“Oh, have some. Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned. You didn’t think I brought you all the way here just to poison you, did you?” Harald’s laugh was uproarious and filled the room, and suddenly I imagined hearing it in a cozy living room filled with family and the buzz of conversation. But here, in this cold stone dining hall, it seemed only ominous.
When I still refused to reach for it, he switched our glasses and took a big sip from mine. “See?” He winked. A part of my heart squeezed, longing for nostalgia that I didn’t have. His laugh, his winking, the way he looked at me with such familiarity—it all seemed like something I could have grown up with. It felt like a life I had lost, except I never had it to begin with.
Finally sneaking a look at Kol, our eyes met. He seemed oddly resigned and different from how I’d known him to be in the last week. Or had I not known him at all?
I relented and took a sip, letting the cool water rush down my throat, trying not to look greedy as I drank. I hadn’t realized my mouth had become a desert.
“Now that we’re comfortable, I shall continue.” Harald leaned back. “As I was saying, I think you may have met some of my vampire rebels fighting back against the hunters. We call ourselves the Red Dawn—a new age of Shadows who work to live harmoniously amongst the mortals. Rumor has it that the Hunters are hellbent on eradicating us, and I think that you may have been witness to one of their raids. Everyone’s heard that they recently attacked Alice’s coven, but our Red Dawn vampires were present to fend it off. We captured a couple alive and extracted more information, and Alice saw how effective we were. Thus, she sought our protection.”
“And what does this have to do with us? Why would you ask Alice to betray us?” I asked dryly, though I had nearly finished my glass of water. I was sure I knew the answer already, but I wanted to hear it from him.
“One of my fine rebels noticed a notorious vampire present—one who would have easily devastated the field or left quietly if he wished.” He cast a glance at Kol and smirked. “And yet, he did neither of those things. Do you know what he did instead?” Harald turned back to me, eyes glittering with a strange excitement.
“He saved me,” I whispered.
“Yes, he saved you,” Harald whispered back. “It was such an oddity that I sent men to find out more about this, and lo-and-behold, what do we discover?” Harald spread his arms.
“Nikolas Black, the notorious vampire, was not only seen travelling with a young woman, but protecting her. Unprecedented. When Alice reached out to me, I asked her what she knew. She provided me with the information of your bond and agreed to have you delivered to my doorstep for permanent protection against the Hunters.”
“Did she... did she at least seem sorry?”
“Don’t be mad at her, daughter. She was only doing what a good witch mother does. And as a parent myself, how could I not oblige?”
My eyes stung. He hadn’t answered my question, which gave me all the information I needed.
And him... Was he a parent, though? My mind wanted to think logically and presume he was lying to me, but my heart—my instinct—said he was telling the truth. A part of me, one that I’d long since forgotten, knew him.
“Now to the matter at hand.” He reached for me, and I unwillingly gave my hand to him, not entirely understanding why I did so. Did I want him to be lying or telling the truth?
“I want you to join me with the Red Dawn project.”
I pulled my hand back so hard I knocked my glass over. The shattering echoed in the dining room, slicing through the tension. Kol watched me, alarmed but silent.
“Oh, I—” I stuttered, wanting to find words I didn’t have within me.
“I didn’t want to taint you with the Darkness of our world. After your mother died—was murdered—” he glowered at Kol, who had the audacity to stare right back. “After she was gone, I didn’t want that type of life for you. I didn’t want you immersed in the Shadow world with all this cruelty, so I left you and never returned. It broke my heart, but I knew it was for the best.”
My heart flipped, and I looked away to keep the tears from flooding my eyes. All my life, I had hoped my parents weren’t dead—that they had left me for my own good. As a child, I dreamed up thousands of impossible scenarios. Now that one was finally laid out before me, I didn’t know what to feel. Didn’t know what to think.
“Truly, Selene and I were happy with you before he ruined everything. But now that you’re here, now that you know, I want you by my side. I want you to be a part of what Red Dawn is doing—of the new age that we’re bringing.”
“We’re going to remove anyone who doesn’t uphold harmonious living with mortals and other Shadows. First, we’re going to remove the Hunters. They’re doing more harm than good. Then, we continue to maintain the peace.” His eyes glittered with stars that you would find only in the eyes of revolutionary madmen or those who should be institutionalized for their own safety. He straddled the line between the two.
“Sounds like you don’t need me,” I croaked. This was all too much. I didn’t bargain for any of this—I’d only wanted to find Nana. My family. How was it I came to be here? One minute, I was in a cab on my way home, and the next, I was halfway across the country in the home of a stranger who claimed to be my dead father. I didn’t want this.
Or did I?
I’d wished for a family my entire life—one like in the movies, or like everyone else seemed to have. I used to dream about a mother and a father who would greet me every day after school along with Nana. Dinner together at the table. Jokes. Tucking me into bed.
I could hear Harald’s boisterous laughter filling a living room because I’d wished for it so many times; he laughed the exact way my imaginary father did in my dreams.
Now that he was in my life, was it fair for me to wish that he was someone else? People didn’t get to choose their parents. Why should I get that privilege?
“I want family by my side.” His face softened, the hard lines becoming nothing more than wrinkles of age. “I’ve lived for so long without my family. I don’t want to live alone anymore.”
My heart crumbled with my resolve. “And what about Nana?”
Shock flashed across his face. “When you traveled without her, I’d assumed she...” He couldn’t even get the words out.
I shook my head. “She’s out there, somewhere. We’ve been looking for her.”
“Then we will find her.” He clasped my hands in his large ones. Warm and rough; exactly as I’d imagined a father’s hands to feel. “Together. We’ll find her together. I’ll send men out immediately.”
The way he looked at me made me uncomfortable; it was the way I’d always imagined a parent would look at me. A gaze full of hope and potential and unconditional love. I wanted to make my parents proud—I’d never had parents to make proud.
“And with you by my side, Kol can help with the cause. I’ll know you’re safe, which means he could guarantee victory. We’ll find my mother and create peace in our world.”
“I... I need some time to think about all this,” I whispered. “This is a lot.” I slid my hands out of his and felt the chill immediately. Anger flashed across his face, but he immediately replaced it with a look of patience.
I was ready to break down and cry. I wanted to sob into my cheap pillow at the dorm back at college and cover myself with the scratchy blanket. I wished I’d never left. I wanted none of this—I wanted to never have met Kol, or Alice, or Harald. I wanted to pretend that everything was okay again. School, Bella, and Rose seemed so far away. A distant memory I’d forgotten. Memories that belonged to someone else.
But if I hadn’t returned, Kol would have left Nana’s house and no one would have bothered to look for her.
The more I learned about myself, the more questions I had. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I hadn’t known for a while.
“I understand. Sleep on it. Let me know your answer in the morning.” He reached for my hand again, but this t
ime, I had the strength to pull away.
“Are you going to let us leave?” I croaked.
“You can stay in my home, where you’ll be safe.” His words sounded like an offer, but his tone said there was no choice.
“Take them to their rooms,” Harald commanded. “Have a good rest, daughter. I shall see you for breakfast.”
Kol and I walked stiffly as guards flanked us on all sides. We didn’t say a word to each other as they escorted us to our rooms, which were across the hall from each other. He looked at me as I turned from him to enter, but not a word escaped either of us, so I closed the door behind me.
CHAPTER 11
THE ROOM WAS SPACIOUS and furnished, but it was clear no one had lived in it for a long time.
A small door was on one side, which I assumed led to a bathroom. A large bed with intricate floral printed bedding took up most of the space in the middle of the room, and a large, curtained window was opposite the main door.
As nice as it all was, this felt more like a glamorous prison. Even if he didn’t forcefully keep us here, just the information he unloaded on us—on me—was enough to keep me tethered.
Ignoring the rest of the room, I threw myself onto the bed and cried into the pillow, letting all the pent-up feelings from the past week pour out of me.
Losing my only family, then finding out my father was alive. Daily near-death experiences. Flickers of confused emotions about Kol that were becoming dangerously close to becoming roaring fires of... something. Passion? Anger? Hurt? Humiliation? I felt them in rotation, and sometimes all at once. He’d hurt my family before I’d even known him. He hurt my family in front of my eyes. He’d hurt me.
He’d also protected me. Helped me. Took his time caring for me. He was there for me when I had no one else.
When I finally ran out of tears half an hour later, I heard Kol’s voice at the door.
He said something to the guards stationed outside our doors, but I couldn’t hear anything. When the issue didn’t seem to resolve itself, I got up without bothering to wipe my face and opened the door.
“Can’t a girl cry in peace?” I stood at the entrance with my hands on my hips. I didn’t care that my face was puffy and my eyes felt raw. I probably had snot on my shirt, too.
Kol looked distraught—a first for him. This visit seemed to reveal several firsts. “I think we should probably talk.”
“So talk.”
He glanced at the guards and paused. “Maybe inside.”
His hair was more mussed than usual, like he’d been running his hands in it for as long as I’d been crying. He flexed his hand and his eyes darted, anxious.
Finally, I stepped aside and let him in.
He let out a breath of relief. I shrugged at the guards as though they cared before I closed the door.
Kol went straight to the bathroom and turned on the tap. He returned and leaned against the wall. Then, he ran a hand through his hair before bringing it down again, like he didn’t know what to do with them. He finally settled on stuffing them into his pockets.
“Elle,” he started.
I sat on the bed and let him continue, staring at him silently, interrupted only by the occasional sniffle.
He sighed. “It was a different time.”
I cocked my head, waiting to see what he could possibly say for himself. I wanted Harald’s words to be lies. I wanted Kol to be good. But Kol’s face said otherwise.
“I was different back then.” He ran a hand through his hair again. “I spent hundreds of years on wild benders, suppressing every bit of humanity and emotion except for rage. I don’t even know who I killed.”
He sighed when I refused to respond.
“I told you that I was Made. The coven who Made me kept me enslaved for the first three hundred years of my life, making me do unspeakable things on their behalf. They had me do things no one should ever even hear of. When I finally escaped from their control, I was wild and angry. Not a good combination for an immortal.”
“We’ve been through more in a week than others go through in a lifetime,” I croaked. “And Nana’s still missing, and... and did you really take my mother too? The mother I never got to know?”
“I... I don’t know,” he sighed.
“How can you not know?” My voice was raising, and I couldn’t stop it. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw things at him. “How can you take someone’s life and not know if you even did it?”
“Things... were different. I didn’t know the people I killed. I... I killed a lot. Scarlette and I, we traveled together, and we didn’t care about anything except for each other. I’d like to say I was under her influence, but by then, I was so full of rage and hatred that I just didn’t care.”
“I... I don’t know what to say to you.” I felt defeated. We had come so far and found something I’d wanted my entire life—and yet, it felt wrong. There was so much more to Harald than he appeared, and I didn’t know if I wanted to be here, even though all I wanted was to be with family.
“You don’t have to know yet.” He uncrossed his arms. “But we should leave. Harald and I have a history. He’s been trying to kill me for nearly a century, and I don’t trust him.”
“But he’s the only family I have right now,” I protested weakly.
“He wants you because he wants me.”
“What are you saying, Kol? That my own father only wants me, his flesh and blood, so he can get revenge on his enemy? On the person who killed his wife and the mother of his child?”
He blinked. “That’s not what I meant—”
“What did you mean then? That he wants me here so he can use me just to get to you?”
His silence confirmed my question.
“Kol, you attacked my grandmother, and I just found out you murdered my mother. Now you want to take me from my father? The one I never knew because of what you did?”
He exhaled and looked away. “Look, your Nana was an accident. Your mother—I can’t even tell you how sorry I am for everything. But Harald is a dangerous man.”
“Try.”
“What?”
“You say that you’ve changed. So, show me you’ve changed. Stay here with me and give me the chance to get to know my father.”
“This is a bad idea, Elizabeth.”
“Then I’d like some time to think about this.” I stared at the door; I couldn’t look at him anymore.
“Elizabeth—”
“Please,” I said. “We can talk in the morning.”
As he left, I wrapped myself under the blankets. It was strange how such luxurious sheets could feel so heavy. My mind said that Kol was right—that Harald wasn’t to be trusted. But another part of me—a louder part of me—wanted to know more about Harald. About my father. My family. Life with Nana was great; she was always there for me. Tough, but fair. But every holiday, it was just me and Nana. I’d wished for years as a little girl that my parents had somehow survived the car accident, and that they were looking for us, but because Nana made us move around so much, they couldn’t find us.
And now Nana was missing. But my father was right here. And he wanted to know me.
Did I want to know him?
Was there a right thing to do in this situation?
I DIDN’T KNOW HOW LONG I had been asleep when I woke up to a prickling on the back of my neck.
It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Soft footsteps crept into my room, but I couldn’t see who it was; I had fallen asleep facing the window.
When my eyes adjusted, I turned over to find a man standing over my bed. He wore a half-mask which covered only his glowing red eyes, leaving his elongated fangs exposed. His hands froze just over my body, and his eyes widened when he realized I was awake.
I tried to scream, but his hands were immediately on my neck, muffling me. Every fiber of my body protested. I kicked. I clawed at his face. Anything for a little bit of air. To get him off of me. But the more I panicked, the harder he squee
zed, and my vision began to fade. Panic swirled inside of me as I felt my limbs grow heavy and my mind become muddled.
The hands disappeared from my throat. Air rushed into my lungs, and I gulped it greedily. My fingers flew to my neck, stopping just before I touched the aching skin. Tears rushed to my eyes, blurring my vision. Kol held my assailant up in the air, growling. I couldn’t bring myself to look, but I knew his eyes were ruby red. He said something I couldn’t hear before he brought the man down and ripped into his neck.
Kol threw the lifeless body aside and sat on the bed. His eyes faded back to grey as he wiped the worst of the blood from his face.
Footsteps padded softly toward me.
“Are you okay?”
“Um,” was all I could manage. My throat burned, and it felt like I had swallowed a massive lump.
“I’ll kill him,” Kol growled. “I knew it. He fooled us.”
He meant me. Harald had fooled me.
Kol stayed in the room while I cleaned up in the bathroom. Dark bruises had already blossomed on my neck, a visible reminder of my own stupidity.
I tested the bruising, wondering why Harald would lie about wanting to be together; about wanting to learn about me. He could have simply kept us captive and come for me in the middle of the night. There was no need to play with my feelings. My eyes grew hot, and I splashed water over my face before I cried again.
“Did you change?” My voice was still raspy, and it burned to speak.
“No, I never went to bed.”
“Did you want to...?” I trailed off, motioning at the blood on his face.
“No. I just want to leave.” His face was hard, and his eyes were a mix of grey and the red of his barely contained anger.
I nodded.
He reached for my hand. I gave it to him, wondering when physical touch became so cavalier for us.
It was 2 o’clock in the morning, so the halls were dark and no one was around; we reached the hallway uninterrupted. The guards stationed at my door—the ones who were supposed to keep me safe—they were nowhere to be found. All an elaborate ruse by Harald, then. For what reason?
Life Bound: The Shadow World Book 1 Page 13