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THE DARKNESS SURROUNDED me like a warm embrace. I’d never felt so peaceful, so accepting of losing contact with my physical body. The pain I’d endured when Arabella forced my soul back inside my broken bones was now lost to a distant memory I never wanted to face again.
And in the blackness of my new world, I no longer craved the light. There were shades of gray available to me, and that was enough to satisfy my need for sight. Layers upon layers of shadows danced across my closed eyes, making me believe they were here to help with the transition.
The transition to where, I still didn’t know. The last memory I could recall was of Viktor apologizing for something he hadn’t done yet. And then he’d kissed me. Not on my lips, but on my neck. Somewhere in my hazy mind I tried to feel the bite. It had been a constant reminder about my loss of self, but no matter how hard I tried, I felt nothing.
Until now.
It started off as a slight tingle along the bottom of my feet. One by one each toe came alive again. I still couldn’t see, and there were no noises to identify the place my body rested, but I could feel something. As the tingling got stronger, it turned into pain. Like my leg had fallen asleep and decided to force blood to the end in a sudden rush. Sharp stabs of electricity pulsed underneath my skin. First just in my toes, then climbing up to my ankles, my thighs, my hips.
I wanted to scream. I tried to. But my head was frozen and the darkness continued to shield me from the truth. The pain seared through my lower body, fire ripping at each nerve as though testing to see if they were still alive.
And then the pain disappeared.
I became aware of my lower body once more. Only not through any kind of excruciating cognizance, but as though I was alive again. Alive and healed. In the darkness, I enjoyed the sensation. It made me realize that maybe I wanted to feel whole again. Maybe I should fight the shadows and claw my way to the light. I wondered if it would hurt. I wondered if it would kill me all over again.
I wondered so much but I chose to live.
A knife pierced my back. Not a literal knife, but the pain of my body healing felt worse than when I’d actually been stabbed. My mouth wouldn’t move so I screamed inside. And when the agony ripped across my neck, I felt a tear slip from my eye.
My body snapped and stretched, the skin twisting and pulling in all directions as something worked its magic on me. The throat that had been sliced open burned with each movement. The wound in my back deep enough that I could feel my spine piecing itself back together.
Yet that darkness protected me. I still couldn’t see. I still couldn’t hear. But I could feel. Pain, discomfort...life. Life had come back to me. And I tried to welcome it.
Open your eyes, I shouted at myself. Breathe. Live.
My neck stopped tingling with the final sensations of a healed body soothing my mind. My legs no longer burned, my back was no longer on fire. In the distance, I heard a drumbeat. A slow, steady rhythm that reminded me of a heart. Two quick beats and a pause. Two quick beats and a pause. A shoe sliding along the floor. An exhale.
The sounds surrounded me in a tornado of noise. A leaking faucet. A car horn. Someone breathing close by.
Open your damn eyes.
One by one the shadows disappeared. The darkest slipping away first, followed by those that had protected me the longest. Rays of light danced across my eyelids, causing me to see an ocean of red.
“I think she’s waking up.”
Another breath. Another scuffle along the floor. And then a sharp squeal of a metal chair scraping along hard surface. I tried to cover my ears, but I hit them so hard, I let out a scream.
“Sophia, don’t move.”
Viktor’s voice soothed me. And although I didn’t understand why he’d just warned me about moving, the tenor vibrated in perfect harmony with all of the other sounds.
“Did it work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when will you know?”
A sigh caressed my cheek. Viktor was close. Close enough that if I turned my head, he’d be right there. “Sophia, can you hear me?”
Yes.
“Sophia?”
I’m here.
My mouth wouldn’t get the words out and I panicked when the thought of being stuck in an uncooperative body weighed me down.
“Why is she twitching like that?”
Viktor grabbed my hand. “Sophia, open your eyes.”
I tried. I tried so hard, but the red light won out and my heavy eyelids stayed closed.
“Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” I did and I heard the smile in Viktor’s voice. “Good. That’s good. Now open your eyes.”
His voice deepened to a command and without control, my eyes fluttered open. Bright, white light blinded my vision and pierced deep within my skull. My breath hitched in my throat, causing a strange wheezing noise to leave my lips.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Brandt,” Viktor groaned. “She’s fine.”
Brandt was here? Where was I?
“She doesn’t look fine. Are you sure you did it right?”
Viktor sighed, warm air brushing my cheek. I turned my head to look at him. It took a moment for my eyes to focus, but when they did, I couldn’t help but smile at his handsome, yet concerned face staring back at me.
“Hi,” I whispered.
He chuckled. “Hi.”
Blinking several times, I looked out beyond his shoulder to the large man pacing back and forth along the side of the room. “Brandt?”
He spoke only to Viktor and stepped closer. “That’s a good sign, right? That she remembers me?” For the first time since I’d met him, he wasn’t wearing a suit. Just a simple pair of jeans and a white tee shirt. “Is she damaged?”
“Damaged?” I asked, anxiety ripping through my bones.
“Shut up, Brandt,” Viktor growled at him. “She’s fine.”
“Well, you’re the one that told me if her body rejected your blood that—”
“Enough!” Viktor’s patience had waned, I could sense that not just in his voice but also through his skin....somehow.
“Where am I?” I asked, trying to find something familiar in the bright space.
“You’re at my place,” Brandt said, still keeping his distance. “Well, at one of them.”
“I’m in Alaska?”
“No, New York.”
I shook my head, the comprehension still a little foggy. “What...what happened?”
Viktor slipped his hand underneath my shoulders and lifted me to a sitting position. I’d been lying on top of a queen bed in a small room with one large window. And I was wearing a green sundress.
“Where are my clothes?”
“You’re wearing clothes,” Brandt said.
Viktor rolled his eyes as he fluffed a pillow and set it behind my back. “I grabbed some things from your apartment.”
“You did?”
He hung his head. “Well, I sent him,” he jerked his chin toward Brandt who shrugged when I looked his way.
Wiggling my toes and searching for pain in my back or neck, I marveled at how great I felt. “Please explain,” I finally said to Viktor.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Brandt said and rushed out of the room before I had a chance to thank him.
“What happened, Viktor?”
“To you or to everyone else?”
A sudden memory of Silas lying on the ground, bleeding from several holes in his body brought a wave of instant sadness. “Both,” I whispered.
“The warehouse was a trap. Sebastian must have known we were working with the shifters and he used them to lead us there.” Viktor fidgeted in his seat and grabbed my hand again. “Do you remember what happened?”
“The building collapsed.”
He nodded. “But only that building. We think Sebastian has a powerful sorcerer working for him. It’s the only way to explain why one building, surrounded by many, collapsed when everything around it was untouched.”
“Someone could do that?”
“Someone with a lot of power could, yes.”
I shook my head, trying to piece everything together. “But I thought someone like that would be a part of the Order?”
“They would.”
“Oh.” Sebastian had his hands deep into the corruption game. “So what happened after we got out? Wait!” Seeing flashes of memories stopped me cold. “I fought them. The vampires. I fought them and Arabella helped me.”
“She did?” Viktor sounded surprised.
“I’m pretty sure she did. Yeah, she dropped them from the sky.” Viktor’s pinched brows made me wonder if he believed me, but it really didn’t matter. “And the bears and the wolf...they were there too.”
“Yes. Brandt and his brothers, along with Portia, finished off the newborns.”
“Newborn vampires?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why they were using weapons?” Reflexively, I brushed my fingers along my neck where the knife had sliced open my throat.
“We think so, yes.”
Guns. I remembered the gunshot wounds. The words hitched in my mouth as I prepared myself for the worst. “Silas?”
Viktor froze, his chest paralyzed as though he’d forgotten how to breathe. “He was shot several times.”
“I know.”
“Ashby and her sister did what they could to save him.”
“Did they?” I looked into Viktor’s eyes to force him to tell me the truth. “Save him?”
Viktor clenched his jaw twice before answering. “Yes.”
It would be hard to describe the wave of relief that swept through me. Silas had survived. Despite the issues between us, I loved him very much. And it would be devastating for him to be permanently taken from this world. “Is he okay?”
“He’s...alive,” Viktor replied with a cryptic tone dancing in his words.
“What do you mean?”
“Ashby,” he said and then sounded like he wasn’t going to continue. “She had to make some...bargains on Silas’ behalf.”
“I don’t understand.”
Viktor dropped my hand and brushed his own across his face. “I believe it’s best to let Silas explain when you see him.”
I didn’t like the way he was avoiding this topic, but I accepted the idea that I could get Silas to confide in me. So I pushed that to the side for now. “And what about Nadya?”
“She’s with Bo. In Florida.”
“What?”
“He said that she wanted a chance to heal someplace quiet. I think he just wanted to spend some more time with her.”
So many things to process. “I bet Graham isn’t too happy about that.”
“He’s not.”
And suddenly I remembered the reason we were in that warehouse at all. “Did we find Ezra?” I asked in a whisper.
Viktor stood and paced around the room like Brandt had done not too long ago. “No, we didn’t. And I think I may have made things even worse.”
“Worse? How could they possibly get any worse?”
Viktor stopped, rotating on his foot to stare at me. “Sophia, how do you feel?”
“Feel?”
He nodded.
I assessed my body again, noticing how all of the pain was gone. “I feel great, actually.”
Viktor continued to study me like he was waiting for something to pop out of my body. When I stayed silent, he shook his head. “And how great do you really feel?”
“Well, my back isn’t throbbing, my bite isn’t tingling, and as far as I can tell, my throat is no longer hanging open in a bloody mess.”
“And why do you think that is?”
Shrugging, I tried to understand what he was hinting at. “Because you healed me. Just like that night in your bathroom.” Heat crawled up my neck at the thought of what else I’d imagined happened in said bathroom on that night.
“No, Sophia. I didn’t heal you.”
“But I’m fine now.”
He started pacing again. “What do you hear?”
I tensed at his odd question. “I hear your voice.”
“And what else. Close your eyes and listen.”
I complied, finding the darkness behind my eyelids comforting and familiar. “I hear your squeaking shoes pacing back and forth.” I opened one eye and gave him a look. “You should stand still by the way.”
He smiled and then walked over to the bed. “Close your eyes and try it again.”
Aside from Viktor’s breath I didn’t hear anything else at first. But then, like I’d been thrust into a tunnel of sound, I listened to it all. With my eyes still closed, I answered his question. “I hear a heartbeat, a fast one fluttering quicker than a human’s. The leaking faucet. There’s a dog on the street below us that needs to have his nails cut. Brandt’s talking to someone. He’s talking to Bo.” My eyes shot open. “Viktor, what’s going on? Why can I hear everything so well?”
“Why do you think?”
“Stop playing games with me! What did you do?”
“You were dying. You literally had just a few breaths left before your heart would have stopped forever.”
“How do you know that?”
Viktor raised his brows and tilted his head. “Because I am a vampire and I know when a life is leaving a human body.”
“Oh. Right,” I mumbled. “You still didn’t answer my question.”
“I couldn’t heal you.”
“But I’m healed,” I snapped.
Viktor just stared at me. “You are better now.”
Then, like a slap to the face, those pieces I’d been hanging onto slipped into place. “Viktor...did you turn me?”
He remained motionless at the foot of the bed.
“But that’s not possible. Not without the help of the Order. You need a necromancer and a sorcerer. And probably a dozen other rituals I know nothing about.”
Viktor still didn’t move.
“Answer me, dammit! How did you turn me?”
“He gave you his blood,” Brandt answered for him. That heartbeat grew louder. “I didn’t think it could happen, but he pulled it off.”
My gaze traveled between Brandt and Viktor. Brandt and Viktor. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.
“You looked like crap for the first several days, but then I thought that maybe you would actually pull through.” Brandt continued to speak. He looked at me for longer than I was comfortable with before turning his attention to Viktor. “Sorry to interrupt. But I told everyone that Sophia was awake and they would like to meet tonight. At the club.”
Viktor nodded his dismissal toward Brandt, who promptly left the room. He then focused on me. “What are you thinking?”
What was I thinking? “You said it couldn’t be done.” I recalled our conversation not too long ago.
“I didn’t know if I could do it.”
“But I could have died.”
“You were dying.”
True. “So what happens now?”
Viktor lowered himself to the bed and rested a hand on my leg. “Well, how do you feel?”
“Aside from my brain refusing to process everything, I think my body feels wonderful. Brand new, in fact.”
Viktor chuckled. “So how about we go for a walk. You’ve been stuck inside for a while.”
“Wait. How long have I been in this bed?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks? Are you serious?”
“I don’t joke.”
And at those words, I lost it. Viktor’s seriousness broke that last straw for me. I started to laugh. And laugh. And laugh until my stomach hurt. Was it possible for a vampire to laugh themselves to death?
“I think you need some fresh air.” Viktor stood and reached into the top drawer of a wooden dresser sitting against the far wall. He pulled out a sweater and tossed it to me. “You may want to put this on. The sun is out and it’s an unusually warm day for this time of year, but you will be noticed if you go out in just a sundress.”
I slipped the sweater on as I thought about his words. “Have I had this dress on for two weeks?”
“No. I bathed and dressed you each day.”
And something about that confession caused my insides to dance. Viktor stayed by my side the entire time I fought for my life. Or for my new life. I wondered how many times he’d done this in the past.
As though hearing me, Viktor answered. “Never.”
“Never what?”
He shook his head. “Let’s go. Central Park is right down the block.”
Could Viktor read my mind? Were we now connected in a way that I’d regret in due time? I stood, amazed at how agile and perfect I felt. I still had a million questions for Viktor, but for now I settled for his outstretched hand and dimpled smile.
*