“And if I have to murder her, you will be able to erase her from my mind?” I asked, needing it to happen. I’d considered it a thousand times before, erasing my imp from my mind, to forget she ever existed. I’d never gotten past thinking about it before I dismissed it.
“Yeah, I can do it, but if she is a part of you, you won’t be able to ever erase the hole it will leave in you. Soulmates are soul-deep, it’s why crazy people pray to find them and sane people run from them.”
“And the intoxication issue?” I countered, unsure I bought the whole soulmate shit. If she was, it explained a lot, but knowing that she may have betrayed me, and worse, hundreds of hives, and it left me in a precarious position that didn’t sit well with me.
“It doesn’t ever stop; it’s a mixing of mates and their blood that has no explanation that would make sense to us. That’s an entirely different type of magic. I don’t envy you that shit. My advice, don’t let that shit mix—or do, you said she was wild?”
“She was wild, but she was…different. It was like she looked through me, but didn’t see me. Like she was stuck in another time or place, and I was the one thing holding her here. She wasn’t my girl when she was on it; she was someone else.”
“Like she was lost to memories?” he asked, even as he stepped away from me.
“My blood was saved to bring me back when the time came. It’s what we use to awaken us from the slumber. I was awoken with my blood pulsing through my veins, no one else’s.”
“Diluted?” he countered.
“Don’t you think I’d realize it if my blood was diluted?” I growled as I moved towards the bed, pushing the covers up where she’d dislodged them. Avery shivered as a moan left her lips and my cock twitched, even though she was in no shape to fix the blue balls she’d left me with.
“I think if the other half of your soul held it, and then was drained periodically, you’d never sense the difference. I think she’s endured some kind of trauma to have that amulet on her throat. That’s not a simple thing, there’s ancient magic pulsing from it. That type of magic was used to create your kind, Conner. Born vampires aren’t something that just snapped into existence. Somewhere in history, one of us brought one of you back and made life with it. That same magic brought your mate back from the trauma she endured. You need to prepare in case what it hides is something ugly, or something you can’t fix. You loved her enough to let her go, and if she can’t be tamed, you may need to do so again. I don’t think you comprehend what being a soulmate entails. You won’t kill her; you can’t. You will watch that girl walk away from you because you won’t want to live in a world where she doesn’t exist. The thought alone makes you sick, doesn’t it?”
“Get the fuck out, Luca.”
“You got it, bro. I’m gone,” he said, closing his bag before he headed to the door, stopping at the threshold to stare back at me before shaking his head and exiting the room.
He was dead right. I’d done it before, and though I may have loathed the idea, I’d never be the one to end her life, and I was the only one who could. She wasn’t just mine by right; the spell that had brought her back from death’s door had given me the power to end the life which I’d given to her. I’d stolen death from her, selfish prick that I had been, I couldn’t let her join the thousands who had died to that sickness. Not when she’d tried to protect me, the monster who fed and terrorized her kind, from herself. Her gentleness called to my rough edges. Her shy smiles had appealed to the playboy I’d been back then. But her love, her love had been only hers to give, and she’d chosen to give it to me, blindly. Avery was the air I breathed, and the sun I could never stand within. She was the light to my darkness and the sun to my moon.
I’d never let the coven take her back, nor would I allow her to walk away from me. Not when she still kissed me as if she was starving and I was the only thing she craved. Life was cold and dead without her, and yet I sensed the changes within her. We couldn’t ever go back to before I walked away, nor did I want to. I loved her then, and I loved her now, and I prayed she hadn’t been planted to destroy us with every single fiber of my being. That was something not even a King could forgive or pardon.
Chapter 11
Avery
I studied Conner in the mirror as he dressed, noting the lack of his image and yet knew he stood in it not to see himself, but to watch me as he dressed. Today he’d slipped on jeans that hugged his ass nicely, with a dress shirt that exposed every contour of his chest like a second skin. I’d woken with the aftereffects of combining our blood as if I’d drunk too deeply the night before. I fingered the sheer white dress he had set on the bed and lifted my gaze, letting it linger on his strong frame. His head lifted, and I dropped my eyes to the bed.
“Look at me, imp,” he said, turning to watch me. My eyes lifted, never meeting his as he moved closer to where I cradled my legs against my chest. “At me, Avery,” he snapped angrily. “Not at my chest, not at my arms, look me in the fucking eyes.”
I rose, kneeling on the bed in position before I spoke. “I’m your whore, Conner. Whores have one use, and we do not ever look into the eyes of our masters. I know where I belong, and I was taught what happens when little whores reach for that which is above them. I am fully aware of the pain that comes with disobedience. Can I give you pleasure or feed your hunger?”
“No, you can cut the fucking shit,” he snarled. He watched me, studying my posture as I sat on my knees, eyes lowered in the pose his father had taught me through months of his so-called lessons. “I don’t want some docile thing who won’t even look me in the fucking eyes. I want the girl who feared no one or anything and took no shit, not even when she stood in a hive full of vampires who were born to be her enemy. I want that girl back, Avery.”
My eyes lifted to his as something inside of me withered with his words. My heart ached, as if someone had reached into my chest and squeezed it. “You don’t get her back, ever. She died the day you walked away from her and left her with those she’d refused to bow before. Do you have any idea how much they hated me? How much they craved to teach me that I was nothing, no better than a fucking pet? Don’t ask me to be her, because I had to forget her and be what they wanted so that I could survive it.”
“You keep saying that, and yet I knew them. I sacrificed everything to keep you safe. I gave up living for eternal slumber so that you could be free to live. He promised to erase me from your mind so that you could love again. That was what I sacrificed to keep you alive, to keep you safe from ever discovering what true pain was.”
“No, Conner, he told you that so that he didn’t have to fight you. You left me right where he wanted me, and once you had been drained, your blood was used against me. You were the key to bringing me down because your father figured out that our blood combined together turned me into a dirty little thing that couldn’t get enough of what he offered me. It’s how I learned what our blood mixed together did to me. We’d always been careful, you and I, we didn’t cross those lines. He shoved me to my limits, and sometimes, sometimes I would lose months in the darkness, and awaken less than I was before I’d been fed your blood. You see me as you knew me; I see a monster when I look in the mirror. I see what they made of me, and it isn’t pretty. You want to know why I hid here, in the mountains. Because I wanted the solace it offered, the sanctuary that it awarded me. Mostly though, it reminded me of the peace I had with you before it was ripped away from me and I was turned into something less than human.” I swallowed hard as he shook his head. “We never want to know that the world is a dark place, or that those we love are monsters. You want to know what turned me against the hive. Your blood running through my veins made me into their plaything, where they took turns doing whatever they wanted to do to me. Only, with you slumbering, you produced less and less, and I awoke a little more every single day. On the last day, when I had nothing left to lose, and I was brought out to be paraded be
fore a hive of vampires as your father’s mythical whore, I slaughtered every single fucking one of them with the evil, dark magic that begged me to let it out. I murdered every vampire who had ever touched me or hurt me. I bathed in their blood as I crawled out of that hell you’d left me to rot in. You want that girl back? Because she’s an evil, heartless bitch who tasted blood and decided she fucking liked it.”
“My father was the King, he was bound by his word,” he argued.
“He was, but only to those who had heard him give it. Tell me, sweet prince, how many heard him give it to you?”
He ignored my question and dodged it with another mystery of his. “My blood was in a vault, next to where I slept.”
“It was, but Mayhem had unlimited access to it too. He was told, by your father, that to protect you from the Spanish King, I had to die, and you had to enter eternal sleep, or we would both die. Your life or mine, Conner, who would your little brother have chosen to save?”
He stood up, pulling me from the bed as he grabbed the gown, slipping it over my head before he fixed it, roughly pulling my arms through the spaghetti strap sleeves, one by one. He didn’t offer me shoes before he dragged me behind him at a hurried pace, forcing me to run to keep up with his long, angry strides. We burst into the main hall and screaming ripped from the far side of it, turning my blood to ice as Conner stalled in front of me, trying to shield me from what was happening.
“What the fuck, you were told to leave her alone. She is off-limits!” he shouted, and the room went silent around us.
“She was found outside, trying to escape her pretty cage. We tried to get her back into it, but she refused, and she cast on one of us,” a deep voice said.
I pushed past Conner and stared in horror at Clara who lay naked, bleeding on the floor from a multitude of bite marks. Everything inside of me tightened as my eyes lifted to the male who had mutilated her flesh, and magic unfurled, curling around me without warning as I sent it at him. Conner spun around, staring at me and then at the vampires around Clara who bellowed and screeched as pain took them to their knees. I smiled at the familiar sting of the magic as it slipped free from the tight hold I always had on it and then winced as something connected with my throat. More magic escaped, pushing and pushing until I gasped as something exploded from my lungs.
The magic faltered as my head connected against the floor with Conner above me. My eyes moved to his, holding them and his hand tightened on my throat as he crushed my larynx beneath his hold, assuming I’d whispered a spell.
“No, no more,” he shouted as stars erupted in my vision. “I will not let you take anyone else from me, Avery!”
“You’re killing her!” Laura’s voice rang out through the crowd.
“She will never take more people from me,” Conner whispered as anger burned in his eyes. He sat back, turning to stare at the vampires who were rising once more. “Luca, check them,” he demanded as his eyes held mine.
He stood up, never looking away until he was at his full height. He stepped closer to his witch as I found Laura in the crowd, moving towards me while I held my throat, blood and spittle escaping as the air fought to come from my lungs and I struggled to get back to my feet, to check on Clara. She pointed at something behind me and I turned, watching as Addison tipped back a vial and then lunged forward, faster than my eyes could follow. My hands latched onto her shoulders as her fangs tore at my throat. I hissed as everything around me stopped.
Blood dripped from my lips as well as my throat and she pulled away from me, smiling with victory flashing in her eyes. My heart slowed as pain exploded from the wound in my throat. I turned slowly, searching for Laura and the protection she could give. I found Conner there, staring between his sister and me as my legs gave out and I fell onto my knees.
“Addison, what the fuck?” he snarled.
“I need to know what she did to our father!” she snapped as she stepped around my body as I crashed to the ground. Blood poured from the wound in my throat, coating the floor as it drenched my hair in the puddle I lay in. “Now we will know what happened. Now we can get… Ahh!” she screamed and fell to the floor, holding her stomach.
“Addison?” he growled and knelt beside her, moving his eyes between us as fear entered them. “Kill her,” he whispered thickly. “Luca, take her down.”
“It isn’t her hurting your sister, my King. She took the potion I created for you. Avery isn’t hurting her; she’s reliving Avery’s memories, and what is happening, it’s because it happened to Avery.”
Laura pushed her way to me, shoving Luca aside as she slipped through my blood on the floor beside me. Lifting my head, she peered down at the damage to my throat. Her lips moved, but nothing she said registered. I was being pulled back to hell with Addison. Pain ripped through my body, jackknifing my form as it began, tearing me apart from the inside out. Blood oozed from the open wound as blackness swallowed my vision. Laura screamed, cradling my face between her hands as her magic fought to keep me out of hell, where she knew I wouldn’t return.
“The fuck is happening to her?” Conner demanded, his voice penetrating the blackness that offered me nothingness. His eyes watched me as if I’d give him the answer he sought. I wouldn’t, and neither would she when she made it through the memories.
“You wanted answers; she will get them for you. I warned you, to take someone else’s memories comes with a price. Your sister chose to pay it for you by stealing the potion I created and finished this morning.”
“The fuck is happening to them if it’s only memories?” Mayhem demanded as he knelt beside me, staring at the blood with open hunger, which shone in his expressive eyes. Worse, his eyes moved between Addison and me, and there was fear in them because he was aware of what I had endured, and now, everyone would know.
“Taste her, and you will die, brother,” Conner seethed. “The next fucking person to make a move in this room dies.”
“Fuck you and your obsession over this witch right now. You got bigger issues brewing, Conner.”
“And what could be worse than what is fucking happening here?” he countered.
“There are witches outside,” he muttered.
“Which coven has come?” Conner asked.
“All of them.”
“Come again?” he demanded.
“There are over a thousand witches surrounding this mansion as we speak. The demand is easy enough to guess. They want their children freed from the school, and they want the witches you took from it back.”
“Luca?” he asked as Laura smiled down at me while she held my neck closed.
“It would seem they’ve come at last to retrieve what you took from them. It’s not many covens; it is only one coven and a handful of elders. It’s just a really fucking large, very ancient, and very powerful coven, Conner.”
“Prepare to defend the mansion,” Conner said as he knelt, opening his wrist as he pushed it against my lips. “Close the day blinds, seal the door, and send word to Christian to seal the school and hold it at all costs. Seems they think to take you from me, imp.”
I dropped my eyes while Addison began to flop across the floor, screaming as she was ripped apart from the pain I’d endured at her father’s hands. He thought she’d tell him everything, but I’d considered that well before I’d allowed the amulet to be crafted, and not even his young witch could take my tale from me. Only I could give it to Conner, and in order to tell it and make him believe it, I’d have to show him the proof, which wasn’t something I wanted to do. I lived with the knowledge of what I looked like before and after Grigori had destroyed me. I carried the shame of it so fucking deep that it had almost consumed me, and so together, Laura had helped me conceal it, and hide the ugliness of that shame within me with magic.
Chapter 12
I sat in a cell, staring through the bars at where Conner watched Addison as she came back f
rom the memories that had nearly taken me under their spell. However, I was so much stronger than any of them knew or suspected. She groaned as her eyes searched for me, her body going upright as she stood, and I watched her head shaking as her mouth opened, and only a moan escaped her lips.
“What did you see?” Conner asked, and she turned, mumbling gibberish as Luca watched the smile spreading over my lips. “What, you’re not making any fucking sense, Addison.”
“She can’t tell you,” Luca noted, his heavy stare filling with mirth. “I should have seen that one coming.”
“Seen what coming?” Conner demanded.
“Your pretty little witch spelled her memories. No one can tell you what happened to her but her. Addison knows what she endured, but she can’t speak of it.”
“Then write it down!” he said, ordering a guard to bring him the paper and pen.
“She can’t do that either. It won’t leave her lips or her fingers. She’s beneath Avery’s spell, and was the moment she tried to steal her memories from her.”
“Pretty and smart, where did you find such a creature, Conner? Was he in a pile of rubbish as well?” I asked, smiling, and Conner’s eyes turned to me.
“You fucking knew we would do this?” he asked.
“I knew sooner or later you would come for me. I didn’t know when or how it would happen, only that you would. I did know you though, and the lengths you would go through to learn what that piece of a whoring guttersnipe father of yours had done to me. Look at your sister and tell me, does she look happy? Does she look like she saw what you said would happen? She can’t even look at me without crying. Now be a good boy and let me the fuck out of here before I let loose on your entire hive and bring it all down while you watch it happen.”
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