AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She still loved me.
I tentatively laced my thumb over the back of her hand. I clasped her hand between my own when she didn't stop me. “Whatever you need, tell me. I’ll do anything to help you. I’ve waited centuries for you. Even when I knew nothing, I fell in love with you again.”
“Please don’t,” she asked, her voice cracking. “I can’t hear this right now. Carla’s dead and I can’t…”
I am sorry about Carla.” I thought back to when I first met them, and she protected Carla from the trafficker and me. “You weren’t captured and brought here by accident.”
“No. Salenia made it happen.”
I knew her twisted games well enough. “She wanted me to kill you.”
“What better revenge than you killing your soulmate without knowing? It would have destroyed you. I’m sure she would have made you remember everything after you’d done it. But you didn’t. She hated that. That’s when she knew she had to get rid of me.” She grazed her fangs with her thumb. “So, I knew I had to become a vampire again.”
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I know this must feel—”
“You don’t!” She shouted. “You think you know, but you don’t because no matter what, even with how much she resented you, you still occupy a piece of her heart. You’re not the one in danger. She won’t ever let you slip away, even using Astor to make you jealous. She wanted you to fall in love with her. For a while, you did.”
I shook my head, heat creeping into my cheeks. “That wasn’t love.”
“You fucked her.”
My stomach knotted as those memories came crashing in, bringing so much shame I couldn’t bear it. “I didn’t know who she was.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled. “She didn’t get what she wanted, or her revenge of having you kill me. Now you remember who you are, we’re all in danger. Don’t you see? She won’t stop. Salenia’s more dangerous than ever and we don’t have Carla anymore,” she said, a sob quaking from her on saying her name.
Sadness pinched her features, and I remembered the same look when she’d killed her family, surrounded by their bodies, covered in her blood as she lost herself in a feeding frenzy. “I’m going to kill her.”
“You can’t. Only Olivia can.”
I drew in a deep breath. “How?”
She wetted her lips, then sighed. “I don’t know.”
“Salenia doesn’t know I know I’m Vener.”
She frowned, and a wave of heartache swept over me, our bond intensifying the feeling. “I know you’ve had to survive, and I understand you resent me. You’ve been resourceful and far clever than me in arranging all of this, but please…” My chest heaved as I stared at her, needing her closer. “Don’t pull away. I would do anything for you.”
Tears spilled down her face, and I instinctively ran to her, embracing her tightly in my arms. “You inspired me to be a better person," I murmured into her hair as her crying reverberated against my chest. “You’re not alone, okay? I’m here and I will never, ever lie to you again. I won’t let her hurt you again. I will kill her this time, for good. I promise.” With my eyes shut, I touched my lips to her forehead while recollecting the psychological anguish she had caused Anastasia within the underworld, shattering her spirit repeatedly. Every time, we'd return to one another, yet Salenia would shatter all that was good between us.
I had to make it right, not just by her, but all of them. Every vampire was descended from my blood, and they were damned as long as the underworld existed. “I’m going to get the princess out of here. We will find a way.”
“What about Asland? Their ships are surrounding our coasts.”
“Then we use that to our advantage.”
THIRTY-THREE
Olivia
Sebastian’sscreamsechoedthroughthe dungeon as Salenia’s guards led the last of the mortals out, up to the feeding rooms so a new batch could come in. “Now,” she said. “Do you hear that?” she asked brightly, as if I wasn’t aware of the torture being inflicted on my husband from cells away. “It’s only going to get worse, and this one,” she said, pointing at Erianna, “will die.”
“Just kill me then,” I shouted. “It’s me you want, not them.”
“No,” Sebastian screamed, somehow hearing us through the torture.
Her face glowed white with a silver hue, matching the color of Zach’s hair, as she paced the dungeon, light leaking from the torches burning on the wall. “My siblings have made it apparent they’re willing to break the rules for you. They will just bring you back.”
I swapped glances with Erianna, realizing we knew something Salenia didn’t. They broke nothing. They brought me back once. The Shadow Kissed Ceremony didn’t count as I was turning, anyway. She could have killed me now, and got everything she wanted, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.
