Chapter 20 The Girl #3
Mitchell beckoned them to the back where the rooms were, but stopped when Nicolai held his finger up as he strolled over to the bar.
Niamh watched as he tried to chat to the woman, who remained facing away from him.
She knew Nicolai was harmless, but she worried that the woman might have felt cornered, so she followed after him.
She wandered to the woman’s other side. “Oh, leave her alone, Nic. She’s clearly not interested.”
The woman turned to watch Nicolai walk away in defeat as Niamh apologised on his behalf.
“It’s fine,” the woman laughed. “Thank you, though.”
Xander knew that voice, he knew that laugh. And when she turned to look at Niamh, Adriana’s face came into full view.
Her pale blue-grey eyes framed by thick, dark lashes stood out amongst the red lighting.
Her dark blonde hair was shorter now, falling in waves to just below her shoulders with a low fringe that split in the middle and fell below her eyebrows, resting just above her cheekbones.
The light freckles across her nose were barely visible in the dark room, but he knew they were there.
Her dusty pink lips stretched into a smile as she accepted Niamh’s offer to join her. It was the same way she used to smile at Xander, her top front teeth grazing her plump lower lip as she grinned, the small dimple he loved so much on her left cheek becoming visible.
Xander flitted through Niamh’s memories of their conversation, not paying attention to anything they spoke about as he fixated on Adriana’s beautiful face. She was there—right there. Adriana was alive.
As Niamh’s eyes wandered over Adriana’s body, he could feel the attraction she felt for the woman he loved.
She wore a dark shirt tucked into black jeans, with black gloves that extended under her sleeves.
The only colour on her was the trail of blood from the bite mark on her neck, and it set Xander’s teeth on edge.
He could feel himself growing angry, knowing that she had been fed from. And his anger only grew when he watched Adriana kiss Niamh and straddle her lap in front of the entire bar.
He questioned whether he could watch anymore, knowing what those clubs were for. But he continued, just so he could see Adriana’s face, so he could feel what Niamh had felt as Adriana fed from her neck.
Feelings of mixed pain and pleasure flooded through him, so much that he almost lost his grip on Niamh’s memories.
He watched through her eyes as Adriana stood up and walked to the washroom, her gaze lingering on Adriana’s saunter.
Niamh touched her neck and realised she was still bleeding slightly, and so she went after her to clean herself up.
That was when she saw Adriana standing there shirtless, the brandings on her back on full display.
Xander caught a glimpse of her Luciferus sun between the strands of her hair, along with the new eclipse moon that sat in the middle of her Incantrix moon cycle.
And, as she spun around to face Niamh and begged her not to tell anyone, he saw the brands on her arms. His Nocte brands.
The truth was undeniable; he had turned her.
When he had killed her on the night before their wedding day, he had unknowingly turned her.
He had never noticed during his self-torturous recounts of that night that the blood from the cut on his cheek had dripped into her mouth.
He had never noticed that she had swallowed that blood in between her screams. He’d been so traumatised by what he had done he could only ever focus on her eyes—on the life that slowly left them as he killed her.
Xander’s heart dropped when he saw the panic in Adriana’s expression when Niamh mentioned his name. She was terrified of him, so terrified that she had hid for over a century.
What had she been doing? Who had she been with this entire time? Had she been all alone? Had she been safe?
So many questions ran through Xander’s mind as he continued to watch Niamh’s memories.
He watched Adriana destroy the bathroom sinks and run out of the bar.
Nicolai chased after her at Niamh’s request but he fell back down the stairs when a beam of light shot out from the top.
Her Luciferus light was still strong, perhaps even stronger now.
As he came back to the present, Xander almost collapsed over the table, his stomach cramping as if he might throw up. He noticed his hands had left cracks in the wood from the pressure, his shadows rested like a blanket around him. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even blink.
It really was her.
“Xander? What did you see?”
He heard one of his brothers calling to him, but he couldn’t even make out who it was. His head was ringing, his heart pounding. His shadows seemed to wrap even tighter around him, making him feel like the world was collapsing in on itself and he was at the very centre of it all.
He noticed a small puddle had formed between his hands on the table. Another drop dripped down his cheek and joined it. He had been crying the entire time and hadn’t even realised.
Xander felt the despair of the last one hundred and thirty eight years come crashing down on him.
He felt the pain, the guilt, the anger, the loss.
It was worse than when Lilith had taken control of him, worse than when he had broken free from her hold that morning and found Adriana’s house in flames, worse than the four decades he had spent in isolation.
He felt it all, everything he had pushed deep down for so long, and he let it explode.
A scream tore from his throat, the sound echoing round the room like a roar of thunder. His hands pushed down on the table, the wood splintering and falling apart under his strength, as he unleashed his shadows.
The room fell under his darkness for a few seconds, before it slowly disappeared like wisps of black smoke. He ran his hands through his hair, his eyes wild as he took in the worried looks around the broken table.
“It was her,” he breathed out. And for the first time in over a century, he spoke her name. “Adriana. It was Adriana.”
“But how?” Deion asked, as he stood and walked towards him.
“I turned her. I didn’t mean to, but I did it. I turned her when I…” his voice trailed off as he struggled to admit it out loud. “I turned her when I murdered her.”
Xander watched the Lupi shift in their seats, unsure what to make of his confession. But he had no time to explain, no time to make them understand.
“We need to find her,” he mumbled. “I need to find her. I have to make sure she’s okay, I have to tell her it wasn’t me, I—”
“We will find her,” Edward interrupted. Xander noticed his heart rate began to calm down as Edward’s hands twitched at his side, his Somnum magic seeping into his body. “We just need to work out where she is.”
“I think I’ve found her,” Katie announced. “Rafael just messaged me.”
Xander looked over to find her staring down at her phone, her face tense as she read whatever message had just come through.
She walked to the TV in the corner of the room and switched it on, turning to one of the news channels that had recently been sharing the Liberators’ propaganda.
It showed the newsreader presenting a video that reportedly showed a Daemon with lightwielding powers attacking a group of mortals outside a Manchester train station.
Xander moved closer to the TV as Adriana's face came on the screen, her Luciferus and Elementai magic blasting out of her hands with precision. She was fighting off four Liberators outside a train station whilst a crowd watched. The video tried to make it look as if it were an unprovoked attack, but Xander could see the knife in one of the Liberators’ hands before the video glitched to show Adriana slashing his throat open with her Lamia talons.
He stared at the TV as the newsreader then presented live footage from inside the train station, where Liberators and other mortals were fighting amongst each other. It was just as Xander feared; Lucas Rook’s followers were rising up. But now he had a more important matter to deal with.
“Open a gate,” Xander said to Nicolai, ignoring his brothers’ attempts to get him to calm down and think of a plan of action before running in blind. “Open a fucking gate, Nic. I’m going to get her.”