She frowned. “I was stabbed. How did Lydia kill you?”
“She broke my neck, I think. It was the first thing that hurt when I woke up in the woods.”
“How long does the whole thing take?”
“It depends on your own physical strength, your sire’s . . . I would estimate two days, but you’ll need to rest for at least a day after that, so . . . three, maybe four days total.”
“But . . . draining blood will kill a human. It won’t kill a vampire. Will it?”
“It will be enough damage that your heart will stop. Being drained takes a long time to recover from—it weakens you so badly that you can’t hunt to replenish yourself, so you can starve to death without help. If it’s too quick and too severe, it can kill you. It only has to be for a second.”
“And this time . . . did you get to change the easy way?”
He met her eyes. “You felt me die, and later felt the tattoo changing—you can probably guess how the rest of it felt.”
“You drank Persephone’s blood,” she realized. “You were sired by a god and then left to go through it alone.”
“I was alone at first. But then Olivia was with me. I had no idea who or where I was, but there was still some comfort in that.”
“And . . . you’ll be with me,” she said softly.
“I won’t leave your side.”
She managed a smile. “Liar. You’ll have to pee eventually.”
He smiled back at her. “All right. I won’t leave the suite, and I’ll be at your side as much as possible.”
She nodded. “You’re sure this is what we have to do.”
“I’m sure. She told me.”
“Okay . . . bed?”
“It would be best,” he replied, drawing her up from the chair.
They lay down as they had a thousand times before, as if this were any morning after a hard night at work.
“Your heart is racing,” he said. “If you’re not sure . . .”
“Of course I’m not sure,” she cut in, a little more sharply than she intended. “What if it doesn’t work and I die for good?”
David’s eyes narrowed. “Then I will kill myself, find Persephone, and drive a stake through her heart.”
“Would that kill a goddess?” Miranda asked.
“Probably not, but even if it doesn’t it hurts like hell.”
He slid one arm under her head, the other around her, and kissed her forehead. “Just think,” she said weakly, “in a few days this could feel like it used to.”
He sighed into her hair, and said, “Close your eyes.”
She obeyed.
He kissed her head again, murmuring, “I love you.” She felt his lips against her cheek, and he said it again; then her lips, then down the side of her neck and over her collarbone, telling her he loved her with each kiss, nibbling along her skin in between, his hand curving around her hip and then sliding up her side, around over her breast, to tilt her chin up.
She remembered the first time he had bitten her, the first time she had tasted his blood—in her apartment, when neither of them had any idea what the future held . . . just like now. She had walked into that future with her head high; she would do the same this time, and not cower from it.
She turned her head toward him, offering the whole side of her neck, and wove her fingers through his.
She knew what his teeth felt like piercing her skin—it had happened plenty of times since that first night—but she wasn’t used to what he did next, extending his will over hers, subtly pushing her to relax, raising his body temperature as well as hers. It was how they treated their prey.
The reason became clear very quickly. This wasn’t like the other times. This wasn’t for pleasure, it wasn’t done as a prelude or addition to lovemaking. He was feeding on her . . . and fast approaching the threshold where the blood loss would hurt her, if she were human, and would weaken her . . . she could hear his heartbeat, and her own, falling into sync, then slowing down . . . and down . . . and down . . . and if it weren’t for the loving hand wrapped around her mind, keeping her calm, she would surely have panicked.
She felt her whole body growing numb, detaching pleasantly from her mind. It felt so nice . . . but she was so tired . . . it would feel good to fall asleep . . .
Dimly she was aware that he stopped drinking, and a second later she felt something warm pressed to her mouth. “Drink, Miranda. Now!”
That last was said sharply, and it brought her back enough to understand the command; she had to drag up almost all of her remaining strength, but she opened her mouth, and sucked.
She was so weak . . . but she still recognized that his blood tasted different than before. That undertone of immortality had changed, darkened. Vampire blood didn’t nourish vampires unless they drank gallons of it, so it was usually exchanged only during sex, but she knew his and he knew hers very well . . . and his was different now. Would hers be, too, when she woke up?
She felt the wrist lifted from her mouth, replaced with lips. She returned the kiss as best she could. Then she let her eyes open just a little so she could stare up into his.
They were black, but only for a brief second; between one blink and the next they had gone back to blue, and that was what she wanted to see, wanted to be the last thing she saw.
“Rest now, beloved,” he whispered. “You’re safe . . . and when you wake I’ll be right here.”
“I love you,” she breathed, then closed her eyes.
* * *
He held her until she stopped breathing, then moved back a few inches to watch. If it had worked—if she was strong enough for this—she would come back in a few minutes, and she might wake up briefly, confused and frightened. He’d need to send her back to sleep as quickly as possible to avoid traumatizing her.
That was the real difference between the “hard” and “easy” ways; in the latter, the sire actually cared enough to stay close, to monitor the newborn and keep her safe and comfortable. That kind of intimacy created a bond even among ordinary vampires—it wasn’t a Signet bond, but it was loving enough for most people, without all the added drama.
Two minutes rolled by, then five . . . six . . .
He leaned his head against hers and whispered, “Breathe, my love . . . breathe . . .” repeating it like a mantra until—
Miranda drew a gasping, violent breath, partway sitting up in the bed, her arms flailing wildly around her seeking something to hold on to.
David immediately caught her arms and eased her back onto the bed, sending more warmth into her body, sending her back into sleep. He held her, murmured to her that she was safe, and she could rest . . . just rest . . .
She finally dropped off again, and the relief was as great for him as for her.
He lay back down beside her, exhausted. He’d only ever turned two people, and Miranda hadn’t been completely on purpose the first time. It wasn’t something vampires of his caliber allowed themselves to do often.
His head had begun to hurt—to pound, actually. He sat up and rubbed his temples for a moment, but the pain only got worse. In fact, it wasn’t even his head so much as his . . . jaw.
What the hell . . .
Pain coursed through his upper jaw, and it was a pain he remembered all too well from the night he had writhed and screamed in a cave, abandoned and alone. It was the pain of the jaw changing shape to accommodate longer canines, and . . .
What, was he going to end up looking like a saber-toothed tiger now? What the hell was going on?
He risked getting up out of bed to grab a bottle of Jack and drink four shots in a row; the pain dulled but was still there. And now his whole body had begun to hurt, his skin felt tight . . . and he remembered Stella saying his transformation was waiting on something . . .
. . . it was waiting on Miranda. As soon as he remembered the Witch’s words, he grabbed his phone.
He had to talk around the intense pain in his mouth. “You have to get here now,” he said wit
hout preamble.
“Why?” Deven asked.
“She’s under, and she’s fine, but something’s happening to me now, too, and I might not be able to keep her asleep. If she wakes up and feels that pain again, it might send her over the edge. Help me, Deven. I need you.”
Whether it was due to the words themselves or their panicked tone, Deven didn’t hesitate. “All right, David, I’ll do what I can.”
“How soon can you get a flight? Take the jet, I’ll pay for the fuel—”
“Just unlock the damn door,” Deven told him.
David’s head jerked up in time to hear the light tap-tap-tap at the door. He reached across the room and flipped the lock.
Prime Deven and Jonathan stood in the hall, each with an overnight bag, each in his traveling coat.
Deven saw David’s expression. He pointed to Jonathan. “Precog.”
David nearly passed out both from relief and from pain. He wasn’t someone who liked to surrender control of a situation, but this time, he yielded it up gratefully. Deven will take care of us. It’s going to be fine.
The Pair swept into the suite, their calm efficiency even more soothing to David’s jangled nerves. They set their bags down, removed their coats, and came over to the bed.
He sat up, but Deven pushed him back down firmly. “Down, boy,” he said. “Whatever’s going to happen, you’ll need your strength. How old is the supply in the fridge?”
“Fresh tonight.”
“Good. Do you need some now?”
David nodded. “Please.”
“All right. You lie down, and we’ll take care of things. Just relax.”
David smiled wearily. “As much as you’ve been here the last few months, we should give you your own wing.”
Jonathan went around the bed to sit down next to Miranda, who lay with her arms crossed over her middle. “She looks like Snow White, or Rose Red—if Rose Red were Snow’s vaguely Goth twin,” the Consort remarked, testing her forehead for fever. “So the process went well? No complications?”
“Not so far,” David said, hearing his words begin to slur. If only his mouth would stop hurting . . . he couldn’t think straight . . .
“Dev, would you mind?” Jonathan asked, pointing at David. “He’ll start flailing with his brain and break something—you know how uncoordinated he gets under extreme pain.”
Deven sighed. “I do indeed.” The Prime sat down next to David on the bed and handed him a glass tumbler of blood. “Drink this, darling, and let me see what I can do for you. No, wait—” He grabbed the tumbler out of David’s hands. “I have a better idea. Tell me how you feel. What all hurts?”
“My mouth,” David said. “My jaw is changing.”
“Any internal organ pain?”
“No, not so far. But my skin feels wrong, like it’s on too tight, and my muscles all feel like I’ve run five marathons in a night.”
Deven considered that, then said, “I can do something—I can’t stop it,” he added, “because I’m assuming it’s part of the transition. It needs to happen, do you understand? But I can give you something to dull it.”
David’s hold on the room was swerving wildly from side to side; the pain was obliterating all rational thought. “Like a Vicodin?”
Deven smiled. “A bit more precise than that. Give me a minute.” Deven sat cross-legged on the floor in front of David, holding the tumbler of blood in his hands. He closed his eyes, and even through his addled mind David could feel Deven doing something, transferring energy into the cup.
Deven opened his eyes. Their pale-violet-sky-blue had darkened to genuine iris violet; David remembered the first time he’d seen them that color, and the circumstances then were disturbingly similar to now.
He felt Dev’s hand on his knee. “This isn’t like Anna,” the Prime told him quietly. “Back then you didn’t ask for my help until it was too late.”
“That’s why I called now,” David replied. “I couldn’t bear that again.”
Deven held out the tumbler, and when David took it, the glass had warmed significantly. He took an experimental swallow. Taste: human, AB positive, from an athlete of some kind, probably donated by a university student.
Then the energy hit him. He started to fall backward, already losing consciousness, and the last thing he remembered was Deven taking the glass from his hand and telling him good night.
* * *
“Are you going to sit there all day?” Jonathan asked. “It’s a little creepy.”
Deven shook his head but didn’t turn his gaze from the bed. “We know how vampires are made, but we don’t really know anything about this. If something goes wrong, I need to be able to act immediately.”
“Dev, baby, you’ve been awake for fifty-two hours straight. You have to get some rest.”
“I will.”
He heard his Consort sigh and come over to him. “Why don’t you at least lie down, then—you’ve been listing to port for the last half hour, and I’m afraid you’re going to fall off that stool.”
Deven smiled. “I rather doubt either of them would be happy to wake up with me in their bed.”
“You’ve done it for Miranda. She’s the one who’s going to need your attention—that’s the whole reason David called, to get someone to sit for her.”
“That’s what I’m doing. I’m sitting.”
“Lie down,” Jonathan said, pulling him almost roughly off the stool. “Next to the Queen, please, there’s no need to cause drama. Good boy.”
Deven shot Jonathan a dirty look but did as he’d said, and removed his boots so he wouldn’t get blood traces from the previous night on their clean sheets. He climbed up next to Miranda, whose tiredness was contagious; the soothing psychic waves of restful sleep coming from her made it hard to resist.
“What about you?” he asked Jonathan.
“I slept on the plane—you saw me. I’ll be fine.”
Deven wanted to argue, he really did, but . . . his head hit the pillow, and that was that.
* * *
David woke to a completely unexpected sight, and for a moment he thought he must still be unconscious.
Miranda and Deven lay asleep not a foot away from him, curled up against each other and completely at peace. She was on her back, he pressed into her side, face buried in her neck. Her shirt had ridden up on one side, and his hand was curved around her waist, fingers splayed out, black nails stark against her ivory skin. Deven’s other arm was around her shoulders, and her hand was entwined with his.
It was so beautiful. David just watched them for a long while, unable to take his eyes away.
Finally, though, other sensations began to intrude—his mouth no longer hurt, but his teeth felt weird, and he had a horrible taste in his mouth, sort of metallic; and, he had to admit, Miranda had been right about having to pee.
He inched his way out of the bed and wobbled to the bathroom. His limbs didn’t feel entirely right. It was as though there were a delay between the neural impulse and the actual movement.
Standing in front of the sink, he gave his teeth a quick brushing and washed his face, the cold water waking him up a little more. Curious, he tongued his teeth to see if anything felt off.
It certainly did.
Vampires had sharpened canines, of course, which retracted into the jaw so that they looked more or less like human teeth, albeit a bit pointier. Feeling around, though, he realized that not only were his canines pointed, the first premolar behind each canine felt sharp as well. He touched one with his finger; the extension impulse could be triggered that way. Even though he’d touched the premolar, the canine in front of it extended. The molar did, too, but only a tiny bit, probably visible but not obvious. He wasn’t sure what the purpose could be . . . unless it was purely ornamental. He couldn’t see it, but he guessed it was pretty damn scary looking.
He left the bathroom and found Jonathan standing by the bed, staring down at their mates, who still slept in each other’s arms
, oblivious.
David came to stand next to him. “I had a dream like this once,” he said quietly.
Jonathan held back a snort. “I’ll bet you did.” They watched in silence for another minute before Jonathan said, “He’s not dreaming right now . . . he always dreams.”
David nodded. “It must be Miranda’s empathy—I dream a lot less when she’s beside me, and the ones I have are much less harrowing.”
The Consort watched them another moment before saying, “You’re a lucky man, to be so loved by two people.”
David shot him a look. “Jonathan . . .”
“Don’t worry, I’m not being maudlin, just making an observation. Even as weird as things have been with you and Deven, I’ve always found this irrational sort of comfort thinking that if anything happened to me, you’d take care of him.”
David frowned. “But that can’t happen.”
“That’s what makes it irrational,” Jonathan reminded him with a grin. “But it’s been on my mind a lot since you died . . . which couldn’t happen either, but it did. As strong as you are, a few lines of Greek and a ten-dollar hammer were all it took to kill you. I would never leave him of my own free will—masochistic as that might make me.”
David had to smile at that. “He’s easy to love,” he said. “Just kind of hard to like, sometimes.”
“Truer words were never spoken, Lord Prime.” The Consort eyed him critically. “How do you feel?”
“Better,” David said. “Sort of. Everything’s still a bit . . .”
“Wonky?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Can you feel the bond?”
David reached toward Miranda in his mind, seeking that warmth . . . and finding nothing. “Oh, God,” he gasped. “It’s still not there . . . oh God, it’s not there . . .”
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