Guardian by Blood

by Evie Byrne

  Mission accomplished.

  Dominick had pulled off a miracle. The feeder was perfect: plump curves, creamy, freckled skin, pointed breasts topped with rose-pink nipples. The prince had opened a cut on one of these fine breasts, and was lapping at it languidly. The girl’s eyes were closed, her expression ecstatic—and Eva didn’t think she was faking it. Tiny punctures dotted her throat, torso, and arms. It was a beautiful sight.

  Best yet, the kids still had their pants on, so things hadn’t gone beyond a bit of snacking. Wat couldn’t be too angry.

  Wrong.

  “What in the three hells do you think you’re doing?” Wat shouted.

  Poor Gunnar almost jumped out of his skin. The feeder cringed away, covering her breasts with one hand while reaching for her shirt with the other. Gunnar wheeled around and leapt at Wat, his long, bloodstained teeth bared. Wat’s hand shot out and caught him by the throat.

  With a sigh, Eva laid her hand on Wat’s arm. “Stop it, both of you. Gunnar, shut your mouth.”

  Bared teeth were nothing but provocation, and Wat was none too steady. The boy responded to her command and faltered mid-snarl. Wat was too strong for either command or compulsion, so on him she used reason. “Wat, you can’t strangle him. You’re his regent.”

  With a snort, Wat released the boy and stepped back. At least he had some sense of humor left. Gunnar crawled across the booth to the girl and wrapped her in his arms. “This is Emily. She’s coming home with us.”

  “What?” Emily squeaked. “No! I can’t! I’ve got work tomorrow.”

  “You won’t need your job anymore.” Gunnar smoothed her hair off her face, a tender gesture made with big, awkward hands. The poor kid hadn’t even grown into his limbs yet. “Remember, I’m a prince.”

  In unison, Wat and Eva said, “Oh, no.”

  Eva said, “You can’t employ feeders full time, Gunnar. The health insurance alone will kill you. Just work out a contract with her.”

  “Emily isn’t some feeder for hire,” he said indignantly. “I love her. She’s perfect.”

  Eva’s jaw dropped. Wat whirled toward her.

  “You, you…” Furious, he stuttered, stabbing his finger at her. “You set this up. She’s one of yours, isn’t she? That means everything tonight—everything—was part of your plan.” Wat went very pale as the pieces came together for him, and his voice dropped to a dangerous, husky register. “The chaos you caused. That trucker. He was a goddamned lure, and you were the trap. A hot little distraction so that your feeder could seduce Gunnar.”

  He smiled. Eva had never seen a smile so bitter, or so disgusted. “The orgy in here even allowed Gun to feed in plain sight. You had it all figured out. You had me by the balls the whole time. And here I was, feeling bad. Like I’d used you wrong.”

  Eva couldn’t deny any of it. She was doing her job—and doing it well. But that knowledge didn’t stop a strange, unexpected dismay from knotting in her gut.

  True, she’d counted on him following her out of the bar. She’d laid odds that he’d play watchdog-voyeur, due to his oath to keep her safe, but she’d also considered the possibility that he might be jealous enough to step in. There’d been enough tension between them, certainly, and she hadn’t minded the idea of having sex with him.

  What actually happened between them, though— that she could never have orchestrated. Not his urgency, not the mind-blowing intensity. At the beginning, he’d stared into eyes as he’d fucked her, never blinking, green fires flickering deep in his eyes. By the end, he’d owned her completely. She’d submitted to his body, to his will, as she’d never done for anyone, and loved it—even when he sank his teeth into her. And she didn’t know what to make of that.

  All she could say was, “It’s not as simple as that.”

  He turned his head and spat. “It was exactly that simple. And I’m the idiot. Only a fool is surprised when a snake bites.”

  Emotion brought uncertainty. Uncertainty was weakness. There was no place in this job for guilt or regret. She raised her chin. “I’m not sorry. I did what I had to do. As you said, pretending to be sorry would only make the offense worse.”

  Gunnar looked between them and Emily, his own expression growing dismayed. “Em, were you hired to come here tonight and feed me?”

  Her pink, swollen mouth compressed into a tight line. She nodded, and her eyes filled with tears.

  Gunnar leapt from the booth and ran out the front door. The girl chased after him.

  Eva and Wat followed more slowly, side by side, but not together.

  Outside, Emily calmed down Gunnar. Eva didn’t know what she said to him, exactly—she tried to allow them their privacy—but Emily was a couple of years older than Gunnar, and at that age, a few years made a big difference in sophistication. They talked for a while in the parking lot, leaning against an old van, while Eva and Wat waited in silence. When the kids parted, they kissed, and it wasn’t a “let’s be friends” kiss. Eva suspected they’d see one another again. Gunnar was hooked—if not on the lifestyle, at least on this particular girl.

  When he rejoined them, however, it was clear that while Emily might be forgiven, Eva was not.

  “What? Would you rather I hadn’t invited her at all? That you’d never met her?” Eva said, spreading her hands. “Come on!”

  Gunnar glared at her. Wat glared at her.

  Gunnar took shotgun on the way home, leaving her to loll alone in the back seat, isolated by a dense, icy wall of male disapproval. Those two weren’t talking to one another, either, or at least not in front of her. It seemed like Gunnar and Wat might manage to hash it out if she weren’t there, and likewise she and Wat could have some words if they were alone, and heck, she could use some alone-time with Gunnar, but no subject was safe for all three of them at once, and no one was in the mood for chit-chat.

  All in all, the ride home was pretty grim, made worse by nagging hunger. Wat had thrown her main course out of the truck.

  The silence gave her plenty of time for reflection. She was pleased with her success with Gunnar. No matter what happened next, he’d changed in a fundamental way that night. Despite all the animal-eater brainwashing, he’d finally fed on human blood—and in the nicest possible way, with a soft, willing girl moaning under his teeth and tongue. Eva glanced over at him, reclined in his seat, staring out the passenger window.

  Tell me that didn’t beat the pants off of sucking on some dead deer out in the freezing cold. Tell me you wouldn’t jump at a chance to do it again.

  Of course, he needed counseling in the aftermath of his first experience. His attachment to the girl meant he’d communed with her too deeply as he drank her blood, had temporarily lost his boundaries. To him, it probably felt like love. Fortunately, it would feel less like love after he’d digested a bit. She had to find a few moments with him, alone, to explain how that worked. A vamp who didn’t learn to block the information coming in with the blood ran the risk of insanity.

  Wat knew how to block, didn’t he? Eva puffed her cheeks and blew out a long breath, realizing he might not know. She didn’t know if they needed to do it when they fed on animals. He hadn’t taken more than a sip or two, but he’d had a dose of her nonetheless, and he might be reeling from that—on top of everything else.

  God knew she was reeling from him. She cupped her hands over her face and inhaled his scent. It made her a little dizzy. That man was potent. She’d joked with him about blood-bonding, but maybe you didn’t need ancient blood magic to be changed by someone. Maybe she’d never forget his taste, the feel of him inside her, the intensity of his eyes. Maybe she’d long for him when she went home and would never find satisfaction with her feeders again. She’d be truly cursed, then, because now he hated her.

  And for good reason.

  But his respect was a necessary sacrifice to the job. She’d hoped that the scheme would come off more smoothly than it had, that he might not put the pieces together, but Wat wasn’t dumb, so she hadn’t hoped har
d. The hard truth was that her business was with Gunnar from there on out. Wat’s stubbornness made him useless. But, she considered, it did not make him any less attractive. Strange, too, that she hadn’t minded his bite. Back home she arrested vamps who developed a taste for their own kind.

  Carefully, as though he might have eyes in the back of his head, she snuck a look at Wat in the front seat. His jaw was set, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. He glared at the dark, winding road as if it were an enemy he was trying to subdue. Yep, he was thinking about her, too.

  Eva sighed with relief when the endless, changeless rows of trees lining the road gave way to a clearing, and she spotted the decoy shack that marked the outer edge of the village. She shivered with predawn chills. The sun was near. It was well past time to be tucked into bed. Everything would look better in the morning.

  A guard waited at the turnaround. He opened the secret gate and passed them through. Wat parked the car and the three of them walked up to the house in silence. Gunnar went straight to his room and slammed the door. Wat hung back in the foyer. Sensing he had something to say, Eva turned to him.

  “It’s time you went home,” he said quietly. “Negotiations are over.”

  This took her aback, but she found it hard to frame a response. Like most vamps, her brain went sluggish with the sunrise. “I can’t leave. Nothing is resolved yet.”

  His voice was glacial, his eyes empty. “Nothing will be resolved—”

  Clenching her hands in fists, she stared back at him, dreading his next words. No, Wat, don’t do this.

  “—Because the Northwoods Territory will never submit to your rule.”

  My rule? Wat needed to watch his Freudian slips. And he needed to cool off. This recklessness was out of character. All he’d done since she’d arrived was advocate for his people. He wasn’t ready to give up, not really. She just needed him to keep trying for a little longer, while she worked on Gunnar.

  She said, “This is no time to be making life-or-death decisions. It’s been a…strange night. And dawn is here. Let’s talk it over tomorrow.”

  The rigidity in his face worried her. The strain in his voice almost scared her.

  “There’s nothing more to say. You leave at sunset.” With that, he turned on his heel and headed back out the door.

  She sprang after him, appalled that he’d be stepping outside at this hour. “Where are you going?”

  The slice of sky she could see through the cracked door was not a nice, safe black, but pearly bright and heavy with threat. She hesitated to cross the threshold, but he strode onto the porch without fear, as if the sun didn’t matter. Her stomach dropped. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t be out there.”

  This was insane. Wat would never meet the day. He wouldn’t kill himself when his people needed him most. But what else did a vamp intend to do when he walked out at dawn?

  He’d snapped. Not just a little, but a lot. And it was all her fault. Mathilde had said she wouldn’t want to be around when Wat’s reserve cracked. Well, Eva had been there. She’d found his weakest point and hit it with a hammer. He’d attacked a human, which had to be a bad thing for him, and sex with her was probably a violation of every rule in his book. And she’d bet his book was just stuffed with rules. He was out of character, in free-fall.

  Tears welled in her eyes. Everything was wrong, and she couldn’t make it better. Couldn’t think. The morning doldrums had already turned her stupid. Struggling against her instincts—instincts that would have her scuttling for her dark bedroom—she followed him out onto the porch. The cool, silvery light made her squint. She caught him by the arm. “Please, Wat. Come back inside.”

  Grimacing, he jerked his arm from her grasp. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

  She stepped in front of him, blocking his path to the stairs. Fighting back tears, she struggled to find something clever to say, something that would stop him, but her mind was blank with panic. All she could come up with was the truth. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  He turned his face from her. “Go inside.”

  Instead, she put her hands against his chest, as if she could stop him by force. “Wat—”

  He picked her up and set her aside, like a nuisance, a minor impediment. Slanting rays of sun thrust between the trees and lit the snow-covered ground to a startling whiteness. The sight filled her with horror. The rays left blue streaks dancing on her field of vision. Her knees gave out, and she fell to the porch, silent, frustrated tears pouring down her face. He walked down the stairs, hands in his vest pockets.

  “I’m sorry!” she screamed at his back, her voice high and tight and breaking, but he didn’t turn around. She put her arm over her face and, through the crook of her elbow watched his tall, straight-backed form vanish into the light. Then she couldn’t wait a moment longer, or she’d burn. She crawled back into the house and shut the heavy door on the light.

  And Wat.

  For a long time, she sat on the floor, holding herself, rocking. She couldn’t see—the sun had dazzled her eyes. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she chanted to herself, lying to herself as she would to a child. Maybe it was okay. Maybe he was going to a neighbor’s house. Or maybe he had some bolt-hole nearby. Maybe he’d make it there before he fried. But these thoughts didn’t comfort her much, because she knew she’d driven him away from the home he loved. And if he did come back, he’d force her to leave.

  She’d failed. She’d failed in so many ways.

  Chapter Ten

  Wat left Eva screaming behind him. “Sorry,” she’d said. So sorry her plan had gone awry. So very sorry her puppets had revolted. He could have reassured her that he wasn’t going to die, but he didn’t. It gave him a certain amount of satisfaction to watch her panic. And anyway, with the battle that was to come, he couldn’t reveal their single strategic advantage.

  She didn’t know they could walk in the light.

  His people were descendants of nomadic tribes living just south of the Arctic Circle in places now called Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. In those latitudes, the sun abandoned the sky entirely during the depths of winter, granting his ancestors endless nights in which to hunt and play. However, in the summer the opposite was true—the sun never set, but hovered low on the horizon, like a baleful orange eye, for weeks on end. Ordinary vampires could not tolerate the midnight sun, but over the centuries, his ancestors had made their peace with it.

  Their myths said the gods gave them their resistance to light; it had been a blessing bestowed on them for following the True Path: eating not of man. Coming at it from a less mystical perspective, he assumed it was the product of millennia of slow adaptation. Many tasty creatures were most active around dawn and dusk, which were prime hunting hours. Keeping the same hours as their prey made them more successful hunters. Likewise, being able to withstand the midnight sun allowed them to move their hunting range northward and leave the crowded cities behind.

  In their adopted home of the Northwoods, the sun’s cycle was less extreme, but they retained their resistance to light. Unlike other vamps, they could see by daylight—not well, but some— and they did not become lethargic with the coming of day. This did not mean they were magical. Exposure to full sun could kill them, like any other vamp. The only advantage they had was resistance, which meant extended hours of operation. On a sunny winter morning like this, he could be out for at least an hour after sunrise. After that, he’d become distinctly uncomfortable, and then he’d burn.

  In the Old World, they’d called themselves Dawn Hunters.

  Eva and her ilk called them animal eaters and inbred and backward.

  He headed for the Grove, cutting between two houses. It felt good to be breaking through clean snow. He reeked of that bar, of humans and their noxious civilization. He wanted a bath. With each stride, he shattered the thin crust and sank to his knees. Every step helped scrub him clean, as did each breath of sharp, balsam-scented air.

  Eva was on him
. Her taste was in his mouth. The texture of her skin burnt into his fingertips. A sauna might sweat out the stench of the bar, but what could cleanse him of the memory her—and of the knowledge of what he had done? Even if she seemed content enough with the encounter, it had been wrong, in so many ways. What haunted him the most was that he did not know what he would have done if she'd not been willing.

  Sex was sacred. That’s what he’d taught, that’s how he’d walked all his life. Until she came along and he’d given up a lifetime of discipline and belief––

  He staggered. A visceral wave of memory washed over him, and for a moment he was inside her again, his hands on her body, his lips on her skin.

  Her blood in his mouth.

  He needed to pray.

  At the Spring, he splashed his face, rinsed his mouth. and spat into the snow, washing his hands over and over. At the threshold of the Grove, he stopped and touched his fingers to his brow.

  Daylight made the Grove look different. He’d rarely been in it so late. The morning birds were already in full song. Many generations ago, they’d cleared a huge circle in the forest. A circle large enough to hold a cathedral—or all the Dawn Hunters in the Americas. Around that circle, they’d planted a wall of guardian pines. Inside, the Twelve Giants grew in a sheltering half-circle at the center of the Grove, each tree sacred to one of the gods. The tiny lanterns that hung from their branches flickered bravely in the half-light. Wat thought they'd have to reduce the number of lanterns soon. With Brunnrheim's population so drastically reduced, those who remained were hard-pressed to make enough tallow candles to serve the Grove.

  Then he remembered that candles were the least of his worries.

  The sun was still too low to cast her rays into the Grove, but the sky gleamed above his head like a bright, pale blue dome. He walked to the Twelve Giants. A carved mask of a god or goddess hung on each tree. Snow packed the masks’ mouths, and moss gathered on their roughhewn brows and chins. Heavy tracks in the snow and fresh offerings at the foot of the trees showed that many others had visited that night. Everyone was praying a lot these days.