When she’d kissed him in front of the fireplace, he could concentrate on nothing but the need to tell her, all of it. The Hunters, her being a Medium, the realms—God, Caleb.
He and Starla had both signed the boy’s death sentence when he had taken him home that morning. Now he had fallen into the hands of an enemy even Starla knew nothing about. How had his world become so fucked in such a short amount of time? His only salvation lay right here in his arms, and he couldn’t even offer her the proper truth about himself. He was only able to steal what he needed from her body to assuage the darkness within him.
That would end tonight.
After pulling out of Kaelyn carefully, Tyrian sat up, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and dropped his face into his hands. He couldn’t even take comfort when she pressed her softly pliant form against his back, and wrapped her small arms around his chest. She rested her cheek against his bare skin in a gentle hug.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked in the silence.
Dragging his hands through his tangled dark locks, Tyrian placed a hand over her hand that covered his heart. He turned his head, and locked his gaze to hers over his shoulder.
“There’s a lot I haven’t told you about me, love,” he admitted heavily.
Kaelyn sighed, and rested her chin against his back. “Like your last name?”
Tyrian let out a soft chuckle at the mundane request. “Blackwood.”
Kaelyn widened her eyes. “Blackwood? Really? Tyrian Blackwood? That sounds so…” She trailed off.
“Pompous?” he offered.
Kaelyn smiled sheepishly. “Maybe a little.” She tightened her lips into a thin grin.
“I know.” He’d heard much the same from Slade when the Shifter Hunter had learned it. He hadn’t enlightened her about it earlier for that reason, among others.
“Somehow I get the feeling you weren’t talking about your last name, though,” Kaelyn stated carefully. She pulled back, and sat up in bed behind him. Seeing her naked form, he knew he couldn’t concentrate on what he needed to tell her while she created such a titillating distraction.
Tyrian took hold of Kaelyn’s hand, dragged her from the mattress, and swiftly pulled down the bed coverings. After guiding her back to the confines of the flannel sheets, he slid in behind her, wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she snuggled into him, and pulled the covers up over both of them.
“I told you that I’m a Hunter, but I did not inform you, in so many words, about what it was that I hunted.” He caught the slight hitch in her breath. He’d suspected her curiosity about the vague way he’d described his job at dinner. The sudden rise in her heart rate and breathing pattern told him he’d hit the proverbial nail on the head.
Swallowing heavily, he continued.
“The certain exotic species I hunt are, for the most part, unknown to the general human population. A few of them have been immortalized by pop culture over the years, highly exaggeratedly, I might add.” Tyrian rolled his emerald green eyes. He had not enough appendages to describe all of the ways Vampires had been molded and shaped over the years. Almost none of the stories even came close to capturing the true guise of the otherworldly creatures.
Kaelyn chuckled against his chest. “You’re not going to tell me you hunt Vampires and werewolves, are you?”
Tyrian opened his mouth to reply but found no words, and summarily clapped his jaw shut with a resounding click. Kaelyn raised herself up on one elbow, her soft, dark curls falling onto his chest as she shot him an incredulous stare.
“Oh, come on, you’re not serious.” She pinned him with a disbelieving look.
“You’re not kidding…” She trailed off.
Tyrian slowly shook his head. “I’m afraid not, love.”
Dragging a hand through her thick chestnut locks, Kaelyn collapsed on the bed next to him, and stared up at the ceiling in disbelief.
Propping his own body up on one elbow, Tyrian gazed down at the woman warily. “Are you all right?”
Kaelyn shifted her gaze back over to him, and slowly shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. Of all the things you could have told me, I was not expecting that.”
Nodding, Tyrian lay back down and clasped his hands behind his head. He had found it a lot to take in when he’d first learned about the existence of the thirteen realms. He understood her trepidation.
“Vampires and werewolves, or rather Shifters as they’re rightly called, are only two of the twelve species inhabiting the realms that run parallel to this one.”
Kaelyn abruptly shot up in bed. “Hold on a second. What do you mean, ‘realms?’” she demanded.
Tyrian let out a low moan as he took in the sight of her naked breasts. “Kaelyn, my love, I’m going to need you to lie back down if you wish for me to continue.” He kept his eyes firmly glued to her naked chest.
Glancing down, Kaelyn rolled her eyes with a huff, and promptly collapsed back down at his side. “There. Now tell me what you mean by realms.”
Tyrian sighed softly. “There are thirteen realms, including this one, that run parallel with one another. As this realm is at the center, the inhabitants of all the others can travel to it. A unique quality in their genomic structure allows the other-realm species to pass safely between their own realms and this one.”
“What about travel among the others?” Kaelyn turned in his direction, and rested her head on her bent arm.
“The human realm is the only one to which each species can travel safely. If a species attempted to enter a realm it is incompatible with, it would be ripped apart before even making it to the other side.”
Kaelyn opened her mouth, and raised her eyebrows. “Oh…”
Tyrian stared at her out of the corner of his eye. “Nature does have certain safeguards to prevent this. Portals are specific to whatever species passes through them in one direction. They can only be returned through successfully by another of the same species.”
Kaelyn blinked. “Portal?” she asked with a questioning look.
Tyrian turned his head to look at her. “The weaknesses in this realm caused by events of high-yield destruction. The number of portals has grown exponentially over the last two hundred years. New Orleans and Haiti are the most recent additions.”
Kaelyn nodded somberly, and turned to lie on her back. A thoughtful look crossed her features. “I guess that makes sense.”
“I have to say you’re taking this all rather well, considering.” Tyrian stared at her, feeling something akin to awe.
Kaelyn folded her hands on her stomach, and shrugged.
“Billions of people all over the world believe in a man they’ve only ever read about in a book. Why not Vampires, too?” she asked.
“As I said, Vampires are only one of the realm species. They do happen to be the one I hold responsibility for, however.” Tyrian smiled wryly, and turned his gaze back to the ceiling.
* * * *
Kaelyn raised her eyebrows as she regarded him through her peripheral vision. “That makes it sound a bit more involved than you just hunting them.”
A snarl of disgust twisted Tyrian’s lips briefly, his brows dropping in apparent distaste. “Vampires come here to feed on humans. The taste of human blood is a delicacy for them, one they are permitted as long as they do not overindulge. Should a Vampire break the rules, I hunt it down and handle it in whatever way I deem necessary.”
“You kill them,” Kaelyn finished for him, noticing his blatant contempt.
Tyrian pinned her with an unreadable stare. “If that is the only option, yes.”
Kaelyn swallowed. “How do you know which ones break the rules?” she asked quietly.
Tyrian brought his arms down from their resting spot underneath his head. Then he gestured to the intricate tattoo covering his left biceps, its scrolling black script like nothing she’d ever seen.
“This is called a blood seal,” he explained. “When the first Hunters were contracted into service, Starla, our leader, plac
ed within each of them a Sleeper. The strongest soul within each of the thirteen realms, to serve as protector against its own kind. The blood seal gives the Hunter all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of the realm species it houses.”
Kaelyn traced her fingers over the intricate black lines. She drew her brow down in a frown as she came upon an intimately familiar one. “This symbol—”
“It’s the same as the one on your own left shoulder,” Tyrian stated in his soft voice.
Kaelyn’s eyes flew up to meet his suddenly rueful green ones. Her mind reeling with the implications, she stuttered her reply. “H-how…?”
He followed her as she slowly backed away from him, trying to distance herself from what her instincts knew he was about to divulge.
“Did you ever wonder why your mother couldn’t recall the name or face of your father, Kaelyn?” Tyrian asked cryptically, sitting up further with every word.
Kaelyn widened her eyes, threw the covers off of her, and rolled to the edge of the queen-size mattress. “No! That’s crazy!” She threw up her hands as she sat up, and tossed her legs over the side of the bed.
“You can believe in everything else but this?”
Tyrian’s accusatory tone stopped her retreat, and she turned to glare at him over her shoulder.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me that I’m half Vampire?” The ridiculousness of the phrase to her own ears once again spurred her towards the door. She didn’t make it far; Tyrian wrapped strong arms around her torso, and pulled her back into the confines of the bed.
Tensing all over, Kaelyn swiftly threw up her mental walls. His story had gotten a little too close to home for her, and she had grown more than a little overwhelmed with his insinuations that she was some sort of half-Vampire offspring.
“Let me go,” she stated flatly.
“You need to hear this, Kaelyn. It’s important,” he implored her.
Something that sounded almost broken within Tyrian caused her to relax her taut muscles slightly. Tyrian responded by loosening his hold on her upper body, and relaxing against her. Letting him pull her back into the bed for now, she kept her gaze firmly situated away from him. If she turned back, she knew, she’d end up falling inextricably under his spell once more.
“You’re not going to spontaneously sprout fangs and start craving human blood, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He sighed against her neck. “Having the knowledge that you’re half Vampire makes you no different physically now than you were twenty minutes ago.”
Huffing a sigh of her own, Kaelyn threw a disgruntled stare over her shoulder at the man. “Then what does it change?”
He paused for a long moment before answering her. “When Starla placed the first Sleepers within the human Hunters, she had a vision. That vision later became known as the Medium prophecy. Mediums are humans born of the union between a realm species and a human.”
“So I’m one of these Mediums?” Kaelyn asked in a “just-to-be-absolutely-clear” tone of voice, still laced heavily with bitter distrust. Tyrian’s gaze softened as he lightly ran his fingers over the small birthmark on her left shoulder.
“Yes. My Medium. This mark identifies you as half human, half Vampire. And my mate.” He stared deeply into her eyes with his green ones. The absolute resoluteness in his gaze chipped at her walls, playing at her damnable innate curiosity.
“What does that mean? Your mate?” she asked in a voice barely a whisper, apprehensive of the meaning behind the words.
“We are destined to be together, Kaelyn,” Tyrian said simply, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Made for one another in a way no other humans or species are. You felt it, the same as I did, the moment we met. The instant and unexplainable connection. That is because you are my Medium, and I am your Hunter.”
Pressing her lips together in a tight line, Kaelyn clasped her hands together over her nose and mouth, her heart full of trepidation.
“This is just a lot to take in right now.” She shook her hands out in front of her.
The look that suddenly crossed Tyrian’s handsome face did nothing to assuage her nerves, however; if anything, it made them worse. “That’s not all, Kaelyn,” he said, confirming the fear clenching her gut.
“Oh, there’s more?” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes exasperatedly and throwing her hands up into the air with a defeated shrug of her naked shoulders.
“Caleb has been taken.”
Kaelyn froze. She widened her eyes slowly as the implications behind Tyrian’s words seeped into the pit of her stomach, making it roll suddenly with sickening dread.
“By Vampires?” she asked, fearing the answer.
Tyrian shook his head slowly, a dark look entering his emerald gaze. “No, something else. Even Starla does not know what it is, but it’s strong enough to block her vision. They’ve taken him to the Vampire realm.”
Staring at the total defeat and helplessness draping Tyrian’s usually impressive form, Kaelyn felt a sudden rush of cogency swell within her. God only knew where it came from, but she knew one thing in that moment with absolute clarity.
“You have to go after him,” she said, the strength of conviction in her tone startling even herself.
Tyrian tossed her a miserably cryptic stare. “I can’t. My human chemistry will not allow me to pass between realms.” He lowered his eyes to his lap.
“Then how did they take Caleb?” Kaelyn asked, drawing her brows together.
“We’re not sure. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important that I go after him. If this person can somehow bring incompatible species across realms, the potential disaster could be cataclysmic.” The foreboding in Tyrian’s words carried across in his voice and expression. He found her gaze with his, a balanced mixture of apologetic resolve.
“There is the other part of the Medium prophecy. If we were to blend our blood, the blood bond would tie us together and allow me to traverse realms. I don’t believe it was an accident that we found each other now, Kaelyn. I need your help.” His plea showed on his face and in his tone.
Kaelyn set her shoulders, then solidly asked, “How do we do it?”
“You’re willing?” She heard the palpable surprise in Tyrian’s tone, as if he honestly believed she would turn him down.
Kaelyn glared up at the man, and jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’m not going to sit here on my ass if I can help Caleb, and neither should you. That kid is like a son to you, Tyrian.”
Tyrian’s lips suddenly latched onto hers, and she had no time to react. Cradling her face in his hands, he stared resolutely into her eyes, then leaned his forehead against hers.
“I love you.”
Kaelyn couldn’t help but smile. “I think you’re crazy; but I love you, too.”
Suddenly pulling back, Kaelyn pinned Tyrian with an incredulous glare. “Is that what he was going to ask me in the kitchen this morning? If I was a Vampire?”
Chuckling softly to himself, Tyrian grabbed her about the waist and pulled them both back down onto the bed, then perched her bare form comfortably atop his.
“Probably,” he admitted with a wide grin.
“Well, thank you for stopping him, so I didn’t have to lie to the poor boy,” Kaelyn chided. She snuggled into Tyrian’s chest and pulled the covers up under her chin, suddenly overcome with a wave of fatigue.
“You should know, if we do this, your life force will be tied to mine,” Tyrian warned. “It will effectively halt your aging, and bind our fates as one.”
“You mean I’ll look like this for the rest of my life?” Kaelyn asked, glancing down at him expectantly as she pushed herself up atop his chest.
“Until I die or you do,” Tyrian replied somberly.
“If you die…?” She trailed off.
Tyrian nodded.
“How old are you?” she asked apprehensively. He looked to be only in his early thirties, but the way he spoke and the structure of his handwriting spoke of a time much older
than his captivating physique boasted.
“Approximately seven hundred and twenty-two,” Tyrian admitted with a roguish grin. “Though we stop counting the decades after the first few centuries.”
Kaelyn widened her eyes in alarm. She dropped her jaw as she swept her gaze down his rugged frame. “Wow, you look damn good for seven hundred.”
“I am the youngest of the current Hunters. Slade is around one hundred and fifty years older than me. The eldest are in their fourth millennium.” He played with one of her wayward chestnut curls.
“You’re kidding. You guys don’t age at all?” A hint of awe colored Kaelyn’s tone.
Tyrian shook his head. “We remain in our prime until we are killed. And soon, so will you.” He raised his hand, gripped her scalp, and dragged her down into a soft and languid kiss.
“You’re not going to get tired of me after the first hundred years, are you?” Kaelyn asked playfully, gazing amorously into his eyes.
“I will never tire of you, my love,” Tyrian stated soundly. He cut off whatever reply she may have offered by reiterating with his body how much he truly hungered for her.
* * * *
Caleb opened his eyes slowly, the throbbing in his head wringing a groan from his dry, cracked lips. Reaching up and pulling at the collar of his MIT hoodie, he found it almost painful to draw in a breath, due to sweltering heat. While he was walking out of the computer science building earlier, someone had hit him over the head before they’d presumably dumped him in this place.
Squinting in the darkness, he barely made out the form of a cot and two small folding chairs. Some sort of dark glasslike substance seemed to make up the walls of his prison. It reminded him a bit of the texture of the stained-glass windows in some of the old churches around the Boston area.
He rolled over onto his stomach, pushed himself up to his hands and knees, and reached behind him to feel the back of his head for any wounds. He touched a knot at his crown and hissed, pulled his hand away sharply, and inspected it for blood.
They must have knocked him with something pretty blunt. He’d gotten away relatively easy, with just a huge-ass bump on the top of his head, and some mild scraping on his hands and face. After clambering to his feet, he took a couple of steps; then his world started to swim, and he fell against the wall to his right. The throbbing escalated to about the force of a Mack truck ramming against his frontal lobe. Putting a hand to his forehead, he slouched against the wall, and slid down slowly to plop unceremoniously onto his backside with a groan.
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