“Just do it, Rachel e. She’s weak.” Fury and impatience colored Eric’s words. “Take care of it and let’s get the hel out of here!”
That was so true. Light-headed and off-balance, a bunny rabbit could get the best of me right now. “Don’t come any closer.”
My mother laughed. “Lexie, this wil be over soon. I know you’re scared, but you have nothing to worry about. I’m going to take care of everything. Don’t you trust me? I’m your mother.”
I backed up, stopping when I felt the heat from the flames.
“You’re not my mother.”
She moved forward. Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard my name being cal ed. His voice— Aiden’s.
It had to be a hal ucination, because neither Eric nor my mom reacted to the sound, but even if it was just a sad manifestation of my subconscious, it gave me strength to keep standing. My fingers slid over the slender dagger.
How had they missed this? “You’re not my mother,” I said again, my voice sounding hoarse.
“Baby, you’re confused. I’m your mother.”
My thumb brushed over the release button. “You died in Miami.”
Her eyes held a dangerous glint. “Alexandria… there is no other option.”
Wait, a voice whispered in my head, wait until her defenses are down. If she saw the blade, it would be over. I needed her to believe she’d won. I needed her vulnerable.
Though, the strange thing was, I was almost a hundred percent certain the voice didn’t belong to me. But that real y didn’t matter right now.
“There’s another option. You could just kil me.”
“No. You wil join me.” Her voice sounded like it had in the room, right before she’d kil ed Daniel for touching me. How messed up was that? “And since you broke your promise, I wil have to kil your little boyfriend over there. That is, if he hasn’t been burned alive yet.”
Everything came down to this moment. Die or kil her. Be turned into a monster or kil her. The breath I drew in wasn’t enough. “You’re already dead,” I whispered, “and I’d rather be dead than become what you are.”
“You wil thank me later.” Moving inhumanly fast, she wrapped her hand through my hair and jerked my head back.
The handle of the dagger felt awkward, wrong even.
Sucking in air, I pushed the little button. There wasn’t a lot of space between us, but I stil got my arm in between us. It wouldn’t be a precise hit, not at this angle, but it would kil .
You will kill the ones you love.
Fate had been right about that.
My mother jerked back, her mouth gaping open in surprise. She looked down. So did I. My hand was flush with her chest, and the blade had sunk through her skin like titanium did when it met the flesh of a daimon.
She stumbled backward as I withdrew the dagger. Her face contorted and blurred. Bright, beautiful eyes met mine, and then they disappeared. Like a switch had been thrown, the fire circling us ceased to exist.
Her scream fil ed the forest, and my screams overcame hers. She slumped just as my legs refused to cooperate.
We both folded into ourselves at the same time, except I col apsed into a messy heap and she buckled into herself.
There was a moment—it was quick—but I saw the glimmer of relief cross her face. In that instant, she was Mom. She real y was. And then she started to flake apart, fading until there was nothing left but a fine layer of blue dust.
I sagged forward, resting my head against the damp ground, vaguely aware of Eric running and the rain hammering me. Months of grief and loss swirled inside me, invading every cel , every pore. Nothing existed but the raw pain of a different kind of hurting. The tags and the bruises faded in comparison to it. Anguish consumed me. I wanted to die—to just cave in like Mom had. I’d kil ed her—my mother. Daimon or not, I’d kil ed her.
Time stopped. It could’ve been minutes or hours, but eventual y there were voices. People cal ed my name, cal ed Caleb’s, but I couldn’t answer. Everything sounded far away and unreal.
Then strong hands surrounded me, lifting me up. My head fel back and cool rain splattered off my cheeks. “Alex, look at me. Please.”
Recognizing the voice, I opened my eyes. Aiden stared down at me, face pale and drawn. He looked stricken as his gaze roamed over the many bite marks. “Hey,” I murmured.
“It’s going to be okay.” His voice held a panicked, desperate edge. He ran wet fingers over my cheeks, catching my chin. “I need you to keep your eyes open and talk to me. Everything’s going to be okay.”
I felt funny, so I doubted that. There were so many voices, some I recognized and some I didn’t. Somewhere I heard Seth. “Where’s… Caleb?”
“He’s okay. We have him—Alex, stay with me. Talk to me.”
“You were… right.” I swal owed, needing to tel someone
—to tel him. “She was relieved. I saw it… ”
“Alex?” Aiden stood, cradling me to his chest. I felt his
“Alex?” Aiden stood, cradling me to his chest. I felt his heart thundering under my cheek and then I felt nothing at al .
CHAPTER 20
I WOKE UP STARING AT THE SOFT GLOW OF
fluorescent ceiling lights. I wasn’t sure what’d woken me or where I was.
“Alex.”
I turned my head and met his pale gray eyes. Aiden sat on the edge of the bed. Dark waves of hair fel over his forehead. He looked different to me. Shadows bloomed under his eyes.
“Hey,” I croaked.
Aiden smiled that wonderful ful smile that was so rare, so beautiful. He reached over and with just the tips of his fingers, he brushed a few strands of hair off my forehead.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay. I’m… thirsty.” I tried clearing my throat again.
He leaned over, the bed dipping slightly as he grabbed a glass off the bedside table. Helping me sit up, he waited while I gulped the cool water. “More?”
I shook my head. Sitting up, I got a better view of the unfamiliar room. I was hooked up to half a dozen tubes, but I wasn’t in the Covenant. “Where are we?”
“We’re at the Nashvil e Covenant. We couldn’t risk the time it would’ve taken us to get you back to North Carolina.”
He paused, seeming to choose his next words. “Alex, why did you do this?”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”
“You stole a Sentinel uniform. You also stole weapons and left the grounds without permission. Untrained and unprepared, you left to hunt down your mother. What you did was so reckless, so dangerous. You could’ve been kil ed, Alex. So yes, you’re in trouble.”
“I kinda of figured that.” I sighed, opening my eyes.
“Marcus is going to expel me now, isn’t he?”
Sympathy shone on his face. “I don’t know. Marcus is very upset. He would’ve come here, but he’s been with the Council. Everyone’s in an uproar over what happened to Kain and the implications.”
“Everything’s changed,” I murmured to myself.
“Hmm?”
I took a deep breath. “Caleb shouldn’t be in trouble. He tried to stop me, but… where is he?”
“He’s here, in a different room. And he’s been awake for the last day, asking for you. He has a couple bruised ribs, but he’l be okay. He’s going to head back later today, but you’l need to stay for a little while longer.”
Relief washed through me. I relaxed back against the fluffy pil ows. “How long have I been asleep?”
He fiddled with the blankets, adjusting them around me.
“Two days.”
“Whoa.”
“You were pretty bad off, Alex. I thought… ”
I looked at him, my eyes finding his and remaining there.
“Thought what?”
Aiden exhaled softly. “I thought I— we thought we’d lost you. I’ve never seen so many tags on a person stil … living.”
His eyes fel shut briefly. They were a startling color when they reopened—a beautiful silver. “You scared me. You real y did.”
There was an odd pain in my chest, sort of a dul aching.
“I didn’t mean to. I thought—”
“What did you think, Alex? Did you think at al ?” Aiden lowered his chin. A muscle feathered along his jaw. “It doesn’t matter now. Caleb told us everything.”
I was sure what he meant by “everything” was her crazed ranting, the daimons, and those horrible, terrible hours in the bedroom. “Caleb shouldn’t be punished. He real y did try to stop me, but we got caught in an al ey… and I saw her. I should’ve… kil ed her then, but I couldn’t. I failed, and I could’ve gotten Caleb kil ed.”
Aiden faced me again. “I know.”
I swal owed. “I had to do it. She was going to keep kil ing, Aiden. I couldn’t stand around and wait for the Sentinels to find her. Yeah, it was stupid. Look at me.” I lifted my bandaged arms. “I know it was stupid, but she was my mother. I had to do it.”
Aiden was quiet as he stared at me. “Why didn’t you come to me instead of running off and doing this?”
“Because you were busy with what happened with Kain and you would’ve stopped me.”
Anger flared behind his eyes. “Damn straight I would’ve stopped you—prevented this from happening to you!”
I flinched. “That’s why I couldn’t come to you.”
“You never should’ve faced what you did. None of us wanted you to go through this. What you must be feeling… ”
“I’m dealing.” I clamped down on the sudden pressure in the back of my throat.
He ran a hand through his hair. It looked like he’d done that several times in the last two days. “You’re so foolishly brave.”
His words brought back the memory of the night in his…
bed. “You’ve said that before.”
“Yes. And I meant it then. If I’d only known how foolishly brave you truly were, I would’ve locked you in your room.”
“I also kinda figured that, too.”
He didn’t say anything to that and we sat in silence for a long time. Then he started to stand. “You need to get some rest. I’l check in on you in a little while.”
“Don’t leave. Not yet.”
Aiden stared at me as if he could read what was going on inside me. “I know what you want to talk about, but now is not that time. You need to get better. Then we can talk.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket. “I want to talk about it now.”
“Alex.” His voice was soft.
“Aiden?”
His lips twitched at my response, but then his eyes met mine and held them in their depths. “The night—what happened between us was… wel , it shouldn’t have ever happened.”
Ouch. It was a struggle to keep my face blank and not show how much those words hurt.
“Do you… do you regret it? What happened between us?” If he said yes, I think I’d die.