Dark Awakening (30 page)

“See, that’s where you’ll pay the price for giving a damn, Lily,” Jaden replied, his expression darkening. “Ty’s not a bad man. Hell, he’s one of the best I’ve run with. Took me under his wing when I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground and hated everyone and everything. But he’s a lowblood. Worse, he’s a lowblood Ptolemy-owned Cait Sith. His life isn’t his own, and he does what he has to in order to survive.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Lily said unhappily. “I don’t like it, but I can accept it.”

Jaden’s burst of fury surprised her. “Don’t pretend it won’t hurt you when he gives you to that viper and walks away!” he snapped, eyes blazing with a sudden flash of unnatural light. “And he will walk away, Lily. It’s all he knows. Apart from that, this is about more than him. The Cait Sith are his
family, and he thinks about them first: how his actions will affect their treatment, how staying in Arsinöe’s good graces will allow him to help some of the lowest who serve the Ptolemy. She gives him more chain than most, I’ll say that. But then, I was a favored little pet of hers too. And I think you saw where that got me.” He shook his head, his anger vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Ty’s the standard-bearer for the Cait Sith who have to live under the Ptolemy’s thumb, Lily. To a certain extent, Arsinöe’s favor of him spills onto all the Cait at court. He’s a goddamned legend to the ones still out in the world who are trying to make as much of a living as they can, hoping that the highbloods won’t come for them the way they did for so many of us.”

Lily frowned as she digested this and remembered the scene in her kitchen. “Damien, the Shade who’s after me, he basically called Ty a sellout. I thought maybe that’s how he was looked at, period.”

Jaden rolled his eyes. “Damien. Yeah, he would say that. Never listen to a Shade, Lily. They’re professional assassins with a God complex. He thinks he’s his own man? Not hardly. He has bosses to answer to, same as the rest of us. But whatever makes him feel better about the path he chose. Anyway, you wouldn’t see many of our line around here to find out what they think of Ty. The Cait Sith tend to live in the Ptolemy strongholds, and this sure isn’t one. You can tell their queen is an Egyptian. Fucking cat fixation. At least they give us jobs when no one else will, but the price for refusing them is steep. To the Ptolemy, my kind can only ever be slaves or prey. I’m going to see if I can get far enough away to try being neither.”

“What happened? Did
she
do that to you?” Lily asked. It was urgent, so urgent that she know.

Jaden’s gaze chilled, turning his blue eyes arctic, and he looked away. “She might as well have. But it doesn’t matter. I won’t go back. I’d die first.”

“Jaden.” Lily reached out, bridging the distance between them, and placed her hand on his arm. She felt how tightly he held himself, and it was her turn to feel pity. Still, it did get him to look at her.

“You need to tell Ty. Please.”

“Tell me what?”

His voice was gruff, sleepy, and thoroughly irritated. Lily turned and saw Ty standing in the doorway, looking much the same as he sounded. Her first impulse upon seeing him was the same it always was: She immediately wanted to be in his arms, wrapped around him. And when his eyes met hers, she saw she wasn’t alone in the sudden rush of desire.

Jaden’s sigh brought her back to reality.

“I’d tell the two of you to get a room, but you’ve already got one. Sun’s rising, brother. You ought to be asleep.”

“I could hardly sleep. Rogan would have picked every valuable available off my carcass,” Ty replied, sauntering into the room and coming to rest beside Lily, not touching her but close enough that every fiber of her being seemed to vibrate with his presence. He looked at the bag on the bed, at Jaden’s changed clothing, and immediately his eyes hardened.

“Going somewhere?”

“What if I am? I told you I’m not going back to the Ptolemy. As I told the lovely Lily, you’re welcome to come with me. But I doubt this safe house is all that safe, and I’m sure as hell not sticking around to find out. I need to get out of Chicago, ride out the storm in more neutral territory.”

“Isn’t that what I just paid for? Getting us out of here?”

She could hear incredulous anger in Ty’s voice, slowly increasing in intensity. Jaden, however, seemed nothing but defiant.

“I’ll do better on my own. Right now the heat’s on you, not me. Easier for me to slip away. If I stick with you, it might not be. I can’t risk the Ptolemy finding me, Ty. Try and understand that. You have something they want, and because of it I’m doubly in danger of being spotted. It wouldn’t look good for you either. Best to part ways now.”

“Jaden, if they came here looking for you, they’ll hunt you to ground no matter where you go. What did you
do
?”

Jaden crossed his arms over his chest, glaring. “Would it make any difference? You’ll go running back no matter what I say.”

“They whipped him,” Lily blurted out, and felt her cheeks heat as Jaden turned his glare on her. “He’s got marks all over his back, Ty. I saw them.”

Ty’s expression softened, saddened. “No. Jaden.”

Jaden bared his teeth, his fangs flashing. “And still you’ll go back to her. Do you know what I did to deserve it, Ty? I mentioned to her esteemed highness that her lover had been telling everyone who would listen that we were headed to war with the Dracul, and I wanted to know if it was true. Why shouldn’t I ask? The Cait are always put on the front lines of their petty squabbles. Can you imagine how it would be if there was all-out war? I thought we deserved to know whether this was really happening, so I could prepare the others.” He shook his head. “She told Nero. I was whipped for insubordination, the lash dipped in a poison that will ensure the scars stay with me. She never said a word. If I’d stayed, they would have put a collar on me.”

Ty’s jaw tightened. Lily saw a muscle twitch in his cheek. “They’re using the collars again?” He turned to Lily before she could ask. “A thousand years ago, at the dawn of my bloodline, the Ptolemy devised collars that prevented the Cait Sith from shifting back into human form. Back then, we were used as little more than intelligent vampire cats, guards and hunters whose only human trait was that we could listen and understand, think and obey. Many went mad from being bound that way—so many that the practice eventually stopped.”

“For a time. No longer,” Jaden interjected. “The perimeter guards are all collared and chained now, Ty. The only ones left standing on two feet are those who need their hands to serve.” His voice hardened. “I know what you’re thinking. You can’t save them. You can’t change her mind. Things have come full circle in the court, and there’s nothing to be done about it. There’s only highblood and gutterblood to the Ptolemy. No exceptions. You go back, you’re going to find out the hard way. Let them die.”

“Then many of our own die as well.” Ty blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, Jaden. I never expected things would be so far gone.”

“Well, they are,” Jaden replied flatly. “She’s not what you thought. Or what I thought, for that matter. She never was. Just another highblood bitch, lording it over the unwashed masses.”

Ty shook his head slowly, sadly. “No. There was more there once.”

“There is
nothing
there!”

The raw fury in Jaden’s voice, written plainly across his face, was a shock to Lily’s system. There were layers to Jaden, she saw, and not all of them were pleasant. The
one she saw now was all killer. Even Ty seemed startled by the flash of temper, staring silently while Jaden continued shouting into his face.

“What do they have to do to make you lose faith in them, Ty? They kill our kind. They make the rest of us into pathetic shadows of ourselves. And still you defend her, telling me and everyone who’ll listen to trust in the system, that things will get better. And sometimes they do, Ty, but not for long. And then they get worse. Every goddamned time.”

Ty seemed to get over his momentary surprise quickly enough, stepping into Jaden, so close the two were nearly touching. Lily could feel the violence crackling in the air and hoped, desperately, that these two would let each other be.

“They all spit on us! All of them!” Ty snarled. “Arsinöe at least has found a use for us, instead of leaving us to rot, destitute, in some squalid gutter.”

“It would be better—”

Ty had Jaden by the front of the shirt in a flash, lifting him off the ground, his feet dangling a couple of inches above it. Lily’s mouth dropped open in horror. She had never seen Ty like this, so full of blind rage.

“Ty,” she said urgently, “no!” But he seemed not to hear her.

“I have been in that gutter, brother,” Ty hissed into Jaden’s face, his teeth bared, incisors long and deadly. “I was born there. I died there. My entire bloody family died there. Don’t you
ever
tell me that the way we live is worse than that, when you’ve never had to live among people drowning in the worst sort of filth with no hope. None. If I have to live, I’ll take this.” He dropped Jaden to the floor, where the furious vampire managed to land on his
feet despite the force with which he was let down. “Go, then. I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Ty spat the words at Jaden before turning on one heel and stalking back through the doorway.

Lily tried to catch his arm as he passed, but he evaded her touch. She did, however, catch the quickest glimpse of his eyes. The pain in them took her breath away.

The door between rooms slammed shut, leaving Lily and Jaden looking at each other. His expression was wary, guarded, the way it had been when she’d met him. She looked helplessly at him, wishing she could fix all that was tearing him and Ty apart. That would tear her and Ty apart before all was said and done, she realized.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, stepping backward toward the door. “I need to—”

“Don’t be,” Jaden said, his voice cool. “He’ll figure it out someday. And if he doesn’t, I can’t be there trying to save him. It’s every cat for himself. Always has been.”

Lily took another step back, pulled toward the door that Ty had put between them. Her heart ached for him, and she wanted nothing more than to be a balm to his wounds, which were old and very deep.

“Maybe you and he could get the Cait to join together,” she said, hearing the desperate note in her voice. “If you rose up, demanded to be left alone. History is full of things like that!”
And then she and Ty could be together… stay together…

“No, Lily,” Jaden said softly, sadly. “They’re too strong. They’ve taken too many. The Cait Sith do better on their own anyway. I’m used to it… and so is Ty.” He hesitated a moment, then turned away. “Good-bye, Lily Quinn. I hope some god or other decides to protect you once Ty can’t.”

“Jaden.”

He turned back to her for some reason, whether it was simply the sound of his name or perhaps the way she said it. It was impulsive, but Lily found her feet moving before her mind could stop her. Quickly, she went to Jaden and wrapped her arms around him in the sort of comforting embrace Bay had often given her but she had never quite known how to return. She felt him stiffen, and she gave him a quick squeeze before he could push her away. Then Lily stepped back, seeing his confusion. It made her heart ache. She knew what it was to be that unloved, that wary of an affectionate gesture so freely given.

“Good-bye, Jaden,” she said softly. “Be safe.”

Then she turned and walked quickly, silently to the door, opened it, and left Jaden exactly how he claimed to want to be.

On his own.

L
ILY CLOSED THE DOOR
quietly behind her.

Ty’s back was to her. He stood, perfectly still, in the middle of the room. His back was rigid, his hands fisted at his sides, his head down. Defeated, Lily thought. He looked utterly defeated. It frightened her. She had meant it when she’d told him he was the strongest man she’d ever known. How had he borne all of what he’d been through and still managed to function? How had he come through losing so much, losing
everything
, without breaking?

She took a step toward him, then another, cautiously.

“Jaden’s gone,” she said.

“I know,” Ty replied. His voice was soft, slightly ragged.

“I’m sorry he left,” Lily said, flexing fingers that longed to press and soothe those rigid shoulders. “Sorry you two left it that way.”

Ty laughed, a soft exhalation that was utterly mirthless. “It’s the way it always is with the Cait Sith. We go our own ways. Not much good at pairing up, I’m afraid.”

If she were a stronger woman, or at least a braver one, she would find Arsinöe and her worthless courtiers herself and make them pay for what they’d done to Ty and his kind. They’d turned proud, powerful creatures into servants, treated them so harshly that they no longer knew what to do with kindness; they had afflicted them with so much self-doubt that they didn’t leave for fear of being unable to function outside the strictures they’d always known. It was disgusting.

“He’s just afraid,” Lily said. “And honestly, Ty, after seeing what the Ptolemy did to him, I am too.” The idea had come to her as she’d paced the room earlier, waiting for him. Now it seemed the only way, and the words tumbled from her lips in a rush.