Isadora (Masters Among Monsters Book 2) (2 page)

ELIAS STARED DOWN at the woman—
no, vampire
—bound to his office chair.
 

For the past several hours, he’d told himself that what he was doing was right. That
this
was his calling—what he’d been created for. Even though, somewhere in the pit of his stomach, it felt…wrong.
 

Seeing Isadora suffer didn’t feel as right as he’d thought it would. But, then again, he’d never expected to know the one he was supposed to end.
 

That little tidbit was left out of my fucking life prophecy, wasn’t it?
 

Over the last few hours, as the life—
or whatever they have
—drained out of her, he found himself wanting to set her free. Her color had turned from that lovely porcelain hue he’d once loved seeing splayed across his sheets to a ghastly grey, and her eyes appeared as though they’d sunken into her head. Shadows surrounded them now. Not the light-blueish shadows one usually gets when they haven’t slept in days, but dark, nasty-looking blemishes—as if he’d punched her. And, in a sense, he had, hadn’t he?

Not only had he taken her prisoner, he’d stabbed someone she knew in the throat and left him for dead. All so he could get some fucking answers before he completed the task given to him.
 

Was that really the truth though? He wasn’t even sure. Because, if it were, wouldn’t he have already ended this?
 

Earlier, he’d gone in search of Leo to try to mend the broken fences between them after their disastrous morning meeting. What he hadn’t expected was for the man’s office door to have been opened by Isadora Nikitas.
 

 
It was hard to believe that it’d been nearly eleven years since they’d parted—and not much longer since they’d begun. But that was exactly how long it had been.
 

Back then, he’d been naïve enough to believe they’d felt the same for one another. For six months, she’d been the axis of his world. He’d done everything he could to free up the hours, minutes—
hell, even seconds
—to see her. If he were honest, though, it had always felt as though they’d stolen their time together. There were hurried nights, days apart, but he was led to believe that it was due to both of their demanding careers, which were just beginning. He was a university teacher, and she was midway through her medical internship at the local hospital.
 

Well, that is until she unexpectedly got transferred and practically disappeared overnight.
What a nice little lie
that
had been,
Elias thought with a sneer.
 

Her disappearance from his life had been as abrupt as her arrival in it. But her reappearance
now
was like a physical blow, one he hadn’t yet recovered from.
 

Since she was as stunning as when they’d first met, Elias had immediately wanted to reach out and see if she was real. That was before everything had fallen the fuck apart. When the hair on his arms had risen, his spine had begun to tingle and his eyes… They’d seemed to film over. That was when he’d seen her for the monster she really was.

Damn her,
he thought as he inspected the woman whose black hair was hanging like a curtain from her bowed head to her knees. Damn her for being the one he could never forget. And the one he was destined to destroy.

ISADORA…

THERE IT was again. Diomêdês calling for her. And just like earlier, there was no way she could go. She briefly wondered what Elias was scheming since he hadn’t yet killed her, but with her head pounding, she gave up on thinking at all. No matter what he thought he was going to accomplish, the fact that he’d kept her alive told her one thing.

He had a weakness and she was it.

With a groan she raised her head, and when she managed to get her chin in the air, her hair fell back from her face and she saw the man who’d once forced his way into her lifeless heart. He was seated behind his desk, looking her over with conflicted, silver eyes. But, when hers met them, they hardened as if he’d reminded himself of his true mission. One where he didn’t doubt himself, where he knew his role.
 

That of the enemy.

“It’s true, then, what the legends say…”

Isadora didn’t even have the energy to ask what he was talking about.

“That silver will kill you over hours, but it’s instant if your heart is removed from your chest or your head is on the floor. Considering your kind pays little heed to what your brain tells you, it really makes me wonder if you even possess a heart.”

Elias was doing a damn good job with the intimidation tactics as he curled his fingers into tight fists. She, however, would not be intimidated—not by him. Instead, she narrowed her eyes on the self-righteous ass and wondered where his low opinion of her actually came from. He hadn’t been this way when they’d first met.
 

She licked her cracked lips and forced out, “Is this where you expect me to beg for my freedom? Beg for my life, Elias?”

As he got to his feet, she kept vigilant eyes on him. Once he’d walked over towards her, he leaned down until they were only inches apart and gave her a smile so full of malice that it reminded her of…Diomêdês.
 

Yes
, the arrogance and confidence in that expression was exactly the kind she had seen many times over in her sire—right before a kill.
 

Then Elias said something that had the fight blazing back to life inside her.

“No, Isadora. I want you to beg for
his
. Though I’m not sure you care enough about anyone beyond yourself to do that, do you?”

She knew exactly who he meant. He’d said it once before, but she wasn’t leaving this twisted mindfuck up to chance.
 

“Who?”

Elias straightened and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t play coy. It doesn’t suit you. You know, I always wondered when we were together if there was someone else. Your job, yes—that was a good excuse to always be gone back in the day. Something demanding, for sure. Especially the hours you kept. But not letting me bring you lunch or come and pick you up because you had a dictator for a boss? Well, that’s all starting to make sense now. Isn’t it? Tell me. What would your precious sire have done if he’d known you were fucking
me
at every opportunity you could get? I suppose not much, since your kind is incapable of any sort of emotional connection.”

She hissed and struggled to push up out of the chair. When she remained in the same frustrating position she started in, she said, “Fuck you. You have no idea what you speak of.”

As he uncrossed his arms, she shrank back into the seat. Then he gripped her chin, and as he tilted her face up, his eyes dropped to the pendant fastened around her neck. Abruptly, he released her and ran his fingers over the golden rose. The one he’d given her three months into their relationship.
 

“You kept this. Why?”

She stubbornly kept her mouth shut as she continued to glare up at him. “I told you. You know not what you speak of.”

His lips twisted as he took a step back and shook his head. “Ahh, but there’s the catch. I do know what I’m talking about now. I know all about you, Isadora.”

“You’re sick,” she spat out at him, but it was no use.
 

He was determined. Determined to fulfill whatever fucked-up plight he was on.

“No, Isadora. Not sick. Just as you have a driving instinct to kill any and all humans, I’m merely doing what I was born to.”

“And what’s that?”

“Eliminate you,” he said in an icy tone.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her mind to continue to function. “You’re so angry,” she said, mourning the loss of the man she’d once known. “You weren’t like that when we first met. Who made you that way?” If she was to die here at the hands of
this
man, she wanted to know why he hated her—and kill whoever had made it so. “Is it because you feel betrayed, Elias? Do you really think you are the first person to ever be deceived? To be disappointed by someone?”
 

When one of his eyebrows rose in disbelief, she gave a crazed chuckle. “You don’t know what real betrayal feels like,
human
.”

As she snarled the final word at him, he gripped the back of her neck, forcing her to look at him. “Don’t I,
vampire
?”

“No,” she bit out, a fire refueling her resentment at her impending death. “Real betrayal can only be felt when you love someone.”
 

Elias held her stare without wavering.
 

“And we both know that you never loved me.”

“Says who?” Then he blinked several times, shocked at what he’d said, and a tense silence stretched between them. It seemed to last hours, not seconds.

Just as she started to drift back towards unconsciousness, she whispered, “You never said…”

His eyes, those strange and beautiful eyes of his, softened for a millisecond. Then they once again hardened.
 

“If your kind had the capability
to
love,” he said, “then you would’ve felt it.”

She flinched, wanting to tell him that they
could
feel. It was just different. The instincts that drove her were more basic. They were ingrained in her very being to survive, not to care. Whereas the emotions he wanted to see, she had long since denied. Buried them the night she had been turned.
 

As his breath floated across her lips, her eyes slid shut and she drifted… Drifted far, far away with the memory of what they’d once been lingering in her mind.

Present Day—Alasdair’s bedchambers

ALASDAIR KYRIAKOUS LOOKED over to where his human yielding lay stretched out beneath his Ancient and marveled at the predicament he now faced.
 

The depraved image on his bed had his cock standing at full attention as he walked closer to the scene that was unraveling. A feeding. And not just any feeding. One between the most formidable of their kind, Vasilios, and a human who he wasn’t fully convinced was human at all.

Tension filled the bedchamber, and Alasdair understood that one wrong move, one misspoken word, and the man he’d had his dick inside minutes earlier would be dead before he ever found out what he really was.
 

Although Vasilios was fully clothed, he was a shocking sight to behold. Covered in blood from the earlier butchery in Thanos’s chambers, he appeared every bit the savage he was. But that didn’t seem to faze Leonidas Chapel. Even naked and vulnerable as the man currently was, Leo was still enraptured by Vasilios.

Alasdair had previously suspected it, but that right there was proof positive. The sinful, wicked side of their nature, the killer instincts they possessed, intrigued this human. With every new detail Leo learned, he became more attracted and more involved. So much so that, when his life had been in danger, he’d offered them the use of him in any way they desired.
 

Leo was fearless.
 

Much like he himself had been when he had been mortal, and that made Alasdair…protective.
 

“Vasilios,” he said.

When his sire pivoted towards him, Alasdair had to tread carefully.

“Yes,
agóri
?”

Fuck
, he knew that tone. It was Vasilios’s version of
you dare interrupt me?
 

“Be mindful,” Alasdair said. “He is not like other humans.”

“Which is exactly the reason this must be done. This way, we will know where he is, what he is thinking, and I can bring him to me whenever I desire…” Vasilios turned back to Leo and trailed the tip of his bloodied finger along his cheek.
 

Leo’s lips parted.
 

“Wouldn’t that be a treat for you, human? To come to me—and for me—whenever I command it?”

Alasdair’s cock throbbed under Vasilios’s sensual tone, and when Leo arched off the bed, he knew that the invitation was affecting him in much the same way. He didn’t need to verbally respond—Leo’s body was speaking for him.