Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
A lexei
Several days go by. Then a week passes. And another week. My mate is not to be found. I put out feelers and scouts throughout Russia and Europe, but there is no word. It is apparent now that the entire point of the attack was to take Anya. The vampire had designs on her and he got what he wanted.
I am trying not to imagine the worst, that she is either dead, or being in some way violated. It is not in my habit to be helpless. But vampires are not like normal men, or even like wolves. If she was in the custody of either of those types of being, I would have her already.
My temper has become uncontrollable. Where I walk, the pack cowers. I do my best to keep myself functional, but an alpha should never lose his mate, and I lost mine so very quickly.
This is the most personally painful and humiliating experience I’ve ever had, and it is turning me into a beast I no longer recognize. I turn often, traveling vast distances by paw to try to catch her scent. I do not catch so much as a hint of her on the breeze. She has not just been taken. It feels as though she has been entirely erased from the planet.
Before meeting Anya, I was aware that I had not yet found my mate, but my daily experiences felt satisfying regardless. I focused on the needs of my pack, and of the businesses I run. There were challenges and victories, friends and enemies. There was sunlight.
All of that is gone. I feel only the night, see only the shadows. All joy has drained from my existence. My every thought is devoted to Anya, to the short days we had with one another and to the future that has been snatched away from me.
I should care that the pack will be left without an heir, but I cannot be persuaded to care about anything. It is not within me to be concerned about anything, including myself.
Even in this deepest despair, there is a sliver of hope. No body has been found, and it is generally considered that my mate is still alive. Sometimes I imagine that I can feel her, connected to me by a long thread that will not snap as long as both of us draw breath.
I will search for her every day of my life, as long or as short as it might be.
My brother and Elena have convinced me to temporarily stop killing vampires. They say my point has been made, and that it is time to see what move the creatures make next. I smell the lust on the both of them when they are in a room together. They are distracted by their own mate bond. I do not begrudge them. If I am to pass away in the effort to reclaim Anya, the pack will be in safe hands with the pair of them.
It may be morning, afternoon, evening, or the very depths of night when Piotr enters my presence. I have stopped caring for things like time of day. The sun and the moon are irrelevant if I cannot have Anya. I pace my office and I think of killing those who have deprived me of my mate.
My vengeance will be brutal and complete. I dream of death, day and night—except when I sleep. In my sleep, I dream of Anya. I feel her in my arms, I smell her scent, and I feel her body against mine. Waking from slumber, I sometimes forget that she is not here with me. I reach for her, or try to hold her closer, and I find myself with an armful of nothing.
Before meeting Anya, I was always so calm and so contained. I had no lingering, crushing, terrible sense of loss that now seems to suffuse me with every breath I take. I miss Anya. I crave her. And I cannot forgive myself for allowing her to be stolen from the very place she should have been the most safe in the world.
“My alpha?”
I realize someone has been trying to get my attention for quite some time. Piotr has his head in the door. It is rare that the ranking pack members come to see me now. I have been biting heads off, declaring I will see nobody unless they have some kind of resolution to the matter.
“What is it?”
He opens the door and actually dares to enter my presence. Nobody has dared do that in quite some time—but he seems quite confident as he announces:
“My alpha, there is word from the vampires.”
“What did they say?”
“They’ve given us an address and a time.”
I extend my hand for the piece of paper he is holding. The address, that is all I care about. The time is irrelevant. I will not be going to see this vampire for a cordial meeting. I am going to reclaim my mate, and ensure that she can never be taken from me again.
Glancing at the paper, I discover it is more like a card. It is formal, gilt-edged, and hand-written in script, which suggests a practiced talent for calligraphy. Exactly the sort of soft bullshit that a vampire would waste time doing while holding the love of my life hostage. The flourishes on various letters make me near incandescent with rage.
I start walking. I need to get a car. Now.
“It could be a trap,” Piotr says, a slight note of panic in his voice. “Why would the vampire hold her all this time, and then simply send us a card with his address on it? It has to be a trap. We should consult with Vlad and Elena.”
I answer over my shoulder, barely bothering to turn my head. “I don’t care.”
At this stage, running headlong into a trap would be preferable to simply existing in the castle. I would undergo any amount of pain, endure any humiliation for the chance at reuniting with my mate.
I get in the fastest car we have, I set the satnav to the address, and I go.
I am faintly aware that others in the pack are no doubt following at a safe distance. I am sure Piotr has a copy of the address and knows where I am going. I don’t care what they do. I don’t care what they say. I do not care what they think.
I am so single-minded in this moment that any thought, let alone any discussion would be as perverse a thing as I could imagine.
Anya
“You’ve been melancholy,” Dom says.
His observation would suggest kindness if it came from someone else, but I know there is no kindness in this monster. I remain captive in his… I could almost call it a home, but it isn’t a home. It is a warehouse for vampires. They don’t do anything. They sort of swan in, sleep occasionally, and then leave again to do terrible things.
The pack is always full of life and love and yes, as cliché as it might seem, laughter. They live so deeply and intensely. I miss them almost as much as I miss Alexei. I even miss their disapproval of my behavior from time to time. They cared. Really cared.
This vampire calls himself my father, which is a perverse kind of nonsense. He does not care about me in the slightest. He is playing at caring, imagining what it might be like to love. I don’t think he is actually capable of it.
“I miss my mate,” I say.
“I know. You are bonded,” Dom says. “Bonds are strange things, aren’t they? Capable of sustaining us, or destroying us.”
I grit my teeth as he pontificates. I am sitting on a cushion at his feet, more or less, because that’s what he likes me to do. He likes to tell me what he is thinking, what he imagines, what he observes of the world around me and of his own cold internal state.
I think he is lonely, actually. Being ancient isn’t easy. In comparison with him, I am basically new. I think that is why he likes me.
“Do you want me to bring your mate here? Do you want him by your side?”
“No,” I say. “Nobody alive belongs here.”
Dom’s brow lifts. “You are unhappy, even though you have been spoiled. I have bought you the prettiest dresses, and am feeding you the finest food. Speaking of food, you’ve barely touched your acorns, oysters, and snails.”
“It’s not exactly to my taste,” I say, risking rudeness. “I prefer red meat.”
“You prefer living flesh,” he says, flashing his canines. “Just as I prefer fresh blood. You are so much like me.”
I am not like him at all. He projects his cruelty and his carnality and a dozen more terrible traits besides. He wishes to see me become even more like him over time. That is why he spends so much time doing what he considers to be instructive.
“I am going to make you happy, Anya,” he says. “If it is the last thing I do.”
The words are probably supposed to give me some sense of comfort, but coming from those cold, dead, compelling lips, all they do is send a shiver of pure fear down my spine. I am all too well aware that they’re more of a threat than a promise.
He looks at me with that glittering gaze.
“I think it is time I showed you something,” he says. “I need for you to appreciate your position here for what it is. You are not the only one of your kind, but you are the only one who is this impossibly spoiled. Come with me.”
Those last three words are not a request. They are an order. My body follows them, as it always does when he commands me, without question, and without an option.