“It was reported that you were found with a messenger.”
Again, the vampire remained mute.
“I know you are aware that this is forbidden,” Alasdair said, staring at the strung-up male. “Why would you involve yourself with one of these creatures, Stratos?”
“I…” he sputtered. “She…”
Considering Alasdair’s current disposition and the events of recent weeks, she didn’t think Stratos stood much chance of survival if he didn’t start talking. He knew the consequences of what happened if one was discovered fraternizing with a messenger. They were tortured for the information they knew or had given up and then eliminated.
A messenger was nothing but a tool used between realms. A race of beings who could travel through all portals, all time divides, and come out unscathed and unaged. They held allegiance to no one, but they were quite happy to deliver information at a price.
A price that could be outbid by an enemy should they offer the messenger something more tempting.
Only three were permitted to ever approach such beings: Diomêdês, Eton, and Vasilios. They were the only ones who had any loyalty from those creatures, and even they rarely sought them out.
“Let’s get one thing straight, she is not a she,” Isadora stressed as she walked over to the two males. “It is a being of no gender. You know this.”
“But she… It looked like—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “Involving yourself with one of their kind leads to nothing but questions and problems for everyone. Which is why it is strictly forbidden. You aren’t a newling, so again, we have to ask: Why?”
Alasdair clasped his hands behind his back and turned away from the both of them. She wondered how this would end, but knew it would only be a matter of time until she’d find out.
“What did it tell you?” Isadora demanded, and as she’d expected, Stratos lied.
“Nothing.”
“Try. Again.” Her tone was icy enough to make the air in the room frigid. She grasped the vampire’s hair and hauled him up to place her lips by his temple. “If you tell me, I’ll make sure Alasdair ends this quickly. If you don’t, well, you know how it went with him and your cousin. The smell of burnt flesh takes weeks to dissipate, and I’m not in the mood for a spring clean. So let’s try this again. What did it tell you?”
As she waited for a response, she wondered what could’ve tempted the vampire to risk his immortality.
“She…she wasn’t like the others…”
Baring her teeth, she growled in his ear, “What do you mean?”
When he didn’t answer, Isadora twisted her fingers in his hair and arched his neck back, widening the gashes on his throat. The pained cry that ricocheted off the leather-padded walls pierced the air, but it wouldn’t be heard beyond the room they were in.
“Start talking. This will be much easier for you if you do.”
“She was sent from our creators…”
“The Ancients would never—” Isadora started.
“No—not the Ancients.”
With that new piece of information, Alasdair turned back and leaned down until his face hovered only inches from the other vampire’s. Stratos definitely had their attention now.
“Who else is there?” Alasdair asked.
“The ones who created them…” he hissed up at him.
Alasdair clamped his fingers into the jagged wounds on either side of Stratos’s windpipe, and when he flashed his fangs at him, he stated as calmly as if he were conversing over drinks and not torture, “Ambrogio created the Ancients. This we already know. Tell me something new, I’m growing bored.”
Stratos gurgled and blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. “I know nothing more…”
Alasdair looked across at her, the skepticism evident in his eyes. He didn’t believe that for a second. “Tell me why, Stratos.”
The male focused on Alasdair, and a crazed smile spread across his mouth, revealing blood-stained teeth. After a hysterical sound resembling a laugh bubbled up from his ravaged throat, he whispered, “You don’t even know.”
Fed up with the fucked-up mind games, Alasdair jerked him up, close to ripping his esophagus free, and the strangled scream that came to an abrupt halt told Isadora that Stratos was now beyond vocal communication.
“I will find out,” Alasdair vowed in a low, menacing tone.
Just before his windpipe was torn free of his body, taking his head with it, Stratos thought loud enough so they both heard, You don’t even know…
LEO SQUINTED INTO the still darkness of his bedroom. His blood rushed around his head, loud in his ears, as he ordered himself across the threshold and into the room that was once his safe haven. With a trembling hand, he checked the lock on his window. Not that it would stop Alasdair, but it made him feel better anyway. Then he walked back to his bed, where he pulled the covers down and crawled inside.
For the last two weeks, he’d been living a nightmare. One that had revolved around the alluring vampire who’d left him flat on his back on his kitchen table. Yet here he was now, staring up at the ceiling, unable to get him out of his head.
Three hours had passed since Alasdair had vanished without a word, and still, he couldn’t decide how he really felt about the events of the past couple of weeks.
The bedroom he’d once been so comfortable in suddenly felt vast and empty as he lay there wondering if… What? He’s going to come back? Christ, Chapel. Wake up. You’re lucky to be alive. He’s gone. You wanted him gone, so be happy.
Happy was the last thing he was, though. He was restless and confused. His body had responded to Alasdair’s as it would any human man that extraordinarily sexy. His cock hardened, his pulse raced, but whenever they’d kissed he was brought back to reality real fucking quick.
This was not a human he was attracted to, and every time things got heated between them, Leo got a flash of memory, or sight, or somefuckingthing. He’d seen Alasdair as he’d been… in the past.
But how can that be?
He was probably projecting. Wishing to see someone who wasn’t really there and imagining Alasdair as a human to eliminate the sense of danger.
But as he clutched the covers in his hands and his knuckles turned white, his eyes landed on a book on his nightstand. The same one he’d been reading the night Alasdair had taken him.
No matter how hard he tried, his mind kept imagining Alasdair in the white toga and leather sandals.
That has to be it. His work project.
It was spilling over into his sleep, so he willed himself to forget the vampire. Alasdair had destroyed all semblance of a normal reality for him. Maybe, if he could get some uninterrupted shut-eye, he’d wake in the morning and his life would return to the way it used to be.
As the security of alertness faded and he drifted off into wary slumber, though, Leo heard that familiar and hypnotic voice inside his mind, promising, You’re not rid of me yet, file mou. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow night, Leonidas Chapel.
LEO STOOD IN the center of Elias’s office and waited. The fact that he’d been waiting for over twenty minutes was a fairly good indication he was in deep shit.