Awakened (15 page)

The closer I got to the ahead corner, the stronger the inexplicable urge to sit down
became. I pushed harder on the wall to steady myself. I was stronger than this.

Ana and Darke probably wouldn’t stay outside long. I walked faster.

She’d wanted to check in on me after my conversation with Darke, and Darke hadn’t
allowed her to do so, which I was grateful for. Darke’s words had really struck a
chord, and I didn’t think seeing Ana after I’d said those things to her was a good
idea. The urge to apologize was great, and though I knew that I couldn’t stay here
to keep Laurent from taking his anger out on her, I hoped that Darke would help her.

I allowed the anger from Darke’s earlier lies about my parent’s death to surface,
pushing me forward, toward the large ornate doors that I hoped were the exit. Jace
and the Council had some serious explaining to do—not that I completely believed Darke,
but he was just too strong and sure to ignore.

I reached the doors and held my breath as I turned the knob, hoping that the doors
were left open. When the knob didn’t budge, I bit back a sob and leaned my head against
the door.

The door was warm. Did it even lead outside? If it did, wouldn’t it be cooler than
the walls around it? Or was I just crazy?

I hadn’t given up hope yet, but my spirits started to sink as I yanked on the door
knob. I was going to have to find another way out.

I looked back down the hall. Usually homes had foyers for the front door, but…

I wasn’t in the front of the house. I tread back down the hall in what I believed
was the correct direction, keeping an eye out for Ana and Darke.

I headed left, through a wide-open door into a sitting room where all of the furniture
was covered by white sheets. How I had missed this room before?

The room was dark and cold; the fireplace was clean and looked unused. Dust layered
the white sheets and few items that weren’t covered, and it floated around me even
though I was careful not to touch anything. I didn’t want a trail leading Darke to
me.

The sound of hushed unfamiliar voices
.
I hid behind a large oak grandfather clock.

Heavy footsteps thundered from the hall I’d left and passed me into the hall where
I was headed. I pressed up against the wall and held my breath.

A gust of cold air slapped me in the face. I was so close to leaving!

I opened my eyes—when did I close them?—and saw that the lights were on, and a man
faced away from me, sitting at the now-uncovered piano. Did he see me? He was facing
away, so maybe not.

As soon as I lifted my foot to move, he started to play the piano, slowly and softly.
I froze and wondered if the music coming from the piano would mute the sounds of my
escape.

The melody gradually picked up in pace. Was he playing with me? I placed my foot down
and then lifted the other, pivoting for the hall—

The music stopped. I slowly looked up to see a sharp grey gaze plastered to my face.

“Now, were you going to leave without even saying goodbye?” The stranger’s thick French
accent was more pronounced than Kale’s. Waves of sandy blond hair barely touched the
collar of his white dress shirt. His cool grey stare pinned me in place.

He smiled so creepily, it stopped my breath.

I backed away until my back hit the wall in a muted thud. The stranger scrutinized
me in a way that unnerved me. I glanced at his hands placed on the back of his chair
while he absently tapped his foot. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his regal features—from
his long nose and blade-sharp cheekbones to his confident smile and long slender neck.

He couldn’t be Laurent. He couldn’t have been more than twenty.

The man continued to stare at me as I took in his features. He raised a brow, pointed
to the dusty chair to the right of him, and then turned around and continued to play
the piano.

I looked over at the chair that was covered with the dusty white material. I could
either sit down—just in case this was Laurent—or I could just ask him who he was.

Fear that I’d been caught kept my tongue in my mouth and forced my feet over to the
chair where the man had pointed. He closed his eyes as he played hauntingly soft music,
his hands gracefully touching each key. The only thing that pulled me from the silly
daydream of the music was bewilderment. Darke stood in the doorway, his body was stiff,
and anger contorted his face.

I hoped that I wouldn’t be left alone with him again. I held my arm, remembering Darke’s
painful grip.

“Don’t worry about him.” The man’s voice pulled my attention back to him. “He isn’t
as tough as he looks,” he added with a wry smile. He finished the song he was playing
and then closed the piano, turning his attention back to me.

I took a breath, ready to ask a question.

“It’s late, and I heard that you had a long day today. I am assuming that is why your
face is stained with tears,” he interrupted, casting an annoyed glance at Darke.

I touched my cheeks to feel them sticky.

“You should go to bed,” he added with finality, and he started to stand.

“Wait,” I said.

His gaze drifted to mine, and he slowly sat back down.

Darke shook his head at me in warning. I placed my shaky sweaty palms on my lap and
began fidgeting with my jeans. The man’s gaze followed my hands and frowned at my
waist, where my dress was scrunched up and tucked into my jeans.

“Who are you?” I asked before he had a chance to comment on my clothes.

The man just stared at me, as if he couldn’t understand why I had asked the question.
I couldn’t believe that young man was Laurent, the man that everyone was afraid of—but
Darke stood in the corner like an obedient dog, and I hadn’t seen Ana since the man
started speaking, so it had to be him. Who else would place fear in Darke? Who else
could command Darke’s obedience?

Laurent smiled. “Sleep, Ella. We will have plenty of time to get acquainted with each
other.” He stood.

Laurent headed for the door that I had earlier planned to escape through and motioned
for Darke to take me to the room. They spoke for a moment in a language that I didn’t
recognize that ended in a stiff nod from Darke.

Laurent turned and regarded me, gaze cold, emotionless. “Also, unless you can swim
a few hundred kilometers between several uninhabited islands, I suggest you don’t
pull this little stunt again, am I understood?” No trace of anger colored his cool
tone.

As I nodded and followed Darke back to the room where I was to be kept, I hoped that
my “little stunt,” as he called it, wouldn’t get Ana in trouble.

***

I lay in the bed under the heavy covers, watching the fire as it cast dancing shadows
across the room. The flickering orange light and the popping logs weren’t what kept
me awake.

Laurent had said that we were on an island. My stomach clenched with nervousness.
Had I lost track of time, or had he returned early?

The few answers I had about where I was only produced more questions. The first and
probably the silliest was, why were there horses? More importantly, where had Darke
gone to get that food? And was that his plane that I heard overhead earlier?

Laurent had disappeared down the hall that led to my freedom—at least, I thought it
did.

My last option was to find a phone and call Jace and hope he could trace the call
and find me. If he couldn’t trace the call, I could tell him that I was on an island.
Even though there were thousands if not millions of islands, maybe he would be able
to use his position within the Council to find me.

I turned away from the fire and faced the dark mass in the corner of the room. I was
exhausted from the day and ready for a break from all the thoughts of mistakes and
missed chances. I couldn’t read the emotion in Darke’s black stare—not anger, not
hate—but it looked something like pity.

I blinked, and the look was gone, replaced with scowl. Whatever.

He had no right to be mad at me. I wasn’t going to take this laying down, even if
he and Ana had. I couldn’t end up like Hélène, regretting the choices she’d made and
the lives that were lost by them. She’d lost everything, and in the end, she’d believed
that she’d lost Kale.

Though I hated Darke for working with Laurent, I couldn’t help wondering what he would
sacrifice, if he rebelled. Pain and death were probably the last of his worries. If
serving Laurent was the hell he said it was, death would probably be an escape. There
had to be more, something else keeping him here, like that Leif or maybe Ana. He seemed
to shield Ana and maybe Leif, since Ana had said she could sense Darke’s worry for
him.

“Why are you thinking and not sleeping?” Darke asked gruffly. For some reason he and
Ana could always tell when I was deep in thought. That bothered me.

I propped myself up on my elbows. I couldn’t really see him in the dark, but the fire’s
glow captured his face, showing half of it and cloaking the rest in darkness. Darke
was eerily beautiful, and though it made my stomach clench to compliment him, even
in his thoughts. From the slight slant to his burnt honey colored eyes, his smooth
flawless henna colored skin and odd contrast with is ruby stained lips, his long bone
straight inky black hair that fell well past his shoulders to his large lips that
fought for dominance on his face.

Darke put up a hand before I could speak. “Whatever you are thinking, I couldn’t care
less about it; I simply want you to go to sleep.”

His emotionless tone upset me, for some reason. Maybe it was anger, or even jealousy
from his willingness to protect Ana from me, while leaving me to the mercy of Laurent.
Not that I had a right to be upset. He wasn’t my guardian. Jace was, and he had never
promised to protect me; Kale had.

The bitter ache of disappointment in my guardians nestled deep in my chest, and I
lay down with a humph and closed my eyes tightly. There was no way that I was going
to sleep anytime soon, not with all I needed to say to Darke, but where to start?
My emotions warred with me, from anger and hate to confusion and shame.

“Where are you from?” My eyes were still closed, but I heard Darke’s annoyed sigh
at my question. Buttering him up with my interest in him probably wouldn’t work, but
still.

“Why?” His voice wasn’t as hard as it was before, but still held a trace of annoyance
and even some curiosity.

I turned to face him, resting my head on my hands, yet keeping my eyes closed. Why
did
I want to know about him? It wasn’t just to butter him up. I wanted to know how he
got here with Laurent.

I opened my eyes so that he could see the truth in them. Confusion had been my middle
name for the past few weeks, but tonight was different. I looked him straight in the
eyes—well, the one eye I could see. “Honestly, I need a reason to not hate you.”

That was the truth. I needed to know that he wasn’t here by choice. He had all but
said it earlier. When he spoke of Ana, I could have sworn that he was also speaking
from personal experience.

Darke leaned closer to the bed and softly whispered, “I think it’s best if you hate
me.”

I sat up at the lack of meanness or sarcasm. He was probably right, though. Not only
should I have hated him, I should’ve probably feared him a lot more than I did.

I hated what he’d said to me, I hated that he knew my parents’ last moments, and I
hated the way he’d told me, but I couldn’t hate the man himself. After a moment, I
said, “I thought so, too.”

Darke shook his head, agreeing with me, but that wasn’t all I wanted to say. “After
what you told me about my parents I wanted to hate you—heck, I wanted to push a stake
through your heart,” I sheepishly confessed.

He chuckled—Darke actually chuckled.

“I’m serious, Darke. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to hurt you as much
as your words had hurt me.” I tried to strengthen my voice as it cracked. Darke’s
words had hurt me, but they awoke something inside of me too. They brought up questions
that Kale and the Council would have to answer, and if I ever made it out of here,
I would demand them.

“I understand,” was all he said in response.

I lay back down and pictured my parents’ smiling faces. Unable to hold back the tears,
I asked Darke, “Is it true, what you said? Am I the reason they’re dead?”

I didn’t really need Darke to answer the question. I knew he hadn’t lied. So many
times I wished to have them back, even if just for a second, to tell them the things
that we always forget to say until it’s too late. It was all I ever wanted, other
than wanting to know the truth about how they’d died and to help bring the person
responsible to justice.

Now that I had the truth, I wasn’t sure that I would ever heal. The wound that their
absence had left in me was always there, seeping and oozing, but I didn’t mind that.
Over time, I figured it would close and become a private scar. Knowing that it was
my fault they were dead was too much. I didn’t think I would ever heal—I didn’t think
I deserved to heal.

“No, Ella. They aren’t dead because of you.” His voice was no more than a whisper.
“They are dead because someone believed that your parents’ lives mattered less than
their own agenda, and that is not a blame that can be placed on your head. Only Aleixandre
can be held accountable for that.”

Darke’s his words didn’t matter. My heavy heart sunk further with each beat. I opened
my eyes. Darke had leaned closer, revealing his full face and allowing me to truly
see him for the first time in days. The unyielding and emotionless monster was gone,
replaced with a man whose eyes begged for redemption.

“You haven’t lost everything, Ella,” he whispered, his voice as soft as liquid silk.
I closed my eyes and focused on his every word. “At least, not yet. There is still
hope. Now sleep.”

The room grew darker, and my lids heavier. I tried to fight the sleep that I had thought
would never come, but I drifted off into the darkness of an unnatural sleep, still
focused on Darke’s words of hope.