by Naima Simone
“It’s why we’re here,” Sinéad injected. “We need the Cross, Cyra. It is the only thing able to heal him.”
And me.
A surge of guilt washed over her like filthy bath water. The stink and oily residue clung to her soul. She hadn’t been completely forthcoming with Bastien. True, the guardians of the Blood Cross couldn’t use its power for personal gain…but Sinéad was no longer one of those guardians. She was human. While both of them could go into the Cross’ presence, only one would be granted healing. The Cross would recognize her touch but Bastien, on the other hand, was unknown to the Cross, had never touched it. She needed him to access the relic’s power, but she would be the recipient of its benefits.
Another shaft of shame knifed her heart and she suppressed an instinctive flinch. Duplicity didn’t sit well with her. She wasn’t used to subterfuge, had never had the use for it. But in this matter of life and death, she willingly shouldered the burden. Bastien could live with his condition. Would his life be the same as before? No, but he would live. Immortal.
Her? Every day that passed she inched closer to death. And not just the deterioration of her physical body. Her soul screamed for freedom, her spirit yearned for the sky, for the air rushing under her wings. Every morning she woke as a mortal, she died a spiritual death, the pain as searing as if someone plunged a dagger in her chest over and over.
She couldn’t spend another day—another moment—in this body. And if it meant betraying Bastien to free herself from this hell, she would do it and bear the weight of guilt as her sentence…a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Cyra stared at Sinéad, the cruxim’s features twisted in an expression Sinéad would have never expected to see on another cruxim—torture, grief, loathing. It reached out to her like grasping, tainted fingers.
“Cyra?” Sinéad whispered. Bastien stirred, a subtle movement that placed him in front of her, his wide shoulder an unyielding barrier between Sinéad and the other female. She circled him, moving closer to Cyra and disregarding Bastien’s rumble of displeasure. They had nothing to fear from the cruxim. Her anger and pain were all self-directed. “Cyra,” she repeated, “what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“I thought your scent was different,” she said. She shuffled forward, her customary grace gone. “Human,” she rasped. “How?”
“Another side effect of the feeding. In the giving of blood, I lost my immortality.” Sinéad crossed the room, meeting Cyra halfway. She reached out to grasp the cruxim’s hand but, just as she’d paused with Bastien earlier, lowered her arm at the last moment. Maybe the female wouldn’t be receptive to the overture. Compassion was a human affliction, not cruxim. “Sister,” she urged, “tell me. What’s wrong?”
“You couldn’t know,” Cyra murmured. “Human. No way you could know.”
“Know what?” Sinéad asked, impatience and anxiety sharpening her voice.
“The Cross,” the cruxim whispered. “The Cross is gone. Stolen.” Cyra swallowed and closed her eyes. When she reopened them, shame glimmered in their ethereal depths. “I lost it.”
“No.” Shock, sickening shock, crashed into Sinéad, almost knocking her off her feet. Icy talons clutched her tight, wringing the breath from her body until Cyra’s words echoed in her head like a death knell. “No.”
Cyra nodded. “My fault.”
The pain behind the hoarse admission scraped like a dull knife’s edge over Sinéad’s psychic nerve endings. Unable to not respond to the suffering, she embraced the agony, hatred and guilt with invisible arms, drew them from Cyra into her flesh, her soul. Several seconds later, she released the emotions on a low breath.
Again Cyra lowered her head, this time in gratitude. “Thank you, sister,” she said, her voice still rough but not as bleak. The female inhaled and a delicate shiver shuddered through her slim frame. “This is my shame,” she began. “Nef forgive me.” A harsh bark of laughter breached her throat. “Though I doubt there is absolution for what I allowed to happen.” She sighed and backed away, placing space between herself and Sinéad. She leaned against the bookshelf as if seeking solace from the well-worn novels. “My conditioning is broken. I fell in love. Nef help me, I fell in love and didn’t realize he was the enemy until it was too late.”
Sweet Lady. My conditioning is broken. No wonder Cyra’s pain had been so sharp…so fresh. Like Sinéad, this cruxim possessed a talent grounded in emotion. The female’s sire had been an incubus, a demon who fed on pleasure through sex. As a result, Cyra had inherited the male’s appetites. But where Sinéad recycled and healed emotional suffering, Cyra feasted on it. Pleasure, desire, anger, pain, fear—the cruxim siphoned other beings’ feelings and they strengthened her like a power plant. The two of them had been reared together, and had received the same rigorous training due to the nature of their gifts—gifts that made them more susceptible than other cruxim to their conditioning weakening. As Cyra’s had.
Cyra’s suffering radiated like a blazing furnace. Betrayed by a lover. As you will do to Bastien. He wasn’t her lover and he didn’t love her. Yes, damn it, she was arguing with herself and splitting hairs.
“His name was Ryn. We met on the Strip about a year ago while I hunted. Three vampires tried to ambush me and he intervened, fought by my side to defeat them.” A small, bitter smile twisted her lips. “A careful and smart ruse. He was not from here, but he stayed and we grew closer. I loved him and I, mistakenly—foolishly—believed he felt the same.” She turned her head, stared at the dark window and crossed her arms. The gesture struck Sinéad as protective rather than defiant. “One night while he slept, I went to the basement to tend the Cross—”
“Tend the Cross?” Bastien asked, speaking for the first time since Cyra had begun her tale.
Cyra glanced at Sinéad and she nodded. “He can be trusted.”
The derisive curve to Cyra’s mouth stated she’d believed the same about another male, but she acquiesced with a tiny shrug. “Every year the guardian honors and feeds—”
“Feeds?” he interrupted, disbelief and surprise coloring his voice.
“We bloodlet,” Cyra explained. “The Cross is a living entity. Its power is sustained through our life-giving fluid. It’s a privilege to sacrifice and care for it.”
Their race’s reverence for the Blood Cross was ingrained in them from birth along with their training. Sinéad looked forward to the time when the holy relic would come to her—well, when it would have come to her.
“Anyway, Ryn must have followed me downstairs. When I returned upstairs, he waited for me in the kitchen and asked me about the Cross. I trusted him,” she paused and her throat worked in a rapid up and down motion. Finally, she cleared her throat. “I trusted him,” she repeated, “and told him the truth about the Cross, its power, the cruxim’s service to it. The next night he disappeared…as did the Blood Cross.”
“Cyra.” Sinéad approached the female and clasped the cruxim’s shoulder. Their eyes met, sister to sister. Although Sinéad had lost her immortality, nothing could erase the bond between them forged in heritage, battle and blood. “You aren’t to blame. This Ryn, who betrayed your heart and trust, he’s at fault. Not you.”
The female shook her head, the long, silver strands skating over her shoulders with the force of the gesture. “No. I am the guardian. Its safety was my responsibility and I failed. I failed in every way. Now, because of my negligence, all cruxim are bondservants—slaves—to the enemy.”
“The enemy,” Bastien said, his voice at Sinéad’s ear. She started, not having heard him cross the room to stand behind her. His hand settled on her hip, the touch an offering of support and comfort—or soothing her was most likely his purpose. The touch of his wide palm and long fingers were doing everything but conjuring images of tranquil oceans and cool breezes. She gritted her teeth against the swirl of emotion she’d grown to expect whenever he touched her. It surged inside her, but this time she wrestled with it, using all her control to la
sso it into submission. “That’s the second time you’ve called him that. Was he a—”
“Vampire,” Sinéad finished for him. She’d guessed as much. Though they only hunted rogues, the cruxim had one race as a whole they considered their enemy—all others were coincidental.
Cyra didn’t reply, but the subtle stiffening of her body confirmed any suspicion. From the cruxim’s rigid posture and the slight tilt of her chin, Cyra seemed to expect Sinéad’s censure and ridicule. Yet, like with the female’s revelation of falling in love, Cyra wouldn’t receive condemnation from Sinéad. Just like with humans, hippogryphs or any race, there were good vampires as well as evil ones. Some lived within the laws of their society, led productive, quiet lives among vampires and humans alike. Then there were those who preyed on the weaker race, viewed them as walking meals. Except most people rarely terrorized and tortured their food first.
“How are you and the other cruxim slaves to him?” Bastien asked.
A beat of silence passed and, again, Cyra silently deferred to Sinéad’s decision to reveal closely held information. And again, Sinéad decided to share another of their race’s secrets with the hippogryph.
“I told you about the cruxim spilling their blood into the Cross at the time of their induction,” Sinéad said to Bastien, her eyes still connected with Cyra’s. “But I didn’t reveal if someone were to capture the Cross, they would have control over every cruxim who ever contributed blood.”
Bastien’s swift intake of breath whispered across her neck. He shifted to her side and his emerald stare clashed with hers.
“You mean to tell me this Ryn has power over every cruxim of fighting age?”
“Yes,” Cyra replied for Sinéad. “And we’ve already been summoned. Ryn apparently turned the Cross over to his regina because she compelled us a week ago.” Her voice lowered to a painful rasp and once more Sinéad lowered her shields to receive the female’s agonizing burden. But Cyra’s hand snapped out and her fingers circled Sinéad’s wrist in an implacable grip. “No.” She shook her head. “Don’t do it again. Leave me with it.”
Sinéad studied the cruxim’s face, read her determination…and capitulated. Right or wrong, Cyra wanted to bear the guilt and shame weighing her down, tearing at her soul. And whether she agreed or not, Sinéad had to respect her wishes. She raised her shields.
“A week ago, Ryn’s regina forced us to annihilate a rival sânge trib. Everyone. Adults. Young.” Her voice broke and though no tears fell, moisture illuminated her eyes and they shone like wet silver coins. The air snagged in Sinéad’s lungs as the image of the carnage Cyra described filled her mind. A sânge trib, or blood tribe, was a vampire colony. An entire community of youth and elderly, adults and children had been destroyed…by her sisters. “Innocents,” Cyra rasped. “And we murdered them all. I murdered them all with my stupidity and betrayal.”
“I didn’t know,” Sinéad whispered, her grip on Cyra’s shoulder falling to the cruxim’s hand. She clutched Cyra’s fingers tight, conveying her grief, her powerlessness. “I didn’t know.”
“You’re human,” Bastien murmured, settling another on the other side of her hip. She gritted her teeth against the added emotional cyclone his touch evoked, but didn’t step away. Even as she battled the psychic backlash, she savored the solid weight of his hands. His touch was an anchor in the fury that cried out at this unknown Ryn and his regina, the female who ruled his sânge trib, or blood tribe, like a queen. Her sisters—her fierce, disciplined, warrior sisters—were indentured servants to this bitch. “You wouldn’t have felt the compulsion because it’s held over cruxim and technically you are no longer one.”
An objection rose up in her, as primal and desperate as a wild, trapped animal. I am cruxim! Nothing can strip away the core of me. I no longer have the strength, the wings or the abilities, but I’m a warrior, a guardian, a sister. Nothing, not even mortality, can take that from me.
“I said technically,” he growled as he thumbed the indentation of her waist. She had no idea how he’d discerned the thoughts running rampant through her head, but he had. And he understood—he understood how she fought not to feel…less. “We’ll get the Cross back for you.”
Cyra’s gaze jerked to his. Her eyes searched his face, skepticism and a hesitant hope filling the bright depths. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that?”
Sinéad understood Cyra’s caution and doubt. In their world, immortals tended to be insular in their interactions with other races, the cruxim more so than most. If another immortal offered assistance then payment of some kind was expected. Rarely were altruistic favors given. Or received.
“True, I need the Blood Cross to heal me, but,” an ominous growl thickened his voice and his brilliant eyes flickered with crimson flames, “no one should be enslaved, forced to commit atrocities such as genocide. Killing, pain, suffering—those mark a person’s soul. Marks that cannot be washed clean. You and your sisters should not have to bear those burdens. And just because it’s not my fight, doesn’t mean I sit by and do nothing. Apathy makes me as guilty as the one wielding the whip.”
Sinéad looked away from him on the pretense of studying Cyra. He championed her sisters. What sort of male was this? One who could behead a creature with the swipe of his talons and yet caress and calm with the same hand? She closed her eyes, savored the heat from his body, secretly delighted in his touch that simultaneously soothed and stirred.
“Thank you, Bastien,” Cyra said, uttering his name for the first time and inclining her head, both signs of respect and honor. “I speak for my sisters when I say we are in your debt.”
“Yes,” Sinéad agreed softly, lifting her lashes and taking in his scarred, wonderful features. The moment he’d defended her sisters, his face had surpassed beautiful and become wonderful.
Bastien didn’t respond to their gratitude, but his gaze captured hers, singeing her. An inexplicable desire to perch on her toes and press her lips to the golden column of his throat shot through her. She wanted to sip at the small natural bowl created by his collarbone at the base of his neck. See if he tasted like the honey hue of his skin.
Sinéad blinked. Snatched her stare away from the temptation of his flesh. Blinked again. Lady, Bastien was right. She really needed to cut back on the television. Thanks to that damn cable, all kinds of images danced in her head—and they had nothing to do with sugarplums.
“What is the name of the family detaining the Cross?” she asked. “Where can we find them?”
“Unless he lied about that too,” Cyra said, her expression hardening. “They are the Cardei sânge trib based in Boston, Massachusetts.”
Bastien growled long and low. “I have a friend who is a scout with the krinos, the hippogryph’s military unit. He should know where to locate the Cardei castel.”
“Because we are under their control, we can’t fight beside you. But,” her fingers went to the cuff of her shirt and she rolled the sleeve to her elbow, “I want to aid you in the only way I can. Please,” she raised her arm, wrist up, a network of bluish veins visible beneath her palm, “take what you need. I give it freely.”
The grim lines of Bastien’s face slackened in astonishment—and the same astonishment clanged through Sinéad like a struck gong. Sinéad had been serious when she’d told him no one fed from the cruxim. It was an act of submission and vulnerability to which none of them would yield. Cyra didn’t just offer Bastien her blood. She exposed herself to him, laid down her defenses and made herself susceptible to the hunger raging in his blood. For a Guardian of the Blood Cross, such an act was unheard of.
Bastien bent low at the waist, his forehead brushing Cyra’s palm. The old-fashioned gesture of admiration and reverence should have been out of place in the living room of the Las Vegas home. But it wasn’t. It was…right.
It was Bastien.
He sank to his knees before Cyra, his white-gold head bowed over her hand. Even kneeling, the wide breadth of his shoulders and the stro
ng, muscled length of his back seemed to dwarf the cruxim. Sinéad imagined in bed, his bulk would completely cover a smaller female. She would feel sheltered, protected and cherished in his arms, his large frame wrapped around her. Even as he took her, his thick cock penetrating and invading her sex, he would be careful, soothing as he stretched her to the extremities of her limitations.
The provocative picture was vivid in her mind’s eye as Bastien’s lips drew back from his teeth and his fangs dropped and lengthened to lethal points. When the tips pierced Cyra’s skin, the female flinched then relaxed. His thumb rubbed over the pulse point of her wrist as if apologizing for any pain he caused before he deepened the bite, his lips pursing over her skin.
A hot, fiery lash sliced through Sinéad’s chest, the searing pain burrowing deep past bone and marrow to the core of her soul. The embers scattered, setting afire organs, muscles and tendons. She sucked in a gust of air and it tasted like ash on her tongue. Jealousy. She’d never experienced the emotion humans claimed to be a deadly sin, but she recognized its scorpion’s sting and the poison demanding she rip Bastien away from Cyra and hiss at the cruxim in fury.
Sinéad yearned for it to be her flesh his teeth punctured, her vein he drew from…her blood that nourished him. She wanted his full, beautiful lips sealed to her skin, sucking hard on deep pulls.
She shook, both at the unabated rage and the longing winging across her spirit like the lonely caw of a bird over a windswept plain. Her heart pounded against her ribs, the beat a dissonant rhythm in her head. If she loosed the howl razing the lining in her throat, it would betray the turmoil churning inside her. So she choked the shriek back, whirled on her heel and escaped the living room. She didn’t stop at the foyer, but snatched the front door open and hurtled herself through the opening into night’s embrace.
Chapter Six
Bastien stepped onto the stamp-sized porch, shutting the front door behind him. Cyra’s blood raced through his veins with the speed of a rocket. The fluid pulsed within him, alive, powerful…strengthening him. It infiltrated his muscles, tendons and ligaments, enlarging them, stretching them as if ten doses of a super steroid had been injected into him with single shot. His vision was clearer, sharper. His hearing able to catch the whisper of night breeze through the short grass. Even now, as he took a deep breath, he caught Sinéad’s morning-dew scent—fresh, new, vibrant.
