Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1)

by Leeann M. Shane

  “I do not dream, hope, or fear.”

  I dug my nails into his palms. “Then let me into the part that wishes you could dream, hope, and fear.”

  “Nothing’s happening,” he mumbled, bored out of his mind.

  I flashed my eyes open to find that his were still closed. “Would you try? Seriously. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to sleep?” He shook his head, making me so annoyed I wanted to clock him. “Well, then, picture it. Your mind shuts off and everything goes dark and then you just fade away…” My body sagged, and I felt his grip tighten around my hand. “Your true fears and desires take over. It’s not you thinking anymore. It’s your soul.”

  My mind went dark. Like I’d been plunged into a lightless room. The outward sounds disappeared, and it felt like I went with them. I wasn’t me anymore. I was… Phare. Taller. Stronger. Lonelier. Emptier. I stood atop a hill made of ash, the stench of sulfur in my nose. There was an insistent burning in my throat, like a fire that never quite went out. I was thirsty, I realized, for blood. Motherless. Fatherless. But honest and loyal. And yet there was something missing. Some crucial point to my existence.

  There was a sound close by. I turned to the right to spy a woman wearing a stunning dress the color of crushed pomegranate seeds. She had hair the color of aged wood, this beautiful shining dark brown. Her eyes were the color of flames. Amber, gold, and bronze. She was tanned and beautiful. Strong. Fierce. In Phare’s chest, that missing part flared to life. Bred to be loyal, he was loyal to her.

  Forever.

  The woman smiled at him. She wasn’t human. I could tell by the way she moved. With intent and ease; there was no doubt in her steps. But she wasn’t a vampire. She was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Her skin tone was bronzed, making her features more pronounced. Within her skin, there were sparks of light, like cinders snapping in a fire. She looked like she finally had a purpose.

  She looked… happy.

  My own chest ached at the sight of her. My shock was so strong, I felt the connection between Phare and I tear apart. My eyes shot open and I was right back in Port Inlet. Holding on to his cool hands. My pair bond beside me, watching me in curiosity and concern.

  I held Phare’s eyes. His held mine.

  “What did you see?” he demanded, pulling his hands free.

  “Me.”

  He didn’t move. “You saw you? Was I there? You’re my purpose?” He laughed, breaking my bubble apart. “Great joke. Let’s get this going. Are you turning her or not?”

  “Was I there?” Maxell asked.

  I met his eyes, my own full of unshed tears. “I didn’t see you.”

  He didn’t react. “What did you see?”

  “Me. Through Phare’s eyes. Did you know that he’s not kidding? He really was bred without the ability to love. He was however created with loyalty. He is made entirely of loyalty, and he aches with everything in what’s left of his soul to serve someone deserving. I saw him serving me. I was his queen.”

  Phare and Maxell remained perfectly still. They were doing that immoveable vampire thing that freaked me out. Not a single breath, not a single blink—they didn’t move a muscle.

  I stumbled back from them both, trying to grasp what I’d seen. It had been so different from my nightmare. I’d tapped into something that felt so real, the absence of it left me seeking and still somehow hollow. How could both futures exist?

  “There are no queens. There haven’t been. Not for thousands of years. The Pures had them eradicated.” Phare tilted his head to the side, utterly confused and something else. I couldn’t place the intense way he was looking at me. “But I dream of serving a worthy king and queen one day. What if you’re not a foreseer, but someone who sees our deepest desires and fears?”

  Maxell blinked, coming back to life. “Hmm. Maybe he’s on to something. You’ve been dreaming the same nightmare every night since you met me. But what if it isn’t a nightmare, but my deepest desire and your deepest fear?”

  I hugged myself, licking my chapped lips. A flurry of snow kicked up on the road and I tried to tamp down the shiver brewing in my bones. “You want to keep me human.”

  Maxell nodded. “What’s your deepest fear?”

  “Not keeping you at all. Vampire, human—I don’t care, Maxell, as long as you’re there.” The air was icy in my lungs.

  Maxell glanced at Phare after delving so deeply into my eyes, I feared he could see everything I was thinking. When he looked away, his eyes were glimmering. “She needs the fever elixir. If she doesn’t get it, she’ll freeze alive or burn up. I’m taking her back home to get it. You can try and stop me, but I won’t stop until she’s safe.” Maxell took my hand and we walked down the slick road.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered.

  He whispered back. “I don’t know.”

  His answer was so true, it nauseated me. We didn’t know anything. And that’s why we were sitting ducks. Waiting to be picked off by hunters and ancient vampires for reasons that only mattered to them.

  The same black car that had followed us pulled up alongside us. The passenger window rolled down and Phare’s face was hidden within the shadows. “Get in. I’ll take her.”

  Maxell didn’t hesitate as he opened the back door. He nodded for me to slide in and after I had, he slid in after me, as rigid as a slab of stone.

  “Do you know where to go?” I asked.

  “Mansion in the forest, perfectly hidden from the main population of Port Inlet, but close enough for them to serve your needs?”

  I snorted. “That sounds about right.”

  “I hope there’s enough nourishment for a guest,” he said. “I’m famished.”

  Maxell and I shared a look. He was unbreathing, in defense mode, ready to fight to his death.

  I spoke up. “He doesn’t drink human blood. Masters and his pair bond don’t either. There’s plenty of synthetic blood though. You can help yourself when we get there.”

  Phare’s eyes flashed to meet mine in the mirror. “Pardon me?”

  He had impeccable hearing, like any other vampire. He’d heard me; he just hadn’t expected me to say that.

  I nodded.

  His eyes widened and the car screeched to a stop. If Maxell hadn’t held me down, I would have went flying. I quickly fastened my seatbelt.

  “What is this synthetic blood you speak of? What does it do?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” Maxell drawled. “I’ve never tasted human blood, but Masters says it tastes like the real thing. It keeps us satiated. We don’t hunger for human blood if we’re already full.”

  Phare’s face was a mask of shock. “The Immortal Society won’t like this. This is grounds to kill. They will seek the utmost punishment for this transgression. Why am I really here?” he mumbled to himself, his eyes still on mine. “To bring back a newborn with Pure blood? I understand that. But I wasn’t warned of his human pair bond, with a bond to vampires so strong she can already tap into her powers. To another vampire with Pure blood creating an alternative to human blood.”

  “There’s only one way for them to be abreast of us at all,” Maxell said.

  I glanced at him, afraid to ask. “Who?”

  “Jessamine,” he answered. “Warde and Kline must have gone with her. She had to have told on Masters, about him turning me and about his synthetic blood, about me and you—she ratted us all out to get back at us. I should have known she wouldn’t go quietly.”

  I hadn’t thought much of her since she’d ran off. “But Kline is Reowna’s brother. Why would he betray her?”

  “Because she betrayed him when she turned him.”

  Phare rubbed his temples. A car honked behind him, flipping him the bird as it sped around.

  “I should suck that fool dry,” he growled.

  “Don’t.” I touched my hand to his shoulder. “Things are bad enough without you adding a body count to the mix.”

  His eyes were cold. “That’s what I do. There
are dozens, probably hundreds of bodies behind me.”

  I considered that for what it was. The truth. In order for Phare to exist, others had to perish. I was so profoundly thankful to Masters in that moment, I promised myself that I would never doubt him again. Maxell would never have a body count behind him because of Masters. There had to be a reason for his actions, a purpose larger than anything we could see. With a pair bond like Reowna, he had foresight. He must have a reason behind everything he did.

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “Yes it does. It all eventually comes back down to blood. You will see.”

  “She won’t.”

  Phare whirled around in his seat, pinning Maxell down with a stare. “You really think keeping her human is doing her a favor? Her existence is half-gone already. Her entire life will be chasing heaven and fighting off hell. Look at her blue lips. Look at her fear. Her human fragility. You’re keeping her human for your own selfish reasons and it will backfire. She can’t even defend herself.”

  Maxell seemed to grow. Every muscle, every ounce of strength, pulsed like a live wire between him and his target. “She won’t need to defend herself around me. She’ll always be safe.”

  “She wasn’t safe today. And I’m heartless. What would have happened if another Warrior was sent to retrieve you? There are some Warriors who pick their teeth with the bones of their victims. Even a horde of newly turned vampires couldn’t take down one Warrior. What would she do then? Love won’t protect her. Even you can’t.”

  Maybe it was a saving grace, but cold swept through me at that precise moment. Ice gripped my body. I needed the fever elixir. “Can we argue about my being in danger later?”

  After a few heated seconds, both boys sat back. Phare drove much the same way Maxell did. Too fast and yet completely capable. Driving through town made me uneasy. I wasn’t afraid for me, but for all the humans who had no idea a vampire was driving through town.

  When we got home, Phare pulled in the exact spot Maxell would have parked in. We all got out, Maxell keeping a close hold on me. His hand wrapped around mine.

  Maxell opened the front door and made sure I entered first. We were through the entry way before he pulled me to a stop, turning back.

  Phare stood on the other side of the door and tried to take a step into the house, but it was as if an invisible glass barrier stopped him. His temper was palpable as his eyes drug over to us.

  “Oh, right,” Maxell said, giving me a look. “You have to invite him in.”

  “But this isn’t my house. You can come in freely. Masters and Reowna, too.”

  “Maybe that’s because we already lived here. The moment you moved in, you changed things.” His heavy stare fell on mine.

  I didn’t miss the double meaning in his words. “Who makes that rule?”

  Maxell shrugged. “Someone who wanted those with a pulse to have a fighting chance.”

  “Giving us superhuman strength didn’t occur to them?”

  A faint humorous twinkle shone in Maxell’s eyes. “Honest mistake, I’d bet.”

  Phare cleared his throat. “Can you get on with it? Invite me into your dwelling, Emmie.”

  Inviting him in wouldn’t make much of a difference, I supposed. It wasn’t as if we could leave with him waiting for us outside. Trapping ourselves in felt dangerous. “You can come in, Phare.”

  He stepped cautiously through the doorway, his temper fading when he finally made it through.

  Maxell pulled me along.

  “Blood’s in the fridge,” Maxell informed him, leading me away through the entry, past the staircase, and for a door nearby. It was heavier than most doors and made entirely of metal. He tried the handle and pulled back on it, waiting for it to close behind us before he finally let my hand go and locked the door.

  He put his finger over his lips and nodded for me to follow him. I stuck close on the way down the stairs. They spit us out at the bottom of a smooth, cement floorspace. I’d never seen inside of a mad scientist’s lab before, but if I had, I suspected Masters’ was the best of its kind. There was a giant lab table in the middle, with items scattered atop. Notes scribbled, jars of unknown substances—some viscous, some glowing—and along the far wall were three fridges with glass doors. Two were full of blood. The other was full of the fever elixir.

  Maxell opened the door and handed me a bottle. I’d never seen the stuff in its own bottle before. Altogether, lined up like that in the fridge, they all appeared to glow dully, like dreams just waiting to become true.

  I spun the metal top off and brought it to my lips, the taste of pineapples and bitterness exploding on my tongue. “Drink an entire bottle?”

  Maxell nodded, his eyes scanning the ceiling, presumably listening to our enormous and dangerous houseguest.

  As he was lost in his head, I continued surveying the room. There were vats of chemicals on the other side of the room, their symbols scrawled on the sides. A highly sophisticated system of computers took up the wall along the staircase.

  Maxell’s lips pressed to my ear, and he whispered so delicately, I could barely hear him over the buzz of the fridges. “Talk normally. Give him nothing to worry about. There are coolers in the supply closet on the other side of the staircase. Carefully pack one with the fever elixir. As many bottles as you can. I will do the same with blood. There’s an exit through that window,” he whispered, pointing to a window over the chemical vats. “Ready, set, go.” He straightened, heading for the closet; his voice boomed out over the room. “Taste good?”

  I studied what was left of the fever elixir. “Do you know what all is in this stuff?”

  “Windmint, but you already knew that. That’s where it gets its color and bitter taste. In the fae realm, it only grows in the Earth Court, but it requires water purely from this crater in the Water Court. The fae are complicated. It’s got a bunch of other ingredients, but windmint is the main one.”

  “How did Masters find that out?”

  “I’m learning that Masters’ actions are as easily pinned down as the answers to our questions.”

  I snorted, licking the last drop from the bottle just as he set down a cooler at my feet without even making a sound. “So like not at all?”

  “Right.” He shot me an amused grin, but on the edge of his smile he wasn’t as amused as I wished he was. He was afraid and confused—much like me.

  He made a motion with his hand to keep talking as he carefully began extracting bottles of blood from the fridge. Neither knocked together; even the blood didn’t make a sound.

  “Your yearbooks.”

  He paused, glancing at me with his brows drawn down. “What?”

  “I need them.” I finished the elixir and tiptoed over to the fridge, joining him as we filled the coolers with the one thing we needed to survive. Together. I wondered what we needed more. The contents in the bottle… or each other?

  “I don’t understand.”

  I gave him pleading eyes. I couldn’t explain without giving us away. That I needed the yearbooks I took from the library the day Masters erased him from the internet. I wanted those two tiny pictures of him from when he was human more then I wanted this cooler of fever elixir. So, I guessed I had my answer. Him.

  I had a feeling it would always be him.

  And deep down, I already knew his answer. He’d never risk my life for two yearbooks.

  I shook my head, a pit falling in my stomach when I accepted that I had to leave them behind. “Never mind.”

  He moved too fast to discern his movements. The cooler was packed and closed and beneath the window before I’d even filled a quarter of mine. He took over, filling that cooler with the elixir.

  “I take it that was the best homecoming of your life?” he asked, taking my hand and lifting me into his arms. He nodded at the window, mouthing his next words. “Don’t move when you fall. Stay still.”

  “Considering that was my only homecoming, I’d say yes.” I nodded, my tongu
e too thick to move. He grabbed me by my waist and hoisted me up, taking great care not to make a sound as he guided my feet through the ajar window and waited for me to grab hold of the lip. I looked down to find that we were far closer to the ground than I’d been anticipating. And with all of the snowfall, I only fell a few feet, landing silently and perfectly in the fresh powder.

  I looked around, hoping my erratic heartbeat didn’t give me away. Maxell leaned over the window, setting the coolers down, one on top of each other, before deftly pushing himself out of the window and onto the balls of his feet. He looked at me in the eye, the way he always seemed to do—effortlessly and deeply. “Get on my back,” he mouthed.

  I looped my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist, knowing what came next. Immense vampire speed initiated. He took hold of the coolers, not showing any signs of the strength being too much as he dashed through the trees. I closed my eyes and pressed my face against his neck, inhaling his scent as icy sheets of wind cut at my face. I opened my eyes once, and then promptly closed them, trying to keep the fever elixir from coming back up.

  “Where are we going?” I asked quietly, knowing he could still hear over the roar of the wind.

  He didn’t answer. All he did was speed up, somehow devouring the miles between us and Phare in a way I didn’t think should be legal. The earth was a blur of green, white, and brown until the sun set. And then all I could see on the rare occasions I opened my eyes was darkness. If I didn’t stay perfectly still, I could lose a limb.

  Maxell didn’t stop running until well after nightfall.

  I could hardly walk. My thighs burned from gripping him all night and my stomach turned over on itself. I had to remain still for at least two minutes before I risked opening them. Even then, the speed had gotten to me.

  “Try sitting down with your head between your knees.”

  I immediately sank to the cold, damp ground and ducked my head. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know for certain. I doubled back and made sure to tangle our scents. I crossed a few rivers, so even if he does get far enough, he’ll never be able to find us through the confusion.”