"No, I didn't think so. I heard someone very sneaky snapped his neck on the roof of his own club. How bold and audacious. I wonder why someone would do that?" Ember says, her voice saccharine. Her eyes are glittering gems of hidden malice. I look at Cole and he returns my gaze with an assessing stare and a tilt of his head. He shifts his eyes to his menu as footsteps approach. A pitcher of deep crimson wine with ice cubes and slices of lemon and orange appears in front of my place setting. I smell the blood and citrus, the tannins of wine.

"What is that pretty concoction, brother?" Ember asks, tilting her wine glass toward my pitcher in a question.

"A quarter of a debt fulfilled," Ashen replies, pouring a glass of fangria for me before helping himself to wine from Ember's bottle. A server arrives and takes the orders of my dining companions. He's human. I can smell his blood rushing to the quicker cadence of his heart. He knows I'm different too and gives me a wary look when I pull my bloody drink closer and shake my head to decline any food. I have questions that I can't ask about how a human would wind up in this place. Does he want to be here? What does he know about immortals? Also... he smells tasty. Is he a douchebag?

As the server leaves with a nervous look in my direction, Ember casts a smirk toward her brother. "A quarter of a debt fulfilled? You're not considering repaying Lu for saving your life with a bit of... what is that... sangria?"

"Fangria. For vampire consumption only," Ashen says, leaning back in his chair with his wine glass. "And no, of course not."

Cole's eyebrows climb beneath his mop of blond hair as his gaze bounces from Ashen to me. "You saved his life? How? And... why?"

"She can't answer you, remember?" Ember says as she cuts him a side-eye glare.

"I was struck in a confrontation with Semyon's former pack," Ashen explains. His voice is deep and rich with memory. "The blade was laced with Angelwing poison."

"I thought Angelwing was a myth," Cole says. His eyes sweep across my face as though he's looking at someone new.

Ember's lips curl in a smile, like this is the very best of games and we're the only two playing. "No, it's no myth. It just hasn't been used in a very, very long time. Not many are left who have seen it. Even fewer remain who know the antidote."

"Which is?"

"Sacrifice," Ashen interjects. He takes a sip of his wine and sets the glass on the silver tablecloth, pushing the base against the fabric. He taps his finger along the stem, a quiet metronome for the music. Tick, tick, tick.

"No, brother. Not just sacrifice," Ember says. "The Realm of Light demands more than something so simple as sacrifice to remedy a poison wrought of their empire."

Cole spins his ice in his drink, the clink, clink adding to the ping of Ashen's finger on the glass. "What do you mean?"

"She spellcast also," Ashen says. He sounds bored of this conversation, though I know he's not. I'm becoming really fucking irritated that it's going too quickly to write my own reply, which Ember seems to enjoy.

"The spell was not the antidote."

"How'd she cast a spell if she can't speak?" Cole asks, his eyes narrowing.

Sign language, you dicks, I sign, even though that is of course a lie. Ember laughs. So someone here does know sign language after all.

"Vampires are adaptable creatures, Cole," she says. Right, Leucosia? Ember signs. She holds my gaze as her hands form the words, her smile spreading. A spark of mischief catches fire in her eyes and she turns their gleam toward Cole. "No, the spell helped to hasten the effect of the antidote, but it wasn't just for my brother's benefit."

Ember and I look at one another, unmoving. I know what she's about to say. It's something I've known since the moment I realized I had been successful in saving Ashen. It's how I knew my blood would not be enough. It's why I spoke the spell.

"Not just sacrifice. Not just blood or spells. It's risk. Being willing to risk something you cannot get back," she says.

Ashen's eyes cut to me and back to Ember. "Risk what?"

"Little brother. Haven't you asked yourself why Lu shines like a star in our Shadow Realm?"

The ticking of Ashen's finger stops.

All the room seems to go quiet without the cadence of passing time. Ember's smile spreads like venom in a wound.

"She risked her soul for you. And now it belongs to the Realm of Light."

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 19

Uhhhhhhh... Hard pass...

No one said anything about agreeing to forfeit one's soul to the Realm of Light when I first heard whispers of an antidote for Angelwing. My infallible vampire memory would have remembered that, surely. Then again, that was a long time ago. I remember the bit about sacrifice. There was something about taking a great risk, yeah I got that too. But I definitely would have remembered that little tidbit about my soul. And I sooooo don't want my soul to end up there.

I'm perfectly happy in the Living Realm. There's food. There's bloffee. Sure, there are werewolves and not all the witches are as awesome as Ediye, but I've been making a go of it for a long time. I'm on a bit of a streak, if you think about it. I'm not keen to leave, and everything about the Realm of Light sounds boring as fuck.

No wars? Boring.

No douchebags to hunt? Boring.

No getting away with sketchy shit? So fucking boring.

Also, most of my friends wouldn't make the cut. Ediye is great and I love her more than anyone, but she's not squeaky clean. Cassian, the vampire I made in Rome? Or Sora? That's legit laughable. The only one that would get a guaranteed free pass is Andy, and the thought of playing Scrabble with him for eternity makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a fork. Even being a visitor in the Shadow Realm is more fun than that, as creepy as it is.

Shit, Andy. I haven't given him a second thought since we arrived. Poor Andy and his peace lily. I haven't even considered that we're supposed to go on a date on Saturday. Fuck, I feel like such a jerk. Especially now, because I really, really don't want to go.

I glance at Ashen. His pupils are orbs of flame. He looks at me with both dismay and fury. I feel a rush of heat surge from him and I drain my glass and pour myself another.

"Did you know?" he asks, his voice low and quiet.

I shake my head and then down my full glass. Ashen pulls it from my fingers and gives me a hard and searching look as he fills my glass. I think he's hunting for truth and lies. I shake my head again and mouth the word no, and the look of rising panic on my face must be enough to convince him that I truly had no idea. Ashen passes my refilled glass back, his fingers grazing mine in a gesture that feels purposeful. He manages to subdue his expression into a stoic mask but I feel something behind it in the depths of his eyes. Sadness, maybe. Worry. It feels like there's a deep ocean hidden beneath what he shows to the world, and it rages with currents and storms.

"What does that mean, if the Realm of Light has a claim on Lu?" Cole asks, breaking us out of a heavy silence.

"If she dies in the Living Realm, they will offer refuge for her soul, just like a human. Not a situation immortals find themselves in very often," Ashen says.

"Or they could come to collect. Who knows, they've been suspiciously quiet for the last thousand years or so," Ember adds, casting a serene smile in my direction. She's fucking loving the squall she's brewed among us. I run my hand across the dagger at my thigh and think about how great it would feel to plunge it into her heart.