AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I turned from the door to look at Sig. “What’s this about?”
“This door can be opened by three people. One of them is dead. Given Juan Carlos’s behavior tonight, I thought it best we make it three again.” He cocked his head to the side, his eyes narrowing as he waited for me to understand what he was saying.
I understood it all too well. “Who is it?”
“I think you know.”
Fear swelled in my chest. The only reason someone would be held this far below ground, behind such security forces, was if they were bound. I’d wondered once what it meant for a vampire to be bound, why it was considered a punishment worse than death. But now that I was standing outside the door, I didn’t feel so curious anymore. “Say it.”
“I can do better than that.” He pressed his palm flat against the wood, and the door unleashed a hissing noise not unlike the sound of wet wood in a fire. The blue shimmer faded away, making the door look remarkably plain once it was gone.
The moment the light faded my stomach sank. I didn’t want to see behind the door. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but I’m sure it didn’t do anything spectacular for vampires either. Being here, I no longer needed an answer to the questions that had once plagued my mind.
I put my hand on Sig’s arm to stop him, but it was too late. Once the glow abated, the silver lock vanished and the door opened on its own with a soft pop. I stepped back and stared at it, my fingers falling away from Sig.
“Just like that?”
“It would not open so easily for any but us. Before we are done here, it will do the same for you.”
“I don’t want to be able to open it.”
“Oh, no?”
I shook my head and stepped back again, far enough I hit the wall opposite the door and was pushed to my physical limit for the second time that night. “I don’t want anyone to be able to open it.”
A renewed ache in my shoulder bloomed like a toxic flower from my clavicle up to my jaw. This wasn’t from the silver bullet, though. It wasn’t even on the same side. This pain was old and healed, but a vampire had once ripped out my throat, and a muscle memory of that sort of torture remains forever.
“Go in, Secret. He won’t bite.” Sig smiled his vicious smile, seeming to read my mind. It didn’t take telepathy to know what had me on edge though.
“I—”
He grabbed my wrist, not in a gentle way but not as tightly as he could, and stared me hard in the eyes. “I am not in a mood to argue about fears. I won’t debate with you about this. You will go, and that is final. Do you understand me?”
“Perfectly.” I wrenched my arm free but didn’t look away, steeling my own gaze to match his. “But understand this…I won’t be tricked by you anymore. You could have told me before now what you meant to show me.”
“And would you have come?”
“You’ve made it clear my choices within these walls are not my own, Sig. Don’t pretend like what I do or don’t want was ever a deciding factor. You wanted me to come. I would have come.”
Sig nodded towards the door. “Then show me the tr
uth of your words.”
This was a test, and I saw that all too clearly. I just didn’t know if it was a test I cared to pass. Regardless of my misgivings, I put my hand against the door and stepped inside. The room was small and so cramped I had to stoop to get under the doorframe. The same blue glow that had covered the door was all over the room, giving the space an eerie nighttime ambiance. A few feet from me, wrapped in silver chains, was a creature so gaunt and repulsive it looked dead.
Until he opened his eyes. The hate burning inside those eyes was so alive it felt like ants crawling all over my skin. I wanted to wipe the feeling away, but I crouched low and stared back, letting my own hatred fuel my limited bravery.
“You,” he growled.
“Hello, Alexandre,” I said to the vampire who had once been the thing I feared most in the world. “Miss me?”
Chapter Ten
Alexandre Peyton was nothing at all like I remembered him.
The vampire I’d been so deathly afraid of—the one responsible for almost ending my life not once but twice—was now a mere shell of his former self. The last time I saw him had been a year earlier, and then he’d looked young, no more than seventeen or eighteen. He’d had copper-red hair and a wicked, teasing grin. There had once been a handsomeness to him, one that became easy to overlook when I’d found out what a sadist he was.
Now he was a ghost. Not in the literal sense, of course, because ghosts couldn’t speak since they had no lungs. He was a kind of living ghost, a husk of a man. His skin was dry and brittle like Japanese paper and had an unhealthy gray tone to it, making him seem closer to dead than any vampire I’d ever seen.
