Immortal Dissent Read online

“There’s something you should know,” Margaux said as she sat beside Hecate.

  Apart from a half-raised brow and a tightening jaw, her words received no response.

  “Your sister’s alive.”

  Hecate’s stomach felt as though it had turned to lead. Her mouth went instantly dry, her hands cold.

  “What?”

  “Barely. If we take her back, someone can heal—”

  “Margaux.” Hecate inhaled deeply, forcing air past the sudden tightness in her throat and chest. “My sister is dead.”

  “I know what’ll happen to her, if she’s healed, but given the circumstances—”

  “My sister is dead.”

  Anything else was unacceptable. Impossible. Hecate had smelled the venom long before she and Margaux had entered the house; she knew Elisabeta wouldn’t have forgotten to infect each of her victims before igniting them. Ariadne could not be saved. Even if her body healed, the venom had already entered her system.

  If she recovered, she would be one of them.

  Hecate would’ve rather thought of her sister as dead than as one of the creatures the Johanssens had hunted for centuries. Part of her wondered whether she would forgive Margaux for ruining the version of reality she’d preferred.

  “You’re really going to do this to her?” asked Margaux, and Hecate whipped her head toward the other woman, her eyes narrowed.

  “I haven’t done anything to her. I didn’t do this.”

  “But you’re going to abandon her. Let her suffer with her injuries and fend for herself, when she heals. What the hell’s the matter with you?” Margaux shook her head, frowning.

  “Don’t you understand?” demanded Hecate. “She won’t be Ariadne anymore. She won’t care about me or about our family—what’s to say she’ll even remember us? When she wakes up, she’ll be one of the Changed! What am I supposed to do with her? I’m a witch, Margaux. I can’t exactly continue hunting her kind if I pretend she’s still the same girl I grew up with, can I?”

  Margaux sighed heavily, getting to her feet.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To take her somewhere she can be healed more quickly. I can at least do that for her before we leave her to live on her own for the rest of eternity.”

  Margaux started toward the front door again, and Hecate closed her eyes.

  “Don’t tell me what happens to her,” she said. “I need to remember her like she was.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Hecate didn’t open her eyes at the sound of the front door slamming.

  **

  *

  *

  Hecate insists on remaining oblivious to what has become of her sister. I’ve had Ariadne followed, and it would appear that she has been taken in by a family of Born. As one of the Changed, her usefulness to them remains undetermined. Thus far, it seems that she is being treated well. I remain skeptical. I will continue to have her observed, and if anything changes, you will be the first to know.

  Hecate is nowhere near ready to take on the post of matriarch, least of all right now. I know she is planning revenge, and I cannot persuade her to do otherwise. I can only hope that after Elisabeta has been dealt with, Hecate will regain her senses.

  *

  Letter addressed to Liliana Pike from Margaux Lemieux

  20 September 2001

  *

  The Changed

  *

  2001

  The breeze was cool as it whispered through Ariadne’s hair and over her skin, but she thought it had lost quite a bit of its inherent chill, now that her body had ceased to raise gooseflesh in response to the temperature. The cold English air didn’t bother her, now—not since her heart had stopped beating and she could no longer fall ill from exposure to the elements.

  She’d never imagined a fate this twisted for herself. Raised as a daughter of one of the most prominent mage bloodlines, she’d been taught since her earliest memories to hate vampires and trained since she could stand to fight them. She’d been trained to kill, though she’d never had the chance to do so.

  She was never supposed to become one of them.

  *

  “You’re not focusing enough, Ariadne!”

  With a frustrated cry, Ariadne turned away from her sister, folding her arms over her chest and balling her fists. She felt the chill of ice beginning to form within her tensed palms, and she forced herself to relax and mentally pushed the element away.

  “I’m doing the best I can, Hecate.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Ariadne rolled her eyes as the familiar sound of a blade being pulled from the mannequin she and her sister had been practicing on since childhood reached her ears, and a moment later, she felt a hand squeezing her shoulder and wheeling her around. She met the brown eyes of her elder sister, who was watching her with a frown.

  “Try it again.” Hecate pushed the dagger into Ariadne’s hand, and the younger girl shook her head.

  “There’s no point.”

  “Of course there is!” Hecate stepped back, pointing with a sharp snap of her arm toward the mannequin standing across the concrete basement floor. “If that were a real vampire, the throw you just made would’ve cost you your life. You missed the heart. That thing would’ve ripped you to shreds.”

  “Why are you being so hard on me?” Ariadne demanded. “I’m not old enough to hunt on my own, and when I’m at Briarcrest, I’m surrounded by the leaders of every decent bloodline. I don’t need to be a perfect fighter yet!”

  Hecate gritted her teeth, closing her eyes and letting out a long sigh. “I can’t believe how ready you are to accept being second-rate at this. You’ve never shown less than complete commitment to anything you’ve actually cared about.” She opened her eyes and stepped forward again, her boots clicking against the floor as her expression seemingly implored her sister to show sense. “This is your life, Ariadne.”

  “And I’m learning.” Ariadne felt the heat rising in her cheeks, and she struggled to keep her voice as calm as possible, though she felt like screaming. “Just because I’m not perfect at this right now doesn’t mean I won’t be in a year or so. I’m only seventeen, Cate.”

  “And I don’t want to lose you.”

  For a long moment, Ariadne stared at her sister. So that’s what this is about, she thought. She sighed, taking a few steps backward and turning her attention to the mannequin. Drawing in a deep breath to steady herself, she let the dagger fly.

  *

  Two years later, she lay on her parents’ living room carpet, gasping for air as blood seeped from the open wound that had torn open the length of her neck. She raised a pale, trembling hand, struggling to channel her magic enough to heal herself. Each time she felt the edges of the wound begin to twitch closed, another surge of agony spread through her, and she lost her focus.

  She knew the venom must be keeping her incapacitated. As her blood mingled with the red hair pinned beneath her cheek, Ariadne mentally cursed herself, replaying every criticism her sister and parents had ever made of her skills as a huntress and screaming in her thoughts that they had been right all along. She hadn’t been able to protect herself.

  A head of dishwater-blond hair swung into view above her, and she barely felt the fingernails digging into her shoulders past the searing, throbbing pain in her neck that had begun to spread outward. She reached out to shove her attacker away, her palms frosting over with a thin sheen of ice for an instant as she focused all her might on summoning the element for which her family held the strongest affinity. The ice faded almost as soon as it had formed, however—Ariadne was beginning to realize, with a sickening twist of her stomach, that she was far too weakened by her injuries to access the full extent of her powers.

  She was also too weakened to resist as her attacker, the vampire she recognized as Elisabeta Sturm from her history lessons at Briarcrest, dragged her by the shoulders from the floor and onto the sofa. Elisabeta deposited her beside her parents, w
ho sported similar wounds and had been lashed together with a thick, metal chain. In a blur of motion, Elisabeta darted around the sofa, securing another chain around the three of them and pulling it more tightly than any non-vampire could’ve managed. Ariadne gasped as the metal dug into her arm and crushed against her ribs, and she was certain from the crack that ripped through the air that she’d broken something, but her mind was too overwhelmed by the pain assaulting it from all angles to determine what that something was.

  “Why?”

  With considerable effort, Ariadne turned her head to face her mother, Agrippa Johanssen, to whom she was tied so tightly that not a centimeter remained between their shoulders. Agrippa was staring at the vampire woman, who had paused in front of her captives once again with a smirk on her lips.

  “I told your grandmother that your entire line would pay for what she did to my brother,” said Elisabeta. “She didn’t believe me.”

  Elisabeta lifted the metal container she’d rested on the carpet upon her entrance and swung it toward the three captives, and Ariadne’s already erratic pulse accelerated as the liquid within doused each of them and she recognized the smell of gasoline. Her eyes, nostrils, and throat burned as the fumes reached her. The vampire replaced the container on the floor and reached for the box of matches she’d left on the coffee table, removing one and striking it against the box’s side. In the instant before the match made contact with her leg, Ariadne thought with the smallest flicker of relief of how fortunate it was that her sister had moved out of the house and was, therefore, temporarily safe.

  She was then consumed by fire.

  *

  “Come inside, dear. There’s no reason for you to be alone, right now.”

  Ariadne turned at the sound of the voice to face the blond woman whom she’d come to know over the last few hours to be called Seraphina Bellamy. The Ariadne of a week previous would’ve been incapable of holding a civil conversation with Seraphina—upon catching sight of the other woman, she would’ve drawn her dagger and probably sent out a bolt of mental energy designed to incapacitate Seraphina or worse. Ariadne had never successfully killed a vampire, but she’d certainly tried, and her efforts combined with those of her sister had wounded more than a few.

  Seraphina held out her hand, and Ariadne stared at it. She knew she really had no other option. When she’d awoken to find what had become of herself and learned that the attack that had transformed her had claimed the lives of her parents, she’d known that she couldn’t return home.

  When she’d heard from her sister’s friend Margaux that Hecate had refused to assist in the effort to heal Ariadne and had asked not to be informed of whether she survived, she’d realized that she had nowhere else to go, either, after Margaux and the mages who had assisted her had released her to her own devices. Ariadne assumed that Hecate was only distancing herself for the sake of avoiding the pain she would face if ever she were in the position to hunt Ariadne. The younger Johanssen refused to think about this for long enough to guess at whether her sister would, in fact, try to destroy her, now that she’d become that which the two of them had been raised to despise.

  Seraphina’s hair was several shades lighter than that of the vampire who’d stripped away Ariadne’s life, and her face was much kinder. Though Ariadne knew the two other women were of the same race, she felt safe in Seraphina’s presence, while she had felt nothing but terror in Elisabeta’s.

  Ariadne took her hostess’s hand and allowed herself to be led from the balcony and back into the house, which she’d heard the vampire woman and her husband affectionately refer to as ‘Chateau Bellamy’ once or twice since her arrival. The home was immense, most of its floors made of white, polished marble and its furniture lavish and impeccably clean. Ariadne wasn’t certain what she had expected the residence of some of her kind’s sworn enemies to look like, but this would’ve been far from her imaginings.

  I’m not a part of Magekind anymore, she reminded herself.

  “Oh—they’re home.”

  Seraphina paused, releasing Ariadne’s hand to lean down and reach out both her arms to catch a small boy as he ran into them. The woman then stood, pressing a kiss to the boy’s cheek and turning to face Ariadne.

  “This is my son, Julian,” she said. “Julian, this is Ariadne. She’ll be staying with us for a little while.”

  Ariadne gave the boy a small smile, and he studied her with wide, grey eyes. He couldn’t be older than two, and though she could sense that he possessed vampiric blood, he looked thoroughly innocent. The Bellamys were, Ariadne reminded herself, of a different breed of vampire than she herself had become. They were of the Born—vampiric aristocrats raised to believe that it was their right to hunt as they pleased to further the survival of their kind. She herself was one of the Changed—the group shunned by the majority of the Born for being the lesser species, as, unlike the Born, they were no longer technically alive upon their transformation. Their own blood ceased to flow, though they required the blood of others to function, and they could not reproduce.

  Don’t worry about that now. You’ll have time when you’re alone.

  If Ariadne recalled properly, the Born vampire’s need for blood developed late in childhood. She realized that she was probably correct, then, in her assumption of the innocence of the boy before her. She wondered whether Julian had any idea what he was to become.

  She glanced up as Seraphina’s husband entered the room, another child in his arms. This one was a little girl, still an infant and reaching up to play with his hair.

  “I daresay you know Apollo,” said Seraphina, smiling, “and that’s our daughter, Lara.”

  *

  “I should be dead. I should be dead.”

  Ariadne understood why she wasn’t—at least not entirely. Elisabeta had introduced venom into her system, and because she had been a mortal mage at the time the fire had claimed her life, she had returned to consciousness as one of the Changed, an outcast from both Magekind and the higher vampiric society of the Born. Her parents, on the other hand, had been entirely destroyed. Each of them had transitioned years earlier into what the mages referred to as ‘immortality’—they had been killed once and reborn stronger in the magic of their own race without the detrimental effects of aging. Mages were given one chance at rebirth, over the course of their existences. Unfortunately for Ariadne, hers had been of the wrong kind.

  “I don’t believe my eyes.”

  Ariadne whipped around, the damp Sheffield street surrounding her spinning as she moved too quickly for her still-healing body to handle. She couldn’t accurately describe the weakness that pervaded her muscles and slowed her thoughts. She’d never felt anything like it before, but when she considered it along with the insistent, perpetual searing at the back of her throat, she believed she understood well enough what was happening.

  She needed blood, and she hated herself for even considering taking it.

  The man who had spoken was extremely well-dressed, and he watched her with a calm confidence she’d only ever seen before in the leaders of mage bloodlines. Ariadne hadn’t attempted to access her magic since she’d awoken, fearful as she was that it had deserted her, but she processed now that at least a portion of it remained, as she was able to sense the vampiric blood within this man the instant her gaze landed on him. Born blood, nonetheless.

  “I know a Johanssen when I see one,” he said, taking a step toward her. “Your family’s rather famous, among my kind.”

  Despite every ounce of instinct screaming at her to either attack this man or flee, Ariadne held her ground, watching him. What more, she thought, can anyone do to me, now?

  “I can also tell that you’re no longer one of them.”

  She let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and then she shook her head. “No, I’m not.”

  “One of us, then. How curious. I’ve always wondered what they would do to one of their own, if she were to make the transition. It se
ems the answer is abandonment.”

  Had her blood been flowing, Ariadne knew she would’ve blushed. She said nothing.

  “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

  Ariadne shook her head.

  The man sighed, closing the remaining distance between them and resting a hand on her shoulder. Unlike the last person who’d done this to her, his touch was gentle.

  “Why don’t you stay with my family in Wiltshire until you can get something sorted out? I doubt you’ve ever been properly told what you’ll have to do to survive, now.”

  “Why would you help me?” Ariadne asked. “I thought the Born hated the Changed.”

  “You’re not the typical Changed,” said the man. “You’re something much more special. My name’s Apollo, by the way. Apollo Bellamy.”

  “Ariadne.”

  *

  “Hello.” The word felt so hollow when she owed these people so much. Were it not for Apollo, she had no idea where she would be—probably out on the streets, still, with no idea where to go or how to even begin this new life that had been thrust upon her.

  “Lara, this is Ariadne,” said Apollo, reaching for the hand of the infant he held.

  “Just… just Aria, please.” Her full name had been borne more than a few times throughout her family’s history, and now that the members of her immediate family were either dead or had deserted her, she had no desire to remain tied to them for longer than necessary. Whether Hecate had abandoned her for noble reasons or selfish ones, she had still deserted her only sister, and Ariadne—Aria, she mentally corrected herself—needed a way to separate herself from the pain that had caused.

  Apollo nodded, and Aria glanced to Seraphina to find her smiling her approval.

  “Very well, then. Aria. Supper will be ready soon,” said Apollo, “and then afterward, I’ll take you on a hunt, if you’re feeling well enough. You’ll need to regain your strength.”

  Aria nodded. “Thank you. I can’t begin to describe how much I appreciate your kindness.” She’d never imagined herself applying that word to vampires, and even as she acknowledged this, she chastised herself. She needed to stop thinking of their kind with such distance and disdain and accept the fact that, now and for the rest of her existence, she would remain among them. Still, the idea of hunting for blood turned her stomach, and she couldn’t help despising herself a little for requiring it even though it wasn’t her fault. She could only hope having someone there to help her would make it a bit easier.