Memory of an Immortal Heart (Immortal Hearts) (39 page)

“No
Warning is a good thing. That means Rainey is alive, Eva. Not in immediate
danger. We can – ”

“
No
.
I didn’t get a Warning with my mother. And that’s not what…” Eva clenched her
fingers, shook her head. “I meant…I should have found a way to escape Rohe. To
get away sooner. I never should have let myself be caught, and then I let three
weeks pass…”

“
That
,”
Brand said sharply, pulling away from his study of the room to frown at her,
“is
not
your fault, Eva. That is nothing you could have helped. Nothing
you could have done.”

Eva
shook her head and didn’t respond, instead extending the photo and the t-shirt
to him.

“It’s
old,” she explained, gesturing to the photo. “I couldn’t find any better.
Rainey had them make extra when they took her senior yearbook picture. She was
always,” Eva choked slightly, staring at the photo her sister had given her,
“popular in high school.”

Brand
took it in his hand and stared for a long moment. But instead of looking at the
picture, Eva found herself watching him. His face was so serious, his jaw
tight. His expression told her nothing. Eva looked away, clenching her fingers,
and wondered what Brand saw when he looked at her sister.

“She
looks like you,” Brand said quietly, and Eva heard the tension in his voice.
She glanced at Rainey’s picture and shrugged.

“Except
for the hair and the height. She’s shorter. I always…” Eva forced her voice not
to waver, “…teased her about it.”

Brand
gave Eva a quick look, then nodded. He picked up his phone, raised it, and
snapped a picture of Rainey’s photo.

“You’re
sending that to Seth?”

“Yes.
He’ll run a search through the local security cams, police stations, mor…”
Brand hesitated, and Eva flinched as he changed his wording, “…through local
databases.”

“You
think she might be in a morgue? That she might be dead?” Eva realized that she
had risen again, and forced herself to sit as Brand’s eyes locked on her.

“It’s
not easy to kill a Kaspian, Eva.”

“No.
It’s too easy,” she murmured, remembering her uncle and her mother. She looked
at the t-shirt in her hands, that she had pulled from Rainey’s hamper. It was
full of mud and leaves, as if her sister had worn it through the trees on a
stormy day, or perhaps while she Changed. Though if Rainey had Changed in it,
it would have been shredded, maybe ruined. Like Eva had ruined her own clothing
earlier. Eva forced herself to hand the shirt to Brand.

He
didn’t take it, instead moving his hands out of the way. “What?” Eva said,
frowning at him.

“I’m
assuming,” Brand said dryly, studying the shirt, “that is Rainey’s scent I
smell on that shirt?”

“Yes.”

“Kevin’s
the only tracker we have with us. He’s good, but he still has problems
separating out scents, especially if he doesn’t know someone. Rainey’s scent is
on that shirt, but so is yours. And if I take it, mine will be as well,” Brand
raised his eyes to give Eva a wry smile. “Khael is the best, but I think we
should start with the resources we have at hand.”

“Oh.
Okay.” Eva gave a jerky nod, and, after consideration, set the shirt aside on
the floor. She probably shouldn’t touch it any more than necessary. No matter
how much she wanted to feel the comfort of Rainey’s scent beside her.

“Seth
said he keeps a database of Kaspian who have gone missing…” Eva began, raising
her eyes – then cut off, realizing that Brand was on the phone again. He
raised a finger and nodded, as Eva heard the other end pick up.

“Joshua,
we’re going to put Kevin to work. Has the Turner Resh made any moves?”

Joshua
made a sound of disgust on the other side of the line. “You scared him,
cousin,” Joshua said. “I’m not sure he will move from the house so long as he
thinks you’re here.”

Brand
grimaced, and gave Eva a long look. “I lost my temper.”

“If
you’d lost your temper, he’d be dead, and I’d be gnawing his bones.”

“I
highly doubt that,” Brand said dryly as Eva felt her eyes widen. “I want you
and Kevin back here a.s.a.p. Tell the cub we’re going to see if he can track a
two week old trail.”

“Delightful,”
Joshua’s voice indicated otherwise. “How is your amati?”

Brand’s
gaze latched on Eva. “She’s here.”

There
was a long silence, as if Joshua were rethinking his words. Then, finally,
“Good. We’ll be there in five minutes.” The phone clicked, and Eva heard the
line go dead.

Tension
filled the room.

“Does
he really gnaw…”

“No.”

A
pause.

“We’re
not amati anymore,” Eva finally said, her voice soft as she met Brand’s gaze.
The two of them were done. What they had was over. She raised her fingers,
brushed them over the bruise he had left in her flesh. “You didn’t tell
Joshua?”

The
sapphire of Brand’s eyes shadowed as he glanced away, pushing a button on his
phone before slipping it into his pocket. His gaze rose to Eva.

“I
don’t think it’s as easy as that,” he said quietly.

Then he
rose and went outside. Eva heard the old screen door to the house give a
rattling squeal as Brand left her by herself.

She
wasn’t sure whether to be shocked, angry, or…hopeful.

And why
did she suddenly feel so sad?

Brand
sat on the chill front steps to Eva’s house and studied the small bone dagger
his mother had given him. It was a dull black, black as only Kaspian bones
could be, and dense.

It was
old, of course.

Almost
four hundred years old. As old as his father’s death.

Eva
thought they weren’t amati anymore. But Brand hadn’t told her the real meaning
of the word. Nor had he told her the truth.

Still,
when Eva had spoken those words to him, they had sent a jolt through his gut,
tearing through him in the same way this blade would have done.

It had
fucking hurt. And, though Eva didn’t know it, it was fucking…
possible
.

They
hadn’t bonded yet. Nothing held them together except…a hope. His hope. And
desire.

Eva
would always be his amati, and yet they shared no bond.

His
mother had told Brand to carry this blade with him always. He had stopped a few
years ago, afraid he would lose it, but Ashtoreth kept insisting. Hell if he
knew why.
Perhaps
, Brand thought, measuring the short blade against his
palm, he should give it to Eva. It was better sized for her hand anyway.

She
probably wouldn’t take it if she knew what it was.

Not
even death had been able to sever his parents’ bond. His father had died
fighting the Sakai, and instead of dying in turn – as any other bonded
amati would have done – his mother had simply…disappeared. Then, ten
years after Nikandros’s death, Ashtoreth returned to their Gens home in France
in the dead of night – the same home his father had died fighting for
– and passed Brand and his brothers a long rolled-up canvas.

“These
are your father’s bones,” she said. “He wants you to have them. Promise you
will care for them, always keep them by your side. Treasure them…as I do.” Then
Ashtoreth gave a fey unsettling smile, rose up, pressed a polite kiss to
Khael’s cheek, touched Gaviros’s outstretched hand, and disappeared back into
her rooms as if she had never gone.

When
they unrolled the canvas and found the blades, Khael growled, “We each take
one.”

It was
not a scene Brand could forget. His brothers gathered around the blades made
from their father’s bones, taking turns according to their age. The lamp had
cast the drawing table into a golden light, setting the room alive with shadows
and history…until Brand, the youngest, took the last blade. Brand had gripped
it in his fist: his dagger had come from one of Nikandros’s ribs. Their mother
had made five blades, one for each of her mate’s living sons.

Then he
had heard something – felt more than heard – and looked up to
follow Khael’s dark gaze; they watched Nikandria run like a startled deer from
where she had hidden behind the curtains, disappearing into the shadows of the
hall. She was a child, barely eleven. Iah had gone after her, tried to give her
his own blade, but she refused. “She didn’t want me to have one,” Nikandrie
said.

Brand
still remembered her childish voice, full of pain and tears and fierce dignity.
“Ashtoreth didn’t make one for me because she didn’t want me to have one.”

There
hadn’t been anything any of them could say to that. With her ability, Nikandrie
knew
.

Brand’s
lips compressed, warped downward. He gripped the dagger in his fist.

Their
mother had always been strange about bones. Strange, possessive and wary about
who she trusted with them. But Brand knew Ashtoreth’s denial of her daughter
wasn’t mistrust. No. It was something different.

When
they came to the New World, Ashtoreth had insisted he and his brothers gather
the family bones and seal them into chests for the voyage. There had been no
bones for Ashtoreth’s line, no bones for Nikandros’s. Just the dull black bones
of a handful of brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews and other Kaspians
Brand had never known.

And the
remainder of his father’s bones.

Ashtoreth
had guarded those bones throughout the journey. She guarded them as fiercely as
if she guarded a still-living amati. She
still
guarded them, today. His
mother might be insane, but she was also powerful and dangerous. Any other
Kaspian would have died with their amati. And though Ashtoreth lived, not even
death had been enough to sever the bond she felt to Nikandros.

Something
shifted in front of Brand.

He
looked up. His cousin stood before him, studying the bone dagger lying in
Brand’s fist. “I know what that is,” Joshua said, after a moment, the cold
breeze stirring his sandy hair. His gray eyes were distant. “Dmitrei showed me
once. He wanted to teach me to make them.”

Brand
shrugged, then slid the dagger back into its sheath beneath his coat. “Dmitrei
has too many blades. Sometimes I think he is as mad as our mother.” His gaze
slid to Kevin, who stood behind Joshua, watching with a curious expression.
“Eva has one of Rainey’s shirts in the house. The trail will be two weeks old,
but…”

“
Here
,”
Eva interrupted from behind Brand, and he wasn’t really surprised that she had
been watching him. The screen door slid open and Eva stepped forward, extending
the shirt for Kevin to take. “If you…if you can find a way to track my sister,
I would really,” he heard her swallow, “appreciated it.”

Kevin
took the shirt in his hands and stared at it with a doubtful expression. Brand
knew the reason; the shirt was a two-week old mess of scents, half-obscured by
dried mud and fresh air. But Brand nodded in approval when the kid promised to
try, then watched as Kevin and Joshua moved off into the trees.

“What
was that?” Eva said finally, coming to stand behind him, her scent pooling
desire itself as she looked over his shoulder. “That you were looking at?”

Brand
hesitated, then shrugged as he stared out into the stark winter trees. “My
father’s blade.”

Eva
held onto her nerves as she found a package of dry pasta in the back corner of
the old kitchen cupboard, then ripped it opened and tossed the contents into
the boiling water on the stove. All of the food in the refrigerator had been
rotten. She hadn’t been thinking about that when she directed Brand to look for
the cheese.

Brand
had opened the refrigerator door, then slammed it shut as the sickening miasma
of rotten food rose to fill the kitchen. Eva had gagged reflexively before
turning to stare at him as she pinched her nose.

Brand’s
face had been pale and he looked, for a moment, as if he were about to vomit.

Despite
the situation, Eva choked on a laugh as she cautiously dropped her hand. “What?
I thought you were a brave, fierce warrior. The Ayin of Stronghold. Surely
you’ve smelled worse.”

Brand
gave her a long look. “You’re just lucky I’m not Khael,” he finally growled.

They
both decided by silent agreement not to open the refrigerator again.

“Where
do you keep the plates?” Brand asked now, and Eva turned away from the stove,
slipping around him before she pulled out the stack from the cupboard and
passed them to him. She avoided Brand’s gaze, doing her best not to focus on
the heat of his body as he studied her.

Brand
was being quiet. Unaccountably quiet. And the consideration in his gaze when he
looked at her… It made it hard to concentrate. Eva risked a look up at him, met
that dark blue gaze, and quickly moved away across the room toward the
silverware drawer.

“Rainey
usually does the cooking,” she said finally, as he set the plates. Two for
them, two for Joshua and Kevin. She dropped the silverware down in the middle
of the table, not bothering with organization, but Brand picked the pieces up
and started to lay them out.