Immortal Sleepers_Blood Awakening

by Miranda Nichols

  Good thing the teenager was so damn stubborn.

  After swallowing heavily, Kaelyn turned a wide-eyed, apprehensive gaze on the Vampire Page to her left and breathed, “I think he was hoping Caleb would do that for him.”

  Lilith clenched her eyes closed, and shot up to Starla, “Those are some seriously complicated criteria. Who made this key?”

  “I did,” Starla replied tersely.

  “Fucking hell,” Lilith cursed. She threw herself back in her chair, and crossed her arms.

  “The awakening of Kaelyn is only the beginning,” the Hunter leader announced. A dark, airy quality had suddenly tinted her tone, changing it into something like that of a fortune-teller cautioning them about the future. “The rest will soon follow. All of you need to be vigilant; the likelihood of any of you finding your Mediums just rose from possibility to certainty.”

  If the looks on the Hunters’ faces indicated anything, that prospect resembled a death warrant. Biting her lower lip, Kaelyn considered when she’d heard the twisted Druid mention Mediums, right before he’d killed her father in the Vampire mines.

  She cleared her throat and hesitantly offered, “Cynric said that he couldn’t see anything that pertained to the Mediums; that’s how my father could stay under the radar for so long as his assistant. What if they just…don’t find them?”

  The Troll Hunter immediately shot up a hand and volunteered, “I’m down for that.”

  Starla turned to Kaelyn. A small, piteous smile graced her ageless features.

  “Fate, I’m afraid, is never that gullible,” she replied in a low tone. Then she turned to address the room. “You cannot run from destiny; it will always find you, whether you’re ready for it or not. It is better to be prepared for it when it does.”

  The Hunter sighed, took a great breath that lifted his boulder-like shoulders, and shot Kaelyn a sideways grin. “Was worth a shot.”

  Kaelyn smiled back regretfully, mainly for whatever poor woman would have the misfortune of becoming that man’s Medium. She got the distinct impression that his heartbreakingly good looks and quick wit would be a devastating combination to try and combat against.

  “So long, sweet freedom...” he sighed. He glanced up at the ceiling, then abruptly vanished. The others shortly followed suit, and Kaelyn shot back in her chair in shock. Only Tyrian, Caleb, Starla, and she remained in the cavernous room.

  “That went over about as well as a heart attack,” the Vampire Page commented in his usual drawl. He drew his mouth into a deep frown as he pursed his lips.

  “Caleb, how are you feeling?” Starla asked, concern evident in her tone.

  The boy shrugged. “Normal, I guess, whatever that’s supposed to be anymore.”

  The Druid sighed, and placed a small, white hand on his shoulder. “I will do everything I can to help you,” she vowed, staring directly into his eyes.

  “Not something you can just wave your magic wand and fix, huh?” Caleb shot back offhandedly with a woeful smirk as he looked down at his hands in his lap.

  Tyrian reached around Kaelyn, and abruptly hit Caleb upside the head. “Don’t be disrespectful,” he chided, almost offhandedly.

  Caleb whipped his hands to the back of his head, and winced painfully.

  “Hm,” the Vampire Hunter grunted, looking at his hand thoughtfully. “Now that you’re a Vampire, that is infinitely more satisfying.”

  “Dick,” Caleb whispered haughtily in response.

  Kaelyn swung her hand into her mate’s diaphragm, the force of the blow aided by her activated Vampire blood. Tyrian grunted, and tossed her a feigned look of shocked indignation. She bunched up her nose, and shook her head at him.

  “How are you handling your appetite?” Starla asked suddenly, her voice morose.

  A seriousness settled over the teenager, and he shrugged noncommittally. “I seem to be okay, as long as no one’s bleeding near me.” He didn’t meet anyone’s gaze.

  “That may become problematic.” Tyrian lowered his eyes knowingly to Kaelyn. She picked up his meaning: she was a woman, meaning she had a monthly cycle that resulted in the prolonged expulsion of her blood.

  Caleb scrunched up his face, made a sort of gagging sound, and turned his head to the side. He clenched his eyes tightly closed, and waved his hands in front of him. “Any suggestions?” he asked with a shudder.

  Kaelyn remembered her conversation with her uncle before she left the Vampire realm. She lifted one thin finger and said, “I actually might have one.”

  Chapter 19

  Caleb and Kaelyn stood, both staring a bit apprehensively at the gates of the large Vampire city, where the portal had deposited them. Starla had helped to guide them; the last time Kaelyn created a portal, she’d wound up somewhere inside an ore shaft in the cavernous mines.

  “Are you absolutely sure about this?” the boy suddenly asked, his tone clipped and wary. He hadn’t exactly felt enthusiastic about the journey to begin with.

  “Nope,” she quipped in reply. Crossing her arms, she tossed her companion a tight smile.

  Caleb nodded shortly, pursed his lips in a smile, and made a forward gesture with his hand. “Great, after you.”

  Rolling her eyes, Kaelyn stepped forward and thought back on the meeting that had led them there to begin with.

  * * * *

  “You have got to be kidding me. You want me to go back to the Vampire realm?” Caleb exclaimed.

  Kaelyn shrugged. “Who is more suited to helping you cope with being a Vampire than an actual Vampire?” It made perfect sense to her.

  “I’d rather swallow a handful of razor blades,” came the boy’s immediate reply.

  “She’s got a point,” Tyrian chimed in. He leaned back against the cavern wall with his arms crossed, and leveled a pointed stare at his mutated Page.

  “Not you, too! Come on, I’m fine.” Caleb waved his hands in front of him and took a few steps back, as if putting distance between himself and the situation would change the outcome.

  “I would feel more comfortable with you being around Kaelyn if I knew you had some control over your instincts, in the event of an accident,” Tyrian shot back. His own tone brooked no room for argument.

  Kaelyn stepped forward, placed a hand on Caleb’s arm, and held his eyes in a serious stare. “I know you would never forgive yourself if you lost control and hurt someone. Please, Caleb, for our peace of mind as well as yours.”

  After heaving a shaky sigh, Caleb rested one hand against his hip and ran the other through his thick dark locks. He looked away from them with a grim expression that seemed to severely age his youthful features.

  “How can you be sure they’ll even agree to help me?” He turned back around to face the group, a look of exasperated defeat in his electric blue gaze.

  Kaelyn lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug and said in a light tone, “Well, there is the small matter of me saving the life of their king. Oh, and me being his long-lost niece, you know: nothing major.”

  Caleb met Kaelyn’s smirk with one of his own. “Subtle, very subtle.” He crossed his arms, and leaned back against the marble conference table. “All right, I’ll go, but only so you’ll stop with the guilt-tripping.”

  Widening her smirk into a large grin, Kaelyn nodded. “Deal.”

  * * * *

  Kaelyn certainly hoped that she hadn’t overestimated the debt the Vampire king believed he owed her. As they approached the tall, heavy-looking glass gates of the Vampire’s capital city of Torehj, Kaelyn tried not to let her trepidation show. So far she’d only really met El’on, her encounter with his four brothers not counting, as she hadn’t really spoken to any of them in her haste to save their Elder. A cursory glance at Caleb in her peripheral vision told her that the Vampire Page felt no less anxious than she did.

  As they came within a few feet of the gates, a loud cracking sounded, and the large doors slowly opened inward. A thin Vampire woman charged through the open gates and bombarded Kaelyn. The
woman’s pristine hair fell to her waist, and her almost six-foot frame enveloped Kaelyn’s five-foot-five build in a bone-crushing embrace.

  “You have returned! I am so happy!” the woman exclaimed gleefully, not loosening her hold in the slightest. Kaelyn smiled uncomfortably, patted the woman’s back, and slid her pleading gaze to her suddenly very amused companion. He held up his hands in front of him, and stepped back with a smug grin across his face. She glared, made a sour face at the teenager, and planned to give him a piece of her mind.

  Then a familiar voice rang out from the entryway. “Li, my dear, let the girl breathe.”

  The woman eased her death hold on Kaelyn, and she immediately drew in a deep breath. The woman patted Kaelyn’s head and shoulders. Moisture pooled in the Vampire’s startlingly crimson eyes, a sight that stole the very breath Kaelyn had just inhaled.

  A hand came to rest on the woman’s shoulder. She pulled back her own hands and clasped them in front of her, those blood-red eyes never leaving the Medium. El’on’s charismatic face appeared over the woman’s shoulder. He smiled warmly at Kaelyn, his presence drawing away some of her sudden anxiety at the very friendly greeting by the unfamiliar female Vampire.

  “Kaelyn, I am glad that you decided to return. This is my mate, Li’on. She has greatly looked forward to meeting you,” El’on explained.

  “Thank you so much for bringing my El home to me,” Li’on said from behind her clasped hands. The relief at reuniting with the love of her life resonated with familiarity inside Kaelyn, and she couldn’t help the small smile that graced her lips in response.

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a small bow of her head. She turned her gaze to meet El’on’s. “That’s actually one of the reasons I came here today. El’on, I’m sure you remember Caleb.”

  The Vampire shifted his violet gaze to the boy on her left. A calculated recognition steeled his features, and he drew himself up and back as he carefully regarded the boy.

  “The human boy the Devil brought here. Yes, I remember,” El’on finally said, his usually jovial tone losing a bit of its cheer. Clearly he felt some sort of strained animosity towards Caleb that Kaelyn didn’t understand.

  “I was hoping you might be able to help him,” she said, her tone guarded and hopeful.

  El’on turned his gaze back to her, and relaxed his stance. After placing an arm around Li’on’s shoulder, he leaned in to whisper something in her ear. She immediately nodded, and shuffled back inside.

  El’on turned back to Kaelyn and Caleb, and made a wide, sweeping gesture with his arm. “Come inside; we will discuss this in more detail.” He led them through the gates, and up a flight of stairs to the left. The winding staircase carried them up to a wide entryway of intricately sculpted glasswork. Directly inside the archway, they arrived at a seating area. El’on took one of the large leatherbound chairs, and gestured for Caleb and Kaelyn to take the love seat opposite him.

  “Now, tell me how you wish for us to help,” he said as they took their seats.

  Kaelyn cleared her throat, and glanced over at Caleb. The teenager remained silent in the presence of the Vampire King, who already held an apparent dislike for him.

  Kaelyn scooted forward to the edge of the seat, and angled herself toward her uncle. “Well, Caleb being new to the whole ‘Vampire’ thing, I was hoping you, or someone you know, might be able to teach him how to control this…” She hesitated on the last word, trying to express herself without offending El’on in some way. She still knew very little about the Vampire culture, and wondered how to proceed.

  El’on frowned, and looked over at Caleb. “Have you been experiencing difficulties?”

  Caleb seemed to jump at the Vampire’s direct address. He shifted nervously in his seat, and swallowed stiffly. “Only when I’m around blood. Specifically the human kind,” he muttered, not quite meeting the Vampire’s gaze.

  El’on sighed, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his hairless chin thoughtfully. “I see,” he finally said. “It is a compulsion many of our race share. But I’m afraid I cannot help you.”

  Kaelyn dropped her jaw and stuttered, “There must be something.”

  The elder Vampire smiled warmly, and leaned forward to pat her hand. “There is, young one. I cannot help you, as I have no experience curbing that particular predilection. However, there is another who may be able to train you.”

  El’on rose from his seat, and walked over to a large door. He knocked twice, and when the door opened, he muttered something under his breath to the Vampire who stood just beyond it. The Vampire nodded, without a glance inside the room, and swiftly disappeared. Kaelyn turned to look at Caleb, who simply shrugged.

  Before very much longer, the door opened once more, and the orange-eyed Vampire Kaelyn had seen on the battlefield entered the room. El’on clasped his brother’s arm in greeting, and they both walked over to the Medium and the Page.

  “This is my brother, Vor. He is your father’s twin, and he is well trained in subduing feeding urges. He helped manage Deq’s for many years,” El’on explained.

  Now that Kaelyn got a good look at him, she immediately recognized the resemblance. The hole in her stomach she’d studiously ignored opened up like a gaping maw as she stared into the face of her dead father’s twin.

  Recognition lit the Vampire’s sunset gaze, and he nodded slowly. “You were with Deq when he was killed,” he said, as if her reaction to his presence had told him the answer.

  Kaelyn swallowed heavily, and furiously tamped down tears at the vivid memory that his reminder had launched at her. She met Vor’on’s gaze resolutely. “We both were,” she admitted, her voice hoarse. Caleb rested his hand on her back, the warm weight a reminder to stay rooted in the present. She would have time to come to terms with her father’s murder once a war no longer threatened to destroy her new family.

  “I am sorry for what you went through,” Vor’on offered tightly.

  Kaelyn lowered her gaze. “Me too,” she breathed.

  Vor’on rose from his seat, next to his brother’s. He stood in front of them, feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped securely behind his back. His gaze resolute, he said in a voice set with grim determination, “We anticipated that, if you did not put him down, you would seek assistance with the transformation. I am prepared to assist you.”

  “Thank you.” Kaelyn gave a relieved sigh, and let her shoulders sag.

  “The Hunter did not accompany you?” El’on suddenly asked.

  “I thought it would be better if it was just Caleb and me. Tyrian’s still not overly fond of this place, as I’m sure you can imagine.” He hadn’t been very happy about being left behind, something to do with leaving her alone with some voracious animals. But she’d stood her ground. She had believed then, and still did, that his presence would only have hindered their cause.

  El’on smiled slightly. “He did have quite the interesting visit. I can understand his wish to reacquaint himself with his home,” he said, his voice light with mirth.

  “Though I don’t know how relaxed he’ll be until we’re back home,” Kaelyn admitted. She’d set him to the task of moving her stuff into the brownstone while she concentrated on settling Caleb’s situation. She silently hoped that none of her foster siblings saw fit to stop by in the process. She wasn’t exactly looking forward to that conversation.

  “I do not wish for you to keep him waiting.” El’on stood, and gestured for Caleb and Kaelyn to do the same. They both rose, Kaelyn shooting her elder uncle an incredulous sideways grin.

  “Really,” she said questioningly, “I thought for sure you’d want to hold some big banquet and parade me around in front of the rest of the family.”

  El’on laughed outright, placed an arm over her shoulders, and pulled her against his side. “Believe me, the temptation was not so far off. I told you during your last visit, and my ruling stands: we will work at your pace. When you feel comfortable with meeting the rest of them, it will be so. And if
that time never comes, I at least will be very grateful to have known you, Kaelyn.”

  Kaelyn smiled warmly, turned into his side, and wrapped her arms around his wide torso in a big hug. “Thank you, El’on; I won’t forget this.”

  “You are very welcome, my dear. And tell your grump of a mate that he is welcome in the palace of Torehj whenever he feels the need to pull the stick from his behind,” El’on joked. A wide, razor-toothed smile spread across his face; it probably would have looked terrifying on anyone other than El’on. On him, it actually looked somewhat endearing, and Kaelyn found herself smiling back.

  “I’ll tell him,” she assured him. If Tyrian didn’t get a kick out of the old Vampire’s humor, she sure would enjoy his inevitably childish reaction to the attempt at a joke at his expense.

  “Let’s go.” Vor’on gestured to them both, and Kaelyn cocked her head to the side quizzically.

  “Go?”

  “Back to the human realm,” her copper-eyed Vampire uncle stated.

  She blinked and frowned. “I thought—”

  “If the Hunter did not decide to kill the boy,” Vor’on interrupted, “I assume he decided that he will be of continued use to him, and therefore he would keep him around. That being the case, it would be more beneficial to train the boy how to live in his own world, would it not?”

  Kaelyn’s jaw went slack at the obviousness of the statement. She felt absurd for not considering the possibility that the Vampire would come home with them, instead of Caleb remaining in the Vampire realm. She glanced to the side, at the suddenly brightened look on the Vampire Page’s boyishly handsome face.

  She shook her head. “Well, I guess so, but—”

  “Tyrian is gonna shit a brick,” Caleb finished for her, clearly not even trying to mask his amusement.

  “He will get over it,” Vor’on said succinctly. He turned, and marched out of the room.

  Caleb turned to Kaelyn, shrugged, and jogged off after the Vampire. Kaelyn turned and waved to El’on, who offered her a short bow in response. Then she raced off after her homeward-bound companions.