While Wren wasn’t a stout man, any fat he might have had in his face was all gone on the ruined side. His forehead skin dripped down into his eye, obscuring its true shape and just barely leaving the socket clear enough to see out of with the stolen eye Wren wore.
Below his eye, there was no crest of cheekbone to give him the soft feminine look he was graced with but a sunken in crater of knotted flesh that if it were smooth, would have showed the shape of his teeth below. The scars dribbled down his chin and folded over each other down his collar.
“He says he’s sorry,” Wren said, lifting the cord over his head. “But I can’t believe him. I still love him even after all he’s done to me but I can’t believe he loves me for the person I am and not just the beauty I once processed. “
Tristan was sorry for the vampire, he really was, but he didn’t have time to be an undead relationship therapist right now—not to mention his own hang ups as the panic of almost being raped again niggled at him. “We’ve got to go stop them.”
Wren shook his head, adjusting the disk against his flesh. “They are already gone. I was hoping you had Pollux under control when I arrived. I can handle Nastasia on my own, but not a Master.”
“He was low on seikonō at least.”
Wren nodded his agreement. “Yes, there was that.”
Tristan groaned, turning towards the direction of the house but unable to bring himself to move forward. “How’s Ellie?”
Wren lifted his chin. “She was dead… for a long time. Nearly six minutes. Ash revived her, but…”
Tristan frowned. “What?” And then took a step back with his eyes held open wide. “You think she’s a shinigami now?”
The vampire looked away. “We won’t know until she awakens. If she is a shinigami, Ash has vowed to kill the girl herself.”
Tristan’s pulse was hammering. “And if she’s not?”
Wren shrugged, giving him eye contact again. “There’s a very high chance of severe brain damage. If it’s too great a burden for the child, then it may be the humane to do, putting her out of her misery.”
“Goddammit!” Tristan put his back to his friend. Even when Tristan chose not to kill, everyone around him still suffered. And this girl, she was a complete innocent that never should have been brought in. That was on Ash. But the girl’s death would be on him.
“Which one of them did it? Which one tried to kill Ellie?”
“Pollux, I think.”
Tristan nodded. It was another notch in the vampire’s fang, as far as Tristan was concerned. Another reason for the death penalty… as if seeing that ruined body of the person he raped and killed Downtown wasn’t enough. “Go on without me.”
When Wren hesitated, Tristan turned to look at him. “I’ll be fine, Wren. But I need some time to think. Keep Ash at the house, will you?” He couldn’t let himself feel guilty for not wanting to see her right then, he really needed to think. “I want to be alone for a while.”
“And if the others return?”
Tristan shook his head, unable to make the words come: I don’t care anymore.
Wren couldn’t read his thoughts but he must have seen something in Tristan’s body language as he gave a defeated sigh before giving a formal bow. “Of course.”
The vampire left quietly and after his presence disappeared, Tristan turned and walked the opposite way into the woods alone to contemplate his fucked up life.
14: Wandering Star
AN hour later, maybe longer, Tristan felt the first hint of vampire. He sighed, staring up at the night sky from his place on the cold, hard earth in the middle of a clearing. Somewhere behind him, just past the line of trees, was the trickle of the stream that dissected the property. It was nice here, crisp, clear, quiet. And the best part, vampire free… Until just now.
He wasn’t sure how far out from the house it was, this place, only that he couldn’t feel any of the vampire inhabitants. It was a reprieve he didn’t know he needed, taking the edge off his blood. He was sure that it helped him think more clearly and more analytical. Which led him to this lengthy brooding out here.
“It’s getting late.”
Tristan shifted on the ground where he lay but didn’t get up or even acknowledge her.
“Is… Is it okay if I join you?”
Ash’s voice was tender and Tristan didn’t have it in him to say no. He didn’t have it in him to say anything at all.
She sat down close enough to touch but kept her own physical space even if the metaphysical was all over him. They were silent for a long time, staring up at the sky, a clear sky full of stars.
“I like it here too,” she said softly, “this part of the property. You did good in picking this place.”
Tristan glanced at her. She was looking at the small bundle of cloth that was once Tristan’s boxers. He’d cut the last leg free from his body and tossed them away when he arrived. He hadn’t had the breakdown yet, the acknowledgment of his eminent violation.
“I’ve found that certain places seem to hum. Like the earth is purring happily beneath my feet. That happiness makes me feel… at peace. Our sparring place back in Japan was such place. As is this. I am glad for it, the familiar comfort.”
He wondered if it was the same way he felt the vampires. And he would have asked her if he felt like talking.
She rubbed a comforting hand up and down his arm. “You should come inside soon, it’s cold and I’m concerned you have not had enough rest lately. I cannot recall the last time I saw you eat…”
Yeah, like a little bit of sleep and a bite of food would make everything better, would change his mind on what he could and couldn’t do. “I’ll sleep when I die,” he muttered in a scratchy voice.
Ash sighed softly. “Wren… told me about your encounter with Pollux.”
Tristan sighed to himself. He could try to explain again why he didn’t just kill the vampire, but his philosophy seemed lost to her and he didn’t have the strength to argue it anymore. Or did she mean the almost rape? Wren surely saw that when he arrived on scene—Tristan with his pants down, trapped under naked Pollux.
“You are a good man, Tristan,” Ash said suddenly, pulling him from his thoughts. She sat up and turned on her hip to look down at him from above, force him to see her. “I don’t think you are naïve in wishing to save rather than kill, I just wish you see to the truth as it is.”
“What’s the truth? That Nastasia, a mere vanilla, was Mastering over two actual Masters and a lycanthrope? It’s always these little secrets that you hold on to that mean my near maiming or death, Ash. I’m good with truth.”
“I’m sorry I never told you about Nastasia, that you had to hear it from others. I meant to tell you. I started to… I did not know how.”
He sighed and pushed her hair aside, slipping his hand along her cheek to cup her jaw. “I understand enough to know you aren’t doing it on purpose to hurt me.” He dropped his hand to his side. “But it does hurt. It hurts to think that maybe you don’t really trust me.”
“But I do.”
He frowned at her.
“You do not trust me.”
He shut his eyes and sighed. “I don’t know how I can with all the evidence that tells me not to.”
“I understand.”
“I really don’t know what to do anymore, Ash. I’m just, I can’t help but want to protect you but I can’t do it at the expense of my mental health.” He looked her in the eyes again. “Does that make me selfish?”
Her face filled with silent pain. “Not in the least and that is the truth.”
He frowned up at her. “Pollux asked me if I made you forget the past.”
Ash shook her head and he got a whiff of her sweet scent, so strong here in this place of earth power. “You heal my past and make my future worth having.”
He smiled sadly. “That’s what I said, you know, in my own special way. He,” He took in a breath. “He couldn’t believe that any vampire was worth saving. That they are mea
nt to be evil—inherently evil. He agrees with you, that killing is the only thing to stop such evil.”
“Do you think we are evil?”
Tristan thought about it, really thought on all the vampire he met in the last seven months. “Not evil, but just like with humans, there’s good and bad. It’s unfair to call any one race absolute evil.”
“Wise words. But you cannot look past the glaring fact that there are far more bad vampires than good. That we are made of sin itself.”
He shut his eyes tightly. “I know. But it’s my belief in…” He opened his eyes. “In their humanity. And my own. If I kill every single vampire who did something wrong… I’d have to kill them all. Can’t they learn from their mistakes like I have? Haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“But?”
“But three-hundred years, it is a long time to fall in a habit, to let our mind form a way of thought and hold onto it as if it were the only thing keeping us together.”
“After all you’ve been through, the pain you’ve endured and the people you’ve seen come and go from your life… Do you think I’m still naïve for wanting to try and save others from the suffering I watch you struggle with every night?”
Ash bit into her lip, brow pinched in agony. “Am I so transparent?”
A slow smile came over him. “Sometimes.” The smile slipped way and he took her face into his hands, pulling her closer. “Most times though, you worry me. I can’t read your mind and it drives me crazy.”
Ash pulled away, eyes averted. “Not naïve, but perhaps misguided and dangerous.”
He frowned.
“I think it is admirable to want to save everyone.”
“But you don’t think I can.”
She shook her head, looking sad. “I do not believe anyone can.”
“What happened with Nastasia?”
Ash sighed heavily, pulled her knees to her chest, looking small and vulnerable. “I’ve wounded her, in many ways, but—” She sighed again, nodding. “Malik, he’s the one who broke her. And yes, while I had a part in it, inadvertently, Malik is the true villain. Even molded by my Master, Nastasia choses to be who she is, I cannot take that blame.”
Tristan nodded, proud at her revelation.
“The night Malik killed Eva, turned me and took Lilith for his own, I was… I was told my baby—my newborn baby was dead.”
“Jesus,” Tristan hissed. Nastasia never even had a chance if Malik took her as an infant.
“Eighteen years later in Turkey I happened upon a girl that should have been dead. Of course, knowing what I know now, it was by Malik’s design that I found her. But I knew the moment I saw her that she was my daughter.”
Tristan nodded, looking at her in admiration and understanding. “You look the same. It was a shock.”
She offered him a faint smile. “I kept her a secret from Master and would leave him each night to go and talk to her. We became friends, family again and she agreed to be like me, to let me turn her. It was naïve of me to think he had nothing to do with our reunion. He let us build a relationship and the moment she arose from her grave newly remade a fledgling vampire, he swooped in and took her from me a second time. I saw him for the true evil he was that night and forever after. I knew it was always there but refused to acknowledge it. I was a fool.”
“To be fair, Malik was a master at mind games. You can’t blame yourself.”
“Of course I can, but you’re right too. I see where I failed, but Malik was the master of this chaos.” Ash shifted position again, looking stiff. “She came to the house tonight, while you were with Pollux.”
He questioned her with a look, a brow lifted.
She shook her head in dismay. “There is no reconciliation for us.”
“Oh, Ash, I’m sorry.”
“I will do it myself when the time comes, I cannot ask such a thing of you.”
“Ash,” he chided. “That’s not my point.”
She held up a hand, silencing his protests. “I understand. But it is the only way.”
Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t give up on the desire to try, of the need to.”
“And that,” she said leaning down to put her face near his. “Is why I love you. And why I don’t deserve you.”
His expression softened. “I feel the same way, I mean, I don’t deserve you. You… you literally save my life, Ash. You know that, right?”
She considered him for a long time, her eyes boring deep into his own. A small smirk played on his lips. “I suppose then that makes us perfect for each other because you’ve saved me.”
He was going to say something but Ash kissed him. And it wasn’t a chaste kiss, this was deep cave spelunking, all mouth and tongue and teeth. And fangs. Tristan felt those teeth in a sharp reminder of what she was. He reached up and pulled her down on top of him, pressing chest to chest. Beating heart to beating heart.
Yes, he’d wanted to be alone, spend more time brooding and thinking, but now that she was here, he never wanted her to leave again. They may have their troubles and disagreements, maybe even had a hard time understanding each other completely, but they loved one another. For Tristan, right now in his life, that’s all he really needed and he was sure Ash felt the same.
Ash was a little more forceful with her kiss than normal and when she gave him a second playful bite on the lip, a rough bite that she’d never have dared before, a new understanding came over Tristan.
She pulled away first, gazing down at him with lust and determination in her eyes and a question so clear: Do you really want this?
“Ash?”
“I’ve let my past color my present for far too long. I prevented myself from learning from my mistakes, the fear… I know I did wrong by Nastasia. I did wrong with many things in my life, but this.” She shook her head. “I am not wrong in loving you. I am not wrong in helping you achieve what you are meant to be.”
He sat up, pushing her gently off him so that they were sitting now on their hips facing each other. “You’re serious,” he whispered, not believing. “Now, after all this time…”
“I know. I know,” she said and gave a nervous little laugh. “I am fickle as Yukihime, only far more sane. And perhaps this is a snap decision, but in a way, it really is not. I have had a very long time to think on this and… I think it is finally time. I have been too selfish for too long. I want you to have this.”
“You think… you think I’m going to get myself killed with my naïve ideas?”
She smiled sadly. “Perhaps, a little part of it is that. You’re more of an idealist than naïve. But more than that, this is what you are meant to be. It was wrong for me to keep it from you. It has always been your decision and I had no right to tell you no.”
Tristan was at a loss for words. He was confused, excited and scared, relieved… Overwhelmed. Instead of trying to put his feelings into feeble words, he grabbed Ash, yanking her against him. She flung her arms around his neck, mashed her mouth with his.
There were so many questions, fears that came with the knowledge that this was it, he was about to be bitten and made into something new. He was about to become what the pythia have been heralding for… well, he didn’t know how long.
He was forced down to the ground with Ash’s arms still wrapped around his neck, her weight pressing on his abdomen and her mouth—
Tristan gasped, jerking his mouth away. It wasn’t the pain that surprised him so much as the action. His eyes widened as he poked his tongue at the raw tear on the inside of his cheek near his lip.
Ash said nothing and not even her usual stoic mask could hide the same surprise in her blue eyes. Her chest heaved against his, he could feel her pulse pounding.
“You…,” he breathed, still utterly shocked. “That’s it then?”
Ash smiled suddenly, a darkly provocative smile that made his flesh run with goose bumps all the way down to his feet. “Perhaps, but I do not intend to stop there.”
“Oh,
fuck yes.”
They grabbed for each other all at once, in a frenzy of hands and groans, and they tore at each other’s clothes, rolling across the cold ground until they were both completely nude. Tristan shivered, more from anticipation than the low temperature. He was so hot right then anyway, he could have been near dead with hypothermia and he wouldn’t have noticed. Then again, he did remember Greece—all too well, actually. He remembered what it felt like to freeze to death—almost death.
Tristan shivered at the memory and Ash’s cool hands roved over his body, seeking to comfort and distract. She was firm but gentle with him, obviously hyper aware of his less-than vampire fragility. She kissed him again, deeper than before and nicked the side of his tongue. His surprise poured down her throat in a hot fount and she moaned, eating at him harder and faster than he’d ever expected. It was only his slightly panicked moan that brought her back to herself and he wondered if he was a risk of being drained in the heat of the moment.
But, Jesus, what a way to go.
She kissed his throat, let her fangs scratch the skin but not break the delicate surface. He moaned loudly, blind with lust and grabbed her hips, pushing her down over him. Ash gasped at the sudden intrusion and sat up, breathless.
Tristan thrust his hips, encouraging her to move, barely giving her a chance to catch her breath. If she didn’t move in the next half second, he was going to lose his shit and go at her like he never had with anyone, but then she thrust against him and he gasped, eyes shutting at the raw ecstasy of it that sizzled throughout his entire body and left him without thought or a voice.
Ash rode him almost too hard, frantic with their combined need. His pelvis started to ache, but when she pulled the climax right out of him, nothing else mattered. They were one being together and now there was nothing to keep them from not being able to share moments like this ever again. His blood was hers now, there was no going back.
He was made.
“Amazing,” Tristan breathed out with nearly no air. He was panting hard enough that he thought he might actually pass out. Hell, his face tingled with half-consciousness. Maybe she sucked more blood out of the small wounds than he thought. “Take that, Greece sex.”
Primal Burdens: (The Uruwashi Series #5) Page 16
