“And you know how to do this ritual?” Lori asked him, slightly surprised.
“Of course. It’s details were entrusted to me due to my sainthood.”
I leaned against my dresser, drumming my fingers in thought.
“George, it seems that what you know is far too useful. Could you stay with us for a while?”
The saint pulled an expression of distaste.
“I would prefer not to, since I rather value my privacy,” he told us, “but for you, yes, I shall stay.”
My relief was probably palpable at that point. What he knew would be immensely valuable to us.
“Guess I’d better get him some guest quarters arranged then,” Lorelei said, pushing herself up from the chair, and she crossed to give me a gentle hug and a soft kiss.
“Don’t go to bed without me, Eyathehn,” she told me with her usual smile, and I grinned as she left the room.
“A fine woman, your Lorelei,” George said thoughtfully, staring into his ale.
“She really is,” I said, staring at nothing in particular. “She’s been amazing since Corvi died, and now with us having our own relationship...she’s changed my life.”
“I can imagine, and I can tell she feels very strongly for you,” he told me. “In fact, a woman like her, who has been through so much and is very strong-willed, may have a little difficulty in saying she loves someone.”
I almost choked. Lorelei cared deeply for me, that much I knew, but to think she loved me? So soon in our relationship? It was absurd, surely.
But then, until half an hour previously, I had thought angels were ‘absurd’.
“Perhaps,” I said, finally moving to the other seat. “George, there’s something I need to ask you about, concerning your time with Celeste.”
“That is not a topic I like to discuss, Deimos,” he said in a very measured tone, which suggested just how little he wanted to discuss it.
“Believe me George, she’s hardly my favourite chat topic either, but there’s something I need to know.”
He sighed deeply, closing his eyes as if shutting out the pain of his memories.
“Very well.”
“When you served her, how...close was she to you?”
“I don’t quite understand, I’m afraid.”
It was my turn to sigh. It was an awkward question to ask, but I had to know if this ‘favoured child’ thing actually had any truth.
“How close were you two? What sort of relationship did you have?”
“She viewed me as...I don’t know, sort of like a child one has little patience for. I had a tendency to ignore her desires and do my own thing.”
He looked over at me again, his brow furrowed in query.
“Why ever would you ask that, of all things?”
I couldn’t look at him properly. Even though it had been against my will, the fact that Celeste had kissed me at all still felt like I had cheated on Lorelei in some fashion.
“She seems...overly obsessed with me,” I told him, still not meeting his eyes. “She considered me a ‘favoured child’, and yet she’s also talked about...well, she’s made it clear she wants me to be her lover, as well. She’s kissed me twice now, against my will I have to stress.”
George was silent for a moment, but at least it didn’t feel like he was judging me. At least, I hoped he wasn’t.
“That is vile,” he said flatly. “And yet, it may well be of use to us.”
I looked at him in sudden horror.
“What? Are you mad?”
“Occasionally, yes,” he told me, finishing his ale. “But think about it - if she’s occupied with you, she’ll be too distracted to chase after us and stop our ritual.”
“You can’t possibly mean-”
“Yes. When the ritual is ready, you give yourself to Celeste as her willing child and heir.”
I didn’t sleep that night. After almost yelling at George for such an insane suggestion, Lorelei returned and escorted him to his room. When she returned we went to bed together, but even her company couldn’t completely rid me of the worries that plagued me.
I got out of bed in the middle of the night, walked over to my chest of drawers and propped my elbows on it, staring at the wall without seeing it.
I didn’t even move when I felt Lorelei’s body pressing against mine from behind, her arms curling around my torso and her chin resting on my shoulder.
“What is it?” she asked quietly, and I squeezed my eyes shut. How could he have suggested such a thing...
“George said that...that we could use Celeste’s obsession with me,” I told her, not daring to look at her. “That when the ritual is prepared, I should go to her and give her what she wants, to distract her from the consecration.”
“Well I’m not a fan of the idea, but if he thinks it’ll help-”
“You don’t understand!” I half-cried to her. “You have no idea what it’s like being near her, what she wants from me...if I do this hon...I may not come back the same.”
She kissed my shoulder, running a hand up to my chest and holding me tighter.
“Whatever happens, hon...you know I’m always yours, right?”
“I do, and believe me, I am so thankful for having you in my life,” I said, certain the worry in my voice was exceptionally obvious. “I’m just...I’m afraid, Lori. More so than I have been for a very, very long time.”
Lorelei held me for a few minutes, just offering me her silent support, until eventually she pulled away and patted my arm.
“Come on sweetheart, come back to bed,” she said softly. “We’ll deal with this tomorrow, okay?”
Although I still couldn’t shake the worries from my mind, feeling Lorelei’s support was a greater help to me than I think she knew.
What she did the following day still came as a surprise, however.
CHAPTER 11
No rest for the wicked, no choice for the damned
I was woken up by the sound of my door closing, and Lorelei walked over to my dresser and placed something on it. I was surprised she’d even made it out of bed without waking me.
I looked at her, blinking sleep from my eyes, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, but my mind still insisted on trying to sleep.
“Glad to see you’re awake, Eyathehn,” she said in a strange tone of voice. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said she was...nervous.
“Glad to see you haven’t started the day without me,” I told her, dragging myself out of bed and walking over to my drawers.
“Don’t bother getting dressed just yet,” she commanded, and that strange tone made me comply immediately. I was starting to feel a little concerned, and her next comment didn’t help.
“We need to talk.”
Mortal relationships the world over were ended with those four words, and I did not want to lose Lorelei. It was a shock to realise, but I found the idea of being without her...it was almost painful.
She walked over to me and wrapped her arms around me, taking a deep, shuddering breath as if she was about to say something momentous.
“Deimos, I’ve been thinking,” she said, and I prepared myself for the worst. “If George thinks that Celeste’s interest in you could buy time for the ritual...I’m kind of inclined to agree.”
That was certainly unexpected. More than that, it was a concept I really didn’t want to consider.
“Lori, I can’t,” I protested. “You have no idea the effect she has on me, and you don’t know what she wants from me-”
“I know enough,” she said flatly, “and frankly you’re an idiot for not telling me, If I’d known what she was up to, we would have sorted this sooner - there is no way I am going to willingly let my man get molested by some crazed angel, fallen or otherwise. But I doubt there is any other way we can keep her distracted.”
There was a pain in her eyes that ran deep, as if she felt like she was losing me to Celeste. I wouldn’t let that happen - I was going to fight their suggestion for
as long as I could.
“Lori-”
“That’s why I brought this,” she said quickly, turning away from me as I reached out for her. She gripped the small wooden box she’d brought, looking at me apprehensively.
“I, um...I hope you don’t mind the dress,” she said, and for a moment I couldn’t comprehend what she meant.
Then I realised what seemed so off about what I was seeing - Lorelei was wearing a dress of ivory silk, with small details picked out in gold thread. It was the same dress Corvi had worn when she proposed to me.
I guess while I got Corvi’s sword, Lori got some of her other effects. I wasn’t about to begrudge her that - she looked amazing in it, even if it was slightly too short for her - but it had been a shock to see it again.
“Kneel,” Lori told me, and again I obeyed.
She kneeled in front of me, only a few inches away, and set the box to one side. She opened it up and pulled out a small blade that I also recognised - a small, ornate, silver-bladed dagger, bearing the inscription Ifallien ten’ath, surossa tien benahn.
By pain’s decree, all oaths are set.
“If I have to send you into the jaws of Hell, then I’m going to make sure that you aren’t alone,” she said with fierce determination. “Aside from that...Deimos, a lot has happened in the last three months, but I never suspected the way my feelings for you would change.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Not with words, anyway.
First, she slid the shoulders of the dress down her arms, before pulling it down to leave herself naked to the waist. Then, taking the blade in her left hand, she placed it to the right side of her neck and made a wide cut, hissing in pain as the silver bit.
“Deimos Black, our time together has made us close, and yet we remain unbound,” she said, intoning the ritual words as her blood trickled down her neck, down her collar-bone and over the curve of her breast. “Now I offer my life and my blood to you, that we might face eternity in unity. I make this vow, willingly, that only with my death will I cease to be yours, and none shall break our bond.”
I knew what she was reciting, and frankly it scared me a little. It was the version of the Rite of the Blood-Sworn Bond used in vampire-only relationships - the other version was enacted between a mortal and his or her vampire lover, a ritual I had enacted for Corvi.
Lorelei held the blade out to me, looking at me with a trace of fear in her eyes.
She was scared I would deny her.
“You know where this goes, Deimos,” she half-whispered to me. “And by the God and the Goddess, I’ll be damned if I take exile.”
Great. She was opting for the version from the Bad Old Days, which left me two options - accept her, or kill her where she kneeled.
And I refused to see another woman I cared for dead by my hand.
I gingerly took the blade and made the same cut on my own neck, grimacing against the burning pain of the silver.
“Lorelei Selano, our time has indeed made us close, and that we are unbound is a fault that shall no longer stand. I accept your life and your blood, and offer you my own in return, that we might face eternity in unity. I make this vow, willingly, that only with my death will I cease to be yours, and none shall break our bond.”
I was almost in tears as I made the vow, and yet I found I meant it.
We leaned close to each other, tasting each other’s blood from the wounds we had inflicted on ourselves. Then, as with the other version, we each kissed the blade of the knife where our blood had joined. With the mixed blood still on our lips, we leaned in to kiss each other once more, using the tips of our tongues to sample the mixed blood before we kissed.
This was something I was prepared for, having experienced it with Corvi, and the rapid flicker of memories was a lot easier to bear - Lorelei had been alive for a fraction of the time my late wife had been.
However, I didn’t know if Lorelei was prepared for the memory shock of both my own memories and the genetic memories of Corvi, so I did what my wife had done for me - I gently placed my hand on the back of her head, holding her in the kiss until the mental ‘download’ had finished.
“Deimos, I...” she started, holding me close and stroking a hand down my back. “Ish’ta vas tuan yl danem sahd tahvein,” she whispered, and I got the feeling it took a lot of strength for her to say it.
It meant ‘I gift to you my heart and soul’, a sentiment in Vampiric that was the equal of a mortal phrase, one that was far more succinct yet carried the same weight.
“I love you too,” I whispered back to her, and I felt her body tremble slightly as she quietly cried against my shoulder.
Lorelei rested for about an hour after that, which was understandable - such a large burst of memories was like being punched directly in the brain, and I speak from personal experience. I had two glasses of blood brought to us after she woke, which she downed before getting dressed into a more...functional outfit.
“That’s...a weird feeling,” she said, frowning in thought.
I knew what she meant - the psychic link that a blood-sworn bond created was always a little disconcerting at first.
“Just wait until you start having conversations using it,” I told her, sipping my own ‘drink’. “You do get used to it though, I promise.”
She looked at me and grinned, and as she did I felt a surge of the emotion that went with it - joy.
“I don’t care,” she said, still smiling. “It’s unusual...but it’s amazing being able to share your thoughts and emotions.”
I found I couldn’t speak. It was overwhelming, having that empty space in my mind filled once again, and Lorelei had a very pleasant ‘mental voice,’ although it was mostly in Italian.
So I sent her a small pulse of happiness instead, and she grinned in fresh enjoyment.
“Wow, that is...quite an experience.”
“It is. Anyway, my love-” I relished her blush as I said that - “if you’re feeling ready we should get to the office, see what we’re going to do.”
She sobered quickly, and nodded slowly.
“I guess you’re right. I can explore the hilarity of this experience later,” she said, and she couldn’t resists another smile.
I’d dressed while she rested, so we began to walk to the office together, but we were interrupted when we met Captain Weinasse, whose expression of irritation worried me.
“What’s wrong, Captain?” I asked, and he swore in German.
“That ‘George’ person who has turned up,” he said hotly. “He has called a meeting of the ranking officers of Omega Company, as well as your own subordinates. I do not like his impertinence, My Lord.”
I was furious. George had basically spat on my position by arranging his own little meeting, for whatever ridiculous plan he had. I had to go to Ops and find out what was going on.
I also felt Lori’s own anger at his actions, and the fact that she was angry for me - she respected my position, even as my aide and girlfriend.
She ignored it a lot of the time, but she respected it.
All three of us turned down the corridor that led to Ops, and all of us were pissed.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
George looked over at me, turning away from the gathered officers and vampires for a moment.
“Ah, glad to see you could join-”
“Shut it, George,” I snapped, and his lip twitched in buried anger. “You just subverted my authority to call your own stupid meeting, and I want to know why.”
“Because you know what has to be done, and you refuse to do it,” he shot back, ignoring the others in the room. “You know that our best course of action is to give yourself to Celeste while we arrange the ritual-”
“You have no idea what that will mean!” I shouted, a mixture of anger and fear flooding through me. “You’ve got no right to send me off, without any regard for my life!”
“I have to agree,” Lorelei ad
ded, and George looked at her in surprise.
“Really, Contessa? You were all for the plan when I told you about it earlier.”
Lorelei scoffed, and her disgust at his presumption echoed down our newly-forged link.
“I agreed it was our only option, that’s hardly being ‘all for it’.” Her tone was hard and flat, a clear indication that she hated the idea. “Deimos is my boyfriend - I’m hardly going to be excited about throwing him to the wolves.”
“It’s the only way we live!” George snarled. “You were told, Deimos, that The Order’s methods are sometimes unpleasant, but they are necessary. Why should your own actions be any different? Either you do this, or Celeste gets her way and we all die, or at best become servants to her insane will.”
No matter how much I argued against it, no matter how much I thought about it, I had to admit that I couldn’t see any other way through. She had to know we would be planning to move against her; if I went to her and gave myself to her, then she would be unlikely to worry about the rest of The Order, at least for a while.
I realised I had no choice in this matter whatsoever, and I finally gave in to the inevitable.
I sighed heavily, hanging my head in defeat.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “I’ll go. But I can not be held responsible for whatever happens when I come back...if I come back.”
A sudden spike of sorrow went through my mind, and Lorelei gripped my hand tight.
“So, George,” I began, my tone filled with contempt, “exactly what is your master plan?”
As it turned out, George’s grand plan was...to not tell me the plan.
He believed that Celeste would probably want to taste my blood, partially because she wouldn’t trust me after I attacked her, and partially because she was messed-up enough to do something like that.
Of Angel's Blood (Chronicles of The Order Book 2) Page 16
