Grueling. Nerina had never imagined it would be so grueling. Steele was brutal, pushing her harder the more she complained. On her back, breathing heavy she could feel the soreness in her arms starting to ease. Before she could fully recover, Steele was standing over her.
"Again."
"I've been running my feet sore."
"You will heal. Again."
Nerina got to her feet scolding.
"Strength is nothing without speed. Speed. Strength. Agility. Cunning. Patience. Control."
Control. The one thing she sorely lacked. Nothing in her life seemed to be in her control. Everything was driven by some outside force she could not change or avoid. Running her feet bloody did not seem like an effective way to change all that. Nerina bit back her complaint. She had asked him for help and he was helping her though at this point she could not see the method of his madness being anything but madness.
"Again."
Just before dawn, Steele allowed her to go to ground. Until the sun went from the sky, she was free to rest. As soon as darkness fell across the land it was back to whatever Steele deemed necessary to prepare her to face what she was running from. Running... maybe, he was teaching her how to run faster.
Working with him Nerina had to admit that her senses expanded. She became faster. Stronger. She was not skilled enough to beat him in a fight but she was starting to hold her own. In other words, she was not getting pummeled just a little beat up. Nerina was beginning to feel more powerful. Without her emotions, she was more powerful but that was not an option for her. If she could harness even half of that now she was up for the challenge. Oddly, Nerina felt empowered. Though she kept looking over her shoulder because Eve was lurking somewhere in the shadows she no longer felt helpless.
Her optimism took a kick in the teeth the night Steele came to her barely able to stand still long enough to inform her that he had to leave. It had only been just over three months since he had started to train her. She felt empowered yes but nowhere close to where she felt she needed to be in order to take on Eve.
"You can't leave." The childish plead in her voice had her biting lips that were trembling.
"I have to."
She jogged after him. "Why?"
"An emergency."
"But you haven't taught me how to break the sire bond. She can still get to me."
"You can't break the bond."
Nerina stopped, stunned by his words. Steele cursed to himself when he realized what he had said. He had told her there was a way to break the bond between her sire.
"Nerina."
"You lied to me?" Why was she surprised? In the time they had been training together, he had not divulged anything about himself. Nothing about his life; past or present. They had focused solely on her training. To be fair, she had not volunteered any information about herself either. But he had lied to her. She had not lied to him.
"I didn't lie. I simply did not fully explain."
"You lied to me and I wasted all this time. She is going to find me. And she is going to kill me." Nerina knew there were worse things than death when it came to Eve. She was up against a twisted mind.
Steele took her by the shoulders and shook her silent as she went off into a frantic rant driven by dread and fear. Her teeth rattled causing her to clamp them together.
"Stop it." He shook her again before she could respond. "You are much stronger than you seem to realize."
"I'll be sure to bare that in mind when she has me killing for her again. When she wills me to take another innocent life I'll be sure to remember just how strong I was to fight it," Nerina retorted bitterly as she pulled away from him. "What good is it to be able to fight when she can simply will me to sit down or bite out my tongue?"
Nerina had a point he could not dismiss. Nor could he explain as time was running out and it was urgent that he be somewhere else. To leave her when their work was incomplete seemed cruel, but he had to leave. If there were some way to work around it, he would have. He thought about taking her with him but dismissed it as being too dangerous. She was not ready for that world. Their real world. "There are spells. That is the only way to repel the compulsion of a sire. Amulets, charms. Only the most powerful witches can perform the magic you need."
"I don't know any witches."
Steele left her with a piece of paper. It held a name and tiny drops of hope she was too cautious now to take as solace. She had taken him for solace and now she was alone—again. With a demented she-devil, hot on her heels. For her comfort, Steele had kept them moving. She was on a deserted island now out in the middle of the ocean. Some uncharted piece of rock untouched by anything but nature. It was a beautiful place with towering trees, birds with more colors than she had ever seen. Light dew kept the air constantly moist, the leaves glistening with the silvery drops. It was a beautiful place but taking in the beauty of it, the pureness of it was not on her list of things to do. Surviving was.
To get to this place they used a portal. Many things about the world she had inherited were still not known to her. Things she wondered if she really wanted to know. How much longer would she be able to avoid it all? The human world was not her place to live in, not anymore. Steele had spoken of the underworld where there was no sun. Where she did not have to go to ground for fear of certain death. She could walk freely. Live freely as what she was without fear of persecution. Sure, there were werewolves and they were natural enemies but she could live. For as long as Eve could not find her.
Along with the paper, she had instructions on where to find the name he had scribbled on it. A witch located at the highest peak in Africa. She had only been to the continent once before, a very long time ago.
Nerina did not want to leave the island. For some reason, she felt safer there than she had anywhere else. She remained there for a few days after Steele had left continuing her training and exercises. She scoffed at what he had said about her being stronger than she realized. She was stronger when she was a mindless blood-gorging maniac. The animal substitute did not a strong vampire make. Her new diet baffled him but he had respected it. He fed on human blood and Nerina envied his control.
Control.
She had so little over everything.
Task accomplished in Africa she went back to Europe. She always ended up in Europe. It was her home. She stuck to tiny villages barely big enough to be dots on a map. She remained unseen. As easy as Eve could compel her to bite out her own tongue she could compel a human to give her any information she required. The human mind was malleable. Open and weak, ready to be molded. That was how Eve saw them. Cows. To be fattened and fed on.
The first message came to her a week after her arrival. Sulking in the woods outside of a Spanish village a woman wondered by. Only she was not a woman. She was a vampire. Heavy in pregnancy the woman wobbled with her load. Nerina got to her feet frightened by the image before her. Her womb clenched with grief for her own loss. She took a step towards the woman before she stopped. The woman was a vampire yet... yet she was pregnant.
Nerina focused and listened for a fetal heartbeat beat... nothing. How could that be?
"Help me," The woman's voice brought Nerina back to the present.
Her voice barely a whisper Nerina had no problem hearing her plea. Hearing the pain in the woman's voice. Apprehension had her remaining where she was though she answered. "Are you alright?" Her concern was sincere as her conviction was strong that something was not quite right.
"Help me," the woman said again.
Her apparent distress was too real to be anything else so Nerina approached the woman. Again, she stopped. From the fold of her skirts, the woman pulled out a wooden stake.
"Help—me," the woman pleaded.
"Put the stake down."
"She's coming for you."
"What?" Nerina was puzzled.
"You did this."
Nerina was fast in getting to the woman but by the time she did, all she held were ashes running through her fingers. The woman had staked her own self in the heart.
She could only be one person. Only one person Nerina knew could be so heartless to orchestrate this.
She's coming for you. A fact Nerina already knew. Eve was never going to let her be free. Eve's obsession would have the redhead chasing her to the very end of the earth.