by Nicola Rose
Let go.
Fight! Swim.
Be one of us.
Coughing and spluttering, I tried to turn myself and swim parallel with the shore. I’d seen the warning signs on the beach enough times. If you get caught in a rip, you just swim along instead of straight towards the beach, until you come out of it. I tried to absorb that knowledge calmly, but my head kept going under in my panic, and I was definitely getting pulled further and further out.
He just stood there – watching.
“Alex!” I gargled as another mouthful of water choked me. “Help me!”
Nothing. He hadn’t even taken his hands from his pockets.
“Help me!” I tried again.
I slipped under and this time I knew I couldn’t come back up. My legs were too weak.
Fight. Alex’s voice whispered in my ear.
Fucking save me! Please!
Silence. Crushing. Darkness.
My body burned. Longed to let go. But I didn’t want to let go. Not like this.
He was just going to stand there and watch me fucking drown?! Anger coursed under my skin.
Fire blasted from my hands, except, it wasn’t fire. It burned, but it was energy. Pure energy, erupting from my fingers and up along my arms, through my chest, into my legs. I kicked and my body obeyed. I slid through the water, still feeling the backwards pull against me, but it no longer did anything to halt my progress. I broke the surface and fought with all my strength until I washed up on the sand and collapsed in a heap at Alex’s feet.
Taking two big breaths, I propelled myself up, and at him, our bodies colliding. At first he didn’t give an inch; I was met with a wall of unwavering muscle. Then he relinquished the strength and landed flat on his back with me on top of him. I straddled him and slapped at his face until he caught my wrists.
When the coughing finally stopped, and the tears had quelled, I rested my head into his chest, lying completely still on top of him. His arms wrapped around me.
“That was a lame suicide attempt,” he said.
“Fuck you.”
I couldn’t see his face, but I knew that fucker was smiling.
“You think this is funny?” I pushed up onto my elbows to face him. “Why didn’t you help me? You would seriously have let me drown?”
“Suicide is a very personal thing. Who am I to interrupt that?”
I snorted. “Since when do you give a crap about the rights and wrongs of influencing people’s lives? Or their deaths.”
He nodded in agreement. My breathing was still heavy in my aching lungs.
“Besides,” I muttered. “I changed my mind. I called to you for help. I thought you were supposed to be my protector now?”
His eyes flickered. The lightness dropped from his smile. “I stood here because you don’t need rescuing. You don’t need a knight to come along and save you. You’re strong, you’re capable of rescuing yourself. When will you see that?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, sodden hair whipping around my face in the wind.
“Zachariah doesn’t want you to stand as his equal, he never has. He wants to be your protector, even though the one you most need protecting from is him. He wants you under his control.”
“What if that’s where I like being?”
“I’m not talking about the bedroom, darlin’. I’d expect nothing else from you there. I’m talking about life – about the rest of it. That’s where you should be standing shoulder to shoulder. I wouldn’t try to push you back down. You’re too good for that.”
“Wouldn’t you? Don’t try to tell me you don’t have your own games and agendas, I’m not a complete fool.”
“Has he not blamed you, every step of the way, for his own failings? Has he not continually pushed you away? Held you back? When have I ever done that? When have I rejected you for being too much?”
“That’s not his fault.”
“Isn’t it? Or maybe he just likes to keep you dangling? Never quite strong enough to think about what you want for yourself.”
No. Zac didn’t enjoy it. I could tell, by his haunted eyes, his voice, his manner. It hurt him.
“You deserve more respect.”
“Respect?!” I laughed. “From the man who once tried to kill me with a dodgy bungee cord, who stole my bike, threatened my best friend’s life to get me round his house for another one of his games, and then went ahead and killed her in the end anyway?”
He bit the inside of his cheek. “OK, fair points. But my point is, I do respect you for what you are. I wouldn’t hold you back, I’d set you free.”
My strangled breathing slowed, which suddenly made me aware that his had increased. His chest was heaving and his hands had tightened on my waist. The hardness of his erection pressed between my legs. I moved my hips a fraction, rubbing myself against him. Despite the overwhelming urge to fuck him, I had no intention of doing so, but I could make him suffer. I pressed deeper against him until his eyes darkened.
“Don’t you see the beautiful irony?,” he asked. “He was so terrified of turning you into another Selena that he couldn’t love you completely. Afraid that if he fed from you, then he’d destroy you, as he did her. But look what happened. He still destroyed you. You still ended up another Selena – a shadow of the woman you were, the woman you could be. He did this to you, not me.”
I pressed my lips together, for fear of the agreement that might come out of them.
“If you won’t listen to common sense, I don’t know how else to help you. But know this…” he continued. “If you ever want to die that badly again, it can be arranged. Just come to me. It would be such a selfish waste to have you float off into the ocean. If you’re going to clock out then at least give me some pleasure along the way and let me drink you? What will you care after you’re dead, anyway? End result is the same for you—”
His remarks were so inappropriate, so wrong given my ridiculously delicate state, yet a smile twitched at my mouth. “Asshole!” I grunted, slapping his chest and finding my feet.
I shivered. The adrenalin had left, my clothes were drenched, and I needed to sleep for a month.
“I’m just helping you explore all options,” he called after me as I stumbled back along the beach, wind and rain making him sound far away. “You can’t make a big decision like that without a pros and cons chart, weighing up several alternatives…”
12
Alex
She should never have been his.
I mean, she should – the sanguine bond is testament to that, but he didn’t deserve a girl like her. He didn’t know what to do with her, how to handle her.
I wanted her.
But then I didn’t.
Mostly, I did.
Her power surge when she was drowning in those waves was impressive. I felt it through my own blood. Something spiked within me, in perfect timing with her own adrenalin. It was unsettling. And strangely addictive. I wanted to feel it again.
Luckily for me, whoever says the good guy always get the girl is wrong, especially where girls like her are concerned. They don’t want the good guy.
Besides, the good guy act is all a lie. He was no more deserving of her than I was.
His shiny little halo had already slipped, and when it fell completely, I’d be ready to catch the pieces of her broken soul. Except I wouldn’t be piecing them back together the traditional way.
By the time I’m done, she’ll be free – free from society’s restrictions, and free from her heart.
She could be so much more.
She will be everything.
She is everything.
She’s going to be mine.
13
Jess
Would he really have let me drown? No. I didn’t believe he would, but he’d proven his point pretty effectively. Why was I sitting around waiting to be saved? Why was I letting the self-doubt and anxiety destroy me? What if I could still turn this shit around? Wasn’t it about time that I said goodbye to the
cycle of highs and lows in my life and took back control?
Every time I felt like I was making progress, I’d slip up and fall back. I needed to start trusting in my own strength and break that pattern.
A ring startled me from my thoughts. It couldn’t be good news if Eva was calling.
“How is he?” I immediately asked.
“Do you want the honest answer or the watered down one?” She sounded like she’d aged, or smoked a thousand blunts.
“Both,” I sighed.
“He’s bad… but we’re sticking close by, doing what we can. How are you?”
“As reckless and fucked-up as always.”
“What do you want, Jess? Do you want to rise up and find your own feet in our world, or do you want to disappear and forget about all of us? It’s a choice you need to make, soon.”
“It’s already made. I’m fighting.”
I heard the relief in her exhaled breath. “Good, because Sofia has been in contact with me, and I think she can help.”
“She’s still… I mean, I thought… assumed…”
“I wouldn’t let Zac kill her, it wasn’t her fault – she was helping us. We did kill the rest of her coven, though. All of them.”
“You killed her entire coven and she still wants to help?”
“No, she doesn’t want to. She has to. I don’t have time to explain, Zac is on the move again and I have to follow. Go to Sofia, it’s important, for all of us. I’ll message you her address, she had to flee Mexico—”
“Wait,” I called, before she hung up. “I’m sorry about Ruben.” Memories stabbed through my heart of what the Bael did to him. What Zac did to him. He deserved it, but Eva didn’t.
“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have seen it coming.”
“Don’t you dare feel guilty, this isn’t on you.”
She hung up, and a moment later an address in Dallas pinged through.
I rode hard for a whole day. Getting back on my bike filled me with such exhilaration that, for a while, I thought I might just keep riding. I could tour America. Just me and the never-ending highways. But that would be running, again, and besides, my butt was killing me from nine hours in the saddle.
I paused in the darkness and peered at the address Eva had given me, eventually finding the right apartment.
Sofia ushered me inside with nervous glances up and down the corridor, before closing the door and locking it. I surveyed the space, nodding approvingly. “This is much nicer than the pokey room in Mexico. Although I’m dismayed that you’re still smoking that shit. What is it exactly, it stinks…” I flapped my hand in front of my face, the sickly aroma already clogging my nose.
“Mexico was my home. I liked it,” she replied, levelling me with a cold glare. She looked like she’d aged twenty years. Gaunt. Haunted.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as me.”
“Are you in danger? From other witches?”
“Of course. They all want me dead for bringing this to my coven, for helping vampires and putting them above my own kind. And they’re right, it was despicable. I should be dead too.”
“So why are you still helping me?” I didn’t yet know what she wanted with me, but the thought of her giving me extra training had my stomach flipping in excitement.
“Someone important heard about what I did for you and she found me. She offered me protection if I got you here. Though I’m sure she could have done that alone—”
That ‘someone’ cleared her throat from the doorway to another room. I turned to find an elderly lady taking a step towards me. The pattern of deep grooves in her face defined her as old, but nothing else did. The crisp, tailored suit paired with functional heels, the sharp cut of her pure white hair, bobbed along her jaw line, the green eyes holding a youthful glint – she looked like she was on her way to an important boardroom meeting where she planned to kick ass.
“Hello, Jess,” she smiled, crossing the room and taking me into an embrace. I stood awkwardly, thankful that she let go quickly and took a seat, motioning for me to copy. Once I was seated she stared at Sofia until she sighed and went off to make coffee.
“I’m a High Priestess,” she stated. “Although not many covens use that term any longer. My name is Constance… Morena.”
A cough caught in my throat. “Is that right?” I scanned the room for available escape routes.
“I’m not here to hurt you, or hand you over to my disgraced sister.”
“Beatrix?”
She nodded once.
“Are you… how are you…?”
She frowned in disgust. “I’m not a vampire!”
“Then how are you still alive?”
“Through extremely powerful witchcraft. I’ve spent centuries waiting for you.”
How many people were out there, like me? Caught between reality and fantasy, muddling through in a world they didn’t understand. Vampires, witches… what else was waiting to jump out at me?
She’d waited centuries. For me? I raised my eyebrows and thought again about the best way to escape.
“Do you understand why you’re so important to the Bael?” Constance asked, absently smoothing down her blouse as she settled.
“To leverage Zac, make him carry out the bonding.”
“Well, yes, that was their initial interest, and with a successful result.” She shook her head and I shoved back the wave of guilt that kept trying to resurface. “You’re a Morena witch. One who came out of nowhere when they thought we were all dead.”
I laughed. “They needn’t worry, I can barely light a candle with my magic.”
“For now, but with my help you can blow up their whole world.”
My pulse quickened and my magic seemed to thrum in approval. “How?”
“The Elwood Legacy bond creates vampires with unrivalled power. They’re strong, fierce, and the Bael want them all amongst their ranks. Beatrix is most likely working on new spells to make them even stronger,” she paused whilst Sofia handed out coffee. “They’re brewing up for a fight of epic proportions, one that will change humanity, and the more Elwoods they have in their army, the better for them.”
“Why hasn’t Beatrix just made more of them? Why wait for Zac?”
“It’s not that simple. Back then, she had our whole coven help her, it took a lot of power. Since she became a vampire-hybrid her power has weakened and she has no one to help her.”
“Why?”
“She tricked us. Witches do not associate with vampires, it goes against our whole belief system. Once we realised what she’d done we cast her out and vowed to find a way of reversing it. We tried, and tried, until eventually the Bael wiped us all out.”
“So why not force another coven to help? The vampires can be very persuasive when it’s life or death.”
Sofia sighed with a grimace. Her whole coven. Zac killed them all, and that was before he could blame the Legacy for releasing the beast.
“They’ve tried that too,” Constance said, giving Sofia a look that could have been pity, or perhaps disdain. “Witches take an oath as soon as they’re old enough to talk. Most would rather choose torture and death than help vampires.”
Definitely disdain. Sofia ignored the looks and plucked at a frayed tear in the knee of her jeans. She helped vampires and look where it got her. Her coven dead and every other coven out for retribution on her ass.
“Of course, the Bael has found some weak-willed witches over the years,” Constance continued, and I decided that her words might as well be actual daggers into Sofia’s chest. “But never a whole coven. Those dark witches have helped produce powerful vampires, but nothing that comes close to the Elwood Legacy. The daylight walking, the added magical powers, no other dark witch has ever been able to recreate it. That secret died with the Morena coven.”
“How are you still alive? And why do they care so much about day walking? All vampires can walk in the day, it’s just uncomfortable.”
�
��One question at a time, Jess. Those both have lengthy answers.”
“How are you here? And how am I here if you were all wiped out?”
She quirked a brow at the way I’d managed to add another question.
“Daylight walking gets harder the older a vampire gets. It’s near impossible for the likes of Emory. As for us, well, before the Bael killed our whole coven, I made the decision to send several witches away, across the globe, with a sworn oath that they would never practice magic again, or even speak of it – to ensure the survival of our coven’s lineage. I sent my own daughter to England. I couldn’t keep in touch with her, it wasn’t safe. But she had children, and so did they—”
My mouth dropped open.
“Don’t panic, I’m not keen on the idea of you calling me Grandma, either,” she grimaced. “I mean really, do I look like one?!”
I attempted a weak smile, and nodded for her to continue, biting back the flurry of further questions that had arisen.
“Before they left we created a spell of our own. Let’s call it the Morena Legacy, since Beatrix took the name Elwood for hers. We couldn’t be certain if it would work, but in theory the spell we created meant that one day, when the Bael least expected it, a witch would be born with the power to undo the Elwood Legacy and destroy them all.”
“Destroy?” I asked, my stomach dropping. Was this the sickest twist of fate that was about to land on me? I could not destroy Zac.
You already did.
“We’ll focus on that part later,” she said. “Your romantic involvement is unexpected and complicated. Moving on to your other question – before we dispersed, my witches used the last of their reserves to grant me immortality and cloaking. It’s taken everything from me to keep it up all these years, I barely have a fraction of the power left that I used to possess. But it means that I’m here now, ready to guide the initiate on the path of redemption.”
