CHAPTER 14 AILEEN
CHAPTER 14
AILEEN
I stared at Ragnor as he walked toward me, his eyes not leaving my face. I found it hard to look away, too, as though if I did, he would disappear.
It felt as if no time had passed at all, and yet it had. His dark-brown hair was just as wavy as always, curtaining his captivating face full of hard jaw, pretty midnight blue eyes, and faint bristles that hadn’t been there before. He wore simple faded jeans, his trademark black combat boots, and a tee, accompanied by his ever-present trench coat. He was just as tall, just as muscular, and just as overwhelmingly charismatic, his entire presence felt oppressive, thickening the air.
My instincts stood at attention, screaming Danger! As if I didn’t know that already. Only this time, the danger wasn’t just physical; it was emotional. Ragnor Rayne was dangerous to me on so many levels, it should’ve been a fucking crime.
He stopped only a footstep away, his eyes looking into mine as if he could see straight to my soul. And when he spoke, his deep unyielding voice made me involuntarily shudder. “Hello, Aileen.”
My heart raced, and I was inwardly hyperventilating. I opened my mouth, as if on instinct, when it suddenly occurred to me, he was casting his invisible spell on me again. He was drawing me in against my better judgment. He could almost make me forget, so fucking easily, everything he’d done to me.
With just two words, he could make me abandon all reason and jump into his arms.
And that didn’t just anger me. It infuriated me.
The anger was so palpable, uncontainable, that I had to take a step back. “Don’t,” I growled, glaring at his heartbreakingly, stupidly gorgeous face.
Before he could speak, I felt heat at my back. A different kind of heat that made me grow still. “Rayne.” Atalon’s voice came from behind me, where he pressed his chest against my back. “I suggest you return to your newbies. Aileen and I are in the middle of an important, private discussion.”
Ragnor’s eyes left mine for the first time, and he looked above my head, at Atalon, I assumed. As he did, I took the opportunity to step away from Atalon’s uncomfortable closeness, but to my shock—and anger—my current Lord wrapped his arm around my waist and drew me back to him.
I pushed at Atalon’s arm, but he refused to move. “Let me go, my Lord,” I said through gritted teeth. I didn’t want to aggravate him, but at the same time, it wasn’t like we were a thing. He shouldn’t feel like he had permission to touch me whenever and however he liked.
“As you can see, Rayne,” Atalon said quietly but resolutely, “we’re quite busy here.”
To my surprise, Ragnor’s lips twitched. But it wasn’t in humor; it was in complete arrogance that I did not expect. “No worries,” he said, eyes flicking to me. “Aileen and I can always speak later, considering I’m staying for a few days.”
The news made me jolt. Staying for a few days? Why? What the hell was he doing?
It seemed I wasn’t the only one surprised. “Rayne, you didn’t clear that with me,” Atalon said, his voice tight.
Ragnor now grinned, his eyes gleaming as if to say Gotcha . I stared at him, mouth agape. Who was this expressive man, and what the fuck did he do to Ragnor? “Keep your calendar open, Orion,” he said now, and I felt Atalon tense. “We have a lot to discuss.”
Atalon’s arm tightened around my waist, making me grind my teeth, as he almost growled, “Rayne—”
“I’ll see you soon,” Ragnor said, turning around. “Both of you.”
When I saw him walking away like he hadn’t a care in the world, something inside me snapped.
The fury I felt consumed my mind, and in the mental chaos, I found what I’d been looking for.
STOP!
Everything came to a chilly standstill. Particles of dust froze in the air as the faint noise of chatter from the gallery came to an abrupt stop, replaced by an eerie silence.
After removing Atalon’s frozen-in-time arm from around me, I walked toward Ragnor and came around him to see his face.
What I saw made my rage multiply.
He looked pissed off.
How dare he look so pissed off?
Before I could stop myself, I grabbed his face and felt a spark tingling at my fingers. “Why?” I hissed at him, my nails digging into his cheeks. “Why did you throw me away?”
Frozen in time, Ragnor did not respond. But I didn’t need him to. It was a rhetorical question, after all.
He simply didn’t want me as much as I had wanted him.
But that was all over now.
“I will never throw myself at your feet again,” I said against his lips, feeling a headache looming over me. I’d passed the limit I’d had when stopping time, meaning I had to wrap it up now.
I stared at his midnight blue eyes, full of angry determination. “I hate you,” I told him. “I really, really hate you.”
After taking my hands off him, I walked back to Atalon and, though I really didn’t want to, put his arm around my waist again, if only to make it appear as if nothing happened.
Then I released my hold on time, and the wheels of time resumed turning.
Ragnor returned to the gallery, promptly shutting the doors behind him. But even though he was gone, the air was still tense and oppressive, as if his presence lingered behind.
I forcefully pushed Atalon’s arm away and stepped out of his hold, then turned to face him. “What the hell was that?” I asked, glaring at his face.
Atalon’s pitch-black eyes were on the doors of the gallery. “I was willing to wait,” he said, but his voice sounded somewhat strained. “But I refuse to wait a second longer.”
He returned his eyes to me, and his determination was clear. “I want you, Aileen,” he told me, voice stark with sincerity. His eyes usually betrayed his true feelings, but they seemed genuine as well, making me reel back in shock. “I’ve liked you since the first time we met, all those months ago, and I still like you now.”
His confession, much like everything that happened in the past few minutes, set me on edge. “I ...,” I started but paused, realizing I was speechless. My emotions were a mess. My head was disheveled. What the hell was happening?
Atalon let out a rough sigh and looked away. “This is not how I wanted this to go,” he said quietly. He straightened, his eyes locking with mine in an unbreakable gaze. “Go out with me, Aileen.”
I tried not to look so gobsmacked and probably failed. “I ... I don’t know what to say, my Lord—”
“I told you to call me Atalon,” he interjected softly, giving me a half smile that made my lips purse. “Just ... think about it, will you?”
Before I could even give him a reply, he threw the gallery doors open and disappeared inside. But much like with Ragnor, he didn’t disappear, and his words kept echoing in my head.
Since vampires couldn’t get sick, calling in sick for work wasn’t something we could do. But since I felt mentally unwell, I decided to hell with it and texted Zion, I don’t feel good, so I won’t be coming to work. Please fill me in on the gala briefing at a later date.
Zion’s response was a simple Fine.
He was not happy with me—that much was obvious. But I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had enough on my plate to bother giving a shit.
I returned to the suite in quite a daze. It felt as though I had just woken up from a vivid fever dream, in which Ragnor appeared out of nowhere, back in my life, and Atalon told me he wanted me and asked me out. None of that seemed real. None of that seemed plausible. It made me wish it was April 1, because this seemed like one cruel joke.
But the moment I was back in my suite and saw Isora’s room open, the inside empty, I snapped out of my daze and felt my heart sinking. In all the turmoil of the past hour, I had forgotten about the most important thing.
And now, Isora was gone.
Eleanor, who always had Fridays off, came out of her room when she heard me enter. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she seemed just as defeated as I felt. We might not have been best friends, but both of us liked Isora just the same. “She left earlier to God knows where,” Eleanor now said, voice breaking and lips trembling. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
Neither could I. After two months of being lulled into a false sense of normality, it was as though today had just burst this little bubble I’d built for myself.
I sat down on the sofa and put my head in my hands. I’d promised Isora I would take care of this. That I would try and make sure she would at least have the extra month she deserved to prove herself worthy. And yet instead, I was caught in an uncomfortable power struggle between my former Lord and current one, and I’d let myself be carried away.
Eleanor sat down next to me. “Did I ever tell you the story of Isora and me?” she asked all of a sudden.
Turning to look at her, I saw fresh tears staining her cheeks. “No,” I said weakly, defeatedly.
Eleanor gave me a wobbly smile. “Isora was given the Imprint by Renaldi two years ago,” she said, “and was bought out by him despite wishing to be anywhere else, like most of Renaldi’s female members, me included. But Isora was a special case; she’d known Renaldi from way before she got put on the waiting list. Before Renaldi had even become a vampire Lord.”
She looked down, her body shaking. “Renaldi gave Isora preferential treatment most of the time, even more so than he did his Gifted members or Lieutenants. He never added Isora to his harem, never laid a hand on her, and treated her like a queen.” She grimaced. “Much to the League members’ chagrin.”
I could see where this was going, and when Eleanor said, “She was bullied by the harem women in ways you can’t even imagine.” My suspicions were confirmed.
“When I arrived at the Renaldi League, Isora was appointed as my tutor,” Eleanor continued. “She was working as the Renaldi casino hostess, and I was primed to be her assistant. She was guarded with me at first, distrustful of practically everyone, but I beat down her guard and managed to befriend her.”
Regret flashed in her eyes. “The other members didn’t like that we’d become friends and started ostracizing me as well, even started their bullying tactics on me, too, but I refused to take it.” She shook her head, lips trembling. “Since it was my first month at the Renaldi League, I didn’t understand the dynamics quite well and made the mistake of informing Renaldi himself about the bullying.”
She gave me a pleading look. “I wanted only what was best for Isora and me. I never for the life of me thought that Renaldi would add us both to his harem as a way to stop the bullying.”
I still vividly remembered that harem. I remembered how Renaldi treated the women in that harem. It couldn’t have been good.
“It might look like Renaldi has the harem for himself, but that’s not quite the case. It’s a cunning front to what the harem of women are really required to do.” She paused, face darkening, before she whispered, “Torture and murder. We may have appeared to be prostitutes to unkeen eyes, while in truth, we were forced to dole out punishments and kill, if need be. Renaldi’s smart. Sure, he’s a selfish piece of shit, but he leverages his sullied reputation to get ahead. No one would ever suspect him of building an army of killer women right under their noses.”
Eleanor was sobbing now. “None of us are killers, Aileen. Not Isora or me, or the others. Do you know what it’s like to be told to not just torture both men and women until they’re driven to insanity but actually put an end to their life—or, if they were vampires, to their existence—with your own bare hands?”
Unfortunately, I knew. I knew so well what it felt like to be at the mercy of a monster who would do anything to get what he wanted. To be forced to become a monster too. To have to go so far outside myself and become so numb that I could even consider following the order to kill and maim and torture, let alone not even question it.
“Isora couldn’t deal with that,” Eleanor whispered. “She couldn’t deal with having so much blood on her hands, so much so that she begged Renaldi to release her. To become Leagueless. She’d rather die or starve to death and take her chances on the outside than do what he was asking of her.”
Isora had once told me anything was better than staying in the Renaldi League, and while I agreed back then, too, I hadn’t understood the extent of it until now. Now I fully understood why.
“She’s finally free of that hellhole.” Eleanor’s face was pained. “And now she’s going to be a slave. That’s just far too cruel, Aileen. So fucking cruel.”
Yes, it was cruel. The vampiric society in the first place was cruel. That’s why I would never for the life of me understand why people put themselves on the waiting list to begin with. Why did anyone want to be a part of this? Immortality was worth nothing if it meant your existence was shit.
“I’ll get her out of this,” I said quietly, hands clenched into fists. “I’ll find a way, Eleanor.”
She laughed bitterly. “As if you can.”
But I could try my hardest. Atalon claimed to want me, after all. Perhaps I could use that to my advantage. Perhaps there was a way.
Isora didn’t deserve any of that.
And Ragnor’s sudden reappearance in my life was not going to deter me from what was truly important.
He’d already thrown me away, after all. He had no right to approach me, speak to me, or even look my way.
I was no longer his. Perhaps I never was.
So, for all I cared, he could go to the hell I would get Isora out of.