Defiance

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The heavy, barred iron door was pitted with rust, but still solid. Down here the halls were stone, no paneling to soften them up. No velvet draperies, no marble busts, no bookcases or lockers. Every school has industrial places, where they don’t bother even slapping on a coat of paint. Usually that’s the best place to slip around if you don’t want to be seen.

But I was down here for another reason.

The door was locked, the key hanging on a nail. I had to go on tiptoes to grab it. It was high enough that a wulfen in changeform could reach it easily. Which was thought-provoking, really.

Leon stepped back. A low, throbbing growl rattled the entire huge iron thing, but I was in no mood for it. “Stop that,” I snapped, and the growl petered out. “You know it’s me. Jeez.”

“He’s reacting to me.” Leon retreated further and leaned against the wall a good fifteen feet away. He closed his eyes and, to all appearances, settled into a light doze.

I wasn’t fooled, but I did appreciate the privacy.

I pushed the door open. It groaned, despite me oiling the hinges the first night we’d brought him down here. It was way too heavy to do anything else.

At least he’d stopped throwing himself against the walls every night. And he’d recovered from taking on three vampires at once. It had been touch and go there for a while, but he’d made it.

I could feel good about that, even though I hadn’t had anything to do with it, right? It had been all Dibs, patching him up and fighting for his life.

Ash greeted me with a low whine, his narrow head dropping. The pale streak running along his left temple glowed in the light coming in from the hall’s fluorescents. The crusted seepage along his jaw, where I’d shot him with one of Dad’s silver-grain bullets, was slowly healing. Nobody was sure if the silver still buried in his flesh and bone was interfering with Sergej’s control of him—his master’s call, Christophe would say, grimly. If his body expelled the silver and I was in the room with him . . .

. . . well, they called him the Broken for a reason. Broken to the will of the king of the vampires. I was looking at something Graves might become, only he wouldn’t get all hairy, unable to change back into a boy.

Nobody could tell me quite what would happen. Not even Nat, and she was probably the only person I could bring myself to say anything about this to. I hadn’t yet, though. I was working up to it.

I even had the note in my bedroom, locked away in a vanity drawer, Sergej’s spidery handwriting in scratchy, rusty-red ink. Since you have taken my Broken, I will break another.

The room was actually a cell. There was a long narrow metal shelf that served as a bed, and he hadn’t shredded the last blanket I’d brought down. The bowl his nightly meal had come in was licked clean and shoved in a corner, and that was an improvement too. There was a toilet bowl, but I didn’t look at that. Instead, I stamped across the cell to the shelf bed, picked up the plaid blanket, and shook it out. Folded it in quick swipes. “You’ve stopped tearing them up. That’s great.”

Ash settled back on his haunches. Almost eight feet of pretty-unstoppable werwulf regarded me with his head cocked to one side. He looked for all the world like a golden retriever wanting to play but afraid to ask.

“All sorts of fun. First I get beat up, then I get attacked by the Spaghetti Monster. Only not so nice, and it’s not so much fun to fight off loads of spaghetti when you’re naked in the shower. You ever had that happen to you? Probably not.” I dropped down on the bed, holding the heavy blanket awkwardly. I’d done a sloppy job folding it; the edges were all messy. Gran wouldn’t approve.

Maybe I could even introduce a mattress now. Big fun down here, between the Broken and me. Both of us useless. At least, he was useless to Sergej. Or so we hoped.

Ash was pretty useful when it came to saving my bacon, though.

The Broken werwulf settled down further. If he’d had stand-up ears, they would have drooped.

“We’re a good team, you know.” I didn’t look directly at him. I know enough about stray dogs not to do that. He inched closer, moving with slow supple grace. “We kicked a sucker’s ass last night, didn’t we?”

He made a low whining noise. Cocked his head. He was really good at telling when I was upset. Funny, he was about the only boy who reliably could. Or who knew to keep his yap shut when I was.

Of course, the fact that his jaw wasn’t made for talking in changeform probably had something to do with it.

It was about between midnight and one, almost lunchtime for the rest of the Schola. If I was where I was supposed to be, I’d be sitting on a stool in an empty classroom, trying to make the aspect show up on command while the tutor lectured me. Christophe would show up, too, and add his two cents.

Abruptly, my skin itched. It was night out there. The Schola had a lot of green space. I couldn’t wait for another daylight run, even if the djamphir did tag along all invisible. Now I could see if I could catch them doing it, and figuring out how to be invisible . . . well, that would be a skill worth having, wouldn’t it.

When I bloomed, Shanks had promised me that I could be the rabbit one day. I was looking forward to it. It’s an honor to be chosen to run. Dibs had been plied with pizza and beer, the hero of the day.

Ash had moved forward. His ruined cheek rubbed against my knee. He whined again, and rubbed some more.

I put my hand down, blindly. My fingers met the curve of his skull. The hair rasped, amazingly vital, against my skin. I petted him, scratched behind his ears—set low, the curves of cartilage hidden in fur.

The trembling in him relaxed. His fur rippled, waves passing through it like wind through high corn.

Sometimes, when I did this, patches of white skin showed. So fragile, unlined, something soft under all that fur and wildness. It looked like those bits of skin never saw the sun.

“I wish I knew how old you are.” I scratched and soothed, smoothing the fur, but avoided touching the patches of bare skin when they showed up. It just . . . it didn’t seem right. “You knew Christophe, right?”

The whine turned into a low growl. I tapped the top of his narrow head. “Stop that. I was just asking.”

The growl modulated, like he was trying to talk. It sounded like he was trying to say my name. Roooooo . . . A long pause. Grooooooo.

“It’s okay.” I sat up straight, opened my eyes, and soothed him. “Really. It was just a question. Hey, I know. Let’s go for a walk, huh? Walk? You like the idea?”

Jesus Christ, Dru. He could use your guts for garters anytime he felt like it, but you treat him like he’s a lapdog. Not very smart.

I couldn’t help myself. Not when he was leaning up against my leg like a hound on a cold night and orange gleams swirled through his irises under heavy lids.

He didn’t look too jazzed at the idea of going for a walk, but I slid to the edge of the shelf bed, bumping at him. “Maybe you’re ready. We could walk around, huh? Even just down to the end of the corridor and—”

“Bad idea,” Christophe said from the door.

I actually jumped, forcing my free hand down from the reassuring lump of the locket. Ash tensed, but his head didn’t leave my knee.

Christophe didn’t look angry. He just stood there, leaning against the doorjamb, his arms folded. Never in a million years could I ever look that graceful just standing still. Plenty of the other djamphir couldn’t either. He looked like the entire world was nothing more than a picture frame to set him off right, but not in an I’m so pretty way. More like in an art-print sort of way, the kind you’d find hanging in an expensive coffeehouse somewhere on the West Coast.

Ash blinked, very deliberately. First the right eye, then the left. The specks and swirls of orange in his eyes had run together into a steady glow.

I curled my fingers in the thick ruff of hair at the back of the wulf’s neck. Nobody except Graves had ever stood in the door when I visited Ash, and things had been all right then. Or at least, less messed up than they were now.

“You’ve never come down here before.” I was glad I’d stopped to put some shoes on. There’s nothing like staring at a boy you’ve both kissed and yelled at on the same night to make you feel grateful for having all your armor on.

“There was no need. And Ash and I have . . . history.” A small, tight smile. “Also, there is an emergency Council meeting. Your presence is requested.”

He said it like it meant required. I guess it kind of was. “This is about the shower, isn’t it.”

“Only tangentially. There’s information.” The pause was significant, but his expression didn’t change. “About Anna.”

Ash’s tension turned into sound. The subvocal growl was so low I felt it in my bones, and the blanket fell off the bed. He rolled his head back, looking at me, and his eyes were orange lamps.

“Leash the dog, Milady.” Christophe had stiffened perceptibly, and the aspect folded softly over him. His hair slicked down, darkening, and now his eyes were glowing, too. Cold, cold blue. “You seem to be the only thing keeping him calm.”

“Oh, please. I weigh a quarter of what he does in changeform. Like I’m going to stop him if he goes for you.” All the same, I hoped he didn’t. Of all the things that would just cap off the worst night I’d had in a while—and that’s saying something—it would be Christophe and Ash going at it in a cell. With me in it.

“If he comes for me, you’ll lose your Broken.” He managed to make it sound like a quiet statement of fact. “He is yours, now. Silver doesn’t account for this.” Christophe straightened and took one deliberate step over the threshold. Heel to toe, rolling through, so that he had his balance at every moment.

He was expecting Ash to do something.

The Broken werwulf went very still. He was staring at me, not at Christophe.

“I want to take him for a walk.” I didn’t mean right this moment, but I also didn’t want to be put off again. I stole another glance at Christophe’s face. My fingers ached in Ash’s fur, my fist clenched tight and sweating. The Broken still watched me, and his lip lifted silently. Sharp teeth, very white. And a lot of them.

“Not tonight, Dru. Please.” And how was it that Christophe could just ask me sometimes? If he did that more often, I wouldn’t get so frustrated.

My chin rose, stubbornly. That’s a look like a mule, Gran’s voice said in my memory, and missing her rose hard and fast in my throat. “Then when?”

“Tomorrow night. We’ll leave malaika practice. You’ve been going at it harder than I’ve ever seen a student work. I think you need a holiday.”

“Then it’ll take even longer. We aren’t ever supposed to relax, Christophe. You relax, and the night will hunt you down. Wasn’t that what you said?”

“What I say to you during practice doesn’t need to be repeated. It’s my job to push you, Dru. I have to be twice as hard as anything you’ll find out there. I’ve trained hundreds of Kouroi. Some of them are dead. I wonder, if I’d been more ruthless, pushed them harder, if they’d still be alive.”

But he wasn’t thinking about them, I’d bet. From the look on his face, I’d bet he was thinking of someone else. Someone with my hair, only sleek ringlets instead of frizz, and a heart-shaped face.

My mother. He’d trained her, too.

“And you want me to take a vacation.” Yes, I was being pissy. But he always had the goddamn answers. It was comforting, until it wasn’t.

Dad would’ve just told me to go do my katas and quit bitching about my bootstraps. I would’ve even done it.

Wouldn’t I? How would Dad have dealt with all this? He hadn’t even told me the most basic things about myself. About who or what I was, who he was, who Mom had been . . . but I hadn’t needed to know, had I? I’d known everything there was to know when I was his helper. His little girl.

Daddy’s little princess. Who had emptied a clip into the shambling corpse that used to be her father.

Of all the things that will fuck you up in the head, that had to be in a class all its own.

Christophe didn’t move. “I hope for the best, but I train you for the worst.” He let out a sigh. “The Council awaits your pleasure, Dru.”

“They can go on without me.” If I kept this up, that tone of painful patience would crack. I hadn’t managed to make him lose his shit yet, but I kept trying. I could almost feel him taking his temper in both hands, as Gran would’ve said.

His eyes were just as glowy as Ash’s, bright piercing blue. “No. They can’t. You’re the only svetocha we have. You are the head of the Order, even if most of your duties are ceremonial at this point. And information on Anna could lead to . . . other information. That you have expressed a great deal of interest in.”

He never really referred to Graves by name. It was kind of insulting.

I patted Ash’s head with my free hand, smoothing down the hair. He was still as stone, his teeth bared, watching me. It didn’t scare me as much as it should have. Stray curls fell in my face. I wished my hair was down all the way; it would hide my expression. “They liked it better with Anna running things. At least she knew what the hell to do all the time.”

“She was just as profoundly uncertain as you when she first arrived.” Choosing his words so, so very carefully. And he was tense, his shoulders stiffening.

“And I’ll bet you helped her get right over that, didn’t you. You’re so helpful.” Yes. I was being a total bitch, okay? I just couldn’t stop myself.

He’d gone just as still as Ash. “I did what duty required.”

“Is that what you’re doing here, too? What duty requires?”

He actually sighed at me. “No. Right now I’m understanding your anger and loneliness as best I can, as I overlook your daytime games.”

My chin set stubbornly. “You don’t know what it’s like to be cooped up in here all the time.”

“Which is why I let you go during the day, and only follow at a distance. For your safety.”

“Let me go. Like I’m a prisoner.”

“Why don’t we address what is truly troubling you, kochana?”

Oh, there was no way I wanted to do that. “Sometimes,” I addressed the wall opposite me, not looking at either of them, “I could really hate you, Christophe.”

“You act out with me because it’s safe.”

Oh, goddammit. What do you do when someone says something like that? I snuck another glance at him, and all the tension had gone out of his shoulders. The aspect had left, too. He just stood there, as if I wasn’t holding on to a pile of kickass werwulf, as if we were alone in this narrow cell. His hands dangled, loose and empty, and he was staring right at me.

At my face. Where every little thing I was feeling was probably written in neon capitals. And underlined.

“Of all the words I could pick to describe you . . .” I was about to say, safe isn’t one of them. But that would be a lie, wouldn’t it. He wasn’t the kind of safe I felt when Graves was sleeping in the same room, where I knew I would wake up and things would be all right.

No, Christophe was the kind of safe that had teeth. Where you know that the bad things are outside the door, but none of them are as bad as the thing inside standing guard over you. He was like a roller-coaster ride, or a twister. Not comforting at all.

Except it is kind of comforting when the twister’s on your side.

“Which one would you choose?” He was still staring.

I patted Ash’s head. “I guess obnoxious would be a good one. Move it, kid.”

The Broken werwulf obediently stepped aside. He edged back, trying to slip between me and Christophe without being too obvious about it. I reached out, snagged his ruff, and pulled gently. “Over here. Don’t think I don’t see that.”

He was stiff and resistant, but I finally got him on my other side. I spread the blanket out on the shelf bed. “I’ll be back. Have a good night, okay? And don’t worry. You’re showing more skin than ever. You’ll change back. I know you will.”

Yeah. Right. But Christophe didn’t say anything, and Ash gave me one long extraordinary look. Like he understood, and he believed me. And like he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. His jaw crackled as he opened his mouth, showing all his teeth in a yawn. A sound came out from the bottom of the well of his throat, and I could swear to God, again, that he was trying to say my name.