by Sage, May
"What she said."
He shrugged, indifferent to the critique.
"It worked out in the end, that's all that matters. Now, my most immediate concern is the matter of blood. Matters, I should say. You might not be able to survive on typical synthetic human blood."
Oh. Good point. Eirikr had said that their family drank vampire blood; did that make it their exclusive food source?
But no. Eirikr himself had survived for so long on whatever he could find.
"Maybe I could adapt," she said, hopeful.
Levi shook his head. "No reason to. We just need to get working on vampire synthetic blood."
Chloe opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again when the implication of that hit her.
Let him work on it if he wanted. She could think of a way to use it.
"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Levi said. “With your authorization, I would like to analyze your blood. The ferals bite several vampires every year. With luck, I'll be able to synthesize a cure from whatever antigen courses in your system. As the elusive queen has found a way to control the ferals, reversing their contamination is more important than ever."
Tris added, "And you'll be able to help the ferals you keep locked up for observation."
What was that?
"You have people locked up?" she asked, incredulous.
Levi inclined his head. "They're killed on sight when vampires encounter them. I spare them and try to treat them. Unsuccessfully, for the last hundreds of years, but…"
"And we were playing hot dog in a roll while there are people locked up that I could help?"
She was stunned.
Levi stiffened.
"Chloe, Bash was in transition toward feral. There may be no aiding those who were bitten weeks or months ago."
"Don't you think," she replied tightly, "that we at least ought to try?"
He hesitated. "I hoped you'd feel that way. But I wouldn't have presumed to ask you to bleed…"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm a woman. I bleed every month. Come on. Let's go."
The galleries underneath the Institute were more dungeon than lab, but they'd been fitted with the latest technology. Chloe didn't need to go anywhere near the crazed vampires. Levi took vials of her blood to his office and distributed it to the cells remotely.
The creatures devoured it gruesomely.
All but a little boy quietly sitting on his bed, sipping at the vial, and commenting, "It tastes better than usual. Seasoning?"
"That's Steven. He's been here for months. He's my unexplainable factor. He was infected—we have records and video showing it. But by the time he came to me, he was…like this. Fine. His blood tests still show signs of infection, but it's not affecting him."
Suddenly taken by an idea, Chloe pressed the intercom Levi had used earlier to greet the subjects.
"Hey. Steven, right?"
"That's my name. I don't know your name. I don't know you at all."
He sounded a little off, but so would anyone after spending so long in a cage.
"I'm Chloe. Can I ask you a question, Steven?"
"You just did. Feel free to ask a second. I'm bored."
"Where are you from?" she asked.
He blinked, as if trying to remember.
"New Jersey."
So much for that.
Understanding her train of thoughts, Levi pressed the button again. "Where were you when you started feeling better, Steven? Do you remember?"
He tilted his head.
"I was…somewhere in Colorado. Can't remember where. I'd just drunk from a man. Human, I think. He tasted good, too. Seasoned."
Chloe gasped. "That's where I'm from," she told Levi. "I bet that was my brother, or father, or, I don't know, one of our ancestors."
Levi was frantically taking notes, grinning all the way.
Then they waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Hours passed, then days.
On Tuesday morning, Chloe left for a few hours to attend Reiss’s funeral in the meadow behind the Institute. All of Coscnoc was gathered in reverential silence. Then, when the witches began to sing, all joined in. Chloe didn’t know the lyrics, but she sang anyway, humming along to the ageless tune of farewell.
For the first time since Sunday night, as the wind picked up and she felt her friends shiver around her, she realized something.
She wasn’t cold.
Gwen and Blair accompanied her back to the dorms and helped her pack her bags.
“Are you sure this is necessary?” Gwen asked.
Blair nodded. “Newborns are volatile. And besides, it’s the same house.”
She was moving to the right-hand side of the dorm, with the rest of the dangerous students.
Including Tris and Jack.
Her new room was five times the size of the old one and ten times more luxurious.
“Same walls?” Blair asked.
Chloe shook her head. She’d changed too much to cling to the past.
“What color, then?”
“You pegged me well in January. Do it again.”
Her mentor tilted her head, thinking for a moment. Then she repeated her spell. This time, the walls were dark purple, and the flowers gold.
Between forty and seventy-three hours after drinking her blood, each subject in the containment levels woke up disorientated, confused, and angry.
All were cured.
Chloe would have given whatever drops of blood she could spare to help, but Levi didn't let her. He and the alchemist, Alexius, removed some of her marrow and started to work on a synthetic remedy instead.
He was busy, and so was she, catching up on days of work and a project that wasn't easy to organize from Oldcrest. Delivery companies didn't actually pop by the shielded sup territory. But she bribed Tris to pick up some stuff in the nearby towns.
The next Friday, her project was ready.
Chloe gathered the boxes she'd ordered during the week and set off.
When her eyes caught a silhouette she hadn't talked to since that dreadful day on the hill, she changed course.
She rushed to the lake behind the three hills, biting her lip.
Claim
The blond man in the white suit noticed her approaching. She could tell from the way he stiffened but didn't turn to greet her.
Shit.
“I’m sorry, Jack, about Reiss and Bash.”
She never had the chance to speak to him after the funeral.
He shrugged, throwing a stone that ricocheted off the surface of the water.
"It sucks about Reiss," he admitted. "But he knew what he was getting into. Just because we're catching a break behind these walls doesn't change what it means to be huntsmen. We protect the world from darkness. And yes, we get hurt doing so. Nothing new. He'll be honored as any warrior."
Chloe hated every single word he'd just said. She hated that this world existed, that it was normal to lose a twenty-eight-year-old to a pack of monsters.
"As for Bash," he added, "what are you sorry for exactly?"
She felt like it was a trick question, but she answered anyway.
"He died."
Jack had turned to her now. "So did you," he replied quietly.
Chloe's heart skipped a beat.
She had died. She remembered the sound of her snapping neck echoing in her ears. The girl she'd been, her mortal shell, had ceased to exist. And yet she felt no loss, no attachment to that person.
"I evolved, Jack. I may not have known it, but I was always meant to be this. I've never felt more like myself. My mind, scattered as it is, is finally entirely mine. I found myself. Bash lost who he was."
Words came easier to her now, too. Everything made sense. Her own brain, her strange desires. Even her father's descent into insanity.
She would not have Jack, or anyone else, feel sorry for her now.
Jack nodded. "I'm not sure how to help him now. How to guide him. Tris will turn eventually
, but it's different. She's learned to be both a huntsman and a vampire her entire life. Bash…"
Again, she knew what to say.
"Be his friend. That voice at the other end of the phone if he ever calls. But not his boss. If he chooses to be a hunter after he accepts his nature, you'll be the first to know. For now, he's one of us. Trying to accept himself like this is going to take time."
Bash was staying in Levi’s house, and each time she’d visited, he’d been in that very study where she’d given him her blood, on that sofa. Reading. Sleeping. Maybe just avoiding her eyes.
Jack watched her intensely.
"Are you claiming him?"
The word had meaning, she could tell, and she didn't want to make promises she couldn't keep. She tilted her head.
"Are you claiming him as part of your clan, your family? Do you swear you'll take care of him?"
Maybe the old Chloe wasn't quite gone yet. Part of her was terrified at the prospect of being responsible for anyone at all, let alone a brand-new vampire, when she didn't even understand herself what it entailed.
But she wasn't just a newly risen vamp. She was an Eirikrson. The head of the Eirikrsons, as long as their forefather remained stuck in his cave.
Chloe had learned in Immortal History that most vampires no longer had any affiliation—they just lived their lives as they saw fit. But in the old days, almost everyone was sworn to one of the seven houses.
"I'll claim him if he wants to belong to my house," she said. Knowing that Jack was after more than idle words, Chloe added, "I swear it."
He relaxed a little.
"Where were you going with all that?"
She looked down at the boxes in her arms. Heavy as they were, she hadn't noticed them for the last few minutes.
"Oh."
She blushed, ashamed to spell it out. No doubt Jack would think she was crazy.
"I…" She cleared her throat. "I owe someone."
Jack smiled. "Better settle that debt, then. In our world, debts are as dangerous as oaths and curses."
On her way up to Coscnoc, Chloe was annoyed at herself. She'd lied. No debt was leading her feet up the familiar hill and down the long dark path.
When she arrived at the door, she had to walk sideways to fit through it with the cardboard boxes. Finally, she reached the cave under the hill.
Eirikr was sitting on the ground. He looked thinner, far less lively. And surprised. Mostly surprised.
"You're back."
She dropped the three boxes.
"I hope you're handy with a screwdriver? The bed comes in pieces. I'll bring the mattress in a sec. Levi offered to carry it, but I figured you might eat him, so I made him stay behind."
His sharp eyes remained on her, calculating. Trying to see what she wanted from him, she guessed.
She sighed.
"All right, so I'm actually pretty short on family members, and you look cool. Plus, this place really needs decorating. Are you more of a purple or a green guy, by the way?"
Eirikr blinked.
"You are back," he repeated—just a quiet whisper.
Then she understood. He'd doubted her existence at first, suspecting she was an illusion. A fantasy.
She wondered how many times he'd dreamed of this. Not her, specifically, but someone, anyone, coming down here for a chat. There was nothing in this cave. Nothing at all. He’d been entirely forsaken for centuries.
Regardless of what he might have done, he didn't deserve that. No one did.
"If you could get out of here," she said, "what would you do?"
Eirikr had never lied to her, and although he might have then, he chose not to.
"Destroy the world as you know it. Probably. Although I definitely want to try Starbucks first."
She sighed.
"Fortunately, it's not a matter you'll need to concern yourself with anytime soon, little daughter. I cannot get out of here. Only the witch who cast me out in the first place can undo this spell, and she's long returned to dust."
Chloe nodded and opened the smallest and most important of her three boxes. She couldn't get him out of here, but she could make his life a little more comfortable. She pulled out a bag of synthesized vampire blood.
"I know. Not quite Starbucks."
Eirikr was speechless for a beat, but he wasn't one to remain so for long.
He smirked and reached out for the bag.
"It'll do."
She didn’t so much as turn to check who’d entered her room when she heard the door open behind her. As if she could mistake him. His presence. His scent.
Chloe’s eyes remained on her reflection. She looked the same, more or less. Except for the eyes. Sometimes they were dark brown, as they used to be.
Other times, when her throat tightened in hunger, and her fangs popped out…she was someone else entirely. Someone with bright blue eyes and a heart of stone.
“You’re sure you want to stay here?”
She giggled. The sound was utterly unfamiliar. Someone’s voice. A soprano, too suave and seductive.
“So, what, we date for a few weeks and you want me to move in?”
Levi chuckled, wrapped his arms around her waist. “Yes,” he whispered against her throat. “I very much want you in my house, chained to my bed twenty-four seven.”
His mouth touched her collarbone, and kiss their way up to her jaw. She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
“But I meant, you could move into your home. Skyhall.”
Her home. The black palace at the very top of the hill. She hadn’t stepped inside yet.
Chloe shook her head.
“We’ve made a statement already. The world knows what I am. They know the Eirikrson are back.”
And she didn’t mind that, strangely. She wanted the arrogant, heartless immortals who played with lives casually to be afraid.
“But I’m also Chloe Miller. Barely trained. With no understanding of my powers or my limits. And no control over my thirst.”
She drank from Levi’s throat, and from the countless bags of synthetic blood he made available to her everywhere. But she was hungry. Thirsty. Always.
“Moving onto to hill will say to the world that I’m ready. That I’ve claimed my house. And that they can come knocking if they want to challenge me. I don’t think I can do that yet.”
Levi pulled her in closer.
“Not yet,” he agreed. “But soon.”
* * *
The End
Next in After Darkness Falls: Blood of a Huntsman.
* * *
May Sage juggles multiple series and prioritizes those which are well reviewed. If you want to speed up the releases in the After Darkness Falls series, don’t forget to leave a review!
Two thousand years ago
* * *
The creature observed the witch from the darkness without a single word, its penetrating gaze as bright as a star in the darkness. A weaker witch might have fallen for it.
"I'm not afraid of you," Aurora lied. "You cannot reach me." This was said with a little more conviction. "I may not be able to kill you, but these walls will be your tomb."
"How poetic. And these markings…" His hands touched the stone on either side of the open doorway she'd spelled. "They're positively artful. Tatiana evidently didn't waste her aureus when she sent you to study the ways of the great wizards of Alexandria. But you're smarter than this, Rora."
"Don't call me that," she spat.
She'd fallen for it once. His beauty, his harsh and melodious voice. His spells.
He was dangerous, to her and to the rest of her kind. To all humanity. She was doing the right thing. For once in her life, she'd made the right decision.
"Fine. Aurora, then. You don't want to do this. These walls will never keep me. We both know it. You're doing nothing except delaying the inevitable."
"I am protecting my race from a monster," Aurora yelled.
She'd seen what he'd done. The hundreds of b
odies, defiled, drained. Finally, she saw him for what he was.
"You're doing a coward's dirty work and turning your back on the only person who's ever been on your side," said Eirikr Primus, bastard of Markus Aurelius.
The first of his name, the first of his kind.
Not the last.
Hundreds of vampires now roamed the lands. She'd find them, too. This wouldn't end until they were all ashes.
"I don't want to see you waste your life on a fruitless endeavor. Let me go. I won't hurt you. I will never hurt you or let any of mine lay a finger on you. You know this."
She'd never doubted it. Even now, she was certain that the monster wouldn't harm her.
But his gentleness wasn’t about her. Aurora looked remarkably like her grandmother, which she knew was the only reason she hadn't been drained of blood the moment they'd met.
“Trust me, Rora.”
Aurora straightened her spine.
"You will remain here, in the company of the only thing you’ve ever loved—yourself. Rot in hell.”
She turned her heels, heading up the stairs that led out into the sunlight.
Three months ago
* * *
Eirikr remembered the smell overhead. Not the stench as it was now, full of toxic fumes and rotting flesh. Even in his prison, so dark and deep he couldn't see the light of day, he smelled the new air. The last two thousand years had not suited their dear Earth.
But he remembered still. Watching the flocks of sheep from a mountaintop, and breathing so deeply, taking it for granted.
They hadn't been his sheep. Nothing, by rights, had ever been his.
Eirikr was a bastard, born of a Roman scum based in Raetia, meaning he owned none of his mother's property and certainly none of the man who'd fathered him. He'd believed his fate had been watching over his little brother's folks. It could have been worse. They weren't poor, and there was food on the table every night.
Then, one day, the Roman came; the one who looked like him.
"Are you the one they call bastard, boy?"