Rose watched the light dance across Kara’s face. “What happened?”
“She ran away from home,” Kara began, “when she was eighteen.”
Rose listened curiously, smiling as Kara crawled closer. “Why?”
“She met a painter. A female painter. That was her first relationship with a woman,” Kara explained, as she closed the space between them. “The painter wanted Elise to pose for her. Naked. And Elise agreed.” She braced her hands on either side of Rose’s hips, her body folded forward in a crouch. “Now, you have to remember: this was the early 1900s, and Elise was a young maiden. Her parents found out about the nude paintings and Elise’s Sapphic lover all on the same night. And they, of course, flipped out. So, Elise snuck out in the middle of the night and boarded the train for Paris, which is where her artistic lover lived.”
“And,” Rose said slowly, “apparently, they didn’t live happily ever after?”
Kara shook her head. “There was a vampire on the train. He killed her.”
Rose frowned sympathetically. “And what happened to the painter?”
Kara shrugged. “Apparently, she was with someone else, anyway.”
“Well, that’s just tragic,” Rose muttered sadly. “Poor Elise.”
Kara smiled. “It never bothered Elise much. She likes being a vampire.”
“I should’ve known Elise was a rebellious, nude model,” Rose laughed.
“Yep,” Kara said with an amused smile. “Not a shy bone in her body.”
Rose’s smile faded. “Kara,” she sighed, “it was Alana’s lotion, wasn’t it?”
Kara looked away. “I shouldn’t have kept it. I feel like such an idiot.”
Rose took Kara’s face in her hands, urging Kara to meet her gaze. “Kara, you’re not an idiot,” she said with a sad smile. “You’re clever, and you know it.”
“Yeah, I suppose I am,” Kara joked half-heartedly. She offered Rose a weak smile and shrugged one shoulder. “After Alana died, Aaron wanted me to clean up her mess, tie up all of her loose ends, do damage control. I found the people she kidnapped and blackmailed, and I cleaned out the house that she stole. I threw out most of her stuff, but…I kept the lotion. Because it smelled like her.”
Rose nodded. “She’d just died. You needed something to comfort you.”
“How are you like this?” Kara sighed. She leaned forward, brushing her forehead against Rose’s, their breath mingling together. “Anyone else would look at me with a look of disapproval or…pity.” She cringed at the word pity. “But not you. You’re still looking at me with that kindness in your eyes. With empathy.”
Rose traced the soft angles of Kara’s cheekbones with her fingers, feeling the silkiness of Kara’s skin. “Kara, you loved Alana for fourteen hundred years. I can’t even imagine what that’s like. You’re still grieving. It’s only been a week.”
“It was just a weak moment for me,” Kara muttered, closing her eyes, her thick, dark eyelashes resting against her cheeks. “She’d just died. You’d just left. And I was hurting. I haven’t touched it since the night we came to the U.S.”
“I don’t think it was a weak moment,” Rose said. “Grief is normal, Kara. Everyone grieves, even tough Viking warriors like you.” She smiled affectionately.
Kara opened her eyes. “And even brilliant, powerful women, like you.”
Rose’s smile deepened. “In that case, maybe we should just start being honest with each other about what we’re feeling, and help each other through it.”
“Deal,” Kara agreed, kissing her, “but let’s make love by the fire first.”
—
The next night, Aaron made sure to wake up before the other vampires in the colony, to creep out of his room while the halls were dark and silent. Using a map that Kara had drawn for him, he navigated his way through the maze-like halls until he found the oversized, wooden doors that opened up into a library.
The air in the library felt quite a bit colder than his room had, since the library had no fireplace, but it didn’t bother him much. Not much did, anymore.
He set the map in a red armchair near the door and began to search the shelves. He—purposely—hadn’t asked Kara which shelves contained which kinds of books, so it was up to him to figure out where to look. He found the fiction books, the historical records, the maps, and then, finally, the religious books. He stepped closer, reading the titles of each book, disregarding the well-known ones, searching for something older, something rarer, something…long forgotten.
“Can I help you find something?” asked a familiar voice.
Aaron rolled his eyes and turned toward the door, meeting the dark gaze of the vampire who led the Village of the Undead. Talulah stood in the doorway, dressed in a black suit, four braids draped around her shoulders, two on each side.
“Since it is my library that you’ve broken into,” Talulah added bitterly.
Aaron shrugged and spread out his arms. “I’m just looking for a book.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In the religious section? Are you religious, Aaron?”
“Of course not,” he muttered. “I’m older than your dumb religions.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Then, why are you looking at my dumb books?”
“If it’s that big of a deal to you, then just forget it,” Aaron grumbled.
As Aaron stormed past her, intending to leave, Talulah stepped forward and picked up the map he’d discarded. “This is Kara’s handwriting,” she realized.
He spun around and snatched the map out of Talulah’s hands.
“I should’ve known she’d draw you a map of my living quarters,” Talulah said bitterly. “She has no limits. But honestly, Aaron, you should’ve just sent her. She never gets caught. If you’d sent her, you might’ve gotten what you wanted.”
He froze. “She doesn’t know about this, and I don’t intend to tell her.”
“Why not? Don’t you trust your second-in-command?” Talulah asked.
“If the matter doesn’t involve Rose Foster,” Aaron said, “then, yes.”
Talulah glanced at the bookshelves with a frown, and then, her dark gaze shifted toward Aaron. “What does a religious book have to do with Rose Foster?”
Aaron straightened as he realized his mistake. “Nothing. Just forget it.”
She watched him carefully, and when he started walking down the hall, back to his room, she followed, her boots padding down the hall. “Speaking of Rose Foster, I thought you should know,” she called out, smiling, as he stopped and turned toward her, “my conditions for joining the alliance have changed.”
He stared back at her, his eyes dark. “It’s hardly the time to play politics.”
“Like that’s ever stopped you,” Talulah scoffed. She tilted her head back, one of her braids falling behind her shoulder. “I’ll join the alliance, if Rose does.”
“Rose already has,” Aaron muttered bewilderedly. “She’s with me.”
“No, she’s not,” she argued. “Technically, she’s independent of a colony, and since she’s more powerful than any vampire leader in the world, I think that it would only make sense for us to treat her as our equal. So, she must join, too.”
His eyes narrowed. “Equal? She’s only been a vampire for two months!”
She smiled. “I don’t see a problem. I guess I’m just more open-minded.”
“You mean more manipulative,” he growled. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Do you?” Talulah said, her smile deepening. She stepped closer to him, amusement dancing in her deep, black eyes. “I should also probably tell you that it was your own second-in-command who told me that Rose is independent.”
Pure rage flashed in Aaron’s eyes. “Kara,” he growled, “told you that?”
Talulah chuckled, “I’m beginning to think your wolf isn’t loyal anymore.”
—
Rose sat up straight, the sheets pooling around her waist, her heart racing with such a ferocity that each, indivi
dual beat ached. She swept her gaze around the room, frowning at the shadows that danced along the wall, cast by the fire.
Kara raised up behind her, resting her head on Rose’s shoulder, pressing a warm, gentle kiss there. “It was just one of your nightmares, love. You’re safe.”
Rose breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry for waking you,” she mumbled.
Kara cupped her hand over Rose’s cheek and turned Rose’s face toward her. “What are you apologizing for, sexy?” she murmured with a smile. She tilted her face forward, her lips brushing against Rose’s. “I like waking up with you.”
“Do you?” Rose asked quietly. “Even when it happens every night?”
“Yes,” Kara told her. She lay back and folded her arm beneath her head, her bare, pale skin bathed in the golden glow of the fire. With her other hand, she beckoned Rose to lie down with her. “Have you ever considered asking Kallias?”
Rose curled up beside her, draping her arm around Kara’s middle, and resting her head against Kara’s shoulder. “Umm…asking him…what, exactly?”
“To control your dreams,” Kara said. “Alana figured out how to stop her own nightmares and control other people’s dreams as well. Maybe he can, too.”
“He has nightmares sometimes, too,” Rose explained, “about the torture that Theron put him through. He would’ve stopped his own dreams, if he could.”
Kara nodded. “It took a while for Alana to figure out how to do it,” she said thoughtfully. “I keep thinking…if she were still alive, I’d ask her to do it for you, but then, I realize…I’m remembering her all wrong. She wasn’t that kind.”
“She might’ve helped me,” Rose agreed. “I think she was sympathetic about my nightmares, honestly. But she would’ve taken something in return.”
“Me,” Kara said quietly. “That was always the deal. I’d ask her to help someone, and she would. But then, I’d have to spend the next ten years with her.”
Rose tilted her head back, staring up at Kara, studying her soft features in the warm glow of the fire. “Yeah, well, I’d be too stubborn to let you do that.”
Kara glanced down at her, a smile pulling at her lips. “Yeah, you would.”
With no warning whatsoever, the door suddenly flung open with a crash.
Kara didn’t even glance at the intruder. She just rolled her eyes. “I guess it was too much to hope Talulah would wait until after the ceremony to tell you.”
Aaron stepped into the room, his obsidian eyes flashing with pure rage.
Rose scrambled up into a seated position on the bed, scooping the sheets around her body to cover her bare skin. “You seriously have to learn to knock.”
Aaron’s dark eyes narrowed at her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Rose blushed. “Uh…nothing? But if I were, that would be private.”
Kara moved to the edge of the bed, sitting there totally naked, exuding as much confidence and pride as she did when she was fully-dressed. She glanced back at Rose. “He’s not asking what you were doing to me, Rose,” she said with an amused smile. “He wants to know why Talulah is treating you like his equal.”
Aaron growled at her, “She’s not my equal. She’s just a baby vampire.”
“Can you not ever just say young vampire?” Rose sighed. “Do you have to be condescending?” She rolled her eyes. “Who am I kidding? Of course you do.”
“Instead of losing your shit over this,” Kara asked Aaron, “why don’t you just ask Rose if she’ll join the alliance? If she says yes, nothing has changed.”
“It shouldn’t be her choice at all,” he snarled. “She’s just a weapon.”
“Wow,” Rose muttered, “you know how to make a girl feel special.”
Kara stood, suddenly, placing herself between Aaron and Rose. “First of all, stop taking this out on Rose. It’s my fault. I should’ve realized that Talulah was playing at something when she asked that question, but I didn’t pick up on it.” Kara laughed, “She’s gotten a lot better at manipulation. I can tell you that.” Her smile changed, then, taking on a smug tilt. “Second, we need Rose for this to work. Therefore, you have no choice but to start treating her with respect.”
Aaron’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You wanted this, didn’t you?”
Kara straightened, frowning. “I wanted what?” she asked bewilderedly.
He stepped closer. “You can’t really expect me to believe that you were manipulated by Talulah. Alana was rarely able to manipulate you, and Alana was a far better manipulator than Talulah. You’re too cunning for manipulation,” he accused. “No, I think you wanted this to happen. You wanted me to treat your girlfriend better, so you told Talulah what she needed to know. Didn’t you?”
Kara let out a short, derisive laugh. “Wow. Are you really this insecure?”
A low, dangerous growl echoed throughout the room, a growl so full of power that Kara felt it beneath her feet, in the floor, and he snatched her up by the throat. Kara knew, as the pain tore at her throat, that he could tear her head off of her shoulders at that very moment, if he wanted, and based on the hatred that flashed in his black eyes, that she could see even through her blurred vision, she knew he wanted to. Whether he needed her or not, Aaron wanted to kill her.
A loud crash suddenly echoed throughout the room, and Kara fell to the floor, pressing her hands against the hardwood, panting for breath. She blinked slowly, trying to see through her blurred, shadowy vision, noticing Aaron’s form on the other side of the room, crumpled in the floor. “Rose?” she rasped. “Stop.”
Rose watched Aaron with those glowing, red eyes of hers. “Leave. Now.”
Aaron climbed to his feet, unsteadily, his entire body shaking with pain.
The walls trembled as Rose snarled, “Don’t ever touch her like that again.”
“You attacked me,” he breathed, his eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe it. “You really shouldn’t have done that.” He began to move toward her. Slowly.
But despite the fact that every muscle in her body ached and trembled, Kara climbed to her feet and stepped between them. “Talulah said that she won’t join the alliance without Rose,” she said, her voice strained. “You can’t kill her.”
Aaron stopped and pointed at her. “You know it’s only a matter of time.”
Kara stepped closer, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “But not today.”
“If you’re not loyal to me,” he growled, “I have no use for either of you.”
Kara stepped back, stunned. “Who said I wasn’t loyal?” she murmured. A surprised smile tugged at her lips. “Are you letting Talulah manipulate you?”
His eyes widened. He looked away, his brows furrowing, and then, rather than admit that Kara was right, he spun on his heels and stormed out of the room.
As soon as the door slammed behind him, Kara allowed herself to fall to her knees, too weak to keep holding herself upright. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rose rushing forward. Rose knelt in front of her, her eyes still red, as she cradled Kara’s neck in her hands, examining the bruise with a pained look.
“Kara,” Rose breathed, her words barely audible, “are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Kara said tiredly. “I just need a minute to regain my strength.”
Rose dropped her hands to her sides, and the fiery haze in her eyes began to dance violently. The flames in the fireplace seemed to mirror the dance of her eyes—flickering brighter, stretching higher, dancing faster. “What is his problem?”
Kara lifted her hand, brushing her fingers over her bruised neck, wincing at the tenderness. “He’s scared,” she murmured. “It’s only a matter of time now.”
“Scared?” Rose said with an incredulous laugh. “What could scare him?”
Kara looked at her. “You,” she said, her icy blue eyes glistening. “No one has threatened his power in thousands of years. Until you. You could usurp him.”
Rose blinked. “I don’t even want his power. I don’t want
any power.”
“But you have it,” Kara told her. “Psychic. And now, political, as well.”
“Political?” Rose repeated. “As in like government? Because I’m not…”
“Not human politics,” Kara interrupted. “Vampire politics.” She sighed, “It’s more dangerous and more manipulative. And it involves more decapitation.”
Rose raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” she said with her sassiest smile. “Because historically, there have been a lot of beheadings in human politics, too.”
Kara smiled weakly at that. “Rose…you shouldn’t have attacked Aaron.”
Rose frowned at her. “He was hurting you. He could’ve killed you.”
“In his mind, you just crossed a line,” Kara said, her brows creased with worry. “That’s an unforgivable offense. Eventually, he’ll try to kill you for that.”
“He was already planning to kill me,” Rose said. “What else could I have done? Just let him hurt you? Could you just stand there, if he were hurting me?”
“No,” Kara said slowly, “but I wouldn’t have done something that would be considered an attack. Unless I had no other choice.”
Rose stood, pain flashing across her face. She grabbed her T-shirt from the dresser and pulled it on, and then, she began to search her bag for a pair of panties. She felt the warmth of Kara’s body behind her, even before Kara draped her arms around Rose’s waist. “I can’t control my power,” she told her, shivering a little as Kara kissed her neck. “I just wanted to make him stop hurting you.”
“I know,” Kara sighed, her lips against Rose’s neck. “We’ll figure it out.”
Rose tilted her head back, her eyes sliding closed, as she felt the warmth of Kara’s breath on her neck and the soothing warmth of Kara’s arms around her waist. “I’m sorry,” she said sadly, her chest tightening, “if I made things worse.”
“Don’t be,” Kara murmured. “I appreciate what you did for me, Rose.”
Rose stepped out of Kara’s arms, sitting on the edge of the bed, as Kara pulled on a tank top and a pair of boxers. “I just don’t understand why this is all such a big deal to him,” she muttered. “Why does he care what Talulah says?”
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