THIRTY-THREE

Plea Bargain

They starved her.

There was no more water. No more bread. No more olive oil. Kingsley martin had ceased to perform his small acts of kindness. Charles had not returned to visit her either. She did not know how long she had been left in this room, but Allegra felt the change begin inside her. Since she had started to take the blood regularly, the deep-seated hunger had begun. She needed to drink. To perform the Caerimonia Osculor and take the living blood into her body.

It looked as if the Venators knew that too, as the next morning brought a knock on the door. “I was told to bring you this,” Nan Cutler said, as she shoved a Red Blood male into the room. “Drink from him. You have gone without for too long.” She thrust the specimen under Allegra’s nose.

The human boy was gorgeous and looked exactly like Ben: tall and blond and handsome. He had been drugged and he looked at her groggily.

“No,” Allegra said, feeling disgusted and excited at the same time. She could smell his blood underneath his skin, thick and viscous and so alive—and here she was, so dizzy and thirsty and weak. She could rip his throat and take him, drain him until he was almost at the brink of death. But she held back.

If she took another familiar, then Ben would cease to be special to her anymore. She knew that was what Charles wanted. The familiar’s bond was strong, but it was diluted by every other Red Blood a vampire took. Charles wanted her to forget about Ben, or at least have someone else in her system.

He wanted to say to her, This is all he is to you: a vessel for blood. Nothing more.

“Do it!” Nan said. She pushed Allegra onto the boy, who had fallen to the floor.

Dear god, she wanted it so much; she wanted to taste him—maybe just a little? Was that so wrong?

What was she thinking—no. No. She did not want this.

This was pure torture. She straddled the boy’s chest and bent down, putting her mouth on his neck, her fangs out and saliv-ating. She was so very hungry.

But finally she pushed herself away and staggered against the opposite wall, half delirious and her face white as a sheet.

Charles wanted to turn her into a monster. Wanted to show her that her love was false. That it was a mistake and an illusion. He wanted to show her what they were: fallen angels, cursed by the Lord, feeding on blood to survive. How far they had fallen. How low she had become.

She would not do this.

“NO!” she said, more clearly now, as she stood up and crossed her arms. “Take him away from me.”

“Fine,” Nan said, shrugging. “If you don’t want it, I’ll have him.” The vampire dragged the boy to a far corner and kissed him with her fangs. Soon the loud slurping noise filled the room.

Allegra felt sick. She’d been in the room for what felt like forty days and forty nights. She had no idea what had happened to Ben, or what Charles was planning, but for now she was certain that Ben was still alive. She knew she would feel it if he were dead.

He was alive for now, but she did not know how long. Did she trust Charles enough to keep him alive? Or would the pain of her love for Ben be too much for Charles to bear? After all, it was only too easy to break Ben’s neck or drain him to death, or even make it seem like an accident so that she would never know for sure.

She thought of everything she and Charles had been through together, and wondered how it was that they had come to this. She had left him at the altar, she had humiliated him in front of the Coven—and even now she refused to return to him, as he held all the cards and she had no choices left.

Why did she resist anyway? What part of her heart believed that she would be able to make her own destiny? She was not meant to be with Ben, she could see that now.

She was only hurting everyone—her twin, her love, herself, her Coven—by refusing to acknowledge the truth: that she could not have this. There was no escape from an immortal destiny, and this, whatever this was, those golden months in the green valley living as a vintner as if she were nothing but an ordinary girl, was just as false as pretending she did not feel any vestigial love for her immortal mate. She loved Charles, but she could not deny that the love she felt for Ben was much stronger, and deeper to the core of who she was. It was as simple as that.

But alas, Allegra Van Alen was not an ordinary girl. She had to accept that, or Ben would die. She was sure of it now.

There was nothing that mattered to Charles as much as keeping the Coven whole. He would sacrifice anything for it, including the Code of the Vampires. There was no way he would let Ben live; for as long as he was alive, Charles knew Allegra would pine for him and she would never give herself to him fully.

She made her decision.

“I want to speak to my brother,” she told the guard.

Kingsley martin saluted. “I’ll get him right away.” Allegra felt grateful that it was Kingsley who guarded her prison and not any of the others. They had been friends once. In Rome she had helped him with the Corruption in his soul. Few trusted the reformed Silver Blood, but Allegra had always been fond of him. She remembered him as a young boy, Gemellus, the weakling.

When Charles entered the room, Allegra threw herself at his feet and bowed her forehead so low it touched the edge of his wingtips, and her tears drenched his shoelaces.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

“Allegra, don’t do this, you don’t need to. Get up, please. I can’t bear to see you this way,” Charles said, kneeling down to her level and trying to remove her arms from his legs. “Please don’t.” His face was full of anguish, and she did not know who found this harder to bear—him or her. They shared this pain together, as they had shared everything else. He felt everything she did—of course he did. He was her twin, and her anguish was his own.

He was hurting to see her demean herself this way. But it was her love that was on the line, and she had no shame or pride anymore. “Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him, Charlie. Please.

I’ll go with you. I’ll say the words and we’ll be bonded. Just.

Don’t hurt him. Please.”