Aurora
Igraze my fingertip over the potted evening primrose, the delicate yellow petals silky beneath my touch. Gabriel, the king’s most trusted healer and doctor, brought in a selection of nocturnal plants for me to test my power against tonight.
This has been our routine every night for the past week.
The vibrant petals shiver beneath my touch. A tugging sensation pulls at my middle, my power clinging to the life of the little plant. The yellow blooms curl inward, the colors fading to an ash-black before it shrivels into a sad excuse for what it had once been.
The sight makes my heart heavy.
“Dead again,” I say, almost to myself.
Gabriel’s brow is pinched as he looks from the plant to me and back again. “What were you visualizing that time?” he asks. “What did you feel?”
I blow out a breath, a headache pulsing at the base of my skull. “The same thing I told you last night and the one before that.”
Gabriel looks at his notes, then back to me. “You felt the pull.”
“Yes,” I say, exasperated. I’ve felt very little semblance of control since Samuel turned me into a vampire against my will.
The one time I felt I held any sort of value is when I helped Ajax save his mate, Grace, when she transitioned from human to vampire.
My body had been overflowing with Samuel’s blood as I had been newly turned.
Combined with our queen’s rare remedial abilities, we’d given Grace the best chance at surviving the transition.
My blood, Samuel’s blood, had helped heal her.
But Samuel had the ability to poison just as much as heal.
“Maybe I don’t have the ability to heal after all,” I admit. “Maybe only the darkest parts of him stayed with me.”
My stomach twists at the thought, and I can’t help but throw an internal pity party.
I’ve watched and learned about so many of the other transitioned vampires gaining their own unique abilities.
Powers that have nothing to do with the vampire who made them.
But me? I earned the same power as the evil piece of shit who imprisoned and tortured me.
“You know I don’t believe that,” Gabriel says, eyes sympathetic as much as calculating. He’s been a wonderful ally since arriving at the king’s residence. He and the girls and the hunters…they’ve all done things to hold me together every time I inch toward crumbling.
I’m lucky. I know I am. I should be more grateful for the second chance at life I’ve been given. I could still be Samuel’s captive. I could still be undergoing torture, or worse—Samuel could’ve successfully broken me and turned me into the mindless servant he’d wanted me to be.
I trace my hand absently over the mating mark on my neck. I’m a mate. I knew enough about them to know it’s a bond stronger than the hunter brotherhood, stronger than any hunger or vampire impulse. But which twin do I belong to?
Saint’s face flashes behind my eyes. He’s identical to Samuel in many ways and yet, there are so many intricacies I’ve found that separate the pair.
Saint is jagged edges and barely leashed emotions, where Samuel is smooth lines, easy smiles, and terrifying charm.
Saint is fiercely loyal and protective, his heart bigger than he’ll ever admit.
Samuel is the ultimate narcissist, believing his way is the only way.
Hate grips my heart with an icy fist, and cold waves of terror pulse over every inch of my being. The feeling is so familiar now, a precursor to my mind slipping into that madness I can’t control. Memories from my captivity, threatens to consume me. To steal my sense of self and shatter it.
His hands on my skin, his fangs piercing my flesh repeatedly as he drained me.
I can almost feel his blood sliding down my throat.
I choke on it as I try to scream no. I try to fight him off but my body is too weak, too drained.
Nausea overcomes me, his power forcing me to retch so hard my sides burn.
He pulls that back, just to steal my vision and attack me while I’m blind.
Then, he sends waves of numbness over my body, returning my vision so I can see what he’s doing but can’t physically react—
I clamber out of the memories, clenching my eyes shut.
Breathe. I just need to try and breathe.
Need to push the memories away. To not let them break me.
When I get swept under and drown in the past it’s like fighting a current to come back to reality.
Hard to escape the shackles the past locks me in, just like the chains he kept me in.
But I’m trying. I’m really fucking trying.
Grace and I have spoken about it several times. She calls it trauma. I call it my own personal brand of hell.
“Let’s try again,” Gabriel says, and I finally blink myself back to the present. He crosses his offices to get another vibrant plant, this one a firefly petunia with bright green leaves and tiny white flowers.
My heart drops to my stomach. “I don’t want to kill anything else tonight.”
Hunger and exhaustion swirl together, making my throat burn.
I’ve never bitten anyone before, never drank blood from any other source than the supply Saint has brought me.
And now that’s not an option. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
I knew I couldn’t live in the fantasy he created forever, but I had foolishly hoped I’d be able to ease my way into acknowledging the stuff I craved wasn’t wine, but blood.
“We’re still learning about your abilities,” Gabriel says, his voice kind, soft.
Everyone speaks to me this way, like I might break if they their tone is too raised.
I understand why, but it still irks me. I don’t want to be breakable anymore.
“I truly believe you have the power to heal as well as destroy. We just need to figure out the sensations for both and then you will be the one to choose which you use.” I still don’t reach for the plant, hesitant. “Aurora?”
The sound of my full name brings with it a sense of solidarity I desperately need.
Everyone used to call me Rory. No one calls me that anymore.
And I’m happy they don’t. Rory was a too-timid half-human, half-vampire girl desperate for love from a father who wanted nothing to do with her.
Rory let herself be captured by a monster and was too weak to fight him off.
Rory died the night Samuel stole her, bit her, tortured her.
Aurora was born when she woke up in Saint’s arms.
I reach for the flower, doing my best to concentrate on the sensations Gabriel mentioned. If tugging is what kills the plants, then maybe pushing would be the thing to give them life.
Don’t pull, don’t tug, don’t pull…
The white petals fall off the green stems in clumps, the petals black as the potted soil.
Tears fill my eyes.
“We can try again tomorrow,” Gabriel offers, catching my gaze. “You have a well of power inside you. I can sense it. We all can. And managing that power takes time.”
Let’s just hope I figure out how to manage it before I accidentally kill something worse than a beautiful plant.
“Thank you.” I hurry out of his offices, more than ready to hide in my chambers. Do I have an itch to explore Edgemont beyond the safety of the king’s residence? Yes. Of course I do. Especially as a vampire. I’ve often fantasized about what the nightly supernatural life looks like, but…
I can’t. I know I can’t leave the protection of these walls.
Not out of any fear that Samuel will snatch me again—clearly, he can do that from anywhere—but because of my hunger.
The craving I can’t slake. If I ventured outside the king’s residence and ran into a human, smelled their blood, would I turn into a monster?
Would I tear into them like I used to tear into chocolate croissants?
The idea that I might hurt someone or worse, kill them from just a touch, is enough to keep me here.
Anger sears through me as I slam my bedroom door behind me. If I can kill by touch, why couldn’t I have ripped the life from Samuel when he grabbed me and dangled me off the roof? Why couldn’t I have been useful to my new family and channeled my power then?
Because I’d been petrified. Frozen in terror. One sight of his face, one feel of his poisonous touch, and I was instantly Rory again. A scared, na?ve, weak woman.
“Aurora.”
I jolt at the sound, eyes flaring at the sight of Saint sitting in his favorite armchair near my bed.
He’s slept there so many days before, watching my dreams. My own personal guardian from the nightmares that threaten my sanity.
Warmth floods my body at his presence, a longing so fierce it steals the anger right out of me.
“Saint,” I breathe his name, relief uncoiling the tight thing inside me. “You scared me.”
He visibly swallows. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know,” I hurry to say. “I only meant, I didn’t know you were here.” I hate that he sometimes thinks I’m afraid of him.
“I’ll try to be more visible next time.”
I laugh at that. “You’re best friends with the shadows,” I say. “I need to work on my situational awareness.” I need to work on a lot of things if I ever want to take back control of my life.
A flash of levity bursts in his eyes, his lips turning up at the corners, just a fraction.
It’s such a rare and beautiful sight. Hunger streaks through me the second his scent of dark cherries, salt, and sage, hits my senses.
God, I love that smell. It’s safety and stars and all things good in my new world.
My fangs pulse, that thirst practically burning down my throat.
“I’ve brought you a volunteer feeder.” He rises from his seat.
“What?” I snap, scanning the room.
“She’s waiting outside.”
I hadn’t seen or smelled her, but I’d been deep in my thoughts when I stormed in here.
“I won’t touch her.” I shake my head, fear coating me.
“You need to feed,” he argues, towering in front of me now.