30. Alexander
30
ALEXANDER
T hey would do everything in their power to get the information from me. It was a waiting game, one I had to play. Emily was still alive, but I couldn’t let them bond her. Not now, not ever, because being bonded to Sanguine Nox was worse than death.
I stood in the center of a dungeon chamber, this one empty of stone slabs or torture devices—there were many in other chambers—my hands tucked behind my back. Waiting.
It was painful.
Hang on, Emily. I’m coming.
The door to the chamber slammed open, and Karn entered.
Rage filled me so swiftly that it stole my breath. Memories threatened on the fringes of my mind, and I forced them back, focusing on the moment. On his presence. Anything else would lead to my swift demise.
Because Karn was the original vampire. The one who had turned me. Who had imprisoned me. Allowing my mind to wander away from the present would give him an opportunity to attack.
I ensured my mind shield was firmly in place.
Karn was a tall creature, so tall that he’d had to bow to enter the dungeon. He was slightly hunched over, completely bald, his mouth a thin slash, and his eyes almost too large for his face. They glistened wetly in the half-light from the sconce outside.
He clicked his fingers and an orb of brilliant red magic appeared. He set it to hover beside him as he approached, walking like a sickly spider.
“There you are, dear Alexander,” he said. “It has been too long since I’ve seen you.”
He was a nightmare made flesh. The opposite of what I wanted to be.
“Free me,” I said.
“Now, why on earth would I do that?” Karn asked. “I have memories to recover from you.” He reached for me, and I swatted his hand out of the way, my nostrils flaring. I inhaled the scent of him—cemetery dust and rot—and snarled.
“Tsk. Tsk. There’s no need to be hostile. I’ve heard that you’ve been giving our Ezekiel quite a bit of trouble,” Karn said. “You haven’t been allowing him to penetrate your thoughts and recover the bonding ritual. Is that correct?”
“I will never allow you or any other vampire in this cursed coven near my thoughts.”
“That is most unfortunate. We would hate to torture you to get what we need,” Karn said, and again, reached for me.
Again, I deflected him.
“You are one of our own, Alexander,” Karn said. “You have and always will be a part of Sanguine Nox. I have claimed you as thoroughly as a country claims its territory. You are yet another finger on my hand, and you will obey my thoughts and my will.”
“I will not.”
“Yes, yes, you will.” Karn nodded, a smile opening that gash. It was humorless. To any mortal or vampire, werewolf or paranormal entity, that smile would be terrifying. But I had seen it too many times to count, and I wasn’t afraid any longer. “Remember the night I turned you, dear Alexander? Remember how terrible it was when your parents died? I saved you.”
“You condemned me. You killed everyone I loved. You are no savior. You are a monster.”
Karn laughed under his breath, his voice dry as bone. “That is an unfortunate viewpoint to have, when really, the alternative was your death.”
“And now, I am trapped in forever, instead. A forever where your existence is a constant reminder of what I lost.”
“Mortality is a weakness.”
“You are nothing,” I snapped. “Nothing.”
If Karn had had eyebrows, he would have raised them. Instead, the skin on his forehead lifted and settled. “Nothing? I made you, dear Alexander. I made you into what you are today. The hypocrisy.”
“Hypocrisy.”
Karn circled me. I didn’t show my discomfort. The scent of him filled my nostrils, and he emanated a thrumming power that was meant to intimidate me.
“That’s right. You remember how infatuated I was with you, Alexander. Such a young, virile man. The potential for limitless power. I saw something in you that I both envied and valued,” Karn said, stopping beside me and staring at the side of my face. “Is that not the same as what you have done with Emily .”
I kept my mouth shut.
Karn would use anything I said about her against me.
“That’s right, dear Alexander. I know all about your love for her. Your desperation for her. You are manipulating her to gain power for yourself.”
“You have no concept of the truth, and you never will.” Because he would never understand what love actually was. To him, it was a weakness or it was an advantage or be leveraged. Another pawn in one of his sick games.
“I know that you are terrified of her death, regardless of your noble intentions. You may think you love her, but we both know the truth. She is mortal and dying, and the longer you withhold the information I need to bond her, the closer she draws to her final hour. So why not give me what I need? It will benefit you.”
“Benefit me? I think not.”
“Do you not? She will die if you don’t.”
“I don’t care.”
Karn made a small, high-pitched noise in his throat. “You have never been a particularly good liar. And your actions speak far louder than your words. You have shown how much you care. Bringing the book here to get her back. Tearing the page out so that I cannot bond her. You want her for yourself.”
“No.”
“Liar.” The word came out on a breath of laughter. “Liar.”
“Your opinions don’t matter to me.”
Karn sighed and looked past me, then turned and stared at me again. His head moved from side to side like a snake, and his lips parted, showing the fangs he had used to puncture my neck.
“Give me what I want to know, and I will allow you to bond her alongside me.”
“No.”
“Give me what I want to know, and I will give you whatever you dream of. I will give you power. A place here, at Sanguine Nox, only one step below me. I will place you above Ezekiel if necessary.”
“No.”
“Give me what I want, and you will rule over the other vampires. I will even allow you freedom to move about the city as you wish. You will be able to make rules and laws. You will be in charge of your own subsection of our army. And you will be able to … do humanitarian efforts.” The words sounded unwelcome on his lips. He hated that he had to say them at all because Karn was evil. Through and through, he was evil. He thrived when things were fearful and dark. He fed off that energy.
Karn drew closer, another step, one more. “I can make your wildest dreams a reality. ”
“No.”
Again, Karn clicked his tongue. “So unnecessarily hostile. You know she will die yet you won’t?—”
“I would rather we both die than bow down to you.”
“If that is the case,” Karn said, “why bring the book here in the first place?”
A slow smile parted my lips.
Karn’s eyes narrowed.
A silence pervaded the chamber.
“I have already made her my thrall,” Karn said.
A wave of hot anger spread through me, and I jolted forward a step, casting a hand toward him and summoning vampire magic that didn’t come. They had fed me a draught so that I couldn’t use it.
Karn chuckled. “That’s right, Alexander. She will be mine, one way or another. Now, give me what I want, or I will have you destroyed. There are other ways to gather information. You are simply the easiest. But if you present too much of a challenge …”
“I will not give you what you want.”
Karn sighed. “Very well. Then you will be subject to the pain only Ezekiel can provide.”
Another hesitation. Karn didn’t summon Ezekiel just yet, but stood there, staring at me.
It was unnerving, but the rage that I felt toward him after what he’d done was muted. My concern for Emily had dulled my need for revenge. I still wanted him gone. I wanted him out of the world, but now, it was because Emily was a part of it, and I wanted to protect her no matter what.
“You are choosing a difficult path,” Karn said. “Emily is going to stay with Sanguine Nox. If you want to be with her, you should take my offer seriously and join us. Think about it, Alexander. Think about it. I will give you a half an hour to consider the offer, at which point I will return for the information regarding the bonding ritual. Do you?—?”
“No. ”
Karn’s slash of a mouth tightened. “Alexander.”
“I said no. You will not change my mind. I will never bow down to you again.”
“Then you will die where you stand.”
“I would rather die standing than bow to you.”
“Fool.”
I stared through him, as if I could dismiss him with a thought. I couldn’t summon my vampire magic, so half the power I usually had was lacking. But I could still mindshield. I could still turn invisible.
Karn was too powerful to kill. He had proved that time and time again. The last time we had met, I had tried to beat him. I had cast every ounce of power I had at him, and he hadn’t buckled under the onslaught. He had laughed me off.
But an escape wasn’t off the cards. I merely had to find the opportunity.
“Very well. You have made your choice. Ezekiel.” Karn’s call for the other vampire was gentle. Almost sweet.
The dungeon door opened a second time, and Ezekiel swept into the darkened chamber. He summoned his own ball of red light and let it drift alongside him, just as Karn had done. “Yes, Master.”
“I require your assistance. I want you to overpower, dear Alexander. Try one last time to penetrate his thoughts, and then, if that fails, I would like you to kill him.”
“Yes, Master.”
“But,” Karn said, raising a finger, “do it in an exquisite fashion. I want you to despatch Alexander with extreme prejudice. Kill him slowly and violently. Bleed him if necessary. Do whatever you can to make his death the most painful it can possibly be.”
“I will do as you say, Master.”
Karn smiled, and then he swept from the room and shut the door behind him.
Ezekiel eyed me, warily. He’d heard what I was capable of, no doubt. I had once been a part of the elite team of vampires who had served beneath Karn and done his dirty work. My name had been struck from the coven’s history because of my escape and abandonment. My betrayal.
“Give me what I want,” Ezekiel said, “the information, and I will make your death swift.”
“You will die with that futile threat on your lips.”
Ezekiel smirked and came forward. He grabbed hold of my arm, and I let him. His vampire magic probed and poked at the barriers of my mindshield, desperately seeking a way in, but there was none.
My mind was impenetrable, and it was partly because of the way Karn had tortured me when he’d first turned me.
“Let me in.”
I smiled at the weaker vampire. Because he was weaker. Even with his magic unlocked and mine muted, he couldn’t break through.
Ezekiel gritted his teeth. He parted his lips, but whatever he had to say died on his tongue.
A scream broke out in the hallway outside, and a strange pulsing of power shuddered through the dungeon. Ezekiel turned to find where it had come from, and I turned invisible and stepped out of reach.