by C M Thorne
“What’s distracting you?” Rainer asked without a moment’s hesitation.
“What?” Caleb was caught off guard, realizing what the vampire had said and that he was constantly being distracted with thoughts of the vampire. It seemed to be consuming him, every moment and thought.
Rainer ran a hand through his hair, straightening himself as he continued to lean back against the counter. “You said you are distracted. Pray tell, what is on your mind? What is so distracting that you just casually tried to cut through your hand?”
He clenched his teeth, anger spiking up and making him feel like he was going to throw up or scream. Or both. He looked away, trying to breathe in slowly.
“Well?” Rainer followed up.
“You!” Caleb barked, turning to face the vampire, clenching his fists tightly as he fumed.
His brow’s lifted in surprise, the most obvious expression he had seen on the stoic vampire’s flawless mask of a face. “Excuse me?”
The back of Caleb’s neck burned and he wanted to look away, to run away, but he kept himself planted on the spot, looking up at the vampire he had caught off guard. “You always seem to be on my mind lately,” he answered truthfully, softly as he could barely find his voice through his battling nerves.
Rainer’s nostrils flared, eyes wide and seeming to be a deep gold in the shadow cast by Caleb from the light streaming in from the windows behind him. Long moments passed as the vampire slowly studied him like this before his face softened. “It must be my blood.”
“Your blood?” Caleb replied, feeling the warmth still in his hand, tingling up into his arm slightly still.
Rainer nodded, pushing off from the counter and looking around his penthouse slowly, “Yes, vampire blood has many properties. Some of which I failed to think of or account for, unfortunately.”
He blinked at the response. “What do you mean?” Caleb backed up slightly, worry rising up and making his stomach flip. He grabbed the counter of the bar area.
“It can do more than just heal you and potentially put you into transition,” Rainer answered, eyes flicking to Caleb at his new position. “I haven’t given my blood to many over the years and I did not think about the other properties of my blood.” He looked toward his office with far off eyes a moment before he blurred forward, the doors flying open.
He jumped and spun around, looking in to see that the vampire had flashed to behind his massive desk, flipping through a book he had pulled out of somewhere along his way there. Caleb clutched had his pounding heart and followed into the spacious office. It was much like the rest of the penthouse, dark and decorated in rich, deep colors highlighted with gold and silver here and there. A thick, Persian rug dominated the room, rooting the heavy desk and wing-backed chairs before a great stone fireplace. He looked around as he entered the room, noticing that above the fireplace was an oil portrait of Rainer. The vampire was dressed in Renaissance looking clothes in sumptuous deep browns, rich red, and warm golds. The puffed out sleeves of the doublet somehow his not look ridiculous, but fitting for the imposing image of the burning eyed vampire. Caleb had to pry his eyes away from it, looking to the actual Rainer stopped over his desk before him, rapidly flipping through the ancient book he had retrieved.
“Yes,” Rainer nodded down at the tome. “Yes, it does happen.” He looked up at him, “I had just never experienced it and I wasn’t sure. I thought perhaps I felt something,” Rainer paused, looking around as if to find the word evading him, “something more, but I dismissed it all.”
“What?” Caleb shook his head a little, stepping close to the desk, looking at the vampire on the other side. “What do you mean? What is something more?”
“Vampire blood can sometimes form a connection,” Rainer spoke with his hands, something he hadn’t seen him do before, gesturing as if to not just emphasis certain words, but to aid him in finding the right word. “It is like telepathy, I suppose.”
“So, you can read my thoughts?” Caleb flushed.
“No, not exactly,” he shook his head. “I can feel you though.”
His stomach dropped, feeling hollow and cold. “Feel me?” Caleb squeaked out. What did that mean? Feel his emotions? Oh gosh. That would be bad.
“I knew you were in danger when Henri attacked,” he answered. “Just I like I could feel your pain, your panic just now.”
“What else do you feel?” Caleb practically whispered, but the vampire was already lost in thought, continuing to talk.
“I had just not known it to happen without extensive, regular consumption of blood on both parties.” Rainer settled back into his large, red leather chair behind the desk, eyes turning toward the cold fireplace.
“What does that mean then?” Caleb asked, staying standing and reaching out to run his fingers along the smooth, dark edge of the vampire’s desk. Rainer glanced up to his, one eyebrow raised. “I mean,” Caleb added, looking down at the grain of the wood, “what does it mean that we haven’t done that? I haven’t had much of your blood, right?” He glanced at Rainer. “And I don’t think you’ve had my blood.”
Rainer’s eyes lit up, though he kept his gaze trained on the fireplace. “I am not sure,” he answered earnestly. “As I have said, I have not experienced this, to any capacity really.”
“What does that book say about it?” Caleb gestured, turning his head to look at the scrawled, faded words on the worn, darkened pages.
“It is accounts of various abilities across the centuries,” Rainer looked over at the book, “and across many vampires.”
“Really?” Caleb nodded slightly, craning his neck around.
Rainer pushed the book around and toward him absently. “I took it from Livia when I was much younger. There is much not in it, but I have collected other accounts, both from others and written my own.”
“Are there many abilities that you’ve found?” Caleb asked.
He nodded, still not looking over at him. “And not all experience the same abilities in precisely the same way.”
Caleb scanned the page the book as open to. The sprawling script was written in a faded black ink in perfect lines despite being on old, unlined paper. He stared at the connected, old cursive words. It took his a moment to see that the writing was in Latin. “Torquem sanguine,” Caleb muttered under his breath. “Blood chain?”
Rainer broke his gaze with the fireplace, his amber eyes floating up to find Caleb. “You know Latin?” He could have sworn the vampire looked shocked, or even impressed.
He glanced down, “Oh. Uh, yeah. My father had us all learn in when we were young so we could read older versions of the bible.” He shook his head and laughed lightly, trying to keep his mind from floating back to his childhood and the lessons the pastor had enforced for all four of them. Luckily, he had had his sisters to tutor him, to pull him along. Becca and Lizzie were both able to speak Latin, but he and Dinah had never devoted themselves enough to achieve linguistic skill. He could parse out the meaning of written Latin however.
“Very good,” Rainer nodded, eyes looking between him and the book. “We translate it to mean blood tether, as our blood creates a link, a tether if you will between our minds and the minds of those who have received our blood.”
Caleb nodded slowly, ever scanning the book. “It says that some can even feel intentions or direct thoughts through the torquem sanguine.” He flipped the pages, skimming until he found a date in the sixteen hundreds. The writing turned from talking about others to the writer him or herself. It mentioned how the torquem created or deepened feelings between the subject and the vampire. Caleb stopped, hand resting on the book as he stood upright. “Is this Livia’s experience?” Caleb asked slowly, afraid to ask if it was actually about Rainer.
The vampire glared at the book, eyes swirling with marbled veins of amber and gold. “Yes,” the word came out slowly, seething with anger through his clenched teeth. The vampire’s sharp teeth seemed exaggerated, catching the light in a way that he could only thin
k of as animalistic. Menacing.
Caleb glanced back at the book, afraid to stare at Rainer. He realized he was holding his breath, stomach clenched with nerves. He saw that the human was turned, resulting it something she called vinculum sanguinis. “What,” he barely said the word as a whisper, but Rainer clearly caught it, eyes shifting up to him in a blink of an eye.
“What?” His voice was stern, distant and strange.
“I,” Caleb stumbled over his own thoughts, not wanting to look into the empty face of Rainer. “I just, I don’t understand this, I guess.” He pointed at the words, “Vinculum sanguinis. Bond of blood, I think.”
“Yes,” Rainer answered, face still empty. “The blood bond has been known to happen regardless of the torquem.” His eyes drifted away from Caleb and the book, expression still distant and inhuman. “All sires have a certain,” he searched for the words for a moment, “will that they can exert over their progeny. A blood bond is something else though. It doesn’t happen every time, but it is a bond from the sire of their progeny that essentially erases the will of the progeny. When one has vinculum sanguinis, they cannot resist the will of their maker.”
Caleb felt cold, clenching his teeth as he wrapped his arms around himself and looked back to the page. He was afraid to push the subject further, but he felt less embarrassed, less restrained. This was likely Rainer’s blood acting on him as well. “Do you have this with Livia?” He did not wait for the vampire to respond as his face fell into a pained look that made his heart ache. “That is why you ran. Why you have hidden yourself from her. You do not wish to be a part of her collection and it’s made worse by her power over you.”
“I resisted the bond enough to run,” Rainer spoke softly. “But it took many years and a great amount of strength to find the window to do it.” He shook his head and sat forward, “I don’t know what I will do if she exerts the bond over me again.”
“Will it not be weakened now?” Caleb asked. Rainer looked up at him, brows furrowed. “I mean,” he continued, working the idea out in his own mind, “you aren’t young any longer. And you haven’t had her blood in your system for what I assume to be centuries.” He trailed off, resisting the urge to look away.
“I have no idea if it will make a difference,” Rainer replied, his amber eyes locking with Caleb’s grey eyes. “Other vampires have had the bond lessen or basically broken with age and the siring of other vampires, but the bond is different every time.”
Caleb nodded, trying to wrap his head around it all. He could not imagine what it would be like to lose your freewill to someone else. Especially to someone like Rainer’s sire. Someone who was so removed from humanity. He shivered and Rainer flashed up from his seat, stopping himself in a fraction of a second a few feet from Caleb.
“Are you cold?” The vampire asked with a confused look, coming off hesitant, almost awkward if Caleb didn’t know better.
“Uh, um,” Caleb shook his head and reached up to rub the bridge of his nose. “No. No, I’m fine.” He glanced to the vampire looming next to him and nodded once. “I’m alright. I just,” he hesitated, looking down over Rainer’s body. “I just, I feel,” he bit his lip, cutting himself off.
“What?” Rainer asked softly. Cal looked up at him again and cold have shown that Rainer was going to step forward, step closer to him, before he blinked and looked away for a second.
“Um,” Caleb clutched his arms again, “I’m just sorry for what that must have been like. I can’t imagine.”
“Oh,” Rainer’s face fell ever so slightly and took a half step back.
Caleb’s heart sank and his heart sped up, suddenly feeling like he had ruined a moment he didn’t know had been forming between the two of them. He mentally backpedaled, trying to think of how to fix what had just happened. How could he get back to whatever had been building? Rainer had seemed concerned, yet something more than that. He almost gave the impression that he had wanted to be close to Cal. Was he just imagining that part? He shook his head. Maybe it had just been the blood in his system that was toying with his emotions.
“May I read more of this?” Caleb finally asked, voice lowered, not really knowing what to do or say in the silence that had stretched out between them.
Rainer inhaled audibly deep and slow as he turned away and moved back around the desk. “If you want,” he responded casually. “I just need to make some calls,” he glanced to the open doors of his office. “Take it with you and close the doors behind you, please.”
Caleb was taken aback by the shift in conversation and Rainer’s demeanor, backing up as he grabbed the book. “Oh, alright,” he kept his head door, watching the floor as he left and closed the doors. A second before clicking the doors together, he looked up and nearly jumped at the intense look on the vampire’s face, golden eyes watching him closely.
CHAPTER 10
The next week passed by quickly. Rainer had exerted his influence of Caleb’s administration and he had taken his finals at the penthouse under Rainer’s careful eye. He was not sure what the vampire had done to get him some supposed home hospital pass to do it all, but he did not complain. Even though he had clammed back up and was back to only talking to him as minimally as possible, it was better than having to go back to school. He took his time with the finals, half watching the vampire across the long dining room table, rather than being lost in daydream thoughts about him as he would have been at school.
Caleb tore himself away from the oversized, luxurious bed and moseyed into the bathroom. He had slept in after a night tossing and turning, feeling uncomfortable and restless. He had torn off his shirt halfway through the night as it had felt like it was strangling him. He stepped out of his shorts and turned the water on in the stone shower, turning it far to the left to set the water to scalding, steam quickly filling up the open shower. His phone chirped and he opened the message from Lizzie, not looking at whatever passage she had sent him and turned some music on. Rainer had helped him sync his phone to all the various toys around the penthouse shortly after moving in and the speakers in the bathroom picked up the music.
He stepped in under the rain shower head, which sprinkled a soft warm curtain from the ceiling. After a long moment, he reached and turned on the knob for three powerful jets along the wall to pelt hot water, which massaged his back. He sighed, leaning forward and pressing the palms of his hands into the cool feeling shower wall. He had been trying to distract himself from the reality of the situation by reading the book he had taken from Rainer, but it didn’t help placate his worry. The more he delved into the detailed, Latin notes, the more he felt insignificant and minuscule. Especially when he perserverated on Livia, the ancient sire of Rainer, who was supposedly coming for them both after Henri’s temper tantrum.
Livia’s notes on the various acts, strengths, and gifts, as she called them, of the vampires often included her own self reflections, adding to the mythos he had built up in his head about her. She seemed larger than life, like some scheming, powerful villain from one of the fantasy shows the pastor had never let him watch. What could he do to prevent her from exacting revenge against Rainer? What could he do to prevent himself getting caught between the two immortals?
Rainer. His stomach felt hollow and achy against the warmth that enveloped him as he thought of the handsome vampire, who was likely sitting in his office or out in the living room. He avoided Caleb less over the past few days. The vampire was not one for speaking much, unless he fell into a mood. Suddenly, something would seem to overcome him and he would immerse himself in deep conversations, asking Caleb all manner of questions. Questions involving his thoughts of certain modern things, his feelings, and about the tiniest of details in his life. Then, just as quickly, he would remove himself, as if he were afraid. Of what? Caleb was so not sure. He rarely felt sure of anything.
Caleb shook his head and looked up at the rain shower head, letting the hot water run across his face. He needed to stop fixating. Obsessing, he told himself, tha
t was what it really was. Over two weeks and there had been nothing between the two of them. Not really. The small moments that Cal held onto were not easily explained by any intention on the vampire’s part. Feeling, curiosity, hunger, Caleb actually gulped at the thought, none of it actually felt like good enough cause for the instances that he ran over again and again. The vampire felt nothing, Caleb tried to convince himself of this.
Caleb felt nothing as well. Or at least, he was trying to, working against whatever trace of the vampire’s blood still ran through his veins and affected the way he was thinking. His emotions could not be trusted. Neither could his thoughts. They were all compromised, predisposing him to the imagined connection with the enigmatic, alluring vampire. He just need to steer clear of him, even though the thought of being closer made his whole body respond. That wasn’t going to happen, he reminded himself, punching the stone of the wall with his right arm, trying to banish the thought of Rainer coming into the shower with him. He didn’t even have the guts to talk with the vampire about it any further, regardless.
Was his attraction all Rainer’s blood? He had definitely felt pulled to him before ever tasting his blood, though he had not mentioned that to him. Livia wrote about the blood tether, the torquem sanguine, and how it manifested differently. One passage stuck out in his mind, causing him to ruminate on it for days. She talked about how the tether acted like a form of fate or destiny, which she called fatum sanguinis, pulling the vampire and a mate of sorts together. Could he have that with Rainer? What else explained the consuming nature of his thoughts, blood or not? Caleb did not often lose himself like he had. What if, he thought to himself, letting the water pelt him, this was all some vampiric fate, like destined lovers.