by Kallysten
Belatedly, he realized that Aedan had taken hold of his arm and was tugging, trying to pull him away from her. Bradan turned his head to throw his brother a baleful look.
“Bradan,” Aedan said again, his voice dropping back to that almost-growl that earlier had all but frozen Bradan where he stood. “You can’t—”
“No,” Bradan cut in, just as low. “I'm not going to hurt her. I'd shove a knife in my own heart before hurting her and you know it. You wouldn't let me anywhere near her if you thought otherwise.”
Not until the words passed his lips did Bradan realize it, but he knew he was right as soon as Aedan failed to deny it. Aedan had tried to make Bradan keep his distance, and he’d kept a very close watch on him when he and Vivien had been in the same room, but it was obvious now that if he had truly feared for her life he would simply have kept Bradan away from her.
So, as afraid as Aedan might be, he still trusted Bradan could control himself and his hunger to some degree—just like he was doing right now, when he had Vivien in his arms for only the second time since waking up a vampire.
“Didn't I just teach you to obey orders?” Aedan growled.
Vivien shuddered at the sound and raised her head from Bradan’s chest. He had a feeling she was about to say something, but this was between Bradan and his brother.
“And what order is that?” Bradan asked, holding Aedan’s gaze without flinching. “Not to hurt her? You know I won’t do that. Not to love her?” He shook his head and lowered his voice to a murmur. “Maybe you can pretend to yourself you don't love her, that doesn’t change the fact that you do. And I’m not going to pretend. I can’t. So please don't ask me to.”
It was the same shock ringing through the bond like a large toll bell and shining in Aedan’s wide eyes; shock, even betrayal, but again, not denial. Bradan wished he had confronted his brother in private, but he refused to regret having done so now.
From the moment they had returned to Foh’Ran with Vivien, Aedan had reproached Bradan his feelings for her, had reminded him, over and over, that she was their dame and Bradan ought to keep his distance. Who had he been trying to convince, though? Bradan, or himself?
For another few seconds, they held each other’s gaze in silence. The moment came to an end when Aedan abruptly turned on his heel and walked away. His stiff back hinted at his wounded pride, though what filtered through the bond was too jumbled for Bradan to make any sense of it. He watched his brother disappear past the corner of a corridor and turned back to Vivien, embracing her closer once more.
Something had changed. He could feel it in the tightening of her body. As low as he had spoken, she must have heard him, and she had to wonder whether what he’d said was true. Had she ever noticed that Aedan did not always look at her the way a guard ought to regard his dame? Probably not; after all, she and Aedan had clashed from the moment they’d met.
The bang of a slammed door echoed through the hallway, coming from somewhere out of sight. Bradan supposed it was Aedan’s temper finding a way out, but the sound made him realize that he was hugging Vivien in the open where Elver or Doril might see. He trusted both of them, but there was no reason to encourage gossip.
“Come on,” he murmured, releasing Vivien. “Let’s get somewhere more private.”
She let go of him, though she was quick to find and take hold of his hand.
“The library,” she said simply, and they walked there together.
She entered ahead of him and hurried to the window to draw the curtains closed. Bradan was grateful for her thoughtfulness; he’d entered the room without even considering that the sunlight cascading in through the window might hurt him. He’d need to learn, and fast.
In the now darkened room, she leaned back against the window and took a deep breath as she considered him. Bradan watched her as well, all too aware this was the first time they’d been alone since her birthday.
“I’ve been meaning to apologize,” she said after taking a deep breath. “It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t run after that girl, if I’d stayed with you instead, I could have helped you, I could have healed your wound, and you wouldn’t have died and… and…”
He could hear the tears rising in her voice, could practically smell their salt even from across the room, and he couldn’t bear the idea that they might roll down her cheeks. It took him no more than a second to get to her and close his arms around her again.
“No,” he said, pressing the word like a kiss against her forehead. “It’s not your fault, and you couldn’t have done anything. Healing wounds using the Quickening is tricky. I could never heal more than scratches, and honestly I don’t think you’d have been able to change anything. Besides, you needed the insignia. If she’d stolen it, then everything would have been for nothing.”
She tilted her head back and sought his mouth with her own. A first press of lips on lips remained gentle and chaste, and lasted no more than a second. She pulled back, looked at him, and whatever she saw spurred her forward again. She flung her arms around his neck and drew him closer for a much fiercer kiss.
He shut his eyes and let himself melt against her, into her heat and passion, returning every touch of her tongue, every caress of her lips. He’d missed her. It had only been a few days since they had kissed like this, since he had felt her give herself to him, but by all the Quickening, how he had missed her!
As close as they were, she was quick to notice the effect their kissing had on his body, and started to rock against him, shifting her upper thigh against his hardening cock until he was moaning against her lips. A delicate shiver traversed her at the sound, and she dropped her hands to the front of his shirt. It took him a couple of seconds to realize she was undoing the buttons, and a few seconds more after that to find the strength to break off the kiss.
“Vivien,” he started, breathless.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, leaning forward again to press a kiss to the triangle of skin she had exposed at the top of his chest. “I want you. Please say you want me.”
Had her lips always been that hot, that soft when they trailed upon his skin? Had she always smelled so sweet? Had her heart always beat that fast?
“I want you,” he said, choking up. “More than I can say.”
More than he dared to say, too. He wanted more than her kisses, more than her body. He wanted the hot, flavorful blood he could hear pumping through her, could already imagine the taste of her and at the same time knew she’d taste so much better than anything he could imagine…
He didn’t need the alarm rising in his mind through the bond to realize that this was not a path he should let his thoughts dwell on.
Capturing her hands in his and stopping her before she finished unbuttoning his shirt and started on his pants might have been the most difficult thing he’d ever done. Keeping up his resolve when she looked up at him, her eyes wounded, was almost worse.
“Not… not here,” he murmured. “Not like this.”
“Why not?”
He swallowed hard. Should he tell her? He didn’t want to scare her, didn’t want her to think less of him because of what he was now. But at the same time, he couldn’t bear the thought of lying to her, or of hiding part of himself from her.
“I… I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Right now, you smell better than anything in the world. You smell like… like a feast, and I don’t know if I want to drink you up or make love to you. I don’t want to lose control.”
He could see slow understanding spreading on her features. He waited for fear to follow. It didn’t. When he let go of her hands, they returned to his chest, trembling a little, and slowly she started doing the buttons up again.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “All right. Does that mean… never again?”
She bit down on her bottom lip as she finished, and he wanted to replace her teeth with his own, wanted to nibble on that succulent lip, make it plump, make it bleed—
He shook his head, both an ans
wer to her question and to the images in his mind.
“After I feed, it’ll be better. I won’t have blood on my mind and I’ll be able to focus on you the way I should.”
He raised a hand as he spoke, and brushed his thumb over her lips, soothing away the small indentation she had created.
“Okay,” she said again, pursing her lips to kiss his thumb. “So… tonight? Will you please come to my bed tonight?”
Bradan couldn’t have said no, not for all the blood in the world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rising Fears
Aedan was torn between his duty and his shame, between the service he owed his dame and the impossible feelings he had toward her. His mind was such a jumbled mass of contradictory thoughts that he didn’t immediately notice what was coming from Bradan through the bond. When he did focus enough to understand, cold fear coursed through him and he stopped mid-motion, the sword he was swinging at a training post still raised high above his head.
He wasn’t supposed to wield a sword; the weapon was taboo for vampires. Still, as an outlet for frustration, hacking at a wooden post as hard as he could was more effective than anything he could do with his knives.
With shaky hands, he set the sword back on the hooks attached to the walls of the armory and hurried out. He could hear the sword clattering to the floor behind him, no doubt because he hadn’t balanced it right, but he couldn’t manage to care and rushed in the direction the bond indicated, already knowing they had to be in the library.
The fire, hunger, and need that flashed through the bond made it quite clear what Bradan and their dame were doing—and it was just as clear to him that stopping them was paramount, regardless of how angry they might be when he walked in on them. Their dame’s very life was at stake, even if neither she nor Bradan seemed to understand it.
What did Aedan need to do make them both realize they were playing with fire?
He was three steps away from the door, already raising a hand toward the handle, when the sensations flowing through the bond changed. He slowed down, then stilled, closing his eyes and focusing on what he felt—what Bradan felt.
He’d stopped… hadn’t he? He still wanted their dame, her body as much as her blood, but the craving was turning to longing, no longer a raging fire but instead contained embers.
Aedan needed to be sure that he was interpreting the situation correctly and that Bradan had in fact managed to control himself, but what excuse did he have to walk into the room now? He only ever entered when his dame invited him to do so, and while he would have barged in to save her, he didn’t believe her life to be in danger anymore.
The flash of an idea came to him, and he walked past the library and toward the kitchen, keeping his attention on the bond in case it flared up again. When he entered, Doril was seated at the table, sipping from a wide cup that, from the smell of it, was full of that coffee drink their dame had brought back from the Otherworld.
Doril smiled when she saw him and invited him to sit with a gesture.
“Nice to get some company,” she said, then tilted her head and frowned. “Unless you’ve come to use my channeling again? I thought you’d roped poor Elver into doing Passing Room duties now.”
“I haven’t ‘roped’ him into anything,” Aedan scoffed. “Our dame asked for his help. And, no, I’m not here for your channeling or for company. Dame Vivien would like some refreshments. Tea and a few treats.”
Already, Doril was on her feet and gathering what she needed: she set a carved metal tray on the table, covered the bottom with an embroidered doily, set a single cup in the center, a plate of small pastries to one side, a pot of water she quickly heated with the Quickening on the other side, and a small jar of honey. At last she threw in the tea leaves in the pot and picked up the tray, but Aedan stepped forward at once to take it from her.
“I’ll take it to her,” he said. “No need to trouble yourself.”
She let out a huff but let him have the tray.
“First you try to make me do things that have nothing to do with being a cook, then you do the things that are actually part of my job. Make up your mind, boy.”
For some reason, hearing her call him ‘boy’ did not make him smile as it usually did.
“In my experience, cooks don’t serve,” he said, balancing the tray on one hand while he opened the door. “We’ll need to find you some serving staff next.”
She scoffed again, and he could hear her muttering until he was halfway down the corridor. The bond was still much quieter than it had been earlier, with the barest thread of amusement coming through. It led Aedan not to the library this time, but to the ballroom where, earlier that day, he’d helped his dame practice channeling while distracted.
When he knocked and entered, he found her sitting on the floor in the center of the room, ribbons of colors swirling around her, their path sometimes disturbed when Bradan threw her one of the soft balls she had created that morning.
She was speaking when he stepped in, though she stopped mid-word, leaving Aedan to wonder what they’d been talking about. They both turned to look at him, and while Dame Vivien’s colorful ribbons winked out of existence, Bradan’s amusement faded, replaced by wariness. Aedan had rarely felt as out of place as he now did.
“I brought refreshments,” he said, aware he was stating the obvious but needing to say something.
He came further in and set the tray on a low table by an armchair. From the corner of his eye, he could see Bradan offer their dame his hand to help her up. Even that brief contact caused sparks of want to shoot through the bond, and Aedan gritted his teeth.
“Great timing,” Dame Vivien said, coming to take a seat in the armchair. “Remind me to thank Doril.”
Inclining his head, Aedan retreated to what was a proper distance for a guard. Bradan, on the other hand, sat next to their dame, ignoring Aedan’s glare and the irritation he made no effort to keep from the bond.
It was wrong. All of it was wrong. A guard wasn’t supposed to act like this toward his charge. Twins weren’t supposed to let anyone divide them. A Bloodchild wasn’t supposed to repeatedly go against his Maker’s orders.
And a vampire wasn’t supposed to become Maker to his own blood kin.
Aedan was the one who’d made the biggest violation, here. In just one day, he’d be punished for it. But then who would be left to make sure Bradan didn’t slip, let his instincts take over, and hurt their dame? Should he talk about it to the new guards when they came tomorrow? And say what if he did? Casually mention that his brother and Dame Vivien were in love, and that given Bradan’s new status as a vampire, he might not be able to stop himself from biting her if they were allowed to be intimate again?
Just the thought of saying any of it aloud made Aedan sick.
But the thought of what might happen if he said nothing was worse.
The next few hours seemed to crawl rather than pass at normal speed. Dame Vivien had her tea, then trained again with Bradan’s help. She had her dinner and then, as night was falling, announced she wanted to go for a run as was her habit. The entire time, Bradan was at her side, no more than an arm’s length away, while Aedan remained at a proper distance. Aedan could feel a sense of expectation rising from his brother, and he was worried he knew exactly what it was about. Worried also about what he would need to do if he was right.
Dame Vivien retreated to her rooms after her run, and Aedan was almost relieved when Bradan didn’t follow her. He’d been sure that this would be it. Instead, Bradan finally acknowledged what had been echoing so strongly through the bond for hours now: his hunger. Aedan should have said something sooner, but he hadn’t said a word to his brother since Bradan had brought up Aedan’s feelings for their dame. He still didn’t feel like talking to him now.
“Should we go hunt?” Bradan said, sounding irritated.
Leaning back against the wall across from Dame Vivien’s room as was his custom, Aedan kept his eyes straight ahead of him a
nd shook his head.
“You go. I’m not hungry.”
It wasn’t true; he did feel a little hungry. With the bond flooded by Bradan’s pangs of hunger, however, his own barely registered.
“You’re always reminding me I need to feed,” Bradan said gruffly. “Come on, let’s go.”
Now Aedan glanced at him, his brow furrowed.
“I’m not hungry,” he repeated. “Nor do I want to be in your company right now. Go on your own. You don’t need me there to hold your hand, do you? The Quickening knows how little you care about what I have to say.”
Bradan flinched, much as he might have if Aedan had hit him.
“Of course I care about what you say,” he muttered. “But am I not allowed to disagree with you sometimes?”
“Disagreeing is one thing.” Aedan returned his gaze to the wall across from him. “Refusing to accept what every vampire before you learned to be true is different. Disobeying your Maker is something else. And betraying your brother’s confidence…”
He let the end of that sentence hang between them. For a few seconds, Bradan remained by his side, still and silent. Guilt seeped through the bond, tinted with regret, but Bradan said nothing before finally walking away.
Aedan closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. They couldn’t go on like this. He couldn’t go on like this. Bradan had hurt him, yes, but if these were the last few hours they spent together, Aedan needed to move past the betrayal he felt and try to impress, one last time, that his only concern was their dame’s safety. Whether he approved of Bradan’s relationship with her or not wasn’t the point; he knew he’d lost that battle. But if Bradan could only understand that the risk was very much real that he’d hurt her without meaning to…
There wasn’t another way around it, Aedan decided. He had to try again. He had to tell Bradan things he’d rather have kept to himself—things that still filled him with guilt even after decades had passed.