Blaze (13 page)

Aldrich turned on his heel, walking away
from her and out of the garden. Kira watched him leave. His
movements were confident. Even in the maze of his garden, nothing
slipped his control. He thought he had her. He thought he was
starting to tame her, to trim her down like the hedges in his
perfect garden. And as Kira watched his lean body and sandy brown
hair retreat around the bend, Kira couldn’t help but feel defiant.
Ever stubborn, Kira couldn’t help but doubt him.

That little story had done nothing but make
Kira more confident that he was hiding something. Tristan was a
dreamer and it was one of the reasons Kira loved him. But he had
fallen into Aldrich’s trap without even thinking, without even
pausing to breathe. His dreams and his love had become a drug that
clouded his judgment. And even if it made her cold, Kira couldn’t
be the same way. She couldn’t just believe in something when all of
the signs were telling her it was a lie.

Aldrich had it wrong. Kira wasn’t
Orpheus—she wasn’t giving all of her dreams up in the search of
reality. She already had her proof. The look of hatred in that
woman’s eyes was all she needed to see in order to know it wasn’t
her mother. Aldrich might not have realized it yet, but his plan
had already cracked and Kira had already seen flashes of the
truth.

What she needed now was not proof, but
answers. What did Aldrich want? Why was he trying so hard to
convince her that turning into vampire was not only possible, but
also the right choice?

Kira looked at the mansion. All the answers
she needed where hidden in there somewhere. She just needed to find
the right crack, the one that would bring Aldrich’s carefully
constructed façade crumbling down.

Chapter Eight

It turned out that getting answers was
hard—a lot harder than Kira initially realized. Almost a week had
passed and Kira was no closer to finding out Aldrich’s real
motives. Instead, the four of them had fallen into a strange sort
of routine.

In the morning, Kira would call her parents
and tell them fake stories about Florida. Thank goodness her smart
phone had service, because she was basically living off of her
weather application. A huge storm had blown through Orlando last
week and her father wouldn’t stop asking about all of the gory
details, so Kira had had to search for photos of downed trees to
send him. Luckily, her mother was less nosy and instead asked only
about Luke, something that was much easier for Kira to lie about.
Maybe because she was already sort of lying to herself about
it.

Luke was definitely still mad. At least,
that was how it seemed to Kira. He finally bought a new phone and
she had tried calling him a few times during the half an hour she
had before breakfast, but he never answered. Occasionally Luke
texted her, to make sure she was still alive or to update her on
his location, but nothing personal. So Kira was left to her own
daydreams and imaginings. She’d gone over their reunion one hundred
times in her head—exactly what she would say to apologize and make
him understand. She envisioned all of his possible responses to
ready herself, but it was starting to drive her crazy.

After Kira exhausted all of her phone calls
and pointless fantasies, she would make her way downstairs for
breakfast. She had gotten the timing down perfectly, so that when
she entered the dining room, her food was still hot but all of the
blood-filled glasses had already been emptied and taken out of the
room. While Kira ate, an hour of pointless small talk would
begin.

Then Tristan would disappear with Aldrich,
who was helping him channel his mental abilities to make them
stronger. Kira would go off with her ‘mother’ to talk more about
the process of changing into a vampire and sometimes Kira would
grill her for details about her father. After a few hours, when
Kira knew her fake smile was no longer believable, she would leave
her mother to wander around the castle.

In the past week, Kira had pulled on every
book, looked behind every painting, and twisted any knob within
reach, but still she hadn’t found anything that looked remotely
like a dungeon or trapdoor. Kira was sure Aldrich was hiding
something and she was determined to scope it out, but she had come
up completely empty.

Eventually, when Kira felt ready to put her
happy façade back on, she would go find Tristan. Being with him
tore her in two. One half relished his presence and let him sooth
her into a peaceful happiness. The other half couldn’t fight the
knot in her stomach, the one so tightly roped around her lies that
they seemed to choke her. Kira wasn’t sure how much longer she
could go without telling him the truth, without telling him that
she would never turn into a vampire and would never give up her
conduit powers.

So after a week of this strange balance,
Kira woke up ready for things to change, ready for something to
happen, because she wasn’t sure she could keep up the show much
longer.

And then something did change. On the
nightstand a foot from her head, Kira’s cell phone was ringing. She
reached for the device, ready to answer all of her parents’
questions for an eighth time, when she saw the caller ID. It was
Luke.

Kira fumbled for the phone. She knew Tristan
would be able to hear, and Aldrich too, but she didn’t care.

“Hello?” She answered and sat upright on the
bed.

“Hey,” Luke said. Kira melted into the sound
of his voice. It had been so long since she had heard the subtly
deep but always warm lilt to his words.

“Hi,” she said lamely.

“So…”

“Yeah?” Kira asked, wanting to shake
herself. Seriously? One syllable sentences—was that really the best
she could do?

“I’m just calling because I thought I should
let you know that I’m at the airport and should be landing in
England later tonight.”

“Really?” Kira asked. Clearly actual
sentences were off the table for her right now.

“Yeah, I’ll be in London, staying with some
conduits.”

“Where?” This was becoming ridiculous.

“I’ll text you the address.”

“Great,” Kira said. There was a slight
silence on the line, and Kira knew it was up to her to break it.
“Luke, I—”

“Don’t Kira,” he said, cutting off her
apology. His tone wasn’t angry or mean, like Kira might have
expected. It was oddly excited, like he was ready to hear what she
had to say and wanted to hear it. So then why had he cut her
off?

“Luke,” she tried again.

“Can you meet me in London?” He asked,
cutting her off again. “I think we really need to figure some
things out, talk in person.”

Would Aldrich let her leave? Did she need
his permission?

“I’ll be there tomorrow,” Kira said. After
all, there was a car parked out front with her name on it. And if
Aldrich tried to stop her, well, she hadn’t used her powers in a
while and there was a lot of pent up energy inside of her that she
would happily throw in his direction.

“Good,” he said, and Kira heard the electric
buzz in his voice. He was definitely excited to see her, which left
Kira happy but also ridiculously confused. In all of her
make-believe scenarios, he was angry or furious or ambivalent, but
never excited.

And with the knowledge that he wasn’t
furious with her, Kira found she was grinning. And she wasn’t sure
how she knew it, but something told her Luke was grinning too.

They were silent for a few seconds, stuck in
a comfortable stillness neither one of them wanted to break. But in
the background, Kira heard an airport gate agent call for
boarding.

“That’s me,” Luke said.

“See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

And he hung up, leaving Kira with a blank
screen.

She slid off the bed to get dressed and face
the three vampires waiting for her downstairs. Every one of them
had probably heard the entire conversation and she was sure she had
more than a few questions waiting for her at breakfast.

Sure enough, when she turned the corner to
sit down at the dining table, six eyes were staring at her.

“Good morning,” Kira said before sliding
into her seat. When she looked down, she noticed something else had
changed. There was no breakfast for her. Not a big deal really, but
odd that after such a static week, another thing would be
different. Without food as a distraction, Kira decided to just face
the firing squad.

But the twilight zone kept on coming,
because when she met Tristan’s gaze he wasn’t angry at all. Kira
reached for his hand and slipped her fingers in-between his.

“Was that Luke?” He asked, but his voice was
perfectly friendly. Kira raised an eyebrow slightly. Tristan always
got freakishly possessive when she talked to or about Luke. What
had changed?

“Yeah, he’s coming to England. He’ll be here
later tonight and,” Kira took a breath, determined to stick her
ground, “I want the car to go see him.”

“Of course,” Aldrich said. “You’re not in
jail, Kira. You are perfectly free to do as you please.”

“Okay…” She said. Something wasn’t quite
right about this situation. Everything was a little too easy.
Aldrich was being a little too polite. But her stomach was rumbling
and she was too hungry to deal with it. Instead, Kira asked,
“Where’s my food?”

“Miko dropped it on her way up from the
kitchen,” her fake mother said, “She’ll be bringing you another
plate shortly.”

“That’s okay.” Kira stood. This was the
perfect opportunity to check out the kitchen she had been so
curious about. Cooking would also be a welcome distraction. “I can
go make it myself. Will you point me in the right direction?”

“I’ll take you,” Tristan said. Kira followed
him out of the room and around a few bends before they reached an
oversized black door.

When she opened it, Kira almost wanted to
laugh. The kitchen, unlike every other part of the house, was old.
There were no white tiles in here, the one place white tiles were
actually acceptable. The floor was made of slate slabs and the
counters were constructed from scratchy granite that had definitely
seen better days. Wooden cabinets hung from old stone walls that
were clean, but not polished or flattened. The equipment was older
than anything Kira had cooked with before, but definitely still
useable. The only thing strange was the amount of food—there was a
lot of it, but no one around to eat it. In her quick sweep of the
room, Kira noticed two refrigerators, a freestanding freezer, and a
pantry wall stuffed to the brim with spices and dried foods.

The only other person in the room was Miko,
who practically ran out the door as soon Tristan and Kira walked
in. Kira avoided her blank stare and tried not to look at the tired
girl who seemed so willing to be a vampire’s plaything. It was sad
really.

But she and Tristan were finally alone, and
as Kira searched the cabinets for eggs and bread, she asked the
question that had been on her mind since they left the dining
room.

“So why aren’t you mad?” Kira questioned,
still perusing the cabinets for a pan and vegetable oil.

“About what?”

“About Luke.” Wasn’t that part of the
question obvious?

Tristan slid up behind Kira and gripped her
hips, surprising her. He placed a soft kiss on the nape of her
neck.

“Why would I be mad?” He asked
innocently.

Kira spun in the circle of his embrace,
leaving her supplies on the counter behind her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she gave him a coy
smile, “maybe because the last five thousand times I’ve talked to
Luke or even mentioned his name, you’ve been pissed off by it.”

He grinned down at her. “I think that’s a
bit of an exaggeration.” Kira stared at him in disbelief. “Okay,
okay, Luke’s not my favorite person in the world.” Kira rolled her
eyes and reached for the pan on the counter behind her. “But that’s
all in the past,” Tristan concluded.

“Has your old age finally enlightened you?”
Kira asked with a smirk and turned on the stove.

“I thought we made an agreement about old
man jokes,” Tristan deadpanned. Kira barked out a laugh.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. Continue—it’s all
in the past because…?”

“Because he’s almost out of the picture.
You’re going to see him to say goodbye, right?”

“I guess,” Kira said, feeling her stomach
drop to the floor and her cheery mood completely deflate. Needing
to look somewhere besides Tristan, Kira spun to reach for the
carton of eggs she had pulled from the fridge.

Everything made sense now. Tristan’s mood
and Aldrich’s obliging attitude—they thought she was going to see
Luke to make her final farewell. It made perfect sense in a strange
way. Kira had made all of them believe she wanted to turn and
wanted to become a vampire, so why wouldn’t she say goodbye to
Luke. He was a conduit. If she turned, Luke would become her
enemy.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Tristan
asked. His voice was earnest and concerned. “I know it won’t be
easy for you.”

“No,” Kira whispered. She took a deep
breath, hardening her nerves to turn around and look at Tristan.
His face was open, caring. His eyes were slightly down-turned with
worry about her. The last thing Kira wanted to do in this moment
was lie to him, but she had no choice. “I need to talk to Luke on
my own. He needs to know it’s my choice and mine alone.”

Tristan nodded and reached across the
counter to hold her hand. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too,” Kira told him, holding
off the catch in her throat. Those words weren’t a lie, but she
wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on saying them when the
countdown had already started. “Can I have some time alone? Just to
clear my head and think about what I’m going to tell him?”

“Of course.” Tristan squeezed her hand and
kissed the top of her head before stepping out the door. Kira let a
single teardrop fall from her left eye. She needed to find out
about Aldrich’s plan, she needed answers, because she couldn’t do
this much longer.