“Go get Ved,” I tell Ianthen. He’s gone as well immediately after.
Climbing on the bed, I wrap my arms around his sister, my eyes burning. Ismini and Dimi sit on the bed next to us, each grabbing her hand.
Nythi grits her teeth, tears running down her face, clearly struggling to hold back her seizure. Ismini and I can only look down at her horrified.
Dimithinia’s white as a sheet, petrified.
Ianthen returns with Vedlyl, who freezes as soon as they arrive, as if he’s waiting for something to happen.
“Is the shield strong enough?” Ian asks him.
“Yeah. I don’t sense them.” Vedlyl heads over to us, a leather medic bag in his hand.
Nythi clutches my arms with her free hand, crying harder.
Fighting to hold back my own tears, I hug her closer.
Ianthen mumbles my name, staring at both me and his sister, as if the sight of us is breaking him right now.
His eyes flicker over to Ved and they share a look.
“I need everyone but my patient and her brother to leave the room.”
I open my mouth to refuse.
Dimi and Iss do, too.
“Please,” Ianthen begs all of us, not even bothering to try and hide how much this is killing him. “Please.”
Hate him to death, but there’s no refusing him.
I disentangle myself from Nythi and flash with the girls out of the room to the sitting area outside.
The entire time, I can’t stop thinking about that look between Vedlyl and Ianthen.
IANTHEN
Asking Soleria to leave was one of the hardest things ever, but I know what’s coming next.
What Vedlyl has in those bags.
“H-he found m-me. D-drank me.”
My sister’s stammered explanation is unneeded. His scent is all over her. The same scent that coated her the night she escaped him and appeared on the floor in Enzyria, near dead.
Just like a few minutes ago.
I take my place next to her.
“V-Vedlyl, I didn’t . . . it didn’t hurt once he bit me. Not at first.”
Ah . . . fuck.
Clearly my Zyt’is has forgotten I’m right next to her. “That’s just wrong.”
Clenching her jaw as she fights another convulsion, my sister’s stained eyes glare up at me. “I-I know what your jizz smells like. S-so sh-hut up!”
What the fuck is she talking about?
Vedlyl brings out two glass cases, each one holding a set of the chips. A sleek, rounded staple-gun comes out next. “Hold her.”
Wrapping my arms around my sister, I hold one of hers out for Ved to work on. “Just hold on, Nythi. These are going to help.” I survived sleeping with Sol. Surely my sister can survive this bite.
Kain turning her into a vampire before he betrayed her is the only thing that saved her life. It gave her the ability to feed on others without it killing her. She had to be careful with it close to each of his awakenings, but for the most part it helped her survive.
Now, it’s obvious there’s no going back for her. She won’t make it on her own.
Ved makes quick work of stapling the chips into the inside of her arms. Even once they’re in place, glowing with pulsing lights, it takes nearly half-hour for my sister’s skin to return to normal.
For her bleeding to stop.
Even as strength seems to leak back into her, the bite mark on her neck doesn’t show any signs of healing.
Fresh, bitter fury rises. That fucking lowlife. I don’t care that he’s Cy’s nephew. He had to have known what touching my sister would do to her. What drinking her would do after leaving her trapped in an unrequited mating for this long.
A final spasm goes through Nythi before all the tension melts out of her. Her still wet eyes find mine. “There was a Hellhound there.” Her voice is low and rough from her screams. “Lucifer and Kain are talking again. That’s how he found me.”
Motherfucker! “I’m going to talk to Zex and Cy immediately. Have them go talk to their brother.”
“If—if he bites me again . . .” My sister doesn’t have to finish. The tremble in her voice isn’t uncalled for either. The third bite will be the final connection between them.
Kain made Nythi his wife according to biological vampiric law—which was only discovered upon his act, considering he’s the first vampire—the moment he bit her and turned her into the second vampire in creation. That’s how it works in their species.
For unclaimed males and females, it’s the first being they turn.
Unbeknownst to him at the time, my sister was already mated to him. The resulting connection was nearly unbreakable. It took centuries before it weakened enough that Nythi didn’t have to spend each minute in hiding.
This second bite furthers the process.
One more and a connection will be triggered—they’ll be as one, never able to separate, always feeling and hearing each other’s thoughts.
A tether as invasive as a mating.
Just as dangerous and painful.
She’ll never be able to lose him again at that point. Considering she’s the only mated being in that combination, his drinking from her will eventually kill her.
And I can’t kill the selfish motherfucker because it’ll trigger her death regardless.
Ianythi’s eyes roll with exhaustion.
“Get some rest. Sol won’t mind you staying here.” I mentally will some fresh sheets under her, getting rid of the blood. “Also, hide those chips. Can’t have her asking around and finding out what they’re for.”
My sister looks like she wants to argue but the fatigue pulls her under.
Vedlyl jerks his head, walking to the other side of the chamber and out onto the terrace. All the way up here on the last floor, the entire kingdom can be seen, the short buildings near the far edges appearing as specks from this distance.
The Gnetica extends to just outside the railing, offering him enough protection from the influence of the war Erencei below. “We need to talk about Soleria.”
Fucking great. What now? I just saw my sister once again being consumed by those evil symptoms. Now this. “What’s going on?”
“When Soleria was brought to me after Brownsville, I had just enough time to scan her, take a single vial of blood, and then stop her from going into a coma.”
That fucking one-on-one healing shit again. The one where he got way too deep into my female’s heart.
He glares back at me. “Relax. Hear me out. I suspected based on the scan, but the blood work confirmed it.”
“What’s wrong with Sol?”
“For the most part, she’s spectacular. No, really. Her DNA is doing marvelously considering how unstable I was expecting it to be.”
I feel my eyes narrow. “Then what’s the actual fucking problem?”
“Remember how Persicutis got pregnant with Mavrak?”
“Yes . . .”
He nods his head, as if urging me to continue.
“An ovulation cycle was triggered in her and—” My voice catches in my throat.
“And Sophron fought every single unmated male in this realm that tried to answer that need.”
Not only that but he impregnated her with what we now know was twins.
After killing a horde of his citizens.
Thanks to the sometimes barbaric, blood-thirsty nature of these beings, it only gained him badly needed respect among his citizens.
Still. I’m a Hyren. Twins are a minimum once I impregnate my female.
Doing it while she’s in fucking heat?
“Holy shit, Sol’s about to go into her first immortal heat cycle,” I let out on a breath, the full magnitude of what he’s telling me sinking in. “How long?”
“She has weeks. Maybe even days. Either way, the end result is the same. You need to get your female isolated when it hits. And you need to get her to forgive you before that. No way you can hide being mated to her while taking her in heat.”
<
br /> “Ved, if I take her while she’s . . .”
“There’s a hundred-and-one-point-five percent chance you’ll get her pregnant. I’ll give you early congratulations on your impending fatherhood, since we both know you won’t be letting anyone else take her.”
“Holy shit, Vedlyl, I’m going to be a . . .”
“A father. Yes. I know. That’s why I said congratulations, bro. Hopefully you live long enough to see them born, eh?”
Chapter 41
SOLERIA
I ’m being hounded. Days of this shit, non-stop. I didn’t even have time to be grateful for what he did with the Kystms, allowing me to travel to where I need from within my room, when he started in with his shit.
“I’m not fucking isolating myself. My style of dress is none of your concern. And I’m not going into no heat, or whatever. I’d feel it.”
“You’ve been feeling it.”
I loathe him.
If I’m exhibiting any signs of “heat” it’s because he won’t leave me alone. Not letting me forget what his voice sounds like when he comes. How his skin tastes.
“Soleria, this isn’t the time for your stubbornness.”
Grumbling in my throat, I glare at him with every ounce of my distaste. “First off, no one tells me what to do. Understand me? Second off, even if I were going into any kind of heat, I’m not isolating myself away with you!”
“Every single part of what you just said is erroneous.”
“Your face is erroneous.”
His lips twitch with a smirk. “I’m being serious, baby.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do. Hell, you couldn’t tell me what to do back when I was freaking human.”
“You have males clamoring for the spot of king.”
“And fuck them. Fuck them all. Fuck you, too. I’ve decided I’m going it alone for eternity. Rule this place a la Elizabeth I of England and all that. Fuck that. Cilpera didn’t take a king in fourteen millennia. Clearly one is not needed for this position and I’m much better off without.”
“Again. Allow me to break down just how many parts of your statement are false.”
“You’re not understanding. You don’t get a say in what I do and don’t do. You made sure of that.”
“I made a mistake,” he enunciates slowly. “A monumental one. You can never hate me as much as I hate myself—”
“Seriously doubt that.”
“But I love you, Sol. I’m yours.”
“The next time you say that to me, I’m going to break your mouth. You see what Dy feels for Ismini? That’s love. What Zen feels for Eve—”
“Now wait a gods damned second. Zen fucked up too. He let another female kiss him.”
“He was caught off guard because he pitied breaking his mating news to her. Fucking moron, yes! But he didn’t go looking for the female with the intent to fuck her. You did that. You!” And the mere fact that he has me here, thinking about it, arguing about it, has me trapped remembering it.
Although everything around me makes me constantly remember.
I can’t get the image out of my head.
“You cannot possibly love me and have done that to me. I refuse to accept it. Besides, werewolves probably don’t even mate. That’s why you’re not capable of feeling that way about me.” You’re not mine. You wouldn’t have been able to do that if you were.
He drags his fingers through his short, navy-blue hair. “Again. Wrong. Hyrens bond. It’s a connection almost as powerful as an R’mannev.” His eyes widen and I get the feeling that he just blurted out something he hadn’t planned on telling me.
“You do? Why am I just hearing of this?”
“All species have different versions of that kind of connection. It just is what it is.” He shrugs.
Something’s going on here. It’s like a current I can sense in the air between us. He’s bursting with something, a million words unsaid, but he’s clearly holding them back. “And you are capable of doing this ‘bonding’ thing?”
“Yes.” No tone. No inflection. Giving nothing away.
“And as a god, are you also capable of developing an R’mannev?”
Same reply. Same delivery. “Yes.”
Don’t care. Doesn’t change shit. “You don’t get it. You’re not mine. And even if, gods forbid, you ever were . . . I don’t know how to forgive you. I’m not built that way. How in hell will I ever get the image of you and her out of my head?”
His expression is both tender and solemn. “How am I ever going to get the image of you and Ricky out of mine?”
I’ve come to terms with the fact that I care about his sister very, very much. Her betrayal at telling him, while understandable, still burns. “You have an imagined image in your head thanks to your sister going behind my back and telling you. I actually saw your deeds going down.”
“My sister didn’t tell me shit. I saw it through the connection she and I have.”
That twin connection Nythi told me about. Thank God I’m standing still. My legs feel numb. “You . . . you saw—”
“You throwing yourself into his arms, kissing him, how he fucking groaned while grabbing my ass.” Those belligerent words hold a world of subtext beneath them.
“I didn’t know you’d be watching. I forgot. Either way, you don’t get to complain. What we had clearly meant so little to you that you could jump from my cunt to hers within minutes. Go you. But it’s none of your business who I went to be with or not.”
He ducks his head, trying to hide his expression, but not before I see that sad frown. The same one he keeps sporting while staring at me lately. “Listen to me. I know what a dick I am. Trust me. And I’m the biggest idiot in the world ‘cause I should’ve just admitted to myself you’re the one for me—”
“You aren’t bonded or mated to me. Even if you were, I lack that bone other women have that helps them somehow overcome shit like that. I don’t care what my crazy, immortal hormones want. Even if it happens, I have a choice.”
“I’ll be the only male taking you, Sol. It’s non-negotiable.”
“You’re right. It is. And I’m saying ‘no’.”
Stricken, his head rears back, scowling incredulously. “You’re seriously telling me you prefer another male impregnating you?”
No, I don’t! But it can’t be you either, you cheating bastard! He wasn’t mine. It doesn’t constitute as cheating. Another round of futile reminders, while my heart screams, then why does it feel like he did cheat on me?! I dodge his question, hating how broken I feel. “I’m saying no one will ‘cause I’m not ready to be a mom yet. Thank you very much.”
“You won’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Again. Whyyyyyy?”
“You’ll be in heat, dealing with the pain of that, and every male within smelling distance will want in on that. It won’t end, Sol. Not until a male takes you and comes in you. Thoroughly.”
“How thoroughly?”
“Over and over again, baby. For hours. Maybe even days.”
I fall into a seated position on the bed. “I’ll be in pain during it?”
“Not at first. It’ll just be unbearable arousal and a scent that’s going to send every unmated male near you into an immediate, violent frenzy. But as time passes, and the arousal isn’t eased, there’s no way it won’t start hurting.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“No immortal female ever let it go on that long. Either that, or a male would take her.”
“That’s rape.”
“At that point, trust me it’s not.”
“It’s a biological process triggered without the female’s consent. Her body is no longer in her control. It’s rape.”
“I see your point, which I’m sure is why you can see mine. You need to pick a male willingly or isolate yourself to suffer.”
I’m already shaking my head. “This isn’t happening to me.”
“Yes it fucking is!”
“Have Ved find
a way to stop it.”
“There’s no way, Sol.”
“Immortal women are just as fertile as human women! Why does this need to happen to me?”
Some of his anger seems to leak out of him at my question. “Baby, I’m sorry. It’s definitely due in part to your unstable DNA. It’s doing great under the circumstances, but some kind of glitch was due to manifest itself in some way. Yet . . . it also happens when the Fates demand the birth of a new primal.”
“A new kind of god. The first of its kind or a holder of those type of powers.” Like me. I’m not the first being holding the powers of Conquest, but the powers themselves are the primal. Meaning I carry the title regardless.
A throb goes through me.
I glare at my crotch rebelliously. You do not get excited about the idea.
Yeah right. If this asshole had never gone to that female, I’d be on him right now, impregnating my own damned self.
Which only reminds me how much I hate him. “I don’t want you. Now I’m going to have a kid with you?”
“Kids,” he grounds out.
The nerve! “You’re expecting it to happen more than once?” I yell.
“Sol!”
“Don’t you ‘Sol’ me! You broke my fucking heart and I don’t want anything to do with you!” Holy fuck. Please tell me I didn’t just admit that aloud.
Chest racing, he tries to approach me. “Listen to me. You have every right to hate me. Every fucking right.”
“You’re damn right I do!”
“But you haven’t even talked to me. It’s been weeks and you won’t give me the chance to explain.”
My eyes water and I jump off the bed to put space between us again. “You said no explanation you give me will ever excuse it.”
“And it won’t. But there’s a ton of shit you don’t know. I know you don’t want to hear this but I fucking love you.”
I choke on my outrage. Literally choke on it.
“Baby, you know who Cyake really is.”
My brain scrambles at his abrupt change of subject. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“How I feel for you isn’t what’s in question. Why I reacted the way I did, while not good enough to erase my mistake, is much more complicated than you believe—”
Blood Drenched Conquest (Ryze Book 3) Page 35
