“I take it you didn’t tell Evan in the beginning.”

“No. I just felt so ashamed of myself. Ashamed for being so gullible as to Bind with someone I hardly knew. But at the time, it had felt right.”

I couldn’t really vilify her for Binding with someone after only knowing them for a short time. Not when Sam and I hadn’t known each other for long.

“I understand,” said Sam. “It felt right for me and Jared, even though we hadn’t been together long.”

“Yes, and it would have continued to feel right for me if Gregory had really been the person that he pretended to be. But he’s a far cry from it. He’s violent and he’s abusive, and I didn’t want Evan to be responsible for keeping me safe. I didn’t want him in any form of danger. So I gave him a bunch of excuses as to why I couldn’t be with him, but they never deterred him. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so persistent,” she added endearingly. Her face fell as she continued. “When he asked me on the night of your Binding ceremony to stay here with him permanently, I finally told him about Gregory.” She gave me a sad smile. “Imagine how well you would have taken it if you found out that Sam was Bound to someone else.”

I would have wanted to hunt down and kill the f**ker…but to do that would have been to kill Sam too, because she wouldn’t have survived the severing of the bond. Fuck, no wonder Evan’s head had been in a shitty place. “So you didn’t reject him?”

“No. It was actually the other way around. I asked if he could handle being with someone who he could never Bind with, someone who would always be tied to somebody else – even though I despised that somebody else. He didn’t answer me. He just…walked away.” Tears began to trail down her face and she brushed them away with her thumbs. “Then when it was time for me to leave the next evening, he didn’t come. Not to ask me to stay or even to say goodbye.”

Sam puffed out a long breath. “Alora, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, me too. Evan doesn’t want me and he’s never going to want me – I don’t blame him. In his position, I’m not sure if I could handle it either. It would be agonising to know that he was Bound to someone else, to know that I’d never have that same bond with him. But I still want to help him. Maybe I can’t. But I need to try. I need to do something. If you were me, Sam, if Jared had made it clear that he didn’t want you, could you still have sat back and ignored the fact that he was dying?”

Sam snorted. “I would have done whatever I could to help, whether he wanted me to or not.”

I might have smiled at that if I wasn’t so pissed with how things had worked out – or, more specifically, how they hadn’t worked out – for my brother. I mean, really, could the situation be any more f**ked up? I ran a hand through my hair, sighing heavily. “Where is Gregory?”

Alora dabbed her wet cheeks with the tissue that Antonio handed to her. “Canada.”

“He doesn’t try to contact you?”

She shook her head. “He’s too scared of Bran. Please don’t ask me to go back home. I need to do something.”

I was silent as I thought on that. “I won’t ask you to leave,” I eventually said. How could I expect her to do that when she was clearly in as much agony as Evan was over the whole thing? “But I’ll be honest, Alora, I don’t see how you can help. None of us have been able to come up with a solution. I have one condition, though. If you stay, you can’t try to see Evan.”

“I’m guessing he made it clear that he didn’t want me here. It’s okay.” Another sad, wobbly smile.

“That’s not what I mean. Evan just doesn’t want you to see him like that.”

“Nice of you to try and spare my feelings, but I know he doesn’t want me around.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” My words didn’t seem to affect her.

After a short silence, Antonio smiled. “I’m glad that is settled. I will have someone escort you to the Guest House, Alora.” He called out a name, and one of the guards stationed outside the parlour stepped inside. “Please take this young lady to the room that I instructed to be readied for her. Thank you.”

Alora rose from her seat and flashed both Sam and me a grateful yet sorrowful smile. “Thanks for letting me stay, and for understanding why I need to be here.”

When the door closed behind her, Antonio looked warily from me to Sam. Oh shit, now what? “One more thing before you both leave: I have news from Sebastian. He has located Paige West.”

So not what I wanted to hear.

Chapter Nine

(Sam)

A whole hour. We spent a whole hour arguing over whether or not we should risk bringing Paige West to The Hollow. But we were still at stalemate, because neither of us was willing to back down. Jared had eventually walked away – a gesture that the conversation was over. He was now lying in the hammock on our balcony, totally silent.

And I bloody hated it.

The last thing that I wanted was to be at odds with Jared. Knowing that Evan, Max, and Stuart could die, seeing the pain on Alora’s face…All of that had brought with it an acute awareness of just how easily everything could end. How easily the people important to you could be taken away, just like that. I’d experienced it with a boyfriend that my Sire had killed – Bryce had been murdered in front of my very eyes. The pain of that loss had never left me, and nor had the memory of the look in his eyes just before Victor killed him. Even the thought of anything happening to Jared was ten times worse than having lost Bryce. The frightening fact was that it could just as easily have been Jared who was hurt in the tunnels. The very idea made ice-cold fear shudder through me. There was truly no such thing as immortality.

At any other time, I might have stormed after Jared if he walked away mid-argument. But although it looked as though he had petulantly walked off in a huff and was now sulking, I was connected to him on a level so deep that I knew it was much more than that. An all-consuming fear was tormenting him, haunting him, clawing at him. But there was more – pain and rage were bubbling and sizzling inside him…and he was desperately trying to hide it all from me. That realisation had stopped me dead in my tracks.

It was then that, having tapped fully into our bond, I’d realised something else. By fighting so hard with Jared on the subject of Paige West for the last few weeks, I’d caused him to pull back. Watching his twin deteriorate had swamped him with dark emotions, and by arguing with him, I’d more or less left him to deal with it all by himself. I’d made him feel that I wouldn’t support him purely because I disagreed with his decision about Paige. He thought that I’d tell him it was his own fault that he was feeling this way.