by Aja James
Valerius was not aware that the Guardian watched him closely as he systematically tried to shut down his Mated male urges to protect his female. But Ayelet saw the truth.
The Protector had Fallen.
Suddenly, it all made sense. The starkness of his countenance. The shadows beneath his eyes. The tremendous pain that weighed him down, so pervasive, she could almost see it eating away at his flesh and bones. This was not the appearance of a Consort, no matter how much strength the Healer drew from him into her own body. This was the appearance of the Fallen—a Pure One who loved, but who did not receive in kind.
This was the visage of the dying.
Ayelet averted her face and looked out the train’s window at the scenery outside. Tears filled her eyes at the sight of her friend wasting away. She knew that he must be in constant, unimaginable pain. She knew what it cost him to cover the signs of his Decline from the Healer, from her. If she hadn’t watched him so closely, if she didn’t know what to look for… If she hadn’t seen the soul-deep anguish in his eyes when he looked upon the female he loved with such longing and hopelessness…
Tristan must have known, it occurred to her. Before they departed on their journey, her Mate had warned her not to interfere, referring to the Healer and the relationship with her Consort. Ayelet had been puzzled that she would have any cause to interfere in the first place. But Tristan had not enlightened her further. He just pulled her into a tight embrace and told her to have faith in the ways of the Goddess.
Now she knew what Tristan had meant. And no, she would not, could not, interfere, even if she wanted to.
The Protector had made his choice. He’d Fallen for the one Pure-female who could never fall in love. To do so, she would have to give up everything she was—her Gift as the Healer, her very identity as a Pure One.
Ayelet prayed to the Goddess for a miracle even as she prepared herself for the inevitable.
*** *** *** ***
Alexandros pushed his body to the limit in the training room after hours.
Aella had already dismissed the last of the Chevaliers, and he’d sat uselessly on the benches against the wall and watched her while she trained the recruits with a mastery he was impressed by even as he involuntarily resented her for taking over his job.
She’d given him a warning look before heading to the showers, wordlessly advising him not to overextend himself with the training weapons in her absence. He’d raised an eyebrow at her in reply, effectively telling her to shove her concern where the sun didn’t shine. She’d quirked a corner of her mouth in response and shrugged.
There was no holding back a warrior if he was bent on self- destruction.
Now Alexandros ached from head to toe, barely able to catch his breath, sweat pouring off him in rivulets. He was reacquainting his body with fighting moves, but he was also exorcising his frustration.
A whole day of concentration and he was not able to pinpoint where the vampire assassins had taken Leonidas. He’d only been able to hone in on two points from the images Aella and Tristan had taken on their hunts. But the points were several days, if not weeks, old. He needed at least a third point to give him some confidence in the coordinates. As it was, he’d be sending the team out to find a needle in a haystack if he took wild guesses on the two old tracks.
Sitting against the wall with his legs spread before him, his head leaned back, eyes closed as he concentrated on getting his breath back, Alexandros didn’t notice that the handmaiden had entered the training room with a basket of balms.
His hand jerked out reflexively when he sensed someone near. Opening his eyes, he realized he was gripping Wan’er’s wrist with almost enough force to break her bones. Immediately, he released her but frowned instead of apologized for the hard clasp that must have hurt her.
“What are you doing here? I don’t need a babysitter,” he groused.
Wan’er resisted rubbing her wrist to ease the soreness from the warrior’s grip. Instead she answered calmly, “You were not in your quarters when I sought you out earlier. Do recall that you still have a few days of treatment left. And since you ignored my advice not to strain yourself physically, I have to make sure I give your body a chance to recover from the wringer you put it through.”
She handed him a towel and gestured for him to wipe himself off before she could administer the balms. Alexandros roughly did as she bid, taking a second hot damp towel from her hands after wiping off his sweat with the first. The second towel had some sort of mint or menthol in it for it opened up his pores as he rubbed it over his skin. Immediately he breathed easier and his muscles seemed to relax.
“Now the balms,” the handmaiden said as she opened a large jar and scooped a portion out with her fingers.
“I’ll do it.” Alexandros quickly took the hunk of jelly from her hand and rubbed it between both of his, then began to slather it over his arms and chest. He relished a little too much the idea of her rubbing her hands all over his body. It was safer for both of them that he took care of business himself.
Wan’er watched the warrior methodically rub the balm into his skin as rapidly as he could, as if he was racing to get done so he could depart from her presence. She couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips.
“Are you afraid of me, General?” she asked teasingly.
Abruptly, Alexandros jerked his eyes to meet hers, but quickly looked away from the amusement and attraction he saw there. He grunted in response, hoping she would let the absurd subject drop.
Wan’er chuckled softly at his discomfiture, and didn’t needle him more. Wordlessly, she took the balm from him when he’d finished with all of his body except his back, which she began to work on herself. He didn’t fight her on it, she was glad to note. Perhaps he realized she was not so dangerous after all.
“You are adept at this,” the General said gruffly after a few moments. Then cleared his throat and added, “Healing, I mean. Have you always been handmaiden to the Healer?”
He sensed, rather than saw her nodding. “I met Rain shortly after I was revived as a Pure One. She’d already established the Jade Lotus Society by then. I heard of her good deeds and her sanctuary and decided to join. My wish, you see, when the Goddess offered me a second chance was to be able to save lives, especially the lives of persecuted women during my time.”
She paused at that and Alexandros waited patiently for her to continue. After a while, her hands began roving across his back again.
“Apparently, I had a knack for the healing arts, though I always thought I was destined to be a woman of literature or perhaps a royal scribe.” She gave a delicate shrug. “As it were, I was one of Rain’s best students.”
“One of?” Alexandros inquired, noticing the slight emphasis in the handmaiden’s words.
“Yes, I excelled in Chinese medicine and natural remedies. I was proficient in acupuncture and other physical cures, but I was by no means expert.” Wan’er paused again as if struggling with a disturbing memory.
Hesitantly, she said, “There was one other student who mastered the technique of harnessing the energy within living creatures, though it was before my time at the sanctuary. Some say she manipulated the energy for her own gains, that she misused her powers. Had she not disappeared the year before I joined the Society, undoubtedly she would have been the favorite as Rain’s handmaiden.”
“You are the best candidate for the role,” the General reassured her quietly, “I have never met such dedication to a craft as you are to healing.”
Wan’er gave the warrior’s shoulders an extra squeeze, and he felt the tension there dissipate like fog in a strong warm breeze. “You are likely biased. I do not tend to all my patients with the same dedication as I tend to you, General,” she said in her lilting voice, the teasing tone back in full force.
Alexandros was prepared for her verbal spurs this time and grasped one of her hands over his shoulder.
“I am glad to hear it,” he murmured in a rumbling baritone, s
ending shivers of delight dancing down the handmaiden’s spine.
Oh she knew she was playing with fire, but how delicious was the burn.
Chapter Thirteen
Aella silently gestured to Dalair to advance from the left while she took the right path.
They were on the trail of three vampire assassins in the suburbs of Worcester, almost fifty miles outside of Boston city. They’d noticed the vampires following them when they were conducting surveilance close to South End, the location of Valerius’ previous attack. As dawn approached, they decided not to engage their foes but rather play a game of cat and mouse. They hoped to keep their prey engaged in the chase until the night eroded with the first rays of sun, when the vampires would need to retreat to their lair.
Then the hunted would become the hunters.
The vampires did not bring their own mode of transportation. Instead, they traveled on foot and hitched rides on top of trucks and buses, making it extremely difficult to keep track of their movements. Aella suspected that was their goal, to confuse and disorient any tail they might have, so that they couldn’t be traced back to their Horde. But the two Elite warriors kept up with their targets, leaping from vehicle to vehicle at a distance enough not to be detected.
The vampires went back on foot within the city limits of Worcester, disappearing like shadows into an underground tunnel. As Aella and Dalair followed, they came upon a forked passage that led in two directions. There was no other choice but to split up, even though they sensed a trap. Two of the vampires went down the left tunnel and one went down the right. Dalair gestured earlier that the tunnels would eventually meet, since he traced the sound of dripping water and echoes through the passageways ahead. If they split up, at least they wouldn’t lose each other in the underground maze.
If they stayed alive of course.
Aella pulled out two chakrams and locked them together to form a short saw. She held a third in her other hand to let fly at the first scent of danger. Her senses were nowhere near as sharp as Dalair’s, so she moved more slowly, not wanting to rush into an ambush. As she felt along the almost pitch black passageway, she encountered slime, rats, debris and water that dripped from the ceiling and ran along the bricks. There was also the pungent odor of decay and refuse, confirming her earlier suspicion that they were in a sewer system.
There was a dim light ahead, filtered from above ground through a drain gutter. Aella approached more carefully, knowing that she would expose her position, however briefly, when she went past the point of illumination.
Then she heard the clanging of metal not too far ahead, followed by a grunt and thumps that sounded like a body getting slammed into the passage wall and ground. Dalair must have engaged the two vampires he’d been tracking, and if she could hear the sounds of their battle so clearly, the two passageways must have merged ahead.
Aella broke into a silent sprint.
Goddess forbid the three vampires had rounded upon Dalair all at once. Under normal circumstances, she would not be in such a rush to offer assistance, but these were not average vampires and they did not fight fair.
Sure enough, as she pulled around the corner where ghostly tentacles of light shot through the gutter bars, she caught glimpses of the vampires circling Dalair like sharks drawn by the scent of blood.
The Paladin tried to keep his enemies at bay with his two giant crescent blades, one in each hand. His hyper-developed senses helped him to anticipate the vampires’ moves, keeping him always one step ahead of them.
Aella assessed the situation with one fleeting glance. Soon the vampires would figure out the best way to attack. They could swarm Dalair all at once, and two would probably sacrifice themselves against his blades in the process, but the third would surely be able to execute a lethal blow. From what she knew about these assassins after studying the tactics they used with Valerius, then Leonidas and Alexandros, she knew that such a kamikaze move would be right up their alley.
They had no fear of death. They were concentrated on one goal and one goal only. To exterminate the Pure Ones.
Aella leapt into the fray with two bounding strides while letting fly her chakram with deadly force.
At the screeching whirl of the steel, the vampire nearest to her looked up and narrowed his eyes, which is exactly what she wanted him to do, for the chakram zinged against the wall to his left, bounced off at a seventy degree angle with a flare of metallic sparks and sliced clean through the vampire’s neck from the side.
And not a moment too soon, for Dalair had his hands full fighting back the two other vampires who redoubled their efforts in concert. It was all he could do to parry and deflect their varied blows, and they advanced upon him with increasing speed.
“Jump!” Aella shouted a split second before she left fly her other two chakrams in opposite directions at a one hundred twenty degree angle from a deep one-knee crouch.
Dalair obeyed without hesitation and so did one of the vampires, but the other vampire was not quick enough and suffered the consequences as one of the chakram sliced through his shin, taking him down to one leg instantly.
As he fell with a shout of pain, he released twin daggers on the way down in Aella’s direction. She deflected one with her wrist cuffs crossed together in front of her and would not have been able to dodge the other if not for her Gift—superhuman speed.
Dalair pushed back the remaining vampire by spinning the crescent blades so fast, they became the lethal wheels of death in his hands. Despite how the vampire jabbed and swung at the warrior with his long axe, Dalair’s saws did not falter, until finally, the vampire could move no further, his back against the tunnel wall.
With a twist of his wrist, Dalair severed the bloodsucker’s axe arm from his shoulder and pressed forward with the other crescent blade, now stationary once more, against the vampire’s throat. Behind him, he heard Aella make short work of the fallen vampire and collect her chakrams within seconds.
As Aella came up beside her partner, she could see that the vampire still struggled despite the edge of Dalair’s blade against his throat. He was cutting himself in the process, but he didn’t relent.
“He’s not talking,” the Paladin said grimly, trying to keep the vampire alive long enough to question. Perhaps Aella would have better luck.
Aella tilted her head to get a better look at the vampire’s face, streaked with blood and hidden by straggles of sweat-soaked hair. An icy tingling began at the base of her neck, sending shivers down her spine.
“I know him,” she uttered with shock and horror.
“Tolya,” she whispered the vampire’s name.
Involuntarily, the bloodsucker turned toward her, revealing more of his face, and Aella gasped in full recognition.
He was once her lover, hundreds of years ago. She’d spent more time with him than any other beau. They’d been so decadent and carnal in their creativity around the Sacred Law that intercourse was but an overrated indulgence. Of all her lovers, Tolya was the only one she considered taking the leap with. And if she didn’t truly love him, she certainly cared deeply for him.
But the bloodshot vampire eyes that stared back at her did not hold the same recognition. Instead, Tolya bared his fangs and hissed, reaching behind his back.
Before he could take out whatever it was he reached for, Dalair ended his life by pressing the crescent blade all the way through his neck in one forceful punch.
“No!” Aella cried, rushing forth to push Dalair away only to see Tolya’s torso slide against the wall to the ground while his head rolled forward and fell separately with a wet thud. Within seconds, he disintegrated into gray nothingness.
“I’m sorry, but I could not take the chance,” Dalair said from behind her, regret in his voice.
Aella nodded even as tears of sorrow slid down her cheeks. She crouched before the ashes of the fallen vampire and examined the object he’d left behind –a small throwing knife, its tip blackened with poison.
Dalair had sa
ved her life. She’d been immobilized with shock. She doubted she would have noticed if someone had thumped her over the head with a two by four.
“You knew him,” Dalair stated, knowing from the way that Aella remained on her knees beside the vampire’s remains that there was no mistake.
Again she nodded. “He was a friend,” she whispered, “more than a friend. He was a good male, a Pure-male. I used to live in what is now the Ukraine for a period of time in the sixteen hundreds. For a while he was my family.”
Dalair lowered himself to a crouch beside her, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He was of warrior class, I gather.”
“Yes,” Aella responded. “When Ayelet recruited me to join the Elite, I wanted him to join with me. He-he refused.”
She swiped an arm across her eyes and refocused. “He said that we could not remain in the same place together for he would not be able to maintain distance.”
She laughed briefly, despondently. “He fancied himself in love with me.”
“He is no longer Pure,” Dalair observed, frowning at the fact.
Aella frowned as well, unable to make sense of it. Could it be that Tolya Fell for a Pure-female in the time they’d lost touch with one another? And the female did not return his feelings?
Briefly, Aella felt a pang of loss. There was a time she’d wanted to be that female. Ultimately, she could not take the leap of faith. She did not love him with all her heart and soul. She was saddened that Tolya might have devoted himself to a female only to have his love unreturned. He had been a male of worth. He deserved happiness with his Eternal Mate.
Yet he’d died as a vampire. One who did not recognize Aella.
She could not understand why he would have no memory of her if he’d Fallen and failed. In the instant when their eyes had met, he seemed mindless, an empty shell of his former self.