He hadn’t just done what she thought he had… Did he? But as she stared at the empty space Alasdair had vacated, she knew he had.
“I can’t believe he pulled this shit after what we discussed. He ordered me to—”
“Shut up,” she snapped, trying to reach out to Alasdair’s mind. But, of course, he fucking blanked it out. “He’s shut me out.”
“That fucking prick,” Thanos growled. “If he’s not already dead by the time we catch up to him, I’ll kill him myself.”
Isadora spun on her heel and reached for the door. “Not if I beat you to it.”
She twisted the handle, hell-bent on tracking down her wayward cousin, and as she flung it open to see where the hell Alasdair had taken them, she came face-to-face with—
“Elias…”
ELIAS’S NAME WHISPERED from the lips of the woman standing in front of him had his arm halting in midair. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, but as he lowered his hand and looked into a face he’d never been able to forget, he managed only one word.
“Isadora?”
The wide eyes and slack-jawed expression on her flawless face revealed that she was as unnerved to see him as he was her.
“What are you doing here?” he got out, but when her mouth opened to answer, a man with a scary-as-fuck scowl on his face stepped out from behind the door.
As the man caught Elias’s apprehension, he schooled his features to a more neutral expression and then spoke. “Good evening, sir.”
Elias’s eyes shifted to the man’s blue ones, and when a slow, easy smile curved the stranger’s lips, pinpricks of unease bristled under his skin.
Unease obtained by only one thing—ingrained knowledge.
Taking a wary step back, Elias slipped his hand into his pocket and ran his fingers over the silver letter opener he always kept there. He’d had it especially made on his twenty-eighth birthday, and his heart started a rapid tattoo in his chest as a rush of adrenaline hit it like an electric shock.
This can’t be right, he thought as he studied the face of his past. And certainly not like this. She can’t be…
But as he studied her porcelain complexion and ruby-red lips, his brain disagreed. Isadora hadn’t aged at all. Her features were all achingly familiar, and as the hair on his arms stood on end, the pieces of this fucked up puzzle began to make sense.
“How strange to see you again, Elias,” she said, drawing his attention back to her.
But there was no need.
This was the moment. The moment he’d been told of all those years ago. The one he’d been preparing for, and it was all wrapped up in a woman from his past. One of life’s ironies, no doubt. Yeah, well, irony could fuck right off as far as he was concerned.
He’d dreamed many times over of a life with Isadora, and now, he’d come to find that it hadn’t been a dream at all. She’d been drawn back to him because of this, and she didn’t even realize it. His dream of one day being with her again—it was over before it had even begun.
She stared at him, waiting for an answer, and he knew he had to tread very carefully.
“Yes. It’s very strange. Do you want to tell me why a woman I haven’t seen in years is coming out of the private office of one of my employees?”
Her midnight-blue eyes flared as though she weren’t used to being questioned, and then the intimidating guy placed a hand on her shoulder.
A calming gesture? Elias wondered. Who is he? A boyfriend? A husband? A lover?
“Well…we were just—”
“Leaving,” the man stated, urging Isadora to take a step forward.
As she started to walk, Elias put his hand up and shook his head. “I don’t think so. You two are trespassing.”
“And now, we’re finished doing so,” the man said in a deceptively calm voice. “You’re going to want to move.”
The order was firm, and with the get the fuck out of the way or I will do it for you look aimed his way, Elias knew the wise thing to do was to move—but he had never claimed to be wise.
“You should let us go,” Isadora said, and then she swallowed back anything else she’d been about to say.
“And you should start talking,” he said. “I’m not letting you two leave without some kind of explanation and possible police involvement.”
“Elias…”
His name sounded like a warning now, and his idiotic cock remembered a time when she’d issued that same warning but in a seductive let’s-fuck kind of way.
"Don't even try, Isadora. Your threats won't work here."
“Let us leave,” the guy said.
When Elias looked at him, he heard, Step aside, human. We need to leave, echo inside his head, and an arrogant smirk crossed his features. He was about to trump this asshole’s card in the best way imaginable.
He took a step forward and replied, “You’re not going anywhere.”
ISADORA’S MOUTH FELL open as Elias Fontana did the impossible—replied to a full compulsion.
She was about to turn to Thanos and see what the hell he made of it all when a thin, silver blade whizzed past her face and pierced through the side of her cousin’s neck. Thanos shouted out a pained curse and reached for the object as a firm hand wrapped around her wrist. Caught completely off guard, she gasped as she was pulled towards a man she’d once willingly gone to, and her feet froze when she spotted the shiny, silver film that had completely encompassed Elias’s eyes. They were much the same as Alasdair’s human’s. However, where his had been a dull grey, Elias’s shone like liquid silver.
This wasn’t the easygoing, sexy-as-hell teacher she’d met years ago. This man was something else entirely. He was confident, arrogant, and somehow managing to hang on to her as she tried in vain to pull her arm free.
She didn’t understand what was happening, or maybe, somewhere inside her, she did, because when she tried to fade out of Elias’s grip, he laughed and shook his head.
“Oh, no, Isadora, first sired to Diomêdês. I’ve been waiting for you.”
SOMETHING WAS DIFFERENT.
The second they appeared in his kitchen, Leo expected to fall to the floor and pass out. But instead, he remained alert and on his feet. The usual ache in his skull, which always followed one of Alasdair’s spectacular disappearing acts, was there, but it wasn’t as harsh as it usually was.
Yes, something is definitely happening.
“You didn’t pass out,” Alasdair said with his back against the fridge. He was as far away from him as possible given the small confines, and when Leo took a step in his direction, the vampire spoke again. “Stay where you are. And start talking. No more bullshit, Leonidas.”
Although the question had been asked of him before, this time, it was posed differently. With an air of…caution to it.
“I already told you everything I know.”
“And you are lying!” Alasdair shouted so loudly Leo swore the walls of his apartment shook.
“I am not lying,” he countered. “How many times do I have to tell you—”
“Until I believe you,” Alasdair said.
Leo rubbed his temple and pulled one of his kitchen chairs out to sit.
“You’ve seen me,” Alasdair said, his voice so low Leo had to strain to hear him. “Seen me when I was human. Before Vasilios. Before I was this. And now, now, you know what I am…who I am.”