Power (Soul Savers) (21 page)

“
Then you’ll have to
do it when he doesn’t think you’re around. Preferably when he’s with Vanessa
.”

I grimaced, wishing we weren’t having this conversation.
This was
Owen
, not Julia or Armand or
anyone else I could never trust. I just hoped when he finished flirting with
Sheree he’d return and give me good reason to believe in him again. To trust
that he remained on our side.

But when he finally returned and found us back in the
hallway where he’d left us, I didn’t get the warm-and-fuzzies. In fact, what he
had to say only convinced me that perhaps Kali the sorceress and her antics had
gotten to him. Somehow she’d made him think he wasn’t Amadis anymore and put
him up to bat for our enemies.

“So back to Vanessa’s
sacrifice
,
as you put it,” Tristan said, picking up where we’d left off before Sheree’s
interruption. “What does Vanessa want that doesn’t include killing her? What
were
you thinking, bringing her here?

Owen’s eyes squinted as he scrubbed his hand through his
hair, then he heaved out a breath.

“Why else do you bring the enemy to a safe house?” he
finally asked. “What do they want when they come here?”

I stared at him for a long moment as his words sunk in. Then
I waited for him to clarify a different meaning or even to laugh and say,
“Kidding.” But he just looked back at me with an even sapphire gaze.

I snorted. “Oh, please. You’ve seriously fallen for that?”

Tristan didn’t take it with such good humor. In a heartbeat,
he had Owen by the collar and pinned against the wall. “You may have been right
about Sheree, but
Vanessa
? You
honestly expect us to believe her?”

“Yeah, I do,” Owen said. “
I
believe her.”

“Then you’re an idiot.” Tristan gave Owen a shove before letting
go and turning to pace the hall. His hands clenched into fists and the muscles
of his forearms bulged against his rolled-up sleeves. “It’s a set-up. There’s
absolutely no way that bitch would ever want—”

“Then you can believe
me
,”
Owen cut in.

Tristan spun back toward Owen and roared, “
Can we?
Because you haven’t done a damn
thing to prove it, Scarecrow. In fact, you’re doing a damn good job proving
that you’ve changed sides. Because that—” His hand flicked in the general
direction of Vanessa’s room. “That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“It’s not!” Owen yelled back, bowing up and leaning toward
Tristan, his own hands in fists. I’d only ever seen him stand up to Tristan
once and that was about me. This … this was unbelievable.

I stepped in front of Owen and put my hands on his chest,
trying to get him to back down.

“Seriously, Owen,” I said, “I don’t know where this came
from, what you’ve been doing all this time and what you’ve gotten yourself
into, but this … You can’t get anymore Daemoni than her. I mean, we’re talking
Vanessa
, the biggest bitch of all
Daemoni bitches.”

A growling sound came from Owen’s throat as his eyes shot
daggers at me. “You have no idea,
princess
.
No idea about any of it. But I can tell you that I never would have asked for
your help if I had a choice. I need you. Vanessa needs you and you can’t, as an
Amadis daughter, turn her down. Vanessa truly
wants
to be Amadis.”

My head spun. Nothing made sense, and everything was so
overwhelming. Owen’s sudden reappearance after being gone for so long. The
arrival of the trunks containing body parts. Watching a vampire put herself
back together from chunks. And then to see it was
Vanessa
… and, most astonishing of all, to hear she wanted to be
converted
? Never in a million years
would I have expected this.

I mean, when I envisioned the Daemoni, Vanessa took front
and center in my mind, overshadowing the rest of them. Although I logically
knew Lucas led the army, I had never met him, and Kali-slash-Martin had only
represented the enemy for the short time in the trial room and had become a
faceless entity since then. So to me, Vanessa was the face of the Daemoni.
Because she’d always been in the lead, at least where Tristan and I were
concerned. Always on the prowl, always on the attack.

Except … the last couple of times I’d seen her, she didn’t
attack. Others had, but not her personally. And besides those sightings, she’d
been in hiding, pretty much the whole time since Owen had been gone.

“You and Vanessa … you’ve been together all this time?” I
asked Owen.

We’d gone through several rounds of Tristan saying the vamp
tried to fool us all to get in close for the kill, and Owen swearing up one
side and down the other that she was sincere. They’d get so loud in their
arguing, I was surprised Sheree didn’t come running, but realized Owen must
have muffled us, just as he had Vanessa. But the arguments took us nowhere.
None of us had even said a word for the last ten minutes. We needed to get off
the stupid merry-go-round and uncover the truth.

“Not the whole time, but … yeah, for a while,” Owen said.

“And what? You think she’s so in love with you, she’d really
give up the only life she knows?” Tristan asked, sarcasm dripping off each
word.

“Well,” I said, with a thought, “that could actually be her
motivator. She does go to any lengths to get what she wants.”

Tristan shook his head. “She
lives
for the Daemoni. She’d die for them.”

“You don’t know her like you think you do,” Owen said
quietly, and once again, the one-eighty of his allegiance felt like a slap in
the face.

Tristan’s expression turned to stone, and I worried he’d get
in Owen’s face again. But he simply narrowed his eyes and rocked back on his
heels. “I knew her for over two centuries.”

“You didn’t
know
her,” Owen countered. “You never took the time to. You ignored her as much as
possible, treating her like nothing more than a pesky wasp.”

“So now you’ve been around her for a few months and think
you know her so well? What about the past decades witnessing the carnage she
left? What about what she did to Sheree, who would have died if you hadn’t
rescued her? What she’s done to Alexis? Have you forgotten all that so
quickly?”

Owen broke his gaze from Tristan and looked at the wall. His
lips pursed together and his brows drew down, creating three lines between
them.

“No, I haven’t forgotten that,” he said in a near whisper.
But then his eyes hardened as he turned them back to Tristan. “But I also
haven’t forgotten how you used to be, either. She can change. Like you did.”

“You’re so gullible,” Tristan snapped.

“And you’re so arrogant! What makes you think you’re the
only one who can change?” Owen demanded. “We get new converts all the time.
You’re not some unique specimen. Not in that way anyway.”

“I already admitted I was wrong about Sheree. I’d been
suspicious then because of everything going on at the time. But
Vanessa
? She’s the poster girl for the
Daemoni!”

“Just as you were once the poster boy!”

With that, the merry-go-round wound up again as they went in
circles about Vanessa pulling the same scheme Lucas and Tristan had with my
mom, back when he’d been Seth, and Owen defending Vanessa and her desire to
change. Although I couldn’t help but agree with Tristan, I stayed off the ride.
But finally I could take no more.

“All right, all right!” I nearly yelled to be heard over
their debate. They both shut up. “This is stupid and it’s getting us nowhere.
She has to proclaim her desire to change as part of the process, and I’ll be
able to read her mind to know if she’s telling the truth. If not, we’ll have
plenty of protection to overcome whatever scheme she has in mind. So you two …
please stop. I don’t want us to argue anymore. Okay?”

Neither of them responded, too proud to give in.

“
Okay?
” I
insisted.

Finally, Tristan barely lifted his chin to me in subtle
agreement.

“I don’t like it, you being that close to her,” he growled,
“but I’ll be there if you need me. And so will your
protector
. Right, Owen?” He bumped Owen’s shoulder with his own as
he came to stand by me. “
Right,
Owen?”

Owen gave us both a hard glare before heading for the door.
“You won’t need me,” he muttered.

My jaw dropped and tears pricked my eyes. He may as well
have stabbed a knife in my heart and left me for dead.
What’s happened to him?

Tristan shook his head slowly. “He’s right. We don’t need
him. Charlotte will be here if we need a warlock.”

Owen stopped in mid-stride and spun around. “No! Mum can’t
be here.”

“But she’ll be so
pleased
to see you,” I said, my tone burning with acid, “especially like this.” I
flipped my hand at him and all his un-Owen-ness.

“She can’t be here,” Owen repeated, nearly pleading. “None
of the council. Not Sophia or Rina, either. Nobody can know Vanessa is here.
Not even Sheree or Sonya or anyone else.”

I cocked my head. “Owen, I can’t convert her by myself.”

“You
have
to,
Alexis. She’s too high-profile for anyone to know what she’s doing. No one can
find out until it’s done, after it’s too late. Why do you think I brought her
here? To you?”

“What? You think someone’s going to tattle off to the Daemoni
that Vanessa’s converting?” I asked.

“That’s exactly what someone might do and guess what happens
next? Guess who shows up here to get her back?”

I shook my head. “Owen, I can’t … I mean, I don’t have
enough experience with the first phase, and I’ve never even done the second
part.”

“But you know
what
to do, right? What better way to learn than trial by fire?”

My breath went out in a huff of exasperation. Owen had
always enjoyed pressing me to my limits to see what I was capable of, but he
really had no idea what he asked of me now. And if he did, then he didn’t care
what happened to Vanessa or me. So much for being my protector.

“Look,” I said, “I vowed to your mother I wouldn’t do
anything without her. There’s a reason she made me make the promise. Owen,
seriously, you can’t trust your own mom?”

“Well, let’s see,” he said, his voice regaining that hard
edge, “I trusted my own dad and look what happened there.”

I opened my mouth to argue—as if Charlotte was
anything like Martin or Kali—but decided not to. Part of me couldn’t
blame him.

“It’s a moot point,” Tristan said. “Alexis is
not
doing this on her own. The little
bit of experience she has is with young ones. Vanessa is a whole different
game—out of her league right now.”

My hackles raised. “Her? Out of my
league
? Ha! You think I can’t handle the old hag? Well, I’m pretty
sure I can take her on if she tried anything. In fact, I already have, just a
little while ago, remember?”

Tristan gave me a look. “That’s not what I mean. This is
different and you know it.”

“But she has taken on
you
,”
Owen said to Tristan. “And you were a lot worse than Vanessa ever was.”

Tristan pursed his lips together. He wouldn’t argue this
point because he credited me with saving him when he’d first returned to me
with the Daemoni’s dark magic implanted in his soul. I kept my mouth shut. Mom
had originally converted him, so what Owen referred to wasn’t really my doing.
But what could be worse than what Tristan had fought then? Than what I had
helped him beat? Surely, if I could handle him and all his power, I could
handle the vampire-bitch who’d still managed to keep her soul for more than two
centuries.

I straightened my back and stuck out my chin. “Owen’s right.
If I could do what I did with you, especially right after going through the
Ang’dora
, I can do this.”

Tristan narrowed his hazel eyes at me. “And break your
promise to Char?”

My shoulders sagged as my puffed up manner deflated. That
was the kicker. I sincerely didn’t want to break my promise to Charlotte, not
again. I wanted her to trust me, but at this rate, she never would. I wanted
Mom and Rina to trust me, too, to know they could count on me to do the right
thing.

But … wasn’t serving my purpose the right thing? Owen was
certainly right about that—I couldn’t refuse Vanessa. If she honestly
wanted to convert, I
had
to do this
for her. And sooner rather than later. Although part of me enjoyed it a little
bit, I knew keeping her chained up like that for long wasn’t the “right thing.”
How much longer until Charlotte could finally get here? Six months had already
passed since her last visit.

I wished I had my dagger on me. I wanted to talk to
Cassandra.

“Well, while you sit there and contemplate the future of the
world, I need to go check on the subject at hand,” Owen said as he once again
headed for the door. “Don’t take too long to make up your mind, unless you want
either a dried up corpse on your hands or a dead were-tiger.”

My head snapped up. “What?”

He stopped one more time, but barely turned. “I brought her
to you weakened on purpose. I haven’t given her blood yet—on purpose. But
she’s starving, and we can’t leave her like this forever. I
won’t
leave her like this for long at
all. Understood?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, but strode down the hallway
and around the corner to the wing where Vanessa probably still screamed bloody
murder. I looked at Tristan.

He leaned against the wall and explained. “If he feeds her,
he’ll not only strengthen her, but since he’ll be giving her his own blood,
he’ll be giving her magic, too. Powerful magic. She’ll be able to do things we
probably don’t want her to do.”

“But we have animal blood—oh. Sheree will notice.”

Tristan nodded. “But if we wait too long to feed Vanessa,
she won’t make it through the conversion. She’ll either die or dry up, and
it’ll take our whole supply of blood to refill her. But it’s Vanessa we’re
talking about. She has too much self-preservation to simply let herself die.”