Fearless Fiery Beauty

Chapter 22: Love, Loss and Trust

Lucian sat in his father’s office, his knee twitching in agitation.

“Father, why am I here?  I should be out looking for Edana!”

“The guards are out looking for her, there is no need for you to join them, I am far more interested in what happened last night to make her run away in the first place,” Gabriel stated calmly.

Lucian ran his hand through his hair.  “I don’t know.  I thought we had made progress.  She finally opened up to me, I held her, I told her how I felt, I don’t know what went wrong…”

“You told her how you feel?”  He asked excitedly, leaning forward in his chair.  “And how do you feel exactly?”

“That I cared about her, that I loved her,” a slight smile appeared on his face as he spoke.

“You love her?  And she feels the same?”

“She hasn’t said so though I know she does, but –”

“This is excellent news, son!  It is only a matter of time before she consents to being a vampire then?”

“Maybe, but –”

“And then you two will be wed!  This is it, son!  Finally, the prophecy will be fulfilled!”

“Father, that’s not what I’m saying!  I love her yes, but it is more of a sibling love, I see her as a little sister.  I jest with her about coitus, but, honestly, I can’t picture us as anything more than friends!”

His father waved his hand dismissively, “It may seem like that now, but your love will grow!”

Lucian sighed.  “Father –”

“Christian!  Philip!  Darren!  Lucian!”

“It’s Edana, father,” Lucian jumped up from his chair.  “She’s back!”

Gabriel smiled knowingly, “Go to her, son.”

Edana was still fuming when the four boys appeared at her side in the entrance hall.  She had come straight back from the park and was in such a mood that all the guards that tried to crowd her when she arrived back were knocked unconscious.

“Since when do you call us and not Josh or Dantè?”  Christian asked jokingly.

“Yeah and here we were thinking they were your favourites,” Philip’s laughter stopped at the sight of Edana’s face.

“Edana, what’s wrong?  Where did you go?”  Lucian asked worriedly.

“I needed some time alone to clear my head, I went to the park,” Edana snapped.  “And even if Josh and Dantè were my favourites before, they definitely aren’t now that they’ve tried to kill me!”

“What?”  Darren, Philip and Christian’s faces wore matching faces of shock.

“They’re Gaunts!”  She ground out between clenched teeth.

“No, that’s not possible!”  Darren exclaimed, shaking his head in denial.  “Josh was still a Pale when we found him!  We taught him the laws and he’s been with us ever since!  Josh turned Dantè but he’s been with us ever since!  There’s no way they’re Gaunts!  It must be a misunderstanding!”

“It’s not!”  She snapped.  “They’re the ones who told the Gaunts about me, about where I was!  They were hoping to be rewarded for killing me!  Josh said he was turned by a man named Saven, he taught him about Gaunts and stuff before he even met you guys, and he turned Dantè against you guys too.  They’ve been against me from the start, pretending to be my friends so they could get close to me.”

“Saven…  There was a man named Saven…  I was about a thousand years old at the time, give or take a few centuries…  My father put him to death for treason…  He was the first Gaunt I ever saw up close…”  Lucian explained slowly, face scrunched in concentration.

“When I first met you guys,” Philip started softly.  “Josh used to pull aside, to talk to me in private about how being a vampire was better than being a human, that our abilities gave us power over them…  I never thought anything of it at the time.  I thought he was just trying to help me adjust to the new life; he was always so normal around you guys.  But now –”

“Josh said he was trying to convert you, like he did Dantè, but that you were too loyal to Darren and Christian,” Edana told him.  She thought it would be better to leave out Josh’s insults.  “He tried to convert all of you, but he said Darren was too loyal to Amphioxus and Christian to his family.”

Christian punched a hole in one of the walls, swearing loudly.

“When he first came to us, he would go on about things like that, but I just assumed he was a Pale in need of direction, that it was merely the ravings of a new blood left on his own too long.  He never once mentioned Gaunts…”  Darren whispered.

“None of you could have foreseen this,” Lucian stated reasonably.  “He was your friend, you trusted him.  There is nothing wrong with that.”  He was speaking to the vampires, but he was looking at Edana as he finished.  She knew he was scared that this would make her distrustful again and was trying to convince her that she should still trust him.  She nodded.  “I have to notify my father of this development, but first I think we should sit down and let Edana tell us everything that happened.

And so she did.  She told them how she had escaped the house, how she had gone to the park.  She told them about how Josh and Dantè had come out of the trees.  She told them everything they had said, about how they had taken a boy hostage, how she had realised it was her brother, how she had fought them both off, how they had run before she could end them.  When it came to explaining the fight she had had with her brother however, she faltered.

“Casey was there?  You saved him?”  Lucian prompted.

“We fought.  I punched him.  I altered their memories so they would think it was a couple of common thugs instead of vampires and then I left.”  She finished shortly.

“You fought?”  Christian asked kindly.

“His feelings towards me haven’t changed.  In fact, he hates me more than ever.  He called me a criminal,” she laughed bitterly.  “He’s changed so much I hardly recognised him.  He’s not my brother anymore.”

Lucian stood up.  “I think Edana has had a rough enough day, a rough few days actually.”  He turned to her.  “You should go take a long soak in the bath, while we go speak to my father.

Edana nodded and got up off the couch.  The boys all hugged her before letting her leave the room.  As soon as she out of range she let loose the tears she had been holding back.  By then, the adrenaline had worn off and now all she felt was tired, drained.  Losing the hope that she would one day get her brother back was like losing her brother all over again, and she was grateful to Lucian for giving her some time alone to mourn.