All Just Glass

Jerome had returned to where he had been sitting when she’d first entered, and was just watching her. Waiting for what?

“Can we get this over with so I can get on with my night?” she asked.

He sighed, and nodded as if to himself. Finally, though, he began speaking.

“Can you imagine the terror I felt when I saw Kristopher Ravena lying, near death, with a hunter’s blade in his chest?” he asked. As he spoke, he approached her, as if to plead with her for sanity. “When I saw Zachary Vida with his throat nearly torn out by his own kin?”

She circled to put the coffee table between them, and Jerome backed off and leaned against the front door.

“I imagine it was terrible for you—Wait, you were there?” She interrupted her wry response as pieces fell into place.

“I hadn’t picked up on who you were, but Heather called me a few minutes after you left. I alerted the brothers.”

Adia wondered for a moment why Heather had called Jerome and not Kaleo. Then she realized that it made sense: her intention had been to warn Jerome that the hunters had found his number, and not to protect Sarah.

“You sent Kristopher and Nikolas, and yet you pretend to be concerned that Zachary was hurt?”

“I believed that the brothers would, to the best of their ability, attempt not to harm the hunters, out of respect for their newest fledgling. If I had wanted to ensure the Vidas’ slaughter, I would have called Kaleo instead.”

“And why didn’t you?” Suddenly she was remembering the scene she had returned to, and imagining once again how much worse it could have been. Zachary and Michael had both lost enough blood that they would have been dead had the vampires wished it.

“You believe me now, do you?” Jerome asked.

She shook her head but said, “I’m willing to entertain a conversation about the possibility.”

Jerome nodded. “That’s about as much as I can expect. In short, the world needs hunters. Immortals need the possibility of their own deaths. And, as I’ve said before, I am uncomfortable with the concept of wholesale slaughter. But now we have a problem. Dominique has called on the Rights of Kin. So long as that law is in play, it almost guarantees the death of your line, and every other witch line alive.”

“A little arrogant, don’t you think?” Adia said with a bravado she didn’t really feel.

“Think about it. If you slay either brother, the other will avenge it. Those two are closer than human twins. They have twined their powers together for more than a century. As a witch, you would be able to see that when you look at them. Neither survives well in separation, and I fear that if one died, the other would simply succumb to madness, and that madness would demand vengeance. And, since both brothers are protected by Kaleo, and Nikolas is one of Kendra’s favorites, they would have powerful allies. They would bring most of our line into the fray, and though other lines have tried to rule our kind, Kendra’s line has always been the deciding factor. The result would be a war, and your stupid, stupid kin would keep fighting it because of a law written by a scared little girl who had just witnessed her mother’s murder thousands of years before either of us was born.”

Adia had been so wrapped up in his words she was startled when he fell silent and she suddenly realized he was much closer than he should have been. She moved to raise her knife, and he shoved her backward, sending her off balance—but only long enough for him to step back again, keeping her from attacking.

“What option do we have?” she asked. “Should we just forget all the deaths this generation?”

“Do you want to survive?” he snapped.

“Sacrificing all we believe in to preserve some semblance of our flesh would destroy our line as surely as any of your kind could.” She had already accepted that this might be the end. If their line had to die, she would rather die with dignity than beg for leniency and fade into obscurity.

“I’ve seen enough genocide in my time, witch,” he said. “You don’t want to choose that path. Find an option. Be creative. Use some of the wit and intelligence I know your line possesses and come up with something.” She started to object, but he spoke over her. “And don’t give me that line about how Vidas don’t compromise or make deals. It’s crap. There is no such thing as perfection.”

“Maybe not,” she admitted, thinking of the many mistakes she had made in the past day alone. “But that doesn’t mean we stop trying.”

Jerome shook his head. “Would you like to see what perfection looks like in reality, Adia?” he asked.

There was a challenging light in his eyes, along with a hint of anger. Part of her wanted to rise to that challenge, but part of her sensed that if she did so, she would regret it.

Refusing, however, had never been a choice.

CHAPTER 17

SATURDAY, 4:50 P.M.

SARAH GAPED AT Kristopher, struggling to control her anger and the bloodlust that seemed to rise and tangle with it, like the two were feeding on each other.

Her family was trying to kill her. As if that weren’t sufficient, she had dreamed Kristopher’s memories of his dead first crush and then heard from Kaleo’s favorite bloodbond that she would be a good little vampire, before having a short discussion about how vampires occasionally utterly ruined human lives for fun. Then she had a flashback to Nissa’s committing murder, and now Kristopher thought he could fix it all up with a Broadway musical?

Kristopher seemed taken aback by her response. “I thought it would be nice to spend an evening focused on something other than a situation we have no power to change right now.” Though he didn’t say it out loud, and tried to squash it before she heard it, another thought sneaked through to her: I want to show you there are still things in the world worth living for. “If you don’t want to see a show, we could do something else, anywhere we want. Have you ever wanted to visit the Louvre? It’s past ten o’clock in Paris right now, but I could call Kendra, and she could have it opened for us.”

The words felt like a blow. She was on the verge of tears and had no idea why.

“Damn it, Kristopher!” Sarah shouted. “You nearly died today. I nearly killed my cousin. We are being made top priority by every hunter my mother has ever met—including everyone I ever called family. Your people are in danger, mostly because you and I showed absolutely no common sense or self-control—”

“You chose to live your own life,” Kristopher said challengingly.

“I didn’t choose anything. You chose for both of us, remember?”

Kristopher had waited, perfectly mellow, through most of the tirade, his expression clearly asking, So? It was only then that he flinched. “Then let me do something right this time. Let me show you something beautiful. Do you like—”

“Kristopher, please,” she begged before he could finish the question. “I know you’re scared for me.” His anxiety and guilt were pummeling her, no matter how he tried to suppress them. “I know you think this will make me feel better. But this isn’t what I need right now.”

He nodded slowly, but she knew he was humoring her more than agreeing. He was so sure that if only he could show her his world, she would be able to accept it as fully as he did.

Nikolas cleared his throat, alerting them both to his presence. Sarah turned, wondering how long he had been standing there and how he would respond. She hadn’t needed to read Kristopher’s mind to see that she had hurt him. But Nikolas’s expression was strangely shuttered, impossible to read.

“Kristopher, I checked in with Nissa while I was out,” Nikolas said. “A lot of her people normally rely on SingleEarth, and she’s having trouble finding them all safe havens. Her people tend to trust you more than me, so I thought you might be in a better position to help. I’m sure you could do so and still get back in plenty of time to make curtain on Broadway.” Had he been standing there long enough to hear the idea, or had he known ahead of time what Kristopher had planned? Or did he just hear Sarah’s reeling reaction in her mind?