The stars were beautiful. As a witch, Reece had only been able to see the major constellations through the light pollution in Washington, but as a vampire, he could see a myriad of stars glittering like gems encrusted in the night sky. Staring up at the heavens from the front steps of the Daybreak compound, he felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe being a vampire wasn’t so bad after all.
Inheritance seemed to be as unpredictable in vampires as it often was for humans. Although he and Lex shared the same maker, he wasn’t nearly as sensitive to temperature as she was. Reece was aware that the air drifting over his skin was cold, but it didn’t seep into his bones. And as far as he could tell, his new telepathic abilities were pretty standard. The surface thoughts of nearby humans whispered through his mind incessantly, making his brain itch in an odd way. It took conscious effort to block them out now, but the Daybreakers assured him that with enough practice, it would become second nature.
Behind him, the door to the compound opened and he turned to see Lindsay coming out of the building. When he’d brought her in, she had been so pale, suffering from anemia due to blood loss, but the witches in the infirmary had healed her, and now her cheeks were rosy once again.
“Where are Nick and Karissa?” he asked as she sat down next to him on the steps.
“They’re coming,” she replied. “Karissa wanted to stop at the vending machine to get some snacks for the plane.”
Reece rolled his eyes and laughed. “Incredible. She just had a four-course dinner and she’s still hungry. The girl is a bottomless pit.”
“Are you sure you can’t fly up with us?” Lindsay asked.
“I wish I could, but your kidnapping has gotten a lot of press up in Vermont. The police are looking for me, and thanks to the people who saw us outside the church they have a pretty good idea of what I look like. It’s just too risky.” Then he added hastily, “But don’t worry. Nick and Karissa will get you home safely.”
The little girl nodded sadly. “The police are going to ask me about you.”
“I know,” he sighed. “And I hate asking you to lie, but you can’t tell anyone about the Night World. Humans aren’t supposed to know that it exists; it could put your life in danger.”
“No one would believe me anyway,” she said with a weak laugh.
“It would probably be easiest to tell them that you don’t remember anything. They’re going to ask you a lot of questions, over and over again, and if you try to make something up, you could get tripped up in the details.”
“Okay.”
He looked down at her to find that she was biting her lip—a habit that she seemed to have picked up from Karissa—and it occurred to him that he was probably asking too much of her. It would be difficult enough to lie to her family and friends, but to hold up under the scrutiny of a police detective could very well be impossible.
Then Lindsay lifted her head and the determination he saw in her eyes reassured him. This was the girl who had come to save him from the devil when she could have run home. The same girl who had literally put her life in his hands, trusting him even when he hadn’t trusted himself. She had helped him remember what it meant to have faith and right now, Reece had faith in her. She would protect him with as much dedication as he would her.
“I’m never going to see you again, am I?” she asked him. Her voice cracked as tears filled her eyes.
He let out a slow breath, his eyes automatically fixing on the two pale scars on her throat. The scent of her blood permeated through the air, tempting and tormenting him.
How did it feel to tear into Lindsay’s throat? You loved it, didn’t you? And you hated yourself for loving it. You are a healer by nature and yet it felt so natural to be hurting her. The vampire in you reveled in the bloodlust, but the witch in you wouldn’t stop screaming…
Reece shook his head, banishing Zarek’s voice from his mind. That bastard was dead and gone and he had no power over him any more. He’d never really had any in the first place. There were hundreds of half-breeds in Circle Daybreak and most of them were at peace with themselves. One day, he would be, too.
Still, his voice was unsteady as he answered Lindsay. “It would probably be better for you if you didn’t.”
She sniffled loudly. “But why?”
“Because then you could forget about all of this and go on with your life.”
“But I don’t want to forget it,” she protested. Her whine actually made him smile because it was just so childish. This entire ordeal hadn’t stolen too much of her youthful innocence and that was a miracle for which he would never cease to be grateful. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met and I don’t want to forget that there are people like you in the world—people who care more about others than they do about themselves.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he murmured. Almost everything he’d done over the past year and a half had been driven by selfishness.
“I watch the news with my dad every night,” she said, “and all they ever talk about is the awful things that happen. And now that I know about the Night World, everything seems worse than I thought. I can’t just spend the rest of my life praying that the world will change. I want to help.” Then she added a little sheepishly, “I want to be like you.”
Goddess, no. She couldn’t be asking him this. She had seen first-hand how dangerous his life was. Very few people who got caught up in the battle between the Night World and Circle Daybreak had the option to walk away, but she did, and he was not going to let her get sucked back in because she had a crush on him.
The images flashing through her mind, however, didn’t have anything to do with a silly crush. She was thinking about murder, theft, war, starvation, suffering, and the terrible violence that had plagued this world since its creation. She was thinking about the look on Reece’s face when he bartered his life for hers. The subtle tremor in Aiden’s voice when he offered to surrender so that Reece could go free. The depth of fear and strength of conviction in Lex’s eyes when she decided to save her soulmate instead of running away. She was thinking about her shorn hair, thirty-nine lashes, and a crown of thorns. She was thinking about crucifixion. Resurrection.
Sacrifice.
His throat tight, Reece reached into his coat pocket for a scrap of paper and a pen. Knowing that he would one day regret this, he wrote down his cell phone number and handed the paper to her. “Give it some time. Finish school. Then if you’re still interested, call me.”
Clutching the paper in her hand, she threw herself at him, her smile so bright that it hurt. He hugged her hard, fisting his hands against her back. Goddess, he was going to miss her.
“Aw, how cute,” Karissa cooed as she and Nick walked out of the compound.
Reece lifted his head and forced himself to let go of Lindsay. “Hey guys. Is it time for you to go?”
Karissa nodded. “The flight doesn’t leave until midnight, but God forbid Mr. Punctual over here—” she gestured to Nick “—arrives at the airport with less than three hours to spare.”
“So, if I’m Mr. Punctual,” the witch said thoughtfully, “doesn’t that make you the future Mrs. Punctual?”
“Oh no,” she groaned dramatically. “I really didn’t think this through.”
Nick put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “Well, you’re stuck with me now, baby.”
Reece smiled at them both, even as a small ache formed in his chest.
“So Cahill, you’re not heading out tonight, are you?” Karissa asked.
He cleared his throat. “No, I’m way too tired to drive now. Anton is letting me and Lex stay the night and we’ll leave tomorrow.”
“Okay. We’ll see you back in Montreal, then.”
After hugging his teammates goodbye, Reece gave Lindsay one last hug as well.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she pulled away. “For everything.”
He gave a short laugh at that. “Thank you.”
As soon as the three of them headed off to the metro station, he turned and went back inside the compound, a heavy sense of resignation settling on his shoulders. It was time to talk to Lex. Since they had killed Zarek early that morning, they had smiled at each other, laughed and joked, ultimately holding one another at a distance. It was familiar and comfortable, but it couldn’t last.
Anton had given them the same room that Reece had stayed in the last time he was here. The idea had appalled him at first, but as he took the elevator down, he realized that this actually felt right. This was where everything had started, and one way or another, this was where it would end.
He entered the room tentatively and found his soulmate curled up on the sofa in a fluffy bathrobe. Her face was flushed from a hot shower, her spiral curls still damp, and she was staring off into space, lost in her thoughts.
“Hi,” he said quietly as he closed the door behind him.
Her eyes snapped into focus and she looked at him almost shyly. “Hi,” she replied. “Did everyone leave?”
Reece sat down on the large coffee table across from her. Normally she felt more comfortable talking to him when he was at her side, instead of looking into her eyes, but they had done things the easy way for too long now. He wanted to see her face this time. “Yeah. Just now.”
She seemed a little solemn as she nodded. A few locks of her hair fell into her eyes.
He leaned in to tuck her hair behind her ear. “What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “I was just—I have this strange feeling. Sort of like everything is different, but still the same. Zarek’s dead and I’m free, but I’m still…me.”
Reece was surprised. He had posed the question merely to test the waters, to see how resistant she would be to having a real conversation; her candor was completely unexpected.
What was even more astounding was how well her words described what he himself was feeling. Discovering that Zarek was just another vampire and finally watching him die had been liberating, and yet Reece still wasn’t entirely free from the hate that had been plaguing him for so long. It clung to him like an air of sickness after the fever had passed.
Some things took time, he supposed. Or maybe it was just a testament to the fact that his angst had very little to do with Zarek after all.
“So many years,” Lex breathed, shaking her head. “My memories haven’t changed, but I don’t know how to feel about them any more.”
“I know,” he said, taking her hands in his. The soulmate link opened between them, allowing him to feel her awe and confusion. Letting her feel his.
“Yeah, I guess you would. I wasn’t the only one traumatized, was I? Everything I felt, you felt, too.”
“Every time I touched you,” he admitted hoarsely.
She looked away, blinking away tears that were forming in the corners of her eyes. “You never said anything,” she whispered.
“I thought you would blame yourself and shut down on me.”
“So you shut down on me instead.”
“Not intentionally,” he swore. “At least, not at first.”
“When did this even start?” she asked. “How did you get his name?”
“Angie.”
“Angie,” she repeated dazedly. Her eyes glazed over for a brief moment as she thought about that. “That’s what the exchange was about just before you killed her?”
Reece nodded. “You told me that she had ripped some details from your mind. I knew you were lying about not knowing his name.”
“I only said that I never knew his real name,” she corrected him. “He used a lot of names over the years.”
“It was still a lie by omission.”
Anger flared in her blue eyes. “Don’t lecture me about honesty, Reece. Not when you’ve been lying to me since the day we met.”
He bowed his head and stared at their intertwined fingers, wishing that she were wrong, but knowing that she was right.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she asked.
He shrugged helplessly. Since the day he had started his search for Zarek, he had told himself that she didn’t deserve to be burdened with it. He hadn’t known how long it would take to track the vampire down and it wouldn’t have been fair to put her through all of those years of frustration and disappointment. It was a perfectly legitimate explanation, but he knew now that it was complete bullshit.
“I was ashamed.”
Lex shuddered, as if she was stifling a sob. “Of me?” she asked.
He looked up at her, gazing mercilessly into her eyes as he squeezed her hand, hoping she could feel how much pain that question brought him. “No,” he said passionately. “Don’t ever think that, Lex. Ever.”
Another tremor racked her and she pressed her lips together, trying to hold on to some semblance of self-control. “Then, what?”
“I was ashamed of myself.” He paused for a moment, unsure of how to explain this to her. He hadn’t even put it into words for himself yet. “The first time I touched you and saw what Zarek did to you, I snapped.”
“I remember,” she replied. “You ran out of the room.”
“Yeah. I felt like I was…choking on hate,” he said lamely. “I went to get some air and I thought that I calmed down, but I never really did. The hate was still there and I didn’t know how to handle it. The only thing I could think about was killing Zarek.”
“You didn’t think I would understand that?” Lex asked incredulously.
Reece ignored her question, needing to get this all out. “It kept feeding back on itself. The more time I spent hunting him, the more hate I felt, the more I needed to kill him. It wasn’t right, but I couldn’t help it. I lost myself, little by little, and I didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Right,” his soulmate said acidly. “I guess it would be a cold day in Hell before you ever let anyone see that you’re vulnerable. Especially me.”
He looked at her in shock. “That was the part I thought you would understand. I’ve had to fight you for every last thing that I know about you.”
“Exactly!” she cried. “All that talk about trusting you, about secrets only holding as much power as we give them, about the pointlessness of life if you can’t share it with someone. You didn’t believe any of it.”
“I did,” he argued. “I still do. But that doesn’t make it any easier for me. And Goddess knows that you didn’t push me for anything.”
“I tried,” she professed, “but I barely knew where to start. You know I’m not good at this.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re doing fine right now. You could have pushed if you wanted to, but you were too scared of what you would find. Face it, Lex. One of us had to be the stable one and that was me by default.”
As her lips parted, her stricken gasp slicing through the resounding silence, Reece realized what he had said. She let go of his hand and got up off the couch, her knee brushing against his as she pushed past him.
“I’m sorry,” he struggled to say. “I wasn’t—”
Her face partly shielded by her hair, she gestured for him to stop. “Do you remember the last time we were in this room?” she asked in a low voice. “It was right after you killed Angie, after everything was finally over. I came in and I found you standing right over there, packing your bags. You were so cold and closed off, but all I had to do was make you look at me and you fell apart. You were crying in my arms, clinging to me for support, letting me comfort you. No one’s ever put that much trust in me before.” She smiled sadly. “It was the moment that I knew I loved you.”
He couldn’t speak through the lump in his throat. This was the first time that she’d said she loved him, but the words were spoken with such regret that they broke his heart.
Lex looked back at him, a tear slowly trickling down her cheek. “We had that moment,” she whispered. “What happened to us, Reece? Why are we so afraid of each other?”
Swallowing hard, he said, “Because we’re scared that if we try, we won’t be enough for each other.”
“I know why I would think that,” she said. “But why in the hell would you?”
He wondered if she already knew, if her power was drawing the truth up from the depths of his soul, because although none of this had ever occurred to him before, it fell from his lips like a practiced confession. “The D.C. mission changed me,” he told her. “Finding you changed me. I fucked everything up. Lost people I cared about. And I almost lost you.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” she said. “None of it was.”
“That’s debatable,” he returned. “It doesn’t really matter now. What matters is how I reacted to it all.”
Lex tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“The spell that I did on Angie was illegal. She suffered when she died, more than anyone deserves to suffer—except that I didn’t believe that at the time. I…enjoyed it. And that wasn’t something I ever thought I would be capable of.”
He shook his head in frustration and moved to stand before her. “When we met I told you that I didn’t kill for fun, I didn’t torture, and I didn’t hate. The next day, none of that was true.”
“You thought you would hurt me?”
“Not exactly,” he replied. “But everything I had believed about myself was a lie, and the person I was turning out to be, I didn’t like. And whenever I was with you, I felt the disconnect. I couldn’t take it.”
She was quiet for a minute, looking at him curiously. “That’s the real reason you went after Zarek, isn’t it?” she finally asked.
Reece nodded. “I think I wanted him to know that you were alive so that I could save you from him. It felt like the only way I could save myself.”
Alexandra caught his eyes and waited a beat, making sure he was paying attention before she spoke. “But you were saving me,” she said. “Just by being with me and helping me face the past so that I could finally move on from it, you were saving me.”
He tried to smile, but it fell apart. “Really?”
She let out an exasperated breath, as if she couldn’t believe he didn’t already know this. “Yes. Those first few months we were together was the first time in my life that I actually felt alive.
“When you shut me out,” she went on, “I started to slip back down. The fear came back. The nightmares. It just got worse and worse until—”
“Aiden.” He blurted out the name tactlessly, but it had to be done. His soulmate had been unusually open with him tonight, but Reece had the feeling that her relationship with Aiden wasn’t something that she wanted to discuss with him. If he didn’t bring it up, she never would.
She scrubbed away the remnants of her tears with the back of her hand—a simple diversion to hide the way her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t leave you for him. I left for you, so you could be…yourself again. He and I just crossed paths.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’m not angry with you; I think I understand what happened. But tell me the truth here, Lex. Do you love him?”
“No.”
The answer was spoken so earnestly, her gaze easily meeting his, but there was a slight hitch in her voice that she couldn’t suppress. She was probably hoping that he would mistake it for breathlessness or vehemence, but he knew her too well. He could feel her reluctance to say another word for fear that she would give away anything more. “But you could,” he surmised.
To her credit, she didn’t try to deny it. She knew that they were beyond that now. “Yes.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, barely containing the urge to rip it out. “What’s stopping you?”
She shrugged, turning so that she was leaning against the arm of the couch. Buying for time. “It would be a disaster,” she said. “He and I both know it.”
Reece laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t seem like you and I have done much better.”
She said nothing, but her pulse quickened and her body went rigid, as if she were bracing herself for a blow. Her head was bowed and fingernails were digging into the suede arm of the couch.
That told him everything that he needed to know.
He moved into her, placing his hands on top of hers. Even though she was blocking the soulmate link, he knew what she was feeling. It was exactly what he had felt when he found her with Aiden in that alley. “Lex.”
Impossibly, she stiffened even more until she seemed like stone under his touch. Her chest stopped moving; she was holding her breath.
“Look at me, Lex,” he pleaded softly.
Still staring down at the floor, she shook her head furiously.
He almost laughed at her stubbornness, but he didn’t want to scare her away. “Please.”
Very slowly, she lifted her chin, but none of the tension left her body. She was holding everything firmly in check, locking away her tears, her breath, her emotions. It might have been a corpse looking back at him, with her skin so cold and her eyes so empty.
Silently, he held her gaze, waiting for her pupils to suddenly spring open as her power flared to life. When it finally happened, he cupped her cheeks in his hands, feeling her jump at the contact, and he refused to let her look away. He offered himself to her, letting her find all the answers she needed, silently promising her that his heart and soul forever belonged to her.
Taking a quick gasp of air, she shot an arm around his neck and dragged his lips down to hers. There was desperation in the kiss. Hope and despair. His fingers slid into her hair as she pressed herself against him with a brazenness that made him moan deep in his throat.
Her passion always scorched him, but he knew what fueled the fire, so he forced himself to slow down. He brushed his lips against hers, gentling her, calming her down, until she reluctantly released him.
“I love you, Lex,” he whispered. “I should have told you a thousand times over by now.”
Her eyes were as dark as twilight and her smile was content—almost dreamy. “But you did,” she assured him. “I know you did.”
“I don’t want us to be afraid any more,” he said. “Please, just tell me that I’m enough. Tell me that I make you happy.”
She kissed him again, with less urgency, but more feeling. “You’re the only happiness I’ve ever known. I love the person you were, the person you are, and whoever you’re going to be.”
His heart swelled in his chest, a blissful ache that he hoped would never fade. Reece took her hand and lay down on the couch, pulling her down with him until she was draped over him with her head resting on his chest. He stroked her hair, holding her against him and for the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt relaxed. At peace. In love.
He had almost drifted off to sleep when he felt Lex stir. “Hey, Reece?” she murmured.
“Hmm?”
“About tomorrow…”
He lifted his head slightly to look at her, but he could only see the top of her head. “Do you not want to go back?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “It’s just…I was wondering if we could maybe fly up.”
“You want to fly?” he asked in surprise.
She turned slightly, letting him see her smile. “Well, I’ve already faced a few dozen fears today,” she said lightly. “Might as well keep going.”
Reece chuckled and kissed her forehead, finally understanding why destiny had led them here, to this moment. This was their chance to start again, to leave this place as they should have left it last year—free and open, with no fears or secrets lodged between them. Trusting in fate, in the soulmate link, in each other.
“Might as well,” he agreed.
Aiden had forgotten what a smug sonofabitch Anton Parish could be. Over the past several hours, the lamia had taken great pleasure in hand-cuffing him, searching him, questioning him, and making pathetic attempts at goading him into violence so that he would have an excuse to hit him. Even though Aiden didn’t rise to it, Anton seemed only mildly disappointed; there would be time enough for that later. A veritable eternity, in fact.
As they rode the elevator down to the twenty-fifth underground floor, encircled by eight shapeshifter guards, the compound director’s self-satisfied grin was still firmly in place. “We aren’t taking any chances this time,” Anton told him. “You’ll be kept in solitary confinement and no one will be allowed in the cell under any circumstances.
“Your meals and blood bags will be delivered through a slot on the cell door. If you become ill, I suggest you pray to the Fates to spare your life because there will be no medical assistance. And should you choose to do us all a favor and hang yourself with your bed sheets, we will wait until the flesh rots off your bones before we bother to cut you down. Do you understand me?”
Aiden shrugged as casually as possible with his hands cuffed behind his back. “Your policies on amnesty and civil treatment of the enemy have taken a turn for the worse since I left,” he noted. “Are you still that angry with me for making a fool out of you—twice?”
Anton glared at him, his eyes seeming large behind the thick frames of his glasses, and Aiden nearly laughed. He knew that there was nothing wrong with the lamia’s eyes; the glasses were simply an accessory that Anton habitually wore to make him seem older and more intimidating. “My orders come directly from Thierry Descouedres.”
“Naturally,” he replied. “If it were up to you, you would have executed me on sight. Right?”
The director’s smirk sharpened. “Was that what you were hoping for when you turned yourself in?” he inquired. “Has the guilt finally become too much for you to stand?”
“You forget,” Aiden said, his cold, monotone voice betraying none of the pain that speared his gut. “A monster like me is incapable of feeling guilt.”
Anton turned to face him, eyeing him carefully. “Then why are you here?”
Because he was a fool. Because when he was fighting at Reece’s side he had found something inside of himself that had been lost along with Eve. Because Lindsay had asked him if he was sorry, and she had cheerfully cried out his name while she threw her arms around his waist. Because Lex had expected nothing of him. Thought nothing of him. Had let him go without the slightest hesitation. Because he had been dead for so long and he needed to do something—affect something—to prove that he was still alive.
Because he was insane.
“Merely repaying a debt,” he managed to reply.
Anton studied him for another moment and Aiden shifted his weight uncomfortably, suddenly concerned that the lamia might have heard his thoughts. Thankfully the elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened, saving him from the compound director’s probing gaze.
The entourage entered the hallway and turned right, leading the new prisoner down to a cell at the northeast corner of the floor. Anton withdrew a key from his suit pocket and inserted it into a lock on one side of the door while one of the guards did the same to the lock on the other side. They counted down and turned their keys simultaneously to disengage the locks. The guard pulled the heavy door open and then he pushed Aiden forward onto his knees in the cell, not bothering to take off the handcuffs.
“I hope the room is to your liking,” Anton said pleasantly from the doorway, “because you are never going to leave it.”
“Don’t try to be sarcastic, Anton,” Aiden suggested, keeping his back to the lamia. “You can’t pull it off.”
The compound director stepped inside, lowering his head until his mouth was near Aiden’s ear. “You sicken me, Hellraiser,” he murmured. “You know, there are times that I am grateful that Genevieve is dead and she doesn’t have to live any longer with the knowledge that her soulmate is a twisted, hopeless fiend.”
Anton whipped around and stormed out of the cell, slamming the door shut behind him. Cast into darkness, Aiden whispered, “You and me, both.”
Sighing heavily, he fiddled with his handcuffs, testing their strength. Circle Daybreak must have increased their budget for restraints because these cuffs were impressive—damn near unbreakable.
Even so, there was one surefire way out of them. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his right hand with his left until he had dislocated his thumb. He bit down on a grunt of pain as he slipped his maimed hand through the metal bracelet to free his right wrist. Then he snapped the thumb back into place. A few seconds later, his left wrist was free as well.
Stretching his legs out in front of him, he leaned against the side of the cot, which took up nearly half the room, and let his head fall back on the mattress. He closed his eyes and found himself wondering if Anton had been right—if he had been hoping that Daybreak would kill him. It really wouldn’t surprise him; there was a part of him that had actually been disappointed earlier when he’d realized that he could easily defeat Lex’s maker. Out of some bizarre sense of loyalty to Eve, he would never kill himself, but that didn’t mean that Aiden wouldn’t happily let someone else do it. And if he had died for something—for someone—he could only assume that she would have been proud.
But now…
“What makes you think I’m not proud?” a voice asked from the corner of the room. “The fact that you are still alive makes your sacrifice was no less valiant.”
Startled, he twisted around to find a girl standing in his cell. Tall and slim in a flowing white dress, she smiled at him, her expression slightly wistful. Her creamy, flawless skin touched by a hint of rose, her face framed by long, shining blond hair, her eyes deep pools of violet, she was a vision of warmth and beauty.
“Evie,” he gasped as he shot to his feet. He stared at her, afraid to blink. Afraid to breathe.
Her smile broadened as a brilliant light shone in her eyes; she had always loved it when he called her that.
He choked on a nervous laugh. Swallowed it back. “Interesting,” he murmured as he moved closer to her, half-expecting her to fade away. But if anything, she seemed even more real. “I thought that it would take more than ten minutes of solitary confinement before I progressed from my old aural hallucinations to visual ones.”
“You’re not hallucinating, Aiden,” she said, her voice a glissando over his heartstrings. “You never were.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, a skeptical smile tugging at his mouth. He couldn’t afford to believe that because he wanted so badly for it to be true. His hands trembling with a precarious balance of fear and hostility, he reached out to touch her, calling her bluff. But when his fingers brushed against the warm, smooth skin of her cheek, he lost his breath.
So did she.
The soulmate link sang, ringing in his ears, throbbing in time with his heart, and he had the terrible, shameful urge to fall to his knees before her. She would run her fingers through his hair, cradle him against her, comfort and care for him in a way that no one ever had before or ever would again. He couldn’t bear it; it was too much.
He snatched his hand away from her defensively. This couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be real. The link had never felt this powerful before; he had always been able to block it out, even while he was touching her. What the hell was going on?
“I’m not here in the flesh,” Eve explained in response to his thought, sounding as dazed and breathless as he. “This is my true soul.”
“What do you want from me,” he demanded. “Are you going to try to kill me again? Strangle me? Set me on fire?”
She shook her head. “That was a dream.”
Aiden eyed her warily. There was something about that way she was looking at him, her eyes soft and her smile sad, that reminded him of that dream. He could almost hear her whispered words, Why do you do this to yourself? Turn around. Don’t look back.
“That was you at the end, wasn’t it?” he said quietly.
Her gaze slipped away from him awkwardly. “I don’t like to see you hurting.”
His lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral growl as he grabbed her waist and roughly pushed her back against the wall. She gasped in shock, her lips parted and her eyes wide as she looked up at him. There was a mere inch of space between them and he could feel her shallow breath on his cheek. “Then why did you kill yourself?” he snarled, his words carrying with them the force of all the bitterness that had been building within him since she died.
“Because I don’t like to hurt either.”
The anger fled as quickly as it had come, leaving him drained. He squeezed her slender waist gently, wishing for the first time in his life that he knew how to console someone. It just wasn’t in him.
He tried to retreat, but Eve wouldn’t let him. She straightened, pressing her body against his, her fingers clutching the sleeves of his shirt. “I forgave you. You know that,” she whispered. “I don’t blame you for any of it.”
“Why?” he asked. He wanted to touch her face again, but he was too afraid of the overwhelming rush of emotions that he knew would follow. “I’ve never understood.”
She nodded. “I know you haven’t. You think that I should hate you as much as you hate yourself; sometimes you even take for granted that I do.”
“You can’t love me,” he insisted. “You never knew me.”
“You say that so often,” she remarked.
“It’s the truth.”
“It’s an excuse,” she corrected. “A line that you use to push me away.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But those contentions aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Eve slipped her arms around his neck, combing her fingers up through his hair. He shuddered, unable to stifle a sharp hiss of pleasure. “I stayed with you after I died, Aiden,” she murmured softly, tilting her face up. “You felt me. You knew I was there. Perhaps I didn’t know you while I was alive, but I know you now.”
Captivated by her pretty mouth, by the shivers cascading down his spine, he couldn’t formulate an argument. Then he realized that that was precisely what she had intended. He had distracted Lex the same way more than once; he just never imagined that Eve could be as calculating as he.
Calling upon years of practice, he focused on a point on the wall next to her and cut himself off from the physical sensations before they could completely engulf him. “And what do you see, Eve?” he asked her, his voice icy. “Just an animal that needs to be on a leash.”
She pulled back slightly, as if he had startled her. “How can you say that?” she gasped.
“That’s what you were doing this past year and a half, right? Trying to rein me in, guilt me into being who you wanted me to be because you couldn’t handle what I am.”
Eve shook her head fervently. “No. Goddess, Aiden…” She cupped his cheek, forcing him to look at her. “I was only trying to give you some guidance. You were in so much pain. So alone. You wanted to be part of the world, but you didn’t know how to live in it.”
His movements as quick as lightening, he took her throat in one hand, thrusting her head back into the wall. Although his grip was unyielding, he didn’t squeeze. He only wanted to remind her of what he was capable of. The electricity surged through them again, but it only fueled his temper. “Don’t you dare presume to know what I want,” he warned her. “You have no idea.”
“And you think you do?” she challenged. The fearlessness in her violet eyes reminded him of how Alexandra often looked at him, but where he had always felt a void in the vampire girl, in his soulmate he felt compassion, understanding, love. It was confounding.
He tightened his grip on her throat, aggravated by her audacity. Furious that she could look at him like that after all that he had done. “I want my life back!” he growled. “I want to be free of you!”
Eve smiled at him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he could snap her neck like a twig if he wanted. “Then why did you try so hard to lure me back after I left you in New York?” she asked hoarsely.
He had no answer and she knew it. Damn it, he had underestimated her. She had been so easily duped when she was alive that he had assumed that she wasn’t especially bright, but she was seeing through him now with a keen eye, easily sifting through his layers of fire and ice to reach his heart. And he almost hated her for it.
“I watched you with Lex,” Eve said. “You thought I left, but I only stepped back from you.”
“Why?” he replied. His hold on her throat eased, changing from a threat to a caress. His thumb stroked her collarbone and he heard her breath catch. “Jealous?”
“A little,” she admitted. When his eyebrows rose in surprise, she shrugged. “I’m not perfect, Aiden. You only wanted to believe that about me.”
He nodded begrudgingly. She could be right.
“I tried to reach you for so long,” Eve continued. “I tried to awaken your heart, to draw you out of your isolation. For a while I actually thought that I was getting somewhere. You were allowing yourself to feel. You were reaching out to people who needed help. You were starting to see the beauty in the world. But in so many ways, you were still dead—nothing touched you. Then you found Alexandra and she got further with you in five minutes that I did in nineteen months.”
“I’m sorry,” Aiden whispered, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he was apologizing for.
“Don’t be,” she replied with a reassuring smile. “It was my fault, really. Seeing you with Lex, I realized that I couldn’t force you to live. I stayed with you to help, but in the end I was only hindering you. Keeping you trapped in the past. If you wanted to move forward, it had to be your choice. Not mine.”
“God gave us free will for a reason,” he murmured to himself, remembering Lindsay’s words.
Eve smiled, understanding him perfectly. “She’s a wise girl.”
Something suddenly occurred to him—the question that should have been the first thing that came to mind when she appeared. “Why are you here?”
She took a deep breath, as if gathering her nerve. “Because I needed to tell you that I’ve been offered the chance to be reborn. And before I decide, I want to know how you feel about it.”
Aiden just stared at her as time came to a screeching halt, leaving her words suspended in the space between them.
Eve. Alive again. A second chance for both of them. It was too much to fathom.
“I killed people,” he told her quietly, his gaze locked on hers, daring her to look away. “These past few days, without you in my head, I killed more people than I can remember.”
There was a flicker of sadness in her face, but no condemnation. “I know that.”
His thumb grazed the hollow of her throat. Yellowish bruises flashed before his eyes each time he blinked. “I haven’t changed, Eve. I’ll hurt you. I don’t know how to do anything else.”
She tilted her head to the side, her expression a blend of pity, amusement, and exasperation. “Aiden, look at where you are,” she said, gesturing to the tiny cell in which they stood. “This was your decision.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” he snapped.
“No,” she agreed. “You didn’t do it for me, or Lex, or even Reece. You did it because it was right.”
Aiden’s lip curled in disgust. “So what if I did? Is that really enough to make you believe that I’ve made the transformation from psycho killer to productive citizen? Vile betrayer to supportive boyfriend?”
“It’s a start,” she maintained.
He shook his head, utterly frustrated. “You made the mistake of trusting me once, Eve, and it cost you your life. Don’t do it again.”
“You are such a coward,” she sighed. “Why can’t you just say it? Why can’t you just admit that you want me? We both know it’s true. Why do you try so hard to push me away?”
“Because I need you too much!” he cried. “Because when I’m with you, I don’t know who the hell I am. You’re the only thing that matters. You take everything from me—my entire life. It’s fucking terrifying, Eve.”
She moved into him, resting her hands against his chest. “Didn’t it ever cross your mind that I might feel the same way?”
He was stunned. “No.”
She slid her arms up around his neck, drawing his head down, and against his better judgment, he let it happen. “I do,” she told him. “I’m scared out of my mind, Aiden. But I’m not afraid of you.”
He couldn’t think with her mouth so close, with her scent clouding his mind. “I don’t want to hurt you again,” he confessed.
“You won’t.” She leaned in, letting her lips brush against his. “You can’t.”
“I love you, Evie,” he whispered. Then he dipped his head, taking possession of her lips. The soulmate link coiled around them, drawing them together, and for once Aiden didn’t fight it. He held her face, breathed her in, lost himself in the energy between them. He gave himself up to the free fall, not caring if he ever landed.
Some time later, they broke apart.
“Will you remember me?” Aiden asked her as he tried to catch his breath.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “It’s rare that an Old Soul remembers past lives.”
“Thank the gods for that.”
Then a sudden pain ripped through his heart. “I won’t ever find you,” he realized aloud. “I’ll be locked in here for the rest of eternity. Anton won’t let me out, especially if he knew that you were alive again.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. With all of your Night World connections, you’re too valuable an asset for him to ignore. He’ll see that soon enough, as the war draws closer.”
He couldn’t help smiling at that, feeling a spark of excitement deep inside him. Anton had been wrong; Aiden hadn’t surrendered because he wanted to die, he’d done it because he wanted to live, and if Eve was right, he was going to get his chance after all. He would have the Night World quaking in fear before him; the name “Hellraiser” would once again be on everyone’s lips, but this time, it would mean something.
“So what’s your answer?” Eve prompted him.
“Don’t you know? Haven’t I already said it?”
“No,” she said. “You only implied. I don’t want any more misunderstandings between us.”
Aiden looked down slightly, twirling a lock of her long hair around his fingers. Slowly, almost inaudibly, he said the words, unable to deny the truth any longer. “I want you. I want another chance.”
Her eyes became glassy, shining with unshed tears. Seeing the raw emotion on her face, Aiden’s own eyes stung. He leaned down to kiss her again, crushing her against him. She was so warm in his arms, so open and honest. His beautiful, precious, perfect soulmate.
Too soon, he felt her pull away. “I have to go,” she sighed.
Desperately, he held on to her, cupping her face in his hands. “No. Not yet.”
She smiled at him, her face glowing. “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I promise.”
Aiden expelled a painful breath of surrender. “I’ll be waiting.”
Eve took his hand in hers and pressed a kiss to his palm. Then she closed his fist, holding it tightly in her own. She bestowed one last smile upon him before fading into the darkness of his cell.
Alone again, his heart ached, but he could still feel the warmth of her lips against his palm and he knew that he had something to hope for now. A reason to live. It was the most incredible gift anyone had ever given him. “Some day, I’ll return the favor, Eve,” he whispered. “I swear it.”
Turning around, he sat down on the bed and leaned back against the wall. Then holding her kiss close to his heart, he began his vigil.
Part 19
Epilogue
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