kindred 08.6 - blood enchanted

by Nicola Claire

  My eyes found my mother’s. Shock and fear registering in amongst the brown.

  Oh, no. What had I done?

  My father stepped down off the council’s plinth, his highly polished shoes sounding too loud on the slick marble floor. I stared at the sparkling dust that rose up and danced around each step of his feet toward me. My Sigillum disappearing with each tap of leather against hard tile.

  “Éliane.” Pride coated my name for the first time in years.

  Power. I’d displayed power. Enough to obliterate a member of the Light Fey. It hadn’t been the Iunctio’s combined power that had done it. It had been mine, stealing theirs.

  Oh, no. I closed my eyes, felt the soft touch of my father as he cupped my chin, tilting my face up to his. I lifted my lids, my gaze meeting magenta and violet. His dragon snorted from the corner of my eye. Majestic, powerful. A sense of satisfaction reaching its elongated eyes.

  I blinked away and concentrated on the man before me, ignoring the pull of the power of his vampire-within.

  What had I done?

  “Éliane,” my father said softly. “It is time.”

  My gaze found Alain’s. Too much. Too soon. What was happening?

  If we do not contain it now, you pose a threat. My father’s voice sounded out urgently inside my head. What? The Light Fey seek your blood for its power. The Mhachkay do the same. They are the first of many who have been called by its enchantment. I couldn’t breathe. I needed Luc. The Iunctio has spoken, my father added, the weight of the words almost drowning me.

  I wanted to ask. I wanted to know. And I didn’t. How many? How many of the councillors had decided my fate with a simple vote? My eyes searched my father’s, but I found no answer there. My mother, but she’d learned long ago to show no fear. Uncle Gregor? He looked back, devoid of emotion. The Ambrosia was the only one to meet my gaze with an ounce of what he was feeling. And even then, I often wondered if the old vampire was crazy.

  He simply smiled, excited and happy and at peace with this outcome.

  Of course he was excited and happy and at peace with my forced joining; it protected the Iunctio. It protected vampires.

  Survive at all costs.

  I swallowed thickly. Met my father’s soft gaze. For once I thought he might have understood what it was he was asking me to do. But it changed nothing.

  “Come,” he said. “Your kindred awaits.”

  13

  Hello, Nosferatin

  The people who mean the most to you should attend your kindred joining. I stood in the middle of the Iunctio’s council chamber, on the top floor of my father’s hotel, surrounded by councillors and the Durand line. My mother. Her vampires; Nataliya, Sergei and Samson. My Aunt Amisi. My Uncle Gregor. And the Master of the City.

  But no Georgia. She’d been invited, but clearly her Dark Shadow had retreated, and being in the same room as the Iunctio who had once tried to have her killed, and my mother and father, was simply too much for my friend. And no Travis either. He was still missing.

  But none of that mattered. None of it. Because there was also no Luc.

  I felt empty without my twin. I felt like a part of me was missing. An important part. A vital part. The only part that really counted.

  I fidgeted in the form fitting dress I’d been ordered to don, hating the necessity for pomp, even in this most sacred of our ceremonies. I fingered a stake at my hip; Nosferatin about to join to a vampire were allowed to be armed, thank the Goddess. But still wishing the weapon of choice had been my Svante. I missed the familiar weight of its hilt.

  And wishing for so many other things besides, knowing they’d been lost to me forever.

  My mother fussed over a fold in the silky fabric of my gown, twisted a piece of material, flattened a crease, swiped at a non-existent smudge.

  “Stop it!” I growled, my lips barely moving. I felt numb. And trapped. And alone.

  Luc. What would happen now? When Hakan found out and he took his anger out on Lucien. What would happen now?

  “What do you know about the Mhachkay?” I asked my mother, who thrummed with Light either in anticipation or anger. It was hard to tell with Mama. Did she want this?

  She cleared her throat and spoke softly. “They are vampyre, but a different breed.”

  “I didn’t realise there was a different breed.” I frowned at the once again sparkling clean marble floor.

  “Neither did I, but they have been in hiding.”

  “Let me guess, for five hundred years?”

  Mama looked at me with too knowing eyes and nodded.

  “Does Papa know Hakan Bahar well?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Then why has he not attacked and rescued Luc yet?” If he knew the Mhachkay vampire, then he knew his weaknesses.

  Unless he didn’t have any Papa could exploit.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” I said astounded. “Papa’s too scared to attack a Mhachkay.”

  “Shhh,” my mother hissed, shifting closer, hiding me from the vampire in question’s sight. “Don’t say such things here! He’s the Champion of the Iunctio, and he cannot be perceived as weak.”

  Perception is everything to a vampire. Show no fear.

  “He has Luc,” I pressed, more quietly. “Luc needs us.”

  “Your father has it in hand.” I didn’t believe her. Whatever history Hakan and my father shared, it was too big for even the Champion to overcome.

  Fear momentarily engulfed me.

  “He’s called in favours,” my mother went on in a whisper. “One of Gregor’s vampires in Rome is searching Turkey for this Mhachkay now.”

  So, he was doing something. Somehow the knowledge still wasn’t enough to calm my frantic heart. Ease my laboured breaths.

  How long could Luc wait? How long would Hakan?

  “He’ll join with him, you know,” I said, wondering why that upset me so much, why the overriding emotion I felt at that thought was jealousy. Of my brother. It made no sense.

  “There’s nothing we can do. It can’t be rushed.”

  “Mama,” I pleaded.

  “No, Ellie. Leave it. You don’t know everything that’s going on.”

  “Then tell me! Why must I be the last to know?”

  Mama looked up into my eyes and lifted soft hands to my cheeks, cupping them.

  “Because your father would not harm you. He would protect you with his dying breath. But he can’t.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Mama shook her head. “Not from everything,” she rushed to say, but I was sure that wasn’t what she’d intended. “Let him keep his secrets a little longer, El. Let him try to protect you, the only way he can.”

  “By forcing me to join with Alain.” My voice was flat.

  “Is it such a bad thing? Alain is loyal.”

  I snorted. “Really, Mama? Was loyalty what got you through joining with Michel Durand?”

  She bristled. “Our joining was different.”

  “How so?” I knew there was love, but that had come later. “Why did you join with my father?”

  She lifted tired eyes to my face; the first time I realised she was exhausted. Losing Luc, and seeing me join with someone I did not particularly want, had strained her. My mother hid it well, but Light talks to Light, and hers was weeping.

  “I would have died, as you will die, if I had not joined before the deadline.”

  “Why him?”

  Mama let out a weary breath. “Because he asked. Because I was already half in love with him. Because he was Michel Durand and I could see the Light in amongst the Dark.”

  I let a slow breath of air out. One out of four ain’t bad, I told myself. Alain was filled with Light. The light of my father’s line. But he hadn’t asked for himself, he’d asked because my father had requested it. And he was no Michel Durand… and I was not in love with him.

  But you are with someone else, the ribbons told me.

  More breath whooshed out of me, but I di
dn’t have time to consider that niggling voice I knew belonged to my recently acquired talent. Alain had walked into the room, stunning in a simple dark suit of fine silk that set the fairness of his hair off under the muted lights. Breathtaking as all vampires are, wreathed in Sanguis Vitam.

  He wasn’t taking any chances, and for a brief moment I hated him for it.

  His Sanguis Vitam stroked down my bare arm, over my Sigillum soothingly. I let my mark blaze crimson and violet. Let him and everyone else see my fury and rage.

  He smiled; it was sad, but then quickly turned to wicked. Vampires liked their prey to fight back.

  “Mama,” I said, a soft plea for her ears only.

  “Trust your father,” she whispered, reaching up to kiss me on my cheek, and then she was gone. Across the room, beside her own kindred, her eyes averted in a show of cowardice I’d never thought to see in my mother.

  I was truly alone. And this was happening. I was joining with my father’s spy master, with the man who had bounced me on his knee when I was a child. With the vampire who somehow always managed to make me feel that young again. That inept. That in need of love and affection, because I was unable to seek it for myself.

  The walls closed in. The ceiling felt too low, but I knew it to be twenty feet high. Arches and domes, painted clouds and the stars of a night sky. I couldn’t see any of it. It all pressed down on me, the weight of this moment, the significance of what it could mean. The fear that we’d got it all wrong.

  Joining wouldn’t protect me. Protect them. It could end us all.

  Luc. Luc would know. He knew things. He solved things. He made everything in this twisted and rotten world make sense. My heart cried out for my brother. For the twin that made me sometimes, if only briefly, feel whole.

  “It is time,” the Champion of the Iunctio announced. I would not call this vampire my father.

  His eyes met mine. Hard, unyielding. He’d heard my thought. He knew of my disquiet. And yet he did nothing to stop this. Instead he walked to my betrothed kindred and slapped him on the back, saying a few curt words that failed to reach me.

  I pulled my Light around my body. Encased myself in its welcoming glow. If I had to do this, then I’d do it with a show of prowess. With a flare of Light. And make them all cower from the strength of my blood.

  I didn’t ask for this. Any of this. But if they feared me, then so be it. Let them fucking fear me.

  “Éliane,” Alain said carefully at my side. “Enough. You have proved your intentions.”

  Not by half.

  “You cannot fight this,” he murmured. “If there was another way, believe me, I would step aside and let you take it.” I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust anyone here.

  The only person left whom I could trust was my brother. And I’d abandoned him to his fate out of fear.

  I sucked in a shaking breath of air but didn’t dim my Light. It thrummed. It pulsed around us. It filled the room up and touched on every single soul within it. Feel me, know me. Fear me.

  “Éliane!” Alain growled. “Stop this. You have a choice.”

  It was enough to get my attention. I pulled back on my Light and turned to the vampire at my side. I had a choice? He’d just said I couldn’t fight this.

  “Ellie,” he said more softly, more intimately. “You have a choice.”

  “What choice?” I asked, searching his eyes for a clue, for the answer I was desperately seeking.

  “Join with me of your own volition. Or join with me under the duress of the Iunctio.” His eyes pleaded with me to choose the correct one. But what sort of choice was that?

  It wasn’t.

  “Damn you, Dupont,” I whispered. He had the decency to look chagrinned.

  “This is not what I wanted, Ellie,” he continued. “You must know that. But time is running out. We thought no one would notice, but the night you matured, all hope of a quiet, drawn-out joining was lost.”

  “What do you mean?” He was talking about the night of our twenty-fifth birthday. The night Luc disappeared and I ran.

  “Your father waited as long as he could, hoping the power you both wielded would quieten. But even he knew the enchantment had far reaching consequences. We tried, Ellie. We tried to foresee and curtail the fallout, but the Light Fey broke their chains and the Mhachkay awoke. And they’re not the only ones.”

  Just as my father had said in my mind. Just as he’d threatened.

  They are the first of many who have been called by its enchantment.

  Was that rogue vampire at Guts & Glory an indication of what was to come? Dark, festering, infected. The same red pulse I’d seen on the fairy before I’d blasted it with borrowed power.

  Had I missed Hakan’s parasite? Was he infected? I needed to know more and Alain seemed willing to talk. Despite everything that was happening, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

  “What is this enchantment you all keep talking about?” I asked, realising now, with a sense of utter foreboding, just how much bigger than me, bigger than what was happening right now, this all was. Luc. Dear Goddess, I wanted to reach Luc. How had I let my fear stand in the way?

  “Your blood, Éliane. Yours and Lucien’s. We weren’t sure, but from birth you have exhibited powers we have had to hide from everyone.”

  “You hid our powers?”

  He nodded, his eyes holding mine captive. They blazed cyan, reminding me of Hakan’s. But there was no silver laced inside the blue. Still beautiful, just not as mesmerising. I cursed my reaction to the Mhachkay, even as I used the distance it created between myself and Alain to reason through all he was telling me now.

  I needed to know.

  “The closer to your maturity, the harder it became,” he added. “We had to enlist the Ambrosia’s aid as well as the Enforcer’s.” Uncle Gregor and the ancient vampire had both known what I was to become. What Luc and I both were to become. And yet neither had given a thing away on our birthday.

  “It is impossible to contain it much longer,” Alain confided. “When we join, we hope the joining will stabilise it. We hope that together you and I will be powerful enough to hide you from all those who are called by the enchantment.”

  “The enchantment. You mean my power.”

  “Different from any we have seen in a Nosferatin. Or even in a vampyre.”

  That’s me and Luc. Different. And clearly powerful.

  “And what about Luc?”

  “We are working on finding a way to release him from the Mhachkay, but it has been centuries since they walked our world.”

  “What’s their connection to Papa?”

  Alain’s head jerked up, his eyes flaring briefly the most vibrant blue I’d ever seen. He let out a growl.

  “We’re out of time. I will tell you more,” he insisted, turning to reach for my hand. “But the joining must happen now.”

  No. Part of me rebelled. Part of me knew it was futile. But the power I wielded needed to be contained. Alain had said they hoped it could also be concealed when we joined. We knew he and I would be powerful, so it made sense that could transpire. But another part of me baulked at the idea and only believed it would make things worse.

  Alain makes my Sigillum swirl a dazzling array of powerful colours when he tests our kindred compatibility. So much power promised with just one drop of blood. So much.

  I wasn’t sure more power was the answer. Certainly, if I joined with Hakan - and even thinking that left me feeling dizzy - his power would increase. I wasn’t sure how much power he already possessed, but I was betting a hell of a fucking lot. But when Hakan tested our kindred compatibility, it wasn’t a dazzling display of power on show for all to see. It was a call, a pull, that made me dance and spin, like the ribbons inside my stomach. It was an allure, a temptation, an intimate connection for him and me and no other. It was ours and ours alone. Laced with challenges and rewards, equally matched, beautifully competitive. Everything I wanted in a partner.

  For what
is a kindred joining if not a partnership?

  Alain’s and mine would be powerful. But who would be in control of that power?

  He’d hidden things from Papa, I was sure. His speed, his strength. Maybe even the amount of his Sanguis Vitam. I wasn’t sure how’d he’d accomplished it, perhaps the length of time he’d been at Papa’s side and the obvious loyalty he’d shown had masked it. But my father did not know everything there was to know of Alain Dupont.

  I stared at the vampire next to me, as the Ambrosia approached with a shining, ornate tray, a stainless steel knife lying innocently upon it. The room had hushed, but a roaring had filled my ears. I was alone, surrounded by vampires. But only one vampire mattered, the one I was about to share my blood with.

  My eyes searched out my mother. She smiled encouragingly. But she couldn’t stop this. I looked for my father. Pride shone in his gaze. I wanted that. I wanted that to shine down on me, to hold me up, to catch me when I tumbled.

  But there was much he didn’t know.

  The Ambrosia was talking, his voice resonating around the room, but I couldn’t hear him.

  Alain was silently standing at my side, a constant presence that I had at one time trusted above all others.

  My father watched on, magenta washing his eyes, they met mine. Love poured out of him into me, a connection I’d wanted for so very long now. It almost toppled me back a step; if it hadn’t been for Alain reaching for my hand and stilling me. He already held the knife in his free hand; it gleamed in the lights of the room.

  No. I couldn’t do this. I looked at my father. Looked back at the Ambrosia. Saw the question in the old vampire’s eyes.

  Well? he seemed to say. You have more power than any of them. What will you do, child?

  Did he want me to run? Was running the right thing to do? I was so fucking confused, but those ribbons. Those annoyingly persistent motherfucking ribbons. They twisted and turned, they danced and knotted.

  Wait they said. Wait they pleaded. Wait.

  Alain handed me the knife; he hadn’t cut his palm yet, that always came at the very last second; vampire healing so much faster usually than a Nosferatin’s. I took the blade, felt its weight, my hand trembling, my heart racing, an anticipatory sensation building inside which I knew had nothing to do with this joining.