by Cate Corvin
Instead of The Artery, Rhianwen had insisted I bring her up to the ninth floor, to a quiet bar where there were no apparent overtures of the Shadowed World. It could’ve been any cocktail bar in the city, if not for the thick red blood in Rhianwen’s glass.
The sole bartender here, Euphemia, was loyal to Rhianwen, and it was as far from our King as possible. Thraustila preferred being belowground.
For the first time in centuries, I felt an emotion I was wholly unfamiliar with: nervousness. It was time for the youngest, but most commanding, of my remaining sisters to get to know my bloodsinger. Rhianwen cast me a questioning look, but out of my remaining blood-siblings, she was the most patient, willing to wait to see where this was going.
I sensed how nervous Victoria was under the outer layer of her anger. She sipped her wine carefully, strung tight as a wire and watchful of Rhianwen’s every movement.
I would’ve been sorry for causing my singer distress, but as far as I was concerned, there was only one path forward. Victoria was a Morrígna; they were now sisters, in a way.
And I would die before I’d allow myself to be separated from her.
“Thank you, Càel,” Victoria said, giving me a tight smile when I topped off her wine. I heard the grind of her teeth as she clenched her jaw.
“I know you feel betrayed, shíorghrá.” The only give-away of Rhianwen’s surprise was the slight widening of her pupils. She looked at Victoria with renewed interest, and my slayer felt the attention. Victoria was practically curling in on herself, teeth bared.
“A little warning would’ve been nice.” Her tone was thin, a cord pulled so tight it was about to snap. “I usually don’t bother to meet the parents- or sisters- until at least the tenth date. If ever.”
“I felt it was necessary that you meet Rhianwen.” I glanced up at Euphemia. She inclined her head, indicating that there were no others present. The flowered Edwardian hat on her head didn’t budge at the smooth motion. “And for Rhianwen to meet you. It’s safe to speak.”
Victoria frowned, glancing at Euphemia as well.
“I never expected you to find a bloodsinger, Càel.” Rhianwen slid her glass on the marble-topped table between us, leaning towards Victoria. “It’s only happened to- to one of us.”
The ghost of Eluned’s name hung in the air. That was one story that hadn’t had a happy ending. I was determined that history not repeat itself.
Now my singer looked utterly incredulous. “A bloodsinger? Oh god, do I even want to know?”
“She’s not only my singer, Rhianwen. She sent Eluned into Badb’s arms.”
Both women froze. Victoria’s fingers were white-knuckled around her wine glass. Rhianwen stared at the slayer, her hand rising to her mouth in a nearly-human gesture of surprise.
Then Victoria moved, dropping the glass and yanking a dagger from her thigh sheath. She vaulted over the chair, dropping into a low guard, her gaze flickering between us. “You could’ve just killed me on the street, Càel. There was no need to bring me all the way up here.”
Rhianwen stood up and Victoria subtly shifted, raising an arm to guard against any attack from that direction.
“You struck the blow that ended her?”
Victoria’s lip curled. There was betrayal in her eyes when she looked at me. So, she did trust me on some level… and now she believed I’d broken that trust. Still, there was steel in her voice when she answered my sister. “I did.”
Rhianwen took a step towards her, arms outstretched, and Victoria brandished the dagger. “Stop right where you are-”
She fell silent when Rhianwen obeyed. Pink, blood-tinged tears slid down my sister’s cheeks, staining her silk dress where they fell.
“You’re crying.” Victoria sounded agitated, but she didn’t lower the knife.
I hadn’t gotten up from my seat. I spread my hands and raised an eyebrow, catching Victoria’s eye. “Do you still believe my kind is incapable of experiencing emotion?”
Rhianwen wiped her pink tears with the back of her hand, gazing at my singer in a whole new light. “I thought Eluned had died from the sun, that she hadn’t been honored…” Her expression wavered, then solidified into a calm mask. “She died on a blade. That’s all we could’ve asked for.”
After Eluned’s death, Morgrainne had hidden her grief behind a cold, hard face, but Rhianwen had suffered openly. My sister the Moonfawn, wrongly considered the softest of the Morrígna because of her open heart, let the blood-tinged tears flow freely.
“You’re not upset?” My singer’s caution was giving way to bewilderment. “I murdered her. I stabbed her through the heart.”
Rhianwen nodded, blinking back more tears. “Yes, you did. You gave her the honor of a noble death.” She moved in again, raising her arms, and Victoria just stared at me incredulously as the Moonfawn pulled her into an embrace, smoothing her dark hair.
After a long, tense moment, Rhianwen finally released my singer and stroked her cheek. There was something almost maternal in the gesture, even though Rhianwen had been immortalized at nineteen years old and had never borne children in her mortal life.
“Do you know who the Morrígna are, Victoria?”
My slayer, still only inches from Rhianwen, gave a sharp nod of her head. “A trio of Celtic war-goddesses. You three took their title.”
Rhianwen nodded. “Macha, Badb, and Nemain. Three sisters of war, much like we were. Eluned was the oldest of us. She worshipped Badb Catha all through the ages, never once losing faith.” Her fingers lingered on Victoria’s cheek. “It means more to me than I can tell you that Eluned died in the way her patron goddess intended. Our father meant to humiliate her in her final hours, but clearly Badb had another path in mind for her most loyal warrior.”
She smiled and rose on her tiptoes to kiss Victoria in the middle of her forehead.
“I must tell Morgrainne that we are three again, as Badb intended. You and I will speak again, sister.” Victoria remained standing in stunned silence as Rhianwen wiped away another stray tear, squeezed her hand, and silently turned and walked out.
I pointed to the chair. “Sit.”
Surprisingly, my singer listened, clutching her dagger across her knees in a white-knuckled grip, but she shot me a glare so vitriolic I half-expected my flesh to start peeling from my bones. “And I thought my family dynamics were fucked up. Thraustila is her father?”
“He’s our Maker. Every one of us was found and immortalized by him through the ages. I was the first of his children, and Eluned was a close second. We liberated Rhianwen from her husband in the 12th century. A hundred years later, we found Morgrainne dying of tuberculosis, and Eluned was sure Badb’s crows had led us to her to complete their trio.”
She stared at me, her grip on the dagger never loosening. “So, how old are you, Càel, if Rhianwen is your younger sister at nearly nine hundred years old?”
Truthfully, I had little idea. Most of the early years of my life were lost to a haze of blood and death. All I had to go on was a rough timeline, pieced together with the aid of that wise magus Google, and his painstaking assistants, Ancestry and Genealogy. “Perhaps… thirteen hundred years?”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“Our Maker is much older. He took his name from the Visigoth tribe he joined, but he was alive well before written language was developed in our homeland.”
She held up a hand. “Okay. Sorry. It’s one thing to think, oh yeah, you’re a thousand years old, and it’s another to actually internalize it.” Victoria opened her eyes again and looked me over. Her muscles were slowly relaxing, the thundering of her heart slowing to a more normal pace. “What’s with their names? Was that a part of worshipping the war-goddess?”
“That was Eluned’s idea. Nobody wanted to come face-to-face with a raving mad vampiress named Ravensbane or Crowfoot. They each chose their own names once they were Made.”
“Moonfawn?” Victoria raised an eyebrow.
“Deceptive, isn’t it? Rh
ianwen was the basis for quite a few legends. All those poor men being torn apart when they came across a naked woman in a stream while hunting. Either that or returned to their villages with a broken pelvis and tales of the wildest night of their life. All depended on how pushy they were when they came across her.”
She ran a hand over her face.
“You haven’t asked the more important question yet, shíorghrá.” I leaned forward, bracing my forearms on my knees.
“No. I’m not asking that one. I don’t want to know the answer.”
“You’ll find out whether you want to know the answer or not.” I stood, looming over her. For being a woman from a race designed to hunt and kill Shadowed Worlders, she was so small it seemed ridiculous she could ever pose any threat to me at all. “Come with me.”
Victoria gave me a look, but I nudged her wine glass back towards her. She picked it up, swilled the rest, and stood up. Her tongue darted out to catch a drop of wine clinging to her lower lip, and my cock stiffened immediately. “I can’t believe I’m still humoring you,” she said, her voice just above a whisper as I led her to the stairs.
“Or am I humoring you?”
She scoffed, one hand on my shoulder as we descended. “In what way?”
I shrugged, careful not to dislodge her hand. “You swore an oath to serve me. I’m taking it very easy on you.”
Her fingers dug deeply into my flesh, but not even that movement was enough to cause me pain. “I dare you to try, Càel. Just try it and see what happens.”
Oh, I was going to try it.
The last time I’d brought her to my personal quarters, she’d been so full of incubus saliva she’d probably had no idea where we were. This time, instead of tearing off her clothes- or mine- the second she entered the room, she stopped dead in her tracks, taking in every minute detail.
A flicker of disquiet burst to life inside me as I shut the door and locked it. She hadn’t moved.
“What is this?” Victoria turned in place, her gaze moving from wall to wall and over the ceiling, following the trail of what looked like a fifty-foot-long beaded veil that was draped over the room.
The sharp points of the beads belied what it really was. “My war-chain. Thousands of enemies… or, those who deserved to be remembered.”
She stared upwards at the veil of dangling vampire fangs. “Càel. There’s… oh my god, so many. There’s no way you remember them all.”
“Try me.” I sat on the bed. Ideally, we would’ve begun this night with me tackling her on it, but the meeting with Rhianwen had been necessary. My sister needed closure. And Victoria needed to know what she was to me before this went any further.
“Okay… these ones?” She pointed to a pair of cracked, yellowed fangs at the beginning of the war-chain.
“Wiglaf.”
Victoria shot me a look, and moved ten feet to the left, pointing at a daintier pair. “These?”
“Gudrun.”
She moved down the chain, following its sinuous progression, and pointed again. “Antonius. Livia. Khetef. Polydectes. Hüsamettin.”
Victoria finally stopped, her hands on her hips. “Holy fuck.”
“No, that’s over here.” I leaned back on the bed, grinning at her when she gave me the evil eye. “Victoria, come here.”
She looked me up and down, not budging an inch. “I’m still not happy that you sprung a nine-hundred-year-old sister on me- and told her what I did, no less- so if you think I’m going to sit back and let you seduce me, you’re wrong.”
Ha. She didn’t stand a chance, thanks to my preternatural speed. Within a second, I’d grabbed her, carried her back to the bed, and plunked her across from me. I pulled her in so she was sitting in my lap face-to-face, right where I wanted her.
Victoria’s eyes narrowed, but her heart rate had risen again. Pink touched her cheeks.
“Ask me.” I reached behind her head, yanking pins out of her bun until her dark hair fell loose. She smelled delicious, the tang of her blood mixed with the clean scent of soap. My mouth watered at the fantasy of her tilting her head to the side, allowing me to pierce and mark the thin skin over her carotid artery forever.
“Why?” Frustration colored her tone. “Why do I have to know? Isn’t it bad enough that I’m willingly sitting in your bed?”
“I see nothing bad about this. You’re right where I want you.” I wound a lock of dark hair around my fingers. “Rhianwen and Morgrainne had the right to know what happened. They won’t hate you; they won’t seek revenge. This is how things are done in my world.”
“Well, your world is brutal,” Victoria said, but she’d leaned in a few centimeters closer. “And your ways aren’t my ways.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. But you made them your ways when you helped Eluned out of this world. Whether you like it or not, you are now bound to us. The bonds of family, as our Maker would say.”
She froze, only inches away from leaning into my chest. “You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
I closed that last little bit of distance between us, kissing along her cheekbone and down her jaw. She blinked, her eyelashes brushing my cheek. “Yes. They’ll accept you as one of them. Now ask me.”
It was too easy to tip her chin back, exposing her throat to my mouth. She shivered as I ran my tongue down the length of her neck, ending in a kiss at the hollow of her throat. “Fine. What is a bloodsinger, Càel?”
The pulse beating under her skin was so tempting against my tongue… but I wanted her to want that final step, to beg me for it. I kissed her instead, working my way back up her neck until her breath was coming in short, sharp pants. “Ready for storytime?”
Her mouth turned up at the corner in an unwilling smile.
“When Lilith Made the first vampire, She knew She was condemning us to a lonely, shunned existence. She’d walked the earth alone for thousands of years, but even She made Herself a consort in the end: the Nightwalker, father of moonspawn. We came next, Her children.” Victoria’s eyes came all the way open, examining my face intently as I spoke. “All we had was the night. Even the moonspawn were able to walk under the sun; we were the only Shadowed Worlders confined to half the world. So Lilith gave us another gift, one to make the long days easier. If a vampire was worthy of Her blessings, he, or she, might find a bloodsinger, a human who called to them with every fiber of their soul.”
I ran my hands over her shoulders, trailing over her clavicle and breasts to the steady thump of her heart under my palm. The rhythm of its beats had picked up again, belying her resistance. “I feel this in my mind. You asked how I would know if you were here… this is how. Every beat of your heart, I feel it in my own body. I could choose to walk away, of course, and so could you; our Mother didn’t believe in forcing love, but letting it grow where it will. After a thousand years of wandering the world, after all the things I’ve seen… I couldn’t walk away even if I wanted to. This bond is unlike anything else. You are a gift to me, Victoria Holmwood.”
Victoria swallowed, her throat working. “That’s why you changed your mind.”
My thumb traced the delicate cupid’s bow of her upper lip. “No. Even if your soul didn’t call out to mine, I still would’ve wanted you. As for your deeds… what you did only solidified my choice. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life bound to a singer who was too weak and cowardly to do the honorable thing.”
She looked down. Her hands had tangled themselves in my shirt as I spoke like she was unaware of what she was doing. “You said Eluned had a bloodsinger.”
“Yes. That is a story Rhianwen will tell you. She’ll want to see you again, and Morgrainne will follow Rhianwen’s lead.”
“She would’ve killed me tonight,” Victoria guessed, and I nodded.
“Morgrainne was young when she was Made, hot-headed and impetuous. She will always be that way, just as Rhianwen will always wear a gentle heart on her sleeve, and I will always be a stubborn, insistent bastard.”
&nbs
p; My singer’s lips turned up again. She had an easy smile.
“If Rhianwen accepts you, Morgrainne will. Even she will see that you’ve earned a place among them.”
She let out a shuddering breath. “And to think I only came to New York for school.”
“Consider me a bonus.” It was impossible to resist kissing her again, sucking her full lower lip between my teeth, carefully, so my fangs wouldn’t pierce her flesh. Victoria was flushed when I finally released her, her pulse humming.
“There is one last thing.” Almost everything was out on the table between us, as open and honest as my singer deserved, but it was the last thing that gave me pause. “My Maker must not know of this. No one must know what you are, understand? To me or my sisters.”
Her gaze ran over my face, taking in every feature. The first time she’d ever examined me that thoroughly, I’d been afraid I wasn’t to her liking; now it was easier to read the subtle changes in her expression. She liked what she saw. “I understand. Believe me, it’s not like I’m going to go walking through the school announcing what I did.”
“It is life or death, Victoria.” Even though I was supposed to be impressing the importance of secrecy on her, the rest of me was roaring in triumph. She knew what she was.
And she hadn’t rejected me.
She was as good as mine.
“Life or death, got it. Lips are sealed.” She mimed locking her mouth and throwing away the key, but the last thing I wanted was for her lips to be sealed right now. I gripped her hips, pulling her more firmly into my lap for a kiss, and she moaned against my mouth when she felt my cock pushing against her.
“Do you still insist you want none of this, shíorghrá?”
She kissed me back, her hands running over my face and through my hair. “Well… I could leave, but I’m sure an assertive bastard like you would just drag me right back into bed. Might as well save us both the trouble and stay here.”
“You are absolutely right, Victoria. The struggle would only be a waste of your time and energy.” I found the edge of her tank top and slid it up, pulling it over her head before unclasping her bra. Her olive skin was almost gold under the low lights. My mouth watered at the sight of her, heavy breasts tipped with hard pink nipples that begged to be grazed with my teeth.