The misty rain created a nebulous veil between them as they stood across from each other in the murky dawn twilight. They had both been in this alley once before, but in many ways, he had never left. This was where he had watched his soulmate die. He hadn’t been able to kill her himself, but he had stood idly by while she gave her life up to Alexandra.
Now Lex was the idle one.
“Say something!” Aiden ordered. The whites of his eyes were still tinged red from the excess of blood he had drunk and it made him look demonic as he glared at her mutinously from the other side of the alley.
She couldn’t respond. Her power had drawn her so deeply into him that she hadn’t been conscious of her own body for some time. Even though she had obviously followed him here, she had no memory of it. A passenger in his mind, she was only able to see through his eyes. Her only awareness of herself was through him.
But Aiden didn’t realize that. He didn’t understand that he couldn’t win the battle of wills that he had initiated between them because she wasn’t actually fighting back. No, he believed that her silence and indifference were deliberate. She had abandoned him—given up on him—and couldn’t care less about what he was or what he did.
Just like his soulmate.
He advanced upon her, his long legs closing the distance between them in three quick strides. Then taking hold of her arm, he threw her onto the cold, wet pavement. His foot stabbed into her side, leaving her unable to breathe. Lex barely felt it; her senses were already overwhelmed by how he felt when he kicked her. A fire was burning in his chest even as tears burned in his eyes. He was screaming at her, his voice cracking, but he needed to be louder. He needed to hit harder.
Never enough. Why wasn’t he ever enough?
As he kicked her again, she suspected that even if she were able to speak right now, he wouldn’t hear her. He had clearly lost his grip on reality a few dozen kills ago and now he seemed to be trapped between the present moment and the past. Memories of his soulmate were spliced into the world around him. Lex lay at his feet and his mind reduced her to the lowest common denominators—the color of her eyes, the pallor of her face, the unyielding set of her mouth—but even those fundamental features were contaminated by Genevieve. The lips were too thin and her complexion was so pale that it seemed almost blue. But the most telling details were the sickly yellow thumbprints staining the white column of her throat and the translucent, violet eyes.
It always came back to his soulmate. So many times, he had argued that he knew that Alexandra wasn’t Genevieve and yet he was still confusing them.
She should have known that his newfound stability was just an act. Thinking back on it, she had known. Even from the beginning, it had struck her as odd how easily he dismissed the thought of his soulmate. He kept saying that Genevieve didn’t matter, that he didn’t like her, that he didn’t miss her. And though Lex hadn’t believed him, she let it go because she hadn’t wanted to push him. Aiden respected her boundaries—even though he seemed to resent them—and she had wanted to do the same for him.
God, she was slow. Even after all the time she’d been with Reece, she still held the instinctive and erroneous conviction that painful memories should be left alone. In spite of her best intentions, she still believed that talking about your scars only served to reopen the wounds and then they might never close again. She ought to have learned by now that without talking about them, the wounds didn’t close in the first place.
On some level Aiden already knew that. She remembered the steadiness of his gaze in the motel room in New York when he admitted that he had wanted to talk to her for a long time. Lex realized now that it hadn’t been some line to get her into bed; he’d actually meant it. He’d come to Alexandra specifically for that.
But in the end, how much talking had they actually done?
Drained and exhausted, Aiden’s balance wavered and Lex felt her power abruptly retract. As he stumbled and fell to the ground, she felt as if she were falling as well. Punted out of his mind, she crashed back into herself.
When she opened her eyes, the world was clear and quiet again. After spending so much time lost in his mind, everything outside of it felt dull. Dampened. Strangely, she almost missed the bright flashes and deafening noise. It had been harsh and grinding, but also so...vivid. The real world was so gray.
It wasn’t right. Tolerating her power was one thing—she had no choice but to tolerate it if she wanted to stay sane—but to actually enjoy it…she should be disgusted with herself for that. But she wasn’t.
Aiden threw himself on her, his fists pounding steadily as the rain, but he was so weak now that the blows still didn’t hurt. When he finally burned himself out, he laid his head on her stomach and clutched at her shirt like a frightened child.
“Don’t leave me,” he begged softly. “Please.”
Looking down at him, Lex remembered that she had seen his face contort in pain like this once before. From the foot of his bed in the Daybreak infirmary, she had watched him fall to pieces. That night she had become the first and only person to see Aiden St. Helen cry.
Nineteen months later, it seemed like they had come full circle. He was shattering again before her very eyes and Alexandra hated herself for letting it happen. She had the power to stop this all along—the power to prevent it in the first place—but she’d been too dense to realize it. Dense and scared and selfish.
Goddamn it, Aiden should have expected that. She wasn’t good at conversation. She couldn’t handle intimacy. He should have found somebody else. He should have known that she would only use him, just as she had used her own soulmate.
Lex suddenly wanted to laugh at what a sad pair they made: he was a wreck without his soulmate, and without her own, she was backsliding into silence and fear. They had nothing but each other now and that would never be enough…would it?
Without pausing to contemplate her actions, Lex slid her fingers into his hair as she slowly sat up and cradled his head in her lap.
“Don’t leave…” he breathed again.
Tears stung her eyes as she traced her fingers over the sharp lines of his face. So much pain there. So much loss. She couldn’t help but resent Genevieve for making him hurt like this. But then, it was no more than what he had done to her. Lex knew that all too well.
Aiden lifted his eyes and there was a new sense of clarity in his gaze as he reached out to touch her. It was as if he had just woken up and he was finally seeing her for herself.
The soulmate link vibrated as his thumb brushed her lip and she was reminded of the first time he had kissed her. Who would have thought that he was capable of such excruciating tenderness? Alexandra had been the one to turn that sweet, innocent kiss into something raw and hungry and ultimately ugly. As he sat up now, though, his eyes locking on hers as he cupped her cheek, she knew that it would be different this time. It would be real.
Something in her wanted to pull back, but she found herself flowing toward him anyway. The soulmate link was pulling them together and she was as helpless against it as he was. She felt weak and a little dizzy as she tilted her face up to him. Spellbound by the depth of emotion in his gaze, she couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes as he drew her closer.
Just before his lips touched hers, he hesitated for a scant second, as if he wanted to savor this moment of agonizing anticipation. In that instant, Lex was startled by a blur of movement in her peripheral vision. Her heart pounding and her stomach twisting, she looked up from Aiden to find someone standing over them, thrusting a gun against the back of the vampire’s head.
Reece.
Oh god…
What was he doing here? How had he found her? Who cares! He had come for her! But that didn’t change anything. She still wasn’t good for him. He still deserved to be free of her. But if he was here, then he clearly didn’t want to be free of her, right? But god, what about Aiden? They had been on the brink of something and Reece had witnessed the entire thing. That had to be the reason that her soulmate wouldn’t look at her now. He probably couldn’t stand the sight of her. Then why didn’t he just walk away and let her and Aiden finish what they’d started? But was that what she wanted? Or did she want to push him aside and throw herself at Reece. The hum of the link she shared with Aiden could be nice, but could it really compare to how it felt with her real soulmate? But how could she do that to Aiden after everything she’d seen tonight and after what had nearly happened between them just now? But surely he would cast her aside if Genevieve suddenly appeared, right? She wouldn’t blame him for that. Would she? God, no, she couldn’t think about that. Her soulmate was standing right there and he had come all this way for her. But she still wanted him to be free of her. But if he asked her to come home, how could she say no? But if she did that, then she would only ruin him again...
But, but, but.
She was on the verge of hysteria. Her thoughts were racing, colliding with each other in one fiery crash after another.
Even though her mind was buzzing, she hadn’t moved. No one had. They were like statues in the alley and Lex had the sudden image of the three of them being frozen like this while time continued to pass around them. The planet would turn, the seasons would change, the buildings would collapse and new ones would be erected in their place, but she, Reece, and Aiden would still be caught in this single moment.
Then her soulmate broke the silence and the stillness by nudging the butt of his gun against Aiden’s skull. “Get up.”
“Reece…” she whispered. But he didn’t seem to hear her. He just glared down at Aiden with a frightening fire behind his green eyes.
“Get up,” he snarled again.
Aiden looked at Alexandra with a strange smile playing on his lips. “As you wish,” he replied lightly. He lifted his hands, keeping them in plain sight as he stood up. Then, he gracefully whirled around and chopped the side of his hand into the back of Reece’s elbow. The blow stunned the nerves in the witch’s arm and the gun fell to the ground.
Reece recovered fast. Cupping his hands, he hurled a blast of magick at Aiden that threw the vampire back against the wall so hard that the bricks crumbled behind him. While the vampire was dazed and weakened, Reece ran up to him and shoved his forearm into Aiden’s throat to pin him against the wall.
Lex was too astonished by her soulmate to notice the phantom pain ringing through her body. Technically, Aiden had thrown the first strike in this fight, but Reece’s fireball attack had been overkill. It wasn’t like him to use his power like that.
The vampire hadn’t been expecting it either. Surprise flashed in his eyes, but amusement quickly took its place. He made a choking sound that Lex assumed was meant to be a laugh. “First, do no harm?” he gasped with a smile.
“I’m a witch, not a doctor,” Reece growled through gritted teeth.
“But you’re a Daybreaker.”
“So were you.” His lip curled in disgust. “And you’re as high as a fucking kite. How many people have you killed tonight, Hellraiser?”
Another choked laugh. “I lost count.”
This was a dangerous argument. There was no way that Reece could understand how volatile Aiden was right now. He’d only just gained some semblance of composure; bringing up Daybreak, or Genevieve, or his rampage tonight could send him back over the edge.
Lex was momentarily relieved when Reece turned his head slightly toward her, finally acknowledging her presence. “So, this is what you left me for?” he asked in a dull voice that she barely recognized. “Everything you told Karissa about leaving for my own good was bullshit?”
Aiden’s silvery eyes darted to her with interest. She hadn’t really told him why she’d left Reece. She hadn’t told him much of anything.
“Answer me, Lex,” her soulmate ordered.
The vampire struggled in his grip, redirecting Reece’s wrath away from her. “She doesn’t have to answer to you.”
“Shut the hell up,” the witch snapped. Then he slammed the center of his forehead down into Aiden’s nose for good measure. “She’s not your concern.”
Reece’s anger seared through the soulmate link, so pure and potent that it left Lex speechless. The only other time she’d seen him like this was when he’d killed Angie Catellini. But even then, he’d tried to rein in his temper; now he was wielding it with practiced skill. This kind of rage was nothing new to him.
Is this what he had been hiding under the coldness all this time?
Someone stepped forward from the darkness behind Reece and it took a moment for Lex to recognize Nick. The last time she’d seen him, he was still bedridden, but now he was as daunting as ever as he warily approached them.
“Is that him?” he asked Reece.
“No. This is someone else altogether.”
Nick threw a quick glance at Lex, who remained crouched on the ground, and then he put a firm hand on Reece’s shoulder. “Then he doesn’t matter. Let’s just get your soulmate out of here.”
“Ask her if she wants to go,” Aiden croaked.
Reece increased the pressure of his arm against the vampire’s throat. “Stop talking,” he snarled. “Don’t say another goddamn word.” He shook his head bitterly. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
The vampire flashed a smile and gasped something back at Reece, but Lex couldn’t hear him. Her soulmate leaned into him to bark another order, and she realized that it didn’t matter what Aiden had said. His defiance alone was the bait. Taking advantage of his long reach and the witch’s closeness, Aiden thrust his arm out, sucker punching Reece in the stomach. Her soulmate doubled over for a split second, but it was enough time for the vampire to snap kick him under the jaw, sending him stumbling backward into Nick.
“What makes you think you could have killed me, witch?” Aiden asked, still donning that brilliant smile.
Reece calmly wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. When he looked at the vampire again, his expression had hardened into a mask of callousness. “This,” he finally replied. Then he slashed his arm in a wide arc, flinging a cord of magick from his hand that cut through the air towards Aiden at lightening speed.
The vampire slipped under it at the last second and the magick crashed into the building behind him in an explosion of fire, wind, and dust.
“Not bad,” Aiden told him. “But I’m still standing.”
Reece’s lip curled. “Not for long.”
Lex’s eyes moved back and forth between them as she wet her lips nervously. They were going to kill each other and considering the strength of the connection she shared with both of them, they might very well kill her in the process. Someone had to stop this.
She threw a pleading glance at Nick, but he was staring at Reece with something like irritation in his face. Now, that was strange. Normally, Nick was her soulmate’s most devoted disciple; he never questioned any of his decisions or actions. She would have expected him to be backing Reece up right now, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of getting involved in this fight.
It was up to her, then. She just wished she could shake the feeling that by throwing herself into this, it would only incense the both of them.
After he had circled Reece for a minute, Aiden made his move. He lunged forward and grabbed the witch’s head, drawing down into his chest in a tight clinch. Once he was in control, he brought his knee up into his opponent’s abdomen.
As he stepped back to drive his other knee up, Lex ran over to them. Not knowing what else to do, she grabbed Aiden’s arm and attempted to pull it off of Reece, but she might as well have been tugging at a steel girder. “Aiden!” she shouted. “Stop it. Let go!”
He snapped his head up, seeming utterly stricken as his eyes searched hers. For hours, he had tried to elicit those words from her and now that she finally spoke them, she didn’t know if he was hurt or relieved. He appeared to be going through some sort of struggle and when it was over, some of the madness in his eyes had dissipated. Taking a deep breath, he gave her an imperceptible nod and loosened his hold on Reece.
Her soulmate, however, wasn’t ready to back down. While Aiden was distracted and still fairly close, the witch seized the opportunity to drive his fist up into vampire’s jaw. The uppercut threw Aiden’s head back, knocking him off balance and leaving him completely open to attack.
As the witch stepped forward to finish him off, Lex threw herself between them. “No!” she screamed, placing her hands on her soulmate’s chest to hold him back. “Reece, please stop.”
“Why?” he asked in a dark voice. Lowering his eyes, he looked at her directly for the first time. “Tell me why.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were lost as she looked into her soulmate’s eyes. His pupils were so dilated that his deep, green irises were nothing more than thin rings of luminescent color around a pool of darkness. Against her will, Lex found herself being sucked into that unfathomable void.
The light paled. The colors shifted wavelengths. Her surroundings melted and mixed, the molecules reorganizing themselves to create a place that she’d never seen before.
A church.
Then there was a sudden, crushing pressure on her throat as a familiar face appeared before her. She broke into a cold sweat as his soft voice filled her mind.
Where is she? How is she still alive?
Alexandra wrenched her hands away from Reece as if he had scalded her, but the images did not cease. The whole scene played out before her over and over again.
Her maker’s eyes on her.
Her maker chasing after her.
Her maker frozen at the doorway of the church.
Where is she? How is she still alive?
She stepped back from her soulmate, choking on her own breath. “What have you done?” she gasped.
Her maker’s arms around her, dragging her under the surface of the sea.
Her maker suspended above her, ripping her apart.
Where is she? How is she still alive?
Inanely, she brought her hand to her mouth. “What have you done?”
Reece reached for her, the fire in his eyes doused by guilt. “Lex, I—”
She jerked away from him with a shriek. “Don’t touch me!” Her fingers snaked into her hair, pulling at it desperately. “How could you do this to me?!”
Don’t try to escape.
Panic flooded her, galvanizing every nerve ending in her body. Her heart was pounding like a trip-hammer and her lungs couldn’t keep up. With a shudder, she stumbled back and her legs gave out.
Arms caught her and she tried to scream, but the sound caught in her throat. Not even the blue fire would save her this time. It was already over.
Stay with me, Lex, a voice in her head pleaded. There was a soft brush of fingertips on her throat, feeling her pulse race. Please, just breathe.
Her maker’s blood in her mouth.
Her maker shoving a knife in her gut.
Her maker’s fire melting her skin.
I will always find you.
She curled up on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs and pressing her forehead into her knees. Pinpoints of blackness pricked her vision—trillions of points that rapidly bled together to overwhelm her feeble grasp on consciousness—and she didn’t fight it. Holding her breath, she focused on the darkness, trying to draw it closer. With a soft sigh, she let it wash over her.
How could you do this to me?
Funny. That had been his question when he’d found her with Aiden, though he hadn’t gotten the chance to ask it. As it happened, he was grateful for that because in retrospect, he simply had no right.
Reece felt numb as he watched her crumble Aiden’s arms, and he realized that part of him had known this day would come. He’d seen the way that Aiden and Lex looked at each other in the Daybreak compound last year. There had been undeniable attraction in their subtle, half-averted glances, but far more alarming than that was the intrinstic understanding that they seemed to share—something that Reece couldn’t touch. He’d always known that if the vampire ever came for Lex, there was a good chance that he would lose her.
Now, as her screams rang in his ears, reverberating to his very core, he finally understood that this entire situation was his own fault. Aiden hadn’t been the one to come for Lex; Reece had driven her to him.
Still, he couldn’t help feeling gratified when his soulmate wrenched out of the vampire’s arms and collapsed into herself, both physically and mentally. Despite their connection, it seemed that Aiden couldn’t stop her panic attack either. The second Lex’s forehead hit her knees, the series of flashbacks in her mind was cut short by cold, white noise. She had disconnected herself from the world.
Reece couldn’t blame her for that. He wanted to do the same thing, but he had gotten her into this mess and he was going to get her out. Someone had to protect her from Zarek and he would be damned if that someone was Aiden St.-Fucking-Helen.
He crouched down next to his soulmate and tried to slip his arm underneath her to pick her up, but Aiden’s hand clamped onto his wrist like a vise. “If you lay a finger on her,” the vampire warned, “I will break it off.”
“I don’t want to do this with you,” he replied with a heavy sigh.
Aiden gave a short laugh as he thrust the witch’s hand away. “Strange, because just a few minutes ago, you wanted nothing more.”
That, he couldn’t deny, but he was just too damn tired to fight now. He gritted his teeth. “She’s my soulmate. She’s my responsibility.”
“No, she was your responsibility. And you betrayed her. You gave her up to the person she fears most.”
Reece felt his blood pressure spike. Aiden must have touched Lex’s bare skin as she fell and that fucking fake soulmate link had told him everything. “You want to lecture me about loyalty, Hellraiser? You’ve betrayed everyone you’ve ever met.”
The vampire’s gray eyes glinted like cold steel. “Not her,” he said huskily with a glance at Alexandra. “Never her.”
“What, do you want a medal for that?” the witch asked sarcastically. “Well, you should probably wait a while before planning the award ceremony because my guess is that it’s just a matter of time before you fuck her over, too.”
“Oh, I’ve already fucked her,” Aiden said with a fatuous smile. “Seven ways from Sunday, as they say.”
Ironically, that claim was a wash of cool water on the burning embers in Reece’s gut. Goddess, he had just assumed…He should have known…
Afraid to get his hopes up, he narrowed his eyes at the vampire, searching for any sign of exaggeration or bravado, but he found none. In fact, the look on Aiden’s face was one of pure conceit—as if the vampire thought that he’d beaten him. That he’d elicited something from Lex that Reece never could. And it was that unmitigated arrogance that finally made him loose it.
Throwing back his head, he broke into laughter. Aiden’s eyebrows rose in bewilderment and that just made Reece laugh harder. “You think that says something about you?” he asked when he finally caught a breath. “Or about your relationship with her? Don’t you know her at all?”
The vampire scowled. “Better than you, maybe.”
“Really. Let me ask you this: how quiet was she these last few days? How many times did you feel like she wasn’t even there?”
When Aiden didn’t answer, Reece gave him a pitiable look. “Think about her history, Hellraiser. Sex doesn’t mean anything to her. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to stress or fear or loneliness or boredom, don’t you get that?”
“So you’re saying that you don’t care?” the vampire asked skeptically. “She can sleep around and you don’t give a damn?”
“I’m saying,” he ground out, “that if she fucked you, she was using you.”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Aiden said in a muted voice. Then he looked away, blinking his eyes. “But either way, you should probably head home now. She wants nothing to do with you.”
Reece tensed again as some of his jubilation faded. “I’m sure as hell not leaving her with you. You think you can protect her from Zarek? You don’t even know what you’re dealing with.”
“And you do?” the vampire challenged.
“Yes.” After nineteen months of obsessive researching and hunting, Reece felt like he knew nothing else.
He reached for his soulmate again, but Aiden blocked him, positioning himself between Reece and Lex. “You’re the one who put her at risk in the first place, witch,” he said icily. “I’m not going to let you take her.”
Reece’s patience was growing thin. “You don’t have a choice.”
“The hell I—”
A foot snapped between them, smashing into Aiden’s temple, and the vampire slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Looking up, Reece saw Nick standing next to him. “Wooden-toed boots?” he asked.
The witch nodded. “Karissa’s handy-work. And thank the Goddess, because if I had to listen to another minute of your macho pissing contest, my brain was going to liquefy.”
Reece took the hand that Nick offered and got to his feet. “That statement sounds like Karissa’s handy-work too,” he said dryly. “She’s starting to rub off on you.”
“That’s probably not a bad thing in this case.”
“Well, you could have helped me out a little earlier.”
Nick shrugged. “I got the sense that it wasn’t any of my business. Besides, I wanted to see the infamous Bizzaro-Reece in action.”
Reece crossed his arms over his chest, knowing there had to be more coming. “And?” he prompted wearily.
“He’s slow. Rash. Inept. He doesn’t protect himself. His sense of honor is severely lacking. And he has no attention to detail whatso—”
“Okay, okay,” he groaned. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“He’s got nothing on you, Cahill,” the witch said seriously. “Don’t let him win like that again.”
Reece was quiet for a long moment as he let his friend’s words sink in. “Thanks, Nick,” he replied.
The witch smiled. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Turning back to Alexandra, Reece slid one arm under the small of her back and the other under her knees and lifted her up.
As he left Aiden behind and walked out of that alley with his soulmate unconscious in his arms, he suddenly felt very peculiar. It was more than the inevitable prickle of déjà vu at the back of his neck—that, he could understand considering the circumstances. No, this was an inexplicable sense that everything he’d done over the past few days—rescuing Lindsay, revealing to Zarek that Lex was alive, being lectured by Nick, finding his soulmate with Aiden in the alley where they first met—was connected. Fated. And it was all leading somewhere, but Reece couldn’t step far enough back to see the destination.
He smiled at that thought as a strange lightness expanded in his chest. Goddess help him: after months of doubt and bitter denial, Reece Cahill had finally found his faith.
Someone was shaking him.
“Aiden. Wake up.”
He really didn’t want to. His head was throbbing.
The shaking came again, harder this time. “Aiden.”
He forced his eyes open to see his soulmate bending over him, her small hand on his shoulder. They were in her room at the Daybreak compound and he was lost somewhere in the purple satin sheets of her bed. Sunlight beamed down on her, weaving into her light blond hair, even though they were several stories underground.
“What?” he asked. He rubbed his face in his hands, trying to stave off the sleep that was threatening to claim him again. Why was he so tired?
Eve gave a soft sigh. “I was worried about you.”
“I was just sleeping,” he said, reaching his arm across his chest to lay his hand on top of hers. Her skin felt like ice.
“But you were having a nightmare.”
“How do you know that?” he asked. He couldn’t even remember what he’d been dreaming about.
“I could feel it. You were angry. Sad.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. His naive, innocent witch. He reached to run his fingers down the silky strands of her hair. They seemed to sparkle in the sunlight, like prisms. “Dreams can’t hurt you,” he said soothingly.
“Yes, they can.” Then a sly half-smile captured her lips. She bent her head down so that her mouth was close to his ear. In a low, conspiratorial voice, she asked, “Don’t you remember that time you dreamed that I tried to kill you?”
He frowned as the hum of her voice shot down his spine like a cold shiver. “I never had a dream like—”
Quick as lightening, one of her hands clamped down on his throat and the other joined it as she pushed herself up on top of him. That cunning smile still shone brightly on her face as her grip slowly tightened. He pushed at her, but she possessed such inhuman strength that he couldn’t pry her hands off of him. Her nails dug into his skin and her violet eyes glowed madly.
He tried to say her name, but no sound came out. No air passed over his lips.
Darkness bore down on him like a freight train and he strained to keep his eyes open. With his throat closed and his body weak, his pleading gaze was the only weapon he had against her. If she only understood how much he loved her, she would have to stop.
But she already knew. And with a bubbly laugh, she squeezed harder.
Die, die, die...just one more minute, just die, please die...
He felt death creeping over him. It started at his feet and crawled up his legs, making them tingle and finally go numb. Then it invaded his torso. His arms. His hands. His chest. His face. Just before it seized his mind, Eve suddenly vanished.
He rolled onto his side and coughed. He drew a few ragged breaths and coughed again, his throat burning. After a moment, he realized that he still couldn’t breathe. The air flooding his lungs was acrid. Smoky.
Getting to his feet, he found that he was still in Eve’s bedroom, but the walls were gone, replaced by thick, black clouds. The room was an island, surrounded by a sea of lava, and it was engulfed by bright, roaring flames.
There was a laugh behind him and he whipped around to find his soulmate standing where the doorway should have been. But now, in place of the door, there was an old, rickety wooden bridge that led to the shore of a lush, green forest. The sight of the tall trees and cool grass growing there made him burn with thirst.
Eve was tall and willowy against the backdrop of the molten lava and smoke. She looked like an angel in a long, flowing white dress, but her hand rested on her cocked hip in a disturbingly provocative pose. Gone was any trace of her modesty and shyness.
She gave him that eerie half-smile again and drew a lighter from behind her back. Her thumb rolled over the trigger and the lighter disappeared as a small, blue flame sparked to life in the palm of her hand.
He tried to move toward her, but a line of fire blazed up between them and he staggered back again. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “What are you doing?”
“I never loved you, Aiden,” she replied.
Something inside of him broke. Tears filled his eyes, but they boiled away almost instantly in the raging heat. “You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said breezily. “Really, I was just using you. And now I’m tired of you, so I think it’s time for me to move on.”
“No! Don’t leave me. I can’t live without you, Eve.”
She chuckled indulgently. “Don’t lose that intensity, pretty one. Promise me.”
“I don’t understand,” he cried, choking on smoke and cinder. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m just doing you a favor,” she replied, as if it were obvious. “I’m doing the world a favor. No one could ever love you. You’re useless, Aiden, and you know it.”
She took a small step backward onto the wooden bridge. “It’s all right.”
“Is it?” The fire was closing in on him from all sides. “Eve!”
Instead of answering, she threw the blue fire resting in her palm to the ground. Within seconds, it had swallowed the edge of the bridge. The flames licked her heels as she walked toward the forest on the other side, but they never touched her. When she finally set foot on the thick, green grass, the bridge had been consumed.
Aiden was trapped. Desperately, he searched for an escape, but the fire was almost upon him. “Wait!” he shouted at her. “Help me!”
She smiled at him from the edge of the forest—a soft smile that was more like her own. And suddenly she seemed a little sad. Tipping her head ever so slightly to the side, she whispered, “Why do you do this to yourself?” Then she pointed to something behind him. “Turn around. Don’t look back.”
He pivoted in the direction she was pointing, lifting an arm to shield his face from the heat of the fire, but the flames were gone. Before him was an alley that seemed vaguely familiar. He felt like he’d just been here, but he couldn’t say when.
He took a step forward, the cold pavement soothing his blistered feet. Misty rain fell, creating rainbows in the sunlight, but there were no clouds above him—just the endless, deep blue sky.
A sound startled him. A soft whimpering. “Don’t leave...”
Looking down the alley, he saw himself lying in a girl’s arms, and his memory came crashing down on him.
Lex…
Aiden felt like he was both inside his body, being cradled by her, and outside of it, watching them both. Her fingers were in his hair as she touched his face, trying to comfort him. Somehow, he could feel her heart breaking for him.
Why did they both have to hurt so much?
Her eyes were over-bright, brimming with unshed tears as he sat up and drew her closer. He knew now, as he’d known then, that the moment his lips touched hers, everything would change.
He hesitated, glancing behind him to where the fire had been, but it was gone.
Eve was gone.
When he turned back to Lex, the glimmer of longing in her eyes surprised him. She wanted this as much as he did. As he bent his head, Aiden felt a whisper brush against him like a soft breeze…
“Don’t look back,” he gasped aloud as his eyes snapped open. He was still lying in the alley—beaten and hung over and utterly alone.
But not for long.
The bright sunlight felt like a spike through his brain, but the sun still wasn’t overhead yet. Good. Then he’d only been unconscious for an hour or two.
Aiden stood up and started running, ignoring the way his head rattled each time his feet hit the ground. If his memory served him correctly, there was an internet cafe nearby that should be open by now. And there was bound to be some self-important metrosexual there who was just dying to be relieved of his laptop.
He could feel the hum of the soulmate link connecting him to Alexandra, telling him that she was still somewhere within the city. From the flashes he’d seen in her mind before she’d collapsed, Aiden had a fairly good idea where she was, but he needed to hack into the Daybreak accounting records to be sure.
His mind was racing, planning out a strategy. He needed to get Lex’s fucking hypocritical, holier-than-thou soulmate away from her, as well as that other witch who’d been with him—the quiet one who had taken the cheap shot to Aiden’s temple. The simplest way to do that would be to break into the house and kill them, but that was also the riskiest. The witches were well trained and even with the element of surprise working for him, there was still a slim chance that Aiden would lose. Besides, if he killed Lex’s soulmate, he wasn’t sure what that would do to her, considering the state she was in now.
No. There was only one surefire way to get rid of the witches peacefully. It would take a bit of research and a fair amount of time, but that didn’t matter. Aiden suddenly felt like he had all the time in the world.
This was ludicrous. For hours, he had watched them work. Spells were cast, energy was gathered, notes were taken—reams and reams of notes—but they still had not discovered anything useful. After tapping all of their resources, the witch who had cast this illicit spell remained a nameless, faceless anomaly. It was becoming abundantly clear to Zarek why these so-called Daybreakers were having such difficulty with their quest to defeat the Night World: they were completely incompetent.
The human police were no better. When no ransom call was received for Lindsay Rosen, they were at a loss. Her parents were left with nowhere to turn other than God. Their tear-soaked prayers dripped incessantly from their lips, sickening him to the point that he couldn’t bear listening to them any longer.
Now as Zarek stood across from the small diner where the Daybreakers were having breakfast, he knew that they had conceded defeat as well. He could hear the eagle shapeshifter planning out in his head the report that he would write for his supervisor when they arrived back at their Circle Daybreak chapter in Burlington. The Amazon witch, Mina, was on the phone with the woman who was caring for her son, telling her that she would be home in a few hours. Apparently, even though they were no closer to identifying and locating their renegade witch, the Daybreakers believed that their work here was finished. There were bigger fish to fry, according to the shifter—or at least ones that were easier to catch.
Zarek was seething. He had wasted several hours on these imbeciles, believing that they were better equipped to find Reece than he, and now they were giving up. That was time that he could have spent searching for Alexandra, her intriguing soulmate, and his angelic little Lindsay on his own. Time that he’d had to spend longing for the three of them rather than losing himself in their screams.
It had been centuries since he had physically required human blood. When he took life now, it was always for the sheer pleasure of it. Long ago, he’d become bored by the simple act of killing; it was for this reason that he began keeping slaves in the first place. As time passed and his games with them matured and became more elaborate, Zarek never killed when he was without one any more. Today he would make an exception for the Daybreakers.
The diner was warm when he entered and the air was thick with the stench of fried food and human flesh. He would much rather wait outside for them, but he wanted to unsettle them first.
The hostess’s voice caught him as he walked over to a small table in the back. “Sir, you need to wait here to be seated,” she said impatiently.
Zarek lifted his hand as if gesturing for quiet, and stunned her telepathically. Then he clasped his hands behind his back and proceeded to the table.
The witch lifted her head, sensing the presence of another Night Person, and looked in his direction. Her eyes met his and he gave a small nod. She quickly turned back to the eagle shapeshifter, whispering urgently. The shifter looked over at him as well and shrugged nonchalantly at his partner.
They were both nervous, but there was nothing they could do about him now. Their principles forbade it, for one. But more than that, Zarek knew that Mina, though beautiful and certainly not lacking in Power, was so pathetic that she fainted at the sight of blood. And Hal, the shapeshifter, had a trick knee, which was why Circle Daybreak limited him to reconnaissance work. Normally, Zarek wouldn’t bother killing such weak creatures, even with a slave at his side, but these two had failed him so unforgivably that he would actually enjoy watching them die.
Now he only had to wait for them to leave.
He didn’t have to wait long. When their waitress dropped the check down on their table, he licked his lips in anticipation, getting ready to follow them out the door.
As the eagle shapeshifter was pulling his coat on, his cell phone rang. Curious, Zarek stole into his mind to listen to the call.
“Is this Halin Sparnasa?” a quiet, curt voice asked.
“Who’s asking?” the eagle replied warily.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Well...what do you want?”
“It’s not what I want,” the voice said. “It’s what you want. I believe you and your partner are searching for a particular witch who cast an illegal spell early yesterday afternoon.”
Hal’s head snapped up, his eyes catching Mina’s. “How do you know that?”
“That doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the witch you’re looking for is in Washington, D.C. right now.”
The pounding of his heart nearly shook Zarek’s body as he watched the shapeshifter dive into his pocket for a pen and notepad. Quickly, Hal scribbled down the address that the caller gave him. Then he asked, “You got a name to go with this location?”
“Reece Cahill. You’ll find him in Circle Daybreak’s databases.”
Yes, Zarek thought with a smile. That was it.
The eagle, however, was skeptical. “Wait, the guy’s a Daybreaker?”
“Yes. And I’m afraid this isn’t the first illegal spell that he’s done. If you search carefully through the unidentified energy signatures logged in Washington’s watch list, you’ll find one that matches yours.”
“You’re lying,” Hal snapped. “We already searched through Daybreak’s entire watch list and we didn’t get any hits.”
“You would need Level Five clearance to see the signature I’m talking about. The circumstances during which the spell was cast were rather...sensitive.”
The shapeshifter hesitated awkwardly. “I—uh, we only have Level Three clearance.”
The caller sighed. “Then I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Why should I?” Hal demanded belligerently.
“Because you don’t have any other leads and Washington is only four hours away by plane.” Then the caller smiled—Zarek could hear it in his voice. “And arresting a Daybreaker for casting illegal spells of this magnitude has the potential to make your career. Think about it.”
The caller hung up, leaving Hal to stare stupidly at his phone.
Zarek’s hands were splayed out on the table as he listened to the shapeshifter relay the call to his partner. After a brief minute of discussion, Hal was on the phone with a travel agent, booking tickets on the next flight to Washington, D.C.
It seemed the Daybreakers had proven themselves to be useful after all.
Part 13
Part 15
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