Chapter Seven
Yes, Aksel’s new fiancée was perfect in all the ways that counted, but Melody picked up something else from her, too, that she couldn’t quite place.
There was a hardness to Thala that all but disappeared when Aksel walked into the room. A glint in her eye or a harshness to her words that simply dissipated whenever Melody watched Aksel walk into earshot.
They weren’t speaking English, so naturally the Scandinavians must have assumed that Melody wasn’t paying attention.
But she was.
“How long do you plan on staying on the island?”
The question wasn’t exactly rude per se, but the tone Thala delivered it in was unfriendly. They were in one of the main gathering areas in the center of the compound. It overflowed with comfortable, overstuffed leather couches and fireplaces around every corner. Melody had hooked her computer into an outlet and had all but taken over one of the large mahogany tables in the corner with her gear and her notepad.
She looked up and blinked at the glamazon.
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly before recovering. “What about you?”
Thala took the seat opposite from Melody uninvited and set her elbows on the shiny surface. She leveled a gaze at Melody that probably would have melted the average mortal.
"I'll be blunt since you seem the coarse kind of woman who appreciates things straight-to-the-point," Thala said as her voice dropped an octave. Here it was—that shift from damsel to a predator that Melody had noticed over the past few days. Melody also caught a glimpse of Bjorn leaning against the wall a few yards away, listening attentively as his sister spoke.
Thala paused and looked at Melody.
Melody raised an eyebrow.
“You were saying you had something to be blunt about?”
Thala cast a glance over her shoulder at Bjorn, who quickly looked around before nodding. Melody’s pulse quickened and her senses heightened. She suddenly realized she was in the far corner of this room alone and there wasn’t anybody else left. It was just her and the Psycho Siblings.
“I don’t know what is happening or has happened between you and Aksel in the past. And I don’t care,” she said, the tone in her voice sharpening while the volume of it dropping to a hiss. “But it’s over. Stop trying to divert his attention to you with your little looks and this little helpless act you’ve got going on. I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work. He’s marrying me. Do you understand? Back off or I’ll make you very, very sorry.”
Melody took a second to gather her thoughts.
“Do you feel threatened by me, Thala?” It was a bold question to ask an obviously jealous centuries-old vampire, but Melody was honestly curious.
Thala barked out a harsh laugh.
“By the likes of a Plain Jane like you? Never,” she turned and shared a look with her brother. He smiled and shook his head. “But Aksel seems to feel the need to protect you and I’m telling you that either you stop with the act or you’re going to really need protecting.”
“Oh,” Melody breathed out slowly. “So you’re threatening me?”
Ever the two-faced snake Melody had her pegged for, Thala’s eyes darted around the empty room to check for eavesdroppers.
“Yes,” she said when she was certain nobody could hear. “I am. Leave Aksel alone or I will break you.”
Melody didn’t like the pleasure Thala seemed to get from her threat. It wasn’t really a game she should be playing, either, since it wasn’t one she could win.
Without responding to Thala, Melody simply gathered her gear and left the common area, teeth clenched and heart racing.
At times like this, Melody almost wished she had her Terzi abilities. What Thala needed right now more than anything was an immortal-sized bitch slap to the face.
Nobody had officially blamed Melody’ attack on the terrorist organization, but she had heard enough whispers around the compound. Three days after the attack, she still had the giant purple and yellow handprints around her neck. And her sister still teared up every time she saw her. And her brother-in-law still set to swearing in a torrent of words she couldn’t understand when his wife got worked up. And, of course, the giant lug of a Viking still scowled at her every time she entered a room.
This was getting old. Now add to the fact that his Glamazon wife-to-be was showing up more and more randomly in places that should be safe zones—like the compound’s library or computer lab, and Melody was near a breaking point.
Sure, she wasn’t exactly scared of Thala, but she wasn’t immortal, either. Jealous bitch or not, Thala had strengths and abilities that Melody simply didn’t. And Melody had an extra something special to protect these days, too. Instinctively, her hands went to her abdomen.
To make the whole thing worse, Aksel was absolutely everywhere she was, no matter how much she tried to avoid him. He seemed to know where she’d turn up even before she made the decision to be there and with his bitch-face fiancée two feet behind him, things were getting awkward. One morning she set out to find him and caught him as he came out of the Kai and Ember’s wing.
“Listen, you’re driving me crazy,” she said as she put her hands up in front of her. “I’m not trying to cause trouble and I’m really appreciative of all of your extra effort since the attack, but it’s obviously causing problems for you and your cult of Rivendale elves. So, seriously, thank you. But I’m good now.”
Aksel didn’t react as quickly as she thought he would. He expected a terse nod or a sarcastic word and then he’d be done with it. But here he stood, looking like he was struggling to come up with a response. He was saved from too much effort by a commotion deeper in the compound.
“We’ll pick this up in a minute,” he all but promised Melody as he took off toward the noise. Ever the nosy girl, Melody followed him into the larger common rooms.
A small group of people were being ushered in by Kai's security team and Ember smelled smoke and fuel instantly—pregnant super-smelling powers had to be good for something, right? Two people, men, were bloodied and their clothes torn and wet. The real chaos, and the absolute sinking feeling in her chest, began when Thala was carried into the room by the giant they had called Bjorn. Apparently, they were brother and sister.
Bjorn spoke.
"They were traveling to the mainland by one of the smaller boats when they were attacked. One man was killed and these three survived."
He motioned to the two injured man and Thala.
From the left, Aksel and Kai ran into the room and took control of the situation. Men were sent to pursue the attacking boat. Men were sent to grab the island’s medic. And Aksel knelt beside Thala and suddenly she had everything she wanted from the start. He had his hand on her shoulder and checked her for injuries in the same, gentle way that he had with her days earlier. Fucker.
Melody shook her head, trying to get the horrible thought from her head. The woman had just survived an exploding boat. She didn’t deserve the bear the brunt of Melody’s jealousy, too. And if she was being totally honest with herself, Thala and Aksel were engaged. So there was that, too.
The tears in Thala’s voice floated across the room toward Melody and when Aksel responded with hushed tenderness, it was like an icy knife to the stomach.
She needed to leave. It was clear.
In the end, Ember figured out Melody's little secret before anyone else. She'd stopped by in the morning a week later and caught Melody in a pair of running shorts and a tight tank top. The burgeoning little belly impossible to disguise without heavy, flowing clothes.
Her big sister had squealed. She’d yelled. Then she squealed again.
And then Ember did something that nearly knocked Melody off her feet.
“It’s Aksel’s baby, isn’t it?”
Dumbfounded, Melody couldn’t come up with an answer fast enough—essentially answering Ember’s question. How did she know?
"Well, we knew about back in Devil's Folly," Ember explained. "And it sort of makes sense now—all these crushed puppy faces you make when he's around. And Thala—"
Ember broke off at the woman’s name and looked at her sister.
“Oh, honey,” she said, walking over to embrace Melody. “I’m so sorry.”
Melody tried to shrug it off nonchalantly.
“It’s okay,” she said, numbly. Melody was truly feeling the brunt of her situation now that her secret was out. It sure didn’t feel okay.
“What do you want to do?” Ember asked as she let her sister go.
Melody was going to leave. It was just a matter of time. But she wasn’t going to tell her sister yet.
“I’ve been busy working on the cyber security for Kai’s network, and I have a little work left to do with that for now. He’s got gaping holes in his security, so I can fix those for now,” she said.
“And after that?” Ember prodded.
“After that? I’m hoping some sort of new situation opens for me somewhere,” she said with a shrug. “I have no idea, Em. But I’ve always been good at figuring out what’s next when it’s time.”
Ember gave her little sister a sad smile.
“And Aksel? He deserves to know.”
Maybe. But it would also add kerosene to an already complicated fire.
“I don’t want him to know right now,” Melody said, pleading with her sister not to let her secret out just yet. “I’ve got a couple weeks left that I can hide it and he has so much to deal with right now with his new fiancée. Please don’t say anything yet. Please, just trust me.”
Ember worried her lower lip between her teeth but finally agreed.
“And you can’t tell Kai,” Melody added. It took her sister a moment to finally agree, but she did.
After breakfast later that morning, Ember and Melody parted ways for the day. Ember with Kai to more meetings and tactical planning and Melody back to the mainframe where she sat next to Kai’s IT engineer and tortured him through an hour of repetitive, redundant questions.
A thought had permeated her mind recently. A hunch about the recent New Dawn attacks and how they’d been anything but random. Melody hooked her laptop into the mainframe and set to work, explaining to the engineer every step she was taking.
"You're hacking?" He said at last when it dawned on him.
“Reverse hacking, actually, Jack,” Melody said and explained the tricks she’d picked up when she’d gone for her computer science degree, months after failing out of culinary school. She’d never exactly finished that degree either, but nearly two years with those guys had shown her a million cool ways to mess with a corporation’s firewalls.
It was quiet by the time Melody finished in the lab. Using the security cameras they kept up over Jack’s desk, she knew exactly where Thala and Bjorn were.
Sneaking through the compound to the visitor wing, Melody used one of Ember’s key cards and let herself into Thala’s room.
It didn’t take her long to get her phone attached to the apparatus and attach the wires to Thala’s laptop. She held her breath for most of the three minutes it took her phone to steal all of Thala’s files and make copies of them and she didn’t breathe normally until she was far away from the visitor’s side of the compound. That she’d been able to move undetected like that was nothing short of a miracle. Then again, Melody was pretty good at blending in.
She carried her laptop under her arm and walked through the center of the compound.
There was a group of vampires sitting among the sofas, speaking an ancient language that she didn’t understand. But she didn’t need to be fluent in hatred to read the looks on their faces. She heard Aksel’s name in there, too, and her heart sank.
Walking through the kitchens, she saw the human staff members preparing to leave for the night and got a flash of brilliance.
She had more than enough money to disappear again and this looked like her chance to escape unnoticed.