Eternity's Awakening

by Anne Malcom

  And because I was scared of what I might do, either break down in tears or break something of Thorne’s that would release that monster of mine, I walked out.

  No, I ran.

  Not literally, but it was the point of my retreat. I was running from something. True power unlike anything I’d seen before.

  What would happen to me without Thorne.

  Chapter 16

  Getting kidnapped in the movies was rather dramatic. More often than not, Liam Neison and/or Nicholas Cage were involved.

  When you saw Liam, you knew shit was going down. Drama would ensue.

  I lived for drama. Died for it on any given Tuesday.

  So a good kidnapping was always welcome.

  I preferred if I was the one doing the kidnapping, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  But on that day, when I’d been roaming around the streets of New York, aimlessly seeking a fucking answer to all the bullshit, seeing the vampires screech up in a white van—a little tired, but a classic nonetheless—wasn’t exactly welcome, but I was happy for the distraction.

  Because I had first intended on using the fight with Thorne and my pain and channel it into ripping apart the seating on a quest for the true answers of where the fuck Sophie was.

  I didn’t care who I had to kill at that point.

  And I had killed a handful of immortals already.

  None of them talked.

  About anything useful, at least.

  Finding out the locale of the witches’ sequestering hotspot turned out to be a smidgeon harder than expected. And by smidgeon, I mean harder than finding a part of Kim Kardashian that hadn’t been surgically enhanced.

  So I grinned at the vampires, popping my neck in preparation. Whoever they were, they were sent to kidnap me, which meant they had info about their boss. I’d just have to get it out of the bozos. Maybe the day wouldn’t be a complete loss.

  My grin froze when the air turned sour and a well-dressed man climbed out of the van. Human.

  Well, almost.

  I folded my arms and frowned at the vampires who were approaching me with the appropriate amount of caution.

  “You’re using a warlock. That’s cheating,” I chastised. Especially when my own little Hermione was currently imprisoned by her coven for getting too freaky-deaky with her powers.

  The vampires didn’t attack, just let the man reeking of dark magic saunter forward.

  “Oh, I’m sure you know better than anyone that you don’t win by playing by the rules,” the warlock said, voice thickly accented.

  I regarded him, weighed up my options. I could fight, but I likely wouldn’t even get one step toward him before he froze me or exploded me or something. No way in Hades was I running. In the literal sense, at least. I had already done that once that day, and from the man I loved, no less. So running was out.

  I was going to run my mouth and see where that got me.

  “I break the rules with the best of them,” I answered. “But I also don’t bring Harry Potter to a fang fight.” I clucked my teeth. “Just tacky, really.”

  The air thickened. “I’m thinking your attitude won’t be quite as blasé when I’m done with you,” the warlock promised, face curling into a snarl.

  I smiled. “I would be scared, if you weren’t the hundredth person this week to try and threaten me, and fail. I can handle a little bit of hocus pocus, buddy. I’ve been around the block. The question is, can you handle it when I rip your limbs off after you think you’ve worked your magic?”

  He grinned, showing decaying and blackened teeth. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

  I rolled back on my heels, my body warming with the thirst for blood, for violence, for death. And yeah, maybe a little bit of pain. Because I was fucked up like that.

  I was just about to dart forward and crack the wizard’s skull when a voice inside the van stopped me.

  “Isla.”

  I froze.

  The warlock smiled, reminding me that no evil witches or wizards seemed to have dental.

  “Nitwit,” I hissed, my stomach dropping.

  I peered into the van to see Lucille’s face. Her hair was its usual mess of butterfly clips, but that time it was matted with blood, and there was an angry mark on her cheek.

  White-hot rage erupted within me at the sight of the small human and the violence inflicted upon her.

  I was ready to rip every single one of them to pieces when a wall of magic stopped me.

  Of course the warlock had used my momentary lapse in concentration to freeze me.

  “Your death is going to be slow,” I hissed through my teeth, pain shooting through my nerve endings.

  He grinned again, yanking Lucille out by the collar of her shirt.

  My bones rattled with the force exerted by my rage. They were frozen, yet somehow they moved inside my skin, cracking with the strain of the magic holding me in place.

  “You come with us, we let her go. Simple,” he said, trailing his hands across her neck in warning.

  He was taunting me with it, her mortality, how fucking delicate she was.

  I got it now, what Thorne said, why he was so intent on me not going around and getting myself almost killed and kidnapped when I was weaker than normal. Because that made him vulnerable. As vulnerable as I was right then when I was presented with the impending death of the human I’d come to actually have affection for. It must’ve been affection, since the prospect of her death had every part of me roiling in disgust and pure and carnal fear.

  I’d give it to the little idiot, she didn’t even flinch, just jutted her head higher.

  “I killed two of them before they got me, Isla,” she said, voice clear, even grinning.

  The moron.

  I’d never been prouder.

  “Next time kill them all so they don’t get you,” I said, irritated, my voice thick and forced as I had to wade through the power of the spell in order to speak.

  I wasn’t irritated at her, as I should’ve been, but irritated at myself for being worried. Being absolutely sick with that worry. For caring about the bruise, despite the fact that it was nothing, not even a bone broken. But she was hurt. Someone had hurt the small being I’d come to tolerate.

  The being who wore shoes that lit up but who now was better with a dagger than Scott.

  The child who wasn’t afraid of coming up against a vampire but who hated sleeping in the dark.

  The child who wore butterfly clips in her hair and wasn’t afraid to clutch a vampire’s hand—despite her threats against such things—in the middle of another vampire’s funeral.

  She was still looking at me, expecting something—praise, maybe. There was fear in her face, of course, but she was clearly worried about my opinion in the midst of all this.

  She really was an idiot.

  And I loved her for it.

  “But it’s an okay start,” I added to make her feel better. I never said anything to make people—except myself—feel better. My eyes went to the warlock, hatred pouring from my gaze. “Let the small human go. Even warlocks aren’t as pathetic to kill something that doesn’t present a fair fight. Or any fight. Really, it’s just sad.”

  “What’s sad is how easy it is to find your weakness, to exploit it,” he replied, obviously seeing through my façade. “I’ll admit, I’ve heard some things about Isla Rominskitoff.”

  “All true,” I interrupted. “Except the good things, of course. Vicious lies.”

  He tilted his head, tightening his grip on the kid as he did so. “And so I thought in the beginning. The rogue vampire known for marrying a human, then for killing as many in fifty years as most vampires did in a lifetime. One who was hated and feared and respected in her community. A disgrace to all noble vampires.”

  “Aw, that’s so sweet. It is all bad,” I said, my face morphing into whatever version of a sarcastic smile the spell allowed.

  Another decay-filled grin as he still clutched the kid. I tried to keep my eyes f
rom her neck, tried not to see the way her face had begun to pale.

  But I failed.

  The warlock noted it. “I heard more. About the once-fierce vampire colluding with humans as she once did. But this time a slayer, an enemy not just to vampires but to all immortals. Then you marry him, care about things. It’s weakness, and it’s easier to defeat you that way. See, you’re not strong or fierce anymore.” He yanked at the kid’s hair. “You’re only as strong as the people who hold onto your heart. And you will likely be ruined when I deliver him to you after witnessing the death of your weakest vulnerability. And I’ll likely get all the praise from the master.”

  He meant to kill her.

  I shared a look with the kid. She knew it too.

  “Remember the move you pulled with Thorne in the clearing?” I probed, using the last of my strength and the prospect of having this small and annoying being’s corpse laid at my feet to brace myself against the spell.

  She nodded quickly and, without hesitation, landed a perfect kick to the warlock’s balls.

  He released her immediately.

  No matter how powerful, a man couldn’t handle a kick in the dick.

  “Run, now!” I yelled at her, using the warlock’s pain to break the spell and rush at the two vampires.

  “Do not stay and fight,” I snarled at her as she hesitated. “You do that, we’re both dead and I’m pissed at you. Run, you little idiot. I’m right behind you.”

  For a split second more, she paused, and I feared the warlock would recover quickly enough for me to watch her die all because she didn’t want to leave me.

  But then she ran.

  A good thing too, because the warlock regained his power the second she rounded the corner.

  “Bitch,” he hissed.

  Then he hit me with a shaft of black light.

  There was a lot of uncomfortable and unfathomable pain then. A lot of frustration that yet again I’d found myself being the exact thing that I’d screamed at Thorne I wasn’t.

  The damsel.

  And then there was nothing at all.

  Thorne

  He had ruined the apartment.

  Isla would likely be pissed about that when she came back.

  If she came back.

  Glass from the coffee table he’d overturned crunched against his boots as he paced. Fucking paced. As if there was anything more useless.

  He could’ve gone after her.

  Should’ve.

  But when she’d darted out the door, he was afraid of what he might do in his desperation to keep her safe. Worried what she might do in her desperation not to be needed to kept safe.

  Because he glimpsed something behind her eyes. Something that had been there since the wedding. If he wanted to be honest with himself, it had been there since they got back from Russia, since she had frozen in front of the man she had believed dead, since Thorne had watched in horror as that creature played with her like a puppet.

  Her. Isla.

  Not only the strongest women he knew, nor the strongest vampire. No, just the strongest being. The superb creature he adored and feared in equal parts. The warrior.

  He had argued with her when she didn’t listen to him—which was all the time—but really he loved that about her, that she was never going to be ordered, controlled. She was just going to be.

  Until that day.

  There was control over his warrior there in that vampire’s cold eyes.

  Because when Isla had told him that night on the balcony about the human husband she’d loved, whom she’d seen murdered by her family, it was one of the only times Thorne saw the ugly scars underneath her flawless and beautiful surface. Saw how deep they ran, how there was so much more to her than she wanted people to know.

  And he continued to learn that, when she regularly sacrificed herself for humans she said she despised. As she took to Lucille with an affection bordering on love.

  She had been warming her ice façade, opening that scarred heart. Until Russia. It was still open after that, but because of that, something cold and malevolent lurked beneath her skin. That piece of her that Jonathan had played with in Russia. That piece that was becoming larger since she’d lost Duncan. Since Jonathan had punched her fucking chest in.

  Since her best friend had gone missing.

  A guillotine hung over their heads. He knew it. Had been feeling it for some time now. Which had been why he’d gotten Suzy onto investigating what was going on with Sophie. She had contacts in the witch world. But from what she was able to gather, there wasn’t much news, and what there was wasn’t good.

  He’d intended on telling Isla that today. But that was before she’d shown up covered in blood yet again. After another attack. And she’d shrugged it off. Again. Like she was deathless. But her beating heart and the curse that still lingered meant that was wrong.

  She could die.

  Every passing battle, every speck of blood on her clothes, was a reminder of that.

  Their lives would always be stained with blood and pain. He had accepted that. When you had an eternity on the earth, there wasn’t much choice but to accept it.

  But this was turning into something else.

  That fucking prophecy.

  The one Isla refused to believe. But fuck, if it wasn’t all coming true.

  “Harmony in death.”

  The knocking at the door jerked him from the words. And he had a strange kind of certainty that this was the start of it.

  The end.

  “Lucille,” he hissed as she blinked in front of him, a swelling and purpling bruise on her face, blood dripping from her head, matted in her hair.

  He yanked her to him with desperation but caught himself to be gentle at the same time. He framed her small face in his hands.

  “Who did this?” he demanded, fury surging through his system at seeing his little sister hurt. Seeing that hardened and empty look in her eyes that kids were not fucking meant to have. He had tried to protect her from that since her parents were murdered. That’s why she didn’t live with him full time, because he didn’t want the little girl who loved butterflies and wearing pink to know what death tasted like.

  And he’d fucking failed at that too.

  He shook her slightly after taking stock of her injuries—mainly superficial, but fuck, if they didn’t feel like a knife to Thorne’s chest.

  “Lucille,” he repeated, wanting to soften his voice as she was obviously in shock, but unable to as his worry trumped everything else. “Talk to me. Are you okay?”

  He had expected tears, or more silence, or even hysterics. He should’ve remembered who his sister was and the amount of time she’d been spending with Isla lately.

  She jerked from his arms. “Of course I’m okay, Thorne,” she hissed, pushing past him and stomping through the ruins of the living room, her sneakers lighting up as she did so. He slammed the door shut and turned to watch her stride around the living room, obviously on a mission. The overturned coffee table, sofa, and glass scattering the living room didn’t seem to bother her.

  She found what she was looking for, an enchanted blade Isla had taped under the table “so it’s easier next time.” She snatched it, looking squarely at Thorne, that hard glint of a jaded warrior conflicting with her pigtails and light-up sneakers.

  “They took Isla, and we’re going to go kill them now.”

  Isla

  One Week Later

  So here we are. At the end. Or where all this began.

  To me, chained, naked, and bleeding in a dungeon in… who knew where.

  The warlock’s magical roofie was mighty effective, considering I didn’t so much as flutter my eyelids until I was right there, where I’d been for the past week.

  Since I was awake, anyway.

  I didn’t know how long I was out, but my arms already had a slight burn to them, protesting when I’d finally jerked into consciousness.

  And that was a week ago. It was safe to say there was a lo
t of burning now. To be more accurate, it felt like my arms had been sawn off, since I couldn’t feel anything below—though it was technically above, since the manacles rested a good distance above my head—my shoulder socket, and that socket felt raw and jagged, agonizing if I was honest. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I had less-than-stellar healing right now and had been deprived of blood for an entire week.

  Deprived of everything, actually. I’d woken up alone, in what I guessed were the bowels of a castle, mold and damp permeating the air, as well as decay. The kind of decay that grew when a place had been taken over by the dead, the living long forsaking it.

  And now it was currently inhabited by something kind of living and also kind of dead.

  There were no windows, no obvious markers to show where I was. I knew I was no longer in the USA, just a feeling about the age of the dungeon I was in. It was ancient. Much older than the New World, a takeaway from that Old World where residences needed dungeons. It was unheard of amongst nobles not to have one. Like not having a TV.

  The cell was small, the walls misshapen stone, as was the ground I was only able to teeter over, the manacles designed to hang someone from their hands, but when humans were shorter. I wasn’t a human and I wasn’t short, which meant I was able to rest the balls of my feet on the cold stone.

  I hated yoga, so this, holding such a pose for an extended amount of time, was torture in itself. As was the open door in front of me, taunting me with how fucking trapped I was.

  At first I’d fought against my chains, obviously. For about three days. Until the skin of my wrists had peeled off completely, and blood stained my arms up to my elbow. The skin had just barely healed now, thanks to my lack of sustenance and general shitty level of well-being.

  I’d stopped fighting, not in general, just against something that was going to make me weaker and not help anything but decorate the walls with my blood.

  And after I’d stopped struggling against the chains, the pain a constant and unyielding presence in my mind, thoughts began to form in the area that had been occupied by agony.