Page 40 of Dark Flame
In this, I’ll win. Asshole’s so sure of himself and his threats. “Go ahead, there’s no one left. Your threats mean little, Alec. Threaten to kill me next? I’ll welcome the escape.”
The vampire leans back, his tongue flicking against a fang again. Only this time, his eyes flash red too, menacingly. “Then I’ll transform you into a vampire and force you to live as an immortal for the next few centuries. I’ll be right there every step of the way, keeping you alive. So unless that’s the future you secretly desire, tell me what happened to your parents.”
Fifteen
ALEC
Very few mortals chase vampirism.Many end up getting turned when becoming victim to a vampire’s boredom, loneliness, or when feeding accidentally goes too far.
The case of myself was linked to a larger ploy, so my situation doesn’t fall into any of those.
My threat to Sinclair is under the same category. If she pisses me off to the point I’ll be forced to keep her around for a few centuries, it certainly won’t be out of boredom or loneliness. The thought of dealing with her ass for any longer than fifty years makes me want to rip my own head off.
But I will if she doesn’t start opening up about her damned family.
Her teeth nibble on the corner of her bottom lip, making the skin red, and my own hunger increases. She looks away and knots her hands together in the blanket, tugging it a bit higher over her. When returning earlier, I noticed she replaced the dress for her dirty pyjamas, and I wish I had them removed from the bathroom. They reek, for one, burning my nose—not that the dress held up much better down below—but she looked nicer in it.
Nicer?What a strange thought. There’s nothing remotely nice about this witch.
She sighs, but it’s in no way relaxing as she twists back to face me, her jaw tight and set with a resoluteness. “Fine, you want everything, asshole? To make me relive the single most painful day of my life? One night, two vampires somehow got through my parents’ wards. They were fighting them, but their magick and the vampires’ abilities were equally matched. My dad told me to run, so I started to. When I was nearly outside, my mom screamed. I couldn’t leave them. Couldn’t run and save myself knowing it could have been their deaths. I was fully into my powers and Mom had the cure too, so it’s not like I was anything special. I stayed to help, channelling everything I had into my attack. But it was too much…” She drops her hands, and I find myself leaning forward. Her next words are a whisper, her tone scraping with the kind of pain only sorrow can create. “My magick took over. Sinclairs, as I assume you know, are fire witches, and I…I accidentally lit the house on fire. It was chaos. It burned the vampires…but also my parents.”
Harlow Sinclair and I have something in common, because I, too, killed my parents. Only, I never cried over it.
A tear slips down her cheek, and it’s like that little, salty drop punches me in the gut. A cough travels halfway up my throat, the sensation itchy and irritating. A fuckingcough? I haven’t had those since my days as a mortal.
“It was an accident,” she whispers. More tears linger by her lavender irises. “I think they tried to put it out, I don’t know. It was too much, though.”
Two fire witches couldn’t put out the flames? I’d never known a Sinclair to get so weak, even during an attack, that they were overwhelmed. With two of them working together, the blaze should have been out instantly.
“The barrier?”
She shrugs, except her shoulders are already so low with grief, it doesn’t make much of a difference. “Appeared afterwards. The fire died down, and other than a few soot marks, the house was fine. Magick, I suppose.” She attempts to smile, but it’s fake, fragile and watery at best. “I was left with two piles of ash from the vampires, my dead parents, whose bodies were burnt beyond recognition, a barrier that erected itself around the property, no magick, and shadows that continue to torture me. I spent days afterwards trying to figure it all out, and the only thing I got is that my fear channelled too much magick—somuch that it exploded, burned everything, and erected the barrier before draining me. That barrier became my final act as a witch.”
I’ve tuned her final few sentences out, lingering back on her mention of shadows. I do a quick study of the room, noting nothing different. Nothing like she’s talking about. Miss Sinclair’s trauma has manifested into something greater, I wonder. Something she’s imagining.
“Have you tried to get your powers back?”
“In between the grief and ongoing tears and self-hatred?” She scoffs, her sarcastic tone returning somewhat to normal. “Nope. Not until the first night you left me downstairs.”
Freya said a big emotion could trigger her magick. It was grief that got rid of it, so grief to return it? That seems counterintuitive.
Or was it fear she felt in the moment of losing them? She was scared for her family and fought back. If it’s fear that’ll trigger her powers, then it’s a task I’m content to take on.
Sinclair continues crying, every once in a while glancing towards the lamp in the far corner when she wipes her face. The tears leave wet lines on her cheeks that make me want to murder something. Despite who she is, seeing her cry seems…wrong.
I toss a sealed granola bar her way, followed by the water she can quench her thirst with. They land in her lap, earning a raised brow followed by another attempt at a smirk, this one a bit stronger.
Before she can ask—and before I can analyze my own actions—I mutter, “You’ve earned it.”
She rips into the bar, eagerly taking a bite, her next words a mumble around the food. My mother would have once had me beaten if I spoke with my mouth full. Everyone in my life was so proper—still is, I suppose. Miss Sinclair is refreshing. She’s something.
Something that’ll send me to Hell if I’m not careful how I handle her and this situation.
“You’re a strange vampire, Alec Dormer.”
“You’re a strange witch, Harlow Sinclair.” A witch without magick. A witch who doesn’t look at me like I’m about to eat her. That, too, is refreshing. To be around her and not have her flinching in fear or sobbing constantly. Her fear might smell appealing, but if she cried every minute down below, I might have ended her life to shut her up. Her personality has made her semi-manageable.
She pauses mid-chew. “That’s, like, the second time you’ve ever said my given name.”
