Forbidden (The Gabriel Lennox Series Book 1)

by M. L. Desir

  “What do you want from me?” Gabriel asked.

  “A little of your time. Your cooperation.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The murders as of late haven’t gone unnoticed. I’ve been called to be cautious and to watch from the shadows what’s going on. You’re not like other vampires. As I said, I’ve been watching you. You’re an exception, and I find you most interesting.”

  Gabriel smiled. “Who said that I was a vampire? I certainly didn’t.”

  Edan frowned. He rubbed his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, his lips slightly parted as if he would speak any moment, but instead said nothing.

  “You mentioned murders. So many have transpired. I’m not sure of which you speak.”

  He narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. “You know which ones. I told you that our business has to do with the actions of your kind. Humans have been slaughtering one another for millennia. That isn’t new nor is it really a threat.” He gave a throwaway gesture with one hand. “Your kind are a threat, however. Don’t be difficult. The one they call Seth is to blame for murders that have nothing to do with Whitechapel. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel replied.

  Edan rose from his chair, his rage as hot as fire and his eyes like ice. “I don’t believe you. Will you force me to tear the information from you?”

  “It would please me to see you try, human.” He laughed. Who had filled Edan with delusions that he could handle him? He glanced at Leigh who had shifted in his chair—his eyes were tapered with what looked like deep concentration, and he appeared ready to leap out of his seat. Gabriel relaxed in his bonds. “Seth and I have an interesting relationship. Adding you to the scenario, I think, shall make it quite complicated. I order you to retreat. Seth is my prey.”

  Edan’s jaw slackened, and his hazel eyes glazed over. Gabriel leaned forward in his chair. “Do you hear me, stupid human? Seth is mine. If anyone is to destroy him, I am the one to do it.”

  “So, Seth is . . . alive?” a soft voice asked. “Take your will off of him.” Gabriel glanced around. His gaze lingered on the mute Chosen with the wild hair and eyes.

  “Edan was correct when he said I am without a tongue, but I still have my mind, and if I wanted to, I could crush yours into a senseless bloody mass with merely a thought.” The Chosen’s full lips stretched into a tight-lipped smile.

  Gabriel withdrew his power from Edan, grudgingly, slowly. The human’s eyes opened wide before closing into what looked like sleep.

  “I’ve sent him to slumber land,” Leigh continued, still smiling. “That way, you and I can converse without interruption. Tell me, what you said, about Seth? Did you really mean it? That you’ll . . .”

  “Master Gabriel, what’s going on?” Colin asked, a troubled look on his face.

  Gabriel shook his head and nodded toward Leigh. “What? You can’t hear him?”

  Leigh laughed, but his lips didn’t move.

  Colin stared at Gabriel, confused. Of course, Colin couldn’t hear. Leigh spoke in his mind.

  Leigh ignored Colin, rose from his chair, and swaggered toward them. “Where is Seth? Answer me.”

  “Only after,” Gabriel said, “you make us more comfortable.”

  Leigh shut his eyes and brought his hands in front of him. His hands trembled for a few seconds. Colin’s ropes unraveled, and he let out a sigh of relief.

  Gabriel’s ropes loosened, too. They slipped off and fell to the floor. Though Leigh’s power unnerved him, Gabriel willed himself to remain calm. “Impressive,” he said coolly. “I thank you.” He rubbed the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders. “Now what?”

  Leigh fixed his eyes on the space next to Gabriel and glared. “Tell me what you’ve done with Seth.”

  Leigh didn’t look at Colin or him directly, but stared at the space in between them. He waved his hand in front of Leigh’s face. His eyes moved neither left nor right and were focused on nothing. Nothing.

  Leigh’s face went blank. “I was born blind.”

  “You’re still blind. Even after . . .”

  “Naïve youth. Did you think Enlightenment would have healed my eyes so that I could see? You’re not the first to have thought so. My mother made a pact with a wise woman in our village. My mother was a river of tears and filled with superstitions. She thought that I was cursed due to my blindness, and she believed that this woman – this sorceress—could cure me. But,” he spread his hands wide in a shrug, “as you have witnessed, she was wrong. Don’t pity me, though. I see what others can’t. Physical sight isn’t necessary. Now, answer me. Where is Seth? I can no longer feel his presence. Can no longer sense him. There’s only . . . emptiness.”

  “Ohhh. Just as expected. You must be his mysterious maker.”

  “Yes!” the voice snapped, cutting like a knife. “And if you’ve done any harm to Seth, I’ll kill you, Gabriel Lennox.” The blind Chosen’s voice no longer whispered in his mind, but could be heard throughout the room. Colin squirmed in his seat, discomfort wrinkling his face.

  Colin glanced at Gabriel and chewed his bottom lip. “Uh, so that’s why you, errr . . . set me up?”

  Leigh silently studied his fingernails. “Tell me just one thing. Seth . . . does he yet live?”

  Gabriel stood. “For the time being.”

  Leigh’s delicate, long-fingered hand clenched into a fist. An illusion. He wasn’t as delicate as he appeared. “You dare to threaten what is mine even when I have you in the palm of my hand? You’ll leave Seth alone.”

  He stood up. “You’re entitled to your convictions, but I have my own. Seth forced me into a blood bond. Forced! And you know that there’s only one way to break such a bond.” His arms hung heavily at his sides.

  Leigh gave a peaceful smile, looking like a saint, eyes shut. “I don’t care what you have to say. You must swear on your honor, on your blood that you’ll pardon him. My precious Seth.”

  Colin’s gasp broke in like a thunderbolt. “But Seth is a monster! He torments my master who is no one’s toy. What’s more, he murders without remorse.” His voice held heat that Gabriel had never heard in him before. “And the longer I listen to you, the more I’m set to believe that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Gabriel closed his eyes, wishing that Colin hadn’t spoken the bitter truth. The uncertainty of how Leigh would react caused a sudden coldness in the middle of his spine to seep throughout the rest of his bones.

  “Ah. The “dreaming-while-awake” blood exchanges. You call them murders. You stretch the word to suit your intentions. Those humans that know of us gave of their blood willingly—”

  Colin gave a vehement shake of his head. “It’s murder—”

  “Those humans had a choice, and they took a path less traveled.” Leigh still smiled, but the words cut the air in angry little bites. “I call it suicide.”

  Gabriel glared at him. “Nonsense. It’s murder, no matter what you want to think or say. You only speak this way because you know that you’re guilty by association.”

  Leigh frowned, his bottom lip jutting out in a childish pout. “True. But what does it matter? These humans are puppets.” He waved a casual hand at Edan. “And I—no, we are their masters.” He smiled, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. “Ah. Humans. You speak to them, hold their gaze, and they’re like worms, mesmerized by the bird’s hunter eyes. Don’t you understand, pretty red bird? Humans are merely toys to alleviate boredom. Who cares if they stain the world with crimson? Not I.”

  Leigh sniffed and paced the floor back and forth, forth and back, before spinning about and perching his chin on an elegantly raised hand. “So, you understand,” he said to Gabriel, in an intimate, tender tone. “That none of us can possibly accuse Seth of being a monster because we’re just like him.”

  Gabriel shrugged, unmoved. “Believe whatever
you like, but you know that Seth or I will have to bleed away in order to break the bond, and it won’t be me. Pardon Seth? I will do no such thing. His blood will spill for this great offense.”

  Leigh looked at him directly, and then the power that Gabriel had sensed earlier revealed itself and crashed down on him.

  Colin leapt forward out of his chair and into the air, his movements quick and graceful as a cat’s.

  Leigh’s eyes flashed like two polished jewels and for a split second, turned on Colin, who froze in midair, inches from striking him in the face with a fist flaming with fire.

  Fascinating. Gabriel thrust back with his own power, sending Leigh flying into the wall behind him. Like a marionette without strings, he thrashed him around the room, being careful not to muss the furniture or the curtains. Leigh let out a painful grunt or two and seemed to surrender. Finally, Gabriel pinned him against the wall with a glare, until Leigh’s dark eyes dimmed with submission.

  “You’re not as blind as you say,” Gabriel said.

  He lowered his head. “I see with my ears. Your blood-child’s movements are quite noisy and clumsy.” He sniffed. “I smell smoke. Something burns?”

  “That something would’ve been you, if you had been a second slower. Release Colin.”

  His eyes flickered to Colin before returning to Gabriel. Colin fell with a loud thump to the carpet. He groaned as he picked himself up and made much to-do about dusting his clothes off.

  Gabriel kept the space he made between Leigh, but even from this distance, he could see his bruised and bleeding lip. Gabriel licked his own lips, tempted . . .

  Leigh smirked, and his faraway eyes seemed to focus on Gabriel for the first time. He fluttered his eyelashes like a girl in love. “I bleed,” he remarked, voice ominous and spiced with a pinch of seductive sweetness. “And your heart races.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Gabriel snapped. “Drinking your blood would only be a means to an end. Beyond that, it would give me no pleasure.”

  “Master?” Colin asked, touching his arm.

  Leigh swallowed hard and addressed Colin with his eyes. Was that it? Gabriel thought. That Leigh had to look at whom he spoke with, mind to mind?

  “No. I won’t kill you or your blood child,” he said in a gracious voice. “Frankly, I don’t think I can. I sense that you’re different, Gabriel, just as Edan had deduced.”

  “How so?”

  “You don’t need blood. Is it because you tell yourself that you do not? Yet I can smell your desire for it. Your desire is strong, and you fight it valiantly. How peculiar.” His hands clenched into a fist. “I envy you. Rumors abound that Lilith Enlightened you, but I don’t believe that.”

  Gabriel clasped his hands in front of him. “Who, may I ask, Enlightened you?”

  “I don’t remember the name I was given. But the voice,” he said, eyes suddenly heavy lidded and dreamy, “the voice was beautiful. Terribly, unbearably so. My ears and flesh tingle with the memory of it.”

  Gabriel couldn’t move. That was exactly how Sevien’s voice sounded to him. And sometimes, Lilith’s took on such an achingly beautiful timbre. “And you? What of your maker—male or female?” He clenched his teeth, regretting the apparent stupidity of his question. Voices were sometimes androgynous. And if Leigh couldn’t see who Enlightened him, then he’d have no way of knowing the gender.

  Leigh stared off into space. “Male. Clearly. He called himself Sthenius—the Powerful. Clearly an epithet.” He touched his face with the tips of his fingers, dragged them along the length of his throat. “If I had clay, I would have fashioned him into a masterpiece. Sthenius is perfect.” He sighed, eyelashes fluttering in an ecstasy that Gabriel couldn’t understand. “No one is as beautiful as my maker. Not even my maker himself. He fed me something sweet.”

  “And where is he now?”

  Leigh’s shoulders slumped, and he laced his fingers together. “He left me long ago. I believe that he was displeased with his failure in me. I was a reminder of what Enlightenment alone couldn’t do. Heal, repair, make perfect. And he would often ask me what was the one thing I cherished most, and I would always answer that it was my mother. But now that she’s dead, I know that it’s Seth. But I wouldn’t sacrifice him for anything in the world. He had offered me something in addition to Enlightenment. This exchange he called a soul bond.”

  Gabriel’s eyes snapped wide open, and the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled as if the air broiled and charged with electricity, but he knew this sensation for fear. He had been fed fruit, like the Prince in the fairy tale and lived ever since, but the others had not been changed in the same manner. He thought of Mikel, Colin, whom he had transformed with an exchange of his blood. Did they have eternal life? Was immortality only in the blood?

  The decapitated image of Harold flashed into his mind. His own murderous actions had confirmed his doubt.

  “You’ve grown very silent, Gabriel,” Leigh said. “And your heart is doing that lovely drumming again. I pray that you share.”

  “Just musing upon Enlightenment.”

  Leigh cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “You speak the truth and yet...”

  Gabriel smiled. Could he really sense a lie? Leigh’s lip had already begun to heal, but the scarlet beads of blood still dangled like ruby sweets. If he could just drink some of his blood, then…

  “Did your maker feed you his blood alone, Leigh?”

  He nodded. “And I drank until I could drink no more. Darkness came and then like a dream—at least I thought that it was a dream—something so silly, so mythological occurred next. Why, I’m embarrassed to say.”

  “What?” Gabriel urged. “What?”

  “I told you already. He fed me something sweet. Why,” Leigh continued, eyes going dreamy again, “I suppose it reminded me of the pomegranates my mother used to give me.”

  “A soul bond,” Colin murmured. “What’s that?”

  Leigh’s dark eyes were moist and glistening. “Why, don’t you know? A bond stronger than any other bond,” he explained in a hushed, mournful tone. “You become one with the one that you make the sacrifice to. My maker used to tell me that if I killed the one thing I loved as a sacrifice to him, he could make me both perfect and immortal. But I couldn’t. Couldn’t! I’m a failure. A wretched failure.” He covered his face and wept.

  Gabriel kneeled down beside him, took Leigh’s face into his hands and lapped up the congealed blood, which tasted bittersweet like unripe cherries, at the corner of his full mouth. He wondered if it would be enough to obtain the gift. “I can help you, Leigh. Let me help you. You know that I have to stop Seth. Whatever happens, you can rest with the truth that it won’t be your fault.” He spoke with such gentleness, as if consoling a frightened animal. “Let me help you.”

  Leigh stopped sobbing, but the blood tears still rolled down his cheeks. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  Surrender? Gabriel leaned in closer until his lips were inches from Leigh’s ear. He sang him to sleep.

  Colin moved closer and looked down at Leigh. He nudged his ankle with the tip of his boot. “Sleeping? So easily? He must’ve allowed you to influence him.”

  Gabriel shrugged. “I don’t know his reasons, but I am glad that he did. I can’t have an ancient Chosen with a devoted father-son complex at my heels.”

  “Deucedly clever. But if what he says is true about the Fruit, killing Seth will be impossible.”

  Gabriel shot him a pleased look. “I love the way you understand me, young Colin,” he said as he rose to his feet. “I hope he sleeps long after Seth is dead. That is, if Seth hadn’t given the Fruit. Otherwise . . .”

  Colin sucked his teeth. “Shit.”

  “A thorough summation of my thoughts,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “Come along.”

  CHAPTER 30

  One Hundred Years of Sleep

 
; THE PEAL OF RAINDROPS falling like a thousand pearls onto the roof and against Gabriel’s bedroom windows softened the loud cracking and splitting of wood in the fireplace. He had gone immediately to his room, and no one deterred him. Not even Nathaniel.

  Gabriel stared into the fire, his mind heavy with questions. Old Laws? He had always believed that they were myths, legends, stories made by mortals afraid of death and darkness. And Nathaniel had never argued otherwise.

  Gabriel believed that Leigh was older than any Chosen he’d encountered based on what he had said about his past. At least three thousand years old. It was apparent that self-mutilation, a hobby of making lies for the sake of Leigh’s own amusement, and killing others were convenient ways to pass away the slow march of time. Boredom and time had most likely driven him mad.

  He couldn’t see himself becoming so bored that he would fall down that same abyss, but such a fate could befall others. Had such madness developed in Nathaniel? The fairy telling, the games could be a manifestation of madness . . .

  He never knew exactly how old Nathaniel was. Never had a desire to know. He never thought it significant. Until now. Gabriel closed his eyes and became transparent. He slipped through the walls of the house, floated through the floors and became solid beside Nathaniel in the library, who was reading a story book to Nikolai while the boy sat in his lap.

  Gabriel told the child to excuse them. He did so without comment. “After my Enlightenment, how long did I sleep?”

  Nathaniel blinked at him and closed the book. He held up three fingers.

  “ . . . Three days? No more or less?”

  “Not at first. We had some complications. You were quite angry over the final death of your sister and what your parents had tried to do to the two of you. The first and last time you resurrected Abigail, she was no longer Abigail. Something twisted began to fester in her. She worshiped you like some god and wanted you in an unsavory manner. When she realized you didn’t feel the same way, she hung herself. For days, you drowned in sadness, and I believed you had lost your head.”