Surrender the Dark

by Tibby Armstrong

  Benjamin had attempted to coax Tzadkiel to drink Dryas’s blood. Tzadkiel had refused, not because he didn’t wish to live, but because he refused to live with dishonor as long as he could control his body and his mind’s responses. This, he remembered, though only vaguely. His fingers went again to his middle.

  “I had to be here to complete the stuff I did for you.” Nyx tucked the phone away in a pocket and withdrew a bundle of twigs and herbs from Tzadkiel’s chest. They were jammed into the cab’s backseat with a backpack.

  Tzadkiel shifted and stared out the window. He recognized the Common’s iron fence to their left. The cab lurched around the capital, and headed toward the series of left-hand turns that would lead them to the one-way Joy Street. He fell back against the seat, too weak to hold himself up. His weariness seemed different however. Devoid of hunger and pain, he merely felt as if he’d strenuously exerted himself for far too long. When he attempted to use his muscles, his limbs shook with the effort.

  Running his tongue once more around the inside of his mouth, Tzadkiel frowned. “Is Benjamin all right?”

  “He fed you,” Nyx said, terse. “Not that you deserved it.”

  Tzadkiel sat upright, horror brushing away fatigue’s lingering cobwebs. He shook his head in denial. “This is bad. Very bad. You should not have let me have his blood.”

  “What do you mean?” Nyx pressed the bundle of dried herbs and twigs to one of his chakra points in the manner of a healer. Tzadkiel batted it away.

  “I now owe him a blood debt…” Tzadkiel began, but trailed off when he realized he felt better than he had in twenty years. Better than perhaps he ever had. Frowning, he held up one of his hands, twisting his wrist this way and that. His skin pulsed with white light. Gods, if he had drunk Benjamin’s sacrificial blood from the kylix as he’d planned he might be able to just about fly. “It is a complication.” He eyed the bundle of sticks again. It contained sage. He sniffed to confirm the scent. “What does this do?”

  Nyx shrugged deceptively slender shoulders. “It purged the last of the iron and acid from your blood, and freed your spirit to move on.”

  And yet, he hadn’t moved on. He had healed…because of the hunter’s sacrifice.

  Tzadkiel closed his eyes.

  Benjamin’s essence lingered in his mouth, and he chased after it with a sweep of his tongue. Foremost, he tasted honesty’s bright notes. A burst of saliva encouraged him to roll the flavor over his taste buds and familiarize himself with its nuances. Fear’s sour tang tainted the springlike purity. The hunter wasn’t perfect, but neither did Tzadkiel taste in him evil’s decay. Underneath honesty and fear, Tzadkiel discovered love’s cherry bright sweetness hidden by the bitter aftertaste of longing and pain.

  Exhaling regret, Tzadkiel opened his eyes as the taxi pulled up to the corner of Joy Street, and Nyx paid the fare. The other taxi had arrived ahead of their own, and he and Nyx caught up to Dryas and Benjamin on the portico. Dryas carried Benjamin’s sagging form as Nyx dug into Benjamin’s coat pocket for the key.

  “We need to take him to the hospital. He needs blood,” Tzadkiel said.

  “Can’t. He bit his own wrist,” Nyx answered. “They’ll lock him up for self-harm again, and he might not get out this time.”

  How many times had Benjamin been institutionalized? Tzadkiel thought he had only been treated when a boy or maybe a teen. Nyx’s statement appeared to indicate mental illness had plagued Benjamin for his entire life.

  With the taste of Benjamin’s blood fresh on his tongue, Tzadkiel could only watch, not quite trusting himself so far as touch, as Dryas carried Benjamin into the house and deposited him on the sofa. Elderflower wafted on the air, stirring a confusion of need and hunger low in Tzadkiel’s belly. Benjamin lay with his coat open, his black silk shirt stained to a darker, glossy hue around his neck and wrists. Puncture wounds and beast-like gashes marred his skin beneath the shredded fabric. Dark red seeped through the makeshift bandage around his wrist.

  This man, his sworn enemy, had saved his life for the second time.

  “Is there anything you can do?” Tzadkiel asked.

  “Not easily.” Eyeing Tzadkiel, Nyx opened the door. “But you can.”

  Tzadkiel tore his gaze away from Benjamin’s alabaster complexion and sublime features out of necessity. He understood what Nyx wanted, but giving Benjamin his blood wasn’t as simple a transaction as the witch might believe. Now that Tzadkiel had Benjamin’s blood, if Tzadkiel returned the favor, by the laws of the mora, they would be bound forever. Unlike in the turning ceremony, Benjamin effectively became Tzadkiel’s consort and would fall under his protection, immortal or not.

  Tzadkiel’s attention drifted to Dryas’s. His strategoi’s gaze, filled with somber awareness, met his. There could be no bonding without Benjamin’s consent. Then there was the matter of the mora. No matter what, Tzadkiel’s first duty was still to his people. They would never approve a hunter in their midst.

  “I…cannot.” Tzadkiel shook his head. “I am sorry.”

  “You dare say no after he saved your blood-sucking excuse for a life?” Nyx’s witch fire sparkled on the air, making Tzadkiel’s arm hair stand on end.

  Tzadkiel’s fingers curled, and he realized he didn’t have his sword.

  “Looking for this?” Akito asked, stepping through the library archway, where he’d arrived only a moment before.

  Dryas inserted himself between Tzadkiel and Akito. “Stand down.”

  Akito drew himself up to his full height, looking every bit an elegant and competent fighter. His molten core of self-doubt visibly receded when he protected his friends.

  Tzadkiel laid a hand on Dryas’s shoulder. “It is all right. They are only protecting their own.”

  Though it took his general a moment to obey the command, the man eventually complied. Tzadkiel made a mental note to break him of the newly developed flaw, but for now let the matter drop.

  “The War King cannot bond with a man without his consent,” Dryas explained, turning back to Nyx. “And this man, if bonded to our king, would be his for life.”

  “I…” Nyx appeared to deflate. “Can’t you make an exception?”

  “I cannot.” That much, at least, was clear for Tzadkiel. “He would need to be of sound mind and privy to the decision.”

  “Oh.” Nyx swiped dark bangs from worried eyes. “I hadn’t thought about the consent part.”

  Tzadkiel nodded grimly. Without the kylix, the exchange would not turn Benjamin. Instead, it formed—for lack of a better term—the bond of marriage. Benjamin would be first in all things in Tzadkiel’s life. The bond, as such, was not one a War King was allowed to undertake without the mora’s approval.

  In addition, the protection of Tzadkiel’s royal blood was not something he was prepared to offer the hunter. Benjamin’s sacrifice tonight could not erase the blood debt between their families. It could not undo the deaths of Tzadkiel’s own mora at Benjamin’s hands.

  “What about you?” Nyx turned to Dryas. “Benjamin hasn’t given you his blood. There wouldn’t be any bonding from that, right?”

  Dryas’s reply was cut short by Tzadkiel’s snarl. Possessiveness ripped through him, the effect of having had Benjamin’s blood, or at least that was what he told himself. Nyx’s eyes widened. Though he wasn’t bonded to Benjamin, there was a connection between them. No man would feed from the hunter again in either of their lifetimes and live.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Nyx commented, seeming to intuit the meaning behind Tzadkiel’s minimal response.

  “Your mother, the Lady Morgana, owes me a favor,” Tzadkiel said finally, once he’d managed to shove down the feral response. “Go to her. Tell her I call it in. Benjamin’s life for the one I returned to her.”

  For now, Tzadkiel chose to ignore the contradictory sentiments that led him to make the request. He’d be giving up his opportunity to get the kylix, but there might be other opportunities to obtain the cup.

  “Lik
e hell I’m going to my mother.” Nyx whirled on Tzadkiel. “She’d have his kidneys for dinner, and use the rest of his blood as a chaser just to piss me off.” Then, equally as imperious to Akito, “You and I aren’t compatible blood types with Ben, but I’m pretty sure you can get some at the Red Cross. Take this.” Nyx held out a vial from her bag. “It’ll knock out the desk guard while you steal some.” The witch glared at Tzadkiel once more. “And you’d better hope that does the trick, vampire, because it’s up to Benjamin whether or not you live.”

  Tzadkiel cocked one brow, more curious than worried. “Why not attempt to kill me now?”

  “Because I’m not going to undo his”—Nyx jabbed one finger at the hunter—“sacrifice. He’s apparently fallen under whatever spell you’ve woven. But if you or your hell-spawned mora hurt him? I will fry your ass.”

  Thunderstruck, Tzadkiel stared down for a long moment at Benjamin’s wan face, with its pain-furrowed brow. He had faced armies without flinching, but this feeling—whatever it might be—caused him to break out in a cold sweat. He refused to examine it further. Because if the sentiment matched the sweetness of the hunter’s essence still lingering on his tongue, then he and Benjamin both were well and truly lost.

  Chapter 21

  A log fell, the sounds of ash preceding several pops and snaps as the fire settled into its dying phase. Benjamin startled up on one elbow. The throw someone had laid over him pooled to his lap. Muzzy-headed and weak, he immediately lay back down. Someone else would have to tend to the blaze.

  Pain throbbed in his wrist, and he ran his fingertips over a bandage. Reality rushed in. They’d been ambushed. Zombies were at large in Boston, controlled by the coven. The War King was dead. This thought produced a hollow pang. Despair ballooned, and his sinuses filled.

  A shift of the firelight brought his attention to the ceiling. Otherworldly shadows flickered along the ridges and hollows of crown molding. He’d forgotten the little oval medallions that decorated every few inches of the carved strips. Benjamin frowned. Given the War King’s death, he shouldn’t be able to see them at all. Not without that glorious purple aura to aid him.

  Understanding surfaced, bobbing cork-like to the front of his mind. Shadows he’d initially taken for shades of black and gray pulsed with plummy hues. White paint glowed, not with the red of the firelight embers, but rather a deep and majestic purple.

  Slowly, Benjamin turned his head toward the source of the glow. His heart knocked against the inside of his rib cage, each beat alternating with hope and alarm. In the armchair nearest the fire, long legs stretched out before him, a man slept. His face was every bit as arrogantly beautiful as Benjamin had remembered from that long-ago day, with his full mouth and aquiline nose, the masculine expanse of forehead and the thickly lashed eyes. A sweep of dark brows emphasized the width of forehead and balanced what otherwise might have been an overly strong jaw. Too majestic to be made of mere flesh, he could easily be taken for the finest marble in both paleness and sculpted perfection. One feature alone would have been enough to make a man’s mouth water. The effect of the whole was breathtaking…and terrifying. There was no way to confront such beauty and survive.

  Tzadkiel stirred and understanding kicked down the last barriers to sleep.

  The vampire was alive.

  Hope soared, then reality asserted itself, and everything came crashing down. Sexual attraction apparently had no rational component, or Benjamin wouldn’t have laid the laurel wreath of his ardor at the feet of a man who had warned him repeatedly that there could be nothing but a river of spilled blood between them. If Tzadkiel were alive, then nothing had been solved. Either the vampire or Benjamin would still die at the hands of the other.

  Thoughts skipped like a stone, as Benjamin’s mind skimmed the surface of his body’s desires. Perhaps it was the ache of his injuries, or light-headedness from lack of blood, but he found himself drawn to Tzadkiel. As if he stood outside himself, Benjamin left the sofa and drew closer to the sleeping vampire. He watched as the back of his hand lightly brushed one stubbled cheek.

  Tzadkiel started and breathed deep, his eyes snapping open to reveal their dark blue depths. Benjamin retreated abruptly, dropping his hand. He and Tzadkiel stared at each other in wary assessment until Tzadkiel blinked and shifted, straightening in the chair.

  “You’re alive,” Benjamin whispered.

  A slow nod accompanied Tzadkiel’s reply. “Thanks to you.”

  Benjamin stared in wonder at the small smile he could see as well as hear. “I can see you.”

  “I thought you could see me before?” Tzadkiel sat forward and scrubbed a hand over his face. “With your hunter’s sight?”

  “It was different. You were a form without a face. Now…” Benjamin waved vaguely in Tzadkiel’s direction. “What happened?”

  Tzadkiel cracked an un-kingly yawn and stretched. “Do you not remember?”

  The sleepy expression and human gestures brought to the fore Benjamin’s awareness of the incongruities between what he’d been taught and what he now knew to be true. There were no monsters here.

  “Not what happened after you…after you died.” Benjamin ran his fingers over his bandaged wrist, remembering the sluggish heat of blood against Tzadkiel’s inert lips. “I know I fed you.”

  Before Tzadkiel could reply, embarrassingly, Benjamin’s stomach rumbled.

  Tzadkiel stood. “Let us get some food into you while we talk.”

  “You cook?”

  Tzadkiel paused in the library’s arched opening. He seemed to take up the entire width of the space without trying. “I told you, I eat food as you do. Or do you mean you think I let servants bring me meals on silver platters?”

  “But you didn’t over the past…” He recalled seeing clean dishes piled in the drainer from time to time while Tzadkiel had been here. He’d been so used to Nyx and Akito cleaning up that he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. “Hey, did you eat when I was sleeping?”

  “It seemed wise to keep as much distance as possible between us at the time, but I believe we can safely share a table now.” Tzadkiel frowned at some private thought before returning his attention to Benjamin. “I promise I know how to use a knife and fork.”

  The dark hair brushing Tzadkiel’s shoulders made Benjamin’s fingers curl. It was the flicker of awkward insecurity across the man’s face that arrested him most, however. In the nuance of expression, Benjamin understood what he had previously mistaken for habitual disdain. He had made Tzadkiel self-conscious.

  Benjamin opened his mouth and closed it a couple times before he gave up trying to find an excuse for his discrimination. Finally, he settled on a weakly voiced, “It’s a tough misconception to get past.”

  Tzadkiel turned toward the kitchen without comment. Benjamin trailed after him, clutching an afghan he’d pulled from the sofa.

  “Sit.” Tzadkiel pulled out one of the wooden chairs and swung it around so Benjamin would face the kitchen. “And I will show you how a vampire eats, hunter.”

  A chill crackled over Benjamin’s skin, and he pulled the afghan tighter around his shoulders. The use of the hunter epithet seemed to re-establish a boundary that had briefly fallen away. Benjamin sighed, knowing himself to be at fault for the coldness in Tzadkiel’s tone. He’d enjoyed the respite in their animosity.

  “Tzadkiel?”

  In the act of cracking open the fridge, Tzadkiel turned, expression arch.

  Benjamin plucked at the afghan’s chunky fringe. “I’m sorry.”

  He heard more than saw Tzadkiel’s grip on the fridge handle tighten. A moment passed, and a softening of expression told Benjamin he was forgiven.

  “It matters more to me that you are willing to set aside what you have been taught than that you stumble in the execution,” Tzadkiel said.

  Benjamin flinched at the use of the word execution. “So, um, what did happen after I passed out?”

  “Your friend Nyx purified my blood so that my spirit co
uld move on; however, because I’d had your blood, when the spell hit my system my immortality returned.”

  “Is that why I can see you now?” Benjamin wondered aloud.

  Tzadkiel came out from behind the fridge door with a plate of turkey and a jar of mayonnaise in his hands. “It’s possible I was running some sort of etheric fever, trying to burn off the poisons in my blood. The energy might have brightened my aura.”

  “How does iron in blood differ from the iron my uncle injected?” Benjamin dared.

  “The iron used is of the purest form. When injected it is able to bond with and kill magic more quickly than oxygen can nullify the iron’s effects.”

  Tzadkiel didn’t seem to have minded the question, so Benjamin dared another. “Now that you’re healed, what else is different?”

  What he didn’t ask, but really wanted to know, was exactly how powerful a War King was when at his full strength.

  Tzadkiel looked up from the almost empty mayonnaise jar, its metal lid in one hand. As Benjamin watched, the vampire curled his fingers around the lid, crushing it as if it were tinfoil. When he opened his hand, the metal had been reduced to the size of a quarter.

  Benjamin gaped. “How the hell did my family get the jump on you?”

  Tzadkiel’s expression closed off and he turned. “Hollow-point bullets filled with iron and a chemical cosh.”

  “Cosh?” Benjamin asked.

  “A sedative.” Tzadkiel stood motionless, his back to the room. “I am still unaware of its composition.”

  “Oh.” Unless he missed his guess, there was still a vial of the stuff in the basement. He’d completely forgotten about it until now. “It was wolfsbane, not a sedative.”

  Memories of wearing chemical gloves far too big for his hands made Benjamin flex his fingers. He recalled breathing into a mask as he’d followed Uncle’s directions to preparing the concoction. Wolfsbane was fatal to humans; however, its primary effect on vampires was that of motor weakness.

  Tzadkiel, who faced him now, regarded him with deadly intensity. “Wolfsbane.”