7. Alena
SEVEN
ALENA
Continuing to ignore my pounding fists, Caden carries me through the house. No matter how hard I punch him or jab him with my knees, he won’t drop me.
Ambrose follows beside us, holding his arms out. “Give her to me. You’re scaring our little sister.”
Caden flashes his fangs at him. “No.”
Ambrose snarls back. “I’ll make her feel better.”
Caden laughs at him. “In what universe? Have you had a look in the mirror lately?”
Ambrose tilts his head to the side in confusion, causing his snow-white hair to fall to one side like a long, silky curtain. “Why? Is there something on my face?”
Caden smirks. “Yes, there’s definitely something on your face. You should go have a look.”
Frowning, Ambrose disappears in a blur.
Caden shakes his head and continues on.
Becoming mindless with my terror, I pull Caden’s shirt up and try biting him. My teeth gnawing at the cold, hard flesh of his back.
At this Caden finally pauses, but only long enough to say, “You should stop before you hurt yourself.”
“No!” I scream at him. “Let me go! I’m not going with you!”
When he starts walking again, I stretch my legs all the way out and try to aim my feet for his balls.
I kick so hard my shin connects with his thigh.
“Dammit,” he growls and pauses again. “I can’t fucking walk like this. She’s going to hurt herself.”
Punching and kicking him feels like beating on a statue made of stone, but I feel no pain.
Only terror.
“Hand her to me,” Matthias says.
Caden seems to hesitate, his arms tightening protectively around me.
Until I take another swinging kick at his balls.
“Fuck!” Caden snaps. “Fine, you take her.”
He flips me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing and holds me out, away from him.
Even like this, dangling in the air and held only by his hands like a… baby, no matter how hard I thrash and try to free myself, I can’t escape.
I’m no match for his strength or incredible speed.
But it doesn’t stop me from trying.
Matthias reaches for me, his hands grabbing me by the armpits.
But before he can take control of my body, the world blurs and whips around me like I’m suddenly whisked away by a hurricane.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to my mate?!” Raphael roars, nearly blasting out my eardrums.
My hair settles in front of my face, and I have to reach up and brush it out of my eyes before I can see if it’s really him now holding me.
Peering up, I see Raphael’s face above me, contorted with murderous fury.
Surprisingly, this time around the rage flickering in his eyes, causing them to shift between red and black, doesn’t phase me in the least.
Nor does all the blood covering his face.
There’s blood splattered across his forehead and covering his entire chin. He looks like he tried and failed to drink from a bloody fountain.
“We’re trying to get her to safety!” Caden growls back and clenches his fists.
Raphael cradles me in his arms and pulls me into his chest. Holding me like one holds a small child. “You’re terrifying her. I should rip your spine out through your ass!”
“Oh yeah?” Caden smirks angrily and starts cracking his knuckles. “Why don’t you come over here and give it a try?”
Raphael’s lips peel away from his fangs and he takes a step forward, as if he means to do just that, even with me in his arms.
“What the fuck is going on now?” Raphael’s sire says with exasperation as he suddenly appears in the space between the two angry vampires.
“Caden is terrifying my stars,” Raphael answers, his voice guttural and bordering on demonic.
I blink up at Raphael in confusion. His stars? Isn’t that what he was calling me earlier? Before he discovered I’m tainted?
What does he mean by calling me that now? I thought he hated me…
“I was only trying to take care of her,” Caden growls back. “Something you should have been here doing. Instead, you decided to run off like a fucking crazed animal!”
Asher opens his mouth to speak, but Caden isn’t done yet.
Caden’s face tightens with disgust and loathing. A look that ages his boyish features a couple of decades. “You finally found your soulmarked, your other half… Something we’ve all been dying to do since the night we were reborn! And you left her! You fucking abandoned her!”
A pang of pain slices through my chest where my mark is, like I accidentally swallowed something too quickly.
Reaching up and rubbing at the spot, I suddenly feel a faint emotion that confuses me.
Shame . I feel a deep, dark shame, like I’ve done something wrong and unforgivable.
But why would I feel shame over anything Caden said?
Raphael’s head dips and my eyes fly up in reaction. On his face, I see the shame I’m feeling reflected back at me.
Is it his emotion? How…
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Caden take a step forward with his fists still clenched in anger. “You don’t de—"
“That’s enough ,” Asher orders with so much power and authority, I swear a ripple of it flows over me. “We will discuss this matter, like a family, later.”
Caden’s foot is literally in midair as he comes to a complete stop.
Tearing my gaze away from Raphael, I watch in fascination as Caden unclenches his fists.
Putting his foot down on the floor, he grinds out, “Yes, Sire.”
It’s creepy. Yet, thanks to Chloe’s compulsion, I still can’t freak out over it.
I can, however, totally freak out when Asher says, “Get to the cars, it’s time to leave.”
Fear rushes through me at the thought of returning to Boston.
But before I can voice it or scream again, Raphael is grabbing my face and forcing me to look back up at him. “What’s wrong? Why are you so afraid?”
If I wasn’t scared out of my mind, fearing they might force me to go, I’d rip my face out of his hand and shove him away.
Raphael may have had a sudden change of heart over what happened when he pushed me away and called me tainted , but I certainly haven’t.
I don’t like him, not one bit. In fact, he hurt me so badly, I think I hate him a little.
But the way he’s looking at me, he might be the only one who will actually listen to me…
Putting aside my hatred for the time being, I take a deep, shuddering breath and say, “I can’t go back to Boston.”
There’s so much concern in his eyes I’m actually half-tempted to slap him.
He has no right to look at me like that. Like he actually cares deeply about me.
Not after what he did and said.
“Why?” he asks, stroking his thumb tenderly against my cheek.
Where his thumb touches, my skin seems to light up in response. Every tiny little nerve coming alive.
It’s a pleasurable sensation.
Too pleasurable…
A vampire trick? I wonder.
As scared as I am, more frustration boils inside me that he’d do such a thing, especially now.
“Because I’d rather die than ever step foot back in that city,” I grit out between my teeth.
His dark eyes search my eyes then peer deep, as if he can see inside me. “Truly?”
Peering back at him, I show him the truth.
I’d rather die right here, right now.
Raphael’s eyes widen with horror, of all things, for the briefest of seconds.
“Then we won’t go,” he says, and squeezes me tight to his chest.
“What do you mean you won’t go?” Asher asks with a hint of a growl.
“Exactly that,” Raphael snaps.
“We have to leave, Raphael,” Asher says with more exasperation and rakes his fingers through his blood-speckled hair. “It’s no longer safe here. We’ve both made sure of that.”
Raphael nods his head in agreement, and my heart stops beating for a second. “Alena and I will have to go somewhere else.”
“We are not splitting up after starting a war,” Asher says. His exasperation quickly becoming frustration. “Divided we are weak. We must stick together.”
Raphael gazes back down at me and there’s this look in his eyes…
This look that he would do anything and everything for me. If I didn’t dislike him so much for rejecting me, it would probably take my breath away.
He’s so big… and there’s this… untamed wildness about him. Like he’s doing everything to keep it together and not go completely feral.
“Boston is out of the question,” Raphael growls. “Don’t push it, Asher.”
“I could force you,” Asher threatens.
Raphael’s gaze jerks back up and his eyes glow bright red. “You could try.”
The two of them stare hard at each other, having a battle of wills, before Asher throws his hands up in defeat. “God fucking dammit! Fine! I have no clue where the fuck we’re going to go… But get your ass to the car!”
Asher marches off in anger, leaving Raphael and me alone in a room that looks like a bull ran through it.
Raphael looks back down at me, and I don’t know why but the simple act of having all of his attention with no other distractions draws all my awareness to him.
Like the very cells of my being are being sucked toward his sudden magnetism.
Fighting the weird compulsion to stare back up at him, to drink in his face, to let myself fall into his eyes…
I shake my head and say, “Please put me down.”
The pang of pain, like I swallowed too quickly, hits my heart again.
“Not yet,” he rasps, his gaze burning into my forehead.
Finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to look up at him, I focus on looking at all the destroyed stuff around us.
The shattered lamps, the broken tables, and the couch that’s snapped in half.
He did this.
Raphael makes a frustrated sound deep in his throat and then the world smears around us.
I find myself squinting as bright sunlight assaults my eyes. Letting out a hiss, I curl into his hard chest as he carries me over to a black SUV.
“A little warning would have been nice,” I grumble as I throw my arm over my face.
He stiffens with tension. “Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking.”
I huff in reply, ignoring how utterly sincere he sounds. Apologizing like he’s given the gravest of offenses. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal. Not compared to everything else he could sincerely apologize for.
Shifting me carefully into one arm, he opens the door to the SUV so hard he nearly rips it off its hinges.
Again, I feel him stiffen with tension before he slides us into the car and slams the door shut behind us.
“Took you long enough,” Matthias grumbles.
“Shush,” Asher hisses. “Chloe is sleeping.”
Matthias mutters something quietly. Then the SUV begins to move, rolling out of the driveway.
Daring to drop my arm, I blink at the dim interior. Grateful the sun is no longer lighting my eyes on fire.
Asher is in the seat beside us with Chloe draped over him. Her blonde head is tucked under his chin and her hand clutches at his shirt. Despite the way she’s clutching at him, she looks utterly at peace in her sleep.
Asher himself looks to be completely content. Rubbing his hand soothingly up and down her back.
The picture they paint is so loving and intimate, my throat tightens up.
Feeling like I’m intruding on something that should be private, I tear my gaze away and look around the rest of the car.
Matthias is in the driver’s seat and the passenger seat is empty.
Pushing my palms against Raphael’s chest, I lean around him and peer into the back.
Sitting alone on a bench seat with one ankle crossed over the other, Ambrose smiles and waggles his fingers at me in greeting. The lace peeking out of his sleeves fluttering with the movement.
Raphael shifts beneath me, getting more comfortable. Then he wraps both of his arms back around me and tries to pull me into him.
“You can sleep if you need,” he whispers into my ear.
An unwanted shiver travels down my spine as his breath brushes against my skin.
Surprisingly, I do feel fatigue settling in, but I shake my head.
I’ve been sleeping for days, perhaps weeks. I want to be awake and aware of what’s going on.
Asher caved and said we’re not heading for Boston, but what if he decides to change his mind?
I need to be prepared to bail at the first opportunity.
Pressing his mouth closer to my ear, Raphael whisper-growls, sending more shivers down my spine. “If you insist on being stubborn then at least get comfortable on me.”
Irritation sizzles through my veins. Is he being serious right now? Does he expect me to drape myself over him like Chloe is with Asher? After what he’s done to me?
Shoving at his chest, I whisper-hiss back, “If you want me to be comfortable, I’ll need my own seat.”
He smirks at me as if he finds me cute. “I’m afraid that’s not an option at the moment.”
“Why?” I demand, forgetting to lower my voice.
Asher shoots me a dark look.
Raphael drags his breath slowly down to my neck. “Because I’ve waited centuries to feel you in my arms.”
His nose nudges at me affectionately, and that spot on my chest twinges with… something.
Something I can’t quite put my finger on.
It both frightens me and pisses me off.
As angry as I am with him, my skin shouldn’t be buzzing beneath his touch.
Nor should my neck want to bend in invitation for more.
He’s not even really touching me… he’s just breathing on me.
Yet my stupid body suddenly yearns to press against him. To close what feels like an enormous distance between us.
Like everything else that’s happened so far, it’s crazy and makes no sense.
But I can’t seem to find the physical strength to pull myself away.
So, I do the only thing I can do to make it stop.
I use my words. Grinding them angrily between my teeth. “You’re wasting your time trying to use your dirty vampire tricks on me. Chloe already let me know they won’t work unless I want them to work.”
Raphael pulls back from my neck.
“Dirty vampire tricks?” he asks, appearing genuinely confused.
I thought getting him away from my neck would be a relief, but glaring at his face is somehow even worse.
It’s like God decided to make the very definition of everything I find appealing and attractive into flesh.
The man is simply too handsome to look at without feeling… tempted.
Tempted to do things I’ve never thought about doing before. Such as touching his dark hair to see if it’s as soft as it looks. Or wiping away some of the blood that still dares to mar his lips.
Lips that are my lips.
And… where did that thought come from? He’s not my anything. He doesn’t belong to me, and I don’t belong to him.
I don’t want to belong to him.
Shaking my head at myself, I finally find the strength to rip my gaze away.
“What tricks do you think I’m playing on you?” he asks softly and turns my face back to him.
Forced to look at him again, to be struck nearly dumb by his beauty, the urge to bite him comes out of nowhere.
I want to punish him for everything he’s doing to me. For messing with my heart and my head.
His eyes widen in surprise, as if he knows exactly what I’m feeling.
Then his mouth slowly spreads into a devilish grin.
Until I hiss, “Don’t play stupid. You pushed me away. You rejected me. You called me tainted .”
Just saying the word out loud is almost too much. I have to stop and take a deep breath to calm the hurt before I can go on.
“And now you want to force me on your lap? Force me to endure your attempt at seduction? To what end? For your own personal amusement?”
His expression falls, bordering on devastation. “I did not reject you. I would never reject you.”
I open my mouth to argue against that, to remind him I was right there when he did it, but he has the audacity to press his finger to my lips.
“I have waited what feels like eons for you, Alena. You are my every dream, my every hope, and my every desire manifested.”
His eyes fill with an emotion I can’t even begin to fathom. “You are the light that brightens the endless night. The stars showing me the path out of the void.”
Moving his hand, he slides his fingers into my hair and tightens them. “Without you, there is only cold oblivion.”
Pulling my face closer to his face, he looks at me like I’m everything he’s ever wanted. “Without you, eternity is simply one lonely night bleeding into the next.”
A strange pressure begins to build behind my ribs, like someone is pushing and prodding at them. It’s extremely uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable as everything he just said.
First, he literally shoves me away and now… this ?
I want to believe he’s lying. It would be easier to believe he’s simply feeding me pretty words to make me more agreeable to his wishes, but the sheer intensity on his face tells me he’s being completely honest.
He means every word.
And it terrifies me.
If he didn’t reject me, why did he call me tainted and burst out of the room like a bat out of hell?
“Do not be afraid of me,” he growls low and deep, his eyes flickering red.
But how could I not be? Not only does he look the very picture of the Devil, with his sharp features and dark hair, he’s making me feel too many weird things I know I shouldn’t be feeling.
Like the pressure behind my ribs growing and expanding, making me fear my heart is about to burst out of my chest at any second.
The compulsion I let Chloe put me under gives me no relief.
It might have worn off.
Or it might not work with Raphael.
I don’t know.
All I know is that I don’t like any of this at all.
I’d rather go back to him rejecting me. That I can deal with. That I’m familiar with.
“Let me inside and you will know I speak the truth,” he insists.
The pressure in my chest grows even stronger as he stares into my eyes like he’s trying to force his soul into my soul.
When my ribs feel like they’re about to explode, I bite the inside of my cheek and an invisible wall slams down.
Blocking out the pain.
“What did you do?” Raphael demands instantly, using his grip on my hair to pull me even closer.
His flickering gaze desperately searches my eyes for something.
But there’s nothing for him to find.
At this moment, I’m completely numb and empty.
“You’re completely blocking me now,” Raphael says in disbelief. “How are you blocking me?”
With all the fear trapped behind the wall, I see no reason not to answer him honestly. “I don’t know.”
And I truly don’t.
I don’t know where this wall came from, but I’m grateful for it.
In the past, when Jeffrey would beat me, sometimes I’d be able to block out some of the pain.
But it required a lot of cheek and tongue biting.
I’ve never been able to block out all the pain before. If I knew I could do it, I would have used it often and liberally.
Raphael narrows his eyes and I watch, totally disconnected, as his features tighten with tension like he’s concentrating hard on a mental problem.
“Undo it, Alena,” he grits out between clenched fangs and teeth. “Let me back in.”
“Back in where?” I ask, not understanding the request.
His face falls and he rasps as if he’s in misery, “You’ve severed our soul bond. Our connection…”
Still not comprehending what he’s saying, I ask, “What soul bond? What connection?”
“The one that binds our souls eternally together,” he says, his flickering gaze filling with horror.
I purse my lips to the side in thought, unemotionally trying to put together the pieces. “Was that the pressure I felt behind my ribs?”
He hesitates for a moment, looking uncertain, before he answers hoarsely, “Yes.”
“Oh… well… yes. I suppose I have blocked it off then,” I admit.
Though, I still have no idea how I did it.
His fingers tighten in my hair, but I only feel awareness of it. No other sensation. “Why?”
“Probably because it was becoming too uncomfortable,” I answer.
“Uncomfortable?” he chokes out as if I insulted him.
“Yes,” I confirm. “It was beginning to hurt, so I decided to... I don’t know? Ease it?”
His body stiffens and silence fills the car.
Figuring he’s done with his questions, I turn my attention to the window beside me. Peering out, I take in the bright, sun-kissed world. Grateful that for once my eyeballs don’t want to melt into my skull.
I don’t know where we are, but it looks like we’re leaving the city behind. More and more bushes and trees begin to spring up, and the green space between the buildings stretches wider, as if it’s purposely pushing them apart.
When the road is swallowed by a forest full of old, thick trees that blot out the sky, I think of Father McCall.
How can I possibly find him?
How can I remember what happened?
“Alena,” Raphael says softly, then my face is turning back to him.
His hand in my hair guiding me.
I start to ask him what he wants.
But before I can form a syllable, his lips are suddenly crushing against my lips in a needy kiss.
I feel no pain, though, as the force of it bends my neck back. Only surprise at the suddenness.
I’ve never been kissed before.
No man has ever dared to touch me in such a way. And I don’t know how to defend myself against it.
I’m completely out of my element as butterflies take flight in my stomach and my skin tingles as if I’m being touched by magic.
I thought I was completely numb, but I guess not.
Apparently, I can still feel things that feel good…
His mouth pushes and pushes against mine, demanding some kind of entrance, and I can’t stop myself from getting swept up in the moment.
With all the physical and emotional hurt turned off, there’s nothing to help me from falling headfirst into the onslaught of new sensations.
My head grows light and everything around me begins to spin.
Reaching out, I grab his shirt and clutch it in my fists. Needing an anchor to keep me from falling off the edge of the world.
“Let me in,” he demands.
Then he pulls hard on my lips, almost sucking them into his mouth.
Electricity zips through me and something deep inside me clenches.
I gasp, and his tongue immediately sweeps past my parted lips.
When his tongue strokes against my tongue, whatever strength I had left flees my body.
My very bones weaken as he devours my mouth. Each hungry pull of his lips tugging on an invisible string connected to my core.
“Open for me,” he growls down my throat.
Not understanding what he wants, I try to open my mouth wider, thinking there must be a deeper way to kiss.
But this seems to only frustrate him.
His tongue lashes at mine and he sends another growl down my throat. “Let me in. ”
Wanting to please him as much as he’s pleasing me, I allow myself to give into the compulsion without a second thought.
As if I’ve always known to what to do, known how to accept him, I open a space inside me that’s always been closed.
My ribs immediately begin to throb in rhythm with my heart, and heat fills me, pooling between my thighs.
“Yes,” he groans into my mouth with so much pleasure I can’t stop myself from squirming on his lap. “That’s it, my stars. My love . Show me your beautiful heart.”
His pleasure feeding my pleasure, I press closer and thrust my tongue hard against his tongue.
I want more .
So much more.
I didn’t even know such good feelings were even possible.
This is like an entirely new world.
A new world I want to live in forever.
Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm I accidentally nick myself on his fangs.
Still numb to pain, I don’t even realize it until I taste blood.
My blood.
Raphael suddenly rips himself away from me with a stricken look.
Not ready to end this new experience, my body pulsing and thrumming, I pant, “Why did you stop?”