The Cursed (The Unearthly) (5 page)

Clearly I was mistaken.

“How did you manage to keep me away from the trial all this time?”

He didn’t say anything, which was answer enough. Bribing and threatening
—
that was how he did it. That, and making sure I never left the Isle of Man. Between him, Peel Academy, and the Politia, I was almost untouchable. Almost.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I finally said.

Andre reached out to me and ran a thumb over the skin of my cheek. “Because I knew that if I told you, you’d somehow get yourself involved.”

“No, you don’t know that,” I said heatedly. “You never gave me the chance to decide for myself what we should do.”

His hand dropped, and it tightened into a fist. “I’m still not giving you the chance.”

I wanted to scream in frustration at him. “I’m not going to the airport.” I’d glamour him before that happened.

“They will learn of your existence here,” he said. “There are eyes and ears everywhere; it’s only a matter of time before someone on the council learns of your arrival in Cluj. And once they do, you will be called in.”

“And what is so wrong with that?”

Andre growled. “You are asking to be subjected to some of the cruelest beings that walk this earth. I can assure you, most of these men and women were not good people in life, and they’ve had centuries to wipe away the last of their humanity. If they learn the truth about what happened that night at Bishopcourt, they will kill you, and not even I will be able to stop them.”

What he wasn’t saying was that he’d been lying to them to protect me. Lying to his coven about what happened that night. Which meant they still didn’t know about the prophecy. Because if they did, he was absolutely right, they’d kill me to save themselves.

I believed him. God help me, I believed every word he said. But it wasn’t enough to make me leave this place, not yet.

“Andre, I’m not leaving Romania tonight.”

“Gabrielle …” His voice was full of dark warning.

My lips spread into an amused smile. “Are you trying to intimidate me with that voice of yours? ’Cause it ain’t gonna work.”

“Don’t make light of the situation,” Andre said.

“I’m not. I’m going to help solve the investigation and get the hell out of here before one of your friends eats me.”

“No one’s going to eat you, Gabrielle.”

“Okay, fine
—
stake me, draw and quarter me, roast me over an open spit, …”

“Leave Romania,” he whispered.

Persistent vampire.

“No.”

“Please, Gabrielle.” This was the closest he ever got to begging.

“Quit and go back to the Isle of Man,” Andre continued. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” Oh, I bet he’d love me quitting. He’d probably throw a party in my honor the day that happened.

“Much as I appreciate the offer, I want to go to school and lead a normal life for as long as possible,” I said.

“You call this a normal life?”

I gave him a look. “You know what I mean.”

Andre closed his eyes. “If you don’t leave here, this place might kill you.” He talked as though Romania itself wanted my blood.

I gave a hollow laugh. “I’m destined to die in about a year anyway, so what’s the difference?”

Andre thumped his palm against the steering wheel. Hard. Metal crunched as it bent under the force of his blow. “Damnit Gabrielle, it makes a difference to me!”

He pushed open his door and got out. I tried my door handle again, intent on following him. Still locked. Damnit.

I crawled over the center consul and exited the car on the driver’s side, barely noticing the light white flakes that drifted down around us.

Andre strode away from me, his coat flapping in the chill breeze, and I could see how tension coiled itself in his muscles.

“Why are you so upset?” I yelled after him. He ignored me, his sinuous form moving further and further away. “This is my fate, not yours!”

Andre stopped. “No, it’s not,” he said.

“What?”

Andre turned around, and even though it was nighttime, even though it was starting to snow, and even though he was some distance away from me, I could clearly see his grief. “It’s not
your
fate,” he said. “It’s
our
fate.”

He began walking back to me. “What do you think happens to me once you die?” he said. “I’m not going to just get over you.” His voice broke. “It doesn’t work like that with soulmates.”

My lungs constricted. Of course it didn’t. On an instinctual level I knew that, but consciously I’d never thought it through. If I died, part of Andre would die along with me
—
maybe all of him if we were indeed physiologically connected.

The thought of hurting this man or of him simply ceasing to exist, that was just as terrifying as what waited for me on the other side of death.

Andre stepped up to me and cupped my face. “If the devil tries to take you again, I don’t know if you’ll come back to me as a vampire. I don’t know if you’ll come back at all.”

His eyes searched mine, and they shined in the dim light.

“I’d come back,” I whispered. “For you, hell couldn’t hold me. I’d come back.”

Chapter 6

I watched the
buildings blur by as we drove back to the inn. I’d won the battle of wills tonight, but the discussion wasn’t over.

“So, you have a house here?” I asked, glancing away from the view and down at our entwined hands. I couldn’t remember when our hands found each other, or who initiated the touch. Our connection was growing stronger.

“Yes.” Almost absentmindedly, Andre brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

“The one you grew up in?”

He smiled. “That’s a cute thought. No, the house I grew up in is long since gone. But my current home is one of the oldest buildings in the city.”

“And this city, Cluj-Napoca,” my tongue stumbled over the name, eliciting another smile from Andre, “is the place you consider home?”

His eyes slid to mine. “I think you and I both know exactly where home is these days.”

Warmth pooled in the pit of my stomach. Within the last four months I’d gone from the girl that couldn’t be loved, to the girl that pushed it away, to the girl who hesitantly embraced it.

My ring caught the light of a streetlamp. “You’re wearing my gift,” Andre said, surprised.

“Of course. I haven’t taken it off.”

He took his gaze off the road to look at me, his eyes filled with longing and something deeper. Love. We hadn’t ever said those three important words, but lately I’d see it in his expression, or the way he touched me
—
I’d find it in the details.

I cleared my throat. “I am not going to get to see your home, am I?” I said, getting back on topic.

Andre’s expression looked agonized. “If I’m to keep you away from this trial, then no. Vampires visit my place on a regular basis.”

I made a face. My experience with the vampire community wasn’t great. Other than the bossy one sitting next to me, the only other vampire I’d gotten to know had tried to kill me.

I rubbed away the condensation on my window and glanced outside. The weather here was different from the Isle of Man. Here the chill had nothing to do with rain and ocean mist. It seemed to emanate from the very earth itself.

“If you’re not going to change your mind about leaving, then at least promise me one thing,” he said.

I worked my jaw, then nodded. “What is it?”

“Don’t tell anyone we’re soulmates.”

“Who would I tell?” I asked, glancing at him.

“Well the coven, for one.”

That shouldn’t be too difficult, considering I was supposed to avoid them at all costs anyway.

Andre took his eyes off of the road to meet my gaze. “More importantly, you can’t tell Caleb.”

I peered at him curiously. “Why shouldn’t he know?” I already had my own reasons for not telling Caleb about Andre and me, but I was interested to know his.

“Caleb’s in the Politia’s pocket. They would eventually learn about us through him.”

I furrowed my brows. “I’m still not seeing what’s so bad about that. They already know we’re dating.”

Andre squeezed my hand. “Having a soulmate is one of the most revered bonds in the supernatural world. It’s unbreakable.”

I smiled a little when he said that.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, his face darkening, “because of the bond’s very nature, it can be exploited. For seven hundred years I’ve been the thing supernaturals fear. I wielded too much power, and I couldn’t be controlled. But now I can.” His gaze landed meaningfully on me.

I realized what he wasn’t saying. The ruthless vampire king had a soulmate. For someone like Andre, someone who lived by the sword, love was a weakness, a devastating one.

“Anyone could use me to get to you,” I said, my eyes wide.

Andre grimaced. “And they would. Especially the Politia and the coven. They wouldn’t hesitate.”

“
Come to me.”

Sonja Antonescu slid out from under her sheets and left her room. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she left the luxury suite she shared with her roommate. Her bare feet padded down the five flights of stairs standing between her and the ground floor of her apartment complex.

She needed to find that voice.

Sonja crossed the lobby and opened the front door. Outside the winter storm had already rolled in, though the weather report had insisted it wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow evening. She stepped out into the storm, her flannel pants slapping against her legs.

“
Please, find me.
”

She rubbed her arms and followed the voice down the street, and then down the next and the next, until she reached the edge of her town. In front of her the Romanian wilderness dared her to enter.

“
Come closer.
”

Sonja took a deep breath and pushed forward into the inky blackness of the forest. It had been awhile since her feet had fallen numb, but the voice sounded closer than it had before. She was almost there.

Her feet pressed into the thin layer of powdery snow beneath her, and she wandered through the snow-covered woods.

“
Follow my voice.
”

Torchight flickered in the distance; it seemed to be where the voice came from. Sonja stepped through the trees and the forest opened up.

A group of cloaked figures stood in the small clearing. A few carried torches, the source of the light. Goosebumps broke out along her skin as the firelight made their cloaks flare scarlet, the same shade as spilled blood.

Sonja blinked several times; she felt like she was surfacing from a terrible, terrible dream. “What’s going on?” she asked.

She took a step back and several heads turned, tracking her movement.

“Come closer,” said a feminine voice.

And just like that, Sonja was dragged back under. She walked over to the cloaked woman, all the while her muscles twitched, as though they knew on some instinctual level that she shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t see the woman’s eyes, but she saw her luscious smile.

The woman handed her a folded dress. “Put this on.”

Sonja took the bundle she was handed and began to strip in front of the crowd. Her stomach felt sick, like she shouldn’t be doing this, but she couldn’t stop herself from removing her clothes and pulling the thin linen gown over her head. Her body trembled from the cold and her numb hands fumbled, but eventually she managed to get the dress on.

“Lay down your tired body,” the strange woman said, gesturing to a wooden altar behind her.

Now that she had mentioned it, Sonja was tired. So, so tired.

Sonja passed the woman and approached the altar, ignoring the stares that seemed to bore into her skin. She paused, for the briefest of seconds, murmuring a prayer under her breath, and then hoisted her body onto the raised platform.

The cloaked figures fanned out around her, their presence making her breath hitch.

Another woman’s voice began to speak, chanting some incantation in a language that Sonja’s bones recognized, even if her brain didn’t.

A twine rope slipped over her head and someone tightened it around her neck. The skin squeezed in on itself, crushing her windpipe. Her hands twitched, compelled by instinct to remove the force.

“Don’t fight it,” the woman said, brushing Sonja’s hair away from her face. “Find peace in the moment.”

Sonja’s muscles loosened at the command. She stared at the cloudy sky and the snow that drifted down. The ache of her feet, the chill of her skin, the spasm of her lungs, these sensations were all remote things to the calm that had come over her. She welcomed the darkness that spread over her vision, and she never felt the knife that pierced her heart, nor the one that slit her throat.

I stood in
the middle of a snowstorm. Small white flakes blew around my body as I looked around. On either side of me dark evergreens were largely hidden under snow.

Something about this place tugged at my memory. Hesitantly I crept forward, and out of the snowstorm I made out gray and white stone.

The falling snow heightened the unsettling silence of the place, and as my heartbeat sped up, it became the only sound ringing in my ears.

I climbed up a short staircase, my steps faltering as a sense of déjà vu washed over me. It was right on the edge of my mind, that memory. But the moment I tried to focus on it, it dissolved. A wisp of smoke carried away.

I stared at the large door, dread soaking through my skin.

Evil lurks within.

The thought had only just crossed my mind when the door creaked open on its own.

That thought was all it took for me to stumble away.

“Wait.” The voice was rich and deep; the kind that came along with a beautiful face.

I knew that voice.

Even though every muscle screamed at me to run, I froze. I saw his almond-shaped eyes first. They glittered as though they were lit from behind. Then his chiseled features came into focus. The deep shadows threw his high brow, square jaw, and cruel lips into sharp relief. He looked even more sinister than I remembered.

I backed away from the devil, never taking my eyes off of him. Dangerous creatures were better out in the open than hidden in shadows.

“You do not need to fear me,” he said.

My teeth chattered as a shiver racked my body. “That’s what you said on Samhain,” I said, “right before you beat the crap out of me.”

He left the shelter of his castle, and his hair ruffled in the storm. It was such a human detail that, for a moment, it felt ridiculous to fear him. Then I remembered who I was dealing with, and I did what I wasn’t supposed to do: I took my eyes off the devil to turn and run down the stairs.

I flew down the steps, my hair whipping around me as the wind blew it about.

He materialized at the bottom, arms crossed, and I yelped.

He cocked his head. “Why you haven’t learned is beyond me, but you. Can’t. Escape. You can’t outrun me. You leave when I say you do.”

There was nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t get past him
—
not without brushing by him. The thought repulsed me. My only other option was up.

“I’m not going to let you go until you take a tour of the castle,” the devil said. “If you remember, I never got the chance.”

I pushed down my nausea. “I’m not going in there.”

“Yes you are.”

I curled my lip. “Over my dead body.”

He flashed me a cruel smile. “We can arrange that.”

The devil’s hand shot out and snatched my wrist. My skin crawled at his touch, and my stomach twisted in knots as I felt his presence wash over me. Evil was very much a physical sensation when it came to the devil.

A scream bubbled in the back of my throat, and terror had my heart jackknifing in my chest.

“Come, consort,” he said, approaching the staircase and yanking my arm.

“Let go of me,” I whimpered, tugging back on my arm.

As if he couldn’t help it, the devil closed his eyes and leaned in, breathing me in. “Your fear smells so damn good. I can practically taste it.” The devil’s eyes opened, a smile blossoming along his face. “I am going to enjoy devouring you piece by piece.”

Fuck. My. Life.

I spoke through my terror. “You really know how to charm a lady,” I managed to bite out.

He ran a hand down my hair, and I shuddered at the sensation. “Don’t worry, little bird, I’ll make certain you enjoy it as well.”

I made a small sound at the back of my throat, and his gaze flicked to my lips.

No. Oh please, no.

I swallowed and leaned back as he leaned in. His gaze crept back up to mine and he smiled at me again. “You make this too much fun.” He ran a hand down my arm, and I yanked against the wrist holding me. His grip tightened. “It’s only a matter of time until you’re mine, but how I hate waiting.”

My gaze moved between his eyes. He looked so human. It was such a stark contrast to the ungodly chill creeping over my skin.

“Come, consort,” he said, tugging my arm.

“No.”

“Hard way it is.” He yanked me forward.

I stumbled and tripped on the slick steps. The devil lunged to catch me, and I had a split second for the sight to strike me as funny
—
the devil was trying to accommodate me.

My head struck the sharp stone staircase, and I jerked awake.

I sat up in bed, my breathing labored.
Just a dream. It was just a dream.

Then again, when in my life had a dream ever been just a dream?

Our first stop
the next morning was the morgue. I stifled a yawn as I followed Grigori through the Politia’s offices, only barely managing to resist the scent of brewing coffee. I knew from experience that coffee and corpses didn’t mix well.

I rubbed my arms when we dipped below ground. Down here the air had a deep chill to it. It didn’t help that the smell of mildew and rot assaulted my nose.

Grigori opened the door to the morgue and Caleb and I filed in. I’d seen several bodies since the first time I stood in the morgue with Caleb, but I never got over the nausea that accompanied them. The decaying bodies, the scent of chemicals and death that filled the air
—
it overwhelmed my senses.

The pathologist greeted Grigori in Romanian, and Grigori gestured to us, presumably explaining who exactly we were. The pathologist’s eyes widened, lingering on me. And then he crossed himself.

I guess my reputation preceded me.

Next to me Caleb snickered, and I covertly flipped him off, which only made him chuckle louder.

“Let us go see the body,” the pathologist said, his accent thick. The three of us followed him across the room, where he’d already laid the body out on an examination table.

I breathed through my mouth as I approached the victim. She had been beautiful once
—
angelic. But in death even the most beautiful faces looked grotesque, and hers was no exception.

The pathologist drew down a paper sheet that had covered most of her body. He pointed to a deep knife wound across her neck and spoke to us in Romanian.

“This is one of three lethal injuries that killed the victim,” Grigori translated.

The pathologist pointed to a deeply bruised swath of skin just above the neck wound and spoke again. “Here’s the second,” Grigori translated, “the discoloration indicating where the noose was tightened around her throat.”

The pathologist pulled the paper sheet down further, revealing a third lethal injury. I grimaced when I saw the stab wound through the victim’s heart. In all the photos, her stained dress had obscured the wound itself, but now I could see the split skin.

Bile rose at the back of my throat.
Don’t vomit on the victim. Don’t vomit on the victim.

The pathologist spoke, this time in English. “All happened at roughly the same time. All contributed to death.”