He’d known from the beginning that he had not conversed with his brother alone. Every member of their race felt the Hunter’s presence heavily. For that reason, he’d elected not to enlist the assistance of the rest of his Vampire soldiers in this battle. He had pushed the line even asking his own brothers to fight alongside the beast. And he had been a beast, more than worthy of the Vampire soul he housed, and now an irreplaceable ally.
“Was all of that true?”
El’on slowly slid his eyes closed, and hesitated to turn. He’d silently hoped that he would not have to divulge the entirety of Deq’on’s situation to the Hunter. However, the idiot appeared to have gone beyond reason in his quest to get himself killed. After finally turning, he leaned back against the desk in front of the missive space, and ran his hands over his aged face.
“I swear to you, Hunter, that brother will be the death of me.” El’on smiled sadly, and shook his head behind his hands. He pushed himself away from the desk, walked over, and clapped his hand on Tyrian’s shoulder.
“Come, let us retire to somewhere more comfortable to speak.”
He led the Hunter into one of the many living areas of the castle his family now called home. After walking over to the small bar area, he poured each of them a drink. Then he gestured for the man to sit opposite him in the multitude of seats. He took a long sip before he began.
“You are aware of our race’s volatile nature. That nature always manifested most strongly within Deq. For thousands of years, the only place he felt content was on the battlefield. He made quite a name for himself as a result. That sort of lifestyle, as I’m sure you can imagine, led to other unsavory proclivities.” By now, El’on’s voice had taken on a tone of disgust.
“The Vampires who venture into your domain are more often than not the dredges of our society. Some of status, of course, indulge themselves in the rare decadence of human blood. It is considered a great risk in our society to enter the human realm, one that sometimes comes with the promise of great reward. It is like a drug to us.” El’on paused, and stared down into the clear liquid in his glass.
“Have you ever indulged?” the Hunter asked, his tone light but his gaze heavy.
Taking the damning inquiry in stride, El’on flashed a razor-toothed grin, and took another sip of his drink. “No, Hunter, I have never indulged. Deq, however...he indulged too much.” He creased his lips in a deep frown.
“I thought I might have recognized him. We’ve met previously, haven’t we?” Tyrian stated more than asked.
The elder Vampire gave a short, sullen nod. “Once, twenty-five or so of your years ago. The woman he’d chosen to feed on had overindulged herself on your human drugs. He managed to rid her blood of the substance, but not before her heart stopped. I can only assume that was what called you to him.”
“And he still has his head. He must indeed be quite the battle-hardened warrior.” Despite the Hunter’s playful gaze, hard truth laced the edge of his words.
“He revived her, gave her his blood. Had he not been my own brother, I would have killed him myself for the transgression.” El’on’s harsh tone and hard gaze spoke the truth of his admission.
“What does it do, giving a human the blood of a Vampire?” the Hunter asked.
El’on softly chuckled, set his now-empty glass on the short table in front of him, and pinned the man across from him with a playfully admonishing gaze.
“You really should brush up on your Vampire history, Hunter,” El’on admonished. The involuntary roll of the Hunter’s eyes made his smile grow. “It will grant the human certain qualities of our race, temporarily of course. Accelerated healing, a propensity for violence, the ability to conceive a Vampire child—”
Suddenly the glass, still full of the inebriating liquid El’on had poured into it, came flying past his left ear to crash into the wall behind his head. El’on had expected this; he held his ground, relaxed and unmoved. He raised his violet gaze to the Hunter as he shot up from his seat. The fire in the man’s eyes matched the overwhelming menace that suddenly cloaked the space between them.
“You knew,” the Hunter growled accusingly.
Clasping his hands in his lap, El’on calmly faced the riled male. His instincts screamed at him to either arm himself against the threat or flee to the farthest reaches of the realm, where this beast could not find him. He cleared his throat, and continued to gaze curiously up at the other man.
“How do you think I knew to anticipate that you would breach the city through the aqueduct? The only way you could have entered this realm was by blood bonding with your Medium, a hybrid only possible through the union of a human and a Vampire. I have known of the girl since she was conceived.” El’on’s voice had taken on a biting tone.
“You should have told me,” the Hunter grated through tightly clenched teeth. He turned and stalked toward the entryway.
“And how do you anticipate that conversation would have gone? Hmm? ‘Oh, by the way, your mate is my niece.’” El’on shook his head. “No one knows but me, not even Deq.”
He’d opted not to inform his brother of his progeny, to avoid offering him the temptation of returning to the human realm. It had worked. Since his brush with the Hunter, Deq’on had not set hide nor hair within the human realm. Instead, he’d sequestered himself within the mines, playing the role of repentance more surely than that of a whipped dog. El’on suspected that the White Devil had presented too tempting an opportunity to the redemption-seeking black sheep. He would kill himself in his endeavor to right his own perceived wrongs, and El’on could do absolutely nothing to stop it.
Sniffing softly, El’on rose from his seat and came to stand directly in front of the Hunter, barely a foot away from his radiating rage. He met Tyrian’s fierce gaze with one of his own. “Think about that the next time you move to strike him dead.”
Chapter 14
Kaelyn let out a high-pitched squeak as Cynric unceremoniously chucked her through a thick, dark glass doorway, into an equally dark glass room. The invisible force that had held her hands bound in front of her suddenly disappeared, just in time for her to catch her fall. She landed hard on her side, her hip and palms slamming uncomfortably into the hard glass floor. She’d definitely feel that later.
After turning her head toward the doorway, Kaelyn shot her meanest glare at the manhandler who had picked her up upon her arrival and dragged her into this apparent jail cell. His face betrayed no reaction to her ire; if anything, he seemed a bit pleased. She glared harder.
“Be grateful, Medium; you’re in familiar company,” the pale man stated. Then he closed the thick glass door to her cage.
Indignantly, Kaelyn rolled onto her backside and rubbed at her sore wrists. “Jerk,” she whispered caustically to the silence of the room.
“You have no idea,” a low voice answered back.
Kaelyn froze, slowly rolled her wide-eyed gaze to the left, and turned her head to gaze into the corner the voice had drifted up from. She barely made out the outline of a person, what kind she could not yet tell. Suspicion clawed at her, bringing to mind the pale man’s parting quip that she had found familiar company.
Drawing in a shaky breath, she timidly asked, “Caleb?”
The boy opened his eyes and stared back at Kaelyn coldly; electric blue lit up the darkness. She watched as he cocked his head to the side, and regarded her carefully from the sanctitude of his lonely corner. Very slowly, almost as though he stalked her, Caleb rose to his feet. At the same time, Kaelyn became aware that she was holding her breath. After swallowing heavily, she slowly pulled herself to her own feet, her eyes never leaving the dark form of the quippy teenager she’d met in Tyrian’s kitchen not four days before.
“Caleb...are you okay?” Kaelyn asked apprehensively. She drew in on herself at the teenager’s stony silence. Two steps brought the boy into the dim light glowing up from the middle of the floor. Dark, matted hair fell forward into his bright blue eyes, made even more striking
by the pallor of his skin. At the stark visage he presented, her breath caught in her throat.
“No.” The single utterance cut like a razor through the tension that had built in the atmosphere since they’d first locked eyes. She didn’t have time to think, to breathe, to react, as he suddenly leaped on top of her.
With sharply clawed fingers, Caleb clenched Kaelyn’s shoulders, the points digging in painfully. She sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, tamping down a whine at the back of her throat. She struggled futilely against his viselike grip, trying in vain to push herself into the floor. He stretched his lips back from his teeth, and she watched in horror as a new set of razor-sharp fangs slid from his gums to cover his blunt human teeth.
Glancing in stark horror up into his hunger-darkened gaze, she whispered, “God, Caleb, what have they done to you?”
He acted as if she’d slapped him across the face. His pupils abruptly shrank back down to normal size, his new set of teeth withdrew into his gums, and his claws retracted. He threw himself away from her almost as suddenly as he’d tackled her.
Kaelyn didn’t immediately rise, but took a moment to collect herself. Everything she’d read about her kind hadn’t prepared her for suddenly finding herself face to face with one. Then, she had to reconcile the fact that Tyrian had raised this boy from childhood. She hadn’t thought it possible to transform a human into a Vampire. Granted, she hadn’t considered it possible for a human to cross over into another realm, if she could believe anything the dusty old books in Starla’s library had taught her. At this point, she didn’t know what to believe.
Sitting up slowly, she winced as the sharp pain in her shoulders gave protest. Gingerly placing a hand over her wounds, she felt no surprise to find the sticky wetness of her blood. She drew in a sharp breath, eased her jacket off of her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. The sharp half-moon punctures had already begun to close. She’d always been a quick healer, but this was just ridiculous.
By this time, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she clearly made out Caleb’s huddled form in the corner. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, and his entire body trembled as he seemingly tried to become one with the black glass walls. She pushed herself to her feet, and slowly took a step towards him.
“Don’t!” Caleb shouted. He shot one hand out. “Don’t come any closer! It’s not safe,” he warned in a shaky voice.
“It’s okay, Caleb,” Kaelyn crooned. “I’m already healing; see?” She turned to show him her shoulder.
Caleb’s wild gaze took in the sight of her blood-coated skin, and she realized her mistake a fraction of a second too late. His pupils immediately dilated. She shuffled a few steps backward, and threw her hands up in front of her to ward off the newly changed Vampire hybrid.
When he remained in his corner, hands clasped tightly to the sides of his head, fingers tangled in his thickly matted hair, Kaelyn sighed in relief. Glancing around, she noticed a round bucket in the opposite corner of the room. After sparing a glance back at Caleb, she quickly turned, grabbed her bloody jacket from the floor, and carried it over to a bucket that she hoped held water.
She gave another relieved sigh to find the bucket in fact filled with liquid, and cautiously dunked the sleeve of her jacket in it. A cursory sniff of the dark liquid revealed nothing out of the ordinary, so she decided to douse her jacket with the stuff and scrub at her arms with it to remove any evidence of blood. After inspecting herself in the dim lighting, she nodded in approval. Then she left her jacket in the bucket, and made her way back over to the boy huddled tightly in the corner.
She touched Caleb’s shoulder, and he started. He turned his wild eyes on her dazedly. She smiled at him softly. “Better?”
He swallowed hard, but his shaking seemed to lessen, his stiff muscles softening slightly. He nodded, and turned his eyes downward.
“I can still smell it,” he admitted suddenly, “your blood.”
His blue eyes met hers from behind dark lashes. They regarded each other for a long moment, neither backing down from their staring contest.
Kaelyn drew in a long breath, then let it out quickly in a huff. “Well, if you’re going to eat me, you should just do it. If not, I’d appreciate it if we could maybe try to figure out a way to get out of this place.” Kaelyn rose to her feet, and threw her arms out around her.
Caleb blinked in quick succession, and shook his head in mild disbelief. “If there was a way out of here, don’t you think I would have escaped already?” he quipped. The familiar, condescending tone that had colored his words during their previous brief encounter had crept into the rhetoric.
Kaelyn creased the corners of her lips into a knowing smile, and smugly crossed her arms across her chest. “Hello again, Caleb,” she mused.
The boy’s expression fell, his shaking subtly slowing as he seemed to consider what she’d said. After blowing out a breath harshly, he regarded the Medium with a dubious, sideways glance.
“So I guess this answers my question,” he finally said. He pushed himself to his feet, and made a show of brushing himself off.
“And what question is that?” Kaelyn asked. She cocked her head to the side quizzically, and raised herself back to her full height.
“What you are. Medium, huh? Guess that makes sense.” Caleb sniffed, gave her a once-over glance, and crossed his own arms across his chest.
Thinking back, Kaelyn remembered their conversation the morning they’d met in Tyrian’s kitchen. It had seemed ridiculous to her at the time that he’d even asked such a question. Now, though, she could hardly blame him. Her life had consisted of one crazy roller-coaster loop after another since the moment Tyrian Blackwood set foot inside her bookstore, and something told her that the ride was far from over.
“Yeah, that was news to me, too. I don’t suppose you’ve seen Tyrian around here anywhere?” she asked offhandedly, not really expecting that he had, and at the same time silently hoping that he hadn’t.
“You guys blood-bonded? Already?” Caleb asked.
Kaelyn drew her brows together in a frown. “How much do you know?” she asked, her tone clipped with curiosity.
Caleb shrugged. “Everything,” he responded casually.
Kaelyn rolled her eyes, and plopped down on one of the two small chairs in the sparse cell. She also noticed a small, square table and a fairly sturdy-looking cot built into the far left wall. Everything in this realm so far seemed to be made out of the same black glass-like material, including the decor surrounding her now.
“Conceited much?” She crossed her arms and legs, and raised an eyebrow at the Vampire Page.
“I’m not omniscient, like Starla or anything like that, but I know a whole lot more than Tyrian thinks I do,” Caleb admitted broodingly. He collapsed into the chair opposite her. Clearly, the boy harbored a chip on his shoulder regarding his reluctant guardian; it seemed to stem from an overdeveloped sense of pride. He felt obligated to prove himself useful to the man in more ways than just cleaning up after his messes.
“Yes, we bonded,” Kaelyn professed, “so Tyrian could come here and rescue you.”
Caleb looked up at her, and hope lit his eyes for the first time that she’d seen since her abduction. It vanished, however, almost as quickly as it had arrived, and the boy’s usual surly attitude replaced it.
“Stupid plan. Do you have any idea what the bastard who trapped us in here is? He’s a damned Druid.” A shudder passed through the boy at the mention of their captor.
“Like Starla?”
“Like her polar opposite. Somebody beat that guy pretty severely with the evil stick.”
Against her better judgement, Kaelyn let slip the question that had been gnawing at her since she’d seen Caleb’s alterations at the hands of the pale madman.
“What did he do to you?” she asked quietly, timidly.
For a moment, she wondered if he’d even heard her.
“I think that should be pretty obvious.” He refused to meet
her eyes.
“Is it permanent?” She feared the answer.
“God, I hope not.” Caleb sighed, ran a hand over his face, and sniffed harshly.
She clearly perceived Caleb’s fear. A fine tremor ran through his limbs, like a live current. His expressive face had grown stark and gaunt, brows drawn together in a permanent frown, lips tightly pressed in a thin white line. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d gone through in this place. She wanted to throw her arms around him, and tell him that everything would be all right.
And she hated not knowing that it would be.
After steeling her resolve, Kaelyn placed a hand on Caleb’s, leaned in, and forced him to look her in the eye. “We’ll find a way to reverse this, Caleb. I promise.”
He didn’t look much as if he believed her, but he did offer her a small smile and a slight nod in return. “Well, if Tyrian is here, it’s only a matter of time before he finds out that you’re here, too.”
Almost cringing at the thought, Kaelyn asked, “What will he do?”
Caleb scoffed. “Knowing Tyrian, probably something colossally stupid.”
* * * *
Tyrian paused in the action of lacing up his boots, and reached for the hilt of the hook sword on the bed, at his side.
“It is not wise to sneak up on me unannounced, Vor’on,” Tyrian cautioned. He eased his hand off the hilt of his weapon, and moved to complete the task of securing his footwear.
The surly Vampire rounded the corner and stopped in the doorway, as if to block the Hunter’s escape. Not that it would do much good. Tyrian had absolutely no reservations about cutting right through every one of the ’On brothers in his quest.
“It is equally unwise to expect to succeed in battle against this enemy on your own,” Vor’on eventually iterated, no doubt attempting to appeal to the Hunter’s reason. Unfortunately for the Vampire noble, that ship had long since sailed.
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