Ascension, Laura Hall [black books to read .txt] 📗

“Gabriella was kind and gentle. The most passive vampire I’ve ever met. If it hadn’t been for Connor’s blood…” He shrugged. “As you know, no vampire under three hundred lived through Ascension, and even then, a third of the Ancients didn’t survive. Gabriella would have assuredly died, but instead, she joined Connor as a daywalker.”

I looked at the sky, where heavy-bellied clouds moved swiftly southward. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but asked anyway, “What happened to her?”

“She volunteered several times a week at a botanical garden in the city. One day, she went to the gardens and never came back.”

“How do you know it was the Liberati?”

He paused. “We don’t, not with certainty. But they prey on the weakest among us, and Gabriella was that. She would not have willingly left Connor, ever.”

My heart hurt.

My brain hurt.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

He dragged a hand down his face, scratching the blond stubble on his jaw. “Connor is a complex man. Even I, his right hand for nearly thirteen years, sometimes think I don’t know him at all. If he grieved when Gabriella disappeared, no one saw it. What I did notice, however, was a growing fixation.”

I got a funny feeling in my stomach.

Adam nodded at the frozen expression on my face. “Yes, with you. Even before Delilah spoke of you, he knew who you were. There was a bidding war of sorts between Primes when you participated in the first Census. Connor happened to be in Los Angeles that day. He won the rights to you by proximity and wouldn’t back down when the others wanted to meet you. They would have offered you anything you wanted, taken you from your home, and turned you into a weapon.”

Isn’t that what Connor’s doing?

But I didn’t ask. I sat very still. Quietly.

Zen. I am Zen.

I remembered Census. Sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair, sweating bullets and praying that Mal’s amulets and spells would keep my charge from surging. Ignoring the itching beneath the wig that concealed my singed scalp. Answering questions for an Emerald Mage while another, lesser mage typed my responses.

After, I’d been left alone for close to an hour before the Emerald—a kind-faced woman who reminded me of Betty Crocker—had reentered and proclaimed me a cipher.

And I also remembered the two-way glass in the room.

“He was watching that day,” I guessed. Adam nodded. “He recognized me. Alisande says I look like my mother.”

“You do.”

“So he kept tabs on me for four years, then when Gabriella disappeared, he started stalking me?”

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” he said dryly. “More like he began monitoring you more closely.”

My throat was dry as dust as I swallowed the lump in it. “And here I’d always thought I was free, when I simply couldn’t see the prison walls.”

He said gently, “Perhaps it’s not captivity but fate. The road set before you by forces unknown.”

The fault lines of my world stretched, opening a void beneath my feet. I stared into Adam’s eyes until everything else drifted away. And I suddenly knew, with absolute conviction, that he’d kept the worst from me.

“What else did my mother tell him, Adam?” He began shaking his head, but I grabbed him by the collar of his sweatshirt and yanked our faces close. “What. Else.”

He didn’t even try to fight me, eyes staying brown and anguished. In a broken voice, he whispered, “That you would bring his love back to life.”

I recoiled in astonishment. “Gabriella?”

“Yes.”

But it wasn’t Adam who said it.

It was the Prime, standing in the doorway leading back into the compound, watching us with cool, blank eyes.

“That’s insane,” I blurted. “I can’t raise the dead. I can’t see the future.”

“Not insane, merely extraordinary,” he said mildly, “and if you are anything, you are that. Your mother spoke only the truth when Seeing. I don’t know how you’ll manage it, but you will bring Gabriella back.”

I looked helplessly at Adam, but he was watching the Prime with sorrow. “I’m sorry. She needed to know.”

The Prime nodded. “Yes, she did.” He turned on his heel, then spoke over his shoulder, “We leave for the gala in two hours. Be ready.”

He was gone.

Adam rose and the shimmering barrier of magic dissipated. Freezing air rushed around me, stinging my eyes and burning down my throat.

“I don’t believe that’s what Delilah meant by her message.”

I took in Adam’s fierce expression. Immediately, I began shaking my head. “You can’t mean—”

“That’s exactly what I mean. As I said before, you’re completely unlike Gabriella. You’re strong, brave, and direct. And I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“The way I look at him?” I bleated. “Adam, he has enough glamour to enter the Miss Universe contest and win. I look at him the same way everyone does.”

If stares could level a person, I would’ve been flat on my back. Adam rasped, “His glamour is inactive for you, Fiona. Inactive. To protect you, he holds back his aura and therefore his glamour. You see him as a man. I don’t know if anyone does that. Has ever done that.”

I gave an incredulous snort-laugh. “No, that’s not… I don’t—bullshit.”

Adam tilted his head. “And you possess a power even the Liberati cannot combat.” He paused. “You killed a cipher, Fiona. With power. It’s against the nature of their Ascension.”

“Well, I’m not a mage, vamp, or shifter. I don’t know what I am, besides stuck in the middle of the most epic clusterfuck ever.”

Adam gave a weary laugh. “I wish I had answers for you, could teach you as I would a mage. If only…”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, standing and rubbing my arms against the cold. “I want nothing to do with Delilah Greer.” He nodded stoically, and we walked side by side toward the compound. As we neared the door, I asked, “Do you really believe everything she said?”

He paused, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I didn’t, not really, until last night.” He finally looked at me. “You could have run. Instead, you fought. But it’s more than that. It’s the way Declan reacts to you, as an alpha to shifter. The way I feel toward you, as a perpetually annoyed older brother.” I rolled my eyes and he smiled slightly. “And it’s the way Connor behaves in your presence. No one, not even Gabriella, has ever penetrated his emotional defenses like you do. He cares for you. And it frightens him.”

Anxiety stirred in the vicinity of my heart. “You’re not psychic.”

“No, but it doesn’t take a psychic to know that Connor hasn’t laughed in years like he has in the last week.”

I shook my head sadly. Now that my blinders were off and I was aware of my burgeoning case of captor-worship, I wasn’t about to let his words penetrate my newly constructed Connor Defense System.

“I’m sorry, Adam. I know you think it’s some sign or whatever, but it’s not. I’m a shiny new toy. Nothing more.”

He looked deeply into my eyes and finally nodded. “All right.” He gestured me through the door and we strode down an empty hallway toward the central hall.

“About tonight,” I said at length. “If I’m supposed to be a member of the Prime’s security detail, does that mean I get a gun? And for that matter, why don’t you guys pack heat and just shoot the Liberati?”

Adam’s lips twitched. “First of all, if we’d suspected a trap was waiting in Snoqualmie, we would have brought a small army of—yes—men who carry guns. Secondly, guns can be temperamental if enough magic is in the air. And thirdly, do you even know how to shoot one?”

“Hello? Daughter of an LAPD detective. I’ve been shooting guns since I could walk.”

“Charming.”

“That’s what you pay me for, right?”

This time, he laughed. I grinned, feeling proud of myself, and nudged his shoulder lightly with mine.

“I’ve grown on you.”

“Like a fungus,” he muttered.

“Like a sister, you mean. So, are we friends now? Because if we’re friends, I have to tell you how silly those white robes are. Unless you want to change your name to Wizard Gibbs.”

He groaned.