Bloodline (9 page)

“Like the other Lilith. My namesake.” She frowned, studying his face and knowing something she hadn't before. “You bought the print in memory of me.”

He admitted it with a nod, averting his eyes. “I…admired you. I never forgot you, Lilith.”

She nodded and whispered, “You kissed me once.”

“Yes. The night I had to go.”

“And yet you still ran away and left me there. A prisoner. Along with…how many others, Ethan?”

“A hundred and fifty. Maybe two hundred.”

“What did you think was going to happen to me there? The rebel who couldn't be broken?”

Meeting her eyes, holding them steady, he said, “I had to leave you. I was due to be turned. Callista said—”

“I remember her,” she said softly.

“She helped me. She was the one who told me what they were planning. Lilith, my final exam was to murder you. And if I refused, they would have killed you anyway. My leaving was the only way to keep you alive.”

She tipped her head to one side. “Taking me with you would have accomplished the same thing.”

“I had no time, no resources. I had to leave right then or not at all. I honestly thought it was for the best.”

She blinked three times. “You could have come back for me.” She got to her feet, walked toward the horse. “I'll see to it that she—”

“Scylla. Her name is Scylla. And the stallion is Charybdis.”

“I'll see to it that
Scylla
is returned to you when I get to where I'm going.”

“No, Lilith. You don't need to run away from me. I've told you the truth. There's more you need to know, to learn—”

“From
you?
” She shook her head. “No, I don't think there's anything I can learn from you, Ethan.”

She walked to Scylla, stroked her. “I'll take good care of her, and I'll send word where you can pick her up.”

“Dammit, Lilith, just where the hell do you think you're going? There are Wildborns out there who'll rip you to shreds like a wolf would a lamb if they find you. There are the Bloodliner assassins, trained vampires so loyal to the DPI that they'd kill us as soon as look at us. That woman, she said they would find you soon, though she wouldn't tell me how. And besides all that, there are mortals who don't even know we exist but would try to exterminate us if they ever found out. Just where in the hell do you think you can go where you'll be safe from all of that?”

“If you were so concerned about my safety, you'd have come back for me. You'd have found a way.”

“I intended to, Lilith. I did. As soon as—”

“We've wasted enough time talking,” she said, the words landing like a slap to his face. “That woman had
a photo of me and she knew my name. She'll be back. She'll bring others.”

“I told her I'd never seen you. I willed her to believe me.” She frowned, and he went on. “It's one of our powers. She won't come back, I promise.”

“Doesn't matter. I'm not going to run like you did.” She leapt easily onto Scylla's back.

“Well, do you mind telling me just where you're going?”

“It should be obvious. I'm going back.”

“Back?”

“To The Farm.”

“What?”
Even though it was precisely what he had expected her to do, she couldn't have angered him more if she'd tried. “Why the hell would you want to go
back?
”

Turning the mare to face him, she said, “To do the right thing. To rescue the others and put this obscenity to a stop, of course.”

He shook his head. “Don't you think if that were possible, I'd have done it myself?”

“Obviously not—since you didn't.”

“Lilith, you can't do this. Not if you want to live.”

“I have to. How could I live with all those prisoners on my conscience?” She frowned at him, tipping her head to one side. “How have
you?
”

* * *

I sat there, astride the mare, watching him wrestle with his ego. His conscience, I thought, had long since been beaten into submission.

“Do you remember that place?” he asked me at length. “Do you remember what they did to you there?”

“No.”

“Do you even remember where it is?”

“I'll find it.”

“How?”

“The same way I found you, I imagine. I was drawn here, probably my…vampiric brain felt you, knew you were here. You said yourself, we can sense other vampires.”

“There are other vampires everywhere. You'd have to be the luckiest person on the planet to just happen upon The Farm.” He lowered his head, shaking it. “You'll never find it, Lilith.”

“Then tell me where it is,” I said.

“So you can go there and get yourself killed?” He shot his eyes to mine. “I couldn't live with myself if I did that.”

“Yet you could live with your own escape, leaving me and the others behind. Believing I was probably dead by now. God, Ethan, you've thought I was dead this long without remorse. How is this different?”

He closed his eyes. “Not without remorse, Lilith. Never without remorse. Your face, your spirit, have haunted me ever since I left. Why do you think I bought that painting? It was to remind me, in case I should ever forget. I look at it to punish myself for saving my own life and claiming my own freedom.”

“And yet you didn't come back for us.”

He drew a deep breath, squared his shoulders. “I intended to. But not just yet.”

“If not now, then when?”

“When I find my brother.”

I frowned, searching his face. “Your…brother?”

“James. He was there with me, ever since we were kids. I think he was five and I was three when they took
us to The Farm. Our parents had been killed. We both had the antigen.”

I was interested. My common sense told me to just turn the horse and ride away, to go about my newfound mission. But I wanted to know. And there was something else. Something I hated to admit, even in the most hidden parts of my mind. But I didn't want to leave him. I didn't want to believe he was the kind of man who would save himself at the expense of others. I wanted him to convince me that he was…better than that.

Giving in to such useless feelings was likely counterproductive, and yet I slid down from the mare's back.

“One day, almost three years ago, James disappeared,” he said, when he saw that I wanted to hear more. “No one would tell me where he'd gone. The keepers would only say that I had to obey without question—and that included questions about James.”

“He was older. You said we were all intended to be transformed and sent out on missions for this…DPA.”

“I. DPI,” he corrected.

“What does it stand for?”

“I never knew.” He shrugged. “There were rumors about James, of course. Some said he'd escaped and that they'd sent an assassin to kill him. That he was cold in the ground before his first night of freedom ended. Others believed he had been transformed and put to work.”

“What did you believe?” I asked him.

He swung his head around, as if he had briefly forgotten I was there. “I
believe
he escaped and survived. That's why I ran away myself, eight months later. To find my brother, to ask him what was really going on.”

“Why do you think he would know any more than you do?” I asked.

“He's my older brother. He's always known more than I do. Besides, he remembers more about when we first went there. And he's been on the outside longer than I have. Long enough to find things out, maybe.”

I paced to the water's edge, gazed at the paling sky, realized I'd been riding nearly all night. And he had been following me patiently all that time. “It will be daylight soon.”

“Too soon for us to make it back to the house.”

“We can't go back there, anyway,” I reminded him. “That woman—”

“I felt no threat from her. Though I'm sure she had her own agenda and was keeping things from me—lying to me, perhaps—I didn't sense danger. More a sense of desperation, in fact.”

“And she told you the…the DPI would find me soon.”

“Yes.”

He sighed, studying me. “We'll find shelter for the day. It's too close to dawn for you to make any progress on this insane suicide mission of yours, anyway.” He met my eyes, let his linger there. “Stay with me, Lilith.”

“I
'll stay with you,” I told him. “But only for the day. At sundown, I'm leaving.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he clicked his tongue at Charybdis, and the stallion trotted to his side. Ethan took hold of the horse's reins and began walking. I walked alongside him.

“There are guards at the compound. Dozens of them. And they're armed,” he said.

I shrugged. “They're also ordinary. I'm a
vampire.
”

“That doesn't make you invincible—not to mention that they have vampires on
their
side, too.”

I sighed. “I have to help the others.”

“Hell, Lilith, most of them don't
want
to be helped.” I frowned at him, but he went on. “Don't you think I tried? I had friends there, people who could have escaped with me. They flat-out refused. Hell, one of them decided to turn me in, and if I hadn't overheard him and moved my entire plan up, I'd never have escaped at all.”

“Why would anyone
want
to stay in captivity?”

“Because they've been broken. Their minds are like oatmeal. They've been programmed, brainwashed, con
verted into obedient, loyal servants, too afraid to question anything. They have no will of their own anymore.”

“I did.”

He looked at me slowly, and I thought he knew my next question before I asked it. “Did you ask me to go with you?”

“You'd been put into isolation. They couldn't break you, Lilith, and they were determined to. I had no idea what they were doing to you, or what you would be like when you came out. But yes, I'd planned to wait for you to return to the general population and ask you to come with me.”

“But then your friend decided to reveal your plan to the guards,” I said slowly. “And you had to leave or give up the idea of escape entirely.”

“Yes. Callista helped me get in to see you, that last night. And even then, I hoped. But you were weak, drugged, barely coherent. There was just no way.” He pointed. “There's a cave up there. See it?”

I nodded. “Perhaps…I misjudged you,” I said. In my heart, I hoped against hope that I had. But it would take some doing for me to truly believe in him, much less trust him again. “If I did, then I'm sorry.”

“
If
you did. You're not certain, then.”

“Certainty will take time. And…effort.”

He nodded slowly. “Lilith, if we can find James, learn what he's learned about the organization, about The Farm, about the Bloodliners who've graduated, where they are and what they do—don't you see? With all that knowledge, we'll have a much better chance of getting the others out—
if
they'll come.”

“But you don't know where your brother is,” I said.
“Or
who
he is. What if you're wrong about him? What if he really
has
become one of the DPI's loyal vampires—a house pet willing to do whatever he's told? What will you do then?”

“I don't know.” He shook his head. “I don't want to believe that's possible.”

“Why do you think he hasn't tried to find you, then, Ethan? Wouldn't he have come back for you if he could?”

“Maybe he did go back and I was already gone. And since then, I've been staying very well concealed. Whenever I encounter another vampire, I venture close enough to learn whether it's James. It's dangerous, but I don't know what else to do.”

“I found you on my first night,” I said. “Maybe you're not as well concealed as you think.”

“We don't know for sure it was your first night.” He stared at me. “Besides, there's a connection between you and me. There always has been.”

“Stronger than your connection with your brother?” I asked.

“Stronger than my connection with…
anyone.
”

I hadn't considered that one.

We'd walked up the slight incline and stood at the cave's entrance. Facing his horse, Ethan removed the saddle, blanket and packs. He left the bridle on, though, looping the reins through the headstall and then knotting them to keep them out of the way, then patted the horse on the rump, and Charybdis trotted back down the slope to join Scylla, already grazing in the lush grass alongside the stream. Above them, the trees rustled, their dying leaves fragrant with the scent of their decay. And even higher, the stars had paled until
they were barely visible, as the sky became purple with the approaching dawn.

“Should we tie them or anything?” I asked.

“They'll stay close.”

I was impressed but didn't say so. He slung the packs over his shoulder and moved deeper into the cave. At the far end, I saw the charred remains of an old fire, a small stack of branches for firewood and, against the back wall, a rusty-hinged hurricane lantern hanging from a jutting rock formation. “You've been here before, I take it.”

“I camped out here before I bought the place. In a few other places, too, always a bit closer. I wanted to watch—see who came and went—from a secure distance.”

I lifted my brows. “You
are
cautious.”

“You will be, too, when the rest of your memory comes back.”

The words weren't meant to frighten me, but a chill raced up my spine all the same. “You think it's going to? Come back, I mean?”

“I think so. You remembered me, sort of. You knew that you'd known me, right from the start. Somewhere down deep, you recognized my energy, followed your sense of it right to my door, even though you didn't know that was what you were doing.”

I nodded. “That's the way it works with vampires, though, right? They sense each other?”

“Well…”

“But that can't be true. Or you'd be able to sense your brother and walk right up to
his
door, wouldn't you?” I frowned. “You're right. Our connection
is
stronger. Why is that, Ethan?”

“Sit. Here, why don't you unpack these while I build a fire?” He handed me the saddlebags as he spoke.

I took them and sat down on the cave floor, unbuckling the straps and listening to him as he began arranging twigs atop the blackened coals.

“I expected to be able to sense James. Maybe I'm just not close enough, though. Distance weakens the connection. But to answer your question, no, that's not exactly the way it works. I can sense another vampire who's near, but unless I knew him, had spent time with him, I probably wouldn't know who he was. Maybe not even then. I don't have enough experience with other vampires to be sure. But I think you must have been fonder of me than I ever knew, to have homed in on me immediately.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” I smiled a little as I tugged items from the packs. Blankets, a Thermos, a long-nosed lighter.

“Something inside you recognized and remembered me when you remembered nothing else, there's no denying that.”

“I suppose not.” I lowered my head. “What does it mean, do you think?”

“I don't know, but I feel it, too—this powerful link to you. As for your memories, I can only assume it means they aren't gone, exactly. They're only…sleeping. And even now, rousing. Night by night, they grow stronger. It won't be long before they all return, I suspect.”

I felt myself relax at his interpretation, which was, if nothing more, some relief from my own. “I like that. They're sleeping. And beginning to rouse. That means they could wake up fully any time now.”

“They could wake up at any moment. And for you to
go back there before they have would be like going in with your arms missing. Your memory of that place might end up being the best weapon you could wield.”

He was crouched in front of the fire, his back to me as he spoke, setting the twigs alight. I watched the flames lick higher, reaching the larger pieces of wood.

“That would make more sense if I knew for sure that my memory would return. Just waiting for it, without knowing, could mean leaving the others there indefinitely.”

“If they really wanted to get away, they could. We did.”

“Not everyone is as strong as you are, Ethan,” I said. “Or as stubborn as I was.”

“Was?”

He turned as he said it, amusement in his eyes, though the topic was a serious one. “You still are.”

“So I've discovered.”

“It's not just stubbornness, either. You're strong, too. Smart, short-tempered, willful, determined and fiercely independent.”

I nodded. “I'm feeling more and more of that myself. But even now, I think you know more about me than I do,” I said. “Which means you know I have to go back. With you or without you. I have to.”

“I know. I think that's another part of the reason I didn't tell you everything from the start. Deep down, I was afraid you would react exactly the way you are.”

A rush of something heavy seemed to flow into my head. It nodded before I was aware of it, suddenly feeling leaden, and then I snapped my chin up again as I fought to keep my eyes from falling closed.

“God, I'm so
tired
all of a sudden.”

“It's the dawn. It's on its way. I feel it, too.” He added larger logs to the fire, ensuring there would be a warm bed of coals still glowing at day's end. As he did, I quickly unrolled the blankets in what looked like a good spot. None of it was because we needed the warmth, because we didn't. We wouldn't be uncomfortable in the cold or even feel it once we fell asleep, nor would it kill us. But warmth was cozy, a creature comfort, and our kind apparently valued such things.

I stripped down to my T-shirt and slid in between the blankets, leaving room for him beside me.

Moments later, Ethan took off his shoes and jeans, and, wearing a T-shirt and boxers, got in beside me.

“It's been a long time—and it's extremely rare in any case—since I've slept with a woman,” he said softly. “Literally
or
figuratively.”

I felt myself smile. “It'll be literally this time, Ethan. But don't take it personally. I don't think I could stay awake if I tried.”

“You couldn't. But there's always tonight.”

I smiled weakly, already sliding into a sleep the depths of which I had only recently come to know.

And only once before that I could remember.

* * *

Ethan woke at sundown to find that he had rolled onto his side, either just prior to falling fully into vampiric slumber or just before emerging from it, because once a vampire entered the day-sleep, he didn't move. He was lying with an arm draped protectively over Lilith's body, his hand resting near her hip. One of his legs was entangled with one of hers, and her head was resting against his shoulder.

He shouldn't be surprised, he supposed. He knew he wanted her, had always wanted her. But this was…different. It felt intimate, almost tender, holding her this way. It wasn't a feeling with which he was even vaguely familiar, much less comfortable. He found it more confusing than anything.

Gently, he began to change position, but even as he removed his arm from around her, she opened her eyes, turned her head slightly and met his gaze. Her sleepy smile filled his head with notions best ignored, but then it faltered as she took in the way they were embracing. She whispered, “Oh,” but she didn't pull free.

“I suppose we were cold or something,” he said.

“I'd bet more on the ‘or something,'” she replied.

He took his arm from around her, rolled onto his back, then sat up slowly. “Yeah. Well…”

“You said we barely knew each other back at The Farm, right?”

“Right.”

“So we never—we never shared more than…that one kiss?”

“No,” he said.

“And it was…well, what was it? Physical attraction between us?”

“The connection between us is…more. Deeper than that, I think. But then, I can't be sure. I mean, neither of us had any kind of experience with the opposite sex. No adolescent boyfriend-girlfriend drama, no dates, nothing.”

“Didn't they teach us about sex? In the classes, I mean?”

“Sure they did.” He cleared his throat, got to his feet.
“Just the basic physical aspects of reproduction though. We knew how it worked, just nothing about…how it felt.”

“I see.”

He shrugged. “They kept us apart, kept the males and females as separate from one another as possible to prevent…problems. But you and I—”

He broke off there, and she sat up. Her smile was mischievous, as was the twinkle in her eyes. “There
was
something more that happened between us, wasn't there, Ethan?”