“Please,” Adriana gently urged. She held his hand to her chest, just as he had done to her. “It clearly pains you to speak of it, so show me. You said it yourself, I do not know all of you, so let meseeall of you.”
He hesitated for a moment, before slowly nodding and cupping her face in his large hands. One moment she was staring at him, and the next she was staring at a body on the floor of Duran Manor. Except it wasn’t Duran Manor at that point, it was Romilly Manor, Divina’s home. And the body was her great-grandfather.
She could see, hear, smell, and feel everything Xander could in that memory. The screams from Striga as she cradled her dead husband, the shouting of the Court leaders, the other bodies on the floor that she couldn’t quite recognise out of the corner of Xander’s eyes, the unmistakable sense of magic in the air. But most of all, she could feel the rage building up in Xander.
It was nothing like any anger she had ever felt. This was a fire so hot it felt as if her head was splitting open, as if the blood in her veins were molten lava. It was power—pure and hateful. It was Lilith.
Adriana could sense Xander battling with his mind as he fell to the floor, she could hear Lilith calling him a traitor and taunting him, she could feel the burning in his head and his throat as the urge to feed became a frenzy. And suddenly, upon her unrelenting command, he ran.
He bolted from the room, ran down the manor’s front steps three at a time, and charged towards the village in the middle of the night. He reached it in no time, and as soon as he spotted a lonely traveller in the night, he grabbed them and sunk his teeth into their throat.
He took five more lives, one by one, each of their deaths bloodier than the last. He used his Manipuli power to twist their minds and convince them not to scream, used his Lure to attract them to him so that he didn’t even need to seek them out, and his Nocte abilities to hide them in shadows whilst he feasted on their blood. She understood now, why he needed her to know all of him, because this was the reality of who he was, who he could be. It may have been Lilith holding the reins, but Xander was still the beast capable of such destruction.
Adriana watched him stalk a young woman, his mind racing with imaginative ways to kill her, when a hand clamped down on his shoulder and threw him through a portal gate that a man she couldn’t see held open. Deion stepped through the gate as Edward waved his hands in front of Xander. She could feel his Somnum power seeping into Xander’s mind, urging him to sleep, but the rage inside him refused to die down.
Deion and Edward grabbed him, dragging him towards Striga who led them to the hatch door to the cellar beneath Amara House. Adriana could feel Xander’s rage and bloodlust calmingdown as Edward continued to use his power, but Lilith’s control had left him in such terrible pain. He thrashed against their hold, trying to beg them to kill him, but the only audible sound that left his lips were screams of agony.
Deion and Edward held him down to the wooden table in the middle of the cellar whilst Striga bound him to it. He continued to cry out as she ushered the two Lamiae back through the hatch, his tears burning his skin like acid.
“Kill me,” he finally spoke between cries of pain. “Kill me, Striga, please.”
Striga gave him one last look, watching him fighting against the bindings, fighting against Lilith’s hold. Xander could briefly sense her thoughts as she understood it was the kinder thing to do, to put him out of his misery before Lilith came for him again, before she destroyed everything he was. But as her thoughts faded away from his reach, he realised that she couldn't. Striga couldn’t kill her friend.
“No!” Xander screamed, as she ascended through the hatch door. “No, no, no! You have to kill me, you have to stop this. Please don’t leave me—"
Xander’s shouts were cut off by another one of his cries of pain, his mind and body alight with Lilith’s wrath. He tried to enter Striga’s mind, his brothers’ minds, anyone’s. He tried to persuade them to do what needed to be done.
Stop me. Stop her. You cannot let this happen.
Don’t leave me like this. Please, don’t leave me like this.
Kill me kill me kill me kill me.
He screamed into their minds, but his powers grew weak from the unbearable torture within his body. As they left the grounds of the house and became too far for him to reach, he realised he was alone. No one would listen to him, even if they could hear him. And he was left with nothing but his guilt to accompanythe pain whilst his friends decided what to do with him. Until he heard a quiet sound in the darkness.
He called out, demanding to know who was watching him in the darkness that he could not grasp full control of in his current state, and heard a small voice reply. He wondered whether to use his Lure to bring the unfortunate watcher in the dark to him, but something stopped him. And when he saw those blue-grey eyes stare at him in wonder as a little Adriana stepped out of the shadows, he felt a split second of indescribable relief.
Xander
Adriana began to fall as Xander released his grip on her mind, returning her back to the present, back to herself. He caught her as she stumbled and held her close, tucking her head under his chin and stroking her hair as he whispered soothing words.
“It’s alright, you are here. You are back here with me.”
She pulled away to look up at him, her eyes full of a wariness that never usually existed. He wasn’t sure what to do, wasn’t sure if she could want him after seeing what he had done, what he could still do. He had shown her everything, allowed her to feel the shame, the anger, the bloodthirst. And now it was up to her to decide if she could continue to trust him, if she would still want him.
Xander knew it was a risk, he knew he could lose her, and it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He would not allow her to go forth with whatever it was that had begun to bloom between them, not until she truly knew what she was agreeing to. In his mind, there was no way she would stand beside him now. Howcould she? How could she stomach his touch when she had now witnessed exactly what those same hands had done?
As she raised her hand, he half expected to feel the sharp sting of a slap. But he didn’t. Instead, she traced the side of his face with her fingers, so delicately, before she raised up onto her toes, and kissed him.
He melted against her lips, his arms wrapping tightly around her waist, terrified she would disappear if he let go. If this was goodbye, if this was the last time he would get to hold her, to kiss her, then he was going to make every second last as long as he could.
As she pulled away, he felt her wipe a stray tear that had escaped his eye before she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her face bore no real expression, and he didn’t want to read her mind to know what she was thinking.
“I am sorry you saw Thomas like that,” he muttered, unsure of what else to say.
She gave him a sad smile. “And I am sorry you were made to feel such pain. But those terrible things you did were not you, Xander, you are not a monster. You are not what she wants you to be.”
“How can you be sure? I was not in a frenzy or out of control when I killed Abbot, I was just angry at what he had done to you. And I enjoyed every second of it. You cannot tell me that I am not a monster when we both know I can be.”
