I was in a horrified and shocked state. Aveline’s wordless wails echoed in my head; something I was sure I’d never be able to forget for the rest of my life. As I looked into Xander’s wild eyes, recognizing that rogue state, it clicked in my mind how familiar this event seemed compared to a previous conversation I had with him and Aveline. When it came to Xander or Aveline leaving their coterie to be with one another, Xander was the one to go through the process.

“When you’re in a coterie, you can feel everyone… And when you’re broken off, it hurts so much. Xander didn’t want me to feel it so he did it for me.”

The hunters hadn’t specified who would be required to break that Mate bond. Aveline could have, if only to save herself, but Xander of course would rather throw himself into a fire before requiring the woman he loved to do so. By breaking his mate bond to Aveline, he saved her from being rogue, but suffered the fate instead.

I knew, if I could get to him, there was a chance I could bring him back. Just as I had Corentine…

“It’s interesting. When a vampire loses their spiritual links, they go insane. You’d think it would make them more difficult to kill, but honestly… they’re reckless, wild, and their lack of reasoning makes them so much more easier to exterminate,” My father stated from behind me, sounding quiet and observant as though he were just some teacher explaining a science project. “The male broke the bond to save the female, but if I were to have him released right now, he would rip her apart without remorse. A vampire can only pretend to be human for so long. This is their true nature, Elysia.”

“My mother was right; you’re insane,” I hissed at him furiously, earning a sharp twist of my arm. I cried out as a sharp pain reverberated throughout my limbs unrelated to Zachary’s rough handling. The sheer amount of stress placed on my soul was causing my headache and illness to reach an all-time high. Before I realized what was happening, I had been twisted around with my back planted on the glass and Zachary’s hands on my face, tugging on my cheeks to open my mouth and peer into my eyes. I immediately began to fight against him. I didn’t want his concern.

“Oh, yes. Perfect timing,” Zachary mused quietly, patting my cheek as though I were some prized possession doing just what he liked. When he released me abruptly, I reached for my pulsing head, tears running down my cheek. “The drink took longer than expected to work, but it’s definitely making progress now. We can begin the next step.” It took me a moment to register what he was saying, but when I heard those words, I hesitated. What drink? I thought back to the concoction he had been feeding me since I first arrived.

“You’ve been… poisoning me?” I asked, horrified. I wasn’t sure why the idea was so appalling; being that he was obviously insane. I couldn’t even begin to understand how I didn’t see it in the first place. The type of insanity required to intensely torture living beings for years of your life and then poison your own flesh and blood should be something not so easily hidden.

“Poisoning? Come now, Elysia. I don’t want you dead.” Zachary scolded me as though I were a child. Despite his reassurance, I didn’t feel any better. I glanced to the side, trying to make a guess as to how to get into the room Xander and Aveline were captured in. Then my thoughts were squandered by Zachary’s rough grip on my arm.

“Let go of me,” I snapped at him, crying out as another wave of pain pulsed through me. He ignored me, tugging me down the hallway away from my injured companions. I panicked the further I got away from Xander, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to find him again. I needed to pull him back from the darkness. I wasn’t sure how it worked, but it definitely wouldn’t if I wasn’t near him. I fought against Zachary’s grasp viciously, trying to summon whatever hunter strength I had within me.

“Keep struggling, Elysia. The faster your heart rate is, the quicker this will happen,” Zachary informed me, but not in a mocking manner. He sounded more like he was instructing me, ever the insane teacher. He stopped in the hallway, pushing his hand against the wall. It slid open for him, leading us to another white room similar to the one Xander and Aveline had been left in.

Normally, I would have fought against being put inside any contained room. But as I peered into this room, what rational thoughts I did have were torn from my mind. Unlike Aveline and Xander’s contained room, this one had two metal seats rather than slabs. They were located on both sides of the room, facing one another. The left seat was empty, with the bindings open for an unknown victim. The right seat was filled by a familiar form.

His hair was wet from sweat. He was topless with open cuts left across his flesh. They didn’t appear to be healing, blood seeping across his skin slowly. His arms and legs were bound to the seat tightly, but he still held his hands in fists in defiance. He looked up from the distance to glare in my direction, but froze as his golden brown eyes landed on mine. His stare stunned me, causing me to freeze like a deer in headlights, especially when they narrowed uncertainly.

“Jacobi,” I meant to ask all kinds of questions. Why was he here? Why wasn’t he healing? And most importantly, why did he watch me so intensely? Did he suspect I helped my father contain him, as he’s obviously done? I opened my mouth, preparing to announce my innocence in everything, but Zachary began to drag me to the open chair without waiting for any type of reunion I might have with my mate.

I immediately began to struggle, downright refusing to be bound in that metal chair and left even more helpless than I already was. Before I could get a word in, Zachary turned around and swiped the back of his hand against my face, allowing a ringing slap to echo across the room. A responding pulse of pain reverberated throughout me as my heart rate spiked, causing me to yelp in agony.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Jacobi’s voice snarled in the distance, his breath harsh and strained as he struggled against his own bindings. By the time my pain subsided enough for me to blink through my blurry vision, I was already bound impossibly tight against the chair facing Jacobi. Only it wasn’t Jacobi’s face in my line of sight. Zachary had bent down in front of me and was once again holding my face in his hands, moving across my skin and inspecting me determinedly.

“I will explain everything to you, Elysia. Regardless of how you might feel right now, I do want us to be allies,” Zachary said carefully, glancing back at Jacobi momentarily. I felt my heart grow heavier, despair filling me as I looked at the man I knew was my father referring to me as a wanted ally rather than his own flesh and blood.

“What are you doing? You’re supposed to be… you’re my…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it any longer, but Zachary drew his electrifying blue eyes back to mine with intrigue.

“Your father?” He answered for me, smiling momentarily. “It is true, you are technically my child, but I will never claim the likes of you as my true daughter. It’s best if you toss silly ideas like that from your mind. It would be easier to consider me your… creator; your God, if you will.” I blinked at him with wide eyes, utterly convinced now my mother was completely correct in her definition of Zachary. He was insane.

“And as for your mother,” Zachary laughed then. The unpleasant laughter sent a shiver through me, one that didn’t agree with my current illness and caused another pulse of agony through me. I closed my eyes, crying out against the burning sensation throughout me. Zachary waited for it to pass before he continued, “It’s best to just rip the Band-Aid off all at once. Your mother was not Elizabeth Brooks, or as she’s better known as, Elizabeth Monet.” I looked at him with disbelief, not understanding what he meant to tell me for a moment.

“What?” I asked quietly.

“Elizabeth was my cousin. She volunteered to raise you under pretenses of being your mother. And if you want to get even more technical, Liv wasn’t some random housemate, either,” Zachary stood then, twirling the bottle of what had been my supposed medicine in his hands. “That would be Elizabeth’s actual daughter, Livian Monet.” I shook my head sharply, rejecting his obvious lies.

“You’re a liar,” I snapped, wincing at the pulsing headache that was only increasing over time.

“Elizabeth was supposed to simply watch over you, make sure you were taking your doses, and wait until you were found by this beast over here,” Zachary glared at Jacobi, who looked angry and confused as he narrowed his eyes at Zachary. “But she grew feelings for you. I, regretfully, had to remove her from the equation. The poison she ingested was virtually unknown, so you probably thought she died of some typical illness… pneumonia, cancer, it didn’t matter. Then we just had to plant Livian into your life, to keep watch over you while making sure you were still being fed your doses, until finally… well, you know what happened.”

I stared at him, trying to discern if he was honestly lying, insane, or actually telling the truth. I tried to think back on my mother, the way she raised me and how she cared for me. I couldn’t imagine her… lying about who she was… I knew we didn’t have a lot in common physically, but it happened a lot with many families. And as for Liv… I remembered how the ad for her apartment had been placed on the steps of my mom’s rental house just a few days after she passed. I hadn’t thought anything strange about it. I recalled how she didn’t seem concerned if I couldn’t make rent payment and how she lived off her parent’s income. How often had she disappeared for a gig… had she even been in any band?

It wouldn’t have been believable except for the fact that I had just seen her here. And if Liv wasn’t the woman I thought she had been, then my mother… she wasn’t my mother? She was raising me… making sure I… took doses of what? I shook my head again in confusion.

“What doses?” I forced myself to ask, my confusion begging to be clarified.

“Your regular doses of the Middlemist Red, of course,” Zachary mused simply, looking at the bottle in his hand absently. Apparently, it wasn’t my reaction he was looking for though. Jacobi immediately froze, not even breathing for a moment. I was completely confused.

“She’s right. You’re a liar,” Jacobi verified what I had already stated, his voice low but shaking.

“When you two stop denying my truths, this will all be over a lot quicker than the rate it’s going now,” Zachary sighed with irritation. He looked at me, pulling out a different, small vial of pinkish tinged liquid. “The Middlemist Red, the Camellia of Mortality, is the vampire’s greatest weakness simply because it turns them into mortals. They become weak and eventually they are just simply human. It’s temporary, of course, so hardly is considered a cure for vampirism. But if you’ve poisoned a vampire long enough, even transitioning back into a vampire can take weeks… months… And if you’ve poisoned a vampire for sixteen years, apparently it needs a bit of boosting to wear off.”

“You didn’t,” Jacobi growled dangerously, but Zachary placed the vial back in his pocket and removed a knife instead, slicing across Jacobi’s arm quickly. He winced in pain, his bond to me opening only enough for me to feel the spill of his panic before he blocked me once again. My breath quickened with fear, the amount of pain he felt being too abnormal for me to miss.

“It’s with the Middlemist that our Master vampire is here now, very much mortal and vulnerable,” Zachary said to me slowly, ignoring Jacobi’s dark glares. At his statement, I stared at Jacobi’s form more carefully than before. Now that he mentioned it, I could see the changes across his body. The wounds which weren’t healing had pulled me away from his human attributes. His dark eyes were tired, weaker than usual. The sweat on his body was even abnormal, announcing his fatigue under the stress of his capture. His bindings, I even noticed, were silver and weren’t affecting him at all. When I looked down at my own, I noticed mine were discolored and indicating a different metal. I couldn’t understand what it meant, to not want mine to be silver as well. Still, Jacobi being mortal and in my father’s grasp sent me into a panic.

“Don’t kill him,” I pleaded, gritting my teeth together when Zachary peered at me without amusement. “Don’t kill him and I’ll be your ally. I’ll do anything.”

“I won’t kill him, Elysia,” Zachary told me ominously, but I felt relief when he walked away from Jacobi and towards me. “It looks like you’re nearly completing your transitioning back to your true form. Would you like to hear my full explanation? I can skip the villainous monologue and get right to the point, if you prefer, but you might feel a little lost then.” His voice was kind, despite his words. It was as if he didn’t actually see himself as a villain. His comment about my transitioning caused me concern, though.

“My… true form?” I inquired hesitantly.

“I told you before about my goal: to fight against the spiritual abilities vampires possess by creating a weapon to use against their strength through bonds,” He told me, once again crouching before me on one knee in order to present himself at eye level. I wanted to turn away and block out his words, but I stared into his face- a face with so many features similar to my own- and found I wanted to know what he had to say. I nodded carefully, causing a satisfied expression to cross his face. “You are that weapon, Lysa.” I frowned, but didn’t say anything in hopes of a better explanation.

“I’ve discovered many things about vampires and their spirits, including that of true vampires or as their kind call them, Royals. How intriguing is it that these true vampires created so many of their kind, through reproduction and by the blood of their veins? And a sacred ability those true vampires share is their ability to bond to a Master vampire, essentially bonding to their entire coterie. It’s so sacred that it’s illegal to their kind, an immediate death sentence, but what intrigued me was the reason why.”

I thought back to the book, Civil Rights and Laws as Passed by Royals, where I read about the only law that pertained to the death sentence of Royals. It had stated that the bonding to a Master of a Coterie, similar to the way a vampire claims a mortal, was so dangerous that even the leading Royal would be executed in response. The books never specified what had been so dangerous about the bonding, but somehow a clearly insane vampire hunter had found out.

“You see, a Royal vampire can control the spirits of that entire coterie through that single bond. They can siphon power through those bonds. That vampire can absorb those spirits completely; wiping out an entire coterie. When a Royal vampire absorbs so many spirits, it drives them insane, even more than if they were left rogue,” Zachary’s voice rose in excitement, the idea obviously appealing to him as he described it, “It only happened once in history, in which a Royal vampire wiped out an entire coterie and in response could bond to every Master vampire they had ever come in contact with, no matter how far away they were. The other vampires had to destroy that Royal before she wiped out the entire vampire population. And after that, the bond to Master vampires was dubbed illegal in the vampire society.”

“Once I discovered this, it was simple what I had to do. I had to get a Royal vampire. The problem is no fully grown Royal vampire will do what I wish them to do. I considered taking a child vampire, as our branch families overseas have been attempting, but they are impossibly protected. After so many generations of wiping out vampires, they are wary and scarce, so difficult to obtain,” Zachary paused only a moment to glance at Jacobi, who had been expressionless and unmoving since Zachary had begun his speech.

“My next option was obvious. I needed to create my own Royal vampire. So, with a little help, I captured a fully grown Royal. Only, she wasn’t just a typical true vampire. She was the first. It was truly a blessing. I had Eve Raene in my grasp, ripe for my experiment,” Zachary smirked at the darkening look spilling onto Jacobi’s expression, reveling in the reaction his words were creating. “It was my theory that when a female Royal has been reverted to mortality using the Middlemist, she is able to reproduce once again. I could have tried artificial insemination, or things similar, but there was something so much more satisfying about reproducing my own creation the proper way.”

Jacobi sharply lunged forward in his chair, as if he could leap out of it right then and there in order to tear Zachary apart. I felt completely sick, realizing what it was Zachary was saying. He captured Eve Raene, used the Camellia of Mortality to turn her human, and raped her in order to force her to reproduce his offspring: a weapon to use for the genocide of vampires.

“It took many tries, many injections, in order for it to work, but finally she became impregnated with my creation. That first vampire, being so powerful before, was some weak bitch birthing her kinds’ own destruction,” Zachary turned to me coolly, “I can guarantee her disgust in producing you, Elysia. But once you were born, I made sure she wouldn’t be able to harm you. For the first year of your life, I considered raising you myself, having you learn the ways of the hunters in order to ultimately fight against the vampires. It was tempting, but it wouldn’t have been as effective…”

“I needed you to be weak and defenseless, completely innocent in order to be believable. I began your first dose of the Middlemist Red when you turned one. You had already aged considerably within that time, so we considered you to be three years old when Elizabeth offered to raise you. She changed her name to prevent herself from being targeted, but I wanted it to be easy for you to be found,” Zachary paused momentarily, frowning deeply, “But of course I needed to give the great Jacobi Bryant, the Master of the largest coterie in the States, a reason to come out from hiding. I needed to give him a reason to hunt the Monet name down…”

Jacobi looked impossibly livid. I avoided his eyes, afraid of what I’d see there. He had been right all along. I was a trap; a trick planted by Zachary. He should have killed me when he first saw me.

“I didn’t kill Eve Raene,” I looked up at Zachary in shock. “I knew she was still bonded to her newly turned vampire, even after all those years, and I knew whose coterie that particular vampire was in. You see, when a vampire is poisoned by the Middlemist, the last thing suppressed is their spiritual life force. And when the effects wear off, the first thing to resurface is just that. So, I postponed some doses I had been administering to Eve in order for her spirit to rekindle, just long enough for someone to feel it. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was when the fool beast came running into my waiting arms, oh so willing.”