“Not anymore,” Rafael pointed out.
Brody grinned. “Neither are you.”
Rafael gave him a small smile. “Farewell.”
Veris leaned toward Taylor. “My favorite part,” he murmured, his lips pressing against hers.
* * * * *
Rafael watched Taylor literally disappear. One moment she was there in front of him, then she was wrenched away like a strong wind had snatched her and was gone, passing through the air like there was a doorway there that he couldn’t see.
It was the moment he had been waiting for. Veris’ information had been very detailed, very precise. Rafael watched the two men buckle to the floor, their eyes drifting closed.
The two vampires.
Rafael moved over to where he had left the cudgel propped up against the corner and grabbed it. Moving quickly, before the pair gained their senses, he strode toward them and raised the cudgel.
With all his strength he brought the heavy implement down on the back of Brody’s head. The newly-made vampire sprawled across the tiles with a groan and was still.
With a fierce sense of satisfaction, Rafael looked down at his still figure, enjoying the moment.
* * * * *
Veris shook his head, trying to clear it. He was on his hands and knees…on tiles. It was cold. Damned cold for the Mediterranean at this time of year. What gods had twisted the world around?
“Let me help you. Here, move slowly. You’ve been out for a while.” Hands tucked under his arms and assisted him into a sitting position. He didn’t know the voice.
Veris sat back with a groan. His whole body seemed to ache. He pushed back hair from his eyes and felt around the back of his head.
All his hair was gone. It felt like it had been shorn with a knife.
A man, a young man with a pleasant face, was sitting on the tiles in front of him.
“I am known to you?” Veris asked cautiously.
“You warned me this might happen,” the man said. “But you wanted to try, anyway.” He smiled. “You really don’t remember anything?”
Veris reached back…and back. “I was working in the surgery. But that seems like so long ago, yet that is the last I can recall.”
The man nodded. “You lost a lot, then. I can fill in most of it for you. We met just outside of Pergamum…” He hesitated. “Do you remember that?”
Veris shook his head. “You are unknown to me. Forgive me. It is clear we are friends…” He looked around the room. “Where are we?”
“This is my home, in New Rome.”
“Miklegarth?” Veris paused in the act of hauling himself to his feet and sat back on the tiles. “Constantinople?” he repeated, staring at the man for confirmation.
The man grinned. “It was your idea, when you found out I lived here. Wine, women, more wine…you wanted to truly relax and enjoy yourself. You said you had been in a morose and difficult mood for far too long.”
Veris rubbed at his temples. “I was…drinking?”
“Hardly. Not one like you.” The man got to his feet and held out his hand. “I drank.”
Veris took his hand and let himself be helped to his feet, caution flooding him.
“You enjoyed the benefits of my drinking,” the man added.
Veris drew in a sharp breath as the man turned his head and pulled the neck of his dalmatic and tunic away from his flesh. “You healed the wounds, but I’m sure you left marks anyway. See for yourself.”
He never left so much as a bruise, once he had properly healed a bite wound, but there were always markings left behind, visible only to vampires. This man had them all over him. A shudder slid down Veris’ spine.
Well, that explained the dizziness and the disorientation. He’d never tried the blood of a drunkard before, but he’d heard reports from others that the effect was so much more than merely being drunk, as humans experienced it. He’d clearly warned this man that the consequences could be dire.
It was probably just as well.
“What would make me want to do such a thing?” Veris murmured as the man lead him into another room, this one with couches and low tables. A very old fashioned, very Roman dining room.
Veris sank thankfully onto the cushions of one of the couches. The light was much dimmer in here. The man sat opposite and considered him with his soft brown eyes.
“You wouldn’t tell me when you were sober, but as the wine did its work, your tongue loosened.”
Veris considered him. “And you remember well enough despite the wine?”
“I had begun to sober by then. You drank deeply and it seemed to clear my head.”
Veris winced.
The man laughed and leaned forward to rest his hand on Veris’ knee. It was a friendly gesture, nothing more. “We have been through some trying times, you and I. It is nice to know you a little better.”
“I don’t even know your name,” Veris complained.
The man smiled again, showing that he had all his teeth and they were white and even. “Rafael,” he said. “And you are Väinämöinen that your closest friends call Veris.” His smile faded. “You lost your wife, Tyra, in mysterious circumstances one night, back when you were human. It has troubled you since.”
Veris fought not to show anything on his face. “That is what I mumbled, in my cups?”
Rafael nodded. “I think that is why you left Pergamum and sought company for a while. All that doctoring and doing good brought the guilt you feel rising up…”
Veris blew out a breath. “And now I know you speak the truth.” He relaxed and looked around. “But whatever was driving me from Pergamum is no longer there. I must return.”
Rafael nodded. “I have business there. We should travel back together. It’s too chancy these days, to travel alone.” He stood up. “Excuse me for a moment. I must check on a servant who is taking care of some matters for me. When I return, we’ll make plans for the journey to Pergamum.”
Veris nodded. “That would be appreciated. I feel I have spent far too long here, indulging myself.”
“You give yourself too little credit. I have found the time I have spent in your company the most valuable hours of my life so far.” Rafael smiled down at him. “I may be a moment or two. I would not suggest moving around the house or stepping outside it. Your memory is too foggy. You would be lost.”
* * * * *
Braenden opened his eyes warily, trying to figure out where he was before any guards set on him or learned that he was awake.
The first sensation to register was warmth. Then the softness underneath him, when he had been expecting bars of the cage, or the planks of a bunk. Cloth covered him from neck to ankle.
A hand patted his cheek. It wasn’t a swat. It was a gentle tap designed to wake him.
“Braenden. Wake. I need to speak to you.”
Evaristus? It was the wrong voice. Too young and he had an accent.
Braenden let his eyes open fully.
It wasn’t the slave cavern.
He sat up, alarm filtering through him, and discovered then that he was wearing clothing befitting someone who might watch the races, not drive them.
He gripped his wrists. The armbands were gone.
“This is a shock for you, I know.” A man with eyes the color of honey sat on a stool next to the bed. “Yours was always going to be the hardest one to explain.”
“Who are you? Why am I here?” Braenden held out his arms. “What happened?”
“My name is Rafael.” He held out his own wrists, up against Breanden's. His wrists were scored by the same washed-out skin that came from years of wearing slave bands.
Braenden drew in a sharp breath. “You’re a runaway?” he asked, panic grabbing at him. The price for running away was death.
Rafael shook his head. “A very kind man—a very wise man—paid for me. I am a free man, now. So are you.”
Braenden let out his breath. “He paid for me, too?”
Rafael shook his head. “Thi
s is the part you must take some time to understand, Braenden.” He clamped his hands together, proving that he was nervous, under the surface calm. “You died, Braenden. You died in a race.”
Braenden flinched. Driving was dangerous. Plenty of them had died over the years and he had always known that it was a possibility he could die, too, but if he had died then how was he…?
“Am I in heaven?”
Rafael smiled. “No.”
Braenden swallowed. “…Hell?”
Rafael shook his head. “You’re still here in Constantinople. This house is in the Galata district, by St. Sophia. It is the evening of the day you died. You are not human anymore, Braenden.”
He took a breath. “I feel…” Human. But he couldn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t feel human, now he had focused on his body. There were differences that he couldn’t define, except that he just didn’t feel…the same.
Rafael pulled his dalmatic and tunic away from his neck. “Do you remember feeding from me?” He tilted his head to one side.
There was nothing wrong with the man’s neck, and Braenden did not know what ‘feeding’ meant. All the same, Rafael’s act of tilting his head and exposing his neck set off a run of shudders through Braenden. A sense of the familiar.
Something shifted in his mouth, next to his teeth. Braenden slid his tongue up under his lip and pulled it away quickly when it was pricked by something sharp. He pushed his finger up under his lip carefully.
“They’re teeth,” Rafael told him. “For tearing flesh, so you can make blood run and drink it.”
The rightness of what he said struck Braenden as an absolute truth. “I did that to you?” he breathed, already knowing that he did. Even though there was nothing wrong with Rafael’s neck, he could see…something about him. Like a heat shimmer, just over his skin, around the area where his neck curved into his shoulder. There would be a blood vessel there, a big one.
Braenden blinked. How did he know that?
He looked down at his hands, at the pale skin where his bands had been, then up at Rafael. “What am I?” he whispered.
“You are a vampire,” Rafael told him. He stood up. “You have much to learn and much to decide about your future, but for now, I must leave the city and travel with a friend to Pergamum. It is a journey of only a few days, so I will leave you here to rest and think about what you will do and where you will go, now you are a free man. When I return, we can talk. Yes?”
Braenden nodded. “Yes. Thank you, yes.”
* * * * *
Taylor moved her head away from the insistent tapping and winced as her head throbbed.
“That’s it, wake up,” Veris coaxed.
“Brody!” she said, memory returning in a cold rush. She tried to sit up and groaned. She had no strength at all. She couldn’t even lift her shoulders up.
“Take it easy,” Alexander warned, from further away. It sounded like he was across the room. “She’s been on nothing but glucose for days.”
“The new Weight Watchers,” she whispered. “Woohoo.” She cracked her eyes open.
Veris was bent over her, doing his doctor thing. He looked into her eyes and tapped her abdomen with his fingers.
“Why aren’t you weak?” she demanded, annoyed.
“I was getting blood and blood is all I need,” he told her. “You, on the other hand, were missing a whole lot of nutrients and basic things like exercise.” He pulled out her IV needle and helped her sit up.
Alexander was bent over the other bed, examining Brody. There was a whole lot more equipment around his bed, including an IV pole on which hung both blood and saline, and glucose. On a tray next to the bed were a dozen or more bottles of drugs in liquid form, for injecting directly into the IV tube.
Alexander sat back and looked at Veris. “What on God’s green earth happened?” he asked. “I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to even diagnose Brody, let alone treat him. I couldn’t figure out if he was human or vampire for a while. You’ve been scaring the shit out of me for a week.” He dropped the stethoscope around his neck and rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.
“For a week I was both,” Brody said weakly, still lying on the bed. “You gonna let me get up so I can hug my wife and husband, doc?”
Alexander considered Brody for a second. “You were both?” He reached for and withdrew the IV needle. “Do I want to know what happened? Of course I want to know…but I really don’t. I saw what happened to you, right here.” He shifted along the bed and sat down wearily again. “My people used to like their entertainment strong. I’ve seen bodies trampled by horses and carts. I could have sworn—” He looked sharply at Taylor as she caught her breath.
He looked back at Brody, as he hoisted himself to the edge of the bed, wincing. “Oh,” he said. He closed his eyes briefly. “Oh, god…” He sat still and silent for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again and got to his feet. “I’ll get Marit. She’ll be beside herself.”
As Alexander stepped out of the room, Veris helped Brody over to the bed Taylor lay on. Brody dropped onto the mattress beside her with a sigh.
Veris laid down next to him, putting Brody between them.
“You’re shivering,” Taylor said to Brody, resting her hand on his chest.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “Criost, we’re home…do you know how many times I thought we weren’t going to make it?” He turned his head against her shoulder.
Veris tucked his arm over him. “You were always going to come home while I still had breath in my body.”
“And me,” Taylor added, sliding her fingers into Brody’s hair, which was now long and thick and soft once more. “Although I think I had the easy part.”
Both Veris and Brody lifted their heads to look at her, surprise on their faces. Veris raised a brow and opened his mouth to speak.
“Mommy!” Marit burst through the door like a miniature whirlwind. “Far! Athair!” She scrambled up onto the bed and threw herself into their arms, smothering them with kisses that were suspiciously sticky and sweet-smelling, but no one said a word.
Instead, they squeezed back, feeling her squirming, small body next to them. Taylor hid her tears, wiping them on the back of Marit’s tee-shirt or her own sleeve when she got the chance.
Marit finally calmed as the sugar rush wore off and after a while, she slept, her body curled up between them, Brody’s hand stroking her hair.
That was when Brody and Veris looked at each other as if they had been struck by the same thought at the same time.
“Rafael!” Brody declared, sounding aggrieved.
“He changed the script,” Veris said, a small smile of remembrance on his face.
“Why, what did he do?” Taylor asked curiously.
“I told him to think for himself.” Veris shrugged. “He did.”
Taylor held up her hand. “No. Stop right there. Do not start reviewing your memories until we’ve finished with current business.” She sat up. “We started this joy ride for a reason. We need to deal with that first.”
Brody carefully eased himself up so he wouldn’t wake Marit. “The queen,” he said, his expression grim.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Las Vegas, Nevada. Current day.
The stretch limousine that drove them from the airport to the Bellagio was as luxurious as any they had used over the years, but it was as common as a housefly, for Vegas.
Taylor looked through the smoked glass at the two stretch limousines they were lined up next to at the traffic lights and was content. There was no possible way they could draw attention to themselves in this city. Brody would go unremarked, if not unrecognized.
She turned back to face Veris and Brody. They were dressed in their public best—Brody in black rock style, wearing a full length coat and Veris in leather pants and a suede jacket. It was late December and off season for Vegas. The tourists were at home getting ready for Christmas.
Even Alexander, Marit and Mia were dress
ed up. Taylor had talked Marit out of her jeans and coaxed her into a dress. Mia wore black tailored dress pants and a designer silk tee shirt. It said that she was working, but it was still a classy outfit. The Chucks had been replaced by D’Orsay flats.
Alexander was the surprise of the three. When Taylor had warned him they were going to face the council, he had merely nodded, as if she had said they were heading to Starbucks for coffee. But when they had pulled up at his house in L.A. to drive to the airport for the quick flight to Nevada, even Brody had commented.
“Someone has been pressing his buttons.”
Alexander had put aside his sensible doctor suit and tie that Taylor had been expecting to see. He wore black designer jeans that emphasized his slim hips and surprisingly muscled thighs. His dark shirt reeked of expense, from the dull gleam of silk to the understated perfection of the cut and the fit, but was open at the neck. He wore a knee length light coat over the top.
Veris was the first to notice. “You’re not wearing your Ichthys,” he pointed out.
Alexander settled back on the bench of the limousine and hugged Marit, who had climbed into his lap. “No,” he agreed in a neutral tone and kissed Marit’s cheek.
Marit climbed back into Brody’s lap. She had been clinging to Brody almost constantly since they had returned, as if she knew what he had gone through. Now she dropped into his lap, her legs kicking out, like she was bouncing on a mattress.
“Not nice,” Brody murmured.
“Fun,” she told him, looking up at him over her shoulder.
“Fun is paddling your bottom for being mean.”
“Tell me when she gets too much,” Mia murmured.
“Wait,” Veris said, holding up his hand. He was still staring at Alexander. “Marit distracted me.”
“As usual,” Taylor said.
Veris frowned. “Why did you take it off?” he asked Alexander.
Alexander shrugged again. Taylor could see that behind the casual shrug he was working to hide his discomfort. “I have taken many names for myself over the years,” he said. “I have been given many names, too. I thought it was time to give up the name ‘hypocrite’…at least until I learned for myself if ‘Christian’ is a name I want to keep.”
Kiss Across Chains (Kiss Across Time Series) Page 25