Chapter 3
Mary patted a hand along the front of her bureau, feeling for the crystal knob that marked the drawer where she kept her pants and skirts. Below that, her shirt drawer had a lightning bolt carved in front. Opening each in turn, she removed stacks of clothing, turned—careful to avoid the inch-high lip of the area rug—and packed them into a suitcase that was lying open on the bed. The left side of the case was dipped down, thanks to her mother being perched nearby on the edge of the mattress, her radiance sawing against itself like a bow on a violin.
“Mary, please rethink your impulsive decision to have this lack wit convey you to Hadrian.” The bed springs creaked with her mother’s distress. “You realize the vampire is on the opposite side, don’t you, Mary? Your marriage to Hadrian will form the alliance between the abandoned fae and the dark uprising. I’ll have to do some careful maneuvering with your fiancé to avoid him taking this as an insult.”
In truth, Mary didn’t have an easy explanation for asking Tucker to drive her to the wedding. Only that…in a room full of chaotic forces, he’d been a beacon of calm. Without the use of her eyesight, it was fortuitous that Mary was able to decipher the energies and moods of those around her. There were vibrations of sound in the air. Signatures.
Mad people struck her sensitive ears like sneakers in a Laundromat dryer.
Sad ones sounded like wet wind blowing through a tunnel.
Happy folks gave off the sound of a muffled drumming on a xylophone.
But Tucker…Tucker just waited. His life force hummed warmly. Waiting. Idling. For what? She didn’t know. Mary had never once stepped foot in a boat and yet, he made her think of sunny afternoons on a lake. A cheek pressed to the cracked leather seat, hands tucked under a chin, the vibration of the motor below. The languid drift of the waves carrying her up and down.
Neither moored to the dock nor speeding through the blue. Just drifting.
Warm, peaceful. Safe.
She’d reached out with her mind and his signature had cut right through the cacophony of noise. Drawn her in. And that was before he spoke and sent a current straight through her middle. The first of its kind. Something hot and confusing and urgent.
But that didn’t necessarily explain why she had been so adamant about Tucker driving her to the manor in Ohio where her wedding to Hadrian would take place. Where the battle would begin, too, most likely.
Mary needed to be brave for her mother’s sake. For the sake of the forsaken fae. The very future of their kind rested on this wedding. Of course she was uneasy. About meeting her future husband, about the responsibility that would rest on her shoulders.
Was it wrong to want a chance at freedom first?
Even if the drive would only take a handful of days or less?
After the Exodus, when most of their kind was brought back to the Faerie Realm, along with Anton, Mary’s father, Tilda had been desperate for an anchor. For protection in a harsh underworld. A foothold to some semblance of power. She’d found it in the burgeoning guild of slayers. With an alliance intact between the slayers and the fae, Mary had been taken from their quiet, now-empty upstate New York commune—in shame—to the little apartment above Enders and that is where she’d been for almost thirteen years, seldom venturing outside, her only communications with Tilda. And the odd conversation with a drunk slayer who wandered into the apartment looking for a bathroom.
Thirteen years of planning. Thirteen years of disgrace over being left behind in the Exodus.
Mary thought her only respite from anxiety would come when she’d fulfilled her purpose, but Tucker calmed her simply by standing close, holding her hand. They would soon be enemies, although that day hadn’t arrived yet. Even when it did, Mary already held the strong belief that Tucker wouldn’t dare harm her. Not ever.
What better choice to be at her side while she got a taste of independence?
From these four walls. From her mother.
Who knew if she’d get that chance again where she was going?
She’d denied her madness to Tucker. Told him Mary the Mad was merely a nickname. But maybe…maybe she’d lied. Just a little. Because there wasn’t always a reason for Mary’s odd behavior. Blame it on her lack of friends and outside influences. Sometimes her reasoning was kind of unusual. Such as using a broom to guide her, so she could clean and walk at the same time. Or turning on lights in rooms she entered, even though it made little difference to a blind girl, because she didn’t want the bulbs to feel left out. Or gathering roses from the roof garden and keeping only the stems, because they were sturdy and lasting and deserved to be admired.
“Mary? Are you listening to me?”
“Yes,” she rushed to say, worried she’d hurt her mother’s feelings, right before they were about to part ways until the wedding. Not so long, she supposed, since the nuptials were set to take place in a week. But it had been a long time since they’d spent any time apart. “I’m sorry. Yes, I do realize Tucker is on the opposing side. Or…will be once the alliance is set.” Mary added a hairbrush to her suitcase and closed the lid, sealing the latches. “But…maybe Tucker making this gesture will help avoid a war?”
The mattress bounced up, telling Mary her mother had risen. “There is no avoiding a war and furthermore, we don’t want to avoid one. The fae have been languishing among the humans for decades. The Assembly used to return every ten years like clockwork to bring the worthy back the Faerie Realm and banish their weakest to earth. But it has now been thirteen years and they’ve not come. Only a noble act will draw them back, Mary.”
“I understand.” Yearning and apprehension warred in her middle. “But mother. What will Hadrian do with the vampire throne, if he takes it from the new king?”
Mary sensed Tilda’s hesitation. “He doesn’t think vampires should be reduced to hiding from humans. He wants to multiply their number—enough to be the majority. Enough to live freely without fear of what might happen if they’re discovered. Power will guarantee that freedom. Night will become the new daytime. But Mary.” She took her daughter’s wrists in a tight hold. “No one has troubled themselves with us for over a decade. We must think of ourselves. Think only of our goal. We have to. Your sacrifice on behalf of the alliance is the noble act that will call back the Assembly. You understand, don’t you? It will bring back your father. It will finally get us out of here, to a place where we belong. We won’t be here to suffer or celebrate the outcome of some vampire war.”
“Yes, I get that. I understand—”
“Do you, Mary? This decision to be transported by some…some screwball stranger in gold chains isn’t a stalling tactic?”
Mary crossed her fingers behind her back, just in case she was getting ready to tell a lie. She wasn’t a hundred percent certain of her reasons for demanding to ride with Tucker yet, but best to err on the side of truthfulness. “No, mother.”
“Good. Because there is no need for fear. I have not sold you off,” she assured Mary with a breathy laugh. “Hadrian wants an alliance out of this marriage, not a wife. It is simply an advantageous arrangement. He does not expect you to share his bed. And he does not plan to cease sharing his bed with others.”