Vanish (3 page)

This gives me a start. I didn’t think the separation would be permanent. I can’t remember a time when Tam and I ever slept more than one room apart from each other. As much as this disturbs me, I guess it makes sense. Nidia will take care of Tamra. Give her the support and guidance she needs right now. Everything that Mom and I can’t give her.

I tell myself that’s all that’s happening. The pride isn’t trying to separate us.

“Tamra, a shader.” Az shakes her head, marveling. “Wait until I tell everyone. This is awesome.” My friend squeezes my arm with happy enthusiasm. “Hey, I gotta go.”

She hops from my bed, evidently eager to start spreading the news that our pride’s future is assured. That we have a new shader who can take Nidia’s place someday.

As long as Tamra doesn’t mind being bound to the pride for the rest of her life. And why should she? Once she has time to deal with the change, she’s going to realize she’s no longer invisible among the pride—and that she has a shot with Cassian.

Leaping through the door, Az calls over her shoulder, “Be back later.”

And I’m alone with Cassian, after all. Thanks, Az.

Chapter 4

W
e haven’t been alone since Chaparral. On the journey here, the four of us trapped in the tight confines of the car, we hardly ever spoke, stopping only for gas, the restroom, and the chance to grab some food. But now it’s just the two of us.

I can only stare at him, dreading the torrent of admonitions I’m convinced he’ll heap upon me. For the obvious reasons: Exposing myself to our greatest enemy. Loving one of those enemies. And even worse, for
still
loving Will after seeing his blood. How can I explain to Cassian that Will’s not the bad guy? He’s just a victim of birth. The blood transfusions forced on him when he was sick. But then does it really matter that I explain anything? I’m not going to see him again.

In the silence I can hear the muffled voices of our parents. The tone is heated.

“What did you tell your father?” I slide off my bed, suddenly aware that I’m on my
bed
 . . . that he’s so close, looming right above me. He doesn’t move, and I have to brush past him to get to the overstuffed sofa chair near the window.

“You mean did I tell them that you revealed yourself to humans?” His gaze cuts into me. “To hunters?”

I fight back my cringe. It sounds even more awful when he says it. I wish I could deny it.

“Yeah. That.” Settling into the chair near my window, I try to act casual, unbothered at this reminder, unbothered about everything. Especially
him
. Here in my bedroom, staring at me in that consuming, searing way that makes my lungs pull and contract. “Did you tell your father about that?”

That I did the one thing that could ruin us all. Not just the pride but our entire species.

His gaze sweeps me, missing nothing. Not the tangled mess of my hair trailing over my shoulders. Not my bare feet, peeking out beneath my folded legs. If he told them what happened, if he told them everything, how could they
not
punish me? Even a part of me believes I deserve it. I betrayed my kind.

Not that I would change anything I did even if I could. I know this much. It’s a strange realization. Feeling guilty does not mean I regret anything. Stronger than any guilt I feel is the pain in my heart at losing Will. I can’t imagine what that pain would be like if I hadn’t saved him. If he’d actually died out there in the desert.

Finally, Cassian answers me. “I couldn’t keep it from them, Jacinda. Not that. It affects all of us.”

I sink down a little in the cushions. Almost like I’m disappointed in him. I don’t know why. Despite our past friendship, I expect no loyalty from him. The pride is first and foremost with Cassian. Still, Tamra shaded the hunters. They won’t remember. Couldn’t he have kept it a secret? Would it have been such a bad thing to do?

Bleakness washes over me, slides through me like ice water. I had almost believed that he cared about me, that he would protect me. Like he promised. Instead, he threw me to the wolves.

“I had to tell them you revealed yourself to hunters, but I didn’t tell them everything. I didn’t tell them about
him
.”

I stare coolly; say the word he cannot bring himself to utter. “You mean Will?”

Something passes over his face. For a second his pupils shudder, shrink, flash to the barest slits. Then nothing. He’s the ever-stoic Cassian again. “Yeah. I didn’t tell them about the blood.”

That injects me with a shot of helpless shame.
Will’s blood
. The blood that’s the same color as mine. I nod.

“They would hunt him down if they knew. I guess I owe you for that.”

“You’re not in love with him,” he says so suddenly and with such force that I jerk. “You don’t even know him. He doesn’t know you. Not like I do.” His chest rises and falls with serrated breaths.

I say nothing in the awkward silence that follows. Tension swirls around us, as dense as Nidia’s mists pressing at my window. I stare down at my hands, noticing the tiny half moons my nails dug without my even knowing.

He releases a heavy sigh. “Look at me, Jacinda. Say something.”

I force my gaze back on him. Does he expect me to agree that I don’t love Will? Determined not to discuss my feelings for Will, I say, “Tamra shaded them. Why did you have to tell them anything? They look at me like I’m a criminal.” I wave an arm. “I’m practically under house arrest! They’re never going to forgive me.”

“I had to tell them. What if any of those hunters ever remember? Tamra doesn’t know how to use her powers yet. What if it doesn’t last? What if she didn’t shade them enough?”

I nod, the motion somehow painful, nearly as painful as the tightness in my chest. “I understand. It’s fine.”

“Clearly, it’s not fine. You’re upset.”

I press a hand to my chest. “And wouldn’t you be, Cassian? I’m going to be treated like a traitor for the rest of my life.”

He shakes his head slowly, a muscle feathering the flesh of his clenched jaw. “They’ll forget and forgive. Eventually.”

“You can’t know that.”

He’d said he would try to do everything he could to keep me safe, but even I know he’s not in total control here.

“The fact that Tamra’s here, that she’s a shader, has greatly appeased them. That you’re
both
back has.”

Even after he told them what I did? I stare at him doubtfully, afraid to drop my guard. “So I’m not in trouble?”

“I didn’t say that.” Something loosens in his face as he says this. A hint of a smile plays on his mouth. “You did reveal yourself to a human, Jacinda. And his family of hunters.”

And for that, I must pay. I nod, accepting it.

“You’ve got a lot to make up for,” he adds, fully serious again.

“And if I can’t?” I’m not sure I have it in me to prove myself to anyone anymore. Right now, the thought of never seeing Will again tears through me and makes me feel bruised and tired. Even though a part of me is relieved to be back in the pride, I’m not exactly in the best condition to properly suck up to anyone.

“Then things will be hard for you. Harder than they have to be. And your mother . . .” His voice fades, but the threat hangs.

My eyes narrow, skin tightening and prickling. “What about my mother?”

He glances over his shoulder as if he could see her wherever she stands in the house. “There’s no love for her. They blame her for taking you and Tamra. There’s talk of banishment—”

I inhale sharply. “That’s not fair. I’m the one—”

“She took you away. You didn’t leave on your own. Come on, Jacinda. Would any of this have happened without your mother hauling you off to some desert?”

I swallow thickly and look back out the window. I hate that I can’t argue this point with him. Hate that I see his logic, as cruel as it is.

“None of us is an island. Think about that. The actions of one affect all.”

I guess this is how I’m not like the rest of them. Why I’m the one who has endangered us all.

I lightly brush my mouth, speaking through my fingers. “Don’t you get sick of it? Don’t you ever want what
you
want? Don’t you think you deserve that once in a while? Why must you put the pride first above everything? Above the life of one? Do you ever draw a line? You can rationalize the sacrifice of one, but what about when it’s two? Three? When do you say enough?” I shake my head.

Cassian stares at me. “It’s the way we are. It’s how we’ve survived this long. The fact that you even question it when no one else does—” He cocks his head to the side. “But then maybe that’s what makes you so special. Why I’m even here talking to you. Why I care at all.”

I swallow against the tightness in my throat and hold his stare. “So you”—I struggle for the right word, a word that won’t make my face heat unbearably, and settle on—“you
like
me because I’m the kind of person that puts us all in jeopardy?”

That rare smile plays about his lips again. “You’re not dull, that’s for sure.”

“Cassian.”

My nerves snap tight as Severin himself steps inside the room beside Cassian. The two of them . . . in my room. Not something I ever envisioned. Cassian is one thing. Severin, another.

Mom hangs back behind Severin, her face hard with defiance. I guess whatever they discussed did not sit well with her.

“We’re finished here, Cassian.”

Severin’s gaze rests on me. I feel myself shrinking inwardly. But I don’t show it. I force myself to hold his stare, pretending he doesn’t make feel weak and shaky inside, that I don’t deserve censure.

Severin waves Cassian to the door. “Wait for me outside.”

Cassian sends me a lingering look and then departs.

Mom moves more fully into the room, her thin arms crossed over her chest. She’s lost weight. I wonder how I could have missed this. She always had curves before.

Severin looks at her coldly. “I would like to have a word with Jacinda.”

“Then you’ll have to do it in front of me.”

Severin’s lip curls up over his bone-white teeth. “You’ve already proven yourself a mother of dubious parenting, Zara. No need to behave as though you care for your daughter now.”

A stricken look flashes over my mother’s face before she manages to mask it, but the paleness is still there, making her eyes stand out like giant gleaming pools.

Since Dad was killed, Tamra and I are all she has. Every decision she makes is in our best interest . . . in what she
thinks
is our best interest. She might have made a few mistakes, but I never doubt her love for me.

A quick simmer froths to life at my core. “Don’t talk to my mother that way,” I warn.

Severin looks back at me,
down
at me, as though I were something soiled at his feet. “Have a care, Jacinda. You are pardoned for your offenses. A fact you can thank Cassian for. I’d just as soon see you punished—” He looks at Mom again. “And you banished.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” I snap, unable to strike the proper chord of penitence with Severin.

“Jacinda,” Mom says in a low voice, grasping my arm with cool fingers.

Severin’s features harden. “Heed me well. You’re on thin ice, Jacinda. I expect perfect behavior from you from now on. . . .” His voice trails, the threat deliberate, implicit. I practically hear him say,
Or else we’ll clip your wings
.

I refuse to show that he affects me—that the threat works, sending a bolt of fear through me that makes my skin tighten and the heat shiver beneath my flesh, a writhing serpent seeking release.

“She won’t be any trouble,” Mom says in a voice I’ve never heard her use. She sounds almost beaten.

Severin’s mouth curls in a smug smile. “Maybe this time you’ll do a better job of keeping her in line.” With a crisp nod, he leaves, his tread a thudding retreat from our home.

A home that no longer feels like home. Just a house that is not ours anymore. Not if Severin can march inside and issue commands and threats as if it were his right to do so.

For the first time I ask myself whether this is what the pride has become—or whether it has always been this way?

Chapter 5

F
or a moment, we stand in silence, and then Mom settles down on my bed with a weariness that stabs at my heart. It’s been too long since she last manifested—
years
. She’s starting to feel her age.

She picks up the tattered bear Dad gave me on my seventh birthday from the tangle of sheets and pillows. I’d forgotten it when we left in such haste, and now I’m glad I left it. Glad that something loved and familiar is waiting for me here.

Mom plucks at one matted ear with a muted sigh. There’s such defeat in the sound. In the sudden slump to her shoulders. Is this it then? Has she given up?

At last she speaks, and her voice is as hollow and flat as her eyes. “I want you safe, Jacinda. I don’t want you hurt.”

I nod. “I know.”

“And right now I’m starting to think I might be the one causing you the most suffering.”

I shake my head fiercely, not liking this new, defeated version of my mother. She’s someone I don’t know. Don’t want to know. With everything else changing, I need her to remain constant. “No. That’s not true.”

“I’ve shoved and pushed you every which way whether you liked it or not—all with the goal of protecting you.” She shakes her head. “Maybe I’ve made everything worse. Now we’re back here.” She motions listlessly with her hand. “You’re just as much a slave to the pride. Only this time it’s worse. They’ll no longer treat you like you’re a great gift bestowed upon them. They’ll treat you like you’re some kind of malcontent.”

“Mom?” My voice quavers a bit and I swallow. “What are you saying?”

She looks up from the bear. “Don’t let them treat you like a whipped dog for the rest of your life. Follow their rules. Lay low. Get back on top. Do what you have to.”

“You actually want to stay here? You want Tamra to stay here?”

“Taking you to Chaparral . . . I was chasing a dream. Something that never existed. Not for you or even Tamra. She was destined to be a draki and I didn’t even know it.” She strangles on a laugh, presses her fingers to her lips to catch it. “And you—well, you’ve been trying to tell me all along that you can’t be anything but a draki. That you need to be here. I just didn’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, Jacinda.”

I sit down beside my mother on the bed. She might have infuriated me in the past, but I can’t stand seeing her like this. I want her back. I miss her vibrancy. Miss her. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry for being a mother who loves her daughters so completely she would sacrifice everything for them.”

I hold her hand, squeeze the cold fingers, and suddenly remember that she’s always cold here. Always shivering in the perpetual mists and winds. The same mist and wind that are home to me—that I lift my face to better feel and taste. She didn’t love it. Never had and never will. “We’ll figure out a way to live here. Happily. I’m not going to live with my head bowed and neither will you.”

She gives me a wobbly smile and reminds me gently, “Your sister’s head isn’t bowed here anymore.”

That’s true. Tamra’s on top now. And ironically, I’m not. At least not at the moment.

Mom brushes my cheek with the back of her hand. “I lived here for your father. I can do it for my girls. It’s a small price to pay.” She sucks in a breath. “I loved your dad very much. But that love was nothing like how I felt after we were bonded. Something happens, changes when you’re bonded in that circle. It’s like we became connected. . . .” Her expression grows wistful. “Some days, I couldn’t tell my emotions from his.” Her amber gaze darkens. “Even that last day . . . I felt . . . I knew something was wrong before anyone told me. And I stayed here for so long, telling myself that the
nothingness
I felt wasn’t him dead. That he could still be alive out there, just out of my range so I couldn’t sense him anymore.”

I watch her raptly. “Why did you never tell me this?” At least the part about feeling something was wrong with Dad that last day. Of course I knew that many bonded draki form a connection. Historically, dragons mated for life and the idea behind bonding stems from this ancient trait. For some draki couples it goes deeper. Apparently my parents had been one of them.

She shrugs. “You were just a girl. I didn’t want you to know that I’d felt his . . . fear. His pain. I nearly passed out from it, Jacinda. I was afraid if I told you, you would think I’d felt his . . .”

“Death,” I supply. My head aches, temples throbbing as I process this. Deep in my soul, I held hope that Dad lived. That he could be in captivity somewhere. I don’t know what to think anymore.

She flinches but nods.

“So why are you telling me now?” I demand. Mom had practically been in Dad’s head at the end . . . and she kept that to herself?

“You need to know.” She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “In case you ever bond with someone here.” My eyes widen, already guessing the direction she’s heading. And not believing it. She can’t be
suggesting
I bond with Cassian. “You’ll feel . . .”

“What?”

She fixes her gaze on me. “It’ll be okay, Jacinda.”

Okay?
“Because once we’re bonded it won’t matter that I don’t love him? Because I’ll feel something false and can lie to myself that it’s love?”

She shakes her head firmly. “You’ll feel connected. Once that happens, does it really matter why or how it happened?”

Yes!

“It mattered to you before,” I say numbly.

“Things are different now. We’re stuck here. You need to make the best of it.”

“I am. I will. That doesn’t mean I have to get myself bonded.” I close my eyes and rub my eyelids, trying to ease the ache there. Am I really having a conversation with my mother on the pros of bonding in order to escape the pride’s disapproval?

“You can be happy here, can’t you? Cassian—” She stops. I watch her throat work, incredulous over what she’s saying. “Cassian’s not a bad sort. He’s not . . . quite like his father.”

Not quite.
I pull back, certain my mother has been snatched up by aliens. “Are you serious?”

“The pride would forget everything if you and Cassian just—”

“No! Mom, no!” I resist the temptation to cover my ears with my hands. I’m not hearing this. Not from her.

“I’m not saying right now. In time—”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this!”

She grips my hand, speaks to me in a hard voice. “I can’t protect you anymore, Jacinda. I’ve no power here.”

“And because Cassian does that’s reason enough to barter myself?”

“I’m not suggesting anything you haven’t considered already. I’ve seen you with him. There’s something there.”

I nod slowly. “Maybe. Once.” When there was no one else. No alternative to tempt me. Before I met Will. “Not anymore.”

“Because of Will.” Mom’s eyes spark for a moment with the old vitality. “You can’t be with him. It’s impossible, Jacinda. There’s no chance. He’s not one of us.”

He’s not one of us
. I’ve avoided really thinking about that, accepting that, but the words find me now, dig deep and wound me where my heart already aches.

I inhale thinly. “Impossible or not, I can’t consider anyone else. I’d rather be alone.”

“Oh, don’t be naïve! He’s a human! A hunter! Let it go! There will be someone else.”

For a moment, the conversation strangely echoes when Mom tried to persuade me to let my draki go, let it wither away. Now she wants me to embrace my draki and forget Will. I shake my head.

Only she’s right. More than she even realizes. Hanging on to Will is foolishness. It’s wrong. I know this. He’s more than an untouchable human. More than a hunter. He’s much worse.

Draki blood runs through his veins. A draki—perhaps several—died in order to sustain his life. Even if his father was responsible for the terrible deed, how could I ever look Will in the eyes again? Touch him? Hold him? Kiss him?

I suppose it’s a good thing I will never face him again. I need to quit hoping, in the darkest shadows of my heart, that he will keep his promise to find me.

“I’ve let him go,” I murmur, my voice soft.

Mom studies me, her expression unconvinced. But then I don’t need to convince her as much as I need to convince myself.

That night in my bed, I stare at the glowing stars Dad helped me decorate the ceiling with years before and gradually begin to feel safe again. The way I felt as a little girl, my parents asleep just down the hall from me. So secure. So protected.

I free my thoughts and find Will. He’s waiting there in my unguarded heart.

Dozing, half asleep, I remember. Remember him—us—those moments before the world crashed down around me. A smile touches my lips as I remember everything. I remember until the longing becomes too much. Until the ache of wanting him becomes too deep, as salty as the warm tears flowing down my cheeks.

It’s not over. We’re not through. . . . I’ll come for you. I’ll find you. I will. We’ll be together again.

“No,” I whisper into the hush of my room even as my heart bleeds. A treacherous part of me forever wants to believe that. “We won’t.”

But then I wake up to the horrible truth again, hiss at the sudden knifing pain to my heart. He won’t have those memories. He won’t remember making that promise to me.

I brush fingers to my trembling lips.
You won’t remember me leaving. You won’t remember why I had to go. You’ll just think I left Chaparral. Left you.

Turning my face, I bite my pillow, stifling the sob that wants to break loose from my chest.

Does he even think about me anymore? Desperately I wonder how much, how far back can he remember? How much of me is gone? Tamra is new at this. Could she have wiped me completely from his memory? I shake my head at the thought. Bite my lip until I taste the tang of my own blood. Releasing the bruised flesh, I tell myself I’m being paranoid. I’ve never heard of a shader who could erase weeks from a person’s mind. It isn’t possible. It can’t be.

In that moment, I know. I have to ask Tamra. I have to find out if she knows how much memory she took from Will. How much of me she erased from his heart.

Rolling to my side, I feel a small measure of comfort. Tomorrow. I’ll ask her tomorrow.

Somehow this decision makes me feel better. Gives me something to look forward to even though nothing she says will change anything.

Will is miles away in Chaparral. And I’ll still be here.

When I step out on our porch the following morning, I release a deep breath of relief, glad to see our watchdogs have been called off. I guess Severin decided yesterday’s chat was enough to keep me in line.

It’s still early. A thick fog clings low to the ground, hugging my calves and rising up in a thinner mist as I set out for Nidia’s cottage, determined to ask Tamra if she thinks she succeeded in shading Will and the others. It was her first time, after all. How can she be sure she knew what she was doing?

Jabel’s dog barks. I quicken my pace, imagining I see the blinds shift. I don’t want to get stuck talking to Cassian’s aunt. I look over my shoulder, wondering if she’s the reason Severin sent our bodyguards home. It’s convenient, after all, to have the watchful eyes of his sister across the street from us.

I should have been looking where I was going. A cry escapes me as I collide hard with another body.

Hands reach out and steady me. I blow messy hair from my face and gaze upon Corbin, Jabel’s son.

“Jacinda,” he greets. “Nice to have you back.” His mouth lifts in a smile that doesn’t seem real, but then it never has.

Corbin and I are the same age—we’ve been in the same classes since primary school. But we were never close. He was always mean-spirited, cheating at school and games. Playing cruel pranks on those smaller. When it became clear I was a fire-breather, he’d suddenly changed his tune and tried cozying up to me, but by then I knew the real Corbin.

He resembles his uncle Severin. Much more than Cassian does. It’s the eyes. Corbin and Severin possess the same dead eyes. If possible, he’s grown in my absence. He stands almost as tall as Cassian now. I step from the clasp of his hands and try not to appear intimidated.

“Where you headed?” he asks.

I bristle, thinking how his mom is probably spying on us as we stand here. How he was probably lying in wait for me to leave my house. “Why? Have you been assigned to guard me?”

He gives me what I guess is a flirty smile. “Do you need a bodyguard?”

I shake my head, regretting my defensiveness. If I act like a prisoner, that’s how they’ll treat me. “I’m going to see my sister.”
To satisfy my morbid fear that Will doesn’t remember our last night together. That as far as he’s concerned, I simply vanished.

“Oh.” He digs his hands deep into his pockets. “I’ll walk with you.”

Not seeing how I can refuse this, I give a light shrug and continue on, the mist weaving around my ankles. We walk past houses with their windows drawn against the morning. I don’t remember the pride being this quiet before, this still. Even this early, there was usually some activity. It gives me an eerie feeling. Suddenly the vine-covered wall edging the township doesn’t seem like something protecting us, but something hemming us in.

“So quiet,” I murmur.

“Yeah. Still curfew. You can’t leave your house until seven.”

“Then what are you doing wandering—”

“I’m part of the morning patrol.” He gestures to the blue band around his arm. I hadn’t noticed it before.

“Patrol,” I echo numbly, staring at the blue fabric. “I didn’t know. Should I go back until—”

“Nah. I won’t write you up.”
Write me up?

He smiles like this is a gift. I can’t muster a smile in return. I want no gifts from him. Tomorrow I’ll be certain to leave
after
seven.

I turn and continue walking.

“Pretty cool about your sister,” he says, keeping pace with me.

“Yeah.”

He slants me a look from his night-black eyes. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

“Honestly, I haven’t had time to process it.”

He nods like he understands that. “It will be a huge adjustment.”