The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(70)

I steel my spine for the ordeal to come. Despite my best efforts, there is no way Nicodemus will not learn of the events that have transpired tonight. For the last two days, I tried to conceal Jae’s treachery from my uncle. It’s why I sought to avoid a confrontation at Jacques’ at all cost. Our maker would not wait to ask questions. He would destroy before he could be destroyed, as he’d done with Nigel.

Despite what Jae has done, I feel we owe him more than that.

Since Nicodemus is sure to discover the truth now, Ifan is summoned. The fey warrior arrives soon thereafter, bearing a small leather-bound case. The fey in the Summer Court of the Vale are not weakened by silver as those in the wintry Wyld are; instead they are at the mercy of pure iron. As a warrior of the Vale, Ifan learned how to exploit his enemy’s greatest weakness. How to cause a blood drinker pain using silver weapons, only to heal the wound and begin again. After Ifan was exiled from the Vale for the crime of falling in love with a vampire, he came to my uncle for sanctuary in the mortal world. For nearly half a century, Ifan has bound himself in promise to Nicodemus.

Madeleine is lying supine on the longest table in the room. The same table upon which I was placed while undergoing the change. Odette holds a compress to her chest. Blood pools around them, dripping from the edges of the mahogany table onto the priceless carpet.

Ifan opens up his case and comes to peer at Madeleine’s injury. “She is lucky,” he muses, brushing back strands of hair from the long auburn queue trailing down his back.

“Lucky?” Hortense sputters from the corner, where Boone and I continue to restrain her.

“Yes, vampire,” Ifan retorts. “Your sister is lucky the blade missed the center of her chest. If solid silver splits the breastbone or severs the head from the neck, the wound is impossible to heal.” He grunts. “The blade missed her breastbone by no more than a hairsbreadth.”

“How do you know it missed?” I ask.

“Because she still bleeds. If it had struck true, the magic in her veins would cease to move her blood, and she would become a withered husk.” As he speaks, Ifan removes a poultice from a pouch concealed in his trunk, along with a small vial of dark green liquid.

“I can heal her, but it will cost you,” he says.

Boone snorts, his face incredulous. “You work in service to Nicodemus, warrior of the Vale. Do as his progeny commands.”

“Nicodemus has not summoned me,” Ifan says in a smooth tone. “And I doubt he has knowledge of what occurred here tonight, or he would be the one directing me, not you.” His smile is vicious, as if he relishes our discomfort. “I do not serve you, leech.” He looks to me.

“I’ll pay whatever the cost,” I say. “Heal her now.”

“There is a fey blade in the Saint Germain vault,” Ifan says, his affect flat. “The silver is laced with diamonds. It was made a millennium ago by one of the most celebrated metalsmiths in the Vale. I want it.”

“It is yours.”

“Then we have a bargain.” Ifan nods.

“Is everything a bloody bargain with your kind?” Odette says, her fingers crimson.

“Yes,” Arjun replies. “It is.”

Ifan removes a handful of dried herbs from inside the pouch. “You’ll have to hold her down,” he says to us. “This will not be pleasant.” The smile has not faded from his face.

“If you hurt my sister,” Hortense says, “I swear I will—”

Arjun freezes her in place without a word.

I sigh. “Boone, please take Hortense onto the roof and keep her there for the next hour.”



* * *





An hour later, the bleeding in Madeleine’s chest has lessened to a trickle. Though she remains unconscious, Ifan assures us she will be fully healed once she has fed. Odette leaves to find blood, and I sit with Arjun, Boone, and Hortense in the darkness, our clothes stiffened by rust-colored stains, our expressions set in stone.

Jae has been tied to a chair with silver chains. He says nothing, but his face tells a different story. Everything about the way he watches Madeleine is haunted.

Lines bracket Boone’s mouth. He sits down and buries his face in his hands. “I can’t do this again,” he says. “I can’t suffer through another betrayal.” He takes to his feet and blurs toward Jae, his movements erratic. “Why have you lied to us this entire time?” he whispers. “In you, I saw a brother. How—how could you betray us like this?” His voice breaks.

“I did betray you,” Jae says. “But I never lied. Everything I’ve ever said or done, I meant. This family”—he pauses—“is my life.”

I listen to him. Before Lady Silla’s revelation, I believed Jae incapable of subterfuge or deception. He was always the most honest of us all. Not once did he shy away from painful truths. But now everything I’ve ever believed is being called into question.

Nigel betrayed us. After years of laughing, smiling, and living among us, it was the work of a moment for him to stab us in the back. It would be foolish of me to believe this could not happen again.

When you care about someone, they are able to hurt you and betray you.

I watch Hortense enfold her elder sister in her arms, crooning to her in French. It is unusual to see Hortense offering comfort to Madeleine. Usually it is the other way around.