Soul Mates: Sacrifice

by Jourdan Lane

  "You are treasured, Simon. It does not matter what you are, but who." Lucien crouched before him. "However, I do have a question for you: how did you end up in such a place? How does an angel fall into the hands of a man such as Malik?"

  "I was bought by him."

  "Did he hurt you?"

  "He tried, but for some reason, he couldn't touch me without being hurt himself. My blood was like acid to him."

  "Has anyone else had the same experience? Have you given blood to anyone else?"

  "The one Malik bought me from had something similar. He couldn't touch me, so he didn't want me. That's how I ended up with Malik." Simon rubbed the back of his neck. "I believe Xander has tasted me, maybe Nikolas… But to my knowledge, there weren't any unusual side effects."

  Lucien thought on it for a moment. "Do you mind if we have you tested against random vampires in the coven? They will never know what the test is for or why, but I would feel more comfortable if I knew that you haven't been tainted in some way."

  "No… I understand." Simon's shoulders slumped. "Especially after what's happened."

  "It has nothing to do with that, Simon. You and Cyril are nothing alike."

  "Even if we are brothers?"

  Lucien kissed Simon on the forehead. "Even if."

  Simon stretched up and stole a kiss from Lucien's lips before wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug. Stunned, Lucien held his arms out to avoid contact with Simon's back.

  "Please," Simon whispered. "Please… I won't break."

  Lucien met my eyes over Simon's head, looking at me as if to ask what was going on. I could only shrug in confusion. Lucien looked back down at Simon and after a few moments, wrapped his arms around Simon and kissed the top of his head. They stayed like that for the longest time, Simon needing, Lucien reassuring.

  I won't break.

  Right. Just how much more could you break someone who was already broken?

  * * *

  Simon left a short time later, but not until I'd made him promise that we'd talk again. He'd been quick to agree, saying that there were things he needed to get off his chest. How long had we taken him for granted? How long had we turned to him when we needed things, not even knowing the burden he carried?

  Lucien sat beside me and I leaned against him, needing to be close. "How could we not have known? Not have seen?"

  "It's hard to see things that others are trying to hide."

  "I still don't understand. Xander's been with him. How could Xander have not seen? He'd have… I know he'd have said something."

  "Even so, it would not have been Xander's story to tell."

  "Oh, don't give me that. If he thought Simon was hurt, he'd have fucking said so."

  "I think you've just answered your own question." Lucien sighed. "Perhaps one of Simon's powers is the gift of illusion."

  "Maybe…"

  I pulled away from Lucien and sat forward, looking around the huge room we were in. Torches lined the wall, flames dancing, sending shadows across the walls. The stairs I'd come down had, in fact, been part of some elaborate stadium seating. I'd come right down the middle, but the seating area wrapped around half of the room. There was another raised platform on the opposite side of the room, but on it, there was a huge chair.

  No, not a chair—a throne.

  "What is this place?"

  "The old throne room. This is where all of the coven meetings were held. If there were punishments or executions, they were done here, too." Lucien looked around. "It hasn't been used since I took over."

  "Really? Why not?"

  "This was Malik's stage. So many terrible things had happened down here that, at the time, I thought it best to just leave it be." Lucien shrugged. "And then there was Brandon… which sort of freaked everyone out even more."

  "Brandon?"

  "We had to hire a team of parapsychologists that kept several priests on staff to deal with him. He would scream and beg for mercy, beg for the pain to just stop. Sadly, he didn't know he was already dead."

  "Fuck…" I shivered at the thought, remembering ghosts were one thing I was going to ask Lucien about. "I was kinda hoping that ghosts might have been the one thing on the list that wasn't real."

  Lucien chuckled. "Real, and for the most part, harmless."

  "For the most part doesn't make me sleep better." I lay back and closed my eyes, arms stretching out over my head. "Is it bad that I like this place?"

  "Do you?"

  I nodded. "It's… I don't know. It just seems like a gathering place. A place of power."

  "Does it?" Warm lips pressed against my lower belly, tongue dipping briefly into my navel before drawing a line down to my pubes. "Shall we move the coven meetings down here?"

  "Maybe." His hair tickled my thighs and I reached down and tangled my fingers in it. It was still a little jarring to see him with long hair. "Do you think everyone will freak about it?"

  "Probably," he said with a small laugh. "But it will change things up a little, keep them guessing."

  "Change can be good."

  He licked and teased at the head of my dick, tongue pressing firmly against the slit. I bit my lip, forcing myself to stay still. But I couldn't. I groaned and propped myself up on my elbows, needing to see.

  Lucien pulled off me then. "Come on, lover. Let's go get you showered."

  "Oh, you are a cruel bastard."

  "Yep."

  He grabbed my hand and helped me up, giving me only seconds to either follow behind or be dragged by him. We walked around the raised platform and stopped at the wall. Lucien pushed a thick hanging tapestry aside, revealing a door set into the wall.

  "Clever."

  "Wait until you see where it leads."

  He grinned, opened the door, and waited for me to walk through before closing it behind us. Soft light illuminated the area just enough for me to see that we were in a long, narrow corridor.

  I looked back at Lucien. "Where are we?"

  "Would you just keep walking?"

  I grumbled and kept moving forward, smacking at Lucien's hands when he grabbed my ass. We soon came to a dead end and I shook my head. Before I could complain again, Lucien stepped in front of me and pushed at a wall tile. It slid aside and I could see the familiar red light of one of the security scanners.

  He scanned his hand and when the light turned green, the wall in front of us slid back. The room we entered into was familiar, but I couldn't immediately place it. It wasn't until I saw the two armed guards off to my left that I realized why.

  "This is part of the escape route from the bedroom?"

  Lucien nodded.

  I turned and looked at the wall we'd just passed through, realizing that I'd seen it before and not even noticed that it wasn't a solid wall. Even looking at it again, knowing what I did, it still seemed like just a wall.

  Up another hidden stairwell, we exited into the part of the closet where we kept our tactical gear and our own personal weapons. Lucien led me straight out of the closet and into the bathroom.

  "How 'bout we get wet, get clean?"

  I started the shower, smirking. "One can be dirty, even in the shower."

  "Oh? Do tell."

  Lucien stepped back into the shower, grasping his cock, raising his brows suggestively. I growled and followed him in, pushing him against the tiled wall. The spray of water was warm and it just relaxed me in all the right kinds of ways.

  Without me asking, Lucien spread his legs and shoved his ass toward me. I trailed my fingers down his spine, pausing at the tip of his crease. "You want something from me?"

  He seemed hesitant all of a sudden, but nodded.

  I dipped my fingers lower. "Something… here?"

  "Yeah. Let me feel you."

  "You look so pretty like this, Lucien." I rubbed the tips of my fingers over the tight ring of muscle. "Just giving it up, asking for it."

  He let his head fall back as I pushed two fingers in. I fucked him with them slow and easy, pulling out,
teasing, then pushing back in. It wasn't long before I wanted to tease him with my prick. I grasped my shaft and moved closer, hips almost flush against his ass. I rubbed the head of my cock around his hole, pushing in just slightly, but not doing anything but teasing.

  Just as I was about to push my way inside him, there was a knock outside the bathroom door.

  "What?" Lucien roared.

  Simon's voice didn't waver. "Someone from the Council is here to see Peter."

  "Me? What the hell for?"

  Lucien pounded the wall in frustration. "Have them wait in the library. We'll be right fucking there."

  My head dropped to Lucien's shoulder and Lucien shook his head. "Goddamnit."

  "We can make them wait," I said, rocking my hips just a little. "Or, we can stop and pick this up later."

  "Fuck!" Lucien growled and turned, kissing me, shoving his tongue deep. "Don't want to be rushed. Let's just rinse off and get this over with."

  Lips still stinging from the kiss, I nodded. "That works."

  We rinsed off as quickly as possible and dressed in a hurry. I hated the interruption, but part of me wondered just why someone from the Council would be here so early. They weren't scheduled for another visit for at least a week. And wanting to talk to me? This didn't bode well.

  Lucien and I made it to the library in short time. Just before we walked in the door, I paused, hand on the knob. "Who was on the phone earlier?"

  "Oh, shit!"

  "What? Something wrong?"

  "No, no, no." He smiled, gesturing for me to open the door. "I have somewhere to be around three."

  "Getting close," I warned after glancing at the grandfather clock a few feet away.

  "Well, I'm hoping that whatever this is doesn't take long."

  "Yep."

  I opened the door to the library and Lucien and I walked in to find Doc and Daniel standing near the desk. I swallowed hard when Doc's worried eyes met mine. Lucien swept through the room, his presence commanding as he moved behind his desk.

  "Really, you'd think people would learn to call before just popping in like this."

  "It's important that this be discussed as soon as possible. Our appointed time would have been too late and I didn't think calling first was necessary," Doc replied.

  Lucien narrowed his eyes. "Too late for what?"

  Doc looked at Daniel and Daniel cleared his throat. "Lucien, we need a word with Peter."

  "Yes, I assumed so, which is why we're here."

  "A word with him alone, please," Daniel added.

  Lucien looked at me, but I just shrugged. It couldn't hurt. And the way Doc was looking at me, I wasn't sure I wanted Lucien to hear it right now anyway.

  "Okay, then. I do have something else to take care of at the moment. Peter? If you need me, call me."

  "I will."

  Lucien left, closing the door behind him. Doc's gaze settled on me. "How are you, Peter?"

  I took Lucien's place behind the desk and sat down. "Fine, why?"

  "Have you had any episodes?"

  I thought about it and realized the last one had been before the accident. "No, I've been fine."

  "Good, good. The drug seems to be holding, then."

  "What drug?"

  "While you were in our lab, you had a few terrible episodes. I used a combination of drugs to help stabilize the symptoms."

  "Where can I get more of it? It seems to work really well."

  "It won't last long, and I'm afraid that giving you another dose would only cause more problems."

  "I don't follow…"

  Doc shifted uncomfortably, then placed a thick stack of files on the desk, pulling up a chair on the other side. "By now, you're aware that you have Lycan blood in your body?" When I nodded, he continued. "It wasn't put there by Nikolas."

  I frowned at him. "I don't understand."

  "We ran a few tests—"

  "When a member of the Council kidnapped us, of course. And drugged me, strapped me to a fucking table. Beat and bloodied Xander all to hell—"

  "None of that was supposed to happen. You were only to be brought in for testing. Cyril…"

  "Right. Where is that bastard? How come we haven't heard anything about his punishment yet?"

  "We've contacted his elders," Daniel said, finally speaking up from the side of the room where he was inspecting book titles on the shelf. "There isn't much we can do with him, but I have every confidence that they will take care of their own."

  Images of Simon's back flashed in my head. "If I ever see him again, I will find a way to kill him."

  "I understand the sentiment, Peter, believe me. But there would be no way for you to win against him. They are, in a sense, untouchable."

  "I find something really, really wrong with that. Don't they have a weakness?"

  "Not that we're aware of."

  "Then maybe it'd be a good idea to do some research into that."

  Doc cleared his throat. "We haven't had a need—until now."

  I looked at him, watched the way he nervously picked at the edge of the file folder. I'd already forgotten what he'd been saying. "I'm sorry, Doc. You were saying?"

  He sat forward and opened the file folder. "We've established that you are aware of the Lycan blood in your body, correct?"

  "But that it wasn't put there by Nikolas?"

  Doc nodded, but Daniel moved to stand behind him, grasping the back of Doc's chair as he looked down at me. "Do you know anything of your father? Who he was? Where he came from?"

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  Doc sighed and looked up at Daniel. "Daniel, please. Can you give us a few minutes?"

  "This is important," Daniel argued.

  "That's precisely why I would like to get this part out of the way before you start in on anything else."

  Daniel grumbled and turned on his heel. "Call me when you finish this."

  Doc waited until the door shut behind Daniel before continuing. "That should cause considerably less confusion for the time being—even if it all is confusing as hell anyway."

  "Why do I have a feeling you're about to kill the Easter Bunny?"

  He ignored my nervous joking, his expression grim. "There were Lycan cells in your blood before you were ever attacked by Nikolas—and before you bonded with Xander."

  Chapter Seven

  "That's not possible."

  "There are certain markers in the DNA that can distinguish between an infective transmission and an inherited one. Your markers are consistent with that of an inherited, but dormant, gene. We believe that contact with both a born Lycan and an infected one has brought it out of the dormant state."

  My heart thudded in my chest so fast I could hear it in my ears. This was bad. "What does that mean? Am I stuck like this? Is the transition I've been fucking begging Lucien for impossible now?"

  "Impossible?" He smiled warmly. "No."

  "How did this happen?"

  "Your bond with Xander, to start with. The progression was slow, the dormant genes awakening, and then, those genes beginning to fight with Lucien's blood in your system. Did you ever notice that Lucien's blood eased the cravings for you for a while? That you just felt better after drinking from him?"

  "All the time," I said slowly. "It was like… like he was my fix."

  "I would imagine. From what I can tell, Lucien's blood to you was like a magical elixir. Perhaps Lucien marked you in some way that even he didn't realize, but it was as if your body expected to become vampire."

  "That's all I've ever wanted," I whispered. "So, all of this? It's because of my bond with Xander? What if that had never happened?"

  "I'm afraid so. Without your bond with him, the Lycan genes would have remained dormant. You see, the dormant genes were too weak to awaken and mutate on their own. They needed a stronger carrier – of Lycan descent – to bond to; like an infection. But, with as much blood as you take from Lucien, all of those cells are continually fighting with the vampiric cells for do
minance."

  "So I have been infected?" I scratched my head, confused. "I have to tell you, Doc. I wasn't very good in biology."

  "We've searched our records extensively through the past few centuries and have not yet found another case similar to yours. This is why Daniel has inquired about your family history. Namely, your father."