by C. L. Quinn
“Except that you aren’t normal either.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I guess that remains to be seen. For now, though, whatever that amulet was meant to do for me, it’s doing for her. I need to see Xavier again.”
Zach nodded and left the room.
Dez rolled up onto her side. “Sorry, Olivia. I really didn’t know this could happen.” She brushed back Olivia’s hair, fingering the pink braid. What was this, that Olivia chose the same affectation that Dez had? Was it true that they were related by blood? No, it wasn’t possible.
She picked up her cell phone again and repeated the same sequence of numbers. The call was answered immediately this time.
“Dez? How is she? Were you able to disengage the amulet?” Tamesine’s urgent question came before Dez could speak.
“No. The amulet is bonding to her, according to your big Scotsman, and he says that nothing will stop it now. Is that true?”
“If it’s really bonding with her, then yes, it’s true. I just don’t understand how that’s happening.”
“You don’t? Fuck me, mum, but my guess is that she must be yours. After all, you fucking forgot that I existed, right?”
Dead silence filled the room for long seconds. Then Tamesine’s voice, quieter, returned. “That was an extreme situation. One day you will understand. I know, though, that you were my only child. And once my memory returned, every detail did, too. She isn’t mine.”
“Huh. Then I guess we just have a great big mystery. I’ll ask her more when she regains consciousness, which, by the way, when will that be?”
Xavier walked in, perched on the edge of the mattress, and leaned into the phone.
“I’ll guide her from now, Tam. Ya can get some rest.”
“Thank you, Xavier. Dez, I wish I could come there but we have kind of an emergency here and it isn’t a good idea for me to leave the area right now.”
“Sure, sure. Of course it isn’t. Thanks for answering the phone, anyway.” Dez hit END and threw the phone onto her pillow.
“So, big guy, how long will she be out?”
“The bonding varies, but for an adult receivin’ the amulet for the first time, it can take a few days. With children, the transition is easy, the amulet grows with the child, so there is almost no adjustment. But a centuries old adult vampire must accept the alien device, an extreme experience physically, mentally, and psychically. It isn’t painful like a vampire conversion, but it is a complete lifeforce emersion. When she wakes, she’ll be fully bonded and she’ll be first blood. Don’t worry, Dez, the lass’ll be fine. Why don’t ya come up and have something to eat? Ye’ve been through quite a night.”
“I’ll say. She’ll be okay alone?”
“Aye, nothing will bother her down here and she’ll sleep until the process finishes. Is this her own room?”
“No, she’s next door.”
“Ah. I’ll move her, then, so that ya can have yer bed back.”
Xavier lifted Olivia up as if she were a puppy and carried her into the room she shared with Zip. After laying her carefully on the mattress in that room, he pulled a blanket over her, and held out a hand.
“Ladies first.”
IN SOUTHERN FRANCE
“Holy hell!”
Marc rolled over, a single eye popped open to find his mate pacing at the foot of their bed, and he yawned.
“That’s the second call, Tam. What’s happening?”
“I really don’t know.”
“Sweetheart, it’s way past sunrise. Elaborate, if it’s important, or crawl up here and let me spoon you.”
“The strangest thing, Marc. The amulet I made for Dez has begun a merge with a stranger. That can’t happen.”
“Then how did it?”
“It can’t be explained. Unless…”
Marc waited patiently, aware that his mate was extremely troubled. “Unless she’s family, right?”
“Right. Unless she’s family. Blood. My blood kin. But how?” Tamesine began to pace again. “Where did she come from? God, I need to go to Siberia and check this out, but I can’t leave here. If this virus is infectious, and it appears that it is, none of us can leave these homes until we understand its nature. But how can I leave poor Dez to deal with this alone? Oh, Marc, I’m such a failure to her.”
Turning suddenly, she surged into Marc, who had shot from the bed and intercepted his mate.
“You are nothing of the kind. Tam, you’re the one who taught me that the universe has a plan, and that most of what happens has a reason. You taught me to trust, so you need to step back and do that now.”
“But my daughter needs me.”
“She’ll need you when we get this situation resolved. Until then, come back to bed with me before you wake our babies. Fia has enough trouble getting to sleep these days, I sure don’t want to wake her. And you need your rest. These past months haven’t been easy for you, what with the exhausting search for Claude, Dez, and now this.”
Claude. Tamesine’s chest beat an uneven rhythm with the reminder. God, that had been the Christmas gift from hell. Now that he was fully vampire, forcibly made from her blood, Claude had disappeared completely. Even the sire bond had not been able to penetrate whatever magic he wielded now. It had been able to shield him from her. Despite desperate searches, he remained unfound, a state of affairs that she could not, would not allow to remain.
Marc was right. Tamesine’s hard won sanity was being sorely tested right now. Her eyes moved to his face. The man held his own magic, her breathing returned to normal and her heartbeats calmed.
“I love you more than my life, my husband.”
Marc grinned. “I know. Now come over here and let me pull that gorgeous ass against me. Whatever comes, we’re in this together.”
As they lay curled up on their big warm bed, Tamesine closed her eyes. Nothing he could have said would have been sweeter or assured her as much. We’re in this together.
AT LAKE BAIKAL
She was at the bottom of the lake, freezing, naked, and alone. Ice columns trapped her and she couldn’t break free. What? She was vampire, she could shatter ice with a thought, so what was happening to her?
Olivia clawed against the thing that wanted inside her, wanted to be part of her, she could feel it, knew it sought her lifeforce, the core of her power, insisted it must be there. But the fight in her waned and she was losing. The strange thing wanted in, and she knew…Olivia knew that it would get in! She fought the good fight, but it was stronger than a mere vampire and it stormed past every barrier she erected, every prayer she uttered, every plea she begged from the universe. Moments stormed into her mind, ideas, thoughts, centuries of her life, all flew past in cosmic Technicolor.
The battle lost, it swooped into her, it twisted through her as her mind whined. At the final moment when the thing became her, was part of her, it paused and touched her heart, mind, spirit…and all of the chaos fell away.
Olivia surrendered. Floating into space, clouds blew past on warm winds, her mind and body were at peace, the thing she did not understand became clear…it belonged with her. It was a part of her and would only go the day she no longer lived. Without words, the spirit amulet finished the merge and Olivia’s body tingled, every square millimeter, every organ, every desire it ever had, inflamed and ready to conquer the world.
She knew now what she was. She was ancient, a part of the magnificent vampires who claimed kinship with the universe and this living planet. A destiny awaited, glorious and new. And more than that, Olivia could see, she was not alone. Blood finds blood, the thing whispered, and she knew that was precisely what it had done. When she touched the amulet to her neck, it read her and knew that she belonged with it, and it belonged with her.
Olivia accepted the merge, let her mind, heart, and spirit open to the magics of the world, closed out all else, and dropped into the spirit realm to complete a bond that would take her home.
“Dez, love, eat something. This isn’t like my hard
-nosed kick-ass Amazonian goddess. I’ve never seen you distracted or rattled.”
“Ah, dear Zach, you haven’t been around these past few years. I’ve been my own undoing and now, when it matters, I’m falling apart.”
“Hardly. But I would like you to eat something. A vampire body can’t go on the calories I’ve seen you consume in the last two days.”
“This body has been more starved than that and bounced back. I’m fine. Why don’t you go to the grave site with Nikolai and that ape?”
“He’s going to hear you call him that if you aren’t careful.”
Dez bit the corner off a sweet roll with icing. “Darling, I have called him that to his face. He just laughed, mostly because he knows that it’s true. Even Eillia said that he’s a walking thousand year old teenage boy. The vampire drinks, sleeps, and fucks, and if he has time in between, then he gets some food and starts all over again. Why do you think he brought the blood-bond? She’ll do all the work here.”
“Even if you’re right, he’s an enormous first blood, and I think it’s wise to show him some respect.”
“Are you forgetting something?”
Zach shook his head. “What?”
“I’m first blood too.”
“I did forget that because all I see when I look at you is the woman I love.”
Holding her second piece of sweet bread, Dez paused as she looked at the big vampire with soft honey blonde hair, loose now to his shoulders, bright blue eyes, smiling at her, and a gentle loving expression. He leaned back against a fur blanket, his muscled arms bare since he was sitting near the fire, warm right now.
This man had just declared his love for her, maybe for the 200th time, and yet now, here in the coldest place she’d ever been, in a tiny wood cabin, she finally, finally let herself believe that they were two people in all of this crazy universe who had found each other.
Before he realized what was happening, Zach looked up to see Dez launch herself at him, landing hard on top of him, pulled him to her, and kissed him until he had to tap out for air.
“Dez, babe, what’s the deal?”
“The deal is…I love you, Zach. In many centuries of life, I’ve never loved like this. I’ve never felt a part of someone else, and with you, I do. Please accept this woman, heart, soul, mind, spirit, in any way you can. I am yours until such time as I cease to breath, and even then, if there is truly an afterlife, I will still be yours. So, Zach, I commit my life to you, if you will have me, and I will go anywhere you want to go with you, be anywhere you need me to be. I’m going all in on this, so I pray, please, please, that you still want me.”
With air displacement, Zach blew Dez over in a microsecond and onto the fur rug in front of the fire.
“Until the twelfth of never, I’ll still be loving you,” he said softly.
Dez popped him in the chest with a sound fist, her eyes smiling. “Donny Osmond, really?”
“Hey, it applies. You trapped my heart from that first moment, and from then, I was never not yours. Okay, I’m not the most eloquent man on earth, but I am the most in love. I accept the deal.”
“Good,” Dez whispered, and drew him in for another deep kiss.
“Aye, there is no doubt. The amulets are intact, if dead. But they would be, if their host was. These are not only vampires, but first bloods. Fuck me, we are not the first.”
“That isn’t conclusive yet, Xavier. I need to take some samples and begin research to find out exactly what we have here.” Sarah had carefully stepped past Nikolai’s barrier, assuring him that she would not harm the site or contaminate it. Taking a closer look at the skulls, particularly the palate, and then the inactive amulets, she looked up at Nikolai.
“These are remarkably well preserved, even for vampire remains. Once the body is deceased, all the magic drains and returns to the earth. Typically, a vampire corpse is essentially human again and subject to all the normal decomposition. But I can see intact samples of hair and skin on one of these skeletons. If they are as old as we believe they are, then it’s remarkable. Nikolai, I would like to take samples of bone, hair, skin, teeth, and extricate one of the dormant spirit amulets to take back to Paris with me. Again, it won’t compromise your own findings.”
Although Sarah was being polite, she wasn’t actually asking for his permission, Nikolai knew that. She had told him about Xavier’s people, about first bloods, about people born as vampire. If he’d been blown away by Olivia’s reveal that vampires existed, this had been even more startling and fascinating.
But over the last few days he’d come to understand more about these unique first blood vampires and how this gravesite affected their own history. So he nodded, and continued with his own recordings. A few more photographs would complete his initial photographic files. Ordinarily, he would bring the rest of his team in tomorrow to begin cataloging the artifacts and remains, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet anyway, and realistically, he didn’t think it ever would.
At first, Nikolai had been upset by this vampire intrusion, but once he really thought about it, it was clear that what he was involved with now, his closeness to this incredible race, was the greater win. His eyes moved to the enormous one called Xavier, who he could see had the strength of Hercules. That one was definitely a leader, his bearing almost regal, orders spoken quietly with no expectation less than perfect compliance. He was handsome, intensely sexual, arrogant, and humorous. And Nikolai wanted to study him.
“Oi, would you mind bringing that lamp over here?” Sarah asked Nikolai. “There’s something beneath this figure. I can’t tell…”
Quickly, interested in what she’d found, Nikolai brought the hand-held LED light and held it up for the lovely human woman that, while she obeyed the vampires orders, was clearly the one in charge of this project.
“I can’t seem to get it free. I believe…” Sarah stepped over an outstretched leg and scraped at hard ice around the skull of one of the vampires. Five minutes later, after a great deal of digging, she pulled out an ice-covered tube about ten inches long with a diameter of around an inch. “It’s a vial of some kind, smooth like glass, although I don’t think it is. It has what looks like a cap on it.”
“So there is perhaps something sealed inside?”
“That is my guess. I will not attempt to open it until I return to Paris.”
Nikolai looked at Sarah, her eyes luminous in the darkened cavern interior lit brightly in several places by their headlamps and LED’s. “Sarah, is there any way that I may accompany you back to your lab? I will be no trouble, and I may be of great aid to you. This is the greatest find of my life and I beg that you will let me see it through.”
“Sir, it is not I who can decide that. You will need to speak to Mr. Xavier.”
Turning his head, Nikolai glanced at Xavier, who looked disgruntled. With a sigh, he swung his head back to Sarah. “It is unlikely, then.”
Sarah smiled. “You underestimate my influence with the vampire, Nik. I will speak with him.”
Nikolai’s pleasure was apparent in his eyes.
“She’s coming awake!”
Zip raced up the stairs, yelling, and stopped at the top when he noticed Zach and Dez’s state of undress.
“Oh, fuck, sorry, but…Olivia, she’s waking up!”
Dez pushed Zach back. “Holy fuck! I have to get down there.”
Grabbing her shirt, she shot past Zip, who followed immediately.
Zach sighed, looked at his swollen cock and pointed down the stairs. “Hey, don’t blame me!”
Slowly, he dressed. He wanted to see Olivia too and make sure that she was okay, but he knew at that moment he would be in Dez’s way as she assessed how the pretty vampire was doing after two days of unconsciousness. Mostly, he was glad it was over. This adventure had started out carefree and fun, but it was nothing of the sort now. Now, he just wanted to take Dez, go somewhere warm, and make love to her for a few weeks while they made plans that would include a future.
Thank the universe! They could have a life now. It would appear that it was going to include the first bloods after all. His thoughts returned to Park and Burne. He looked forward to staying close to them now. Navigating the difficult stairs, he entered the first room, Olivia and Zip’s, and watched Dez as she sat beside Olivia.
“Hey, sleepyhead. I knew you were the type to demand everyone’s attention. A two-day coma will do that.”
Olivia, unmoving, still lying down, her eyes opened and locked on Dez, smiled slowly. “Hmmm.” Words would not come at first, but then, a moment later, she finally spoke.
“Can I have…water?”
Zip already had a bottle in his hand with the cap removed. He sat on the other side of the mattress.
“You can have anything you want. Are you all right?”
Confusion crossed her face, she glanced at the bottle in front of her, but didn’t take it or look at Zip. Dez gently took the bottle from him.
“Olivia, here’s some water, but you should take it easy. You’ve had quite a shock.”
Once Dez held the bottle close to Olivia’s lips, she latched on, her hand moving to hold it to her mouth.