The Sacrifice (37 page)

“Your home,” I whisper. “Not mine.”

“No.” He clears his throat. “Of course not.” Abruptly, he puts me
down on the couch and moves back, putting some room between us. “Forgive me,”
he says formally. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t. I…I just…” Miserably I twist my fingers into knots,
trying to think of what to say. How many times have I imagined this moment in
my mind, since the last time I saw him? How many things have I planned to ask,
to beg, to demand, to plead? And yet now they’re all gone and my head is empty.
“How…how did you know I was in danger?” I ask at last.

Aiden looks at the carpet. “I felt it,” he says in a low voice. “I
don’t have much of your blood left—I bled most of it out onto the Council Room
floor. But there was just enough left to let me know you…you needed me.”

“Thank you for coming,” I say softly. “It was Sanchez. I set fire
to him because he…he was going to…” My throat locks up and I can’t get the
words out, can’t stop seeing those slotted yellow eyes as the satyr hissed his
final threat.

“I know what he was going to do.” A muscle in the side of Aiden’s
jaw clenches. “I should have killed him years ago.”

“Well, he’s dead now,” I say with a shiver, remembering the
screaming, clawing lump of burning flesh the satyr became when the witch-flames
engulfed him.

“I’m glad he won’t be bothering you anymore.” Aiden clears his
throat. “As it happens, I won’t either.”

“What? What do you mean?” My heart is suddenly thumping so loudly
I’m afraid Aiden might hear it. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to ground again,” he says quietly, still looking away.
“I’ve tried living in the human world and it doesn’t suit me. Not without…someone
to share it with. And I’ve never liked the company of my own kind.” He clears
his throat. “I was actually just about to enter my coffin for the final time
tonight when I felt your distress. Now that I know you’re safe, I can go ahead
with my plans.”

I feel numb all over. “So…I guess this is goodbye.”

“I guess so.” Aiden’s face is calm but his deep voice is hoarse.
“I’m sorry for any pain I may have caused you, Emma,” he says formally. “I
hope…hope in time you may find it in your heart to forgive me. If I ever come
out into the light again, I promise to look after your descendants and make
sure they’re happy and safe.”

“My descendants,” I whisper and I know he’s talking about sons and
daughters I’ll have with some other man. The children that have nothing to do
with him—with a vampire who’s nothing more than a footnote in my past. A
distant memory of a love that never was.

Suddenly there’s a lump in my throat that I can’t swallow and my
eyes are stinging. “Excuse me,” I whisper brokenly. “I…the restroom. I need
to—”

“Of course,” Aiden says. “Help yourself.”

But I’m already rushing past him, the tears stinging my eyes and
my heart caught in a vise. He’s going. He’s leaving me. Leaving forever and if
it hadn’t been for Sanchez coming around to murder me in my bed tonight, he
never would have even come to say goodbye. I’ve done the stupidest thing a girl
can do—I’ve allowed myself to fall for a man who cares nothing for me. I’ve
given my heart away and now I can’t get it back.

I run blindly through the mirrored maze of the house. Somehow I
find myself not in the bathroom but in the study, surrounded by the rows of
leather-bound books and facing the huge, mahogany desk that dominates half the
room. I sink down and lean my cheek against its cool surface for a moment, my
shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Whatever I do, I can’t let him hear me. I
don’t want him to know that he’s hurt me this badly, don’t want him to guess
how desperately I love him…

“If you love him, go and claim him!”

The witch-whisper in my head startles me so much I nearly scream.
I jerk my head up off the desk and look from side to side, trying to see who’s
talking to me. There’s no one there, though. Just the ancient copy of
Farrow’s
Handbook of Spells and Summonings,
lying open on the desk blotter.

“What?” I ask in a whisper. “Who said that?”

“I did.”
The
book jiggles a little.
“I, your ancestress, Katherine. Speak to me in your
witch-whisper. I will hear you.”

“Katherine?”
I
send back, my eyes wide with disbelief.
“Are you really still here?”

“Only a small part—a piece of my spirit I left tied to my spell
book,”
she assures
me.
“I wanted to be able to watch over my beloved Aiden even after I was
gone. I knew, you see, that I would precede him in death. Truthfully, it was
what I wanted.”

“Why are you talking to me now?”
I demand of her, still staring at
the book.
“What do you want?”

“For you to do what I never could,”
she whispers.
“I want you to
make Aiden happy.”

“Make him happy?”
I snort incredulously.
“How? He doesn’t care if I live or die—I
don’t think it’s in my power to affect his happiness.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”
Katherine sounds stern, maybe even
a little angry.
“Would he have come to your aid tonight if he didn’t care
for you?”

“He was responding to the call of your blood, that’s all,”
I say dismissively.
“He never
would have come otherwise.”

“My blood is long since gone from him,”
Katherine says quietly.
“It was
your
blood that called to him, Emma. You that he wanted to save. You
that he loves.”

“Yes, he saved me. Whoop-ti-do,”
I say angrily.
“And now he’s
going to ground and he’ll never see me again. Is that the act of a man in
love?”

“It is the act of a man who feels he has lost your love,”
she whispers quietly in my ear.
“The
act of a man desperate to remove himself from the pain of that loss. He thinks
you don’t want him anymore, Emma. And if you don’t speak up and let him know
otherwise, he’ll go to his coffin thinking that. And this time, I don’t think
he’ll rise again. This time he will let go of his life essence and return to
the ground.”

The thought of Aiden giving up—letting himself die and decay—hits
me like a ton of bricks, knocking the emotional wind out of me. I can barely
hold back a sob. I want so much to believe her when she says, that Aiden still
loves me, that he is only going to ground because he thinks he’s lost me…but
somehow I can’t do it. I just can’t.

Katherine seems to feel my disbelief.
“If you don’t believe me,
test him yourself,”
she snaps.

“How?”
I
demand back. Short of going back out to the living room and declaring my
desperate love—which I’m
not
going to do—I can’t think of any subtle way
to let him know I care and see if he does too.

“You know how,”
she tells me, the book’s pages rustling with quiet violence.
“Submit.”

“But…what…how…?”

But the book is quiet now and I sense my ancestress is gone. The
little piece of her spirit she left behind to watch over Aiden’s happiness
seems to feel it has done its duty. The ancient copy of
Farrow’s
is just
a book now and I’m on my own.

At first I’m tempted to ignore her advice. After all, what does
she know? What will I do if I try to submit to Aiden and he just ignores me? Or
worse, politely puts me off?

What will you do if he goes back to ground?
whispers a little voice in my head
that I recognize as my own.
If you never see him again? Are you really too
much of a coward to even try? Which would be worse—his rejection or the
knowledge that he might have loved you but you were too afraid and proud to try
and find out?

I know the answer to that. I’d much rather risk rejection and know
that I tried than wonder my whole life if Katherine’s spirit was right or not.
But how exactly can I do this?

A gleaming spot of red on the desk catches my eye and gives me the
start of an idea. It’s my collar—the one with the ruby pendant that Aiden took
from me when he released me from his service. I could have sworn it wasn’t
there a minute ago but now it is, lying beside the copy of
Farrow’s
and
gleaming innocently in the soft lamplight.

Suddenly I know what I have to do. It may win me my master back…or
it may end in terrible rejection. But whichever outcome happens, at least I
will know I have tried.

Taking a deep breath, I reach for the collar.

Chapter Twenty-six

“Emma?” Aiden calls, just as I finish getting ready. “Are you all
right?”

“I’m just fine…Master.” I can barely get the words out without
stuttering but somehow I manage. “I’m here, in the study.”

“What are you doing in there?” I hear him ask. “Emma, what—?” He
stops short in the doorway, the words dying on his lips when he sees me.

I run my hand through my hair nervously, hoping he likes what he
sees. I thought about keeping my nightgown on but it’s sooty and scorched and
besides, he always said he liked to see me naked. So I have taken everything
off but the collar, which I am wearing in hopes he’ll treat me as his
submissive again and not some stranger. The AC kicks on and a cool air current
flowing from the vent teases around my naked nipples and pussy, making me
shiver.

For a long moment Aiden just looks at me, and I can’t tell what
the hell he’s thinking. “Emma,” he says at last, sounding stern. “What do you
think you’re doing?”

I give him a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Getting ready for my
punishment, Master. I…I was very bad tonight. I almost didn’t jump when you
told me to and—“

Aiden is across the room in a flash. Taking me by the shoulders,
he shakes me roughly. “Do you think this is some kind of a game, Emma? Some
twisted little scenario you can play out one more time before I go to ground?”
he asks harshly.

“No!” I cry, dropping the innocent submissive routine. “This is no
game—it’s my
life
. A life that included
you
until you decided to
throw me away like a piece of trash you didn’t want any more.”

“A piece of trash?” he repeats hoarsely. “Is that really what you imagine
I think of you?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” I snap, crossing my arms over
my bare breasts protectively. Now I wish I wasn’t naked but it’s too late for
regrets. “I thought maybe…maybe you didn’t like the way I look now,” I say, making
a gesture that takes in my purple eyes and black hair.

“You’re beautiful, Emma, always beautiful to me,” he murmurs.
“Although I must say, I’m very glad you kept your figure. It would have been a
shame if you’d become as terribly skinny as your cousin.”

I try to laugh but it turns into a sob. “That’s…that’s the only
part I
don’t
like,” I confess. “Why couldn’t the magic make me thinner
while it was changing everything?”

“Maybe it knew I like you like this.” His gray eyes flicker over
me, taking in my naked body in a way that makes my cheeks get hot.

“You have a strange way of showing you like me.” I raise my chin,
trying not to show my embarrassment. “You left me and never once called, never
came over to check on me.”

“Oh, darling…” He puts a hand to his eyes for a moment and shakes
his head. “I’ve been doing nothing
but
checking on you. I’ve been coming
around your cousin’s house night and day, staying out of sight, trying to make
sure you were all right.”

“If that’s true then you must have seen how upset I’ve been,” I
whisper. “You must have had some idea of how abandoned I felt. Why didn’t you
come talk to me? Tell me you cared…if you do care at all, that is.”

“Of
course
I care,” he says fiercely. “I love you, Emma!
But I thought…” He shakes his head. “Thought you’d hate me for not being able
to save your mother. For not being able to stop what happened so long ago, when
you were only a child.”

“Why would I blame you for that?” I ask blankly. “I blame myself.”

“It’s not your fault,” he whispers, cupping my cheek.

“It’s not yours either,” I say in a choked voice. “And I could
never hate you, Aiden. Never. I…I love you too.”

He pulls me close, crushing me to his chest and covering my mouth
in a long, delicious kiss that takes my breath away. “Emma,” he whispers when
he breaks the kiss at last. “Do you really mean that?”

“I wouldn’t say it otherwise,” I assure him. I put my arms around
his neck, glad that even with my new height I still have to look up at him.
“Are you still going to ground?” I ask softly. “Please, Aiden, say you’re not
going to. If you leave me again I don’t…don’t know what I’ll do.”

“Of course I’ll stay here with you.” He strokes my cheek gently.
“On one condition—that you form a life-bond with me.”

I frown. “But…that will cut your lifespan in half.”