A Shade of Kiev 2(47)

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I… I just want us to get out of here.”

I clasped his hands in mine and a few seconds later, we had disappeared into a blur of colors.





Chapter 32: Mona





We reappeared on the beach, just outside the main gate.

As I looked around, my first reaction was shock. The gate was wide open, the sand leading up to it stained with blood.

I gripped Kiev’s arm and looked up at him. I didn’t understand why he didn’t have even a hint of surprise in his eyes.

“What happened here?” I asked, as I ran to the gate and entered through it.

“The Shade’s vampires stormed the place,” he said, catching up with me. “My siblings… they drove everyone away.”

I whirled around to face him.

“You betrayed Matteo and Saira?”

He winced.

“They believe so,” he said. “But I didn’t. I was trying to fulfill my promise to Matteo that I’d bring a witch here. Celice. My siblings… they used me and turned the visit into an ambush.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They said it was the rules. I had an attachment to Matteo and this island. They had to break it.”

I clasped a hand to my mouth.

“Oh, no. That’s so awful.”

We stood there for several minutes, gazing around the empty forest.

“Did Matteo and Saira escape?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

He nodded.

“Did they all escape alive?”

“Most of them,” he said, lowering his eyes to the ground.

I didn’t want to stand in that part of the island any longer. The thought of bodies of vampires and werewolves I had known lying in the undergrowth somewhere around us was too much to bear.

I caught Kiev’s hand and pulled him deeper into the forest. Desperate to take my mind off what I’d just found out, I spent the next hour asking him questions that had been pent up inside of me for so long. He answered each question—and counter-question—patiently.

He explained to me that normally as soon as he left the boundaries of The Shade, he was hit by a splitting headache and started coughing blood. But he said that now he felt none of that. I took that as confirmation that since I’d returned to Rhys, he’d decided to make the curse dormant.

Finally, I stopped walking and stared at his red eyes.

“How did those happen?”

“I don’t know how, or why. All I know is that they turned back soon after I arrived in The Shade.”

We both fell silent and continued walking until we reached the edge of the lake. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as my eyes fell on the little cabin in the middle of the water. It was like seeing an old friend again. I scanned the banks for my old row boat. Then I remembered that we wouldn’t need that any more.

I held onto Kiev and transferred us to outside of the cabin’s front door. I entered and looked around. It seemed different than when I’d last seen it. It looked cleaner. The floor had been wiped of my blood. The bed was made. My clothes no longer hung on the back of the chair. Someone had definitely lived in it since I’d left.

“I’m glad to see you back in here,” Kiev said quietly.

I didn’t understand, but I nodded all the same.

“I’m glad too. It feels like home.”

I opened the balcony doors. The fresh scent of the water wafted in. We stood in silence for several minutes, just savoring the peace and stillness of the place.

“And now?” I said finally.

Kiev didn’t answer. His eyes remained fixed on a patch of lilies outside.

“What now?”

Silence.

“Why are we here?”

More silence.

My eyes travelled from him, to the lake, and back.

And an overwhelming sense of loss crashed over me.

Winded, I had to part my lips to gasp for air.

The chirping of the birds, the swaying of the trees, the sea breeze… and Kiev, standing less than three feet away from me—everything that was perfect about that moment suddenly seemed like the cruelest illusion imaginable.

Temporary.

Fallible.

Already broken.

I was an outside observer. And for one day, I’d been allowed to stare at the vision of a life that I would die for. A life that I could never reach out to touch without it bursting into flames.

“Why did you bring me here?”

It felt like I was screaming into an abyss.

My body began to shake. I grabbed a vase from the windowsill and smashed it against the floor.

“Why?”

He finally looked at me, but his expression remained blank, his lips unmoving.

My eyes burned as tears flowed. I launched forward and gripped his shirt. I tugged it so violently it ripped.

“Answer me!”