by Lissa Kasey
The person who had held me down stepped several feet away so as not to get splashed. “This is why I don’t create or blood bond vampires anymore,” Maxwell Hart said. “Disgusting.”
Chapter 19
Once I’d stopped heaving, Luca and Con dragged me into the shower to hose me off. I didn’t have the energy to do much more than stand there. Max leaned against the wall outside the shower talking to Seiran. I could feel Max in my head, needed him close for the moment, which I suspected was why he was still there. It was a little unnerving, yet he didn’t seem to be trying to intrude on my thoughts.
“You’re back, right?” Luca asked for the twentieth time.
“I think so,” I replied again, not sure where I had been, other than lost in the haze.
“That was a redout?” Con wanted to know.
“That was a revenant,” Luca said. “Way past the redout stage.”
“But he just went to ground.” Con dried me off and they found clean clothes for me, dressing me with the little help I could provide. I was exhausted, and healing very rapidly from a dozen or more broken bones. The hand was the worst. It throbbed like an open wound, but I felt each bone as it knit itself back together. Even after it healed, it ached in warning that it was too weak for any sort of battle.
“Gabe abandoned him,” Seiran said appearing beside us in the locker room. “He’s too new to survive without a sire.”
“How does that even work?” Con asked. “Some sort of magic bond? Was it the blood? He didn’t stop until Max covered him in his own blood.”
“Blood bonding can override the sire bond,” Luca said. “It’s the only other option if the sire is dead. I assume that’s what Gabe originally did.”
If what I had with Max was a blood bonding, then something had been really wrong with my bond with Gabe. I’d never felt him in my head like this, never felt his control quite so firmly, or saw anything from his past like I’d gotten from Max.
I had a million questions, just as soon as I could hold my head up without crying like a baby. Max had blood bonded me, so he was my sire now? What was with the walk down memory lane? And he knew Gabe? What the fuck?
“He’ll need to feed,” Max said. He was near the sink wiping blood spatter off his wingtips. “The healing needs blood.”
“Will he throw it up again?” Seiran asked.
“Not as long as he doesn’t feed from a vampire. We can’t take blood from our own for anything other than bonding,” Max informed him.
Seiran growled. “Is there a book on all this? I need a book on this vampire shit.”
A smile cracked the edges of Max’s lips. “Several actually.”
“Can I read them? I think I need to read them.”
“Me first,” I grumbled at them. If anyone needed a clue on how to be a vampire it was me.
“Can I give him blood or does he need someone else?” Luca asked. I was practically sprawled across him, my head resting on his shoulder, propped up with an arm around Con’s neck. “I’ve never seen a revenant come back.” He actually looked scared. Of me? I didn’t want Luca to be afraid of me. “He killed Galloway. Even a revenant shouldn’t have been able to kill Galloway. He was one of the Tri-Mega.”
Galloway was dead? Holy fuck. I had killed Galloway? How did that happen?
“Galloway was weak. The loss of his Focus broke him. I warned him that he would not be strong enough to quell the siphon. Stolen power never undermines natural power,” Max said. “Feed him. He’ll need rest.”
“Need to know what the fuck happened,” I grumbled.
Luca pressed his wrist to my lips. “Drink.”
I didn’t want to. Didn’t have the energy to make it not hurt him. He must have seen it on my face because he pulled his wrist back, sliced it with his own sharp teeth and then pressed it to my lips. Con flinched and looked away, but didn’t try to leave. I closed my eyes as the taste of Luca’s blood filled my mouth, sweet as rain in a desert. It didn’t take much to fill my stomach, though it did another gurgle that made me worry I’d lose that blood too. I lapped at Luca’s wound, willing it to close, knowing now it was more my saliva than any magic power. Bonded, I thought. Could I create that between Luca and I? Would it ensure he changed when he died? I swallowed back that thought, not wanting Luca to change. He didn’t need to know what it was like to be a monster and he wasn’t one yet, not really.
“Thanks,” I told Luca. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re sweet for a badass motherfucker,” Luca leaned forward to give me a kiss. When he pulled away, he kissed Con too. “Don’t freak, okay?”
“I’m not freaking,” Con promised. “I’ll just insist Sam brush his teeth before I kiss him.”
“We okay?” I asked Con. He’d seen a lot of bad vampire shit. I hadn’t wanted to be part of that bad vampire shit, but couldn’t change that now. “I’m sorry. For all of this.”
“Wasn’t your fault,” Con said. “We called for you. Tried to get you to stop. You didn’t hear any of us. Or anything, really. You decimated the first two challengers in the cage and they were trying to keep people out and you in. You broke through the cage, ripped it open like it was nothing more than paper. Galloway tried to step in.”
“Which was stupid,” Luca said. “Fuck. You killed one of the Tri-Mega and didn’t even break a sweat.” He looked at Max. “And you reigned him in. Is the Tri-Mega all bullshit then? Just more political crap to keep vampires in line? I thought they were supposed to be the be-all and end-all power.”
“I think we all have a lot of unanswered questions,” Seiran said.
And wasn’t that the truth?
“Let’s go upstairs and we can talk privately, yes?” Max said waving a hand toward the elevator.
“I don’t trust you,” Seiran said honestly.
“I’d expect nothing less from Father Earth,” Max said. “Your grandfather was much the same. But I can answer a few questions and direct you toward some legitimate reading if you’d like.”
Even with Luca’s blood in me it was hard to stand up, like my limbs didn’t quite have enough electric pulses to actually animate them. Con and Luca helped me balance. “Let’s go, Ronnie. I’m needing some details myself. Someone needs to answer some shit already.”
Seiran walked to the elevator and pushed the only button and a moment later the door opened.
“Where are your tiny Pillars?” I asked him as I hobbled into the elevator.
“With Jamie and Kelly in the loft. Bryar’s keeping an eye too.”
“Gabe no longer has an invite I’m assuming?”
Seiran got into the elevator beside us. Max stepped in last and hit the button for the top floor that I knew to be Luca’s new place, Max’s old place.
“Correct.” His voice was tight and careful, tired I realized. Emotionally rather than physically. Had love broken him?
“That will only work for homes that are not yours,” Max told him. “Since you’re his Focus, your home is his and he will always have an invite.”
Seiran frowned. “Can he cross my wards just because we are tied together?”
Max shrugged. “I’m not sure I know of any vampires who are bound to witches. You’ll have to let me know.”
“Fuck,” Seiran muttered.
I agreed. We needed to put Gabe in the ground fast and pray it fixed whatever in him that was broken.
Luca’s loft was as I remembered it, open and very modern, lots of space with almost no room separation. Max went to the minibar in the kitchen and poured himself a few fingers of scotch before making his way to a slatted wall that slid back to reveal a bookcase. “You’ll find all the reading you want, right here. First shelf on the bottom are vampire memoirs, ridiculous in my opinion, but insightful about some of the variations of vampires. Second shelf is law, human, lycan, vampire, and witch, in that order. Third shelf is reference, with a handful of guides written by former masters about vampirism. Fourth is witchcraft. Spell books and the like. T
hough you’ll find them mostly useless as spells are individual rather than universal, or so I’ve discovered over the years. Top shelf is current reads, useless works for entertainment.” He sipped the scotch and didn’t to seem to be much interested in us. Was it an act?
The entire wall was filled with books. I didn’t even know where to begin, but Seiran went right to the reference shelf, gliding his fingers across the spines as he searched the tomes.
Gabe had given me one once. It read more like a memoir and had been boring as hell. Lots of talk of seduction and keeping to the shadows. I hadn’t done more than skim it. Would any of those talk about some of the powers Gabe had used? Group influence? Mind control? What other powers did vampires have that I needed to know about? And what was a siphon?
Luca and Con practically had to carry me to the bed, and I dropped onto it like a limp noodle. Why the fuck was I so tired? “Is this from turning into a revenant?” I asked Max. “This exhaustion? I feel like my limbs aren’t quite working right.” It was more than a little unnerving.
“I suspect it’s a number of things. The revenant eats away energy, but so did Galloway’s power and blood bonds also take energy. You’ll be fine in a few hours. Everything realigns on its own in due time.”
“Tell us about Galloway. He was a siphon?” Luca asked. “How did Sam beat him so easily.”
“Sam is a siphon. Galloway was just a wannabe. He’d spent a millennia learning magic to steal power from whomever he could. I suspect Tresler is much the same.” Max shrugged. “Power is a thing of perception. Those with true power are often smart enough to keep to the shadows instead of making for easy targets. Those who dream of being all-powerful step into the spotlight only to have it eventually burn them.”
“Gabe was powerful,” Seiran said. “Almost as powerful as you.”
“Likely more so, if he was sane. I suspect he’s been walking the edge for years,” Max said. “Unwilling to go to ground because he had nothing to come back to, and now because he fears leaving you long enough for you to abandon him.”
Seiran looked at him, pain clear on his face. “Do I know him at all? Has all of this been a lie? Our entire time together?”
“I can’t answer that because I simply don’t know. Speaking to some of the vampires he’s created might give you more insight.”
“But he can command them to say certain things, hide stuff from me, right?”
Max looked thoughtful but nodded. “Yes, and no. It would be a very specific command to keep all his vampires from telling you about him. If they couldn’t speak of him at all, that would be suspect, likely a command, but for them to just not say small thoughts or opinions of him? Too individual to really control. And the older the sire-bond, the less strength it has. After a decade or two, most vampires don’t need the bond at all, though it remains until the sire passes or a new blood bond is sealed.”
“So you could talk to Mike,” I said.
Seiran rubbed his face and turned back to the shelf. “I hate all of this. Not knowing. It’s like driving down the highway at eighty miles an hour in the dark with no headlights.”
“Ditto,” I agreed because fuck wasn’t this all a big mess. Luca wrapped around me was nice though. He rubbed my back while I used Con as a pillow. If my body didn’t still feel like it’d been put through a meat grinder, I might have been a bit happier to be sandwiched between them.
Seiran took a book off the shelf and looked around a bit like a cornered animal. He needed to just breathe for a few minutes. I could feel it, the tie between us stretched, but awake and liquid. He met my eyes like he knew I could feel him, was partially in his head. “Is this part of the siphon thing?” He wanted to know.
I shrugged, just as clueless as him.
“Yes,” Max said. “Once a siphon tastes your power it’s a permanent bond. Not in the same way of a vampire to a Focus, but more a link. The siphon will always have the ability to borrow and enhance your power. It’s one of the reasons the church, and later the Dominion, hunted them to oblivion back in the day.” He walked to the shelf, took the book from Seiran’s hand and chose another before placing it in his grasp. Apparently he was getting what was in my head due to our bond. It was a dizzying web that I was too tired to contemplate. “Start with this one. It has a good overview.”
Seiran took the book, flipped through it for a moment before nodding.
“There’s a sun porch up the stairs and to the right,” Luca said pointing to a spiral staircase off to the side. “Has comfy chairs, a nice view of the stars, and a door.”
That sounded like a good idea. “You can close us out for a little while. Take a breather, and still be safe, knowing your kids are safe,” I pointed out. Luca’s place or even if it still belonged to Max, would be a no enter zone for Gabe. I couldn’t do anything to heal the hurt Seiran was feeling, other than letting him rest and regroup without all the responsibilities of being a new dad and the earth Pillar. Jamie had the twins and I knew they were safe with him. So Seiran just needed some time to decompress, I could give him that.
Seiran looked at me. I gave him a raised brow. I’d be fine just as soon as my limbs stopped feeling like lead weights. He gripped the book and headed up the stairs. I was pretty sure the book he had was a guidebook on vampires. I hoped it helped settle some of his worries about Gabe. He needed a break from all the madness. Too bad his kids weren’t older so he could take them to Disneyland or something instead of basking in the paranormal bullshit that was our lives.
“So you wanna tell me how you know Gabe?” I asked Max once Seiran was gone, and I heard the door close upstairs.
“I don’t,” he said.
“I saw him in your memories. He’s in there. Just like Seiran’s grandfather was in there.” The man with dark hair and sapphire eyes. I recognized him from pictures in history books. John Ruffman. He’d been executed, supposedly for crimes against the Dominion, which of course I wondered now if it was propaganda. Apparently Max and John had been lovers of some kind. He hadn’t been the only one in Maxwell Hart’s memory that I recognized. I glanced at Luca. “And Luca.”
“The vampire you know as Gabe and I have never met.”
“You knew him before he was changed?” Luca asked.
Max shrugged. “Several lifetimes ago. Neither of us are the same as we were then.”
But Gabe was super old. That meant Max was just as old? No wonder he was so powerful. “I didn’t feel Gabe like this,” I said. “In my head.”
“Then he was already gone when he brought you over. That he managed to bring you over at all is a surprise. Perhaps that was Roman’s power rather than his.” Max said. “You should know I don’t take apprentices anymore.”
“I didn’t exactly ask you to.”
“No, your friend Seiran did. I got the call from Riley that you weren’t right, but they thought they could distract you in the ring until I got there. They expected me to put you down. I’ve done it more than a handful of times in the past few months. Vampires have been losing themselves to the revenant far too frequently lately. Then Seiran called to tell me Santini had revoked his mentorship, leaving you floundering. I knew you’d be a revenant by the time I got here. I explained to Seiran you might be unreachable. He asked me to try anyway.”
So I owed Seiran again, for saving my life again, without asking me again. I sighed. “Are you going to cut me loose too?”
Max didn’t look at me at that moment. He looked at Luca who was staring down at me, eyes half-lidded. He was tired too, but happy to be wrapped around me with Con’s hand in his hair. Max hadn’t done it for Seiran or even for me. The son of a bitch actually did it for his kid. It made me think better of him.
“Consider yourself bonded. I expect rules to be followed to the tee. You’ll be learning business, helping Luca with management, taking some of his workload, so I expect you to work hard. I also expect you to read every book on those shelves.” Max pointed to the wall of books.
“I’m n
ot a big reader,” I admitted.
“You will be soon. I don’t give second chances, and I will put you down if I have to, even if you’re not a revenant.”
I gulped back that bit of news. “Is there a book of rules I should be following?”
“Luca will walk you through it. You have twenty-four hours before I come for you to begin your training. Expect to be busy, exhausted by the work.” He glanced at the elevator. “You’ll also be fighting regularly. Riley will put you on the schedule. Luca can help train you.”
“Hmm,” Luca hummed. He combed his fingers through my hair. “I like sparring with Sam. Gets me all riled up.”
Max’s expression changed a little, just the barest glimpse of a smile on his lips. He met my gaze and I saw the challenge there, knew his unspoken deal. Luca was something I wasn’t supposed to fuck up ‘cause then the big man would kill me. I nodded my agreement. All I could do was my best. At least I wasn’t taking care of the masochist porn star all by myself. Con wrapped one of his long legs around Luca and I, and snuggled close. I was tired, but being curled in their embrace made me struggle to keep my eyes open.
“I wanna know about other stuff too,” I told Max. “Like the mind control Gabe did.”
He pointed to the bookshelf, “Best get reading then.” He looked thoughtful. “You speak and read Chinese, correct?”
“Uh, yeah.” Had spent the first seven or so years of my life only speaking Chinese. But had picked up English pretty quickly in school. Some things you never forgot.
“Fantastic. I have several business ventures I’m working on with China. I will see you tomorrow evening.” With that, he left. And that was okay because I seriously needed a nap.
Chapter 20
I dreamed of being Max. Or maybe I was just in his head as I slept. He sat on the couch in a very posh looking apartment, which didn’t appear all that different from Luca’s, petting a man’s head with absentminded affection.