Blood Wars (The Bloodborn Series Book 2)

by Iris Walker

  “Your priority,” Reykon reminded her.

  She arched an eyebrow. “If they find Calliope, Robin’s as good as dead, too.”

  “I get it, but you’ll forgive me if I’m not as trusting of your mentor as you are,” he muttered.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, eyeing a small red door to the side of them. A few people slunk out, dispersing into the crowd. Noomi downed the rest of her drink and stood, giving him a nod to follow.

  Reykon scowled, glancing around at the strange crowd. It didn’t escape him that more and more of the casters on their side of the mirror were letting their eyes linger on them.

  Lucidia

  Lucidia tapped her foot, leaning on a brand-new navy blue sportscar that Darian had ‘persuaded’ the dealer to give to them, free of charge. The sun was now almost entirely behind the tree line, and winds whipped across the hills, rustling her hair.

  She’d been on pursuits before.

  Countless pursuits, countless missions, sculpting her reputation as Lucidia Draxos, the fearless, ruthless, and cunning strongblood. She’d even transported Darian Xander, the Master of the House, with caravans of armored vehicles and entire teams of security.

  But never like this.

  There was something cold and visceral about this effort that they now faced. They were alone, and there were enemies all around. Their only allies were in a plane, careening through the air high above them, out of reach.

  They’d always lived in the human world, embedded deep in its shadows, but now, Lucidia felt almost suffocated by the vastness of it. Before now, at the end of the day, there had always been somewhere to return to, somewhere to retreat. Even on the run with Reykon, they were searching for Ivan, and they knew that they’d find him at a stronghold or a safehouse. Now, those options were more dangerous than the human world itself. Lucidia didn’t like loose ends, and she certainly didn’t like uncertainties. She watched a few leaves tumble across the parking lot, deep in thought.

  “Are you ready?” Darian asked from the other side of the car.

  She pulled herself out of the worries and turned, catching the keys with her sharply honed reflexes. Lucidia got into the driver’s seat, allowing herself a moment’s joy at the feel of the smooth leather on her back, the slim steering wheel under her grip. It was likely as much happiness as she’d get in the days to come.

  After she’d taken a second to glance at the mirrors, adjusting them to her preferences, she looked at Darian.

  He was quite uncomfortable.

  A small smile danced on her lips. “Don’t like riding in style?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever ridden in a vehicle this… small,” he muttered, looking at the ceiling with a skeptical eye.

  Lucidia laughed and revved the engine, peeling out of the lot and onto the road.

  “Where to?” she asked, squeezing her hand on the wheel and feeling the tension roll off of her.

  If Darian were a human, he probably would have been green. He let out a controlled breath and checked his phone. “My strongblood and vampire in charge of guarding Robin… I’ve recovered communication with them. Harley Hyxos had the smart sense to put a tracker on Robin when she detected the growing angst. It’s showing up somewhere in Arizona, near Sedona.”

  Lucidia frowned. “Know anybody out there?”

  Darian shook his head. “No vampires, nor allies.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “The caster that helped her escape, Charlemagne, must have some connection there. A place to stay hidden, perhaps.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Lucidia hummed, eyes on the road. “And is that where we’re going?”

  “Eventually, yes,” Darian murmured. “But right now, we must head to House Nero.”

  That stronghold was south-west of them, nestled in the middle of Nevada and far too north for Robin’s location.

  “Come again?” Lucidia frowned. “It’s overtaken by Cain’s agents.”

  “Which is why we shall enter quietly and be gone before we are noticed. It will not take long.”

  “That’s a big risk. What do we need from House Nero?”

  Darian looked at her with his burning red eyes, face just verging on a warning, but still neutral. “I have much experience in situations like these, Lucidia Draxos. I would not insist on our peril without necessity.”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she let it go, facing forward.

  “You know, that wasn’t an answer,” she muttered after a few moments of silence.

  Darian smiled slightly. “I’m not obligated to give you one.”

  “Really? Because where I sit, Fausta’s kicked you from the grown-up table. I’d say we’re all on the same team now, and I like knowing exactly what I’m getting myself into. What is so important that we have to break into an overrun vampire stronghold to get?”

  Darian studied the road for a moment. “I suspect you’re much too young to be familiar with such artifacts.”

  “Artifacts?”

  “Yes. Items charged to a small circle of beings, deemed responsible enough to care for them.”

  “And Nero has one of them?”

  Darian nodded. “He has many, locked in a secret vault.”

  “And we’re going to break into this vault and get it?”

  “The item that we seek is not something you ‘get’, per se, but we must visit it all the same.”

  “How do we get into the vault?” she asked.

  “With my blood, we can enter.”

  Lucidia raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “The artifacts were charged to a few individuals, but the vaults were given a safeguard, in case one of those beings were to die or become irresponsible with the task. We can all enter each other’s vaults, assuming we can get to it in the first place. I suppose that’s where you come in.”

  Lucidia’s mind was working a thousand miles a minute, trying to recall the layout of House Nero. “I don’t know what we’re walking into, so that makes it a little difficult.”

  “I can give you the layout, but…” Darian said, trailing off in hesitation.

  Lucidia realized what he was getting at.

  “No,” she complained. “God, not that. There’s gotta be another way.”

  “Unless you’ve got the blueprints laying around,” he muttered.

  “I hate that,” she grumbled, remembering the pain it takes to implant memories from a vampire’s mind into another creature’s. It was like an electrical storm being injected into your brain. She’d only had the displeasure twice in her hundred and twenty years and planned not to experience a third. Well, had planned.

  “There’s time before we’ll near the stronghold,” he said with a hint of amusement. “We can wait.”

  Lucidia sped up, weaving between cars and zooming ahead of the traffic. Darian had relaxed slightly, looking out of the window like a ten-year-old boy on vacation. “It has been a while since I’ve ventured this far into the human world. The difference is staggering. The roads are much improved, thankfully.”

  “Uh huh,” Lucidia mumbled, dodging another minivan and zooming ahead.

  “What’s it like?” he asked, turning to her. “Being our bridge to this world? I haven’t given it much consideration before, your kind being sent out here each time a mission arises. You live with one foot in our world and one in theirs.”

  She gave him a side glance, and then shrugged. “It’s just… I mean, that’s how it’s always been.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said. “But what does it feel like?”

  “What are you, my therapist?” Lucidia asked sharply. “I don’t like to think about how it feels. I go, I get the monster, and I come back. That’s the mission.”

  “But you are half human,” he pointed out.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” she shot back. “I was raised in our world. There’s just as much a place out here for me as there is for you, which is none.”

  The vampire nodded, trailing off in
his own thoughts and leaving Lucidia to simmer in hers.

  After a moment, she felt the anger boiling up inside of her chest. “Why are you even asking about it? You designed this world.”

  A sharp laugh came from Darian. “I had less of a hand in its upbringing than you may think. It is a complicated thing, transplanting a culture from the old world into the new world. There are battles that you fight, and others that you don’t, and the sum of those two things is what you are left with.”

  “How noble,” Lucidia muttered, weaving through a pack of motorcycles.

  Darian’s eyes remained fixed on her face. “Robin’s creation has given me much to consider.”

  “How so?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “She is the first human creature to have been inserted into our world after being raised in the wild, so to say. After speaking with her, I have concerns about how she is to fit in.”

  “Robin doesn’t want to fit in,” Lucidia said with a bitter smile. “And frankly, I don’t blame her.”

  “But she is a risk of great proportions.”

  “Yes,” Lucidia agreed. “To you.”

  “To all of us. Chaos brings attention from the humans.”

  “I’m aware,” Lucidia muttered.

  “If I force Robin to stay with us, then she may resent it and turn against us, but if I respect her wishes and allow her to slip into the human world, then another vampire may find her and exploit her powers to their own benefit. Not to mention what may happen if the casters recover her. They would have an extreme advantage over our people.”

  “It’s all quite complicated,” Lucidia admitted. “Good thing it’s not my problem.”

  “That’s a very cold attitude. She’s your sister by blood, after all.”

  “You made pretty damn certain that she isn’t,” Lucidia reminded him in an icy tone. “By sending me to go kill her.”

  “Those were different circumstances. I was trying to preserve your position in the royal court.”

  “And it changes, that easily for you?” she shot back.

  Darian paused, his brow inching together. “I suppose it does,” he muttered, his voice quiet.

  “Well, for us flies that only live a few years, it’s a little more difficult.”

  “That’s not what I-”

  “You try to understand, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? You’re too old. You always like to point out that you have all this experience, and all this time under your belt, and that’s great, but it’s made you numb to what it’s like being on the ground, where you only have a few hundred years, or, heaven forbid, less than one hundred years. The wolves and the humans understand. You should spend some time with them, maybe. Add that to your multitude of experience.”

  Darian was quiet for a moment after that, chewing on what she’d barked at him. “You have always been enchanted by the wolves. Why do you admire them so much?” Darian asked softly.

  “What does it matter?”

  “Humor me.”

  Lucidia glanced at a passing road sign, showing the triple digit number of miles left to their destination. She sighed, shaking her head. “They’re all so loyal. A family, through thick and thin, everyone on the same page. They all want to be loyal.”

  “You are also loyal,” he countered.

  She frowned. “There was never an option other than loyalty to the rules, for fear of execution. It doesn’t feel real. I never wanted it. In fact, I’ve fought damn hard against it for as long as I can remember.”

  “And you think all strongbloods struggle with the same doubts?” he asked. “Do you think they would all have enough fortitude to survive with that freedom?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Freedom is a double-edged sword, as I’m sure you’re aware. There is much fear, and little protection.”

  “I’m still here,” she shot back.

  “And I would argue that you represent a small percentage of your brethren. Many are willing and content to serve and reap the benefits.”

  She shook her head bitterly. “You know how many of my brethren you’ve sent me to hunt down and execute? There are thousands of escaped strongbloods, living in the human world, hidden from everybody else and perfectly content for it.”

  “Yes,” Darian said. “We’re aware.”

  “Not so small a percentage, is it?” she muttered. “And they’re doing quite well.”

  Darian smiled lightly. “I sense that you envy them.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” she asked, her scowl deepening, decades of repressed emotions rising to the surface. “You called for my imprisonment, after everything I’ve done for our people, and after everything I’ve done for you… that stung, I’ll admit. So I declared myself independent, just like they did, but here I am, all the same. Right where I started.”

  Darian watched her with genuine curiosity and concern, and after a few moments, he spoke softly. “It is alright for you not to feel entirely loyal to me, or our House, just as it is okay for you to not feel entirely disloyal to us, as our defected strongbloods might. Sometimes, it is a good trait to not fit in with one group of people, as difficult as that may be for your own personal journey. It is the only way new factions arise in the world.”

  “A year ago, those words would have gotten me imprisoned,” she pointed out, staring straight ahead with her mask of stone.

  “As I’ve said before, circumstances can change very quickly. I suppose I have lost touch with how chaotic that can be to our younger subjects. But it is required to survive, through all the years, and all the empires. You must be willing to change on a whim, to look ahead and travel with the river, rather than against it. I realize now that it must be difficult to be thrown into the rapids with no experience in navigation. But that is the game of life, isn’t it, Lucidia Draxos?”

  She cast a side glance to him, studying his burning red eyes, now glowing in the dusk. “A game isn’t what I’d call it.”

  “I have lived through coups and power turnovers and as tumultuous as those times are, I can assure you of one thing: the world finds a way of correcting itself. Periods of great sorrow are followed by those of peace and recovery, and then the cycle begins again. This, as chaotic as you may think, is entirely normal. It may even be the vehicle by which you find the freedom you seek.”

  She scowled, thinking of an answer and finding none. After a few moments, Darian turned forward, and they continued on the road, deep into the night, buried in their own thoughts.

  Robin

  She clambered out of the pool, frigid water sloshing all around her in the dim space.

  “Charlemagne?” she croaked, coughing out a spurt of water.

  The caster leaned over the edge of the pool, catching his breath and clutching his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, gathering his composure.

  “Where are we?” Robin asked, looking around.

  The room was large, but low, made with a series of domed arches that came down to column supports, all built with ancient, weathered brick. It looked like something you might find in the catacombs of Paris.

  Robin walked forward, away from the pool and towards the shadows that clung to the walls. Each little outcropping had its own workstation, complete with stainless steel implements and vials that looked like they belonged in a mad scientist’s wet dream.

  Her eyebrows knitted together as she studied the cold, sharp instruments. “Where are we?”

  “A safe place,” Charlemagne muttered. “Nobody will find us here.”

  “Where is it, though?” she asked, fear prickling across the back of her neck. She didn’t like the demented science lab in front of her, nor the dark shadows, draped across the room. The whole place smelled like dust and deep earth.

  Underground. Hidden. Trapped.

  Robin heard a scuffle behind her and felt static crackle along her skin as the green magical restraints materialized around her arms and neck.

  Her eyes w
idened and she backed up, her palm clutching the cold metal table behind her.

  “Charlemagne… what are you doing?” she asked in a panicked tone.

  A wicked smile spread across the caster’s face, terrifying her to her core and turning her blood to ice.

  “Everybody,” he said, his smile widening. “Everybody in the entire world is looking for you. The guild, my sister Calliope, the vampires. Even the Legion is cracking down doors to find you. But who won out?”

  She shook her head in horror, looking around, searching for any exit, any way out of the strange lab. “Don’t do this, please,” she whispered, harsh with panic.

  “Me. I have you. And soon, I’ll have her, too.”

  Chapter 11 Visions

  Reykon

  Reykon looked around the small, dark red room with a skeptical eye. Noomi sat next to him, engaging in conversation with an anarchistic looking caster woman. She had deep tan skin and black dreds, and wore nearly all black clothes, tattered and ragged with an edgy glint.

  “We need to find somebody,” Noomi said, leaning forward. “And there’s nobody better than you.”

  The woman smiled, her eyes shifting from Noomi to Reykon. “Depends on a couple of things.”

  “Like what?” Noomi growled.

  A smile spread on her face. “Like how quickly you need this person found, and how much you’re willing to pay.”

  Noomi’s voice was an axe. “We need it now, and we’ll pay whatever you want.”

  Her ferocity almost surprised Reykon. There were many similarities between Dragomir’s prodigy and Dragomir herself.

  “Mama Katya drives a steep price,” the woman warned, pulling a few items out of the chest to their right.

  “Who’s Mama Katya?” Reykon whispered to Noomi.

  Noomi turned slightly back to him. “She is,” she said in a sour voice.

  Reykon raised an eyebrow but kept his eyes on the caster.

  “This person must be important to the both of you,” she hummed.

  “Yeah,” Noomi offered.

  “Tell me of them.”

  “Calliope Dragomir,” Noomi announced, her face a stony wall.

  Katya’s eyes narrowed. “You are not the only one looking for her.”