“What’s the Blessing, then?” I ask.
“Her blood.”
My eyes meet Alaric’s. “But she’s—”
“Saint Theodora never died. She is still undead and existing somewhere within the Order.”
Chapter 15
Rage floods my veins, my heart pounds with indignation, and my eardrums resound with the roaring of my blood. I clench my teeth and suppress a roar. Every instinct wants me to explode into a fit of temper and defend the honor of Saint Theodora, to say that she’s a long-dead empress who would never have allowed herself to become a vampire. But what do I really know? Until now, I thought vampires Alaric’s age would be dormant and forgotten to the ages.
Breathing through my emotions, I stare at the ceiling and consider Alaric’s story. What if Saint Theodora was a vampire like him? What if she drank her husband’s blood, thinking it was a cure for the plague and not knowing its effects?
Alaric remains silent, his face turned to mine, and I guess he’s waiting for me to respond.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Why am I telling you this?” he asks.
“It doesn’t make sense. If a slayer gets killed with vampire blood in her veins, she will turn.” I shake my head. “The Order would never feed ancient vampire blood to their best-performing acolytes.”
“The slayer inhales the blood in the form of a vapor,” he replies.
My mind conjures an image of Fortescue transforming into a haze and choking Poppy. “Like vampire mist?”
He offers me a tight smile. “They curdle the blood and remove the solids that cause thirst and immortality. What is left is power.”
My eyes flutter closed, and I exhale a breath of relief. Two days ago, I would have balked, but after sprouting teeth and feeding from a vampire’s arm, the vapor seems tame. “You warned me against it because it came from a vampire?”
He brushes the backs of his finger over my cheek, and I meet his gaze. Today, his eyes are ultramarine-blue with flecks of gold from how they reflect the light. His pupils widen, and he edges toward me.
“I don’t want anyone’s blood in your body but mine,” he murmurs.
“That’s why you don’t want me to take the Blessing?”
“The first time I visited Alice Kyteler, she told me that my destiny lay with an Augustine slayer, who would recognize me on sight.”
My heart thuds, and my breath quickens. On the plane and several days afterward, I knew he was a vampire, even though all evidence said he was a warlock. Alaric walked through Agia Square, a place filled with slayers and slayer acolytes, yet nobody accosted him.
“What else did she say?” I ask.
Alaric stares at me with an intensity that makes my heart flip like a crepe. “That you would one day cause my heart to beat.”
My brows furrow. “What?”
“She ejected me before I could ask for details.” Alaric glides his hand over my hair with slow, rhythmic strokes. “Rest.” His hypnotic voice resounds in my ears. “You’ve had two trying nights.”
My eyelids droop, and I stifle a yawn. I don’t know if this is a form of mesmerism or if recent ordeals have finally caught up with my body, but my limbs become heavy, and my muscles melt into the mattress. I close my eyes and drift into a deep sleep.
A sharp pull to my stomach knocks me out of my peaceful slumber. I open my eyes to find myself unchained and half-sprawled over a shirtless Alaric. We’re still in the same room as before, and the slight color in his cheeks tells me I didn’t develop teeth in the night and drink his blood.
His story twists and turns in my mind. A boy prince, sacrificed to a vampire general with his sister, only to become a vampire and suffer years of starvation. Was their unique experience the reason why they seem so human?
I stiffen as my mind conjures up an image of Saint Theodora as a blood drinker. If Alaric’s account of what he had seen and researched with Roger Bacon is true, then the Order was built on a lie.
Alaric raises his head and stares down at me with a smirk. “Every time you shifted in your sleep, the chains rattled. I couldn’t sleep.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “I don’t—” My insides twist. I jerk forward and clutch my middle. Light streams from between my hands. “Oh, no.”
His smile fades. “What’s that?”
“An umbilical pull.” Poppy’s last message rolls to the front of my mind. “I think the Order is trying to find my location.”
“Damnit.” He jumps out of bed, rushes to the door, and returns with my sneakers.
I swing my legs off the bed and slip my feet into my shoes “I can’t stay here.”
“Not while they’re tracking you.” He grabs my arm. “Come on.”
We race up two flights of stairs and out through a door that leads to the courtyard of cars. The morning sun hangs low in a cloudless sky, bathing us with warm light. Alaric disappears for a moment and returns wearing a shirt. He places a helmet on my head, drapes an oversized leather jacket over my shoulders, and mounts his bike.
Shrugging on the garment, I glance at his broad back, about to ask about his protective gear, but common sense slaps me upside the head. Not only do vampires have the best reflexes of any supernatural creature, but there are only a few ways to kill them and even those are difficult.
Alaric revs the engine and peers over his shoulder at me. His brows rise through the helmet’s visor. “Get on.”
I scramble on the bike behind him and wrap my arms around his middle. My palms slide through the gap in his unbuttoned shirt over his smooth-as-petal skin. “What now?”
His chuckle reverberates against my chest. Despite the urgency of our situation, my cheeks turn hot. Before I can mutter a few words in my defense, he races around the house, and down the driveway.
My helmet muffles the roar of wind in my ears, and I hold tight as the bike veers to the right as he turns a sharp corner and speeds down the deserted, juniper-lined street toward the Mexican border.
“Jaeger is the other way!” I shout over the roar of the engine.
“That’s why we’re not going there,” he shouts back.
“Okay!” It’s been less than five minutes since pain has flared in my navel. I don’t know why the Order isn’t using my conciliar bond to track me when two nights ago, Poppy managed to send a message straight to my brain.
We pass through highways, pass the mountains, and through the desert with the wind on our skin and the sun on our backs. Adrenaline races through my veins. If I wasn’t so terrified of the Order catching me with a vampire, I might have described the experience as exhilarating.
Soon after crossing a bridge, we drive through stretches of farmland, then Alaric turns off the highway and slows into a sleepy town with a main street of mom and pop stores.
He stops in front of a wood-slatted hotel with a vast veranda and cuts the engine. “What will you tell them?”
“The truth up to the part where the monster bit me.” I climb off the bike, and my legs wobble from the ride. Heat seeps from the hot sidewalk through the soles of my sneakers.
Alaric pulls the helmet off my head and slides his fingers through my hair. “Be careful of who you trust.”
“Right,” I murmur, my heart sinking at his imminent departure.
“I must leave before the Order gets close.” The corners of his eyes crinkle, but the helmet obscures the rest of his face, and I can’t see if he’s smiling. “Farewell, Gabrielle Augustine.”
“Thank you.” I place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. Words aren’t enough to express the depth of my gratitude. “And I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble.”
“I’m not. Now, run.” He revs the engine and speeds down the road.
For the next few moments, I stand in the sun and watch him disappear out of town. With each passing second, my last two nights with him feel like a dream. My chest tightens as the finality of his goodbye sinks in. Most people would say see you later, next time, or around. Alaric didn’t mak
e any promises for another meeting.
The hotel’s wooden exterior looks just like something Tom Sawyer would have painted if he lived in California and not Mississippi. The walls and veranda roof are magnolia-colored with burgundy beams and posts. Between the United States Flag and another with the hotel’s logo is a bench in the shade that beckons. I ascend the paving-stone steps and pull out my phone.
As soon as I get a signal, a hundred messages beep for my attention, and I’m not even exaggerating. Half of them are tech mage gifs that load tracker beacons as soon as they load onto a device.
I try not to picture Poppy fretting about me, but guilt wraps its spindly fingers around my ribcage and squeezes. Maybe that last message I sent her about not looking for me had freaked her out, and that’s why magic is tugging on my navel. I wasn’t thinking straight yesterday morning, but from her point of view, I might have written it while under the influence of a vampire’s mesmerism.
I lie on the bench and wait as the pain in my belly button intensifies. Clenching my teeth, I place both hands over my middle and hope nobody sees the glow. My body has completely healed from the fight, but I might be able to say I didn’t return right away because of a concussion.
Twenty minutes later, the rumble of a large vehicle catches my attention. A black, unmarked van stops on the opposite side of the road, followed by a much larger black truck. The front passenger door flies open, and Poppy rushes out first, her blonde hair disheveled.
I leap to my feet, just as a female mage in tactical leather emerges behind Poppy and grabs her arm.
Two slayers I’ve seen around in the dining hall step out from the back of the van, each holding stakes. One of them is Sister Zendaya, a willowy, Zimbabwean woman with long braids. She takes the lead but doesn’t cross the road.
“Identify yourself.” Her words are clipped, partially because of her accent but mostly out of caution.
I rub the back of my neck and cringe, realizing my mistake. Two nights is ample time to turn a slayer into a vampire. “Gabrielle Augustine, Acolyte.” I raise my palms. “Thank you for finding me.”
“Step into the sun,” Sister Zendaya says.
Poppy wrings her hands by the van. I hate myself for making everyone worry. Taking a deep breath, I rise to my feet and walk toward the stairs. As soon as I step out of the shade and sunlight warms my skin, the tension in everyone’s postures relaxes—but not completely.
Fledgling vampires can withstand the sun if they feed on animals, but it makes them weak. It’s the first taste of human blood, the first drops of stolen ether in their veins that combusts in sunlight. The women standing around the van know I’m aware of this fact, and it’s not the first time a turned slayer has resisted human blood and tried to settle into her normal life.
As I reach the bottom of the stairs, Poppy breaks from the mage’s hold and races across the street. A car slows to let her pass and the driver honks his horn.
She wraps her arms around my neck and sobs. “Our conciliar bond vanished yesterday. We had to use your hair to scry your location. What happened?”
“It did?” I hold my best friend and inhale the summer meadow and wildflower scent of her hair. How can I tell her that I’ve bonded with a vampire?
My stomach rumbles, making her draw back and laugh. Tears gather in her blonde lashes, and an ache forms in my chest. I want to tell her everything, but not with these older women ready with stakes.
Sister Zendaya wraps a gloved hand around the back of my neck. My gaze lands on the leather jacket, which I’ll bet my hand cannon is tactical. “Presbytera Driver wants to see you in her office immediately.”
“Yes, sister,” I say with a sigh.
They march Poppy and me to the back of the van, where a quartet of slayers in tactical jackets stand within a mobile medical facility lit with blue, fluorescent bulbs. My gaze skims over the stretcher on the far left and lands on a seat I would mistake for a dentist’s chair if it wasn’t for the secure straps.
“Welcome back, Acolyte.” Sister Jenkinson, a slayer trained in triage, gestures at the torture seat. Her conciliar is an Egyptian physician with chin-length ringlets, who emerges from behind the door.
I step inside, a cool blast of air conditioning tightening my skin, and take the proffered seat. Poppy lowers herself into the closest seat to mine.
The door shuts, and the doctor checks my vitals: heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, breathing rate, and ether levels. They make me swallow an assortment of elixirs, some of which I recognize as nutritional supplements. The flavorless ones I guess are blessed water.
Poppy’s eyes bore into the side of my face. She doesn’t ask in front of the other women, but as soon as she gets me alone, I’ll face an interrogation.
“All vital signs are normal,” says the medic, “Although the ether levels are elevated.”
I gulp. It makes sense considering Alaric puts granulated ether on everything he eats.
“Any traces of vampire blood?” asks Sister Zendaya.
The heart rate monitor beeps accelerate, and every single head turns to watch my reaction. I know what they want to know. If I die with vampire blood in my system, I will rise as soon as the sun sets.
A nervous laugh bubbles to the back of my throat. “I fought two vampires—”
“Save it for your debriefing.” Sister Zendaya’s voice mingles with the tearing sounds of the velcro blood pressure cuff.
They take blood samples, hair, and nail clippings, and even scrapings of my cheeks and tongue. Dread knits my intestines into several tight knots, and my breaths quicken. I eye the samples, wondering if they’ll find traces of the thing that bit me, and fretting about what they’ll do to me when they discover my secret.
After a long questionnaire about the state of my physical condition that includes reflex and memory testing, the engine cuts out, and the van door opens into a small underground parking lot lit by wall lights. Six slayers and a matching number of sisters of servitude step out from the nearest set of double doors. From their stern expressions, none of them received the memo that I wasn’t infected.
I turn to Poppy and force a smile. “Thanks for helping them find me. Talk to you later?”
A crease forms in her brow, but she nods.
Two sisters of servitude lead the way and open doors that join a set of stairs. A pair of slayers follow them, then it’s me, another pair of slayers and two sisters of mercy. Behind them, Poppy stands with the doctor and triage sister, while the other two sisters of servitude climb in the back of the truck, presumably to perform clean-up.
We ascend three flights, then reach the convent’s ground floor just in time for lunch. Acolytes and apprentice mages emerge from the classrooms and head toward the mess hall.
One of the younger acolytes sees me first, a girl with strawberry blonde hair. She tells her friend, who tells another acolyte, and another until a hush falls across the hallway, and every person we pass stops to watch us. While most of the people offer relieved smiles and murmurs of welcome, my heart pounds, and my fingers tremble. I can’t meet anyone’s eyes, being the center of attention.
Whispers follow our progression toward Presbytera Driver’s office. If these people knew that two nights ago, I transformed into a blood-drinking beast, they would rip me apart.
We pass an opening into a smaller corridor, where two familiar figures—a dark-haired girl and a taller, ebony-skinned boy—stand close, as though they’re about to kiss. The girl throws her arms around the boy and laughs.
Every muscle in my body tenses, and I can’t move. The pulse in my throat pounds hard enough to muffle the acolytes’ whispers. When Evangeline and Kofi kiss, every emotion I’ve felt since they left me in that magical bubble—anger, betrayal, vengeance—it all erupts in a rush of hot adrenaline through my veins.
I break formation and rush toward them with a growl.
Evangeline steps back from the embrace and whirls toward me, her eyes wide. Kofi staggers to the wall with
both palms up.
My nostrils flare. “You left me to die!”
Her lip curls, revealing bared teeth, and contempt flashes in her eyes. Her face is a silver-studded mask of hatred.
“Augustine.” Evangeline’s voice has never been so cold. She steps back, plants her feet on the ground, and raises her fists. “Don’t blame me for your fail—”
A front kick straight through her defenses makes her head snap back. She counters with a side-kick. The blow lands on my hip. I snatch her ankle and yank her off her traitorous feet. She falls onto her side, and her free leg spins toward my face.
“Augustine, wait.” Kofi grabs my arm.
“Get lost.” I jerk my head back from Evangeline’s leg and elbow Kofi in the solar plexus.
With a roar loud enough to deafen my ears, he holds his chest.
Evangeline springs to her feet. “You’re a psycho.”
Two pairs of hands grab at my arms. I struggle to get free, but the slayers at my back hold tight. “Stand down, Acolytes,” a female voice snarls. “We do not attack our sisters.”
“Thank you.” With one hand on her hip, Evangeline places a hand over her tattooed chest, acting winded. “I don’t know why Augustine hates me so much.”
Fury explodes across my chest. I lunge at Evangeline with a roar, but the two women pull me back like I’m a rabid dog.
Evangeline jumps, pivots, delivers a roundhouse kick that lands on my temple with the force of a wrecking ball, and turns my vision black.
The pounding in my head pulls me out of unconsciousness, and I clench my facial muscles, trying to process the agony. That wretched Evangeline Shevette made me look like I attacked her for no reason. A bout of searing pain resonates through my skull and I wince. If I’m honest with myself, the one who made me look like a psycho was me.
I should have remained calm, told my story, and then went out for revenge. Light streams through my eyelids, but my head throbs too much to tolerate anything bright. Voices trickle to the edges of my awareness, a whining, plaintive sound that reminds me of an untuned violin.
Vampire Bonds (Darkbloods Book 1) Page 16
