The scene at House Bowman replayed in Kaden's mind and that weird-as-hell feeling he got when he tried to hug Lena came back to him. "Did you feel weird?"
"W-what?"
"When you tried to touch Lena, did you feel weird?"
Ryver's hazel eyes widened. "I thought I was going to throw up. How did you know?"
'Cause the same thing happened to me. "It doesn't matter." Kaden reached for the door handle, intent ongoing in.
Ryver's hand came down on his. "Soraya said I should wait outside. I'm not sure you should go in either." When Kaden arched his eyebrow at the young Guardian, Ryver released him. "But it's up to you, Boss."
Yeah, it is.
Kaden eased the door open, not wishing to startle either woman. Soraya was leaning over the bed but turned her head as Kaden came into the room. Her sharp, narrowed eyes, softened a little when she realised who had disturbed her. She put a finger up to her lips to tell him to be quiet and Kaden nodded his understanding.
Soraya turned back to the bed and smoothed the blankets before moving away. She spoke in soft tones when she got closer to Kaden. "She's sleeping now."
"What's going on?"
"I had to sedate her," Soraya replied.
"What?" Kaden asked, his voice rising.
"Shh!"
"Sorry. I'm just surprised," Kaden whispered.
"As was I, Keeper."
"What's wrong with her?"
Soraya didn't answer, looking down at her pink ballet shoes instead. God, she was cute when she did that.
"Soraya?" Kaden's voice got huskier.
"I need to speak to Thorn."
"Don't you mean Phoenix?" Phoenix was the other medic, after all.
"No, Kaden. I mean Thorn," Soraya replied as she made a move for the door.
Confused to hell and back, Kaden let her go.
Thorn drained the last drop from his blood box and still didn't feel sated. The box crumpled in on itself as he crushed it in his palm. Frustrated, he threw it across the room and watched as it skimmed the bin full of already-used containers and fell on the floor.
He pushed his hand through his dishevelled hair as he stared at the overflowing basket. It had been empty when he came in here. His brow furrowed. When was that? He checked his watch-quarter past two. He knew instinctively that it the middle of the day. He just couldn't remember what day.
His thoughts kept returning to Lena and shifted from the look on her face as she orgasmed beneath him to the disappointment in her voice when he'd been unable to say the right thing afterwards. A continual, never-ending reel that played unrelenting in his mind. He knew why he hadn't been able to speak to her afterwards. Blood lust, unlike anything he'd ever known had roared, damn it, still roared through him. An inner voice he'd never heard before, told him to take Lena's vein, to take her as his own.
But he couldn't do it.
Lena was a warrior; strong of body and mind, and Thorn couldn't bring himself to take her like that. He never saw Lena look so vulnerable as she did when… Jesus. He had to close his eyes as the memory replayed again. She gave herself to him so completely. Who the hell was he to ask for more?
And wasn't that the question? The problem was that he wanted more. He needed more. He needed it all.
Thorn stiffened as he heard a gentle knock at the door. He sent his senses out and relaxed a little. "Come in, Soraya."
He did his best to appear calm as Soraya came in, closing the door behind her with a click. His serene facade started to crack as he regarded her face. Her brow was knitted in a deep frown and lines of worry tugged at the corners of her mouth. Be calm, be calm.
"How are you, brother mine?"
"I am well, as always, dearest sister. You on the other hand, do not look well," Thorn replied, his voice rougher than he would like.
"I'm fine, Thorn. I assure you. And I know you are lying," Soraya replied, her voice soft as usual.
Thorn smiled. Soraya always knew when he was lying. "Soraya, I'm fine, honestly."
"Suit yourself," she replied as she came up to the desk. For the first time, he noticed the heavy tome she carried with her. It gave a loud thud as she dumped it on his antique partner's desk. "Have you read the chronicles?" she asked.
Read the chronicles? Of course he'd read the bloody chronicles; every Vampire had. "You know I have. What's this all about?"
Soraya gave a small smile. "I think you should re-read them." She traced her finger across the engraved leather on the book's cover. "This volume in particular. I've marked the most relevant sections"
Thorn's brow shot up in surprise. "Whatever for?"
"Just trust me, Thorn."
She's lost the plot. That was the only possible explanation. Thorn sighed, pushing the book towards her. "Look, Soraya, I don't have time for this. We have an Onærelen to settle and a missing…"
Soraya cut him off. "Trust me when I tell you, that you will be no use to any of us, or young Eden, until you've read that."
"Soraya, I'm serious. I haven't got the time for a history lesson. Just tell me what this is all about." Thorn didn't mean to do it, but the power behind his voice rose as he spoke; he was dangerously close to giving his own sister an order. He saw Soraya's eyes widen as she realised it too. Damn it, what the hell was he thinking? "Ah shit. Soraya, I'm sorry."
Soraya gave a slight nod of her head, her eyes now burning with sadness. "It's alright, Thorn. Just do it for me, if no one else. Please?"
She had him. She knew very well he couldn't refuse her anything if she asked. Thorn puffed out a breath, "Alright, alright. I'll read it."
"Now?" she asked.
Thorn shook his head as a rumble of laughter made its way up his throat. "Yes, I'll read it now."
"Thank you." She smiled properly for the first time. "I'll leave you to it then."
"You're not going to supervise, make sure I don't skip any of the important bits?" he asked.
Soraya looked down at her feet. Why did she look embarrassed? "Ah. No. This is something you need to do by yourself, brother mine."
She made her way towards the door, still looking uncomfortable and Thorn had no idea why. Thinking that he might be imagining it, he pushed the thought aside. "I'll see you at dinner?"
"I'll be there," she replied, and then she was gone.
Still convinced his sister was as mad as a box of frogs, he drew the book off the desk and into his lap. He leaned back in his chair, stretched his long legs out and hefted his boots up on the corner of his desk. He mimicked Soraya's actions and traced the intricate leather work on the cover. The swirls and curlicues really were a work of art. The gold lettering across the centre were beautifully inscribed but Thorn frowned as he read the old language title — The Ties That Bind Us.
He didn't remember reading this. Then again, who did remember the stuff they were made to read at school? Thorn remembered the important parts, which for him centred mainly on combat and the art of war, the bond of honour, the fight against the Fallen, the vows of a Guardian, that sort of thing.
Sighing, he found one of the gold-ribbon book marks and opened to the first section Soraya was so keen for him to read. What he found made him curse-Blood Ballad, a True Mate's Call.
Chapter 19
This was a strange house. From what she could see, which was not a lot as she cowered behind the dark skirts of the woman in front of her, she knew she had never been here before. Nothing she could see was familiar.
The painting high up on the wall just to the side of her reminded her of home, but it wasn't the same. The man staring out at the room had blonde flowing hair and hard green eyes; not a bit like Papa. Papa always smiled, especially when Mama was in the room. The man in the painting wasn't smiling.
The room was filled with unfamiliar voices. They were talking about her. She knew this, even though none of them used her name or addressed her directly. Mama had always told her not to speak to her elders unless they spoke to her first, so she stayed quiet. Well, as quiet as she could anyway.
She looked down at her hands as they twisted and turned around the belt to her house coat and swallowed hard, trying not to cry.
The strange men who had taken her from her bedroom were thankfully gone, but somehow she knew she wasn't going home. She wanted to ask someone to send for her Papa — he was very wise and he would know what to do — but she didn't dare. She felt her bottom lip starting to tremble and told herself that she needed to put her Papa out of her mind. Crying would do her no good and she knew her Mama would want her to be brave.
She tried to listen in on the conversation but sometimes they spoke in a language she didn't understand. After a while she grasped most of the debate; a lot of it had to do with her. She could tell by the quick glances in her direction. The seriousness of the looks told her that although those horrid men were gone, the danger wasn't.
Suddenly the voices were silent. She felt her eyes widen as she looked around the skirts and found seven sets of eyes looking at her. She watched, terrified as the largest of the men took a few steps towards her. As she scurried back to her hiding place, he stopped.
In slow, careful movements, he held up his hands and went down on bended knee. "Don't worry, child. I'm not going to hurt you." He reached for her. "You need to come with me now. You're going to stay with some friends of mine until it's safe for you to return home."
She just stared. She didn't want to go anywhere.
"You want to be safe, don't you, child?" the man asked.
Yes, she did. Swallowing back her tears, she reached out her hand.
Lena's head was foggy as she woke from the deepest of sleeps. She stretched her limbs like a cat and sighed with relief that for the first time in forever she felt rested. She lay sprawled on the bed whilst she waited for her brain to catch up with her body's new awakened state. The bliss she felt seeped away as the haze around her brain started to lift and the memories came back.
At first they were incoherent. Mismatched histories whirled around her mind until she begged them to slow down. Thoughts of Thorn crashed into a strange room in an unknown house where Soraya stood with her doctor's case in her hand and a gentle, understanding look on her face.
But that wasn't what happened. Was it? No, of course it wasn't.
She hadn't spoken to Thorn in, well she wasn't sure, but it had been a while. Gods, she hadn't even seen him in days.
Which had come next? Soraya, or that strange room?
The memories got clearer. Soraya had been here, in this room, in Lena's bedroom. She hadn't been in an unfamiliar room surrounded by strangers. Lena hadn't wanted her to come but in the end, Lena was glad she had. She'd been kind and gentle and she'd given Lena peace. And Lena would be eternally grateful, even if the drug induced calm didn't last.
That room. What was that all about? She tried to place it. It was a grand, old-fashioned place, with oil paintings and a stone fireplace and expensive rugs and dark wood floors. That didn't help. Most Houses owned by the upper echelons of Vampire society looked like that.
She stared into space trying to recollect who else had been there. Males, seven of them, though she didn't know the faces. And why had everyone been so much taller than her? The males in that room had been gargantuan.
Fear crept up her spine, though she didn't understand where it was coming from. She couldn't tell whether she was remembering a dream or a real event, but she felt real fear and desolation when she thought back to that room. A painful sense of loss bore down on her like white horses leading a tidal wave.
Grief wrapped itself around her, cold, and dark, and raw. Lena gasped at the strength of it. Her heart constricted and she felt the tears well and then spill down her cheeks.
Bewildered, she wiped them away and willed her hitched breathing to return to normal. She was so flustered, it seemed to take forever before she could draw a breath, and when she did, she realised the sense of loss was still lurking below the surface. She had felt loss before, but this was something else. It felt deeper and older.
Yet, how could that be?
Confused, Lena leaned back on the feather pillows, suddenly exhausted. Her eyes felt heavy and her lids began to droop. She let her eyes close and sank back into fitful oblivion.
Thorn must have re-read the same page a hundred times. He studied the Chronicles as a youngling, but what he just discovered was extraordinary. The words formed comprehensible sentences yet his brain refused to accept them.
The Chronicles detailed the oldest of Vampire lore, most of which, with the gates of Faerie now closed, had passed into myth and legend. Surely, that's what this was; a fable. Words like ahmran, miris and eldur had disappeared from the modern lexicon, so much so, that Thorn had resorted to looking them up in a dictionary.
And then he wished he hadn't.
If what he had read was true then the blood lust he was suffering from wasn't going away any time soon, because it wasn't just hunger that ailed him. According to the Chronicles, he fevered for his ahmran, the blood song of his true mate. Lena's miris, her bonding scent, would continue to torment him and ward off other potential suitors until their bonding was complete.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed out loud, not for the first time, when he thought about the second passage. If Lena was his true mate, his Amocinta, then... Holy Mother of Faerie...
Eldur would torment her. She would suffer pain unlike any male would feel in his lifetime. And there was no cure, except the seed of her mate and the complete surrender to her Amocin. Until that time, the touch of any other male would be utter agony.
Thorn knew true matings happened. His parents were true mates; Heath and Cassandra were true mates; Gods, even Larissa and Blaine Bowman had been true mates. Thorn squeezed his eyes shut as he thought of his parents and cursed himself for not thinking to ask them what it meant to be truly mated.
Bitter sadness wrapped itself around his heart as he thought of his mother. Thorn understood that his father felt an unbearable pain when she passed, far greater than anyone else who loved the beautiful Deanna, but he couldn't bring himself to ask any questions. Men didn't talk about their feelings at the best of times.
He felt his brow furrow again. How did Soraya know all this? Did their mother warn her of what was in store for her? Another thought soon followed the first; Christ, what would Thorn do if Soraya was mated? There wasn't a Vampire on earth good enough for her.
He swallowed hard. Bloody hell, he felt like he'd just opened the proverbial can of worms and wanted desperately to slam the lid shut.
Pushing Soraya out of his mind, he thought about the general populous. All matings were documented, and from memory, there had been no new ones in over half a millennium. In fact, Gideon wasn't sure there were any true pairs left at all. The fight against the Fallen had taken its toll.
Shit.
As a warrior, mating had always been far from his mind. As King, the thought had disappeared entirely. And he never really considered the mechanics of it all. Hell's gates, this was a nightmare.
He wasn't sure he was ready for this. He knew Lena wasn't. All he'd read suggested that she needed to yield, to surrender herself to him completely. Acquiescence was not Lena's strong point. She refused to give in to the smallest of matters so there was no way in the Mother's Faerie that she would wave the white flag for him. The body may know what the heart needs but he had a feeling it wasn't going to be that easy.
He couldn't imagine his history lesson getting any worse, but a feeling of dread spread through his veins as he reached for the second of Soraya's place markers. He heaved the yellowed pages over to the next section and froze. Strength of Blood, Power of Succession.
He read the words and willed them to be false. His heart and mind had been battling with each other over taking Lena for a mate, but as he read the laws that governed royal matings, his heart won out. Words like superior bloodlines, warrior-class, and nobility leapt off the page in defiance, shouting loud and clear that, according to the chronicles, Lena was not a suitable ma
te by virtue of her birth.
Anger welled in the pit of his stomach. The chronicles had given him the answers he sought in one breath and then sent a thundering bolt of reality though him in the next. The ancient book gave a loud bang as Thorn tossed it across the desk.
Seething, he pushed himself out of his chair, not bothering to right the thing as it clattered to the floor.
Kaden heard the racket from Thorn's office from down the hallway. His senses on red-alert, he flew over the flag-stoned floor, his feet barely touching the ground as he raced for the door. He burst through the huge oak door, gun drawn, ready for anything.
Thorn leant against the huge, stone mantel piece, his head resting on his arm, his back to the door. Thorn's head snapped up as Kaden came crashing through the doors, but he didn't turn to face his Keeper. Kaden's keen eyes took in the fallen chair, some sort of encyclopedia on the floor and caught the fury rolling of Thorn. He surveyed the rest of the room, before allowing his hands to drop.
Kaden stared at Thorn. He had the distinct impression he was sharing a room with the Vampire equivalent of a caged lion. Ordinarily, that would make Kaden wary, but not nervous. This caged lion, however, was the most powerful Vampire in existence.
When Thorn finally turned to face him, Kaden winced. The boiling fury Kaden sensed was etched in every line of the King's face. His broad forehead knitted tightly over his narrowed, white-hot eyes. His cheekbones razored the usually soft lines of his face, his mouth set halfway between a grimace and a snarl.
His molten stare made Kaden want to take a step back. He splayed his hands by his side, and bowed his head, making sure Thorn knew he wasn't a threat. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good.
"Have you read the chronicles?" Thorn asked, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper.
Where on earth was this leading? "Of course I have," Kaden replied.
"Have you read that volume?" Thorn spat the words as he pointed to the leather-bound tome now discarded on the floor, his eyes never leaving Kaden's face.
Bound to Blackwood Page 20