Hi,
Ok, someone's going to drop a bombshell in this one. A big one.
And once again, I'm curious about what you're thinking about this chapter - and if anyone saw the bombshell coming? You'll know what I mean once you get there..... ;-)
Thank you all for reading!
Lara
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Chapter 28
The word danger blared through my skull, a cacophony of sirens in my head that made it hard to think instead of react alongside basic instincts. Instincts that told me to reach out and take the inviting hand that would drag me down a road that could only lead into total destruction.
I refused to take a step back, or to do the exact opposite. I locked my knees in place, ready to grab the conversation by the horns and yank it back to safer grounds.
"I heard you're hosting an important guest. Who is it this time? Heron?" It was a wild guess and an artless question. I threw it at him like a muzzle that had the capacity to shut him up, prevent him from opening a Pandora's box I wasn't ready to tackle.
"It does not concern you. How did you know that I have a guest?" He answered with the air of someone that was utterly unconcerned about the statement. The dangerous smile was still in place.
He wasn't going to tell me who. Why?
I shrugged. "I have my sources. Now, let's get down to it. I did a reading of the murder scene in Goshanger's office."
"So did the witch I employed," he said.
So did the witch you blackmailed into doing it.
"What did she tell you?" I said.
"She did not get a deeper reading. She merely located you, Anna."
I narrowed my eyes. Either the head vampire just lied to me or ... someone else did. I knew that Sonya Bernards was powerful enough to do a reading, particularly if she spotted me, hiding deeply in the folds and creases of a magical alter reality.
Alexander wasn't stupid. Did he simply not make the connection that she would have been able to get more than just that? That wasn't like him at all. Did he just not want me to know what he knew at this point in time?
"I didn't learn much, but what I can tell you is that magic was involved," I said. "Whoever killed Goshanger could have been a witch, maybe a dark witch or a half-witch."
"You are telling me things I already know, Anna."
"What you don't know is that I'm not positive it was Medici's doing. What you don't know is that the witch that killed Goshanger might not have been alone. Who knew, it might even have been one of your or Goshanger's vamps." There were simply too many missing puzzle pieces to draw any conclusions. Unless...I raised my head, staring into his eyes. "Who did you invite into your territory, Alexander?"
He stared at me, blue circles in motion, tectonic plates shifting somewhere within and around me. "It is none of your concern. However, I can ensure you that my guest did not commit the murders."
I wouldn't be too sure about that.
"I'll help you find whoever murdered these vamps," I said.
He cocked his head. "You will? How ... generous."
"I'm doing it for the sake of the city," I added.
"Of course you are, Anna," he said, stepping closer. "It is most certainly for the sake of the city. Not me, is it? As things are, you are no longer my human servant, a status quo that, apparently, negates the need for common courtesies two lovers might share."
I blinked at him. Disbelief at hearing him cover dangerous verbal ground. What was he thinking? Once he was done nothing would be left but a wasted battlefield.
"This is not what this is about," I said, shaking my head.
"It is," he said, moving forward in that eerie float-glide motion only the really old vamps could pull off. He stopped in front of me.
"In fact, it is but a simple matter, a question of yes and no. Are you, or are you not my lover?" Alexander said.
The world stopped moving. Why was he tormenting me with this? What kind of messed up answer-question-game was that anyway? Another diversionary tactic to gain control over me? Secure the hold he had over me by making me believe he actually cared?
"It's not..." I drew a deep breath. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You abandoned my bed, stole away like a thief in the night. One might assume you will use the same mode of conduction again when we cooperate. I need to know if you will walk away."
I narrowed my eyes. He wanted to calculate and determine the extent to which he could use me. Ruthless. Acquisitive. Why wasn't I surprised?
"I don't know if you've noticed, but Medici kidnapped me," I said.
"So you say. Did you not say you had to meet someone? You walked away from me willingly before Raphael Medici abducted you. Besides, it is not relevant. What is relevant is what you did after."
I inhaled sharply. The nights and days I spent with the rogues. The day they null-bombed a whole building as distraction just to get me out. The day I helped them enter that company in the financial district. Days on which people died because of me.
I blinked, washing away the memories with another deep intake of breath. Nothing changed. When I opened my eyes the memories were still there.
"You're right. It's what I did. I stayed with the Inri Brotherhood, and it was a mistake," I said. "I've lost my value as an ally in the witch community. You must have realized it yourself. By now I'm a hindrance and hazard. A wildcard you don't want to lay your hands onto." I laughed. "Actually, it would be better, for both of us, if I weren't bound to you."
He studied me for a long moment. "You believe I have you under control because of what I am. That I will coerce you into doing things for me because there is a bond between us. But be aware of one thing, little witch. This decision is entirely yours. What you do or don't do is not something you can blame on the weight of the bond."
I shook my head in a pointless gesture, felt my right hand tighten on one of the artifacts in the pocket of the Raven's leather coat.
What was he saying? That he was giving me a choice?
Upon seeing my frown, he laughed softly. "You do not know?"
He cocked his head. "Did you not ever wonder why I could not find you up until now? Why I had to commandeer the services of that black-market witch?" He said it with a tinge of contempt, a show of emotion that surprised me.
Then the words settled in. Their meaning. He had been looking for me. Through our bond, he should have been able to sense and locate me. While I was still with the rogues, I told myself he couldn't find me due to some sort of protective wards the Raven had in his various hidey-holes. At first. After a while I realized that that didn't make sense. The bond should have been stronger than that. So I came to the conclusion that Alexander didn't want to find me.
What if it was neither of both?
I stilled. What if...?
If what Alexander said was true, it meant I was no longer bound to him. I stopped there. Tried to find something in those eyes that would tell me what was going on. Found nothing.
"What are you saying?"
"You are no longer my human servant," Alexander said. "You were not when the Raven abducted you. You are not now."
The statement left me reeling, staring at him in disbelief. I shook my head in denial. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.
"You truly did not know then," he said. He stared at me for another moment, anticipating, gauging my reaction. "It has been this way since our last night in Italy, little witch. Since I found you in that corridor after the tournament."
The words slammed into me.
Red night's Eve. The minutes after I defeated Helèna Barthoryn. That disturbance in the back of my skull. The jumble of disorganized thoughts and the sense of disorientation. I remembered standing there, that moment of conviction, when I knew a vampire had forcefully entered my mind.
Up until this day I was not sure who. Was it Alexander's former master Vladislav, or someone else? Did he or she do more than just enter my mind?
A quick intake of breath. Another thought hit.
I wasn't Alexander's human servant since before we left Italy. That meant... that meant the night I slept with him, it wasn't the bond that made me feel all those things. It meant I was attracted to him and him alone. No, not attracted, I was drawn to him by more than that. I actually-
Fear spread its wings, raised goose bumps on the back of my neck. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.
Not here. Not now. Not when I'm-
I closed my eyes and took a shallow breath.
Belief is a funny thing. We accumulate our irrational fears and mold them into something else, like a weapon that helps us cope with them. The demons of my past haunted me all my life. It helped diabolizing vampires as a race and place them on the dark end of a world colored in white and black.
Easy to put the blame on a whole race of evil-doers instead of opening my eyes to the more complex reality. How impossible to even acknowledge that many of the undead were moving, if not in the categorically good white, within the murky gray in-between? As I did?
I'd kept Alexander and everyone else with or without a heartbeat at arm's length, projected the evil I witnessed as a child on the vampires' collective existence. It kept me safe and helped me deal with the emotional shell shocks I went through ever since I found out the truth of my past.
Any attraction I had was something forced by the bond. That was the easy life line I grabbed whenever I felt the need to touch him, be close to him. Alexander just tried to yank it out of my reach. Without it, I was in fear of drowning.
"It can't be. That night, when...when I, when we..." my voice faltered.
"Deny it all you want. The night Medici abducted you, you stayed with me out of your own free will." He stepped closer, leaned into me. His breath brushed against my ear.
Holy witch. He was breathing.
"You desired me," he said. "You did so a long time ago when you did not even know it."
My pulse sped up, goose bumps on the back of my neck. I couldn't move, couldn't form a clear thought. His eyes changed, as if the blue in them gained a depth and color that wasn't there before. Not the hypnotizing, mind-altering hum of power that tried to suck me under, but something else.
"And you still do," he breathed.