child, I stand corrected. It seems I cannot protect my mind from you.”
She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t fathom what she had seen. It was only flashes of imagery and emotion. It was too scattered—none of it made any sense. But what she could understand was the grief, the pain, and the emptiness. And the years. She reached up and placed her palm against his cheek. The pain had been his.
It still was. She felt him as though what burned in his heart were her own feelings.
Something crossed over his features again. Something akin to surprise flared before it dulled into a softness edged in need. “Careful opening doors. You may not like what you find.” She pulled her hand away from him. He winced briefly, as if he did not intend to scare her touch away.
His moment of vulnerability was tucked behind a stern, hard exterior as quickly as it had come, and he straightened his shoulders.
“You are a curious thing, Miss Parker.” He cradled her cheek in his hand. His touch was cold, even in the dewy fog. She shivered. He placed his thumb against the hollow of her chin below her lip, and she felt the press of his sharp nail against her tender skin.
Then came an order she could not deny.
“Sleep.”
10
Death.
And the feeling of cold skin against hers.
“If you are right, and I die, then your problems are solved. If I am right…you will belong to me. Either way, I win.”
Death. It echoed in his words. In his touch. In his kiss.
Her dreams were filled with it. Blood mixing with the mud of a sprawling battlefield. Flashes of imagery filled her mind. Wading through the thick muck. Bodies within it, some moaning in agony, some lying still. Fingers and limbs jutting from the ichor like roots of a tree.
She felt something worse than apathy for those lying in the mud. This was delight. This was pleasure. This was joy. The feeling of the thrill of the kill. The love of bringing death, pain, and suffering.
Flashes of throats being slit. Of screams in the night. She saw a figure in full armor, driving a massive blade through the chests of enemy soldiers. Blood dripped from his sword and from his archaic leather armor. It was an ancient vision of times long ago. She had long since learned to keep herself as a separate observer in moments like these—and not trapped within the eyes of the person whose memory she was witnessing. It was far less traumatizing.
Especially in cases such as this.
She did not recognize the man in the armor at first. His helm was removed, and his hair was short, blond, and matted in blood. But when he turned to look at her, she saw his crimson eyes, and saw the soul inside.
Vlad.
He wore a different face, but there were some things that could not change.
A man in steel armor came for him, raising his sword, meaning to cleave Vlad in half. But he deflected the blow easily. He drove his hand—his very hand, sharp nails and all—through the throat of the man who stood before him. He tore out the man’s flesh and watched as he crumpled into the mud, a bloody heap. A dying carcass. Nothing more than meat.
“Hello, little empath. We meet again so soon.”
She gasped as she felt him there inside her mind. Their souls had touched when he kissed her. He had broken down the barriers she had so carefully placed as though they were nothing but paper screens.
The figure had not talked, but she heard the vampire’s voice all the same. She watched as he lifted his bloody hand to his face and snaked his tongue out to lick a line of crimson from the back of his fingers. She shuddered.
“Are you so eager to see me?”
His voice was taunting her, even as she couldn’t find the strength to respond, watching the warlord as he smiled wide in sick pleasure, his teeth stained red.
“Do you even know it was you who called me here? I heard you whisper…and I answered.”
“No, that’s not true.” She took a step back, nearly stumbling in the mud, and bumped into something behind her. The dream shattered and shifted, changing around her like oil in water. When her world reformed, she stood in a private study. A fireplace roared by one wall, filling the room with warmth and amber light. She could smell the burning wood. It was a comfortable, familiar smell, but it did nothing to