Page 6 of My Master
“You know how long it’s been, Caesareon. Skip the small talk; I didn’t call you here for that.”
“Ah, yes. So, whatdidyou call me here for? Mind you, I wasn’t really surprised—especially by your methods, well done—I knew you’d come to me eventually.” He twined his fingers together and rested his chin on them, smiling.
She felt the urge to rip his lips from his face. Not yet, she told herself. Wait another moment.
“How did you find me?” she asked through gritted teeth. After so many years of hiding, of moving from place to place, she thought she had finally lost him. She hated to think that she was easily traceable.
“Oh, it was difficult, at first,” he said. “You changed locations so often that I couldn’t get a whiff of your scent, even with my best werewolves after you.”
She blinked. Werewolves? He had werewolvesnow?Son of a bitch, she thought bitterly, gritting her teeth.
“You gave me quite the chase, my darling.” His voice was thick and heavy and would have been almost romantic in a way, if she didn’t know any better. “A couple of years ago, though, I feltit.” He smiled, as if expecting her to react to this. She only blinked. “Ourconnection,Isis! The connection that exists between the createdand the creator!” He pressed a finger to his temple and tapped. “I felt a tug in here. You were close to me, I knew it. I felt your…” He paused and took his hand away from his temple to press it down on her hand, which rested on the table. “…essence.”
Isis pulled her hand away from his as if it were poisonous.
“I know you must have felt it, as well. It is a special bond that one has with the vampire that created them. Dare you deny it?”
She couldn’t. No matter how bad she wanted too. Even now, with him close to her, she could feel a weird sort of pulse, apulltowards him. Like blood calling to blood. She wondered if this is what it felt like to have a Soul Mate. As if they were both magnets being attracted to each other by a positive and negative force. She doubted it.
“So is there anything else you wish to know?” He sounded so calm that it annoyed her. She tried to make her face unreadable.
“What do you want from me?” she asked.
He laughed. “The true reason why you called me here, at last surfaces!” Caesareon placed his hands flat on the table. Isis noted that his nails were razor sharp, like tips of blades. “I want what any other king wants…” he smiled. “His queen.”
Isis scoffed. “How arrogant of you! Of course, after all of these years you see yourself as a king. It’s so typical that it’s become pathetic.”
His smile didn’t waver as she thought it would have. He just reached out his hand towards her and pulled her forward by the cheeks, squeezing them and staring her straight in the eyes. “You left me, Isis. You, the one who was my most precious creation, had theaudacityto run from me after everything I’d done for you.” He released her and leaned back in his chair. “And now,” he said, “I’m here to take back what’s rightfully mine.”
Anger boiled at Isis’s insides. A cold rage that she had almost—but not completely—forgotten had surfaced again and she couldn’t contain it any longer. “Get this one thing straight,” she spat. “I amnotyours. I have never been yours nor will I ever be yours. Whatever you’re planning, I don’t want to know, I just want you to get as far away from here as possible!”
A vein in his throat twitched. “Whoever said I was plotting anything my dear, sweet Isis?”
“Iknowyou’re plotting something because Iknowyou and don’t try to tell me otherwise. I want no part in it, I know you came for me for a reason and whatever it is I’m telling you now: hell no.”
Caesareon frowned. “You don’t have an option. Youwillcome with me and youwilldo what I tell you to do.”
Isis crossed her arms against her chest, as if to block away the cold. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”
Caesareon smiled. “Oh, I think you will.” And then, he reached into the pocket of his coat and fished out a piece of paper, small and rectangular and tossed it across the little table in front of Isis.
She glanced down at it and her heart lurched in fear. It was a photograph of Esmeralda and Antonio; one of those cute little photographs from a mall booth. Ezzy had given it to her a few months back. Isis reached for the picture with a trembling hand. “So, you see?” Caesareon continued. “Youwilldo what I want if you don’t want anything to happen to your little redheaded friend.”
Isis balled the picture up into her hand. “You wouldn’t dare…”
“Wouldn’t I?” He reached into his pocket again and this time pulled out something red and silky and tossed it over at her. Strands of red hair. Esmeralda’s hair; she could tell by the scent. Isis stood, causing the chair to jerk back.
“Where did you get that?” she demanded.
He smiled at her then, a cat who watched smugly from a corner as the cold metal clamp fell onto the mouse and caught it. “Where do you think? To be honest, I only got it a couple of hours ago. She didn’t even notice I was there, she looks exhausted, the poor thing.” He spoke so casually that it began to grind on her nerves.
Isis sat back down, putting her fingertips against Esmeralda’s hair. She could almost sense the girl—Ezzy would always be a girl to her—there, next to her, smiling and worrying and getting herself into danger.
She had to bluff—make him believe that she didn’t care. She had to give it a try, even if she feared it was too late. She shrugged and pushed the hair away. “Oh well,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could manage. “I don’t care what you threaten me with. Iwon’tdo what you want. Now or ever.”
He laughed. Long and loud and hard. When he was finished he wiped away a tear that had fallen from his eye. “Isis, do you believe me to be that stupid? I can see it written all over your face. You care about these two: your precious Esmeralda Ortiz and Antonio Santiago. I know everything about them and everything aboutyou. I have everything that you hold dear in the palm of my hand and in one move,” he reached out quickly and took her hand in his, squeezing it until she felt numb. “I could crumble it all before your eyes and there’d be nothing you could do to stop me.”
Isis swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and blinked rapidly. She did not want him to see her cry. Slowly, she nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll do anything. Just, please, don’t hurt my friends.”
