"Is something wrong?"
"Yes." She reached out and touched his arm.
Velkan sucked his breath in sharply between his teeth as his vision dimmed. Suddenly he wasn't in his room. He was in complete darkness with an awful weight pushing down on his chest. It was hot and stifling. Oppressive. Something smelled like rotten earth. Damp and cold. It choked him. He couldn't breathe as a putrid terror coursed through his body. Desperate, he pushed against the darkness.
It wouldn't budge.
More desperate than before, he shoved even harder. Only this time, it caused something to rush in on him. He coughed and choked as his entire face was covered with heavy black dirt. The weight of it was excruciating. The thick, grainy taste filled his mouth and nostrils as he kept pushing and digging, trying to free himself of it.
He'd never felt anything like this. Every movement only made it worse. Every second ticked by with an excruciating slowness as he fought against his prison. Eternity seemed to have passed before he finally broke free of it. Wheezing and vomiting earth, he found himself climbing out of a grave that bore a single name and date.
ESPERETTA D. 1476
Confused, he looked down at his hands, only they weren't his. They were feminine and they were torn and ravaged from the digging. They were Esperetta's.
Still coughing, he tried to move free of the grave, but the weight of his dress pulled him back toward the coffin. Afraid of falling, he kicked his feet, tearing the hem, and used his trembling arms to get his weight out of the grave.
And as he lay on the ground, trying to remove the taste of dirt from his mouth, his thoughts whirled.
What had happened?
We'll be together, Esperetta. Trust me. When you awaken, I'll be there by your side. We shall go to Paris, just the two of us, and start our lives over. No one will ever know who we are.
Only they weren't together. There was no sign of Velkan now. Panic set in as Esperetta looked about the cold, desolate cemetery. Where could he be?
A wave of terror went through her as she feared for him. Surely he wasn't dead. Not her Velkan. He'd always been so strong. So fierce.
"Please," she begged as tears gathered in her eyes. She had to find him. The last thing she wanted was to live without him. He meant everything to her.
Unsure of where to go, she headed through the cold darkness toward the town lights, desperate for him. It wasn't until she'd reached the street that she realized she wasn't far from her father's home.
Why was she here? She'd taken her serum far away from this place.
With Velkan.
With nowhere else to go, she headed for her father's palace. But she never reached the doors. Before she could do more than slip inside the gate, she'd heard the sound of swords clashing.
And then she'd heard her father cry out.
Without a clear thought, she'd run toward the sound only to skid to a stop as she saw her father lying dead at Velkan's feet. Her mouth worked a soundless scream as she watched her husband kick at her father's body and curse him. But that wasn't the worst of it. The worst came from the single sword stroke that separated her father's head from his body.
The cold satisfaction on Velkan's face burned her eyes as he gripped her father's head by the hair and pulled it up from the ground. "Death to the house of Dracul. May you all burn in hell." Those words rang in her head.
Velkan was a monster!
This time her scream came from deep within her soul.
Velkan jerked as that scream resonated through his memory. He tried to free himself of Raluca's tight grip, but she refused to let him go.
"Enough!" he roared. "I don't want to see any more."
She finally released him.
Velkan's breathing was ragged as he stared at the Were-Hunter. "How can you do that?"
She folded her arms over her chest. "My father was a Dream-Hunter. I inherited a few of his abilities, such as manipulating reality so that you could experience that night as Esperetta."
"Why would you do this?"
"Because I lost my mate to the hatred of an Order that should have never existed. There's nothing I can do about that, but you two have lost each other because you're both too prideful and stubborn to admit you're wrong."
"How could I ever tru—"
"Velkan!" Raluca snapped in a tone he'd never heard before as she called him by his name. "You have seen that night through her eyes. It wasn't her fault. You kept the truth of her father from her. You never once let her know as a mortal how demented Vlad was. No one did. To her, he was a decent and caring father. She never saw his brutality. But you… you she saw. On the night you met, you beheaded a man on top of her. She was just a young woman who'd been sequestered in a convent. Can you imagine the horror of that?"
He looked away as he remembered just how scared Esperetta had been. Her entire body had quaked in his arms the whole way home and she'd been racked with nightmares for months on end. He'd held her in the darkness and sworn to her that he'd never allow anyone else to ever hurt her again.
Until her father had killed her.
But that changed nothing. Esperetta didn't love him and he would never expose himself to that kind of pain again. "You ask more than I can give."
"Very well, but know this. The princess hasn't left your side since you were brought here. She could have tried to escape us, but she hasn't. She's stood watch over you like a lioness guarding her pride. And for five hundred years I have sacrificed my daughter and her happiness to watch over Esperetta for you. I've had enough of that. If the princess leaves, she leaves alone."
"I forbid it."
"I am your servant, my lord. My daughter isn't. If you want the princess guarded, then I suggest you do it yourself."
Velkan gaped at her words. She'd never spoken to him like this. Never once. "You're not serious."
"Oh, but I am. Francesca isn't getting any younger and I want grandchildren. It's time she was free to find her mate. You threw yours away by choice. Francesca should at least have the chance to be so stupid, no?"
He honestly had no response to that. What could he say? He was a fool. But how could he put aside the centuries?
How could you not?
"You lie there, Prince, in your bed alone. I'm going to book a flight out for the princess. She's a big girl. We'll let her find her own way in the world." And with that Raluca left him alone.
"Good riddance," he said sullenly under his breath, but even as the words left him, he knew better. He couldn't allow Esperetta to leave here. Not while the Order was out there. She wasn't strong enough to protect herself from them.
They were a cunning bunch.
He would simply go to her and…
Beg her to stay.
He flinched at the voice in his head. He'd never begged for anything—not even mercy while her father had tortured him. He would order her to stay. And she would… laugh in his face most likely.
You'll have to beg.
"Then she can leave." But he knew better than that. In fact, he was already stepping out of his bed. His emotions torn, he quickly dressed in a pair of pants and a loose-fitting button-down shirt.
As he started for the door, it swung open and almost hit him. Aghast, he watched as Andrei and Viktor entered with a large trunk between them. Esperetta followed them into the room.
He was baffled as they placed the trunk at the foot of his bed. "What is this?"
The men didn't answer. In fact, they refused to meet his gaze as they hastened from his room.
"There's another trunk that needs to be moved, too," Esperetta told them.
Viktor cringed as he looked at Velkan, then nodded. "Yes, Princess."