bring me back from the darkness…

  “I do believe that this is our stewardess’s last night alive,” said Udric from the next seat over. “A delightful little creature, isn’t she?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “You must lighten up a bit, my friend. There will be plenty of time for plots and schemes in the future. Surely you have appetites that require your immediate attention?”

  When my head turned, a glass of thick red liquid hovered inches from my face, its aroma drew out my canines and drenched my mouth with saliva. I took the glass.

  “Drink up,” he insisted.

  It had been a long time since I had last tasted human blood. I didn’t want to drink, but if I was going to convince Daemon that I had returned to my old ways, then I would surely be gulping bottles and bottles of the stuff. I wasn’t sure how much of it I could safely handle and still be myself, but I didn’t have a choice now. It was time to put the self control I had learned over the years to the ultimate test.

  I put the glass to my lips and downed the blood in one gulp. The taste of it was so sweet that I shuddered in my seat.

  Udric clapped. “Good. Good. You are committed to this plan of yours, aren’t you? A bit of advice for the next time: Don’t hesitate. The old Tristan wouldn’t have.”

  It made me uneasy that Udric had been able to see through my act so easily. Had he not been working some angle of his own, there would be no way that he’d have let me anywhere near Daemon. His ambition alone had saved London’s plan.

  Still, if I was going to convince Daemon and the others, I would need to step it up a notch. But again, I had to wonder: Just how far could I push myself without falling over the edge?

  Though we had taken off from an airport, we didn’t land at one. There was just a long strip of pavement in a wide field of grass where plane set down. A dirt road led off into the trees in the distance. From the window of the airplane, I could see black pickups coming down the dirt trail, kicking up a thick cloud of brown fog. Udric unbuckled his seatbelt and then motioned for me to follow him.

  A dozen vampires, all in black cloaks, surrounded me the moment my feet hit the pavement.

  “Do not resist,” Udric mumbled as he stepped toward the truck.

  I saw the first vampire start toward me, and instinct took over. My eyes locked on the base of neck, where my left hand would land the blow. It would dislodge his spine before he could think to defend himself, eliminating him as a threat to me.

  But I resisted that impulse. I let him land the blow to my stomach that dropped me to my knees. I bowed my head so that the second attacker could place the sack over my head, and stretched out my arms for the thick metal restraints that felt like ice against the bare skin of my wrists and ankles.

  The next thing I knew I was being carried, only to be set down in the grass. Suddenly the field came alive with sounds of car doors opening and then closing. Engines roared to life.

  I felt a jerk at my feet. I was being pulled through grass by one the trucks. I braced myself for the pain that I knew was coming.

  Rocks tore into my flesh as the truck turned onto the dirt road. I clenched my teeth. I would not give them the satisfaction of hearing my pain. It wasn’t long before the friction tore away the back portion of my shirt, and then began to burn away at my exposed back.

  Jarring pain caused my eyes to well up so I closed them. I thought of Ana, remembered that her life, perhaps even her soul was on the line, and I endured.

  Somewhere along the way, I had lost consciousness. Whether it had been in reaction to the pain, or because my head had hit a stone on the dirt path I wasn’t sure.

  I awoke in dark room, on a cold stone floor. Specks of sunlight slipped in through tiny cracks in the ceiling. It was a small space that enclosed me. I could all reach all four walls from where I lay on floor.

  It wasn’t until I attempted to sit up that I felt the pains of my journey here. My back was raw, but healing, the newly formed flesh growing over and around the dirt that had accumulated there.

  With some effort, I managed to get to my feet. I put my weight up against one of the walls to support myself.

  Once the pain had subsided into a dull ache again, I was able to gather my thoughts. The very first clear thought that came to my mind was the fact that I had been tricked. I suppose it had been a bit naïve to think that I could just walk back into Daemon’s court and be accepted. Though, in my defense, Udric and Nathena had led entire revolts against Daemon and he had welcomed them back with open arms the moment they were defeated. Obviously, my crimes were much worse in his opinion. The next thing I thought about was Ana, and how I had failed her. What help could I be to her here? I was locked down like some kind of animal.

  Hours passed like this and soon the specks of lights streaming through cracks in the ceiling turned from yellow to orange to white as the day passed from afternoon into evening into night. I suppose I should have been somewhat grateful, for the last time I was in Daemon hands, I had been tortured with needles for hours on end. But then again, that might still be in my future.

  The faint hum of music reached me where I stood captive, and I could see that very little had changed since I had been here last, or in the centuries after the visit previous to that. Daemon still saw fit to throw parties every night of the year, inviting wealthy humans to pay him tribute (usually in currency), enticing their minds with the idea
of an immortal life. It was how Daemon could afford so lavish a lifestyle, and how he kept control of so many vampires. Because the earliest of us can pass so easily for humans, many of them live amongst them, relying on Daemon’s financial support to pay for their costs of living.

  It was morning again before I knew it, and the sunlight returned to find me exactly the same as when it left, leaning up against the stone wall of my prison. When afternoon moved in, I began to hear voices and suddenly my ceiling slid away.

  A rope was thrown down and I grabbed hold to it like I was dangling from a cliff. Slowly I was able to climb up and out of the pit that had held me, and I laid out on the grass, basking in the sunlight.

  Udric’s face appeared above mine, the hood of his bright red cloak eclipsing the sun. “Sleep well?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  With his left hand, he shooed away the cloaked vampires that accompanied him. With his other hand, he pulled me to my feet.

  “Why,” I asked.

  Udric chuckled. “You’ve been gone too long, Tristan. You’ve forgotten the way things work around here. Perception is everything. Every vampire on the compound watched Daemon throw you into that pit. You defied him by coming here alive when he had ordered you dead. He needed to make a show your being punished for that, even when in truth, he is happy to have you here.”

  “So it’s over then?” I replied. “He’s accepted me back?”

  Udric shook his head. “Not by a long shot.”

  The “pit” where I had been deposited was near the center of wide courtyard. Buildings encircled the space like a giant horseshoe. A large marble statue of a man with fangs that reached down to his chest like a sabretooth tiger stood at the exact center of the courtyard and paths of shimmering white stone led toward the buildings. In the distance I could see a giraffe feeding in a tree, ducks waddling into a small pond, one after the other.