Reece walked into the infirmary with Alexandra at his side. She hadn’t wanted to come with him, but Reece wasn’t about to leave her alone again. She followed him silently and he wished he knew what she was thinking. It would be easy to touch her and find out, but he wouldn’t. She’d been through enough, she didn’t need him prying into her thoughts now.
He was quiet too. Something about her demeanor with Anton had bothered him. He supposed it was her cavalier attitude about staying with Circle Daybreak. He was going to have to talk to her about that. Reece only hoped that she would be willing to do so.
Carden’s room was cold, but the vampire had shoved his blanket towards the bottom of the bed. He was still wearing his blood-soaked clothes as he lay back on the hospital bed, flipping through the channels on the television in the corner of the room. He didn’t say anything as Reece and Lex came in the room and Reece was actually worried about it. Carden should have thrown some sarcastic quip at him, but he kept his attention on the TV.
Reece pulled two chairs closer to the bed so that he and Lex could sit down. “Hey,” he said to Carden. “How are you feeling?”
The vampire shrugged, but didn’t turn towards Reece. He just kept changing the channel. “Been better. Getting shot hurts.”
Reece frowned. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“Yeah.”
Carden’s taciturn answers were really starting to alarm Reece. “It took guts, taking three bullets to protect Lex.”
“Right. Surprisingly, it’s not hard getting shot. You just stand there.”
“Well, Daybreak really owes you—”
“I’m getting thrown out of here,” Carden interrupted. He finally settled a movie on Comedy Central and dropped the remote control on the table next to the bed. “As soon as the healers are sure that I’m okay, Daybreak wants me gone.”
“What? Why?”
“I let Aiden in,” Carden said shortly. “He threatened to kill me, so I let him in. Bastard tried to kill me anyway, but I would’ve done the same thing. Anton went on a tirade about how I failed Daybreak, valuing my life over that of a Wild Power. He thought that it would be best if I left.”
Alexandra had been staring at the floor in front of her chair listlessly, but suddenly her attention locked onto Carden. “You opened the door for Aiden?” she asked him quietly. “You let him into the cell?”
Carden’s voice was hoarse. “Yes.”
Lex lunged at the vampire in the bed. She pummeled his chest with her fists and he winced. She was punching the gunshot wound that was mostly healed, but still sore. “You bastard!” she cried. “You fucking bastard!”
Carden didn’t make a move to stop her, so Reece grabbed Lex around the waist and dragged her off of the vampire. She tried to throw herself at Carden again, but Reece grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “Stop!” he shouted. “Lex, stop.”
Alexandra looked at him, her blue eyes blazing with anger. She was breathing hard, but at least she was listening. “Please,” Reece said. “I need to talk to him. Can you please calm down?”
She didn’t answer, but after a moment she sat back down in her chair forcefully.
Reece turned back to Carden. The vampire was letting Daybreak kick him out and he’d let Alexandra hurt him without uttering a word. There was something really wrong with him. “Why did Aiden shoot you three times?” Reece demanded.
“He was trying to torture me into telling him where the Wild Power was,” the vampire replied dully. “Shot me in the legs.”
“You refused.”
“Yes. Until he pointed the gun at my head and threatened to kill me.” Carden shrugged again. “I didn’t feel like dying just then. So I let Aiden into her cell.”
“That’s bullshit,” Reece snapped.
Carden slowly turned towards him. “It’s the truth.”
“I haven’t worked with you long, but it’s been long enough to learn a few things. You’re an asshole. You’re obnoxious. You piss off everyone around you just for the fun of it. But you’re good. I wouldn’t have left Alexandra with you if I didn’t know that I could trust you.”
“I guess you shouldn’t have.”
Reece wanted to shake the vampire. The person lying in the hospital bed was not the same person that he’d been just a few hours ago. “What the hell happened, Carden? I know that you wouldn’t give up a Wild Power to save yourself. Especially since you knew Aiden was going to kill you anyway.”
“I didn’t.”
“You said it yourself. It’s what you would’ve done.”
Carden was silent and turned back to the Comedy Central movie. Reece had the distinct impression that he’d just been dismissed. He shook his head sadly. “I know you did what you could,” he said. “I think you’re an ass for rolling over and dying like this. If you ever want to tell me the truth, I’ll listen.”
The vampire still didn’t say anything, but Reece saw that Carden was holding his breath. The room was perfectly still for a moment and Reece thought that he might have gotten through to the vampire. But then Carden exhaled slowly without a word and Reece knew it was useless to try any more. “Good luck, wherever you end up,” he told Carden.
He motioned to Alexandra to leave and she gave Carden one last glare on her way out of his room. Reece followed her without a backward glance.
Reece’s room was very posh. For all the money that Tristan had thrown down on hotels, she’d still never been in a room this large or luxurious. There was a sitting area near the door to the room with soft, overstuffed couches. Towards the back of the room was a full kitchenette with more counter space than most houses had. The fridge was probably stocked with food, herbs, and blood. There was a darkened corner towards the back of the room that was filled by a king-sized bed covered with a down comforter.
She sat down on the loveseat that was in the sitting area and moaned at how good it felt to sink into the cushion. She closed her eyes and drank in the quiet.
When she opened her eyes, she found Reece watching her with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “What?” Lex asked self-consciously.
The witch shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just nice to see someone enjoying the luxury.”
“You don’t?”
“Not particularly.” Reece sat on the coffee table in front of the loveseat and took off his boots. She couldn’t help but notice how close his knees were to hers. “I’m too far from the Elements in this place. I feel really cut off from the world.”
Lex gave a short laugh. “At least you’re cut off from the world in a place with heat and suede furniture.”
“True,” Reece said after a long pause. “Do you need anything? Food? Blood?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? You’re kind of pale.”
“Very few vampires sunbathe,” she said dryly.
“Very few avoid feeding when they obviously need it.”
Alexandra sighed in annoyance. “I’m guessing you got that from the soulmate link.”
Reece arched a brow. “All I have to do is look at you, Lex. You’re too thin, you’re too pale. You have to start taking better care of yourself.”
“Right. The Wild Power needs to keep up her strength if she wants to fight evil.”
The witch looked at her, his mouth hard and green eyes dark. “That’s not funny,” he said gravely. “There are thousands, millions of lives at stake in this war, not just your own. Do you even care? Or do you just want to stay alive?”
The question stung and Alexandra didn’t understand why. “Does it matter?”
“It matters to me. I’ve worked hard for this my entire life. I’ve seen friends die for Daybreak. The girl that your— Tristan shot was my closest friend. She sacrificed herself for the mission. So it bothers me to see you take it so nonchalantly. It’s like a slap in the face that all you care about is yourself.”
Lex felt hot tears burning in her eyes. Her throat constricted and she had to pause to swallow hard before she could speak. “I’m going to get some rest,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to stay steady. She got up brusquely and started over to the longer matching couch on the opposite side of the coffee table.
Reece grabbed her wrist to stop her. “Take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
Alexandra snorted bitterly. “That’s not necessary. I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ve had a lot worse. Now get the fuck off of me.”
She tried to pull her arm back from Reece, but he didn’t let her go. “Do you always run away when someone asks you or tells you something important?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “You should have learned that by now, witch. Give me back my hand.”
“No,” he replied quietly.
Reece held her fast as she struggled to wrench out of his grasp. As a vampire, she should be stronger than a witch, but she was exhausted and weak. Reece had been right: she did need blood. Lex tried to hit him with her other hand, but then he grabbed hold of that wrist as well. Her pulse raced and her mouth went dry as she gazed down into his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Reece said calmly. “You know I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You are hurting me,” she cried at him, untruthfully. He grip was tight, but he was only restraining her. If she stopped struggling, it wouldn’t hurt at all. It pissed her off all the more. “What the fuck do you want from me?”
“You have other options, you know. Anton was just trying to be persuasive. There probably are people in the Night World who would keep you alive if you worked for them. You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to.”
“Do you not want me here?” she retorted.
“That’s not the issue. I want to know what you want.”
“I don’t know,” she spat honestly. “I’ve never been involved in some big cause. I spent twenty-seven years as a slave and then another three trying to forget the first twenty-seven. I’ve really only existed as a way to waste time before I die.”
Reece let go of her wrists and slid over on the coffee table, beckoning her to sit next to him. Reluctantly, she did. It reminded her of the last time they’d talked alone, leaning against the wall of her cell side by side. He seemed to know that it was easier for her to talk if she didn’t have to look at him. It was more like she was talking to herself.
“What about when you were human?”
“It seems so long ago now…” Alexandra took a slow, deep breath. “He took me when I was almost fourteen.”
“Who was he?”
Reece had asked that before, but somehow she felt ready to talk about it now. She had kept the past locked inside her for three years and she was realizing now that it hadn’t made anything easier. Reece was right; the past was part of who she was. And after what she’d been through with Aiden, Lex didn’t feel strong enough to carry the weight of her secrets by herself any more.
“The one who made me. I never knew his real name.”
“Why did he do it?” Reece asked, though she was sure that he already knew the answer after the things he’d seen in her mind.
“Pedophiles and sociopaths aren’t unique to the human world. He took me and made me into a vampire so that he would always have a young body for his gratification. And being so small, I would never have the physical strength to fight him. He— he used me for over twenty-seven years. He passed me off to his friends and associates for their entertainment, sometimes for days or weeks at a time.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw Reece bow his head. “Goddess, I—”
“That wasn’t the worst of it,” she interrupted him. Suddenly she couldn’t stop talking. It was all coming out and there was nothing she could do about it. “He has the power to see into your mind, conscious and unconscious, like Angie. He stole more than just my surface thoughts. He knew everything about me. Every emotion, every psychological button. It was a game. He fed off my reactions as much as he fed off my blood, my body. He wouldn’t let me block him out; he would wrap his mind around me and make me feel what he was doing to me. And I could feel what he felt while he was doing it, because he passed the power on to me when he made me. He didn’t realize that for a few years, but when he did, he had an entirely new game. He would make me do things to other people, mostly humans. Torture them. He would feed off the human’s suffering and my guilt and hate. He was addicted to it.
“And…after a while, I was sort of addicted to it as well. I stopped trying to fight him and that made me hate myself even more. I felt like I deserved the things that he did to me because I didn’t have the strength to fight, because of what I did to other people for him. I became dependent on it and it started to feel good. When I was in pain, it was right because I deserved it. When the pain stopped, the quiet afterward was like ecstasy. I needed it to feel something other than sick and hopeless. But it never lasted long and then I needed it again. So I provoked him. I came up with ideas of things he could do to me, that I could do to humans. He took my soul bit by bit until I was completely his.”
She was breathing too fast and she couldn’t bear to glance at Reece. “Then it wasn’t as much fun for him any more. He had broken me, so I was damn near useless to him. One night he brought another girl home with him. She was a little younger than I’d been when he took me. She was sobbing from fear, still thinking about how to escape. Wishing her family would come and rescue her. I remembered that I’d once been like her and I realized how far gone I was. It hurt so much, which was what he’d wanted. Just one last rise out of me before he was done with me.
“He locked me in his room and poured kerosene all over the house. Then he came to me and threw a lighted match down. I covered my eyes because the fire was so bright. I tried to step back, but the flames were everywhere. Then he attacked me, drank from me until there was almost nothing left. He dropped me, spat on me, and ran through the flames to get out. He left me to die in the fire.”
Alexandra broke off. Now that the words had finally escaped from her, it left her feeling empty. The secrets had been the foundation of her existence and without them she suddenly felt adrift.
“How did you get out?” Reece asked her. Even though his voice was soft, it startled her.
“I didn’t. I just…survived it, somehow. Tristan found me there in the ashes, a breath away from death, and he took care of me. I’ve been with him ever since. He was so safe. He wouldn’t read my thoughts and he for a while he didn’t ask any questions.”
They sat together quietly for a while and it was comfortable. Lex felt as if Reece was trying to absorb her words and giving her a moment to calm down.
“I would say that I’m sorry,” he finally said as he turned towards her on the coffee table, “but I think it would be ludicrous if I did. There’s nothing that I can say. But thank you for telling me.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’re really grateful,” Lex said sarcastically. “You really wanted to know how sick and disgusting your soulmate is.”
“Stop saying that about yourself. You’re not disgusting, Lex. I don’t hate you. What happened to you is not your fault. Don’t you know that?”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she couldn’t stop them from spilling onto her cheeks. She felt so sick inside. “It is my fault. I liked it. I begged for it. This is what you’re stuck with for all eternity. Why are you still here?”
“He did it to you,” Reece said firmly. “It’s his fault. Not yours.”
“I should have fought him,” Lex whispered, stifling a sob. “I should have fought harder, at least died trying to stop him. I gave in.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s over and done with. You’re here with me and you have the chance to fight for something good now. You can help stop the Night World from destroying the human world. I told you before, you do have options. It’s your choice.”
Alexandra thought about her Maker. She remembered the pain of his fangs in her throat and the pain of his body tearing into hers. She thought about the expressions on the faces of all the humans that she’d tortured and killed for her Maker, for herself. She thought about Angie and the taunts and threats she made. She thought about Aiden, who had crumbled from the simple love of his soulmate, the darkness in him shaken by a single touch. This was the Night World.
She thought about justice that she’d never witnessed and peace that she’d never felt. Power she’d never had.
She thought about Reece, who was still here with her now that he knew the sordid details of her past. How could he have so much faith? The idea of having that much faith in anyone terrified her. It made you too vulnerable, too open to betrayal and disappointment. But then Reece hardly seemed vulnerable. He was strong, caring, and capable. What did that mean?
Alexandra struggled to find faith in him and perhaps more importantly, faith in herself. She tried to find a shred of hope that she could forgive herself for the past and let it go. She searched for the belief that, no matter what life threw at her, she would be strong enough to get through it. She tried to imagine letting go of the desire to self-destruct and tried to envision being happy.
It was huge and terrifying. It was a world she could hardly fathom. But for a fraction of a second, Alexandra grasped a solid picture of it and her heart soared. If she could imagine it, even for such a short time, maybe she could make it happen.
Hesitantly, she reached for Reece’s hand. She tried to project her thoughts to him and he smiled.
“I’m with you,” she said, sure this time that it was for the right reasons.
Reece grazed her cheek with the back of his knuckles and then pulled her closer to him. He kissed her, his lips soft on hers. It was different this time. Before, he’d been so tentative, waiting for her response. Now Lex immediately felt his urgency, felt him coaxing her mouth open under his. She moaned and he kissed her harder, his fingers sliding into her hair, drawing her even closer.
Lex felt his mind around her and tried desperately not to panic. She concentrated on the heat of his mouth, his cool fingers in her hair, and she very slowly she relaxed. The fact that she could relax was amazing to her, especially after what had happened with Aiden. But she knew now more than ever that the connection with Aiden was wrong. It wasn’t meant to be. This, what she felt with Reece, was created by fate. They’d been made for each other.
She carefully let herself step into his mind. Everything was warm and green, like the color of his eyes. She glimpsed how hard he worked, how much he believed. He was afraid of failing, but he kept trying. It was as if he needed to work if only to challenge that fear, again and again. He couldn’t let it rule him. Lex had never imagined confronting her own fears like that and she was in awe of him.
But while she witnessed all of the strength in him, she was ashamed of the weaknesses that he would see in her.
No… his mind whispered. Not weakness, never that. Perseverance, survival. What happened to you was unspeakable. It would have been so easy to let go and die, but here you are.
She wished that she could accept the compliment, but it wouldn’t be right. It was so untrue. At the expense of others, at the expense of my own self…
What’s done is done. Forgive yourself. Try again.
Lex gave something like a mental sigh. It’s not that simple.
Neither is surviving what you went through. You have the strength.
She wanted to believe it, but was afraid to. For now she merely accepted his words and held them close to her heart.
His lips suddenly left hers and Lex opened her eyes, catching herself before she whined in protest. Reece gave her a small smile as he gathered her into his arms and stood up, carrying her over to the bed. He lay her down and she turned on her side to face him when he lay down next to her.
Instinctively, she started to pull her shirt up, but Reece took hold of her hands to stop her. Lex looked up at him, confused and a little hurt. “You don’t have to,” he said. “I just want to hold you, okay?”
It would have been easier for her to sleep with him. It was what she knew. Simply lying next to him seemed far more intimate. But Reece drew her closer until her head was resting on his chest, her arm draped over him as he lay on his back.
“So what do you have against Creed?” he asked.
The question was so out of the blue that Alexandra laughed out loud. “Oh, you don’t want to get me started,” she said. “Creed, the Yankees, the Republican party, Walmart…these are topics you should avoid unless you want to hear an hour long diatribe.”
“Okay, then what kinds of music do you like?”
Lex answered and they talked softly and easily for hours. Reece’s hand played with her hair while she stroked the hard planes of his chest, the sculpted muscles of his arms. Eventually he turned off the light and their voices fell to murmurs as they started to drift off to sleep.
Part 15
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