Hi!

Okay, this chapter is super long - I hope you appreciate my efforts here. The sh.. is about to hit the fan(g) - MOUHAHA!

Lara

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Chapter 44

We continued our walk down the aisle in mutual silence, made our way back to the party of ancient-old vampires. Whatever little I felt through our connection vanished from one moment to the other. Nothing came from the cord of our bond I'd felt tugging at myself before.

The music was eerie, turned into a low murmur of deep tones. Dark and sinister, it hovered in the air like a lingering, forbidden dream too vast for the mind to grasp. Too dangerous and complex to understand.

I felt it building – the urge to raise my eyes and check if my parents' murderer was still looking. Seeing his face reopened a wound I carried with me since my childhood. I was raw, bleeding. The drive to stare and look swung back and forth in my core. A car crash in the making.

I lifted my head, eyes going to that spot in the left corner. He was gone.

I blinked, shifting my gaze. Visions of vampires, champagne flutes in hand, facial masks that displayed fake-laughter. The hum of thin, soft voices that carried over from a group of vampires in front of us. Music, haunting and despairing. It died in my ears. I sifted through the faces, flipped them in my mind like a deck of cards.

At least I did, until I walked right into Alexander's back. The impact knocked sense into me, drove me back to the here and now in one fluid second. I remembered where I was, and who I was pretending to be. I took a hasty step of retreat, guiding my eyes back to the floor.

"I am pleased that we meet here, Alexander. Or was it Adorjàn?"

The voice thinned out and ebbed, lingering in the mind like a disturbing nightmare. If I ever thought Alexander's voice was intimidating, I learned I was wrong. The pitch and tone reminded me of ice blades sinking into dust, promised the faint taste of blood and death on the tip of my tongue.

I looked up. Another mistake in vampiric conventions, but – at this point in time – who gave a damn?

Recognition. Complete lockdown. It was the blond vampire who had spoken, but he was not the one I focused on. My parent's murderer was standing right beside him, and he was watching me. Not with the dead vacant look I'd expected from a vampire of his age. No, there was cold calculation, paired with a spark of interest in those dark brown eyes.

Ramondo.

I amped up the static in my mind and looked back, staring at the fabric my nightmares were made of. I studied the devil in detail with a resolve I didn't knew I had. In my mind, I saw myself standing in front of a void, looking into pitch-black darkness, laughing. I heard the sound in my mind, imagined its texture. Knew it was bordering on the deep-chested rattles of madness. I didn't care. At least I was staring into the void with the knowledge that I was not going to look away.

Ramondo was tall, looming over me like the still tower I remembered from my nightmares – all broad shoulders and muscles. The brown hair was lighter than I remembered – not the ominous black I thought I saw when I peered through that damned keyhole. It cascaded to his shoulders silken soft, a deep contrast to the slinking nightmare I knew he was.

Thin, bloodless lips. Flat and even. But I wasn't fooled. They were a heartbeat away from a cruel smile that could make my blood stutter and stagnate. If he smiled now, I was going to run away screaming – or attack him, whatever came first.

Not looking might have been the smart thing to do. Taking a dive into the eyes of an old vampire was the last thing I needed this night. But he killed my parents, and he saw me. Hell, he was staring at me. I needed to know. Needed to see if there was a spark of recognition in there.

His eyes were so dark, they could have been black. Not motionless. To the contrary. Moving and eager. Gliding over my skin like blood-dripping razor blades. Lingering on my brown, long hair like the brush of invisible fingertips, a small ripple and ancient knowledge that learned its texture and color by touch alone; memorizing the lines of my jaw and cheekbones curved like it was a freaking fruit still life.

His pupils dilated, then stopped, targeting my eyes. Eyes that were brown, so much like my mother's.

Was he waiting for me to say something? Analyze the sound of my voice? Was my parents' murder just one in a long history of bloodshed and violence, long forgotten and insignificant? Did he see the likeness? Did he remember?

I felt something in my eyes go cold and harden. Ramondo was going to learn my real identity, but I would be the one to choose when and how. If he found out who my parents were – who I was – at this point in time, however, things would deteriorate and spin out of control.

A shiver stole upon me like an unwanted premonition. Power climbed up my limbs, sizzled along my skin, burning flesh. I wasn't prepared for that. I'd sealed my magic, hidden it, and yet, I could feel undead power like needles and knives crawling against my skin. And it was coming from them.

I hadn't thought things through up until now. Oh, I wanted revenge, but standing beside the two vampires felt like being stuck in an electrified sardine can. The realization was like a slap to my face: They were older than dirt. And I still didn't know how to kill things older than dirt.

People were surrounding our circle, human faces I hadn't noticed in the face of the vampires' collective appearance. Two men flanking the blond vampire and my parents' murderer, both of them broad-jawed and muscular. Human servants?

Their skin was a shade paler than it should have been. Maybe spending hours and hours in darkness, rather than daylight, made a tanned human servant a sheer oddity. But this was where the commonalities ended. While one was dark-haired with long black hair, the other had short hair the lightest shade of blond I'd ever seen. Albino-like, his eyelashes where pale, washed out to the point of being translucent.

I stilled.

I was wrong. They had something in common. Dark hair and Albino boy had the same look in their eyes. It was the kind of glint that reminded me of serial killers in disguise. The capacity for violence and destruction. Did one of the men belong to Ramondo, my parents' murderer? Or were they both flotsam and jetsam to the blond vampire's sinister machinations – for, no matter who he was, they were on the wrong side of good and evil, that much I was sure of.

"It is Alexander. I am pleased that we meet, Titus," Alexander said.

There was a certain quality in his voice that reminded me of ... I blinked, shifted my gaze, and stared at him openly. Had the head vampire of New York just been sarcastic?

"You have met my second in command, Ramondo?" Titus said.

... my second in command, Ramondo.

The words replayed in my mind, reverberated from the walls of my inner self like a sacred, circular canon. Ramondo, the name that started a memory of a life-long nightmare.

"No, I did not have the pleasure." Alexander's voice was streaked with careful, flat blandness. He turned to Ramondo, who was still staring at me.

I guided my eyes to the floor, breaking the eye contact. The revelation of their identity had me reeling, struggling to get a grip on the overwhelming urge to scream bloody murder right then and there. Learning who Ramondo was, who Titus was, floored me within one heartbreaking instant, ripped off whatever rugs I'd imagined under my feet. If Ramondo was second in command and sworn to Titus, it meant one thing: The vampire who had ordered my parents' death was most probably Titus himself.

"How curious that you should have a witch as human servant," Titus said. "One would almost think you were imitating your creator."

I did it again. Breaking the boundaries a run-of-the-mill human servant would have never dreamed testing. Looked up. Stared at a point just a little south of Titus' chin. The gold buttons on his tailcoat glistened in the candle light like eyes come to live.

I didn't see it. But I knew it. Without me noticing Titus' attention had shifted to me. His gaze was like a physical touch, a punch to the gut. A violent knock knock on the threshold to my most private thoughts.

"Funny, since, in contrast to the rest of us, you are not of noble descent yourself," Titus said. "Where did you pick her up?"

I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Too slow. Too human.

Alexander's hand was on Titus' arm, right in front of me. I blinked and made the connection. Instants before, and without me noticing, Titus was about to touch me. Alexander prevented him from doing so. I guided my eyes back to the floor, slamming down hard on that feeling of gratitude that snaked its way through my chest. Like there was a part of me that wanted the gesture to mean something else.

It was not because Alexander wanted to protect me. Everything depended on protecting our secret, and Alexander knew it. If one of the vampires forced his way into my mind and got a thoughtful, learned what the true nature of our bond was and why it came into being, our carefully constructed set of lies would collapse like a house of cards on fire.

"Careful, Titus," Alexander said in a low voice. "I may not be of noble descent, but, this night, I am feasting at the same table as the noblemen."

The vampire snatched his hand away, and I caught a glimpse of fangs where a mouth should have been.

It was instants before the sensation slammed into me, iciness that itched and burned along my skin. And it came from-

"Is there a problem?" Somebody said from behind.

I didn't need to turn around to know who it was. The dead voice of Valdislav II scraped at the threshold of my brain, and for a second I had a feeling of absolute fear. For some reason I knew, knew deep down in my bones, that Vladislav could break and walk through any walls and shields I erected without breaking into a sweat. No matter when. No matter where.

The thought frightened me beyond reason.

"I see that my protégé is still fond of tossing his head like a mongrel dog. He never had manners to begin with," Vladislav said.

I stilled. Protégé. Vladislav just called Alexander his protégé.

It didn't make any sense. Months ago, in what felt like another life, I learned that Alexander's sire was a vampire named Renus. A vengeful vampire who died in Europe in the throes of World War II. At least that was what Gina Cox claimed when she kidnapped me. Did she lie, or was this a fact hidden from common knowledge?

Protégé. No. My head reeled with the only possible and logical conclusion: Vladislav II was the one who turned the head vampire, was in fact Alexander's maker. That was the one little detail Alexander had deemed too important, or too negligible, to reveal to his puny human servant. On top of that he hadn't even bothered to give me some sort of warning in advance. Information I'd have needed to navigate my way through this obstacle course of madness.

How the hell was I supposed to survive this night when the sheer force of revelations threatened to knock me out cold?

My eyes went to Alexander, drawn to him by the need to see something on his face. His back was turned to Vladislav, and yet he didn't move, didn't even show the intention of turning around to acknowledge his maker's presence.

"Whether I toss my head around or not, is of no concern to you – as are my manners." Alexander's voice was still and icy. There wasn't a single streak of fear or cautiousness in there. "You forget that I no longer answer to you and your demands, Vladislav."

Clipped laughter erupted from behind, a storm of glass splinters cutting through my sensual organs. I turned in slow motion, catching a glimpse of Vladislav's expression. His face was twisted, fangs protruding from his mouth.

"Oh, but I do, Adorjàn. I do. In fact, I could evoke the blood right and demand blood from your servant. What is yours is mine." Something in his eyes moved and slithered, back and forth, like a panel of darkness someone opened. "I could give her blood to whoever I wanted."

"No one will do as much as touch my human servant," Alexander said it without turning. "I cut myself off from your line, Vladislav. I am not your protégé any more. Not by name, and not in effect."

"Is that what you are telling yourself?" I felt movement behind, a small shift in the thick air around us, and suddenly Vladislav was standing right in front of Alexander. "Proof it, Adorjàn. The rules of this night forbid a direct blood challenge between masters, however, it does leave room for other things. I am curious to see what you are made of."

The small but significant curl of lips with a hint of fang. Yes, Vladislav was smiling. It was all teeth and blood. Everything that pushed the right buttons to make you believe your worst nightmare had just come true. That and much more.

"When it comes to human servants, a true master chooses wisely," Vladislav said. "The power and abilities of your witch, her actions and behavior, will reflect upon you. So, let us see what she is made of."

Vladislav's eyes turned to me as he raised his voice. "My human servant challenges yours to a duel. The first one who draws blood or forces the other party to give up will win the blood right over the other."

The cloud of sounds and low chatter evaporated. Pin drop quietness settled over the undead crowd like a second mantle of skin. I didn't look, couldn't look, but I felt the attention on us – a dead weight on my shoulders that threatened to make my knees buckle.

All I could do was stare at Alexander, willing him to say no.

There was no way he was going to agree to this, was there? If any of the other vampires got their hands on my blood, we were as good as dead. No, Alexander couldn't agree to this.

I only got a glimpse of Helèna Bathoryn's power when she entered the church with Vladislav. One glimpse was enough. If she was anything like her master, whatever I saw was only the tip of the iceberg. No way I stood a chance against her in terms of power. Not in my current state. Not when I was hiding the greater part of my magic. Hell, I couldn't even take her when I was in full power.

"Should I take your silence as a sign of surrender? Will you admit defeat in advance, Adorjàn?" I heard Vladislav's voice, but for once it didn't have the power to conquer and force me to look.

Alexander's eyes shifted and connected with mine. There was nothing in the blueness. Not a single twitch. Not a hint of movement. Seconds that might as well have been minutes, and .... something changed.

No.

I paled as I began reading something into what I formerly thought was nothing. Was that a calculating look? Was he weighing the options?

I saw it an instant before he spoke. The resolve was there. My blood froze in my veins as Alexander nodded with a cool smile.

"I accept."