My legs were numb. I couldn’t stand, due to the restrictions the chains caused me. I tried to muster up some supernatural strength to loosen the bindings, but they apparently were built to be extremely sturdy. When this didn’t work, I tried to focus on connecting to Jacobi’s spirit. I grasped for that familiar electric pull, but it was like trying to get warmth from an ice cube. There was just nothing there to connect to. Whatever seal Vincent’s witch used, it was working impressively well.

After my attempts to escape were thwarted, I opted to scream out for help in hopes that I wasn’t located too far from Jacobi’s territory. Some part of me hoped by some miracle he or a member of his coterie would be nearby to hear my screams, but nobody answered. I had never quite felt so alone.

I couldn’t be sure how long I was left there. As time passed, my familiar fear only kept me company, drawing out multiple scenarios in my head as I tried to make sense of what was going to happen to me. Here I had thought I had finally won my life and now Corentine had made sure I wouldn’t keep it. It disturbed me to know that she had accepted a bondless fate, lonely and empty, in order to finally be allowed to kill the daughter of the hunter who killed her mate.

I had fallen asleep after the longest time, dozing in and out until the exhaustion was settled deep in my blood. I was hungry. I felt filthy and uncomfortable. I couldn’t understand how long I had been in Vincent’s grasp. It could have been hours or days even. I had nothing to give me a sense of time. All I knew was that my time was running out and I was nowhere close to figuring out how I was going to save myself this time around.

The door to my prison opened abruptly. I jerked awake, scrambling to grasp at my own bindings as though by holding them I would keep myself from being torn away. It wasn’t like I wanted to stay in this prison forever. But I preferred it to being fed to a vicious vampire.

Vincent stepped into the room, walking purposely to where I sat. He removed a key from his pocket and grabbed my wrist tightly before beginning to remove the chains around my wrists. I yelped at his rough grip, panic beginning to flood my thoughts.

“No!” I cried out, struggling against him. “Leave me alone! Let me go!” When he lifted me from the ground sharply, I kicked out at him, attempting to tear away from his hands. I tightened my own hands into fists, pulling viciously in his grip. He quickly twisted behind me, snaking his arm around my neck in a clearly threatening manner. I froze.

“I don’t recall you being so feisty,” Vincent growled into my ear, the first trace of life twisting into his words. It was as if I hadn’t gotten his full attention since the moment he had met me until now.

“Please, let me go. I’ll make sure Jacobi doesn’t retaliate. I won’t tell him anything. Don’t do this,” I whimpered, though I knew if Jacobi asked I wouldn’t be able to refuse him the truth. I didn’t know how he’d react to Corentine, but he deserved to know what happened to her.

“Begging. Pitiful,” Vincent was bored once again, “Come. Our little vampire has completed deterioration. She’s waiting for her meal.” Without releasing his chokehold, he began dragging me from the prison and into a small hallway. I struggled against him, but found the more I did the less I was able to breathe. The last thing I wanted was to be thrown into a room with a rogue Corentine while unconscious.

I was now trying to come up with desperate last minute ideas in order to preserve my life. Perhaps rogue vampires weren’t what I thought they were. Maybe they were just normal vampires with more of an… appetite or something. Maybe they could still be reasoned with. If I could just reason with Corentine… but it was such a long shot. She hated me and not just because of her Mate’s death. I had unintentionally ruined her life with her Coterie, Maker, and then sent her reeling as a bondless vampire. Sure, it was also partly her fault. She could have sucked it up and stayed in Jacobi’s coterie. Or she could have waited for Jacobi’s spirit to recover and been rebounded to the coterie. A lot of it was her choice, but still…

A similar door to my prison was opened before me and Vincent tossed me unceremoniously into the room. I landed on the ground with a heavy thud, my breath lost for a moment. With trembling arms, I lifted myself, raising my head to look behind me at Vincent who only watched with cold boredom.

“Goodbye, Monet,” He lifted his hand, waving almost sarcastically, before shutting the door and leaving me to the darkness. I was having trouble breathing, trying to blink through the dark in order to see what I feared the most was waiting for me. Bit by bit, my eyes adjusted to the black room. It was similar to my prison, without the chains. It seemed like a storage room, but lacked anything to store.

I scanned the dark room for another presence. I heard her before I saw her. A low growl rumbled through the room, low and dangerous. I tensed, pushing away until my back was against the locked door. In the corner of the room sat a dark shadow where two glowing eyes were trained on my form hungrily.

At first, the eyes were globes of light brown. They would have been familiar, being that I was used to seeing rage in those eyes, but something was significantly different as they watched me. There was an animalistic, wild edge to those eyes, as if there were no thoughts besides instinct running behind them. Rage I would understand… these eyes, I didn’t. And then they were diminished into the darkness as Corentine’s pupils bled over her irises, swallowing those wild eyes until she became a new level of feral.

I couldn’t swallow. I officially lost control of my limbs as the terror enveloped me. Corentine slowly stood from her crouched position and on instinct I followed her lead, rising to my feet as well. I hesitated, and then lifted my hands in front of me as if in surrender. I tried to swallow again, to gain a voice, but it was extremely difficult around my fear.

“Corentine,” I began in a small voice, hearing another wave of aggressive growls that erupt from her chest. She hadn’t attacked me yet, which was good in itself, but something told me it was more because she was playing with her food rather than hesitating to kill me. “Corentine, I know you’re still in there…” I really didn’t know, but my only option at this point was to try to appeal to her human nature if she had one.

“Not quite,” She snarled. Her voice was shocking for multiple reasons. For one, I hadn’t expected her to be able to speak as a rogue, but then I didn’t know anything about rogues. Besides that, her voice was completely different. It was a voice that struck fear in me more than Vincent’s apathetic and dangerous words had. This voice didn’t belong to the angry Corentine I knew; it belonged to a demon, a true demon of pure evil.

“I know… I know you’re upset about so many things,” I whimpered, trying to fight past the fear that was crippling me. “I can’t possibly understand what it means to lose a Mate; to want to avenge that death so wholeheartedly. But you have to listen to me, Corentine.” She stepped closer, flexing her hands dangerously, her breath harsh with unrestrained snarls as she stalked me. Something in the way she watched me made me feel like my words weren’t actually being heard beyond distant murmurs.

“Revenge… it’s self-destructive. Look at yourself,” I indicated to her, but she didn’t even twitch in response, “You’re so beautiful. I could see it. And I know Adelaide wouldn’t have loved someone so hateful. Please, Corentine. You don’t want to do this.” Corentine halted in her half-steps, tilting her head as if she had finally heard something I said.

“I might have loved her before,” She said slowly, the words almost foreign on her wild tongue, “I don’t know love now. I only know what I do want. Blood. Pain. Death.” Corentine began trembling in anticipation as she spat the words, reveling in the definitions as if they were her only meaning of existence. I knew by watching her that she had forgotten, if not completely ignored, everything I mentioned. The only thing her mind could grasp now was those three things: blood, pain, and death. I could imagine the endless cycle racing in her darkened mind, sending her instincts reeling in response.

Corentine attacked. At some point in my observation of her, I had somehow sensed it was going to happen before it did. I twisted to the side just as she reached me, grasping her arm with one hand as I leapt in the air high enough to propel my elbow into the back of her head. A loud crash responded as she was smashed face-first into the door behind me. With supernatural speed, I was on the opposite side of the room and alone, facing Corentine with a tense form.

My heart was pulsing loudly through my veins, but I ignored the part of me that wanted to be horrified at the pain I had just inflicted. Corentine was twisted around, growling at me viciously as blood fell from her busted nose. She didn’t seem to notice it. If anything, she appeared more untamed and excited.

“Corentine, stop!” I cried out just as she lunged again. She reached for my chest. Something told me she wanted to tear into it and rip my heart out with her bare hand. I deflected her attack with my upper arm, though the force behind it caused me to fall back against the wall behind me. I couldn’t chance a breath before her hand swung around to slash at my neck. On instinct, I grasped her wrist before she could touch me, crying out as I threw my own attack, landing a rough blow across her bloody face.

Suddenly, it was a wave of punches and slashes; attempts to render me unconscious or bleed me to death. In the same length of time, I was dodging the attacks with my back against a wall, blocking them and throwing my own blows between every attack I could as if I could knock some sense back into her. Where Corentine was a snarling, evil beast, I was silent, gritting my teeth each time her hands got close enough to leave a mark or scratch.

I had never seen myself as a fighter. I was more of a victim; someone who could take the punches with tears in my eyes and fear in my heart. It was strange, as if something else was controlling my limbs each time I successfully deflected a death blow delivered by Corentine. It was this same control that reached out to snatch one of her attacking arms, twisting my own body as I fell to the floor with my entire weight and slid under hers. Corentine’s surprised form fell with me, landing on her back for only a moment before she was on her feet again. Only now I wasn’t trapped against a wall.

I stepped around the space in the room, circling Corentine’s form as she bristled in my sight. She flashed her fangs at me threateningly, wild and demonic. Only moments ago, I had wanted to escape from this place. Now I felt a thrill of excitement dripping through my veins as I eyed my opponent. I watched her delirious anger, that bloodlust that painted her face, and I lifted my hands to welcome it. For once, that rogue vampire who used to be Corentine hesitated, appearing confused. The confusion was mimicked by me, causing me to falter in my defensive pose.

“Corentine,” I tried once again to address that old her, “You don’t have to do this, to be this. You have people who love you. Your Coterie would take you back now, if you wanted. You don’t have to throw your life away to this… this lonely existence. You can still be saved…” I knew Wyatt had said being rogue was permanent and had no cure, but I had to try to help her. There had to be a way to save Corentine, even if she wouldn’t ever be the same again. Even if she had to live her life unable to bond and always a breath away from wild rage, surely there was a way to condition her to live a normal life beyond that… but it was silly wishful thinking. And it was this type of thinking that caused me to not recognize the trick Corentine had played against me.

Rogues may be referred to as mindless, but they weren’t. They still had a level of intelligence that could recognize how to play on their prey’s weaknesses. They had a distinctive cunning that allowed them to smoothly utilize those weaknesses without appearing irrational or simply wild. It was with this mindset that Corentine had feigned her own weakness, pretending to rethink her plan to harm me. In this moment of hesitation, I had lowered my own defenses in response. And with that opening and my previous lack of training, Corentine abruptly tackled into me and I was suddenly pinned to the ground beneath her. I screeched in surprise, a new panic flooding through me.

“I can’t be saved,” Corentine snarled into my face with a look so devious, so full of bloodlust and pure insanity that I was paralyzed. And then she viciously bit into the flesh of my neck, ripping at my skin like a feral dog. I screamed in pain, feeling the wet of blood bursting across my shoulder, neck, and up to the side of my face. I clawed at Corentine’s form, a blanket of unadulterated terror covering my soul.

Though it felt like so much longer, Corentine had only bitten into my flesh and tasted my blood for a breath of a moment before I felt something powerful burst from within me. It was as if by devouring my blood, she had opened a gateway between us. An unseen part of me could twist through her, touching that cold spirit of hers that I had originally thought deteriorated and nonexistent the minute she had gone rogue. Instead, I could sense it was only dormant; like a frozen organism that had been left neglected and forgotten.

I blindly crashed the palm of my hand against her chest, reaching deep towards that spirit to wake it. I wasn’t sure how I knew I could, if I could at all. But that part of me latched onto her spirit, tugging it roughly into the sharp electricity of what I suddenly knew was my power; my spirit. Corentine released her fangs from my neck with a gasp, her eyes wide with fear and her face painted with my blood. I only twisted my hand on her chest between her breasts, connecting to her spirit aggressively.

I felt it come to life as if it were a part of me. It felt similar to warming a near frostbitten limb by a fire, almost painfully pleasant. Corentine’s spirit pulsed with mine; clinging desperately to an impossible bond it had been given in the darkness that brought it back to the light. I was left gasping underneath her as she sat stunned above me, no doubt assessing something not even I could completely understand.

Corentine lowered her gaze from the empty distance to my face, her eyes no longer wild or angry. They were wide and confused. I saw a plethora of emotion cross them, from fear to affection. For a moment, she didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even sure we could speak in the aftermath of what had just happened. I had just… cured her. I had taken that lost spirit and bonded it to me in order to reverse the effect of turning rogue. I was almost completely sure not even a vampire had been able to do such a thing.

“Elysia,” Corentine breathed, ripping the fabric of her clothes to press against the wound she had inflicted on my neck. I winced, but I subconsciously knew the wound was healing already at an incredibly accelerated rate. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was mated to Jacobi or if it had to do with being a vampire hunter, but the bleeding had already stopped. I was more intrigued by the Corentine that was actually trying to save me.

“I… how do you feel?” I coughed, wincing as the raw bite. Corentine widened her eyes.

“I don’t know… I don’t understand,” She shook her head, “It doesn’t matter. I have to get you out of here. Vincent won’t let you go easily, though. And I’m no match for a Master vampire…” She appeared to have thought of something she didn’t agree with. I could guess at what crossed her mind.

“Go,” I told her, “I’ll be fine.”

Corentine hesitated, appearing more than normally reluctant to remove herself from me. I could understand the reluctance. I suddenly felt very much attached to her, like she was a part of me I didn’t want to move too far away in case something harmful happened to it. I felt as though she was mine, but in a different way of how I felt Jacobi was mine. It felt one-sided, as if Corentine was mine, but I wasn’t hers. As if I had laid my own claim on her…

“I’ll find Jacobi. I’ll bring him here to stop Vincent from harming you,” Corentine said soothingly, wincing as she moved away from me. She grasped at her chest where I had previously latched onto her. Then she pulled a key from her pocket, moving to the door with determination. She reached to unlock it, hesitating before looking at me, “Don’t run, Elysia. Vincent expects me to leave after I’ve killed you, so he’ll let me go. If he senses you running, he’ll chase you. He’ll catch you and he’ll kill you. Wait for me.” I nodded mutely, pulling my knees to my chest as I began to realize what it meant to know I was going to be left alone once again as Vincent’s captive.

“If he comes before I’m back…” Corentine seemed torn once again, grasping at her chest in near agony. I clutched at my own chest, feeling a vibration of her unfamiliar terror wave through me.

“Go, Corentine,” I coaxed her, trying to sound reassuring, “Hurry, before he comes back.”

Corentine only hesitated a moment longer before she was gone.

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