Alexandra choked on her own scream as she felt a pair of strong arms come around her. Her maker’s arms. Dragging her under the surface of the cold water. She fought, but her body felt slow and heavy. Before long, she was too exhausted to move.
God, no. She was dying again.
Please, just let me die this time. Really die.
She inhaled, surrendering to the sea...
But no water filled her lungs. Only air.
Slowly, she realized that she was lying on her side on a bed, facing a wall. The ocean had only been a dream. God, she hadn’t had a nightmare that vivid in so long.
She closed her eyes. Breathed. But then the world was too dark from behind her eyelids. Her feeble grasp on reality started to slip away. The arms were pulling her under again. The ocean was washing over her.
Lex opened her eyes. The sun-splashed white paint on the wall nearly blinded her.
The arms were still around her; she hadn’t been dreaming that part. They weren’t bruising, though, and there was a familiar tingling where they touched her bare skin.
Reece was with her.
The touch of his mind was strange, though. Cold. Chaotic. The feel of it reminded her of dead leaves caught in a whirlwind of autumn air. And his arms were too long, his hold too unyielding—Reece knew that she could easily become claustrophobic if he held her that tightly, especially when his weight was on top of her. And then she suddenly realized that the connection between them was far too jarring.
This wasn’t Reece…and that meant it could only be one other person.
Turning onto her back, she looked up into the arresting face of Aiden St. Helen.
She had forgotten how striking he was. After they’d parted, his height was the only thing that she could clearly remember about him. All of the small, but stunning details—the graceful lines of his high cheekbones, the thickness of his eyelashes, the silvery light in his eyes—had somehow escaped her. For a moment, she could only stare at him, riveted.
Then she heard his name on her lips. “Aiden?”
He smiled softly, and it startled her. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever seen him smile, at least not like this—without sadness or bitterness.
Lex blinked. “What are you doing here?”
His smile changed, becoming more sardonic. “I could ask you the same question,” he replied.
She had forgotten his voice as well. He could sound very cold, very coarse—she’d learned that when she met him on the subway in D.C.—but his voice could also be suffused with warmth that made her shiver, as it did now.
Looking up at him, Alexandra felt a vague sense of déjà vu. He had woken her from a deep sleep once before, while she’d been a prisoner of Circle Daybreak. He was just as close now as he had been that day, and he was gazing at her with the same rapt intensity.
She wondered, then, if she should be afraid. The last time he’d woken her like this, he had hurt her. But that hadn’t been his fault, not really. And besides, she’d already forgiven him for it.
Still, he had tried to murder a Wild Power. The only reason he’d failed was because the girl, Genevieve Harman, had been his soulmate. Lex was a Wild Power now, and she had the feeling that if Aiden wanted her dead, whatever connection existed between them would not stop him.
But if he were here to kill her, wouldn’t he have done it already? Hell, if he really wanted her dead, he could have let Angie Catellini finish her off last year. Instead, he had risked his own life to save hers.
No, Lex decided that she was not afraid. At least not of him. It was her nightmare that was tying the ice-cold knots in her stomach. It was the memory of her maker that terrified her. She could still feel him—his teeth, his hands, his body. She could suddenly feel every second of the torture she had endured, all twenty-seven years, eight months, three weeks, and two days of it. Every time she blinked, she saw his black eyes boring into hers. The pounding of her heart sounded like his short, sinister laughter.
Lex shuddered violently, the images raining down on her again. Her teeth chattered. She tried to turn onto her side, needing to draw her knees up and cage herself against the world, but Aiden’s arms held her in place.
She fought him again. Why was he holding her like this? She couldn’t move, and she couldn’t bear it. Her maker used to tie her down, time after time, year after year. Whether she was silent or she screamed. Whether she shouted or she cried. None of it mattered. It all ended the same way. After enough time had passed, she’d been so damaged, so totally destroyed, that she hadn’t even needed to be restrained any more. He would hurt her and she would cry out for more.
“Look at me,” Aiden said. His voice sliced through her memories, like a sliver of light cutting through the darkness. Lex had been so lost that she hadn’t realized that he’d released her. “Let it go. He can’t hurt you any more. Let it go.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed. How could he ever understand? “He’s inside me. He always will be. He’ll never let me go.”
“He already has.”
She closed her eyes, still trembling terribly.
Don’t try to escape. I will always find you.
“Don’t go there, Lex,” Aiden said. “Stay with me.”
He was reading her thoughts, and she hated it. Her maker did that to her, preying on her mind as savagely as he did her body.
Your mind is your own. Everything is okay.
She felt the icy water upon her again, sucking her under, pressing against her chest. There was no air. She couldn’t breathe.
Aiden shook her. “Look at me, Lex,” he pleaded urgently. “Your mind is your own. Say it, come on.”
“My mind is my own,” she gasped, forcing herself to focus on his beautiful face. In that moment, she understood that Aiden wasn’t reading her thoughts to hurt her. Her mind was entangled in the web of the past, and he was trying to cut her free. He was saving her from her own self.
“Good. Now breathe slower. Like this.” He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.
Lex didn’t know that she was hyperventilating until she tried to breathe with him. It wasn’t enough air. Damn it, she needed more air.
“Deep breaths, Lex.”
She tried again. “My mind is my own,” she whispered as she exhaled. “My mind is my own.”
Gradually, her heartbeat slowed. The crushing weight on her chest eased. The shadows lurking in the edges of her vision cleared.
“You okay?” Aiden asked her after a while.
“I think so,” she replied. “Thanks. I haven’t had a panic attack like that in…” She couldn’t remember how long it had been. Since she’d met Reece, probably.
“Any time.” He smiled at her as he pulled back. Then his eyes quickly darted away and the smile vanished. “Sorry.”
Lex frowned, not understanding at first, but then she looked past him, at the desk at the foot of the bed. One of her shirts was hanging from the back of the chair. For the first time, it struck her that she’d gotten into bed naked last night after hanging up all of her soaked clothes. And her blanket had slipped dangerously low during her panic attack.
She should have been embarrassed, but she was too drained to care. Still, she made sure that the blanket was covering her as she sat up and leaned her back against the wall. “It’s okay,” she assured him.
Aiden walked over to the door of her motel room, which had been knocked off its hinges. It was now lying crookedly against the wall, about to topple over. He picked it up and leaned it on the door frame. There were still gaps through which the wind blew, but at least no one from the parking lot would be able to see into the room.
“It’s cold in here,” he remarked, starting to close the windows that she had thrown open during the night.
“I thought vampires don’t feel the cold,” she replied.
“We don’t, usually. But you do. You’re shivering.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Or is that just the effect that I have on you?”
Lex was too taken aback by that comment to answer. It hadn’t sounded like Aiden at all—it had been too playful, too flirtatious.
He sat back down on the side of the bed, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Then he nodded toward her empty bag on the floor. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Sort of,” she murmured. “I just don’t know where yet.”
“I know the feeling.” He looked at her again, his eyes suddenly fixed on hers. “Where’s your witch?”
The question had been inevitable. Lex should have seen it coming, but she hadn’t. There was nothing she could do but give him the truth. “I don’t know. Not here.” She paused. “Why are you here?”
He winced slightly. “Do you want me to go?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just…how did you find me?”
“How do you think?” Aiden asked.
Alexandra’s lips twitched. Answering a question with a question was an old defensive tactic that she herself had perfected. She hadn’t been on the receiving end of it very often, though.
She gave up. Neither of them spoke for a while, but the silence wasn’t awkward. It was surprisingly nice, being with someone who knew her—really knew her. Before Reece, she’d hated it when anyone got too close to her. She had even held her lover, Tristan, more than an arm’s length away. But she’d gotten used to the intimacy between her and Reece, and she realized now that she actually missed it.
“I called you last night,” Aiden said. His voice was a little too loud as it broke through the silence. “Or, I guess it was the night before, now.”
Lex was startled. “You did? But I don’t…” She trailed off as she remembered the last night she’d spent in Montreal. “The crank call.”
He bowed his head.
“Why didn’t you just say something?”
“What was I supposed to say?” he asked.
“I don’t know. ‘Hi’ would have been a good start.”
Aiden laughed, shaking his head. “You know, that honestly never occurred to me.”
She smiled at him, but it quickly faded. “So…what did you want?” Lex asked.
She was expecting him to reply with another counter-question, but he surprised her. “To talk.” There was suddenly something bewildering in his pale gray eyes. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time.”
“Why?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He just looked at her, and in that moment, she knew. She could feel the aching loneliness that enveloped him. His soulmate was dead, his life had been effectively obliterated, his existence was meaningless. Aiden had nothing left. No reason to live, no desire to carry on. There was only one thing keeping him alive: words that Lex had spoken the last time they had been alone in D.C.
I like you, too.
No, this couldn’t be. They both had soulmates of their own. The link between them was never supposed to have happened. Alexandra had essentially stolen it from Genevieve when she’d killed her. If anything, Aiden should hate Lex for killing his real soulmate. He shouldn’t—
“She’s gone,” he responded succinctly to her thoughts, which still disturbed her. “And I know there was something between us back in Washington. Haven’t you ever thought about it?”
Again, his directness caught her off-guard. She’d thought that he was someone who avoided difficult questions—both asking and answering them.
Her instinctive answer was no, but as she opened her mouth to reply, her mind drifted back to the day he had woken her in the Daybreak compound. Pinning her against the wall, he had run his hands all over her. His breath had been warm in her ear as he spoke in soft, seductive tones. And while she had been terrified, some part of her had wanted him. When she’d tried to push him away, she had only pulled him closer.
Alexandra hadn’t let herself think about that since she’d left D.C. with Reece, but remembering those few minutes with Aiden now, she felt a hot tremor go through her.
He seemed encouraged when she didn’t answer him. Turning to face her, he moved closer until he was at her side. Tentatively, he reached up to brush her hair away from her face. The soulmate link hummed as his fingers grazed her temple, its pitch all wrong, but its sound soothing nonetheless.
And so very distracting. God, she was grateful for that. She didn’t want to think about her maker or Reece. She didn’t want to think about anything.
Aiden touched her face again, almost as if he were experimenting. His hand was trembling as he stroked her cheek. His breaths were too shallow. He was nervous, Lex realized with amazement. She was making the vampire once known as Hellraiser nervous.
But why? He must have touched his own soulmate like this. Maybe even a few hundred other girls, with his looks. So why did he seem so...naive? Unsure?
Lex watched him, watching her. “You do feel it, don’t you?” he asked softly, his feather-light touch brushing over her forehead, down her other cheek.
The sound of his voice was hypnotizing. It coaxed the answer from her almost against her will. “Yes.”
There was hunger in his gaze then, raw and unabashed, and it ignited a flame of desire within her. Her heart started to pound again, but not from fear. This time, it was from the thrill of anticipation.
He sensed it, recognition dawning in his gray eyes. His hands became bolder, caressing her bare shoulders, the nape of her neck.
She should stop him. This wasn’t right—though, as his fingers swept into her hair, nails grazing her scalp, Lex couldn’t quite remember why.
“You said you wanted to talk to me,” she murmured, trying to buy some time. This was happening so fast. “This isn’t exactly talking.”
Undeterred, Aiden cupped the back of her neck. He drew her forward, closer to him. “Tell me that you don’t want this. Tell me that you don’t want me and I’ll stop.”
She did want him. That was the problem. It had been so long since someone had looked at her like this, touched her like this, and it felt so good. Her thoughts fled, her fears dissolved. She had no past, no future. There was nothing but this moment.
He bent his head, leaning down as she unconsciously tilted her face up. Her eyes fluttered shut.
And then he kissed her.
His warm lips were soft on hers, and Lex shuddered at the feel of his fingertips tracing up and down her back.
God, it was so sweet. So innocent.
Something inside of her snapped. She let the blanket fall away as she climbed onto his lap. Aiden groaned against her lips as she kissed him hungrily. Impatiently, she reached for the hem of his shirt, pulling away from him long enough to rip it over his head. Then her mouth crashed down over his again.
He held her against him as he shifted their position, gently laying her back down on the bed. But Lex pushed at his chest. Shoved him onto his back. Straddled him.
She saw the shock in his eyes as she leaned down to run her tongue over his throat, up to his ear. His breath was coming in short gasps underneath her. “You started this,” she whispered huskily in his ear. “So try to keep up with me now.”
Aiden tangled his fingers in her hair, wrenching her head back so hard that it almost hurt. “Likewise,” he growled. Then he pulled her lips back down to his.
Alexandra wanted to laugh. Oh, he thought he knew, but Aiden had no idea what he was in for.
The drive to the tiny rural town had seemed very long, but it had only taken him a little over an hour. When Reece first arrived, he searched for Lindsay Rosen’s address, and then he drove by the small farmhouse.
Surveying the place, he could sense that it was empty, and when he tried the front door, he found that it was actually locked. The break-in had at least shaken up the Rosen family enough for them to make that change, but unfortunately the lock was ridiculously easy for anyone with a credit card—hell, or even a library card—to pick.
The living room was small and very clean. Looking around, Reece’s attention was immediately drawn to the family portrait on the mantle over the fireplace. The young girl in the photograph was pretty—slim and petite, with long brown hair cascading past her waist.
To his surprise, Lindsay didn’t resemble Alexandra in the least. Reece had believed that Zarek would fit the profile of many serial killers, whose victims were startlingly similar. But maybe they were alike in other ways.
He stepped away from the picture and walked down the hall until he found Lindsay’s bedroom. A quick search told him that she was a studious, but popular girl. There were several pictures of her with friends taped to the mirror that hung over her dresser. She was neat. Organized. And perhaps a little mature for her age.
Reece still believed that aside from the maturity, Lindsay was nothing like Lex. His soulmate didn’t care about order, and while she was smart, she had never been interested in finishing high school or going to college. She was also by far the most introverted person that he had ever met. Reece knew that even when Lex had been human, before Zarek had ever touched her, she’d been a loner.
So why had Zarek wanted her? And why did he want Lindsay now?
As Reece turned to leave, something caught his attention. A few loose strands of Lindsay’s brown hair still clung to her pillowcase. He picked them off and slipped them into his pocket. He would need them later.
He drove around the town, trying to memorize the roads and buildings. During the ride, he made a few phone calls, confirming that both of her parents were at work—the family had not left town—and that Lindsay was in school.
Once he had mapped out the town in his mind, Reece headed over to the elementary school and parked in a lot across the street, leaving his engine running.
A few buses were already lined up in front of the building, ready for students to board. From where he was parked, Reece had a clear view of each bus as well as the school’s entrance. Checking the clock on his dashboard, he saw that classes wouldn’t let out for another fifteen minutes, so there was nothing for him to do now but wait.
While he watched the door, the questions nagged at him again: Why Lindsay? And why Lex? The two girls were so different, and yet there had been something about both of them that had attracted Zarek.
Reece realized that he was probably never going to know the answer to either question because he wasn’t going to give the bastard a chance to explain. And maybe that was better. Maybe this was another thing that he just didn’t really want to know.
He had learned so much about evil since he met Lex. In her mind, he’d seen things that he had never imagined, not in his worst nightmares. It made it hard to even touch her sometimes. And while it was worse when he was with her, it still haunted him when they were apart.
He felt evil everywhere now, not just in the Night World. He sensed it in a smile, in a laugh, in a sideways glance. When he saw strangers on the street, he couldn’t stop wondering if they beat their children or molest them or maybe just destroy their self-worth, one biting remark at a time. He watched the news and he knew that his old sense of honor and fairness did not have a place in this world any more.
Most days, he didn’t understand how Lex could bear it. He didn’t know how she could live in this world, knowing the things that she knew. And yet she did. Sometimes, she even seemed happy, as if she had forgotten about what had happened to her. As if she accepted it. Goddess knew that he simply could not.
An alarming shiver shook him as he thought about Alexandra. Normally he couldn’t feel her when they were so far apart, but at that moment he could sense a strange energy coming from her. It was almost as if—
A large, navy blue SUV entered the parking lot. Rather than pulling into a space, the vehicle idled in the aisle. Most likely this was some soccer mom waiting to pick up her kids, but the woman was also blocking his view of the school’s entrance. Reece cursed as he cut the engine of his car. He got out, slamming the door as hard as he could, and walked towards the school.
Damn it, he didn’t want to be out in the open like this. Zarek could be watching Lindsay right now, and Reece couldn’t afford to give himself away. He headed around the side of the building and ducked behind a line of hedges that he hoped would hide him. At least when he pushed a few branches aside, he had a decent view of the front of the school. After he noted which bus she got in, he would have to run back to his car to follow her.
A few minutes later, children started to pour out of the doors and onto the sidewalk. Reece reached into his coat pocket for the strands of Lindsay’s hair that he had taken from her room. Holding them in his palm, he quickly whispered the words of a spell and then blew the strands into the cold, December wind.
He kept his eyes on the crowd as students ran for their buses, or stood on the sidewalk, talking to friends. Even after the first wave of buses left and a second wave came in, he did not see any sign of Lindsay.
Cold dread churned in his stomach. Had he missed her? Was she at some club or practice that was held inside the school? He couldn’t go looking for her in there—he would be too conspicuous. But what choice did he have? He had to find her before Zarek made his move.
As Reece stepped away from the hedges, he finally spotted her. The spell had worked—Lindsay was enveloped in a pinkish aura that only he could see. He would have recognized her anyway, though. Her hair was short, but it was cut so unevenly that some locks were much longer than others, and the shortest lengths jutted out sharply from her scalp.
She’d made no attempt to hide her hair underneath a hat. Instead, she displayed the jagged cut openly to the world. She seemed so poised walking down the sidewalk that Reece believed anyone could stare at her hair, and she honestly would not care. He had never seen such dignity, such self-possession, in someone this young, and it was suddenly clear to him why Zarek had been drawn to this girl.
Reece waited a minute before he followed Lindsay, putting a careful distance between them. While he walked, he kept half of his mind focused on her, and let the other half scan the area for any sign of Zarek. He needed to be prepared to act on less than a moment’s notice.
She was heading towards the center of town, which, if he remembered correctly from his earlier drive, consisted of a grocery store, a bank, two churches, a library, a few shops, and the police station. Given that she was a studious girl with a bag of books strapped to her back, Reece guessed that she was going to the library.
A bead of sweat trickled down his back. In spite of the cold weather, he was overheating inside his winter coat. He was too nervous, too edgy. His heart was hammering inside his chest. After nineteen agonizing months, he was about to catch Zarek. He could practically feel the sadistic vampire nearby. His skin was prickling, scalding pins and needles stabbing at him.
Evil. Evil everywhere…
Up ahead of him, Lindsay froze and spun around.
Reece forced himself to keep walking nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t noticed, but in truth, he was startled. He was walking far enough behind her that she couldn’t have heard him, and he hadn’t been staring at her hard enough for her to sense it. She was more perceptive than a normal human should be, and it made him wonder if there was any witch blood in her lineage.
She turned back and started walking again, but she glanced over her shoulder at him a few times, trying and failing to be subtle about it.
Reece crossed the street. He really didn’t need Lindsay to be spooked right now. He had to assume that Zarek was watching her as well, and her behavior would draw too much attention to Reece’s presence.
He ambled along, letting her walk further ahead while he pretended to glance through the windows of the shops next to him. The library was still a few blocks away, so even if she were a little too far away for his comfort, at least he would have her in sight.
As he feigned interest in a jade necklace on display in the jewelry store, however, he saw her reflection turn and then walk up a set of stairs.
Reece whipped around. Lindsay wasn’t going to the library after all. She was going into one of the churches.
Part 6
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