Bound By Blood

by Kimberly Hoyt

  There was an intervention.

  Laurel’s words came back to him in a mind numbing flash. Before he could begin to consider the implications, a body came crashing through the bookstore window, the speed and weight of it hurling him to the ground with a thud. Shattered glass flew everywhere, frosting his hair and biting into his skin. The weight of the vampire pinned him to the floor, and Sebastian struggled, enraged, landing one solid punch to the jaw of the thing above him. It barely phased the beast. With the muscles in his forearms bulging and his body arched taut, he managed to gain enough leverage to roll the thing over, their combined force rocking a bookshelf until it leaned dangerously above them, slanting into the one beside it.

  They were buried under an avalanche of falling books, the toppled shelf like a bridge above their bodies.

  Sebastian didn't need to be told that he was fighting for his life. A sudden blur in periphery was all the warning he had before another body joined the fray, ripping the vampire off him. Two shapes tumbled with ferocious snarls into the books beyond, their movements quicker than he could follow. By the time Sebastian rolled over, Gideon's clawed hands were drenched in blood and the corpse beneath him was headless.

  Gideon looked shockingly savage when he glanced over and inclined his head.

  Sebastian somehow understood that Gideon was just doing his duty. Protecting him because he was Prince. He returned a nod and got out from under the tipped bookcase, rising to stand. Before he could do anything else, the front door swung open and Isabella gestured to him.

  “Come, fratello. We must go now,” she said, her clothes spattered with blood.

  Sebastian glanced back toward the couch, and then the shadowy shape of Gideon. All he could really see were the pinprick red centers of his eyes. He followed Isabella out into the night, where bodies lay mangled and torn in the street. Dark shapes slithered away into alleys and over rooftops, receding like a black tide now that the threat was past. Sliding into the strange steel contraption at Isabella's insistence, he settled into the seat, too overwhelmed to make conversation or investigate his surroundings. With his head back and his eyes closed, he was content to let her and Caleb, who came in behind them, think he was asleep.

  Vampires, all of them.

  Sebastian could hardly wrap his head around the truth of that. Nor that he was their Prince, which Isabella confirmed as the limousine drove them home. He didn't want to believe he would become what they were: A monster.

  Exhausted and undone by what he had learned, he held his silence until the car stopped. Opening his eyes, he caught the one called Caleb watching him with an intense expression. The man replaced it with a smile so quickly that he left Sebastian wondering if he had imagined it.

  “You are an honorable Prince. As was your maker, and his maker.” Isabella spoke softly beside him before she exited the limo.

  He understood that her words were meant to comfort him, but there was only thing that he knew could do that; she waited just inside the door, a gasp on her lips as Laurel took inventory of his condition.

  “Woman.” The word was anguished on his tongue when he met Laurel’s eyes. He felt like he had lived in a lifetime in the hours since he’d seen her, and he looked like the empty husk of a man with despair sharp in his bloodshot eyes.

  “I’m here,” she soothed as she hurried to his side to put a gentle arm around him. “Let’s get you to your room.”

  Sebastian slid his arm around her shoulders, content to let her lead him toward his chamber. He looked soul-weary, his eyes like raw wounds from the things he had seen and learned.

  Bernard met them in the hallway, looking at him with relief and concern. “My lord,” the servant spoke with suspicious emotion in his voice before he cleared it.

  “Bernard, we will require medical supplies, and see that security is doubled on the house and grounds.” Despite everything, he was and would always be lord of the manor.

  Sebastian separated from Laurel when they reached his sanctuary below the ground. Turning, he stepped into the bathroom so he wouldn’t get blood on the furniture or bedclothes. Sinking down onto the edge of the tub, he left Laurel to see to the medical supplies, dropping his head into his hands for a moment.

  He lifted it when she entered, his eyes tormented and his voice raw. “I become a vampire?”

  Laurel stilled in the process of opening the medical kit, snapping her startled gaze up at him. “How did you know that?”

  “I was informed by one of them, in the course of an attack on the bookshop where Isabella found me,” he explained as he peeled the shirt from his shoulders so she could bind his wounds. He was awash in blood -- some his, some Sara’s.

  “You’re very lucky to be alive then, I think,” she said, her mouth a thin line of distress as she dabbed at the wound in his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

  Whether she was apologizing for his fate, for the fact that he had found out as he had, or for their earlier fight, Sebastian could not be sure. He swept a thumb reassuringly against her chin, leaving a smear of blood there. The touch drew her attention from his wound to his eyes.

  “Perhaps for the nonce I will restrict my forays into the city to daylight hours,” he made an attempt at humor despite his overwhelmed state.

  “I would like to go with you if you’ll let me, next time,” she said before turning to run a cloth under cool water so she could clean his wounds. “Are you still angry with me?” she asked when she returned to him, her eyes glittering with unexpressed emotion.

  Sebastian watched her with a complex look when she posed the question. At length he shook his head. No. The evening’s events had sapped his anger away like a leech, particularly the moments in which he thought he might never see her lovely face again.

  “I read things. Things about how modern woman is equal to a man. Women are no longer bound to obey,” he said as he watched her. On occasion, he flinched when she hit a particularly tender injury.

  “It is different now than back then,” she confirmed, and he could hear the relief in her voice when she learned that he was no longer angry with her.

  And yet, despite that the world had changed, Sebastian had not. He was still a product of his era, a walking anachronism in this modern age.

  It was a thought he dwelled on some time later as he stretched out naked in the bed beside her, too exhausted to do much more than hold her close.

  From the archway in the bathroom, Laurel watched Sebastian stand under the spray of water in the shower. Slippery skinned, bruises scattered like purple blossoms over his muscles, he resembled the knight he was more than the Prince he would become.

  She'd lain awake for an hour after he left the bed, thinking about his close brush with death. The prior evening had taken a severe toll on them all, leaving her weary and scared, and she wondered how much more they could take before someone cracked.

  He glanced over like he felt her presence, and their eyes met. She smiled, a small curve of affection, and crossed her arms over her middle. "How are you feeling?"

  "Still alive. You, my lady?"

  Laurel wasn’t sure why he'd reverted to honorifics she couldn't really claim. Probably for the same reasons, she mused, over why she'd slept in her clothes. They hung loose and wrinkled on her body, matching the mussed state of her hair. "I'm doing okay. Groggy. Do you want me to have Bernard bring down breakfast?"

  He lifted his injured arm and with a grunt, speared fingers through his hair. "Tell Bernard we will eat upstairs," he said, his voice raspy. "I feel dead and buried down here."

  Laurel knew that the comment had been made offhandedly, but it sliced her right to the core.

  I feel dead and buried down here.

  In a way, he had been. The Prince, the vampire, spent the long days of his life in this subterranean dwelling with no windows, no outside air, no sunlight. She ached for his sacrifices, for the things the rest of humanity took for granted that he wouldn't ever have again. Turning away from the bathroom, she went t
o the intercom and pressed the button.

  "Bernard? Bernard…open the doors. Open the doors and let me out. He wants breakfast upstairs in the dining room--please open the doors." She unraveled with impressive speed, muffling a sob with the heel of her hand. The heavy doors whooshed open and she ran down the corridor, desperate to leave the room. She felt like rabid ghosts nipped at her heels, threatening to drag her back into the suddenly stifling sanctuary.

  Bursting into the foyer full tilt, she didn't stop until she'd thrown open the front door and ran across the drive to the lawn. Her toes sank into the fresh, green shoots and she went to her knees, the newly risen sun shining down on her head. It only served to remind her that she would never spend another second in the sunlight with Sebastian, the Prince.

  Because he was coming back. Somehow, some way, they would figure out how to bring him home. She mourned the loss of Thorn at the same time, ripped down the middle between the dashing knight and her dark vampire. Thorn was so blessedly human, running hot tempered and commanding compared to the controlled danger of the Prince.

  Thorn, Sebastian. Sebastian, Thorn. One and the same man-- and not the same man at all.

  She sobbed into her palms, soul-sore, unable to regret knowing this incarnation of Sebastian no matter the devastating, personal cost.

  "Sweethot," he said behind her, scooping her off the ground and into his arms. He held her snug against his tee-shirt covered chest.

  Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, forgetting about his wounds, she tucked her face into his throat. The dull throb of his pulse was yet one more reminder of their predicament. "I miss you. I don't know how to let you go. I don't know how to go back. I miss the old you, I want this you. How do we fix it? I can't stand the thought of you hurting or never seeing you again."

  The jumbled words rushed against his skin. She kissed his pulse, savoring the steady thrum against her lips.

  "I am not going back," he said into her hair.

  Startled, she lifted her head to see his eyes. He held her tight, like a groom on their wedding night, expression as serious as she'd ever seen it. "What? Sebastian you have to. Bernard says I've messed up your history and your future."

  "We will make a new future. Mourn him. Grieve for him, this monster that you love. But know that I will not become this thing. I do not want to live forever. I want to live with you. I love you, sweethot. I will not give you up to another man. Even if that man is me," he said, swooping down before she could speak to kiss her mouth.

  It would have been so easy to give in. To have all the things she wanted. This wild passion, his children, a love that surpassed her every dream.

  All she had to do was say yes.

  But she hadn't lied when she'd said she'd missed him. Missed Sebastian. Her Prince was the man she'd fallen in love with and the man she wanted to live with. The sacrifices seemed minimal compared to the way he protected and loved her. She could see him so perfectly in her mind's eye; the impeccable suit, groomed hair and skin, his unflappable confidence.

  She kissed Sebastian with as much passion as he gave, fingers in his damp, sun-warmed hair, reveling in their moment. Saying goodbye was going to be the hardest thing she'd ever done. Breaking the kiss, she met his gaze and said, "I love you, too, Sebastian. But you don't belong here. All we can do is cherish what time we have and remember it until we can't any longer."

  The surge of happiness and possessiveness on his features vanished in the blink of an eye. He stared hard at her, like he couldn't understand what was wrong, why she'd made that choice. Why she'd chosen the monster over him. Laurel wouldn't have wished this predicament on her worst enemy.

  He set her feet on the ground and held his hand out. "Give it to me. The magic," he said.

  Confused, fearful that he meant to hide or destroy it, she reached up to wrap the amulet in her fingers. "Sebastian, please don't. I'm sorry I'm so weak, but you can't take this away."

  Intent on the amulet and her eyes, he made an expansive gesture toward the manor. "Use it, then. Make the door. If I am to be condemned, let us be about it."

  She was shocked at the change, the utter void of emotion in his voice. An icy finger of dread slithered down her spine. "Please, don’t ask this of me. I can't make the door right now. You don't know how much I've agonized over what you face back there. Let's spend this time like we have been, making memories to remember."

  He glared for a moment longer before he turned away and disappeared into the house. Shaken to her core, she stood under a rising sun, the warmth vanquished with the onset of his emotional winter. Silent tears slid down her cheeks and into the grass.

  Long moments later, she entered the house and Bernard stepped out of the shadow of the parlor like he'd been expecting her.

  "Bernard, will you call the car around, please?" she asked.

  Bernard frowned. "Going somewhere, madam?"

  "Yes." She smiled, a hollow echo of happiness, and made her way upstairs to her bedroom. Over the next several hours she made preparations to leave. She searched out local hotels on her laptop, packed a light bag, and printed out a few copies of the photos Sebastian had taken of her yesterday. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He had an eye for it, she thought, even if it was his first time behind a camera. Putting the pictures into a manila envelope, she wrote his name on the front and secured the metal tabs. The very last thing she wanted to do was leave now, at such a critical time, but she knew if she didn't then Thorn would never return to Tudor and Sebastian would be lost forever. As terrified as she was to risk time travel again, she would have gone back with him if the circumstances were different. To be there in support of his coming tragedy.

  Bernard was waiting right where she'd left him in the foyer. For a man who rarely showed any emotion at all, Laurel thought she detected displeasure and remorse when he spied the bag hanging over her shoulder.

  "Where will you go?" he asked straightaway.

  "I don't know. Somewhere. He wants to stay here and make a life with me, Bernard. If he does that, Sebastian will never come back. I love them both but can have only one."

  Bernard looked surprised, if the rounding of his eyes was any indication. "I will speak to him, madam, and make him understand. It is imperative that he return."

  Laurel nodded. She had every faith that Bernard could do what she couldn't. "I don't think he'll go if I'm here, that's why I have to leave. Maybe it will somehow make it easier for him. I wanted to give him these first." She indicated the manila envelope in her hands.

  "Perhaps Miss Nina's if you really mean to go," Bernard said. He reached out to place a fatherly hand on her shoulder. "He has not come out of his office since he went in earlier, my lady."

  She swallowed against a knot in her throat. "I've got to say good-bye without…saying good-bye."

  Bernard squeezed her shoulder and stepped aside, concern evident on his stoic face.

  She walked to the office door and rapped three times. "Sebastian?" While she waited, she slid the bag off her shoulder and set it on the floor against the wall.

  A long minute later, he said, "Come in."

  Laurel wondered at the odd turn of his voice. Opening the door, she stepped in and closed it behind her, bracing herself for a rough conversation. Good-byes were not her strong point.

  "Sebastian, I wanted to show you these," she said, looking up from the envelope.

  He sat on the edge of the couch with his head in his hands. Glancing up, he met her eyes.

  Laurel gasped, dropping the envelope on the floor, fingers flying to her mouth. Tiny threads of gray wove into the hair at his temples and deeper lines had creased the corners of his eyes. There were more around his mouth. Sebastian wore a confused, tormented expression.

  He looked like he'd aged fifteen years in a matter of hours.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Shell-shocked, Sebastian listened as Bernard explained.

  “I have no reason to believe, my lord, that you will not continue to age until you
die,” he said. “I believe the closer it comes to your ‘execution’ in your time, the more you will age. Your becoming a vampire in your time is the catalyst for so much. When that time passes and you are still here in the present, you will perish.”

  Bernard paused, and then added. “As will I, and many others, my lord.”

  Sebastian understood the ramifications of the situation well enough, the burdens that were being placed on his decision. To return to his own time and face vampirism? Or to remain in this modern era and die an old man … much sooner than he anticipated.

  He noticed the gray strands in his hair on several occasions since his arrival here, but until today Sebastian gave them little notice. They were much more considerable now, and his face showed lines around his mouth and eyes. The odd stuttering in his chest must be from the aging instead of stress.

  “I … need to think on this,” he said. His gaze turned to Laurel where she knelt in front of him with her hands on his legs. Her eyes were wide and pained, and she tilted her cheek down to rest it on his knee.

  “You need to go back. I can’t watch you d … die. I can’t,” she whispered, beseeching him with her tormented eyes.

  “I die either way, sweethot.”

  “I know. But at least you come back to me. At least we’re together. That’s what matters. Please don’t make me live my whole life without you.”

  Overwhelmed, Sebastian said nothing more on the subject. Until now, he had not considered his responsibility to anyone else, only building something lasting in this time with this woman who so thoroughly, he felt, belonged to him. It was the glimmer of a dream that was now being ripped away from him.

  If he did not return, he did not get to stay with her anyway. If he did, he would become this ‘vampire’. It was all so twisted, complicated enough to make his head ache. But his time was limited now, and he knew a decision had to be reached. He needed information … things that could be found in no book.

  “The woman, last night … Isabella,” he said, turning his attention at the quiet Bernard. “I would speak with her.”