"You're angry and confused. I get that," Sara said gently. "I know you don't want any more tests or pills or hypnosis. I'm done with all that, too."
Gray's eyes snapped up to meet hers. His attention at long last.
"Can you trust me this one last time?" she asked him. When he didn't look away, Sara took a breath and continued. "My friend Alexander, he's offered to help you."
"That's right, human" came a strong, clear masculine voice behind Sara. "You'd better buck up, because I'm coming for your blood."
Sara looked up to see Alexander walking into the room, limping slightly as his injury attempted to heal from last night's fight with Dare and his recruits. An hour ago, Dillon had given him her breath, but according to Leza the stab wound had torn cartilage and it needed a good twenty-four hours to mend properly.
"My brothers are coming to assist," Alexander told her, though his eyes were on Gray. "Why not make it a party, yes?"
"A coming-out party," drawled Lucian, strolling into the room, Nicholas behind him, both vampires looking like punching bags with eyes.
Sara noticed Gray's attention shift from the blacked-out windows to the blackened eyes of the brothers. "Do we really need everyone?"
"Yes." Alexander gestured to the pair. "Nicky, Lucian. Hold him down."
Sara jumped up. "No, Alexander, please. He hates being contained like that."
"Perhaps." Alexander's gaze was trained on Gray. "But not this time. Look."
The pulse in Sara's neck kicked, and she turned back to Gray. His eyes were on Alexander, his chin titled upward and his expression . . . She squinted. What was that in his metal gray eyes? Was that interest and a thread of . . . trust? Her heart lurched. God, how long had it been since he'd looked like that at her?
As he came to stand beside Gray, Alexander shook his head. "He knows he will fight, and he wants this done."
"How do you know that?" Sara asked, her emotions running a race inside of her.
Fear and hope battling it out for first place.
"Please trust in me, Sara," Alexander said.
Nicholas and Lucian clustered around the bed, and Nicholas put a hand on Gray's shoulder. "Easy now, Brother."
Taking a deep breath, Gray stretched his arms out for the brothers to hold him.
Sara's mouth dropped open and she shook her head. He did know, he understood that whatever Alexander was offering might be the real deal. But how?
"You might want to turn away for a moment," Alexander warned her, his hands gripping Gray's skull.
"Not a chance," Sara said, catching Lucian glancing her way, his devilish eyes flashing with begrudging respect.
Alexander struck quick, and Sara flinched as her brother sucked in air, his body going instantly rigid. Please work, she begged silently, no longer giving a shit about her own sense of failure. She just wanted Gray to recover, to talk again, to have a chance at a real life.
Suddenly, his body jerked, and as the brothers pressed down on his arms and legs to keep him steady, Gray cried out and went into full-on convulsions.
Unlike Trainer's rank blood and diseased mind, Gray's blood was uncommonly sweet for a human, and his brain was open and ready. Alexander moved through the man's memories with experience, pushing his way back in history, jumping rapidly until he snagged on to an image that carried emotional weight. It took only seconds to find what he wanted and veer off the cerebral roadway to see the young, undamaged pair of children he sought: Gray and Sara. The image of little Sara made Alexander's chest tighten, and the temptation to remain and watch her climb a tree, her bare feet raking up the bark with the effortlessness of a monkey, was powerful. But he had sworn to take great care and speed within the head of her brother and so he pushed forward, flying through doors in time, one after the other until he came to a late-summer evening, a young Sara walking up the stairs in a pitch-black house, a candle in her hands.
"Go back to your room and stop following me, Gray," she whispered behind her.
But the boy must have continued because Alexander was following Sara up the stairs and down a hall. At a closed door, she turned and put her finger to her lips. "Stay here," she whispered. "I'll be right back."
Sara opened the door and disappeared behind it. Alexander felt Gray's impatience, his concern. Then the door opened and Sara came rushing out clutching a book to her chest, the candle forgotten. "Got it," she said excitedly. "It was under the bed."
Gray rushed after her, down the stairs and toward their bedrooms. They were inside only a moment when chaos erupted in the house. Everything happened at once.
Alexander smelled smoke, heard a male scream. He saw fire at the top of the stairs, then turned to see Sara. Her face was pale and terrified as she realized what she'd done. She pushed past Gray and ran toward the staircase, screaming and crying. But a woman came running in from another room and grabbed her, held her back.
Alexander saw only the woman's profile, but something about her stopped him from focusing on Gray and the boy's need to get up the stairs to his father--something about the woman made his pulse speed up. He paused the memory and circled around, taking in one feature after the other until he saw the woman's face.
No. She was no woman.
Celestine.
Shock slammed into Alexander's lungs and he lost focus, falling back into the past, tumbling as his mind fought to understand what it had just seen. He was bombarded by images; Celestine pushing a balas from her body--holding a newborn balas.
"Focus, Alexander," he heard Nicholas urge sternly. "Take the memory of the fire."
But Alexander just hovered there, unable to stop staring at the Impure female he knew as well as he knew his own brothers. How could it be? Impossible. And yet there she was. After their escape from the credenti , Celestine had remained with them for nearly ten years, cared for them as they'd protected her. Then one day, she'd walked out to find blood and never returned. They'd all thought her dead, mourned her for decades, and here she was--alive, mother to two balas--
Oh God. Sara.
"Move along, Duro," Nicholas said, his tone grave now. "You stay too long in his mind."
"Please, Alexander." It was Sara; her anxious voice stole him from his startling revelation and he leaped forward in time again, searching for the last scene he'd witnessed.
He saw Celestine holding a hysterical Sara back. He saw Gray running for the stairs, up the stairs as his mother screamed at him. Alexander ran with the boy through the fire, as he kept low, when he found his father in the hall, his body consumed by flames. On a scream, Gray reached out to him with both hands . . .
Forcing himself out of the emotion and deep pain, Alexander circled the scene, focused, then drank, taking deep pulls of the fire memory into his mouth. It took only seconds and when he was certain he'd retrieved the entire memory, he withdrew from Gray's skull and opened his eyes. The Impure--for that's what he was--lay calm, asleep on the bed. Alexander pressed his thumb against the entry wound for a few moments; then he stepped back, his blood and Gray's blood racing through his veins.
"Let him sleep," he said softly to no one in particular, his mind reeling with the shocking images he'd just witnessed, not to mention the repercussions. "We will know soon enough."
"Alexander--" Sara began.
But Alexander was already up, walking away, out of the room. He couldn't stay there, look into Sara's eyes and pretend he was looking at the human female he'd believed her to be. Not yet. What he'd seen, what he now knew, was astounding, remarkable.
Celestine had survived, and her balas . . . both the male and the female were in his home, under his care--and both had vampire blood in their veins.
Jesus. Sara could be . . .
Growling, he ran, flew down the stairs and toward the tunnels. He wanted to rejoice at the possibility before him. If he were merely a Pureblood, it wouldn't be possible. But he was a descendant of a Breeding Male. His true mate had to be a vampire, yes, but she could be either Pure or Impure. Sara could be his now--she could be his true mate.
He should have been hopeful and yet the only thing he felt was dread.
After Alexander's swift departure, his brothers were quick to leave as well. But Sara remained by Gray's side, taking his vitals every fifteen minutes, dozing in her chair, waking up to see if he was awake, and wondering what she was going to say to him when and if he did.
If the memory was gone, she reasoned, the trauma would be gone too. But he would still be left with fire-ravaged hands, and questions. Many questions. Then there was the flipside. What if he was exactly as he was before--or worse, what if he had no memory at all?
Feeling jumpy, she stood to take his vitals again, pulling out her stethoscope and placing the diaphragm against his shirt. Suddenly, a hand shot up, white-knuckled, and gripped her wrist.
"Sarafena."
Sara gasped, stared down into the open, gunmetal gray eyes of her little brother.
His voice, deep and masculine now, so unfamiliar, yet so beautiful, washed over. "Gray.
Oh God. I can't believe it." She touched his face, his forehead, his hair. "How do you feel? Are you okay?"
He nodded slowly, though confusion moved over his features as he tried to process his past, his present, and what had happened a few hours ago in this room.
"Sara," he said, lifting his hands for her to see. "Explain this to me." He swallowed.
"How?"
As the ache built in Sara's throat, she took his hands in hers and sat down beside him. "A little at a time," she said. "First step is rest, okay?"
He nodded again. "We'll talk later."
"Of course." She smiled gently. She'd give him small doses of memory until he could understand it without the trauma. Then they would see . . .
"And you'll thank him for me?" Gray said.
Him? Oh God, he meant Alexander? She leaned toward him. "You understood?
Seriously? You knew he could help you?"
"Yes."
"How, Gray?" she entreated.
The beautiful young man before her smiled softly. "He spoke to me. In my head.
About you, all you've done, how you've hurt." His eyes grew momentarily sad. "He said that it was time for you and me to go home."
Tears filled Sara's eyes and she shook her head, unable to speak. Alexander was truly more than a desire, more than the male she loved. He was a great friend.
"Hey, human," came a voice behind her.
Sara looked back, saw Dillon behind her, completely healed and grinning. "Hey, vampire."
"I'll stay with him." She flicked her chin toward the door. "You should go. See about the other one you love."
Yes. She needed him now, as he needed her.
With one last squeeze to her brother's hand, Sara got up and let Dillon take her seat. As she turned to go she swore she saw her brother's eyes flash with interest as the bodyguard dropped down into the chair beside his bed.
The cage had once been a place where his hunger could rage out of control, where he could be the animal he believed himself to be.
Now it simply kept him from the one he loved.
Fully clothed, Alexander sat back against the rock wall and fought his hunger for her as he fought the truth of what he'd seen inside Gray's head. He breathed in, frowned.
"Your brother is well, Sara?"
The unlocked metal door swung back and Sara came inside, her heady scent and honest beauty a shocking contrast to the ugly frigidity within his cell. Her blueberry eyes sought out his in the near darkness and when she found him, she went to him and knelt before him. "He spoke to me."
"I'm glad."
"He sounds so . . . old. Like a man. It's hard to remember him as anything but a boy, you know?" She shrugged, her smile so bright it took his breath away. "He wanted me to thank you."
"It was all for you. No deals, nothing in return. I just want to see you happy."
She moved closer, until their legs touched. "He told me what you said to him, in his mind. Oh, Alex ..."
The love Alexander had for her transcended his need to torture himself at that moment, and he allowed himself to say the words that hovered on his tongue. "Healing his mind . . . it wasn't your fault, Sara. You couldn't have fixed him--not the way you wanted to."
Sara stilled beside him, her brows coming together. "What do you mean?"
He shook his head. "His memories were too thickly ingrained. Blood drain was the only way."
"What?"
He hesitated, feeling as though he were unleashing a world of new problems onto her. But what was the alternative? She would know soon enough.
"Alexander?" Her eyes implored him to tell her the truth.
He reached up, brushed his knuckles over her cheek. "I saw your mother."
"What?"
"In Gray's mind. As I was trying to find the fire, I saw her."
"Okay. Well, that makes sense. You saw her because she was in his memory--"
"Sara, I recognized her."
The stillness in the air held them both hostage for a moment; then Sara started shaking her head.
"She was a teacher in my credenti," Alexander continued, knowing no other way through this but the truth. "The one I told you about the night in the lighthouse, remember? She was an Impure, a half-breed. The Order had called on her, as they do all Impures--it was her turn for sterilization. She wanted a new life as much as we did. I helped her escape."
Sara stared at him, looked as though she'd been punched in the stomach. "That's not possible."
"I felt the same way when I first saw her," Alexander said gently, but he was afraid nothing would soften the blows he'd already given and the ones that remained.
"She cared for us: Lucian, Nicholas, and I. She was like a mother in ways our own could never be. But she disappeared one day--we thought she'd died. We searched, but--"
"My mother is a vampire!" Sara blurted out, her words echoing off the rock walls.
Alexander watched her pale face, the panic, the mental attempts to make sense of what he was telling her. Finally, he nodded. "Yes."
Her mouth ajar, Sara's eyes fell to the floor. "My brother ..."
"Yes."
She was silent for at least a minute, and Alexander just waited, waited for it all to sink in, then come up again. What would her response be? Would she despise what she was--would she despise him for telling her the truth? When she finally spoke, it was a soft, mumbled clutter of thoughts. "This explains everything . . . what's been happening to me . . . how I've been feeling after . . . how desperately I wanted your blood . . . and how I haven't stopped wanting it, wanting you."
He hated having to be the one who laid this burden at her feet. "I'm so sorry, Sara."
She looked up at him, shaking her head, her nostrils flaring. "Damn right. You should be sorry. You jackass!"
"I know. I wish to God I had never--"
She grabbed the collars of his shirt, roared, "You said you loved me."
"I do." What the hell?
She yanked him forward, and although she had considerably less strength than him, he allowed her to do it. "You realized I was a vampire and you ran from me?"
"You're not angry about this?"
"Not at finding out what I am. Shit, I'm relieved. I knew something was going on with me, that something had changed. I thought I might be losing it. Then I thought it was about your blood, that I had ingested it." She jerked him away, released him. "I'm angry with you."
"What?" He stared at her, stunned.
"It was safe to tell me you loved me when you thought I was just a human, when you couldn't have me--when you couldn't risk trusting me."
His face blanched.
"Because, that's what this is really about, isn't it?" she tossed out, her ire fueling her passion. "Trusting me with your heart, trusting me with your hunger?"
Alexander felt his fangs elongate. Oh, damn, her scent. The angrier she became the deeper her scent flowed. "Don't do this."
"Don't do what?" she yelled at him. "Call you on your shit?"
Alexander couldn't stop himself, he grabbed her shoulders and forced her onto her back. Poised over her, he flashed his fangs, his mind racing, his blood craving, his cock straining in his pants. "Stop. Now."
Looking up at him, Sara felt the coil of heat that always slammed through her when Alexander had her on her back. She knew him now, knew that he would never release the animal inside himself, truly give it over to her if she didn't push him to the very limits. Yes, she was angry--furious at her mother for never telling her the truth, furious at herself for not making at least one illogical guess about this outcome after that first taste of Alexander's blood. She stared up into his charged, ravenous face, eyes that were deadly and hungry, but were filled with a pain she understood, the pain a child, a soul, a heart feels when it believes itself unworthy of love, and she forgave him.
"It wasn't a mistake," she said softly, as her paven breathed fire above her, his face tight with emotion, body shaking with need. "How we met, how close we've become, the wound on your shoulder--how it opened whenever I was near. Your blood knew the truth--it called out to me--it belonged with me, with my blood, coursing together."
"The wound closed up again--"
"When we weren't together. Kind of like your heart--open to me, closed to the rest of the world. We have a bond that's proven itself to be unshakable. It's how it was meant to be." She raised her head and kissed the key-shaped brands on each of his cheeks, smiled when his body jerked in response. "I love you, Alexander Roman. I was always supposed to love you--and you me."
His groan was laced with both pain and pleasure. But that was okay. It was as it was supposed to be.
Her eyes filled with tears. "I will never keep myself from you. I will never discard your love like trash." Her voice caught with emotion. "And I will never starve you."
Alexander's eyes glittered with feeling. "I can't ..."
"You can. You have to." She tipped up her chin and kissed him, soft and loving and hungry, her tongue slipping into his mouth, playing with teeth, the tips of his fangs.
"Drink from me. Mark me. Make me yours."
Against her mouth, a moan of raw, desperate pleasure escaped Alexander's throat.
"Not in here."
"It has to be in here." She reached between them and started removing her clothes.
"Help me."
For one moment, Alexander looked ready to refuse; then he pushed back and with hands that shook, he stripped her naked.
Sara lay back on the cold rock floor and beckoned for him. "I'll stay in here until you're starving," she said passionately, "until you understand you can trust me, that I give to you unconditionally, out of the purest love. I'll stay here until this cage becomes a place of peace, of pleasure--not torment." Her eyebrow lifted. "I will stay in here until you can't resist me."
"I could never resist you." His eyes burned cherry black fire.
"Good. I'm counting on it."
"Wait! No . . . Sara!"
He reached out to stop her, but it was too late. Sara had her wrist to her mouth, her teeth bared. She bit down into her own flesh, then sucked in air as two pinprick holes delivered not only pain, but the specks of blood she needed to tempt him. A growl erupted from Alexander as he watched, his eyes trained on the blood, his fangs descending even farther.
Reveling in the glorious sting, Sara dragged her fingertip over the skin of her wrist, then lifted her finger to his mouth, swiped the bloodstained pad across his bottom lip.
Alexander's nostrils flared, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he cried out into the cold air of his prison. "You are my true mate." His head dropped and his eyes locked to her. "I need no mark to know this." He licked his lower lip.
"Please, Alexander," she whispered, emotion and passion surging within her. She knew what she wanted, and for the first time in her life, she felt completely deserving.
His eyes were brilliant, excited, hungry as he stood and quickly removed his clothes. When he stretched out over her, she opened for him. Forever. He was hers forever. The concept was unbelievable, impossible--but she knew better than to fall prey to that word. Nothing was impossible. Their love had proved that.
With one deep thrust, Alexander was inside her, deep, protected, where he belonged. Sara wrapped her legs around his waist and held on tight. When his head dropped, nuzzling at her breast, she knew what was coming and she couldn't wait. She arched against him.
I LOVE YOU.
The words entered her mind just as his fangs struck her heart.
Sara gasped, reared up, felt as though she'd been hit by a bullet, but in seconds the pain ebbed and pleasure like she'd never imagined possible flooded through her trembling body.
It felt as though his mouth were on her clit, suckling, pulling her into the most intense climax of her life. And she couldn't hold on; she came, hard and uncontrolled, and as she bucked her hips, Alexander drank, fed, took deep pulls straight from her heart into his.
Sara felt the change come over her, like honey flowing from her toes all the way up into her mind. She was herself, but so much more. She was his. She was eternal.
Alexander pulled away from her chest, his eyes filled with a love, with a pleasure that couldn't be contained. He kissed her then and she tasted her own blood on his tongue, sweet as nectar, sweet as the promise of a long, lasting future with the one she loved. He kissed her again and again--her cheek, her neck, her collarbone.
"You are mine," he growled into her ear, making her shiver. "Forever. My eternal love." He bit down gently on her lobe, laved at the curve, then flicked the tender spot behind with his tongue. Suddenly, he stilled; then his tongue lapped. Once, twice, a third time.
His hands came up to her face and he pressed her ear forward. "Dear God."
Sara pulled back. "What's wrong? What is it?"
His face was a mixture of shock and amazement, love and understanding. He took her hand and placed it behind her ear. "Do you feel it?"
Her fingers grazed something. Something small, rough.
"The key," he uttered, then broke out in laughter, his cock still deep inside of her.
"My brand, my mark. It was hidden. All this time." His eyes locked with hers and he began to move. "Oh God, my Sara."
"I love you, Alexander," she said, her arms going around his neck, pulling him close.
"And I love you. My truest mate." He thrust into her, going as far as her body would allow, and when Sara could no longer control her own need, her own hunger, she bit into the skin of his shoulder, the spot that belonged to her, that had called to her so many times, and when she tasted the eternal sweetness her new life's blood, she drank deep.
THEBEGINNING
Minnesota
Christmas had come to his old friend's neighborhood. Lights glowed from rooftops and around white picket fences, and snow was piled in three-foot drifts atop the dead grass, easing the way for the five vampires who walked up the drive.
Alexander turned to Sara, keeper of his heart, blood of his blood, and grinned.
"Are you ready, my love?"
"Yes." The tense smile she flashed him showed her beauty, and the tips of a nearly mature set of retracted fangs that had come with the pleasure of feeding from her true mate.
Coming to stand beside his sister, Gray offered her a squeeze on the shoulder. "It's all she ever wanted, Sara. You back home. There's nothing to feel nervous about."
Alexander reached for the brass knocker, but never made it. Didn't have to. The door was pulled wide and there stood the female he'd escaped the credenti with so long ago. Celestine. She looked the same, her dark hair pulled into a knot at the top of her head, her heart-shaped face pale but shrewd. Her pale blue eyes went to her children first and she bit her lip. "Sarafena. Gray-son. You're home. My life can be lived once again."
Alexander looked down at his mate, smiled as he saw her eyes fill with tears and her hand reach out for the older female's pale one. It would take time, as all things of value did, but he would help them both find happiness and forgiveness within their own hearts, as each, in their own ways, had helped him find a new life.
"Well, now ..." Celestine caught sight of the three men behind her children. "My old friends."
"In the flesh," Alexander said, taking the female's other hand.
Celestine smiled, the tips of her canines showing. "Come in, all of you. There is much to say, much to explain."
Alexander followed Sara and Gray into the house, Lucian and Nicholas trailing behind.
"Lose our number, eh, Celie?" the young albino quipped, stalking into the foyer.
Celestine snorted. "Still an asshole, I see, Luca."
Everyone laughed, but the merry sound was short-lived. Before them on the foyer wall, the pale green paint had begun to move, sway, pulse.
"Oh God, no," Sara muttered under her breath.
Alexander growled and blocked both females with his body. But nothing could stop what was happening, nothing could erase the two words that leaped out at him.
DARE LIVES.
"Alex."
Alexander turned at the sound of Nicholas's call. Still outside on the stoop, the middle brother was doubled over, panting, his hands shaking with a sensation that Alexander knew all too well. Soon the paven would be hit by a rod of pain so fierce and debilitating that the very breath would be ripped from his lungs.
Dare lived.
And Nicholas Roman had just been sent through morpho.