Based on body language, the Elder who had grabbed hold of Xavier seemed to be higher in position than the rest of them. I stared at him, my heart aching.
Is he still there? Does he see what’s happening? What’s going on inside his mind right now?
“Princess, look.” Sam nudged me on the side.
Liana bit into the neck of one of the humans. I wondered why on earth Sam would want me to watch my best friend drain a human dry, but it quickly became evident that Liana wasn’t killing the human. She was turning him.
“They turn the humans to vampires. Why is that necessary?”
“I think it’s because they can only use vampires as vessels.” I was barely able to squeak my theory out.
I looked away from Liana, wondering how she felt about almost killing Cameron moments ago. When they’d stopped her from ending Cameron’s life, I’d been so relieved. It would destroy her to know that her beloved had died at her hands. When the Elders had revealed that they’d stopped her from ending Cameron’s life only because they intended to make him give Derek a message—me in exchange for him—all the relief I’d felt quickly faded away. While the idea that Derek was on the island gave me a shred of hope, the recollection that he was human once again, devoid of the power he’d once wielded as a vampire, quickly made me wish that he hadn’t shown up at all.
I would rather die than be the reason for my brother’s death. I told myself that he was the only family I had, but remembered that this was no longer true. I have Sofia, and now that she’s pregnant, I’ll be an aunt. I’d never thought I could ever think of a hunter as family—the notorious Aiden Claremont especially—but he had become family too.
Are they enough to replace losing my brother? I caught the thought, surprised that I could even think it. There was a time when I would’ve readily given my life for my brother’s, but if I were to be honest with myself, at that moment, I wished that things would change. I knew that Derek would give his life for me, but I’d never wanted him to until that very moment.
I realized that I wanted what he had. I want the chance that he got. I want to experience falling in love, getting married, going on my honeymoon, raising a family. I’ve only done one of those. I fell in love. With Xavier. As I stared at the shell that he’d become when the Elder took over his body, I realized that I wanted to become human and I hoped that he wanted that too, that he wanted to be the father of my children, and that we could live finite, mortal lives together.
That was why I was hoping that Derek would indeed give himself up for me. For the first time in my life, I was actually dreaming of a future that I truly loved and desired.
“Enough!” Xavier screamed, clapping his hands as he gave Yuri an approving nod.
That jolted me to attention. My heart dropped. Claudia lay in the arena, unconscious, bruised black and blue, barely able to move. I immediately checked her chest, watching for it to heave and sigh, wondering if we had lost her. I was never too fond of Claudia—apart from Yuri, none of us were—but she had only begun to live out the second chance that Yuri’s love had allowed her. I didn’t want to see her meet this kind of end.
I held my breath when it seemed that she was no longer breathing.
Yuri was standing over her. His claws retracted. Blood dripped from his fists. A cold sneer was on his face, manic and disturbing, almost as if the grin had been pasted on his face. I searched for a sign that he actually found pleasure in what he’d just done and found none.
Are these creatures even capable of real pleasure? Or do they just do all of these things in order to make us all miserable?
“Is she dead?” Xavier asked one of the humans he’d sent to check on Claudia’s body.
The trembling middle-aged woman who was stooped over Claudia’s motionless form shook her head after she checked Claudia’s pulse.
Xavier frowned. He set his eyes on Yuri. “Do you want to kill her off?”
Yuri flexed his muscles and cracked his knuckles. “I’d rather wait for her to heal and beat her up again. Pretty little Claudia was such a disappointment to all of us. She had such potential to be true evil, a perfect vessel for us, but no, she had to fall in love with that dismal sap.”
“That dismal sap would be you, fool,” Xavier responded without a tinge of amusement in his voice. Just contempt. I wondered if he was seeing his fellow Elder or just Yuri—another one of the vampires who’d ‘betrayed’ their kind by being loyal to my brother.
Yuri chuckled dryly before shrugging. “I forgot. I’m not used to such weak vessels.”
“You can always end him once you’re tired of him.”
“Only after I make him kill the love of his life.”
We were in the presence of pure evil and even though they’d only occupied several of us—Xavier, Yuri, Ashley and Liana, as far as I knew—I could sense that there were more of them lurking, waiting for a vessel to make their own. Invisible creatures surrounded me, just waiting to take over. I shuddered even as one of the humans dragged Claudia out of the arena.
Yuri walked out almost listlessly. The moment he stepped out of the arena, he grabbed hold of the nearest human and bit into the man’s neck. After several seconds, he drew away from the man and screamed, “Blood! Invigorating blood!”
“They can’t do this,” Sam muttered next to me. His hand clutched mine—completely unlike the vampire guard, who had always acted in a friendly, albeit rather stiff, manner around me. I squeezed his hand as tight as I could.
Ashley walked toward the middle of the arena, crouched down on the ground and dabbed her finger into Claudia’s blood still splattered all over the stone floor. She grinned as she took a whiff of the blood. Her eyes flashed a brilliant red.
It was as if she were gaining power from just the smell of the spilled blood. Unsettled, I looked for Xavier.
I found him grabbing Liana’s arm and planting a kiss on her lips.
I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to see any other woman in his arms—the fact that it was my best friend made it worse. It seemed he sensed me looking because after kissing Liana, he sped toward me.
“Jealous, princess?” he asked me mockingly. “You should’ve given yourself to this man while you still had the chance. But don’t worry. I can still let him—and you—have your kiss.” He kissed me full on the mouth.
I’d never thought that I could find a kiss from Xavier disgusting. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t Xavier, but I couldn’t help but feel betrayed.