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Twenty-Nine

ALEC

She’s right. This is why we only bond with our own. But she’s also wrong. She’s proved it in the way she looks at me, the fact she was hearing my voice long before we met. The bond was always meant to be, even if neither of us were aware.

A vampire doesn’t exist without their Bride. I will have no choice but to follow her if she goes, forever craving a thirst only she’ll be able to quench.

I pinch her chin, aware at any second my powerful witch can throw me across the room. While I have her, I’ll keep her until the very last moment.

“Stay.”

She tries to jerk from my hold, her jaw tense beneath my palm. “Fuck you. You’ve said time and time again you only planned on using my blood for your own gains.”

“You know it’s not like that anymore.”

“Me being your Bride doesn’t mean you care about me. Doesn’t mean you’ll love me.”

As though you’d love me after all this? “Told you, vampires can’t love, but that doesn’t change anything.” Emotions don’t matter within mate pairs. She’s mine, I’m hers, and she must be protected.

Something passes through the bond from her to me. A sense of uncertainty, of fear and longing.

“You’ll be targeted if you go out there.” I’ll lock her in the dungeon before I see her harmed because of the curse in her blood, which should now be effective once more.

“If they attack, I’ll kill them. It’s been fun, but bye.” The purple in her eyes flickers to a deep lilac and—no, even darker. Almost black. It’s the telling sign of an attack, but I’m quicker than her, and I lock my arm around her waist and run her away from the foyer.

“I won’t let you go. You forget, you’re mine now.”

The words are barely out of my mouth before a burst of heat flashes through her body and breaks my hold. She lunges back the way we came, strangely quick, and her arm juts behind her.

I jump as a spell narrowly misses me and chase her down the hallway, poised to do whatever I must to keep her here. By the door, she whirls around and casts a line of flames between us, stopping me in my tracks as it roars hot and tall enough to prevent me from jumping it. Her breaths are heavy when she glares over the orange, shaking her head.

“As I said before, witches don’t have mates. If you think I’m yours, that’s your problem. I’m leaving.”

“I’ll follow you.” I edge as near to the flames as I can, eyeing the height.

“Don’t.”

Regret filters from the bond, which tells me everything. “You don’t want to do this.”

Her shoulders cave in a fraction, another sign I’m correct, but she remains rigid in her reply. “You have no idea what I want. Nor have you ever cared.”

“I know exactly what you’re feeling. Fear. Grief. Uncertainty. Regret. I feel you as though they’re my own emotions, Hellion.”

Her expression ripples into pain, until she abruptly shakes it off. Her lips move in a murmur, the language unfamiliar, the words quick and low, but I react regardless, knowing the sounds of a hex.

Before I make it two steps, my body is flung into the air like a marionette, crashing against the stone at least a dozen feet above us. If I were mortal, the impact could have broken my back, but as it stands, I brush it off and fight against unmovable binds.

Harlow stares, head tilted to the side. She’s a mix of the woman I’ve come to know and someone else. There’s something different about her. Not bad, but different. An air to her I find even more compelling but can’t place.

She turns away.

“Harlow.” My tone changes. It’s guttural, threatening— daring . “Don’t do this.”

“It’s already done.” By the door, she glances over her shoulder. The blankness in her expression breaks for a second, and the tiniest bit of sorrow comes down the connection.

“I’ll find you,” I vow. “There’s nowhere on Earth you can hide that I won’t be able to get to you.”

“I’m sorry, Alec.” She gestures my way, hitting me with an invisible pressure that sends me catapulting toward darkness.

But right before sleep consumes me, I’m forced to witness my Bride walk away from me…alongside the shadows hovering around her.

* * *

I come to, finding myself on the stone floor with someone above me.

“This isn’t what I expected to find.” A familiar voice cuts through the fog, and a hand stretches down. My next blink clears the remnants of Harlow’s spell until Cedric looming over me becomes clear.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, pushing to my feet and shaking off the last thing I remember. My Bride walking away from me— leaving me. The moon is visible through the large window in the upper corridor, meaning hours have passed, the sun has fallen, and Harlow is who the fuck knows where.

Cedric cuts into my vision, reminding me of his presence. “You haven’t answered any of my calls. I’ve been in the dark since the night of your party. Where’s the witch?” He eyes the charred stone from where her flames created a barrier between her and me. “Don’t tell me she overpowered you?”

“She did more than that. She—” I stop, rubbing a hand over my face while debating how much to tell him. If there’s anyone on the planet I trust, it’s Cedric, but admitting this feels wrong. Like Harlow must be protected from everyone and everything, herself included, and that means ensuring no one knows what she is to me, even Cedric.

“She what?” he prompts.

Then again, he has as much reason to hate the Sinclairs as I do, if not more. For a while, he and Cora were mated, and her death left behind a hollowness in Cedric that’s never faded. If I don’t admit everything, there’s no telling what he’ll do to get her back out of some misplaced feeling of being helpful, and no one, not even him, will harm her.

“She’s my Bride.”

Cedric’s expression flicks through a few emotions at such a quick rate, a mortal would miss them. Shock, dismay, intrigue and something else. Something extremely fleeting that makes me tense.

Rage.

Understandable he’d be angry that a Sinclair has now become untouchable, but it’s an emotion I’ll need to pay particularly close attention to.

“That’s impossible,” he finally whispers.

“I thought so too, but I can’t ignore what my body’s screaming at me.”

He blinks. “That means you drank from her. You risked it?”

“She ran and triggered my hunting instincts. I couldn’t help it.”

“Fuck.” He blows out a breath and swipes a hand over his hair as his attention goes to the shut front doors. “I won’t say I’m happy about this. Just…confused. What now?”

Me too. I don’t admit that part, don’t let him in on my own uncertainty. “I’ll go find her.”

“She left?”

“She has her magick back and overpowered me. That’s why the cure didn’t work—that’s what you saw. When her parents died in the house fire, she lost her powers, but they’re back now.”

His mouth parts in an ah motion. “That’d explain…” He trails off and gestures towards me before glancing at the ground.

“She’s strong.”

“Would you expect otherwise? She’s a Sinclair.”

I watch him, seeking that flush of rage beneath his friendly tone, but it seems faded. “She’s unexpected, that’s for certain. I didn’t—Cora?—”

“Would be happy for you. She always whined about you having no one.”

“And you?”

His stance remains lax when he replies, “If you took her as a mate because you liked her or something, I might have concerns about your well-being, but the stories always stated the Bride bond is unbeatable. You have no choice about having her as a mate, which means I have no choice but to accept it. We have too much history—centuries of it—for me to be pissed at something like this.”

His words should bring some measure of relief, but they don’t.

They’re also not something I need to concern myself with right now, so I shove away from the wall, slapping his shoulder as I pass. “Stay here, will you? Make sure no fucker shows up. The other night, two targeted her.”

“I found them. Pieces of them, anyway. The head by the southern border?”

I shrug. “They should consider themselves lucky that attempt happened before I discovered what she is to me.”

Cedric trails me to the door. “Your people are expecting you to provide information on accessing the cure, but no one’s heard from you since the party.”

“Her being without magick nullified the cure’s effects, so I couldn’t risk it. Anyway, doesn’t matter anymore. Plan’s done. Anything that’ll harm her, even her mental well-being, is off-limits. She’s off-limits. Make sure that point gets passed along.” I’m the only one who’ll ever enjoy her blood from now until the end of eternity. The moment I bit her, the plan changed. Disappeared. Revenge isn’t as important as her life.

Cedric makes a noise of agreement. “All your years of work, gone like that.”

“Yes.” My tone is sharp, ensuring he knows not to question me. I pause by the doors and look back at him, my statement a threat as much for him as anyone. “No one touches her. I’ll keep you updated when we’re on our way back.”

“Good luck,” he calls after me.

I won’t need luck. Just a bond to follow.