CHAPTER NINE: Visions of Blood
Maya's pov
Vincent's breath is warm on my face, his eyes scanning over my eyes with an intensity that could weaken the knees. The mate bond buzzes between us like a live wire, and his wolf prods at mine, demanding to come forward, demanding to be accepted.
"Try me," I say again, my voice barely audible in the electric air between us.
For one instant, I thought he might just retreat. His jaw sets, and in front of his eyes, the war being fought between how much he has to trust me and whatever he absolutely must keep hidden underground is being fought at full speed.
Suddenly...
A wave slams me, heaving me on my knees with images battering at my brain like a tidal wave. This wasn't like the first one, it was something else, something raw and utterly terrifying.
*Blood. So much blood.*
*The world is bathed in it, black and wet-looking in the moon. By the tree-trunks lie bodies scattered around--man-shaped wolves, eyes rigid and dead-looking, necks ripped open by teeth and claws.*
*I see Rhain first, his giant body struggling against downed log. His chest works in shallow, laboring breaths, scarlet foam bubbles from his lips. Three successive gashes mark his side from shoulder to hip, deep enough to show the bone.*
*"Maya," he whispers, pointing down some direction in which I'm not glancing. "Maya, run."*
*I'm not here. I'm watching from some safe place somewhere as the man who protected me surrenders to death by himself. While in standing there blinking in fear and hurt.*
*The scene changes, and now I'm looking at Marcus. My Marcus, whose hands were once smooth and whose eyes were once warm and bright whose smile once made me forget the rest of the world. But the Marcus before me now is different, an older Marcus, one more defined by lines of anger and lines of loss.*
*He looms over Rhain's body, the knife suspended in his hand. His clothes in tatters, his body battered in places wounds ought to have killed him. He's, however, on his feet, but struggling, but managing to remain alive.*
"Not your business," he growls, and I know he's not saying it to Rhain. He's saying it to someone other than Rhain, someone whose presence I sense but whose presence I do not see. "She never had to be in this. You were to keep your distance from her."*
*"She loved me."" Marcus's voice cracks on the words. "She loved me, and you killed that. You killed everything."*
*"This one's different." Vincent steps out from behind the corner, and I glance at what he has been in this dream, he was beyond wolf, beyond man. His eyes blaze with power which makes the air undulate, shadows writhe around him like they're living. "I saved her. I saved her from the kind of life you would give to her. From living less than she's worth."*
*Marcus holds the knife high, but his hand is trembling. "You murdered her soul. You tied her to you against her consent, and now she's just the specter of the woman she once was." I stumbled backwards a little. What did he mean?
*"She's just what I created her."* The words in the smooth, even calming voice, but in them is the moment where my blood sets. *"My perfect mate. My weapon. My salvation."*
*The vision shatters, and I'm treated to flashes of other images, other wars, other killlings. Wolves I know, pack wolves whom I have lived with for years, all of them battered and bleeding and crouching down for mercy.*
*Mired in the middle of it is the sound of my voice screaming, calling out names to deaf ears. i'm there, but i'm not there. There but powerless. Watching everyone i ever cared for die from what i myself became.*
*I see my own face last, deathily pale and sunken eyes, by the side of Vincent as he stares down at the devastation. No emotion in my face, no recognition as i gaze at the bodies of my friends. Only vacant recognition of the monster that i am.*
"Maya!"
Vincent's voice cuts the images like a knife and brings me back to the present by bitter force. I am on the floor of the hallway, my body trembling as the end of the images washes from my mind. My throat is burning and I know that I have been screaming.
"Maya, look at me." Vincent's hands cup my face, his thumbs erase the tears falling down my face even though I don't know they're falling. "It's not real. Whatever you saw, it's not real."
I struggle to speak, but the words will not come. The image hangs in my mind like smoke, and the scent of the blood lingers, along with the sound of Marcus's battered voice as he described what I had become.
"Tell me what you saw," Vincent dictates, his voice assuming the alpha tone brooking no disrespect. "Now."
I hang my head, my hands over my mouth to keep those words from spilling from them. Because I couldn't say it to him. Couldn't make him realize the way I have seen what we might one day be, what this relationship will cost us all.
"Maya." His voice is gentle now, worried. "You must tell me. Those images, they're not coincidences. It's bringing them to you for a purpose."
I regard him, and for one moment, i regard the man whom eons back, i loved. The one whose hand once cradled me amidst nightmares, the one whose hand once teased me even as the world became darker than i was capable of tolerating. But the memories of the Vincent in my dream come rushing back to me, cold, ungovernable, insulting me by names as if i were nothing more than one to play the violin on.
"I cannot," I say again in a soft voice, barely breaking. "I cannot say."
Vin's face freezes like stone. "Can't or won't?"
"Both." I get to my feet, my legs trembling in the aftershock of the vision. "Some secrets are dangerous to share, right? That's what you said, isn't it?"
Vincent's eyes constrict, and I know the instant he figures out I'm turning his words back on him. "This is different. This is your safety."
"Is it?" I back away from him, my back against the closed door. "Or is it you're afraid your perfect weapon might jam?"
"You're not a weapon..."
"Aren't I?" The words come out harsher than they did in my mind, and Vincent flinches. "That's how you referred to me in the vision. Your weapon. Your salvation. Tell me, Vincent, is that how you think you feel about me?"
For what seems like forever, we simply regard one another in the barren hallway. The mate bond shines between us, but now it seems odd, it's tainted by the realization of what we would one day be.
You're going back to your room ," says Vincent finally, his tone perfectly neutral. "You must rest."
I would complain, insist on answers, press him to tell me what's being done to me. The hallucination has exhausted me, and the only thing I'm doing is remain on my feet. So I allow myself to be led back by the twisting corridors, by the softly-spoken servants and the watching portraits, on the way to my room.
I'm left at the door, in the silence, and I fall down onto the bed in full dress. The image replays over and over in my brain like a scratched record...Marcus dead, Rhain bleeding, Vincent referring to me like I'm just some possession to be owned.
I must have dozed because the next thing I know is the sound of someone gently tapping at the door. Into the room walks one of the maids, bringing in the silver tray, her eyes downcast as she sets it beside the bedside.
"There's been a message for you, Luna" she says softly. "The messenger said it was important."
I sat down, my chest racing. A letter? Who would know where to look for me? Who would dare to go to Vincent's mate?
The envelope is white, blank except for the familiar script of my name. A writing that causes my breath to catch in my throat.
Marcus.
I wait until the servant has closed the door behind her before ripping the envelope open in nervous hands. There is one sheet of paper inside, and the words on the paper make the blood in my veins run cold.
*Maya*
*I know you hate me now. I know you believe I betrayed you, sold you to Vincent to save myself. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps the coward you believe me to be is the one you perceive.*
*I want you to know, though, that, all of what I did, was to stop you from getting hurt. The love we shared never was real, you were right to question it. The way I exercised power was to instill in you the delusion you were in love with me to prevent you from being seduced by Vincent. I thought that if you were mine, completely mine, he would never dare touch you.*
*I was wrong in all regards.*
*Vincent's not only back from the dead, Maya. He's more than that even now. Whatever he never ought to have become. The necromancy to bring him back, it's poisoned him to the point where he craves death and destruction. And the control he's been imposing on you, it's not of love nor fate nor destiny.*
*It's power. Your power. You're not only an Omega-bonded, you're more than that. More than even you know. Able to redefine the supernatural world with the flick of your mind. And Vincent understands that.*
*You're being utilized, Maya. Utilized by your emotions, by your loyalty to other alphas to wage war where he's the only surviving power. Every death, every fight, every lifeless drop of blood reinforces him. And you're the one to provoke it all.
*I'm coming for you. Whatever it will cost me, whatever I will have to sacrifice. I'm not going to let him make you the weapon he wants to use to kill us all.*
*Trust no one. Not Vincent, not the disciples, not your instincts either. The attachment is poisoning what you are, how you feel. Don't give in to it, Maya. Don't give in to him.*
*And if you cannot.*
*If you're unable to fight him, you know what to do.*
*I'm sorry for it all. For lying, for playing games, for not being hard enough to kill you in the times you needed me to be strongest. But I will not let you down once again.*
*I love you. For you, not the woman he's making out of you. And I will earn you back to me.*
*Yours Always *
Marcus
The paper slips from my trembling hands onto the floor like some dying thing. Outside the window behind me, the thunder storms in the distance, and the storm I have been waiting for has arrived. And caught in the middle of the action.