Absolution: A Dominion Novel

by Lissa Kasey

The sleeping man was one I vaguely recognized from somewhere. He had to be some sort of other. His muscular frame and short cropped hair made me think he’d been some kind of soldier. Maybe a shifter?

  Max waved off my thoughts as it didn’t matter to him, all the titles and judgments of humans. I was still very human in his opinion. The man in his lap was simply food, and he assured me that someday I’d have my fair share of those. Humans of all kinds couldn’t sustain a vampire forever, even the hybrid types.

  Good to know, but I was happy with Luca at the moment.

  Max nodded, pleased at my affection for his son. There was also an underlying threat there, a keep him happy and safe or else type of feeling. Yeah, yeah, I’d try.

  Max’s phone rang. I knew it was his because he recognized the ring tone and was instantly annoyed. He picked up the phone and glared at the screen which read: Tresler.

  Fuck. Was Max part of this mess too?

  Max answered the phone and put it to speaker. “What do you want now?” The irritation in his tone left no question that he was not happy to hear from the final remaining member of the Tri-Mega.

  “Galloway is dead.”

  “I did report as much earlier this evening. It was his own damn fault.”

  “Did he know the boy was a siphon?” Tresler demanded.

  “Since he tried to take control of his power, I would assume so. I knew from the moment I met him. It’s unlikely that Galloway would not have known.”

  “And yet you didn’t tell me.”

  “Tell you what? What you should already have known? Wouldn’t it have been Gabe’s job to report his charge’s power to you?” Max nodded as if he knew the answer to his own question. “Gabe didn’t know what he was. Perhaps he’s never met a siphon before. I remember the days of the witch trials which eliminated entire family lines of them. Apparently our reach did not extend to Asia. Gabe actually spent a good portion of his life living in the East, didn’t he? Hiding from memories and constant wars, among people who thought he was some sort of kitsune.”

  “It’s better off if you let the boy bond to me,” Tresler said.

  “He accepted my bond. He destroyed Galloway with little effort. Would you really like to try?”

  Tresler was silent for a minute. “You should accept my bond as well. How long until your mind frays like the rest?”

  “My mind is fine,” Max assured him. And it was. He was clear, unclouded by doubt or scattered bits of emotion like Gabe had always been. I had thought that was what made Gabe more human, but perhaps that just meant Gabe had been broken a long time.

  “There are so few left it is better for us all to unite. You could be part of the new Tri-Mega. You and Santini. You could have him back.”

  “Did Santini let you blood bond him?” Max asked. My heart flipped over as the cold realization slipped through me.

  “Of course. He wants to protect his lover and was willing to accept my help and strength.”

  How many of the crazy vampires were blood bonded to Tresler? Had that happened before or after I’d gone to ground? Fuck. No wonder Gabe was completely batshit crazy now.

  “You rejected my business proposal, how is that of sound mind?”

  “For a stake in QuickLife? How many are blood bonded to you through the QuickLife?” Max inquired. “Without knowing it.”

  “You know that was necessary. The young are so wild.” Tresler sighed whimsically. “Do you remember the old days? When we were worshipped and feared? When we didn’t walk among the cattle wining and dining them to our side?”

  Max had thought those times very uncivilized and had found building his empire difficult. Too much unrest in the world at large. He thought the new ideas of diplomacy so much better for power consolidation and wealth building. “So you wish to return to the days in which the humans fear us and we were driven to hide from them? How is that a sound business decision?”

  “I never hid from them.”

  “Yet somehow you survived? Their numbers are so much greater than ours. It would take little effort for them to destroy us now. Even now they contemplate if that is a better course of action than diplomacy.” Max knew this for fact as he had several meetings with high-up members of the government speaking to him about that very issue. Asking questions. Demanding answers. If he hadn’t been tied to the government with a couple hundred contracts for goods and services through his vast array of businesses, he might have already found himself dead. Stupid, Max thought. This whole thing. A waste of energy over baseless greed.

  I agreed.

  “I am all-powerful, they would not dare.”

  Right. The USA was a ballsy government who did it’s best to railroad anyone into their control, even decimating entire nations when it was convenient to them. A couple thousand vampires was nothing. Max nodded at my opinion. He’d seen it himself over and over again.

  “I will think about your request,” Max offered, though had no intention of doing so.

  “It’s not a request. You will accept my bond, as will the boy.”

  I wasn’t a boy, and it irritated me that he thought of me that way. Hadn’t I just destroyed one of his equals? Bastard.

  “The boy is bonded to me. It’s unlikely you can take his bond from me without my death. Perhaps you’re looking for a challenge?” Max suggested it as though it were no more consequential than the weather, but I felt the threat in him. He did not want to be pigeonholed. “Perhaps you forget that I have an organization of over one million witches at my beck and all? Or that Seiran Rou, the Pillar of earth, is currently the leader of that organization and the son of one of the most powerful Dominion witches in the world? The boy, as you call him, is theirs, I only bonded with him to control the revenant at Rou’s request. Take him from me and you take him from them.” There was silence over the line so Max added. “The last time you fought the witches the humans were on your side, eliminating them because it was convenient for them. Now the witches and humans are united. There are millions of them. Don’t think that because I am not the magical power that Galloway was, that I am weak. My allies are many.”

  “You ask for war.”

  “No,” Max said. “That is what you’re asking for. It’s what you’ve been planning for years. I will have no part in it.” Max clicked the end button and glared at the screen. This was all coming to a head, and he was not thrilled by the direction in which it was leading. He let me feel his frustration and worry for a few minutes as he thought of options.

  Funny how a vampire who claimed to feel nothing, felt so much. Perhaps he just didn’t understand what he felt was still human?

  “You think so?” Max said out loud, asking me. “Are they not muted?”

  I couldn’t tell that by being in his head. Only that he was angry with Tresler, worried about protecting Luca and the vampires he’d created, and frustrated with how his hands were tied with human diplomacy. All strong emotions in my opinion.

  “Hmm,” he said. “I will have to think on that.” And with those words he pushed me back into myself, a sensation that felt a little like falling. I jerked awake. My limbs snapping back to full function hurt more than I thought anything should. The fire through my nervous system burned until my eyes twitched.

  The energy began to fade, leaving my fingers tingling and me blinking at the ceiling, the room dark. I could feel eyes on me. Not Con or Luca who were asleep. Seiran sat in a chair and stared out the window instead of at me, though I could feel his attention.

  “Creepy, Ronnie,” I whispered. “I dreamed of Max.”

  “Like sexing him up?”

  “Um, ew, and no. Why does your brain go there?”

  “’Cause I’m talking to you and that seems to be where your brain goes.”

  “Jerk.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I might know some stuff.”

  “Okay,” Seiran said.

  “Do you know if Gabe accepted a blood bond from Tresler?”

  “I don’t know. He do
esn’t talk about vampire stuff with me. It’s almost like he was embarrassed to be one.”

  “’Cause sucking on people to survive is embarrassing?”

  “See!” Seiran said pointing at me. “Your brain.”

  I waved off his comment. “Seriously. I think Tresler put his blood in the QuickLife and that’s how he’s controlling all the vampires.” No wonder that shit tasted like ass. “Or maybe it’s not control so much as lack of control? Breaking their bonds with their sires?” Was that a possibility? Fuck, I needed to know more about vampires.

  Seiran seemed to think on that for a minute. “Gabe’s sire is long gone as far as I know.”

  “But a blood bond to another vampire works the same way.” Could it let the demon loose, as much as it could reign it in? That felt right, even if I wasn’t sure. Gabe’s bond to me had done something for me, and its loss had nearly been my undoing. Even if he’d already been broken when he’d done it, he’d kept me from going revenant.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, both of us processing the implications behind all of this. Finally Seiran said, “Why?”

  “Why does any crazy ass bastard do anything?”

  Seiran sighed. “Power corrupts, but does it really make us all mad? Is that what I have to look forward to?”

  “We’ll keep you sane, Ronnie,” I promised him.

  He nodded, but I could feel his worry. This link between us wasn’t fading. “Mike is coming to pick me up. I need to talk to him.” More like interrogate him. “Find out how much of Gabe I really know.”

  “Okay. You gonna be okay?” Where those really answers he wanted?

  “No,” Seiran said honestly.

  “I’m sorry.” And I was. I hadn’t created the problem, though I was pretty sure I was part of it. There was also no way I could fix it either.

  “Let me worry about Gabe.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “I need you to find out about Tresler,” Seiran said.

  “Find out what? If he’s nuts? Pretty sure most vampires are nuts. Me included. Even if what I dreamed was just a dream, it’s a pretty solid theory. Though it felt pretty real to be a dream. Can a blood bond let him in my head? Max, I mean.”

  “It’s different for each vampire,” Seiran said. “At least according to what I’ve read so far. Though there is some level of metaphysical bonding that goes on with a blood bond. Some vampires report being about to hear each other’s thoughts, some merely feel their sire’s presence. You didn’t feel anything with Gabe?”

  I thought about that for a few minutes. “Faintly. Sort of like I could tell if he was in the room and what direction? Sometimes I’d get an edge of his emotions, but nothing else.”

  “Hmm. If Tresler put his blood in the QuickLife and Gabe’s been drinking it by the ton…how long has it been there? He’s been drinking that stuff as long as I’ve known him.” Seiran got up and began to pace. “Would going to ground even help him at this point? Or is it Tresler’s bond that is driving him mad?”

  “Only one way to tell,” I said. At least if Gabe was out of the way we could maybe deal with Tresler head on. “Gabe’s a pretty powerful vampire to have under his control, especially since he’s bonded to you.”

  “But he’s been closed off to me for months. I only get tiny glimpses through our bonds every once in a while.”

  “Maybe Gabe’s still in there,” I pointed out. “Maybe he’s trying to protect you.”

  Seiran stopped pacing and looked at me, his eyes looking watery in the dark. He clutched a book to his chest, holding on to it like it was a life raft. “If Tresler’s the reason the vampires are going nuts, is it a loss of control of vampires that is making them all crazy, or is he doing it on purpose?”

  “I thought that was a given.”

  “Maybe he’s not strong enough to control them all?” Seiran shook his head. “It could be the unraveling of the ties. Tresler takes a strong vampire but he’s not strong enough to control all the vampires that vampire sired? The government thinks it’s Gabe. But he hasn’t made enough vampires to be causing this mess. When I asked, Gabe said he’d only created two dozen vampires in his life.”

  “He could have been lying.”

  “Maybe. But why about that? He also has never seemed the type to just go and create vampires for the hell of it.” Seiran sighed. “I mean, back when we first met, he always came across as responsible. Not an act, not just words, his actions.”

  “Stuffy,” I agreed. If there had ever been a word to describe Gabe, it was stuffy.

  “Responsible,” Seiran amended. Which was why his collapse hurt so much now. Everyone relied on him, maybe too much so.

  “Okay, so what if it’s all Tresler. Whether it’s his control or lack of control or whatever? What then?” I wanted to know.

  “You killed Galloway.”

  “By accident.” And by going revenant which I didn’t want to ever experience again. “Do you want me to go nuts again just to kill that monster? I might not come back.” And that was what terrified me the most.

  “Are your bonds with them strong enough to keep you here?” He asked and waved at Luca and Con who were wrapped around me.

  “They weren’t enough to call me back just a few hours ago. I think the whole revenant thing is a little more than just losing your shit. That bond unraveled something in me. I wasn’t me anymore. I was just hunger, rage, and destruction. Love doesn’t conquer all, Ronnie. No matter what the romance novels tell you.”

  He sniffled. Fuck.

  “Death magic is pretty strong,” I said. “I think that’s what the revenant is.”

  “The Dominion has never recognized it as its own element.”

  “And yet it takes us all, doesn’t it?”

  He resumed his pacing. “So say we take down Tresler then. Would his death end this madness or just add fuel to the fire? Let’s say that death is an element like earth or water…”

  “What happens when an earth witch dies?” I asked.

  “The earth takes them back.”

  “And a water or air witch?”

  Seiran frowned at me. “The earth takes them all back.”

  “And if a vampire experiences true death like Andrew Roman and Matthew did?”

  “The earth takes them back.”

  I nodded. Exactly. “He’s just a vampire. The earth likes vampires. Full of nutrients for the soil.”

  “Talking about murder, Sammie. I’m not sure I can just kill him that way.”

  “Extreme circumstances call for extreme actions.” I understood. Seiran was the good guy. The world relied on him to stay that way. After all, what would happen if the Pillar of earth happened to be a bad guy? Seiran had killed before, but it had been self-defense. Was I splitting hairs? Was there a difference? Premeditated murder felt like a different level of extreme. Was it premeditated if we knew Tresler was ordering his flunkies to kill people, or self-defense? I’d never cared much for philosophy for exactly that reason. I also wasn’t bothered by the idea of premeditated murder for someone who deserved it. So maybe it didn’t have to be Seiran. After all, I could borrow his power. “Let me worry about vampire problems.”

  “I’m a vampire’s Focus,” Seiran pointed out.

  “And a new father, and Pillar of earth.”

  “That doesn’t make me more important than the rest of the world.”

  “No,” I agreed. “But it does put you pretty high up there. It’s not all on you, Ronnie. Saving the world and all that shit. Your white knight syndrome is annoying.”

  He mock growled at me.

  “Get pissy all you want, it’s true. The whole fucking lot of you have it. Your muscle head brother, the blond swimming freak, even Gabe before he went completely bonkers.”

  Seiran fell silent, likely thinking about their time together. I knew it was tearing him up because he was completely closed off to me.

  “Not your fault, Ronnie.”

  “But I’m not enough to save him
either.”

  “Sometimes we have to save ourselves, otherwise it doesn’t mean much and we don’t learn anything.” It was why I was so frustrated that they kept saving me. The other option was dead, of course, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that, but I hated being a fucking damsel in distress always being saved. Wasn’t I strong enough to save myself?

  He let out a long sigh. His phone beeped and I saw him glance at it. “Mike is here to pick me up. Don’t go home.” He paused, “Well not to Gabe’s or my place, and I know Con let the lease on your place expire. He’s been living with Kelly since you went to ground. You can stay here with Luca or I’ve texted you the address for the new house. After sunup I’ll be moving my stuff and the twins into it. You’ll have an invite and your own space. Hell, there’s enough room for you to have a whole wing if that’s what you need. My mom was a little over the top with her McMansion building. Said there would be plenty of room for more kids. ‘Cause I need more?”

  “I’m thinking the big guy and his little merman boyfriend might want some kiddos eventually.”

  “Yeah,” Seiran agreed. “Jamie wants them bad. He looks at the twins and I see it in his face. I just hope he gives Kelly some time to finish school and stuff. Though it’d be nice to have some friends for the twins. Hanna had a bunch of her eggs frozen when we were mixing up the twins.”

  “If Jamie used those and mixed with Kelly, your kids would technically have siblings/cousins.”

  “Yeah, but family is okay, right? The family you choose.” He stared at me and I realized then that was what I was. Part of the family he’d chosen. And not only that, he was part of mine. Fuck.

  “Feelings,” I growled at him.

  “Yeah, but you’re a vampire and still feel them. Hold on to that, yeah?”

  “Jerk,” I said.

  “Bastard,” he threw back as he got up. “Text me before dawn so I know you’re safe, no matter where you’ll be. I don’t need details,” he waved at the piles of limbs and warmth that was on the bed.

  “Will do, Ronnie,” I promised. He nodded and left quietly.

  Chapter 21

  I untangled myself to pace and think. Seiran had taken a book with him, and I stared at the shelf in the dark, thinking maybe I should find a place to begin, but I really hated reading. It made me tired.