The Guardian (Callista Ryan Series) (24 page)

             
Callie gritted her teeth at this, irrational jealousy catching in her chest. Alex, unlike his companion, was instantly aware of having captured an audience. He whispered something in the woman’s ear, and they both walked into the throng of bodies, blending in immediately.

             
Adeline shifted uncomfortably beside her. Callie saw that Serena frowned at her friend’s reaction. “Don’t be ridiculous, Adeline,” Serena scolded. Adeline just shook her head; she didn’t want to talk about it.

             
Emeric cleared his throat. “Friends, now that we have convened, there are important issues which we must discuss,” he began, his voice booming through the crowds, perfectly clear even to Callie, who stood in the back. “I am aware that I have been gone lately, and though the circumstances surrounding my disappearance were beyond my control, I apologize for my absence. That is all that I will say on the subject. Moving onto more important matters—as this is public knowledge, even amongst the mortals, I will share it with you now. . A man, a mortal by the name of Adolf Hitler, died yesterday alongside his wife. The story about to circulate through human society is that he took his own life; and, though most of you know that one of our protectors has recently returned from a mission, this is the story that I will have you believe as well. These are particularly dangerous and sensitive matters. Even the slightest hint from any of you to the wrong person might end catastrophically. Are we understood?” he asked.

             
A low murmur passed across the crowd, the sound of agreement.

             
“Very well, then I trust we will soon be able to move on. The war will soon be over, though this does not mean we have fewer concerns. During my leave, I was able to ascertain certain facts from the Siren community. Though we have heard little from these women over the past decades, it seems as though they are planning some sort of uprising. The moment any of you witnesses a Siren in our canopy, you will come straight to me with the information.”

             
Emeric broke off in his speech, though the gaze with which he leveled his people was so demanding that they shrunk away from him. Nevertheless, their silence seemed to be an acceptance of his order, and Emeric nodded.

             
“He is still the same Emeric,” Serena said sarcastically. “All business.”

             
“Who was the protector that he spoke of?” Adeline asked.

             
Serena rolled her eyes. “Who do you think?” she asked. “Zeke cannot stop boasting of his successes in Berlin. Honestly, I do wish he had stayed away a little longer. Whenever he is in the forest, my skin crawls.”

             
Adeline grinned. But then she looked over her shoulder, and her smile wavered. Sadness stole over her purple eyes, and Callie followed her gaze. There, amidst the crowd, Alex was smiling down at something his companion had said. She was murmuring in his ear, and he pulled her closer by wrapping an arm around her waist.

             
He whispered something back, though his eyes were suddenly drawn upwards, and connected with Adeline’s. He grinned a little, as though he knew what she was thinking, and it was a devilish smile. It was the look of a tormenter, a seducer. Callie’s heart broke at the way he taunted her, closing his fingers against the blonde’s dress, speaking softly into the woman’s ear so that she squealed, all the while never breaking the connection that his eyes had with Adeline’s.

             
Who was this man? Surely he wasn’t the considerate, patient one that had been her closest confidant. He was someone else entirely, a monster. And from the way that Adeline averted her gaze, her expression wretched and torn, she knew it, too.

             
“Don’t worry,” Serena said, noting her friend’s distress. “She will be in his pile of rubbish by tomorrow.”

             
“Serena, stop,” Adeline muttered. “He’s better than this. He just doesn’t have much reason to change yet.”

             
“Yet?”

             
Adeline glanced back at him. “One day he’ll realize it. Something will cause him to reconsider his actions.”

             
Serena snorted. “And you believe you’ll be that something? He’s thousands of years old, Addy. If he hasn’t grown up yet, chances are he never will.”

             
Emeric was still speaking, his voice rippling through the shore, but Callie didn’t listen. She was too absorbed in the way that Adeline was acting; she actually seemed to
care
. She defended the man who was even now bent on teasing her, and she didn’t condemn him for his actions. It was astounding, this character shift that Callie saw. Had she not known what the future held, she would have never guessed this scarlet-haired Siren to be capable of evolving into such a beast.

             
Just then, Alex dropped his arm from his partner’s waist. The blonde looked after him in shocked fury as he strolled through the crowd, leaving her behind, his eyes trained on Adeline. Serena gaped as she understood what he was about to do, though Adeline had returned her focus to the shoreline and now watched Emeric, deliberately not looking at Alex as he approached.

             
Alex stopped beside her, turning his body to face Emeric’s as well. After a moment, still not looking at her, he grinned and said, “Adeline.”

             
“Alex,” she said in reply, by way of greeting.

             
His smile grew wider. “Her name is Laura,” he said.

             
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re—“

             
“Aw, come on,” he said, turning to face her now. “Don’t act like you haven’t been watching me. Charting my progress, are you?”

             
“Progress?” she asked, still refusing to look him in the eye though he’d stepped in front of her. She continued to watch Emeric.

             
“My progress. You understand. Of enjoying all of the various women who come before you do. You haven’t been waiting around, I hope.”

             
“For what?” she asked, still calm, though her eyebrows had drawn together in a sign of approaching anger.

             
“For this,” Alex said reasonably. “For me to notice your regards. I must say, I’m flattered.”

             
“
Ha
!” Serena laughed harshly.

             
Alex turned his head and nodded. “Hello, Serena,” he said. She smiled sweetly at him.

             
“Piss off, you—“

             
“Serena,” Adeline said, “listen.”

             
The three of them turned their eyes to the sky. Emeric’s face had grown nearly as cloudy as the horizon, the approaching storm growing nearer. “Furthermore,” he said, “it is with a heavy heart that I must now announce our new defensive strategies. Our lost sisters have once again grown too confident. This has happened once before. Unfortunately, I must insist upon a similar course of action as we have taken in the past. In order to prevent the imminent attack, I have decided to send a small troop of protectors to their island to exterminate a small amount of their population.”

             
An excited, angry buzz swept through the crowd. They seemed to reject this idea; it wasn’t the first time Callie had seen this happen. Emeric held up his hands.

             
“I understand your reluctance; believe me, I have my own doubts. And I know that some of these women were, at one point, your friends. But their numbers have grown too large. And you must remember that they are no longer the women we once knew them to be. They pose a threat to our people. I believe that Milo would have approved of my plan,” he said meaningfully.

             
This quieted the people somewhat. They still stood, scowling and upset, their faces a mass of bitterness. But they did not protest his plan.

             
“Serena, he can’t do this,” Adeline whispered frantically. “If he kills the Sirens, he’s signing the death sentence of everyone who evolves into one of them later on.”

             
“He can’t be serious,” Serena hissed.

             
“Is this merely because they abducted him?” Adeline asked. “Surely he isn’t thinking rationally. They returned him unharmed.”

             
Callie noted Alex’s face. It was set in a grim frown, some of the happy confidence lost for the present time.

             
“It’s worked before,” Alex ground out, though Callie could tell he was only saying so out of desperation to defend Emeric. “In the time they held him prisoner, the human race suffered a great loss. His anger makes sense.”

             
“But
they
weren’t the ones to kill the humans this time,” Serena said. “It’s not like before.”

             
“And once they realized what was happening, they let him go,” Adeline said.

             
“It’s worked before,” Alex said again, this time with even less conviction.

             
“
Once
,” Adeline said. “But this is different. They’ve done nothing, and we are stronger than they are. This would be murder.”

             
“Emeric knows better than we do,” Alex said. “If he believes it to be necessary, we must trust him.”

             
“Don’t be a fool,” Serena said. “Everyone knows this is absurd.”

             
Alex gritted his teeth, and stalked away, almost all the way back to the forest before he took flight. He wasn’t the only one, Callie saw. Others were taking wing, disappearing though Emeric held his position in the sky. Though no one protested the plan aloud, disgust hung heavily in the air.

             
Emeric watched in stony silence, his lack of surprise suggesting that he’d expected such a reaction. Adeline and Serena remained, watching him, as though waiting for an explanation that might justify his sentence.

             
“That is all I have to say,” he said finally. “I will end with an apology for the distress this will cause; I realize the legitimacy of your stances on the matter, and would avoid such actions if doing so were at all possible. You may go.”

             
A few stood still in stunned silence. Others followed those already departed. Serena scoffed. “This is
not
happening,” she growled.

             
“What will we do?” Adeline asked. Callie realized that rather than falling into despair, Adeline seemed to be already in thought.

             
“Nothing yet,” Serena said. “Emeric is looking this way. Come, we’ll discuss this at your cottage.”

             
She pulled Adeline’s arm, and they lifted above the ground once again. Callie was glancing backwards at Emeric, noticing a slight look of relief on his features, and wondering what reason he had to be anything but upset, when the tornado-like sensation set in again. She was pulled forward so quickly that she couldn’t see her surroundings, and then she was standing inside of a cottage.

             
This room was different from the ones she’d seen. Where Shay’s was simple, and Emeric’s was extravagant, Adeline’s was…friendly. This cottage was painted a sunny yellow color. The mantle above the fireplace was decorated with carvings of elephants and birds, and the carpet was white shag. There were cushy, soft pink love seats and a delicate red-striped chaise. On the walls were grainy black and white photographs of the Alps, the Eiffel Tower, Adeline and Serena atop the Egyptian pyramids. The room was oddly cheerful.

             
Thunder clapped again outside, and Callie turned to find the rain break just as Serena and Adeline flew in through the door. They were in the middle of a conversation.

             
“I don’t understand how he can
decide
to do something of this magnitude,” Adeline was saying. “It seems like it should take more than a few months to decide something like this.”

             
“Milo deliberated for years before he was finally forced to attack them,” Serena said, walking into the living room and taking a seat upon the chaise. “Which is why it’s so odd that Emeric is certain Milo would have approved.”

             
“How was it the last time?” Adeline asked. “Before I came, I mean.”

             
“It was what you’d expect,” Serena replied, stretching out as Adeline walked around the kitchen counter, disappearing from view for a moment. “Horrible…bloody…. There was a lot of screaming, I remember. It was a total massacre. We hunted them down for days, killing as many as possible before Milo finally called us out. The nights were the worst. We were all camped on the beach, and every snap of a twig sounded like it was a footstep. We kept thinking they’d attack us.”