by Lissa Kasey
He growled, lurching for the first who loomed over him, not caring if it fed him or not, only that he was free and could ease the sharp ache in his stomach.
Someone grabbed him. Strong arms clamping down, unyielding, even while blood filled his mouth. He groaned, the flavor bitter and hot as lava going down his throat. This blood was not as strong as the first cup given to him by Sam, but it filled him just the same. Spreading out, bringing life to every vein and cell, he sucked down the hot fluid until the one holding him commanded him to let go.
It took real effort to release that first vein. Even while Gabe gagged on the aftertaste. The lingering hint of… dog?
“It is an acquired taste,” the one holding him said. “Now drink from me to regain control.” The blood he got this time was dead blood, and Gabe tried to spit it out. But he was held down, and the slimy coldness of it forced down his throat, replaced seconds later with warm fluid life which he gulped at until he thought he’d burst.
The cold blood seemed to circulate slowly, with an almost binding edge, taking a grip on the dark hunger inside him, and shoving it back. It wasn’t pleasant, but it didn’t really hurt. The heat of the other blood soothed the chill, coating over the bonded layer, filling him with warmth and life, and easing his hunger. It was a strange combination of hot and cold, fire and control, chaos and peace.
Finally, he lay exhausted, so full he couldn’t move without contemplating throwing up, but warming as the blood worked its way through him. The aches began to ease, giving rise to a tingling sensation that almost hurt. More as though his limbs were actually awakening for the first time. The cold bond relaxed him, soothing some of the rising panic that had nearly taken him over, and making him sleepy.
“At least he doesn’t look dead anymore,” Sam said from somewhere to Gabe’s left. “Maybe I’m getting old, but he doesn’t look like he used to?”
“You don’t age, baby,” someone told Sam.
Gabe looked over to find Sam curled up on the couch with a pretty young man. Both looked barely legal, and gave him a mess of broken memories if he thought too hard about them. He blinked to ease some of the strain of memories.
“You don’t either,” Sam said.
“I do. Just not very fast.”
Sam stared at Gabe. “He’s still thin. Does he need more blood?”
“Time and his Focus will help,” a voice said from behind him. That one still held him, the bond tying them together slowly weaving stronger, but not overwhelming. He wasn’t sure he liked the feeling of being tied to another like this. It was restraining in a lot of ways, though it kept the dark lingering presence of his revenant quiet.
He flexed a little. Not physically, but with something that felt more intangible. Magic? The bond strained. Gabe felt like he could break it if he worked at it. But the man clamped a hand around his throat and whispered, “Leave that be or I’ll have to put you back in the ground.”
The hand cut off Gabe’s air, and he knew deep down that he didn’t really need to breathe, but that didn’t stop his brain from freaking out. Gabe let go of the magic and stopped pushing at the bond.
“There you go,” the man said. “You’re not in control enough to function on your own. Once I’m assured of your sanity, we’ll discuss removing it. You don’t want to let the beast free to slaughter everyone, do you?”
Gabe shook his head.
“That’s what I thought.”
He sucked in air when the hand released his throat.
“I like that your steel hasn’t been lost. When you went to ground, you’d become little more than a puppet.”
“I don’t remember,” Gabe said. Though he did in small ways. His mind cycled with a thousand jumbled images he couldn’t piece together. A broken jigsaw puzzle without a picture to guide its re-creation.
“You will in time.”
The physical grip loosened a little, but Gabe wasn’t fooled. That hold was unyielding, and ready to put him down if he lunged at anyone. There were actually a half dozen heartbeats in the room. He could clarify them now almost by species. Shifters, which explained the lingering taste of dog he had in his mouth, a witch and a dhampir, as well as Sam and the one holding Gabe, who were vampires.
In a chair across the room was the witch. This one was handsome, covered in tattoos, and trying really hard to keep his attention on a video game he was playing.
“Stinks,” the witch said quietly.
“Vampires fresh from the grave do have a smell,” said the one Sam was snuggling with. That was the dhampir. Gabe recognized his scent, and vaguely the taste of him. His blood had been in the cup. It made sense then why Sam would be so possessive. They were lovers. What had Sam said his name was? Luca? “I think I’m going to take Con out for a bit.” Luca got up. “Pretty sure Max still has work for you,” he said to Sam.
Sam growled. “I didn’t sign up for vampire babysitting duty.”
“You didn’t,” the voice behind Gabe agreed. “However, if you’ll retrieve his witch, perhaps you can pass that duty to him?”
“Fuck,” Sam said. “Ronnie is going to be pissed. He’s already had a bad day.”
“Rou accepted the bond. He must accept all that comes with it.”
“Fucking vampires,” Sam said, stomping his way to the door.
“You are a vampire. You know that, right?” Luca said.
“Not by choice.”
Luca patted his shoulder as Con, the witch, took his other hand. The witch wouldn’t meet Gabe’s eyes. “Is it safe to have him around the kids?”
“He’s fed,” the one behind Gabe said. “We shall see his control soon enough. Sam will bring Rou, and Rou will decide if he goes back or is allowed to reorient.”
“Can he be put back in the ground?” Sam wanted to know.
“Forcefully.”
Gabe tried to get up as the idea of going back in the ground was too much at the moment. He recalled waking up and feeling like he was drowning in dirt. The arms around him tightened.
“If he resists, it can still be done. We will work on making him presentable, if you will retrieve his Focus.” The arms around him were like a vice, keeping him down despite Gabe feeling like he could rip through walls.
Sam stared at him, not at all afraid to meet his gaze, even as Gabe found the memories too messy to sort through. He knew this man… vampire, whatever, from somewhere. Recognized small bits in his mind, glimpses of him, from different places, and times, yet none of them connected.
“I know you,” Gabe muttered. “Somehow?”
“This amnesia thing isn’t going to fly with Ronnie,” Sam said.
“It’s not amnesia as much as him needing to work through a thousand years of memories.”
“It will all come back to him?” Con asked, lingering close to the door, but holding Luca’s hand tight.
“In time,” the voice behind Gabe agreed.
Gabe looked up, straining to see who held him, and mildly confused that the voice sounded familiar. He couldn’t help but be a little stunned when he recognized the vampire who held him as the man from his memories of his first kiss. The one he’d watched grow, go off to battle, and die. Yet there he was, exactly the same as those final memories, though clean-shaven, and dressed differently.
Not dead. A vampire. How had that happened? Gabe couldn’t even remember how he’d become a vampire. The woman flashed through his brain again. Her image bringing rage to the surface.
“Titus,” Gabe whispered, as the arms around him held him down. The name felt right.
“Go get his Focus. I will try to help him find some clarity,” Titus said.
“Fuck,” Sam cursed again. “Anyone else wanna deliver the bad news to the witch? He doesn’t take bad news well these days.”
“Rou loved Santini,” Con said.
“Past tense verb,” Sam said.
“Those last few months were bad,” Luca agreed as he opened the door. “Not sure if Santini will remember any of that. Once th
e revenant takes over, it’s all a blur.”
“I remember most of mine.” Sam said as he followed his lovers out the door.
“Not all of them, but we keep you sane,” Luca said.
The door shut behind them, and Gabe was left floundering, feeling weak and very lost. “I…”
“I know,” Titus said. “Let’s get you cleaned up and ready for your Focus. Perhaps he’ll help you fit the puzzles back into place.”
“You were dead…”
“I am dead. As are you. Undead. I am also no longer Titus, as you are no longer Gavriil. Not that either of those names are what history remembers. Your sire is dead by your own hand. And that was long ago. You belong to someone else now.”
Gabe wasn’t sure he wanted that. To be someone else, lost in a world he couldn’t piece together. Titus hauled him to his feet and dragged him toward a bathroom.
“We’ll start with the stink of the grave,” Titus said. “Getting you clean will go a long way in appeasing the witch.”
“We aren’t supposed to touch witches,” Gabe whispered.
“Sirenia had strange rules. Likely because her mate had a fondness for the blood of witches. I find the bite a bit intense, plus the upkeep is not particularly worth it as they are high strung by nature.”
Sirenia. Gabe’s sire. Those pieces fell into place. He even caught a glimpse of her death. His head throbbed. He heard water begin to run, and the steam of a hot shower slowly filled the room. Gabe concentrated on the growing mist, sucked the dampness into his lungs and tried to clear all the mess from his head.
“I’m married to a witch?” Gabe whispered. He was dragged to the center of the floor in the shower and left there. The water began to pelt him. But it eased to a gentle warm rain a few seconds later. His skin began to awaken, and he realized he was nude, and obviously very dirty as the water streamed off of him in muddy rivulets.
“You never actually completed the deed. Though he is your Focus. Human laws are unsigned, but the bond between you can only be broken by true death. You decide as to whether or not you’re married.”
“A male witch?”
“It is not as uncommon as you might think.”
Gabe bowed his head into the torrent of water. The dirt streamed over his face, water warm and soothing. He touched his face, startled at the beard growth which seemed unfamiliar.
“Once you’re clean, we can shave it if you like.” Titus moved around the room, setting out clothes and some toiletry items. Gabe had to work to sort through the memories to place those things.
“Brain is slow…” Gabe muttered.
“And that is normal. You were down a long time.”
He tried to remember the last time he’d gone to ground. It had been a few weeks during the plague. He’d been starving, but unable to find food that hadn’t been infected. And the few vampires he knew who’d taken from the dying wound up suffering for days in agony. “How long?”
Titus appeared thoughtful. “Thirteen years or so. You’ll have to ask your witch for certain.”
Over a decade. That was a lot of time to miss. And he still had a lot of memories to sort through. He also couldn’t recall feeling this weak the last time he’d gone to ground. “Why am I so weak?”
“You were absorbed back into the earth. Not all of us are down long enough for that to happen. I’ve heard the recovery time is longer.”
“Absorbed by the earth…”
“Your witch’s element is earth.”
“Did he put me in the ground?” Gabe’s right arm suddenly ached. He could vaguely recall it crumbling as branches or something ate away at it.
“No.”
That was very firm. Gabe sighed. His head pounding. Too many memories trying to find a place at once. It hurt more than he thought any memories should, even scattered ones.
“It will all come back,” Titus assured him.
“Does he hate me? This witch of mine?” Gabe wondered.
“Possibly.”
That didn’t bode well. “And he’s powerful.”
“He’s the Pillar of Earth. None more powerful in the world. At least of the accepted magics.”
Well, fuck. Gabe sank down to rest his forehead on the floor. He’d never been one to run away, but he felt like maybe now was the time to start.
“You and I were lovers once,” Gabe whispered.
“In our mortal days. We tried briefly after being turned. Though, as most of our kind, that ended badly. Vampires rarely spend eternity with other vampires. Our cold blood and prickly natures don’t lend well to relationships. We seek the living because they are life and warmth, rather than just blood. I go by the name Maxwell Hart now. You may call me Max. And you are Gabriel Santini, also known as Gabe. Once we experience our first death, we leave many names behind, but you’ve used Gavriil and Gabriel for most of the last millennia. Does any of that help?”
Gabe caught the image of a bar, a loft, an apartment, places, empty, and again that face, partially hidden from his memory. Long dark hair? His witch perhaps? “Bonded to a witch…”
“You loved him once,” Max said. “Maybe you’d already been very far gone. Tresler’s scheme had been building for years. It’s likely he’d begun to take control of you before you met the witch.”
Tresler. Another face. Vampire. And the memory of him dying, head severed as plants devoured every bit of him. Had Gabe’s witch done that? It had snapped something inside of Gabe, awoken him to pain so intense that even now he gasped at the strength of it. The memory of his arm being so badly damaged, taken over by earth magic and slowly feeding on him as the earth often did. And emotionally, that was too much. His brain felt like exploding into a saturation of light, and leaving it all behind.
He didn’t want to remember that kind of pain. Would anyone?
“Who killed Tresler? My witch?”
“Sam,” Max answered. “Borrowing your witch’s power, and awakening to his own.”
Sam, the vampire with sarcasm on speed dial. He hadn’t seemed all that powerful.
“Don’t let him fool you. Sam is a witch as well as a vampire. A very rare type of witch. He is a siphon as well as a fire witch. And while he may breathe irritation and snark, Rou is a good friend of his. If you were to break bonds with me, Sam would put you down permanently to protect his friend,” Max said.
“Rou is my witch.” Gabe clarified.
“Seiran Rou, Pillar of Earth, head of the Department of Magical Investigations at the Dominion, is your Focus.”
The Dominion brought up a handful of scattered and startling images. None of them good. “The Dominion is a cult?”
“In a lot of ways, yes. Though it is as accepted nowadays as Christianity.”
“And as destructive?”
“Yes,” Max agreed.
“Fuck.”
Chapter 4
It took Sei longer to get home than he had hoped it would. Long enough that his stomach growled the whole way, and he ended up calling a cab because he hurt too much to drive. The department clinic had looked him over and found nothing life threatening, just lots of bruising. And he’d called ahead from the office phone to let Jamie and Kelly know he would be late getting home.
Sei would heal. Maybe he’d even spend a few hours napping in the arboretum to help the bruising fade faster. The space, which was a firm connection to his element, could heal just about anything. The memory of being shot in the head and landing on the ground of that very same arboretum flashed through his mind. He shoved it away, unwilling to deal with bad memories and unresolved emotions after such a terrible day.
Sakura had called back right afterward to promise dinner would be ready. Not that she cooked. She didn’t have the patience. Though she’d help her brothers, and even if Sei was just eating a frozen pizza warmed in the oven, it was plenty of work off his plate to end his long day. His kids being old enough to do basic house stuff like clean and cook was both a perk and a bane. Sometimes dinner got burned or thrown in
the trash. Clothes turned pink in washers, or groceries were left out too long. It was part of learning how to be independent people, so Sei didn’t let it get to him too much.
The mothering he got from his own kids, however, was not something he enjoyed at all.
It was Jamie’s fault. His brother treated him like a kid still, so his own kids had adopted the concern. That somehow, Sei didn’t know how to feed himself and keep from going nuts thanks to all the magic he contained, while still keeping the world in balance. It was annoying to say the least.
When he walked in the door, Ki was scowling.
“What?” Sei asked. Ki’s red hair looked a mess, standing up like he’d been pulling on it. Mizuki was Sei’s worrier. And far too observant for a fourteen-year-old. All of them in their teens now, Sei had waited for the terrible teens to arrive. And they sort of had. Only not with boys who refused to shower or leave their room, or girls who kept secrets in diaries, but with them hovering over him. They also had a really bad habit of talking back to him. Karma, Sei’s mother informed him. Though he thought she’d always deserved his attitude, whereas he didn’t think he’d garnered the same level from his own kids.
“You got hurt at work again.”
“Bruised mostly. Already been to medical. I’m fine. I need food and a shower.” The smell of the frat house lingered. That unwashed, stale pizza and beer smell which made Sei a bit nauseous despite his overwhelming hunger.
“Four cracked ribs and a possible fractured wrist,” Forest said from behind Sei, making him let out a long groan. The kids didn’t need to know that.
Ki’s eyes widened as he took in the golem. Forest actually didn’t look like a golem anymore. He’d taken the form of some long dead person he’d found a picture of in one of the books sitting in the waiting room. But Sei knew his kid saw right through the guise. The shift was good. Bonding to Sei had restored the strength of its glamour so it no longer seemed to be coming apart. Even Sei had to peer at the golem from under his lashes, letting the edges trail across his sight before he could see the weird ripple of magic that indicated it was not what it seemed. Ki had always been a bit more in tune to his magic. He also hadn’t spent his childhood trying to hide it. None of Sei’s kids had. Which meant they all controlled and understood magic like it was the air they breathed. Some days, that wasn’t a good thing.