The Sacrifice Read online

  “And did she?”

  “In time.” He frowns. “Her body was young and strong but her mind…” He shakes his head. “I’m afraid she was never completely free of what had been done to her. It made her sexual tastes…peculiar, when they finally emerged.”

  I raise an eyebrow at him. “Peculiar?”

  He laughs briefly. “Well, no more peculiar than what you and I have been doing for the past month, I suppose. But back then, the erotic practice of Domination and submission wasn’t nearly so well known or widespread.”

  “I imagine not. But…” I hesitate, trying to think how to phrase my question delicately. “I don’t understand how Katherine could want to be…to be dominated after what she’d been through.”

  “Oh she didn’t,” Aiden says blandly. “It was she who did the dominating. I submitted to her.”

  “What?” I can’t help staring at him in disbelief. There is nothing he could have said that would have surprised me more. Just the thought of my tall, dark, vampire master wearing a collar and being punished is…well damn, actually it’s hot. But still extremely surprising.

  “You needn’t look so shocked, darling.” Aiden sounds amused. “It wasn’t the first time I had been on the receiving end of the whip—she-who-made-me was French and notoriously hedonistic, even among my kind.”

  “Is, uh…” I clear my throat. “Is that what you prefer?”

  He shakes his head. “I am a Dominant by nature. But Katherine was frightened. She had deep sexual desires—urges that tormented her. However, she needed to be in control.” He shrugs. “So I let her.”

  “You let her what, exactly?” I can’t get the picture of him, naked and wearing the same kind of collar he has put on me, out of my head.

  “I let her whip me, bind me…” He looks me in the eyes. “Fuck me.”

  My breath falls out of me in a long sigh. “She…you let her…”

  Aiden nods. “You can rest assured, darling, that nothing I have done to you has not been done to me many, many times over.” He looks briefly troubled. “The only thing I would not let her do was bleed me. I never gave her my blood…not until the very end. But by then, it was too late.”

  “Too late? Too late for what?” I’m caught up in the story now, not caring that my eggs and tea and toast have all gone cold.

  “Too late to save her life,” Aiden says somberly. “You see, though our love was passionate, it was also forbidden. The other creatures in the supernatural community didn’t like a vampire consorting with a witch. They felt there was too much power concentrated in one place—too much potential to draw the humans’ attention and wrath down upon us.”

  “But that’s silly,” I say. “We’re much stronger and safer when we stick together inside our own community—all of the supes together.”

  Aiden nods. “Exactly so. Which is what Katherine tried to tell the other witches of her coven and what I tried to tell the vampires of the Council. But no one wanted to listen.” He takes a sip of tea. “So we made plans to move away from here. Katherine made me a ring…” He holds up his hand, the gold and onyx glinting. “Which enabled me to withstand sunlight and eat human food again. The plan was to move to someplace far away and live as humans. No one would be the wiser and we could keep our love.”

  “It sounds perfect,” I say.

  “It would have been.” Aiden looks troubled. “I was even making plans to form a life-bond with her. She didn’t want me to—she worried about me cutting my lifespan in half. I told her I didn’t care. I was planning to convince her once we moved and started our new life…unfortunately, I never got the chance.”

  “What happened?” I ask softly, dreading the worst but unable to help wondering.

  “Word of our departure leaked out—I don’t know how—and Katherine was captured. She was brought before the Vampire Council. Then, as now, they were the most powerful supernatural force in our area—a power to be reckoned with.”

  I think of asking him about what Lexy said—that the same Council forced him to serve as the Sovereign—but I don’t want to interrupt his story. “Go on. Where were you when this happened?”

  “I was making last minute travel arrangements—we were to have left the next day. We were that close to getting away.” He closes his eyes briefly and then opens them to continue. “When I got back to my old house and found Katherine gone, I knew something was wrong. There were signs of a struggle and I could smell that other supernatural creatures had invaded my territory. I followed their scent and Katherine’s, but by the time I reached her, it was too late.”

  “But…you said…you told me her secrets killed her,” I say softly.

  “And so they did. Katherine always wanted to plan for every contingency. Unbeknownst to me, she had been working on a binding spell—one so vast and complicated its web would encompass every supernatural race in the entire Tampa Bay Area.”

  “What?” I frown at him. “But…I thought it was the Vampire Council’s idea to bring all the supes together under one rule and break down the barriers between us.”

  “Yes, that’s because they want you and everyone else the spell affects to think so,” Aiden says darkly. “But it isn’t so. My Katherine was the witch who wove the spell—she did it so that we could always be together one way or another. But she had already used so much of herself and her magic to make me this.” He holds up the ring again. “She poured herself into it—body, soul, and magic. By the time she was brought before the Council, she had almost nothing left to give to complete the great spell she had started.” He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “And so she gave her blood.”

  My heart seems to stop in my chest. The sacrifice of blood—of life—is a last resort for any witch. When all of your magic is used, the life force in your blood can compensate—but at a price. And usually that price is your life.

  I can’t help thinking that it’s the same way my mother gave herself for me. She spent all her magic holding back the fire and when there was nothing left, she gave herself in order to get me out of the house and keep me safe.

  “What are you thinking?” Aiden looks at me intently.

  “Just…how sad it is.” I swallow hard. “My mother…when I was eight, she died in a house fire. But what most people don’t know is that she died saving me. The way Katherine gave herself to her spell so that you two could be together—my mother gave herself to the fire to keep me safe.”

  “Yes, I know,” he says gently, surprising me yet again. “I know all about that dreadful night.”

  “You do? But how—”

  “I know a great deal about you, my darling Emma,” he says softly. “Do you really think I would choose just anyone for my Sacrifice?” He sighs and shakes his head. “Katherine was the first Sacrifice, you know. That is why the girl chosen to serve is called so—although now it’s little more than an honorary title.”

  I can’t help being glad about that. Being bled out to complete a binding spell isn’t my idea of a good time. Of course, it couldn’t have been for Katherine either. “What happened to her?” I can’t help asking. “Katherine, I mean. Did she really think she could complete the spell and still live to spend her life with you?”

  “I like to think that was what she thought.” Aiden sounds sad. “Sometimes I can make myself believe it. Other times…” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. She never really got over what had been done to her that night I found her. There was no such thing as therapy, no medication for depression. She had periods of black despair when even I could not reach her. There were times when she railed at me—told me that I should have let her die or killed her the moment I found her.”

  “How terrible,” I whisper. “How sad.”

  “Yes.” Aiden looks at me somberly. “Her fate has tormented me for over a hundred years. I always think if only I could have gotten to her sooner, I might have saved her. But by the time I reached her side, she was bled white and beyond even the healing power of my own blood.”