“Some things never change.”
A shiver ran through Deven’s slender body, and he murmured, his voice becoming more vague, “Is it already time for shift?”
David sighed and played along. “Not for a couple of hours. Go back to sleep.”
“Can’t be late again . . . people will talk.”
“Let them talk.”
Again, the smile. “Love you,
Ó Lionáin
.”
“I love you, too.” He sat up slowly, careful not to jostle Deven and wake him up all the way; it was especially important he stay asleep tonight. “Sleep . . . I’ll wake you when it’s time.”
As Deven drifted off again, David heard a voice from the door: “Are you ready?”
He raised his eyes to his Queen, who saw the look on his face and came to him immediately, putting her arms around him.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” she said, kissing his forehead. She touched his face, wiping tears away with her thumbs. “I know how hard this is.”
David took a long, deep breath. “If I ever see Jonathan again I’m going to kick his fool ass.”
She stood in front of him and he put his arms around her waist, resting his head against her. She didn’t ask for any explanation—didn’t need one. They were both running on the very edge of what they could bear. In that respect he was thankful they were going to split the Trinity; he and Miranda would have a chance to breathe again without the constant pull of someone else’s fathomless grief.
Finally, when he thought he could put his mask back on for Nico, David rose from the bed, giving Deven a parting kiss on the cheek.
Forgive us. Even if it takes a thousand years, forgive us.
The Elf was waiting in their bedroom, looking terrified but determined. Miranda asked, “I understand Stella offered her blood to you, Nico?”
“Yes,” the Elf said softly. “It is a good choice—a Witch’s blood will be very strong.”
“How long after you finish the transition will you be ready to rework the bonds?” David wanted to know.
Nico shook his head. “I am unsure, my Lord. It will depend on how long my recovery is. I may have to do it in stages. Also there is a particular configuration of symbols and energies I require to do Weaving at this level—this is not your average magic. I will need considerable protection.”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier?” Miranda asked. “We can get you anything you need.”
“I have what I need. I have Stella. She is as we speak setting up the room to my specifications. Then she will come and feed me when I wake.”
“Sounds like everything’s in place, then,” Miranda concluded. “Are you two ready?”
They nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Nico’s eyes were on Deven’s inert form as they returned to the dark little room, the three of them sitting down, Miranda cross-legged close to Dev so she could reach his arm easily, Nico between her and David.
They all stared at each other, and David nearly laughed—it was like agreeing to a threesome without anyone knowing how to start. They had opted to drink from the Elf together to speed up the whole process, but Miranda still wasn’t used to feeding on men of any sort, even one who wasn’t exactly a paragon of human masculinity. She wasn’t threatened by him, just . . . uncertain.
David took pity on both of them and moved closer to Nico, drawing the Elf against him, baring one side of his throat. He could feel Nico’s pulse racing, and between that and the scent of his skin, warm and alive and touched with something that reminded David of either trees or cookies, or perhaps both, David’s teeth pressed into his lip, wanting. He reached past the Elf to take Miranda’s hand and beckon her closer as well. She leaned in and nuzzled Nico’s throat, taking up the other side, and without either signaling the other, Prime and Queen bit down hard, eliciting a strangled cry of pain from their prey.
Nico’s body tensed as if he were going to struggle, but he held himself there with a strength of will that surprised David. Indeed, he was amazingly strong in a lot of ways—David could feel, as he and Miranda pressed into the Elf and their hands slid around him to help him feel secure . . . or possibly trapped . . . muscle in his willowy frame, and a solidity that he wouldn’t have expected from a being of light and healing.
Of course, as soon as the blood flowed and David got his first taste of it, he realized he had badly misjudged the Elf. Light and healing were well and good, but what infused his blood was much darker, far more sensual. He tasted like a long night of sweaty sex in front of a bonfire . . . like wild animals and the serpentine roots of a tree through the earth.
Miranda moaned softly and reached over to wrap a hand around David’s neck. He could feel her taking deep and intense pleasure from the blood, just as he was—neither of them wanted to stop. Nico was incredibly strong, and the energy in his blood hit them both like a freight train after so many days of feeling so enervated.
We’re going to kill him . . . have to stop . . . I don’t think I can.
Fortunately Miranda had enough sense left to know it was time, and she lifted her head with a snarl. Her lips were bloody, her eyes pitch-black. “Stop,” she said.
Despite 350 years of learning to control himself, David resisted her—she had to grab his hair and pull him back. To wrench his attention away from the Elf, she clamped her mouth on David’s, and they took a few seconds to lick the blood from each other’s mouths before the Queen turned back to the matter at hand.
“If we weren’t otherwise occupied I’d have you right here,” David said to her quietly.
She smiled. It was a predator’s smile, and it made his body burn even hotter. “Later.” She had already lifted Deven’s arm and turned it up to expose the wrist. Not allowing herself to hesitate, she bit him, holding her head so that her second fangs wouldn’t add extra holes.
The Elf lay limp between them, barely breathing. “Drink,” David told him as Miranda held Deven’s arm to his mouth.
Nico obeyed readily enough, though he was so weak it was hard to detect him swallowing. When Miranda took the wrist away his eyes immediately closed, but he was still breathing raggedly—even under the euphoria of blood loss, he was afraid to let go.
“It’s all right,” Miranda said into his ear. “We’re with you, Nico. You’re safe. Just rest.”
A moment later, the Elf’s breath stilled. That pounding heartbeat had dwindled over the past few minutes, and finally it halted . . . for now.
The Queen looked dazed. “Good God.”
David nodded in agreement. “I read somewhere that vampires were partly responsible for the Elves’ extinction—if they all taste like that I can see why.”
“And he’s so strong,” Miranda added. “If we were already at our normal strength, blood like that could last us for days.”
The Prime lifted the Elf up himself, and Miranda followed them into the suite, where he laid Nico out on the bed and they sat down to wait. They could have returned him to his guest room, but since no one knew how bringing an Elf across would work, they’d agreed to keep him here where one of them could be with him at all times.
Miranda joined David, leaning against him. She kissed his neck, then bit lightly. David held back a groan.
“Do you really want to have sex in front of a dead Elf?” he asked.
She looked chagrined. Mildly. “I suppose not. How long will he be gone?”
“It’s hard to say. With humans it’s a matter of minutes, but when I turned you into a Thirdborn you didn’t breathe for ten. The blood has to wake up and prevail against death.”
He barely had the sentence out when a violent tremor ran through Nico’s body and he sucked in a breath, eyes flying open, panicked.
“It’s all right,” he said, he and Miranda each taking a side and holding him down so he wouldn’t injure himself or them. “You’re safe and cared for. We’re going to send you to sleep for a while so you won’t feel anything.”
Nico didn’t seem to understand him, but the comforting tone of his voice worked where the words themselves did not. Nico took a deep breath, and David felt him grounding himself. The fact that he could ground at all in this state was impressive.
But when David tried to push the Elf down into unconsciousness, he met with a problem.
It didn’t work.
“What the hell . . .” David concentrated, summoning some of the extra energy Nico’s blood had given him, and tried again. Nico fell asleep . . . but came out of it in less than a minute.
“Let me try,” Miranda said. Her brow furrowed. “Why isn’t it working?”
“I don’t know. He’s not consciously resisting. It must be his Elven blood meeting the vampire blood—it’s going to be a fight, no matter what. We assumed that it’s possible to turn an Elf, but . . . what do we really know for sure?”
Miranda didn’t have a chance to answer. Nico jerked away from their grasp to turn on his side, and the first swell of pain hit him, hard—he cried out, clawing at the bed, and David felt him go cold, then hot.
David saw tears in Miranda’s eyes and knew their source. She remembered what this felt like. It was one of the worst experiences of her life—just thinking back to that day in Kat’s bathroom was enough to make her rock back and forth and tremble.
There was nothing they could do; they tried again and again to knock Nico out, but to no avail. Instead, Nico writhed in agony for hours that turned into days, without relief, and they could only watch helplessly as tormented moans built steadily into screams.
• • •
During the Burning Times, Elves were dragged into the dungeons of the Inquisition and had to endure torture of the cruelest kind; every depraved method men had ever concocted from white-hot brands to sexual sadism was visited upon them. Many of the Elves who had survived that era and now knew peace in Avilon bore scars that even magic could not erase. But since then, the newer generations had lived in safety, and as they could never know disease, they rarely experienced significant physical pain.
Those first few hours of misery scrolled out into one day, then two, then three. The pain came in waves, pounding against the shore of his body over and over again. He felt every moment of the transformation—his entire digestive system realigning, parts seeming eaten by acid; his jaw changing shape, actual bone breaking itself and healing, breaking itself and healing. His eyes felt like they had been stabbed with a thousand needles, and the sensory changes that started in his brain made his head hurt so badly he went into seizures.
The worst part was that he couldn’t sleep. No matter how horrible the pain was he couldn’t pass out; so on top of being ripped apart from the inside, he was so exhausted he wanted to give up and die.
Still, he held on, finally clinging to the one thing that would persuade him to fight: Deven. He couldn’t wrap his mind around a war right now, couldn’t stay alive for something so lofty as the notion of saving the world. He needed something immediate, something he could imagine the touch and taste of. It took no effort to call forth the memory of that one stolen kiss—in his mind he invented a time in the future when Deven was healed and might look to him, if not for love, at least for comfort. Even that possibility was worth the fight.
At last, the pain seemed to lessen its hold, but in its wake came fever. His body was fighting the change with all its strength, and though it was losing, it would not go gentle into the night. He burned, his skin raw as if he’d been in the glaring sun for a full day; even the lightest touch made him scream. The skin blistered and bled before it finally healed, but at some point an infection of some kind took over.
Nico knew he was dying even as he lost hold of his thoughts about Deven and tumbled into delirium. He had been a fool to think he knew the mind of the Goddess; the prophecy had predicted his death would save three worlds, but what did that really mean? As soon as he realized Jonathan was dead he knew it meant he would become a vampire . . . but what if he was wrong? Perhaps death simply meant death. In the state he was in, he couldn’t ponder philosophy. All he could do was keep breathing, and that much was getting harder. He was so tired . . . all his strength, and he wasn’t strong enough for this.
“Nico?” he heard through the fog of pain in his head. It took a moment to recognize the voice. It also took a moment to recognize his own, as torn and hoarse as it was.
“Stella . . .”
He felt the weight of her body on the bed next to him. “It’s just you and me,” she said. “It’s really still too soon for this, but everyone agreed you need all the strength you can get.”
He heard her gasp, and the smell immediately leapt up over him: blood. The smell was so strong he was nauseated.
“Here,” she said, holding her arm over his mouth. A single cut ran across her wrist. “Come on, sweetie, you need to drink.”
Nico stared at the wound, which hadn’t started dripping just yet. The drops of blood were so bright, so intensely red they made his eyes hurt. And even though the smell still sickened him, his stomach lurched and he felt . . .
Oh Goddess . . . my teeth.
Tentatively, he wrapped his hands around Stella’s arm and drew the wound to his mouth, licking very lightly for a taste.
A part of him wanted so badly for it to be disgusting—to prove to himself and affirm what the Enclave had said, that he had no business here, that he couldn’t possibly be the chosen one for this. If he couldn’t be a vampire, his role here was ended.
His stomach twisted around itself trying to make him understand that yes, this was what he needed,
now
. He took another careful lick, and another, before pressing his lips to the wound and actually trying to suck.
He heard Stella moan. He lifted her arm enough to say, “Am I hurting you?”
“No . . . God, no.”
Hot, thick blood filled his mouth, and as he swallowed it coated the raw inside of his throat, sending strength to all parts of his body and soothing that fire that kept trying to burn him alive. He could feel her heartbeat in the blood, felt it beginning to slow down almost imperceptibly, until it fell into sync with his own.
He knew that signal by instinct. He pulled his mouth away and turned his head, breathing hard.