Hi!

The noose around Anna's neck is tightening. The question is, will she be able to surive Red Night's Eve undetected and come out unscathed? Will Alexander extend a helping, maybe even life-saving hand? What do you think?

Lara

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Chapter 43

It happened when I least expected it. One moment we were walking down one of the long-stretched corridors in front of the church, the next I was stumbling through a door Alexander had shoved open without me realizing. The door closed with a thud before I had righted myself, less turned around to face him. I finally turned, ready to air my discomfort, and found him closing in on me.

"What exactly do you think you are doing, little witch?"

I was walking on mental eggshells ever since I caught a glimpse of the murderer, and he asked me what I was doing?

"Maybe I did not express myself clearly when I explained how you were supposed to act in front of the royal family. Maybe you did not fully understand the seriousness of the situation. This is not the first time of you acting as my servant. What you have failed to realize is that this night is of more significance than any other. I need you to function, not stumble through your act blindly." He was towering over me, eyes moving with liquid blue and darkness.

I fisted my hands. "I was respectful. Hell, I didn't even talk!"

"What do you know about the Romans? Why were you staring at them?"

I looked at him, felt my pulse quick-start and run into a violent heartbeat. Romans? Was he talking about the group of vamps around my parents' murderer? Dammit, I needed more information.

I stared at him. I wouldn't get anything from him. He wasn't even going to give me enough to navigate myself through this night.

"Funny, I could ask you the same thing. Who the hell is Vladislav II, and why did he call you Adorjàn? Wanna talk about that?" I crossed my arms in front of me. I was challenging him openly and I didn't care. We were alone anyway. "Or maybe about the fact that you only came here to call dibs on Antonio Cellini and his reputation for bridging gaps?"

He stilled completely, stared back at me without an ounce of motion.

"Yeah, just as I thought," I said.

I blinked. His hands were on my shoulders, fingers digging into my skin.

"You better tell me all you know, little witch. As much as you hate to acknowledge it, it will take more than what you have done to convince the congregation of vampires that you are a human servant devoted to her master. They are watching your every move. They will not be fooled easily."

I looked at a spot on his chin, pressing my lips shut. I couldn't give him the reason for why I lost my cool, for why I couldn't stop staring at the vampires. It would mean divulging my true name. A disaster waiting to happen.

"So that is how it will be?" Alexander said. "Your pride over your life? Over what we came here for?" His hands tightened on my shoulders.

I didn't move. Learning the identity of the vampires, important as it was to me - it could lead to Alexander making further assumptions. Alexander making assumptions and jumping to conclusions was dangerous. I had to protect the Lumenis' secret, no matter what.

My mind was reeling. What could I tell him? How to explain this?

I stared into his eyes, weighing the odds. Was there anything I could divulge? Could I trust him enough to give him at least a part of the truth?

"I will get what I want, even if by force," he said.

It was then that I understood. Too late. I had buried greater parts of my magic deep inside myself. Ever since we entered the monastery I was very careful to protect my mind with static noise and white detritus. For one moment I forgot how dangerous it was to look directly into a vampire's eyes. One moment of carelessness was enough. I felt the intrusion, the touch of cold hands on my mind. I tried to look away. Couldn't. Too Late.

He was penetrating into my thoughts and memories, zeroing in on the reason for my odd behavior. And in the state I was in, with my powers buried deep inside of me, I could do nothing against it.

There it was. The memory of the Lumenis and my unhappy entry into their secluded word.

No. Not this one. Anything but this memory!

Before he could get through to it, I fought him, shifted and erected mental walls, drawing on what little magic I'd left on the surface. I felt his attention sharpen, drill into it. So I gave him something else, another memory.

"Where have you hidden her? Where?" The thing that looks so much like a man growls and drops her to the floor.

"Kkk... Ggo to hell!!!" My mother spits out, ringing for air.

"Oh, not yet, my dear. Not yet."

Slowly the creature bends down. It looks like a man, but its skin is so white, it's almost as white as a sheet of paper. His hair is brown, his eyes so dark, they are almost black. The coat he is wearing is like a black waterfall trailing down his back. He smiles - razor sharp, pointed teeth protruding from his mouth.

... his hand shoots down. My eyes widen when it goes right through my mother's chest.

"There you are," the vampire says. "He will be very pleased once I've handed you over to him."

My eyes were burning with wet tears. I hated him. I hated Alexander for doing this to me.

My hands went out, palms facing him. I shoved against the wall of muscle, stumbling back as he let me go. Turned around, felt my hands go rigid, curl and fist. This was my memory. Mine! He had no right to make me give it up.

I felt the weight of his eyes on my back. For a long moment he didn't say anything.

For what felt like half a lifetime all I could hear was my own heavy breathing, hot with tears and a tight knot at the back of my throat that seemed to reach all the way down to my heart.

"He killed your parents," he said softly.

It was a statement. I didn't move, didn't even react. Nothing, but the violent tremor between my shoulder blades. I missed them. It still hurt. All these years and it still hurt!

Why now? Why at this god-forsaken place? I couldn't afford to be weak.

"Just who are you?"

"I'm no one," I said, scraping at my face. "I'm the witch you picked as your human servant. Isn't that what you wanted to hear?"

"What exactly were you about to do, Anna?" His voice was soft. Uncomfortably so.

I didn't say anything. Couldn't speak around the hot lump in the base of my throat. Another long moment of silence. I could feel his presence behind me like a second, cold shadow.

"The wise strategist waits in hiding, bides his time until the right moment has come. If it does not, he acknowledges the moment and retreats," he said slowly.

"Do you even know what you're asking? I saw him. He killed my parents, and you want me to walk away from this?" I said.

"You will walk away because you must." He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. "You will not approach them. You will never approach them. You will not even look at them."

I raised my eyes and met his boldly. "Or what?"

I felt them on my face - betraying tears I should never have spilled in front of him. In front of anyone else.

"There is no other option. This is not a game, little witch. Within these walls the reasons for your personal vendetta are of insignificance."

"He killed my parents and you say it's insignificant? The death of my parents is insignificant?" I jerked away from him. "I followed you into this hellhole. I agreed to play your servant again so that you could invite Antonio Cellini to swing by and calm the waves in New York. I came for this and now you're telling me the death of my parents is insignificant? That I shouldn't even look at the vampire who ruined my life?"

He stared at me. Didn't move. Didn't breathe.

"Not that you'd understand," I said, hearing the bitterness in my voice. I was beyond caring. "All you feel something for is power. Oh, and more power."

"No, you are wrong, little witch. I do understand. I understand better than the rest. Which is why I am telling you to let the matter go." He took a step forward and bent down so that our faces were only inches apart. "No matter what you do, do not look at him. Do not speak to him. Do not even get close to him for the rest of the evening."

I knew who he was talking about. My parents' murderer. And he was talking about him like he knew him. I blinked, faced that deep blue stare without caring about consequences.

"You know him," I said.

He stared back at me. Something in his face evened out. Blankness. Careful, deceitful blankness.

"His name. Give me his name," I said.

He righted himself in one of those too-quick-to-see motions. "You need not know. There is no-"

I launched myself at him with fists and punches. "I won't leave this room until I know his name!"

His arms encircled me, crushed me to him with an iron strength that barely allowed me to breathe. I fought, tooth and nail, oblivious to all around us but the angry thump thump of my heart, the burning sensation in my eyes, the hot wetness on my cheeks. The need to give a name to that dark spot in my past, catch a hold of something I could focus a life-time of anger on.

He held me until I stopped moving. Until what had been hot and brimming, explosive on the surface, retreated back to that dark, lonely place inside of me. Until all I could feel and hear was my own breathing. There was a stillness in him that I felt could have lasted for centuries. I sunk into it, taking slow, shallow breaths.

"Ramondo." Alexander said the word slowly. "His name is Ramondo."

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. "Who is he?"

"His name is enough."

"Who is he?"

His hands tightened on me. "You will not approach him, little witch. You will never approach him. Have I made myself clear?"

His bitter-sweet scent engulfed me like a blanket of an exclusive, rare perfume; fanned out, coiled around me like a set of feathers caressing my skin.

I felt his arms loosen and stepped away from him. I wiped at my eyes. Nothing made sense.

There was that one place inside of me I could go to, retreat and stick my head into black oblivion until nothing had to make sense anymore. It was from that mental place that I would get the strength I needed to keep functioning. I just had to find it.

I was going to get answers. It didn't matter if I got them from Alexander or someone else. I turned and walked towards the door.

I hadn't even reached it when his fingers curled around my elbow, forcing me to stop. His fingers were cold. The sensation of them on my skin jerked and called to something deep within myself.

"You will not go after him, Anna," he said. Razor blades and steel, things that could and would not bend, mixed and mingled in his voice.

"Don't touch me." The words came out softer than I wanted. Sounded more like a plea than a command. I yanked my arm away from his grip without turning my head, knowing that I only could because he let me. "If you ever try to forcefully enter my mind again, our deal is dead."

I needed a moment for myself, time to collect and gather, figure out what my next move would be. Bathroom break sounded just about right. Another human moment I needed.

I turned. I was going to stare him in the eye and tell another half-truth without blinking.

"I need a moment. I have to take care of this," I said, pointing at my face.

I didn't need a mirror to know what I looked like. I didn't cry like most women did. Not the soft, calm crying that made painters drop to their knees in silent awe. When I cried, the tears came like a storm rolling in, a hot flood of emotion that raised havoc on my face.

I needed a moment of solitude, and I wasn't sure Alexander would allow it - without the usual fuss. I had to get away from him, if even only for a few minutes. I stepped out of the room wordlessly.

He was beside me before I'd even made it out of there - a life-wire of muscle and steel, sizzling with power that reeked of bitter-sweet, dark things. Not an ounce of emotion on his face. Not a single haughty fuck-you-stance, not an instant of a smug smile spreading on his lips. No nothing.

It was answer enough. He wasn't going to give me any alone time in the near future. Not here. And not at this point in time.

We walked down the corner in mutual silence, away from the music, where I knew a bathroom was.

It was right behind the corner, farther away from the ballroom and the haunting, off-key tones of music. I stopped at one of the moonlight windows, felt my steps slow and falter. There was a sense of peace in this loneliness - exactly what I had been looking for.

Or there would have been, if Alexander hadn't been right behind me. He didn't say a single thing. No words of comfort, no mockery, no nothing. Just stood there, like a second mantle of skin at my back - not warm, but comfortable. There.

For a small, fleeting moment, I imagined what confiding in him would be like. Abandoned the thought as fast as it had come. It would necessitate trust, the kind of trust you don't hand out as a free give-away at the next best stranger. Hah, we were talking about the head vampire of New York! Trusting Alexander? Equal to a multiple headshot.

No, I needed to regain my equilibrium and find that inner balance that would help me remember who I was. I was going to find out everything I could about Ramondo. I needed to know who he was and where he lived. So I could kill him.