Page 28 of The Immortal’s Curse (Bound to the Immortals #2)

DES

My footsteps are silent on the marble. My pulse is not.

She’s still back there.

Every instinct screams at me to return, to steal another moment with my One before the opportunity slips through my fingers like sand. But I force myself forward.

The candlelight fades behind me as I slip through an archway into one of the palace’s lesser-known corridors. The din of laughter and clinking glass fades beneath vaulted ceilings and heavy shadows.

I can’t let my soul’s deepest desire cloud the purpose of tonight. This is bigger than me. Bigger than us .

The rebellion is growing, and the man I’m about to meet is one of the few beings with enough courage to do something about it.

I reach the narrow service staircase hidden behind a tapestry and descend, spiraling into cold stone and silence. The air thickens. Older. Damp. No music reaches this far. Only the echo of my own breath.

At the bottom, I push open a door into a small, dimly lit storage room beneath the kitchens. Dust and cobwebs coat crates stamped with various merchant insignias. Barrels of aged wine line one wall.

“I was starting to wonder if you changed your mind.” Leaning against a support pillar, dressed in black so deep it swallows the light, is Alexander.

The vampire’s eyes meet mine, a bright blue beneath the hood of his cloak.

“Were you followed?” I ask.

“If I were, I’d already have a stake in my heart,” he drawls, straightening and pushing off the wall.

I meet him in the middle of the room and clasp his arm. “Thank you for coming.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” He pulls a folded parchment from inside his cloak and holds it out, gloved fingers steady.

I take the parchment but don’t look at it. Not yet. “What is it?”

“Names. Locations. Meeting points. All the information I could glean from my source without raising any alarms.”

Excellent.

For decades, the rebellion’s ability to evade me and my brothers has improved dramatically. With Alexander’s information, hopefully, we’ll find a way to get rid of them once and for all.

And I may finally get justice for the untimely deaths of all my previous Ones. To honor their memory by destroying the monsters who dared cut their mortal lives short.

I unfold the paper, but hold Alexander’s stare. “You’re sure the information is accurate?”

“As sure as I am that if anyone ever finds out I gave it to you, I won’t be welcome back by my coven. ”

A hard knot tightens in my stomach. “You know… You can still walk away from this.”

His laugh is a quiet, bitter thing. “Walk away? No, my friend. I passed the point of no return long ago.”

Unwilling to question a man’s resolve, I drop my eyes to the parchment.

It’s like Alexander says. Names, dates, locations. But one of the names leaps out at me, one I’d hoped not to see. My grip on the paper tightens.

A knowing hum vibrates in Alexander’s chest. “That one surprised me as well.”

I drag my eyes up. “He’s never shown disloyalty.”

“Which makes him that much more of a threat, wouldn’t you say?”

I fold the parchment and tuck it into my cloak. “I’ll verify the list. If it checks out?—”

Alexander steps closer, voice dropping, “If it checks out, you owe me, Desmond. Not just your gratitude. Protection. Sanctuary. I’m burning bridges I can’t rebuild.”

“You’ll have it all.” I hold his stare. “You have my word.”

He nods once, sharp and clipped. “Then I’ll disappear. Don’t try to contact me again unless it’s through the method we agreed on.”

I dip my chin. “Understood.”

He pulls his hood lower over his face and turns. But before he steps through the doorway, he pauses. “You should go to her.”

The words freeze me. “Who?”

He looks over his shoulder. “I saw you. In the ballroom. You only ever look at a woman like that when she’s?—”

“ Enough ,” I hiss. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His lips flatten. “You think you can keep your heart locked in a box, but you forget she holds the key. And the world suffers the longer you deny it. ”

“ She suffers,” I snarl. “She’s safer without me. I will not risk her heart.”

“Or maybe,” he says, voice sharp, “You simply refuse to risk yours.”

Then, Alexander is gone. The door creaks shut behind him, and I’m left in the shadows with nothing but the parchment and the echo of his words.

As I vanish into the dark corridors of the palace, on my way back to my brothers, the memory of her touch lingers on my skin.

And for the first time in centuries, I wonder if this time could be different.

What if the Creator finally lets me bond with the second half of my soul? What if Fate has finally deemed it’s time for us to be together?

In the morning, I learn that’s not the case.

News of a noble young lady travels through Venice. The beautiful betrothed of one of The Council of Ten’s sons is found in the canal near the Doge’s palace.

Face down.

Dead.

And I never dare to hope our Fate could be different.

Never again.