“No,” she hissed. “You’re not real.”
He sneered with pleasure at her swelling fear. “Did you miss me, my beautiful Amazon?”
Miss him?
She’d put him in his grave.
How else was she ever to halt the devastation he was forcing her to wreak on innocents?
So many killings . . .
“You’re dead,” she managed to grit.
“Dead, but not forgotten.”
She felt her fear being shifted to fury, the emotion swelling through the air and spilling out of the building. Soon the intense passions would be infecting her people and the spirit would be able to feast to his cruel heart’s content.
That’s why it had created this vision of her former sire.
It had rooted around in her mind until it had managed to locate the one memory capable of producing the most intense reaction.
“No, I won’t let you use me.” Grimly she struggled to leash her anger, already sensing the bewildered reaction of her people. “Not again.”
“But you’re such a loyal soldier,” he mocked, looking so real that Nefri could almost sympathize with Gaius’s belief that his mate had been returned to him. “So eager to please me that you were willing to destroy an entire clan.”
“No.”
“Now, now, Nefri,” he chided. “Don’t you remember?”
Against her will the memory of the brutal battle that had killed over two dozen vampires and their human servants seared through her mind, leaving behind an aching sadness laced with a crippling guilt.
“I remember,” she whispered.
Theo laughed, relishing her pain. “Do you hear their screams when you close your eyes?”
Still locked in her paralysis, she could only tremble as the spirit ruthlessly played her emotions like they were a musical instrument.
“Yes.”
“Do you taste their blood?” he pressed.
“It’s over,” she rasped.
“No, it’s still there. The monster inside you just waiting to be released.”
And that was it.
Her greatest fear.
The reason she had traveled beyond the Veil and devoted herself to creating a place of utter peace.
A Garden of Eden.
Only I am the serpent, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. The devil just waiting to destroy paradise.
“Stop,” she cried.
“Aren’t you tired of denying your emotions?” Theo asked, his tone lowering to become a hypnotic murmur. “Of being less than who you are?”
She desperately tried to block out the insidious voice, hearing the distant sounds of fights beginning to break out among her clan.
Violence where there had never been any before.
“I won’t listen to you.”
“I was so proud of you,” her dead master purred. “A beautiful, lethal weapon who could make the world shudder in fear.”
“No.”
“But what have you become?” he persisted. “A shallow husk of yourself. A female who is forced to cower behind this Veil as if you’re ashamed of your greatness.”
Her muscles trembled as she tried to fight against the spirit holding her captive.
She had to get free long enough to find a weapon. She knew beyond a doubt once the spirit had fed enough to regain its strength it would send her on a bloodbath that would destroy her people.
She was going to die before she allowed that to happen.
Caught in the strange, motionless battle, Nefri almost missed the familiar scent that floated on the breeze.
“Santiago?” she whispered in confusion.
The vision of Theo briefly wavered, becoming a black mist, as Nefri concentrated on the sense of Santiago approaching the building. Then, with a sharp movement the illusion was coalescing and shifting to block her vision.
“Bastard,” her sire growled. “Send him away.”
“Never.”
The pale brown eyes hardened with an ugly anger. “He’s like all the others, can’t you see that? He only wants to use you.”
Just a few days ago the cruel taunt would have hit its mark. She’d been manipulated and abused too many times not to harbor a suspicion that anyone trying to get too close wanted something from her.
Now, however, she didn’t hesitate. “You’re wrong,” she said with an unmistakable confidence.
“Why else would he be with you?” Theo demanded. “If he truly cared he would have listened when you insisted you preferred to be left alone.”
A soft warmth flowed through her heart, replacing the anger and pain and fear that had been coursing from her and pulsing through the air to infect her people.
“He cares about me.”
“He only wants your power,” Theo snarled. “With you he can take command of his own clan. Perhaps even challenge the Anasso.”
“Nefri.” Santiago’s voice cut through the vision’s filthy lies, steadying her.
“Kill him,” Theo commanded even as he began to fade beneath the reality of Santiago’s presence. “Kill him before he can destroy you.”
Santiago stepped into the building, half dragging a sadly decomposing Gaius beneath one arm.
He walked cautiously forward, his dark gaze studying her with a fierce intensity. “Are you okay?”
“Stay back,” she commanded, wishing he had never appeared despite the fact his mere arrival had given her strength.
She couldn’t bear it if the spirit forced her to hurt him.
He held her gaze as he continued his slow pace forward. “I can’t do that.”
She trembled. “Please.”
“Trust me, my love.”
“I’m”—she could feel the spirit inside her trying to cloud her mind—“not in control.”
“Then give me the control,” Santiago urged, his beautiful face softened with an expression of love so pure it muted any attempt by the spirit to stir her anger.
Not that the spirit was about to give up without a fight.
Unable to claim her mind, it instead tightened her muscles, clearly preparing to attack.
“Santiago.” Her eyes held a growing panic. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. You know I will always be here for you. I will never fail you.” He held out one arm in welcome even as he clutched the seemingly unconscious Gaius in the other. “Trust me.”
What was he doing?
Did he think she could actually fight off the spirit?
She might be powerful, but she wasn’t Wonder Woman.
A cry was wrenched from her throat as her body was suddenly hurtling forward, her fangs fully extended. It was the only warning Santiago had, but it should have been plenty to give him the opportunity to dodge her attack.