Page 18 of Cursed Gift

His shoulders tensed. The air between us was thick with unspoken words. My eyes drifted down the column where deep scratch marks marred the surface. When I looked up, Felix was turned toward me again. His throat worked, and his eyes were a mess of thoughts that he held captive inside.

“You found claw marks.”

He nodded.

I followed them up the column. Whoever it was must have come from the top skylights and rode the large columns all the way down. I could see deep cuts into the ornate columns as far as my eyes could see.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He moved closer, his eyes ablaze. “Something’s about to change.” He grabbed my hand. “Izzy—” His face went pale as an electric current passed from my hand to his. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. With a few moments of struggling, he finally forced words. “You have to know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be. We all have secrets. We all have a past, but you must look at what’s right in front of you. You know that, right? That what happened in the past isn’t—”

I squeezed his hands. “What are you saying?”

“Did you find something, Iz?” Papa Nic called out.

Felix tore his hand from mine and turned, making a straight line for the main exit. He pushed the doors open allowing a stream of sunlight to work its way into the room for a moment before he was on the other side as if none of what happened occurred.

“Iz?” Papa Nic called again.

I finally turned to the sound of his voice. “Yes,” I said, forcing words from my mouth. “Felix found it first though. Claw marks in the column. I think they came in and out this way,” I said, pointing up to the ceiling to the high windows.

Everyone looked up, following my gesture. They squinted in the bit of sunlight that shone down. Though the windows were tinted, it was still a fair bit brighter than we kept things at The Fort. That was one thing I could tolerate more than other full-fledged vampires. The sun didn’t bother me as much though it could leave its mark during prolonged exposure. It was best to keep it safe. I never pushed what I could and could not handle.

“And here,” Alexei called out. “A print.”

We all moved in his direction like a swarm of bees. Calen knelt in front of it, his body going rigid. “It’s the same print from the perimeter.”

A cold dose of fear spread its way over my limbs. What had taken out Clan Chang had visited us at The Fort as well. Why? How? If they’d done this to Clan Chang, why hadn’t they done anything more to us? We were sitting ducks just like the Chang’s were. Even worse, we had prominent vampire families staying with us. It was as if we were asking for trouble.

Mother’s voice rang out calm. “Connor, Nicolai, make sure we document everything. I believe we’ve found enough evidence. Everyone else, let’s help Li take care of his family.”

Enough evidence? We still didn’t know anything.

As everyone else dispersed, I walked up to Mom. She turned toward me. Though her voice was calm and as much as the queen’s as it ever was, when she looked at me, I could see the lines around her eyes and the tightness in her mouth.

I lowered my voice. “We don’t know anything, Mother.”

She watched as Calen and Alexei carried bodies out the back door to the courtyard, laying them on top of one another. “We know as much as we’re going to know from here. We’ve been all over the place and only found the prints and the marks. We know the same thing that was close to our home is the same thing that took out the Chang’s. What more would you like us to know?”

“What exactlyitis,” I said, my voice coming out in a desperate rush. “If they killed the Chang’s, they’re probably going to try to kill us too.”

She stepped closer and put her hand on my shoulder. “And thanks to you, we already knew that.” When my face didn’t change, hers softened, and she squeezed my shoulder where her hand lay. “They’re not going to draw us a treasure map to their location, Izzy. They’re not even going to make it easy to figure outwhatthey are. Why would they? Right now, we know that they’re not human. They’re not even vampires. This is some sort of creature. Claws. Footprints.” Her eyes looked around. “Connor took pictures of the wounds on Clan Chang. We’re going to take them back to Stephan to see if he’s seen anything like it before or if he knows what it might have been. This is a strategic attack, Isabelle. They’re not going to lay all the evidence out for us.”

I eyed the door, thinking about the way Felix acted.

He knew something.

He had to. Otherwise, what was all that talk about taking someone at who they were and not the actions of others? He wasn’t going to say anything about the claw marks on the pillar except that I saw him looking at them.

I nodded, my thoughts a jumbled mess as I thought about Felix outside. He very well might hold the key as to what this all was.

Or maybe not. Maybe I read into everything wrong.

Li moved to one of the pillars and turned a large wheel. The skylights in the ceiling opened simultaneously. Then, he moved back to the center of the ceremonial floor. He closed his eyes, muttering something in his native language. Then, he took a box of matches from his pocket and struck one until it came to life between his fingers. He turned, inviting us all to move outside with him. With a flick of his wrist, the match landed on the discarded bodies, blooming into a flame immediately.

One-by-one, he went around the mass of bodies and threw matches down, his lips moving as he did so. The smoke started to build and build, taking what was a beautiful garden into something tragic.

The rest of us stood and watched. The smoke rose, wafting up and taking the remnants of Clan Chang into the sky on a breeze.

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