Aurora
“Drink!” Samuel’s command reverberates in my skull. “Drink,” he demands. “It’s the only way this will stop.”
This being excruciating pain. My body is on fire, a thousand needles dripping with acid piercing my skin, my muscles, my soul.
I can barely think or breathe around the pain.
It’s been like this for hours, weeks, months.
I’ve lost track of time since he took me.
Since he chained me in this room, biting me, draining me within an inch of life only to heal me.
He’s done it a dozen times. Forced me to drink his blood twice already. I try to withstand him. Try to refuse him. But the pain. I just want it to stop. I just want to die.
“Please,” I beg through my gnashed teeth. “Let me die.”
“Die? You’re not going to die. You’re going to live. You’re going to be mine for an eternity.”
I shiver, my stomach rolling.
“I know you want the pain to stop.” His hands are on me now, stroking my face, my arm, hauling me into his lap. “You can stop it.” He holds his wrist to my lips, a surgically pristine wound there. “Drink.”
Ice replaces the searing acid inside my bones. A freezing terror that draws at the very marrow of my body. I convulse involuntarily, a new wave of torture rippling over me. I want to die. I want to slip into the ether where I’ll forget all of this.
“Drink.” He shoves that wound against my lips. A drop rolls into my mouth, and the icy pain lessons.
It’s such a relief. My tongue lashes out on instinct, my body doing what it must to survive. I try to remember why I shouldn’t do this but can’t.
“More.” He shoves his wrist harder against my lips, his blood free flowing into my mouth.
It slides down my throat, and I finally swallow. Once, twice, enough times that I forget who or what I am. The pain ebbs, and tears roll down my cheeks.
“Good,” he says, ripping his wrist away. “That’s very good.” He moves away from me, and the chains locking me to the wall rattle as my arms drop. “You’ll turn soon.”
My eyes snap to his as my heart sputters, the beats out of sync…
No.
“You’ll be like me,” he says, bending down to meet my gaze. He smiles. It’s a charming smile. I hate it. I hate him. “And you’ll be mine.”
I jolt upright in bed, cold sweat beading on my skin. My breath is almost too fast to catch, my heart stumbling over itself as it tries to regain a normal rhythm. I rub my hand across my neck, doing my best to ground myself in reality.
The bed I’ve slept in since moving into the king’s residence cushions my trembling body, the silk sheets crisp against my skin. The room is filled with familiar smells—books and jasmine and citrus. I’m here. In my room. Not there. Not chained up.
A nightmare. Just another nightmare. Samuel isn’t here. You’re safe. You’re safe. The words sound like Saint’s voice in my mind, but when I look at the armchair in the corner of my room, he’s not there. His usual spot is empty, and the vacancy pinches my chest.
I can’t remember when that chair became his. My memories are so foggy from when I was first brought here, newly turned and with a broken mind, but Saint was the only one who made me feel safe, grounded, real. Ironic, since he often altered my reality to help me feel sane.
I remember asking him to stay one day after he’d helped me feed, making me believe the blood in my glass was wine.
I’ve worked incredibly hard to not need his help feeding, doing my best to grow strong enough to function without his assistance, but now that he’s not here, I feel his absence like a hole in my heart.
I absently trace the mark on my neck, knowing it by heart now. A shiver of apprehension dances through me at the memory of Saint’s face when he saw the mark. He’d been shocked at first and then terrified. Scared of a life shackled to me.
It’s awful enough that he duty-bound himself to me after what Samuel forced me to endure.
That’s another reason I’ve done everything I can to regain composure, control, a sense of purpose in a life I still don’t fully understand.
He deserves to be free of me as a responsibility because God knows he’s not spending time with me out of any affection he has for me.
And now his mark—their mark—decorates my skin and I have no clue who it belongs to.
They’ve both touched me here, and the not knowing is a new form of torture.
Sleep long forgotten, I hurry out of bed and into some clothes.
My rooms here at the residence are far grander than anything I ever had before.
But, if I’m being honest, if I allow myself time enough to find peace, I feel at home here in a way that shouldn’t be possible.
I know that is equally due to Saint’s help—his constant presence—as much as the family that’s taken me in here.
I wander through the residence, coming upon the breakfast room easily.
It shocked me at first, how big of a family the vampire king had.
How they tried to dine together as often as time and circumstance allowed.
In the beginning, I couldn’t stand being around anyone.
Saint was the only one I’d allow near me because he could make the images in my mind disappear or calm the emotions threatening to choke the life from me.
But lately, I’ve been getting better at being around them.
Especially with Cassandra and Annika’s help.
I didn’t exactly want to leave Cassandra’s island—the seclusion and paradise had been addicting—but I understood the need to return.
I’m so glad Olivia and her baby, Selene, are now thriving.
That’s one good thing in a long line of shit this family has had to deal with since the hunters were awakened.
“Aurora.” King Alek beckons me into the dining room where I linger in the doorway. “Please, join us.”
Every instinct is poised to run. I’m no good at conversations. Never have been. I don’t want to be a burden or have their focus shift to me and all the things I don’t say. All the social cues I miss or discussions I don’t take part in.
“Please,” he says again.
I dip my head. “Thanks,” I say, my voice soft but clear as I take an empty seat across from Saint.
He doesn’t look at me, and I pretend it doesn’t sting.
Annika fills a plate and slides it in front of me.
I smile at her in silent thanks, then pick at a stray piece of fruit.
It was a small comfort when I discovered vampires still eat human food.
After being forcefully turned, I thought I’d have to give up things like fruit and bread, but it’s all about moderation.
I can have both human and…vampire sustenance.
But actually feeding from someone? Sinking my fangs into someone’s flesh and gulping down their life source? I still don’t know how to do that or if I ever can. The idea of hurting someone, just to feed myself, makes my stomach turn.
Chatter resumes as I eat, and as I casually glance around the table, it’s a relief to see no one is staring at the mark on my neck.
I didn’t bother looking for a scarf or anything to hide it.
Everyone is so close here, there’s no one in this circle that doesn’t know it appeared. I just wish I knew who it belonged to.
“We’ll have to get new supplies in.” Alek is speaking with Ajax and Ransom at the other end of the table.
I’m not sure why, but their faces are more severe than they were moments before.
I try to listen, but my eyes wander across the table, watching Saint focus on the king.
My mind goes fuzzy at the edges, like it’s been doing since I was turned, but not as intensely as before.
Saint is a stunning man—male—there’s no denying it.
He’s tall and wide and muscular, but most of the hunters are.
It’s his full lips and dark eyes that have the ability to strip me bare in a blink that I can’t get enough of.
I even like the thin red ring around his pupils because it’s such a unique part of him.
I’m not sure if there’s anything about him I don’t like.
Heat spirals in a teasing tendril as I continue to gaze at him. I’ve always been surprised at my body’s reaction to him—that hot, heady thrill that shoots through me any time he’s near. He’s Samuel’s identical twin in every way, and yet, they couldn’t be more different to me.
I linger on his hair. He used to have longer strands framing his face, but now it’s shorn on the sides. He’d cut it shortly after I’d awoken from a nightmare and mistook him for Samuel. The thought allows the memory to wash me away from the present…
I thrash against the thick comforter, shoving it off as I snap out of the nightmare. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I’m itching to move, to seek fresh air—
Samuel sits in an armchair next to my bed. Everything inside me freezes, turning to ice as a scream rips from my throat.
“No!” I shout, scrambling back against the bed.
Samuel’s eyes snap open, and he’s on his feet in an instant. That preternatural speed has him in front of me in a blink.
“No more,” I beg, tears streaking down my cheeks. “Please. No more. I can’t.” Samuel has spent so many nights torturing me. I can’t hold on another minute. “I want to die. Just kill me, Samuel.”
“You’re safe,” he says. “I’m not him. Aurora, I’m not him.” Saint’s voice cuts through the panic filling my veins.
I study his features a bit harder, my mind not trusting what it sees. His hands are raised, and there’s a softness to his eyes that Samuel’s never had. Plus, I know his voice. I’d know his voice anywhere. There’s a tone and pitch that calls to me in a drastically different way than his brother’s.
I sigh, but the tears don’t stop. “I’m sorry. It was a nightmare. I didn’t mean to call you that.”
But I’d believed he was Samuel. I did. For a moment, it’s all I could think. That I’d never really been rescued, and the past weeks had been a cruel trick he played on me to break my mind even more.
Saint stares at me for a few moments, then nods, and stomps toward my bathroom. After a second, I follow him because he left the door open. He’s holding a pair of dull scissors, chopping away at his hair.
Warmth and gratitude spread through me, chasing away the icy terror clinging to me from the nightmare.
“You don’t have to do that—”
“I want to,” he says. “I never want you to think I’m him again.”
More tears spill over my lashes. “You could never be him.”
“Aurora?” Saint’s voice draws me back to the table, and I blink away the memory. I look around the room, shocked that everyone else has finished eating and left.
“I zoned out again.” It’s easier to admit it to him.
He knows how powerful my mind is when it wants to take me away.
Something I’m guessing is a survival mechanism I won’t be able to fully shake without intensive therapy.
Ajax’s mate, Grace, suggested that to me a few weeks ago, assuring me my spells of disassociation were a normal trauma response.
My shoulders drop. At least this memory hadn’t been the worst of them.
He studies my face for a few moments, then his eyes fall to my neck, and he visibly swallows. “The residence’s blood supply has been tainted.”
“Oh?” I shake my head. “That’s awful.” So many awful things happened the past week.
The attack Samuel led. The bloodmad vampires he’d snuck into the residence.
The horrific screaming. Samuel’s hand around my neck as he dangled me from the roof.
Death trying to claim me once again and Saint not allowing it.
Valor, Lachlan’s mate and Lyric’s best friend, almost dying and then her transition after. Thankfully, she’s okay, but now this?
“Didn’t the Sons destroy the supply once before?” I ask, trying desperately to remember who told me that. Olivia, I think. “The king had a company that managed the reserve?”
“Onyx Industries,” Saint answers. “They’d built up a three-year reserve in case of emergencies. The Sons destroyed it before we were awakened. Alek had slowly been building it back up as well as restocking the royal reserves here.” He sighs. “Samuel and his people managed to poison both.”
I rub my hand self-consciously over my neck.
I hate that I hadn’t been strong enough to fight Samuel off.
To put an end to the destruction—the hate and evil—he’s delivered at every turn.
If I’d been like Olivia, the princess’s bodyguard, or like Talia, Zachariah’s huntress mate, I would’ve been able to fight.
But I’ve been too busy trying to find the missing pieces of myself to learn how to fight back. That needs to change.
“You fed yesterday,” he continues. “But we’ll have to figure out a new solution for you soon.”
I think about every time I’ve drank blood since arriving at the residence. Saint’s always been there, helping me, altering my mind to make me believe I’m drinking red wine. It’s the only way I could get it down in the beginning.
“Okay, what do I need to do?” I ask, truly wanting to regain some form of control over the spiraling situation.
“We need to find someone you’re comfortable feeding from,” he says.
My fangs pulse as if excited by the prospect of being used properly for once.
Instincts clash and swarm inside me. Images of sinking my fangs into someone’s neck and drinking their warm blood…
of not being able to stop drinking—draining them the way Samuel drained me over and over again, within an inch of my life, before restoring me.
Panic hits me like a lightning bolt. I refuse to be the monster he wanted me to be.
“I…I…” I don’t know what to say. How can I explain it to him? He’s been successfully feeding for centuries. Sure, he’s told me stories of the line he walked, the insatiable hunger he can never truly slake, but he’s managed.
“Annika already offered,” Saint says, his voice soft, gentle even, as he leans closer over the table between us. “There are human volunteers too. There are people who want to help you.”
A little warmth rushes through the panic, but the thought of biting my friend doesn’t settle well either. My eyes meet Saint’s, searching for answers there like I always do.
He’s the only one I’ve felt comfortable feeding around.
He’s the only one who’s ever seen every broken part of me and not looked at me with pity.
The one who, time and time again, has never given up on me, no matter how many times I’ve asked him to.
It’s always been him I turn to, run toward, whether I’m scared or confused or questioning my existence.
It’s always been him.
“You,” I finally say as the only possible answer presents itself. “The only person I’ll ever feel comfortable feeding from is you.”