by Anna Santos
“How did you escape?” I was short of breath as the ropes dug into my arms, throat, and chest.
“I was never caught. No one had any idea of what I looked like. Any other specter wearing a hoody could be me.” He shrugged and waved his hands to give his speech more impact. “You were all so easy to trick. Who do you think made sure that the elders knew where I would be hiding?”
“Nice trick,” I muttered, clenching my teeth. I shouldn’t have made that mistake.
Kayden was right. Any specter with a hood over his head could be him. They were skeletons wearing monk clothes for God’s sake!
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. My double fooled the angels, too.”
“For a moment, I thought you had escaped.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I saw Mara at the party,” I said.
“And you suspected her? Interesting, since she was supposed to be on your side.”
“Margaret is her sister.”
“True. Family bonds are strong and can make people change sides. But do you know what’s stronger?” Kayden didn’t wait for me to answer him. “Mate bond. Your love for Aria and her love for you. That’s strong, isn’t it? A lot stronger than anything you have experienced before.” Kayden put his fisted right hand under his chin. Then he placed his index against the bone where his cheek should be.
“Yes.”
“You would do anything for her. So, you can’t blame Mara for helping her sister. Can you?”
I shook my head only to look down at my feet when the rope moved around my neck.
Kayden snorted with disdain and clenched his teeth harder. I had let my guard down and was kidnapped by a female I had never seen before. Still, I had an idea of who she was.
“Yes, Mara works for me. She has no choice. It was hard to get her on my side, but…there’s nothing like having Margaret doing my bidding to convince her to help me with you.” Kayden placed his hands on his knees and squared his shoulders.
“And why did you need her help? I’m not in love with her anymore.”
“You never were.” His hands moved again as if he was conducting an orchestra. “She reminded you of Sophie. I know all about your Sophie. I know a lot about what makes people tick. I needed leverage, something to control you. But Mara wasn’t clever enough to make you fall in love with her. Then, she disappeared. I later found out that you had helped her with that. I let her think she was safe. I knew I would eventually need her.”
Kayden inhaled as if he needed oxygen. Then he moved back in his chair, giving me a glimpse of his eerie face.
“I didn’t think you would have such a huge part to play in my plan.” Kayden crossed his legs and rested his entwined hands on his knees. He had gloves on, concealing the bones.
“What plan?” I asked, trying not to move so the ropes wouldn’t hurt me more than they already were. Kayden’s ramblings were echoing inside my head. However, he was worried about something else. “And where’s Aria? The girl said—”
Kayden raised his hand, and I halted my speech. “I know what she said. We are talking. Don’t interrupt me, yet. Everything will make sense once you hear what I have to tell you. We have a couple of hours to kill. So, we can talk. Besides, I need your total cooperation. Maybe if I tell you the importance of what we are going to do next, you’ll be easier to handle. Maybe you’ll become an even more useful tool in my plan.”
Squaring my shoulders, I focused my attention on Kayden.
“We were talking about Mara, weren’t we?” Kayden asked.
I nodded.
“She’s an intriguing girl. But Mara wasn’t at the party to free me. It wasn’t anything so elaborate. Mara had a simpler task. She was there to make Aria jealous. We needed Aria to realize and accept her feelings for you.”
“I’m touched,” I uttered sarcastically. “But I didn’t need your help. My feelings for Aria and hers for me are our concern, not yours!”
“That’s what you think!”
I detected the hint of wittiness in his tone and became worried.
“I know you asked me for a favor in exchange for telling me what was happening to Aria and how we could fix our bond. But I don’t need your help anymore. Whatever it is you want, you didn’t need to kidnap me. You could have just told me.”
“I want you.”
“What do you mean? Stop talking in riddles.”
“It’s not a riddle, Philippe.” Now Kayden was being condescending, and it made me narrow my eyes with annoyance. “I need you. In fact, I need you because of the love Aria feels for you.”
My heart clenched while my brain thought of a million reasons why Kayden wanted me. I was leverage or bait.
“I won’t let you use me to hurt her. Aria is harmless, she won’t…”
“Shut up!” Kayden ordered, his voice resonating and echoing inside the room. “As much as I love your desperation and need to protect her, I need you to listen to me. Let me talk. I’m bored. I’ve been here for days without anything to do.”
“I would rather be left unconscious,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes.
“Funny.” Kayden snorted. “You are quite entertaining. What were we talking about? I’m tired. I need to feed.”
I blinked several times, upset for not being able to see Kayden’s expressions. It was hard to read someone who didn’t have a face. Kayden’s only had a skull with dark eyeballs moving inside their sockets.
“Aria is such a beautiful creature, don’t you think?”
“I won’t let you harm her!”
Kayden moved his hand around, dismissing my words as if I were having a tantrum.
“I won’t harm her…if I don’t have to. I sent Mara to give you a little push. I wanted you two happy. Apparently, Mara wasn’t needed. She saw you two cuddling and exchanging love promises on the balcony. I couldn’t be happier about that. Aren’t you glad, Philippe?”
“About what?”
“Aria loves you.”
“And I love her.”
“I know you do.”
“Why are you so interested in my love life?”
Kayden leaned closer. He uncovered his head by lowering the hood and showed his teeth.
I leaned back instinctively. My stomach twisted with his unnerving appearance and the ropes that tightened around me.
“Damn, you are ugly.”
“I’ll have you know, I used to be quite handsome. I haven’t fed for days. Flesh tends to fall off when we don’t eat.”
“I’m not interested in knowing anything else about your skin issues,” I said with disgust about the mental image that was left imprinted in my mind with Kayden’s words. “Just tell me what I’m doing here.”
“All in good time. I was talking about Aria. I have to tell you, the moment you appeared in my crypt, asking about how you could restore your bond, I knew. I should have bet against myself. I knew you were falling for her.”
Kayden folded his arms in front of his chest. He resumed talking when he noticed that he had my full attention.
“You couldn’t help yourself falling in love. Because, deep down, Philippe, you aren’t the insensible and cold-blooded type. Since you became King, things have changed for the better. Vampires became more obedient. You keep them in check and punish the stray ones. Even if you pretended to enjoy the playboy’s life, I knew there was more to you than what you wanted to show others. You like order, not chaos. Under your reign, human deaths diminished and there were fewer wars between the vampire clans. It was fine by me. I didn’t need the attention of the angels or the hunters. You didn’t mess with my business, and I didn’t mess with yours. We could have been friends or, at least, partners in crime. It’s ironic that the person who could have been my ally turned out to be my leverage to achieve my goal.”
“You are rambling.”
“I need to tell you this for you to better understand my goal.”
“I don’t care about your goal. I want you to let me go and leave Aria al
one.”
Kayden leaned back in the chair. “Aria…everything revolves around her. Who knew she would be so special? Well, I knew, once they told me that her hair was red. When I found out she was your rejected mate, it was almost too good to be true. I have been waiting for her for a long time. It was crucial for my plan that she rejected Cedric. How else could I have her in the same room with the sacred orb?”
“I have no idea of what you are talking about. I’m just going to ignore you.” I pretended not to listen.
Kayden resumed his speech. “Philippe, some people are evil by nature, but you became evil because your mom was a whore and let men molest you. She wasn’t a nice mom. Hell, I would kill her myself. But you didn’t! Philippe, you took care of her. Even after all the things that happened to you because of her.”
“Shut up!”
“And the cherry on the top: the love of your life was an insensible slut who loved you for what she thought you could give her! When she found out what you were, where you had come from, she rejected your sorry ass. And she got married to a rich guy. Poor Philippe. Life was hard on you.”
“Stop patronizing me. I know what happened to me!”
“I don’t pity you. Don’t mistake facts with care. So, you had a hard life. Who cares? You knew that no one did. Wait, maybe your sweet vampire maker did. That one, she’s… Well, you’ll be surprised. I’m not going to spoil the fun.”
Rage shook over my body. “What about her? Did you do something to Jo?”
“Not yet. I was talking about your life, Philippe. Focus! So, your mom was a whore, the love of your life never loved you. Then you became a vampire, and you decided to take control of your life, to harden your heart. I guess, for a while, you thought you were happy, regardless if your former love still made you depressed. But you were clever and stupid at the same time since you honestly thought that money and power would fill the void in your heart. It’s the same old story. Mommy issues, using sex to give you a rush of adrenaline, and that instant pleasure that never lasts because you aren’t establishing a real connection with someone else.”
“What do you know about love or sex, for that matter? Aren’t specters just a bag of bones? Do you even have sex? You know nothing about me or my life when I was human to try to profile me.”
I was angry. I didn’t like or need to be analyzed by a necromancer.
Kayden sighed again and put his hands on his knees. “We are much more than others may think. We have feelings. We have a purpose in this world. What purpose do vampires serve? Nothing. You don’t have a master. You don’t believe in God. You don’t serve anything but the lust for blood. Vampires could be an army against the angels, but you are useless since you don’t believe in anything. All you do is fuck and feed.”
“And what’s your purpose?” I asked, intrigued by the amount of emotion Kayden was putting in his words. His voice sounded angry and aggravated. I had hit a nerve like when Kayden had talked about my past.
“End death.”
“What?” I asked, frowning, unsure if I had understood. “That doesn’t make any sense. Vampires are immortal. We already cheat death.”
“No. Immortality and Eternity aren’t the same. You can live for a long time, but you aren’t eternal. You can be killed. When you die, you are sent to Hell. You may think that Hell isn’t a real thing or that it’s a myth. However, Hell is more than a place for the damned and the bad souls. Hell is another dimension because every single being is energy. Energy never dies. It’s pulled from this dimension into another. If you have dark energy, you end up in Hell, stuck there until you have another chance or forever reliving your darkest fears. That is unless you are able to fool death. And by fooling death, I mean becoming a vampire or a specter. Specters and vampires are immortal due to feeding on other being’s life force. But even specters and vampires can die a second time and be sent to Hell. So, we need to end death, though it may be impossible.”
“My head is spinning,” I complained. “I’m not in the mood for a lesson on how to become a specter or how to fool death. I’m just trying to live my life with Aria. We are leaving Paris. We don’t want anything to do with the angels, vampires, or specters. I have no idea of what you want, but Aria is giving up her wings, and she will become human again.”
“Yes, I know. Well, I know she thinks that she’s giving up her wings. But she’s a Red Angel, an Archangel. Do you know how rare it is for an Archangel to be rejected by the one who should love them forever? Once upon a time, she gave up her wings to save humanity. She became mortal because of that. I don’t know which of you died first for the other to die after. Angels are linked, and if one dies, the other does, too. How fucked up you must have been to become that.”
My face became serious. I could have become pale if I wasn’t already feeling weak and the ropes weren’t preventing the blood from flowing.
“I think, my own God is watching over me. I needed, we needed a Red Angel. The last one survived the trial, and we weren’t able to make her reject her new mate. But I knew that it would be different this time. I knew that you would win her over since you aren’t so far gone as the other one was. You are quite interesting, Philippe. I was sure that you would fight for her love. Aria is a child. Her angel would try to convince her to forget you and fall for Cedric. We needed to silence the voice inside her head, and we needed a sample to make better Clarity. It had nasty side effects on vampires. That wasn’t intentional. We wanted to kill angels, not vampires.”
“Kill angels?”
“Yes, we are on the same side. I keep telling you that, but you don’t believe me!”
“You are mad.”
“I’m mad? You were the one who wanted to close the veil, so the angels couldn’t come down to save humans. And I am mad? Love has changed you.”
“Let me try to see if I understood you right. You wanted Aria to fall for me, so she would reject Cedric. And I was an angel… I was really an angel?” I stared at the floor, my hands fisting and my teeth clenching. “Are you sure Aria isn’t going to lose her wings?”
“That’s not important right now,” Kayden said, apparently excited about being able to talk about his plans. “What’s important is that Cedric needs to take Aria to the well-guarded room in his palace. He needs the sacred orb to reject Aria, and I need Aria to touch the orb to open the gates!”
“Which gates? What are you talking about?”
“Philippe, how do you think they were able to open a portal to this world? Cedric’s world isn’t a part of this, it’s in another dimension. They have a special and unique stone, a magical orb. Some say it’s the heart of a god. The important thing is that it opens portals to other dimensions. It doesn’t work with normal angels. It only works with the most powerful ones—the Red ones—they have fire inside their souls. It was a Red Angel who opened the last portal. Only Red Angels have the power to open portals. And God. But I can’t get God to open me the portal, so I need a Red Angel.”
“And what dimension do you want Aria to open?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Hell, of course! I need her to open Hell.”
“Why on Earth would you want her to open the gate to Hell? It would be the end of this world as you know it!” My voice came out breathless. The ropes were squeezing me too much.
Kayden moved his hand, and the ropes loosened a bit. “I don’t want the gate to Hell to be left open. I just need the gate to be opened long enough for my master to escape.”
“Your master?”
“My soul-mate. Do you think that evil beings don’t have soul-mates? Do you think you are special? We all have one. Mine was taken from me. I want him back. Angels have one, and they were the first ones to be made by God.”
“Why do you think Aria will help you?”
“Because I have you, duh!”
I gulped. I knew Kayden would say that. “I won’t let her open the gate to Hell. You are crazy.”
“Philippe, if she doesn’t open them when I
ask her nicely, then I just have to kill you to motivate her. Because you are doomed to go to Hell. Once dead, your soul will be sent there. She’ll have a bigger motivation to go there and bring you back. Either way, I win.”
“That’s...”
“A freaking good plan!” Kayden gloated, getting up and circling the chair as if making a happy dance. “I’ve been doing this for longer than you exist, Philippe. There’s no higher motivation to make witches, humans, vampires, gargoyles, and werewolves, every freaking living being in this world obey me, so they can get back their soul-mates.”
I widened my eyes.
Kayden couldn’t conceal the excitement in his voice. “A few more hours, and I’ll have my mate back.”
“You are insane.”
“I’m not insane. I have thought of this to the tiniest detail. Why do you think I have so many witches working for me? Why do you think Margaret and Mara are doing everything they can, so I succeed? Margaret’s soul-mate is in Hell! I made him reject her and then I killed him!” Kayden’s laughter sickened me.
“That’s twisted!”
“No, that’s being smart!”
“Kayden, you are insane. You can’t open a gate to Hell. You won’t be able to control who gets out. How are you even going to find your soul-mate? If that’s another world, another dimension, it will be hard to find what you want.”
“Soul-mates are linked. We’ll be able to sense each other. Besides, we communicate between dimensions. We just can’t open a portal ourselves. I’ve tried every single black magic spell that I could get my hands on. Nothing worked. We need the orb that’s kept in this palace.”
“You need Aria because she’s a Red Angel. But she doesn’t even know that she can open portals. She thinks she’ll become human again. You want her to do a bad thing just to save me. She won’t do that.”
“She will. How do you think I became a specter? I wasn’t born one. I was human and then a vampire like you. I became a necromancer, so I could save my soul-mate. Trust me, she will do anything to save you.”
“I won’t let her do that.”
“You won’t let her? What will you do, kill her?”