Sam chuckled, regarding Eloise with mock pity. “Because you’re lying, silly. After all, it’s not like you were going to find him in my set of drawers – and you had a good root through them, didn’t you?”

Her eyes danced from side to side. “I was, um...”

“I’ll tell you why you did it. You did it…because you thought you could. No other reason. Just like Collins, you have a strong sense of entitlement purely because you’re a representative. Well, let me be very clear: you can pester me during my work hours and invade my office, but my personal time and my apartment are out of bounds. So unless you want to know just how ‘reckless’ I can be, I suggest you quickly learn to respect my personal boundaries.”

Despite being a nervous wreck, Eloise maintained, “You can’t hurt me.”

“Sweetheart, why would I waste energy hurting you when it would be much more effective to chop off that mane of yours?”

Eloise let out a gasp as her hand flew to her hair. “You wouldn’t.” Oh but Sam would, and Eloise knew it.

“I advise you not to test me on that. Now piss off.”

I’d honestly never seen the woman move so fast.

Antonio came and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “I must apologise on Eloise’s behalf. Her behaviour is truly unacceptable, and I shall have a conversation with her about it later.”

Sam waved a hand. “I wouldn’t bother yourself with the whole thing, Antonio. Let her dig her own grave.”

“If you are not too busy, could I speak with you both for a moment?” Without waiting for a response, he gestured for us to follow him and Luther through the patio doors. Exchanging a look with Sam, I shrugged and took her hand. We trailed behind them down the eternally long hallway, not stopping until they reached one of his parlour rooms. With his hand on the doorknob, Antonio said, “There’s someone here to see you both.”

When he opened it wide, Sam and I stepped inside. Almost instantly, we froze. I wasn’t in the f**king mood for this. I groaned at Antonio. “Why is she here?”

“I think you should listen to what she has to say.” He motioned at the empty sofa that was positioned opposite an identical one on which a nervous redhead sat gingerly.

I was ready to object when Sam squeezed my hand and tugged. Let’s just hear her out. There’s no harm in that.

Fine, but two minutes is the most I’m staying here.

Alora smiled nervously as we took a seat opposite her. Antonio sat beside her and took her hand in his. Luther sat at her other side. After a moment of silence, she cleared her throat. “I know you don’t want me here”

“So why are you here?” I snapped. I winced when Sam pinched my arm.

Tears shimmered in Alora’s eyes. “Because it’s Evan,” she said simply – there was a confusing amount of adoration in her voice.

“You love him,” whispered Sam. She nodded.

In my opinion, her actions said something totally different. “Then why did you reject him?”

Alora seemed bewildered. “I didn’t reject him. I just…I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”

Cryptic shit. I hated cryptic shit. “What does that mean?”

“He didn’t tell you?” When I shook my head, she straightened in her seat as if bracing herself for impact. “I’m Bound to someone else.”

I could only gape at her. “What the f**k?”

She averted her gaze, seemingly embarrassed. “Please understand I was only nineteen years old. What’s more, I was no more than eighteen months old in vampire years and I didn’t truly understand just how serious a Binding actually was.”

I looked down at the third finger of her left hand and saw a bulky emerald ring that no doubt covered a Binding knot.

“I bought every lie that Gregory ever told me. I agreed to Bind with him after only being with him for three months. It wasn’t until after the Binding that things changed, he changed.” She sounded as angry with herself as she was with him.

“He hurt you,” Sam guessed.

“In about as many ways as a person can hurt another.”

“Does Bran know?” I asked.

“Yes. Bran saved me from him. It’s a long story, but he got me away and he kept me as his ‘consort’ to give me added protection. I think you know why he really keeps female consorts. The arrangement worked well for both of us, in that sense.”

I considered that for a minute. “So your loyalty to Bran kept you with him? Bran refuses to let you leave him?”

“No. Bran would let me leave if I wanted to do so. In fact, he doesn’t think there’s any safer place for me to be than here, with Evan. But Gregory wants me back. Because we’re Bound, he knows exactly where I am at all times. But he’s not powerful enough to take on a High Master vampire and he’s not stupid enough to try. But it means that I’ve always felt trapped, knowing that if I left Bran, Gregory would be able to take me back to him. I hate him, hate him, but I’m stuck with him.”

“I take it you didn’t tell Evan in the beginning.”

“No. I just felt so ashamed of myself. Ashamed for being so gullible as to Bind with someone I hardly knew. But at the time, it had felt right.”

I couldn’t really vilify her for Binding with someone after only knowing them for a short time. Not when Sam and I hadn’t known each other for long.

“I understand,” said Sam. “It felt right for me and Jared, even though we hadn’t been together long.”

“Yes, and it would have continued to feel right for me if Gregory had really been the person that he pretended to be. But he’s a far cry from it. He’s violent and he’s abusive, and I didn’t want Evan to be responsible for keeping me safe. I didn’t want him in any form of danger. So I gave him a bunch of excuses as to why I couldn’t be with him, but they never deterred him. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so persistent,” she added endearingly. Her face fell as she continued. “When he asked me on the night of your Binding ceremony to stay here with him permanently, I finally told him about Gregory.” She gave me a sad smile. “Imagine how well you would have taken it if you found out that Sam was Bound to someone else.”

I would have wanted to hunt down and kill the f**ker…but to do that would have been to kill Sam too, because she wouldn’t have survived the severing of the bond. Fuck, no wonder Evan’s head had been in a shitty place. “So you didn’t reject him?”

“No. It was actually the other way around. I asked if he could handle being with someone who he could never Bind with, someone who would always be tied to somebody else – even though I despised that somebody else. He didn’t answer me. He just…walked away.” Tears began to trail down her face and she brushed them away with her thumbs. “Then when it was time for me to leave the next evening, he didn’t come. Not to ask me to stay or even to say goodbye.”

Sam puffed out a long breath. “Alora, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Evan doesn’t want me and he’s never going to want me – I don’t blame him. In his position, I’m not sure if I could handle it either. It would be agonising to know that he was Bound to someone else, to know that I’d never have that same bond with him. But I still want to help him. Maybe I can’t. But I need to try. I need to do something. If you were me, Sam, if Jared had made it clear that he didn’t want you, could you still have sat back and ignored the fact that he was dying?”

Sam snorted. “I would have done whatever I could to help, whether he wanted me to or not.”

I might have smiled at that if I wasn’t so pissed with how things had worked out – or, more specifically, how they hadn’t worked out – for my brother. I mean, really, could the situation be any more f**ked up? I ran a hand through my hair, sighing heavily. “Where is Gregory?”

Alora dabbed her wet cheeks with the tissue that Antonio handed to her. “Canada.”

“He doesn’t try to contact you?”

She shook her head. “He’s too scared of Bran. Please don’t ask me to go back home. I need to do something.”

I was silent as I thought on that. “I won’t ask you to leave,” I eventually said. How could I expect her to do that when she was clearly in as much agony as Evan was over the whole thing? “But I’ll be honest, Alora, I don’t see how you can help. None of us have been able to come up with a solution. I have one condition, though. If you stay, you can’t try to see Evan.”

“I’m guessing he made it clear that he didn’t want me here. It’s okay.” Another sad, wobbly smile.

“That’s not what I mean. Evan just doesn’t want you to see him like that.”

“Nice of you to try and spare my feelings, but I know he doesn’t want me around.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” My words didn’t seem to affect her.

After a short silence, Antonio smiled. “I’m glad that is settled. I will have someone escort you to the Guest House, Alora.” He called out a name, and one of the guards stationed outside the parlour stepped inside. “Please take this young lady to the room that I instructed to be readied for her. Thank you.”

Alora rose from her seat and flashed both Sam and me a grateful yet sorrowful smile. “Thanks for letting me stay, and for understanding why I need to be here.”

When the door closed behind her, Antonio looked warily from me to Sam. Oh shit, now what? “One more thing before you both leave: I have news from Sebastian. He has located Paige West.”

So not what I wanted to hear.

Chapter Nine

(Sam)

A whole hour. We spent a whole hour arguing over whether or not we should risk bringing Paige West to The Hollow. But we were still at stalemate, because neither of us was willing to back down. Jared had eventually walked away – a gesture that the conversation was over. He was now lying in the hammock on our balcony, totally silent.

And I bloody hated it.

The last thing that I wanted was to be at odds with Jared. Knowing that Evan, Max, and Stuart could die, seeing the pain on Alora’s face…All of that had brought with it an acute awareness of just how easily everything could end. How easily the people important to you could be taken away, just like that. I’d experienced it with a boyfriend that my Sire had killed – Bryce had been murdered in front of my very eyes. The pain of that loss had never left me, and nor had the memory of the look in his eyes just before Victor killed him. Even the thought of anything happening to Jared was ten times worse than having lost Bryce. The frightening fact was that it could just as easily have been Jared who was hurt in the tunnels. The very idea made ice-cold fear shudder through me. There was truly no such thing as immortality.

At any other time, I might have stormed after Jared if he walked away mid-argument. But although it looked as though he had petulantly walked off in a huff and was now sulking, I was connected to him on a level so deep that I knew it was much more than that. An all-consuming fear was tormenting him, haunting him, clawing at him. But there was more – pain and rage were bubbling and sizzling inside him…and he was desperately trying to hide it all from me. That realisation had stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was then that, having tapped fully into our bond, I’d realised something else. By fighting so hard with Jared on the subject of Paige West for the last few weeks, I’d caused him to pull back. Watching his twin deteriorate had swamped him with dark emotions, and by arguing with him, I’d more or less left him to deal with it all by himself. I’d made him feel that I wouldn’t support him purely because I disagreed with his decision about Paige. He thought that I’d tell him it was his own fault that he was feeling this way.

In sum, I’d made him feel totally alone.

Shit.

Jared didn’t function as others did. I knew that being raised by a narcissistic mother who emotionally and physically abused him had made him shut down in many ways. I knew that he didn’t share his pain with others because, in Evan’s words, emotions had always gotten Jared in deep shit. I also knew that, as a result, unless you literally dragged it out of him, Jared would bury it all deep. But I hadn’t expected him to do that with me, I’d thought we’d gotten past that. I was wrong. He’d buried the extent of his pain as deep as he possibly could. Oh I’d felt echoes of his pain and fear and anger through the bond at times, but I hadn’t realised the extent of it until now. All that optimism he’d shown had been his smokescreen.

I’d worked so hard since we got together to help him defeat this psychological impulse to hide his pain. I’d actually been making progress, but I’d clearly gone back a step because by not being there for him through all this, I’d made him retreat. He’d once described me as his refuge. Well I clearly hadn’t been that this time.

Maybe some would say that he needed to buck up and deal with his shit like an adult. But he’d become emotionally independent at a young age, was used to taking care of himself and not needing anyone. He’d let himself need me, and I’d gone and let him down. First by mentally retreating from him, and then by being pissed with him rather than being understanding. He hadn’t sulked, he’d just withdrawn. That, for me, was even worse than being cursed at or given the silent treatment.

Determined to ensure he didn’t feel alone any longer, I went out onto the balcony. To anyone else, he might have appeared totally relaxed lounging in the hammock, watching the waves lap against the shore. But I knew better. I could feel his turmoil, and it caused a hollow ache in my chest.