“Wait, Sara. There’s more, isn’t there? Tell us, Tess,” Athropos said as Sara sat back down.
Tess stood up and began pacing the room. Several times she stopped, but then continued in her walk. She was thinking and needed to work it out before she spoke.
“I think I need to go back to the bailey to work on the files. I don’t know why, but I think that there is something there that I need to look at. If we could table this until tomorrow night then I’ll have more information for you.”
Tess took Nathaniel’s hand and led him from the room. She needed to speak to him and
when he got mad she did not want anyone else to hear it.
“You have to stay here. Wait before you get angry. I can’t think when you’re close, for one thing, and I need to get this figured out. You make me crazy with need and I can’t think when you touch me. I can’t be close to you without you touching me. See, no work will get done.”
He grinned at her and she wanted to kiss him until he wanted her again. Leaning forward, she groaned. His cock was hard and pressed against her belly, needy and filled.
“See what I mean? I want you to stay here and watch the house. You’ll know better than anyone what to watch for, including my men. I have already contacted Robert and he knows that you are to be in constant contact with him. He is out on the perimeter now, but will be in shortly to speak to you. And, Nathaniel, I don’t know why yet, but I want you to pretend that Albadar is in your confidence. Something flashed in his mind today, hatred so strongly that he may have killed Aaron without a second’s hesitation. Something isn’t right.”
“All right. But you’ll keep someone with you at all times, correct? Take Shamus back with you.”
She had already given Shamus the evening off, but nodded to Nathaniel. He would not know that once in the bailey, she was protected with magic.
When he leaned down to take her mouth, she opened under him. Oh to spend an eternity
with this, she thought, and leaned into his body. He pushed her away gently and she smiled and left the mansion. She just hoped she could continue to see him without bonding with him. It was much too dangerous for him if she did.
~Chapter 13~
“Aaron MacManus, please wake up. I’ve need of answers that only you can help me with.”
Aaron rolled to his back. He could not feel the person or being in the room, but he had heard their voice.
“Damn it. I don’t have all day. Wake your lazy ass up! Hurry about it too.” Yeah, that voice was familiar.
“Tess? What the hell are you doing bothering me? Is something wrong with my mate? Are
my children all right? There had better be a damned good reason…what the hell are you doing in my chamber?”
“Of course they’re all right. And why wouldn’t they be? I do have my best men on the job. I need some answers. Are you awake enough to listen and answer them yet?”
“You know no one is supposed to be able to enter this chamber once I seal the door. But you aren’t really here, are you? I see. Someone once before entered this way. I wasn’t very happy with her either. I wonder if she taught you this trick just to irritate me.”
“No, I taught her. I’m older than Mel—you as well, for that matter. I’m here to ask you some questions, not the other way around. Will you? Answer them, I mean?”
Aaron looked at the shadow of the woman in front of him. He sat up a little higher in his bed then leaned against the massive headboard and regarded her.
Tess was older than Mel. That bore some thought and he wondered just how much older,
then realized that it would not matter right now, if ever.
“If you went back to sleep I’ll have you know I can and will hurt you in this form. I’m very strong and I need your help.”
“I’m not asleep, Tess, but I am curious. How about a deal? A question and answer trade. I’ll answer one of yours and you answer one of mine.” He thought she would balk at the idea, but she surprised him once again.
“Done! Tell me what it means to pledge alliance to someone, a master?”
Shocked, he asked, “Why do you want to know?”
The ritual between a master and his subjects was sacred. He and others like him guarded their secrets with their lives.
“Is that your question to me, vamp? Because it seems like a waste of both our time, but I’ll answer it if it is.” Tess stopped pacing long enough to look at him.
“No, it is not.” She was sharp as well as smart, he thought with a grin. “A person, and in my case, a master, would ask the subjects in his realm or territory to give a gift of their blood. The vamp pledges to me that he will keep our secrets, follow the laws of our kind, and keep peace.
During times of great need he or she would come to my aide, no questions asked. In return I pledge to them that I will ensure their safety and protect them against others. I will also keep the laws and mete out punishment as the situation warrants it.” Aaron watched Tess pace. Wherever she was, he hoped that there was no rug beneath her feet or it would be worn through before evening.
“Please ask me your question. I burn with a need to ask more of you.”
Aaron grinned. If she was not the most tenacious person he had ever met, he did not
remember who it could have been. “Go ahead with another question, Tess. I’ll keep track. You can trust me.” He watched as she studied him for a moment or two.
“I had heard that. It is said that you are a man of honor and integrity. That your word, once given, is your bond, that your friendship is tight and that you are an easy man to laugh, and easier still to forgive.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a while.” He flushed with embarrassment.
But her next words had him nearly laugh out loud. Nearly. She was much too prickly to tease just yet.
“I didn’t say I believed it. I just said that it’s been said about you. Sheesh. You take their blood during this pledging thingy. Why? And how much?”
Aaron was getting into areas where he would be giving up something his kind did not share.
But she had saved his life and that of his family. He knew that she was asking to work something out and he wanted to help her.
“Tess, what you ask of me is something few other beings know. I’ll answer your questions, but I believe I will be owed something more—something of value to you.” At her nod, he continued. “As for the blood, very little actually, only a drop is needed. The blood is a gift of trust. I take their blood that is freely given as a sign of trust. I trust that I will never have to use the blood bond to find them or to…punish them, I guess you could call it. I can also use it to see what they are thinking without them being able to block me out. You have someone you think you need to not trust, don’t you? Is this the person we spoke of today? Are you that much closer to figuring out who it is that has betrayed you?” He had not lived over fourteen hundred years and not gained some understanding of beings.
“I’m not sure. I’ve some better ideas of the who, but not quite sure of the why yet. And for some reason, I think that is the reason for the whole thing, including the bombing of my family.
Okay? I’m a warrior and a fae, do you think this process is meant to work on me and my men like it does for you? To find them on battlegrounds or in times of need?”
She did not answer him directly, but he was not worried. Aaron knew she would eventually get to her reasons. “I honestly don’t know. But as a warrior fae, you would be a master among fae, right?”
“I’m not really a warrior fae anymore. What I mean is, I’m a warrior and a fae, but not together. Athropos holds the parts that make me whole.”
He knew that he looked confused. He was. She looked whole to him. He had heard of her
abilities. What was she not whole with? he wondered. “She said you were bound to her. What does that mean? And I ask because it could be the answer to your own question.”
She paced some more. Back and forth until Aaron was ready to say “give” just to have her stop.
“Athropos holds a part of both of me—the warrior and the fae. When my family was
murdered, I…I went a little insane. I had decided to join them. My great-grandmother and grandmother had taken it very hard and asked to be put to the fade. But my mother took her own life. See, when their mates were stripped of their honor when they failed to protect the queen, they too became mortal. Just as I did the weeks before when Melody stripped mine when I tried to make her see reason. I was…you might say that I was a tad too forceful in my argument. I held her down at blade point and made her listen to me. It did me little good as you know, but I went against the queen regardless. My family would have been able to live for centuries more, but we could also be killed by any manner of human hurts. I went to the Fates…actually, I went on a rampage to get to the Fates and tried to kill them. I knew deep down that I couldn’t, but I don’t think at the time that was the point. Instead, I ran into a friend. Roger let me work off some of my anger and then he took me before them, the Fates. Athropos said she would give me what I wanted in exchange for parts of me. Without thinking, I agreed. She took one feather for my fae and my blood for my warrior. She alone can command me, and she alone can release me.”
“A feather? Are you saying you have wings, Tess? That you fly? Christ, you must be
magnificent!”
“Had wings. She holds the one that completes me. Focus here, fang face; I’m the one with the questions. With their blood, will I command them or merely know them?”
Laughing, he answered her. “With your strength, age, and power I would say both. Just how old are you anyway? And do you wish to go against Athropos and the Fates?”
She paced again, and this time it did not bother him. She was a thinker and one who rarely spoke without weighting each word she used. So he waited for her to work it out.
“I am one of the original Guard. I am nearly ten thousand years old. And I have seen more and done more than you will in many a lifetime, Aaron.” He was shocked by her answer and how uncaring she was about it. “No, I don’t plan to go against the Fates, and I couldn’t anyway. As I’ve said, they own me. But I also cannot allow what is more than likely brewing to go without trying to stop it. There are things going on, things I can’t figure out. I’m not one to be ill prepared. Which brings me to my final question.”
Aaron was sure he was not going to like this one, knew it deep within his heart and soul.
“Before you ask, I have one more for you, please? Your bond with Nathaniel, why won’t you complete it for him, become his mate? What holds you back? Is it this thing that you think is going on? He could be a help more than you may realize.”
“Why is it important that I complete it, to you I mean? He will change, as will I. Don’t you believe that it is my duty as my mate to keep him safe, out of harm’s way? He will take on my powers, as you call them, and I his. What would he lose? What will he gain? Those are questions you should be concerned with. I can’t harm him, as fae and as his mate—harm none. We are taught that from infancy. “
“Yes, I believe the same thing. But completing the bond will make you one. You’ll complete him, be his match in all things. That’s it, isn’t it? Bonding with him may make him mortal too.
You’re not completing it to save him from certain death.”
“You know, for a young vampire you’re not so dumb—at least not as dumb as I first
thought. He must remain immortal. I won’t be able to protect him and fight this coming war if I know he can be killed. We both know that no matter what I do or what I say he’ll join the fight without thought to himself. I must take measures to ensure his safety above all else, even if it means never creating what I know will be the greatest thing in both our realms.”
Aaron decided to ignore the comment on his intelligence and let her ask her final question.
He really wished that he had not when she did.
“If I call upon you and your kind would you fight beside me or die because of me?”
~~~
Tess sat looking at the files of the men and women who fought with her. They lay spread out all over the desk and a few had scattered to the floor.
Each file had a drop of blood of the file’s owner to signify their allegiance to her. Not to the Fates as she had been told, but to her personally. Why? she wondered. She got up and paced again.
Pacing had become a habit when she was learning to fight. It had not been so much pacing as it had been a way to be able to march long distances. She needed to keep up with the miles they would be required to go every day and she walked to keep in shape. When she had learned to use her wings to carry her over long distances the pacing had been a way to make sure she kept in the best possible shape she could. With it came the ability to clear her mind and think things out.
They were all fae, every man and woman who fought with her and beside her were of her
kind save one, and that had to be significant too, but she could not see how just yet. Albadar was unknown to her as a species and, according to his file, he did not know what he was either. For some reason she did not believe him or the file.
The blood and the contract that accompanied it would be enough to bond them to her
according to the vamp—if it was even possible. She believed now that it was. But what would the bond give them and her? What sort of hold, if any, would she have over them? Would they all become mortals as she was? She didn’t think so. There was a reason, but she could not figure it out.
Sitting at the oversized desk she scanned the room to calm her mind. Shelves on one wall held books, some as old as time, others as new as yesterday. The types of books varied as well—
books about legends and myths going back to the beginning of magick, to the paperback
romances that Shamus enjoyed. The next wall—and the only one that was nothing but a wall—
held battlement and armor that she and her family had collected and used over the centuries.
Some of them still carried the marks of war, others blades still honed to razor sharpness. Again, the varied amounts and styles were staggering—knives, helmets chainmaille and even boots—