Cold As Ice

Chapter 17

Allie didn't know how to react, so she didn't react at all. Her heart thudded dangerously loud in her chest as she tried to decipher Carlisle's words like a riddle. Not human?

"You're lying." Allie's statement came out flat, her voice sounding compressed and small.

Carlisle shook his head, his gaze holding her firmly to the moment. If it weren't for his eyes, Allie felt sure she would have laughed at his ludicrous assertion. But there was a ferocity in his gaze that seemed to prove the truth in his words.

"That was why I left, the answers I went looking for. I suspected it as soon as we met, but I didn't trust that suspicion until I saw what happened when James bit you." Carlisle's fingers traced gently over the scars on Allie's arm, making her shiver from both the cold of his fingertips and the longing she felt at the contact.

"My amnesia," Allie said vaguely as she tried to piece together the story Carlisle was weaving. "You asked about my amnesia. How did you know about that?"

Carlisle nodded as if expecting the question. "It was the last piece of evidence I needed to know I was right about my theory. That you are what I think you are."

Allie swallowed thickly as she asked the only question left unanswered.

"What am I?"

Every cell in her body quivered with a mixture of anticipation, fear, and disbelief in the milliseconds before Carlisle's answer came.

"You're a syren, Albrun."

"A what?"

"A syren. They're an ancient being, and exceedingly rare. As far as my research showed me, you're the first syren to be born in almost nine hundred years."

Carlisle spoke carefully, as if his words were made of glass and he risked cutting Allie with their sharp edges. With each syllable, Allie could feel him studying her with concern and anxiousness. She let Carlisle's words hang in the air as she considered each one with clinical precision.

"What exactly is a syren?" Allie could tell that Carlisle was titrating how quickly to share information with her, giving it to her in small doses and gauging her reaction with care, but she was growing impatient and felt a headache setting in from the whiplash of emotions she was feeling.

"There's no close equivalent in human mythology," Carlisle told her, his voice even. "Syrens are born, age, and die just like mortals. Legend amongst vampires is that most syrens live and die without ever knowing what they truly are, because they never meet their mate."

Allie's eyes widened slightly. "Their mate?"

Carlisle nodded. "Amongst my kind, syrens are considered royalty. They have the ability to undo the change that makes mortals into vampires. It's a power that makes them both extremely attractive to some vampires who crave a return to mortality and extremely abhorrent to others who see my kind as superior to mortals. Wars have been fought over syrens in the past, covens torn apart, countless vampires slaughtered or sacrificed in either the protection of syrens or in seeking their demise. Entire human civilizations have been wiped out by those among us who sought to eradicate your kind entirely."

Allie's head spun as she tried to keep up.

"That's ridiculous," she said, shaking her head as if trying to swat away a fly. "I don't have any of those powers. How could I?"

Carlisle gently pressed on the scars of her arm. "Then explain this," he challenged. "Syrens are immune to a vampire's bite. It's a sign of their latent powers."

"Latent?" Allie asked, her brows knitting together in confusion.

"A syren's powers only manifest after she meets her mate and drinks his blood," Carlisle explained.