Refuge (44 page)

I barely noticed my surroundings as we walked
to my room. Nikolas didn’t try to talk to me, but he kept my hand
in his the whole way. I’d thought of him as my anchor once, and
that was what he was to me now. He was the only thing keeping me
from coming apart in a million pieces and drifting away.

Later, I would have only a shadowy
recollection of entering my room and curling up in a shivering ball
on my bed. Voices came and went. I lay there wrapped up in my
misery thinking about Nate in a cell below. Only he wasn’t Nate
anymore. The man who had raised me and loved me was gone, and in
his place was a monster. Pain radiated from my chest to every part
of me, and I pressed my face into the pillow, praying for the
oblivion of sleep.

When I did finally sleep, Nate haunted my
dreams. He called to me, begging me to save him, asking me why I
let this happen to him. I saw him rising from his wheelchair, his
green eyes now red and blood dripping from his lips. At his feet
was a blond teenage girl, and I recognized her as one of the girls
who had disappeared from Portland months ago. As I stared at him,
he became my dad, his face gray and lifeless.
Why, Madeline? Why did you do this to
me?
he beseeched in a rattling voice. His face blurred and
he was Nate again, clutching the hilt of a dagger protruding from
his chest
. You’re
just like her. She killed my brother and you killed me.

“Shhh.” Nikolas held me while I sobbed
against his chest, his hand rubbing my back until I cried myself
out. He moved to sit up and I clung to his shirt, but he only
tugged a quilt over us and pulled me back into the circle of his
arms. Emotionally drained, I fell asleep again to the soothing
sound of his breathing and his heartbeat against my cheek.

The next time I awoke, it was morning and I
was alone on the bed. I touched the spot beside me and the heat
lingering there told me Nikolas had not been gone long.

“How are you feeling?”

I pushed back the quilt and found Jordan
sitting by the window. My eyes felt swollen and gritty, and my
voice was hoarse when I spoke. “Okay.” It was a lie, and we both
knew it, but I could not put the truth into words.

“Shit, that was a terrible thing to ask.
Sorry.” She came over to sit on the edge of my bed, and her tired
eyes told me she hadn’t gotten much sleep either. “Nikolas had to
take care of something, so I said I’d stay with you. You don’t
mind, do you?”

“No, I’m glad you’re here.” The last thing I
wanted was to be alone.

“Good.” She fell silent for a long moment.
“I’m really sorry about your uncle.”

“Thanks.” I pushed myself up to sit against
the pillows. My hand rested on the quilt, and I traced the outline
of a hummingbird sewn into one of the squares. My grandmother made
the quilt to pass on to her children and grandchildren. Nate had
never dated much or said anything about wanting children of his
own, but he was still young and there’d been plenty of time for him
to start a family. Now the Grey name was going to die with him. My
throat tightened painfully, and I swallowed hard, fighting tears.
How could there be any left to cry after last night?

“Are you hungry? I brought you some food
because I figured you wouldn’t want to go down to breakfast.”

The last thing I wanted to think about was
food, but I knew I had to eat. I nodded, and Jordan went to
retrieve a covered tray. She laid it across my legs, and I picked
up a piece of buttered toast to nibble.

“Here, this came for you.” She handed me a
cream-colored envelope, and I knew immediately who had sent it. I
opened it and read the short note written in Desmund’s elegant
handwriting.

I am here for you. Desmund.

“It’s from Desmund Ashworth, isn’t it?”
Jordan asked in a hushed tone. “I’ve heard of him – everyone has –
but no one’s seen him in like a hundred years. He never comes out
of his wing, and no one is stupid enough to go up there. I always
heard he was insane and dangerous.”

I hated to hear her speak of Desmund that
way, but I couldn’t fault her for it. Until recently, he had been
exactly as she described him. But something told me he would not be
going back into seclusion again.

“He was sick for a long time, but I think
he’s better now.”

She helped herself to a strawberry from the
fruit bowl on my tray. “You’ve been here less than a month, and yet
you and he looked like old friends at dinner. How did that
happen?”

There was no reason to hide my friendship
with Desmund, so I told her how we met and how I began to visit
him. I left out the parts about his illness and my efforts to heal
him. “Everyone stayed away from him because of his reputation, only
I didn’t know about it. I thought he was a rude person with a bad
attitude.”

“Never a dull moment with you, is there?” she
quipped. Her grin quickly faded. “I’m sorry – ”

“It’s okay, really.” My eyes traveled around
the room, and I forced myself to look at the pictures of Nate. I
needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and think about what he had
lost. He was the victim here, not me. “Have you heard anything
about . . . him?”

Jordan bit her lip like she was unsure how
much to tell me. “They have him in a holding cell, and I heard
Tristan spent half the night down there with him. They are pushing
him hard for information about the vampire who changed him, but so
far he’s not talking.”

I didn’t want to think about what methods
they were using to get Nate to talk. I had to remind myself again
it wasn’t really Nate in that cell, and Tristan was doing what was
necessary to find the vampire who had done this.

Laying aside the tray, I pulled back the
covers and got out of bed. I couldn’t stay in this room, surrounded
by memories of Nate and wondering what was happening to him. I
grabbed some clean clothes and went into the bathroom.

“Where are you going? Nikolas said to stay
with you until he got back,” Jordan called through the bathroom
door.

“I don’t think he meant for me to stay locked
in my room.” I was a mess last night, so I didn’t blame Nikolas for
thinking I shouldn’t be alone. But I needed to get outside, breathe
fresh air, and clear my mind, or I would go mad.

Freshly showered and changed, I pulled on
warm boots and a coat and headed out. “I’m going to the menagerie,”
I told Jordan when she made to follow me. “Nikolas will know where
to find me.”

Outside, the air was crisp and it looked like
another inch or two of snow had fallen overnight. I stomped snow
off my boots at the menagerie door and went inside to find Sahir
using a long pole to shove a tray of raw meat into Alex’s cage.

“Sara, I didn’t expect to see you here
today,” he said, walking toward me. “I’m sorry about your
uncle.”

My throat threatened to close off again.
“Thank you.”

He motioned for me to follow him to his
office. Inside, he closed the door and turned to me. “I know there
is nothing that will ease your pain right now, but I have news you
will be glad to hear. One of our teams may have located Minuet’s
flock.”

“Already? Where?”

“Uganda. They are still trying to verify they
have the right flock since it’s very difficult to communicate with
griffins. Don’t say anything to Minuet. I’m not sure how much she
understands, and I don’t want her to get excited until we know for
sure.”

I felt myself smile for the first time today.
“Thank you for telling me, Sahir.”

We left his office, and I stopped by to say
hello to Minuet and Alex before I took Hugo and Woolf for a walk.
The hounds chased each other around and rolled in the white powder
like puppies, blissfully unaware of the grief pressing down on me.
I usually loved walking in the snow, but there was no joy in it for
me this time. How could I be happy and enjoy this day when Nate had
only days left?

We didn’t go far from the stronghold. Tristen
had extra warriors patrolling the woods, a stark reminder that the
Master knew I was alive and living at this stronghold. I wanted to
stay close for Nate anyway. I couldn’t make myself stop caring,
even if he was a demon now. That would be a betrayal of the memory
of the wonderful man who had raised and loved me. The vampires had
taken him from me, but they would never take that away.

When I came back from my walk, I discovered
that as much as I wanted to be close to Nate, I could not bring
myself to go back into the building. I spent a few hours at the
menagerie and then wandered around the grounds. Maybe if I kept
moving, it would keep the terrible pain in my chest from
suffocating me.

Nikolas found me walking by the river, and as
soon as I saw him, I realized I’d been waiting for him to come for
me. Watching him approach, I felt a moment of brilliant clarity and
the world fell away until there was only him. Last night when my
world fell apart, it was Nikolas I clung to,
him
I needed. I didn’t know if my
feelings for him had grown deeper because of the night in his
apartment or if I was finally seeing what had been there all
along.

I love him.

Any other time that revelation might have
terrified me, but losing Nate made me see that I could no longer
take the people around me for granted. I didn’t know if Nikolas
loved me or if I was ready to declare my love for him, but whatever
this thing was between us, it felt right.

Wordlessly, he wrapped me in his arms, and we
stood like that by the rushing water for several minutes before he
pulled away and gazed down at me. “How are you holding up?” he
asked, brushing my hair back from my face.

“I’m okay.”

He smiled sadly at the lie and took my hand.
“Come, I have something for you.”

“What is it?”

He squeezed my hand as we neared the main
building. “I know nothing can take away your pain or undo what’s
happened. But if you could have anything else right now, what would
it be?”

I didn’t need to think about it. “I’d want –
”

“Sara!”

“Roland!” I let go of Nikolas’s hand and
threw myself at the dark-haired boy running around the corner of
the building. Roland caught me up in his arms and squeezed me until
I couldn’t breathe. I laughed and cried at the same time.

“Hey, I’m here too.”

Roland set me down and Peter swept me up in a
hug. I was a blubbering mess by the time he let me go.

I wiped my face on my sleeve. “How did you
guys get here?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Nikolas called me last night and told me you
needed us. He had a private jet pick us up in Portland this
morning.” Roland’s blue eyes reflected my pain. “He told us about
Nate. I’m so sorry, Sara.”

I nodded, too choked to speak.

“I’ll let you three catch up,” Nikolas said,
and I grabbed his hand before he could leave.

“Thank you,” I whispered, unable to say how
deeply moved I was. He knew exactly what I needed, and he’d flown
my friends halfway across the country for me.

I lost the battle with the tears again and
one scorched a trail down my cold cheek. He reached up and wiped it
away with his thumb. “I’ll be close if you need me.” I nodded, and
he left us alone.

Roland watched him go then gave me a crooked
smile. “So, you and Nikolas?”

“I . . . it’s complicated,” I said even
though I knew that wasn’t true anymore. Watching Nikolas walk away,
my aching heart swelled with emotion I could not put into
words.

“Took him long enough,” Roland quipped, and
he and Peter exchanged knowing looks.

I glanced from one to the other. “What do you
mean?”

Roland’s breath released a thick cloud of
steam in the frigid air. “Sara, no one takes their job
that
seriously.”

I let his statement sink in. “Why didn’t you
say something to me?”

“And make it easy for demon boy? Where’s the
fun in that?”

I was too surprised by his revelation to
scold him for the “demon boy” remark. Was I the only person who
hadn’t seen something between me and Nikolas?

Roland put an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s
go inside so we can thaw out. Is it always this bloody cold
here?”

“It gets this cold in Maine.”

“Yeah, but not in November. If I’d known it
was like this, I would have brought a heavy coat.”

I laughed through my tears as we walked
toward the main entrance. “Roland, you’re a werewolf. How can you
be cold?”

He let out a snort. “Do you see any fur? I’m
freezing my butt off right now.”

The main hall felt like an oven after being
outside so long, and I didn’t realize how cold I was until I
stepped inside. A few people stared at us when they passed, and at
first I thought it was because of Nate, until I remembered that the
Mohiri and werewolves didn’t exactly care for each other. My
friends were probably the first werewolves to ever walk through
these doors.

“Are you guys hungry? Lunch is over, but I
can get us something to eat.” If there was one thing I knew about
werewolves, it was that they were always hungry.

“I wouldn’t turn down some food,” Peter said.
“But only if you eat, too.”

We entered the dining hall where a few
stragglers from lunch watched Roland and Peter with open curiosity.
Ignoring them, I went to the door that led to the kitchen to see
what I could scrounge up. The kitchen staff must have heard about
Nate because they gave me sympathetic looks and told me they would
fix something for us. Ten minutes later, two of them carried out
three heaping plates of food and set them in front of us before
they went back to get us something to drink.

Roland stared at his plate of steak and
mashed potatoes. “This is what you have for lunch?”

“Sometimes.” I scooped up some of my
potatoes. “They have everything here.”