BURNED TWICE

Chapter 5

THE HIDDEN WORLD

Dominic's penthouse made my apartment look like a student dorm.

It occupied the entire top three floors of a building I'd never even noticed before, hidden behind glamours and protective spells that apparently made it invisible to ordinary human eyes. The walls were black marble. The furniture was antique in ways that suggested it actually was old, as in centuries old. And there were windows. So many windows, showing a version of the New York City that I'd never seen before.

Or rather, the same city, but visible through different eyes.

"What are you seeing?" Dominic asked. He'd been watching me since we arrived.

"The city looks... alive," I said. "Like it's breathing. Like the buildings are awake."

"They are," Dominic said. "Everything is alive in that way, if you know how to see it. Your human eyes were trained by human perception. Now that your nature is waking up, you're beginning to see the reality beneath the illusion."

He handed me something that looked like tea, but smelled like honey and copper and things I didn't have names for.

"Drink," he said. "It will help your body adjust to what it's becoming."

I drank. It burned going down, but in a good way. In a way that felt like healing.

"My mother," I said. "Tell me about my mother."

Dominic settled into a chair that might have been a throne in a previous life. "Your mother was Evangeline Rossi. She was born in 1847 in Rome. She became a vampire in 1872, at the age of twenty-five. She was powerful born with rare gifts that even old vampires didn't possess. She could taste truth in blood. She could see through time in limited ways. She was going to be a legend in the vampire community."

"What happened?" I asked.

"She fell in love with your father," Dominic said. "And she chose love over power. She chose to become human as human as a vampire could be. She had a child that was Sophia. And then she had you. And in both cases, she weakened her powers further, spreading her essence thin to give you a chance at a normal life."

"Why would she do that?"

"Because she didn't want the life she'd been given," Dominic said. "She didn't want to be a predator. She didn't want to be immortal. She wanted to be loved in the way that only mortal creatures can love. Desperately. Fiercely. Knowing it would end."

I sat down. The tea was still warm in my hands.

"And Sophia?" I asked. "Is she a vampire too?"

"No," Dominic said. "Sophia is something else entirely. She's a siren, but she wasn't born that way. She was born human. But when your mother died, Sophia sought out the paranormal community. She wanted power. She wanted to be more than the sister of a failed vampire. So she made a deal with an organization called the Collectors. They transform humans into paranormal creatures, and in exchange, those creatures become assets to the organization. Sophia became a siren, and she became their spy."

"To spy on Marcus," I said, understanding.

"To spy on you," Dominic corrected. "Marcus was just a side objective. The real goal was to identify you, verify that you were indeed a Turned, and either recruit you or eliminate you."

"And I was supposed to be... what? A threat?"

"A vampire-human hybrid with paranormal potential," Dominic said. "You would have been incredibly valuable to the right organization. Or incredibly dangerous to the right enemies. Your mother was a legend in the vampire community, Isabella. Her daughter would be ten times the legend. If your powers ever fully awoke, you would be able to do things that most paranormal creatures can only dream of."

"What kind of things?" I asked.

Dominic stood and walked to the window. When he spoke, his voice was different. Older. Sadder.

"I was human once," he said. "A very long time ago. I was a merchant. I had a wife, children, a life that mattered. And then I was cursed by a witch I'd wronged. The curse transformed me into something neither living nor dead. Neither human nor paranormal. I've existed in that state for four hundred and seventy-two years, Isabella. Watching the world change. Watching people I love age and die. Watching myself become harder and colder and less capable of feeling anything at all."

He turned back to face me.

"And then you happened," he said. "A woman who shouldn't exist. A human with vampire blood waking up in the heart of a city. A woman with the potential to become something that might rival even my power. And I couldn't stay away. I couldn't pretend you didn't matter to me."

"Is this a love confession?" I asked.

"It's a warning," Dominic said. "I want you. I've wanted you since the night I watched you destroy your husband in front of three hundred people and walk away like a queen. I want to teach you what you're capable of. I want to bind myself to you in ways that go deeper than magic. But I'm not good, Isabella. I've spent four centuries becoming a monster. And if you let me have you, I will consume you. You need to understand that."

I should have been afraid. A sane person would have been afraid. A sane person would have run.

"What if I want to be consumed?" I asked.

Dominic moved toward me so fast I didn't see him move. One moment he was across the room. The next, he was directly in front of me, his hand on my face, his ice-blue eyes looking directly into mine.

"Then we need to have a conversation about what that actually means," he said. "Because the paranormal world isn't the fairy tale you're imagining. It's complicated. It's violent. It's full of politics and power plays and creatures that make Marcus and me look like angels."

"Tell me anyway," I said.

So he did.

He told me about the Accords.the ancient laws that governed paranormal society. He told me about the different castes of creatures: vampires, werewolves, sirens, witches, fae, and things that didn't have names in human language. He told me about the Collectors and their war against independent paranormal beings. He told me about the fact that my awakening had probably already been noticed by dozens of organizations, and they would all be coming for me soon.

"You have three options," he said, when he was finished. "One: I bind you to me, fully and completely. You become my mate, and I protect you from every threat that comes your way. You lose some autonomy, but you gain safety and power."

"And the other options?" I asked.

"Two: You learn to protect yourself. You train with me, you develop your abilities, and you navigate the paranormal world as an independent being. It's harder, it's lonelier, and you're more likely to be hurt. But you remain free."

"And three?"

"Three," Dominic said, and his voice became very quiet, "you go back to being human. We can suppress your paranormal nature. You'll forget this ever happened. You'll return to your normal life, and you'll never know what you could have been."

"What do you want?" I asked him.

"Selfishly? Option one," he said. "I want you bound to me. I want you entirely, completely, irrevocably mine. But objectively, I think you're stronger if you choose option two. You're stronger when you're your own."

A phone buzzed. Dominic checked it, and something dark crossed his expression.

"That was Marcus," he said. "The Collectors know you exist. They're moving faster than anticipated. They're sending someone to recruit you. Someone you won't be able to resist."

"Who?" I asked.

"Your sister," Dominic said. "Sophia. She's coming to find you. And she knows exactly how to hurt you."

The door to the penthouse exploded inward.

And Sophia walked through it, smiling like she'd been waiting her entire life for this moment.