As she stood and faced him, he was, as always, taken aback by her appearance. Her eyes found his, and the tears that streaked her cheeks had a long-dormant emotion rising inside him. Sympathy.
He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, and comfort her. With the waterfall as her backdrop, he thought the tears on her cheeks matched the turbulent passion of the raging water.
“I have brought him to you, as you requested.”
He tugged the rope hard, and the one who’d trailed behind him lurched forward. He shoved him out between them, and Isadora lowered her eyes over the man in front of her.
He was dressed as he had been when Diomêdês had dragged him from his bed, in a lightweight nightshirt, and he’d tied a blindfold over his eyes. The man’s hands were bound in front of him, and he trembled.
Isadora glided forward, closing the distance between her and the man, and then she stopped when she was able to reach out and touch him. Her gaze shifted over his shoulder to Diomêdês’s, and he could sense the rage in her as it boiled to that fever pitch. To that place that was needed to do what must be done.
She peeled the blindfold from the man’s eyes, and there, staring back at her, was her brother, Dimitri. The same one who’d murdered her Daphne.
“Isadora,” he gasped, stunned by the one who stood before him. But, like the snake he was, he tried to use it to his advantage and slither out of what he could sense was coming. He raised his hands out towards her in an appeal to his sister.
She looked down at where he was bound and then tilted her head to the side. Her silence was unnerving. Diomêdês could feel the fear and apprehension in the man as he finally saw what he had all along.
True magnificence, true power. She would make a superb vampire. All she had to do was kill and feed, and it would be done.
“Do not speak my name,” she said, her tone frigid. “You gave up that right when you came after me with a knife.”
Diomêdês took ahold of the back of Dimitri’s neck and held him still for her. He couldn’t wait for this, this first moment where she would unleash what he had given her—it would be spectacular.
“Isadora, you have to understand,” he pleaded, but he was too late. Perhaps if he’d only come for her, she would’ve had it in her heart to forgive. But that was not the case, and nothing was going to save him now. “I was angry.”
“Oh, I understand, adelfe. I too am angry,” she told him as she raised a hand to cup his jaw. She gripped his chin, angling her face in until they were nose to nose, and said, “Anger can turn the best of us into monsters, can’t it, Dimitri?”
As her eyes changed to the color of the night surrounding them, her brother sneered, “Look what you have become. A whore’s whore and a freak’s fuck. Father should’ve never allowed you to step foot from your room.”
Isadora’s fingers tightened. A bone cracked—Dimitri’s jaw—and he grunted.
“You never loved her,” Isadora hissed. “Not like I did.”
Diomêdês felt her conviction in those words, proud she’d said them aloud. Her fangs descended for the first time, and her eyes flared at the pleasurable power that came with that punch of pain.
Diomêdês grabbed her brother’s hair and twisted it, tilting his head away and exposing his throat for her, and when she lowered over him, Dimitri managed to say, “What kind of monster have you become?”
She took a deep breath, scenting his fear.
Yes. That’s my girl.
Then she grazed her fang over his carotid and whispered, “The one you have made me.”
She struck hard at his vein, as instinct had driven her to, and it wasn’t gentle or sweet. It was vicious and wild, and as she drank from him, Diomêdês felt a pull inside of him, a connection that sent an electric shock to his dead heart and seemed to restart it for one heartbeat…two...and a third. Then every thought, memory, and feeling she had flooded him. They washed over his entire being and filled all the missing pieces inside. They were connected in every way they could be, and as if she too felt it, she raised her head, looked over to him, and offered the close-to-lifeless body in her hands to him.
Diomêdês slicked his tongue over his lips and lowered his head to drink from the puncture wounds she’d inflicted, and when he was high as a proverbial fucking kite, he looked to her and saw a kindred spirit staring back.
Yes, she was his now. And he was hers.
As he thrust her brother’s body over to her, she clasped his head in her hands and snapped his neck like a twig.
ISADORA STARED AT the man she’d knocked unconscious and brought back to her bed. She had re-cuffed Elias and secured his hands to one of the bedposts. Now, she looked at his body, which was stretched out across her sheets. With his dark eyelashes brushing his cheeks, he looked as he had many times over when she’d left his bed.
This, however, was a totally different circumstance. There were no sweet memories accompanying what they’d just done. Instead, she was full of guilt. Guilt because she’d enjoyed it so very much.
She squealed in surprise when, backing away from her king-sized bed, she ran into something solid. Upon spinning on her heel, she was stunned to see Alasdair. She hadn’t even been aware of his arrival.
“This, dear cousin, is going to be very, very tricky.”
Her eyes widened as he peered around her shoulder and then brought his cunning eyes back to her.
“Alasdair…”
“Yes, Isa?”
Frustrated that she’d been found out before she could locate Diomêdês, she balled her fists together. “Fuck. What are you doing here?”
“Me?” he asked, his mouth kicking up on one side. “I think what you are doing is more important right now, ne?”
She sighed and stepped around him, making her way to the door. “I’m going to find Diomêdês is what I am doing.”
“Are you? And what do you plan to tell him? That you couldn’t bring yourself to kill the bastard who almost destroyed a third of our race?” Alasdair sauntered towards the bed, which had Isadora flashing over beside it. He gave a knowing smirk and nodded. “Yes, I’m sure that will be well received.”
“You don’t know what you speak of. Diomêdês isn’t like Vasilios. He loves—” She bit her words off as Alasdair’s eyes locked on her. Christ, shut up, Isa, she told herself.
Alasdair glanced towards the bed and then back to her. “What is your plan for him? You do realize that, if anyone sniffs him out, he will be dead in seconds.”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. He is a danger, a risk. Diomêdês and Vasilios will want him dead, gone. But—”
“But you do not. You want to keep him. Hmm. This feels familiar,” Alasdair said as he turned to her. “It is unlikely that Vasilios will kill him. He’s too curious. He wants to know more. As for Diomêdês, you will have to deal with him. I do not know what his opinion on this would be one way or the other. The thing is, my dear Isa, these humans—they do possess powers, the likes of which I have never seen.” He took her hands. “But they do not understand them. Not like us. We have had thousands of years to hone our skills. They have had a decade or less. They are ill-equipped.”
She raised a hand to touch Alasdair’s cheek, wishing she could be as sure and as confident as he, but she had loved and lost once before.
“That may all be true, but Thanos still remains secluded and Eton… Did you see him today?”
“Go to your Ancient. Tell him what you have done.”
“And you?”
“I owe you a few hours of guard duty, do I not?”
“DIOMÊDÊS,” ISADORA SAID as she faded into her sire’s bedchambers.
He was seated in her favored chaise lounge, and the minute he looked at her, his knowing eyes made her guilt compound.
“Where is he?”
The disappointment in his tone shamed her, and she lowered her head.
“In my bedchambers. Alasdair is sitting with him.”
He got to his feet, but she
stayed where she was. Her own self-disgust festered inside her like the silver Elias had made her endure, but now, Diomêdês’s displeasure made her stomach turn. When his feet stopped opposite her own, she closed her eyes and willed whatever punishment he was about to inflict to be swift.
“Do you understand what you have started here, Isadora?”
She swallowed and nodded. “I do.”
“Eton will not be pleased.”
“I understand,” she replied, wanting to scream, And what of you? I do not care what Eton thinks. What are you thinking?
Gentle fingers cradled her chin, and as Diomêdês raised her face, he asked of her, “You will not make this easy on me, will you mikri mou polemistria?”
Her lips parted and her eyes welled as she looked at his serene face and confessed, “He scares me.”
As Diomêdês swiped a tear from her cheek, he asked, “Yet you wish to keep him?”
She wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear in that moment, but she had to be honest. “I do.”
Her Ancient regarded her, and something sparked in his eyes. Something close to pride.
“You have always loved who you love. No matter the price. Haven’t you, my Isa?”
She knew right then that no one had ever understood her the way he did. She placed her hands on his black jacket, and as she smoothed them up to his chest and then cupped his face, she whispered, “I love you.”
He lowered his mouth to her forehead and softly pressed his lips there. The emotion they only let free around one another surfacing.
Total devotion.
She loved this male, and he her, with every fiber of their beings.
If how she felt for Elias scared her, her feelings for Diomêdês petrified her. Without his guidance, without him near, she couldn’t cope.
This male—she loved him so.
ALASDAIR HAD DRAGGED a chair over by the bed and taken up residence an hour earlier. He’d kicked his boots off and propped his feet up on the mattress. And, now, he kept his eyes glued to the man still and silent atop the covers.
Isadora’s scent lingered all over the human, and Alasdair could only imagine what had taken place between the two of them to have gotten it so deep within the man’s pores. He sure as hell hoped she knew what she was doing. Fuck knows he didn’t when it came to his human.
Well, our human, he corrected as he thought of Vasilios.
He rested his head back on the chair and shut his eyes. He’d never felt so unsure in his entire existence, and he couldn’t pinpoint the reason why. Because he was usually so controlled with every emotion that entered his mind, the fact that he was so fucking jumbled annoyed the hell out of him.
Leonidas Chapel. He was positive he was the reason for his agitation. That damn male had crawled under his skin and was making him—and Vasilios, for that matter—act completely uncharacteristically.
He growled, infuriated.
The more he tried to resist him, the more he wanted to give in to the ridiculous demands that rolled off the human’s tongue to please him.
“So he was right. You are quite mad at our Leonidas.”
When Vasilios appeared, leaning against the end of Isadora’s bed, Alasdair sat up so fast that his head spun. His Ancient was still dressed from the trial—the only difference now was that his jacket was open. Vasilios glanced at the male handcuffed to Isadora’s bed, and Alasdair wondered if he’d have to apologize to his cousin in a minute for her human being dead when she returned.
“Calm yourself, Alasdair. I am not here to kill him.” He straightened to his full height and then added, “I told Leonidas I would refrain, did I not?”
Alasdair’s eyes narrowed on Vasilios, and he realized that that was it. That right there pissed him off. Vasilios was following orders from Leo.
As the thought entered his head, Vasilios was in front of him, issuing a warning. “Careful, agóri.”
“Why?”
“Because you are wrong.”
“Am I?”
Vasilios cupped the back of his neck and he said, “Yes. I follow no one’s orders.” Then he closed the distance between them and joined their mouths in a bruising kiss.
Alasdair immediately opened to him. He wanted the taste of Vasilios to flood him, and when his sire’s tongue entered his mouth to rub over his, Alasdair gripped his broad shoulders.
Why are you so mad at him? What happened earlier was not intentional, so it cannot be that, he pushed into Alasdair’s mind.
Alasdair shut his eyes and tugged Vasilios closer.
I know you want this, Alasdair. I can taste it on your tongue, see it in your mind. A firm hand found his erection and massaged him through his pants. So what is the problem?
Yes, he wanted it. Every time the three of them were in a room, it was the only thing on his damn mind. He wanted them alone, together, and as one. But—
But what? The hand stroking him tightened and stilled.
Alasdair knew that it was time to speak. “If he is stronger than I, will you think less of me?”
Vasilios released him and looked deep into his eyes. “You question my affection, Alasdair? You believe that I could ever think less of you?”
Hearing it out loud made him feel like a fucking fool, and as he went to turn away from those knowing eyes, Vasilios took his arm, keeping him exactly where he was.
“Perhaps I haven’t been clear of late with everything that has transpired.”
That voice, the calming, reassuring timbre of it, wrapped Alasdair in the spell he’d once been bewitched by.
“Do not doubt me, my Alasdair. I would worship at your feet, ómorfo mou agorí. You are of my blood, you are my life, and you are the only one who understands all the dark places inside me and the light we both crave.”
Alasdair closed his eyes as Vasilios traced his thumbs down his neck.
“Open your eyes, Alasdair Kyriakoús,” he ordered. “Open your eyes and see me, see us.”
When Alasdair obeyed, Vasilios let him into his mind, and what he saw there aroused and appealed to him on every level.
“Now do you understand?”
Alasdair’s fangs dropped, and his cock ached. And, when Vasilios’s lips tipped up at the sides, he knew that his message had been received.
“Very good. Now, do you think you could find it in yourself to forgive young Leonidas? He really is rather upset, and for that to work, we will need his cooperation. Don’t you agree?”
He did indeed. “Where is he?”
“I left him in the safety of my bedchambers.”
“Hardly a safe place, “Alasdair drawled.
“It is when I am not there.”
Alasdair couldn’t have agreed more. “We should go to him.”
“So eager all of a sudden.” Vasilios chuckled. “And who shall stay here? For that matter, where is the third human?”
“He is still in the holding cell by the Assembly Hall.” Alasdair looked to the bed and frowned.
Maybe he could get a member of the guard, but no. Right then, even they would have been a threat to this asshole. Plus, he had promised Isadora.
“Keep your word, agóri. Leonidas, he is a stubborn one. It is going to take longer than us telling him to strip to have him capitulating so easily.”
Alasdair chuckled. “Yes, you are right about that.”
“Hmm, I know. When you are free, come find me. I know something that just might work with our golden-haired boy,” Vasilios said.
When a devious spark lit his eyes, Alasdair almost felt sorry for Leo. He had no idea what was coming for him. But he was about to.
PARIS CONTINUED TO stare in the direction where the vampire had moved. It was so dark in the room that he might as well have had his eyes shut, but he didn’t dare in case the creature came close again.
“What is your name, human?”
Paris imagined that, if that voice had a form, it would be tendrils of smoke. The cadence of it drifted across the room and seemed to wrap around hi
m.
He gnawed on his lower lip, trying to decide whether or not telling this vampire was wise, but then a rumbling laugh echoed throughout the room.
“I could just look, I suppose.”
Paris blanked his mind out just as Elias had told him and then spoke. “Why do you want to know?”
He heard the shuffling sound of legs moving and expected to be thrown across the room or something similar.
Instead, the vampire said, “I find it is easier to converse over a drink with someone whose name I know.”
“Drinks?” Paris asked, and then the distinct sound of a glass being placed on, well, something—a table, maybe— in front of him met his ears, but still no other contact.
“Yes,” the stranger said, now back over in his corner. “You look like you could do with one…or three.”
Paris didn’t dare move. Instead, he found himself asking, “How do you know what I look like? It’s pitch-dark in here.”
“That it is. But then, I am not human like you. Therefore—”
“You can see me,” Paris finished for him.
“Yes. All the way down to your untied Doc Martens.”
Ice swirled in a glass as Paris glanced down in the direction of his shoes.
“It’s the left one.”
He frowned. This was such an odd conversation to be having with someone he couldn’t see, yet as he sat there, he realized that this was the first time since he’d arrived that he didn’t feel an immediate threat of danger.
This vampire, whoever he was, seemed to genuinely want to talk to him.
As he tucked his feet under the chair, he decided to take a risk and asked, “What’s your name?”
“Look at you, already trying to bargain with me. I do like to play games, I must say. But alas, I have only had one drink. You really should keep that little tool up your sleeve until we are halfway through the bottle.”
The laugh that followed actually made Paris grin for a second before he caught himself. “It’s only fair, don’t you think? If I tell you mine, you tell me yours.”
“No…I most certainly do not,” he said, and the ice in the glass clinked. “You barged into my bedchambers, not the other way around. Not to mention you have yet to try my hundred-year-old bourbon. That’s quite the insult.”