by N. R. Walker
When he got to the door, he stopped. “Alec,” Cronin said. He was right behind him, and Alec was of the impression it was not the first time Cronin had called his name—he’d just not heard it. He was so engrossed, so hypnotized by the lure of the Terracotta Army. All seven vampires were now behind him, watching him cautiously. Eiji and Jodis both now had wooden stakes in their hands.
“This way,” Alec said quietly. It was almost dreamlike, like he was almost floating, but he led them into the room.
There were square pillars lining the long and narrow room, holding up the grand and ornate ceiling. Alongside the pillars were glass cabinets of antiques that normally Alec would love to inspect and question, but in that moment he cared for none of it. Because in the center of the room, behind glass walls, were six Terracotta Soldiers. They faced him, stoic and still, like they were waiting just for him.
Four foot soldiers stood and two archers knelt in combat formation, and Alec stood before them. The silence was deafening, everything was eerily still, though it was far from peaceful. Alec’s heart was hammering, his gut instinct was telling him to turn and run, yet he stood as motionless as the terracotta men before him.
Then a strangled, horrific bray broke the silence like thunder. Alec spun to the sound to see a lone terracotta cavalryman tethered to a terracotta horse in a glass room. The horse, with its mouth open and its eyes wide, pulled its head back, braying again. Slowly it lifted one foot, and when it stomped to the ground, the terracotta foot broke off and the animal screamed.
Then in an unfolding horror, the six terracotta men in front of him moved. The foot soldiers moved their arms, as if lifting weapons they weren’t holding, and the kneeling archers slowly stood up and aimed their arrows at Alec.
CHAPTER TEN
Alec stumbled backwards and Cronin quickly caught him. Eiji and Jodis moved in front of him, each with stakes in both hands, and never taking their eyes off the threat, they walked backwards, slowly out of the room. Alec saw one of the foot soldiers take one step before they rounded the corner.
Cronin yelled, “Take a hold!”
Everyone held out their hands, touching, and Cronin leapt. Suddenly, Alec found himself in a dark alley, and not just any alley, but the one behind Kennard’s club in London. Alec watched as the seven vampires enclosed around him, keenly scanning their surroundings, before Cronin pulled Alec against him.
It was Kennard who laughed. “Well that was entertaining!” he said. His eyes were alight and his smile wide, making his boyish features look more impish than vampire. “Alec, you are a treasure. First it was mummies. Now statues come to life before you.”
“If you three are well, we’ll be on our way,” Cronin said tightly.
“Yes, of course,” Kennard said. Both Davis and Julia nodded, but kept their eyes on Alec, wide with wonder. “Do keep me informed,” Kennard continued. “And remember, if you need numbers in China, just let me know.”
Eiji bowed in return, and no sooner had he touched Jodis, than Cronin reached out his hand and they were gone again.
As soon as Alec’s feet hit solid ground, he saw the familiar living room of the house in Japan and he sighed. Eleanor stood waiting, expectant. “I saw what happened,” she said. “Only a moment before it did. I had no way to warn you. I knew there would be answers, but I was not expecting them to be so rash.”
“Answers?” Cronin snapped. “To what? All we have now is more questions.”
Alec ignored their bickering. “Where is my father?”
“He sleeps, and Jacques stands guard,” Eleanor answered. “Alec, I am sorry for not forewarning you. I feel my gift around you lessens with time. The gap between the vision and the actual occurrence is decreasing. Either they have a cloaker or your blood affects what I see. I simply do not know.”
Cronin sighed, yet his hold on Alec tightened. He looked at Eleanor. “Apologies for my ill-temper. It seems the effects Alec has on talents is wide spreading.”
Eleanor bowed her head to her elder. “Your apology is humbly accepted, though your concern is warranted. Fear not to offend. We will overcome these troubled times, Cronin.”
Alec’s head began to swim with all the leaping and the events of the night. “I’ve had just about all the excitement I care for today. Watching stone statues come to life in front of me is right up alongside mummies on my I-never-want-to-see-again list.”
Cronin’s brow furrowed. “Alec, are you well?”
Alec leaned into him, craving his warmth and strength, wrapped both arms around him as tight as he dared, and he sighed deeply. He didn’t need to reply with words, but Cronin responded in kind. Jodis cleared her throat. “We will start researching masonry effects and influences,” she said. “Join us once Alec is sleeping.”
Cronin gave a nod in answer, and without a word, took Alec’s hand and led him out of the room. Alec assumed Cronin somehow knew he’d had enough leaping for one day, because they walked. The bedroom at the end of the long hall was dark and Alec could barely make out the bed. It was a low-set futon-style bed that looked invitingly soft. He stripped out of his clothes, despite how cool the room was, and lay down face-first on the mattress.
Not a second later, Cronin crawled up his body, planting kisses on the back of his calves, his thighs, his ass, his spine, and finally the back of his neck. “Alec, you are cold.”
Alec smiled and lifted his ass in invitation. “Then stop talking and warm me up.”
Eiji called out from down the hall. “This house has thin walls.”
Alec muffled his laugh with a pillow. “Then you can thank me later.”
Cronin scraped his fangs across the back of Alec’s neck before kissing the exposed skin. Alec pushed his forehead into the pillow, craning his neck to give Cronin more skin, groaning without shame.
Alec found himself being turned over, cradled in Cronin’s talented and tentative hands. He was on his back in less time than it took to blink. Cronin was above him, naked and demanding, his eyes were pools of dark desire, and he ran his tongue along his fangs. Alec moaned with want, and Cronin kissed him quiet, covering Alec’s mouth with his own.
Their cocks aligned as Cronin thrust and ground against him. Alec spread his thighs wider and tilted his hips, wanting everything Cronin had. He ran his hands down Cronin’s back and over the swell of his ass, pulling their hips together, seeking friction where he wanted it most. Their cocks slid against their bodies, slicked with precome and need, their mouths were fused, and tongues tangled and tasted.
Alec had never craved anything like this. He needed Cronin with every cell in his body. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. Never touch enough, never taste enough. They would never be close enough. And with gripping hands and desperate moans, a pleasure so divine, so complete, detonated in Alec’s belly. Like nuclear fallout, it unfurled in slow motion and light speed at the same time, blinding and consuming.
With his head thrown back, his mouth opened in a silent scream, his neck corded, and his whole body taut and convulsing, Alec came.
Cronin held onto him, bucking against him, and with a growl in Alec’s ear, he spilled between them.
Alec wrapped his arms around him as Cronin collapsed on top of him. Alec loved the weight of his body pressing down on him, and he tightened his hold. Cronin was purring and mumbling nonsensical things Alec couldn’t make out. He kissed the side of Cronin’s head, and just before he fell asleep, he whispered something Cronin had once said to him. “Rug mi ort, m’cridhe.”
I have you, my heart.
* * * *
Alec woke up not knowing where he was. It was a strange bed in a strange room, and Alec remembered then. They were in Japan. There was light, and Alec had been so used to Cronin’s bedroom in the New York apartment where the bedroom window had been blacked out.
Mmm, Cronin.
Alec stretched out in bed, feeling contentment in every inch of his body. He also felt something else stirring
in his balls and gave his morning wood a squeeze.
“Oh Alec, for the love of Freya,” Jodis complained from the living room. “Cronin take him and his human pheromones away.”
Alec snorted out a laugh and rolled out of bed. He took a piss, showered, threw on some jeans, and walked, shirtless, out into the living room. They were all seated on the sofas with books and laptops, and Alec’s whiteboard was now against one wall. The once-tranquil Japanese room now looked like an operational combat headquarters.
Without acknowledging anyone else in the room, Alec walked straight over to Cronin and dropped onto the sofa beside him. He maneuvered Cronin’s arm so he fit snugly against him and wriggled himself in nice and warm. Cronin pushed the old textbook away so he could wrap both arms around Alec.
“Morning,” Alec said, his voice still thick from sleep.
Eiji laughed. “Make yourself comfortable. Don’t let our presence stop you.”
“I won’t,” Alec said with a smile.
Cronin kissed the side of his head. “You slept well?”
“Mm,” Alec hummed. “Woke up alone though.”
Cronin nuzzled into Alec’s hair. “Apologies.”
Alec squirmed against him and Cronin started to purr in his ear. Jodis whined. “Please, you two.”
Alec laughed and squirmed some more. “I can’t help it. He’s so damn good at what he does to me—” His words cut off in his throat when he saw Kole walk in from the kitchen. Alec sat up. “Dad! I forgot you were here!”
Eiji laughed. “Ah, metaphorical cold water.”
Alec gave Eiji the stink eye as he stood up and walked over to his father. Kole was holding a plate of toast, and Alec helped himself to a slice. He bit into it, and Kole put his hand to Alec’s chin and turned his head to the side. He frowned.
“What?” Alec said with his mouth half-full.
Kole shrugged and shook his head. “Nothing.”
But then Alec remembered. He had bite marks—literal vampire bite marks up his neck. They were only small, purplish puncture wounds, but he instantly regretted forgoing the shirt. He wasn’t ashamed—hell, the very opposite was true—but sometimes there were things a father shouldn’t have to see. He swallowed his food, and although his hand automatically went to cover the bite marks, he stopped himself. Instead, he raised his chin and looked his father in the eye.
“It’s one thing to know it. I guess it’s just different to see it,” Kole said quietly.
Alec nodded. “It’s who I am, Dad. It’s who Cronin is, and it’s who I will be.”
Kole studied Alec for a long moment. If he was looking for doubt or fear in Alec’s eyes, then he found none. He never would. Eventually he nodded. “You could at least put some clothes on,” Kole said. “There are ladies in the room.”
“How will everyone appreciate my awesome body if I cover it up?” Alec asked with a roll of his eyes, and when he turned to go and get a freakin’ shirt, Cronin stood behind him with a neatly folded shirt in his hands.
He was fighting a smile. “I will make you coffee.”
Alec pulled the button down shirt over his head and ignored the fact that Eiji was grinning from ear to ear. He deliberately looked at Jodis. “So, you guys have been busy.” He nodded toward the books and whiteboard.
“We went back for them while you slept,” she explained. “Well, Cronin and I went back, Eiji, Jacques, and Eleanor stayed here.”
“Had anyone else been in the apartment?” Alec asked.
Jodis shook her head. “It didn’t appear so. There were no scents of any others.”
Cronin sat down beside Alec and handed him his coffee. “We were only gone for half a minute.”
“I didn’t feel it,” Alec murmured.
“You were sleeping deeply,” Cronin replied.
“Cronin didn’t fare so well,” Jodis said. “Even half a minute of your absence clawed at him.”
Alec leaned into him, almost subconsciously, and pressed his lips to Cronin’s shoulder in a silent apology for not being there. “You guys have been busy, though. What have we learned?”
“We can’t find any reference to stone reacting to a human,” Jodis said.
“Didn’t you say there were masons, people who control stone?” Alec sipped his coffee.
“Vampires who can control stone,” Eiji corrected. “Not humans, except you. Anyway, you didn’t control those statues. They reacted to your presence.”
“Which is also unprecedented,” Cronin said quietly. “As far as we can tell.”
“It has to be something to do with my blood, right?” Alec asked. He looked out the window to see it was getting dark, then glanced at his watch. “I’ve crossed so many time zones in the last twenty-four hours, I don’t even know what day it is anymore. I need to call Doctor Benavides.”
Cronin didn’t even have to look at anything. Like he had a world clock in his head, he said, “It is almost 6:00 p.m. here, almost 4:00 a.m. in New York.”
“So I can call in a few hours?” Alec asked. So much had happened since he’d had blood taken, it felt like a week not barely two days. Then he remembered something. “Eiji, you said you couldn’t see my ancestors. Have you read my Dad yet? Maybe he can show you something more?”
Eiji gave a nod. “Yes, when he awoke earlier, with the same results. I can see three generations back, then something blurs out. It is the same as yours. From what I can see”—he put his hand up and drew a vertical line in the air which Alec deduced was how he saw DNA in his head—“it goes straight, then on your paternal great-great grandmother’s side, it blurs.” He opened his hand as though the DNA in his mind’s eye vanished into nothing.
Alec didn’t know what to make of it. “My great-great grandmother?”
“Yes. My great grandmother,” Kole added with a shrug. “I never knew her. She died in childbirth having my grandfather, or so the family tree says. It wasn’t too uncommon back in those days.”
Alec shook his head vehemently and put his half-finished coffee on the side table. “It can’t be a coincidence.” He thought about what it all could mean and looked at Cronin. “Tell me, how does the whole incubus thing work?”
Cronin blinked in surprise, and when Alec looked at the others, he found all the vampires staring at him. “Incubus?”
“Well, it would explain a few things, yes?” Alec pressed on. “What if my great-great grandmother was impregnated by a vampire? The birth killed her, and the baby is born human but with special blood.”
“I don’t know,” Jodis started to say, as though it was too farfetched a notion.
Alec shook his head, even more convinced he was right. “You know, I’ve seen mummified vampires come back to life, I’ve seen terracotta statues move, and let’s not forget the terracotta horse that screamed, right? Because for me, that’s right up there with the evil sounds and horrid smell of rancid mummies on my will-have-nightmares-about-that-shit list. So really, the possibility that I’m a direct descendant of a vampire is probably the least-weirdest shit that’s happened to me.”
Cronin took Alec’s hand and squeezed it. “Alec, in theory, it is feasible.”
“But?”
“The child conceived by an incubus, if it survives gestation, is born a vampire,” Cronin said quietly. “Your grandfathers were not.”
“What if it was genetically redundant until me?” Alec asked. “What if the genes had to wait until my parents were the right genetic combination?” Then he stopped, because something else crept into his consciousness. A thought—no, a realization—that made his blood run cold.
“Alec, what is it?” Cronin asked, concerned.
“My mother,” he whispered. He looked at Kole. “Her death wasn’t random. Those two vampires, who were in my room when I was newborn, weren’t there to kill me, or take me, or whatever we assumed they were there for. They were there to kill my mother. She’s the missing link.”
Kole shook his head.
His face was pale. “Alec, what are you saying?”
“Our blood is special,” Alec said, his voice gathered momentum. “We’ve always known that. It’s what we were told by your grandfather and his father, yes?”
Kole nodded.
“And if it is because we’re descendants of an incubus, we have vampire blood, but we’re human. What if my mother was the same? What if her bloodline was the same, a descendant of vampire? As a single bloodline, it’s nothing too extraordinary: we heal fast, we think fast, we have a photographic memory, but when two vampire bloodlines cross,” Alec said with a smile. He knew he was right. He’d never been so sure. “What we have, is a—”
“Human key,” Cronin finished.
Alec nodded. “Yes. When two vampire bloodlines cross, we have exactly that. We have me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alec used every avenue he could think of, short of hacking into the NYPD computer system, to trace his mother’s family tree. Not that criminal histories would be much use from police records, but after genealogy sites came up empty, he needed to search outside the box.
All the while Eiji kept his hand on Alec’s arm—much to the disdain of Cronin—to see if he could channel into his maternal readings.
He found nothing past the third generation. It was as though his genetic slate had been wiped clean. He found nothing.
Alec had read and reread the family tree book Cronin had asked Kole to bring with him, and there in his mother’s cursive handwriting, were the names of his mother, her mother, and her mother. Then nothing.
And those names brought up nothing.
“They were Scottish born,” Alec said, thinking aloud. “Can we try old church records of the area, or census data?” He quickly typed in a search for census dates in Scotland. “There was a census in 1901. If we cross reference names—”
His words were cut off when his father, obviously upset, walked out of the room. With a heavy sigh, Alec pushed the laptop away and followed him. He found him in the small kitchenette starting to fix himself a pot of tea. “Dad?”
