Desired (11 page)

“You can accompany me,” Caleb said. “I wil prove it to you.

I wil prove to you that this is not about Sera. We can go together. We wil see Jade. And then we can bring him back here, to live with us.”

“And you think Sera would al ow that?” Caitlin asked. “Al ow us to take her son away from her?”

Caleb furrowed his brow.

“He’s
my
son, too. And regardless of what she wants, I don’t plan on spending any time with her. I’m going to see my son. I don’t need to be with her to be with my son. Come with me. You wil see. We wil get Jade together, and we wil leave.”

Caitlin shook her head, again and again.

“I could never go with you. You know that. I could never stand to see Sera. And I don’t want to be involved in your relationship with her.”

“I have no relationship with her,” Caleb insisted. “You have to believe me.”

“Is that why you’re going to leave me and see her?”

“Caitlin,” he said softly. “Please, understand. It’s not like that.”

Caitlin turned, wiping away her tears. With her back to him, she said, “You don’t need my permission. If you want to go

—go.”

Several seconds fol owed. He stepped up close, laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Wil you wait for me? Wil you be here when I return? It wil only be a few days. I promise you.

I wil return, with Jade in hand. And then we can start our lives together. Wil you wait? Please, promise me!”

She turned and looked at him, straight in the eye, feeling scorned, and her sadness hardened to resolve.

“I won’t promise you anything.”

Kyle stood opposite Napoleon in the smal side chamber of the Pantheon. After his dramatic entrance, Kyle had marched Napoleon off, fuming like a chided schoolboy, surrounded by a dozen of his closest fol owers.

Napoleon’s men had wanted to come inside, but Kyle had ordered them to wait outside. They looked to Napoleon for approval, and he grudgingly lowered his gaze and nodded, clearly embarrassed he was no longer the one giving orders.

One of them wouldn’t budge, though, so Kyle walked up to him, picked him up, and threw him with such force that he went flying through the air, out the door, and into the hal way.

“Wait outside,” he said to the others.

They abruptly turned, and hurried out, leaving just Kyle and Napoleon facing each other in the smal chamber.

“You needn’t always be so dramatic,” Napoleon fumed. “I would have fol owed you here if you had only asked. You needn’t order around my people.”

“
Your
people?” Kyle asked. “The only reason you are in power is because of me. I’l do anything I wish. Including stripping you from power.”

Napoleon final y softened, as if ready to take orders from his commander.

“Why are you here?” Napoleon asked. “I thought you were waging your war in New York?”

“I was,” Kyle snapped. “But a girl got in the way. A very annoying girl named Caitlin. And her boyfriend, Caleb. And her brother, Sam. The three of them—they have ruined my plans. I’ve come back myself to take care of them al .”

“So?” Napoleon snapped. “What do you want from me?”

“They’ve come to
your
time and place, unluckily for you,”

Kyle said. “You and your men are going to help me find and kil them.”

Napoleon stared back, indignant. “You have chosen the worst possible time. We have no time for such distractions now. We are in the midst of a revolution. My men—I can barely control them.

They want a revolution. They want democracy. They want to be entirely out in the open.”

“Perfect,” Kyle said. “We wil give them the war they want.

We wil attack Versail es.”

Napoleon raised his eyebrows.

“Impossible,” he snapped. “We’d never win. They have ranks of vampire soldiers protecting the place. Aiden’s people. My men could not possibly win an attack.”

“That’s because you’re not as good a strategist as I,” Kyle retorted. “We wil attack. And we wil defeat them. For that is where Caitlin’s people wil be. And once I kil them, I can kil her. But I agree, that we wil not attack head on. Instead, we wil create a diversion.”

“What diversion?” Napoleon asked, impatiently.

“The savage seven,” Kyle stated.

Napoleon’s eyes opened wide.

“Impossible. They’ve been locked up for centuries. No.

That’s way too dangerous.”

“That’s precisely why we’re going to break them free,” Kyle answered with a smile.

Napoleon paced, thinking.

Kyle knew it would be a shock. It was an unexpected plan.

Which was precisely why it was bril iant. The savage seven, he knew, were some of the most vicious vampires to ever walk the earth.

They had not belonged to any coven, and they had been captured in Paris centuries before. They sat rotting in jail, in the bowels of the Bastil e. If unleashed, they could wreak endless havoc. Exactly what he needed.

But they were also a liability: they were just as likely to turn on Kyle and his men as they would on the humans. They were machines of destruction. It had taken hundreds of years to catch them, and both the vampire and the human races were happy to keep them where they were.

Which was precisely why Kyle would free them. They would never expect it. And it could create exactly the sort of diversion he needed.

“We wil free them,” Kyle commanded. “And then we wil attack. And your people can also have their revolution.”

“Even if we wanted to,” Napoleon said, “it is impossible.

They are deep in the Bastil e. There are legions of guards surrounding them. And I hear they are contained in a special cel , unbreakable.

It’s better for us to wait,” he added. “I have infiltrators in Versail es. A spy, who reports back to me.

She wil tel me al I know. We just need to wait for her.”

“I have an infiltrator there, too,” Kyle said.

“Who is yours?” Napoleon asked.

“Who is yours?” Kyle asked.

Neither answered, both distrusting of each other.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyle final y said. “We wil not wait for them. We never wait. We initiate.

This is our war to begin.”

“I don’t like it,” Napoleon said.

Kyle stepped forward, bearing down on him with his ful height.

“Wel then I’m glad you’re not the one in charge.”

As Caitlin walked through the fields, heading back alone to Caleb’s castle, she felt the world fal ing out from under her.

She was in a daze, barely paying attention to where she was going. She barely glanced at the sea, barely heard the crashing of the waves, barely noticed that Ruth skipped alongside her, craving attention. Caitlin was oblivious to it al . Once again, she had let her guard down, had been ready for love, and had let Caleb back in. Once again, her heart had been broken.

She was so mad at herself. How many times would she al ow herself to become vulnerable, only to be crushed again? When would she ever learn her lesson?

And how had it al fal en apart so quickly?

Caitlin wondered why her life could never just be normal.

She felt as if she were always ascending to the highest peaks, only to be brought down to the lowest depths. Al she wanted was a normal life, a steady relationship, a place to cal home. And she had thought she’d final y found it.

This place had seemed so imperturbable; it had felt as if nothing from the outside world could ever reach them here.

And then, like lightning in a clear blue sky, that awful bird had appeared, carrying that letter.

From Sera. In her awful handwriting. It was so unfair. It made her want to scream at the world.

As quickly as Caleb had taken her to that hil top, in that beautiful moment which she thought would never end, he had just as quickly departed. She remembered watching him flying off, his huge wings flapping, heading off to Sera.

As if he couldn’t wait another minute to be with her.

Maybe she wasn’t being fair. Of course, he had said it was to be with his son. But had he real y meant it?

And did that even matter? After al , he would be seeing her, regardless. He would be running to answer her letter, the second she came cal ing.

It was hard for Caitlin to know what to think.

It just wasn’t fair
, Caitlin thought again, as she bunched up her face, flooding with anger.

Just as quickly, her anger morphed to sadness, as she felt fresh tears streaking down her cheeks.

Where would she go now? What would she do? She had embarked on time travel for Caleb.
He
had become her mission. And now, with him gone, what was her life’s purpose?

Had she made a mistake to make love her life’s mission?

To make this relationship her central purpose?

At the time, nothing had seemed more important. And deep down, she stil felt as if love was the ultimate purpose in life.

But now, at this moment, in her heartbreak, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d made a mistake.

As if she should have focused on more important things.

On anything, except love.

*

Caitlin arrived at Caleb’s empty castle at dusk, Ruth limping at her heels. It felt to her like hours had passed since she’d left the hil top. The long walk had cleared her mind, and now she just felt hol owed out, depressed.

Empty. Alone.

Now, instead of looking up at the castle as her new home, as a place she looked forward to fixing up, a place where she could spend her life in peace, she just saw it as a reminder of Caleb, and of his leaving her alone.

As she walked inside, she lit a few candles, just enough to see by. The dim environment suited her mood.

Ruth whined, and Caitlin went instinctively to the room that held the leftover deer; she took some scraps and hand-fed them to Ruth, who snapped them up. For such a smal animal, she was ravenous.

Caitlin herself was not. She had lost al desire for food.

She wandered upstairs alone, trying not to think of Caleb, and made her way to the bedroom.

She sat at the smal , medieval desk, and looked out the window. Before her, the last light of day was fading. In the distance, she could see the moon begin to rise.

Caitlin lit a candle and pul ed it close, as she reached over and opened her journal. This was what she needed right now. The one friend she could turn to, she could voice al her frustrations to. This journal had real y become a trusted friend, the one common denominator in al her travels.

She turned back the heavy leather cover, and the pages crinkled. She looked at her handwriting, flipping through the pages, and noticed how it had already changed. Al the different types of inks, of pens….Some of the pages were soiled by now, covered in dirt stains or wine spil s. The pages had become thick, too, from water stains and dampness. The journal already felt as if it were a thousand years old. She was shocked at how thick it had become.

Had she real y done al this?

The pages were getting completely fil ed, and Caitlin had to keep turning to find a blank page.

Final y, she did. She took out the quil and ink blot she’d found, sharpened the edge, dipped it, and leaned in to write.

*

I don’t know how I’ve let myself end up in this position once
again. I promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen,
wouldn’t
let myself fall in love with someone who might not be there
for me. This time, though, it seemed so different.

Caleb had seemed so sincere. And that’s the hardest
thing—a part of me still thinks he is. That if that letter
hadn’t
come, we would still be here, together.

Sera. I hate her. She’s always there, ready to split us
apart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to take a step
back, to figure out how this all began. How I even got here
in the first place.

It all started in New York. New York, my God. It feels like a
thousand lifetimes ago. I was just a normal,
typical
teenager, living with a mom who didn’t like me, and who I
didn’t like either, and with an annoying little
brother, who I
loved. But, of course, nothing was normal. I was a hybrid,
or so I would learn. A half-breed. Half
human, half
vampire. And coming of age at exactly the wrong time.

There was that awful public high school, there was Jonah,
the first boy I really had a crush on. There was our first
date, my first feeding. I’d been so embarrassed to run out
on that date, and even more embarrassed to find myself
waking up the next day in a place I didn’t know. And
having fed on I didn’t know what.

Overnight, my life changed. I was hunted down by a dark
coven of vampires, who captured me, and were
determined to kill me. I broke free with Caleb’s help, and
that was the first time I met him. I’d loved him from the
first
moment I saw him—and I haven’t stopped loving him
since.

He took me to his people, to his coven, to the Cloisters.

But they refused to have me. I was on my own, and almost
killed again, until Caleb saved me again, and turned his
back on his own people to take me away.

Then there came the searching for my father, my true
father, for the mythical vampire sword that he would lead
me
to and which would save mankind. Or something like
that. The way I saw it, it was really a search to find out who I
was. Or what I was.

Caleb and I searched together, from one town to the next,
all up the East Coast. From the Hudson Valley to
Martha’s Vineyard to Boston. There was our night of riding
horses on the beach, of spending the night with him for
the first time….It was amazing.

But just as our romance began to take off, danger came
for us. I found the Sword, and I was attacked by Sergei,
Kyle’s awful sidekick, who stabbed me in the back with it.