Gently stroking his face, she whispered, “I need you to come back to me, Sion. I can’t do this without you.”
“I feel…I feel everything. The love I feel for you. The kindness in your voice when you speak to me. I feel it all. The anger and rage that I have inside me. The pain of remembering what I did. I feel everything I’ve worked so hard to never feel again.”
For days, she’d watched him as he struggled with his Bliss addiction, but unlike when she’d taken the drug, he didn’t seem to experience euphoria or anything close to happiness. As he lay next to her day after day murmuring bits and pieces of memories about events years ago, she suspected the drug affected him by taking him back to the man he’d been before he became vampire.
She remembered hearing what Sion had been before. A German soldier during the war. A Nazi soldier. One of those hateful creatures so many humans had morphed into as a result of a madman’s hatred.
But she never believed Sion was hateful. He couldn’t be. Not the quiet soul who sat next to her hour after hour as she worked to decipher the Prophecy of Idolas all those nights at the monastery. In him, she’d found a supportive friend, even as she was falling in love.
What he’d done then haunted him, but she refused to believe that’s the man she cared for. She’d seen the real Sion. She’d seen it in his kindness when he fed her. In his gentle support as she struggled with her task. No matter what the human had been, the vampire was honorable and good.
He was a Son, worthy of respect as one of the handful of heroes who would save their world.
She cradled his face as fear filled his eyes. “I need you to remember who you really are. Whatever the drug is making you feel isn’t real. It’s not who you are.”
“I’ve done horrible things, Kali. Unforgivable things.”
“No, that was the human you were. You have a good soul, Sion. You’re a Son. You couldn’t be that if you weren’t good. Don’t let this drug put things into your head.”
“They ordered us to herd them into the camps. No compassion. No kindness. And I didn’t have to be told twice. They didn’t have to make me do anything. It was all inside me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, terrified of what his answer might be.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he turned away from her. “Children, women, men. It didn’t matter who they were. I had my orders, and I followed them like the good soldier I was.”
“Don’t let this take you over. Please fight this,” she pleaded, but she knew that poison held him in its grasp. “Sion, don’t slip away. Stay with me.”
He groaned and shook his head. “The night I was turned it was bitter cold—too cold to even snow. When it fell from the sky, it turned to ice crystals that landed on our heads. Even covered head to toe, you couldn’t stop the cold from getting inside you. It froze you to the bone. And even knowing how cold it was, I marched those men out into the courtyard to find out who’d stolen half a loaf of bread. They stood there in only shirts and pants without even shoes on their feet. They stood on that frozen ground while I questioned every single one about that bread.”
Kali couldn’t watch this anymore. Closing her eyes, she silently prayed he’d someday forgive her and reached for her phone. Nico’s phone rang just once before he answered, as if he’d been waiting for her to call.
“Nico, I need you to send someone to where Sion and I are. He needs help.”
“What’s wrong?”
Swallowing hard, she stood up and walked away from Sion, who was still talking about memories of decades ago. “Sion is addicted to Bliss. He got it from me at first because I was addicted, but I got off it. I can’t get him to give it up, though. I’ve tried, but he’s lost to it. He needs the kind of help I can’t give him.”
Just saying she wasn’t enough broke her heart, but she couldn’t deny the truth anymore. Sion was too important to the Sons, so she had to let him go.
“I think I might have something that can help. Stay with him and take care of what he needs. We’ll be there in a little while.”
“Is there an antidote to Bliss? Have the Order’s doctors found one?” she asked, hopeful for the first time.
“Not exactly. Help will be there in a few.”
She placed her phone down on the table, feeling like she wanted to cry but unsure if it was because Nico might be able to save the man she loved or because she was about to lose him, possibly forever.
Sion continued to talk of those horrible times, his expression full of pain as he spoke of his days as a German soldier at a concentration camp in the Second World War. Every word looked like it stabbed him as it left his mouth, and the guilt in his eyes tore at her as she watched him relive his actions.
She lay down next to him and as he spoke, she took him in her arms and held him to her, knowing this may be the last time she had the chance to tell him how much she loved him.
“Listen to me, Sion. Nico’s coming soon, so I don’t have long to say this. I know the man you are when you’re not crazy from this poison doesn’t care much about love, but I believe you care for me so I want to tell you how much I wish this hadn’t happened. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to let my problems become yours. I love you. I’ve loved you since those nights we sat alone in Vasilije’s cellar and you fed me like I was one of your own.”
He turned toward her and stopped speaking, his gentle smile back for a moment. Closing her eyes to stop the tears, she continued.
“I wish I was your vampire, but I’m not. I’m another’s and he’s done things to me that broke me. I’m fucked up because of it, and you should never have let yourself care for me. You deserve better than someone like me, so I have to let you go. I hope someday you’ll be able to forgive me for doing this to you. I’m so sorry, Sion.”
Slowly, the effect of her words showed on his face, and he frowned. “I love you. Please don’t go.”
Kali couldn’t control her emotions and sobbed, “I have to let you go so you can get better. I’m so sorry, Sion. Please forgive me.”
Burying her face in his shoulder, she let the tears come, regretting the mess she’d made of them because of the drug. If only her sire hadn’t forced her to try it. If only she’d been strong enough to walk away from it. If only she’d been able to save Sion herself.
So many if onlys.
From behind her, she felt a hand touch her shoulder and she turned around to see Solenne staring down at her with a look of sadness. “Nico sent me. I think I can help.”
Confused, Kali sat up and dried her eyes. “I don’t understand. I thought one of the Sons would bring whatever the doctors found that would help Sion get off the Bliss.”
Solenne shook her head and frowned. “No, they haven’t found anything yet, but I think I might have what he needs.”
Kali knew that she didn’t mean any harm by saying that, but just knowing that another female could give the man she loved what he needed and she couldn’t crushed her. Without saying another word, she stood from his side and moved out of the way.
“Sion, it’s Solenne. Do you remember me?” she quietly asked as she sat down next to him.
His eyes opened and he tried to focus on her, but Kali saw he was still in the throes of the Bliss. “He doesn’t seem to know much of anything tonight. He must have taken a lot.”
Rolling up her sleeve, Solenne positioned her wrist near Sion’s mouth. Kali knew that Bliss had been manufactured as a synthetic substitute for her blood and couldn’t believe her eyes. How could feeding him more of what had made him so lost ever help him?
She leapt at Solenne to stop her from giving him her blood. “No! More of that won’t help him! He needs something to change the effects of the Bliss, not something to make him get even more lost in his own head.”
Solenne gently held Kali as she began to cry again. “I know the drug is made from me, but I think giving him my blood might work. Saint has never experienced anything bad from it, so it might be what counteracts the drug.”
/> Hanging her head, Kali voiced her worst fear. “But if it doesn’t, he may be lost forever. What do I do if it’s too much for him and he never comes back?”
“I promise I won’t hurt him. If it looks like my blood isn’t helping, I’ll get him back to the Order and make sure the doctors take care of him. I won’t let this take him away from you. I swear.”
Kali looked down at Sion’s Bliss ravaged body and knew she couldn’t deny him the chance Solenne offered. Crouching down next to him, she caressed his cheek and whispered, “I love you.”
He opened his eyes and smiled at her, and for the first time in so long, she believed he was truly there with her. “I love you too. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
She stepped back out of the way and prayed what Solenne was about to do wouldn’t kill him instead of helping him. As she pressed her wrist to his lips and his fangs descended into his mouth, her heart clenched at the idea of him taking another woman’s blood, no matter what the reason.
He’d only taken a little of her blood into him when he began choking. Blood sprayed out of his mouth as his body tried to expel it, but Solenne continued to feed him. He fought her, his hands pushing her away even as he drank from the holes in her wrist, and all the while Kali stood watching, her heart breaking from the horrible scene playing out in front of her.
Solenne held her arm against his mouth until he stopped fighting, and then there was nothing but calm. His body stopped its thrashing and he didn’t try to push her away anymore. Turning to look at Kali, she smiled.
“I think it might be working. Come over and hold his hand. He’s going to need you when he finishes.”
“For what?” Kali asked as she knelt next to him.
“The whole time I was feeding him I had a sense that he was afraid you’d leave him because he made the mistake of getting hooked on this stuff. He cares for you and I think he’s afraid you won’t care for him because of this.”
She looked into Sion’s eyes and saw he knew who she was there with him. Smiling through her tears, she took his hand and brought it to her mouth in a kiss. “I would never leave you because of this. You saved me from this. I only wish I could have saved you.”
“You did save me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You did what you had to. You saved me.”
Solenne smiled at her and slowly pulled her wrist from his mouth. “She did, Sion. You have Kali to thank, not me.”
“I have you to thank too, Solenne. See? The prophecy wasn’t wrong about you being as important as the Sons.”
Suddenly it all made sense. That’s what that passage Kali had unlocked meant. Solenne’s blood was the key with Bliss but also with what would stop it from tearing apart their world.
“He’s right,” Kali said as Solenne cleaned up. “You need to go back to the Order and tell the doctors what happened here. Your blood is the answer. They’ll just have to figure out what the Archons did to make it destructive when they made Bliss.”
“Saint’s not going to like this,” Solenne said only half-jokingly. “But I’ll tell them and if we’re lucky, we can stop what those damn Archons are doing to our kind before Bliss takes over everywhere.”
“Thank you, Solenne. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. I didn’t mean to be that way.”
“I understand perfectly. No hard feelings. When you two are ready, I’m sure Nico and the rest of the Sons are eager to hear what you’ve figured out about the prophecy.”
Sion squeezed Kali’s hand as she hung her head. She’d hoped by now she would have deciphered more and hated the idea of disappointing the Sons again. “I think I’m close to something, but I haven’t been able to find the right texts to confirm it.”
“Tell everyone now that Kali doesn’t have to be my nursemaid that we’ll be working on the prophecy day and night until we find the answers.”
Solenne promised to tell the rest of the Sons and left as Sion’s words filtered through Kali’s mind. “We’ll be working on the prophecy? You aren’t leaving?”
He shook his head. “Why would I leave? Everything important to me is right here.”
“The prophecy and all the books to solve it?”
Cradling her face, he smiled and kissed her. “You.”
For two days and nights, Kali didn’t move from her table full of research books. Sion stayed by her side the whole time, even taking short naps to keep his strength up so he could support her work. She hadn’t entirely neglected her duties while she took care of him, and she was sure she’d found clues that would lead to the center of the Prophecy of Idolas.
The answer to how the Sons would defeat the Archons.
Her eyelids drooped as she pored over those yellowed, old pages of her books hoping that night would be the one when she finally could call Nico and tell him she’d found the key that would solve all their problems. She read the same passage three times without understanding it, but she couldn’t give up.
Sion nudged her arm. “You look like you’re about to collapse. Take a break.”
She turned her head and liked that his grey eyes were clear once again. Kissing him, she wished she could relax and spend the night just lying in his arms. She couldn’t, though. Too much was riding on her work.
“I can’t stop now. I know I’m close to something big.”
“Then I’ll help. What are we looking for?”
Kali wasn’t sure taking the time to explain what she was searching for was the best idea, but since she’d now read that passage four times without understanding it, she didn’t think it would hurt.
Scrubbing the bleariness from her eyes, she leaned back and began telling him what she knew. “Remember when we were down in the cellar at the monastery and I explained about the original sons of Macaria and Navarus? I think when Idolas referred to them in his prophecy, he was actually using their names as code for you guys.”
“Really? Okay. Have you found all of us?”
“I think I can say I finally found you.” She leaned over the table to drag the largest volume toward them. Flipping through the pages until she found the one she needed, she read from the text. “Blood the life and death of one, the answer lies in the heart.”
Kali looked up from the book to see Sion smiling. All this time she’d been looking for some reference to his past, but it was the present that told the true story.
“The life and death of one,” he said quietly. “That Idolas sure could see things clearly, couldn’t he?”
She kissed him and whispered the last line of the passage against his lips. “The answer lies in the heart.”
Cradling her face in his strong hands, he smiled. “I don’t think anyone else in the world would be able to say that would ever have applied to me. Idolas must have seen something about us together.”
“I don’t know. Stranger things have happened,” she said with a chuckle. “But I’ve never found anything that works with Nico. I’ve tried over and over, but nothing. I thought I had but it’s wrong.”
Sion knitted his brows. “That’s odd, especially since he’s the most ancient of us all. Maybe that has something to do with it?”
Shaking her head, she reached for a book near her left arm. “I don’t know, but this is the passage I’ve been focusing on for the last few weeks. It tells of a descendant not of Idolas but of Nikator, the brother who stopped their father from killing him because he wasn’t his.”
Nodding, Sion said, “I remember. His father was Apollo, so Idolas wasn’t a full vampire.”
“Exactly. Idolas prophesied that a savior would come not from his line, which all you Sons of Navarus come from, but his brother’s line. And Noelle is the last of the born vampires from Nikator’s line.”
“That makes sense. Theron is from Nikator’s line because of Noelle.”
Kali looked down at the book again. “But Idolas uses another word to describe this savior. He calls him a ruler.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve read it over and over and
I keep coming back to one thing. Theron isn’t only supposed to be the answer to defeating the Archons. He’s supposed to take their place as the ruler of the vampire world.”
“Ruler? Like a king or like a dictator?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, unsure which he was fated to become.
Even Kali had a hard time believing that little boy was meant to be the ruler of the vampire race. “But at his rate of growth now, he won’t be ready for at least a year or more to even fight the Archons, Sion. They’ll strike before then.”
“I think we have to go back to Greece and meet with the Sons about this. Ramiel and Noelle deserve to know, and if he is what you say he is, he needs to be protected because if the Archons figure out who he is, nothing any of us Sons do will matter.”
She knew Sion was right and she shouldn’t have cared about leaving Prague since so much of the memories from that place would involve Bliss, but she’d also miss being alone with him. As she nodded her agreement that they needed to leave, she regretted that they’d wasted their time with that poison instead of what they could have been together.
Watching Sion packing up her books, she said quietly, “I’m sorry for everything. I never meant for it to happen like this.”
He looked up at her and smiled. “I’m not. I needed to let go of those memories, and the only way that happened was with the Bliss. So something good came out of it, at least.”
“Oh, I guess so.”
Sion handed her the bag filled with all her research books and wrapped his arms around her so they could head back to Greece. Against the top of her head just as they began to disappear from the rooms they’d shared together, he whispered, “But nothing is better than finding out you love me as much as I love you, Kali.”
Twenty
The Order’s meeting room slowly filled up with all the Sons and some of their mates as they arrived from all over. Even Vasilije and Terek returned from the east for the news that Sion had said would be worth their time. Ramiel arrived alone, leaving Noele home alone because she was due to give birth at any moment.
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