Page 58 of Dance of the Phoenix (Cloak of the Vampire #3)

Aileen

I could feel the bloodthirstiness filling my veins when I watched Atalon enter the arena. His smirking, snakelike face, his pitch-black eyes glinting in sickening delight, reminded me of what he’d told me just twelve hours ago, before I had turned back time.

He might not know about the promise I’d made back in that awful, stifling bedroom, but I did.

I would kill him.

And I would make it hurt like all fucking hells .

The moment Renaldi announced the beginning of the battle, followed by his warning to Ragnor, whose eyes I could feel boring holes in my head all the way from the Rayne gallery, I braced myself.

Atalon put his hands in his pockets, his gold earring, the Tears of Euphorrey, glinting.

And I felt it. What Eliza had warned me about.

It felt as if someone was putting pressure on my skull. It was a pain similar to the one I felt when using my time-stopping powers, but also vastly different. This pain was probing, searching, invasive.

“What a valiant girlfriend you are,” Atalon murmured as he began walking toward me, probably thinking he would soon take control over my mind. “I doubt Rayne would appreciate your efforts, though. Especially since you’ll die here.”

That was actually hilarious to me. “I thought you wanted me alive,” I said through gritted teeth, fighting the pressure that kept on increasing on my skull.

Atalon cocked his head. “Why would you think that?”

Even though just breathing hurt, I forced a smirk onto my face. “I ... thought ...” It grew difficult to speak, but I refused to give in. “That after ... I b-became ... a broodm-mare ... for the J-Jinn ... y-you wanted me ... to be g-given ... your Imprint ...”

Atalon paused, his own smirk wiped off his face, eyes glowing that shadowy glow only he seemed to have. “Who told you about this?” he asked, eyes no longer delighted but rather dead serious.

That made me grin wider, even as I winced with the never-ending pressure that made it hard to even move my lips. “You.”

He snarled, enraged and aghast in equal measures. He was probably thinking that I was lying, but joke was on him, because I was speaking the absolute truth.

Even though that truth was only for me to know.

The pressure grew impossibly worse until I had to cry out, as if that would relieve some of it. But all it did was somehow make it even worse.

“No matter,” I barely heard Atalon murmur. “Soon, you’ll be helpless, and then, I’ll—”

“ Ha !” I barked out the laughter through the pain. “Y-your Tears ... won’t ... work on ... m-me.”

“Shut your mouth,” he snarled, and I realized he was a few steps away. “The Tears will work!”

He seemed to be growing angrier, which made the pressure worsen with every passing second, so much so he didn’t even bother questioning me about how I knew things I shouldn’t have.

But it was also good for me. Get even madder, Atalon.

“Fuck!” Atalon growled, seeing as I could still laugh while he attempted to infiltrate my mind. “ Fuck! ”

“T-Time . . . for p-plan . . . B,” I sputtered, grinning widely.

All of a sudden, the pressure was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. “Cursed wench,” Atalon spit, glaring at me. I could see him better now that my vision wasn’t blurry from the pain. “Why? Why won’t it work?!”

“You should know better than anyone,” I said, finally able to speak normally again. “I’m a Child of Kahil, remember?”

Atalon’s eyes widened with the belated realization. Apparently, even Atalon had his dumb moments. And this one had just cost him.

Because according to Eliza, using the Tears of Euphorrey took a toll on its owner’s mind. And the longer the usage, the worse the damage would be.

Face contorting in fury, Atalon growled before he came at me full force.

And fast.

So fast I almost didn’t avoid his punch and didn’t manage to evade his kick to my already bruised ribs.

Gritting my teeth, I kept myself at full attention, seeing the moment when he aimed for my legs and sidestepping his kick, but unfortunately, that meant his fist crashed into my gut, throwing me back a few steps.

He didn’t leave any openings or any room for rest. Atalon was fast, relentless, and powerful as he came at me over and over. I had to keep my reaction time at top condition, or he would literally beat me to a pulp. And that wasn’t an option.

Knowing my time stopping wouldn’t work on him, I didn’t bother attempting that.

He didn’t even leave me time to try and get into the first Behest of Iovan’s Imperium, and I had a hunch that even if I succeeded, it wouldn’t work on him.

He was too fast and too ferocious to fall for any trap, and Iovan’s Imperium was all about setting traps.

So I had no choice but to keep being on the defense, trying to come up with some sort of plan, seeing as he wasn’t slowing down anytime soon, and I was growing wearier the longer the fight continued.

I had to change the tides somehow.

He suddenly stopped his onslaught and stepped back, smirking when he saw I was short of breath. “If you thought the Tears were your only obstacle, then you were sorely mistaken,” he murmured, voice as silky and smooth as a snake’s scales.

Wiping the sweat off my face, I stared at him long and hard.

He was a vampire Lord all right, but I knew the nature of his magic.

I’d witnessed it myself. He could create paintings that captured a scene from a person’s past, present, or future, and once that person looked at the painting, they absorbed it, and it created a mental link with Atalon, allowing Atalon to learn everything about that person.

While it was a very powerful magic, I couldn’t see a way for him to use it in combat.

That is, until Atalon grinned and said, “We played long enough. It’s time to get serious, don’t you think?”

And after he uttered those words, the arena, Atalon, everything distorted, growing blurry, darkening, before sharpening yet again, creating a new space.

A familiar space.

A room.

Basement full of little tiny bodies.

Bleeding, disfigured bodies.

I stared at the sight, unable to process what I was seeing. Because I’d just been in the arena, in the middle of a battle of nerves with Atalon ...

But now I was back ... home?

No.

I couldn’t be back there.

This had to be an illusion.

Looking behind me, I saw the stairs leading up and away from the awful basement filled with the stifling stench of burning flesh. Without thinking twice, I climbed those stairs, realizing I could move as if I was really there.

Don’t think, Aileen. Just act.

I burst through the door to the living room of my old home. I strode to the front door, pulling at the handle.

But it was locked.

Shaking, I looked around me. The house was the same as the last time I’d seen it. Meaning the layout had to be similar.

I walked to the kitchen, then behind it to the door leading to the backyard, where the river full of dead girls’ ashes was.

Don’t think about it, Aileen. Don’t fucking think.

The door was unlocked, and I exited, but instead of being in the backyard, I was suddenly in a hospital room.

Before me, in a bed, lay an eighteen-year-old boy wearing a hospital gown, with a bandage around his bruised neck.

His turquoise eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Logan.

I knew it was an illusion. That this wasn’t real. It was a memory that Atalon somehow forced on me, mixed with the reality that Logan was ... was dead .

Trembling uncontrollably, my breaths turning short and panicked, I retrod my steps, and once I was through the door, it closed right in my face.

I turned around then and saw I was no longer in the hospital or my old home. Instead, I was in a filthy, messy apartment I faintly recognized.

On the floor of that apartment lay Cassidy, her eyes closed, her face the most serene it had ever been.

It was her old apartment she’d had with her abusive ex-boyfriend, Austin.

And Cassidy, like Logan, was ...

“Get me out of here,” I murmured, running through the apartment to reach the door that led me not to the hallway of that old apartment building but rather to the grocery store I used to work in.

I was at the storage room, and I frantically ran to the front of the store. I pushed myself through the aisles, attempting to reach the entrance, when I saw yet another body lying on the floor.

Zoey.

But Zoey didn’t belong in the grocery store. So far, all the people and places matched, so this made no sense ...

Until I saw her body was wearing black clothes, and a pistol was in her hand, blood trickling from her chest.

My heartbeat became deafening. It was a scene from that one time I was working when there was an armed robbery. I’d wrestled with one of the robbers when the pistol went off, the bullet hitting the robber in the chest, causing his partner to run away.

But that robber’s death wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help but frantically think, looking down at the dead body of Zoey with horror. Was she a representation of that awful day? Why? Why her ? I didn’t ... I didn’t kill her!

But you feel like you did, don’t you? A voice murmured in my head. A very unwelcome, intrusive voice that made me break out in a cold sweat.

Keep going, I urged myself, forcing my feet to move over Zoey’s body toward the grocery store’s entrance. Don’t look. Don’t think. Just keep on moving ...

I pushed the doors open ... and ended up in the alley behind the Banner Bar, where Ragnor had given Cassidy and me the Imprint.

There, in the dumpster I had hidden behind what felt like ages ago, were the bodies of CJ and Jada, hugging one another, their faces peaceful.

Trembling all over, I stepped away and turned around to see a silhouette heading my way. The silhouette was that of a man with shoulder-length hair and a trench coat, and I knew it was Ragnor.

But the silhouette also had a pair of large, feathery wings.

The silhouette suddenly froze, and between one blink and the next, it was replaced with the body of wingless Ragnor lying in a puddle of blood on the asphalt, a gaping hole in his chest.

“No,” I said out loud, needing to hear myself, “this is not real, Aileen. This is not real. This is not real! ”

Let me, Child of Kahil.

I froze. “What?”

You are too young and inexperienced to deal with this magic, the Phoenix murmured in my head. Let me handle this for you, Child.

Tears falling down my face as I stared at Ragnor’s dead body, his eyes glassy, breaking my heart for the second time, I knew I had no other choice.

My knees lost their power, and I fell to the floor. “Just ... make him pay,” I said quietly, defeatedly. “Do to him what I promised I would do.”

The Phoenix did not respond.

Instead, I felt its warmth taking over my entire body, heating my blood, my bones, everything, until I was nothing but fire and flames.