Page 86 of Xantera
“Well,” he says before a pause. “There’s more rooms.”
“Twelve? For each of the Guardians?”
“No. Way more than twelve. Like a maze of them. And there’s a huge room filled with books up to the ceiling—not even kidding. I don’t know who would want to read like we had to in schooling, but…. oh, and there’s this garden with their own personal courtyard and their own personal balconies. I was actually having agreattime with the Tenth Guardian up against the railing when one of those servants popped out of nowhere and interrupted.”
I keep my face neutral, though excitement shoots through all my bones—or maybe that’s my own vampire venom working its way through my system, trying to fossilize me, too.
“Anyway,” Tristan continues, a smile snaking across his lips as he recalls his dirty memories. “Had to cut that short but we made up for it later. You know, Chosen Ones sleep together, too. Like I said, not much else to do.”
Lifting my head, I turn back to face the Xantera cityscape with a renewed energy. Now, I wave like a princess in all her glory. Smile like I have everything I’ve ever wanted.
“Like I said, Tristan,” I tell him. “Busy.”
I certainlywillbe busy after this is done. Because I don’t need to convince Arad to invite me into the north wing.
I can just sneak in through the servant corridors.
The hours wax and wane around me until I’m itching in my human skin.
I’ve been in my father’s old office, my head buried in his journals for the last five damned days. It doesn’t matter if I read rapidly or slowly, soaking it all in, whether I’m in his ripped leather armchair he used to love so much or the moth-eaten sofa jammed up against the far side of the room next to all those filing cabinets no one has touched since he died.
I’ve gone through them all, sifted through every drawer, rifled through every page, scoured every singlewordI may have missed in the past, but I don’t feel any closer to a solution.
The parasite was right on my tail,I read now for the tenth time, my eyes burning with exhaustion,and though the others shouted at me to keep going, I could feel his breath on my skin. I whirled to claw hiseyes out, but he lunged, his fangs sinking into my shoulder right before I got him back. Fire exploded through my veins, but he shrunk back just as much as I did.
They don’t like the taste of our blood.
It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.Genetically predisposed, my pack and I are all resistant to the venom—it causes us excruciating pain to come into contact with it, so says my father, but it doesn’t affect us the same way it affects humans.
Now I know what that really means: if any of the Guardians were to bite me, I’d probably yelp an embarrassing amount like I do when I touch the Wall, but I wouldn’t turn to stone. Not like Saskia will.
If only I could turn her into a werewolf, I would in a heartbeat. But werewolves are born, not made. She’d have to have the werewolf gene.
After turning the last page on the sixth journal, I heave it across the room. It slaps against the office door before falling to the ground with a soft thump.
Seconds later, a creak follows a soft series of knocking, and my mother opens the door slowly like she’s testing my mood.
When she steps over the threshold, she studies the book now laying at her feet.
“There’s nothing in that one either,” I say, my words laced with anger that I shouldn’t take out on her. I flex my fingers, raking in deep breaths until I feel my face soften. “Do you know where Grandfather’s journals are? His go farther back.”
Closer to a time when he actually saw a vampire with his own two eyes and witnessed their destruction.
My mother reveals a leather-bound book from behind her back. “I’ve been reading, too. Since our last talk.” She holds it out, her hand trembling slightly. “It’s not an answer or a cure,” she insists, “but it might provide you some new insight.”
I eye the journal, twin scratch marks marring its surface. “I don’t think I’ve seen that one before.”
“You haven’t. Your father—he told me not to let anyone read it. To keep it safe and hidden. But given the circumstances with you and your…”
She doesn’t even have to finish her sentence before I’m shooting onto my feet, taking the journal she offers me and flicking through the yellowed pages stiff with age.
“I don’t understand. Why’d he wantthisone hidden?”
My father had never been a quiet male, exactly. He’d been loud about his rage, his stories, and his goals, roaring out at the world until his very last breath. I was the one to take it all in, to hoard the anger he spewed out and stuff it in a bottle somewhere at the bottom of my soul. I can’t fathom that he actually kept asecretfrom me. That there was anything he wanted to stay quiet.
“Page sixty-eight,” my mother whispers, tugging on my shoulder and rising to her tippy toes to lay a kiss on my cheek. Then she turns around and creeps back out of the room.
I stare after her for a few seconds, the ticking of the clock above the desk like a drumroll for my pulse. Outside the window, the dying sun permeates the clouds, casting an orangish light over the journal in my hands.
