“Easy there,” Jonathan said, catching hold of his arms. “Sit down.”
“But if this was all for nothing . . . if she lied to me, and I did this to Miranda for nothing . . .”
“Pull it together, David,” Jonathan snapped.
David took a deep breath and nodded. He was right, of course. David clamped down on his emotions and forced himself to breathe slowly. “Thank you.”
The Consort said reasonably, “You don’t know for sure it didn’t work. You said yourself you’re feeling off; things might have to settle down, she might have to wake up. Don’t panic yet. She’s going to need you.”
“Yes . . . you’re right. She needs . . . Oh, damn it.”
“What?”
David gestured at the bed. “She needs a live human,” he said. “To complete the transition. A bag won’t do.”
“Call a patrol team and have them snatch one.”
“I can’t . . . It has to be a particular kind, and I’m not sure they would know the difference on sight.”
Jonathan frowned. “What kind? I know she doesn’t drink from men, but what else?”
“It has to be an evildoer,” David said. “The more reprehensible, the better.”
He looked dubious but shook his head. “We’ve all got our feeding quirks. I once dated a man who wouldn’t drink from anyone who took yoga—he said the taste of sandalwood threw him off. How about this: I’ll go. I can pick someone appropriate—I may not have empathy, but I can still spot one a mile away. You stay here as you said you would. I can be back inside two hours.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I get you anything? A nice blonde, perhaps?”
“No . . . no thanks. I’m fine from what Deven gave me earlier. I can hit another bag if I need to.”
“All right. Go back to bed, and try not to worry.” Jonathan fetched his coat and swept out of the suite.
David wished he could have sent Deven instead. If he’d told Jonathan the truth about his errand, Jonathan would still have done what was necessary, but like Miranda, he would feel guilty afterward, for they both cared far more about human life than either Prime did. David was firmly against killing mortals or causing them permanent damage unless it was absolutely necessary, but in a situation like this, he and Deven both would have been perfectly willing to bring back a human to die for the Queen.
With a sigh, the Prime returned to the bed, sliding back into his side; this time, though, he moved closer to Miranda, mirroring Deven’s position next to her so that they essentially held her between them, safe and warm. David kissed her on the cheek and settled back in to try to rest, not expecting to be able to . . . but he was asleep within five minutes, and glad of it.
* * *
Darkness.
She could feel it flowing through her veins, like blood, suffusing her cells, altering them as it went. Her first instinct was to fight it—it was too big, too frightening, too much for her to face—but it beckoned so sweetly, she let it in and lay back, opening herself to its embrace.
There was no pain. She could feel things in her body changing; it wasn’t anything as massive as the first time, but it seemed just as far-reaching. Some part of her had known that crossing over those years ago would change her whole being . . . now she knew that this crossing would change the world.
The darkness was soft and welcoming, whispering over her skin and teasing her almost unbearably. One minute she was on fire, the next drowning—burning, then drifting . . .
She didn’t know how long it went on before she heard the voice. She recognized that whisper in her mind, words like feathers, like wind through a graveyard.
“Here you are at last, child.”
She couldn’t speak back.
“You have come to reclaim what is yours . . . but is it enough for you?”
What could that mean?
“You did not come to this place to serve me, but to take back what you lost. Perhaps when you understand what is truly at stake, you will want more from me . . . and as soon as you call to me, I will answer. For now . . . return to your beloveds, lest they worry.”
She felt her body again, not so much a violent slamming into her skin as a sweet sliding—it felt so good to feel, to touch. So good to be alive.
Her eyes fluttered open, her vision blurry at first. There were arms around her holding her tightly, the warmth of a body fitted perfectly to either side of her. She could feel two hearts beating with hers.
She tilted her head first to one side, then the other, making sense of what she saw: deep blue eyes, and pale violet, watching her intently. She could feel their concern—was she all right? Had it worked?
Her hands lifted, one touching either face, her fingers lightly tracing lips, wrapping around a neck. It felt so good . . . skin under her palm . . . so good . . .
Another feeling swept through her: need. She needed hands on her, to feel herself touched. She rose up partway and put her mouth to his, ignoring the gasp, unable to think, only to feel. He tasted like an autumn mist . . . like the slow turn of time through hundreds of years . . .
A hand slid up between them and gently pushed her away. “I’m sorry, love, but I think you have the wrong mouth,” he murmured, his voice a wry tenor. “Turn to your right.”
She felt another mouth touch her neck and travel along its line, at the same time that a wave of desire moved into her; she moaned softly and turned toward its source, recognizing that power and wanting it desperately.
This time his mouth took hers, easing her closer, holding her with hands that knew every curve of her body.
He lifted his lips from hers. “Miranda,” he said, barely over a whisper, “you need to go back to sleep.”
She shook her head, but he turned her onto her back again, and now each of them took hold of one of her arms and held it against the bed—not hard, not confining, just calming.
“Rest,” said the first voice.
She looked up into his eyes, knowing that what she wanted was plain in her gaze.
A soft chuckle. “Dear one, you’re going to feel very differently once you’re yourself again.”
He leaned down to kiss her forehead. She sighed; obviously she wasn’t going to get her way. That was all right, really . . . she was starting to feel sleepy again . . . she wasn’t sure if it was her own body or one of them pushing her into unconsciousness, but she acquiesced and turned onto her side, toward the door. A hand threaded through hers, comforting and strong.
She hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the room, but over by the door, another familiar man stood, this one blond with muddy hazel eyes that were staring at the bed. The other two saw her staring and turned toward the third.
For just a second, the third man’s eyes were full of a hundred emotions, but he covered it quickly. “Is this a bad time?”
“This is the exact right time,” the first said firmly. “Thank God you’re here.”
The blond gestured toward the door. “I brought the human you requested, David.”
David. The name ricocheted through her, and memories began to arise. Yes. David.
“What did you find?” David asked.
The blond reached out into the hallway and dragged another person into the room—a woman, dressed raggedly with sunken eyes that stared vaguely off into space.
“You know, female evildoers are a lot harder to find than male,” the blond said. “There are plenty of drug pushers of both sexes, plenty of addicts, but that’s sickness, not evil—this one took a lot of digging, which was why I was gone so long . . . much to my chagrin.”
David sighed. “So what did she do?”
Jonathan pushed the woman forward. “She drowned her infant,” he replied. “She was acquitted—the lawyers blamed postpartum depression.”
“How is that evil?” David wanted to know. “It’s a terrible thing, but she can hardly be blamed for a mental illness.”
“She was lying,” Jonathan answered with a bitter smile. �
��Her husband cheated on her, so to get revenge she murdered his only son.”
“Jesus,” David said. “You’re sure?”
“It was obvious she was corrupt as soon as I saw her, and my telepathy is strong enough to get the truth from her. Give her an empathic sweep and tell me I’m wrong.”
A moment later, David nodded once. “Bring her here.”
Jonathan hauled the woman over toward the bed, and David turned and said, “Come on, beloved, before you go to sleep, you need to eat.”
“She smells like death,” she said.
“Go ahead,” David told her in her ear. “You’ll like it, I promise.”
She sat up as Jonathan shoved the woman to her knees beside the bed and pulled her head to one side, baring her throat.
Staring at the blue veins that showed up against sallow skin, Miranda felt her body begin to ache, her teeth pressing into her tongue. She could hear the human’s heart beating, hear the blood pulsing through her veins, hot and dark, promising relief for the pain spreading through her body, her insides dry and itching madly.
Her teeth slid down over her lip. She heard someone suck in an astonished breath, but she ignored it and struck.
Jonathan let the human go, and she pushed her onto the floor, holding her down as she struggled—the woman was screaming in terror and pain, but that only filled her blood with power, made her taste even better.
“Miranda, that’s enough,” someone said.
“No.” David’s voice. “Let her be.”
“David, if she keeps going—”
“I am aware of the procedure,” David snapped. “I said let her be.”
She kept drinking, forcing the woman back to the floor every time she tried to break free, until she became too weak to fight, too weak to scream.
A moment later something erupted from the human—a force Miranda had never felt before, strength so intense she fell back onto the floor, crying out. She understood at once: the last burst of life force, the power of death. It burned through her like an electric shock, and she writhed against it, unable to control it.
Hands took hers. “Focus,” she heard. David. “Ground yourself and focus. Breathe, beloved . . . in . . . and out . . .”
She did as he said, matching her breath to his, taking hold of the energy and grounding it, letting it do what it needed to do to her body.
Silence fell. She lay on her side, curled up in a ball, her breath the only thing she could concentrate on.
She heard the door open. “I need Elite Seventeen and Forty-three for body disposal,” David said to someone in the hall. “Immediately.”
When she heard the word body she began to shake, comprehension starting to assert itself, but someone knelt next to her and put a hand to her forehead.
“Go to sleep, little Queen,” he said kindly. “There will be time to worry about that later. Just go to sleep. Let go of the world for a while.” She could hear him smiling.
She was already falling into the dark as he picked her up off the floor.
* * *
They all stared at one another.
Jonathan spoke first, and there was anger in his words. “So you’ve turned her into a killer, is that it?”
David, who had his head in his hands, looked up at the Consort. “Only once. The transition had to be sealed with death.”
Jonathan shook his head. “So you sent me off to find a human sacrifice? Why didn’t you tell me?”
David sighed. “I honestly didn’t think it through that far, Jonathan. There was no one else to send whom I trusted to bring what she needed. We didn’t have time for a moral debate.”
“And you thought I would refuse to do what was necessary—even for Miranda—if I knew.”
“I didn’t want to burden you with it until it was too late to change your mind,” David replied, then spoke over whatever Jonathan was about to say with, “And incidentally, neither of you gets to take the high ground when it comes to secrets and deception.”
“What are you going to tell her?” Deven asked.
“I’ll find a way to break it to her gently but without sugarcoating it. She may not even remember it happened.” David glanced over at Deven. “She’s going to be mortified if she remembers kissing you.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows shot up, and for a moment he forgot his anger, turning a wide-eyed look on Dev. “Wait . . . she kissed you? You?”
“It was the transition,” Deven said tiredly, rubbing his neck. “You know how it works when you come across the gentler way—nature, or whatever it is, tries to deepen the connection between you and your sire. She had no idea who I actually was. I was just there, and when she woke up she was on me like bloodstains on a white shirt.”
Jonathan stared at his Prime for a moment . . . then burst out laughing.
Deven threw up his hands, exasperated. “What the hell is so funny?”
“Sorry,” he said breathlessly. “I just . . . I would have paid to see that.”
David bit his lip, holding back a laugh of his own, but at least part of it escaped when he affirmed, “He looked like a deer in headlights.”
“Have you ever actually kissed a woman before?” Jonathan asked.
Deven looked like he wanted to stake them both. “Of course I have,” he said sharply. “Granted, it was five hundred years ago.”
They both laughed again.
“Fuck off, both of you,” Deven said, standing up. “I’m calling the airport—we need to get home. I think you two can handle things from here.”
He left the room, and though he didn’t slam the door, it was implied. Just as he left, the two Elite David had called for appeared with a tarp to wrap the human’s body and take her away.
Jonathan sighed, sobering. “Is there anything else you need?”
David shook his head. “Only for life to make sense again, and I don’t think you can give me that.”
The Consort stood up and, as he walked by David, put a hand on the Prime’s shoulder. “I apologize for my words,” Jonathan said. “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“Thank you. I apologize for not being open with you.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. We all do what we have to do for those we love.”
After Jonathan left, David sat awhile, his mind too full of conflicting thoughts to organize into a coherent system. He thought about doing some work to focus his mind, but the truth was, he was worn out, even as much as he’d slept the last few days. Bringing someone across was always exhausting no matter who you were, and this had been out of the ordinary to say the least. He gave up and went back to bed.
Miranda was peacefully asleep again. He touched his forehead to hers, thinking of the sight of her on the floor, spasming against the human’s death. If she were to do it again, it would be easier, and eventually killing became just like any other feeding, but its energy burned out quickly. It was a drug to many of their kind . . .
Their kind . . .
He hugged her tightly for reassurance. There were two of them now. At least he wasn’t alone. And Persephone had promised they never would be again.
But Persephone had also promised their bond would heal. He still felt nothing.
He couldn’t think about that right now. It threatened to send him into full-blown panic again, and he couldn’t do that—not to Miranda. She needed him to be strong and, most important, calm; if they weren’t to be bound, he could shield enough to fool her into thinking he was fine, just until she was recovered and used to her new life. He would hold himself apart from her for her sake. That was how things had to be, if they were never to be whole again.
In the meantime, as long as she was asleep, she wouldn’t see him break.
Seventeen
Jonathan watched his Prime surreptitiously for the first hour of the flight, and though usually Deven would have noticed eyes on him within the first minute, he was either choosing to ignore it or too lost in his thoughts to be aware. He just stared out the window at t
he dark world passing by far below.
There was something very wrong with him. Jonathan had been aware of it for quite a while—since before David had died. A crack had appeared in Deven’s armor, and it was getting worse. He’d first seen it the night Deven slaughtered the Priesthood of Elysium, and it was as if that one terrible act had broken some part of the Prime, one of the last pieces of him still whole.
Jonathan had been well aware when they’d met what a mess he was getting into. There were almost no vampires Deven’s age left alive. To Jonathan’s knowledge the oldest vampire to have lived reached about 840 before losing his mind and throwing himself onto a stake.
Jonathan had learned quickly that Pairing with Deven was both the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him, but even if he had regretted it, there was no going back.
For the most part Jonathan was happy. He freely admitted he wasn’t the most demanding partner; he was a man of fairly simple pleasures and with few enemies. As long as he had books, bourbon, and semiregular sex, he was quite content. Their relationship allowed him to get the latter from wherever he pleased during those long periods when Deven had no interest. He had a gift for strategy, which made him invaluable for organizing the Elite, but he was no warrior. He was not a politician, either, and had no desire to be. For the most part his role had been very similar to a traditional Queen’s—support, confidence, and love.
He was perfectly fine with that . . . but as time went on, his contentment soured, because he couldn’t do what he was meant, by fate, to do. He had tried a dozen different ways to help his Prime, but he was starting to believe, despite his usual optimism, that he had found Deven too late, and that the Prime was already too broken to save.
He had hoped, however faintly, that he could somehow nudge Deven and David back together, at least periodically, without any betrayal or anger. Clearly having a Consort wasn’t enough to keep Deven balanced anymore. Perhaps if he had them both, between them they could ease the weight on his shoulders.
On the surface it was an insane idea, the sort of Hail Mary play that only a desperate man would try, but he’d considered bringing it up at least to the boys once all this business with David’s death was over. He knew Miranda herself had suggested it three years ago, and though he didn’t believe for a second she had meant it, she had at least entertained the notion. Some sort of arrangement might be possible down the road, given a lot of discussion and very specific agreed-upon circumstances.
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