Page 63 of My Master
“Just lay her here,” the doctor gestured to one of the beds. He set her down and the doctor began to work.
* * *
Isis waited outside in anticipation,the damned doctors had kicked the excess amount of people outside and it was driving her crazy and even worse when she could hear Ezzy’s screams out in the hallway. It sounded as though her best friend was in excruciating pain and that made Isis shudder to her core.
She supposed nothing was as bad as childbirth. It made Isis glad that shewasn’t the pregnant one. Who wanted children anyway? All of that pain to have a squalling brat for eighteen years. Babies were nothing but a nuisance, but she couldn’t deny that she was happy for Esmeralda and Antonio. Although she was pretty worried about the time it took for her to deliver the brat.
She held the sheet tighter to her chest and worried at her bottom lip. “Are you okay?” a voice asked from in front of her. She looked up and saw Anya standing before her, holding a steaming cup in her hands. She looked rather cute, Isis mused, her auburn curved eyebrows pulled together with worry.
Isis shrugged. Normally she would have replied ‘yes’ quite instantly. “Not really,” she admitted wryly.
Anya frowned and handed Isis the steaming cup. She took it and glanced down at the thick crimson liquid in the Styrofoam cup. She smiled and took a tentative sip. The liquid was warm down her throat and comforting.
“I’ve heard your tale spoken.” Anya sat next to Isis and studied her. Her fedora still sat crookedly on top of her head, auburn hair in curls over her shoulders.
Isis eyed her suspiciously. “Did Maria tell you?”
She looked around for the girl but Maria was nowhere in sight. She had probably gone to the cafeteria with her father, who had shown up quite some time after Esmeralda’s water broke, to get something to eat.
Anya shook her head. “I’ve read of the battle in the papers. Your whole story, however, I know not all of it.” Her heated gaze went over Isis. “Talking usually helps, I find.”
Isis took another sip of her synthetic blood. “There are some things that Caesareon told me that I don’t understand,” she found herself saying. She didn’t know why she was telling this stranger her most intimate thoughts when she hadn’t even told her own friends. Perhaps it was because Anya intrigued her, though heaven could only knew why.
“What things?” Anya pressed.
Isis shrugged. “It was all nonsense to me at first, if I’m honest. He had mentioned a speech someone gave to him once,” she said, recalling his words like knives piercing every inch of her insides. “I told him I didn’t care, and he said that he thought I would care about the words of my own flesh.” She paused and Anya said nothing. “I think he meant to say ‘flesh and blood’ but I killed him before he finished. I think he was talking about my brother, but…” She choked on a breath. “My brother is dead.” She practically sobbed and then drank a mouthful of the blood as if it could keep her from crying.
“I think it was only a means to torture me further. It’s his way, you see.” She turned to Anya and saw that she was focused on her every word. “And he did, because it got me to thinking: is my brother truly dead? And I find myself answering in a second. Yes, yes he is. Even in death it seems that myMasterstill plays with my thoughts. My body is not my own and I don’t think it ever will be.”
Then, Anya touched a hand to Isis’s shoulder and the contact sent heat and sizzles and electricity shooting through her every nerve, and she was sure that Anya felt it too because she heard her gasp, though she didn’t remove her hand. They simply stared at each other a moment and Isis felt emotion surge through her, emotions that she couldn’t quite describe.
“The past is not easily erasable,” Anya offered, lowering her hand to her own lap. “I know this personally…”
Isis sighed, trying to shake off the feeling of static in her system. “But one thing troubles me deeply,” she said, fretting at her lip again.
“And what might that be?”
“Caesareon was one of the oldest vampires in the world. Surely his feelings for humans hadn’t developed overnight. If he had hated them for so long, why is it that he never attacked years ago? Why wait till now? And why wait to find me?”
Anya thought for a moment. “Perhaps he saw you merely as a means to an end.”
Isis stared at her. “What do you mean?”
Anya shrugged. “You look at this equation and see only yourself as his greatest treasure but, what if you’re wrong? He liked to play games and, well, what if you were only a pawn in his game of chess? And we all know that pawns aren’t the most important pieces in that game.”
“So…” Isis began, “so do you believe that he has more armies? More than just what the FBSI found and destroyed?”
Anya shrugged. “I know not what to believe, it is merely a theory anyway. I believe in facts and logic, and the fact is that he is dead and for now you can rest in peace.”
Isis frowned. “That’s another thing,” she said. “It’s so weird that he was weakened easily. I’m sure my punches couldn’t have hurt him that bad, right?”
Anya tapped her chin with two fingers. “Doesn’t your kind feel shared pain?”
“Only if you have a vampire mate but—”
“Then maybe he was feeling his mate’s pain and that’s what weakened him.”
Isis snorted, the idea sounding completely ridiculous. Caesareon with a vampire mate? It didn’t seem too likely. “I doubt he had a mate, the man was too cold for such things.”
