Lead Heart (Seraph Black Book 3) (16 page)

I had never hated anyone so much as I hated myself in that moment. I was the worst kind of monster alive.

“I’m ready,” I croaked out, standing on wobbly legs.

Jayden pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number, handing the phone over to me. I didn’t need to ask whom he had called, just like I didn’t need to think about what I was going to say. There was nothing complicated about how I felt or what I needed to do. In fact, nothing had ever been so simple.

“Jayden.” Weston answered the phone after only a few rings.

“No,” I replied, my tone surprisingly even. “It’s me.”

He paused on the other end and I thought that even his breathing had halted, held back by his surprise.

“You’re going to release Silas,” I continued. “Tonight. I’ll meet you at the Komnata, and this time nobody is shooting anybody. You’ll secure my invitation into that stupid boat house, I’ll leave with you, and Silas will leave with two of Jayden’s men. Do we have a deal?”

“That’s it?” Weston didn’t need any time to digest my offer. “After three months, that’s all you have to say?”

“Not quite,” I hedged. “I need a little extra insurance.”

“How much extra?”

“I don’t want him hurt ever again.”

“I can’t promise that. I’ll give you a month. One month free of pain.”

“One year, for all of them.”
One year until Silas reached the cut-off age for bonding and Weston had no excuse to torture him anymore
.

“Define
all
of them?”

“Every single one of my friends.”

Weston laughed, the sound booming through the metal and glass instrument in my hand. “You’ve got balls, girl. Five friends, one year, except Silas. He still only gets a month.”

“Seven friends. Eight months.
Including Silas
.”

“Not happening.”

I growled, my fingers pinching the phone so hard that my hand started to throb. “Eight months for the rest of them and six months for Silas. Final offer.”

“Fine.”

“And Weston?”

“Yes?”

“That starts right now.”

He laughed again. I could feel the curiosity in Jayden’s stare, so I turned away from him to face the bare hallway leading back to his sitting room.

“Done,” Weston said, hanging up on me.

The Komnata didn’t hold fond memories for me. The scar on my shoulder tingled as I stood on the edge of the swamp, glaring into the reflection of the mossy ripples before me. There was a bite to the breeze that wrapped cold fingers around my body and squeezed, stealing my composure and filling me with familiar trepidation. A borrowed beanie attempted to shield me from the mist of rain that whispered over us, but it was unsuccessful, and I was shivering by the time Weston arrived.

I ignored him, my eyes on the two men that had dragged a body from the back of Weston’s limousine. The man was limp between them, his skin stained in a red-turned-brown meld of colour, his head lolling and his limbs hanging. He was taller than the two carrying him, so the tops of his feet were scraping against the bitumen. I cringed and reigned in the urge to run to Silas to make sure that he was okay, because he
wasn’t
okay. He never had been, and he never again would be. He might have had a chance, before I had stolen him from his
true
Atmá, but there was no use dwelling on things that might have been. If there was anything in life that was guaranteed to slow your progress forward, it was the knowledge of an alternative path to the one you were on. This was my path now, this was Silas’s path now, and there wasn’t any point in thinking about the other paths that might have been taken, because they were innumerable. Silas could have been born to someone other than Weston. He could have been the firstborn, the Voda Heir, and an Atmá himself. He could have been an opera singer. He could have been a drug dealer like I had always expected. He could have been anything; he could have done anything…

I could have stolen anyone.  

I watched as Silas was loaded into the car by the side of the road and I was filled with a shame so deep it brought tears to my eyes. It had taken me months to work up the courage to do this. I had been forced to choose between the threat of betraying the people who only wanted to protect me and the threat of choking on my own self-loathing. Eventually, the latter had won out.

“Your demands?” Weston stopped before me, holding out his hand and blocking off my view of the car and Silas.

I dug into the pocket of my coat, pulling out the folded piece of paper with the names on it. Eight months wasn’t long, but Weston wouldn’t be able to lay a hand on Quillan, Noah, Cabe, Tariq, Clarin, or Poison during that time. And six months for Silas might just be enough. It filled me with a very small amount of peace, but also a considerable amount of unease because in my haste to protect the others, I had all but forgotten about the collar around my neck.

I tried to peer around Weston while he was distracted with my list, but the doors had already closed, and the car was pulling away from the curb. Either they didn’t want to take any chances that something might go down at the Komnata again, or else Silas needed urgent medical attention. I didn’t want to dwell on which option it was.

“I’m ready,” I said to Weston.

“Very well.” He held out his arm, bending it at the elbow.
Give me your thoughts
, the gesture seemed to say.

I contained my emotions, forcing my mind to go blank as I placed my hand on his arm. Jayden appeared on my other side, distracting me for a moment. I was strangely glad that he was there.

God, everything is so messed up
.

“Is it?” Weston asked, pausing in his stride as though my sudden thought had shocked him.

I ripped my hand away from his arm, stalking the rest of the way to the door alone.

“I’m here of my own will,” I told the door. In reality, I had no idea how to act, but it had seemed like a good idea to declare my intentions.

It opened at my gentle nudge and I passed through into the musty interior with Weston close on my heel. He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.

“I heard your thoughts.” His voice was no longer controlled, but almost vicious.

His fingers were digging into my skin again, and I frowned at him, saying what I had to say before he launched another attack on my mind. “Would you like to experience another flashback? I can show you what happens when Gerald gets
really
excited, if you want. You deserve to see it, after all.”

He dropped his hand from my shoulder, his skin turning so suddenly white that for a moment, he looked sickly. Threatening a grown man with the sensation of being molested by another grown man was turning out to be one of my most valuable weapons. Jayden cleared his throat, reminding us of his presence, and Weston visibly collected himself.

“Step into the boat, Miss Black.” He motioned the only boat that seemed to still be in one piece, resting on a small ramp that slipped into the water and disappeared out of sight.

I didn’t particularly want to obey him, but I wanted even less for him to lay his hands on me again under the guise of ‘helping me’, so I stepped into the boat and then quickly grabbed the sides as it rocked unsteadily.

“Yas disguised this place herself.” Weston was speaking, but he was no longer visible, because my vision seemed to be suddenly faltering. “She’s one of our most powerful Atmás; you’re about to see why…”

I had turned back to the lake on instinct, feeling as though some small movement had caught my eye despite how my
eyes
weren’t being very reliable. It wasn’t a small movement, however. It was the rising of a mini-community from the depths of the swamp that seemed to be shrinking away before my improving sight. A bridge was the first to manifest, beginning at the end of the boat that I clutched to for balance and ending on man-made platform. I rose from the boat as small stilt-houses rose from the water, connected to each other by stone bridges just like the one that my feet were now carrying me across. Everything seemed to be made of stone except for the houses themselves: they were wood and glass; making the most of the privacy afforded their hidden location with high windows and some open rooms. Mosquito nets curtained off the open spaces, looking like wisps of cloud as they caught the breeze and rippled inside their wooden enclosures.

I ended up on the first platform, my eyes darting from one coloured stone to the next. Jayden was beside me and Weston some way behind me, so I looked to Jayden for direction and he smiled slightly, leading me toward the stone bridge on our right. There was some activity within the nearest house—I could hear the shuffling of feet and the quiet medley of men and women at discussion. Jayden pulled one of the mosquito nets aside and I passed through a hallway and into the connected room beyond, which immediately fell silent.

I had expected the members of the Klovoda to be sitting straight-backed at a round table, not relaxing as they were. The furniture inside the room was definitely expensive: plenty of hand-carved wood and antique fabrics; crystal decoration pieces and huge, ornate frames hugging some of the most exquisite artworks that I had ever set my eyes upon. The people, however, seemed normal. There was a woman around Weston’s age, with beautiful brown hair and serious brown eyes, her features cut from the ideal of a Grecian beauty. She smiled at me as I walked in, hardly surprised to see me, though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

There was another woman close by—seemingly older than the others in the room, though it was her eyes that gave her away as opposed to her appearance. She had distinctly Japanese features: her face as delicate as her body, her dark hair speckled with ash and pulled into a neat bun atop her head. She was dressed more casually than the first woman, though she held herself in such a way that the simple dress was made almost exquisite. The two men standing on either side of her were close enough for me to suppose that she might be an Atmá and they her pair. One was also Japanese, with dark hair and heavy black eyes; the other, however… I halted in my steps for a moment, running my surprised eyes over the three of them. The second man wasn’t Asian: he had bright red hair and was one of the tallest men I had ever laid eyes upon. He was a giant. His blue eyes glittered down at me in amusement. I quickly turned away to observe the others.

There were two women standing together on the other side of the room, looking about as opposite in appearance as two women could possibly look. The one on the right had golden-blond hair and a slender, sporty look about her; energy sparked in her crystal blue eyes and despite the light tone of her skin, there was a
flush
about her, a kind of healthy glow that made me think she spent most of her time outdoors. The woman on the left was dark-skinned, dark-haired, and impossibly beautiful; her eyes shimmered in a knowing sort of way, her full lips lifted in a friendly smirk.

After I got past the initial shock of seeing two such polar-opposite women side-by-side, I realised that they had one thing, at least, in common. Both sported a pale white mark on their foreheads, directly in the center and an inch or so above the line of their brow. Another pair. I scanned around for the man standing closest to them in proximity, but it was hard to distinguish which of the three remaining men was closer. The three of them glanced from the pair to me, evidently intelligent enough to figure out what had momentarily captured my attention. One of them smirked, and I focussed on him. He was sandy-haired, with brilliant blue eyes and permanent laugh lines; his skin was a deep tan-colour, and he was built so solidly for a man his age that it drew on my admiration almost begrudgingly. It wasn’t that I found him attractive—he was easily a couple of decades older than me, but I was impressed with the youthful vitality that seemed to emanate from him. I had never seen a person look more
capable
, and I didn’t even know what I assumed him to be capable
of
. I smiled, and he grinned back, something like approval flashing in his eyes.

Yeah
, he was the Atmá.

The other two men were both dark-skinned, though in a different way to the dark-skinned woman: where she had been a deep bronze, one of the men had an ashy-undertone to his skin, and the other, a yellow undertone. They both nodded solemnly to me from the couch backed up against one of the glass walls.

Since the people within had yet to utter a single word, I shuffled further into the room. It was strange, but I sensed no threat from them. They were nothing like Weston. I found myself gravitating toward the female pair, my eyes riveted to a piece of artwork behind them. They parted easily as I approached, turning on either side of me to inspect the image with me.

It depicted five men standing side by side, detailed with such unerring precision, it sent a feeling of dreaded familiarity skittering down my spine.

A forecasting
.

“The five original Atmás,” a voice to my left spoke, a slight accent rolling her words.
Brazilian
, I thought. “This one…” she pointed to the first man, who was dressed in a delicate cloak of gold, no stitching to be seen, as though the cloak itself had been carved straight from its golden source. “He was the Materialist.”