by Anna Santos
“Kill them both,” he ordered, dismissively waving his hand and turning his back on us as if we were no longer significant.
I felt helpless when one of his vampires approached my sister and thrust a sharp sword through her stomach. The blade emerged out the other side, just beside her spine. Marie screamed in pain, stirring rage inside of me. I found the strength to get up and face the dark-eyed vampires in front of me. I needed to help her.
“Not so fast, honey. We still want to play with you before we drink you dry,” one of them said with a wicked smile.
The threat of being raped by them was nowhere as frightening as the thought of my sister's death. I was not much of a fighter, but I was a pureblood, and those idiots were just plain, changed humans with the virus of vampirism.
Only thinking about saving my sister, I jumped on them and killed them coldly, effortlessly. I killed them so fast that when I got to Marie, the vampire was still removing the sword from her body after his first blow and was swinging it to take her head off.
“Stop!” The blond vampire ordered before the henchman could kill her.
We all obeyed as if he had put some powerful spell over us. It was then that I saw the blood stain on his back. He turned to face us, hands folded on the wound of his stomach. He had an injury precisely like Marie’s.
“Master!” the vampire who’d hurt Marie yelled. He dropped the sword and sped to his master's side. “Who hurt you?”
The creature's red eyes searched for Marie's figure, blinking in what I assumed to be confusion. I was also confused, but I was able to move and grab my sister before she fell to the ground. She had bloody hands and smeared makeup on her face.
“He wants to kill me,” she mumbled, her terrified eyes catching mine.
“You should have run.” I pressed my hands over her wound, glimpsing to see what was going on with Marie's mate.
“Fucking witch!” he growled with blood on his lips and scary red eyes as if he had understood something about this weird occurrence.
“Why are you bleeding, master?”
“That witch cursed me! She had the nerve to curse me!”
His minion frowned. “I don't understand.”
“I'm bonded to the girl. Can't you see, Vincent? If you hurt her, you hurt me.”
“What will we do then?”
“Just bring them!” he ordered as he stared at us.
Marie's mate had no kindness in him, and I knew then like I know now that he would hurt her terribly and turn our existence into a living hell.
Chapter TWO
Elizabeth
I woke up. My head hurt, and my eyelids were barely able to move. Everything was silenced and cold. The ground was uncomfortable, and I was hungry. What else was new in my miserable existence?
Then I forced myself to blink as I smelled the air. There was something different, something soothing me, until memories came rushing to my mind, stirring my emotional state. I had escaped. I was no longer trapped in Alaric's fortress. I was free! I had found him: my soul-mate. And there I was, locked up, feeling all my bones hurt because I was scared of him.
My mate wasn't Alaric. No, he was not. For a moment, I had thought he was. For a moment, I had thought I was living another one of his torturing days. One of the punishments he loved to give me. He hated me, I hated him even more. I would kill myself if he were able to bond my soul to his. The last thing I wanted was to be forced to like him because of a mate bond.
I was scared. I was terrified when I glimpsed the man resembling Alaric descending the stairs. I had thought that, somehow, Alaric had been able to bond me to him and was coming to get me.
Fortunately, I was wrong. However, I didn't know how I should feel anymore since I had found my real mate, and he was Alaric's younger brother.
I moved across the floor, looking at the ceiling, focusing on the dancing shadows of the dimmed light inside the quiet place I was. I was free physically, but I wasn't mentally. I was blaming myself for running and leaving my sister behind. Deep inside I knew that I didn't have a chance to save her. Still, I had chosen to save myself and leave her behind. Despite all she had done to me, I still loved her. I still had good memories of her. It wasn't her fault.
Alaric had taken her because he couldn't leave her behind. She was his weakness—his ticket to real death. Without me, he would kill their baby and hurt her, just to punish her because I had escaped. Amazingly, I felt tears rushing to my eyes. I didn't know I still had it in me to cry.
“Marie,” I whispered, sobs rippling down my body and clenching my heart.
I wanted to scream her name, hoping that it would diminish my pain and guilt.
“Beth ...”
The sound of my name woke me to the fact that I wasn't alone. I shouldn't make a noise or cry. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to look at him. It hurt more.
“Elizabeth, please, look at me.”
Eric spoke gently, as always, his voice bringing me waves of peace. His scent was enticing, inebriating, and soothing.
I turned around, to the other side of the wall, where I didn't have to face him. He was outside the cage. He didn't try to force me out. Though, Anna had tried to convince me to leave the cage and talk to her uncle. After, she had persuaded me to look at Eric and see that he wasn't Alaric. It had been scary, until my gaze stilled on his face, and I realized that his eyes were kind, his eyes were purple. Not red. Purple.
And he looked like an angel.
After a while, with Anna beside me, I had knelt and crawled to the edge of the cage, gazing at him, noticing all the welcoming differences between him and Alaric. I had become mesmerized, allowing the pull to soothe my pain. I swallowed hard at the sight of his face. He tried to convince me to touch his hand, but I wasn't ready to reach him. I wasn't prepared to trust him.
“Beth ... you need to eat.”
I had no idea how long I was there. I knew he hadn't left my side. I would have sensed if he had moved. He hadn't. Despite my stubbornness in staying inside that cage, he sat on the floor and waited for me to come out when I was ready.
“I'm not hungry.”
“Then get off of the cold floor. Anna brought you blankets and pillows.”
I scratched the wall with my nail, bringing my knees against my chest. I was cold, but I was too stubborn to get comfortable. I was punishing myself. I know I was. Feeling cold and hungry was a way to punish myself for failing my sister. I could only imagine the type of torture she had experienced by now. It would make her hate me even more.
“You should leave,” I whispered.
“You aren't the only one that can be stubborn,” he said, making me tilt my head up and sigh deeply.
“Just forget about me,” I muttered.
Eric didn't answer me immediately. It wasn't the first time that I told him to forget about me. The first time, I witnessed how his eyes lost their shine, and I killed his hope for happiness.
“I don't want to do that,” he said in his sweet, caring voice that gave me goosebumps.
His words bubbled inside my stomach and clenched my aching heart.
“We are meant to be. I'll just stay here until you are ready to come out of that cell.”
I rolled to the side where he was, and I watched him. He was seated against the wall on the other side of the corridor. He had a tired face and limpid blue eyes. The pull intensified, tingling my limbs and wanting my body to get closer to him. I had no words to break the silence that fell between us. It actually didn't feel like I needed to speak every time our eyes met. Though, I wondered what he thought about the pathetic mate the gods had given him. I questioned what he saw when his eyes were focused on me. Did I look as bad as I felt? I was a pale image of what I used to be. I was a mess, looking more like a wounded human girl than a pureblood vampire. My injuries weren't healing, my face was inevitably pale as a ghost, my lips dried, and my eyes red from crying. Not to mention the bruises and the cuts.
“Let me in,” he begged m
e.
His words made me close my eyes, fighting the tears.
“Please, Elizabeth. Let me in.”
“Just let me go,” I begged in return, hiding my face against my knees and hugging my legs. I smothered the sobs against the fabric of my pants.
“I won't hurt you ...” His voice came out broken.
I could feel his pain.
“It's not my fault if I look like him ...”
“It doesn't matter how you look!” I muttered, mad at his words, mad at the world. “Don't you understand?” I asked, cleaning the tears and facing him. “I'm broken, I'm damaged, and I'm hopeless. Just forget about me!”
Eric knelt on the floor and crawled next to the bars, the closest he could, making my heart race in fear. I wasn't sure if he wasn't going to try to grab me against my will. He should just leave and let me stay alone with my misery and nightmares.
“I won't leave you. No matter what you say, I'm not leaving you, and I'm not giving up on you. You can yell and cry, Beth. But I won't leave, and you need to come out of there and let me heal you.”
I gulped, focusing my blurry vision on his blue eyes and angelic face. His scent hit me harder, sweeter, making me close my eyes and shiver in what I never thought I could feel again: pleasure. Not a sexual pleasure, not desire, just a tingling sensation of hope. My eyes felt heavy, my body longed to get closer, but I knew better than to give in to that.
“You are being evil,” I whispered, my tears rushing to my eyes because of the sensation of belonging and the feeling of being home every time I looked at him.
“Why?”
I had no idea how he was reacting to my words and movements. I had my eyes closed, floating inside my pain and the realization that there was a flickering feeling of hope trying to reach me and offering me salvation.
He spoke again. “Beth, look at me.”
“I don't want to.”
“Why not?”
“It's too late.”
“You are alive and ... I'm here now. It's not too late.”
I sobbed between tears, “I'm dying. Can't you see?!”
“All I can see is how strong you have been, how strong you still are, and how you are trying to punish yourself because you've escaped and your sister didn't.”
I opened my eyes, focusing on his face. His words made me mad even if they weren't far from the truth.
“Please, don't starve yourself to death. Even if you don't want to leave the cell, at least, let me feed you.”
Eric had no idea what I had suffered. The expectation filling his voice told me that he really thought he could cure me just because we had found each other. Still, he didn't know what I did. He didn't know that soul-mates can reject each other, they can be evil to each other, and they can hurt and hate each other. He had no idea how broken I was. He had no idea what I had to do to survive. Eric wasn't Alaric. My mate was unstained like I had once been. How could he ever understand me if he thought that feeding and getting out of there would be enough to cure me and bring me back to life?
“Whatever you think I can give you, I can't,” I warned him. “Whatever you think we can be ... that's long gone. You are better off without me.”
“Beth ...” His eyes squinted and glowed with unshed tears. It was painful for him to hear me say that.
It had killed me a bit more having to say it to him.
“In some other time, Eric, destiny could have been kind to us. We could have been happy. Your brother is my sister's soul-mate. You are mine. It would have been ... perfect. But, it isn't perfect. He's a monster.” My voice faded away. There was a lump inside my throat, preventing me from speaking all I wanted to say.
“I know.”
“He hurt me ... He abused my sister and me. He killed me thousands of times just for the dark pleasure of tormenting Marie. Just so I knew that he had power over my existence. Just so I knew that I couldn't die the real death without his permission.”
My voice came out dark and low. I didn't want to share that, but he needed to know the extent of the damage. I was shattering his hope, his dreams of us happy together. I was being evil, but I was also being honest with him.
Eric’s voice trembled when he spoke. “Alaric killed our mother when I was a child. He killed our older brother just because he had married a shifter. He wants to kill us all. Do you think that I don't know how evil he can be? Do you think I don't understand how despicable and demoniac he is?”
I averted my eyes from his. “Then you should know how broken I am.”
“That's not a reason to let you go. Whatever he has done, I can't erase that from you. I know that we belong together, Beth. So you can't starve yourself to death,” Eric said with his soft and enticing voice.
“Leave me alone!” I growled, annoyed by his insistence. I turned my back on him.
I was trying to punish myself, to give in to the pain. His presence and smell were making it harder to achieve that. He felt and smelled like home, like safety and sweet redemption. His words felt like redemption. Why was he torturing me like that?
“Please, sweetheart. Come out of there. You can still feel miserable upstairs, in a more comfortable place.”
“I don’t want you to touch me!” I shivered in fear and shame, hiding my face behind my hands.
I didn't want him to claim me, touch me, and make me his. I didn't want him to find out how damaged, worthless, and scared his mate was.
“I won't touch you,” he assured me for the thousandth time.
I wanted to believe him, but it could be a trick.
“I won’t feed from you. I won’t hurt you,” he added.
I rolled over to his side and opened one eye to peek. He was still on the floor, sitting outside on the cold floor. He hadn't tried to make himself comfortable because I also rejected all the blankets, the pillows, and the mattresses they tried to give me. He had said he wouldn't enter, but would not leave either. That his place was beside me, watching over me until I decided to trust him and come out. So far, he had been true to his every word.
I sighed and closed my eye after a while, stubbornly holding on to my pain.
***
After a few more hours, I had begun to recite the physical differences between Eric and Alaric inside my head. It relieved my fear and pain.
For a start, his eyes were nicely colored blue. Alaric's eyes were green. Eric's hair was short and straight. Alaric's was longer, shoulder-length and wavy. However, they both had blond hair, though Eric’s was lighter. As far as what concerned the faces, Eric had soft lines, straight eyebrows, and full eyelashes that gave him the most gentle and kind eyes. His face was rectangular with a wide forehead and a prominent jawline. Alaric's face was squarer. He had thicker eyebrows and coldhearted eyes. Alaric rarely smiled, unless it was an evil smirk. They had similar bone structure because they were relatives. My first impression of mistaking one for the other had been rushed. Eric also had beautiful plump lips, more pale pink than soft red, while Alaric's lips were round shaped and just pale. Both of them were tall and well-built. Eric was handsome and exuded confidence each time he stood up and look at me with his concerned and dreamy eyes. He looked like a prince, and he literally was one.
I was slowly disassociating Alaric from Eric. Gradually losing the fear of looking at him. Having him next to me, feeling his presence, was also good to calm me down. Eric was smart enough to know that he needed to win my trust, and I needed to find the will to keep living. But maybe it was too late. Giving in to oblivion seemed a good idea—an escape.
I didn't hate Eric. He did nothing to make me hate him. In fact, he was better than I could have ever fantasized along with Marie. I was the one that wasn’t suited for him. I was damaged beyond repair, and the last thing I wanted was to let him touch me.
Startled, I opened my eyes. I must have fallen asleep because I woke up with the sound of footsteps echoing in the empty corridors.
I realized that Eric wasn't on the other side of the bars. I was alo
ne, and I sat up, terrified. More frightened than when I thought he could enter and take me by force. Then, I smelled him coming, and I eagerly waited to see him again.
“What's wrong?” Eric asked the moment our eyes met.
I shrugged and lay down again, trying to calm down my heart and look anywhere else other than his face. I sensed when he knelt beside me. I was closer to the bars. I had probably moved when I was sleeping. My body acting out, reaching out to get closer to him.
“I just stepped out for a moment. I went to get you something to eat.”
Eric spoke in an apologetic tone as if understanding that I had been terrified because he wasn't there when I woke up.
I was pathetic.
“How long have we been here?” I asked, feeling guilty for forcing him to stay downstairs without feeding and sleeping.
“A couple of days. You must be hungry. Anna said that you threw up everything you had eaten before we met.”
“I'm just tired.”
“You can eat and rest upstairs. I've arranged a bedroom for you.”
“I've already told you ...”
“That doesn't matter. You’re our guest, not our prisoner.” Eric cut me off before I could tell him once again that we weren't meant to be together.
I raised my head to look at him. We were closer, my face was almost touching the silver.
“Elizabeth, please drink. It's still warm,” he said, putting his hand between the bars and handing me a glass of warm and tasty blood.
It smelled delicious. I sat with closed eyes, sniffing the air to inhale more of that delightful aroma. I was hungry beyond words, and that blood seemed to smell better than anything I’d ever had before. I was losing my will to resist when I realized I was leaning closer to the glass.
I opened my eyes only to find his beautiful ones staring back at me. He had a hopeful look on his face as if he was sure that he was going to convince me this time. I had to give him credit for his patience.
I lost myself in his eyes for a moment, wishing that all could be different. That I had met him four years ago, or one hundred years earlier, before meeting his brother and knowing endless pain and hate.