Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 51

Hi!

I can't believe the weekend's already over. Then again, this means it's time for another update, and I was eager to finalize this chapter - I absolutely loved going over this again! So I really hope you enjoy it as much as I did :-) Let me know!

Lara

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Chapter 51

I blinked, and suddenly Alexander was only inches away from me. He reached out, picked up a strand of my hair, and twirled it between his fingers. I held my breath, unable to respond or react in any kind of way. He let the strand fall through his fingers, eyes flashing up to meet mine fully.

Blue mirrors – dark and glassy. Void of emotion. I saw it in his eyes: the cold indifference of a being that had seen centuries pass by and lived in the knowledge that there were yet many more to come. How Laura could have ever thought that there was some sort of compassion inside of him – even compassion for me – was a complete mystery. All those times he pretended to care for me, moments in which he acted like he was trying to comfort me, had been nothing but one big fat lie. His interest in me had been self-serving; entertainment; something to pass time. Nothing more. For I was expendable. And he wanted me to know that.

Wordlessly he started pacing a circle around me, and it took all I had not to turn with him – that would have meant showing a weakness I didn’t quite feel I could afford having. If you feel the eyes of a vampire as powerful as the head vampire turned on you, if you feel the century old weight of knowledge and power beating against your skin, it’s all you can do not to run. The flight instinct is overpowering and violent, knocking down carefully built walls of reason. As it turned out my walls had been worn out to the point of being paper-thin.

“Your existence means nothing to me, little witch. It is only of importance as long as you serve your purpose. As long as you are a tool I can use, I will make use of you. If you, however, turn into a tool without purpose, your existence becomes expendable,” he said from somewhere behind. “Give me one good reason why I should not enact the usual and proper punishment. Tell me why I should not kill you, right here and now.” He was behind me. I could feel the coldness of his skin as he leaned into my back, whispering into my ear. “Tell me why I should put up with what you have done.”

My back was a crawling mess of sensations, adorned with a colony of goose bumps that had settled there for good. In that moment I realized I had been living in the certainty that, no matter what, Alexander wouldn’t hurt me. Processing the thought disabled something in my brain.

He stepped back and started pacing again only to come to a halt directly in front of me.

“Tell me why I should keep your betrayal a secret. Why I should refrain from informing Gustav Brown and the Circle, and most importantly the vampire community about your intentions. Give me a reason to lie for you, little witch, and do it fast. My patience is running out.”

I stared at him blank-faced. My ability to speak, gone. The strangest thought crossed my mind. Alexander was looking at me in a different way than anyone else ever had. For the first time I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t seen before. A truth that touched myself in ways I couldn’t speak of.

When I stepped into that clearing in Boyd Park, I did it with iron-clad purpose, grim determination, and the certain knowledge that what I was doing was right. A knowledge uncontestable; a belief impossible to rattle. Not only that it crumbled – whatever I thought I once believed turned itself inside out and morphed into its opposite.