by Aja James
Valerius made short work of the vampire with the severed legs, but wrapped the lightning chains around the last remaining vampire in a suffocating squeeze.
“Where is the Horde?” Valerius asked quietly, willing his patience to last a little longer. “Who is your Master?”
This last blood-sucker was no yellowtail, unlike Valerius’ first prey of the night. He hissed menacingly at the Protector like a cornered cobra, baring his elongated fangs, dripping with saliva from the adrenaline of the fight.
These four were trained assassins, Valerius reflected back upon their combat maneuvers and stealth. They’d almost succeeded in their ambush. It occurred to him that the first vampire could have been bait. He didn’t just happen to encounter these vampires by accident. Someone had orchestrated this attack with foresight. And he had been targeted for a reason.
Without wasting more words, Valerius tightened his hold of the chains, pulled out the dagger still embedded in the flesh of his side and whipped it in a sideways arc toward the immobilized vampire, cleanly beheading the male.
Four piles of ashes fluttered in his wake as Valerius walked out of the alley, barely breaking stride despite his wounds. They should be healed in a few hours at the most. He could already feel the tissues knitting together in his side and the skin starting to pucker around the gash at his hip.
With single-minded efficiency, the Protector reached his Hayabusa, yanked on his helmet and gunned the engine to life, racing out of South End toward the bright lights of Prudential Tower, where the Shield was based, well hidden beneath the Christian Science Plaza.
*** *** *** ***
“You need Nourishment,” Wan’er said with a concerned frown as she ran the fine-tooth ebony Changzhou comb through Rain’s knee-length silvery white hair, each strand glinting like a moonbeam in the soft lamp light.
It was actually an easy task to comb the requisite one hundred strokes through the silky length, for each strand of hair had a life of its own, flowing through the teeth of the comb and arching in pleasure like a feline getting a rub along its spine.
Indeed, the Healer never needed to arrange her hair, despite its thickness and length, for each individual silken tendril knew its place precisely. When she relaxed, as she did now, Rain’s hair flowed loosely down her back like a river of diamonds. When she needed ease of movement, her hair obediently twisted itself into a fishtail braid, lying like a thick long rope down her back or coiling into an intricate bun at the base of her neck.
The Healer’s hair was her unique Gift.
There was only one Healer at any given time among the Pure Ones, and Rain’s predecessor had a different Gift. Rain’s hair served as both a healing instrument as well as a deadly weapon when she required.
As a healing instrument, it spread around her and her patient like a suspended web before tensing into micro-thin needles that inserted into the patient’s pores where needed, in the manner of acupuncture needles. The difference was that each strand of hair also served as a conductor of energy from the Healer to her patient, soothing the pain and ultimately mending the wound, as well as invigorating the recipient with renewed energy.
In exchange, the strands drew out the pain from the wounded into the Healer, where she used her inner qi to ameliorate and dissipate the pain. However, some remnant of the sting would remain, making the process occasionally difficult to bear for the Healer. But Rain had over two and a half millennia to practice, succeeding most of the time in sealing away the pain, only to be released every ten years during the Phoenix Cycle.
As a weapon, the braided rope had the tensile strength of steel cables, but was far more flexible. Rain seldom engaged in combat, but if she were ever endangered, she could more than adequately handle herself, provided she was near her full physical strength. She used her roped hair like a whip against her opponents. One flick from it did more damage than a swipe from a samurai sword, for the whip blazed a trail as wide as its circumference. Other times, she’d break a few inches off a couple of strands and throw them like needles with deadly accuracy into the exact nerves that would immobilize or
incapacitate her attackers.
Rain never dealt the lethal blow, however. It went against her very essence to kill.
Normally, her hair flowed behind her like an elegant long cape, and when she moved, there was a slightly delayed reaction for every action, as if her hair was suspended in water rather than air. For the most part it behaved like any part of her body, as an extension of Rain’s person.
But sometimes… sometimes it had a mind of its own.
“The Rite begins in two days, followed by the Cycle,” Rain calmly responded to her handmaiden’s urging, “I shall recover very shortly. Do not worry yourself so.”
Rain referred to the thirty day reenergizing period which would begin after she chose her new Consort from the Rite of the Phoenix. Over that time, her body and soul would replenish its strength like a reservoir filling with nourishing rain after an extended drought. Her silvery hair would gradually turn back to its midnight blue-black, and her complexion would transform from the translucent ice it was now to a less fragile, richer porcelain tone. Her body would fill out slightly with deeper curves, but she would never be voluptuous.
More than once, she’d wondered whether he preferred a woman with curves and, therefore, found her too unappealing to apply for. Currently, she was so drained she looked rather like a ghost of herself, her wrists so thin they were smaller than a child’s. No wonder he never looked upon her.
Rain smiled wryly, silently chiding herself for her petulant thoughts.
As if reading her mind, Wan’er huffed with indignation on her lady’s behalf, “The Protector should beg to be your Consort, but I suppose he’s too full of his own importance to apply to Serve you. If he had been the one who provided your Nourishment ten years ago, your strength would surely not have faded to the extent that it has.”
True enough. Valerius’ strength would have surpassed Rain’s last Consort ten, twenty times. Qualified Pure-males were more and more difficult to come by, and Rain refused to take the same male more than once as Consort. Though she tried her best to make it easier, those thirty days of Service were exhausting at best, torturous at worst. No male needed a repeat experience – not that they didn’t volunteer.
But more than that, Rain did not want to risk too much attachment. She could not afford to repeat the past.
“If he had been my Consort, what would I have to look forward to?” Rain teased with a mischievous smile, enjoying her handmaiden’s momentary sputtering.
More solemnly Rain replied, “It is his choice to apply or not. Perhaps it’s for the best that he doesn’t, for he is much needed in other spheres, especially in these urgent times.”
Wan’er gave the glistening white mass one last stroke and sighed. “Very well, I shall not belabor the point, as you will certainly defend him to the end.”
Rain looked at her handmaiden in the mirror and gave her a cajoling smile, attempting to improve her mood. Wan’er moved away to fold her lady’s day dress discarded on the bed, arranged a few things more neatly, bowed a bit more stiffly than usual, and left the room.
Rain waved her handmaiden goodnight and looked back at her reflection in the mirror. The only points of color from head to toe were her sleek black brows, eyes and rose-red lips.
She looked like a Japanese Kabuki doll, she thought with a weary sigh. Not a very attractive vision unless one tended toward the macabre.
She glided slowly to her bed, crawled beneath the satin coverlet, and lay still on her back, her hair fanned out around her sides, not a single strand beneath her. Rain closed her eyes, took a relaxing deep breath and wondered whether she would see him again in her dreams.
She hoped so. It was the part of her day she looked forward to the most.
*** *** *** ***
The next morning Valerius struggled to rise, his body weighed down by an invisible force. He pulled himself to a sitting
position by sheer force of will and ground his teeth against the burning pain in his side and hip.
This did not bode well.
He should have healed completely by now. Checking both wounds, he saw that the skin had already closed perfectly, but angry blackish-purple bruises remained, indicating clearly where the spatha had grazed his hip and where the nine-inch dagger had pierced through his side.
He staggered to his feet and pulled on loose black shirt and trousers, his fingers barely able to tie the drawstring at his waist. He shook his head as if to banish the pain to a corner of his mind to reexamine when he had more time. Right now he needed to brief the Dozen.
As he strode briskly down the hall directly underneath the Christian Science Plaza’s long rectangular pool, he saw through the one-way glass ceiling that served as the bottom of the shallow pool that the sun had already reached its zenith.
How had he slept half a day away? And still his wounds had not completely healed.
Squaring his shoulders, he determined to ignore his body’s protests. He entered the throne room where the Circlet and four of the Elite gathered just in time to see three Pure-males he did not recognize go down on one knee before the Healer.
Though he normally would have turned about face and walked right back out before anyone noticed his presence, desperate was he to avoid being in the same room with the Healer, he found himself rooted to the floor.
“We would be honored to Serve you, my lady,” the three Pure-males said in unison.
Rain gestured for them to rise and nodded to each of them in turn. “The honor is mine,” she replied, briefly touching her hand to each of the jade rings on the third fingers of the three males’ right hands, flattened against their hearts in solemn pledge.
Valerius bristled all over at the ephemeral touch as if every fiber of his being protested against the Healer having any contact with a male other than –
Himself.
Valerius willed his body to calm down. What possessed him? He had no claim whatsoever on the fragile Healer. He’d made that abundantly clear by not applying to Serve her.
Again.
He watched stoically as the Pure Ones’ Consul, Seth Tremaine, spoke with the three qualified males in low tones. He didn’t hear anything that was said, the roaring in his ears drowning out everything else. All of his concentration zeroed in on Rain, hungrily taking in her graceful form.
His heart squeezed painfully at her too slender curves, too narrow shoulders, and too thin hands. He hated himself in that moment. If only he weren’t so selfish. If only he could overcome his demons. She did not deserve to wither away like this while he had the Nourishment she needed.
Still he could not move as the conversation with the guests subsided and Wan’er led them toward the throne room’s exit, the Healer following close behind.
As she passed, the handmaiden speared him with a lethal look but otherwise ignored his presence. The three Pure-males regarded him with curiosity and even wariness at the animosity he unconsciously radiated toward them.
Rain passed by him last, meeting his feverish gaze with widened eyes. He had always avoided looking at her directly. She was obviously not expecting him to now. Her initial surprise quickly turned into a look of concern, however, as her brows knitted slightly as if she couldn’t figure something out.
It was all he could do not to sink to both knees in front of her and beg to Service her needs. His teeth hurt from how hard he was clenching his jaw; sweat beaded in a fine sheen over his entire body as he struggled not to reach out to her.
At something one of the applicant Pure-males’ said, Rain reluctantly turned away and progressed down the corridor to the inner chambers.
Finally uprooting himself from his frozen stance, Valerius shut the throne room double doors with a resounding slam and came upon the startled royal council with a few furious strides.
“Only three,” he ground out without preamble. “And even our trainees could best those striplings.”
The first to recover from his surprise, the Consul drawled, “You could always volunteer yourself, Val.”
Valerius pierced him with a ferocious look and spat, “You know nothing.”
Seth’s eyebrows elevated a fraction, but he chose not to respond.
Ayelet interceded with a soothing hand on Valerius’ forearm, trying to calm the incensed warrior. “There were few options this year, Val. You know as well as I we have been losing too many good males to the war.”
“Then you,” Valerius pointed in turn to the three unmated Elite males, “should offer your Service again. Any one of you is ten times as strong as those three boys.” In the back of his mind he knew he was being abominably selfish for even making the suggestion, when he had not even Served the Healer once. But he felt helpless and angry. Desperate.
Like the walls were closing in.
The Spartan Leonidas folded his arms over his massive chest and responded, a challenging glint in his eyes, “We have made the offer. Many times, over many centuries. But you know full well that the Healer, Rain, does not take the same Consort more than once. You can no more convince her to bend that rule than bend your own.”
Valerius knew all of this. Why did he even bother mentioning it? He almost wished he’d grown out his hair so he could yank it out now in frustration.
No, it was more than frustration, it was fear.
He feared for his people’s well-being, feared for the Healer’s strength and endurance, feared for his own sanity if anything should happen to her while knowing that he could have prevented it.
Determinedly, he shook off those feelings. There were other pressing matters to attend to.
“When will our Queen and Tristan be back?” he suddenly changed topics, intending to brief the council when all twelve, save the Healer, were together.
A frown flickered on Seth’s face at Valerius’ use of “Queen.” The warrior was seldom formal about rank as it pertained to Sophia unless there was serious issue at hand.
As if conjured up by his words, Sophia entered with Tristan at her side from the East wing, apparently coming in straight from classes, shoulder bag with her laptop and books dangling casually on her arm.
“That was fun,” Sophia said with sarcasm and a roll of her eyes by way of greeting, “Next time, Tristan, can you please find a place to wait outside the classroom? Preferably outside view of anyone? I don’t appreciate the disruptions during what could have been a stimulating lecture and wasting my time waiting for hormonally charged girly girls to back off you at the end of class. Geez!” To emphasize her displeasure, Sophia struck a pose of annoyance with hands on hips.
Tristan scratched the back of his neck in
embarrassment and pulled off an apologetic sheepish look. Frankly, he didn’t enjoy getting mauled by teenage girls either. He made straight for his Mate Ayelet and gave her a full kiss on her amused mouth and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
The young queen rolled her eyes again at her Elite guard for the day in the universal code for “whatever” and directed her attention to the gathered Dozen.
“So what’s up?” she asked, looking first to Ayelet, then to Seth. “Looks like something serious if all of you are here in one place in the middle of the day. Nothing amiss with the Rite, I hope? Is Rain okay?”
But it was Valerius who answered, though he brushed aside her last two questions, “I was ambushed during the hunt last night.”
That got everyone’s attention immediately. Leonidas was the first to respond. As the Pure Ones’ Sentinel, it was his duty to ensure the safety of the Royal Zodiac. “Do you know which Horde? Who was their Master?”
Valerius shook his head grimly. “They were professional assassins. And the civilian vampire they used to bait me was uninformed.” He tilted his head in a sudden flash of recognition. “They were old. At least a thousand years. Their weapons were of the ancient world. One of them used a spatha.”
Leonidas took in that piece of informat
ion contemplatively, rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger. He exchanged a knowing look with Aella, the Strategist, who narrowed her eyes in calculation.
Valerius spoke of a straight sword measuring about three feet, used throughout first millennium Europe and the territory of the Roman Empire until the seventh century, mostly in war and in gladiator arenas. Whoever their Master was, she was very old, and therefore very powerful.
It was not definitive that the Master was a female, but it was very likely. Female vampires were generally older and more powerful. Though they might not have been the first vampire, they were the earliest vampires.
Some believed that females craved love and the rarest of Pure Ones’ treasures, children, and were therefore more prone to take risks finding the right Mate, while males more stoically focused on the Pure Ones’ Cause. Others believed that because females fed from males in the corporal sense, and males drew from the spiritual, it stood to reason that the first Pure Ones to deviate from their Path, taking the blood of humans, were females. However, the latter belief was less widely held because vampires also took human souls. And any modern feminist might also reject the first belief as well.
Whichever the case, vampire society mirrored that of Pure Ones, meaning that it was a matriarchal society led by one Queen for each Hive. Dominant male vampires tended to run solo or at most at the head of a small, loosely formed pack, called a Horde. Aside from that, they were seldom found in the company of others of their breed. Those males who did not serve a Hive or belong to a Horde were called Rogues.
Which meant that the well-organized assassins who attacked Valerius more likely reported to a female Master than a male, though both were possibilities. Aella did a quick mental survey. The closest Hive was in New York City, and Jade Cicada was its Queen.
As if hearing her thoughts, Seth voiced out loud, “Jade would not make a move that all but declares war on us. Not when she’s trying to rein in the rogue vampires herself. She would have disguised the assassins if she truly wanted to take one of us out without discovery.”
