Reclaimed(55)
Author: Diane Alberts

Elijah interrupted him. “No, I may have a plan. It came to me earlier. She’s always lusted after me. We can both attest to as much.” Isaac gave a curt nod of his head and met Elijah’s eyes. More than likely, Elijah also remembered just how much she had desired him, and how far she would go to get him. “I can entice her, make her think she has a chance. Distract her using kisses and caresses. That’s where you take advantage of her distraction. If you know what I’m saying.”

“Will she fall for such an old trick, after all this time you’ve spent hating her?” Isaac scoffed. Louisa would believe that all of a sudden, Elijah couldn’t keep his hands off of her? Not bloody likely.

Turning red, Elijah looked away from Isaac’s scrutiny. “There have been moments of weakness. We have—”

Isaac’s eyes widened as he realized what his brother alluded to. He glared and snapped, “You’ve had sex with the woman responsible for killing Amelia, the same woman responsible for making us what we are? Is this what you’re telling me?”

“Oh, spare me the righteousness of Isaac, if you will.” Elijah snarled as he made a dismissive gesture of his hand. “We vampires don’t exactly have a whole lot of choices out there, unlike you. If we try to take a human, they usually die in our arms. You, however, can have anyone you want, minus the repercussions. So don’t judge me.”

“Some people just do without,” Isaac argued. His cheeks flushed when Elijah studied him, and he avoided his gaze and shifted on his feet. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. “So you keep her otherwise occupied. Then, what, I run up behind you and snap her head off?”

“Precisely,” Elijah drawled.

“How would we arrange the time, and place? We’d also need a signal, one no Enforcers would catch on to.” Isaac tensed, and shouted, “God damn it, Sabrina!”

Elijah stared at him in confusion before he, too, sensed her presence. He whipped his head in her direction, and they both glared at her as she walked into the clearing. She held her head high, and her chin set stubbornly. Her eyes flashed in the moonlight as thunder boomed overhead. She had never looked so gorgeous, and he had never been so goddamned furious.

Once, just once, could she listen to him? Isaac rushed to her, pausing only to glower at Elijah when he headed toward her as well. Oh, hell no. Sabrina belonged to him, and Elijah needed to remember it. Now.

Elijah, heeding the unspoken warning, instantly halted, though his fists remained clenched.

“What the hell are you doing here, Sabrina? Are you crazy?” Isaac whispered.

She glared and answered, “No. I’mnot. I’m not the one risking my head for treason.”

Isaac opened his mouth to retort, only to be interrupted by Elijah. “Perhaps she’s here for a reason, Isaac.”

That earned a hiss from Isaac, but he did manage to ask using great control, “Is there something wrong, Sabrina?”

She hesitated and her gaze darted from him to Elijah speculatively. She looked terrified of what she wanted to say, but her chin jutted out nonetheless. If she was scared by what she had to say, he had a feeling he wouldn’t like it either. At all.

“I’d like Elijah to change me,” she stated.

Not like it? Understatement of the century.

Thunder crashed overhead, and Isaac found himself incapable of words, so he sputtered. The wind whipped around the trio at hurricane-like speeds, and Sabrina braced herself against a tree to fight the force of the winds pulling at her.

“Isaac, you need to calm down!” Elijah yelled as he approached Sabrina, presumably to help keep her from floating away in the wind. He got rewarded for his admonishment when Isaac pushed him, slamming him into the boulder he had previously rested upon.

The message, Isaac felt certain, came out loud and clear. Isaac stalked away from them both and punched a tree. The tree proceeded to shudder, and a cracking sound filled the air it crashed to the ground. Sabrina screamed, and Elijah hurried to her side to put a soothing hand on her shoulder. This did not help his anger very much.

Apparently the message hadn’t been as clear as he had thought.

Anger oozed out of his pores like a sickness as Isaac stalked toward them, but he halted when he saw how petrified Sabrina looked. He growled and sat down to hold his head in his hands in an attempt to calm himself. She’d asked to be bitten. She’d actually requested to become a monster, to become his enemy.

He concentrated on calming his fury, and attempted to steer away the mental images of Elijah sinking his teeth into her neck. Although vampires liked the sensitive spot on the inside of the thigh, too. Elijah would probably much prefer that spot over a measly neck bite.

No, those types of thoughts wouldn’t calm him down.

Get a grip, man.

When Isaac finally felt calm enough to confront Sabrina, he raised his head and glowered. Elijah still stood by Sabrina, but had wisely removed his hands from her. If he even so much as touched her right now, Isaac would lose the small bit of control he had. “And what, my love, would you accomplish if you got your way? Have you changed your mind, and would like to live with Elijah instead?” he bit out. He ground his teeth together in an attempt to stay calm.

Sabrina ran to his side, halting Elijah’s panicked attempt to stop her with a glare of her own, and crouched down beside him. “No, Isaac. I love you. I thought maybe if I weren’t so weak—”

He laughed somewhat hysterically at her line of thought. Shaking his head in bemusement, he sneered, “You thought you would become a big, strong vampire and defeat Louisa, and we could live happily ever after?”

Sabrina blushed, but scowled at his condescending tone. “Yes, but God knows why I would want to be with an ass**le like you.” They glared at each other, neither backing down from their icy stance.

“Do you realize if he bites you, you would always be a part of him? That you’d have loyalty and attachments such as you’ve never known? Even Elijah feels drawn to Louisa, and he despises her.”

She looked to Elijah for confirmation, and he nodded his assent.

“Oh well, if it helps us all out of this mess, so be it. I’m strong enough to resist,” she insisted.

“Even if that were true, it would take at least a week until you were able to fight Louisa. Until then, you’d be lying in bed, wracked with pain. Useless. You don’t become an invincible immortal right away.”

“It’s true,” Elijah added softly from behind them. “It’s not something you should wish for, Sabrina. It is no way for anyone to live. You’d be better off dead, just as I should be.”