Dark Descendant

TWENTY-EIGHT

I let Anderson do all the explaining when the cavalry arrived. I tried to make myself concentrate on the answers, thinking it was a good idea if I actually paid attention to the “official” story, but I was a little too shocky to manage it. Certainly I knew Anderson made no mention of Alexis’s demise, or that of his crony, Dean. We’d weighted Peter’s body down in the chains that had once held Emma, then dumped him in the pond, where hopefully he would never be found, at least not by any human authorities. We’d disposed of the empty clothes, as well. No one except Konstantin could possibly guess what had actually happened here tonight.

Emma was alive and conscious, but that’s about the best you could say for her. Her eyes had a glazed, shell-shocked expression, and she didn’t react to anything anyone said to her. Anderson cradled her in his arms, and while she didn’t resist, she didn’t cuddle up to him, either. For now, at least, there seemed to be no one home. My heart broke for both of them, and if I hadn’t already cried my eyes dry in the woods, I probably would have done it again on the ride home.

As far as I could tell, Emma was no better the next day, although she would move around and eat and drink if prompted. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone, and forget about talking or changing her facial expression. Still, Anderson seemed confident she would recover, if perhaps not all the way. I didn’t know if that was the wisdom of the ages speaking, or just wishful thinking, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue with him or try to take away his sense of hope.

I’d really hoped that Emma’s presence would inspire Anderson to commute Jamaal’s sentence, but when I tentatively made the suggestion, he silenced me with one cold look. Before I’d seen his true form out at Alexis’s mansion, I might have tried to argue or cajole him out of it, but there was no pretending he didn’t scare the crap out of me now.

“What really happened last night?” Maggie asked me when we were alone. “It’s obvious Anderson didn’t give us the whole story.”

I would have loved to have told her, to unburden myself and talk the situation through with another human being. But of course, I couldn’t, not without risking my own life and hers.

“Don’t ask,” was all I said, though I could see that the way I’d shut her out hurt her.

Not being able to tell Steph the truth was even worse. According to Anderson’s version of events, we had run Alexis off, but there was no mention of his slow and painful death. Blake was still sticking to Steph like glue, and I didn’t dare even hint at what had happened to Alexis when Blake might hear me. I trusted Steph to keep a secret, but not Blake.

Eventually, I managed to get her alone for all of about five minutes. I was worried enough about Anderson’s threat that I dropped my voice to a bare whisper even though we were alone.

“Alexis is dead,” I told her. “I can’t share details, and if anyone gets a hint that I told you, we’ll both join him in the grave. But I thought you should know.”

Steph’s eyes misted with tears. Of the two of us, I’d been by far the most bloodthirsty, so I was a little surprised when she whispered back, “I hope it hurt.”

I shuddered, remembering Alexis’s screams. “It did,” I assured her, then hugged her tightly as she burst into tears.

When sunset rolled around, I seriously considered finding somewhere in the house to hide so I could avoid having to witness Jamaal’s third and final execution. I was scared to death of defying Anderson, but I honestly wasn’t sure my psyche could survive one more horror.

In the end, though, I pulled on my big girl panties and headed out to the clearing with the rest of Anderson’s Liberi—minus Emma, thank God, because even hard-assed Anderson had some compassion, at least for his own wife. I figured Jamaal was being punished in part because of me, and therefore it was my moral duty to stand witness. In hindsight, I think I was still fighting a boatload of guilt over having killed Emmitt and started Jamaal down the self-destructive path he’d chosen.

What courage I’d managed to muster completely failed me when I stepped out from between the trees and into the clearing, however. Jamaal had warned me that Logan would choose something “heinous” for the grand finale, as he termed it, and he hadn’t been kidding.

In the center of the clearing, illuminated by the light of many torches, was a wooden stake, driven into the ground and surrounded by firewood and kindling.

“No fucking way,” I said, coming to such an abrupt halt that Maggie bumped into me from behind and almost knocked me over.

There were winces and gasps of sympathy from the other assembled Liberi, but no one else reacted as violently as I did. I whirled on them, my outrage reaching epic proportions.

“We are not going to just stand here and watch while …” I couldn’t even say the words, but Maggie was frantically shushing me anyway.

“You’re going to do exactly that,” Anderson told me coldly as he stepped into the clearing, followed by Logan and Jamaal. Jamaal staggered when he saw what was awaiting him, but he regained his composure and his courage in a heartbeat, visibly steeling himself for the ordeal.

Earlier in the day, I’d been unable to shake the vision of Anderson in his true form, an avenging god of death with pitiless eyes. Memories of Alexis’s and Dean’s screams had silenced me better than any gag ever could. But this was too much. Jamaal’s actions had been misguided, but not truly evil. He hadn’t meant to harm anyone but me, and he’d thought he had good cause. He didn’t deserve this torment—and I didn’t deserve to have to watch it.

I took a belligerent step in Anderson’s direction and opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I thought of him, ignoring the steely threat in his eyes.

“Shut up, Nikki!” Jamaal snapped at me, surprising me into silence. “It’s my choice whether to submit to this or not, and I choose to submit.”

I wanted to argue, but he had a point. He could walk away if he wanted to, high though the cost might be. But he wasn’t going to walk away. “Fine. Be a martyr if you want to. But I am not watching this.”

I didn’t wait for Anderson’s reply, instead turning and plunging into the woods, running full speed toward the house, hoping I could get inside and as far away from the clearing as possible before the screaming started. If Anderson insisted on punishing me for my act of defiance, I’d deal with it when the time came. I just couldn’t bear to see or hear any more suffering.

I wasn’t thinking when I ran, but once I entered the house, I found myself pounding down the stairs toward the basement instead of heading up to my room. I didn’t analyze my instincts, just went with them, and soon found myself in the cell I’d been locked in the very first night I’d set foot in the mansion. Slamming the door behind me, I threw myself onto the narrow cot and pulled the pillow over my head.

I lay there for a long time, listening to the thrum of my pulse and the harsh rasp of my breath, my body so tight my muscles ached. Even when I was sure the execution was over and done with, I couldn’t relax a single muscle. I figured I might take the whole rest of the night to pull myself together. I was sure I’d have as much time as I needed, because no one would think to look for me here. But I was wrong.

There was a soft knock on the door. I ignored it, not remotely ready to face anyone just now. The door opened despite my lack of invitation, and I did a double take when I saw Jamaal step into the room.

I sat up abruptly, shoving the pillow aside. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I was sure it wasn’t enough for Jamaal to have healed from being burned to death.

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “He didn’t go through with it,” he told me. “They tied me to the stake and he had Logan bring a torch over, but he never lit the fire.”

My shoulders sagged in relief, although I wanted to punch Anderson’s lights out for putting us all through that. The build-up had been bad enough that even failing to light the pyre didn’t lessen the horror.

Jamaal pushed away from the door and sat beside me on the cot. Not so close as to be intimate, but not giving off his usual keep your distance vibes, either.

“The point of the whole exercise was for me to prove myself willing to submit,” Jamaal said softly, staring at the floor. “There is nothing I wouldn’t face to avoid going back to the way I lived before Anderson found me and brought me here. I was so upset about Emmitt that I lost sight of all the good things I still had. I’d forgotten how important being part of Anderson’s crew was to me. The punishment sucked, but it also woke me up. So don’t, uh, feel bad about all this shit, okay? I’m in a better place than I was before.”

I looked over at him, and it was all I could do not to smile at the patent discomfort on his face. I didn’t know if it was because he was unused to speaking words of comfort, or because he didn’t like speaking to me so civilly, but whatever it was, it made him adorably awkward. I suppressed an urge to reach out and touch him, having learned last night that such overtures would not be welcomed despite our truce.

“Thanks for coming to talk to me,” I said, giving him a tentative smile. “I’m glad to know he didn’t go through with it. And I’m sorry—”

He cut me off with an abrupt hand gesture. “No. No apologies. Even if you’re Konstantin’s spy and you killed Emmitt on purpose, you aren’t responsible for what happened to me. I made my own decisions, and I’m enough of an adult to own up to that.”

I sighed. “I wish I could convince you I don’t work for Konstantin.”

He cracked a smile that reminded me for the zillionth time just how mouthwateringly gorgeous he was. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m less convinced now than I was a couple days ago. You did find Emma, after all.” The smile faded into a thoughtful expression. “And Anderson is no fool. He trusts you for a reason. That’s good enough for me for the time being.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Wow, what a ringing endorsement.”

He smiled again—I think that made three times in two days, which might be a record for him. “Ask anyone—coming from me, that is a ringing endorsement.”

He stood up, and I felt obliged to stand, too, if only because I didn’t want to have to crane my neck to look at him.

“Now if you’re finished sulking in the basement,” he said, “Anderson’s called a meeting for about thirty minutes from now to discuss our future relations with the Olympians now that we have Emma back. You don’t want to miss it.”

He turned his back and skedaddled out of the room before I could tell him what I thought of his “sulking” comment.

When I’d come down to the basement, I’d been halfway thinking I needed to make myself disappear. How could I consider working for a terrifying god of death and vengeance who could kill immortals with a touch and had no qualms about burning one of his own people to death in punishment for disobedience?

Jamaal’s words, however, gave me serious pause. Not only had Anderson not followed through on his most dire threat, but Jamaal was clearly feeling better. Before, he’d been like a wounded animal, snarling and biting without any rational thought. “Borderline crazy,” I’d labeled him, and I suspected it was the truth. Now, he seemed human. Still in pain, and still a dangerous man, but not plunging off the deep end anymore. It made me wonder: how much of Anderson’s “punishment” had truly been punishment? And how much had been a demonstration of a particularly harsh version of “tough love”?

I wasn’t yet convinced that staying with Anderson and his merry band was the best way for me to deal with my uncertain future. They were likely soon to be at open war with the Olympians, and that spelled more ordeals and more trauma for me if I stayed with them.

But maybe, just maybe, if Anderson could take an alienated loner like Jamaal and make him into something like a member of the “family,” he could do the same for me.

And that was something I’d gladly brave the terrifying future to achieve.