Page 51 of My Master
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“Antonio!” Isis tried to step forward, to run to him, but Caesareon held onto her, pulling her back onto him. She looked over at him and he was smiling.Smiling!
“Come to join the party?” Caesareon asked.
“I’m afraid I didn’t receive an invitation,” Antonio said.
His sarcastic remarks made Isis’s heart swell up. She had missed that—so much. She had missed his friendship and his craziness and making fun of him as if they were siblings. She missed the Santiago mansion. She missed everything that had been a part of her new life and she hadn’t even realized it completely until she saw Antonio standing not fifteen feet away from her, knowing that he just might get killed. Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen.
“A party crasher, then?” Caesareon sounded amused.
“I guess you could look at it like that.”
“I suppose this is the part where you tell me to let go of Isis or you’ll kill me?” Caesareon wrapped his arm around her waist.
“No,” Antonio said. “This is the part where I kill you and take Isis home.”
Antonio ran forward, at the same time he did, Caesareon turned Isis to face him, his eyes flared and he growled, “Kill him,” and Isis was forced to obey. It was the same feeling she got every time he controlled her. Complete helplessness as she charged at Antonio, her hands outward.
He stopped when he saw her approaching, for he wouldn’t dare hurt Isis, and Caesareon knew it and he knew that it would hurt Isis all the more to kill someone she loved. Isis struck out at Antonio with her hands, shoving him backwards with vampire force. He cried out as he fell, banging his head against the tile floor of the store, causing it to crush down. He sat up and rubbed his head.
Isis saw the fear in his eyes. Antonio wanted to get to Caesareon, but it wouldn’t happen unless he went through Isis first. And Antonio and Isis had always play wrestled for years, and Isis had always wound up beating him. She could only hope he was strong enough to take her down, because she couldn’t stop herself from hurting him.
Antonio hopped up gracefully onto his feet, shaking his hair back and forth.Kill him!That deep sinister voice spoke into her mind. She ran to him again, this time, he didn’t hesitate. Instead of attacking, he defended himself against her blows, dodging her moves in twirls and flips.
He had just pushed her back, causing her to fall on her bottom, and when she stood up she noticed something gleaming in his hand. It was the gun, and he was pointing it at Caesareon. For a second she thought she wouldn’t be able to move, but she did. Jumping up, she ran to Antonio, knocking him to the side just as the gun went off.
The blow sent the gun whirling across the floor. Isis stood up from Antonio and turned to look at Caesareon. He was standing exactly where he had been earlier; the bullet hadn’t even whizzed by him. He was staring at them with angry boredom.
“Isis,” he said. “Tear his head from his body.”
Isis drifted her gaze over to Antonio. Blood was running out of his nostrils, probably from the impact of Isis knocking him to the ground. She screamed at herself from the inside to not do what Caesareon wanted, but her mind and her body were different, no longer in sync with each other. So she took Antonio’s throat in her hand, digging her nails into his skin. He winced, but made no struggle.
“Isis,” he whispered. “I know you’re in there. Don’t listen to him. This isn’t you!”
“Silence this fool, Isis.”
Isis choked Antonio. He gasped.
“You’re…not…like…this…” Antonio managed to say.
Caesareon growled. “Show him your true nature, Isis. Show him who you really are, who you were meant to be. Kill him.”
She gripped him with both hands now, prepared to crack his neck to the side.
“Not…a monster…”
Antonio’s neck burned beneath her palms, like she was being branded by his scar. The scar that his twin brother had put there. The brother that he had killed. She wasn’t the only one who had killed a sibling, and she doubted she would be the last. She didn’t want to kill Antonio—he wouldn’t die by her hand. She fought for control over her body, fought for her mind to control the movements that she long desired.
“Isis, what are you waiting for? Obey me, and kill him!” Caesareon sounded angry now, his voice low, and maybe, she thought, a little weak as well.
She stared Antonio in the eyes. They weren’t flaring red, but they were a calm shining black, smooth like marbles or oil, and they were staring at her with no judgment, no fear and no anger. He was staring at her with love. And his black eyes reminded her of someone else’s. Someone who had loved her, someone whom she loved as well.
“Damn it, you insolent weakling,KILL HIM!”
“Isis,” Antonio gasped frantically.
Something in her mind wavered and then clicked, and all at once, everything came back to her.
