Destructive Embrace (2 page)

“
Vivere commune est; sed non commune mereri
,” I whispered, prying my hand off the banister. Numbness
began to spread through my body, starting with my chest. “Reid
deserved to live.” Slowly all emotions drained from me, and I was
calm, uncaring.

A small voice in the back
of my mind whispered that I should care; that the best part about
being a vampire – not caring – was not the best route for me. But
the rest of me shoved that voice into a dark corner.
Right now, I desperately need to not feel any of
this
, I thought.

“He’s gone.”

The words echoed over and
over in my mind as I wandered through the castle. I was numb. How
could my lively baby brother be dead?

I heard shuffling coming
from around the corner and immediately made myself invisible. It
was that human girl, Roxann. Silently, I headed in the opposite
direction, keeping my mind blank until she was out of my
range.

Roxann was Zeke’s
plaything, right? I had no doubt in my mind that Zeke was involved
in the death of my brother, and feared that I would attack his
human pet in retaliation.

I was nearly to the stairs
that would take me to the quiet of my tower when I sensed Olivia’s
presence.
Shit
, I
thought, closing our bond before she could figure out where I was
or what I was thinking about; what I was feeling. There was a
chance that she would be able to catch my scent and follow me, but
I didn’t have a choice but to take that risk. Plus, when I got to
the garden, her ability to scent me should be impaired by the
different aromas in the garden.

As I high-tailed it to the
gardens, I realized that I shouldn’t be in my room, anyway; it was
where Elyssa told me about Reid.

“Reid,” I whispered as I
emerged into the garden. It was the middle of the night, and the
moon’s light made a bush of white roses seem to glow.

As I took in the section
of the garden, I laughed once.
Of course.
My luck…

I was in the part of the
garden that Reid’s storm had hit the hardest. The one area of my
garden that would remind me of him. I dropped my invisibility as
the first tears fell.

“Why?” I asked. I shuffled
further into the garden, thrashing out at plants as I passed them
by. The destruction didn’t help me, but I didn’t want the remaining
beauty to be there when my brother wasn’t.

A noise nearby in the
castle startled me, and I whirled around in time to see the doors
I’d emerged from open once more. It was Olivia. Apparently I hadn’t
gotten away from her as I’d hoped to.

She eyed me warily, and I
glanced down at myself. All covered in dirt and bits of plants, I
was a mess. Ollie, on the other hand, looked impeccable as
usual.
Maybe she’s scared of how I
look
, I thought hopefully, feeling bad for
the thought right away.

“Dmitri,” she said,
frowning at me. I scowled at her tone: impatient, like me not
volunteering my problems was a waste of
her
time.

Please
.

She crossed her arms over
her chest, apparently realizing that I wasn’t going to be
forthcoming with my issues. “What is going on?”

"Maybe if you were around
more, you would fucking know, Olivia!" I snapped at her, hissing as
she began to step toward me. She immediately stopped in her tracks,
and I smirked. Finally, she was taking me seriously. I'd hoped I
wouldn't have to scare her, but whatever needed to be done to make
her see things in a different light, so be it.

Olivia narrowed her eyes
and bared her fangs at me. The action was supposed to be
threatening, but I just laughed. She was my Mate. I'd made her, and
she was no match for my strength; not at her young age, not being
my inferior. "Give it up," I told her with a smirk. "You are no
match for me as my Mate, darling."

She scowled at me like it
would make a difference. "What is your problem?" she asked, huffing
like the brat she'd always claimed not to be.

I shook my head. "Like I
said, Ollie. If you were around more, maybe you would actually
know. I shouldn't have to explain things to you every time
something new comes up. Do some digging. You have a lot of
potential, if you'd just try," I told her. My tone said that I
couldn't give a damn if she tapped into her potential, but I was
testing her.
Let’s see if you care
enough
, I thought.

"But you're my Mate,"
Olivia told me softly. She furrowed her eyebrows and a frown
touched her lips. "You're supposed to be able to turn to me when
you're in trouble or when you need something."

"What do I need?!" I
snapped at her, taking a step toward her. She was doing a good job
of pissing me off, stepping into an area where I didn't want her
trotting. Having her as a Mate wasn't turning out to be anything
good.

She appeared taken aback,
and she opened her mouth to speak, only to close it once more.
After a moment, she tried again. "You need to talk to your Mate
about your problems," she whispered. Her soft voice and seemingly
calm exterior didn't fool me. I could read her like a book, and she
was beginning to boil, same as I was.

"No. I need for my Mate –
who should have my best interest in mind – to leave me the hell
alone while I grieve the loss of my little brother!" I clenched my
jaw shut as I realized what I'd said. "It isn't your business,
Ollie," I told her, rendering myself invisible once
more.

I left the area silently
and quickly, moving too fast for her to be able to keep up with me.
I needed to be alone more than anything. Or, I needed to be with
someone who cared about more than painting and sex.
If anything
, I
thought,
I should be with my
family...

But who actually knew? If
Zeke really had anything to do with Reid's death, as I suspected,
then I wouldn't want to be around him. Did Wyatt even
know?

The only person that I was
certain knew about Reid's death was Elyssa... But I couldn't handle
being near her. She planned to leave the castle. I wasn't sure when
she would actually leave, or if she would really visit when she was
gone, but I knew I couldn't handle losing her – my only real friend
– right after losing my little brother. My favorite
brother.

More tears stung my eyes
and I swiped at them furiously. I wanted to be alone. But maybe
Ollie was right – maybe that wasn't what I needed. But there was no
one I could visit.

An image of Reid's body
entered my mind. He was lying on his bed. His expression was
peaceful, like he was just sleeping... If it weren't for the blood
everywhere, and the obvious wound in his chest, I would have
assumed that he died naturally. Even vampires could die in their
sleep if they were old enough.

I wondered who had stabbed
him in the heart. Who had the cowardice to do such a thing to him?
I thought back to the problems that were going on around the
castle. Tywin had possessed Reid's body and had been wreaking havoc
on his life for who knew how long. It was despicable... Maybe
stabbing him was to put him out of his misery?

The mess that Elyssa was
in. Her hair caked with blood... It was Reid's blood. Did that mean
Elyssa had been the one to drive the blade into Reid's heart? I
couldn't imagine that. She loved him so much...

I sighed. I was getting
nowhere in my lonely musing. I needed to get out of the castle, to
go somewhere else. But where?

I hadn't had fresh blood in
a long time. It was always the bottled blood that we had at the
castle. Donated blood from vampire-obsessed humans who desperately
craved the lifestyle we had. I didn't like feeding on humans, for
the simple fact that it was messy and one had to be certain that
they didn't leave behind any memory of the action.

That, or just kill
them.

The memory of fresh human
blood entered my mind, and my body craved it. My throat burned with
longing at the memory or the taste.

So I headed out into town,
to a bar where I could find a human to feed on.

The trip was uneventful,
everything going according to plan. My first hunting trip in fifty
years, and it was perfect. I might have considered it to be boring,
but with the things going on back at the castle, having at least
one thing go off without a hitch was good.

It was nearly dawn when I
returned to the castle. The silence was stifling, so I headed to
Reid’s section of the castle, ignoring the painful twinge I got, in
search of Elyssa.

After searching the whole
area, I cursed. Where the hell was she, if she wasn’t there? Could
she have moved into my area? Or Wyatt’s?

I frowned. “Or Zeke’s?” I
asked aloud. There was no way. He’d beaten her. She hated him –
didn’t she?

She had to hate him. There
wasn't really another answer that was plausible. If Elyssa didn't
hate Zeke – who'd drugged her on her first night here, along with
beating her later down the road – then she was crazy. So when I
stepped into the main hall and caught a whiff of her scent leading
down the hallway beneath the stairs, I shook my head. Elyssa was
crazy, for sure.

I followed her scent to the
room she chose, and knocked once. I heard grumbling on the other
side of the door and chuckled quietly. Still the same old grumpy
Elyssa. When she threw the door open, eyes fixed in a dangerous
glare, the laughter fell from my face. She looked more vampiric
than I'd ever seen her.

"Elyssa," I said quietly.
She lifted her eyebrows and made a motion with her hands for me to
get on with it. I frowned. "What the hell is wrong with
you?"

"Absolutely nothing,
Dmitri," she trilled, turning on the spot to traipse over to her
bed. The springs groaned as she sat down, and I followed her into
the room, glad that I'd fed on fresh blood. If it was what it
looked like, and Elyssa had released her emotions to become a true
vampire, then she might not have any qualms about attacking me, and
I would need my strength to fight her off without hurting her
seriously.

"Then why are you acting
like this?" I asked, knowing the answer already. Elyssa shrugged,
flipping her hair over her shoulders. I noticed that she'd washed
up and wasn't covered in Reid's blood anymore, which reminded me of
why I was there.

Before I could speak my
mind, Elyssa spoke. "Maybe I'm acting like this because you came
knocking at my door at the crack of dawn and it's annoying?" Her
tone was sarcastic and a playful smirk touched the corner of her
mouth. Her smile was alluring…

Great. She was a flirty
vampire.

Shaking my head free of her
nice little smile, I asked, "Who exactly killed Reid?" The question
made her snap her eyes up to mine, and all signs of a smile – of
her pleasant attitude, even – disappeared. I braced myself for a
possible attack from her.

"I did," she said. Her tone
was dead, like she didn't care that she'd been the one to end my
brother, her Mate. It only confirmed my theory that she'd turned
her emotions off in favor of being a true vampire. It only served
to piss me off, though.

"Do you even care that
you're the one who ended Reid's life?" I asked harshly. "That you
took your silver Kodachi and drove it into his heart?"

"I ended his suffering,
thank you very much!" Elyssa snapped, jumping to her feet to stand
before me. She was over a head shorter than me, so I turned my head
downward to meet her gaze. "Tywin was ruining his life and making
him a prisoner in his own damn body, so I ended that. I set Reid
free."

I shook my head. "Who made
you believe that?" I asked bitterly. "Did Zeke tell you it would be
better for Reid that way? Was this just cooperation between you
two? What's in it for Zeke, huh? His family just lost one of the
Master-rank vampires, so that isn't good. So what is he getting out
of this?"

I should have stopped, I
knew it. But something urged me on, and I kept talking. "Is he
getting
you
?" The
disgust on Elyssa's face made me smirk, and I sighed. "Oh, Elyssa.
How could you have been so easily swayed by Zeke? He isn't that
good looking," I teased.

Before I could continue my
stupidity, Elyssa rammed her body into mine, sending me flying
backward. I hit the stone wall of the hallway with a painful
cracking sound, and hissed. "You bitch," I coughed out. "How dare
you?"

Her anger was almost
tangible, even across the room and hallway. Elyssa's chest heaved
as she breathed heavily, and her glare was fierce. Truly, she
looked like a vampire. I brought myself to my feet, groaning as the
few broken ribs I'd earned from the attack set themselves once
more. "Good hit," I grunted.

This seemed to catch her
off guard, and she straightened her posture, regarding me with an
expression of curiosity and wariness. Her green eyes were darkened
with suspicion. "Why are you complimenting that?" she asked me
quietly. "I just hurt you."

I lifted my shoulders in a
shrug and, brushing my clothes off, began to walk back toward her.
"Not only did I deserve that hit," I began with a grin, "but that
was a very good hit, for someone who doesn't really know how to
fight." She scowled at me then, and I chuckled. "Admit it. You
don't know how to fight. If you did, you would always have your
weapons on you. There's a general rule about not letting your guard
down and having your weapons on you at all times. Otherwise, you'd
better know how to fight hand-to-hand. Which," I added, preparing
myself to dodge another attack, "you don't know how to
do."