by Dannika Dark
“Don’t turn this around and make me look like the bad guy. I’m just making an observation.”
Niko turned his head in my direction. “Raven, do you heal naturally fast?”
“I’ve never been this banged up. I heal as fast as a Mage without healing light. Maybe you should just stitch me up.”
“Nyet, nyet,” Viktor grumbled. “You will be no good to us lying in a sickbed. Do not give her too much light, Niko. I may need to question her further, and I don’t want her knocked out for days.”
“I’m not going to use Mage healing light.”
My brows popped up. “Exactly what are you going to use?” Fears of metal instruments without anesthesia popped in my head.
His hair tickled my neck when he leaned over me. “I’m a Healer. That’s my Mage gift. Have you ever heard of one?”
I shook my head, focusing on his eyes, which glimmered like pale blue crystals. I’d never seen eyes like his.
“It means I can heal any Breed except for humans. I don’t transfer energy through our hands like we normally do. It’s a more concentrated energy exchange, and I go straight to the wound.”
Anxious, I peered down as he held his hands over my body until he stopped where my leg was sliced open.
Viktor shook his head, giving me an incensed look. “I’ll leave you alone. I have a bloody car and a dead Mage to dispose of.”
If that didn’t make me feel guilty, nothing would.
Christian rested his forearms on the table to my right, his face close to mine. “He’s not as vexed as all that.”
“I didn’t follow orders.”
Christian touched my cheek with his finger. “Sometimes you have to break rules. He knows that better than anyone. What do you think Keystone is founded on?”
I turned my head away from his touch. “Better stop that. People might think you like me.”
When Niko placed his hands on my leg, my body jerked and I reflexively scooted back.
“Keep her still,” Niko said. “Raven, I promise this won’t hurt. Christian, you didn’t tell me there was a bandage on the wound. It’s better if you remove it.”
Christian moved away, and when I felt a pressure release on my thigh, Niko whispered something in another language.
“Is it bleeding?” I asked.
Christian reappeared with a dark smirk. “Have you ever visited Yellowstone? There’s this grand geyser—”
“In other words, I look like a drinking fountain for Vampires.”
“If you want to know the truth, I don’t think it was the contact lens that cursed you. I’m willing to wager my immortal soul it was the third hot dog.”
A quick burst of light filled the room, and my leg flooded with heat.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed.
Niko raised both hands. “Turn her over and I’ll do the others.”
“Niko?” I leaned up and gripped his wrist. “Before you finish, can you do me a favor? Take some of his light out of me.”
He shook his head. “It’s better if I don’t.”
“You don’t know what it’s like. I need to get it out of me. Just take a little.”
Christian flicked a hard gaze up at Niko. “What’s she asking you to do?”
“She can pull core light all the way out of a Mage. It’s a rare gift indeed. Any Mage can drain the light of another Mage, but core light is what replenishes our strength. It’s the very essence of immortality. Raven has the ability to make them human again.”
“Jaysus.”
Niko withdrew his arm and stepped back. “It remains in her for a day or two, and she wants me to take some of it out.”
Christian stood up. “And?”
“It makes no sense to do it. Whatever I take will weaken her, and no matter what, it won’t be enough to remove it all. Viktor expressed his concern about sharing—”
“Then don’t. Finish up your magic show. I have to pull my bike out of the back windshield of that fecking car before Viktor drives it to the junkyard.”
I gripped Christian’s pinky finger, pulling it toward me. “I’m not asking for a lobotomy. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but neither of you are the ones walking around with this poisonous light. Please.”
Christian stepped back and folded his arms.
I turned to Niko, my eyes pleading in vain to a blind man who couldn’t see my pained expression. “Can’t you see his dark light? I’m sick with it. I shouldn’t have taken it all; I made a mistake. His light is so spoiled that it’s crawling through my flesh like a nightmare. Normally I’m strong enough to tolerate it, but my own light is weak and he’s all that I feel. You won’t have to do this again, I swear.” I covered my face, tears battling against my lashes.
“Yes, Raven. I see him. Let me heal you first and then I’ll draw some of it out.”
Moments after Niko had removed as much energy as my body would allow, I blacked out. He couldn’t specifically select one light over the other since they were mixed together, but at least it was just a little bit less than it was before.
I awoke in a dark room, my surroundings unfamiliar. The simple décor and arrangement told me this wasn’t my bedroom. The bed was in the same place with the door to my left, but the bathroom was on the opposite wall. I could make out the dark entrance to the left. A few flickering candles in the fireplace to my right drew my attention. I sat up, my fingers smoothing over a fur blanket, and noticed there weren’t any windows.
Light spilled beneath the door to my left, and I spotted a shadow leaning against the wall.
“Who’s there?”
“A Vampire,” he whispered back.
When I recognized Christian’s voice, I swung my feet onto the floor and waited for my Vampire eyes to adjust to the dim light. As he came into view, I noticed blood smeared across his chest.
My blood.
Not much time had passed.
“Whose room is this?”
“Mine,” he replied in a velvety voice.
I reached behind my neck, searching for a wound that wasn’t there. “And why am I not in my room?”
He folded his arms. “I gave it some consideration, but when you made the rule forbidding us to enter without your permission, that left me with few options.”
“Why am I not surprised?” I touched my bare leg and felt no pain. My smooth skin didn’t even have a hint of a scar. Niko had a miraculous gift.
Christian pushed off the wall and swaggered toward me. “Don’t flatter yourself. I only took you in because the others didn’t want you.”
I stood up. “You’re the biggest fanghole I’ve ever met.”
He caught me when I made a misstep, then set me back on the bed. “If you want to go to the toilet, I’ll drag you along. But Viktor wants you healed and back to your perky self by morning. That means bed rest.”
“I’m not an invalid.”
His gaze hardened. “Can you see as well as I can in the dark?”
“I don’t know. How well can you see?”
“I can count all your freckles.”
I laughed. “I don’t have any freckles.”
“Next time you’re in Bed, Bath, & Beyond, locate one of those magnification mirrors and a black light.”
“Okay, okay. I don’t see that well. But I did inherit some of that gift.” I shook my head. “Now I know why you guys are mostly loners.”
“Oh?” He ambled over and sat in a chair near the bed, dramatically crossing his legs. “Enlighten me.”
“Vampires are about as cuddly as barbed wire. It’s no wonder that women haven’t been lining up to become one of you.”
He reached over to the table near his bed and lifted the lid of a crystal candy dish. The sweets inside looked like toffee or caramel, and he popped one into his mouth. “What you know about Vampires could fill a thimble.”
I glanced at the dark entrance to the bathroom and slowly got up. “I need to wash off the blood. It’s probably all over your sheets.”
“Doesn’t bother me, lass. Gem will just think it’s my time of the month.”
When I entered the bathroom, Christian followed behind with a candle. The room looked identical to mine except there wasn’t a window by the shower. He also had a claw-foot tub, but I couldn’t imagine a Vampire, one who wore menace like a cloak, soaking in bubbles.
Hell, he barely shaved.
“Does Gem do your laundry? Way to go on embracing women’s liberation.”
He handed me a towel and sat on the floor, arms draped over his bent knees. “We rotate the chores.”
“Remind me when it’s your week so I can wash my own panties.”
After running the towel under hot water, I took a seat on the floor next to the sink, crossed my ankles, and began wiping the dried blood off my leg and hands. It left stains on his white towel, but he watched with mild interest, not raising a complaint. My blood-soaked hair would have to wait until morning.
I looked up at Christian. “So impart some of your wisdom to me about Vampires.”
“Ah, yes. Your better half.”
“Why is it a man’s world?”
He laced his fingers together. “There aren’t as many female Vampires for the simple reason that centuries ago, men built armies of men, not women.”
“Nothing sexist about that.”
“They were different times. Vampires were demonized and hunted, and some found security in making younglings who would protect them—strong, loyal men. Women didn’t go to battle. They were the caregivers of the family, groomed to be mothers and wives, not warriors. Do you think they wanted to go to war? I knew grown men who didn’t want to fight. A woman born in this century will never understand what life was like in a time when speaking out could get you killed.”
“So why not make more female Vampires now that you’re not busy making little fang warriors?”
He shrugged. “Nowadays not many want to embark on the task of a maker. We’re governed by laws and no longer at war with humans. Most of us are old and set in our ways. Younglings are a handful, to be sure. It takes a long while for them to control the bloodlust. Aside from that, they’re more dependent on their makers than a Learner is with their Creator. The blood connects us.”
“So you didn’t want to be connected to a woman?”
He sputtered out a laugh and then wiped his eye with the heel of his hand. “Vampires relied on each other for protection and information. Not for a cuddle.”
“And a woman can’t protect you?”
“Will you put a cork in it and let me finish? If you’re going to pluck a rose from the garden, you’re going to choose the finest-looking flower. Not many women in those days wanted to leave behind their families to become creatures of the night.”
“You’re not exactly Bela Lugosi.”
“We didn’t have sunglasses, and black eyes get noticed fairly quickly in the daylight. That’s how we got the reputation for being night creatures.”
“Ah. That makes more sense.” I continued cleaning off my arms and neck.
“And it didn’t take long for Vampires to figure out that bringing a woman over by force wasn’t going to make her a loyal subject, blood or not. When time wore away the feeling of submission, they’d hunt their maker down. Finding a wickedly handsome woman who was willing to give up her mortality wasn’t as easy as all that. Men are easier to convince. They thirst for power, war, and revenge.”
“Is that why you decided to take the plunge?”
He pulled at the whiskers on his chin. “After the Mageri was formed, some of the older Vampires got together to put rules in place. It was a big fecking mess back then. There were too many who were making bloodslaves, so the elders put a stop to it and set them to burn.”
“Do I have blood on my face?”
He pointed at his lip. “Just a little there. And there,” he added, pointing at his eyebrow, ear, cheek, and neck.
I stared at him blank-faced.
“Here, let me.” He scooted forward and took the towel, using it to wipe my temple. “And what about your maker? Clearly he’s a bastard if you can’t stand the sight of me.”
I smirked, and he wiped my humor away with the towel. “You think highly of yourself.”
He leaned in. “Did you get any blood on your breasts? I’m willing to go the extra mile.”
When I snatched the towel from his hand, he scooted back and leaned against the wall again. Christian was treading dangerous ground by asking about my maker. That wasn’t a topic I wanted to discuss with anyone, let alone a smarmy Vampire who was champing at the bit to make an offensive wisecrack.
Christian’s voice was deep and growly, like someone who had just woken up. “If you’re more than just sex on legs, then why is that all you offer to get a job done?”
“Because as handsome as you are, Christian, your hairy legs would have never gotten that man out of his chair.”
He raised his pant leg just an inch or two. “They’re not that hairy. See?”
“How am I supposed to trust you have my back when you’re busy dry-humping women in a dark corner somewhere? You should have been close enough that when he started the engine, it would have only taken you seconds to come out. What if he’d pulled out his gun and shot me in the head?”
He picked at a dried piece of blood on his chest. “Are you trying to blame this on me? Don’t bother preparing a speech for tomorrow with Viktor; I’m not taking the fall for this one.”
“I should have killed him as soon as I got into the car.”
Christian shook his head very slightly. “You’re digging your own grave and don’t even give a shite. Say that tomorrow and see what happens.”
“You still should have been there.”
He pointed his finger lazily at me. “You were armed, and you knew he might have a stunner on him.”
“Stunners don’t affect me. But a bullet might.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Say again?”
“When I’ve been stabbed, I can usually tell a stunner from a regular dagger. It just feels different. Plus a lot of the men acted really surprised when they put it in me and I was still moving around. It didn’t take long for me to figure it out.”
“Are you telling me that you don’t succumb to the paralyzed state that a dagger infused with magic brings to a Mage?”
“Pretty much.”
I decided not to tell him about impalement wood not affecting me either. I didn’t know how much people in the house talked to each other, but if I was on my way out the door because of tonight’s stunt, then maybe I needed to keep a few things to myself.
He ran his fingers through his hair forward and then back, which I found to be a peculiar gesture.
“Dazzled?” I asked.
“Perplexed… would be a better word.”
I leaned forward, giving him a good look at my mismatched eyes. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Shadow. Legend has it that if a man loses his shadow, it means that I ate it, and I’m coming for the rest of him.”
When his eyes flicked down at the floor, I laughed.
“Made you look.”
His jaw set, and he straightened his legs. “You’re a peculiar woman. Next time go for the handsome man of the group, you hear? How often do you think that sweaty little troll got singled out by a beautiful woman? From the moment you batted your lashes at him, his fantasies were peppered with doubt and suspicion, so when you asked him to go to the car, it’s no wonder he pulled a Ted Bundy. Instinct always tells you to pick the weaker one, so you need to go for the leader… or the most handsome.”
“None of them were handsome, and I don’t think I could have drawn him away from that table.”
One eyebrow arched. “Good-looking men will always do foolish things for a woman.”
I grabbed the sink and pulled myself up.
Christian gathered me up in his arms, and everything spun for a moment. “Take me, for instance.”
He swiftly moved through th
e doorway and flung me onto the clean side of the mattress. After stripping the sheets out from beneath me, he tossed them in a pile in the corner.
“I didn’t tell him about Keystone,” I said. “But I can’t prove it since he’s dead. Do you think Viktor will believe me?”
He gripped the ends of a pillowcase and gave it a hard yank, forcing the pillow out. “Why are you really here?”
“I’m not here for the pool, I can tell you that much. It seemed like a way to make a few bucks so I could tuck it away for a rainy day, but once again, destiny screwed me over.”
“Ah. So it’s about the dollar signs.”
“How easy do you think it is for me to get a steady job? Think about it. I can’t get a job in the human world since I’m legally dead, and none of the Breed places will hire me since I have a sketchy background and no alias that’s been registered with the higher authority. I’m an illegal creation, and I can’t risk someone turning me over to the Mageri. I’ve worked a few odd jobs, but someone like you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have everyone turn you away.”
Christian circled around the bed and lifted the mattress, causing me to roll over to the opposite end.
“This is my side,” he said.
“You’re not going to sleep with me.”
He bounced onto the mattress and locked his fingers behind his head. “No, I’m going to sleep next to you.”
“Vampires don’t sleep.”
When Christian spoke, it sounded like he was musing aloud. “If Viktor brings you into this group, I’ll have no choice about it. We’ll be partners, and he doesn’t change his mind about such things.”
I crossed my feet at the ankles. “He might if one of us turns up dead.”
“Maybe I’m just a tangle of barbed wire to you, but you’re a jellyfish.”
“Are you saying I’m out of shape?”
He peered over at me. “Beautiful and deadly. Can’t get too close or she’ll latch on and sting you to death.”
“Keep that in mind if you’re going to lie next to me,” I said playfully.
I turned on my side to face him. Shadows leaped across the walls like dancers in a ballet. Christian’s room had a different smell than mine. Musky and familiar—a space that had been lived in for a while.