The fear suddenly clenching her gut made Kira think of Luke, of his warm smile and his laugh, of the way he always made her feel safe and protected but also strong enough to manage on her own. She saw his spirit in the fires set around the room—the glint of his hair and the warmth of his laugh and the heat in their kiss. Drawing on Luke, as well as the power gathering in her heart, Kira felt ready.
Help was coming and she would manage just fine until then.
When her thighs bumped the edge of the table, Kira stopped and waited for further instructions. Until Aldrich made his move, she would play by his rules.
“Kira,” Aldrich said happily, letting a wide smile spread across his face. Somehow, it looked harsh rather than natural. He unclasped his hands and spread them out, motioning to the décor. “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Not too,” he shrugged, “over the top?”
“No, it’s perfect,” Kira said.
“Good, because I want everything to be perfect. For you. For Tristan. For our new family.” He stuttered over the word family, letting out a cough afterward to cover up the flub. “Excuse me,” he laughed, “my excitement is getting the best of me.”
Yes, it is, Kira thought, but what exactly are you so excited about?
“I think we’re all excited,” Tristan said, laughing with Aldrich and clapping him on the back like old chums. Kira lifted the corner of her lip, a small movement thanking Tristan for finally playing along.
“I know I am, so let’s get started,” Kira said and looked around, waiting for instruction.
“Lana, dear?”
“Coming,” a polite voice echoed down the hall. Kira turned. She hadn’t even noticed that the female vampire had left the room.
A second later, she walked back in holding a silver tray.
Once it was set on the table, Kira peered down, curious. A sharp silver knife reflected her blue eyes back at her. They looked fierce, hot and almost like fire except for the color.
Next to the knife were a pitcher of blood and an empty wine glass waiting to be filled.
Kira’s throat went dry as the tension in her body rose. “Can we go over the process one more time?” she asked. Her eyes were still focused on the tray.
“I think we should just begin,” Aldrich said and leaned his hands against the table, smoothing out the area in front of him. Kira understood. His patience was at an end. There would be no more delaying.
Kira turned around and placed her butt on the tabletop, lifting the rest of her body. She fell back slowly, sinking against the flat surface as though it really were her deathbed. When her head touched back, the folds of her skirt swished over her legs. Aldrich used his mind to smooth them out so her dress fell over the edges of the table, cascading into the flower petals below. For a guy who didn’t seem to like color, there sure was a lot of red in the room.
Kira stared up at the ceiling, waiting for more instruction. She traced the candle glows with her eyes, following circular lines as they intersected and maneuvered around each other in an endless pattern, broken only by the large black chandelier swaying gently above her head. The iron looked heavy, like it strained to escape the screws locking it in place.
A hand landed on her calf and her entire body jolted. Kira lifted her head reflexively, only to meet Tristan’s gaze. He was trying to calm her, to stay connected with her as she ventured into the one part of the plan he couldn’t partake in.
Further up, another hand touched her and this time Kira focused on remaining calm as Aldrich’s cold fingers latched around her wrist. They felt like ice cubes against her rising temperature. Kira fought with her power, holding it tightly with her mind to keep it in place. Her control was getting better, but it still had limits.
Aldrich lifted her hand to his lips, placing what Kira thought was supposed to be a reassuring kiss on her palm.
“Are you ready?” he asked, squinting down at her. From her place on the table, he looked like a giant looming overhead.
He flipped her wrist, tracing her vein with the tip of his finger.
No. No. No. No. No.
Kira’s mind was racing. Her heart was pumping and she knew all three vampires could hear it. She didn’t care. It felt like bugs were crawling along her skin, and she wanted to run.
Her power coiled around her heart, extending down her veins and searing her blood, making it boil. She clenched her free wrist, keeping it contained—barely. It would be so easy to let it go, to blast Aldrich against the wall and get away as fast as she could without turning around. She could see it in her head, see the flames bursting out, see the boils exploding along his flesh, see the ash in the air as he fell dead.
But then she would never know.
She would never know what sort of evil she was really capable of, because that’s what it had been about all along. Aldrich’s big secret, Kira knew, had something to do with her destiny of destruction—the one the conduits feared and the one Aldrich longed for.
Taking a deep breath, Kira let her fire lay like a blanket over her organs, circling her insides but not escaping.
She met Tristan’s eyes and stayed there for one prolonged moment before turning to Aldrich.
“I’m ready.”
She bit her lip and he bit her wrist. Fangs sunk deep into her skin to catch the blood pumping free and quickly out of her adrenaline-filled veins. Kira forced her mouth to stay shut to keep from crying out at the pain.
Tristan’s hand tightened on her leg, keeping her grounded and on the table when she wanted to breakaway at a dead sprint. His fingers dug into her muscles as though he were staying grounded through her as well, as if she was his anchor. His eyes cut at Aldrich, harsh and angry, blazing a deep black Kira had never seen before.
Aldrich, however, had his eyes closed. Ecstasy played across his features as they softened and he gripped her wrist even tighter.
And Kira’s power was screaming at her, burning her since it had nothing else to scorch. Lava and not blood was what Aldrich swallowed, lava that was melting her to the table, that would kill her if she didn’t let it go. But she couldn’t let it go. She had to hold on, to keep fighting for a minute, no a second, just a moment longer.
Behind Kira, a soft cough sounded.
Remembering himself, Aldrich slipped his fangs from her wrist and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the blood dripping down his chin. Her blood—brilliantly red against his snowy face, brighter than all of the flowers around the room.
It was silent.
All Kira could hear was the rapid beat of her own heart as the seconds drew further on. It pumped in her ears louder than a drum, shaking her entire body.
Next to her, Aldrich flexed his wrist, waiting. Her blood needed to course through his body, needed to transform to match his vampiric composition, his cell structure, his evil.
No one moved. Tristan still gripped her leg. He hadn’t even blinked.
And then a jingle sounded softly by her feet. The knife, gleaming silver with an ornately decorated handle, rose from the tray, slowly trailing over her body to settle over Aldrich’s outstretched hand.
He let it rest, poised over his own wrist, and looked down at Kira with white eyes. This was it, the moment Aldrich had waited for, the moment Kira had needed to witness but had also dreaded. He was not even trying to cover the smirk on his face, the glint in his eyes reading only of success and power.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
The knife moved quickly, slashing a deep gash and blood dripped from the wound, landing on Kira’s dress, her arm, her hand.
Aldrich smashed his wrist down into the wounds his fangs had created, and Kira felt it, felt the blood grip her veins, pushing back into the holes in a completely unnatural invasion. Sticky, like sap, it sunk into her, grasping for her skin, her arteries. As it entered her bloodstream, Kira felt her own blood change from the burning, fire-filled flames she was u
sed to. Her blood caught on, transforming with this intruder, sticking to her insides and turning black like tar melting on the street.
Frightened, Kira tried to pull away, but she couldn’t move her fingers. Her arm seemed heavy, like a rock had been placed above it, holding her down. When she lifted her head to look at the spot, nothing was there. Aldrich had already retreated and was closing his wound.
The blackness sunk deeper into her, traveling up her shoulder, weeding its way into her neck, and Kira’s head banged against the table as her nerves fought and failed to keep their strength.
Above her head, Aldrich started laughing a high-pitched squeal.
“Oh, Kira,” he whispered for her ears alone, leaning down over her face, rubbing a finger down her cheek, “what a fool you are.”
And try as she might, Kira couldn’t get her mouth to move. Her lips were glued shut and her tongue felt as though it weighed one hundred pounds. Her eyelids soon felt heavy, and blinking became too much of a burden.
And that’s when Kira started screaming. She couldn’t make a sound but her soul ached, screeched against the black tar turning her body to stone. And Kira released her fire, let the flames go free, but they were weak against the dark cloud spreading through her veins.
Kira focused on the only thing she could think of, protecting her heart, her core, the place where the sun never seemed too far away. She gathered her flames, letting them grow and coat her heart, circling it like a shield.
And before she knew it, the rest of her went flat. She had no energy aside from the power boiling in her center.
Her eyelids sunk lower. Past Aldrich’s face. Down Tristan’s arm. Until her vision was nearly spent.
And the last thing Kira saw was a single candle flickering just past her vision, holding on for dear life.
And then even that was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun.
All Kira could think about was the sun.
Somehow, against all odds, it managed to shine brightly in a sea of black. It managed to break through the darkness to survive.
Kira needed to be the sun. Her heart felt like the sun—rock solid, burning, exploding into the blackness around it.
But the dark coiling around her veins was relentless, and it fed through the small cracks in her protection, seeping through every gap, straining to break through her power source.
Protection was all Kira could think about, protecting herself from the darkness and repelling the evil struggling to break her. Using only those powers, Kira focused all of her energy on protecting her heart. She found every hole in her defenses and bottled them shut, weaving fire like yarn, encasing her entire being within those folds.
And when Kira finally felt calm for a moment, felt like the ash had stopped pressing forward, had stopped gaining ground, she knew she had to fight.
Holding her Protector powers secure around her heart, Kira delved into the other side of her fire, the deeper side. She focused on her anger, letting herself go to the place beyond control for the first time in a long time.
Kira focused on Aldrich, on his snide comments and sidelong glances that held promises of terror. The image of her mother’s dead body being thrown to the ground like a play toy for a starving vampire boiled her blood, infusing her power with more strength and perseverance. Every moment Kira ever spent hating a vampire, fighting a vampire, resisting a vampire, popped into her head in an endless stream of clips, bringing her powers to a breaking point.
This thing would not consume her. Every fiber of her being rejected the very idea of becoming one of them, and Kira poured that belief into her powers as they burst from her heart in a relentless stream of heat.
At first, her fire slammed against the black liquid cooling her veins. The two powers crashed together, like two titans in a mortal battle, reverberating down her insides with a boom Kira was sure could be heard outside of her head.
Her flames singed the tar, burning it, melting the solid mass that was hardening her limbs. The blackness responded, shrouding her flames from the light like an eclipse inside her body.
But unlike the evil trying to consume her, Kira had passion and conviction on her side. She refused to give in, refused to back down, and for that her fire pushed through.
At first, the retreat was slow and Kira used all her power to chase the sticky rubber from her veins, letting her warm blood return. But soon, her flames melted the blackness further, until it was slick oil sliding out of her veins, oozing from her pores in as quick of an escape as possible. Her skin felt grimy on the outside, like a greasy residue had been left behind, like she couldn’t get totally free of the substance.
But her insides were hot and light once more, and distantly Kira felt her senses return. Her back was cold against the table. Her joints ached from lying atop the hard surface. Sugary sweetness licked at her nostrils, and Kira remembered the flowers strewn across the floor.
Then hands were shaking her shoulders, bouncing her from side to side, and jerking her neck painfully. She fell back against the table again and a heavy body fell on top of her. It was trembling. Slowly, muffled sobs broke through her ears.
“Kira!” A deep voice cried. She recognized Tristan’s agonized scream. She wanted to comfort him, to calm him, but her limbs still felt like jelly.
The pressure lifted and she heard the accusation. “What did you do?” Tristan hissed.
“I turned her,” came the calm reply. “I did exactly what I said I’d do.”
“But it’s impossible,” Tristan said. Kira, feeling more and more like herself with each passing second, began to wonder what she had missed. She was eager to join the fight, but too interested to see what information Aldrich would give up while he thought she was still under the thrall of the change.
“Not impossible.” Kira could envision him shrugging in her head. He was only too happy to have the power.
“Conduits can’t change,” Tristan told him firmly.
“No they can’t,” he said gently, “but Kira is so much more than a conduit.” Fingers brushed her hair from her forehead. “And soon, she will be so much more than even that.”
“What do you mean?” Tristan asked, his voice more curious than angry, almost hopeful as if something he had stopped dreaming might still somehow come true.
“It is a common misconception that the mix of each conduit breed results in a mixed breed, a half-blood if you will. But they’re all wrong, Tristan. It’s the conduits that are less, that are divided. Kira is pure. She is the joining of two halves. Two conduits do not make a mixed breed, Tristan, they make an angel. An original.”
“An angel?” Tristan asked. His voice was distant, disbelieving. His cool hand cupped her cheek. Behind closed eyes, Kira could imagine his face peering down at her, roving over the curves of her face.
“Yes, an angel. And angels can do what conduits can’t.” Aldrich paused and Kira felt a tug on one of her curls. “They can fall. And when angels fall, there is no one on this earth who can stop them.”
Kira let those words sink into her still recovering mind. The Punisher had been right. She was falling, becoming an unstoppable evil, something no conduit could burn and no vampire could bite.
“What will happen when she wakes up?” Tristan asked softly. The glimmer of hope behind those words was unmistakable, and anger boiled in the pit of Kira's stomach at Tristan’s response.
“She won’t,” the female vampire said from across the room. Kira wondered if she still looked like her mother. If when she opened her eyes, there finally would be a stranger in front of her, a stranger she would be happy to kill.
“But—”
“Oh she will wake, Tristan, but she won’t be the Kira you remember,” the woman continued. Her tone was spiteful, nasty. Her eyes flashed in Kira’s mind, deep and full of loathing. “If the turning goes the way we hope, her soul will be broken, and she will emerge as a wild, uncontrolled beast.”
“Kira would never let th
at happen,” Tristan said, completely confident.
“She won’t have a choice,” Aldrich said calmly. "The change will drive her to insanity. When she wakes, only one thing will consume her thoughts—blood. And not just any blood—conduit blood. Kira will be our reckoning.”
A rage-filled growl broke through the room. A huge crash sounded next to Kira’s ear, and she heard Aldrich chuckle softly. By her feet, Kira heard Tristan curse at him and yell again.
She flexed her finger, testing part of her body to make sure it responded the way she wanted. Her finger obeyed, moving the precise way Kira had ordered it to. And she was about to jump and show Aldrich he had been wrong, ready to kill him and any knowledge he had in his small head, but something else broke through her consciousness before she could order her feet to stand.
A sense of conviction and honor pulsed into her head. Hot pride and perfectly simmering love punctured the veins around her scalp, and words started whispering inside her mind.
“I’m coming, Kira. I’m coming. Just keep holding on. I swear, we’ll be there soon. Just keep fighting. For you. For me. Keep fighting.” And the encouragement continued in an endless tirade that puffed her chest with hope.
Luke.
He was close, nearly here and projecting his thoughts to give her the strength he somehow knew she would need. The same golden warmth she had felt during their kiss began to spread from her heart, fixing her bruised soul.
Keep fighting, he whispered over and over in her head. Kira knew to listen.
“We have company,” the woman said, and Kira snapped back to her surroundings, letting a sense of Luke continue to funnel through her body while she turned her direct attention back to the words being thrown around above her head.
“I hear them,” Aldrich said roughly. “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Tristan. I really didn’t think you would betray me.”
The Complete Midnight Fire Series Page 57
