Heart of Ash Read online

  “If I’m backed into a corner, I’ll take the fall,” I said. “You have my word.”

  “I’ll make the preparations,” she said solemnly as she turned and left the room.

  I locked the door. Not that it would make any difference.

  I was scared—for me, for Dane, for all of us, but I kept going back to Beth’s vision—the four of us together under a snowy sky, but it wasn’t cold. I believed in her and I needed to believe in him. That he could control this. That he could bring Rhys home.

  I started to head downstairs when I looked at how I was dressed. Sure, I was comfortable, but I remembered what Lucinda said about behaving like a seasoned immortal. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

  Opening the armoire, I thumbed through the dresses. “What would Katia wear?” My fingers stopped on a tight oxblood dress that zipped all the way up the back. It was perfect.

  I brushed out my hair—which was no small feat—and pulled it back from my face, twisting it into a sleek French twist, securing it with a jeweled comb.

  I used the makeup. Not just my usual stroke of mascara and some lip balm. I really used the makeup. After three tries, I managed a halfway-decent smoky eye and paired it with a nude lip. Coiling the black silk ribbon around my wrist, I slipped my feet into a pair of deadly heels.

  I made my way downstairs and stood in front of the dining room, taking in one last steeling breath.

  This was it. The moment of truth. The moment of lies.

  As I entered the dining room, Dane stood and the rest of the immortals followed suit.

  I felt their stares as I passed, like icy liquid fingers on my skin, but I kept my eyes trained on Dane, who sat at the far end of a long banquet table.

  As I approached, Dane pulled my chair out for me, but I surprised him by stepping in close, pressing my lips against his for a kiss. The warmth traveled all the way down to the tips of my toes.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I announced. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  A low chuckle erupted throughout the room.

  Dane smiled at me. The sexy smile I knew belonged only to him. And we all sat down.

  Let the games begin.

  24

  “IF YOU’RE TOO tired, we can postpone tonight’s demonstration until—”

  “No. I’m ready,” I said as the staff cleared remnants of grilled octopus from the table. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my legs seductively.

  Dane signaled and one of his guards brought over a sealed plastic bag that contained a crumpled sheet. He placed it on the table in front of me.

  I couldn’t bear doing this in the full light of the chandeliers. “I need candlelight and quiet.”

  Dane nodded and the waitstaff brought in two additional candelabras and dimmed the lights.

  I looked around the room . . . at each and every face, bathed in shadow and light. Some were frightened; especially Julie Bridges, she could hardly look my way. Most seemed wary, but Mr. Jaeger sat there, arms crossed over his chest, a smug look on his face. He didn’t think I could pull this off . . . that I had it in me. But I would do anything to keep Dane safe, and to find Rhys. If putting on some kind of immortal magic freak show helped our cause, that’s exactly what I was going to do.

  Grabbing a carving knife off the sideboard, I walked around the entire table, slow and deliberate, remembering what it was like to have Katia inside of me. The assuredness, the venom racing through my veins. When I reached my place, I stepped up to the table and stabbed the bag dramatically. I took my time sawing through the thick plastic. I wanted each notch in the serrated blade to register on the backs of their necks.

  When I sensed I’d built up enough tension, I pulled the sheet free, pressing it to my face, breathing it in. I closed my eyes, letting my mind wander to the sacred circle in Quivira when Katia summoned the Dark Spirit. I began whispering in Caddo. At first, it was pure gibberish, but soon the words began to take shape into something more—as if they were coming from a well, deep inside of me. I didn’t know if it was the dim lighting, the energy in the room, or pure performance, but I began to feel something move through me, caressing every molecule in my body. There was a strange tingling in my chest that grew until I felt my rib cage expanding. As the words began to flow, a voice whispered back, cooing in my ear. Slipping off my heels, I crawled onto the table, knocking over glassware and silverware in my wake. Grabbing the candelabras, I tipped them, letting the deep red wax drip onto the olive wood table. Digging my fingers into the scalding wax, I released whatever was inside of me, feeling it move through my hands. The sensations were muddy at first, but as soon as I locked in on him, my brother came in crystal clear. “I’m in a dark room. I can’t move. There’s a slow drip, a hissing sound, and then I feel it: a stinging warmth exploding in my veins. There are dull thuds coming from above. The creaking of doors. Laughter and a voice I recognize—a voice so much like—”

  “Ashlyn.”

  I come back to my body to find Dane standing before me, a look of panic in his eyes.

  I looked around the room to see everyone craning their necks, staring down at the table in dark fascination.

  Following their gaze, I saw there was something spelled out in the wax, a number 16028-593, along with the word underfoot.

  “What does it mean?” someone whispered.

  All I could do was stare down at my trembling hands, the thick coat of red wax encrusting my fingertips, cutting me off from my senses.

  “She needs time to process,” Dane said as he picked me up in his arms.

  “That’s it?” Mr. Jaeger said. “I’ve seen better performances at the pantomime. And you called her Ashlyn. We all heard it.”

  “Ashlyn is Katia’s middle name,” Dane said, all the muscles in his body on edge.

  “Have I rattled you, Mr. Coronado?” A vicious smile curled across his lips. “How interesting.”

  I could feel Dane’s anger reach a boiling point. I looked to Lucinda to help, but she just stood there, urging me with her dark eyes to speak up, confess, but I wasn’t ready to give up so easily.

  As Dane set me down to confront Mr. Jaeger, I kissed him. It was long and languorous, full of so much passion I thought the entire room might burst into flames. Without a word, Dane took my hand, leading me out of the room.

  We didn’t look back, but I could feel their eyes on me—every doubt, every fear, every jealous thought, a searing lash across my skin.

  25

  WHEN WE REACHED our corridor, he walked right past my door, opening his own.

  I had to admit I was curious to see his surroundings, and I didn’t want to be alone right now.

  I stepped inside; the rich wood-paneled walls were lit by candlelight. The windows were wide open with a small fire crackling in the fireplace. It was like stepping back in time.

  He started to take off his tie.

  “You know that kiss down there was only for show, right?”

  “Can’t blame a man for dreaming.” He smiled up at me through his dark lashes. “You were brilliant, though. I wasn’t even sure if you’d show up. Thank you for that, for rescuing me,” he said as he got a washcloth from the bathroom. “If I had to listen to one more story about the bubonic plague, I was going to stab myself with my dessert spoon.”

  “You should know . . . the sheet . . . what I felt . . . what I wrote in the wax . . . that was real.”

  With a furrowed brow, Dane reached out to take my hands in the hot towel, easing the wax from each of my fingertips. “Ashlyn, the sheet was brand-new.”

  “That can’t be,” I whispered as I pulled my hands back. “I smelled my brother. I felt him. He was there.”

  “The power of suggestion can be very convincing—”

  “No, it’s more than that. They’re drugging him. They’re taking his blood against his will. I�
��m sure of it.”

  “Okay.” He nodded. “The numbers, the words—do they mean anything to you? Anything at all?”

  “No.” I swallowed hard. “Maybe I’m just being crazy—”

  “No. I’m going to alert my team. See if they can come up with any leads.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For believing me.”

  He reached out to touch my face but stopped himself. I wished he hadn’t.

  As he retrieved his phone from his bedside table to send a text, I browsed the gemstones lined up on a wood inlaid console table on the far wall, but these weren’t the crude varieties he kept back at Quivira. They were giant gleaming cut stones—emeralds, rubies, tanzanite, and some I’d never seen before.

  “That one would look stunning on you,” he said as he put his phone away and picked up a gray stone with a deep sparkle, as if it held a tiny universe inside. “It’s Musgravite, one of the rarest gems in the world,” he said as he kissed it, placing it in the palm of my hand.

  “My mother told me to never accept jewelry from strangers.”

  “Sound advice, but I’m hardly a stranger.”

  As I returned the stone to the table, I thought about how little Dane and I really knew about each other. I didn’t know his favorite color or who taught him how to read, but I knew other things like the taste of his lips, the shape of his jaw when he was proud, and the exact light that made his eyes look more blue than brown. And above all, I knew his scent, better than I knew my own.

  Dane reached behind me to adjust the stone so it was in the exact same position as before.

  “I see you’re still a neat freak,” I said.

  “I take care of the things that matter to me.”

  “Am I a thing to be taken care of?” I asked.

  “No.” He looked at me intently. “You are everything.” He skimmed his fingers along my waist and I longed to lean in to his touch, to feel the full weight of his hand on the small of my back.

  When he pulled away, I let out a measured breath. “Mr. Jaeger’s clearly going to be a problem. Do you think he’s the one behind the killings?”

  “It’s hard to say. But in my experience, he’s always been openly contentious. This is different. It takes a special type of personality to kill using poison. There’s hidden emotion and a duplicity that will be hard to detect. No, whoever’s behind this has unprecedented access, but it’s someone operating from the shadows.”

  “I don’t trust any of them,” I said.

  “I’m afraid the feeling is mutual.” He let out a sigh.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that Lucinda knew the truth about me?”

  “She asked me not to. She wanted to see how convincing you could be.”

  “You know she came to me earlier, pleading for your safety. If things went badly tonight, she asked me to confess, tell them I was an imposter, that I deceived you. In exchange, she said she’d help me escape. She’d help me find my brother.”

  Dane seemed shocked by this. So much so that he had to sit down on the sofa in front of the fireplace.

  “Lucinda, she’s been acting strange lately.”

  “Let me guess . . . since my arrival?”

  “I suppose so,” he replied. “She cut me with a letter opener today. Said it was an accident, but she’s not the clumsy type. I don’t remember saying anything to anger her.”

  “You tend to have that effect on people.”

  “Maybe.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t take. “I thought she understood, but—”

  “But what?”

  “It’s probably nothing. She’s used to being the only lady of the house, is all.”

  “You could ask her to leave.”

  “This is her home. More than it is mine. It’s hard to imagine this place without her,” he said as he looked around.

  Following his gaze, I perused the room, running my fingertips along a sword mounted on the wall, medals, trophies, all belonging to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. I wondered why Dane kept it all—just to maintain the illusion? There were so many things I wanted to know—things I needed to know if we were going to take this any further. And what did we have to lose? At any moment the council could burst in here and do God only knows what to us. I didn’t know how much time we had left. And I couldn’t waste another second.

  “Drink?” I asked as I turned away from him, trying to gather the nerve to go through with this.

  “Please, feel free,” he said as he stoked the fire.

  Removing the stopper from one of the decanters, I took in a deep whiff of something resembling airplane fuel. I knew that smell . . . from the bonfire at Quivira. “Corn rye?”

  “What can I say? I’m sentimental,” he said as he settled back on the sofa.

  I poured two glasses.

  “I’d love to join you, but as I said, I can’t afford to dull my senses. Especially not in your presence.”

  “You might want the drink after I tell you my request,” I said as I took a seat next to him.

  “This sounds ominous.” He took the glass.

  “If I’m to have any future with you, it has to be built on more than desire, more than our blood. I want to know you, completely. And in order to do that, I need to see you. All of you. And you were right, like it or not, Coronado is a part of you now. I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with. How much is you. How much is him. I need to be sure I can feel the difference. I want to speak to him. Alone.”

  “Sick of me already?” He tried to make a joke out of it, but I could tell he was uncomfortable by the way his breath hitched in his throat.

  “What are you afraid of?” I asked.

  “I don’t even know where to start, but I’ve never given up complete control to Coronado.”

  “But today at the meeting, I saw what happened—”

  “When I let him take the lead. I’m still there. I’m watching, listening. It’s like an out-of-body experience. What you’re asking me to do is dangerous, on so many levels.”

  “I can bring you back. Just like you did for me in Quivira. You experienced it today at the meeting.”

  “That was different.”

  “You said love will always bring us back together. If you truly believe that, you’ll do this for me.”

  “Ashlyn—”

  “I need you to trust me. Like I trusted you.”

  He drank his rye in one shot.

  I did the same, nestling my glass in his, curling my legs up on the couch in anticipation.

  “If he does anything—”

  “I can handle myself, but if he does anything . . . untoward, I’ll bring you back so you can kick his ass. Deal?”

  He looked at me with such anguish as if he were memorizing every detail of my face. “I love you,” he said, before closing his eyes.

  As I was trying to catch my breath, trying to figure out how to respond, I watched an ease roll through his muscles, melting away the tension in his brow. And when he opened his eyes—I knew. There was a dark glint that didn’t belong there. A smile curled on his lips, but it wasn’t Dane’s smile.

  “At last, a moment alone.” He sighed as he eased his hand along the back of the couch, touching the jeweled comb holding up my hair. “May I?” he asked as he slipped it out, running his fingers through my hair, arranging the unruly waves around my shoulders.

  “That’s better.” He slid his hand onto my bare knee.

  “I have questions,” I said as I removed it.

  “Of course you do.” He got up, crossing over to the bar. “I would expect nothing less from such a clever girl,” he said as he dug an old bottle of port from the back of the cabinet. “Graham’s Vintage Port, 1963. I received a case of this in lieu of a debt.” He opened the bottle and took a deep whiff. “Clearly, one of
the best decisions I made during the sixties.”

  I studied every facet of him, the way he moved, the way he spoke, trying to discern every detail.

  “Dane doesn’t drink.”

  “I am not Dane.” He looked over his shoulder, giving me a slight wink. “This is a rare opportunity and I plan to make the most of it.”

  “Rare, in what way?”

  “To be untethered.” He slipped the tie from his neck and took off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves. “Between us, he’s a bit of a bore. Frankly, I don’t know what you see in him. Or maybe it’s me that you see in him. That must be it or you wouldn’t have arranged this little rendezvous,” he said as he prowled toward me.

  “Only because you’re a part of him. If being with Dane means being with you, I need to understand exactly what that means.”

  “I’ve mentored him, coached him,” he said as he settled next to me with his drink. “I don’t live in darkness, if that’s what you’re asking. I see what he wants me to see but, unfortunately, I’m not privy to everything, nor is he privy to all of my thoughts. I’m here when he needs me. Nothing more.”

  “And you’re content with that?”

  “Strangely enough, yes. It helps that we have a common interest.” Coronado’s eyes skimmed all the way from my ankles to my collarbone. “Dane’s will is stronger than mine. His love for you keeps him in control. I could never overpower him even if I wanted to. And believe me, I’ve wanted to.” He coiled the end of the black silk from my wrist around his finger.

  “And you should know, I’m not Katia.”

  “No. You most certainly are not.” He took a sip of his drink, the scent of deep plums, ripe cherries, and fragrant flowers clinging to his lips. “Physically, there’s little difference. You even have the same tiny freckle below your right—”

  “Yeah, I got it,” I said as I crossed my hands over my chest. “I’ve seen the portrait.”

  Coronado smiled. “But there’s a hardness about you . . . a darkness that not even Katia possessed. Even the veins in your arms seem aggressive,” he said as he traced the bulging blue vein from the inside of my elbow to my wrist.