The part of him that retained humanity was disgusted. He couldn’t just
claim her like some barbarian taking spoils, if she didn’t want to
be tied to him forever… Only… didn’t she? She’d never lost
that half-starved look of longing. She wanted to be with him. She’d
take any crumb he offered, even if what he offered was only pain.
Even if all he wanted was to use her, she seemed willing to line up
for the slaughter.
She was right, a claim meant something. It was a serious commitment you
couldn’t walk away from, because even if you walked away, your
blood would forever call to each other, drawing you back together
over and over. You couldn’t take it back or undo it, and once it
was done nothing would stop you from protecting what was yours.
Anthony hadn’t asked Charlee. From what Hadrian heard, Linus had threatened
her before the tournament for vampire king, and Anthony had claimed
her immediately, without thought, to stop her from being
played with
—which Hadrian knew was exactly as awful as it sounded.
And those two seemed happy enough together. Hadrian might hate Anthony,
but the vampire king loved his mate and child. And despite his rough
edges, the human
vampire queen
seemed equally smitten.
Hadrian’s thoughts went back to his dark angel. If He was using Anthony’s
behaviors as justifications for his own, he was scraping the bottom of the morality barrel.
Angeline’s only hesitance was that she thought he didn’t want to be with her.
Admittedly, he’d tried to hold those cards close. He was
uncomfortable giving her any power or leverage over him again. If she
only knew how she affected him, how much he inexplicably needed to
protect her, how he
needed
her with him all the time.
He’d been so convinced that his desire for her all those years ago had
been merely a vampiric illusion, her getting inside and controlling
his mind. But although she’d used her powers to push him over the
edge to break his vow of celibacy, the attraction had been genuine.
He’d seen the delicate pieces of her soul hidden beneath the
temptress she displayed to the world. He’d wanted to protect her
then, and he equally wanted to protect her now, if not more so.
Because she’d let him in. She’d shown him her vulnerability
honestly. She’d shown true remorse and had put herself in his
hands, and there was nothing inside his makeup that could walk away
from that.
Hadrian growled and kicked at the sand at the edges of the path. He spun on
his heel and moved with purpose back to his tent. He’d claim her,
and she’d just have to deal with it. And if she didn’t like it?
Tough. Perhaps this would be her penance. Eternity with him. Perhaps
she should have thought more carefully before making him a vampire.
There are consequences.
“Hadrian.”
The vampire considered not stopping, pretending he didn’t hear him, but
Cain was just as fast as he was—if not more so—and had advantages
the vampire didn’t. If the demon leader sought audience with him,
he would get it. Hadrian stopped and turned.
“Yes?”
“You’re coming with me to collect some things we need for Tam’s ritual.”
“This comes as a revelation to me,” Hadrian said, annoyed that the demon
should think to command him like some minion.
Cain moved into the vampire’s space and stared him down. “I would like
to remind you that you breathe only because my mate decided to spare
your life. So if she needs something for a ritual to protect us all
from annihilation or worse, then when I say jump, you say, how high?
Try it with me now: Jump.”
Hadrian growled. “If I were going to become your indentured servant, death
would have been preferable.”
“I forget how young you are,” Cain said. “The young are always so
dramatic. Come on, let’s go.”
The vampire didn’t have much of a choice. Cain could drag him back to
his cave of fun torture time and carve him up some more. Without the
sun, Hadrian wouldn’t have the mercy of falling dead for the day.
He fell in step beside the demon as Cain led them down several
streets until they reached the portal.
“Why can’t your mate run her own errands?”
“Tam is meditating and gathering her strength. This will take a lot out of
her and she needs every second before the full Moon in silence and
meditation.”
“Are you sure it’s night where we’re going?” Hadrian asked. Cain
wouldn’t be affected by sunlight, but it would roast the vampire,
and he preferred to remain in his non-roasted form.
“Tam already thought about that when I said I was bringing you. Yet again,
she saves your life. So you owe her twice.”
Hadrian bristled when Cain pulled him through the portal. Even with a demon
side, Hadrian couldn’t come and go through the demon dimension
without a full demon physically helping him through.
The portal spit them out into a small village in Romania called Biertan.
“What exactly are we getting?” Hadrian asked as they moved down the old
streets like shadows in the night.
“A gypsy. There is a tribe that Tam knows. They have very strong
familial magic, and she needs a few things they know more about than
she does. She gave me a list.”
The vampire laughed. “The ancient, immortal, and all-powerful demon
leader has a
honey-do
list?” Hadrian couldn’t believe the demon was allowing himself
near magic users of any kind. He was
pretty paranoid about them. He must really love Tam.
Cain growled, and his eyes glowed. His perfect facade faded out in his
irritation to reveal the mark on his forehead. It was a mark that
insisted no one should trust him. And yet, Hadrian had more recently
proven to be a betrayer than Cain. For whatever reason, the demon
leader seemed to get dragged into helping others more often than
harming them.
“I await the
honey-do
lists your mate creates with breathless
anticipation,” Cain said.
“I don’t have a mate.”
“Yet. You’ll have Angeline claimed inside of the week, then I’ll be
cracking the jokes.”
Hadrian didn’t respond. He didn’t want to admit how right the demon was.
Inside of the week? Hell, it would happen the next time he could get
her alone and get her defenses down. They’d sort out the pieces
later. She couldn’t be mad at him forever. He needed to shut up the
demon in his head. Mixing his blood with hers was the only way.
“It’s here,” Cain said.
They stopped in front of an abandoned tavern at the edge of the village.
“Are you sure you got the right directions? This place looks dead.” It
appeared as if the tavern hadn’t seen a sentient being for well
over a hundred years.
“Looks can be deceiving.” Cain knocked on the door in what sounded like
Morse code.
There was a long pause, during which Hadrian was sure the demon would give
up and turn around. But then he heard a shuffling sound. The door
opened and, a dark head peered out.
“What do you want, demon?”
“Tamara sent me,” Cain said, obviously uncomfortable as an errand boy.
“Tamara who? We don’t know any Tamara.”
“Tamar,” Cain corrected, remembering Tam’s original name. “The cycler.”
The gypsy looked skeptical. “Tamar would never consort with a demon
unless she came to you to end her suffering. You feel old enough at
least.”
“She did come to me for that. She ended up as my mate, instead. May we
come in? We need your help.”
The woman looked from Cain to Hadrian, her skepticism growing. “My
entire tribe is behind this door. If this is a trap of some kind, we
will chant you both into a jar faster than you can hurt us.”
The demon leader flinched. “I assure you, it’s not a trap.”
“Why didn’t she come herself? We haven’t seen her in two centuries.
She never calls.”
“She would have come, but she’s preparing herself for the ritual we need
to do. And I’m the one she trusts most.”
The woman laughed and shook her head. “All right. Come in. Maybe you
can entertain us before we put you in jars.”
Cain hesitated but wiped the anxiety from his face, replacing it with a
stern mask of control and crossed the threshold. Hadrian followed.
There was no tavern.
It was merely a glamour to conceal their encampment—a doorway into
their protected space. Small houses dotted the landscape in a circle
around a large field. In the center of the field was a campfire with
men and women and a few children sitting around it.
“Why does everything look so ancient?” Hadrian asked. “Haven’t these
people ever heard of electricity?”
Cain jabbed him in the ribs. “Shut up. These people are serious.”
Hadrian looked behind him to where they’d come in and could see the
faintest outline of a glowing blue light in the shape of a door to mark where the “tavern” had been.
The dark-haired woman laughed, and her bracelets jangled as she led them
to the fire. “We avoid modern technology. It interferes with our magic. We’re more powerful
when we stay away from it. Many other tribes have integrated with the modern world. As a result, they can’t
do this.” She turned her hand up, and a glowing ball of purple energy rose and hovered over her palm. Few Roma
tribes could conjure this form of magic.
Cain took a step back, and she laughed.
She looked hard at the demon leader. “You are extraordinarily old. And
yet you have a healthy fear.”
“I’m Cain,” he said. “I’m the oldest. The demons are mine.”
Hadrian was sure by the look on her face, that the woman knew he was “that
Cain” and probably a few other things about him if her expression was any indication.
This time
she
took a step back, showing her own healthy dose of
fear. The other members of the tribe responded instantly to her shift
in body language, beginning to close in on the demon and vampire.
She raised a hand. “It’s all right. Tamar sent him.”
Eyebrows quirked in curiosity and confusion, but no one else attempted to
advance on them as the woman led them to the fire.
“I’m Luminitsa,” she said.
One of the men ladled a liquid into a hand-fashioned cup and offered it
to Cain. “
Bere
?”
“No. Thank you,” he said.
Hadrian was about to accept the cup when Cain again stepped in.
“He will not be having anything, either.” He turned to the vampire and
lowered his voice. “Trust me. Never take food or drink from a magic user. Don’t learn the hard way.”
Luminitsa took the cup from the bewildered gypsy man and drank it down with one
long gulp. “It’s just beer,” she said, laughing.
“I’m sure that’s true,” Cain said, indicating he didn’t believe her
in the slightest.
She sat on a large log beside the fire. “Well? What is it you need?”
She turned to one of her friends and said something in her native tongue.
“You may as well gossip about me in English. I understand all languages,”
Cain said. “It’s a perk of being the demon leader. How else would I find all my demons and
communicate and integrate them into my dimension?”
“Then why are we speaking English?” she asked.
Cain indicated Hadrian with a nod. “The vampire doesn’t speak your
language. I don’t wish to be rude.”
Luminitsa sighed. “Proceed,” she said regally, as if she were a queen
holding court. And maybe she was. No one else had stepped in to take
control of things, and no one spoke over her. Maybe she was the
leader.
“What I’m about to tell you must not leave the tribe. It would endanger
Tamar and perhaps yourselves as well.”
“Boldo, take the children away and leave us alone.”
The man nodded and a few moments later only Cain, Hadrian, and the
dark-haired woman sat at the fire.
“Now, speak,” she demanded.
Hadrian watched the war play over the demon leader’s face. Cain wasn’t
used to taking orders, but he also didn’t take risks with the magical set, either.
The demon growled, no doubt an image compromise. “We would like to
sever the link between the earthly and heavenly planes. There are a few things Tamar needs
for the ritual that she thought you would have, and one thing she’d like to borrow.” Cain took the folded
paper from his pocket and handed it over to Luminitsa.
“And how will this affect us?” she asked. “If you are truly Tamar’s mate, she would
tell you something to prove yourself. So tell me.” Her gaze shifted to Hadrian. “Wait. Can he be trusted?”
“Not really,” Cain said, “But he has no reason to tell your secrets,
and if we are successful in the ritual, it won’t matter any longer.”
She seemed to think about it, then she said, “Very well, tell me,
demon, what magic does my tribe do that severing the link might disrupt?”
“Tamar told me about how you keep your souls coming back to this tribe so
that your magic can remain in the same hands and grow over generations. She told me about the ritual you
do to bring a soul back to you when they reincarnate and take human form again, and of the
rite of passage ritual that’s performed with a potion that grants a member of the tribe access to their
previous life memories on their twenty-first birthday.”
Luminitsa looked at the list. “And Tamar wants to use the knife. Of course.”
“She believes it may help, given that your magic touches and affects the
heavenly realm.”
“And how will this affect us if she succeeds?”
“Tamar says it won’t. Souls will still be able to reincarnate. The
severing will only prevent angels from falling to Earth, demons from being made, and angels from crossing
into this dimension.”
“Has she written the chant yet?”
Cain pulled out another piece of paper. “She said you’d want to see
this.”
She read through it, nodding to herself. “I can see how this might
work. But this ritual knife is extremely valuable to my people. If we don’t get it back, we’ll be unable
to perform the magic that keeps our tribe intact. Surely Tamar knows what she’s asking for. I
need some form of collateral to ensure the knife returns safely to
me.”