Page 29 of Just One Night
“You’re dead.” I lunge at him, knives in my hands, aimed at his heart.
Nausea hits me like a sledgehammer and my legs go numb beneath me. I drop to my knees, my bones cracking against the cobblestone road. I double over, hurling up my guts.
“Ah ah,” Samuel taunts. “We’re going to play nice.”
I retch again. “Thisis nice?”
The nausea ebbs, but the numbness remains. Samuel crouches down, just out of my reach, but enough to catch my gaze. “She’s with you, isn’t she?” He inhales deeply. I know he can smell her on my skin.
Panic streaks through me as I try to get my limbs to work. I have to get to Aurora. I can’t let him find her.
“Your shields are down again.” His eyes flare.
I check them, finding the weak spot and patching it up one second too late, an image of Aurora springing to my mind.
“Ahh, Rory,” he says, and the sound of the name she hates makes my skin crawl. “She wears our mark.”
“You stay away from her!” I thrash against his power, lashing out with my own. Trying to grip his reality and send him to the hell he deserves.
He laughs, deflecting my attempt. “You know I always see that coming.”
I growl.
“She’s not your mate,” he says with a confidence that threatens to kill me. Does he sense something I don’t? “As much as you’d like to pretend she is, she isn’t.Imade her. She belongs to me.” He crouches to my eye level. “Her body. Her mind. It’s all mine. My creation, mine to bend. Just like her vote.”
Pain spears into my bones, his power gripping my soul and wringing it out. My shields drop, images bursting down the twin bond I can’t stop. Aurora’s kiss, her fangs dripping with my blood, her smile?—
“Oh,” Samuel says, the pain easing enough for me to breathe. “That is interesting. Her obsession with you must be tied to me. To the fact that we, too, share a bond.” He tilts his head, smiling widely. “I won’t even have to torture her to get her to obey. I bet she’d hand herself over willingly, if I promised to keep you alive once I’m on the throne.”
Oh, fucking hell. “I’llkillyou.”
“You keep saying that,” he says. “I’m starting to think you have no real intention of even trying. Use this number when you’ve come to your senses.” He slips something in my pocket before rising to stand. “The lack of true effort is what gives me hope.” He looks down at me, his power waning. I don’t know if it’s because he believes what he’s saying or if it’s because he’s taking more steps away from me, but I take it. Gathering my power with each breath. “You’ll remember we’re brothers,” he continues. “Real brothers. Not like the flimsy bonds with thehunters. You and me, we shared a womb. You’ll remember your place at my side soon enough.” He grins down at me before looking off to the distance. “I remember the Somerhaul’s estate,” he says. “I’ll get there easily enough. I certainly would rather we go together though. As a team. Like we used to be?—”
I wend.
It’s sloppy and chaotic, but it’s enough. I crash into the ground just outside the warded home. The distance from Samuel’s power restores my full abilities and health, and I race through the mansion at vampire speed.
“Saint?” Aurora squeaks my name as I throw her over my shoulder and wend us to the airport before she can get a question out. We’re on a plane within thirty minutes, our luggage all but forgotten at the mansion. I don’t take my eyes off her the entire flight, my mind flailing and broken as I try to regain control.
Samuel knows my weakness. I showed him when I saved Aurora the night he broke into the palace. And now he’s exploited me. Because as much as I hate to admit it, he’sright. If he pitted my life in exchange for Aurora’s vote, I’m certain she’d give it to him. She cares for me that deeply. It’s wholly unfair to her.
I can’t let him near her. I have to kill him first. But he’s bested me at every turn, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m strong enough to put an end to him at all.
CHAPTER 12
Aurora
“Will you talk to me now?” I ask after hours of silence on the plane and also on the car ride to the king’s residence. We’d made it just before sunrise, Saint having gotten us on the plane just after the sun set. The only thing he’d told me was that Samuel showed up. I understood merely from the look in his eyes and the gnawing feeling in my stomach that he couldn’t elaborate, so I gave him time and space to come to terms with it.
But that was hours ago, and at this point, I think I deserve some answers on why he wended and then flew us back to the states in a panic I’ve never seen him in before. Thank goodness I’d signed every legal document necessary for accepting my new inheritance, or the trip would’ve been in vain.
We’ll, not totally in vain, since Saint and I connected in a way I never thought possible, but still.
“Saint?” I ask, touching his arm as he stomps through the palace, hollering for Alek.
He pulls out of my touch, and I feel that move like a physical blow.
“Oh, okay,” I say, not holding the bite from my tone. “Are we back to this now?”
