by Ella Frank
Yes, something is definitely happening.
“You didn’t pass out,” Alasdair said with his back against the fridge. He was as far away from him as possible given the small confines, and when Leo took a step in his direction, the vampire spoke again. “Stay where you are. And start talking. No more bullshit, Leonidas.”
Although the question had been asked of him before, this time, it was posed differently. With an air of…caution to it.
“I already told you everything I know.”
“And you are lying!” Alasdair shouted so loudly Leo swore the walls of his apartment shook.
“I am not lying,” he countered. “How many times do I have to tell you—”
“Until I believe you,” Alasdair said.
Leo rubbed his temple and pulled one of his kitchen chairs out to sit.
“You’ve seen me,” Alasdair said, his voice so low Leo had to strain to hear him. “Seen me when I was human. Before Vasilios. Before I was this. And now, now, you know what I am…who I am.”
Leo frowned. “Yes. You told me.”
“No. Before that,” Alasdair accused. “You knew who I was before that. That’s why you sought me out.”
“Ah…no. You tracked me down. You bit me—”
“And then I almost died.”
Leo crossed his arms over his chest, the irony of the conversation not lost on him in the slightest. “So, what? You’re upset because you almost died that night instead of me? Excuse me if I’m not feeling too sympathetic.”
Alasdair’s top lip drew back, and as a snarl left his throat, his fangs came into view, gleaming and terrifying in their appearance. “You know things about me no one else knows. How is that possible?”
“We’ve already been over this.”
“And we’ll go over it again until either I am satisfied or…”
“Or…” Leo hedged. “If you’re thinking it, the least you could do is say it.”
Alasdair ignored him. “Start talking while you are still able to.”
“I told you,” he said as though he were sitting with a preschooler instead of an extremely powerful immortal. “I’ve been getting these…visions. I don’t know what they are. Whenever you…we kiss.”
Alasdair’s eyes zeroed in on him. “Visions of me when I was a mortal?”
Leo licked his dry lips and nodded. “At first, yes. But the last one I had, when we were—” Leo stopped abruptly, not even sure what to call what they had done with the other vampire.
“When you watched Vasilios fuck me.”
Okay, so he calls it like it is. Good to know, Leo thought as his body started to overheat from the reminder. He coughed and nodded. “Um, yes. Then.”
Alasdair said nothing. Instead, he watched him in a way that had Leo squirming in his seat.
“In the last vision, you were in his bed. Well, I was there, actually. I don’t know how that happened, but yeah, I was you, and we were in a bed—his bed, naked. And then he bit me. I mean you.” Leo let out an irritable grumble and shook his head. “See? Would I be this fucking confused if I knew what the hell was going on? What is going on?”
Alasdair pushed away from the fridge and took a seat opposite him. The move was so normal, all things considered, that Leo laughed. The sound coming out of his mouth was slightly hysterical, and when Alasdair’s frown hardened, his hilarity increased.
“You don’t know, do you? All this weird shit is happening to me and you don’t even know what it is.”
“I didn’t think so,” Alasdair mused.
“You didn’t think so? But what? Now, you suddenly do?” In the blink of an eye, his hilarity turned into his own brand of self-righteous anger. “Is it because you bit me? Is this your fucking fault? Did you infect me?”
Alasdair cocked his head to the side. “No.”
“No? That’s it?” Leo slapped his palms on the table and shot to his feet as though someone had pinched him on the ass. “You have totally fucked up my life, not to mention my head. Vampires, visions, and beaming me here and there. And now, you want to sit here and say nothing? Okay. Take a seat. Relax. Would you like a coffee?”
He glared down at the vampire who’d kidnapped him, threatened him, and, on several occasions, tried to kill him, and when their eyes connected, Leo couldn’t do a fucking thing to pull his gaze away.
“I am drawn to you, Leonidas. I cannot seem to leave you be.”
The anger that had been churning in his gut dispelled as the dangerously beautiful creature opposite him slowly rose to his feet.
“I have been drawn to you since the night I saw you coming out of that bar you used to frequent.”
Unable to find his tongue, Leo tried to recall ever seeing Alasdair at The Dirty Dog. But no, he would never forget having seen him. He would never forget Alasdair’s face as long as he lived. Which, right now, the time frame was totally up for debate.
“It was about two weeks before that night I came to your bed.”
Wait, Leo thought, that’s when my dreams started to—
“You stepped out into the street, and I followed you home. That was the first time I saw you. I wanted you then, and…se thelo tora.”
Leo sucked in a breath and stood up straight. Alasdair had been watching him? Following him for at least two weeks before he’d tried to… Yeah, okay. Let’s not dwell on the killing part. He’d been following me. That part, for some reason, really turned him on.
“At first, I thought I was hunting my next meal. Nothing out of the ordinary,” he explained. “You see, I like control, and I enjoy the chase. But even I found it strange that I continually ended up standing outside your window, waiting. Waiting for that perfect moment where I would finally feed from you. And I wanted it…”
Leo’s pulse thrummed as Alasdair’s hypnotic voice told the story.
“I wanted it more than I have ever wanted it before. It was all I thought about,” he admitted as he walked around the table towards him.
Leo pivoted and then watched Alasdair, unable to move. When he stopped in front of him, Leo knew he should step away, but no matter how hard he ordered his feet to do so, they wouldn’t fucking budge.
“I wanted to taste you on my tongue, file mou. Consume that which flows through your veins. It was an obsession. It still is.”
Alasdair raised his hand, and Leo flinched at the move. He was so wired that he wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but as his blood rushed around his head, his cock reacted to the male opposite him in the most primal way. He was hard and eager for release.
“Don’t you see? I couldn’t leave you alone. I didn’t want to. And now…” Alasdair’s hand cupped the back of his neck. He pulled him forward, and Leo stumbled and placed his hands on Alasdair’s chest.
“Now?” he asked, barely able to breathe.
Alasdair’s eyes drifted to his mouth. “Now, I know why.”
Then he leaned in, and Leo prayed like the idiot he was for another kiss like the one back in his office. But at the last second, Alasdair angled his face away and pressed his lips to his throat. Leo let out the groan that had been building inside him and dug his fingers into the solid wall of muscle under his palms.
He had no idea what Alasdair had been talking about, but right then, he didn’t give a shit. The lips moving along his throat were cool, but the tongue that flicked over his pulse point was blazing hot. He sucked in a ragged breath as it trailed directly up his vein to his ear, where Alasdair whispered, “You are not who you think you are, Leonidas Chapel.”
Leo’s eyes drifted shut, and his erection ached between his thighs. He was close to pleading with Alasdair to touch him—to demand that he finish what he kept starting—when the tip of a sharp fang grazed over his earlobe.
Fuck…that is such a rush. The danger packed into that tiny gesture had him close to coming. But then he remembered Alasdair’s words and bravely asked, “Then who am I?”
Alasdair’s lips hovered over his ear, and as his warm breath washed ove
r his skin, he whispered, “I believe you may be the one...”
Leo pressed his palm flat against the chest he’d been clutching, pushing Alasdair back so he could look at him. “The one?”
Alasdair’s eyes blazed with heated jade, and then he lifted him off his toes. “Yes. The one who has been sent here to kill me.”
A TORTUROUS GROWL escaped Alasdair as he dug his fingers into Leo’s arms. Every instinct he possessed was urging him to do it. To end this madness then and there with a quick, vicious snap to this human’s neck.
But, while that emotion was formidable, he could sense another, more elusive one trying to surface. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt in years. Two millennia to be precise. One he’d never thought he’d feel again. Compassion.
He cared about Leo. The thought of him not walking the Earth any longer…bothered him.
His eyes moved to the parted lips he’d finally gotten a full taste of, and that’s when Leo said, “Look at me. How could I possibly kill you?”
It was a good question, one he still didn’t have an answer for. But somehow, Alasdair knew that, as sure as the sun could kill him, so could Leonidas.
Their eyes connected, and once again, the pale grey of Leo’s irises started to swirl.
It was happening again.
This time without anything more than touching.
Before Alasdair had a chance to speak, though, Leo’s eyes fluttered shut and he fell limp in his arms.
Ancient Greece—47 BC
LEO RAISED A hand to shade his eyes, squinting against the brilliance of the sun. He struggled to sit from where he had landed flat on his back, and when he was finally upright, a warm breeze ruffled his hair. He blinked and then scanned the area, and as he started to comprehend what exactly he was seeing, he scrambled to his feet, panic setting in.
The low, raspy caw of a raven soaring overhead had him looking up into the clear, blue skies. His mind whirled as he pivoted around in a full circle, and then he did it once more, taking in his surroundings.
No…no. There’s no way…
“Wake up. Wake up, wake up,” he ordered himself. He always woke up almost immediately after he’d seen whatever he was seeing.
But not this time.
His palms began to sweat as the vast expanse of mountainous terrain threatened to swallow him whole.
Am I too young to die from a heart attack? he wondered. Was this another flashback? Or a dream? He really needed to see someone about getting on medication when he woke. Clearly, he was losing his mind.
But that’s when he saw him. Through a crowd of men gathered at the top of several massive stone stairs.
Alasdair…
LEO EXAMINED THE crowd milling about, and when no one seemed to notice him, he wove his way through the people chattering to one another in Greek. It was obvious they couldn’t see him from their lack of reaction to a man dressed as he was, but that didn’t stop him from trying to get one.
He stepped up to a young woman dressed in a beige chiton with a brown strophion and waved his hand about. When she continued to talk as though he weren’t there, Leo shook his head.
Unreal.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then again, every time this had happened, he’d caught glimpses of Alasdair’s life. But this was different. This wasn’t a glimpse in a dream. This was a full-on show-and-tell session. Leo felt that he was actually there this time. There in the past.
Deciding to worry about that bit of what-the-fuck later, he continued up the winding path to the temple, the gravel crunching underfoot. He took in the way people were dressed, the dialect they were speaking, and the food being bartered for from the carts off to the side.
When he got to the wide steps, he craned his head back to take in the enormous structure as it stood towering over the people in all its majestic glory. He’d only ever seen the ancient temples in recreations, or photographs taken of the ruins, which remained today. But standing between the huge columns as he now found himself, he was awestruck.
He was about to go in search of Alasdair, when the deep, melodic laughter of a man caught his attention. He stopped when he spotted an all-too-familiar figure standing in the shadows—Vasilios.
Leo’s eyes shifted to the man and woman he was addressing, but he didn’t recognize them. Do they know what he is? he wondered. But when Vasilios ran his finger down the woman’s jaw, Leo figured they did not.
He walked over closer, wanting to hear what was being said, and when he was near enough to detect their voices, he caught it. Vasilios was asking the woman if she had seen Lapidos that morning, and if her betrothed, Alasdair, would be present.
Huh, Leo thought. So this has to be before they met that night in the bathhouse. Before Alasdair was turned.
The proprietorial expression that flickered in the vampire’s eyes made Leo feel sorry for the woman. He knew what Vasilios was doing: compelling her to find out where his quarry was. And it was clear by the monotone of her voice when she told him Alasdair was inside that she had no clue what was going on.
Poor woman. She doesn’t even realize she just handed her fiancé over.
Leo didn’t wait around to hear any more. He wanted to track down the man he’d originally followed up the stairs—and he was, at this moment, still a man.
He had a sudden urge to see what Alasdair had been like before Vasilios had gotten to him.
Present Day—Elias’s Office
ISADORA KEPT A careful eye on Elias while he paced back and forth in front of her. Moments earlier, he’d practically dragged her into an office—his, she presumed—locked the door, and shoved her into a wooden chair that had ornate silver filigree engrained into it. Her wrists were tied to the arms, her ankles to the legs, and she couldn’t move.
Even if she hadn’t been restrained, she didn’t have the strength to raise her limbs, and the pain from the poisonous toxins was making her survival instincts claw to the surface and demand that she kill her enemy.
Which brought her back to Elias.
He sat down behind a bulky desk, his calculating eyes fixated on her. His lips were pulled tight in a grim way that screamed of anger and annoyance, but she was unmoved.
Too fucking bad for him, she thought and futilely tugged at her arms.
“Did you know?”
The question was so unexpected in the otherwise silent room that she jumped at the bite to it, though she managed to keep her features impassive.
“Did I know…what, Elias? That you’re a maniac? No. I didn’t know that.”
“Don’t fuck around with me, Isadora. You know what I’m talking about.”
Deciding to play ignorant, she shook her head. She didn’t really know what he was talking about. Not all of it, anyway.
“I really don’t. All I know is that you stabbed my”—she stopped herself from saying cousin and instead went with—“friend in the neck.”
Elias sat forward and rested his forearms on the desk. Then he narrowed his eyes on her, and she felt exposed under the inspection.
When they’d been together all those years ago, this man had been sexy, attentive, and flirtatious, and she’d considered taking him as her yielding. Not that he’d ever known that.
What, exactly is he? There’d been a few vampire hunters over the years who’d tried to take them down, but none who had ever gotten the best of her and Thanos. What if… No, it couldn’t be that. But then Alasdair’s human, who he suspected, worked for Elias…
So maybe? Maybe he is one of those who Diomêdês was warning me of.
No.
Not Elias. It wasn’t possible.
“Your friend, is he?” Elias’s voice cut through her thoughts, and when she nodded, a scornful laugh left him. “Stop lying, Isadora. I know.”
Refusing to admit anything unless he said it first, she remained silent.
“Don’t want to say what you are? Is that what’s going on here?” he asked as he stood and walked around the desk.
; She tracked his movements, looking for any weakness he might possess. Is he favoring a leg? Does one foot drag behind the other, even a little? But there was nothing. From all outward appearances, her adversary, her potential victim, seemed to be in peak fighting ability. Which was better shape than she could say for herself in her present condition.
He crossed the space between them, then he leaned down and placed his hands over hers, pressing her flesh harder against the silver. She hissed at him, the pain running up her arms almost unbearable, and when satisfaction flashed in his eyes, he brought his face in close to hers and whispered, “I know what you are, Isadora. I can feel it now. So let me see. You owe me that.”
She knew her eyes had to be glowing a fierce, bright blue. He was so near that she could smell the familiar woodsy scent wafting off his skin, and as his lips arrogantly quirked on the side, she wanted to wipe that look off his face with the back of her hand.
Her fangs pierced through her gums and her top lip pulled back when he taunted, “Bare your teeth for me.”
Unable to stop herself, she lurched forward with a frustrated snarl and revealed her deadliest weapon at her opponent, finally confirming his suspicions.
Ancient Greece—47 BC
LEO STEPPED INSIDE the temple, surprised at the eerie silence that greeted him. He shouldn’t have been, considering the thickness of the stone walls. They would block out any kind of commotion beyond them, and it amazed Leo to think that anything could have brought them to the ground.
As he walked farther inside the place of worship, hushed whispers met his ears. Groups of men and women were gathered in small clusters, and when Leo searched the area for Alasdair, he spotted him standing a few feet away with several young men.
He wandered down the center aisle, unease swirling in his gut.
