She shook her head, slowly, and almost gently. “You know I am no longer her.” She took a step toward him. Her feet were bare, but she felt no pain. The ground was covered in blood, dirt, rocks, and she felt none of it. She only felt her power. Her dress glided over her body as she walked another step forward.
He jerked backwards. His eyes were piercing. A nerve bulged out from his neck. “Stop right there.”
“Now, Lucas,” she chided, wagging a finger from side to side. “You know I am not a being you can command. If anyone should know how powerful I am, it must be you.” She sent him visions of their past. The first memory was when he realized the thread had jumped to Talia. The second when he watched her bring their dead mother back to life. The third, when Talia stood behind her sister. Her hand was up and she was going to attempt the same event. Tracey was turned into a vampire and Talia wanted to make her human. Lucas stopped her, but The Immortal remembered that moment. She wanted Talia to try. She wanted to test the boundaries of her power, see how far she could go. He stopped her, though, and the two made love. The Immortal made him remember that night. When he slipped inside the thread-holder, held her, and cupped her face. He gazed down into Talia’s eyes, but it wasn’t Talia he was looking at. It was her.
He loved The Immortal, just as he fell in love with the next thread-holder.
She relished that feeling now. When she slipped into Davy. It was right. The body was right. There was power already in the human, more than she could’ve imagined, and as soon as the thread was inside of the empath, The Immortal knew she found the right body. At last.
She pushed that memory into Roane’s head, too. She wanted him to experience the moment he lost the next thread-holder, because he had. As soon as the thread was inside of Davy, it was over.
Davy was hers.
He fell in love with her vessel once again, and still, even as she pushed more memories into his mind, she knew he wouldn’t realize it.
He was in love with her, not the vessel.
Memory after memory, she shoved them all into his mind. Every time she was there. Every time he was feeling her power, not the thread-holder. Her. The last vision was when he drank from Davy’s blood. He was drinking her, not Davy. It was her, mixed in the vessel’s blood, that filled him and gave him power.
She stood just before him now, her hand still in the air. “Do you feel me?”
His eyes rolled inside and he bent over, falling to his knees. She pulled at her power that was still in his blood. The Roane Hunter-line had turned off his connection to the Hunters. He could no longer sense them, but she felt a faint stirring of them. She felt his Hunter tattoo. It sparked alive and that meant one thing, the Hunters were near. He was still not connected to them. They feared he was too powerful, but his tattoo was burning. It only burned when other Hunters were nearby.
“No,” she murmured. She was lost in thought.
Lucas was reliving that moment when he drank from Davy. It was on a loop, repeating over and over again. As he was blind to everything else, she cupped the side of his face. He looked up at her, but he still couldn’t see her. She pressed her wrist to his mouth and urged, “Drink.”
The other Roane was turned into a human, but that was because Davy wanted it.
Lucas didn’t fight her. He gripped her arm and his fangs sank deep into her skin. He was drinking her blood and more of her power went into him. It mixed with the other remnants of her power and everything became more inside of him. He was more. He was more of a vampire. He was more of a Hunter. He was more of her lover. He loved her more. His strength was more.
His power was more, and he was her creature now.
She traced the side of his face as he kept drinking. Her own love for him filled her. She could feel Davy protesting in her. She didn’t want this to happen, not while The Immortal was in control, but the human was the one contained now.
The Immortal smiled. Still holding her lover’s head to her wrist, she gazed out over the battleground.
She felt Jacith’s magic. It was underneath the warring vampires and werewolves. He was there, but he was hiding. He had sensed she was near and he was cloaking himself from her. Even now, she searched each and every being below. Some of them were connected to him. She felt his magic in them. He had given his magic to them. He was aiding one side to win against the other. As she thought this, Roane sank his teeth deeper into her. She looked down, confused.
“Can you hear my thoughts?”
He drank harder, faster.
He could. She had taken over his mind, but that was his response to her.
He wanted her to help his side. She felt him imploring her. He wasn’t thinking it, but somewhere his consciousness was reaching out to her. She felt his desires as if they were hers, and for his friends and loved ones to win was one of the most important.