by Tessa Dawn
Nachari reached out a hand to help Ramsey up, watching as the stalwart warrior tested his weight on both legs and nodded. Turning his attention back to Saber, he said, “Look, you already know what I went through in the Valley of Death and Shadows, and I would say you have a pretty good idea of what I brought out of the experience.” Both vampires knew Nachari was alluding to his advanced wizardry skills and his ability to shape-shift into the panther. “The thing is…what you might not understand…is the lesson behind it all.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “Sometimes it’s just easier to embrace what you are than to expend so much energy trying to deny it.” He caught the look of confusion on Saber’s face and added, “You’re a lot of ugly things, Saber; but you’ve never killed your prey while feeding. Just go with it.”
Saber took the wizard’s words and filed them away in his to-be-processed-later compartment. Eyeing Ramsey warily, he tried to come up with something appropriate to say. Maybe something akin to thank you. “You killed my brother,” he barked. Okay, so that didn’t come out quite like he intended.
Ramsey snorted. “I killed your enemy, Dark One.”
Saber nodded. “Yeah…” And then he smiled in his own fiendish kind of way. “So if they’re all Dark Ones, and you’re still calling me Dark One, then what were you doing in this valley fighting this night?”
“Oh, you’re one dark son of a demon, all right,” Ramsey said, plucking a needle off a pine tree and shoving it between his teeth. “But you’re still a descendant of Jadon.”
Nachari nodded in absolute solidarity. “This is our house, Saber. And nobody comes into our house, attacks one of our own, and expects to walk out unscathed.” He winked then. “You, of all vampires, should know that by now.”
twenty-two
Saber knew Nachari was right. It was time to feed, and the little bit of blood the wizard had brought him in the three vials was not going to last him long, no matter how powerful Marquis Silivasi might be as an Ancient. But first, he had to make a pit stop.
Staring at the large wooden door in front of him, the quaint cottage home on the edge of Dark Moon Vale, just south of the eastern cliffs, he tried to gather his courage. This could either go very well…or very badly: The prodigal son returned.
Not exactly the traditional Sunday-school story.
He plucked an errant piece of cotton off his crimson-red shirt and knocked crisply on the door four times.
When Lorna opened it and saw him, she practically fainted. She glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder, as if to check for Rafael, grabbed a shawl off a nearby hook, and quickly stepped outside. “Saber,” she said softly. “I’m so surprised.” She placed her hand absently over her heart. “So happy to see you.”
Saber read between the lines: Lorna was thrilled to see him. Rafael? Not so much. And judging by the swift drop in the outside temperature, coupled with the way the female had hurried out in spite of it, the adopted son of Damien Alexiares was not welcome in Rafael Dzuna’s home.
That was cool.
Saber stepped back from the porch, suddenly feeling horribly out of place and more than just a little awkward.
Lorna sought to bridge the silence for him. “So, what are you doing here?” She quickly retracted the question. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Saber nodded. “It’s okay. I just…” He checked his watch: ten o’clock PM. Great, just great. “I was hoping…” He fidgeted and sighed. “Have you seen my son yet?”
Lorna’s face lit up with adoration. “Oh yes, he’s so beautiful.”
“Handsome?” Saber asked, hopeful.
“Yes. Yes, of course. Handsome.”
Saber nodded and forced a civil smile. “Then he’s well?”
“Oh, yes—growing like a weed.”
“And Vanya, the princess?”
Lorna smiled tenderly. “She, too, is well.”
He sighed heavily and forced himself to ask his next question. “What’s my son’s name?”
Lorna froze. Her body tensed, and she frowned. “Oh, Saber—”
“Please,” Saber said, waving his hand to halt her sympathy—that was the last thing he wanted or needed. “Just—”
“His name is Lucien,” Lorna said. “Lucien Sabino Alexiares.”
Saber blinked in surprise. So, Vanya had named the child after him, sort of, by using the name his parents had given him at birth? Maybe she had done it out of deference to Lorna and Rafael. But she had also given him Saber’s surname: a Dark One’s surname, Alexiares. Now this truly surprised him.
“You look surprised,” Lorna commented, as if she had read his thoughts.
“Little bit,” Saber said honestly.
“I don’t think it’s that unusual,” Lorna said. “I mean, not when you really think about it: Vanya is the sister of both Jadon and Jaegar, both light and dark. And Alexiares is a name from her brother’s house. Perhaps this is her way of acknowledging all of who she is, all of who Lucien is.” She paused then. “All of who you are.”
Saber studied her face, the subtle lines at the corners of her eyes, the full arched brows that framed her knowing, compassionate eyes. “I think I owe you an apology, Lorna, for being so…so obstinate…so cruel to you.”
“No, it is I who owe you an apology.”
“For what?” Saber asked, astonished.
“For not truly understanding that you are…all of who you are…from Jadon’s house, yes. But also from Jaegar’s house. We truly didn’t accept that before, acknowledge just what all that meant to you; and for that, I am sorry.”
“Lorna,” Saber said pointedly. “I gotta tell you, lady. You are way too nice. You need to get that fixed before someone seriously takes advantage of you.”
Lorna chuckled fondly. “Oh…thank you.”
“Yeah, see; that’s exactly what I mean.” He ran his hands through his hair and simply shook his head. “So…” He truly didn’t know what he was doing there. It wasn’t like they had a relationship to speak of; and apparently, he didn’t have any words, either. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m okay. I’ve been worried about you, though.”
He raised his hand again.
“Too nice?” she said.
“Way too…” he replied.
“Okay.” She rocked back and forth on her heels nervously. “Are you eating…staying warm?”
Saber laughed so loud the sound startled him. “Oh, man.” He met her eyes and smirked. “I can’t do this, Lorna. I’m sorry; I thought I could.”
Before she could answer, Rafael rounded the corner, approaching the wraparound porch from the backyard. “Of course you can’t,” he said derisively. “So, why did you come here then? Don’t you think your mother has been through enough?”
Saber was just about to face off with the bitter warrior, challenge him male to male, when he noticed for the first time that Rafael was not wearing a shirt. And his chest, great lords of the spirit world—dark or light—it was a virtual wasteland, littered from armpit to armpit with crisscrossed lines, his pectoral muscles a savage map of suffering.
Saber flashed an undignified scowl. Despite himself, all he could do was gape. Was this the pain…the suffering…the physical expression of the mental anguish this male had felt for so many years? The outward expression of his inward guilt? “You need to let that go,” Saber finally said, inclining his head at the scars.
Rafael scowled. He strolled up to the front door, turned the knob, and stepped inside. Before he shut the door in Saber’s face, he called back: “I have let it go.”
Saber looked down at the ground. It was better than watching the appalled look on Lorna’s face—talk about a tale of two parents. “All right then,” he mumbled. “Thanks for telling me about Lucien…I should probably get going.”
Lorna sighed, clearly not knowing what to say or do. “Will you come back soon?”
Saber shook his head. “Probably not. It was a bad idea.”
No,” she argued, “it was not a bad idea. It w
as a wonderful idea, and I’m glad you did it.” She stopped herself short and placed both hands neatly on her thighs. “Way too nice,” she mumbled.
Saber licked his lips and inclined his head; and then something crossed his mind—his heart?—unbidden. Something he had never planned to say but now knew that he had to. And not for himself, but for the embittered man who had retreated inside the house. “Will you do me a favor?”
“Of course,” Lorna said. “Just name it.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” he teased, winking before she could apologize.
Lorna seemed positively giddy, not just by the request, but by the banter. “Name it,” she repeated.
Saber inhaled deeply before looking off into the distance. “For whatever it’s worth, tell Rafael that I never raped a woman or killed a child.”
Lorna gasped audibly.
And then the front door opened and Rafael stepped outside. Apparently, he had been listening all along. “Why not?” he asked, his own face showing the faintest hint of hope.
Saber shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess I didn’t like the taste of kids’ blood—and didn’t want to have to kill my own unborn offspring…or to be a father.” Searching for a better explanation, he added, “In the house of Jaegar, we don’t really command pregnancies. The moment we—the moment they—release their seed, the female is pregnant. If you don’t want sons, you either have to kill the victim, refrain from…finishing, or make it so she can’t get pregnant before you violate her. Just seemed like a lot of hassle.” Rafael stared at him blankly, and Saber’s demeanor grew impassive. “I wish, for your sake, it was something deeper than that, nobler than that. But, that’s really the long and short of it.”
Rafael seemed to exhale as if he had been holding his breath his entire life. The tightness in his chest relaxed, and his harsh, unforgiving expression softened. “Maybe, just maybe,” he whispered, “it’s time for you to entertain the possibility that you did it because you have a heart as well as a soul—maybe you’ve always had both.”
Saber’s lip turned up in a half smile, half scowl. “Nah; it wasn’t that deep. Besides, what does it matter now?”
“It matters,” Rafael said, “because it means that in time, and with healing, you might still be able to love.”
Saber looked away. “I don’t…I don’t know what words like that mean.”
“You do know,” Rafael argued. “You just haven’t made the connection—between the emotion and the word.”
“Yeah,” Saber retorted sarcastically, “love, whatever that is.”
Rafael stiffened like someone had punched him in the gut. He grit his teeth and placed an implacable fist over his chest. “This,” he snarled, indicating the brutal scars that he carried in his own harshly masculine way. “This is love.”
Saber turned on his heel and stormed off into the night.
Enraged.
He paced no less than twenty yards away before turning and stomping back. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he growled.
Rafael stepped off the porch and met him in the yard. He reached out a firm hand and placed it on Saber’s shoulder. “Son—”
“Don’t you say that to me!” Saber fumed, slapping Rafael’s hand away angrily. “Don’t you ever say that word to me.” His fangs shot out of his mouth, and he had to struggle not to bite something, destroy something, kill something.
Anything.
Love? What the hell was this word they kept tossing around like a ball in the park? Love should have stayed Diablo’s hand when he came to kill him earlier. Love should have stopped the house of Jaegar from executing Damien and Dane. Love should have brought Vanya to the cave the moment she found out what had happened with the Dark Ones!
Love!
There was no such thing as love.
“You’ve got to reach past that rage, Saber,” Rafael said. “You’ve got to tap into what’s beneath.”
Saber swallowed a curse. “What’s beneath? There’s nothing beneath. Don’t you get it? There’s nothing else here!”
“Then why are you so angry?”
“Why am I so angry?”
“Yes, why are you so angry?”
Saber’s nostrils flared. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”
“Maybe because in eight hundred years, no one has ever loved you back. Until now.”
Saber clenched his fists. “Shut up, old man. Or I swear to the gods I’m going to hurt you.” Rafael stepped back then, but he didn’t retreat. He simply shook his head slowly and tapped his chest. “Worse than this?” he asked. “You can’t possibly hurt me worse than this.”
Saber dropped his head in his hands. “Look, I’m sorry someone stole your son, that—”
“Someone stole you,” Rafael said forcefully. “You are my son.”
Saber shook his head. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning everything around them except Rafael’s anguished face. “No, it wasn’t me. I was never that kid.”
“You were that kid. And you were full of life and curiosity, alert and observant, just like Lucien is now.”
Saber looked up at him and scowled. “Then why…” he whispered, unable to complete the sentence.
“Why what?” Rafael asked.
“Why didn’t you search for me?”
Rafael stepped back, reacting as if he had just been burned. “By all the gods, Sabino…Saber…we looked for decades.”
Saber felt depleted. “Then why didn’t you…just know?”
“Just know what? Where you were? That the Dark Ones had you? How could we? It never even occurred to us. We just…didn’t…that’s all. And I am so, so sorry.”
Saber swallowed his rage. He cleared his throat and nodded, finally bringing his emotions under control. “Yeah…” He blew out a long breath. “Yeah, well, it’s all in the past.”
“True,” Rafael said, “but you’re here now.”
“I’m not here,” Saber argued, gesturing emphatically at the cottage and the forest around them. “Not like that. I just wanted to come by and ask about Vanya…my son.”
“Okay,” Rafael said. “So maybe that’s a start.”
Beginning, middle, and end, Saber thought, but he didn’t speak it aloud. He looked down at the ground, too tired to argue or provoke Rafael further. “Yeah, maybe,” he conceded. “I’ve gotta go.”
Lorna joined them in the yard then. “Where will you go?” she asked. “What will you do? How will you live?”
“Too much, Lorna,” Saber said. “This is all…way too much.”
Lorna folded her hands together as if she could capture her words between her fingers, trying to be stoic. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Damnit,” Saber barked. “Stop apologizing. Please.”
Lorna clasped her hand over her mouth in an increased effort not to speak, and then she began to cry uncontrollably.
Saber stepped back.
He had to get out of there.
Talk about your world’s worst ideas.
He was just about to turn and leave when something brought him up short. Maybe it was the sound of Lorna’s tears, maybe it was just the pitiful nature of the whole damn scenario; but he couldn’t leave things like this. He couldn’t leave her like this. Forcing himself to step toward the weeping woman, he reached out and cupped her face in his hands. “No tears, Lorna. Not for me.”
She did her best to stifle her sobs, and after taking several deep breaths, she finally grew quiet. “If you are ever in need, please…come home,” she whispered.
Home.
Now that was another million-dollar word.
He wasn’t about to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
Instead, he took her small hands in his considerably larger ones and held them firmly. “Thank you, Lorna,” he said. It was the best he could do.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, and then she forced herself to remove her hands from his. Raising her chin, she bid him adieu in the formal protocol. “Be w
ell, my son.” Despite her obvious attempt at courage, she was hardly able to get the words out. And in that singular, vulnerable moment, Saber truly saw the woman that she was, perhaps for the first time, the undeniable love she felt for him, even if he couldn’t comprehend it.
He placed both hands lightly on her arms and kissed her softly on the forehead. “Be well,” he offered in response. Then he did the most unexpected thing imaginable: He dropped his head, nuzzled the side of her cheek, and deeply inhaled her maternal scent. Pressing his lips to her ear, he repeated the formal refrain, adding a single word:
“Be well, Mother.”
twenty-three
Saber stood outside of the country-western bar, trying to gather the courage to go inside. It wasn’t that he had any fear of humans—far from it—but he knew that Napolean would be watching, sensing, whatever it was the ancient king did from his mansion in the vale. And all Saber wanted to do was feed, get in and get out, before something went wrong.
He checked his attire, hoping it was suitable for blending in: a pair of black, low-rise jeans falling over a custom set of steel-tipped, black-and-red cowboy boots, and a similar, form-fitting red shirt. After all, country-western wasn’t exactly his gig, but what else was open in a small mountain town on a Sunday night?
He tried to turn down his mojo, whatever that unspoken vibration was that screamed predator—run! at human males, causing them to act skittish at the least, and pure unadulterated sex at human females, causing them to act recklessly at best; and then he opened the front door of the Black Bear Tavern and strolled in.
A tall, lanky brunette, wearing way too few clothes, caught his eye immediately from across the smoky room. She was sidled up to the bar, nursing what smelled like a whiskey sour, and she immediately batted her dark gray eyes at him, unwittingly licking her lips.
