The sound of vague, muffled voices made Reece stir. One of them was angry, yelling. The other voice was short and biting. He tried to focus on the sounds, but he was so tired that they kept slipping away. He felt himself sink back down to sleep.
A loud bang startled him and Reece’s eyes shot open.
It took a long moment for him to recognize his surroundings and remember what had happened. He found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor of Alexandra’s cell, leaning against the wall. Lex was cradled in his arms, somehow still asleep even after the bang. The noise had been the locks opening, Reece realized, and was instantly on guard.
Light streamed in from the hallway, blinding him in the darkness of the cell. He squinted and focused on the person standing in the doorway.
Shit. Anton.
“Cahill,” the vampire said with quiet anger, as if he were trying to reel in his temper. “Can I please have a word with you?”
Reece looked down at the vampire girl sleeping in his arms. She looked so beautiful now, her eyelashes a dark crescent on her pale cheeks and her lips slightly parted. She was warm and peaceful, and Reece didn’t want to disturb her.
“Now, Cahill,” Anton ordered impatiently.
The witch stretched his arm and grabbed the pillow off the nearby bed. He carefully lifted Lex up and slid out from under her weight, then lay her head back down on the pillow. He knew Anton was watching him with a glare, but Reece didn’t care.
“I’ll be back soon,” he whispered to Lex, even though she couldn’t hear him. Finally, he covered her with a blanket and followed the lamia out of the cell.
Carden was still out in the hallway, looking combative as always. But now there was another guard standing further down the hall. It was a shapeshifter, probably a wolf, and in contrast to Carden’s languid demeanor, the wolf’s posture was so still and rigid that he almost seemed to be an inanimate fixture. Daybreak must have brought in another hostile.
“If you would follow me to the conference room, please,” Anton directed. “Carden, you will stay here and guard the girl.”
The other vampire sneered and gave the lamia the finger as soon as Anton had turned his back.
There was a large conference room near the elevators. Anton opened the door for Reece, and gestured to a soft, leather chair by the end of the enormous table. The affluence of this compound still amazed the witch. His small operation in Canada was so poor that none of the members of his team could afford to work for Daybreak full-time. Reece ran the team out of his studio apartment, which was smaller in area than the table he was now sitting at.
Stifling a yawn, the witch stretched his neck back and forth. His body was kinked from having slept in an awkward position.
Anton remained standing and leaned forward onto the table. It was a pose meant to intimidate and Reece was certain that Anton had broken more than a few people with only his stance and his expression.
“What the hell are you doing, Cahill?” the vampire snapped. “I gave you a direct order to leave the sunlight spells in place. Not only did you remove them, putting this entire compound at risk, but now you’re also fraternizing with the vampire who killed Genevieve. And you left Carden guarding the cell after Thierry insisted that you be the one to guard the girl. I want an explanation. Now. And it had better be good.”
Reece sighed and leaned back into his chair. “I told you on the phone, the spells were making her crazy, not sedating her. She was screaming. You didn’t hear it; I did. There was no way we would ever be able to talk to her in that state. I believed that it would be more beneficial to Daybreak to remove the spells and try to interrogate her.”
“You violated orders! She could have destroyed—”
“She didn’t,” the witch retorted. “I took a risk, yes, but it was the right thing to do. As it happens, she has no idea that she’s a Wild Power. She knows nothing about it.”
“She could have been lying,” Anton insisted.
“She wasn’t.”
“How can you—”
“She’s my soulmate, Anton. Alright? I know she wasn’t lying.” Reece felt uncomfortable then. He hadn’t wanted to tell Anton that. It felt as if he were violating Lex’s privacy by telling others about their connection, but right now he didn’t have a choice. “Her name is Alexandra Harper. I don’t know what her relationship is to Angie, but I know that Lex didn’t mean to kill Genevieve. Gen forced her.”
The vampire looked aghast, angrily pushing back from the table. “That’s ridiculous! Gen would never do something like that. She knew how important she was.”
“With all due respect, sir, you didn’t see her much in the days after the attack. I did. She was…beyond despair. She confided in me that she wanted to die. And I saw what happened in Lex’s mind.”
“This is unbelievable,” Anton whispered. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he sighed and seemed to calm down a degree. He looked back at Reece soberly. “She’s really your soulmate?”
“Yes. I understand why you thought it was dangerous for the sunlight spells to be removed, but my instincts told me that she wasn’t a threat. Even before I realized that she was my soulmate.”
“That doesn’t make your actions right.”
“No,” Reece agreed.
Anton pulled out a chair and sat down heavily. For the first time Reece realized how exhausted the vampire was. With his head resting in his hand, Anton looked like he was completely burned out. “I’ll let it go for now,” the vampire said. “Don’t do anything like that again or I’ll have you removed from this city.”
Reece nodded. “Understood. Have you found out anything about there being a fifth Wild Power?”
“We have a team researching it. They’re looking through old scrolls, prophecies, every shred of information on Wild Powers. There is absolutely no mention of a fifth one.”
“So maybe it’s more likely that Lex took the power from Gen somehow.”
“That’s the way I’m leaning. All the prophecies say that the power is in the blood and that vampire drained Gen to the point of death. If that’s the case, this is the first weakness that a Wild Power has ever shown. Goddess, if the Night World ever hears about this, it would be disastrous.”
“But still, once blood is drawn, the Wild Powers can use the blue fire to defend themselves. Gen wanted to die, she let it happen. The others won’t.”
“Maybe not, but picture this: they use a spell or weapon to knock the Wild Power unconscious, then slit a few veins and drain them dry. Then the power is in the hands of the Night World.”
Reece imagined Alexandra unconscious and helpless, a vampire on top of her, biting her throat. Fury welled up inside him, hot and terrifying. He forced himself to clear his mind, take a few deep breaths. He would not lose it again. Slowly, he calmed down. “I hope it’s not that easy,” he murmured.
“That makes two of us.”
Reece was quiet for a while as he thought. It didn’t seem right that the Wild Powers could be so vulnerable. Anton was right; taking their blood could be easy as long as they weren’t awake to use the blue fire. After all, drinking blood is what vampires were made to do. There had to be more to it. But he’d seen what had happened with Gen in Lex’s mind. Maybe it was that simple after all. Maybe it was meant to be, so the balance of power could shift one way or the other.
“Look, we’ve got another situation you should know about,” Anton said. “You saw the extra guard watching another prisoner down the hall. Well, the prisoner is Aiden St. Helen.”
Reece was stunned.
The lamia continued explaining. “He just walked right into the compound a few hours ago as if nothing had happened. He was hysterical. I think Genevieve’s death broke his sanity, not that he deserves any better. We brought him down here, locked him up, and now it’s like he’s catatonic. I saw him just before I got you and he was entirely unresponsive. I sent for someone to bring him a blood bag. Maybe that will snap him out of it. It would be great if we could question him about Angie.”
“You’ve got to get him out of here,” Reece suddenly burst out. He shot out of his chair and leaned towards Anton. “He knows that Lex is a Wild Power. He watched Gen die, saw the blue fire. He’s here for Lex.”
The vampire frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me this when you brought the girl in?”
“I—I don’t know,” Reece replied lamely. “I was worried about her, my team. I didn’t think of it.”
Anton sighed. “Okay. Well it doesn’t matter, Cahill. He’s locked up with a guard at his door. And he’s completely in a daze. He isn’t a danger to Alexandra.”
“Not a danger? How arrogant are you?” Reece knew that he shouldn’t be talking to his superior this way, but he couldn’t seem to help it. “All he had to do was walk in here and he got put in a cell less than a hundred feet away from her.”
“He wouldn’t have known where we were keeping her,” Anton argued.
“Maybe not. But he walked in here for a reason and I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t so that he could spend the rest of his days in a straight jacket, locked up twenty-five stories underground.”
“He’s not even conscious. I tested him.”
“Sir, he deceived Circle Daybreak for years. How do you know he wasn’t deceiving you just now?”
The vampire pressed his lips together and Reece was afraid that he had gone too far. “Alright,” Anton conceded. “I’ll put together a team to have him moved to the Baltimore office.”
“Thank you, sir,” Reece said. He didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath until he exhaled in relief. “I’m going to go check on Lex now. I’m not leaving her side again until Aiden is taken out of here.”
“Cahill.” The vampire called Reece back just before he reached the door. The witch turned back to Anton. “I understand that this girl is your soulmate. But don’t let your guard down. The soulmate principle is no guarantee of honesty or loyalty.”
“I’m aware of that,” Reece replied shortly. He understood why Anton was warning him. After what happened to Genevieve, faith in the power of the soulmate principle had weakened. But he still felt a surge of resentment at the insinuation that Alexandra would betray him.
“Don’t be offended,” Anton said. “I just want you to be careful.”
“Yes, sir.”
It hit Reece as he was walking out of the conference room and the sensation was so foreign that he couldn’t understand what was happening to him at first. It felt like there was something heavy on his chest, constricting his breathing. Bent over, Reece felt a scalding shiver pass through him. His lips burned, his throat burned. It felt like he was having a heart attack. He thrashed and almost fell to the floor before he realized that the pain assaulting him was not his own.
Lex!
Lying face down on the cold cement floor of his cell had at least one benefit: the flow of blood to his arms was no longer constricted and slowly Aiden was able to feel his hands again. He wanted to flex his fingers, but he didn’t dare. The guard might be watching him.
He thought his performance had been rather good. Of course at this point, Aiden expected nothing less of himself. Since the day he’d met Eve, he’d managed to dupe everyone, including himself. He may be in maximum security, but with Anton believing that Aiden was relatively harmless, it would only be a matter of time before an opportunity presented itself.
It happened sooner than he’d expected. Anton, always a gracious host, hadn’t wasted any time ordering room service for the new, crazy hostile. Aiden heard a voice in the hallway and a few seconds later his door opened.
“You should have someone come in with you to make sure that Hellraiser stays down,” Aiden’s guard advised the newcomer tersely. With the door open, Aiden could sense that the guard was a wolf shapeshifter, which he’d half-expected. Wolves often made the best guards. “He’s done a lot of damage around here.”
“Don’t worry,” the newcomer replied. He was talking to the guard from inside the cell. “Anton briefed me on the situation with St. Helen. He cleared this. I’m just going to see if he’ll swallow some blood and leave some more blood bags for later.” There was a pause as the new person, a human, came closer and leaned down beside Aiden. “He’s still unconscious, I don’t think he’ll be a prob—”
Aiden swung his legs around and hit the back of the man’s knees, forcing him to the ground. Vaulting over to him, Aiden slammed his heel into the human’s skull, knocking him unconscious. Alerted by the noise, the wolf shifter rushed in from the hallway with his gun drawn.
“Don’t move,” the guard yelled, taking aim at Aiden. The shifter stayed in his human form as he held his gun securely in one hand while he reached for his cell phone with the other. He might have been better off shifting into a wolf and fighting the hostile himself, but Aiden knew that the guard was following protocol. The unfortunate problem with protocols was that carrying them out sometimes meant going against your instincts, which can make you more anxious and off-balance. As it happened, Aiden could tell that the guard was breathing too fast and there was a tremor in the shifter’s dominant arm. He was too jumpy, ready to fire at the slightest sign of movement.
Aiden discreetly slipped his right foot underneath the human lying on the floor in front of him and in one explosive kick, launched the man towards the guard. As Aiden had predicted, the anxious shifter raised his gun and fired rapidly at the body being thrown at him, most likely killing the man in midair. But the violent kick gave the human too much momentum and the body still collided with the guard, knocking him down.
Aiden grabbed the guard’s gun and slid it into the waistband of his pants. The shifter was still lying stunned on the floor, trapped beneath the weight of the dead human, when Aiden quickly gripped the wolf’s chin and head.
“Word of advice,” he told the guard casually. “Know when to say ‘screw protocol.’”
Then he jerked the shifter’s head to the side, snapping the spinal cord easily.
Aiden smiled broadly, baring his fangs. Ooh, how many people had he killed today? It had been too long. He’d forgotten what a high mass murder could be. He wished there was time to revel in it, but he had to find Eve.
Silently, Aiden crept towards the door to his cell, which was still wide open. He surreptitiously examined the hallway leading toward the elevators, and then looked back down the opposite way. It was all clear.
As he stepped out of the cell and there was a loud thud behind him. Before he could turn around he felt a burst of pain at the back of his head, thrusting him forward.
From the floor, Aiden looked up at his assailant, who must have dropped down from the ceiling. It was powerfully built vampire with a shaved head and a haughty smirk. Aiden didn’t understand how this guy could have gotten the jump on him—the vampire seemed too heavy to move stealthily.
“I recognize you,” the assailant said. He stood over Aiden in a fighter’s stance. “You’re Hellraiser.”
Aiden inclined his head in acknowledgement. Then he shot his legs up and used the motion to get to his feet. He brought his fists up to his chin, ready to block a punch, and kept his weight on his back foot. “And you would be?”
The assailant smiled. “The vampire who will be killing you soon. But you can call me Carden.”
“Ah,” Aiden replied. “You’re the one who took out Kendra Pollox.”
“One and the same. Time for you to join her.”
Carden threw a sudden snap kick that caught Aiden off guard, connecting brutally with his jaw. Before the other vampire could follow up the hit, Aiden ducked out and then came in low to land three body shots.
“Is that what you call a punch?” Carden laughed. “You’re doing it all wrong. Let me show you.”
The vampire threw a double jab and followed it with a hard right cross, then a high left hook. “Now those are punches,” he told Aiden.
Carden had dropped his fist, leaving himself open as he talked. Arrogant mistake. Aiden took advantage of it and rushed in with an uppercut that sent Carden staggering backwards.
“Thanks for the lesson,” Aiden replied. He withdrew the gun from the back of his pants and cocked it. He aimed steadily at Carden’s head. “As much fun as this is, I simply don’t have the time to bother with this “Street Fighter” shit. So tell me now, where is Alexandra Harper?”
The vampire looked oddly startled. Did he honestly think that Aiden wouldn’t know his own soulmate was here?
Frustration at the vampire’s silence, Aiden fired the gun once at Carden’s thigh. To his credit, the massive vampire didn’t make a sound, even though the wood-tipped bullet must have hurt like hell.
“Tell me,” Aiden ordered.
“Fuck you,” the vampire hissed back, continuing with a colorful array of other expletives.
Sneering, Aiden shot at Carden’s other leg, but the vampire just kept swearing. Damn it, Aiden didn’t have time to torture the Daybreaker into talking. He’d have to find someone else to give him information. He pointed the gun back at the vampire’s head and was about to fire when he caught a name and a face from Carden’s thoughts.
Aiden smiled. Love made priceless leverage.
“Risa, is it?” he asked Carden softly, cocking his head to the side. “I believe I’ve heard the name before. Interesting. You don’t want her dead, do you?”
The vampire lost the color in his face. “How—”
Aiden tapped his temple. “You should shield your weaknesses more carefully,” he told Carden. “Now, how about we renegotiate? You have two options. If you tell me where the Wild Power is, I’ll kill you mercifully, and I won’t touch a hair on Risa’s head. If you refuse me, I will break out of here, track Risa down, and find some rather creative things to do to her before I rip her heart out.”
Aiden threw a mental picture of one particular act at Carden and it left the vampire near tears. “Don’t touch her!”
“Whether I do or not depends on you. Make your choice.”
Carden swallowed. He closed his eyes as he pointed to a door just down the hall. “There.”
“Don’t lie to me. Why would Eve be down here?”
“I’m not lying,” Carden insisted. “We didn’t know if she was working with Angie, if she was a threat.” The vampire paused and he seemed confused. “Eve?”
Aiden almost laughed. Eve, a threat to Daybreak? His soulmate could never even fathom betraying her precious cause. Carden had to be lying again. But it couldn’t hurt to make sure, not when he was going to kill the Daybreaker in a minute anyway. “Open the door, then,” he ordered.
Carden hesitated.
“Open it or I’ll be fucking Risa’s entrails by tomorrow,” Aiden hissed, shoving the barrel of the gun against Carden’s head.
The other vampire quickly entered the code to unlock the cell.
“Thanks for your help,” Aiden said congenially, and shot Carden in the chest. The Daybreaker fell heavily to the floor. Grabbing hold of his wrist, Aiden pulled Carden inside the open cell.
Shutting the door behind him, Aiden left the Daybreaker’s body by the foot of a cot that took up a large portion of the cell. He stood still for a moment, winded.
Then he saw her, lying on the floor. She was sleeping soundly, covered by a thin blanket. Aiden couldn’t move. He stared at her in breathless awe.
Her gorgeous curls spilled onto the pillow under her head and her flawless skin seemed to glow. She was so beautiful that he was continuously captivated by one feature and then another. Her long, thick eyelashes caught his attention, but then he couldn’t stop gazing at her voluptuous lips. The delicate curve of her cheekbones fascinated him, but then her pale throat made his fangs lengthen painfully.
It was her. His soulmate, his One, his Eve.
All of the words Aiden had imagined saying to her fled from his memory. He had been foolish to believe that he could prepare himself for this. He’d tried to kill her and then watched idly as she died. Love and hate for her still warred inside him, dragging him one way and then the other. The whirlwind of memories and searing emotion was tearing him apart. And it was her fault. She had done this to him and then she’d run before she could be held accountable.
He watched her and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. What he wouldn’t give just to feel one thing purely, to have one unadulterated emotion move him. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to be himself again—the dispassionate, single-minded vampire that he’d been before Eve had touched him. Aiden found it strange that he was grieving for his own self. But he missed the cold and dead person he’d once been. The person he’d become in the past few days felt too much and it was intolerable. He didn’t know where that left him. He didn’t know how to live. Aiden St. Helen only knew how to be dead and he could never have that peace again.
To hell with it.
Slowly kneeling down next to his soulmate, Aiden resigned himself to madness.
Part 13
Part 15
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