Blood Ties

by Iris Walker

  Robin

  For a brief, brief moment, her heart spiraled into spasms.

  She was laying down, eyes closed, the familiar exhaustion of Calliope’s ritual fresh in her mind. Every muscle was wired, injected with energy so fierce it thrummed underneath her skin. She was terrified of waking up in Magnus’s caravan, headed to House Demonte, or in Darian’s winter stronghold, or worse, in Charlemagne’s lab. Her eyes flew open, and she was greeted by the bright light of midmorning at the coast. The beach shack, with Reykon. A wave of relief crashed over her and she relaxed, tilting her head to the side to catch a glimpse of Reykon.

  As her eyes settled on Darian Xander, all her fears flooded back in. She drew in a sharp breath and shot up, knocking into somebody on her other side. A panicked glance confirmed that it was Reykon, and she sighed in relief, catching her breath and looking around to make sense of the situation. They were all laying on the living room floor, lined up like sardines. Reykon let out a groan and stirred slightly but didn’t wake up. She turned her eyes back to Darian and saw that he was dead to the world, laying so creepily still that a shiver ran up her spine.

  “Oh, nice of you to join us,” Chadwick said bleakly.

  She turned, spotting him lounging against the wall of the kitchen, sitting on the rickety bench that was tucked under the dining table. “What – what happened?”

  “You did your thing, Sparky,” Chadwick said. He was pale, and he looked tired.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, thank you very much. Your old buddy nearly ripped my head off after you worked your magic on Lucidia.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I was just standing there, recovering from my hard work healing her and all, and I see you lot drop like flies. So I go over to check on Reykon, and the next thing I know, I’ve got a leech the size of Texas stuck to me.”

  “Jesus,” Robin muttered, rubbing her eyes and cracking her neck with a series of loud pops. “Couldn’t have given us pillows?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. It must have slipped my mind whilst I was recovering from massive blood loss and traumatic injury.”

  Robin raised an eyebrow but decided to let it go. She pushed herself up and glanced over to Reykon, sleeping peacefully. He didn’t seem injured, or in danger. Robin let out a long breath and walked over to the kitchen. “Where’s Lucidia?”

  “Right where we left her, sleeping like a baby,” he said, rubbing his forehead.

  “She’s okay?”

  “If comatose is okay.”

  Robin nodded. “It’s better than before.”

  “There’s coffee,” Chadwick said with a wave to the kitchen.

  “Oh, thank God,” Robin breathed, walking over and pouring herself a mug. She leaned against the counter and sipped, letting the warm liquid roll down her throat, waking her up. She felt like she had the hangover of a lifetime, and every muscle in her body ached like it had been torn. After a few moments, she lumbered over to the kitchen table and collapsed in a chair, her legs splayed out in front of her.

  “That bad, huh?” Chadwick asked.

  She nodded, taking another sip.

  “From an outside perspective, I have to say that it was quite impressive. You looked like a nuclear reactor in there.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “It was pretty wicked.”

  Reykon groaned, rolling over, the floorboards creaking in protest. “What…” he mumbled. “Huh?”

  Robin leaned over, craning her neck. “We’re in here, babe.”

  A moment later, Reykon peeked his head around the corner, still on his hands and knees. “What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know. I just woke up, too.”

  “I think I was struck by lightning,” he groaned, collapsing on the floor again for a moment before pushing himself up and staggering against the wall.

  Robin stood, rubbing her neck and handing the mug off to him. “This’ll help.”

  “Chadwick?” Reykon asked, taking a deep swig of the coffee.

  “Over here,” the caster called. “Barely.”

  Robin ignored his complaining and glanced to the lab, where Lucidia’s unconscious form still lay on the table. She turned back, her eyes centering on Darian. By reaching out with her own energy, she could still tell he had an ocean, even though it had been diminished. Reykon jerked his chin to the vampire. “What’s he doing?”

  “I think he’s sleeping. Do vampires sleep?”

  “They have a sort of stasis state, like a meditation, but they don’t sleep. Ever.”

  Robin scowled and walked over to Darian, standing directly above him. Reykon followed, shoulder to shoulder as he peered at the vampire. “Well, is he okay?”

  “Probably, after the involuntary transfusion,” Chadwick grumbled.

  “I don’t know,” Reykon muttered with a shrug.

  Robin nudged her toe against his arm, jostling him, and Reykon drew in a sharp breath, putting his hand on her arm in caution. “Don’t kick him.”

  “I’m not kicking him, I’m trying to wake him up.”

  “It’s never a good idea to sneak up on a vampire,” Reykon said.

  Robin scowled, leaning a little closer. “They breathe, right? I mean, they have to breathe.”

  “At a very slow rate,” Reykon said.

  Robin quirked her head to the side, looking at Darian’s mouth for any signs of life, just as his burning red eyes snapped open. A rush of icy fear shot through her and Robin jumped back, crying out in surprise and nearly crashing into the wall. Reykon drew in a sharp breath, flinching and spilling the hot coffee on his arm. “Christ!” Reykon snapped. Darian let out a groan and rolled over on his side, propping himself up with one arm.

  “Lovely, you’ve woken him,” Chadwick said, throwing his arms up in the air.

  “Guess he’s alright,” she muttered, catching her breath and stalking over to the kitchen, taking her seat next to Reykon and Chadwick. A few moments later, Darian stumbled up, using the wall for support. He glanced around and then walked to the kitchen. Robin watched with wide eyes as he opened the cupboard and selected a mug, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Can he drink that?” she whispered to Reykon.

  He shrugged. “Vampires love coffee.”

  Her eyebrows pulled together.

  “We have a liquid diet,” Darian muttered from the kitchen. “We cannot glean sustenance from anything other than blood, but most substances have roughly the same effect that they do on humans.”

  “Oh,” she said, shrugging it off.

  Darian walked over and collapsed in one of the kitchen chairs, facing their trio on the bench. A moment of tense silence slipped between them, Robin’s eyes tracing over Darian’s exhausted, disheveled form. He looked drunk, and he moved like he was drunk, too. It was a very surreal sight for her to see after witnessing him at the height of his composure, at the winter retreat.

  “You okay?” Reykon asked with a confused scowl.

  A strange laugh slipped out of Darian. “I have not felt this depleted since my time celebrating during the Roman Empire.”

  Whatever that meant. Robin simply raised an eyebrow, taking another sip until she felt Darian’s eyes on her. “What?”

  “I’d forgotten what it was like,” he said with a small, nostalgic smile.

  “What ‘what’ was like?” Reykon asked.

  “Dreaming. I haven’t… I have not slept or dreamt since my human years. I did not realize how dearly they are missed.”

  “Wait, whatever I did, made you sleep?” she asked.

  “I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “I am still feeling, drowsy, so to say. It was rather refreshing, if I’m being honest.”

  Chadwick let out a huff of frustration. “Figured you’d be peachy keen after nearly decapitating me.”

  “What?” Darian scoffed. “I barely even touched you. It was a necessary evil, and you were the most expendable being here.”

  Robin thought Chadwick was goin
g to have an aneurysm. “Expendable!” he balked.

  “You will recover,” Darian said with a dismissive wave.

  “I nearly died!”

  “I was not born yesterday, young caster. My control is immense. You were in no such peril.”

  Chadwick’s eyes blazed with anger. “Right, old man, well just so you know, I’ve protected myself against any other attacks, so go ahead and try it. I’d love to see your jaw melt inside of your mouth.”

  Darian’s smirk deepened. “He’s like a porcupine, this one.” Chadwick made an angry noise in the back of his throat, arms crossed. After a few moments, Darian turned to the lab. “She is stable. More than stable…”

  “Good,” Robin hummed.

  “Thank you, truly. All of you. She was in her final hours, and we had become resigned to her fate.”

  A shiver ran up Robin’s spine, thinking about Lucidia suffering for once again trying to save her from the clutches of an evil overlord. “She’s family.”

  Reykon nodded in agreement. “When she wakes up, Chadwick will transport you two away from here, and then we will go our separate ways.”

  A pang of sadness ran through her. Their perfect abode, hidden to the world, to Xerxes, had been compromised. They would never be able to come to this place again.

  “There’s something else,” Reykon continued, looking straight at Darian. “You’ve gotta do something about Fausta, as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes,” Darian hummed bleakly. “She is a formidable opponent.”

  “No, what I’m saying is that if you don’t knock her down now, you won’t stand a chance. I met up with some rogues in the plana terra, and there’s a sea of werewolves that are fleeing for their lives. Packs are disintegrating.”

  “What?” Darian scowled.

  “She’s taking them, forcing the wolves into slavery to fight for her. She’s already taken down an entire rebelling stronghold simply by unleashing them.”

  “We did not hear such accounts.”

  “It just happened, and frankly, I’ve got better intel than you right now.”

  He shrugged in concession, his eyebrows pulling together.

  “Do you have a plan?” Reykon asked.

  “Right now, we are focusing on gathering refugees, giving them a safe place to live. We have adopted another master’s stronghold. Once we-”

  “Which stronghold?”

  “House Albus,” he said tentatively.

  Reykon’s eyes widened slightly. “There’s an army of wolves being transported there as we speak.”

  Darian stiffened. “You are certain of this?”

  “House Albus, in Missouri. They’re camping out somewhere on the outskirts, and they’re going to attack, soon. Everybody warned me to stay away from there because it’s going to be a bloodbath. Fausta herself plans on leading the charge.”

  Darian was silent for a long while after this, and then spoke quietly. “Then we are doomed. The number of able-bodied fighters in House Albus is diminished considerably. Our vampires are all weakened because there is a shortage of viable human subjects.”

  Robin rubbed her forehead. “This just keeps getting worse.”

  “I fear that Fausta will win this if she attacks us at the moment,” he muttered.

  “Damnit,” Reykon hissed, leaning on the table, his arms clenched.

  “Who are we talking about?” Lucidia asked from the doorway.

  Robin drew in a sharp breath and turned, seeing her sister standing, fierce and strong, purple eyes blazing with concern.

  Lucidia

  She needed some air after the reunion she’d gotten. First, Robin had come barreling into her like a bulldog, hugging her with such ferocity that she’d nearly fallen over. She expected the hug to be awkward, but she stood there, clinging to Robin like a long-lost friend. Reykon was hot on her heels, clapping Lucidia on the shoulder and giving her that crooked smile, cracking some joke about her fighting the gatekeepers of hell until they were too annoyed to take her. She smiled, wider than she even thought she could, being bombarded by these two people.

  Family.

  Her gaze had slipped further, and she saw Darian, standing on the other side of the room, looking at her with that cool, glassy smile. Her grin faded into a Mona-Lisa smile and she nodded once to him. “Thank you,” was all she said.

  He nodded back, and then she had to look away, to turn her sights on something else. She was given a brief synopsis of what had happened, the magic seeing pool, the freakish Frankenstein current they’d jolted her with, and their tandem nap-time. It was a lot of information to take in. And Lucidia’s head was already spinning. Physically, she felt strong. Stronger than ever, in fact. Lucidia stood, flexing her fingers, narrowing her eyes at her own hands. She felt good, but different, somehow.

  The caster stood, eyeing her suspiciously. “You’re feeling… alright? he asked. “No dizziness or anything?”

  Lucidia had been trained in the art of reading people. She was damn good at it, even fresh off the death train. It seemed that even her wariness of casters wasn’t deterred by nearly dying. “I’m good. Really good, actually. Why?”

  “Just curious. There could be some side effects, is all…”

  Reykon glanced at Chadwick and then back to Lucidia. “Chadwick… you didn’t,” Reykon said, his tone rising in intensity.

  Lucidia’s brows pulled together and she looked at the caster with an entirely different expression, one made of pure, steely ice. “What didn’t he do?”

  Chadwick simply held both hands up in a gesture of his innocence. “Listen, we needed more strongbloods to-”

  His words were cut off as Lucidia stormed over to him and gripped his throat. Full disclosure: she meant to throw him up against the wall, and just jostle him a bit. She didn’t mean to throw him through the wall, and then through the next one after that. Her eyes widened as she retracted her hand, staring at the bright red veins of power, burning with raw magic. But… it was wrong, somehow. Where were the symbols that she drew her abilities from? Why was she still able to use her powers without them? “What the hell did he do?” Lucidia growled, deepening her stance as Reykon stepped in front of her, crouched to subdue her and stop her from ripping the caster’s head off.

  But it was Darian’s cool voice that broke the tension, not Reykon’s. “He has erased the pledging ceremony,” the vampire master said with a tinge of sadness.

  “Then how am I able to use my powers?” she scowled.

  Reykon drew his own abilities up, and Lucidia watched the bright red magnify on his forearms. “Those symbols, they weren’t what we thought.”

  Her brows pulled together, and she shook her head. “No, but… they focused our power, they make us able to access our magic,” she said, turning back to Darian.

  A single look from him was all it took to send her over the edge. It wasn’t guilt, not by a long shot. It was the face of someone who’d been caught in a lie, someone who had no choice but to admit it. But she saw that he wasn’t remorseful about the act, simply that he’d been caught. He gave a small nod and watched her with the same guarded expression. The old Lucidia would have beat the shit out of him then and there, vampire master or not. She would have lashed out, like she’d done to Clay, working through her thoughts with her fists and then stopping to ask questions later. But this person that she’d woken up to was different. She wasn’t enraged, or surprised, she wasn’t indignant, or hungry for violence. She was just tired of the lies, the power plays, the games of ruling.

  Lucidia straightened up, the aggression melting away and bringing bitter resignation. She let her fierce gaze linger on Darian for a moment longer, before walking away from everybody and slipping out the back door, her sights set on the ocean.

  Robin

  It was a few hours of hushed talking with Chadwick and Reykon before Robin wandered off, past Darian, who’d sat down at the table with a distant, contemplative look. The sky was darkening now, swollen gray clouds rolling i
n, casting a darkened blanket on the ocean. She felt the sand between her toes as she approached Lucidia, who sat on a bleached driftwood log, watching the waves crash and break. Robin skirted the log and sat, shoulder to shoulder with Lucidia, who didn’t say anything, didn’t move, and neither did Robin, enjoying their company in peaceful solitude. The clouds came closer, until they covered the sky entirely and the temperature cooled a bit, the wind picking up. “I never thought we’d make it here, to be sitting next to each other,” Robin admitted quietly. Their entire relationship, all three months of it, had been rocked by tidal wave after tidal wave of opposition and obstacle.

  Lucidia gave a small smile and shook her head. “Me neither.”

  “At least we’re not a boring family,” Robin said with a grin, bumping Lucidia’s shoulder.

  Lucidia’s burning purple eyes turned from the coast, staring at Robin, holding her there. “At least we’re together. Finally.”

  Robin nodded. “Thank you. You risked your life for me, when I was a baby, and now. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Thank Calliope’s magical persuasion,” Lucidia scoffed.

  Robin shook her head softly. “No. A person doesn’t do all that for magic, or for duty, or whatever. A person does that for family, and blood. It was you, not her. So, thank you, Lucidia.”

  Something crossed her gaze, a look of sadness, or maybe nostalgia. “I wish you could have met him.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “He was so…” she continued, searching for the right words. “He had so much love, and so much strength, and so much wisdom. And even when I should have trusted him most, even when I knew that he knew what was best, I still betrayed him.”

  “No,” Robin began, shaking her head.

  “Yes. It’s okay, I’ve come to terms with it. There was nothing to do but make the choice I did. It’s funny, I’ve thought about it more in the past two days than I have in the twenty-five years since it happened. And I deeply, deeply regret it.”

  “If you hadn’t done what you did, I never would have met Reykon. You two would never have known the truth about the pledging ceremony.”

  Lucidia looked at her hands, inspecting them under the deep gray clouds. “I’m not surprised. It’s certainly not the worst thing they’ve ever done to a subject race.”