by Rachel Jonas
“You don’t want to feed on me right now,” I reiterated, trying to speak and stare at the same time, remembering what Levi told me to do if it came to this.
Aaric seemed almost bored with my excuse.
“For once tonight, you actually got something right. I don’t want to simply feed on you.” A smile parted his lips. “I have every intention to kill you. There’s no pity in my heart for liars.”
He leaned in to finish the job.
“What lie did I tell? What did I say?” I pleaded, feeling the tile press into my wrists where one of his large hands had the strength to keep both of mine pinned to the floor.
“How long have you belonged to Levi?”
I tried to wriggle free, feeling how tightly he kept my waist locked between his knees. It was no use. “You said you were cut off from the broadcast a little more than a month ago. You would have barely missed the announcement.”
Does he buy that?
Which of the many lies I’ve told here this evening has he seen through?
“Interesting,” he crooned. “There’s just one small problem with that.”
I waited with bated breath for him to finish.
“You say he indulges your curiosity with the races, but I have it on good authority you were a part of the races long before the prince took you in as his pet. Now, isn’t that right … Specter?”
That breath I held disappeared when he referred to me by my racing name.
He knows. I’m not sure how much or how damning the evidence against me is, but … he knows.
“One does not forget the girl who’s dominated his races for more than two years now. And imagine my surprise when it was brought to my attention that my champion was not only a woman, but … human.”
I wasn’t sure which of those attributes he loathed more.
“So, tell me who you are,” he demanded. “Who you really are.”
There was no answer I could give that wouldn’t invite him to kill me like he originally planned. So, instead, I said nothing.
“Very well then,” he smiled. “I take no issue with you dying a nameless nobody.”
I tensed when his teeth grazed me again. “Okay, wait!”
He sighed, but didn’t pull away. “Change of heart?” His lips were still resting against my skin when he asked, and I detected amusement in his tone.
He wanted me to submit, to tell him my whole truth. Only, I couldn’t give him that.
“Not a change of heart,” I replied, “but I can assure you, one taste of my blood, and you’ll drop dead within seconds.”
I wasn’t sure if he sobered out of fear or curiosity, but I guessed it was the latter. His lips dragged over my throat when he reared back to peer into my eyes. I was still in shock as I stared at him, taking in the brilliant, silver shimmer of his. However, now wasn’t the time to ask questions about that. Not when he was a breath away from ending me.
“You have my attention,” he said, tilting his head to listen.
“You were right about me, at least in part. If you go through with this, you’ll not only have to deal with one prince … you’ll face the wrath of all four,” I explained. “So, if you touch a hair on my head, I guarantee they’ll all rain down hell on yours.”
My chest heaved with each labored breath I took, awaiting his reaction.
Had this been another lie? Yes. I was one-hundred-percent certain Roman would not go to bat for me, but I had it on good authority the other three would. Aaric didn’t need those details, though. All I needed was for his concern for his own life to outweigh his concern for mine.
It was my only chance.
He peered down at me and said nothing, leaving me to wonder what plan he’d come up with inside that dark soul of his. Another fantasy about ending my life, perhaps?
“A blood bond,” he mumbled thoughtfully. “I’ve read Dr. Percival’s reports on the effects of one, but … are you suggesting the monarchs actually believe he was on to something?” Aaric was distracted when asking, staring through me rather than at me. “I suppose that question has already been answered, if what you’re saying is true.”
I writhed beneath him again while he mostly had this portion of the conversation with himself. It was possible that, with him distracted, I could break free, but what then? I’d seen with my own two eyes that his speed was second to none. I’d make it maybe a foot before he snatched me back and finished what he started.
“Tell me, how many have already initiated their bond with you?”
I squirmed a bit less conspicuously now. “Two.”
His smile returned. “Do you believe in fate?”
The odd question made my brow knit together. “Fate? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
That wickedly handsome smile of his returned, and I had no idea what he hid behind it.
“I believe it was fate that brought you to me. And there’s another fact I believe bears mentioning.” With his free hand, he pushed my hair away from my face, and that was when I realized his claws were still drawn. My natural reaction was to recoil from his touch.
“What’s that?” I asked, even though I still hadn’t caught my breath fully.
His smile broadened and I just had this feeling that his pleasure was directly linked to my pain.
“Four days. That’s how long you’ve been here,” he revealed. It took a moment to understand what that had to do with anything, but then … I did.
“I’m willing to bet whatever venom you harbored when you first arrived has run its course by now. Wouldn’t you say?”
The wickedness in his stare rendered me speechless.
“Well, either way,” he continued, “I suppose I’ll just take my chances.”
There was no time to protest, no time to scream. My flesh burned and throbbed when his fangs struck deep. A frenzy of violent sucking caused my vision to blur and then dim. My consciousness was slipping quickly, but I fought it.
“Too much,” I choked out. Only … I’d forgotten he didn’t care whether I lived or died, so these words meant nothing to him.
His weight on top of me grew heavier then, as he savored my taste. He seemed to lose all sense of time in that moment of deep indulgence.
The room spun, but I was aware of a new sensation, a sharp prick to my outer thigh.
A needle.
Aaric’s mouth left my skin and the darkness that flooded behind the silver centers of his eyes faded like smoke. I moaned with weakness when words wouldn’t leave my lips.
What did he just inject me with?
What’s his plan?
The words, “Rest now,” sounded like a dark serenade leaving his mouth.
I had no choice but to obey, feeling the room closing in on me as my limbs became heavy and useless. Whatever Aaric had up his sleeve was about to come to pass as consciousness left me.
Thanks to supernatural speed, and a well-kept secret plan, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.
I was completely at Aaric’s mercy.
***
“Corina, answer me! You have to open your eyes!”
There was panic in Levi’s voice, but the dense haze inside my head distorted everything else.
“What happened to her?” he called out, seconds before a heavy door slammed shut as the one he asked left without giving an answer.
“Bloody hell,” he murmured to himself, placing a cool hand to the back of my neck as he held me.
I could make out an array of light and color, but no discernable shapes.
Struggling to focus, I was suddenly yanked back to reality, and a sharp breath rushed into my lungs. I bolted upright. In that moment, despite having heard Levi’s voice seconds before, I imagined I was still in Aaric’s lair. His was the last face I’d seen before losing consciousness.
The last I’d seen before I was taken down, injected with an unknown substance.
Frantic, I scurried backwards across the padded floor until my shoulder blades struck the wall. My e
yes darted from one end of the room to the other, desperate to get my bearings.
“I … something’s wrong,” I rambled.
The room spun, and I closed my eyes to make it stop. Something was off, even beyond feeling disoriented. It was almost as if I wasn’t myself. Or, I was, but …
“Shh, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
Unlike the other times Levi whispered promises in my ear, I didn’t believe him. Locked inside this place, we would never be safe. I was certain he meant what he said, but we were powerless here. For example, I’d just lost a chunk of time I couldn’t account for and there was no telling what had been done to me. No telling what secrets I’d been coerced to relinquish.
I just … something didn’t feel right.
“How long was I gone,” I blurted, glancing up at Levi.
He pushed a hand across the back of his neck with a sigh. “If I had to guess, four hours maybe? Too long.” He breathed a frustrated breath. “I called out for the guards, willing to beg for information when you didn’t return, but no one ever came. Not until now.”
I blinked at Levi, aware of the mixture of relief and concern in the look he returned. He’d been worried.
When I blacked out with Aaric, I’d been away for maybe two hours already—thanks to the extensive preparation his followers had made a priority. So, now to hear I had been gone twice that long was unsettling to say the least.
“He … he bit me,” I stammered, pressing a hand to the side of my neck. When I removed my fingers, sticky blood from the wound coated them.
Levi knelt beside me.
“I know,” he seethed through gritted teeth. “And I’ll kill him for it.”
These words were spoken with such certainty that I didn’t doubt for an instant he’d do just that when given the chance. The strength in his arm when it encircled my shoulders was comforting, but only a little.
“Do you remember anything else?” he asked, eager to know.
A few details came rushing back to me. “He attacked me, even after I told him I’d been bitten by two princes, and while I was pinned to the ground, he got me with the syringe.” Frazzled, I pushed a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what was in it, only that my body started to go numb, and then I passed out.”
A sympathetic gaze landed on me and I felt every ounce of the emotion within it. It’d been Levi’s biggest fear that I’d go to that dinner and wouldn’t be able to defend myself against Aaric. Shockingly enough, things played out exactly the way he expected.
“Did he drop any clues that might shed light on his agenda?”
Closing my eyes, I thought harder. The memory was still only coming through in fragments, annoyingly small bits and pieces, which may have had something to do with being dosed.
“He was tightlipped about everything. The one morsel he gave is that he’s doing—whatever he’s doing—for his people. For the Roamers,” I shared.
I still had no clue how holding us here helped his obscure cause, but if it wasn’t money he wanted, then perhaps his objective was to make an example of us somehow. Either way, he seemed to think my being here was fate.
Levi glanced at me and our eyes locked. “What provoked him to attack?” His jaw flexed solid after asking.
Recalling every detail was the last thing I wanted to do, and the last thing I could do seeing as how I still wasn’t myself.
“Apparently, I wasn’t convincing enough,” I admitted. Levi seemed anxious to interject, but he let me explain instead. “He already knew I’d been racing for years. So, when I tried to pass for just being your Doll, he … he didn’t buy it.” I lowered my head, questioning whether I could have done something differently.
I leaned into Levi’s touch when he trailed the uninjured side of my neck with cool fingertips. It was clear he only meant to look me over for more wounds, but I enjoyed the contact all the same. The gentleness of his touch, in contrast to the harshness of Aaric’s, made it easier to accept that this was real, that I’d really made it back and wasn’t just dreaming of Levi. I guess it was finally sinking in that I was safe.
For now.
“Is there anything else you can tell me? Even if it seems abstract,” he added.
There was a flare of tension that rose within me as I tried to make sense of something I saw, something I found myself questioning now that Aaric and I weren’t face-to-face.
Had I really seen him the way I was remembering?
Levi’s gaze softened and I decided to just say it. Even if it didn’t make sense. I saw what I saw.
“His eyes,” I began. “They were … silver. Like yours. Like the others’.”
Levi’s brow twitched and then gathered in the center. I guessed it meant he was just as confused as I had been when I first made the discovery.
“I know that sounds crazy,” I sighed.
“No, it sounds impossible,” Levi rebutted with certainty. “Are you positive?”
Feeling doubt creep in, I peered up at him. “Yeah, I … I think,” I stammered, noticing the tremble in my hands. “I mean, it was dark, and things got intense, but I really don’t think I’m wrong about this.”
It irked me to the core that I was no longer confident in what I’d seen. I knew how things worked. The four emperors each had one son, and these fathers and their sons were the only Ianites I’d ever known to bore that silver-eyed trait.
But I felt it in my bones—Aaric was no ordinary roamer.
“There has to be an explanation,” Levi sighed distractedly, letting his hand fall away from my cheek as he became consumed by this thought. “It has to be some sort of parlor trick, contact lenses.”
I couldn’t think of a single reason why that would make sense. In fact, I fully believed Aaric intended to stay in the shadows until I left him no choice but to confront me. So, there was no point in altering his appearance if I was never meant to see him.
“No, Levi. That wasn’t it,” I replied, feeling my confidence return. “You have to believe me. I saw them before I was bitten, before the shot. If anything, with the rush of adrenaline, I was even more observant than usual. There’s no way I’m wrong about this.”
There was a window of silence that left me to wonder whether he might finally be starting to believe me.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he brought me to him quickly, catching me completely off guard.
Frantic, he tilted my head to the side, scanning the wound Aaric had left there.
“It’s fine. It doesn’t even hurt,” I sighed, feeling it was a waste of time to worry about a bite. We had more pressing issues. Apparently, I was getting used to being snacked on by thirsty vamps.
Go figure.
My lips parted to speak, but the distraught expression now set on Levi’s face halted me.
“Corina did … is it possible he …” Hearing him stammer only confused me more.
“What?” I asked, fighting the sudden urge to panic. “What is it?”
He leaned away, and it was only then that I noticed his mood changed. Where there was once concern, only fury could now be found.
“What’s wrong?”
More silence. I was just about to stand and demand that I be given answers, but never got that chance.
“You’re … healed.” He was absolutely perplexed, as if suddenly seeing the light. “Even the mark from when I fed on you. They’re both gone.”
I placed a hand to the side of my neck. There was blood, but … no wound.
“That can only mean there’s venom in your system.”
With how hard it was to grasp Levi’s statement, it felt like I’d have a meltdown. My face shifted from one expression to the next as an array of emotions washed through me.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
Anger.
The rims of Levi’s nostrils flared with rage that ran so deep the whites of his eyes began to darken. If I hadn’t grown to trust him so ardently, the look of him would have stricken fear in me.
“He knows,” Levi seethed. “If what you said is accurate—about his eyes—and he’s gone through the trouble of not only feeding on you, but injecting you with venom, then … he knows.”
Hearing him say it a second time didn’t clear anything up for me.
His cool gaze cut in my direction. “Did you mention anything about the blood bond to him?”
I shifted my thoughts back to Aaric’s attack, and shook my head. “No, but I didn’t have to. The moment I told him I’d been bitten by monarchs, he just sort of … figured it out,” I shared.
There was a grave look within Levi’s gaze and it made my heart sink. It was a mixture of the rage I already noted, but also empathy. I guessed the latter was for me.
“So … he initiated a bond,” I choked out, unable to fathom being linked to that man.
Levi took my hand when I peered up, and his compassion was more apparent now.
“Under different circumstances, I would assume it stopped there, but … take a look around,” he suggested. “This is no ordinary asylum. So, considering where we are—inside the epicenter of Dr. Percival’s experimentation—we have to assume a good amount of his work still exists here somewhere.”
Only, I didn’t need to assume. I’d seen it with my own two eyes. For a moment, I was back in Aaric’s lair, remembering the artifacts Dr. Percival had left behind. There was practically a complete collection of the madman’s writings, and Aaric made it clear he’d gone so far as to study a great deal of it.
“It’s possible this guy is just as knowledgeable about the blood bond as we are. Heck, maybe more knowledgeable.” His gaze toward me warmed, and I knew he hated being the bearer of bad news. “Which means, it’s possible he might have—”
“He might’ve completed the entire Claiming ceremony,” I blurted, finishing Levi’s thought.
Now I understood. It made sense that this strange mix of unidentified thoughts and emotions I awakened with left me feeling undone. They felt foreign to me because they weren’t my own.
They were Aaric’s.
“But why would he do that? What does he stand to gain from—”
“We’ll figure it out,” Levi promised.
Our cell grew silent and cold. Had this been what Aaric meant when he called our meeting one another ‘fate’? The audacity it took for him to force this on me was inconceivable. The ceremony was such an emotionally intimate act. In essence, it was a pact between the two who partook, agreeing to accept a small part of that individual’s likeness. It served to link the two in ways no other commitment or pledge could enforce.
