She kept her breathing light and even, blocked out all physical sensations from her mind. She thought of whiteness and static. Nothing but breath. She no longer existed, her body was gone. Then there were no more thoughts at all as she felt herself start to drift away, everything was gone…
But then she felt the witch again and was wrenched back into her body.
Damn him!
He had her locked up in a cell so she couldn’t run. Now somehow he was keeping her mind grounded, denying her the only safe place she’d never known. She couldn’t escape and Lex nearly cried with frustration.
This hadn’t happened since she’d been with her Maker. In the first few nights after he’d taken her, he realized that when he looked down into her eyes beneath him, she wasn’t there. There was no fear radiating from her, only her glassy blue eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling and it enraged him. He wanted to feel her fear and her struggle. So he would bite her throat and wrap his mind around hers, forcing it back into herself, making her feel everything he was doing to her. Eventually, Lex had stopped trying to break away at all. She lost herself in him and that’s when she truly became his.
God, she was disgusting, both then and now. Hell, here she was—after swearing she’d never submit to anyone like that again—actually intrigued by Reece and the strange sensation of his mind anchoring her to reality. She could feel him somewhere nearby, overcome with anger and fear. Lex could almost hear Reece’s breath in her ear as he tried to get control of himself and part of her wanted to let her guard down and listen. If she couldn’t escape into herself, she might as well flee into him. His mind was a beacon of warmth and safety, hers for the taking.
No, no. She didn’t do that, not unless the person was about to die. She wouldn’t become her Maker. Lex tried to beat her power back, tried to force the witch away, but she couldn’t. Whatever was connecting her mind to the witch had nothing to do with her power and it was far beyond her control.
Lex suddenly felt edgy and itchy, like she couldn’t stand being in her own skin. She stretched out of her fetal position and began pacing the cell. The room was small and she could only make it five strides before she had to whip around to walk the other way. It wasn’t long before she was dizzy from the constant turns, but she didn’t care. The restless energy that took hold of her blocked out the sound of the witch in her head and it was a relief.
How could this be happening to her again? How could he be doing this to her? A slave again…damn it, she’d been right after all. She would never be anything more than what she had always been. She knew it. It had only been a matter of time. She’d had it too easy the past three years, under the care of a vampire who was simply more than she deserved. Now she was back where she belonged.
Oh god. Lex bent over to vomit, but there was nothing left in her stomach to expel. She could only dry heave until she felt like her eyes would burst.
When the door opened, she was startled and stood up too quickly. Her head spun. Her hand was still pressed to her chest when Reece Cahill entered and slammed the door shut behind him.
He had cleaned up a little. His spiky auburn hair was wet and he smelled like soap and aftershave. Instead of the black gear, he was now wearing a gray tee-shirt and jeans. Simple, non-threatening clothing. Just the sweet boy next door. It was for her benefit, Lex was sure.
Their eyes connected from across the room and Alexandra felt the touch of his mind like a physical blow, slamming her back into the wall.
“Sorry,” Reece gasped, coming closer to her. “I didn’t mean to do that. This is new for me…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Lex rubbed the back of her head. She’d have a lump there soon. Her breath was too shallow and she was cringing back against the wall, as if she could sink into it and become invisible. She just wanted to avoid this moment with this witch.
“Are you alright?” he asked her.
“Peachy,” Lex replied, crossing her arms in front of herself. She kept her body stiff, her jaw clenched. She donned her mental armor. “You?”
“Better.” He looked down and shook his head slightly, as if he was ashamed. But then he brought his gaze back to her face. “Look, I’m sorry I ran out on you like that.”
Whatever Lex had been expecting him to say, that was not it. It made her soften a little and it irritated her. “How should you have run out, then?”
Reece ignored her sarcasm. “I want you to understand that it had nothing to do with you.”
“Ah, the ‘it’s-not-you-it’s-me’ speech. I get it.”
“No, you don’t.” Reece moved closer now and Alexandra cringed inwardly. But the witch only came next to her and leaned his back against the wall so that they stood side by side without looking at each other. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Then don’t,” Lex replied dully. She didn’t want to know why he’d run out of here, leaving her lying in a ball on the bed like a discarded piece of dirty clothing. “I don’t care.”
Reece pressed on. “What I saw in your mind—”
“I don’t care!”
“— it made me want to kill the one who did it.”
“Stop it!” Lex hissed. She fisted her hands, brought them up to her cover her face as if she were protecting herself from a blow. “You didn’t see anything. You don’t know anything. Just leave me alone!”
The witch turned towards her and waited for her to lower her fists. “I can’t, Lex,” he said softly. “We’re soulmates. There won’t be an ‘alone’ for either of us any more, at least not in this lifetime.”
Soulmates. Alexandra had heard the term before, but the Night World generally disregarded it in disgust. As soon as Reece said it, however, Lex knew that that was the only word to describe the force that had pushed them into each other’s minds when he’d kissed her. It was the cord that was keeping her tethered to Reece when she only wanted to drift away from this world.
“I don’t want this,” she whispered. “I can’t have anyone inside my mind again. I can’t. I’d rather die.”
“I’m not him, Lex.”
“Don’t!”
Alexandra turned away from him, but Reece took hold of her shoulders and pressed her back against the wall. It wasn’t skin to skin contact, but the feel of his hands gripping her shoulders still made her pulse quicken. Reece stood in front of her, so close that their faces were mere inches apart. Their breath mingled.
“Look at me.” The sharpness of his tone cut off any protest Lex might have made. She tipped her head back to look into the witch’s eyes. “We need to get this straight right now. I didn’t see much in your mind and I don’t know all the details. But I know that you were hurt, so much so that it made me crazy. What happened earlier…I’ve never been angry like that. It’s not who I am and it scared the hell out of me. I don’t kill for fun, I don’t torture, and I don’t hate.”
“You hate me,” Lex snapped back at him. “I saw the look in your eyes in the alley after I killed your witch. You hated me and you would’ve gladly staked me then. Why don’t you do us both a favor and do it now.”
“I didn’t hate you.” Reece paused, trying to remember. “I felt grief for Genevieve. Guilt. She was my responsibility and I let her die. Not only that, but she was a Wild Power. Without her the Night World will have the earth overrun, and it’ll be my fault. And for some reason I felt…disappointed in you. Maybe that’s not the right word. I didn’t know you, but I didn’t want to believe that you killed Gen.”
“I did,” she assured him.
Reece let go of one of her shoulders and lightly ran the back of his knuckles down her cheek and looked deeply into her eyes, as if he were searching for something. Lex gasped audibly. She didn’t know if she wanted to slap his hand away or press her cheek into his palm. She remembered the feel of his lips on hers and found herself aching for it again. God, this was too much.
The witch gave her a tight smile. “Gen made you do it. She drew you in when you were dying, let you drink from her. You tried to pull away and she wouldn’t let you.”
He’d used the soulmate link against her. “Get the fuck out of my head!”
“I’m not him,” Reece quietly raged back at her. “I’ve seen your soul, yes, but you’ve seen mine too. You have to know that I’m not like him. I won’t hurt you that way.”
“Promises, promises,” Alexandra whispered. Her throat tightened and she knew that she wanted to believe him, just as she had wanted to believe Tristan. She was such a fool.
With a sigh, Reece released her and sat down on the bed tiredly. Lex leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. The tense energy that had been building between them suddenly dissipated, leaving them both drained.
“Tristan used to tell me that,” she said in a hushed voice. “He wouldn’t hurt me, he wouldn’t use me. He just wanted my trust.”
“He was your lover?” Reece asked.
Alexandra smiled slightly at the jealousy she heard in the witch’s voice. “No, I wouldn’t say that. We lived together, traveled together, slept together. He was my friend and of course we had sex. He might have loved me, I don’t know. Tristan learned early on not to tell me things like that.”
Lex remembered that first terrible fight, just five months after he’d found her. They had just finished having sex when Alexandra tried to pull away from him, but Tristan held her fast. He drew her down to his chest and she heard the quiver in his warm breath against her ear. Lex remained perfectly still in his embrace, but then Tristan pulled back to look at her face. She could see his affection for her shining in his eyes and in the wondering smile he gave her. She flushed and she felt her heart flutter in her chest. For a single instant Lex felt the rush of delicious anticipation. She wanted this. But then her fear, doubts, and self-hatred rapidly overwhelmed her. Tristan opened his mouth to say something and Alexandra harshly shoved him away. “Get the hell off of me,” she snapped.
Alexandra would never forget the wounded look on Tristan’s face, nor the anger that replaced it when she wouldn’t speak to him, not even to tell him what he had done wrong. Lex fortified her walls against Tristan’s pleas and curses. When he finally gave up on trying to reach her, silence fell between them.
Days went by before he spoke to her again, before she responded to him. He asked her if she wanted to watch a movie and she said yes. They stayed together as if nothing had happened, but Lex held herself apart from him more vigilantly. She was sure that the instant of exhilaration she’d felt could have killed her.
“How long were you together?” Reece asked her now, rousing her out of her memories.
“Three years.”
“That’s a pretty long time. You didn’t trust him after—”
“Twenty-seven years, eight months, three weeks, two days,” Lex interjected. She looked at Reece belligerently. “That’s how long I was…”
God, why was she telling him all of this? She meant to stop talking, to steel herself to his questions the way she had always done with Tristan, but somehow the words fell from her lips anyway.
“Who was he?” Reece asked. There was a darkness in his voice and Alexandra knew that she was responsible for it. It was on her behalf. She had contaminated him already.
Lex closed her eyes again and slid down to the floor. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.
Reece got off the bed and sat down next to her. “You’ve never told anyone, have you?”
“No. But Angie knows…she has a power.”
“I know.” At Lex’s curious look, Reece shrugged. “Daybreak does good recon.”
She should tell him now, Alexandra knew. She should tell him that she had power like Angie’s and it had been given to her by her Maker. She should tell him that no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, the power still took control of her at times. It used to be only when she hunted, but now it was starting to gain strength and momentum. She could be lost before long, she would become Him eventually. But those words wouldn’t come. No, not yet. She couldn’t bare to see that disgust in his face right now.
“She, uh, she ripped it from my mind,” Alexandra told him instead, “and she taunted me with it.” Angie’s words still haunted her…You could have all of this if you only had the focus, the will. Every moment for you could be like the kill. But you don’t want the will…do you, Luscious? You fear it. You fear your maker.
“I won’t do that.” The sincerity in Reece’s voice touched her. She could almost believe it. Or at least believe that he believed it.
“I don’t want you to know,” Lex confessed. “I want to forget it.”
“I can understand that. Life is hard. It would be nice to forget all of the bad times, the horrible things we go through. But you can’t. It’s part of who you are.”
“I don’t want to be me any more. I hate me.”
The witch looked at her curiously. “You think I’ll hate you too, if I knew?”
Lex bit her lip and nodded.
Reece smiled ruefully. “We’re both taking risks here, you know. Not just you. I don’t know what you saw or what you felt when I kissed you. There are things that I’ve done that I’m not proud of. And maybe you won’t like the things that I am proud of. I work for Circle Daybreak, which fights for a cause that you might despise. You might look at me and find who I am, what I do repulsive. I don’t know. It’s just that fate put us together and I’d like to know why. I want to know you, Lex. I want to see where this leads us.”
Alexandra was quiet. He made it sound so easy, but she knew that it wasn’t. Still, she’d never been this tempted. “You’re not a Creed fan, are you?” she finally asked him.
Reece looked perplexed. “No.”
“Good. That would have been a deal breaker.”
The witch smiled at her and it made her breath catch. He was gorgeous and she was the cause of that luminescent smile. Reece seemed to understand that she wasn’t promising anything now, but she wasn’t refusing him either.
Alexandra took an uneasy breath and looked into the witch’s eyes. “Please tell me the truth. What is going to happen to me?”
Something about her question made his face contort and then Reece roughly drew her into his arms. “Nothing. I’m going to keep you safe, Alexandra. I swear it.”
Lex sighed and closed her eyes, turned her face into the curve of his arm. She believed him and was ashamed of herself for it. But then in the warm shelter of his body, she gradually relaxed. The soulmate link hummed around them and lulled Alexandra into a dreamless sleep.
Aiden St. Helen couldn’t remember the last time he had slept. A sort ofhyperkinetic energy kept his thoughts racing ahead and circling back again. It made him short of breath even though he was doing nothing more than lying on the cement floor of his cell. He was thinking of what he would say to Eve once he found her, thousands of different scenarios assailing him at once. Yelling, crying, smiling. Retort after retort. He pictured the sting of her slap, the salt of her tears, the taste of her lips. The only constants in his incessant imaginings were her voice, her touch, her skin.
He was thinking of the past, of things that he had ignored and dismissed as insignificant. So much of his life had depended on lies: lies he told Eve, lies he told Angie, and most of all the lies he told himself. But now that he had nothing left, he saw things differently. Eve needed to know, she would understand. So much to say, he couldn’t contain it all. He was desperate.
Patience.
Dream some more…
“Aiden?” she’d asked him.
“Yes?”
“Do you love me? Tell me honestly.”
“Of course.” It was a lie. Aiden hadn’t felt anything then. He was nothing but cold and composed. Driven.
“I need to hear you say it,” she’d said timidly. She didn’t want to sound so needy. “You never say it.”
Aiden hesitated. Her shining blond hair fell over his forearm. It tickled. They were lounging on her bed, as always, facing each other. What could he say? He looked into the deep violet of her eyes. “I love you, Eve.”
His eyes had stung. He’d felt suddenly sick and didn’t know why. Eve pulled his head down to her chest, cradling him like a child.
Dream…
He’d taken the stairs down to the lobby. He didn’t like the humans who lived in Angie’s building, didn’t want to share the elevator with them.
The loud click of shoes against the tile drew his attention.
Her hair was the first thing Aiden had noticed. Glossy black spirals. The kind of curls you tug on just to see them spring back. So much of it, flung about as she paced.
Young, teenage vampire. But she had alluring curves and sinful lips. Her teeth dug into her lips, drew blood. What was she doing here?
He had stopped to watch her, amused and intrigued. But then he saw her eyes and almost took a step back. Blue, so blue. Eyes that had seen too much. Such weariness. Pain. Fear. Haunted, those eyes. It had given Aiden chills.
The girl hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t seen him watching her. He was inexplicably relieved. Aiden didn’t want her to turn those blue, fearful eyes on him. He kept his gaze on the floor as he hurried out of Angie’s building, hoping he’d never see her again.
Dream…
“You seem distant tonight,” she’d said. “Is anything wrong?”
Aiden had shaken his head. Nothing he could tell her. Angie was getting tired of waiting. She wanted it done. Time was running out.
“Hey, come here,” she’d whispered. She pulled him down to her bed, rested his head in her lap, stroked his hair. She hummed something softly.
But she wasn’t soothing him. The scent of her skin was driving him mad. He had to touch her. Need burned through him. He lifted his head and pulled her shirt off. She gasped and he pushed her back down on the bed. He kissed her, his mouth opening over hers. She met his passion kiss for kiss, touch for touch. Escalating, it became a heated frenzy, tearing off clothing, caressing, licking. Aiden had never thought that she could be like this. Everything they had done before had been gentle and slow, but this was primal. Visceral. When they were both undressed and panting, he stopped and looked into her eyes. This was a pivotal moment for her. She nodded fervently. He squeezed his eyes shut and took her fiercely, claimed her as his. He didn’t know if her cries were from pleasure or pain and he didn’t care. He didn’t open his eyes.
Dream…
Violet. Love.
Aiden had walked listlessly in the pouring rain. His tears were being washed away, he didn’t feel them any more. Where was he going? He didn’t know. He had nowhere. He had fucked up everything, betrayed everyone. He should go back…could he go back? No. He would never go back. He needed to be free of her. He wanted her dead, but he just couldn’t do it. What the hell should he do?
He could feel her breath on his face, the last breath she’d taken before he’d gotten his hands around her throat. He’d seen the understanding come into her eyes, her hands frantically and futilely trying to push him away. But then there was acceptance, forgiveness. Love.
No, no. Don’t love me. I hate you.
Aiden had growled and cried out into the night. Humans stepped far away from him, cars honked. The rain fell. He stumbled and trudged his way back to Angie. He’d been going that way all along. Didn’t know why he felt so lost, then. She would give him direction, she would make things right. He had the drive and she had plans. He would be free…he would be free from those violet eyes. Free from her love. Free from his own—
The locks on the cell door snapped open loudly and the sound brought Aiden back into the moment. He was still lying on the floor and his blood could no longer reach his hands that were shackled behind him; they were numb. He heard the footsteps as someone entered his cell and then saw Anton Parish towering over him. Aiden had been waiting for this.
Anton was scowling down at him. With his gray hair and glasses, Aiden thought that the lamia could pass for a librarian, one that was very pissed off at patrons for daring to talk above a whisper. Anton exuded pure contempt and if it had been anyone else standing over him, Aiden was sure he would have received more than a few sharp kicks to his side. But no, Anton was much too conservative to do something like that.
Strangely enough, Aiden knew that he was older than Anton. The other vampire only appeared older because he’d let his body age for fifty-five years while Aiden had stopped aging in his early twenties. Anton was actually in his sixties now, but Aiden was approaching ninety. Based on experience, Aiden really should have been the one running this sect of Circle Daybreak, but Thierry Descouedres had always preferred to leave stodgy moderates in charge. He would never have let a vampire with a nickname like “Hellraiser” lead any division of Daybreak.
“Aiden St. Helen,” Anton said, crossing his arms sternly. “We’ve wanted to get our hands on you for days and tonight you just waltz in through the front door, giggling like a lunatic. Care to tell me why?”
Aiden didn’t reply. He made his gaze steady, staring through the other vampire. He kept his eyes unfocused. Anton’s figure above him blurred.
“You’ve caused a lot of mayhem here in the past week—you and your employer, Angie Catellini. Did she send you here?” When Aiden didn’t reply, Anton crouched down next to him, careful not to let his expensive designer suit touch the dirty floor. “Answer me, Hellraiser.”
Aiden fought to keep his expression bland at the mention of his nickname.
“Nothing to say?” Anton hissed in his ear. “Okay. Maybe I’ll talk for a minute. I’m assuming that you know your soulmate is dead. You remember, the one you tried to kill a few nights ago. She never really recovered from that. Maybe now you’re having a taste of what she felt. So tell me, how does it feel now that she’s dead and gone? I’ve heard that it’s like having a limb torn off or having your still-beating heart ripped out of your chest. How does it feel to know that your soulmate died hating you, Hellraiser? She was always too good for you. If it weren’t for the soulmate principle Genevieve never would’ve looked at you. She never would have debased herself to touch you. Maybe it’s good that she’s dead now. She won’t have to live knowing that something as disgusting as you is her soulmate.”
The lamia was trying to get a rise out of him. Aiden knew it and willed himself to keep staring blankly through the ceiling. But Anton’s words still penetrated because they were true. Aiden felt as if the other vampire was prodding at a raw nerve deep in his gut. It was a miracle that he was able to remain perfectly still and unresponsive.
“You betrayed us all,” the lamia continued. “Did you enjoy stabbing your friends in the back? Those guards you killed outside of Genevieve’s door…they each had children. Seth’s wife is seven months pregnant with their fourth child. She has to raise all of those kids alone now.”
Anton leaned closer and grabbed Aiden’s chin, looking directly into his vacant eyes. “Was it worth it, Hellraiser? Take a look around, look at what you’ve been reduced to, and for what? Some sick, hateful conviction. Maybe you think that you’ve won because Genevieve is dead, but let me tell you something. We have another Wild Power. The Night World will never win.”
Minutes passed and Anton still stared at the vampire lying on the floor, searching his face for a flicker of consciousness. Aiden didn’t give in, not even when Anton blew forcefully into his eyes. He refused to blink.
The other vampire fisted the fabric of Aiden’s shirt and pulled him to his feet. Aiden remained limp, like a ragdoll in Anton’s grip and some stitches on his shirt ripped. The lamia bared his fangs. “I hope you’re suffering, wherever you are,” he growled.
Finally Anton released his hold on Aiden, letting him fall face first to the floor. “You’re pathetic,” Anton mumbled as he threw open the locks and left the cell.
The door slammed shut. Aiden exhaled silently in relief and let himself blink his painfully dry eyes. He’d done it. Now he just had to wait.
Part 12
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