Alexandra was floating on a cloud of softness. Lost in some mystical stratosphere, the world around her was warm and white and calm. Bright light enveloped her, but to her surprise it didn’t sting or smother her. She breathed it in, letting it flow through her as she melted into bliss.
Was she awake? Was she dreaming?
She didn’t know. Didn’t care.
Let me fade away.
From time to time, a strange sort of pressure disturbed her tranquility. She felt like she was inside of a bubble of peace and someone was poking at it from the outside, trying to pop it. But her malleable walls yielded to the force, absorbing and cushioning it. Bending, but never breaking, the walls kept her safe until the pressure finally waned. Then everything was calm and quiet once more.
She felt happy and free, and she had the sense that this was an oddity. Her memories were fuzzy—softened and shaded by the white light that flooded this place—but she could still feel them like a weight shackled to her ankle, trying to drag her down. She didn’t care to remember who she was or where she’d been; she didn’t want to remember the dull throb of guilt or the sickening stir of fear. She wanted to cut herself free from her memories and let them sink to the bottom of this bubble so that she could float up towards the warmth at the surface.
As she lazily drifted through this world of sun and silver linings, a cold, dark vortex materialized before her. The air that had been still only a moment ago was suddenly rushing at her, blowing her hair forward as it was sucked into the abyss. Like a black hole, it devoured all of her light, growing larger as it fed until its pull was inescapable. It was tugging at her, like a noose around her heart, drawing her down.
She tried to scream as she was swallowed by the darkness, but the cacophony of rushing winds drowned it out. Each razor-thin current of air seemed to cut through her, drawing blood as they screamed in her ears. It was a maelstrom of noise and ice, but through it all, she could make out a single, cohesive sound.
Alexandra…
Her eyes snapped open. Her body paralyzed by fear, she looked around, finding herself in a bedroom she did not recognize. The walls were painted a deep shade of blue, which made the room seem smaller than it actually was. She could feel them closing in on her, weighing down on her, pushing her deeper into the bed.
In a panic, she squeezed her eyes shut again, trying to will herself back into the white light.
“I know you’re awake.”
She hadn’t heard that voice in five years, but it still made her shudder. Breathing hard, she held her body rigid, bracing herself for whatever he was about to do to her.
To her shock, he touched her face with unusual tenderness. His hands were as cold as she remembered, his fingertips just as smooth. “No use pretending, Alexandra. You know that never works. Open your eyes. Look at me.”
Silently, she did as he commanded.
As he leaned over her, her first thought was that he was still beautiful. His dark hair was cut short and it gleamed in the moonlight that illuminated the room. Like any vampire, his skin was pale and flawless, but because of his age, it seemed harder somehow, more like wax than flesh. But it was always his eyes that got to her. Those onyx orbs stared down at her mercilessly, empty in spite of his intensity.
As she gazed at him, a word that she had long ago buried in the recess of her mind—the name that he had always insisted she call him—spilled from her lips. “Kyrios.”
Lord and master.
He smiled. “I see you haven’t forgotten me.” Holding her chin, he turned her face from side to side. “Fascinating. I trapped you in an inferno and yet there is not a mark on you. A vampire’s ability to regenerate has never ceased to amaze me.”
Lex jerked her chin away from him. Her body may have healed, but her soul never would.
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, my love,” he said. “You have healed more than you realize. More than I ever thought possible. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Should I consider myself lucky?” she murmured.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he took her hand and gently pulled her up so that she was sitting on the bed. She gasped as she saw Aiden perched on the arm of a large blue armchair at the foot of the bed. Unable to restrain herself, she rushed over to him, but he didn’t look at her. When she tried to touch his face, her hand went right through him, as if he were a ghost.
“This isn’t real?”
“This isn’t a dream, if that’s what you’re asking,” her maker replied. “You’re awake, but I have drawn you into my mind.”
Lex nodded. God, this had been her worst fear for five years and now it was happening. She should be terrified, should be on the verge of hysterics, but she felt too disconnected. As much as her maker terrified her, she knew him. Knew this game. It was more familiar to her than the short-lived happiness she’d found with Reece. She had been yanked from heaven into the deepest pits of hell, but it a way, it was good to be home.
Turning away from Aiden, she looked around the bedroom. She waited for a spark of recollection, but it didn’t happen. She was sure that she had never been here before. “Where is this?” she asked.
Her maker stood close behind her. He drew her hair back, tossing it to one side so that her neck was exposed. “A house in Georgetown.”
A shiver passed through her as she glanced at the bed and saw her own body lying there. “How long was I out?”
“A few hours,” he replied. “It hasn’t quite been a full day yet.”
It had felt much longer. She had the feeling that she had missed a lot. “How did we end up here?”
Leaning down, her maker’s lips brushed against the outer shell of her ear. “Your lover brought you here after I took your soulmate.”
Lex’s heart stopped as his words shattered her sense of detachment. Staring dazedly at her own sleeping form, she choked out, “What?”
A dark laugh rumbled in her ear. “How I have missed the taste of your fear.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t true.”
“You know better,” he murmured. “You would have known it the moment you awakened if you weren’t so self-centered, Alexandra. How do you think I dragged you away from your precious white light?”
That world seemed as fuzzy now as the real world had before, but vaguely, she remembered that she had felt like the black hole had been drawing her in by her heart. It must have been the pull of the soulmate link. “Oh god, no.”
Suddenly, the scene before her changed. The bed that had been in front of her had been replaced by a large wooden table that held an assortment of weapons. The room widened and the blue walls turned into cold, damp stone. And chained to the wall was Reece.
A sob caught her throat at the sight of him. His clothes were soaked in his own blood. His head hung limp, his complexion so pale that it seemed blue. But his chest rose and fell ever so slightly; he was still clinging to life.
She cried out his name, but he couldn’t hear her.
“What did you do to him?” she gasped.
Her maker chuckled. “Not all that much. If he was too weak, he wouldn’t have survived the change.”
Lex kneeled down next to Reece, wishing that she could touch his face. She couldn’t detect any difference in him, but that was probably because she wasn’t actually there with him. Either that or her maker was lying.
She was startled when her maker spoke again. He was so close to her that she could feel his breath on her neck, but she hadn’t heard him move. “Mm. You’ve never bitten him before, have you?” The sound of his voice was hypnotizing as his fingers wove into her hair, guiding her head to the side. “You should try it some time. He tastes almost as good as you.”
“Oh god,” she whispered again. How could this have happened? She had always been terrified that her maker would come for her, but knowing that he had her soulmate was infinitely worse. She should have left Reece sooner, should never have gone with him to Montreal in the first place. This was all her fault and that thought hurt more than she could have imagined.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t enjoy it,” her maker purred. “Don’t tell me that you don’t feel a rush of pleasure. A sense of relief that the worst has finally happened. There is nothing left to lose.”
“You always found something else to take,” she murmured.
He let his fangs graze her throat. “You gave it all willingly. And you loved every second of it.
Tears stung her eyes as the feel of his mouth against her skin dispelled her will to move. “Not every one.”
“Do you remember Copenhagen, Alexandra?”
She flinched, and the tears in her eyes fell. Of all the memories that plagued her, Copenhagen was the one that she wanted most to forget. She had been his slave for fourteen years when he brought her to Denmark and she had long since stopped fighting him. When he tore off her clothes, she lay like a rag doll in his arms. When he thrust his fangs into her throat, she no longer screamed. He forced her to feel everything that he did to her and how he felt when he did them, but she didn’t care any more. The pain still seared her, but she had developed a tolerance for it because she knew that the moment he stopped hurting her, the quiet afterwards was so sublime that it almost seemed worth the agony.
Looking back on it, Lex was sure that he’d been growing weary of her and it wouldn’t have been long before he killed her if nothing had changed. If she hadn’t changed.
The night after they arrived in Copenhagen, he sent her out onto the streets to find a human to toy with. Normally, he would follow close behind her, the sound of his footsteps warning her that even though she was walking freely, she was far from free. That night, however, he let her out alone.
As she walked through the Tivoli Gardens, she thought about running. Her maker was nowhere to be found and he wasn’t keeping a telepathic watch on her either. Before he realized what happened, she probably could have gotten far enough away from him that he wouldn’t be able to hone in on her mind.
Then Lex distinctly remembered thinking: What’s the point? She didn’t know how to live without him and after all the things he’d forced her to do, she didn’t believe that she deserved to be saved. Besides, he would have found her eventually anyway. He wouldn’t stop searching until he found her and when he did, the punishment for her insolence would have been inconceivable.
A heavy sense of helplessness had settled over her. She would obey him; there was nothing to be done about it. Her chest had burned with useless rage. What she wouldn’t give to feel strong and capable, to have power over something. But she would never win with him—after fourteen years of torture, that terrible truth was the only certainty in her life.
Her steps painstakingly slow, she’d searched through the crowd in the gardens for the kind of victim her maker had wanted that night—a young man with blond hair and a soft voice.
A few hours later, she had finally found someone who fit that description, but as she approached him, a girl crossed her path. It was her dark, curly hair that had caught Alexandra’s attention because it was so similar to her own, but it was the girl’s carefree laughter that ultimately drew her in. As she stared at the girl, it occurred to her that she couldn’t remember how it felt to laugh and the thought filled her with desperate longing and pure hatred.
Disregarding her maker’s demands, she lured the girl back to the house they were renting.
He said nothing about her disobedience as Lex tied the girl down to the table. He just looked on curiously as she traced a scalpel across her creamy white skin, peeling the girl’s flesh away one inch at a time.
If she tried, Lex could still hear the screams. They had been intoxicating because she had known that she was responsible for them. She had stolen that girl’s laughter, just as her own had been stolen. At last, she’d had proof that there were people out there who were weaker than her and she had the power to take from them what she wanted. To grant them life or death.
Though she had been inside of her maker’s mind countless times, this was the first time she understood his soul. That changed everything. Killing that girl had drawn a line through her life: before that, she might have been considered innocent in all that she’d done, but after…
“It was your choice,” her maker said to her now. “You wanted it. You needed it. You still do.”
“No,” she whimpered.
His teeth scraped her throat as she sobbed silently in his arms. For so long, she had tried to tell herself that she was free and that her mind was her own, but she knew now that she would always belong to him, body and soul. She was his child, his lover, his creation. He understood her in a way that Reece and even Aiden never could. There was no escaping that; she was as helpless against him now as she’d always been.
She felt a sudden sting as his teeth broke the sensitive skin of her neck. He teased her for a moment, and just when she was sure that he would sink into her and drink until she was on the brink of death, he shoved her roughly onto the ground.
Stunned, Lex turned over and found herself back in the bedroom where her body still lay. She dug her fingers into the plush blue carpet and the words came to her instinctively—she couldn’t say how many times in her life she had uttered them. “What is it you want, Kyrios?”
He stood over her and smiled. “I want Copenhagen, my love.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will, as soon as you wake.”
She struggled to swallow the aching lump in her throat. “And Reece?”
“He’s my insurance policy. If you dare defy me, he will pay the price for your selfishness.” Tilting his head to the side, he gave her a knowing look. “Though I suppose that he should be used to doing that by now.”
Then her maker crouched next to her. Cupping her cheek with his cold hand, he led her gaze up to his eyes. They were as black and magnetic as the vortex that had sucked her out of her dream world. “You know where to find me. I’ll be waiting for you. And for her.”
“Her?”
He ignored her question and placed his hand on her forehead, pushing her backwards in a single, quick motion. Caught off guard, she tumbled back, but her head never hit the floor. Instead, she felt as if she were falling through it. The air cradled her, gently lowering her down into some unknown abyss.
After a minute, she landed hard and the impact shook her body, jolting her into consciousness. With some difficulty, she managed to open her eyes. As soon as she blinked away the last traces of sleep, she was certain that this place was real—there were details in the ceiling, in the blanket covering her, in the very air that she breathed that hadn’t been there before. It was all too vivid and grainy and hollow to be a dream.
She strained her senses, listening intently to the ringing silence as she tried to feel his presence, but there was nothing. He had left her alone for now, certain that she would follow his orders. No doubt it would be a greater rush for him when she came to him of her own accord. It would prove to the both of them how much power he still held over her.
It was all about power in the end.
“Lex!” she heard someone gasp. Then a pair of arms scooped her up and held her close to a hard, familiar body.
Aiden. Of course.
Shame nagged at her as she relaxed against him, but she couldn’t make herself pull away. In the shelter of his arms, she could almost believe that they had never left New York. The fight with Reece had never happened and the conversation with her maker had been nothing more than a bad nightmare. And if she reversed their positions, she could strip his clothes off and fuck all of those terrible images away.
Then he pulled back slightly, giving her an unobstructed view of the room, and the sight of the deep blue walls shot that fantasy to hell.
“I was worried about you,” Aiden whispered. The emotion in his voice took her aback. After what had nearly happened between them in the alley that morning, she knew that his feelings for her ran deeper than their casual relationship warranted, but she hadn’t expected him to accept it so easily. She’d thought that he would hide it or tell himself that it had been a drunken mistake. Part of her had even hoped that he wouldn’t remember it once he sobered up. But his gray eyes were clear and soft as he looked down at her. He knew what he felt and what he wanted, and he believed that she felt the same way.
And she did…didn’t she? At least she had back in that alley, but god, that was before Reece had shown up, before she found out that her maker was holding him hostage and using the soulmate link to get to her.
Lex wanted to cry. She couldn’t handle this. She didn’t have the energy or the time.
Before she could say anything, a small voice rose from the corner of the room. “Is she okay?”
Turning her head, Lex was surprised to find a little girl sitting in a chair next to the window. That was strange; the girl hadn’t been in the room inside of her maker’s mind.
“Lindsay,” Aiden groaned, “you promised me five minutes. Just five minutes of quiet.”
The girl flushed a deep shade of red. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I was just wondering.”
“Well, stop it. She’s no concern of yours and neither am I. So why don’t you just go home already?”
Lindsay drew herself up. “I told you, I have to save—”
“It’s not going to happen,” the vampire snapped harshly.
Alexandra looked at Aiden in bewilderment. “Who’s she?”
“A thorn in my side,” he replied.
Yes, Lex supposed that she would be. As Lindsay stared down at the floor, nervously playing with the ends of her butchered light brown hair, she seemed the epitome of youth and fragile human innocence. That alone would be enough to annoy Aiden to no end.
So what was he doing with her, then?
Feeling the weight of Lex’s gaze on her, the girl lifted her head. There was fear in her expression. Guilt in her china blue eyes. Beyond that, Alexandra could sense a strength in her that was uncommon in children her age. Uncommon in most people, really. Lindsay might appear to be easily embarrassed, but the truth was that she knew exactly who she was. Even without delving into her mind, Lex knew that this girl believed in goodness and kindness. She believed in doing the right thing regardless of the cost.
God, Circle Daybreak would love her. Reece would love her.
So would her maker.
And suddenly, everything crystallized.
I want Copenhagen, my love…I’ll be waiting for you. And for her.
“He wants you,” she murmured. “He wants me to bring you to him.”
Lindsay seemed to understand perfectly and though the color fled from her cheeks, there was a look of resignation in her eyes. Acceptance. She was afraid, but she was prepared to face that fear and she was confident that she could withstand it.
In that moment, Lex knew what she had to do.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aiden frown. “Who wants what?”
She glanced back at him. There was no way for her to explain without bringing up the Night World in front of Lindsay and Lex didn’t know how much the girl already knew. Then she decided that she didn’t care. Now was not the time for subtleties and coded conversations.
“The vampire who changed me,” she said softly. “He told me to come to him and I think he wants me to bring her as well.”
“When did he tell you that?” he asked carefully.
“He was in my head. Actually, I guess I was in his head. Just before I woke up.”
Aiden snarled. Ruthlessly, he grabbed her arm and yanked her up off the bed. “We’re out of here. Now.” In a graceless, hurried motion, he flung the bedroom door open with his free hand. “I’ll find a witch who can cast the cloaking spell and we’ll be a thousand miles away before it wears off. He won’t be able to find you.”
For a scant second, Alexandra was tempted. Aiden knew how to run—he’d been hiding from Circle Daybreak and the Night World for the better part of two years and not once had they come close to catching him. In the end, she found the will to resist. “I can’t.”
He looked at her, stricken. “Why?”
“He has Reece.”
A muscle leapt in Aiden’s jaw. “So?”
“The cloaking spell doesn’t work against the soulmate link. As long as he has Reece, he can still track me down.”
“Then I’ll find something that will work,” he swore.
“And then he’ll find a way around it. He won’t ever let me go. He won’t give up.” She shook her head. “I can’t run.”
Aiden advanced upon her, his hands closing on her arms as he pushed her back against the wall. “What do you propose, Lex?” he snapped. “You want to give in to him? You want give him Lindsay as well? You want to let him rape you both? Strap you down and pull your fingernails off? Shatter your kneecaps? Brand your skin? Slice you open, let you heal, slice you open, let you heal, slice you open—”
She hadn’t realized how much of her past he had actually seen, but he was throwing the descriptions at her now with frightening detail. It actually might have affected her if she hadn’t been so distracted by the frenzy that he was quickly working himself into. He was like a caged animal, his breath coming in hot, angry gasps. Trying to gentle him, she placed her finger over his lips and for a moment, she was afraid that he would open his mouth and bite her finger off. “Aiden.”
“You make me sick,” he told her, letting his lips brush against the pad of her fingertip. “You and your soulmate, both. Do your own lives mean that little to you that you’re willing to throw them away for nothing?”
Drawing her hand back, she argued, “It’s not for nothing.”
“It is. Your witch was stupid enough to sacrifice himself to get you away from Zarek and that bastard went back on his word already. You think he won’t do the same thing to you? How naïve are you?”
She cringed inwardly in spite of herself. Her maker had used countless names over the years, but that one—Zarek—was the one he used most often. But not once in her life had she ever spoken it aloud. She had locked it somewhere deep inside of her mind that not even her soulmate could reach. She didn’t understand how Aiden knew it.
“He’s using you against each other, don’t you get that?” the vampire continued. “If you try to trade yourself for your witch, he’ll have you both.”
“He didn’t offer a trade.”
“Then what the fuck do you expect to get out of this, Lex?” he demanded.
Over Aiden’s shoulder, she saw Lindsay watching them. Even though her blue eyes were so different, they somehow reminded Alexandra of the girl that her maker had brought home the night of the fire. Looking into them, she could see the person that she had once been and the person that she might have become if she had never been changed into a vampire. It strengthened her resolve. “I have to kill him,” she said softly.
She had expected Aiden to argue with her again. To tell her that she was insane. Remind her that only a few hours ago she had collapsed at the very thought of her maker. At the very least, she’d thought he would try to convince her that she was too important to be putting her life in jeopardy. But after giving her a hard stare, he merely let go of her arms and took a step back from her. “And I suppose you think that I’m going to help you,” he said in a thick voice. “You think I’m going to put my life on the line for you and then once Zarek is dead, I’ll graciously stand by to congratulate you and your witch on your reconciliation.”
Lex couldn’t respond. She honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Fuck that. I went through a lot of trouble to get him out of the way and I won’t save him just so you can leave me for him.”
“A lot of trouble?” she repeated in disbelief. “You helped my maker take Reece?”
He shrugged. “More or less.”
“And you didn’t think that he would come after me? Now who’s being naïve, Aiden?”
“I thought that you would be smart enough to come with me before Zarek had the chance to get to you,” he spat.
“And you expected me to leave my soulmate with him? Or were you not planning on ever telling me that?”
He didn’t answer. He just shook his head, as if marveling. “You really were using me all of this time, weren’t you? I was just a way to pass the time until your soulmate came running after you.”
The accusation startled her. “No,” she insisted. “I never even expected him to do that.”
Aiden sneered. “You shot blue fire into the air like a fucking emergency flare for him.”
“That was an accident!”
“Sure it was, angel. But tell me, was it an accident every time you shut down after we had sex?”
Alexandra recoiled from him, pressing herself further into the wall as her cheeks burned. Her entire body was prickling with anger. “What was I supposed to have done? Cry in your arms from the overpowering emotion? Confess my undying love? Tell you that I felt like we were two halves of the same person? Because you already had all of that, Aiden. And you threw it away.”
His silvery eyes flashed in the darkness. “Don’t bring Eve into this,” he warned.
“She’s been here this whole time,” Lex retorted. “You’re the one who has been using me to sort through your issues with her. She’s all you see when you look at me.”
“No. What I see is a fragile, selfish whore who would fuck anything that moves just to escape her own self.”
His words cut a hole in her heart. This was the very reason that she avoided intimacy: once someone knew your weaknesses and your fears, they would inevitably use them against you. She’d never expected that from Aiden, though. In spite of his warnings and her own apprehension, she had grown to trust him.
“You know, I’m starting to understand why Genevieve wanted to die when she found out who you really were. Who could honestly stand the thought of being bound to you for all eternity?”
“Give it some time, Lex,” he replied coldly. “Soon enough your soulmate will be saying the same thing.”
“You know nothing about him.”
“I know that he was a fool to give his life up for you. Because you’re not worth it.”
She gave a short laugh. “And this is supposed to convince me to stay with you, Aiden? You think if you insult me enough then I’ll decide to let my soulmate rot so I can drive off into the wild blue yonder with you?”
“Why not?” he countered. “You’re obviously hooked on abuse. Your maker essentially destroyed you and here you are, running to him again.”
“Because I can’t run from him any more,” she cried. “I’ve tried it for five years and it doesn’t work. I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of waking up screaming every night. I can’t live like this any more! It has cost me too damn much.”
Aiden looked at her with a closed-off expression. “I’m not going to help you.”
Even as disappointment pressed down on her shoulders, she whispered, “I know.”
He clenched and unclenched his fists. “If you want this done, you do it yourself. I’m gone.”
Lex nodded, which only seemed to infuriate him more.
“You’re not worth it,” he said again. This time his voice was so soft that she wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to himself.
Then, without a moment’s hesitation or a backward glance, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.
As soon as she heard the front door slam shut as well, she sank to her knees on the floor. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. If she started crying now, she might never stop.
“I’ll help you,” a quiet voice said.
Lex lifted her head to see Lindsay kneeling on the floor close by. After everything that was said during the fight with Aiden, she was almost embarrassed to look at her. Letting her eyes slip back down to the floor, Lex tried to smile gratefully. “Thanks, but you can’t. Aiden was right; I have to do this myself.”
The girl seemed puzzled. “Why?”
“Because. Because all my life, I’ve depended on someone else to save me. It’s time that I learned to save myself.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. Please, I need to help. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but it’s my fault that Zarek has Reece.”
A laugh bubbled up inside of her. Everyone seemed so eager to take the blame for what happened to Reece—Lindsay, Aiden, and of course, Lex herself. Maybe they were all right. Maybe they were all wrong. And maybe it just didn’t matter.
Alexandra looked at Lindsay appraisingly. If she failed at this, if she couldn’t kill her maker, then he would probably get the little girl anyway—when he set his sights on someone, he didn’t give up on them. And if she was honest with herself, Lex had to admit that she couldn’t do this alone. So maybe the best way for her to save Lindsay and Reece was to let the girl help.
“Okay,” she relented. “But we have to go now.”
Lindsay jumped to her feet. “Thank God,” she sighed. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.”
Lex just nodded. It certainly hadn’t felt that long since she’d last seen her maker, the night that he had tried to burn her alive. And she didn’t want to say it, but she wasn’t sure if “forever” would even be enough time to prepare her for it.
Part 16
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