The Dominion Series Complete Collection

by Lund, S. E.

  He'd want me to choose him freely.

  That thought almost makes him lose control and throw away all his plans to let me go, wipe my memory and send me back into obscurity. My dimples save me. They remind him that I'm just a girl, barely out of my teens, innocent despite the pain I've experienced in life. I deserve a life.

  I don't deserve a monster.

  He doesn't want to forget my dimples. He wants to make me smile once more before he sends me away so he can see them again. He can't help but imagine waking me in the morning, me all warm and still sleepy, kissing my neck and seeing my dimples when I smile, my eyes still closed. He imagines kissing each cheek, dipping his tongue into each dimple to make me think of him dipping his tongue somewhere else.

  He could overwhelm my resistance with pleasure but then, he knows he'd never be able to stop himself from claiming me as his own.

  But he can't resist at least one kiss. God knows he's denied himself so much this past century, he deserves just one …

  He takes my face in his hands and presses his mouth against mine and it intoxicates him, the warmth of my body against his, the softness of my lips against his cold ones. The press of my breasts against his chest. Despite everything, I want him. Despite him being a vampire, pale and undead, a threat, I want him.

  He can't help himself. He opens the door between us to show me what could be if only he could have me, to claim me. How good it would be to know how he feels, how his body responds to me, how his blood responds to mine. When my legs weaken from the intensity of his senses and emotions, he is so tempted to pick me up and carry me to the couch and take me, but he fights it with every ounce of will that remains.

  Seeing my response, feeling it, isn't much consolation, but it's all he has and it gives him pleasure to know that if I were his, I would be so responsive to him. When I finally gave in, I would be his willingly, despite how my mind rebels against the thought.

  Then he tries to make me forget, regretting every word, his heart sinking more and more as he commands me to forget him, his face, the meeting, the manuscript. When I don't respond the way I should, he's unnerved. He tries once more, gripping my face more firmly, but he can't tell if it's taken. Perhaps it will take effect once I'm out of the building but a fear is growing in his mind… My mother was immune to being compelled. He never thought I would be as well for it's such a rare freak of genetics, it rarely occurs in successive generations.

  He takes me down the stairs, trying not to look at my face for he fears his resolve will crumble if he does. By then, his emotions are so high that when he pushes me down the steps to the sidewalk, he uses too much force and he sees me fall to my knees on the hard cement. He curses himself for losing control – he who prides himself on self-restraint and continence.

  He watches through the window as I drag myself to my feet, cradling my hands because of the pain. He thinks that he's seriously screwed. If the compulsion doesn't take effect, he'll be forced to deal with me. He'll be unable to resist me – he knows how close he is to the edge.

  One misstep and he'll fall.

  When he sees my scraped palms, hears me call him a bastard, he knows his compulsion has failed and what he must do. I must become his Adept. He can't control me using compulsion. There's only one way to control me. Love. Even now, he knows he will love me. He's not sure yet, but he hopes that I could love him. He'll have to build trust between us, so that I'll be his willingly. He'll use the lust we both feel for each other to cement the bond.

  He's existed now for eight long centuries. He knows how this works.

  He returns to the office and quickly retrieves his coat and the manuscript, tucking it into his messenger bag. He tries to damp down the elation he feels at this turn of events even as he tries to pretend he doesn't feel elated.

  Then he follows me to the bus stop.

  "Sorry to have to tell you this," I say to him, tears of pain in my eyes. "But your little trick with the Vulcan mind meld didn't work. I remember everything."

  He gets the reference to Star Trek and enjoys it. Even now, faced with a monster who could kill me in a moment, I'm a brat. I'm defiant. I am a hunter.

  "No, it's me who's sorry." He takes my hands and examines them, clucking his tongue in disapproval. He looks into my eyes. "What kind of prick would do this to you?"

  He throws that back at me, letting me know he can read my mind. Then, because he can’t deny it any longer, he bends his head to my palm and tongues my cuts. My blood brings out the vampire in him, his bloodlust raging, his vision focusing in on me, his sense of hearing focusing on my heart pounding in my chest. His teeth elongate, and an ache builds in his body. A delicious ache, but so intense it feels more like addiction than just pleasure at the taste.

  An addiction that, once activated, can never be slaked or overcome.

  "Oh, Eve, now look what you've made me do…"

  Chapter 52

  "Memory is the diary we all carry about with us."

  Oscar Wilde

  * * *

  Michel releases me, our shared memory dissipating, and I blink rapidly as I struggle to recover from its effect.

  I know now with certainty that he didn't want this existence for me but due to some quirk of my genetics, my inheritance from my mother, I'm resistant to compulsion and he failed to make me forget. I turn away from his overly-emotional expression. I know he's waiting to see my response, to know if this shared memory can overcome my anger and shock at what I've read.

  I don't know if it can.

  I sit on the couch for a moment, trying to catch my breath. Trying to sort through the conflicting emotions that fill me.

  He sits beside me and takes my hand but I pull it away. "Enough, Michel. I need some distance."

  "Distance is the last thing you need now, Eve. Let me show you more. Don't go by the things you wrote in your journal. People change. Feelings change. You loved me when we parted and that's all that matters. If you give yourself a chance, you'll rediscover that love."

  "I don't remember any of it. It’s a story about some woman I don't even know."

  "Did my memory feel like a story?"

  I shake my head. It felt real. Almost as if I remember it as well. My body remembers it but my mind doesn't.

  "Then let me show you one more memory," he says, his voice pleading.

  "Which memory?"

  "Whatever one you want."

  I think for a moment back to what I read. There are so many I'm curious about. The first time we had sex, but that's too dangerous. When he took me to his mansion and played Chopin for me. When he returned from Pittsburgh. When he came to me on the beach in Ipswich.

  "The bombing," I say and I know immediately that's the memory I want to see. It's one I never wrote down in my journal of course. I lost my memories because of it. All I have is an entry the morning of the bombing, expressing my excitement and fear about going to meet with members of the Council of Clairveaux to discuss their plan to kill Soren. That's the very last entry. Two months ago to the day.

  He sighs and says nothing for a moment and I know he's not happy that I picked that memory of them all.

  "Eve…"

  I turn to him and take his hand. "You said any memory. I want your memory from that day. From the time we went to meet the Council. I know from reading news reports that we were in the car traveling along the waterfront when the bomb exploded. Show me your memories of what happened."

  "No," he says and shakes his head. "No, because then you'll know things you shouldn't – things that would still put you at risk. Eve, I've done so much, I've given up so much to protect you. I can't have you at risk ever again."

  "Michel," I say and touch his cheek, cup it with my hand. "Please. Show me what you think I can see safely. I need to know…"

  He closes his eyes and leans into my hand for a moment.

  "Kiss me first," he says.

  "Why?" I say, frowning.

  "Because I'm afraid you'll never kiss me again." />
  "You're scaring me, Michel."

  He just shakes his head. Then I close my eyes, leaning my face up for him to kiss me.

  "No," he says, "You kiss me." He pulls me onto his lap so that I'm sitting with my legs on either side of his hips. He places my arms around his neck. "Like this."

  I lean down and press my mouth against his, and when I do, he opens himself to me once more, our minds connecting as our lips part. I'm lost in the kiss, lost in his arms and in his memory.

  * * *

  He glances around my tiny apartment, seeing it again with a mixture of melancholy and pleasure. He'll have to close it up after, pack up my things, such as they are, and put them in storage. I won't need my apartment or my things any more. He'll sort through some possessions that might be meaningful to me and set them aside. They can go with me to my new life.

  He has so many pleasant memories of my apartment. That first day when he saw how Spartan my life was – how different from his life of opulence. How fearless I was to stand up to him, despite knowing what he was, Samurai sword in hand. How unwilling I was to let him in that first night. How, despite my fear, I put up a brave front. The first time we had sex – it's memorable because of the intensity and his surprise that it happened at all.

  He sees my old piano and is determined to buy me a nice baby grand for the cottage where I'll live up north in Ipswich with my foster parents. The cottage they already have is tiny and there's not enough room for one so he'll have to find a bigger place for us to live. I must have a piano worthy of my talent.

  He goes to my vanity while I'm busy feeding the cats and picks up the bottle of my perfume from France, determined to keep it for himself. He knows it will be torture to have my scent surrounding him, but it's the one thing of mine he'll allow himself to keep. He'll spray his sheets with it and lie naked in bed, thinking of me safe, out of the world of vampire hunters, studying music instead of science. I'll probably meet some young musician and fall in love, marry, have children of my own, teach at a university. It's too late for me to become what I should have been – a concert pianist – but I can still have a life filled with music.

  The thought of losing me chokes him momentarily but he's determined to see this through. He's been too selfish for too long. He refuses to let another woman he loves die because of him.

  The time comes to leave my apartment, to get in the car and take me to meet my new destiny. A sense of numbness fills him as we drive along the waterfront, as if he's shutting off his emotions in preparation for what is to happen next. If all goes as planned, I'll drink the drug to make me forget, the blast from the bomb will provide a diversion, and an already dead but soon to be burned and maimed body will be buried in my place, complete with long fair hair like mine. The coroner has already been compelled to identify it as mine.

  My death will throw everyone off my trail for good. Soren. Blackstone.

  Julien.

  He squashes down the guilt that wells up inside him at betraying his brother, but he knows that Julien will never leave me alone – not now that Julien and I have been together.

  Aside from Michel, only my foster parents will know who I really am. They've been given new identities and compelled not to divulge my existence to anyone. If all goes according to plan, in a week, I'll be safely tucked away in Ipswich and Michel will never see me again.

  He's made a vow to God to give me up. He'll provide me with a steady supply of his blood to keep me healthy, but in all other respects, I'll be allowed to live a normal life – without him in it.

  I sit beside him on the seat, and when he takes my hand, he can sense that I'm nervous and a bit excited at the prospect of meeting the Council and finally getting my revenge against Soren. He thinks I am so brave and so damn stubborn. If only I'd been compellable, none of this would be necessary, but my will is just too strong.

  This is the only way he can think of to save my life, to prevent me from suffering in a future he can barely stand to imagine taking place. A future with me as Soren's weapon, making him the biggest monster to ever walk the face of the Earth, with Michel at his side but unable to help me, forced to watch me fall into perdition. A future with me being worse than dead, a soulless blood slave to Soren and his pantheon of hybrid vampire-Ancient-gods.

  Michel would rather suffer my loss than to see that future and he intends to prevent it. Losing me, faking my death, will give him time to do just that.

  The road ahead is blocked by a fire truck that has responded to a car fire.

  "Looks like a fire of some sort," I say, unaware of the danger I'm about to face.

  That's Michel's cue. He turns to me and takes my face in his hands, grief and tenderness for me making his throat choke.

  "Eve, I love you." He kisses me, his emotions washing over me, bringing tears to my eyes. "Don't forget that." He reaches into a pocket and takes out a tiny glass ampoule and breaks the tip off it. Inside is a drug to erase all of a certain type of memory made in the past decade. He must erase them – my memories of names, faces, and events back to my mother's death. "Drink this."

  He knows I can't be compelled to forget but forgetting is the only way I'll give up my vendetta, the only way I won't fall into Soren's trap. He must use this drug, despite the damage it will cause to me.

  I take it from him and examine it. "What is it?"

  "It's to protect you." He pulls me closer, close to tears, his resolve to carry through with this plan waning just a bit as he thinks of the price I'll pay.

  I drink it down, trusting him totally, and he wishes – he just wishes I felt that trust long before this day. Instead of having to send me into oblivion, away from him forever, he and I would be living somewhere along the Welsh coast that I love so much.

  But that will never be.

  "You're so brave." He buries his face in my hair, his mouth on my neck. "Whatever happens," he says, his lips at my ear. "Remember that I love you." He pulls his small crucifix over his head. "This is for you," he says and slips it over my head. I examine the crucifix.

  "It's beautiful." I look up at him. "It's Marguerite's."

  He nods. "It's very old." He holds my face in his hands. "Eve, when you look at the cross, you'll remember that the vampire who gave it to you loved you."

  "I'll remember," I say. I smile at him and he makes a sound deep in his throat and kisses my cheeks, his tongue touching each dimple, one after the other.

  Then an explosion rocks the car and he knows this is the moment that I leave him forever and he can't bear it. He can't bear to have it happen without me saying the words once more.

  "Tell me you love me."

  I smile. "Of course I do."

  "Say it."

  I kiss him. "I love you, Michel."

  He kisses me back, deeply. Then he brushes my hair off my cheek.

  "That should make you feel a bit dizzy."

  As if on cue, I grab hold of the seat.

  "I'm so sorry…" he says, "…but I can't let you go to him."

  He thinks of the plan he's made for me. I'll be whisked away to a safe house with a physician to examine me and a nurse to tend me until I wake up from the effects of the drug. Then, I'll begin a new life.

  But fate intervenes. Another explosion right next to us rocks the car again with its shockwave, this time more intense. Michel wraps his arms around me, covering me with his body. A huge black cloud of smoke and fire envelops the car.

  And then, darkness.

  Even Michel is taken by surprise. He tries to shield me from the blast wave but the concussion is so intense. Michel recovers enough to drag me out of the broken windshield. A medic is already at our vehicle, and checks me over as I lie unconscious on the pavement. He pushes a distraught Michel out of the way, tending to me, checking my pupil response, my breathing, my pulse.

  "Head injury. Her pupils are unequal. We have to get her to a hospital."

  "No," Michel says and leans over me, touching me to see where I've been injured, using his
powers to heal what he can but I'll need his blood. "Take her to my estate as planned."

  While they load me into the ambulance, Michel checks on Vasily, who's been seriously injured, his face covered in blood, his legs mangled. He runs his hands over the damaged arteries, sealing them off to prevent blood loss. He can't do anything immediately about the broken bones, but will provide some blood to help him heal.

  "Take him to the closest trauma center."

  They comply, one ambulance whisking Vasily off, the other driving me to a house of Michel's outside of Boston. I'm intubated because my oxygen is too low. Michel asks the medic for a syringe and withdraws a vial of blood from his arm.

  "Give her this," he says, handing them the syringe. "It will stop any further damage from taking place."

  "Will it heal her?" the medic asks, examining the tiny vial.

  He shakes his head. "Too late for that. It will only stop it from progressing. Give it to her now."

  They inject Michel's blood into me and that stops further damage, but the injuries I've received will require extensive physical therapy. But my life has been saved from the future he fears. The future he can't bear to see come to pass, but which dogs his dreams, turning them into nightmares.

  I'm taken into his safe house where a team of doctors and nurses wait on me, checking me over. Once Michel is certain I won't die, and that the damage done to me has stabilized, he leaves and goes to the hospital to see Vasily. He's been in surgery for a broken hip and fractured leg, and despite Michel's attempt to heal him, he has lost a lot of blood. Michel provides a second vial of blood, which will help him heal, but even so, Vasily will never be the same. Michel isn't as powerful as Soren. He can't fully heal a human who's received so much extensive physical damage. All his blood and touch can do is prevent the damage done from getting worse.

  None of this was supposed to happen.

  Someone discovered Michel's plans and tried to turn it to their advantage, planting a bomb that was meant to kill me. It can only be Blackstone. They want to prevent me from being used by Soren. My death would prevent him from taking power until he can create another.