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Footsteps in the hall let her know the others were on their way to begin the search She was out of tiht down the wave of nausea and the surreal feeling that o, to let herself fall in love with a man who didn&039;t want her, except as a vessel for his dead lunatic of a wife
But she&039;d been young then She was older noiser, far stronger And yet she was still a fool She still wanted hiht she would be one of those women she&039;d always secretly pitied The type to fall for the wrong guy, to hold on to aabout her Da for all these years to his obsession with a woman he&039;d barely even known
She steadied herself, ejected the tape from the machine, shut the power off and took the video back to her roo to join Melina and Lupe in Brooke&039;s roo They searched every nook and cranny of Athena House, searched the grounds and the basen of Brooke They started to examine Brooke&039;s computer, but it proved to be no easy task, since the entire machine was password protected
In fact, they were still trying to break into her files when the sun went down
The three women were huddled around a desk in the mansion&039;s library-not the secret, hidden one, but the one in the house itself They were leaning over Brooke&039;s laptop as Stor anyone could think of as a potential password She looked up fro the sky beyond the s in muted tones of pluot to her feet, andthe kinks from her back and shoulders
"I need a break," she said
Melina and Lupe frowned at her, but she stuck to her guns "Keep trying if you want I&039;et some air"
She left the the code without her as they did with her They knew Brooke, after all Storh the mansion, toward the back doors and out therassy lawn underneath the bedroo Because that here Vlad would coht
She needed to talk to hi and the rite She had accused hiht have been the one to leave it in her roo she herself would try to put it on And though she knew that was his ultioal, she also knew he hadn&039;t done it
She wanted to tell hi, she felt coical, the rest was She needed all the help she could get to find Brooke, and she knew that, with his powers, he would be , she would find a way to keep it froht All in the
She could keep her heart out of this and use her head She could She had to Her life depended on it
She hadn&039;t explored this part of the lawn before It bordered the gardens and featured a round on all sides Curious, she parted the veil and stepped inside
"I knew you&039;d come," a voice whispered
But it wasn&039;t Vlad&039;s voice It wasn&039;t the voice of a vampire, and it wasn&039;t the voice of a man It was a woman&039;s voice
She rose from the concrete bench that sat at the base of the tree Around them, the tendrils of thetheir secrets, whispering a warning It see her to turn and run
"Brooke?" she asked But the woh it was Brooke&039;s body This woman didn&039;t stand like Brooke, didn&039;t hold herself the same way And her eyes were black as jet
"Not anynize me, Tempest? I was sure you&039;d know , after all"
Storaze slid down to the woer She tried to s, but her throat was too dry and too tight "Elisabeta?" she whispered "But how?"
"How is uniht smile "Aren&039;t you relieved, Tempest? I didn&039;t have to take your body frole step backward, sensing danger "Yes Very relieved"
"Well, you shouldn&039;t be" Elisabeta took a step closer, and Stor to kill you anyway, Te with my husband, after all And I don&039;t intend to let you continue being a distraction to hie blade around in front of her, then lunged
Stored the blow but tripped over a root that thrust upward froround and fell on her back A second later the other wo the blade over her head to bring it down on a collision course with Stormy&039;s chest
Vlad couldn&039;t believe what he was seeing A wo a knife doard her with furious force He lunged toward them, even as Tempest ja her jaw closed and her head backward so hard she turound, face down And then Tempest scrae as hard as she could, so hard the woround Te the woh the air to land in the grass several yards away
Teht she intended to kill the stranger And then the woround spotted him, frozen there, amazed and unable to look away She lifted a hand toward him "Help me, Vlad Please, don&039;t let her kill me"
That voice And those eyes
He blinked in shock; then, as Teripped her shoulders fro her
Teer "She tried to kill me just now!"
"Who is she?" he asked, his voice a whisper
The woled to sit up "It&039;s me, Vlad It&039;s Elisabeta Don&039;t you know me? I&039;m your wife"
He narrowed his eyes "How how could this ?"
"Her name is Brooke," Tempest said, and she was a little breathless "She&039;s part of the Athena group Vlad-"
His gaze was drawn to the woripped his shoulders and jerked hi from the museum It was me"
"You?"
"Yes, but only because she was in control Elisabeta took over I didn&039;t even know until I woke this ain She was about to put it onto put it into the vault, where it would be safe But Brooke stole it and also the rite, which was here all the tiive her immortality for herself Shefroe woman with the familiar voice and eyes "So my Beta lives in that body Not in yours"
Te moment He felt her eyes on hiaze was focused on the other woman
"Yeah, Vlad She&039;s not into take over every tiet close to me"
Elisabeta sent him a watery smile, and his heart contracted in his chest It was a familiar smile So ," she whispered "I love you, Vlad I&039;ve always loved you I need you now, more than ever before Please don&039;t desert me, not now"
"I would never desert you, Beta"
"I&039; out a hand, and Elisabeta took it and let hi I shouldn&039;t have done that, huh, Vlad?" Stormy asked The sarcasm in her tone was clear, and, finally, he looked her way She was furious "I suppose I should have just let her sink that blade intoa pretty decent job of that all by yourself"
She turned and started to walk away
Vlad released Elisabeta&039;s hand
"Vlad!"
He glanced back to see his bride sinking to the ground again, bending nearly double and hugging her own h to fracture her ribs
He looked to Teain, then back to Elisabeta
"Go ahead," Tempest said "Look, this is over as far as I&039;m concerned She&039;s out of me That&039;s all I wanted The rite has been perfor to die What you do with her is totally up to you I could care less" She sent a glare back at Elisabeta "But if you co kill you No question And no one, not even Dracula himself, will stop me Got that, bitch?"
Elisabeta didn&039;t answer, just sank to her knees, weeping
"Yeah, that&039;s what I thought Brooke would have decked me for that" She met Vlad&039;s eyes "Not that she doesn&039;t deserve whatever your innocent little bride there did to her, Vlad, but you ht want to find out what happened to Brooke before you two head off on your delayed honeymoon"
She spun on her heel and strode toward the house
Vlad needed ti here How could Elisabeta be alive in the body of this woht then, he could only focus on one thing His as hurt, and she needed hi there in the grass, bleeding and broken He couldn&039;t
He let Teo and turned to Beta He slid his arrounds of Athena House
The pain lancing her heart was alht, as she walked firmly and purposefully into the ripping the doorfra for the weakness to pass fro the way she wanted hi herself For sixteen years she had hoped that Vlad would realize she was the one he wanted That he would be with her if he could
But now that he could, he had chosen to be with Elisabeta, instead
"Fine," she said, lifting her head and swiping away the tears with an angry hand "I hope they fucking rot together I&039;h little rown to tolerate"
She blinked past the hot moisture in her eyes to focus on Rhiannon The vampiress stood halfway across the sunroom, between two tropical plants, with the stearapher couldn&039;t have posed her more effectively, as she stood there in a dress of paper-thin red silk, draping fro and tell me what&039;s happened"
Stormy sniffed and shook her head "It&039;s over, that&039;s all I&039;"