by Lexi Blake
Did the pixies know something I didn’t? They were kind to all three of my children, but they seemed to be particularly affectionate to Lee when there was no real biological need to be. Rhys was already powerful. The pixies gained energy from the boy who would one day be their good priest. Evan was already showing she had some skill with Fae magic.
So why did they adore Lee?
I shoved the thought aside and went to work. I still practice. Sometimes I shut myself out or in a place just to prove I can still pick a lock. I was happy I did that because I quickly had us inside Myrddin’s stronghold.
That was when I realized we weren’t alone and Jacob sucked.
A black cat sat in the hallway as though it had known we were there all along. It hissed and I knew our cloak wasn’t going to fool Myrddin’s familiar.
“Shit,” Lee said.
“Yep, pretty much.”
Chapter Twelve
Summer
My chest hurt as I came to and tried to focus on what was going on around me. The world was foggy and everything ached. What had happened? Why were all these people talking around me?
It came back in a flash. I’d been dragged under the water and Marcus had come for me. I’d been sure I would die there, but Marcus had saved me.
And then Kelsey had breathed life back into me.
I blinked at the afternoon sunshine and bit back a groan because it felt like a horse had been sitting on my chest. Marcus was beside me. I glanced up and he loomed over me, though his eyes were focused elsewhere.
“You will back off, vampire. I swear if you make one move to take my friend, I’ll put this arrow through your heart. You have no rights on this plane. She’s a free woman.”
I knew that voice, complete with its youthful, righteous tone. What the hell was Dean doing here? I hadn’t thought I’d hit my head. It was coming back to me and I knew Dean hadn’t been with me at all. He was supposed to be safely home with Erna.
“No one is trying to hurt her.” Devinshea Quinn sounded completely reasonable. “I would never hurt Summer. This has all been a huge misunderstanding. My name is Dev Quinn and I’ve known Summer since the day she was born. I consider myself one of her fathers, so you should know I’m here to help and protect her. Please put the crossbow down. Marcus isn’t going to take her against her will. I would stake him myself if he tried.”
“Who are you, child?” Marcus asked in that deep voice of his. I could hear the possessiveness dripping from his every word.
I wasn’t a fool. Marcus would view Dean as a rival, and that could go poorly for my friend.
“I’m her protector,” Dean replied. “Step away from her now. And she doesn’t have a family. She wasn’t born the way children are born. She’s something different and I won’t allow you or anyone else to use her.”
“I don’t think he’s going to hurt me, Dean.” The words came out of my mouth on a croak. Drowning was a really terrible thing.
Marcus’s handsome face loomed over me. His features were all sharp lines and hard planes, but somehow he managed to not look rough. If I hadn’t known he was from the Earth plane, I would have thought he was a vampire of royal blood, one of the wealthy who live high above the surface of their plane. “Please let me heal you. You don’t have to take it directly from me. I can apply it topically. I promise you there is nothing to fear from my blood.”
I rather thought I had everything to fear from it, but I wasn’t sure I could make it back to the brugh if I didn’t. Erna could work wonders, but I had to get to her first. Although somehow Dean had found me. “Can you help me sit up? Dean, don’t hurt anyone.”
“Uh, not really going to be a problem,” the kid I’d come to think of as a brother said.
I glanced over and Kelsey had somehow managed to get the crossbow out of Dean’s hands and had it trained at his head.
We were going to have to work more on his physical training. Dean often relied on his magic and forgot that a fist can work, too. I would bet that was a lesson Kelsey had learned early on.
Marcus managed to get behind me, letting me rest against his strong chest. “Kelsey, don’t kill the boy until we know who he is.”
“Don’t kill the boy at all, please.” I was so tired, and it felt good to be in Marcus’s arms. It shouldn’t since I knew exactly what he was and why he was attracted to me, but I couldn’t help it. I’ve always been attracted to vampires. Some might say I have daddy issues. “Dean, how did you get here? Please tell me you didn’t teleport.”
Dean had his hands up and managed to look even younger than his twenty-three years. “Something happened to you. Something was attacking you. You can’t expect me to leave you out here all alone. So it wasn’t the vamp?”
I let my head rest against Marcus’s chest, feeling the oddly familiar way we seemed to fit together. My head nestled under his chin. The pain was starting to come back now. I hadn’t felt my arm aching because of the dying thing.
Had Dean felt me die? Erna had helped to enchant the charm at my throat. It wasn’t allowed to come off my body unless I died and the threat was neutralized. Now I wondered if she hadn’t put more spells on the thing than I’d realized. “Marcus saved me. Did Erna sense the attack?”
Dean nodded. “She told me something was wrong. Something was trying to break the seal.”
That answered one question, though I had many more. The charm at my throat wasn’t exactly public knowledge. Why had the each-uisge been so intent on taking it? “It’s okay now, though I fear I can’t make it back to the village without help.”
“I can heal you,” Dean said. He glared at Kelsey, who still had the crossbow pointed his way. “Well, I could if this chick would let me. She’s a little psycho if you ask me.”
Kelsey simply smiled, an odd expression that reminded me of a hungry wolf. “Don’t you forget it, buddy.”
I looked to the young woman who seemingly had done her best to save me, too. “Please. He’s no danger to you. He won’t hurt anyone now that he knows I’m safe.”
The crossbow came down with a long sigh, as though Kelsey was giving up something precious. “All right then. But if he’s your protector, he needs way more training.”
It was something we could all use, but I’d certainly never considered him my protector. It was kind of the other way around given Dean’s great destiny. Sometimes it wasn’t easy to keep the “savior” alive.
“Summer, you need to take Marcus’s blood.” Dev Quinn got to one knee in front of me, his emerald green eyes pools of concern. “I’m worried about these wounds. The vampire blood will clear any and all infection as well as heal the wound. I can help spread it over your skin.”
But even I knew it would work so much more effectively if I drank from the tap, so to speak. And the pain was starting to be difficult to deal with. The each-uisge had done a number on my arm. Horse teeth might not be sharp, but they packed a punch. I looked to Dean. “You’re lucky you made it here. Now give me some space so I can deal with my wounds and we can get home.”
Home. I didn’t truly have one of those, but I couldn’t keep calling it the brugh or the cottage. I would go back to Erna and hope I had the information she needed.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me because I’d forgotten all about the book.
“I lost my satchel.” My stomach turned. I’d done everything so we could get that book. I’d risked letting Turi’s men find me so we could try to figure out Dean’s path. Now it was at the bottom of the lake and I would have to find it and pray it hadn’t been destroyed.
Dean knew the implications. “I’ll find it. I’ll work a spell to bring it back.”
“Or Devinshea will have his plants find it for you,” Marcus said in an all too reasonable voice. “Could you and Kelsey take the lad and find Summer’s bag? It seems to be important to her and I have a feeling she would like some privacy.”
Dev’s eyes narrowed. “Privacy for what?”
Kelsey groaned. “She’s not letting
him bleed on her. First of all, vampire blood stains clothes, too. Second, you know damn well it’s going to work faster and better if she sucks him off. And I did not mean it that way. Out. Sucks it out of him. Blood. Sucks the blood… Just come on and help me find the freaking bag. They aren’t going to do the nasty.”
I felt my whole body heat with embarrassment. Mostly embarrassment. Only a little of something else.
“The nasty what?” Dean asked, proving he’d had a sheltered childhood. Despite what had happened to his mother when she was pregnant, she’d found powerful people on the Vampire plane to protect her son.
“Nothing.” Dev stood with a sigh. “He’s going to heal her and that’s all. We’ll find your bag, Summer, but don’t think I’m letting you out of my sight. I meant what I said. I consider myself to be your father, and I’m quite the helicopter parent. Ask your siblings when you meet them. And, Marcus, I am watching you.”
“I’m sure you are.” Marcus’s reply came out all silky and smooth, and a bit on the bad-boy side like he was the kind to steal a few kisses, a caress. Like he wouldn’t mind that we could get caught. It would make the intimacy all the hotter.
But then a pain went through me and I forgot about how hot the male was.
“Bella, drink. Stop worrying and let me heal you. I want nothing more in the world than to heal you.” The emotion he pushed toward me no longer had any of the sensual tinge from seconds before. Concern flavored the wave that came off him. Tenderness and worry for me. He moved his right arm and before I could tell what he was doing, he brought his wrist up to my mouth.
He’d bitten his own wrist and blood welled there. I stared at it. Rich, velvety blood. His life’s blood. No one but Erna had ever offered to help me in a way that cost him or herself. He couldn’t claim me if he didn’t sink his fangs in, and it seemed like Dev wasn’t so keen on that. I didn’t understand what was going on with these people. They’d seemed to be friends at first, but they had different agendas.
“Please. I know you’re in pain and it’s killing me. Please, drink,” Marcus whispered. “If you never believe anything I say, believe this. I want you happy and healthy and whole. I’ve never wanted anything more.”
“It healed.” His wrist had closed again, proving how strong he was. Those holes on his wrist had healed right before my eyes. “How old are you?”
“I am almost two thousand years old,” he said, bringing his wrist back and biting down again. “And I feel like I’m twenty today. I feel like a youthful idiot who has no idea how to handle a woman. Drink.”
If I didn’t I got the feeling he would open that wrist again and again until I did. I leaned forward and realized that drinking someone’s blood is super awkward and weird.
And I’d never tasted anything as amazing as Marcus Vorenus. He held his wrist to my lips and when I drew in, the blood flowed like rich chocolate. Not the supersweet kind. The expensive, deeply decadent kind. The Fae don’t have chocolate, but I’ve tasted the witch plane’s sweets and not a one of them came close to Marcus’s blood. My whole body warmed and the pain floated away the minute that blood washed down my throat. I was happier than I’d been before, more whole. That blood was a dangerous drug, but I couldn’t make myself stop.
Marcus sighed behind me and I could feel his satisfaction. He meant what he’d said. It hummed through my being that he would be no place but right here.
I hissed and broke our contact because the deep wound was healing, skin knitting back together. Skin knitting back together hurts like hell, and it wasn’t going quickly.
“Let me show you something. Let me take your mind off the pain.”
The words had been whispered in my mind. I knew I should say no, but my head nodded because this was a flash fire through my system, and I was about to scream and shout. There was a burning in my blood and I blinked back tears.
Suddenly I found myself in a sunny room and all the pain was gone. I shook my head to clear it of the remembered agony. There was none of that here. There was peace and sunshine. There was great wealth.
At first I was confused because this wasn’t a normal room. It was large, but I was definitely inside despite the fact that a lovely stream split the space and gorgeous plants and flowers covered the walls on two sides. I turned to my right and saw where all that sunlight was coming from. There were floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors that led to a balcony that rivaled any I’d seen at the palace at Tír na nÓg. But this balcony didn’t overlook pastures or grand forests. A city sparkled outside the windows, buildings rising all around us. It reminded me of the Vampire plane, but I didn’t think that was where I was. The sun felt different on my skin—warmer, more vibrant.
“This would have been your home had things worked out as they should have,” a deep voice said.
I turned again and Marcus sat on one of the big lounge chairs. He wore a dark suit and looked far more civilized than the last time I’d seen him. “What are you doing? We’re not really here, right?”
“No, I wish I could truly take you there, but this will have to do for now. One of my talents is to be able to pull a person into my memories. I could have shown you my home, but I rather thought it would be nice for you to see yours.”
I took in the space that apparently should have been my “home.” It certainly wasn’t the dingy motel room my parents had brought me into existence in. This place was so far from where I’d been born it was ridiculous.
“When I left the Earth plane, my mom was worried about money. It was why she took that job with the demon in the first place. She must have gotten really good at stealing things. How old is she now? You said I had siblings. How old are they? I’m going to assume the Green Man had something to do with that.” My father wouldn’t be able to have biological children, one of the main differences between Earth plane and Vampire plane creatures.
“He did, indeed,” Marcus replied, standing smoothly. “Your mother married him about twelve years ago. She doesn’t work anymore. Not at thievery, though I believe she misses it from time to time. Your father took over the Council. Do you know what that is?”
I shook my head. If I had my power I would be able to search my brain for everything I’d learned that one night, the night of my birth. Honestly, it had been years since I’d had that power and I’d forgotten how handy it had been to simply remember everything I’d ever experienced, everything I’d ever been told or seen. “No. I don’t remember a lot about the Earth plane. Most of what I know I’ve learned from vampire researchers. They’re fascinated with Earth plane vamps.”
“And I would love to know more about our descendants,” Marcus said with a light in his eyes. “But I digress. We don’t have much time. Are you still in pain?”
I shook my head. I felt wonderful here. I felt the warmth of the sun on my skin, and the whole place smelled of life. This was a home. “No. Thank you for that.”
“Of course. Do you want to see them?” Marcus stood. “This memory is from a day roughly a month ago. I was called up for a meeting with the king, and Zoey was getting the children ready for school.”
Did I want to see the children my parents had loved enough to keep?
“It was not like that, bella.”
Damn the man for being able to slip in when my walls were down. “I know it’s not fair. When I’m rational I know exactly why they did it. I know she sacrificed. How did she get out of the demon contract? And yes. Yes, I want to see them.”
I said the last words quickly because I knew if I thought about it long enough, I would say no, and I didn’t truly want to say no. I meant what I’d said about my mother. I knew she’d sacrificed for me. Her soul had been on the line and she’d chosen a child she didn’t even think was her own. I knew I was hers. I’d even tried to tell them that night, but I hadn’t been able to speak and Haweigh had been the only one who could interpret for me. She’d left that part out.
When I was older, we’d fought about it. It had been the fight that led to
me wearing a collar and giving up all my power.
“Your mother was a clever woman. I was there that night. She found a way to fulfill the contract that didn’t involve turning you over.” Marcus nodded toward a hallway as a dark-haired kid ran through. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and his hair was a bit wild.
My brother. That was my little brother. “What’s his name?”
“Rhys!” a feminine voice yelled. “Don’t forget your homework.”
The boy named Rhys stopped and winced. That was when I realized there was a second Marcus. He stepped in from what looked like a foyer and gave the boy a grin.
“Did you forget your homework or did you forget to actually do your homework?” Marcus asked as though he already knew the answer.
“The second one,” Rhys admitted. “I was gonna do it. But then I was playing Xbox with Fen and I forgot. Maybe Lee did it.”
Another boy strode through, an almost exact copy of the first except he had on a T-shirt with some odd yellow creature on the front. “I didn’t do it. Whatever it was, I didn’t do it. Except I did brush my teeth.”
“Lee, did you brush your teeth?” the feminine voice asked from another room.
Lee turned back. “Yes!”
My mom stepped out, a hand on her hip. “Then why is your toothbrush perfectly dry? I check. I check everything.”
Lee groaned and his head fell forward as he marched back down the hallway.
My mom. No wonder they’d all been confused. It was like looking in a mirror. If she’d aged a day I couldn’t tell. My mother had her hair up in a ponytail and she wore what looked to be cotton pants and a top without sleeves. She wasn’t dressed for the day yet. She was far too busy getting her family ready. She looked young and soft, as though the world hadn’t ever kicked her when I knew it had. I’d felt her that day. She’d been through so much, and there hadn’t been a lot of hope in her heart that night.
