Nathan stands up, letting Hannah’s hand fall away from his thigh. “I said…this isn’t the time.”
“No, it’s alright,” I say, stepping up, “at least, for me it is.” I gaze to my side at Daisy, indicating that I’m not speaking for the both of us.
“I’m okay with it, too,” Daisy says. “It needs to be discussed.”
“Well, it’s weird to me,” Zia says. “I hate to say it, but they’re both human and they were best friends—maybe they just got tired of this life, that it was too much for them. I mean, if it were me, I’d probably stay freaked-out for a while, too.”
I feel Daisy’s eyes on me and I glance back at her briefly, letting her know that it’s probably time I tell everybody the truth about what happened.
Nathan knew all along that I had bonded Adria to me—he was the only one I told—but right now, only Daisy knows what happened the last time I saw Adria.
I walk over to stand near the fireplace and I look up at the portrait of Aramei and my father, but my mind replaces their faces with two faces closer to home.
“Adria’s no longer human,” I say with my back to the room, “if she’s even still alive.”
“What?” Zia’s mouth is on the floor by the sound of her voice.
I sense Nathan walking toward me. “Oh damn, Isaac, what did you do?”
I turn sharply at the waist in reaction to his words, at first feeling the sting of thinking he is reprimanding me, until I realize my defensive reaction is more in reply to my own guilt.
“She wanted it,” I say looking at Nathan, but seeing right past him. I inhale a deep breath and run my hand over the top of my head. “I would never have gone through with it, but the Blood Bond was killing her fast and she wasn’t going to allow herself to live like Aramei.”
“Ho-ly shit,” Zia says, plopping into the nearby recliner, her eyes staring out ahead of her. She looks up at me. “You bonded her to you?”
“Yes,” I say simply, “but that’s one thing I won’t talk about anymore, so drop it. And I mean it.” In this case, I will use my authority. What’s done is done and the Blood Bond isn’t anything that can be changed.
Not anymore.
Zia fully accepts my demand and looks away again, though completely devoid of her usual defiant sneers or comments that make Zia, Zia.
“I’m worried about her, Nathan,” I say, seeing his face now, searching for some kind of encouragement that only an older brother might be able to give. “I know that a Sire and his fledgling have an emotional bond and can communicate telepathically, but Nathan…I don’t feel or hear anything.”
“She hasn’t Turned her first time yet,” Nathan says, “and that link we have with our fledglings can’t be made until after that first time. Or—” Nathan looks away from me now. “Or, she’s already dead.”
I fight back the storm of emotions that are suddenly assailing me.
“I know…,” I say with exasperation, “I just—.” I let out another heavy breath. I already knew this information of course; I know more about our ways and our politics than just about anything, but I was only looking for some other reason why I may not be able to feel her. Maybe, like the Blood Bond, I hadn’t been told everything.
But I know I’m fooling myself.
“Well,” Zia says, her legs dangling over the arm of the recliner, “you have to admit that wherever Adria is, Harry knows about it and is probably with her. That fact couldn’t be any more plainly obvious.”
My sister, Camilla, raises her hand as if she’s in school and waits for me give her permission to speak. She’s the most submissive of my sisters and so it doesn’t surprise me.
I nod to her.
“I think Adria is strong enough,” she says in a yielding voice and when I don’t reprimand her, she seems more confident about speaking. In fact, she stands from the chair so that she has everyone’s attention. “I believe she is alive. She has always put off a certain energy and I still feel that energy.”
Camilla, I referred to her once as the ‘weird sister’, and that still holds merit because she does odd things that humans do and werewolves don’t have to: eats healthy food, meditates and does Yoga. But one thing about Camilla, being a female werewolf, she has a much stronger ability to sense the emotions and life-force of others than even I do being connected to Adria.
Her words give me hope.
There’s a knock at the door, which takes me out of my thoughts. No one ever knocks around this place; any company we ever get is brought by those who live here.
All of us look at each other for a moment, sharing the same thought.
“I’ll get it,” Daisy says.
She walks through the foyer and I see the fading sunlight fill the dark area when Daisy opens the door.
I hear their voices, but the only one I’m interested in is the one I’ve never heard before. It’s very faint and even with my keen sense of hearing it’s still hard to make out his words.
After a few seconds, Daisy shuts the front door and appears standing at the foyer entrance; clearly there is someone else behind her, but too tucked away in the darkness to be seen.
“Come on in,” she urges, and a young man, softer-looking and more petite than my brother’s girlfriend, Hannah, steps out. “This is Isaac,” Daisy holds out her hand to indicate me.
The young man bows his head, which I find a little weird because I have no idea who he is and I know he’s not a werewolf. He lifts his eyes to me, full of submission and obviously, fear.
“May I speak with you alone?” His voice is as soft as his exterior.
I glance at Daisy first and then at Nathan, who still stands beside me.
“Sure,” I say walking toward him.
I follow the boy outside, shutting the door behind me, but when I stay on the porch, he seems hesitant. His small eyes wander around, toward the windows and the front door.
I get the feeling maybe the porch isn’t private enough.
“Ummm, maybe if we step farther out into the driveway?” I hold out my hand, palm up and offer for him to lead the way.
He nods gently as if thanking me, which is also weird, and then I follow him into the driveway near the top of the bend, the same spot I stood with Adria out in the rain the night that she came back.
I force the memory out of my head.
The boy bows his head again and before I have a chance to tell him to stop doing that because it’s confusing the hell out of me, he starts to speak.
“My Mistress, Genevieve Bishop, sent me here to speak with you.”
I’m suddenly more alert than wary now.
If he’s here because of Genevieve, I know this might have something, maybe everything to do with Adria. My body stiffens with awareness and determination.
“Go on,” I say, urging him in my calmest voice, though there was still a lot of desperation in those two small words despite my attempt to hide it.
The boy has trouble meeting my eyes; he’s constantly looking toward the ground, or off to the side whenever I try to hook his gaze.
He needs to speak faster. Even the smallest hesitation between words is too long to suffer through.
“Why didn’t she just come here herself?”
“It is not safe for her here,” the boy says, looking carefully toward the house as if to indicate there is a danger inside. “She said that you must meet with her at a designated place and that if you must bring someone that only Nathan and Daisy Mayfair are allowed to join you.”
“How can Genna be in any danger here?” I say, finally meeting his gaze. “I find that hard to believe, considering what she is.”
The boy nods respectfully. “Yes, but she cannot come here. I am not at liberty to speak about it. Please, meet my Mistress on Water Street at the train bridge near the Kennebec River Rail Trail. She will be waiting for you in one hour.”
“An hour it is then,” I say without hesitation.
The boy doesn’t say another word, but bows to me, turns on his heels and disappears down the driveway and down the hill leading up to the main road. I watch him until he’s out of sight and I listen for any signs of a vehicle that he may have come here in, but there’s nothing. I hear his steps going over the pebble-sized pieces of gravel at the end of the driveway and then he’s gone.
Wasting no time, I rush back into the house.
“Yes, that’s what he said,” I whisper to Nathan and Daisy after pulling them into the back room and shutting the door. “I know it has to be about Adria, I can feel it.” My heart is pounding, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.
“Something’s not right about this,” Daisy says, staring toward the door that leads into the den where at least fifteen of our family and friends sit.
“I trust Genna,” I say.
Daisy looks at me. “No, I mean about them,” she says, nodding toward the door. “I-It just worries me, is all.”
“And it should,” Nathan says. “There’s only one thing that a Praverian fears and that’s another Praverian.”
27
IT’S ALMOST DARK WHEN the three of us make it to the train bridge. I park my Jeep in an alcove on the side of the road and we walk up the hill and into a veil of trees toward the railroad tracks. A few cars pass by on the street below, but the traffic is thinning out as the evening progresses. I’m starting to worry about the moon; tonight it’ll be full. Tonight is the night that I will know if Adria is alive or dead. And that makes this meeting with Genna that much more important, though I’m not exactly sure why. I’m conflicted about being here waiting for Genna when I want to be waiting for Adria’s connection to me to develop.
Twenty feet from the rusty old bridge and Genna steps out in the center of the tracks. I never noticed how bright green her eyes were; the only time I ever saw her was when she went with me to Georgia to find Adria, but even then I could hardly notice anything, I was so worried about my girl.
“Genna?” I say to break the silence. Already I’m looking around for any sign of Adria.
Genna steps closer.
“You see her?” Daisy says, apparently not granted the same opportunity.
“I don’t see her, either,” Nathan adds, peering into the trees.
“Sorry,” Genna says as she gets closer, “I have to be one hundred percent sure before I reveal myself to them.”
“Okay,” I say, “how?”
“They have to speak my name,” Genna says, “not my given name, but what I am.”
I look at my brother and sister, first wondering if they can hear Genna at least, but it’s apparent they can’t.
“She wants both of you to say the word Praverian.”
Daisy’s face gets all twisted. “Huh? Why?”
“Because a Praverian,” Nathan says with extra emphasis on the word, “can’t speak their name aloud, or it’ll mark them permanently to all other Praverians.” He looks into the semi-darkness as if looking at Genna, who’s actually three feet to the right of his gaze. “I just said it twice.” He holds up two fingers. “Baby, you already know I’m full-on werewolf—what’s with the distrust all of a sudden?”