Page 167 of Eternal Surrender

“I needed to hear the truth,” she whispered.

“Jacob saved you from the Stone Masters.” I reasoned with her. “He rescued your ashes and secured them.”

“With no intention of ever waking me.” She shook her head. “I’m not the only one Jacob’s betrayed. Your beloved Lucas is Jacob’s eyes and ears. He’s been watching over you and reporting back to Jacob.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Jacob convinced you that Lucas would assist you, but what he’s really doing is keeping you distracted.”

“What?” I studied her, not wanting to miss a single nuance she might give away.

Her eyes widened. “Jacob is still a Stone Lord.”

“Impossible, they killed his wife!”

“Seems he forgave them.” She lowered her chin. “How do you think Jacob knew about Paradom’s existence?”

“Lucas told him about him.”

“Why do you think Jacob is so obsessed with protecting Paradom?”

I shook my head, annoyed with what she was insinuating.

“Paradom is Dominion,” she said.

As her words spilled out, I tried to comprehend them.

All this time I’d fought my rising doubt that I was doing the right thing, my mind so muddled that I’d struggled with making the right decisions, walking the path that would lead me to the truth. Betrayal bestowed the bitterest taste, causing me to doubt everything and everyone I’d trusted.

Sunaria clutched my shirtsleeve. “Find Paradom and kill him.”

My fangs tingled, my rage stirring. “Fabian convinced me finding Dominion was. . . our only hope.”

“He knows where Dominion is!”

“How do you know this?”

She lowered her glare. “I too am an ancient. I get to see inside the minds of others.”

“Fabian told me to find Dominion.”

She looked defiant. “Were those his exact words?”

I broke her stare and thought back to Fabian’s last words to me at London Bridge. “Keep Dominion safe,” he’d said.

I resisted frowning, showing my reaction but Sunaria was right. Fabian had hinted that I might know where Dominion was. Fabian’s modus was extraordinarily eccentric. Rubbing my eyes, I tried to ease the tension out.

“If Fabian trusted you,” she said, “why abandon you on the day you were transformed?”

I tried to shake off the nagging doubt threatening to blind me from everything I believed, the dawning realization that the world I’d left behind when I’d stepped inside this claustrophobic pod was not the world I was returning to.

And I’d forgotten all about my own needs.

“Did you really believe they were ever going to trust Orpheus?” Her words faded into the background. “The only worthy leader of our kind. Dominion threatens Orpheus’s rule.”

As I allowed myself to see beyond the glass, I did for a moment sense the face of the man staring back; that invisible reflection if seen would show the true colors of the vampire standing before it.

Tormented. Betrayed. Damned.