Never Show Fear

by Nicola Claire

  The guard’s not alarmed. In fact, he thinks better of Alain for it.

  Vampires.

  I sigh, run a hand through my hair, and push open Alain’s bedroom door.

  He’s still naked. Lounging out on an armchair. Face flushed with blood and more. Alain is a striking example of vampire prowess. And he knows it.

  He also knows his prowess did nothing for my sister.

  Her sights were set elsewhere. And always had been, long before Hakan appeared in her world.

  I sit down opposite my Kindred, and we just stare at each other.

  I don’t ask him to dress; he’s not doing so on purpose. It’s his way to tell me.

  He felt everything Zahra and I did.

  And yet, I didn’t feel what he did at all.

  “Bit of a mess, huh?” I murmur.

  “Oui,” he says, much like my father, slipping into his native tongue when emotional.

  I want to apologise, but I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t ask for this; plan for this. Our kindred-joining was fucked. So Dark. Without the entwining, we’d be dead.

  He’s alive because of Zahra, as am I. We should be thankful.

  Survive at all costs.

  Except I get to love Zahra and have her love in return, and he gets to feel it all.

  “There’ll be a way to mute it,” I tell him.

  “You do not know this for sure.”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.” He’s my Kindred.

  “It blocks the thoughts,” he says, almost blurts.

  “What thoughts?” But it’s not necessary to ask. I already know. Feeling what Zahra and I share, blocks his thoughts of Ellie.

  He’s broken, my friend. Completely and utterly broken. My father did this. Set him up for a kindred-joining, gave him someone to hunt and then consequently fall for. And then took his prey away right when Alain was finally able to grasp it.

  I love my father. And I know he did it to protect Ellie and me. But sometimes, I can’t help being angry with Papa. So fucking angry.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because what else is there to say to him?

  Alain nods his head and says nothing.

  We sit in silence for a long time, and then I get up and leave.

  I go back to Zahra.

  I go back because it’s easier than staying and trying to save my friend when it’s impossible to save him from this.

  We’re kindred-joined, Alain and me. If he dies, I should die also. But I’m also entwined with a Mhachkay, and as long as Zahra lives, I can’t die.

  Where does that leave Alain?

  * * *

  Ekram and his contingent of thralls and their familiars don’t attack the next day. Or the day after. They’ve entrenched themselves in the city centre, in the grandest building outside of the Mhachkay stronghold itself.

  An old mosque with sprawling arched stonework and domed ceilings. It’s not as big or imposing as the Mhachkay castle, but it says something about Ekram that he chose it over anything less obvious.

  He wants what Hakan has.

  “Is he even of royal blood?” I ask Zahra as we get dressed for another night of feasting and waiting. And, unfortunately, not fucking because that would mean Alain would feel it all.

  I haven’t come up with a solution to our problem, and I’ve spent every available moment in the impressive Mhachkay library, pouring over old tomes that speak of the Black Arts.

  Zahra doesn’t have an answer to our problem either. What she’s created, apparently, has never been done before.

  I know in my heart of hearts that this is going to require lateral thinking. Zahra says there are no rules, only what we make of them. I’m planning on breaking a few to save Alain.

  He’s my Kindred.

  But more than that, he is my friend.

  “No, of course not,” Zahra says. “He is of noble blood, but not royalty. Hakan and I are the last of our line.”

  “So, technically, you’re next in line to the Mhachkay crown?”

  “After the twins.”

  “The twins haven’t been born yet, Princess.”

  She glares at me, but I hear her thoughts. I see what she wishes to do to me. And I want it. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.

  And then I’m thinking about Alain getting hard because I’m getting hard and all thoughts of Zahra on her knees, sucking me off while I’m half-dressed are out the window.

  I clear my throat, and Zahra turns away, hiding her emotions.

  She can’t hide them all from me. Only those she wears on the outside.

  Inside, there is little place left that she has secrets.

  I have none where she is concerned, either.

  That’s why she’s worried.

  We dress in silence after that and then make our way to the grand hall. Breakfast, which is really the evening meal, is over. Hakan is in his office with his war council and spies; I half expect to see Alain there as well, offering up solicitous advice.

  He isn’t.

  I’m not Mhachkay, although I am entwined with Zahra. I could stay and learn something, maybe even help. But I don’t.

  I go in search of Alain, and after a moment, I realise that Zahra is as well.

  “You don’t have to come with me,” I tell her.

  “He is your friend, your Kindred. So he is also mine.”

  Not really. Friend, maybe, given time. Kindred, no. He’s only my Kindred. Never hers. Or anyone else’s. But I welcome her company nonetheless.

  I have no answers.

  I only have my presence.

  But maybe my presence doesn’t soothe like it used to, because Alain’s shoulders are hunched, up around his ears, when we find him. He’s in the exercise ring, in the centre of the castle. He’s been battling several Mhachkay, even a couple of Erbörü in their animal forms.

  Alain is a superb fighter. A master swordsman. He’s elegance in motion. He’s also sporting several lacerations across his bare chest.

  “We told him he should don armour,” one of the Mhachkay males explains to Zahra when she glares at him. “He refused.”

  “He is a warrior,” Zahra tells the male. The vampire nods, respect in his thoughts and demeanour.

  “That he is, Cadı,” he agrees.

  “But he has not fought me,” she murmurs.

  I’m not sure I like where this is going. But Alain is refusing to look at Zahra, probably because he fears his emotions, his attraction, will show.

  My heart picks up pace, my palms sweat. I pray to the goddess that Ekram attacks in the next twenty seconds and stops this from progressing.

  Be at ease, aşkım, Zahra says inside my head.

  I don’t bother replying; she can read my thoughts.

  I don’t like this.

  The Mhachkay warriors all step back and form a ring of muscle and leather around the courtyard. I cross my arms over my chest and scowl at Zahra and Alain.

  Alain’s no coward and knows he’s been backed into a corner. He meets the Witch’s smoke-filled gaze with red-rimmed but challenging eyes.

  Sweat glistens on his body; his muscles finely etched from his previous workout. I wonder if Zahra is impressed. My mind brushes against hers, and she opens wide.

  Yes, she finds him attractive, but in an abstract way that soothes my pride. He is not her Entwined, but he is Kindred to her Entwined, so there is an existing connection there which is amplified by the feedback Alain is receiving from me when I look at Zahra.

  It’s complicated and messy and oh, dear Nut, I don’t want this for any of us.

  We have to find a way to break this connection. We have to. Before it’s too late. What too late means, I do not know, but I fear it.

  I have no answers, though, and Zahra has no answers, either. So, we are doomed to this quasi-life shared between the three of us. Feeling things that are not ours to feel. What will become of us?

  This was not a prob
lem I foresaw when I considered facing my future with Zahra.

  They circle each other, the two most important people in my life, stare at each other, watch each other’s graceful bodies for signs of attack; the feedback loop between us amplifies and becomes something it should not.

  It’s almost agreeable. But I am half-vampire. I cannot share what is mine. I can not.

  A shoulder bumps casually into mine, but I don’t turn to see it’s Ellie. I know she’s there. The other half of me. She watches silently with me as Alain and Zahra battle. It’s exquisite. A dance. A ballet that pulls me in.

  I hate it. I hate that something as simple and mesmerising as a mock battle does not feel right.

  Ellie’s hand lands on her stomach, breaking my dark thoughts.

  “They’re kicking?” I ask.

  “They’re doing something,” she says.

  My eyes return to the battle.

  Zahra is beautiful, stunning, a symphony in motion. Alain falters, feeling my attraction, thinking it is his.

  I look away. My eyes connect with my sister’s again.

  “What’s wrong, Luc?” she asks.

  I want to tell her. But she has enough going on.

  “Nothing,” I say and turn to walk away from the fight. I can’t do this; watch this. I can’t.

  I make it two steps before an almighty crash behind me drags my attention back, reluctantly. The battle has become something else, something dangerous. Alain is icily cold in his rage and desperation. Zahra is cool and detached in her effort to press an issue I don’t understand.

  What is she doing? What’s happening?

  I take a single step toward them and notice Ellie has her eyes closed, her face screwed up in concentration. Her hand still cradles her slightly swollen belly. The unborn twins in her womb are so precious that even then I do not comprehend what’s going on.

  Alain lands a blow that knocks Zahra back on her rear, calling my attention back to the battle. She flips back to her feet in the next instant, countering his attack with one of her own. It’s exquisite.

  But I’m concerned about Ellie. She hasn’t moved. She’s barely breathing. Light shimmers all around her.

  I reach my sister’s side and consider calling out for Hakan, but the battle between Zahra and Alain intensifies again, drawing my attention once more.

  I’m torn.

  My heart in my throat, I watch as my best friend tries to take the head of the woman I have fallen in love with; of my Entwined. In a moment of confusion and indecision, I simply stand there and watch.

  But Zahra dances lithely out of his reach and swirls around the courtyard in a blur of smoke as black as the night.

  And the Mhachkay watching start to chant.

  What’s going on?

  What are you doing? I ask Zahra, silently.

  Have faith, she says. But she can’t be doing what I think she’s doing, can she?

  She’s tried before to break the Kindred connection between Alain and me. She tried to make it into something else, and she almost succeeded. She managed to entwine us, her and me, but the entwining did not break me free of the joining with Alain. It changed it into something not Dark. Black maybe? But even though she is a Cadı of Muska, she was not able to destroy that connection.

  I do not know why she tries to do so again.

  Have faith, aşkım, she repeats. You must trust what you cannot see; trust beyond your own perceptions.

  I shake my head and then Ellie collapses to one knee.

  The castle becomes chaos, then. If we are attacked now, we will be dust before dawn.

  But Ekram does not attack, giving us a reprieve that is much needed. Instead, Hakan appears at his Entwined’s side as Ellie lets out a cry of distress.

  The battle stops and I am beside Zahra in the next heartbeat. Relieved it’s over or paused. Just relieved for now it is done. Whatever she tried to do, she clearly failed. And now is not the right time to trust in unseen things as she suggested. Ellie could be losing her unborn babies.

  Alain is distraught with worry. He paces and snarls, a vampire on edge. I study him from the corner of my eye, as I watch Hakan and Ellie. It takes a moment for me to understand Alain’s thoughts, to comprehend what it is he is feeling. In the next heartbeat, he has my full attention.

  I am shocked. Stunned. Where once his desire for Ellie was firmly rooted, he now worries for her babies.

  I look back at Ellie as Hakan cradles her, issuing orders to his vampires who rush to fill his every need. Ellie is no longer panting or crying, but she is scared, curved over on herself; protecting her body; protecting the unseen babies.

  You must trust what you cannot see.

  I close my eyes and let the Black smoke take me. It swirls around us and up into the night sky. It reaches the heavens and falls back down to earth, wrapping around Ellie and her babies. Hakan says something; perhaps a command for me to pull back. I’m not yet a master at this, but it feels right, so I ignore the irate Kral and seek that which I cannot see.

  A thread exists where once it had not been. A tie that binds in a different way, yet is just as strong, just as compelling. My eyes snap open and meet Zahra’s. She blinks at me.

  Oh, my Entwined says, silently. I did not think that was possible. Neither did I. Neither did any of us.

  I test the ties that have existed since the joining. I search for the unseen urgently, frantically, and can’t find them.

  I look with eyes as wide as his at Alain.

  “It’s gone,” he says simply.

  “What’s gone?” Hakan demands.

  “Their joining,” Ellie tells him, having seen what a Nosferatin can see. We look at her as Alain takes a small step toward my sister. The woman he hunted and lost.

  I check his heart now, and find it hard to read. His thoughts, though, like all thoughts that surround me, are crystal clear. It is not my sister who draws him near the Mhachkay King and Queen. It is the children. The twins. The unseen.

  She told me our children would change the world. What power is this that can break a joining when a Mhachkay Cadı of Muska could not?

  It’s a little frightening.

  “Oh, no,” Ellie says, and in her thoughts I see mine reflected back at me. “What was she thinking?”

  “Who?” Hakan almost shouts.

  “Nut,” Ellie and I say together. “Our goddess,” I add, “has plans we can only dream of.”

  Alain lands on his knees beside my sister and her Entwined, he reaches out a hand, pausing to seek permission to touch Ellie. Hakan growls a warning. Ellie softly touches her mate’s cheek, reassuring him silently. I hear the words, but they are so private, I turn my mind elsewhere automatically.

  Elsewhere is Alain, the vampire who until just recently was my Kindred.

  He is no more.

  But I seek him out all the same, because for so long now, he has been tied to me through the joining. Even without the joining, I can tell I feel something deep for the spymaster. A friendship that has grown beyond mere friend to something akin to brotherhood.

  He glances at me and smiles; a smile I have not seen on Alain’s face for years now. His eyes return to Ellie and in their depths I see only caring.

  He no long hunts, nor does he grieve.

  My friend, my brother, is no longer broken.

  I fall to my knees on the ground, trying to breathe. Trying not to let the tears of relief, that threaten to fall down, rain all around me.

  Zahra wraps her arms about me; she grounds me; she tethers me when I have lost a tie that bound me to this mortal realm. I do not miss it. Not really. But the kindred-joining had been such a big part of me for so long, that its absence does feel strange to me.

  Ellie reaches out and grasps Alain’s hand and then guides it to her belly.

  “Tell me what you feel?” she asks.

  We all wait with bated breath.

  “Home,” Alain says simply. “I feel like I have come home at last.”

  I
don’t know what this means, but I do no one thing.

  Alain is connected now to the twins, who have somehow broken the connection he had with me. Why? I’ve no idea. I should probably care. But all I can think is my Entwined is finally my own.

  I am blissfully happy.

  * * *

  I lie on the bed Zahra and I have called our own and touch her until she comes for the untold time.

  It’s the single most poignant sexual moment of my life.

  She is mine.

  I lick her neck.

  She shudders.

  My fangs scrape against the skin above her artery.

  She almost comes undone again.

  I bite and drink, and suck down Zahra’s blood. Zahra’s lips find my neck in turn, and then all bets are off.

  We drink. We touch. Our minds become one.

  There is no other intruding. There is no one but ourselves to think of.

  Zahra shares an image with me. I moan against her neck. She shudders when I think of a different position back at her. I don’t have the wherewithal to counter her next visual attack.

  Our bodies writhe and rub, our hands desperate, our throats convulsing with each other’s blood. It’s erotic and addictive, and all ours. No one else’s.

  Any thoughts of Alain and what he once was are lost to the beauty of the moment. To this woman that I love.

  We make love. It’s singularly the most beautiful moment of my life. I’ve never been one to share what is mine, and I couldn’t have shared Zahra to save myself. I’m not sure what would have happened. I can’t think about it now. The twins saved us.

  What has Nut created?

  Zahra feels what I feel. She comes when I come. It’s more intense than the first time, as if our lovemaking has been whittled down to its base emotions now it’s just the two of us. It’s cathartic. It’s not rushed, or awkward, or new. It’s just us.

  The night progresses, and no thralls attack the castle; we’re lost in our love. We’re lost to each other.

  There is no one else.

  I can’t think those words enough.

  I realise, sometime before dawn, as we lie on the bed, tangled up in each other, that I feel lighter than I have for months. Searching within, I realise that that feeling is actually Lighter with a capital L.