Don't Tempt The Boss

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LENA.

The last thing I remembered clearly was making tea.

I remembered the knock at the door, and I remembered opening it without checking the peephole first, because I was tired, and my brain had apparently decided it had met its quota for caution.

I remembered Alois stepping inside like I had said something that constituted an invitation, that horrible smile on his face, the same one he had when we first met. And then my mind went dark.

Now I was sitting upright in a chair, head throbbing. The room smelled of cold wax, damp stone, and something metallic-sweet that turned my stomach. I looked around, trying to find an escape. Stone walls, high ceilings, with candlelights all around.

Alois sat directly across from me, legs crossed, watching me intently, with a smile.

“You’re frightened,” he said pleasantly. “That’s alright. I expected it.”

I kept my voice as calm as I could manage. “What did you do to me?”

“Compulsion,” he said. “It is an old technique. It works differently depending on the person.” He tilted his head and studied me. “You resisted longer than most people do. That was actually impressive.”

“Where am I?”

“Somewhere private.”

“I want to leave.”

“I know.”

“I am not making conversation. I am asking you to let me go. You've got the wrong person. I don’t have any money or anything.”

“I know that too.” He did not move at all. “But Sébastien will come, because he is predictable, and until he does, I think we ought to use the time between now and then wisely.” He leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees, and when he looked at me his eyes were completely calm and extraordinarily patient. “I am not going to hurt you, Lena. I want to be very clear with you about that. You are far too valuable to damage.”

“Valuable.”

“Yes.”

“Not a person. Valuable.”

“Both things can be true at the same time,” he said. “I am simply the only person in your life honest enough to say the second thing out loud.” He waited, and then he continued. “Sébastien has not told you the truth about why he hired you.” I knew where this was going and I didn't want to hear it at all.

“Don’t do this.”

“He ran your blood against his synthetic formula without your knowledge or your consent,” Alois said, his voice staying gentle and almost kind, making it worse. “The moment your results came back, he already knew exactly what you were. He kept you close because your blood is the only strain that has ever stabilized his life’s work.” He held my gaze without blinking. “Not because of anything sentimental, but because you were useful.” He laughed right after, clapping.

I didn’t say anything.

I wanted to. I wanted to say something to hurt his pride, something that would expose this as manipulation, but my mind kept going back to the blood-based clearance codes on his office doors.

The needle that had pricked my thumb the very first time I pressed my palm into the scanner in his building, the way he had gone completely still in the lab the night my hand was bleeding.

“You killed someone,” I started. “That man outside his building.”

“It was a message.” He replied. “Sébastien needed reminding that I was paying attention. He has a tendency to get distracted from the things that matter.” His gaze dropped for just a moment to my throat, to where the bruises had not finished fading, and something changed in his expression. He was amused. “He has marked you. How very like him.”

Heat flooded my face fast. “What do you actually want from me?”

“One thing.” He stood slowly and moved toward the far wall, where a row of candles burned in a line and moved gently when he passed. “A single draw. It'll be done properly of course, there will be no harm to you, and it'll be supervised by my own physician in a clean environment.” He turned back to face me from across the room. “In exchange for that, I will pay your brother’s medical bills in full. Every outstanding bill, every future treatment. I will fund the remainder of your medical school without conditions, and I will remove you entirely from Sébastien’s world.” He paused. “You would be free of all of this, Lena. The secrets, the danger, the man who has been lying to you.”

I looked at him for a long moment. “And if I say no?”

He smiled again, “Then we wait for Sébastien to arrive.”

I thought about Abel in the hospital bed, pale and joking about gold caskets. He probably didn’t even know I was missing. I thought about standing outside the hospital in the cold with Sébastien's hands on my face, saying, ‘look at me, just listen to my voice’, and I genuinely hated how much space that memory still occupied in my head. I should be thinking about Abel, what would happen to him if Alois kills me?

“What was she?” The question was already out of my mouth before I thought twice about it. “Elara. What was she, really?”

Alois reached into his jacket and moved back toward the table between us. He set something down on the surface, a glass vial sealed with wax, filled with blood so deep in color it was almost black.

When he cracked the seal open, the smell hit me first, then I recognized it before my mind had finished processing what I was looking at.

I looked up at him, my eyes wide. “Is that my blood? How do you have that?”

“I have had it for considerably longer than you would think possible.” His smile did not drop. “That is the particular nature of the sacred blood, Lena. It has a way of finding its way into the right hands across time, regardless of the distance involved.” He held my gaze. “Elara was exactly what you are. The question I keep returning to,” he said, tilting his head just slightly to one side, “is whether Sébastien has managed to figure that out yet.”