Darklight 2: Darkthirst

by Forrest, Bella

  Easy? I crossed my arms, still sympathetic to Drigar’s plight but also annoyed. Did he think I was worried I was going to be mistaken for a snack? “Do I need to remind you I’ve taken down a redbill single-handedly before?” I asked. “The Bureau has a sophisticated regimen for dealing with redbills, one I worked on for quite some time.”

  “I would never forget such a thing,” Dorian promised, smirking now.

  I ignored it. The mention of the Bureau had reminded me we had more important things to worry about than redbill sass. “Hopefully they don’t have time for one wounded redbill wandering the woods,” I muttered. “Will he be okay on his own?”

  “Definitely. He’s fierce.” Dorian patted the bill’s silken head.

  Drigar flexed his wings slightly. He fixed a beady stare on Dorian, beak clicking a few times, before taking off at a slightly slower pace than I was used to and disappearing into the forest.

  I watched him go with a mixture of relief that he wasn’t too damaged and worry—without him, we were essentially stranded out here in the mountains. Stranded with no food, weapons, shelter, or way to communicate with the rest of the team. We needed to find a way back to the cave. Our actions had led the monster away from the battle, but the Bureau soldiers might have pinned down the team left on the field. I shivered, both from the cold and the thought of my team in danger, the vampires hiding in the caves with no idea what was going on outside, the crashing helicopter spinning through my mind once again.

  “The chill’s going to get to you soon,” Dorian warned.

  “You’re exhausted too,” I pointed out.

  He nodded, unwilling or unable to argue that point. He was strong, but we’d both been put through the wringer by our experiences. My brain begged me to tumble to the ground and take a nap. I shook myself, trying to find the energy to regroup. The first step was inventorying our supplies.

  “I’ve got two boot daggers, one of which is still kind of bloody, and an electric baton,” I announced, checking my gear again. “We’ve got your medical kit and anything else you have on you.”

  He opened one side of his cloak to reveal shiny blades strapped to the inside. “A few weapons I picked up in the Immortal Plane.”

  Another wave of lethargy crashed over me. I pressed my hand to my temple, the fatigue triggering a wave of vertigo.

  Dorian put a steadying hand on my shoulder and frowned. “We should rest,” he said. “You look about as exhausted as I feel.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I replied, enjoying the presence of his hand on me. “There’s no point in stretching ourselves thinner than we already are. That thing easily took us a day’s walk from the caves. We’re not getting back there tonight.” I took a better look around the patch of forest we’d crash-landed in. The debris from the trees would probably make an adequate shelter. I’d certainly slept under less when out on training exercises and missions. A sharp wind, chilled by the snow still staining the very tops of the mountains, cut between the packed trunks around us, and I shivered. In those situations, I hadn’t been beaten to hell by a giant acid-breathing horror creature.

  “Do you have anything to light a fire?” I asked. The cold would be one of the main problems for me, given that my human body was less robust than Dorian’s, especially with my injuries. I didn’t want to fall ill out here. It would be the last thing we needed.

  He patted his cloak, frowning. “I can’t feel my flint and steel.” He dug through an apparently endless number of pockets. Eventually, however, he shook his head with an irritated scowl.

  Did I have anything? I began to pat down my tattered uniform, and my hand struck something in the pocket of my pants. Dorian’s stone. I picked it out and stared at it, wondering if it would be of any use.

  Seeing it in my hand, Dorian let out a grateful whistle. “We can use that stone to strike sparks,” he said with a confident grin.

  I raised an eyebrow. “What is this thing exactly?” I asked. The stone’s onyx-colored surface with gray edges gave it the appearance of mystical charcoal.

  “It’s from the mountains in the Immortal Plane where I grew up. It’s more useful there because it naturally reacts with more things. I don’t know the full extent of its properties, but I know them well enough,” he explained calmly. “It should certainly start a fire.”

  The Immortal Plane had produced that awful acid-breathing monster, but perhaps it had hidden treasures as well. Maybe some could be of potential benefit to Earth.

  “Did you find it yourself?” I asked, wondering whether a younger Dorian had often sourced material from his surroundings. The rock had always struck me as something sentimental he carried, but I’d never pressed for the full story. His serious gaze met mine.

  “My brother gave it to me,” he said.

  Silence crept over us. His brother? I desperately wanted to ask more questions, but his tight jaw made me cautious, and I didn’t want to ask questions that would cause him pain. I paused and stared at the stone with new appreciation. He had given it to me. Dorian had given me his brother’s stone, perhaps even the last thing he had to remember him by.

  I swallowed, searching for something else to ask. I was curious about more than his familial connection to the stone. “Are you able to track me through the rock?” I asked. I’d suspected so from the beginning, but I wanted confirmation.

  “Yes,” Dorian said slowly. “And no. It’s difficult to explain.”

  “We’ve got time,” I said, gesturing to the night around us.

  He chuckled. I simmered with more happiness than the response deserved, glad to see momentary relief in him.

  “All vampires can sense dark energy across planes, but we can also sense creatures and objects from the Immortal Plane when they’re in the Mortal Plane. Creatures and objects from the Immortal Plane give off a particular… aura. It’s the differences between those auras that I sense when it comes to objects and creatures from the different planes.”

  “It gives off an aura?” I asked, lifting the stone to squint at it in the moonlight. I hadn’t realized Dorian could sense so much. The extent of the vampires’ powers blew me away. I felt limited in comparison. Maybe sensing everything would be too much, though. The vampires might get overwhelmed from dealing with all this sensory input.

  “Yes, in a way. You won’t be able to perceive it, the same way you can’t hear or see as well as some animals on this plane.”

  “Like a sort of inaudible frequency?” I asked. It wasn’t that strange a concept, and given the vampires’ heightened senses, it was understandable they would be more sensitive to certain frequencies.

  “By giving you a piece of the Immortal Plane, I can sense that you’re different from the humans around you,” he said, then paused. His next words caught in his throat, but he struggled through them. “It’s a familiar sensation. I can easily track it from the other side because it feels… like home. So, when I sensed a huge dark presence near you that should only exist on the Immortal Plane, I took us back through the tear and tracked the stone’s aura back to you. Does that make sense?”

  I nodded. Despite my fatigue, I wanted to know everything about the Immortal Plane and Dorian’s interactions with it. The information fascinated me, and it could be useful for the future. The Immortal Plane felt unreal to me, even after seeing it with my own eyes.

  I was grateful to him for giving me the stone since it allowed him to find me. I’d thought the stone might be mystical when Dorian told me to keep it. Maybe I secretly hoped he would reveal the secret powers in an epic battle, allowing us to finally vanquish the Bureau. A childish dream… but the stone could start a fire, so that was something.

  From the tone of his voice, the stone was clearly special to Dorian. I smiled softly to myself. He trusted me with it. He used it because he wanted to know where I was. A warm sensation of comfort fell over my shoulders. I took a deep breath. There was nothing more I could ask about the stone, and I didn’t want to trot out my sentimentality over his
gift tonight. We were already tired.

  He took the stone from my hand. I gathered a few dry, broken branches, and together we dug a firepit in the clearing, scraping away the mulch down to bare earth a good two feet on every side. The last thing we needed was to accidentally start a forest fire. He struck the stone against an ordinary rock, sparks flew across the kindling, and the wood, kept dry beneath the trees and far from the snow on top of the mountains, soon ignited. Good. We have a fire. He grabbed a few more logs, snapping the larger pieces into more manageable chunks, and slowly built the fire to a good blaze.

  We sat in the dirt leaning against a large, fresh-smelling pine. The moon watched overhead as I blinked wearily at the night sky filled with stars. Sleeping for a hundred years sounded perfect right now. Dorian remained quiet, and the shadows beneath his skin were still and faded in the moonlight.

  “You really do look exhausted,” I informed him, with a bite of worry. “Didn’t you feed recently?” I was positive he had, right before the mission to the Immortal Plane.

  He nodded solemnly. “I did,” he said. “But I’ve been fighting almost nonstop and running around the Immortal Plane. It burns the dark energy much faster than flying on redbills and sitting around in a cave does.”

  “Like psychic calories?” I asked, amused despite myself.

  “Yes,” he said with a snort. “Like psychic calories.”

  A breeze swept over us, and I shivered fiercely, feeling the cold bite my skin. I curled up tighter, raising my knees to my chin.

  “Next time, we’re getting a hideout in a tropical paradise,” I muttered darkly. He chuckled, but his humor faded quickly. I eyed him as he glanced at the distance between us as if debating with himself whether huddling together might be worth the pain. He raised his gaze to mine, asking permission.

  I nodded, and he arranged himself behind me. I sat between his legs while he pressed his back against the trunk. Cuddled between him and the fire, I felt the comfort of their combined warmth. Dorian wrapped his arms around me. I nearly winced, anticipating pain, but there was nothing but a small tingle. A wave of relief washed over me.

  “There’s barely any pain.” I rubbed my chest, half expecting the burning to increase. “It’s actually almost… nice.” Although, at this point, I might be grateful to pass out to get away from my troubles.

  “I’m glad,” Dorian said softly, his voice indecipherable.

  The fire crackled. I inhaled the scent of smoke. “This reminds me of camping trips with my family,” I whispered. “Zach almost lit himself on fire once while he was acting out a ghost story for us.” I paused as my stomach knotted with worry. Last I’d seen, the chopper had started melting and was headed for the ground. I believed in Zach and Gina, knowing they were both intensely capable and well-trained soldiers, but the image was still burned into my mind. “I hope he and the others are okay.”

  “I’m sure they’re saying the same thing about us,” Dorian reassured me. There was a slight pause, and then he said, “Watching you and him together makes me miss my own brother.”

  I tried not to stiffen, worried he would sense the movement all too easily with our close proximity. Dorian had never talked about his brother. I was happy to hear him share something but also surprised.

  “Can I tell you about him?” Dorian asked. His voice sounded strained.

  I felt frozen as I stared into the fire, unable to turn to see his expression. Had he been able to grieve for his brother throughout this chaos? “You can tell me anything,” I promised him. Even if the story was bad, I wanted Dorian to be able to talk to me. I didn’t know whether my own brother was injured or worse right now, but Dorian had already lived through that nightmare with his brother.

  His voice was very quiet as he spoke, barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling fire. “My brother was called Lanzon. My parents always said they considered us almost twins when we were growing up, but my brother was always more impulsive and sensitive than I was.” He paused, and I felt his breath hitch in his chest behind me. “I’ll never forget him crying out for Laini, terrified for her, when the immortal enemies attacked the largest of our cities in their first wave of assaults. I kept trying to tell him we had to be quiet or they would find us, and that we would look for her as soon as there was a break in the fighting, but he panicked.”

  Despite the fire and Dorian’s body, an icy chill sank into my blood. I can’t imagine losing Zach.

  Dorian grieved as he spoke. “Everything happened so fast. One second, he was beside me, hiding, and the next, he had broken cover, desperate to find his wife. He was killed in that first assault, somewhere in the city. Laini was devastated. They’d been planning to have a child once Laini finished her training with the city architects,” Dorian said. “And then just like that, he was gone.”

  My heart ached in empathy. I knew a little of what it was like to lose so much so quickly. “I’m sorry,” I croaked hoarsely. “You’ve been through so much.” I touched his arm gently, and he didn’t pull away. Tears stung my eyes again.

  He had lost so much of his family thanks to those immortal murderers. Immortal enemies.

  “Are your enemies in the Immortal Plane like the monster we faced?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t too soon to press the question. It was hard for me to imagine what he meant when he spoke of immortal enemies, and I needed a sense of what we could be dealing with.

  “They’re much worse,” Dorian replied, his tone like black ice. “Far worse than the monster we faced today.”

  I shivered. Not a good time. I said nothing more and simply leaned into him, trying to offer comfort for something that couldn’t be comforted. His body was stiff, but it relaxed after a moment, and we sat together in silence.

  Eventually, my eyelids drooped, and sleep overtook me in his arms. Despite everything, I felt safe for the first time in a long time.

  * * *

  Birds chirped in the golden morning light. The lofty evergreens creaked and swayed slightly in a chill mountain breeze. There was a scent of damp earth, pine trees, and burnt wood. The cold ground quickly made me miss even the dirty beds from the hideout. I groaned as I pulled myself upright, stopped from doing so completely by the arm that was flung over me where we were curled together. I touched it, and the memories from last night flooded back in a delightful rush. Dorian’s eyes opened, and his gaze sharpened, pupils going to pitch-black points within the icy blue. For a second, he looked feral and slightly inhuman in the way I’d forgotten vampires were.

  My muscles ached as promised, but I was happy to see him alive and well in the daylight. I liked waking up in his arms, and I wondered what it would be like to wake up in his arms every day. My cheeks warmed. I wanted the chance to do this again when we weren’t on the run. Though perhaps we were only able to be this close and comfortable because we were struggling in an emergency away from everyone else, without the weight of curious and hostile eyes on us.

  For just a minute longer, I let myself lie with my head on his chest, savoring the rare opportunity. I wanted to be with him when the two of us weren’t pushed to the breaking point. Would that ever be possible? If we hadn’t met because of this conflict between our species, would we even be compatible in a “normal” life? The pain was one thing, but who knew what other complications there might be farther down the road? Assuming we ever managed to figure out our current problem.

  For instance… how did reproduction work with vampires? I tried not to stare at his lower half. Could we even have sex? I didn’t know for certain whether vampires were… compatible with humans, since the most I had seen of Dorian’s body was in a towel. I hadn’t fully let myself think about it before now, and I felt my face flush. Beneath me, Dorian yawned and stretched, apparently oblivious to my sudden awkwardness. Good.

  I pushed the thought of a naked Dorian out of my head. He was weak from his journey and the battles. I frowned as he swayed for a moment getting to his feet. He needed to feed.

  “How are t
he battle wounds feeling this morning?” he asked, smiling as he stomped out the final few embers of the fire.

  I hastily shifted my thoughts to our plans for the day. “About as good as you would expect after spending a night sleeping on the ground,” I replied and hoped my tone sounded smooth enough. “I would very much like to return the Bureau the favor of unleashing that beast on my team.” I got to my feet carefully, stumbling a little myself as I realized I hadn’t had anything to drink for probably over twelve hours. “But first, we need to figure out where the hell we are and get back to our team.”

  “Leave that to me,” Dorian assured me, leaping up to grab a low-hanging branch a second later.

  With impressive speed and agility considering his current state, he scrambled up into the canopy, soon disappearing from view in the rich gloom of the evergreens. He remained hidden for a minute or two, then reappeared, clambering from branch to branch until he was about fifteen feet from the ground, at which point he leapt down, landing with a slight wince.

  “The good news is I could see the peak where the ski resort is,” he said. “The bad news is it’s about twenty or thirty miles from here.”

  I groaned, dropping to a crouch and cradling my head in my hands. “Please tell me we can cover that via redbill?”

  “The redbills will be closer to the resort,” Dorian said, sounding apologetic. “They’ll have hidden in the trees until they’re sure it’s safe.”

  I wished we had Drigar back, but the redbill was better off on his own for now. He could regain his strength by feeding on forest animals without us slowing him down.

  “Maybe we’ll find one you can fly,” I said hopefully.

  Dorian nodded, though he didn’t seem convinced.

  “Do you think it’s safe to go back?” I asked. “We don’t even know if we won the battle. Even if we did, wouldn’t they all have moved on from the hideout to somewhere safer?”

  Dorian shrugged. “It’s a better destination than nothing.”