Dead Or Alive

JON

Jon was dead.

He bled out on the edge of the border. His last words were “...my mate.” After that, it all went dark, and when Jon’s eyes opened, he was certain...this was it.

The afterlife.

Because he felt no pain. Because everything glowed with an ethereal beauty. Because there was an angel hovering above him, smiling down at him.

The most beautiful face he’d ever seen. A smile so breathtaking and pure it couldn’t be real.

None of this could be real, could it?

Jon was dead.

“Jon...can you hear me?”

But when he heard her voice, soft and raspy and altogether alive, Jon felt the fog dissipating around him and a sudden harsh clarity taking over.

“Jon,” she said. “Nod if you understand me.”

He tried to move his head. He wasn’t sure if it was working, if he still had a human form attached to this consciousness. But the woman’s smile told him he’d succeeded.

“There you are,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

It all came rushing back to Jon now. The attack by Zion. The near-death experience. The sudden appearance of his mate.

~Adhira~.

Her name was Adhira.

She was his mate.

“You...” he croaked. “You actually stuck around?”

She laughed with a disbelieving head shake. Even in this state, Jon managed to hold on to his sense of humor.

“Yeah, Jon,” she said. “I figured it was worth it.”

“I’m glad you did.”

The truth was he was ecstatic. But he was also afraid to admit it, as if voicing his true feelings would jinx this new beautiful reality he found himself in.

“Funny that we’ve never even met,” he said. “But I feel…”

“I know,” she said. “I feel the same.”

Adhira’s hands had healed him, yes. But it was her heart, he was certain, that had saved his life. There were no words for what he felt now.

He slowly lifted his hand to her face.

She leaned into his palm, closing her eyes. And it was as if, feeling her soft skin against his calluses, he could see into the future.

Jon could see his whole life unfolding with Adhira by his side. As she kissed his hand and opened her eyes, looking at him with unabashed love, it took all his willpower not to cry.

This stranger loved him. This angel. His mate.

“Adhira,” he whispered.

That was all he could manage. And, thankfully, Adhira understood. She leaned down and kissed his lips.

“Jon,” she answered.

If this was death, Jon thought, he’d die a thousand times over just to feel what he felt right now.

This knowing glance.

This shared breath.

This kiss.

“Let’s do that again,” he said.

Adhira laughed, grateful tears in her eyes. And then they kissed again. And again. And again.

Jon was ~alive~.

KYRIL

Kyril still couldn’t believe what Lilac had just said to him.

~She loves me?~

After everything he’d just told her, she still loved him?

“But...Lilac…” he said, and she shook her head.

“I mean it, Kyril. I love you.”

How had Kyril ever gotten so lucky as to find a mate as honest and forgiving as Lilac?

“I love you too,” he said. “I always have.”

She blushed and looked down. Even still, she was shy. Content to express sentiment but to receive it? That was another story.

Kyril laughed, shaking his head.

“You have no idea how it feels,” he said. “After all this time to finally say it out loud.”

He felt like the greatest burden of his entire life had been lifted.

Nothing would ever erase the guilt for what he’d done to Zion, but knowing he wouldn’t have to carry it alone? That Lilac would remain by side? It made everything better.

Lilac took his hand. “Kyril, let’s go see your brother. Together.”

~Zion~. He’d forgotten that he still had to interrogate him.

Every iota of Kyril’s being dreaded this—the idea of facing his brother after all these years. But with Lilac beside him, he knew he could do it.

He squeezed Lilac’s hand and nodded. “Let’s go see him.”

***

Zion lay on the floor of the prison cell, arms hung above his head, wrists bound together in chains.

When Kyril and Lilac entered, he pulled on his restraints and thrashed back and forth, his eyes crazed.

“Coward!” he shouted. “Let me go!”

“You know I can’t do that,” Kyril replied calmly.

“Did you bring her here to taunt me, Kyril?” Zion spat, glaring at Lilac. “To remind me what I’ve lost? What you’ve taken from me?”

Lilac recoiled. Even in his human form, Zion still terrified her. He was so consumed by his demon’s zeal.

Kyril took a protective step in front of her.

“No, Zion,” he said. “Lilac wanted to be here. To see who was trying to murder her. To try and understand.”

“Understand?”

And now Zion laughed with deranged bitterness. “Do you understand what your mate really is, girl? The kind of monster he is?”

Kyril looked down, unable to fight back.

In many respects, he still knew that Zion was right. A part of him was a monster. But to his surprise, Lilac took a shaky step forward.

“I know everything,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Kyril told me. It’s terrible. And I’m so sorry for...what you’ve lost…”

Zion frowned, clearly surprised by Lilac’s admission. But she wasn’t done.

“But,” Lilac said, stammering a bit, “that doesn’t...it can’t justify what you’ve done. To Jon. To the others…”

“What do you know of loss, ~girl~?” Zion asked, shaking his head with disgust. “You wear Serena’s bracelet, and then think you have the authority to tell me what is right and wrong?”

Lilac frowned, looking down at her wrist, confused. But Zion was getting angrier by the second, his skin glowing red...as if he was about to shift right then and there.

“How could you?” he said to Kyril. “How could you take it off her body?”

“Zion, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kyril answered honestly. “I never took anything off of Serena. I never even saw her corpse. When I awoke, it had disappeared.”

Zion frowned, growing more confused and enraged with every passing second. “How could that be? She was buried. There was a funeral!”

“An empty grave,” Kyril said. “We assumed it was related to her witch’s magic...the body’s disappearance. Nobody could explain it.”

“You’re lying. You’re LYING! I was there. I saw...”

Zion couldn’t formulate words, he was so overcome with emotion.

Kyril didn’t know why they were debating what had happened to Serena. She was dead and gone. What more was there to say?

But then Lilac kneeled down and looked Zion in the eye, and what happened next shook Kyril to his core.

Lilac

“Zion, this bracelet…” Lilac said, taking it off.

While the two brothers had been fighting, she’d been trying to make sense of everything. She slowly put her hand through the bars of the cell, offering the amber fig bracelet.

“This belonged to her?” Lilac asked. “To Serena?”

“Lilac, don’t—” Kyril said, panicked.

“It’s okay, Kyril,” she said.

Lilac had to believe that Rosalyn was right about her son, that there was some good in Zion still and that this bracelet might reawaken it. Still, she was terrified of the demon.

Zion slowly moved forward and looked at the bracelet. Although his hands were chained, his face was close enough that she could feel his hot breath on her palms.

His eyes examined it, and for a second, Lilac was afraid he was going to lunge at her.

“Why did you give this to her, Kyril?” he asked quietly, his tone laced with menace.

“He didn’t,” Lilac answered. “I found it.”

“What? Where?!”

Lilac told him what had happened at the restaurant. How a woman in a cloak had passed her and dropped it. A woman accompanied by a strange man.

As she told her story, the expression on Zion’s face kept shifting.

First, he was incredulous, then furious, then confused. When Lilac had finished, Zion was silent.

“The woman…” he finally said. “Did you get a glimpse of her face? Or catch her scent?”

“No, I’m sorry. I was holding on to the bracelet, hoping I may run into her again.”

“Kyril…”

Zion was shaking his head now in disbelief, brain spinning. Lilac could see that some profound realization was rocking him. But why?

“Kyril,” he said again. “Do you think...could it be…?”

“No,” Kyril said. “I killed her. I’m sure of it. How could—”

“But you never saw a body.”

“No…”

And now Zion’s eyes filled with the strangest emotion Lilac had seen yet. An emotion she never knew the demon could possibly feel.

In Zion’s eyes was...hope.

“Is Serena…” he asked, “alive?”

Serena

The hooded woman, the demon’s mate, the witch who died... they were all one and the same. And, although to her knowledge no one knew it, Serena was very much alive.

“Serena, tell me of your progress,” a silky voice whispered.

Serena sat hunched over in a cave, toiling in secret, perfecting her magic for a cruel lord.

“It’s almost done, my lord,” she answered feebly.

Many years had passed since that fateful day, when she’d nearly died and been taken hostage by this monster.

She had tried to leave her mate a trail of breadcrumbs to her. But she had no idea if he would ever find her.

~Zion~, she thought. ~How I miss you.~

The monster, the vampire lord, lifted her chin so that she was forced to look at his ghastly features. His pale skin, his fanged smile.

“Serena,” he said. “You are a truly gifted witch. Do not disappoint me.”

She nodded her head, subservient, but deep down, she promised herself that one day she would be free. She would be reunited with Zion.

Even if she had to die again.