A Shade of Kiev 3 (9 page)

I
left
Anna locked in the bathroom when I climbed up to Helina’s floor. I stopped outside her door and placed my ear against it. I didn’t detect any sounds coming from inside so I turned the door knob—unlocked as usual. Nobody in this castle seemed to be concerned about locking doors except me.

I crept along the hallway and headed straight for my sister’s bedroom. I glanced over at her dressing table, scanning it for some kind of perfume. There were several bottles. I grabbed the nearest one.

Then I raced back to the entrance. My stomach rose into my throat as I opened the front door to see Helina standing outside, about to push the door open.

Her eyes widened.

“Kiev. What are you doing?”

“I was looking for you,” I bluffed, slipping the bottle beneath my cloak.

“What for?”

“I wanted to check if rituals are resuming as usual tonight.”

“Yes, why wouldn’t they?”

“All right. That was all.” I turned and sped off in the opposite direction.

“Wait, I need to talk to you too,” she called after me, but I ignored her.

My heart hammering in my chest, I raced back toward my room and locked myself inside. I knocked on the bathroom door.

“Anna,” I whispered through the door. “I’m back.”

No answer.

“Anna?”

I knocked.

I heard a retching sound and then a weak voice. “Yeah… I’m here.”

“Open the door.”

The door opened slowly and Anna appeared, her face pale as she wiped vomit away from her mouth with a tissue.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m wondering if it’s something to do with the meal you gave me. Either you poisoned it, or my stomach has forgotten how to digest proper food.”

I stared at her. I doubted that there was anything wrong with the food I’d given her. It had smelled fresh enough.

She finished wiping herself down and got back into bed, shivering as she pulled the covers back over her.

I handed her the bottle of perfume.

“You need to cover yourself with this. Use the whole bottle if you have to.”

“Puke and perfume,” she muttered, eyeing the small bottle. “Great.”

She sighed and got out of bed again, walking toward the bathroom with the bottle and closing the door. I waited outside the door until she’d finished.

She stepped out after several minutes, holding up the empty bottle. “Ugh, I reek.”

The scent of her blood was still very noticeable to me, but the perfume masked it a lot better than I had thought it would. It was strong stuff.

She began walking back over to the bed, but her knees gave way before she reached it.

I caught her just before she made contact with the floor.

“I feel d-dizzy,” she gasped, her eyes shut tight.

I carried her over to the bed and laid her down on it, pulling the covers over her. Worry gripped me as I looked at her fragile state. “I’m going to need to find some more food for you. You can try to eat it again in a few hours. You have to get something in you.”

She looked up at me weakly and nodded. “I’ll try.”

I felt her forehead. It felt warmer than before. Too warm. I placed two fingers against her neck. Her pulse felt weak. Something wasn’t right.

There was a knock at the door.

Anna looked up at me, panic filling her eyes. I scooped her up and rushed her back into the bathroom.

“Lock the door,” I hissed.

When the bathroom door bolted shut, I answered the front door. I breathed out in relief to see that it was just my brother.

“Erik? What do you want?”

He was about to open his mouth, but he paused as he sniffed the air.

My stomach churned.

“That smell… women’s perfume?”

“Oh, Helina. She visited me.” I cringed internally, praying that he wouldn’t confirm this with our sister.

“Helina, huh?”

His eyes darkened, his face shrouded. His chest began to heave and then, to my shock, he gripped my shirt and shook me.

“You’ve been sleeping with Julisse!” he hissed.

Julisse?

I gripped my brother’s hands and yanked them away, his claws tearing through my shirt in the process.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“That’s Julisse’s perfume.”

“No! This is Helina’s perfume.”

“Don’t lie to me, Kiev.”

He launched at me with speed I’d forgotten my brother possessed. I staggered back and attempted to slam the door against his face, but it was too late. He’d entered the apartment and was beginning to rip my bedroom apart. Upending tables and tearing through curtains.

I was stunned. I couldn’t remember ever witnessing my brother lose his temper like this.

I leapt on him and wrestled him to the ground. I held him in a choke until his breathing became a little steadier.

“You dare accuse me of sleeping with my own brother’s woman?”

He scoffed. “You sleep with enough women to lose track of who belongs to whom.”

“I’ve never touched Julisse,” I growled, tightening my grip around him.

“Then explain why your room reeks of her perfume,” he choked.

I breathed out in frustration.
Helina must have been borrowing the bottle from Julisse.

“I took the perfume from Helina’s room.”

“Oh, to satisfy your lifelong urge to try out women’s perfume?”

I knocked his head against the wooden floor.

I held my breath. I knew now that he wouldn’t believe any other explanation but the truth. But the memory of the way he’d stormed Matteo’s island was still too fresh. I didn’t trust him, just as he didn’t trust me.

“I’m telling you, I’m not sleeping with your woman,” I said through gritted teeth. “I don’t need to explain my every movement to you, and if you don’t believe me, you can go to—”

A retching came from the bathroom.

I swore.

That second of distraction became my downfall. Erik kneed me in the stomach, loosening my hold around him. He scrambled toward the bathroom and forced the door open with one powerful kick.

His mouth fell open as he stared at the floor.

“No,” I hissed, rushing to block his view of Anna.

But it was too late.

She was crouched over the toilet, vomiting again. Her whole body trembled.

Erik took a step back, dumbstruck.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammered.

“You’ll be more than sorry once I’m through with you,” I growled.

I saw red and lunged at him, flooring him once again. I dealt him one blow after the other until his face was a bloody mess.

“Stop!”

I glanced up to see Helina entering the room, her hands clasped over her mouth. She hurried over and hauled me away from Erik.

Erik staggered to his feet and crumpled to the floor in a corner of the room, breathing heavily.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Helina demanded. She paused, sniffing the air. “And why does this room smell of Julisse’s perfume?” She narrowed her eyes on me and gripped my collar. “Have you been the one sleeping with Erik’s girl?”

“Stop, Helina,” Erik muttered.

I breathed out in frustration, brushing her away. There was no point trying to hide it any more. Erik knew and of course he would tell his sister.

I walked over to the bathroom and pointed to Anna crouched down on the floor.

Helina gasped. “This human… you stole her from the back of that dungeon.” Tears of fear and panic welled in her eyes. “No. No, Kiev. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. Please. We need to return her. If we do it now, Isolde might still—”

“No,” I growled, pushing her back.

“There are so many other girls on this island, why do you have to—”

“Shut your mouth and listen for once,” I snarled. I towered over her, glaring from her to my brother. “What’s going to happen now is very simple. You two are going to leave this room and pretend you never saw her.”

“But Kiev—”

“If either of you so much as breathe a word about this human or harm her in any way, I swear—it’s over. I’ll find a way to leave this island and you’ll never see me again.”

That shut my sister up. She chewed on her lower lip.

“I’ve been lenient enough to still talk to you after what you did to Matteo. But this is your last chance. You need to stop trying to judge what’s best for me and just do what I tell you to do. Now, you’re either with me or against me.”

There was a silence, interrupted only by more retching from Anna. It irritated me that I was wasting all this time trying to keep my siblings in check when Anna was in need of me.

“You do realize what will happen if we get caught?” Erik said. His face had almost healed by now.

I grunted. I didn’t know what punishment we would face. But it wouldn’t make a difference.

Helina sank down on the bed. Her eyes glazed over as she stared at the wall.

“So are you with me, or against me?”

I glared down at both of my siblings.

“Of course we’re not against you,” Erik said.

Helina nodded, gulping.

“We’re not against you,” she repeated.

“But are you with me?”

They both nodded.

Truth be told, a part of me had expected them to refuse.

“And I’m sorry, Kiev,” Erik said, still sitting on the floor, now holding his head in his hands. “Julisse has been a sore spot for me recently.”

I stared at Erik. “What do you mean?”

He heaved a sigh, rubbing a palm against his forehead. “She’s started cheating on me. I know it. But I can’t prove it. And, of course, she won’t admit to it.”

I was at a loss for what to say. I’d never had had much conviction about their relationship—Julisse had a way about her that made me distrust her. But I was surprised that she would cheat on my brother. He was certainly one of the best-looking men on the island and also appeared to be several years younger than her.

But with Anna half dying on my bathroom floor, now was not the time for me to be a relationship counsellor to my brother.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said curtly.

Erik got up and walked toward me. He held out his hand and shook mine, patting me on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry for accusing you. I guess I didn’t believe you would do something like that to me. I was just venting.”

I nodded.

Helina stood up and gripped my arm.

“I’m sorry too,” she said softly. “And now, I promise, we’re on your side. I don’t know why you want this pregnant woman so much, or what you plan to do with her—to be honest, I’d rather not know. But whatever insane plan you have going through your mind, we’ll not say a word.”

She would have been even more horrified to learn that I had not even an insane plan. I had no plan at all.

They headed for the front door and stepped out into the corridor outside.

“Wait,” I hissed, just before they left. “Helina. Bring me down the rest of your perfume, will you?”

I
’d thought
that I would feel more shaken after murdering the ruler of The Sanctuary and her lover in their sleep. But I just felt numb. Perhaps it was Rhys’ influence on me finally working. I’d done what I had to do. Now that I’d done it, it felt almost no different than any other mundane task he might ask me to do.

When I resurfaced, I was back in Lilith’s cave. Gasping, I climbed out of the pool and pulled out the rolls of parchment beneath my cloak. They were soaked. Before they could disintegrate, I dried them with my magic, thankful to see that they were still readable. I turned back to face the Ancient, who was now floating in the pool. I held out the leather binder to her.

She crawled out of the pool and towered over me, snatching it from me. She flipped through the pages with her bony fingers. Seemingly satisfied, she handed it back to me. I was confused. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with them. Hell, I didn’t even know what they were.

I looked around the cavernous chamber. Rhys hadn’t arrived yet.

“Rhys?” I said, looking up at her.

She pointed toward the door. I assumed that meant I was to go and fetch him. Tucking the binder beneath my arm, I hurried out of the chamber and along the tunnels.

I ran out toward the entrance of the cave and saw Rhys sitting on a boulder, staring out at the ocean.

“Rhys!” I shouted.

He jumped to his feet, a look of relief on his face, and climbed up toward me.

He held my hand and pulled me close to him.

“She wants to see you now,” I said.

He gripped my hand and we walked back to the chamber.

The Ancient was still standing beside the pool, her thin arms crossed over her chest. She spoke up. Rhys looked at me. “She says you have a bundle of maps.”

I withdrew them from my cloak and handed them to him.

He flipped through the pages.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Not now,” he said, turning back to the Ancient. He continued talking to her.

When there was a gap in their conversation I asked anxiously, “So what now? Did I pass her test?”

He looked down at me and nodded.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified. At least now I would have Rhys by my side for the rest of the way. It just unnerved me that I still had no idea what this involved.

He pulled me down closer to the witch. Lilith was so freakishly tall she even towered over Rhys. I sat down on the floor beside the pool as they finished their conversation.

Finally the witch turned to me and, looking me directly in the eye, rasped, “Mo-na.”

The sound of my name coming out of her decaying lips sent chills running down my spine. I stood up again and walked closer to her, gripping Rhys’ arm as I did.

Then she said something else to me.

I looked at Rhys, my eyebrows raised. Even he looked reluctant to translate for me, hardly making me feel better about the situation. “She is asking, ‘Are you ready to become a Channeler?’”

I nodded, even as my stomach churned.

She hissed at me again.

“She wants you to say yes,” Rhys said.

I looked her.

“Yes,” I said clearly.

She chewed on her lower lip and then gripped my hand. She forced me down on to the floor and hissed at me again.

“Sit cross-legged,” Rhys said.

I did as I was told.

Rhys bent down next to me and sat opposite me on the floor. He placed a hand on my knee. It wasn’t often that Rhys betrayed fear, but looking at me beneath the Ancient’s grip, now he did.

The Ancient’s hands closed around my skull, her sharp fingers digging into my scalp.

An excruciating pain erupted from where she was touching me and ran down my neck to the base of my spine. I cried out. Rhys’ grip on my knee tightened.

She spoke again, and then let out a harsh cackle.

I looked at Rhys through squinted eyes, tears of pain dripping down my cheeks.

“She says now is the time that you need to trust me more than ever.’”