The Sacrifice Read online

  “A-Aiden?” I blink up at his white face barely visible in the darkness, trying to make my eyes focus. Why is everything blurry and then suddenly sharp? And why does my scalp itch so badly? I put up a hand to touch my hair but blue sparks fly from my fingertips. With a gasp, I pull my hand back. I don’t want to set my own hair on fire! “What’s…what’s going on?” I ask him in a trembling voice.

  “Your magic—you finally came into your magic.” Lexy is suddenly kneeling beside me, free of the tape that bound her earlier. Beside her Grant is standing, his hands on his knees, peering at me curiously.

  “It’s true,” he says. “It came in like an earthquake when you fused the spell. I’ve never felt such a manifestation of power before.”

  I recoil from him, thinking I’m still naked, but then I realize I’m wrapped in Aiden’s charcoal jacket. “Is that true?” I look up at my master for verification.

  “I don’t know,” he says honestly, looking immensely relieved. “I’m just glad you’re all right, darling. You fainted and I couldn’t wake you up. Gods…” He puts a hand over his face for a moment in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “Emma,” he says in a muffled voice. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I thought…thought I’d lost you.”

  “You still might.” Lexy puts a hand on her hip. “Why didn’t you warn Emma this day was coming? Why didn’t you tell her she was related to Katherine? And what else are you holding back?”

  “Lexy, please…” I hold out a hand to stop her. “I don’t want to fight right now. I’m too tired and I feel too weird.”

  “No, your cousin is right.” Aiden sits back, his grip on me loosening. I don’t like that—I want to be held in his arms again but somehow I can’t say so.

  “What…what do you mean?” I ask softly.

  “There are things I haven’t told you.” He looks down at the flagstones, the curving circle still half filled with his blood. “Things I haven’t shared. But only because I wanted to spare you pain.”

  “What things?” I don’t want to know but my mouth forms the words anyway. “What…what are you talking about? Please, Aiden, I need to know.”

  Aiden sighs heavily and releases his hold on me completely. I feel so cold without him near me but I’m afraid to get close, afraid of what he might say.

  “I never told you that you were related to Katherine because I didn’t want to tell you about the night I first saw you,” he says.

  “You mean…the first time you came into my shop?” I asked, confused.

  He shakes his head. “No, darling, I met you long before that. You just didn’t remember me. And I had almost managed to forget about you as well—until I walked into your shop. But the first time I laid eyes on you was fourteen years ago on the night your house burned to the ground.”

  “What?” I look at him in disbelief. “But how…why…?”

  “I’ll tell you everything.” He looks defeated and tired, as though he’s suddenly feeling every year of his immense age. “Though you will not like it and you may hate me when I’m through.”

  A sudden thought occurs to me. “Aiden, you told me that Katherine was a virgin before you found her being…attacked. But somehow I’m her direct descendant so she must have had a baby.” I feel sick. “Please tell me you’re not my great, great, great grandfather or something creepy like that.”

  “No.” Aiden looks startled. “No, of course not. The baby girl she had was as a result of the rape. I wanted to keep her and raise her but Katherine refused. The baby was a constant reminder—she wanted nothing to do with her.” His expression turns sad. “We placed her with a childless couple who desperately wanted her. I didn’t think about the blood tie I had to her—to all of Katherine’s descendants—until that terrible night I first saw you.”

  “Blood tie?” I ask, frowning.

  “When a vampire takes enough of your blood, it forms a kind of bond,” Lexy lectures. “Depending on the type and quantity of blood they take, the bond can be very strong—even lasting across centuries and generations.”

  “True.” Aiden nods. “I was bound to Katherine by her blood,” he says, a faraway look in his eyes. “I loved her so much I wanted to die when she did, so I went to ground, hoping to sleep away the pain.”

  “I know about that,” I say.

  He nods. “When I went to ground, I still had Katherine’s blood in me—the way I had your blood in me tonight. It formed a bond to her next of kin—the little girl she gave away. She must have lived a quiet life and her daughter after her and her daughter as well, because none of them ever disturbed my slumber.

  “Then, one night over a hundred years after my beloved Katherine died, I felt a calling—a tugging inside me. It was almost as though someone had tied a cord around my heart and was pulling as hard as she could.”

  “The blood tie,” I whisper and Aiden nods.

  “Your mother knew, darling,” he says. “I don’t know how—maybe she researched your family tree. But she knew I was bound to Katherine and her descendants and she called me up from the grave to save her and her little girl.”

  He puts a hand to his face and I sense that what he has to say next is hard for him. “I came as soon as I was roused but I couldn’t save your mother—I’m so sorry. I don’t blame you if you hate me for that. But I did manage to bring you to safety. I put you in your aunt’s arms before I left.”

  “That night,” I whisper. “I always dream about that night…” Suddenly The Dream comes back to me. Its details are vivid and for the first time, I can remember it all. The man with the deep, kind voice and white hands, the one who shielded me from the flames and saved me from the man with the slotted yellow eyes…it was Aiden. He was there for me from the first!

  “But…” I shake my head in confusion. “If you were there, you must know how the fire started. And who was the man you saved me from? Was it…?”

  “It was Sanchez,” Grant says. “He told me he’d been sent once before to get you, back when your power first started manifesting, early on when you were a child. The vampires wanted your blood to mend the spell, which was already in bad shape, even fourteen years ago.”

  “Sanchez…” So that’s why when I see him I always smell burning and hear weeping. I shiver. “That bastard.” I ball my hands into fists. “I’ll kill him! Is he the one who set fire to my house?”

  Grant frowns. “No—at least he says he wasn’t. According to him he went to your house but your mother intercepted him. They had words and fought—she managed to drive him away, back into the yard. He claims the fire started on the second story—he saw witch-flames shooting up the curtains in one of the bedrooms and then suddenly the whole place was ablaze.”

  “Witch-flames?” I feel sick and dizzy. I look down at my fingers and see the crackle of blue sparks shooting from their tips. The Dream peels away like a piece of protective film that’s been covering my mind. Suddenly I realize that its safe fuzziness has been protecting me, keeping me from knowing, from understanding what really happened that night.

  “Emma—” Aiden puts a hand out to me but I shake him off.

  “Me,” I whisper, balling my crackling, dangerous hands into fists and stuffing them under my arms. “I’m the one who started the fire. I heard them arguing and I thought he wanted to hurt my mom—I didn’t know he was after me. So I called the flames. I…I wanted to throw them at him but somehow they got out of control. Oh Goddess…” I put my head in my hands, no longer caring if I set my hair on fire, as sobs rise to choke me. “I killed her—she sacrificed herself for me because she knew the fire had to be satisfied. The fire I called.”

  “Oh, Emma, hon…” Lexy puts her arms around me. At first I resist but then I wrap my arms around her neck and bawl.

  It all makes sense now. The way I couldn’t find my magic and thought I was a dud. It was because I’d buried it, hidden it along with the horrible memory of the night my mother died. Because I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to admit to myse