Blood Awakening (32 page)

Salvatore winced. There was a time-limit on
regeneration. After a couple of months, both males would be irreversibly
damaged
,
and they’d stand out in the house of Jaegar like sore thumbs. Oh well, at least
they were council.

Oskar approached Salvatore then, a look of pure contempt
in his eyes, hatred dripping from his upturned lips. “I know these young fools
could not have coordinated such an act of treachery on their own, sorcerer. Nor
was it a moment’s impulse.”

Salvatore knew better than to speak.

He declined his head in reverence and waited to
see what was coming. Whatever it was, it would be worth it to bring down Stefano
Gervasi, to gain the dark lords’ assistance in besting Napolean Mondragon—to
get at the family that had killed his brother and attempted to harm his nephew.
The council was as it should be: They needed Oskar’s leadership and his
cunning, and all actions had consequences. He would take his punishment like a
man.

Incensed by his arrogant resolve, the new chief
caught him by the throat and squeezed until Salvatore’s eyes bulged in his head,
and his body started to convulse. Salvatore refused to plead for mercy even
when the elder snatched him by the hair, jerked back his head, and fed on him
like a worthless human in the ultimate act of disrespect, tearing out huge
chunks of his throat as he gulped.

Salvatore winced, but he didn’t cry out. There was
no regret for his actions. Unbidden, a small, maniacal chuckle escaped his lips.

Oskar released his throat with a disbelieving
snarl. “Do you find sedition funny, sorcerer? Never in the history of our
colony has such a thing been done!”

Salvatore shook his head. Despite his attempt at
humility, he struggled to suppress a smile.

Their new chief was beside himself with rage. His
body shook with his fury. “Demitri…Milano…stand up!”

The two gravely injured vampires struggled to
their feet and braced themselves on the table. The wretched look of agony on Demitri’s
face was beyond description.

“Good! Now watch—as your arrogant mastermind
learns
humility
.”

Oskar threw Salvatore against the table and
ruthlessly bent him over. A pair of harsh, angry hands ripped his trousers—a set
of jagged claws pierced his skin at the hips.

“What the—”

“Shut up!”

Now
this
had Salvatore’s attention.
You
have got to be kidding!

This just wasn’t done.

This was
never, ever
done!

Salvatore’s eyes scanned the council chamber door
in desperation, searching for…

What
?

He had no idea.

Something!

Time stood still as his trousers dropped to his
ankles and he felt Oskar kick his legs apart.
Okay, fine—the new council
chief has made his point. This has gone far enough!

What the hell...

As panic began to set in, Salvatore’s eyes darted
around the room hysterically. He thought about fighting…resisting.
Attacking!

Hell, dying.

But he knew he could not best the ancient one now
that Oskar had drained him of so much blood. He was far too weak and
disoriented. And what was it Oskar had just said? He wanted Demitri and Milano to
watch
?

If Salvatore had only seen this coming, he would
have fought Oskar to the death before the crazy freak of nature could have
siphoned him...but then, that was Oskar’s point, wasn’t it? Treachery…sedition…taking
unfair advantage against one’s enemy. The punishment was fitting.

As his mind struggled to comprehend the horror, Salvatore
felt a hard thrust against him, and his hands instinctively gripped the table
as an unspeakable pain ripped through him.

He shouted his agony.

Twisted this way and that.

Tried to mentally escape the torture.

The pain was unbearable, the humiliation beyond
comprehension.

 
Zarek could never know
.

And then he heard his own voice, as if it belonged
to someone else, groaning and whimpering like a wench, his cries thrust out of
him to the rhythm of Oskar’s pounding.

Oh dark lords: the disgrace.

The pain.

Make it stop!

The male had made his point already! This had
never been done! But then, neither had the assassination of a sitting chief of
council by his own members.

Salvatore’s body shook from the invasion, and then
Oskar wrenched Salvatore’s head back by his hair, bit out a raspy command, and
moaned
with pleasure.
“Look at each other!”

Demitri and Milano were simply stunned stupid,
their broken, bloody mouths hanging open, their pained faces reflecting the shame
they felt—both for themselves and the ancient sorcerer being defiled before
them—as they forced themselves to hold eye contact with Salvatore.

Bile rose in Salvatore’s throat, and he began to
dry heave—unfortunately, still to the rhythm of Oskar’s gyrations—as he watched
their piteous eyes fixed on his, the revulsion on their faces.

No one said a word as the vile act went on…
and
on
.

And on.

At some point, Salvatore considered holding his
breath in order to pass out, but he knew it wouldn’t work. He gripped the edges
of the table harder, instead, trying to sustain the harsh, relentless thrusts, gritting
his teeth against every vile surge, biting back his own angry tears. He wanted
to rip the bastard’s throat out, but there was nothing he could do but take it.

This was inconceivable
.

Murder was one thing. Treachery, another.
But
this
?

All at once, Salvatore heard a hoarse shout and
felt Oskar relax behind him.
Oh great demons of hell.
He refused to even
think it. Demitri lost his dinner, and Milano followed right behind him.

As the chief backed away, Salvatore collapsed on
the table, no longer able to walk. His stomach wrenched as he caught the scent
of his own blood mixed with the scent of—   

How did one regenerate from such a thing?

Salvatore panted from exhaustion and agony, the chief
panting from something entirely different.

Oskar zipped up his pants and took a step back. “The
next time we meet, boys, there will be a master at arms posted to the left and
right of my seat, and a body of guards just outside the door. What you did
tonight in this room will never be spoken of again. What I did tonight in this
room will remain here as well. Are we clear?”

The soldiers grunted, still in shock, as Salvatore
fell from the table, groveled on the ground, and tried to nod. There was little
he could say—especially without an intact throat. He didn’t even possess the
strength to release his fangs.

“Now get yourselves together so we can get on with
the offering. We have a king to destroy.” With that, the furious new chief of
council stalked out of the chamber.

Salvatore stared at the ground, too ashamed to
look up. At least it was over. The coup had succeeded, and they had all lived
through it.

Such as they were.

Yes
, he thought, with profound disgrace and
a new grudging respect for their leader,
Oskar Vadovsky was not one to toy
with
.

Marquis brushed a sweat-soaked lock of Ciopori’s
hair away from her forehead and softened his seal on her throat, careful not to
dislodge his fangs.

Dearest virgin
goddess,
when would the suffering end?

Trying to disguise his own trembling, he brushed
her arms with his hands and held her tightly to his chest, continuing to send
the life-changing venom deep into her veins.

It was two a.m., and they had been at it for
twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours.

What amounted to an entire day of muscles
stretching, joints realigning, organs failing then regenerating, blood pooling
like acid in reconstructing veins, and unimaginable pain, bringing merciful
bouts of unconsciousness only to jolt her awake with a new surge of agony. It had
been the hardest thing he had ever done. And the hardest thing Ciopori had ever
endured. Although Kristina’s conversion had been difficult, it had only lasted
a few hours. This was beyond comprehension.

Apparently, Ciopori’s pure celestial blood, as
well as the fact that she was an original female and exempt from the Blood Curse,
had caused her very essence all the way down to her DNA, to fight the change
like a soul invasion, as if her eternal existence depended upon it. And in all
actuality, it did. There were more than a few occasions when Marquis had wondered
if her body would take to the change at all.

Once Napolean and Nachari had performed the
necessary ritual to reverse Salvatore’s trickery, calling upon the powerful god
Draco to endow Ciopori with her birthright as Marquis’s true
destiny—
and
to free Kristina from a fate that was never hers to begin with—Napolean had
assured Marquis that he could go forward with the conversion. That the
requirements of the Blood Curse remained the same as they had always been. But
considering the length and hardship of Ciopori’s transition, Marquis couldn’t
help but wonder if they hadn’t pushed fate too far.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her. To
explain why he couldn’t stop, no matter what:  Her human body could not survive
the changes that had already taken place, and her Vampyr body could not survive
still being part human. No. Once a conversion began, it could not be halted, and
telepathic communication was next to impossible due to the sheer amount of
concentration required to circulate the venom. If Marquis had known how much the
conversion would cost the woman he so dearly loved, he would have left things
the way they were.

As if sensing his growing desperation, Ciopori drew
in a deep breath and slowly exhaled, her rigid muscles relaxing for the first
time. Marquis felt a final surge of resistance discharge from her body, and there
was a tangible shift in her countenance. His incisors retracted of their own
accord. He mentally scanned her composition, wanting to be absolutely sure that
the transfer was complete, and then he pulled away, slowly lowering the
exhausted female to the bed in his master chamber.

His tension eased with relief. “My love, how do
you feel?”

It was the first time in an entire day that he’d
heard his own voice.

Ciopori licked her bottom lip and ran her tongue
along the top of her teeth as if she was feeling for fangs. She smiled weakly. “Like
I’ve just been run over by a thousand chariots.”

Marquis smiled. “Chariots, my love? I thought
Napolean transferred our culture and language directly into your mind: Did he
not?”

Ciopori laughed. “He did. But honestly, to say I
feel like I’ve been run over by a bus just doesn’t cut it. It leaves out the
two-thousand pounding hooves that just stomped the life out of me.”

Marquis frowned. “I cannot express how sorry—”

“My love,” she whispered, holding her finger to
his lips, “I’m not. Just tell me this; is it over?”

Marquis smiled then. “I believe so.” He became
deathly quiet, listening to the forest around them. “Tell me what you hear.”

Ciopori tried to sit up a bit, and Marquis quickly
placed a pillow behind her back. “I hear
the sap running through the trees
behind the house,
like blood coursing through someone’s veins.”

Marquis smiled broadly. Dear gods, could it really
be? “What else?”

She closed her eyes, and then she laughed, excited.
“I hear the water rushing through the river out back—and the different tones it
projects depending upon the size of the rock it is sweeping over.
Dearest
Cygnus!
I can hear the flap of a hawk’s wings soaring overhead.” She placed
her hands over her ears. “How does one keep from going mad?”

Marquis laughed and slowly removed her hands,
staring down into her amazing gold and amber eyes, the sparkling diamond centers
gleaming with newfound wonder. “Think of the dial on a stereo, my love, or the
mute button on a remote control.”

Ciopori concentrated, clearly drawing from the
wide base of knowledge Napolean had imparted to her as if the memories were her
own.

“Now simply turn it all down.”

She giggled. “It’s softer.”

“Yes. Now shut it all off and enter silence.”

It took her a little longer to manage his last
command, but once she did, she sat straight up with excitement.

Can you hear me in your head, my beautiful
wife?

The sparkle in her eyes said it all.
Yes! Oh my
gods—yes!

Now tune in again to the river, but keep all
else shut out.

Her laughter was as radiant as her smile as she
continued to follow Marquis’s instructions, trying out her new, profound sense
of hearing. One by one, he took her through exercises to introduce her to her heightened
senses. He taught her how to distinguish scents so faint she could name every
animal that had walked across the lawn in the past month, all the way down to the
squirrels, rabbits, and mice.

He taught her how to see in multi-dimension and to
sense movement at the speed of light. He taught her to move her hand through
the pillow and then the mattress as if both objects were mere liquid. Now that
she had the ability to rearrange her molecules at will, he began to transfer
small bits of wisdom regarding the laws of physics to her, for it would be
these laws that would govern not only what she could do with her newfound
power, but how she would ultimately focus thought to accomplish each and every feat.

Thrilled, if not a bit overwhelmed, she rested her
head against his chest and simply allowed him to hold her, both of them taking
in the magic of the moment. And then she looked up at him and smiled a
mischievous grin. She waved her hand elegantly above them, and the ceiling rolled
back like a scroll, the full glory of the heavens shining above them in a
canopy of sparkling ice. Ciopori closed her eyes and held out her hand, and
then she chanted in a sing-song voice so melodious Marquis thought his heart
might just stop beating in his chest:

“
Behold the stars that shine so bright: the
gods of time, the lords of night.

Behold their glory, strength, and grace: the
makers of our fearless race.

Behold the song the goddess sings; bow down to
heaven’s mighty kings.

May love abound and peace arise, beneath the
glory of these skies….

Within our hearts, a new wind blows; behold the
beauty of the rose.
”

Laughing, she held out her hand and presented him
with the most perfect, long-stem red rose he had ever seen. He accepted the
flower, bowed his head, and offered a silent prayer of thanks to the goddess
Cygnus and his lord Draco: They had not stripped away her powers as a celestial
being. As an original female. Ciopori Demir—
Silivasi
—was now the living
embodiment of all they had been before the Curse and all they had become after
it. She had the powers of a celestial being as well as all those of a vampire. And
instinctively, Marquis knew that their children would too.

If only through their offspring, the original peoples
would live again.

Not wanting to disturb such a private moment, but
unable to contain such an important revelation, Marquis sent a telepathic communication
to Napolean. He knew the fearless leader was not going to rest until he was
assured that Ciopori had come through the conversion safely anyway: He had felt
the Great One’s push against his mind several times over the last twenty-four
hours and knew that he was waiting….

The moment the most powerful living being of their
kind received the information, Marquis felt a strange void—the complete absence
of the Sovereign’s presence. As the keeper of the house of Jadon, Napolean
carried the blood of every member in his veins—males, their
destinies,
and even their children. His pulse was the electrical current in all of their
heartbeats, so even when he was far away, they felt him. Just as Napolean always
felt them.

Never before had Marquis felt an absence of that
pulse—not even for a fleeting moment—and he wondered if the great king’s heart
had failed. But then again, that simply wasn’t possible. He gently pushed back
against the current, hoping to sense their leader once again, and felt a barrier
so powerful the gods would have trouble getting through it. And then he knew. As
sure as he knew the love of the woman before him, the noble king of the house
of Jadon—the only remaining male from the time of the Blood Curse—had briefly
closed himself off from his people for the first time in twenty-eight centuries.

The Great One was weeping.

Ciopori reached out and stroked Marquis’s face. “What is wrong, my love?”

“Nothing,” he replied, taking her hand in his. He
turned it over and kissed the center of her palm. “Everything is right.” He
cupped her face in his hands. “Do you have any idea what you mean to me? What
you mean to our people?”

Ciopori smiled a wise, knowing smile. “I do,
warrior.” And then she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. “But
tonight, on this blessed occasion, I want to think, feel, and know nothing but
you.”

Marquis growled deep in his throat, his body
coming instantly alive. He looked down at the beautiful woman before him,
sighed with contentment, and quickly stood, sweeping her up in his arms. He
carried her to the large white marble bathroom and, holding her effortlessly in
one arm, turned on the 360-degree row of large shower heads in the master
shower with his free hand.

Ciopori watched him, her eyes glazed over with
something much deeper than love, and he felt his fangs stretch against his gums.
Gods, he had waited so long to have her in his arms again. He had imagined this
so many times. He had grieved the loss of her as if their love would never be
again. Now, with her lying there so trusting and malleable in his arms, he
could hardly restrain his desire to take her. But she deserved to be loved like
the princess she was, and it would be rude to just throw her up against the
wall and feed from her the way his mind was begging him to do.

Be patient,
he told himself
. You have...forever.

Testing the water once again, he stepped into the
large shower, not bothering to remove their clothes. As the powerful jets
washed over them, he gently set her down and grasped her by the waist, more
forcefully than he intended, but hell, what did the gods expect of him?

Ciopori laughed, reading his mind. “Do you always
take showers with your clothes on, warrior?”

Marquis tried to answer but snarled instead. He cleared
his throat and tried again. “I don’t ever want to see these clothes again—the
ones you’ve suffered in.” He reached down and grabbed the bodice of her wet
silk blouse and ripped it in two. Pearl buttons flew in all directions, bounced
off the shower walls, and echoed as they hit the floor.

She gasped, and his manhood jerked in response,
heating his blood another few degrees. Releasing his claws, he drew a line from
her beautiful, pulsing jugular all the way down to her soft, ample breasts
stopping at the front clasp of her silk bra. With quickness and dexterity, he
shredded it into a dozen pieces using nothing but the flick of his wrist, never
nicking her flawless skin.

She shuddered and her rose-colored nipples grew
hard in response. The flat, silky expanse of her stomach quivered with
anticipation beneath her narrow waist. He dropped to his knees then and tugged at
the soaked, ruffled skirt, pulling it deftly away from her body, along with her
thin, matching panties, in one hard pull. His head fell back and he moaned as
his eyes swept over the soft black triangle before him. His hands gripped her
thighs hard, his fingers kneading in rough, sensuous circles, as he slowly
spread her legs.

Ciopori inhaled sharply and let her head fall
back, gripping the sides of the shower with two open palms, her legs quivering
in his hands. “Marquis,” she groaned, her voice low and seductive.