Alice chewed on her bottom lip as she tried to formulate the words. She’d already gone over how this conversation would go in her head a million times, but now that she was in Lizzy’s presence, everything she’d rehearsed had disappeared from her mind. Alice had thought she would just rip the bandage off as quickly as possible. Now, she was hesitating.Suck it up, buttercup.“Okay, here goes nothing,” she whispered, and then looked at Lizzy. “To start, I’m not drinking blood …yet. I mean, I’m not craving it or anything. But there’s something definitely different about me. I can feel it inside.” Alice pressed a hand just below her collarbone. “It does feel like I’m …changing,and there’s nothing I can do about it. Whether that means I’m going to wake up one day as a blood-sucking monster, I have no idea.”
Alice paused, and Lizzy simply stared at her. Finally, the scientist spoke again. “But that’s not the scariest thing.”
Lizzy frowned. “Potentially waking up as a blood-sucking monster is not the scariest thing? What could possibly be scarier than that?”
Alice fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, her gaze bouncing from Lizzy’s, down, and back up again. “I’ve changed in other ways, and…” She trailed off for a moment, then took a deep, steadying breath. “I don’t want you to hate me or feel betrayed.”
“Well, those are excellent things to avoid in friendship. I certainly don’t want to hate you or feel betrayed. Granted, I sort of already felt betrayed when you put Cain’s blood in my body and yours, too. But I’m growing as a person. I’ve had a lot of time to work on myself in this room.” Lizzy’s tone was dry and sarcastic.
Alice blew out a breath, and then finally blurted out, “I have feelings for Cain.Feelingfeelings. And he has them for me. He told me he loves me and maybe I shouldn’t trust him because damn that was fast. But then I think why not? Is there really a time limit on when someone falls in love with a person. But then I think, can I trust him? He’s a man. All the men I’ve known have mostly sucked.”
“And this one literally sucks,” Lizzy muttered, but Alice was on a roll.
“And I’d sworn them off. But at the same time, I’ve been alone, in one way or another, my whole life. And he makes me not alone. No.” She shook her head. “Not justnot alone.He makes me feel valued, precious, andseen. These past weeks, he’s taken care of me like no one has ever done in my life. Not my mother and definitely not my father. I mean”—she held up a hand—“Iknowwhat heis.But I don’t know how to stop what’s happening between us. And I don’t even think I want to.” She shifted in her seat, leaning forward a bit. Lizzy stared back at her, but Alice couldn’t get a read on what the girl was thinking, so she just plowed on. “It’s like I know what he is, and what he’s capable of, but then with me, he’s so different. He’s kind and considerate, and he’s been taking care of me this whole time. In the back of my head I’m screaming at myself, ‘What the hell, Alice?’ You know? And then there’s you, and all I could think was that I was betraying you, and now you’ll hate me, and I’ll only have Cain, and what if Cain does something like my mother did and just leaves me high and dry? Then I have no one? And all I wanted to do was make some amazing scientific discovery and get my name in the scientific hall of fame, and?—”
“Wait, is that actually a thing?”
Alice huffed out a laugh. “No, but is that the only thing you heard?”
Lizzy lifted a shoulder. “It’s the thing I felt I could respond to without giving too much brainpower to it.”
“Fair, enough. I’m sorry, Lizzy.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?” Lizzy dropped her legs and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her thighs. “We don’t get to pick who our hearts choose. I mean, yes, there are some emotions that we absolutely choose to feel, but the beginning sparks of love…” She shook her head. “Those are totally out of our hands. It’s when things get hard that love becomes a choice.” She bobbed her head from side to side a couple of times. “I mean, do I get it? No. Heisgood looking, but he’s also a villain. He’s selfish and narcissistic and has all the red flags of ‘I’m going to tear your heart out and laugh while I do it’ warnings. And yes, I mean that literallyandfiguratively. But I don’t hate you.” Lizzy held Alice’s gaze as she continued. “I don’t have a lot of friends. In fact, I’ve only ever had one and I lost her. You can’t trust people when you live on the streets. You were real with me. I realize that took courage, but you told me the truth, and that goes a long way with me.”
Alice wiped away a tear that had slipped down her cheek. When had she started crying? Her emotions were all over the place. “Thank you,” she finally managed to squeeze out of her tightened throat. “It feels so good to tell you and know that we’ll be okay?” It came out as a question.
“Girl, we won’t be okay until we get the hell out of dodge.” Lizzy smirked. “Our friendship, blossoming as it is, will be fine. It’s been forged in fire, and short of you feeding me to Cain, I think I can talk you out of whatever hold he has on you.”
The problem was, Alice didn’t want to be talked out of it. And that was the crux of it all. How low was she willing to sink simply to not feel alone anymore? Was love enough to pardon Cain?
Lizzy held up a hand. “Change of subject … sort of.” She waved her palms up and down like a scale. “It’s still about you and what’s happened to you, but we’ll just ignore the Cain portion of the show for the moment. How areyououtside of the vampire king soap opera?”
“I feel like I’m going to have to hide for the rest of my life. If my father finds out what has happened to me, he will not hesitate to take me into government control and treat me like a lab rat.” Her breath shuddered as she shook her head. “I don’t want to spend my life hiding who I am.BUT,do I really know who I am orwhatI am anymore?” Alice raked a hand through her hair in frustration. “Is there any option that doesn’t end in disaster?”
Lizzy blew out a breath, her amber eyes thoughtful. “Have you considered that maybe you’re exactly what you were before? A gypsy healer. You’re not drinking blood. You aren’t craving it. So, I don’t see how that classifies you as a vampire.”
“Then why do I feel like something is off?” The fear in Alice’s voice frazzled her nerves. She hated being afraid, being anything less than entirely sure of who she was and what she was doing. Alice had always been so sure of herself. And now she didn’t even know who she was anymore. All because of Claude.
ChapterTwo
“Perception is one of those things that screws with your head if you’re not careful. Hell, it screws with your head even if youarecareful. Because no matter how cautious you are in life, you can’t really prepare yourself for a supernatural being to skew your perception so badly that you aren’t even sure who you are anymore.” ~Lilly
“We need the healers to contact Alice.” Lilly stood with her hands resting on her hips, her hair up in a messy bun, and still in her sleep clothes. Sally found it oddly comforting to see her looking more like a worn-out mom, the Lilly she’d known her whole life, rather than the warlock queen she’d become.
“Why the sudden urgency?” Fane frowned.
Sally leaned forward where she sat, as much as her bump of a stomach would allow. Costin sat beside her and ran his hand up and down her back, applying slight pressure. It felt good. Though she was just getting ready to start her second trimester, Sally’s back already bothered her.
“Since she was bitten by Claude, and Tenia hasn’t been able to get a hold of her via the phone he’d given her. And—I’ve seen something.” Lilly dropped her hands, then raised them to go to work on her messy bun, though it didn’t look to Sally like it needed any help. Maybe Lilly just needed something to do with her hands. The woman was clearly irritated. “It’s not good, Fane.” Lilly turned and looked at Sally. “I realize you are in a tough spot with the baby and?—”
“And the overprotective, helicopter-hovering mate?” Sally offered.
Costin let out a low rumble. His annoyance at her assessment ran through their bond.
Sally shrugged. “Just speaking the truth, babe.”
He didn’t respond, as had become his custom of late. The further along in her pregnancy she became, the more withdrawn and serious her male seemed to be.
