He cared about Leo. The thought of him not walking the Earth any longer…bothered him.
His eyes moved to the parted lips he’d finally gotten a full taste of, and that’s when Leo said, “Look at me. How could I possibly kill you?”
It was a good question, one he still didn’t have an answer for. But somehow, Alasdair knew that, as sure as the sun could kill him, so could Leonidas.
Their eyes connected, and once again, the pale grey of Leo’s irises started to swirl.
It was happening again.
This time without anything more than touching.
Before Alasdair had a chance to speak, though, Leo’s eyes fluttered shut and he fell limp in his arms.
Ancient Greece—47 BC
LEO RAISED A hand to shade his eyes, squinting against the brilliance of the sun. He struggled to sit from where he had landed flat on his back, and when he was finally upright, a warm breeze ruffled his hair. He blinked and then scanned the area, and as he started to comprehend what exactly he was seeing, he scrambled to his feet, panic setting in.
The low, raspy caw of a raven soaring overhead had him looking up into the clear, blue skies. His mind whirled as he pivoted around in a full circle, and then he did it once more, taking in his surroundings.
No…no. There’s no way…
“Wake up. Wake up, wake up,” he ordered himself. He always woke up almost immediately after he’d seen whatever he was seeing.
But not this time.
His palms began to sweat as the vast expanse of mountainous terrain threatened to swallow him whole.
Am I too young to die from a heart attack? he wondered. Was this another flashback? Or a dream? He really needed to see someone about getting on medication when he woke. Clearly, he was losing his mind.
But that’s when he saw him. Through a crowd of men gathered at the top of several massive stone stairs.
Alasdair…
LEO EXAMINED THE crowd milling about, and when no one seemed to notice him, he wove his way through the people chattering to one another in Greek. It was obvious they couldn’t see him from their lack of reaction to a man dressed as he was, but that didn’t stop him from trying to get one.
He stepped up to a young woman dressed in a beige chiton with a brown strophion and waved his hand about. When she continued to talk as though he weren’t there, Leo shook his head.
Unreal.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then again, every time this had happened, he’d caught glimpses of Alasdair’s life. But this was different. This wasn’t a glimpse in a dream. This was a full-on show-and-tell session. Leo felt that he was actually there this time. There in the past.
Deciding to worry about that bit of what-the-fuck later, he continued up the winding path to the temple, the gravel crunching underfoot. He took in the way people were dressed, the dialect they were speaking, and the food being bartered for from the carts off to the side.
When he got to the wide steps, he craned his head back to take in the enormous structure as it stood towering over the people in all its majestic glory. He’d only ever seen the ancient temples in recreations, or photographs taken of the ruins, which remained today. But standing between the huge columns as he now found himself, he was awestruck.
He was about to go in search of Alasdair, when the deep, melodic laughter of a man caught his attention. He stopped when he spotted an all-too-familiar figure standing in the shadows—Vasilios.
Leo’s eyes shifted to the man and woman he was addressing, but he didn’t recognize them. Do they know what he is? he wondered. But when Vasilios ran his finger down the woman’s jaw, Leo figured they did not.
He walked over closer, wanting to hear what was being said, and when he was near enough to detect their voices, he caught it. Vasilios was asking the woman if she had seen Lapidos that morning, and if her betrothed, Alasdair, would be present.
Huh, Leo thought. So this has to be before they met that night in the bathhouse. Before Alasdair was turned.
The proprietorial expression that flickered in the vampire’s eyes made Leo feel sorry for the woman. He knew what Vasilios was doing: compelling her to find out where his quarry was. And it was clear by the monotone of her voice when she told him Alasdair was inside that she had no clue what was going on.
Poor woman. She doesn’t even realize she just handed her fiancé over.
Leo didn’t wait around to hear any more. He wanted to track down the man he’d originally followed up the stairs—and he was, at this moment, still a man.
He had a sudden urge to see what Alasdair had been like before Vasilios had gotten to him.
Present Day—Elias’s Office
ISADORA KEPT A careful eye on Elias while he paced back and forth in front of her. Moments earlier, he’d practically dragged her into an office—his, she presumed—locked the door, and shoved her into a wooden chair that had ornate silver filigree engrained into it. Her wrists were tied to the arms, her ankles to the legs, and she couldn’t move.
Even if she hadn’t been restrained, she didn’t have the strength to raise her limbs, and the pain from the poisonous toxins was making her survival instincts claw to the surface and demand that she kill her enemy.
Which brought her back to Elias.
He sat down behind a bulky desk, his calculating eyes fixated on her. His lips were pulled tight in a grim way that screamed of anger and annoyance, but she was unmoved.
Too fucking bad for him, she thought and futilely tugged at her arms.
“Did you know?”
The question was so unexpected in the otherwise silent room that she jumped at the bite to it, though she managed to keep her features impassive.
“Did I know…what, Elias? That you’re a maniac? No. I didn’t know that.”
“Don’t fuck around with me, Isadora. You know what I’m talking about.”
Deciding to play ignorant, she shook her head. She didn’t really know what he was talking about. Not all of it, anyway.
“I really don’t. All I know is that you stabbed my”—she stopped herself from saying cousin and instead went with—“friend in the neck.”
Elias sat forward and rested his forearms on the desk. Then he narrowed his eyes on her, and she felt exposed under the inspection.
When they’d been together all those years ago, this man had been sexy, attentive, and flirtatious, and she’d considered taking him as her yielding. Not that he’d ever known that.