Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1)

Chapter 20

Alec Graves
Graves Estate
Sanctuary, Utah

Rachel was waiting for me in her room exactly as she'd promised. At her invitation, I walked inside and then closed the door behind me.

It had been an incredibly long time since I'd seen Rachel's room. We usually talked in the solarium. Actually, the last time that I'd been here it had been decorated in pinks with cartoon posters scattered over almost every inch of the walls.

It looked like a different room altogether now. The walls had been redone in whites and the furniture had been replaced with simple but elegant pieces made out of rosewood. The wood was fragrant enough that I was pretty sure that it was noticeable even to Rachel, but for me it was like stepping into a candy shop.

I took a deep breath of the sweet scent and then opened my eyes and took in the rest of the room. She'd had it remodeled so that the closets were bigger, which was hardly a surprise, but what did catch me off guard was the sewing mannequin just visible in the mirrors that took up the entire far end of the room.

"I didn't know that you liked to sew, Rachel."

"I don't, I mean not exactly. I like to design. Sewing is just kind of a necessary evil. Everyone thinks that the shopping trips are because I'm a spoiled little girl who likes to spend Kaleb's money, but mostly I just like to go see all those different clothes. Most of what Mom wears lately is stuff that I designed and made."

"How have we lived together all of these years without me realizing that?"

Rachel's smile was sad, but there wasn't any resentment to it. "Because we don't really live together. You live in one world and I live in a different one. You live in the middle of all of the constant machinations that define this place even though you don't realize it. I, on the other hand, just try to keep a low profile and hope that nobody notices me, because I can't protect myself and I hate the price it takes out of you and Mother when you're forced to protect me."

I shook my head. "I've never once begrudged anything I had to do to keep you safe, Rachel. That bit about us living in two different realities is crap. I should have thought to ask you about your hobbies. I should have made more time for the two of us to be together without worrying about all of the craziness inherent in living here."

Rachel walked over and gave me a hug. "You never thought to ask because you've never had any hobbies of your own, Alec. Every time you started to develop an interest in anything other than fighting, Kaleb has done his very best to run you to the ground until you forgot about whatever it was that had caught your interest."

I opened my mouth to disagree with her, but she was right. I'd never seen it before, but Kaleb had stopped me from dabbling in anything that might have interfered with his vision of me as a weapon to be pulled out whenever he needed it and then safely locked back up once he was done with me.

"You're a pretty smart kid, Rach. Maybe we would have all been better off if you'd been born a shape shifter rather than me."

Rachel shook her head and tapped my chest over my heart. "I couldn't have done some of the things you've done already, Alec. There's something about you that draws people to you almost despite themselves. I think it's because you have such a good heart. That's your greatest asset—don't let anyone take it away from you."

"Kaleb thinks it's a weakness. He thinks people who are drawn to me out of loyalty are useless and that I should be creating a coalition out of people who bind themselves to me out of fear or greed."

"That's because Dad lost his heart a long time ago. I've spent a lot of time talking to Donovan about what things used to be like, and I think that Dad used to draw people the same way that you do, but somewhere along the way he let that be taken away and now he doesn't view it as a legitimate tool because it's not one that he can use anymore."