by Jenny Frame
Alexis gave her a lopsided smile. “We may not have always been the best of friends, but I think you’ve always known that you could trust me.”
That was very true. Despite butting heads on occasion, Katie had looked to Alexis since she was a little girl as the protector in the clan, and one who was steadfastly loyal to all in the Debrek family, be they vampire or human.
“I do trust you. It’s hard to put into words. I feel disconnected, out of sync.”
“In what way?” Alexis asked.
Katie put her cup down on the bedside cabinet and held up her hand. “When I look at my hand, it doesn’t seem like my own, like I’m not fully in my body, like I’m in a movie watching myself from above.”
“It’s probably a symptom of being pulled back from the brink—”
“Of death? That’s what worries me. I feel like I lost a part of myself to death, and I’m frightened that I’ll never get it back.”
“You’ve been through such a lot of trauma. I’m sure it’s just a way of your brain coping with what’s happened to you. I’m confident you haven’t lost anything, and that part of you that you think is lost will come back to you as you heal.”
“Is this what it feels like to be a vampire? Like you’ve lost a part of you to death?”
Alexis nodded. “Sometimes. Becoming a vampire means losing a part of your humanity, and it’s a lot to lose. When you are turned, the blood hunger is driving you to complete the change, while your humanity is pleading to die with dignity.”
“Is that why changing someone without their consent is forbidden?”
Alexis looked away quickly. She looked nervous all of a sudden. Then she changed the subject, saying, “Well, your parents will be here tomorrow. I’m sure seeing your mother and father will help ground you back to this reality.”
As soon as they heard about the attack, her mum and dad insisted on travelling back to see her. She couldn’t wait to have a hug from her mum.
“Once they make sure I’m okay, they are going to be mad at me for going out to The Sanctuary.”
“It’s only because they care. Always appreciate having your parents still in your life. I miss my mother every day, even after all this time.”
Katie wanted to ask about her mother, but that would be pushing her too far, she suspected.
“Well,” Alexis said, “I’d better go.”
“Alexis? I’m sorry you feel like this all the time. I’m sorry Victorija did this to you.”
Alexis was silent, but Katie could see a lot going on behind her eyes. “I don’t feel like it all the time. There are moments with people I care about that make me feel alive.”
“With all people?” Katie asked.
Alexis felt like Katie had a direct line to her heart. “No, not all. Very few. Goodnight, Katie.”
* * *
“I cannot be bonded by blood,” Victorija roared and kicked the small table by the couch in her room.
Drasas watched as Madam Anka never flinched. That intoxicated her. Someone who didn’t fear a born vampire must be extremely confident in their abilities. Drasas craved just to be allowed to touch this woman.
“Whether you like it or not, the facts remain the same. You once relied on a witch called Lillian’s advice, I believe? I am more powerful than she could have ever dreamed, so I would take my word.”
“You believe this witch, Drasas?” Victorija said.
“Yes, Principe. I do. Anka wishes to partner with us to bring humanity to its knees, but she needs our clan, and so she needs you to be back to full health. Anka is not going to give us bad advice.”
“Then how do I conquer this? Byron fell in love with her blood bond, Amelia, but that is never going to happen to me. If I don’t drink their blood, then I will go slowly mad, like my father did when he killed my mother.”
“Who have you exchanged blood with? One of your vampires here?” Anka asked.
“No.” Victorija began to pace in front of the fireplace. “I don’t allow anyone to feed on me.”
“Then think long and hard, because that person will need to be brought here to feed you. In the meantime, I must go.”
Victorija didn’t even notice when Anka got up and Drasas followed her out.
Anka stopped outside the door and took Drasas’s hand. “She knows who it is, somewhere in her subconscious.”
“I’ll bring whoever it is to her as soon as we find out who,” Drasas said.
Anka leaned in and stroked her cheek, lighting fires all over Drasas’s body. “In the meantime, we cannot halt our plans. I need your vampires to help my witches.”
Drasas hesitated. “Victorija—”
Anka ran her fingers down Drasas’s chest and lingered on her belt buckle. Drasas groaned, and then they heard a great crashing noise from Victorija’s room.
Then Victorija shouted, “Get me some blood now!”
“Your Principe is in no fit state to make these decisions. Look how long you’ve wasted already.”
“Victorija might see this as treacherous,” Drasas said.
“No, you are taking care of the clan while she cannot. I know who you are, Drasas, and who you long to be.”
“What do you mean?” Drasas asked.
Anka slipped her hand down to Drasas’s crotch and grasped it. Drasas leaned forward looking to kiss Anka, but she held her at bay.
“I know how you felt sitting on the street, homeless. Humans passing you by, spitting on you or worse. When Victorija turned you, you wanted to feel power over those humans, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Drasas would never forget the fear of living on the streets. It drove her to be the powerful vampire she was.
Anka brought her lips to her ear and rhythmically squeezed her sex. Drasas closed her eyes and concentrated on the feelings Anka was giving her.
“I can make you even more powerful than a born vampire, Drasas. Follow me and do as I say.”
“Yes, Anka.”
When Drasas opened her eyes, Anka was gone. She slammed her fist against the wall, making the plaster crumble. She had been on the edge of orgasm.
One of her female vampires came walking down the corridor. “Can I serve you, Duca?”
She grabbed Meg’s hand and pulled her into one of the adjacent castle rooms. “Yes, you can, Meg.”
Meg was a femme-presenting newly turned vampire who was eager to please. Just what she needed.
“I need to fuck you and drink from you.”
“Anything, Duca.”
Drasas guided her over to an old oak table in the room and bent her over it. She pulled her trousers down and did the same with Meg’s. Drasas opened herself up and began to thrust herself onto Meg’s buttock.
She closed her eyes and pretended Anka was touching her. It felt so real. She heard Anka’s voice say, I can make you so powerful, more powerful than Victorija, more than Byron Debrek, just follow me.
Drasas’s orgasm overtook her and she shouted, “Yes, Anka.”
Chapter Nine
A week later Katie was deemed well enough to travel. Amelia was pleased—they would finally be able to start her journey to discover who she really was. As was their habit, when Amelia wasn’t rushing for work, she joined Byron in her dressing room to help her get ready.
Amelia picked out a selection from Byron’s tie rack and brought it over to Byron. She slipped it around Byron’s neck and started to slowly tie it.
“This is one of my favourite times of day,” Byron said.
“One of?” Amelia smiled.
Byron lifted her hand and trailed her fingers across Amelia’s cheek, making her shiver. “Yes, one. As well as waking up next to you, that first feed of the day, and making you come in your favourite way.”
Amelia got a flashback to earlier when Byron was feeding from the artery on the inside of her thigh. The pleasure of having Byron’s teeth in her, so close to her sex, as she stimulated Amelia’s clit with her fingers was one aspect of her marriage that she adored.
She shook the memory away and play-slapped Byron on the chest. “Don’t get me all hot and bothered again. We have to leave soon.”
Byron grinned with satisfaction. “Very well, what shall we discuss?”
“How about where we’re going, Burley in the New Forest. Have you been there before?”
“A few times. There’s always been a coven there. It’s a sacred forest to the witches.”
“And you had dealings with them?” Amelia asked.
“One or two.”
“My mum and dad—sorry, my adoptive mum and dad—were always worried about the supposed witches and Satan worshippers there.”
Byron laughed. “No Satan worshippers. Nature worshippers, more like.”
“Mum and Dad had some pretty far-out fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and anything outside of that, like women worshipping nature, was evil,” Amelia said.
“They were not dark witches in the New Forest,” Byron noted. “In fact, they did more to help the human population than any other paranormal group.”
Amelia folded Byron’s collar down and went to pick up her waistcoat from the hanger and helped slip it on her.
“How so?”
“Well, a lot of covens are insular, not welcoming to newcomers,” Byron said.
“You mean for humans like me who discover they have powers?”
“Exactly, they welcomed them in and taught them, not only gifted humans, but humans who simply had a strong interest in witchcraft and what it could do.”
“They sound nice.”
“Yes, Rose—” Byron hesitated. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s all right. You can talk about her,” Amelia reassured Byron.
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
Amelia cupped Byron’s cheek. “You don’t have to censor yourself. I know you love me. You have a past, but I have your love.”
“I just don’t want to hurt you. Rose’s sister was the leader of the New Forest coven, and the welcoming nature of the coven provided cover to let them hide in plain sight.”
“How so?”
“Well one of the humans they trained, Gerald Gardner, founded Wicca. He gained a lot of publicity and notoriety, leaving the general public to think the witches there were nothing more than that, human. The village of Burley in the New Forest where they met is still a tourist attraction to this day, because of the witches and the birth of Wicca.”
“So how did they help humans more than most?”
Byron walked over to a chair and beckoned Amelia to sit on her knee, which she did.
“During the Second World War, I worked in intelligence, the Secret Service.”
“You did? You never fail to amaze me. I always forget you’ve been living a very long time.”
“The world was on the brink. It didn’t matter if you were human or a paranormal—we all had to do our bit. So I was contacted by the cunning folk, which is what the coven became known as over the years. They wanted to try to use magic to help the war effort. Things were looking bleak at the time, the government was worried that Hitler would invade any day, and the cunning folk wanted to help.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. What did they do?” Amelia asked.
“First of all, I had to get my superiors to agree, as the witches needed secret information on Hitler’s whereabouts and his forces. Luckily, I wasn’t the only paranormal in the British command structure. I was tasked with conveying the secret information and observing how it was used,” Byron said.
“Was the other side using vampires, witches, and the like?”
“I’m quite sure. The Nazis were very interested in studying the occult, so I’m sure they found help of their own. It was August 1940 and my secret mission was called Operation Cone of Power. The witches cast a circle, then performed the ritual with the information I gave them. They sent a powerful message to Hitler: You cannot come, you cannot cross the sea. Whether this actually worked, we will never know. He didn’t cross the sea, but whether it was with the help of magic, who knows.”
“That’s amazing. You have had the most interesting life,” Amelia said.
“Interesting but lonely, until I met you.”
Amelia smiled and kissed Byron tenderly. “Good answer. Let’s go and find out about my past.”
She stood and Byron followed suit.
“Oh,” Amelia said, “a certain someone has been visiting Katie in her room every night, taking her tea.”
Byron raised her eyebrows. “Interesting. I’ve only seen Alexis’s softer side once before. She was a younger vampire and didn’t see the danger in loving a fragile human. I warned Alexis loving a human would always end in pain, and now look where we are.”
“Katie is besotted with Alexis. I’m sure she is. That’s why she bickers so much with her, but will Alexis take her chance at happiness? I don’t know.”
“Sometimes,” Byron said, “love doesn’t give you a choice.”
* * *
Victorija was crawling in her skin, her hands shaking, as she tried to type on the laptop on her desk. She’d remembered the girl in The Sanctuary, the girl who bit her when they were fighting to take Amelia, the girl she couldn’t compel.
Amelia had called her Daisy, and it didn’t take long to find out she worked beside Amelia, and her name was Daisy MacDougall. A whole litany of hits turned up on that name—blogs, interviews on human–paranormal websites—all calling Daisy a monster hunter.
Victorija clicked on a YouTube link and found herself watching Daisy and a group of friends, ghost hunting in an old churchyard. She paused the video, took a screenshot, and enlarged it.
“Daisy MacDougall.” She reached forward with her shaking hand and said, “Why you?”
When she had tasted her blood in The Sanctuary, it had been like a punch in the chest, and when she looked in her eyes there was something so familiar about them.
On a hunch she went to the births, marriages, and deaths website for the UK. The results would take her hours to go through, but Victorija knew she had to trace this girl’s family back in time, and she had a sinking feeling of where that might lead and what it would mean for her. Death or a broken vow.
* * *
A line of black SUVs and a classic Rolls-Royce ambled through the English countryside. In one of the black SUVs was Katie, who was now well enough to travel. She was still weak, but the doctor thought a change of scene would help.
Katie pulled the blanket under her chin to try to comfort herself. The moment she stepped out of her room this morning, she realized how different she still felt. As she passed the spot on the landing where Josie had attacked her, she had to conceal the panic she felt.
If she had shown the terror and fear that was deep inside her bones, Byron might have left her at home, and she couldn’t bear that. Since her mother and father had flown in to be by her side, she’d hardly been able to breathe.
Her mum especially had not left her bedside, fussing over her. The only respite she got was when Daisy came to visit her. She could understand her parents’ reaction—their daughter had been essentially dead, if not for Bhal’s actions—but the constant talking about it, and no privacy to come to terms with how she was feeling, had only made her confusion over the trauma worse. The other thing was that since her parents arrived, Alexis hadn’t been near, and she couldn’t understand why.
She had gotten used to—indeed, looked forward to—Alexis’s nightly visits with a cup of tea. Katie had to admit it was the only time of day she felt safe, anywhere near grounded, and not filled with anxiety.
Near grounded, that was a joke. Katie gazed out of the window and watched the hedgerows and leafy trees of the countryside whizz by. When she saw the trees, the leaves, the sheep and cows in the field, it was like a scene from a movie she was watching, observing from some point outside herself.
When Bhal had ripped her back from death, death had left its mark on her, and she didn’t know if she would ever be the same again. If Katie thoug
ht about it for too long, her anxiety went sky high.
“Katie? You okay back there?”
Katie looked away from the scenery and saw Wilder, Amelia’s personal guard, turned around in the front passenger seat.
“Yes, I’m okay,” Katie replied.
“Good, we won’t be too much longer,” Wilder said. “The Duca said we’ll stop in the village for a short while to pick up the keys to the cabins, and then we’ll get going.”
The Duca. Was she the same person as the one who helped save her and brought her tea each night until her parents arrived?
Katie had thought she was finally seeing beneath that protective wall Alexis kept around herself, but then she just disappeared. Maybe she had just felt sorry for her after the attack and come back to her senses. If that was the case, then the truth would sadden her. Maybe the connection Katie thought they finally had was all an illusion.
* * *
The village of Burley hadn’t changed much over the years, Alexis thought as she stood beside the Rolls-Royce. They had stopped in the centre of the village to pick up the keys to the cabins Byron had booked from the pub owner.
One thing that had changed in the small village was the embracing of all things witch and paranormal. From what she could see, there were two witchcraft shops that appeared to be popular with the tourists coming and going. Nowadays the paranormal was vaunted by humans—they were desperate to know the truth of this world, but if they did, it would keep them up at night.
Alexis looked to the SUV parked behind them and had to fight the urge to go check on Katie, but she couldn’t. She knew that Katie would most probably be angry at her lack of visits over the last week.
The truth was that she couldn’t face Katie’s parents, knowing that she nearly forcibly turned their daughter. It was unforgivable, and Alexis almost wished the Principessa or someone would tell Katie what happened. Then she’d only have to avoid her, not face her.
As it was, everyone was leaving it to her, but she didn’t have the courage.
Byron emerged from the pub carrying keys.