Blood Law

by Jeannie Holmes

  “No,” Alex answered a little too quickly. “I just thought the lovebirds could use some space. That’s all.”

  Emily watched Alex closely and knew why her daughter’s face was forlorn and her eyes haunted. “Varik’s leaving today.”

  Alex flinched.

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “He left me a voice mail earlier. Asked me to come by his hotel room.” She crossed her arms in front of her and walked to a narrow sun-drenched window. “But I’m not going.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s … complicated.”

  “Of course it’s complicated. You and he are blood-bound, and nothing’s going to change that. Avoiding him isn’t going to make the bond, or your feelings for him, go away.”

  “I know. I’m just so confused, Mom. I’ve spent the past six years blaming him for the attack and the bond. But then he came here and I attacked him. I reestablished the bond.”

  “And now you understand that it was never his fault. He, and you, were both doing what is instinctive.”

  Alex turned from the window, unshed tears in her eyes. “What would you do, Mom?”

  Emily cupped her daughter’s face and marveled at how much she really did resemble Bernard, in so many ways. “If I were given a second chance to be with your father, the man I loved for over two hundred years, I wouldn’t waste it by hiding in a hospital.”

  Alex stood frozen in front of Varik’s hotel-room door, hand poised to knock. Her mother’s words had made sense when she stood in the hospital waiting room. Now that she was here, she was having doubts.

  “Just knock on the damn door,” she whispered to herself. She tapped lightly on the door, waited two heartbeats, and turned to leave, telling herself he wasn’t there.

  The door opened behind her. “Alex?”

  She could feel the heat rising in her face when she turned back to find him standing in the doorway, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist and his hair dripping water onto the blue industrial carpet. “I, uh, if this is a bad time, I can come back …”

  “No, please”—he stepped aside—“come in. I’ve wanted to talk to you.”

  She skirted past him and into his room. The smell of sandalwood and cinnamon hit her hard, and the muscles in her lower abdomen fluttered in response. Her pulse jumped, and she purposefully sat in one of the chairs next to the small, round table rather than on the still-rumpled bed. A suitcase lay on the floor, half filled with clothes. “I got your message.”

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” Varik said as he leaned against the far wall, cradling his left arm to his chest.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  Alex smirked. “Mom.”

  “Ah.” Varik grinned. “Emily can be very persuasive. You should’ve heard what she said to Damian to get him down here.”

  “I can imagine.”

  An uncomfortable silence settled between them. Everything in the room smelled of him, and it tugged at Alex’s memories of the good times they’d shared.

  “Ever since I came to Jefferson, we’ve been dancing around our past,” he said softly. “The other night, when—” He fingered the bright pink scar forming on his shoulder, and it pulled at her conscience. “It got me to thinking—”

  She nodded. “I know. We need to talk about the blood-bond.”

  “No, actually, I wanted to give you something.” He stepped to the nightstand and picked up a long silver chain before moving to stand in front of her.

  “What—”

  He dangled the chain so the ring at the end glittered in the sunlight coming from the window behind her.

  “Oh, my …” She took the chain holding her engagement ring from him and looked up at him. Dark currents of emotions swirled in his color-shifting eyes. The same jumbled emotions churned within her. “You kept it. Why?”

  “It was the only thing you left behind. The only piece of you I still had.”

  The blood-bond suddenly opened, and years of pent-up emotions raced through her. Anger, regret, anxiety—all collided within her and swept her away in their powerful ebb and flow. She tried to rein in the turbulence, to retain control. She could no longer tell where her psyche ended and Varik’s began.

  Thoughts of how she’d fled Louisville whirled around her. She’d been terrified of the blood-bond. Running had been the only solution for her. She’d assumed Varik hated her for leaving, that he’d moved on with his life.

  But he hadn’t. He’d stayed away, giving her the distance she wanted. Not because he hated her, not because he moved on, but because he loved her and he wanted her to come back to him. Freely and without regrets.

  The revelation shook her to the core. The world tilted, and she felt as though she were standing on the edge of a yawning void.

  “Varik”—she stood to face him squarely—“why are you giving me this? I’m not going to marry you.”

  “I know, but I gave it to you. I want you to have it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I love you, Alex.” His warm fingers touched her cheek. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  She looked into Varik’s golden eyes, drank in the calming effect of his touch. “I never stopped loving you, either.”

  A new emotion sped across the bond and entered her, chased away her doubts, and stole her breath.

  His lips seized hers, and she moaned, dropping the chain and ring. Memories of their shared past sped through her mind like a film on fast-forward. Years of loneliness and longing fell to the side, replaced by a sense of belonging and heady desire. A need to be touched, to be held, to be loved, consumed her. Her arms circled his neck, and she pressed closer to him.

  Varik groaned, and his arms threatened to crush her. A thousand tiny electric currents zinged through Alex’s body. Muscles in her lower abdomen tightened in anticipation. A deep ache settled between her thighs as she felt his towel slipping. Part of her prayed for it to remain in place, and part of her screamed for Varik to rip it away.

  Varik broke the kiss long enough to literally sweep her off her feet and lay her on the bed, peel away the towel, and stretch out next to her.

  She ran her hands over his smooth torso, over his defined abdominal muscles, his sculpted chest. The logical part of her mind screamed at her to stop, and she hesitated. She felt him tremble, felt his sudden uncertainty through the bond.

  “Alex,” he whispered, “are you—”

  Desire reasserted its control over her, and his question ended in a strangled groan as her fingers teased his coarse hair and brushed against his swollen, throbbing flesh. The uncertainty she’d sensed in him vanished, and he recaptured her lips with a hungry growl.

  Her skin prickled where his hands touched her as he undressed her. Heat from Varik’s body beat against her. His hand cupped her breast, and she moaned when he broke the kiss, only to arch her back with a loud gasp as he pulled her swollen nipple into his mouth, grazing the tender flesh with his fangs, teasing her with his tongue.

  “Varik.” She sighed, wrapping her legs around him, arching against him, wanting him inside her.

  He entered her with a kiss, filling her with his entire length in a single flex of his hips.

  Alex bucked her hips, matching him stroke for stroke. Their breathing was labored and frantic as they moved against each other. The bed creaked and groaned in time to their rhythm. Pressure built between her thighs and erupted in a blinding wash of vibrant colors. She clutched him to her and bit his shoulder, tasting blood.

  Varik gasped, and it turned to a triumphant shout as he exploded within her.

  She felt his fangs pierce her shoulder, sending another shock of pleasure through her body.

  He collapsed on top of her, shivering and gulping down huge breaths of air.

  Alex, her thoughts scattered, stroked his back, playing with his long, still-damp hair, enjoying the small tremors that continued to shake her. She moaned when he withdr
ew, not wanting to part, but he pulled her into his arms, and she nestled in by his side.

  “Somehow I don’t think this is what Mom had in mind when she suggested I come talk to you,” she said, her voice echoing against Varik’s chest.

  He snorted. “It’s not exactly what I had in mind, either, but I’m not complaining.”

  She smiled and snuggled against him. His fingers traced lazy circles on her bare shoulder. Her eyes drooped, and sleep pulled at her. For once, she didn’t fight it.

  nineteen

  ALEX DREAMT.

  She was four years old again. She stood next to an iron railing and looked out over the Grand Canyon. An old stone watchtower stood nearby, a lonesome sentinel guarding against a forgotten invader. The hot August sun burned her skin and made sweat bead along her exposed shoulders and arms. A raven flew overhead. Its shrill caw echoed as it dove into the canyon. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up.

  “Here you go, Princess.” Her father handed her a rapidly melting ice-cream cone. “Whew, look at your shoulders. We better get you out of the sun.”

  The melting ice cream was both warm and cold on her lips as he led her into the shade of a tree near the watchtower. “Where’s Mommy and Stephen?”

  Bernard settled on the dry brown grass and pulled her into his lap. “They’ll be along soon.”

  She smiled and nestled closer to his chest, inhaling his scent of coffee, tobacco, and chalk. She could hear and feel his heart beating next to her.

  Couples and families walked by them, lost in their own conversations. Ravens hopped along the ground, searching for leftover bits of picnics or insects. Alex licked her ice cream and watched a bright orange-and-black butterfly flit along the underside of the tree’s branches. It beat its wings, looped, and whirled in a mad dance.

  “Look, Daddy,” she said, smiling and patting Bernard’s face with a sticky hand. She turned to make sure he was watching. “Look at the butter—”

  Bernard’s emerald eyes were wide and staring, now silvered with death. His mouth hung open in a silent scream. Blood coated the front of his white button-down shirt.

  “Daddy!”

  Alex awoke with a start, the dream falling away in a confused blur. Dim light filtered through a window to her right. Slowly her senses and memory returned. She glanced at Varik, lying asleep next to her. Brushing the hair from her face, she sat up, careful not to wake him, and slipped into one of his white T-shirts that had been tossed on the floor.

  She rose and moved to the window, staring at the moonlight filtered by the thin white draperies. Her brow furrowed. Something wasn’t right. She glanced around the room, trying to locate the source of her anxiety.

  It was the colors. Even in the moonlight, she should’ve seen the brightly colored diamond pattern of the carpet as though it were daylight, but they were muted. All the colors were muted, and she realized she wasn’t truly awake. She was once again beyond the Veil and walking in the Shadowlands.

  “Alexandra,” her father’s voice called to her from outside the room.

  She glanced at Varik’s sleeping form in the bed.

  “Alexandra.” Her father’s call was more insistent.

  “I’m coming,” she said, and crossed the room. With one last quick look at the bed, she slipped out of the room.

  The corridor beyond was empty and seemed to stretch forever in front and behind her. Doors lined both sides, each with a different number, some with large X’s painted over them in bright red. Each door had a small crystal, glowing with a soft white light, embedded in the wall to one side. She stepped away from her door and looked both ways but saw no sign of Bernard. “Daddy?”

  “I’m here, Princess,” he said from behind her, startling her. He smiled when she turned to face him. “It’s time.”

  “Time? Time for what?”

  “For me to explain everything to you.”

  “What is this place?” she asked, gesturing to the corridor. “Why are we here?”

  “This”—he nodded and looked around him—“is your entry point to the world beyond the Veil. It has many names, but I call it the Hall of Records. Each of these doors can take you to a different place, a different time. Think of it as a universal archive for souls and their memories, but only vampires, not humans. We can only access the archive of our own kind.”

  Alex spun in place. Having access to other people’s memories? People she’d never met and may never meet? What he was suggesting was beyond her comprehension.

  “You don’t have to understand it all right now,” he said, his green eyes dancing with delight. “You just have to know this place exists, and this should be your starting point whenever you want to cross the Veil. You’re safe here. It’s a neutral zone. Nothing can harm you here.”

  “How did you find out about this place?”

  “I’ve known of it for a long time, long before you were born.” He smiled. “I always hoped to have a child who could access it. I’m really proud of you, Princess.”

  “Yeah, too bad you weren’t around to teach me about it before now.” Her words sounded bitter, even to her ears.

  His smile faded. “I’m sorry about that, Alexandra. Fate can be a cruel mistress.”

  “Fuck fate!” Her shout echoed throughout the corridor. “Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?”

  “I didn’t have a choice, Princess.” He gripped her arms and held her in place as he spoke. “I didn’t want to go away, but I had to. There are things in your world and in this one,” his eyes moved to indicate their surroundings, “that simply aren’t meant to be known.”

  “What are you talking about?” She pulled away from him and began looking at the various doors. “Which door is yours, Daddy? Which one will take me to the day you were killed?” She walked down the hall. “Which one?”

  “You can’t access mine, Alexandra.”

  She whirled on him, years of frustration erupting within her. “Why not? What don’t you want me to know?”

  He sighed and moved to one of the doors with the big red X. “Doors marked in this way are barred, Princess. No one can access them, for one reason.”

  She stared at him and the door. Understanding came to her slowly, and she sank to her knees. “It’s because you’re a lost soul. Isn’t it?”

  He knelt in front of her. “Yes.”

  Alex closed her eyes and fought back her tears. “Why, Daddy? Why did you choose this?”

  “The reason doesn’t really matter anymore.”

  “It matters to me!” She looked away from him. He’d told her she had this ability, one that could help her to finally solve his murder, to put his soul to rest, only to strip her of any hope of actually accomplishing it.

  “Alexandra,” he touched her arm, “listen to me. I don’t have a lot of time left. I can only come to this place for short periods, and there’s a lot I still have to tell you.”

  She brushed away the tears on her cheeks and nodded. “Can you tell me what happened to me the other day? Was that really Claire Black’s ghost I saw?”

  He nodded. “You were able to see her because she chose to reveal herself. She must have trusted you to do the right thing, otherwise she wouldn’t have done it.”

  “And the vision of Darryl shooting Harvey? That was because of my psychometry?”

  “Yes, and that’s why you connected with Gary Lipscomb so easily.”

  “The psychic wound,” she murmured.

  He nodded again. “Now that his murderer has been stopped, his and the others’ souls are at peace. You won’t see them again.”

  “Will that happen—psychic wounds, I mean—every time I connect with a victim in that way?”

  “It could, but the blood-bond you have will offer you some protection from it.”

  “But Varik can’t access this place, can he?”

  “No, he doesn’t have the same gift as you, but he can and does act as an anchor for you. Just as your mother did for me.”

  Alex stared at
him in confusion. “You and Mom were blood-bound?”

  “For nearly two hundred years. I can still feel her”—he touched his temple—“here. That’s how I know she’s okay.”

  “I didn’t think a vampire could survive the death of a bond-mate.”

  “It takes a very strong will to resist the call of death.” He smiled. “Which is why I loved your mother so.”

  A crystalline chime sounded from overhead. Alex glanced up at the ceiling, only then noticing that it appeared to be a star-filled night sky. “What was that?”

  “My time’s up.” He rose slowly, helping her to her feet. “I have to return to my world, and you have to go back to yours.”

  “But you haven’t told me how to access this place.”

  “It’s simple, Princess.” He led her back to the door to Varik’s hotel room. “Visualize a door in your mind. Will it into being, and open it. It should bring you here.”

  “But how do I know where the doors lead?”

  He touched the crystal next to the door. A beam of light shot upward and then expanded to show a list of names, dates, and places scrolling across a spectral screen. “Access the main directory. It will tell you everything you need to know.”

  The crystalline chime sounded again, and Bernard’s outline wavered. “Time to go, Princess.”

  Alex reached for the doorknob and turned it. “I love you, Dad—”

  He was gone.

  When Alex awoke again, true moonlight lit the room around her, and the smell of sandalwood and cinnamon clung to her. She rolled onto her stomach, reaching for Varik, and grabbed a handful of empty pillow.

  She heard his voice then, muffled, coming from the bathroom. Curious, she tapped the blood-bond. She felt a brief surge of anxiety, and then it was gone, stymied by the wall Varik erected between them.

  Climbing out of bed, she pulled on one of his white T-shirts and paused as a feeling of déjà vu passed over her. Shaking her head as the bathroom door opened, she stood and turned to face him with a smile.

  The look of concern on his face changed her smile to a frown.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked.