He laughed. More of the tension inside him had slipped away and the faded anger, the remnants of shame were no longer evident in his voice. “I was twenty-four . . . I think . . . when I was changed. Yeah, twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four.” She winced and asked, “And how long ago was that again?”
“Ten years. Give or take.”
“So you’re all of thirty-four. Give or take.”
“Yeah.” He tangled a hand in her hair and tugged her close. “But if it helps you feel like less of a cradle robber, I have memories that go back about as far as yours. Dreams. Crazy dreams. Up until a few weeks ago, I was convinced I was going insane.”
“Dreams.” She shot a look out the window. Sunrise . . . it was so close, and he was still awake and aware. He was a strong vampire—she had only to look at him to know that. In time, he’d be a Master, if he chose. But he was still young and his body would yield to the sun.
Time . . . it was slipping away.
Inwardly, she wanted to curl into a ball and hide.
Outwardly, she gave him a curious smile and hoped she could hide how terrified she was. “Tell me of these dreams.”
His lashes drooped, and as though her thoughts had brought it on, when he looked back at her, the exhaustion was heavy in his eyes. “Dreams. They never made any sense, not until recently. Sometimes it was us . . . back then. I can remember the knife. You crying.”
Her breath caught as he traced a finger down her cheek, following the line of her long-ago tears. “You cried, and I wanted so badly to hold you, promise you everything would be okay. But I couldn’t.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said quietly.
“It wasn’t yours, either.” He caught her hand, kissed it, hard, desperately. “Don’t think I can’t feel how torn up you are inside. Don’t think I don’t know how much you’ve blamed yourself over these years.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” She snapped her mouth shut, wishing she could call the question back.
“You’re not God, my pretty little witch,” he said, a sad, bitter smile curling his mouth. “You were strong back then—I don’t think I can say I remember much—what little is there, it’s all hazed, foggy. But I know you were strong. Strong isn’t the same as infallible. You aren’t to blame.”
She looked away. She didn’t feel the same way—perhaps she couldn’t. She’d blamed herself every day since it had happened. Blamed herself . . . blamed God. Even Elias—Dominic. She’d blamed him for leaving her. Leaving her, and not coming back as he’d promised.
But he was back . . .
He eased back on the bed, blowing out a breath. She lay stretched out atop him, holding him close. So close. But not close enough. She could feel the faint, irregular beat of his heart, and the scent of him flooded her head. Against her magical senses, he was a velvety, electric presence—she’d feel him in her sleep. In her every waking moment.
In every last dream she had.
“So you had dreams. But does that mean you remembered? Did you always remember me?”
“No.” His lashes drooped low, lower. He took a deep breath and then opened them, smiling at her.
She felt the weariness. The deep, deep exhaustion.
“No . . . not always. But I always looked for you. Every damn place I went. Every woman I saw. Every voice I heard . . . I looked for you. I had no choice.” His arms tightened around her and then he shifted around. “I had to find you . . . even when I didn’t know what I was looking for.”
Five seconds later, the sun pierced the sky.
Five seconds after that, he was asleep.
And she was left alone with her thoughts, wrapped in his arms . . . and worrying.
No choice.
He’d looked for her because he had no choice. He’d found her, because the same instincts that made him a Hunter would have pushed him to find her.
Had he wanted to find her?
Tears leaked from her eyes, and the confusion in her head spread, growing worse, and worse.
He had found her, because he’d been compelled to. Somehow fate had conspired to place him on a road that would lead him to her—after five hundred fucking years. And it had been one awful, horrid road.
He’d suffered. The weight of his pain, it bore down on her. Hurt her deep inside, a vicious, twisting pain that left her struggling to breathe past it.
Suffered, just so he would find her.
Because he had no choice . . .
“I could live with that,” she whispered to herself. No matter what his reasons for being here, he was here, and although he barely knew her, didn’t remember her, didn’t know her . . . she could make him fall in love with her. She could—after all, wasn’t that why he was here? Now?
After all this time?
“Why now?”
Squirming out of his arms, she sat on the edge of the bed and stared upward.
“Why now?” she demanded. “After what I did . . . after what I’ve become? How could you let me do that? How?”
Her voice rose until she was shouting. Through her tears, she stared up toward the God she no longer wanted to believe in. All this time, she’d waited all this time, only for her lover to return to her . . . and she was broken.
Fallen.
Lifting her hands, she stared at them. She could still feel the blood.
Still feel the song of its power.
In the back of her mind, as though she had just been waiting for the chance to slip out and torment, there was Morgan. And of course the leech had been waiting—the only time she could break free was when Nessa let her guard down.
Morgan’s voice, angrier, more vicious than ever, mocked her. “Yeah, why now? Why couldn’t he have come back when you were a haggard, ugly old crone so covered with wrinkles, he’d never recognize you? Then he wouldn’t have wanted you. But now you’ve got my hot self and he’s all over your ass.”
“Oh, do shut up,” Nessa snarled.
Surging off the bed, she stormed to the mirror and stared at herself. It was her reflection, but she didn’t see herself. She saw Morgan . . . the ghost of the witch who’d owned this body, hovering around her, clinging to life . . . haunting her.
An abrupt, irrational wave of anger flooded her, swamped her. Morgan’s body still remembered the rush from blood power. Craved it. If those cravings hadn’t been riding her, would she have fallen so far?
“Oh, you can’t blame me for that, ” Morgan responded, laughing. “You can try as much as you want, but it wasn’t my hands that killed that man. I wasn’t the one soaking up his power, his essence, feeding off his pain and his anger and his fear. It was you. ”
Nessa slammed a hand against the mirror. It shattered. “No.” She blew out a harsh breath and said quietly, “I might have killed him, but it wasn’t my hands that reached for his blood—that isn’t a power I even knew how to manipulate. That was yours, and you can’t fool me into thinking otherwise.”
“So fucking what? You were there and you felt the rush, same as me. You killed him and you got off on the power, just like I did. You’ll crave it the same as I do.”
“Actually,” Nessa murmured, “no. I believe it will just be me craving the blood. I’ll have to fight it on my own in the future.”
Focusing on the anger, the rage, she wound her power around Morgan’s essence, lingering so deep inside her mind.
Morgan, sensing Nessa’s intention, shrieked and fought, tugging against Nessa’s hold, struggling desperately.
“It’s past time I do this, don’t you think?”
“You can’t—damn it, you old bitch, I’m part of you now. Take me out, you may damn well die.”
“Then that’s a risk I’ll have to take . . . I won’t live with you inside me.”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t risk it . . . especially not now.
“I just fucking want my body back! My life.” Then, oddly, there was a catch, a sob in her thoughts and Morgan whispered, “I never really even had much of a
chance. I only did what I had to.”
Calm spread over Nessa and softly, she whispered, “Yes. Perhaps you did what you had to . . . perhaps you had no choice.”
Perhaps Morgan had just been a pawn—a pawn used in these odd circumstances that had led straight up to the moment Nessa had plunged that dagger into Dominic’s back, so close to destroying the heart.
Blowing out a sigh, Nessa said, “Perhaps you had no choice. And now . . . I have no choice. You don’t belong here, precious. Not anymore.”
Nessa closed her eyes. The air in the room grew cold . . . tight. Brittle . . . as though it would shatter if she breathed too deeply, if she moved wrong, if she even thought wrong.
Trapped in the web of Nessa’s power, Morgan’s soul struggled, thrashed. Pushed for control, tried to edge back inside Nessa’s mind.
But she hadn’t the power, not now.
“I should have done this long ago,” she said quietly.
Morgan screamed.
Nessa felt it echoing inside her head, reverberating like a gong. Hissing out a breath, she shoved the presence away. Out. Out of her mind. Her body.
It was almost anticlimactic—one moment Morgan was fighting, shrieking, struggling.
And then Nessa was alone—completely and utterly alone inside her head, left to stare in the mirror at her fractured reflection.
“My body.” Hers—just as the awful, wrong choices she’d made were hers. Completely and utterly . . . hers. She hadn’t asked for this body—hadn’t done a damn thing to bring it about. Whether it was some weird twist of fate, some strange machination of the powers that be, she didn’t know.
But she hadn’t done this—it had been done to her. To both of them—to her, and to Morgan.
She looked back at her hands, remembering the blood. Remembering the choices she’d made. She’d taken lives during that foggy, surreal time when she’d forgotten herself. She could live with killing others—she’d done it hundreds of times, perhaps thousands. But always to protect another.
She could no longer say that, and she wasn’t sure she could live with what she had done.
Her throat tight, she turned to look at Dominic. His long, lean body stretched out on the bed and he slumbered, peaceful and at ease.
Tears stung Nessa’s eyes. She hadn’t been at ease with herself in so long. Hadn’t been at peace.
Now happiness lay just inches away.
But she no longer deserved it. She didn’t deserve him.
Rising from the bed, she murmured once more, “Why now?”
But it didn’t matter. She had made her choices . . . and even as she made them, she had questioned them—known they were wrong.
“But it didn’t stop me.”
She’d been making bad decisions for some time now. Even before the debacle with Isis, followed by her unintentional self-curse. So many wrong decisions.
“No more.”
No more.
CHAPTER 23
HE woke alone.
Dominic had been pretty damn sure that he wouldn’t have to do that again. At least not today.
But he woke alone.
Sitting up, he stared out the window into the fading day and tried to understand.
She was gone. Not just in another room, but gone. And judging by the slowly fading scent, she’d been gone for a while—more than a few hours.
A note.
Maybe she’d left a note.
Hell, she was a Hunter—he knew what it was like to get that nagging, demanding call, one that jerked and pulled, demanded obedience. A Hunter had to follow that call.
So maybe that’s what was going on.
But his instincts said otherwise.
His heart said otherwise. He might not want to believe it, might want to deny it, fight it, but in his heart, he knew.
For some reason he didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, she was gone.
Swearing, he scooped up clothes from the floor, uncaring that they were dirty, still stained with blood. He had to find her.
And fortunately, he knew how to do just that.
Off to the west, the sun lingered in the air, taunting him. It was a few hours before the sun was completely gone, and fate wasn’t even being kind enough to give him an overcast day.
But Dominic didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t a brand-new vamp—it would take more than a little bit of sunlight to do him in, although this sure as hell wouldn’t be pleasant. He didn’t give a fuck. He wasn’t spending any more time without her—not if he had a choice. And he damned well wouldn’t do it, period, without understanding why.
As he stormed out of the cabin into the soft, pale golden rays of sunlight, he muttered, “I just found you. I am not losing you.”
“WHAT is she doing here?”
Kelsey gathered her hair into a loose ponytail and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Malachi scowled, staring across the campus at her. Roughly an hour ago, he’d sensed her just before she’d arrived—using the very handy skill some of the more talented witches had. Flying—much like his own ability to dematerialize—wasn’t a common gift.
And for a witch like Nessa, it was as easy as breathing . . . part of the reason he was hesitant to go speak with her just yet.
“She feels like a storm,” Kelsey said, her hand resting just above her heart as though it hurt. “Angry. Sad. Desperate.”
“Then she still hasn’t seen him.” Malachi blew out a breath and rubbed his neck. “We can fix this, then. I’ll track the lad down and . . . ”
“No.” Kelsey turned and came into his arms, wrapping hers around his waist and holding him tight. “She’s seen him. She knows. I can feel it.”
“But, if she’s seen him, why is she here alone?”
“I don’t know.”
Malachi stroked a hand down her back, resting his chin on the crown of her head. “Then maybe we should find out?”
“No.” Kelsey closed her eyes. “Not yet. Not until she’s . . . well, a little less likely to fly apart.”
“DON’T suppose you want to tell me what in the hell you’re doing here, do you?”
Sliding Kelsey a look from the corner of her eye, Nessa said in a flat, harsh voice, “I want to be alone. You’re interfering.”
“Too damned bad.” Kelsey stormed into the cabin and gave it a dirty look. “You show back up at my school and think I won’t want to know what in the hell is going on?”
“Your school?” Nessa smirked. “Your school . . . should I have begged permission first?”
“Don’t give me that crap.” Kelsey made a face. “Damn it, Agnes, you’re one of my dearest friends—you’ve been mother, sister, teacher to me—damn near everything. Save for Mal, there is no one on earth I love as much as I love you.”
Weary, Nessa reached up and rubbed her neck. “Yes, love. I do know that. I . . . I just need to be alone.”
“Why? For God’s sake, you’ve spent too much time alone and now that you don’t have to be alone, you’re choosing to be?”
“I don’t deserve more than that.” She swallowed the knot in her throat. With the shame clawing at her stomach, she met Kelsey’s gaze.
“What in the hell does that mean?”
Tears glimmered in Kelsey’s eyes and she stared at Nessa, all the love, all the passion, all the life she had inside shining in those eyes.
Such a true soul—so pure, so strong. She’d been willing to die, more than once, to save those she loved. And Nessa had spent the past few years tormenting those she loved, toying with death with no regard for them. So desperate to escape the life she’d been given, this second chance, so desperate . . .
“My dear friend, it means just that. I don’t deserve him. I fell, Kelsey. And heavens . . . did I fall hard.” Nessa shook her head. “I’m not even sure I deserve to be here.”
“Bullshit.”
Narrowing her eyes, Nessa looked at Kelsey. “Pardon me, but you weren’t there, so you really don’t know, do you?”
“I killed a man, stole everything he was through his blood,” Nessa said, and she watched as Kelsey went pale.
The other witch stumbled back against a wall. “You . . . You what? ”
“You heard me. Now, can you still look at me and tell me that I deserve to be here?”
“What . . . How?”
She looked away, so sick at heart, so full of shame. “A man attacked me—and I killed him. I could live with that. I’ve taken lives before, in defense of myself, in defense of others . . . in the name of justice. But while I’ve taken lives, I’ve never fed from one, until him. I fed from a life, Kelsey. The one thing we witches can never do, and I did it. I’ll crave it now, for the rest of my life. I’ll have to fight it, for the rest of my life.”
“Blood magic.”
Nessa nodded, rubbing one hand against the other. “Yes. I tasted it, and now I understand why so many of our kind fall prey to it. Morgan . . . she learned it from her mother, you know. She was too young to truly understand how wrong it was, and by the time she was old enough, she was addicted to it. Had to have it, and she cared nothing for those she killed while she was feeding it. She was a victim, too, at the bottom of it all, and I never even realized it.”
Blowing out a breath, she said, “She had to die, Kelsey. I know that. She’d never have been able to stop, even if she wanted to. She would have killed again, and again. But she was a victim. Perhaps if we had been there for her—to stop her mother—she might have turned out differently. She might have had a chance.”
Another thought hit her, another shame—Jazzy. That child. Hazy, incomplete memories from before she’d remembered who and what she was ran through her head—Brad and Ana arriving—Dominic had asked about Duke, vague references about a friend. Jazzy, please let it be Jazzy . . .
Swearing, she covered her face with her hands. “Fuck it all—there’s a girl, too. Morgan had a sister—Jasmine. Jazzy. I suspect she’s with Duke—he’s bringing her here most likely. She needs to be here, needs to be trained. She’s not a danger. Yet. But she will be, if we don’t see to her.”
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