by Sotia Lazu
“You’ll be mine,” he said, and planted one hand on my mouth, silencing my scream. “Shhh. It’s okay. Things will soon be as they should.”
Chapter Twenty-One
I shook my head from side to side as violently as I could, but it didn’t stop Alex from grabbing a fistful of my hair, yanking it to one side until my neck hurt, and slicing his fangs into my throat. The memory of him doing the same thing earlier—how being incapacitated and waiting for death had felt—made my panic flare.
This time there was no doubt in my mind he’d finish me off. The long pulls he drew of my blood proved he was determined to.
His body squashed me to the wet ground. We were in the forest. The fucking clearing. How had he brought me here?
I let my own fangs descend, and buried them into the flesh of his palm. Surprised, he yanked it away. He only stopped drinking to say, “Scream if you want. Call for Constantine. He’s not coming this time. Nobody is.” He was set on finishing what he’d started.
I screamed until my voice was hoarse and my throat raw.
I screamed until I no longer had the strength to pull in my lungs the air necessary for another call for help.
Alex kept drinking.
What undid me—what made my gut hurt and revolt at the same time, was the way he stroked my face while he did so. Tenderly. Lovingly. He really believed this was the way to truly be with me.
We were both doomed.
“Alex,” I whispered, “I never cheated on you. I never would. Ádísa made you believe I still wanted Constantine, because she needs this. She needs you to kill me.”
He pulled back, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and looked at me incredulously. “Kill you? I’d never hurt you. I love you.” He seemed wounded at the thought. “I’m consuming you. Making you mine.”
My fault for not filling him in on the basics of vampirism. I spared a thought to lamenting the loss of VSS. Under the old council, the first thing VSS taught every fledgling was ways we could die, and being drained of blood stood prominent among those.
“You are killing me. Once you’ve drunk the last of my blood, I’ll turn to dust.” Was it possible to reason with him? Was there still hope? “Ádísa wants you to believe this will make our bond stronger, but she’s lying. Why would she come on to you, if she wanted us to be together? She’s using you to regain her Valkyrie status.” Easier to believe in Valkyries than Succubusses. Succubi. Whatever. “Don’t you see?”
Doubt clouded his eyes. “She said you’d try to persuade me not to do it. That Constantine’s hold on you is too strong, and you don’t want to break it.”
I coughed, the strain to keep talking quickly sapping the last dregs of my energy. “She’s a liar, Alex. A fucking liar. She wants you to kill me. It’s her endgame.” Had my eyelashes always been so heavy?
“Hush, baby. You’re confused. You just relax, and I’ll make it all okay.” He touched his lips gently to mine.
“No, you won’t,” I said in a breath. “She made you attack women who looked like me. She made you doubt my love. And now she’s making you kill me. We’re all her puppets.” With every word, I felt my second life slip away.
He snapped his head back, his expression bouncing from stricken to horrified. “I’m killing you?”
I tried to nod. Speak. Nothing. I hoped he read my blink correctly.
He shook his head, like a horse shaking off a horsefly. “That’s… No. I’m not. I’m giving us another chance.”
“Says who?” Only his vampire hearing could catch that; my voice was barely audible.
“Ádísa. She said… She said you still love Constantine.”
“She lied. Now she wins.” My lips were numb. Frozen. Near impossible to move. “I love you,” I mouthed, before I could no longer keep my eyes open.
“Cherry? Wake up!” He lifted me from the shoulders, and pulled me to him. I forced my eyes open, just a sliver. His gaze was completely clear. Ádísa and my asshole of a maker didn’t control him in that moment. “This isn’t working like she said it would!” he yelled.
No shit, Sherlock. I felt like laughing, but it was too much effort.
“I love you too, baby. Fuck. I’m such an idiot. Fuck!” Alex scrambled upright, holding me to him. “Blood. You need blood. Then we’ll—”
I didn’t hear the end of that sentence, because I was harshly thrown back down. I felt rocks digging into my back. Leaves scrunching under my weight. Grass scratching my bare arms.
Dazed, but with adrenaline giving me a second wind, I looked around. Willoughby had tackled Alex to the ground. He sat on Alex’s stomach, and pummeled Alex’s face with his fists. Alex kept trying to block or return the hits, but Willoughby moved fast as lightning, his eons of experience putting Alex’s police training to shame.
Hey, stop that, I thought I said. I made no sound. I made no move. I lay there and watched my maker rain hits on my lover, berating him for being unable to follow through.
“You had one job,” Willoughby said. Alex blocked a punch to his temple just to gain himself another in the nose. The crunching sound raised my hackles. “I incapacitated Constantine for you, and even dragged her all the way to the middle of nowhere.” My maker closed his fists together, and brought them down full force into Alex’s sternum.
He’d kill him, and then he’d have to kill me himself, to keep me from going to the council. There was a twisted sense of vindication in the thought Ádísa wouldn’t be getting her loophole salvation after all.
Alex and I would still be dead, but you win some, you lose some.
“You have to stop getting into these damsel-in-distress scenarios.” I knew the voice, and I knew the cologne scenting the pale skin of the wrist filling my vision.
Constantine.
“Bite, woman. Take enough to stay awake, while I clean up your mess.”
Of all the arrogant, sexist things to say… When I bit into his vein, I made it hurt a little. I took barely half a pint, the whole time watching the pitifully uneven fight unfolding in front of me. Willoughby was too busy turning Alex’s head to pulp, to notice the three of us were no longer alone in the clearing.
I didn’t bother to lick the wound closed. “Go,” I said. “I’ll be okay, as long as you keep him away from me.”
Constantine didn’t have to be told twice. He literally flew into Willoughby’s body, lifting him in the air and slamming him down on a log. It was the one Alex had sat on, when he’d sleepwalked to this clearing. I hoped Constantine broke the asshole’s spine.
Willoughby scissored his legs in the air, kicked, and twisted his body, torque setting him upright, just as Constantine reached for his head. Spine intact, then. Bummer. Judging from the murder in Constantine’s eyes, that wouldn’t remain the case for long.
Alex tried to sit up, but before he could lift his body off the ground, Willoughby avoided a high kick by Constantine, produced a stake from his jacket pocket, and slammed it into Alex’s upper chest.
“Alex! No!” This time my voice was loud. My throat still hurt, but not as much as my heart did. It took an eternity for me to realize Alex hadn’t dusted. Willoughby hadn’t found his heart. He’d merely—merely—staked him to the ground.
Constantine tried to repeat his attack through the air, but this time Willoughby was prepared. He rolled to his back, and kicked both legs into Constantine’s stomach. It was like watching a superhero movie, with bodies and fists taking off and descending like rockets, kicks connecting with the force of minivans, and nobody making enough headway to be deemed the winner.
I absentmindedly noticed the real forest came with real forest sounds. A squirrel scurried up the tree to my right, and scared a bird into flight.
“Ádísa wanted to take care of you herself, but she’ll have to settle for my avenging her death.” Willoughby managed to smash a knee into Constantine’s lower back, making him jackknife backward.
“She will not have a say in the matter, because she is not coming back. Ever
.” Doing a close resemblance of a backflip, Constantine grabbed Willoughby’s lapels—seriously, who wore a button-down to a fight in the woods?—and sent them both hurtling into the thick foliage surrounding us.
“Oh, she is.” Willoughby knocked him backward, his entire bodyweight behind the blow. “Even if I have to slice your whore’s throat and let the blood drip into Alex’s mouth.” He feinted to the left, and when Constantine mirrored him, dove toward me.
“No!” Constantine’s roar was deafening. Willoughby was almost upon me, when Constantine wrapped both arms around his waist and pulled him away.
My maker used the momentum to roll around, and pin Constantine to the ground beneath him. They were inches from me, and I was too powerless to stop Willoughby from locking Constantine’s head in a vice-like grip.
“You’ll dust for what you did to Ádísa,” Willoughby said. His eyes held the same murderous glint they had in the dream, as he began twisting Constantine’s head around.
“Cherry!”
I glanced up to see Alex grasp the stake buried in his chest. It’s funny what the mind focuses on in times of grave danger. I saw his knuckles turn white with the effort it took to drag the piece of wood out of his flesh. As soon as it cleared the wound, he tossed it to me in a high arch, and his head fell back, his last reserves of energy depleted.
I raised my hand, and prayed his aim would be true. There would be no second chance to do this.
The moment the rough, unpolished piece of wood touched my palm, I closed my fingers around it. With strength and precision I didn’t know I still possessed, I swung, and slammed it into Willoughby’s back.
I felt flesh give way under the pointy tip, muscle shred, and bone shift.
And I felt his black, shriveled heart tear.
I felt it. Inside my own chest. I’d died and come back before, but had never experienced the violent ripping sensation I did now. Or the sad, sad hollowness that unfolded in my chest. Was that how it felt when someone’s maker died? If I hurt like someone stomped on my stomach and squeezed my throat at the same time, when I’d barely known and completely hated my maker, how had Constantine felt when he’d ripped his own maker’s head off? She’d been his companion. His lover. His love.
A puff of dust exploded all over Constantine and me, getting into our eyes and mouths, and dispersing the blackness inside me, until it was little more than a dull ache. I spat out the foul, bitter taste, but could feel a ferocious grin threatening to split my face in half.
We’d done it. We’d fucking done it. The bastard who’d ended both my and Alex’s lives was no longer.
Exhilaration faded away, giving its place to exhaustion. I wished I could pass out, so one of the men would carry me home, but A) I’m a vampire, and we don’t pass out when we’re tired, and B) no way was I giving Constantine fodder for more damsel-in-distress jokes.
Alex crawled to me, and Constantine sat back and let him gather me in his arms. My ex’s gaze was watchful, and when Alex tried to offer me blood, Constantine stopped him with a gentle shake of his head. “You look as if you spent the night in a meat grinder, and you’ve been staked. Let me.”
I looked up at Alex’s face. It was beginning to heal, but it was still bloody and raw, his nose at an odd angle. He glanced at me, then Constantine, and I was relieved to see no hint of speculation or distrust in his eyes. “I’ve taken a lot of her blood,” he said. “I have enough to spare. You’ve already fed her.”
“Twice,” Constantine said, “but I don’t need as much as you do to sustain me.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re ancient.” My joke fell flat. I let them maneuver me into Constantine’s lap.
“Do you want me to fix your nose for you?” he asked Alex.
“Nah, I got it.” Alex closed his fist over the bridge of his nose, and gave it one hard yank, twisting his wrist. “Fuck!”
I was pondering whether to ask how much pain he was in, or tell him it served him right, when I felt Constantine’s tongue on my neck. I shivered at the cool, wet stroke. “What..?” My voice came out way too breathy, for someone who’d been through Hell and back.
“Just taking care of your wounds first.” His voice was emotionless, but his grip on my arm quivered. The intimate gesture had rattled him.
It had rattled me too. “How did you find me?” I asked. “Us.”
“I’ll always find you,” Constantine replied.
His words soothed and unsettled me at the same time, but before I could ask more, I felt a whisper close behind. It was the same sensation I’d had in Alex’s dream—the familiar-yet-not presence. I snapped my head around, almost head-butting Constantine. Nobody was there. “Did you feel that?”
Constantine gave me a smile too wide to be honest. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
Before I could explain or demand a straightforward answer, Alex kneeled by my side and took my hand. “I’m so sorry, Cherry. I’m willing to spend eternity making this up to you.”
Constantine cleared his throat. “Let us start by getting her back to her feet. Then you two can patch things up, while I take the time to sunbathe, like it is going out of fashion.”
I half chuckled, half choked at his choice of phrasing.
“You want my wrist again?” he asked.
The way I sat, my face so close to his, drinking from his throat would have been infinitely easier. Natural.
Dangerous.
“Yeah,” I said.
I opened his vein, careful not to spill a drop or cause any unnecessary pain. I drank, and sealed the wound. I tried to keep the entire process clinical, and remain detached from the feelings and memories drinking from him a third time in a row brought to the surface. It wasn’t easy, with our bodies pressed together.
“Ready,” I said, and used Constantine’s shoulder as a prop to get myself upright.
Alex tried to drape one of my arms over his shoulders, but I shied away from his touch. It wasn’t a voluntary reaction. I’ve said before that the body has a memory of its own, and sometimes it overcomes reason. I knew Alex hurt for hurting me, but my body couldn’t take his proximity.
His face was healing, but I was thankful his still swollen eyes hid his feelings when he gave me a brisk nod and walked ahead to lead the way out of the woods.
Constantine helped me along the path. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “Both of you.”
“I know.” I told myself it was exhaustion that made me cling to him, not the need for reassurance. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He looked away, but not before I saw the thin line of his usually luscious mouth. “I would have come sooner, but I was detained.”
“Detained?” I tripped over a fallen branch.
He held me up, his arm wrapping tighter around my waist. “Willoughby came by your parents’ house. He must have compelled one of them to let him in.”
I halted and turned him to face me. “My parents? Are they—?”
“They’re fine. They were sleeping when I left. Both breathing; I made sure. Willoughby probably didn’t want to kill them until he got everything he needed.”
I wouldn’t think of the lengths he might go to make my mom tell him the recipe for the potion. I would focus on my relief he hadn’t harmed them.
“I didn’t realize he was there until he burst in the basement bedroom and ordered Alex to take you to the forest. We fought, and he staked me to the wall.” Constantine clacked his tongue. “Apparently Ádísa would love that.”
“She totally would.” A short laugh burst out of my lips.
He chuckled, and looked somewhere behind me. “You realize she is to blame for everything. Alex was her puppet.”
My eyes stung. I rubbed my face with both hands, and wasn’t surprised to see blood and dirt on my palms when I was done. “I know.” I wasn’t happy she could make him her puppet, though.
“Good.” He tucked me to his side, and we caught up with Alex, who’d almost reached the end of the tree line.
> Chapter Twenty-Two
We made it home with the gray light of dawn, and went straight to the basement. It wouldn’t do to freak out my parents with our blooded and bruised appearance.
“You hit the shower first,” I told Alex.
He complied without a word, and a fist gripped my insides, threatening to rip me apart. I should say something soothing to him, but I didn’t want to.
Constantine watched Alex shuffle his feet to the small bathroom. I stepped aside to give Alex wide berth, and Constantine pinned me with his gaze.
“Resentment is a nasty thing. Sneaky,” he said, when the door was safely closed between us and Alex. “It burrows inside you and makes a nest. It festers there, and rots your soul.”
“Same goes for jealousy,” I said. “At least there’s a good enough reason for my feelings.”
He crossed the room to me. His six-foot-something towered over my five-foot-four, but I didn’t feel threatened, even when he leaned close and trapped me between his body and the wall.
He brought his lips to my ear. “And you’re saying Alex had no reason to be jealous?”
I heard water running behind me. Alex showered a few feet from us.
Constantine feathered his lips over the shell of my ear. He smelled of his cologne and blood and moist earth. I closed my eyes, and let my head drop back. I owed it to him to be honest, but I didn’t know how.
In the end, I said, “I never gave him reason to.” It would have to suffice.
Constantine inhaled deeply in my hair, and then touched his forehead to mine. “That I don’t think you should condemn him for things beyond his control doesn’t mean I have given up on you,” he whispered.
His lips were a hair’s breadth from mine. He’d kiss me. Did I want him to?
He stepped back, and relief and disappointment warred for room inside me.
He trained his gaze to the floor. “We cannot control what we feel. What we want. Fortunately, in most cases we can control what we do about it. In the end, Alex chose you.”
