She let her breath escape slowly. She had no relatives to take Joshua to. There was no one to help her. Nowhere to run. She leaned close to kiss the top of his head. At once she became aware of the ebb and flow of his blood. She could hear it as it throbbed through veins bubbling with life. She became fascinated by the pulse beating in his neck. She could smell the fresh blood, and her mouth watered with need. She inhaled deeply, her cheek brushing Joshua’s neck.
Alexandria felt the incisors then, sharp and ready against her tongue. Horrified, she sprang away from the bed, away from the sleeping child. That she reached the door in a single leap barely registered. With one hand clamped tightly over her mouth, she fled down the hall and through the house, jerked open the front door, and ran into the dark night, where she belonged.
She ran as fast and as far as she could, each step draining the strength from her, sobs tearing at her chest. The fog was now no more than a thin mist, stars scattered across the sky in their timeless pattern. When her adrenaline was spent, Alexandria sank onto the ground beside a wrought-iron fence.
She was so evil. What had she been thinking? That she could just take her brother away and everything would be as it was before? Joshua would never be safe from her. Aidan might have told the truth about Stefan after all. Hunger clawed and bit at her until her very skin crawled with need. Her fingers found the solid weight of an iron bar, and she wildly considered stabbing herself through the heart with it. She pulled at it experimentally, but it was embedded solidly in concrete. Weak from lack of blood, she could never remove it by herself.
Biting her lip hard to stabilize herself, she considered her options. She would never endanger Joshua. There was no way she could ever return to that house. She could only pray that Marie and Stefan would grow to love Joshua half as much as she did and protect him from the insanity of Aidan’s life. She had no desire to hurt any human being. And that left her only one option. She would stay here until the sun came up and hope the light would destroy her.
“Not a chance, Alexandria.” Aidan’s tall, muscular frame appeared out of the mist. “That is not going to happen.” His face was a mask of implacable resolve. “You are so willing to die, but you are not willing to learn to live.”
She gripped the fence until her knuckles turned white. “Get away from me. I have the right to do whatever I want with my life. It’s called free will, although I’m sure the concept’s beyond your understanding.”
In a lazy display of rippling muscles, he stretched to his full height. A certain elegance clung to him like a second skin. “Now you are trying to provoke me.”
“I swear, if you keep using that calm, cool, Alexandria, you-are-hysterical tone on me, I will not be responsible for what I do.” She kept her fingers tightly around the bar in case he tried to force her to go with him.
Aidan laughed softly, without humor. It was a masculine, mocking taunt that sent a shiver down her spine. “Do not try me too far, piccola. I will not allow you to meet the dawn. There will be no discussion on this matter. You will learn to live as you should.”
“Your arrogance astonishes me. I will not, under any circumstances, go back to that house. You don’t know what I almost did.”
“There is no such thing as secrets between us. You smelled Joshua’s blood, and your body reacted normally. You are hungry. More than hungry, you are starved and in need. Naturally you reacted to the proximity of nourishment. But you would never have touched him. You would never harm your brother.”
“You can’t know that.” She didn’t know it. How could he? She rocked back and forth in agitation, lowering her head to her knees to hide her shame. “It wasn’t the first time. It’s happened twice now.”