A Shield of Glass (A Shade of Vampire #49)(28)

“Me neither,” Field interjected. “But you’re right. Bigger fish to fry here.”

My Hawk was right. We had a lot to deal with already. Another deadly future wasn’t exactly a surprise. The circumstances had changed, of course, but the outcome was the same. Our main priority was to get Vita out of Luceria and strengthen the alliance against Azazel.

We had a deadly enemy to bring down, without losing our souls and the people we loved in the process. We had a future to change.

Most importantly, we had to find a way to destroy that damn snake pendant. I had a feeling it would all boil down to that one, cursed object in the end.





Vita





Azazel left me alone for the rest of the day. On one hand, I was relieved to not have to see him again. My skin crawled whenever he was near. But on the other hand, I feared he was already devising new ways to disrupt the alliance that was rising against him. And as long as he could feel Aida and Phoenix out there, he could track them.

I sat by the window as the sun set outside, glazing the hills surrounding Luceria in a warm, reddish light. My mind went to Bijarki. I worried about him out there, on his own, but I knew he was strong and fast, and intelligent enough to keep out of trouble. On top of that, he had the invisibility spell. It was only a matter of time before I’d see him again, and my heart jumped at the thought.

The memory of our night together was permanently seared into my soul, sparking fires in my ribcage. The taste of his lips, the weight of his body over mine, his fingers drawing invisible lines on my skin—all moments in which I found refuge while captive in Azazel’s castle.

My heart throbbed at the thought of Bijarki and Anjani agreeing to a marriage for the sake of their people. My Oracle gift had been so cruel to show me such visions, but I could only react by finding a way to stop them from coming true. It tore me apart to think about what Serena would go through with Draven—I’d seen the look in his eyes as he struggled with his Destroyer form, the anguish and the desperate need to have her with him.

It hit me then that there may be a way out of it. I thought of Patrik and Kyana, and his love for her fueling him as he gradually worked to break Azazel’s spell. I figured Draven could do the same through Serena. The love he’d shown for her in my vision was so powerful, so intense, that, if nurtured properly, it could help him push the darkness away. It could stop him from turning.

I heard a key twist in the door, and I turned my head to see Patrik come in with a food tray. He gave me a polite nod as he locked the door and put my dinner on a nearby side table. His side was still covered in thick palm leaves, but he seemed to have regained some color in his cheeks.

“Where’s Damion?” I asked.

“He’s been demoted to kitchen ranks for now,” Patrik replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. “His aggressions toward you cost him his position up here, and since I’m still healing, I offered to bring your food instead.”

I was tense around him, but I wasn’t scared. I knew he was trying to break free, and it somehow made him seem like less of a threat than Damion, whose downright maniacal behavior had nearly killed me. I gave him a curt nod, then gazed out the window.

A minute passed in absolute silence. I waited for him to speak up because I knew he’d bring up Kyana.

“Vita,” he said slowly, prompting me to look at him. He was a couple of feet away from me, his yellow eyes fixed on my face, hands behind his back while the tip of his lower snake body jerked nervously. “I want to thank you for setting Kyana free. I appreciate the risk you subjected yourself to in order to do so. You have no idea how much good you’ve done me with this.”

“I know exactly what I did, and why I did it. I even know what you do when none of Azazel’s green fires are watching,” I replied bluntly.

“Shut up,” he hissed, his expression darkening.

I stilled, fearing I’d brought out the beast in him. He raised his index finger to his lips, then slithered around the room, checking behind every curtain, in every box and drawer, every nook and cranny. I watched quietly as he got down on the floor, then hissed again.

He emerged with a green firefly stuck between two fingers, looking at it with an eyebrow raised before squishing it. I shuddered at the thought of having Azazel’s version of a spy cam in my bedroom. Then I froze, wondering how long that little bug had been there. Had it heard my conversations with Aida?

Fear trickled through my veins. Patrik noticed my reaction and gave me a reassuring half-smile.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Unless Azazel is actually watching in his pool of green fire, he probably didn’t hear or see everything you’ve been up to since you’ve been here. If he had, you never would have made it downstairs into the dungeons to release Kyana.”

He had a point. So, the green fires only worked in real time. I clung to that thought for the time being, as there were already so many horrible things wrong in my life at that point that I simply didn’t want to deal with more.

“How much do you know about what I’m doing?” he asked, watching me curiously.

“As you probably know by now, there are three of us Oracles,” I explained briefly. “But we don’t all see the same. One sees the past, one sees the present, and I see the future. One of us saw you a few days ago, a couple of times, as you attempted to break from Azazel’s control. I know he infected you with his darkness the moment you joined his ranks, and I know you and Kyana are in love. I assumed he was holding her down there as leverage. How am I doing so far?”