“We used to be good friends, Aria.”
“We also used to be stupid kids,” I muttered, refilling the bucket before I set it down and turned back to study the changes in him since we’d last seen each other.
He’d filled out nicely and grown into an alpha his father could be proud of. Thick black hair clung in gentle waves to his shoulders, while his striking blue eyes watched me with interest. His arms were both covered in muscles and tattoos. The A on his lower forearm marked him as an alpha from the original bloodline. He wore a blue cotton shirt with rough, faded jeans and white shoes.
“Yeah.” Chuckling uncomfortably, he scratched the back of his neck as he watched me. “We did a lot of stupid shit, didn’t we?”
“We were twelve.” I didn’t trust him entirely, but then I didn’t trust anyone nowadays. Call me cold or jaded, either worked for me. I had sisters I knew would go to war for me, and they meant the world to me. Outsiders couldn’t be trusted, a lesson most had learned the hard way.
“You didn’t have tits back then, and you sure as shit wasn’t this hot.” His voice broke as his eyes lowered to my breasts with heat banking in his electric-blue gaze. “But you do now.”
“My eyes are up here.” I snapped my fingers, frowning while I watched his eyes lifting to mine.
“I always knew you’d be pretty, never this, though.”
“Thanks. Did you see Amara before she vanished?” I asked, knowing he would have noted my sister more than the others. He had slept with her once or twice, after all.
“Aria,” he warned, studying me before he shook his head. “You know I can’t help you. Knox will figure out where she is.”
“Before or after he condemns her to the Void?” I watched him close off to me while his posture became defensive.
“You need to be careful with him, Aria. I know you can feel him, and I know you can sense that he is different from what we are. He’s… more than we are. You need to tread carefully with him.”
“Someone murdered alphas in my backyard. My sister is missing, along with others, Jasper. If it’s true what he says, I need to hear it from our people. I don’t know Knox from a hole in the ground, and I don’t really want to either. Tell me what happened here, please. You cared for Amara at one time. I can believe you, not him. Hell, his bloody house wasn’t here the last time I was, and yet it takes up an entire freaking block, and expands for miles behind the house from what I could see. He has everyone on their knees, and yet no one seems to care or speak against him. Why? Since when do original bloodlines bow to others from the Nine Realms?”
“They can’t speak against him, and neither can you. Amara came home, Aria. She came home, and she shut the blinds and did nothing normal. You guys used to dance beneath the full moon, hold harvest ceremonies, or chant together. She stayed in your house or inside the shop. She came to meetings, sure. She came to argue against everything we put to the vote. She wanted us to put some guy into a speed vote to be allowed in this realm, and when the others wouldn’t agree, she got angry. She slept with husbands of prominent women, and everyone knew she did it to sway their votes, and when she put it up to a vote again and got the same answer, she changed. She wasn’t just angry; she was colder, calculated, and furious at all of us. Men still came to her, though, because what was the slogan your mother used? Once you go witch, you’ll never switch?” His head tilted, and he watched me carefully.
“Something like that.” My brow creased, and I frowned, absorbing what he said. I rubbed my eyes before groaning. “I don’t understand why she would want that creature here. She knew he used her, she bitched about him and yet she continued to request to be sent back to the Nine Realms every time. She broke my leg so that when my turn came, I couldn’t go. I’d dreamt of going since before I could remember. The thing is, Jasper, she wasn’t powerful enough to bring down an alpha, not even during the weakest moon phase. Amara refused to learn to fight, and she lacked the concentration and conviction to cast alone. Unlike me, she needed the others to cast magic other than minor spells. How the hell could she have brought an alpha to his knees and executed him?”
“What if she didn’t do it alone?”
“No one else would be stupid enough to help her break through a portal, no one. It’s treason against all immortals, not to mention against the Nine Realms.”
“Aria, someone from your line helped creatures into this realm. Someone executed an alpha on your family’s altar, draining their blood into the family crypt below it. If it was not Amara, then who else would be able to do it? You and your sisters were all elsewhere, and she was the only one here.”
“Yeah, but she wasn’t strong enough to cast a spell that would break through a portal. It looks bad, I know, but Amara was kind, and she wanted a family, one who wasn’t controlled by this place. She was dating and kept serious relationships for long periods of time. That’s unheard of for our kind, you know that. She, out of everyone else, wanted to marry and settle down somewhere quiet.”
“My mother betrayed the Nine Realms, did you know that?” he asked softly, his hands pushing into his pockets. “She abandoned us and found a lover within the Nine Realms. He promised her a kingdom, and all she had to do was bring him two children from each bloodline that lived outside the Nine Realms. She agreed to his terms and started a mother’s-day-out program for immortals living in this realm. My mother took those children to her lover in the Nine Realms, where he murdered them. He drained them of blood and made her bring their bodies back into this realm.
“Eventually, Knox came, and he ended it. He told us of what she had done and who she had been with. Knox took her head, Aria. To repay the lives she’d taken, he took her head. I stood there as her blood splattered my face as his sword severed her head from her body. I didn’t believe she could be so evil, but he presented her lover to us, and all the evidence that proved what she had done. He won’t murder your sister until he is sure she committed treason. If she is guilty, she won’t go to the Void. The alphas have requested the same punishment for her. A life for the life she took.” His head bowed, and he rested his hands on his hips while a frown marred his lips.
I listened to him tell me what he knew and replay all the events that had occurred since we left this town twelve years ago. He didn’t tell me everything, and I could tell he was holding back important information. He also kept Knox out of it mostly, but every once in a while, his story would shift, and a detail would cause the hair on my neck to lift with unease.
He’d been the first man here to sleep with Amara after she’d returned to town, and he kept it from me. I could hear the jealousy in his tone as he listed the names of her lovers and noted which ones had been murdered shortly after.
It wasn’t black and white. He filled in the grays I’d wanted to know and informed me that Amara spent endless hours locked within the store we owned. She’d fired the witches who had been hired to run it immediately after returning and spent most of her time there. It explained why the house had shown little evidence of her being there.
Long after he’d left, I stood there staring at the house. The information hadn’t helped, but then it hadn’t been what I’d wanted to hear, which made it a tough pill to swallow. Eventually, I picked up the bucket and entered the house silently, working to scrub the blood that covered the floors. It gave me an escape from focusing on Knox, and the feel of his hands on my body, which had yet to dissipate.