Page 48 of Twice Bitten
“You cannot escape me, no matter how much you wish to. Your blood and mine are entwined. I’ve tasted your essence and know you hold secrets within your blood. Secrets I willfigure out. But I can take one of your complications away if you wish.”
“As long as I yield to you. Become your little puppet?”
He tilted my chin up with his finger. Our eyes met, a hint of a glow in his jade irises. “You have two days to decide.”
“And if I say no?”
His eyes crinkled at the edges. “Then you will see exactly why the women in this city do their best to avoid Beckett.”
True fear made my blood freeze. “You’re a monster,” I whispered. “To know what he is, what he’s doing, and still try to force me to do your bidding is despicable. Why can’t you locate him? What happened to the bond between you two? Did he break it? Is that why you can’t locate him?”
Alric took a step forward, his eyes burning green. I took a step back, but the Prime stalked further forward, grace and power personified, venturing too far inside my personal space.
His knuckles brushed the column of my neck, before his hand opened and he palmed my throat, closing his fingers just tight enough to restrict my breathing to the point of it being uncomfortable.
Alric backed me against the car, the dress’s zipper digging into my spine. He held me firmly enough to keep me from bolting, but he wasn’t choking me. Not yet. And we both knew he could snap my neck in an instant.
I stood frozen, my heart pounding like a scared rabbit’s.
“We are all monsters here. But I am the monster giving you a choice.” He raised his other hand and gently drew the back of his knuckles against my cheek. His fingers were cool but surprisingly rough. “Tell me, Miss Damona, am I so hideous, so terrifying you refuse to work with me even to save yourself?”
Even with him so close, he didn’t push, didn’t try to press himself against me in a way I would not welcome. But his presence overwhelmed me in confusing ways. He was beautiful, yet horrifying, and I could feel the frustration he tried to keepbanked. Beckett was a problem he couldn’t fix without help and it enraged him he had to ask me.
He wasn’t as large as the Shifter King, but in no way did it diminish him. His arms were corded with muscle, his forearm flexing as he held me in place.
I tried to jerk away, only for Alric’s hand to tighten in warning.
“Do you really think you have a choice, Alex?” he murmured as he leaned closer. His cool breath brushed my cheek. “Relent now and I will treat you like a princess.”
I raised the flower pin and stabbed the Vampire Prime through the heart.
FIFTEEN
“Flore,” I wheezed.
Pale purple light flashed. The flower opened into a full, glorious bloom, looking almost comical sticking out of the Prime’s chest.
Alric blinked in surprise and stepped back, a laugh slipping from his lips as his hands slipped from my neck. “I’m afraid your legends are wrong. Wood doesn’t work?—”
Blood slipped from the edge of Alric’s lips.
“I will not be a slave to anyone,” I said roughly, the feel of his fingers imprinted against my throat. “I don’t need two days to decide.”
Alric swayed, his fingers scrabbling to remove the flower.
My hunch was right. Vampires, even a Prime, could be wounded, maybe even killed, by something living, something green—hedgewitch magic used in specific ways was anathema to a vampire. I’d kept the flower alive through a preservation spell and enhanced its effects against vampires through the silver I’d woven through its stem. It was a gamble. A big one.
But one that had paid off in spades, if Alric’s wheeze was anything to go by.
Leoscrambled from the car, his eyes wide with horror. “Prime!”
Alric lifted a hand and shoved Leo back. “Do not interfere.”
A glint of crimson flashed in Alric’s eyes. “Remove it,” he commanded.
I could not afford sympathy. The Prime was willing to do anything to force me to relent. Blood stained his white shirt where the peony pin pierced his chest. “Remove your blood hold on me.”
Alric’s lips parted in a crimson smile. “We are at an impasse, little witch.”
