How dare he say something negative about her vampire? She wanted to punch him in the nose. Her mouth suddenly gone dry, Adrienne forced herself to swallow. Her head went fuzzy.
“I’m easing some of the discomfort for you, compelling you to feel better. It won’t last forever. Hanzi might undo it or you can yourself when you are stronger. Try to relax.”
“I....” She had something to say, something she should be objecting to. There was always a reason to feel oppositional these days.
“Sshh. You don’t follow instructions well.” A small smile crossed Feri’s face. “Perfect for my brother.”
“Are you actually brothers? Or is it a term of endearment? You know, like bro?”
Feri looked in Jerome’s direction. “She’s very amusing.”
“I can’t believe the things coming out of her mouth.” The other man shook his head. “Hurry, if Hanzi returns and sees you touching her....” Jerome’s voice faded off.
“He left.” She had to interrupt. The world spun, a slow, steady circle. It wasn’t unpleasant, somehow akin to being on a slow moving merry-go-round.
“Well he can’t have gone far,” Feri remarked. “The sun blazes in the sky. Unless he’s developed a new skill the rest of us don’t have.”
“He hasn’t,” Jerome confirmed. “I imagine he’s hiding somewhere in the basement, probably trashing the wine cellar.”
“All the Bordeauxs should beware.”
He laughed as though he’d said something funny, and she rolled her eyes. Whatever he was doing, it worked. Her body loosened, and the air conditioning in the room cooled her skin. Like a cat she’d had as a child—and hated because the damn thing always hissed at her— she stretched her limbs, feeling easier than she’d been since the day her parents had dropped their unwanted bombshell right on her with the news about her so-called destiny.
“Good girl. You’re going to sleep, and when you do you’re going to dream. They’re directed thoughts—memories if you will—mine.”
“Feri.” Jerome tried to interrupt although she barely heard him. Her mind moved toward Feri’s words, and the world seemed to be slipping away, a peaceful warmth surrounding her.
“Don’t start with me. Hanzi has always been unwilling to do what needs to be done when it comes to the humans. I haven’t compelled her to love him or to want him in any way. All I have done is shown her the story. The one he should tell her himself.”
“It’s not for you to decide....”
Feri’s hand fell away, and the world finished its drift. She knew she’d be sleeping soon, and she smiled. Adrienne never slept well. A good nap would be refreshing for a change.
“The second you brought me in, you made it my problem. I will do for Hanzi what needs to be done.”
What on earth were they talking about? She yawned. Who cared?
And like Feri had told her she would, she dreamed.
****
“Hanzi.”
A voice called out, and she jumped. She was walking next to Hanzi; the sun beat on her face although it didn’t warm her. The coldest time of the year meant they were always freezing. She shivered.
“You’re cold.” Hanzi spoke to her, staring in her direction. “I can’t have you uncomfortable. If you die before our wedding, I’ll never get to be the perfect husband.”
She laughed, and it sounded strange. Adrienne had never been in this place before. A green hill, a river in the distance, and thunder clouds forming above their heads. The words she spoke, they weren’t her own.
Her body didn’t feel right. She stared at her arms through the gap in her coat. It took her a moment to realize all her ink was gone. Adrienne’s legs were different too, thicker. She’d gained some weight and lost height. Her appearance was weird. Feri’s words dawned on her, and with them came a headache, forming right between her eyes. He’d given her memories, directed her dreams, and now she was going to have to go with it whether she liked it or not.
She was—what?—stuck in some Hanzi-memory Feri wanted her to have? She wasn’t wearing Feri’s body in her weird visitation into the world, which was made up of Hanzi memories. She was who then? Some woman Hanzi wanted to marry.
Adrienne’s temper rose, and she had to shove her hands in her pockets to stop them from shaking. Why should it bother her? She didn’t really want him—although in the real world she suddenly really did—and so what if he’d had a life with someone else sometime in his two thousand year journey?
“Ema?” Hanzi stopped walking and grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?”
Ema? She glanced left and right. She must be Ema then. She didn’t have to think of anything to answer; her mouth moved, forming Ema’s words all on its own.
“I’m okay. Nervous, I think. I’ve never been a married woman before. What if I can’t please you?”
Adrienne rolled her modern day eyes. What if she couldn’t please him? More likely he wouldn’t be able to make it happen for her. Men so rarely could.
“I....”
Whatever Hanzi would have said was never uttered. A very fast moving Feri ran toward them, calling their names. She swung around to look at him. Neither Hanzi nor Feri had aged a day.
“There’s a witch.”
Hanzi’s hand on her arm squeezed tighter. “What?”
“A witch. She’s in the square. She says she has little time and would speak with all of us.”
Her heart rate sped. Ema was clearly terrified of witches. The woman who occupied her body wasn’t very brave.
“What would a witch want with any of us? She must bring nothing except doom.”
Hell.
They all turned, and, guided by Hanzi’s arm, she made her way to what she had to presume was where the witch waited.
“Do not be afraid Ema. We will see what the witch wants. It is probably a tribute of some kind; these people always want gold.”
Feri laughed. “As if we have any more to give.”
“Perhaps we will have to find it under old man Gunther’s bed. I heard he keeps a stash there for....” His voice trailed off. “I am sorry, Ema. What I was going to say would not have been appropriate for you to hear.”
“Oh, of course.”
What? Adrienne wanted to be gagged with a stick. What kind of woman didn’t want to hear the dirty details? If Hanzi expected her to be like Ema, he had better find a way to move on. She was never going to be okay with being told what to do.
They finally arrived at what had to be the town square. Perhaps one hundred people had gathered. Mostly men, but some women, too. The majority of the town was around the same age as Hanzi. Why were they so young? Adrienne would love to ask why. Had something happened to the older generation? Some kind of illness?
She had no control over her surroundings. All she could do was simply exist and watch from Ema’s perspective.
A woman with long red hair stood at the front of the town. She was dressed much more elaborately than anyone else Adrienne could see. While, as Ema, she wore gray and brown, the witch wore ornate purple clothing. Adrienne knew from working with dyes how difficult purple was to create. The witchy woman had resources the locals did not.
“My name is Constanta.” She spoke with a slight lisp. “I am evil, despicable, and the bringer of death to you. In other words, I am the worst person you will ever meet.”
To Adrienne’s horror the so-called witch standing in front of the crowd started to cry. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“And no matter how long I try to make what has happened right, I shall never be able.”
Her speech sounded downright serious.
“What is happening? Oh, Hanzi, you won’t let her hurt me.”
He rubbed her arm. “Never.”
The sooner Adrienne maneuvered out of Ema’s body, the better. She’d be fine with waking instantly.
“What have you done, witch?” Feri called out next to Hanzi.
“There are powerful people who want your land.”
H
anzi shook his head. “As there have always been. It no longer produces food as it once did. Tell them to go bother other peasants.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late.” She sobbed again. “They have my son. I’ve had to kill you all.”
Feri laughed. “I seem pretty alive.”
An older man turned around, his eyes wide. “Stop interrupting her. If I’m to die, I’d wish to know how, so I can kill them instead.”
“Can any of you read?” the witch asked, a gust of wind picking up her hair and swirling it around. “Not any? Is there not a single scribe here?”
Someone close to the front of the crowd answered. “He is not in the town today. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Only some of you will be left to tell him what happened. Tell him to read the book I’m leaving.” She placed the book by her feet. “It will explain everything. All of you will be dead. Some of you may wish you stayed that way. Think of it as me giving you the chance for revenge. I’ve done what I can. Please forgive the unforgivable if you can.”
Mumbles started growing into genuine shouts as the witch whooshed away in a whirl of smoke. She was there one second, then gone. Ema began to cry, the sobs racking the body Adrienne yearned to escape.
Adrienne looked at Hanzi through tears which were not her own, although, given the chance, she might cry too. Unlike the people around her, Adrienne knew how his story ended. She had started at the end and moved backward. Whatever happened next, ultimately, Hanzi the man had been made a vampire. A witch had done the unthinkable, and, through no fault of their own, these men had been made monsters.
She tried to take a deep breath, but Ema had clearly not done so in this past moment. All she could do was wait. Hanzi would go from living a simple life as a simple man to becoming a vampire. Feri had brought Adrienne here to see a particular moment. Somehow, it all started here. The young man in front of her had no idea what he was to become.
****
Hanzi wished drunkenness was possible for him. Since he’d been cursed, he’d never been able to manage more than a small, all too brief buzz.
The scent of vampire, always cold and metallic, and human, warm and spicy, wafted past his nose before they arrived at the door of the wine cellar. Feri, because in addition to his vampire scent he always bathed in mint, and Jerome, who ate a lot of cinnamon which soaked through his skin.
Feri entered Hanzi’s newfound sanctuary first. Sending the vampire in first was a smart move, considering Hanzi’s temper. He couldn’t kill Jerome. The man would simply recover, although none of them ever wanted their human brother hurt. Feri would, maybe, be able to take Hanzi in a fight.
“You’re a mess.”
“Out of here, you menace. Or I’ll burn you and the horse you rode in on.”
Feri stepped in further. “Your metaphors are old.”
Lately Hanzi had been having more and more trouble with time. It moved on, and he no longer wished to manage it. Was there nothing he would ever have which remained his throughout the long years? Would there never be anything that remained constant? Would everything except himself wither and die?
“What do you want? Come to stare at me? As soon as the sun sets, I’ll be on my way.”
“Are you going to leave your bride here alone then? She was very nice. Do you not want her?”
Feri had been near Adrienne? Hanzi darted to his feet.
“What would you know of Adrienne?”
His old friend and sometimes foe crossed his arms over his chest. “I was with her a few moments ago. I put her to sleep.”
There was only one way Feri managed such a thing. Hanzi’s fangs descended, and he did nothing to stop it.
“You put your hands on and compelled my bride?”
“You are such a stubborn goat. There is a reason to compel them as we do. Not to love us. Not to find us sexually attractive. They don’t have to choose us. It was all in the book the witch left. They have to be allowed to have all the information. Who we were and what happened. You compel them so they can make a true choice.”
Hanzi panted. He might easily rip out Feri’s throat. Not that ripping off his head would kill the other man. It would hurt like hell, though, and it might be worth the effort to simply inflict pain.
“I’m not sure what bothers me more. The fact you took it upon yourself to do what was not yours to do or you putting your hands on her.”
Feri laughed; he threw his head back and bellowed loudly. “I can assure you, Hanzi, you have nothing to fear there. I am perfectly happy with my own woman.”
His brother strode forward and extended his arm. “Your bride is returned to her normal state, or she will be when she wakes. We will begin work on you.”
Hanzi eyed Feri. He could never ascertain exactly what the other man intended. Before they’d died and been reborn the creatures they were, Feri had always been a plotter. As far as Hanzi knew, considering he had been chasing killers for a decade, he had done nothing to earn another blood feud.
“Do you want to hold hands? Is touching a thing men do in our modern era? Do men converse about their feelings?”
Feri turned around to stare behind him. “Jerome, I’m almost tempted to leave him as he is.”
“Don’t. I can’t have my place destroyed any more than it already is. As it is, some of these bottles were irreplaceable.”
“I mean to take some of your bloodlust. To share it, as we did in the beginning. You remember?”
Hanzi never thought of those times. The early days when life had been little more than futile attempts to control the need to feed, mixed with the absolute horror of doing so. He’d done the absolute worst things imaginable before he understood what had happened to him.
There had been moments of relief, and touching each other—a hand on a shoulder, a pat on the back—had seemed to ease the bloodlust a bit for short periods of time. They’d stopped allowing the contact when the urgency had subsided. By then they’d realized that, while they would all be brothers in blood for eternity, they wouldn’t be able to trust other vampires completely.
If, as the book only Jerome could read told them, they’d live forever—unless they got staked or caught too long in the sun—they had to draw battle lines. Within three decades, a full-on land war had started. Soldiers fought their battles. And Hanzi had not willingly touched another vampire since that time, unless it was to kill him.
He stared at Feri’s still outstretched hand. “Which memory did you give her?”
“The day of the witch’s announcement.”
Hanzi winced. The last day of his human life pained him. Maybe if he had taken the woman seriously, if he had believed in the unimaginable, well things might have been....
He took the offered hand. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and Hanzi’s impatience flared. What had his brother hoped to achieve by...boom...his need to feed did subside at the touch. Then another. Hanzi managed a deep breath. The red corners of rage threatening his existence fled from his vision.
Hanzi could think again. “I’ve really made a mess.”
“You have.” Feri released him. “I’m going back to my reward. If you go off the deep end again, I will let you drown.”
“Feri.” Hanzi hated what he had to say; however, it was necessary. Even a monster such as he managed to express gratitude when need be. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you, although I would have if you asked me to. I did it for Jerome.”
Yes, Jerome. He had almost gotten used to referring to the other man with the new modern name. He had things to say to him, too.
Their sort-of human friend walked in slowly as Feri left.
“The day I returned to find everyone dead I thought would always rate the worst of my life.”
“Something has happened since then which you would credit as worse?” Hanzi bent over and picked up a bottle he hadn’t broken. He’d only smashed three of them. The rest were simply strewn about. He’d find Jerome something equal in value and g
ive it to him. When Hanzi lost control, he really truly made a mess.
“Yes.” Jerome hadn’t moved, watched him instead with steady eyes. “The day you rose. You and the hundred others who came back from the dead. Some of you pulled yourselves out of the dirt where I had buried you. The others standing from where they had fallen, the ones I hadn’t gotten to yet. All these years, I have blamed myself. If I hadn’t been gone, if I had been there to read the witch’s book, we might at least have prepared for what happened.”
Hanzi hated the guilt in his friend’s voice. “If you had been there, you’d be a vampire too or you would have died as those who did not rise.”
He had wished to join those lucky enough to stay dead. Until he had spotted Adrienne at the bonfire, he’d spent two millennia wondering what the hell the point was of his remaining on earth.
“I was the only person literate. My not being present within the limits of the town created something else...something the witch hadn’t planned on.”
“We were a bunch of dirty peasants.” So disposable, a wealthy lord had thought to have a witch kill them as if none would care. Hundreds of dead nobodies who never woke, easily burned and forgotten. Only the witch had thought to gift them with the ability to exact their revenge.
“What if I had decided to burn you? Would you have woken screaming in the blaze?”
Hanzi had awakened, but he hadn’t been screaming. He’d been underground, bearing a thirst he could never quench. “I think if you had burned me, I would have stayed dead. It’s one of the ways to actually kill me, as you know.” Because he had to, he added, “Thank you for getting Feri to help me.”
Jerome bent over and picked a bottle of red wine. “I was here when these grapes were bottled. Living in my castle. Watching from afar as you all started to change, becoming darker. I wondered if I would ever be able to reach any of you again or if you were too lost to come back to the light.”
“Jerome....”
His friend wasn’t done. “I am going to die. And soon. I can feel it. I’d hoped to see you all married before I left. The last thing I could help with, since I’ve always been able to manage so little. Go fall in love with your bride; let her do the same. Let someone else patrol the night for a while.”
Bitten Surrender Page 4
