Kaelyn wrapped her arms around her waist, and gave in to the feeling of emptiness rushing in to fill the void her bitterness had left. She wasn’t really upset with any one person or thing; the whole situation sucked.
“I don’t really know what to feel,” she finally admitted, collapsing back down on the edge of the bed.
Pinning Kaelyn with an unreadable stare, Lilith pushed off from the doorframe and entered the room, then sat next to her on the mattress. “Well, pissed off was good,” she offered nonchalantly. Shrugging in a noncommittal gesture, she then dug a knife out of a holster at her hip and began tossing it into the air.
Kaelyn glanced at the Witch Hunter out of the corner of her eye, regarding her carefully. “I take it you and Tyrian don’t exactly get along,” she said.
Before the Hunter could respond, she heard another, deeper voice from the entryway. “This little hellion doesn’t get along with anyone.”
Kaelyn widened her eyes as she took in the massive form of the man who now encompassed the doorway.
“Slade,” she breathed, apprehensive.
Lilith rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Oh, great, you called in the mutt, too,” she drawled. She collapsed back on the bed.
Starla shook her head and cast an admonishing glare at the Witch Hunter, before smiling in greeting at Slade and ushering him into the room. “I understand the two of you are already acquainted. I thought it might help you to have a familiar face around,” she explained.
Kaelyn regarded the Shifter Hunter warily. “From what I got out of our earlier ‘acquaintance,’ I was under the distinct impression that you didn’t like me much,” she stated, her tone guarded.
Lilith huffed. “It’s not personal; Dog-Boy’s got a thing about Mediums,” she shot with a punctuated glare at the other Hunter before resuming her dance with the blade.
“Do you have one?” Kaelyn asked.
Slade immediately pinned her with one of the coldest glares she had ever receiving in her short life. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I latch myself to a Medium,” he bit out through clenched teeth, his bulging muscles tensing with barely constrained wrath.
Kaelyn would have scrambled to the other side of the room to get away from the enraged man had Starla not placed a hand on one enormous biceps, and seemingly sapped the indignation right out of the burley Hunter. Gulping down the terror that momentarily clenched her throat, Kaelyn warily regarded the large friend of her mate.
“So Tyrian is your best friend and I ruined him, is that it?” she asked carefully, sensing a great deal more to his reaction than just an aversion to her kind.
“Like she said, nothing personal,” Slade responded succinctly, effectively cutting off the conversation before it could begin.
Kaelyn took in the forms of the Druid leader and the two Hunters, and briefly lamented her previously simple life of books and monotony before sighing heavily. “Well, I can already tell this is going to be great fun.”
* * * *
He stared up at the dark blue sky above, projecting a feeling of utter longing as he seemed to gaze past the blanket of darkened twilight into another place, another time. Seemingly a lifetime later, he blinked, bringing his focus sharply back to the present. He slowly lowered his gaze from the vast expanse of sky, and lit upon the softly glowing crystal city in the distance.
Tyrian had traveled for almost a day, barely stopping to take a drink from his canteen every few hours before trudging on through the coarse black sand-like desert. The sand itself radiated the heat of the realm’s core, drenching the Hunter in sweat and parching his sore throat. Had the soul of the annoyingly forthright Sleeper within him not fueled him, he knew that he would have collapsed from heat exhaustion long before.
He’d just come over the top of a large sand dune when he felt it: a brief, but brilliant burst of light in his consciousness. Then it suddenly left, drawing with it some of the resolve he’d built up when he’d left her, his beautiful Kaelyn, back in the human realm.
He had to consciously draw his focus back to the present. Slamming his eyes shut, he took deep, sustaining breaths to try to regain some of the strength he’d built up against the bond. That connection now exerted all of its power to tug him back to his rightful place at his Medium’s side.
Tyrian steeled himself against the urge to abandon his quest. Then he slowly opened his eyes and stared across the expanse of desert, on to the gates of the black crystalline pillars of the large Vampire city in the distance.
“Torehj,” Drake’s voice sounded in Tyrian’s head, bringing him a sense of recognition from the depths of their mingled consciousness. Drake had dwelt in that once-great capital all those millennia earlier, when he’d lived among his own kind
Tyrian fought back a rush of indignant rage. Drake had brought him there, for all he knew, in the complete opposite direction of whatever prison held Caleb.
“Reign in your contempt, Hunter; I have not led you astray. The mines are connected to the city. They run beneath the great turbines that supply power to the homes and businesses.” Drake seemed unperturbed by Tyrian’s sudden burst of anger.
Blowing out a heated breath to help him control himself, Tyrian replied, “You could have told me that.”
“And miss the bittersweet taste of your misplaced rage?” Drake mused.
Tyrian, not for the first time since their journey began, wished that the condescending presence inside his head had a physical form upon which he could inflict some type of bodily harm.
“Only yours,” Drake responded.
Reining in his contempt, lest he do something he would immediately regret (such as cutting off one of his own arms), Tyrian addressed his ever-present mental companion.
“How exactly are we supposed to get into this city? I don’t think they will take too kindly to the Hunter of their race waltzing in through the front gate.”
“There is an aqueduct on the far west wall. It will get us in unnoticed,” Drake explained.
Tyrian scoffed. “How do you even know it is still there? It’s been over ten thousand years since you were here last,” he said more caustically than he’d originally intended.
The voice in his head huffed indignantly. “If there is anything to count on with the Vampire race, it is their unfailing loyalty to tradition. It will be there.”
Drake’s tone booked no argument, which only served to stoke the indignant fire burning in Tyrian’s gut. Grumbling to himself, he hitched his bag over his shoulder and headed in the direction of the west wall.
* * * *
“What’cha doin’?” Lilith asked playfully. She collapsed on the couch next to Kaelyn, and tossed her head roughly into the lap of the young Vampire Medium.
Kaelyn huffed out a breath at the sudden weight occupying her lap, and tossed an exasperated glare at the other woman. She never could quite hold onto any feelings of contempt for the only female Hunter, probably because the woman reminded her so much of her best friend.
Thinking of Ember drudged up too much emotion for Kaelyn at the moment, and she shoved down the recognition to address her new companion.
“Reading. Not much else to do around here.” She sighed, and returned to reading the book.
Lilith craned her head to the side to glance at the cover of the heavy, leatherbound book just above her nose. “The History of Vampires, huh? Studying up on your kind?” She sat up and crossed her legs on the creamy cushion she had perched upon, and stared at Kaelyn irreverently.
Not rising to the provocation, Kaelyn calmly turned the page. “The way I understand it, I am the only one of my kind.” She paid close attention to a passage in the book that described the Vampire ore mines.
“Finally accepting your role?” Lilith asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Nope,” Kaelyn replied swiftly. She turned her head to skim the next page.
Lilith smirked, leaned forward, and rested her elbows on her knees. She narrowed her eyes at the Medium, rolling her tongue along
the inside of her cheek as she regarded the much younger woman. “I like you,” she finally said, an appreciative look crossing her face.
Kaelyn looked up from her book then, and slowly turned her gaze to the Witch Hunter, incredulity marring her expression. “You don’t even know me.” Tyrian had left nearly a day earlier, and she remained imprisoned at Starla’s hideout with the caustic Witch Hunter and the brooding Shifter Hunter. Starla had flitted out somewhere shortly after Slade’s entrance, and had not returned.
Not seeing anything better to do, Kaelyn had promptly raided Starla’s library. The wealth of handwritten accounts of the races overwhelmed her. It would take more than a lifetime to go through them all, and she disliked admitting that she was swiftly falling in love with the place.
Lilith smirked and hopped to her feet, jostling the book from Kaelyn’s hands onto the couch next to her. “That’s probably why I like you.” She walked out of the room toward the kitchen, and brushed past the Shifter Hunter, who emerged from the other room carrying two large, dark green mugs.
“Don’t mind her, she’s got a bit of a chip on her shoulder,” Slade grumbled. He tossed a short glare in the direction Lilith had sauntered off to. Then he held one of the mugs toward Kaelyn.
“Like you?” Kaelyn took the mug Slade offered her and shut the book, then placed them both on the coffee table in front of her.
“Not even close.” Slade occupied the seat Lilith had just vacated.
“What’s your deal, anyway? Why do you hate us? Mediums, I mean,” Kaelyn turned on the couch to regard the large man carefully.
Obviously, Slade’s aversion to Kaelyn had nothing to do with her personally, and everything to do with the fact that she was a Medium. She had itched to ask him about it since his outburst in the bedroom earlier, but had felt too wary of his reaction to do so. Now that she’d spent some time with him, she didn’t believe that he would actually harm her, so nothing held her back from letting loose on him with her curiosity.
“It’s a long story.” He took a long drag from the steaming mug in his hands.
“I’ve got time,” she prodded.
Slade sighed heavily, placed his mug down on the coffee table, and picked up hers. He handed it to her with a look that told her she’d drink the concoction if she knew what was good for her.
After taking the mug from his outstretched hand, Kaelyn discovered that he actually made a pretty mean hot chocolate.
Slade took a long moment before responding, his gaze drifting off to a time long past. Kaelyn patiently waited, taking small sips of the scalding liquid, until he began his tale. He slid back to the present, then threw up emotional walls.
“I lost someone close to me because of the Medium prophecy. I’ve had a distaste for them ever since.” He spoke with a tone of finality, clearly uncomfortable with divulging one of his most painful memories to his best friend’s Medium.
Having none of Slade’s insecurities, Kaelyn blinked and cocked her head to the side. “That was not a long story.” She tightened her lips and raised an eyebrow at him as he glared at her out of the corner of his eye.
After leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, Slade heaved a great sigh, shook the shaggy golden mane surrounding his head, and gave in.
Digging into the right pocket of his light-wash jeans, Slade then removed a small golden chain from its confines. At the end of the chain dangled a small golden locket, dwarfed in Slade’s enormous palm as he turned it over in his hands. He flipped the latch, then handed the locket to Kaelyn and gestured inside, to a hand-drawn picture of a ruggedly attractive young man.
“This was the previous Hunter for the Shifter realm. His name was Rylan. He was like a father to me. Found me when I was a boy, orphaned, mad at the world, and he made me his Page. Gave me a purpose. And then, twenty years later, he met her.”
Slade cut off as Kaelyn turned the locket in her hands to gaze at the other hand-drawn picture, opposite the first. She had distinctly Native American features: high, defined cheekbones, and an angular jaw. The drawing featured large, bright eyes, and long, black hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, away from her face.
Kaelyn drew in a breath at the striking portrait of the woman. “My God, she’s beautiful,” she breathed.
Slade glanced away from the picture sharply, a look of pain lancing through his bright golden gaze.
“Adora. A fitting name if ever there was one. She was his Medium.” Slade spoke so softly that it almost seemed to come from some younger, less gruff version of himself.
Kaelyn shut the locket and handed it back to him, wrapped her arms around her middle, and stared at him. “What happened?” she asked softly, almost fearing the answer.
Slade stared at the closed locket for a long moment before responding. “They fell in love, got married, and they were happy for three years. Until...” He trailed off.
Concerned, Kaelyn placed a hand on his arm to bring his attention back to the present. He jumped slightly at her touch, but did not shake her off as she expected.
“Slade?” she prodded.
Taking a deep breath, Slade placed the locket back in his pocket, and ran a hand over his chin before continuing.
“She got pregnant. They were overjoyed when they found out. No Medium had ever given birth to the child of a Hunter. They couldn’t wait for the baby to come. But the time came, Adora delivered, and the baby was stillborn,” Slade explained with a sort of stillness, a detachment that no doubt protected him from drowning in the memory.
“It didn’t survive,” Kaelyn whispered, grief heavy in her voice.
“No, and neither did she. Adora died in childbirth, and condemned the man who was more than a father to me to death,” Slade bit out. He rose from his seat on the couch, rested a hand on the mantle of the fireplace, and stared into the fire with a rage Kaelyn could easily tell had burned for a very long time in his old soul.
Gulping, she asked the question she believed she already knew the answer to.
“How? How did he die?” she asked timidly.
Her breath flew from her lungs as Slade turned to her, the complete emptiness and desolation locked in his haunting stare a tangible thing in the small space between them. “I killed him myself,” he confirmed.
Kaelyn slowly squeezed her eyes shut, unable to fight the tears that sprang forth in remorse. She opened her eyes to Slade’s once more, and found herself pinned by the resolve lighting the golden-brown depths of those formerly hollow pools. He narrowed his eyes, and the phrase he pronounced next resounded within Kaelyn as an unbreakable vow.
“I took his Sleeper within me, and swore that I would never allow myself or anyone I cared about to fall to that fate ever again.”
Kaelyn sat frozen to her spot on the creamy beige couch as Slade promptly turned and stalked out of the room, leaving the heavy vow hanging in the stale air of the room to haunt her. Swallowing heavily against a lump in her throat, she then exhaled slowly and collapsed back into the soft cushions. Her eyes wide, she stared unseeing into the soft glow of the fireplace.
“Well, shit,” she said in the silence that now surrounded her.
Chapter 10
Cynric stared in dismay at the results laid out before him. The human boy’s transformation progressed much more slowly than he’d anticipated. Of course, his marked lack of nutrition had probably caused that. He had downright refused to eat anything provided, most likely believing that his captor had poisoned his rations.
Of course he had.
Cynric knew that humans considered the consumption of the flesh and blood of their own kind taboo. He had therefore concluded that they would not consume any sentient race’s flesh or blood, and so he had resorted to injecting it into the human’s rations. Rations that the stubborn creature refused to imbibe.
Perhaps he should cease the niceties. If the boy would not eat on his own, then Cynric would just have to force him.
“Deq’on.” Sighing, Cynric tossed the latest test resul
ts onto the coals burning in the makeshift pit in the floor.
A tall, pale-skinned Vampire eased out of the shadows, and bowed in respect to the man. Cynric slowly rolled his neck down to peer over his shoulder at the leader of his Vampire mining corps.
“Bring me one of your women. A young one, pretty, as far as your standards go.” He turned back to stare at the menagerie of creatures caged in black glass on the opposite side of the room.
To the Vampire’s credit, he did not falter at the request. His reputation of ruthlessness within the Vampire ranks preceded him. The Vampire race now looked to Deq’on’s brother for leadership in the wake of their royal ’Al house’s downfall to what they referred to as “the White Witch.”
Cynric scoffed to himself: if only they knew.
That twisted Druid bitch was far worse than any measly Witch. While arguably the most powerful being in all thirteen realms, she hid herself with the humans and played house with her aggravatingly persistent toy soldiers. One of whom had managed to worm his way into the Vampire realm, and somehow find his way to Torehj.
Cynric had made doubly sure to mask his presence in and around this realm, to ensure that no one would disturb him in his mission. It appeared, though, that while Starla could not come after him herself, she’d sent her Hunter in her stead.
The Vampire Hunter, which in turn meant that she had found the Vampire Medium.
The appearance of this small kink in Cynric’s plan could, in fact, prove to be a blessing in disguise. The Mediums, while essential to his ultimate goal, could not be psychically traced, and as legend foretold, only their destined mates could discover them. The fact that the Vampire Hunter was now sneaking into his city through the aqueduct system at the west wall demonstrated that he had unearthed the first Medium.
Well, now, wasn’t that interesting...
Cynric turned slowly as Deq’on returned, towing a young Vampire female behind him by a chain around her neck. Cynric gave the scrawny female a once-over and nodded, deeming her worthy of his purposes, and gestured for Deq’on to follow him. They wound their way through the maze of fabricated caverns to the prison where he currently held his little science experiment. Eyes closed, the boy’s shrunken form leaned back against the far, dark corner of his glass prison.
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