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through his short hair, grabbing at it as if he would try to yank it out. “Rylee, I’ll tell you why I’m here, but you’re not going to like it. I’ve been compelled to come. However, I thought that once I was here I could keep myself in check, but it’s proving harder than I expected. Perhaps I should have tried harder to stay away.” He was rambling, which was totally unlike him. “I told her I would help you; so I helped in the beginning, because it’s what she wanted. But—”
    I cut him off. “Spit it out, Doran.”
    He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to hurt you.” He took a big gulping breath, his pain-filled green eyes flicking up to mine. “She wants me to kill your little witch.”
    I licked my lips, heart thumping hard with adrenaline. Fuck, I did not want to fight Doran. “Who wants you to hurt me? Who wants to kill Pamela?”
    “The Child Empress, the one that would rule the vampire nation. She is a power in her own right and she isn’t even fully fanged yet. Because she carries the memories of her parents, she has all their strengths as well as her own.”
    Oh fuck, wasn’t it bad enough that I was already dealing with Faris? Did I really have to deal with this Child Empress too? And what the hell did she have against Pamela?
    The thing was, I didn’t know what to do. Killing, or trying to kill, Doran would lose me a powerful ally. And while I might not always trust him, the same could be said for many of my allies. Not to mention that Doran hadn’t gone after Pamela when he had the chance. He could have attacked her there in the kitchen, but he hadn’t, he’d held himself back somehow. Add in the fact that he’d just told me he could possibly help me bring back O’Shea if he was lost to the wolf as Milly said.
    “Why would she send you to me, why not one of her vampires who could have cleaned my clock and be-spelled Pamela in a heartbeat?”
    I wanted to move, to pace or prep for a fight, but at the same time, I needed him to keep talking. If I was forced to kill him, then I needed all the information I could get out of him ahead of time. Brutal, cold, but no less the truth for all that.
    “You let me right in, didn’t you?” His dark green eyes were full of sorrow, but he couldn’t seem to sit still. His hands jumped and twitched as he talked. “I walked right up, kissed you on the cheek and you didn’t even lift a weapon. The Child Empress knew that. I can get close to you; it’s what she’s wanted all along. But I can’t stop her from commanding me, the binding goes too deep.”
    “Fine.” I rolled my shoulders, loosening my muscles. “Then how the fuck do we unbind you from her, stop her from compelling you?”
    “We don’t.” He lunged at me, and I barely got the bowie knife up between us. He stopped, his eyes wild, mouth open as he panted for air. His muscles twitched, as he lowered himself to the ground, face down, neck exposed to me.
    “Kill me swiftly, that’s all I ask.” His body jerked and jumped as if tied to strings I couldn’t see. Like the puppet he was. Fuck it all to hell and back.
    “There has to be a way to unbind you from her.” I held the knife above him, poised on the edge of slicing it into his neck, holding off the inevitable.
    “I would have to bind myself to another, someone else. There is not time; I can barely think straight with her in my head—”
    His hands snaked out and grabbed me by the ankles, jerking me to the floor. I hit hard, but stayed on my back so I could see him. He crawled up my body, fangs bared, his eyes wide with fear.
    “Kill me. You must.”
    “I never did like doing things the easy way,” I said, as I flipped us over so I was on top and his back was to the floor. Even though he tried not to fight me, his body struggled to obey his mistress.
    “Rylee, you have no ability to bind me. And she is pushing me hard. If you don’t kill me, I will go after Pamela.” He groaned, his body bucking underneath mine.
    I