It will take more of your blood than you expect, and time will crawl.
God, he wished Andre were there, his heavy hand resting on Pedro’s shoulder.
Nothing happened.
He’d killed his lover, his savior, his best friend.
It wasn’t going to work.
Lucas had been too sick to turn.
A gurgle sounded in Lucas’s throat. His eyes popped open.
Pedro swallowed with relief. “Dude, you’re not gonna believe this, but your peepers have turned gold.”
Lucas gulped down a mouthful of blood. “God, no more jokes,” he croaked, a trace of a smile on his bloody lips. “What now?”
“More of my blood, and then Ally’s, as soon as she gets here.”
“Cover me up, asshole.”
Pedro laughed, cleaning up Lucas and covering the bloody sheets as well as he could, while a trickle of his blood continued to fall onto Lucas’s tongue. He’d had more than enough, but it kept them both occupied until someone rapped on the door, only loud enough for a vampire to hear. He pulled out the blade and licked his wrist clean.
Just in case, he peered through the window. Susan waved, smiling. Ally chewed her lower lip.
“How is he?” she asked, when the door swung open.
“Hungry.”
From there, everything proceeded perfectly. Fangs appeared, friendly lesbians were fed upon under Pedro’s careful supervision, to prevent Lucas from harming them in his bloodlust.
When they left, Pedro darkened the room, and pulled Lucas up to lie back against his chest.
“All I can think about is blood—the way it smells, tastes—heaven.”
“I was the same way, only all I could think about was your blood. It will pass.” He stroked Lucas’s hair with the lightest of touches, not wanting to irritate his sensitive skin. “Can you hear the river flowing?”
“Is that the river? I thought it was your blood, or mine.”
“Focus on it. It will soothe you.”
“Where will we go?” Lucas murmured, leaning in to Pedro’s touch.
It was the question he’d been dreading, because he had no idea how Lucas would react. “If it’s okay with you, there is a little house in Turkey available, with some vineyards attached.”
“Turkey’s not far from Croatia.”
Pedro smiled into Lucas’s hair. “No, it’s not.”
“I’m game then. I don’t want to be too far from the old guy.”
“Me either, man. Me either.”
Chapter 52
UTA HAD NOT SEEN THE ISLAND of Šolta under the sun since hundreds of years before Jesus Christ had been born. That time she had stood on the stern of a pirate ship, not a ferry. Unchanged, Šolta’s gentle hills rolled up out of the turquoise of the Adriatic, stealing her breath. The salty breeze caressed her face, reminding her of Bel’s scent.
The boat approached the narrow harbor housing the tiny port village of Rogač. The island’s ivory-colored villas roofed with terra-cotta tiles were so picturesque that they adorned many postcards, but she was no tourist. For a moment she even felt like a queen again.
Andre stood a meter in front of her and he reached for Zoey’s hand. Uta took pleasure in witnessing his homecoming, even if she envied him his mate. He hadn’t been home once since they were driven away, but she had secreted herself back often enough to soothe her aching homesickness, and her wasting disease. Her old friend turned around to look at her, his eyes shimmering pink in the sunlight. He extended his hand, and she went to stand next to him, grateful for the big palm that settled onto her shoulder—heavy and strong like Bel’s, but with none of the pull or heat that his held for her.
Nearby, Kos rubbed up and down Lena’s back where she bent over the side of the boat, green with sickness even though no wind had stirred the ocean and the harbor’s waters lay still and glittering much like Andre’s eyes.
The boat pulled alongside the dock and the deckhand looped a rope around the mooring. Only the gentlest waves rocked the boat as they stepped off. Uta scanned the strip of parked cars for the one she had hired, but instead she caught the scent of Hunter on the breeze. Instantly on alert, she glimpsed an odd pair—a raven haired woman raised her hand in greeting, a handsome young blond man behind her. The female whispered on the wind, in the way only old vampires could.
Greetings. We are here to welcome you.
Uta reined in her urge to run to them.
“Andre, can you see to the luggage? We will meet our driver near the lamppost.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and strolled to the pair. The female extended a hand. “I am Carmen Pallatina.”
Uta recognized the name of an ancient female from Northern Italy, her isolated household one of the few old-world estates to survive. Uta grasped her hand firmly. “What are you doing here?”
“Loki sent me to attempt persuasion on the Hunters patrolling your homeland. He wanted you to be free to return as soon as possible.”
Uta could not hold back the tears. “You heard of his death?”
“Yes, sister, and I am sorry for our loss, and yours especially.”
The blond man was not as young as Uta had first guessed—he was fit and handsome, and nearing fifty.
Pallatina faced the Hunter. “This is Petar Ferić. His family has been patrolling Šolta since your community was driven out.”
This man descended from the Hunters who had tortured and executed her household, burned Andre’s vineyards, and killed many of her friends that day. But these were the debts that must be put aside if a reconciliation was to be possible.
Perhaps sensing her unease, he did not offer his hand. He lifted his chin proudly and spoke in the Dalmatian dialect that she preferred. “My people are moderates.”
Flying sheep. Was there such a thing as a moderate Hunter?
“We knew of your visits here, for example, and we made no moves against you, since you did not harm the humans of Šolta.”
She recoiled at the idea she had been observed, but she snorted to cover her discomfort. “Harm is not an accurate word.”
He raised his palms, casting a glance at Pallatina and blushing. “Please let me continue. We were not pleased by Ethan Bennett’s violent aspirations. And when we received evidence he sacrificed Hunters to escalate the war, we voted to disassociate from the tribe. That same day, Carmen arrived. None of us had ever met a vampire face to face. It was…an education.” There was that charming blush again, on his ruggedly handsome face. “I am an amateur historian, and I am intrigued by what she has told me about the Hunters and vampires living together.” He rubbed at his neck. “There is a connection I cannot ignore.”
Pallatina raised her eyes to the dock were the Maras vampires pulled a caravan of suitcases, mostly Uta’s. All three glowered, while Lena walked empty handed, a green and sour twist to her mouth. It had been the same for Mila. Vampire-strong morning sickness.
“Is she all right?” Pallatina asked.
“She is pregnant,” Uta replied, as Kos took Lena’s elbow.
The Italian vampire’s dark brow shot up. “With…?”
“Yes.”
With a little cluck, Pallatina moved on. “We have readied your house with groceries for the human. Petar’s clan is willing to feed you.”
Had Uta heard that right? The offer was beyond generous.
“In exchange…” he began.
Of course there are strings, Uta thought.
“…we would like to know what you know of those prehistoric times.”
“Thank you.” Uta swallowed. She could comply with such a reasonable request. A true peace would require such conversations, one at a time across the whole world. “Please allow us to settle in today, and we will welcome you tomorrow.”
“Certainly.” He smiled, and Uta witnessed just how much warmth golden Hunter eyes could radiate.
Uta introduced the pair to the Maras family, and then they were off in the little van.
Lena didn’t fare much better in the car than she had on the ferry, dry heaving on the bumpy roads. They wound north and west across the island toward Uta’s villa until, finally, they were there.
She inserted the key into the door. Home.
The word clattered in the hollowness of her heart. Nowhere was home without Bel.
She let out a long, steady breath, steeling herself. For once, the air inside the house blew fresh, rather than hanging stale. Pallatina had left an unlikely vase of purple hyacinth on the table. Odd—the flowers were wildly out of season. A white notecard peeked from under the vase. Pretty, neat letters spelled out Hyacinths—for rebirth in both English and Croatian.
The jarring bustle of her guests behind her set her teeth on edge and she turned.
When had Andre’s hair gotten so long? He looked more like Bel. Too much. How would she stand to see him? Gods of Illyria, why had she invited them all to stay with her—a band of homeless strays, another burden she didn’t need.
“Stop it,” Andre said.
“What?”
He raised his eyebrows, confirming he’d known her thoughts.
That was the trouble with old friends.
His chest lifted in a breath. He had his own demons to face. “Will you walk with me? I want to see my land.”
She softened, compassion somehow swelling larger than her loneliness and irritation—for the moment.
“There is nothing there. The vineyards, the ruins of the house—it is all overgrown. The last time I looked, a palm tree grew straight out of the foyer.”
“I need to see.”
“Shouldn’t you take Zoey?”
“First I want to see what I have to offer her.”
Uta peered into his face. His lip quivered.
“Nice try. She’s ordered you to interrogate me about Bel?”
“I planned to anyway, but she insisted I do it now. She senses you are suffering.”
“I am fine.” She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes.
“Good. You can tell me how fine you are all the way down the hill.”
He and Zoey would just wear her down, like water torture, if she did not explain soon. She crossed to the door.
“You are going in that?” He looked her over, narrowing in on her heels.
She could have changed into jeans and walking boots—she had some in a closet upstairs. “Why not?”
“You will draw attention.”
“I enjoy attention.”
“How could I forget?”
They walked in silence until they reached the land that had been his estate. In front of the ruins, he dropped to his knees and dug his fingers into the earth. Uta could not bear to see his display of emotion if she hoped to keep her own locked up tight. She wandered to an outcropping overlooking the harbor, a favorite boat-watching place for her and Bel. The sun crawled down the sky. Her very first sunset since becoming a vampire ages ago.
Finally, Andre shuffled up behind her and lowered himself to sit cross-legged. She smiled. Bel had always dangled his legs.
“Do you love him?” Andre asked.
“It goes without saying.”
“Actually, it does not. Love is not the same as the desperate need of the bond. I know that now in a way I did not with Mila.”
“I do. I always have, and even more now.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes.”
“Does he love you?”
“Yes, but he does not trust me because I walked into the sun.”
Andre sucked into a breath. “You rubbed salt into the one wound that cannot heal.”
“If I had succeeded, it would have been salt in that wound. I failed, so now I am a large, sharp splinter inside his raw flesh.”
“Do you want to be alive now?”
He had asked the crucial question, the one Gwen had asked with her stare when she held that gun to her head. Was Uta glad for all the times she had been stopped from suicide? Or would she rather be dead, free of her burdens and her bond? She had been paralyzed by the question, and it had swallowed up the split second in which she might have saved the woman.
But here she sat, in the sun, on Šolta, hyacinths on her table—the symbol of a fragile peace.
And even better, Bel loved her, even if he did not yet trust her. And that gave her a reason to hope.
“Yes. I want to be alive.”
“Then you must go to him, and do your best to convince him.”
She turned sidelong to see the face of her old friend, her lover’s father, who surely should know the answer. “With Bel, it is better to wait until he comes to me, ready to be convinced.”
Andre chuckled. “My experience has proven that could take a very long time.”
“It very well might. But I will wait as long as he needs.”
Chapter 53
BEL’S EYES WATERED, straining to focus on the spreadsheet in front of him. The results confirmed that none of the cofactors rendered hemoaurum effective, even though Ayal’s wine was chock full of the Hunter-protein, and so was the sample of Uta’s blood he’d taken at Ayal’s house.
All his test subjects had returned to their homelands to heal and rebuild, but they’d promised to send him blood samples so he could track their progress. Soon he would have more data, but probably no more answers.
“When was the last time you ate?” Lexi asked from her neighboring workstation. She’d ostensibly come up from LA to help him analyze the data, but he was beginning to suspect her mission was more of an intervention.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I don’t know. Breakfast?”
“Today?”
He had to think about it. “Yesterday.”
“It’s time to give up, Bel.”
“Not yet.” He leaned closer to the screen.
“Vampires and Hunters are at peace, acres of Blood Vine vineyards have been found, you somehow even figured out hemoaurum would cure a rare human sun allergy. There’s no need to continue.”
“I just want to know how the bonds work.”
“You’re not being rational.”
He sighed, hoping for a calm tone. But it came out more like a martyr’s whine. “Of course I am. Blood bonds have physiological effects, therefore I should be able to trace their mechanisms. It’s perfectly logical.”
“That’s the problem. With other things, like this far-fetched science around how you were conceived, or that witch who worked for you—”
The loss of Trys’s death stabbed at him and he must have winced because Lexi stopped mid-sentence and backpedaled.
“I’m sorry to bring her up. But from what you’ve told me you never understood a bit of science about how she could heal, or damn it, Bel, create magical, selectively-permeable shields. Yet you never killed yourself trying to figure it out.”
“It’s totally different.” The frustration seethed inside of him to the point of dizziness. He cradled his forehead in his hands to keep from falling over. His heart rate shot up nearly to tachycardia.
“Shite.” He jumped off his chair. “Something’s wrong with her.”
“No, Bel. You’re just starving and about to pass out from it.” She pulled a granola bar from her drawer and shoved it across the desk. After a glance at his face, she grabbed a handful and tossed them at him.
He sat down and unwrapped one. It tasted like heaven, which proved her hunger-hypothesis. Otherwise oats tasting like they’d been glued to cardboard and sprinkled with cinnamon would have been like eating horse fodder. First the vertigo subsided, then his panic. Finally, his brain seemed to reboot. Back online, he returned his gaze to the laptop. Lexi stood and slammed the thing shut.
He barely got his fingers out in time. “Ouch.”
“Stop being a baby. You’re just desperate for some kind of explanation you can hide behind, because conceding to the mysteriousness of the whole thing gives her power over you.”
“She already has power over me.” He unwrapped another grano
la bar.
“And you have power over her. That’s what it means to love someone, and I saw she loved you the moment I met her.”
“I hate to burst your amateur psych bubble, doll, but she and I already crossed this terrain. Been there, analyzed it.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
That he wasn’t enough. That the sun, and all the people that loved her, and life itself wasn’t enough. And she would give up again. That she was sorry to be alive. It was the only explanation for why she’d let Gwen kill herself.
“Do you remember how my mother died?”
Her lower lip swallowed up the top one, such a cute frown. “Of course I do.”
“That is what I am afraid of.”
She blew out a breath. “Then you have to ask if she’s still suicidal. Stop burying yourself in this futile experiment and find out the truth.”
“I know. I’m just not ready. Let me hide a little longer.”
Her eyes crinkled at the edges.
“Please?”
Her frown turned to a pitying smile. “Fair enough. Ass kicking over for now. I’m off to catch my flight. Promise me you’ll get yourself some lunch.”
“Sure thing.”
But he didn’t. Instead, he sat at his desk and tried to imagine asking Uta if she had any more plans to kill herself. Yeah, right. She would make him a gift of her middle fingers and grow herself two more.
A knock sounded at the door. Remembering the last time someone paid him an unexpected visit, he reached for the gun holstered safely at his side. “Come in.”
The door inched open, and the hairs on his neck bristled. He stood so he could see around it before it came fully open.
A petite young woman with light brown hair waited, her hands dangling non-threateningly at her side. Set in her coppery, olive skin, her big yellow eyes struck him as especially cat-like. He gently played with the trigger.
“You are Lobel Maras?”
It was her voice that gave her away, almost like Loki’s in its richness of tone, the layers of a thousand languages in every word.
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