He walked up the steps and held out a hand. “Yene Nigist Makeda, I have made you a throne.”
Fighting back a smile at his playful words, Makeda took his hand and he lifted her out of the water.
“That was very impressive,” she said as she settled on the rock. The linen shift that had felt so light and flowing around her in the lake flopped on the ground and clung to her skin.
“That was nothing,” Lucien said. “I’m not being modest. I’ve raised—and demolished—city walls with nothing more than my hands.”
“How?” It wasn’t wonder—though there was that—she honestly wanted to know. Her education with Baojia had been rudimentary at best, because their time had been cut short. Getting a handle on her amnis was a top priority.
“I don’t think I could explain it to you in any way that makes sense.” He paused. “The land here is familiar to me. I recognize it, and it recognizes me. It’s a huge advantage earth vampires have that other elements do not.”
“Because all the other elements are mobile.”
“Yes.” He leaned back, propping his lean, muscled arms behind him. “Even freshwater like this is constantly moving. Streams feed lakes which feed other rivers. Water evaporates, condenses. It’s constantly in motion and everything leads back to the sea.”
She couldn’t escape her awareness of his body. She grew hungry for him but forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying.
“There are ocean currents that are constant, but the sea itself, the element, is continuously shifting and changing. The earth shifts and changes, but on a massively slower scale.”
He cocked his head looking over the water, and Makeda’s eyes went to the hardened trapezius muscle at the back of his shoulder. Just in front of it was a curving dip she wanted to sink her teeth into.
“…need to find you a teacher who can— Makeda.”
She blinked and pulled away from his neck. She’d been leaning in, drawn to the sound of his voice and his scent, inches from his skin. She sat straight and repeated the periodic table in her head. If she started in on the bones and muscles, she would only picture Lucien.
“I apologize,” she said.
“Why?” His voice was slightly rough. “Do you think I don’t feel it too? It’s obvious from our earlier interaction that I do.”
“We kissed. We don’t have to make it about anything more than that.”
He bent down, forcing her to look into his eyes. “I wanted to devour you. And I don’t usually like vampires as lovers. I wanted to lay you down on the floor and tear off your clothes like an animal. Wanted to sink my teeth into your inner thigh and hear you scream. I wanted to kiss your—”
“Stop.” She put a finger on his lips, but Lucien only opened his mouth and took her finger between his teeth, letting his fangs grow long before her eyes. His unrelenting gaze challenged her control. She was hanging on by a very thin thread. “Lucien, stop.”
He released her finger. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know if I want you or not.”
His hands shot out and gripped her thighs. “Shall I prove you wrong?”
“I know I want someone,” she said. “But are you sure it’s you? Or would anyone in the vicinity cause this reaction at this stage of my development?”
Lucien froze, and Makeda knew she’d made her point.
“I want. My hunger is voracious right now. But I don’t know if it’s because I want you, Lucien Thrax, or whether this is a reaction to the change and my lack of control over my hunger. That is why I ran tonight.”
“Not playing games?”
“I don’t play games. I never have. You told me I could kill indiscriminately right now. Does that apply to other things?”
His jaw clenched and he spoke between gritted teeth. “I don’t know.”
“I want to wait until I do know,” she said. “I’m not a nun, nor am I looking for a husband, but I am discriminating in my partners. I would not choose to have one unless I knew it was me, Makeda, choosing him and not my out-of-control urges.”
He nodded, but his eyes were calculating. “I can respect that.”
“Thank you.”
“But I don’t believe that’s what’s going on.”
She paused and considered his words. “Why not?”
“Because we wanted each other before you became a vampire.”
It was true. They had been antagonistic, but Makeda had been drawn to him from the beginning of their acquaintance, even when he infuriated her.
“You don’t like vampire women,” she said.
“I like you.” His smile bordered on smug. “Don’t change your argument now just because your other one didn’t hold water.”
“You’ve never taken one as a lover,” she said. “I’ve heard the rumors, and you just said so yourself. Were you lying?”
“You heard absolutes when I didn’t say them. I’ve never been attracted to power games. With you, however, that doesn’t seem to apply. You don’t play games. Were you lying?”
“No.”
He reached out and played with a lock of hair curling by her ear as it dried in the cool evening air. “Next argument, yene konjo?”
“We need to focus on the Elixir virus.”
“If we’re so distracted by our attraction to each other, then we’ve no hope of conquering the problem. You can’t think of any problem nonstop or you’ll go mad. Trust me on that one. I’ve hit the edge more than once.”
She was at a loss. One by one, he had demolished every wall she’d built to contain her reaction to him.
“I still think my first argument is valid.” When he opened his mouth to object, she raised her hand. “You don’t believe me. That’s your right. But right now I believe me. I don’t know if this attraction is real or a product of the amnis surging through my system. Until I do know, I’m not comfortable pursuing anything more than a friendly, professional relationship with you.”
She expected him to object when he opened his mouth, but he paused and his eyes turned calculating. “How long?”
“Pardon me?”
“How long until you’ll trust yourself?”
She hadn’t thought of giving herself any kind of deadline. “I don’t know. Didn’t you say the worst of the hunger and mood swings would be over in six weeks?”
“So six weeks?” His eyes gleamed. “That’s only four more.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything, Lucien.”
“I can live with four more weeks.”
He stood, and Makeda could see the outline of his arousal behind the loose pants he wore. He’d stripped off his shirt, and her gaze traveled up his body to the rivulets of water falling down his chest. She could see his tattoos clearly now. Scattered drops on his shoulders mimicked black spots on his chest and shoulders. The water ran over dark chevrons inked on his torso until they formed tiny tributaries that cut and traced over the valleys of his musculature.
She blinked at the memory of rain. Rain hitting glass. Drops tracing down the window…
“Makeda?”
Coursing blood in her system pumped from her heart, through the lungs, carrying vital nutrients through the arteries, the delicate arterioles, the tiny capillaries that fed each cell. Then the steady flow of oxygen-starved blood making its return journey through the veins. An endless system of red cells fed and renewed…
By the source.
“It all goes back to the source,” she murmured, her eyes unfocused.
“Makeda?” He knelt in front of her. “What is it?”
“I remember the night of the accident.”
❖
The printouts from her computer history lay spread on the table before her. She stood, unable to remain sitting, and sifted through them with inhuman speed.
“This one,” she said. “Read it.”
“Bone marrow and viral infections?” He skimmed the article. “You think the virus is replicating in the bone marrow.”
“I think it
has to be. Everything goes back to the blood, right? It’s what vampires feed on. It’s what keeps them alive. Bone marrow is the single biggest site of blood cell production in humans and—I’m assuming—vampires.”
“It is.” He stared at the paper in his hands, frowning as she spoke. “I suppose I could write Brenden in Dublin. Have him check—”
“Bone marrow is also vital to the immune system. If the virus is attacking and living in the marrow—”
“That explains how it’s surviving in vampire blood,” Lucien said. “And if the bone marrow is the source of the disease, it would also inhibit any immune reaction.”
“No antibodies. No immune reaction. The body is helpless against the invading disease because the disease is replicating in the marrow itself.”
Lucien set the paper down. “How do we treat diseases that attack bone marrow? Think out loud.”
“Marrow transplant. Peripheral stem cell treatments. There are other ideas proposed, but those are the current options.”
“Bone marrow transplant.” He sat down and let out a long breath. “On vampires.”
“It’s theoretically possible.”
“There are so many problems with this.” His eyes were fierce. “Makeda, you have no idea—”
“Yes, the healing factor would be a problem,” she said. “And we’re dealing with big unknowns because transplant surgeries often take—”
“The healing issue is only the start of it.” Lucien stood again, as on edge as Makeda was. “If we’re talking about marrow transplant, we’re talking about fundamentally changing the structure of a vampire’s blood. Possibly killing off the very thing they need to survive in order to cure them. This could change everything about their biology. Amnis is fed by the blood, yes, but it’s tied to the nervous system. Changing marrow could change blood type. Could change elemental identity. Amnis. It could change a vampire’s connection to his sire or mate.”
None of those things had occurred to Makeda, but she immediately saw their importance. Vampire identity, family, and political power were closely tied to their element and family structure. Changing either of those things could fundamentally alter an immortal’s place in the world.
But even then…
“They’re dying, Lucien.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “We offer. We ask for volunteers like we would in any experimental treatment, and we let them decide. But they’re dying. If we can work out the mechanics of the transplant, this may be an option. The only valid option that’s presented itself in four years.”
He looked around the lab. “Even if we work out the existing problems, where are we going to run these trials? You can’t be around human patients, and I can’t leave you. At the same time, I don’t think the immortal world can wait for this.”
The thought of running trials she couldn’t monitor enraged her, but she knew there was no other option. “We’ll have to run them in Ireland. You’re familiar with the doctors in the facility there, aren’t you?”
“Brenden McTierney,” Lucien said. “He’s human, surprisingly. He was a great friend and colleague of Ioan ap Carwyn, one of the first immortal scientists who discovered Elixir.”
“Why can’t we have this Ioan—”
“Ioan’s dead.” Lucien’s expression said the subject wasn’t up for discussion. “But Brenden worked with him and Ioan trusted him. Patrick Murphy hired McTierney when he started the Elixir facility outside Dublin. He’s my chief point of contact there.”
“Would he be able to run trials? How familiar is he with vampire biology?”
“He’s not innovative, but he’s thorough and he’s meticulous. More, he has the trust of the vampires he’s treated. If anyone can make the case for an experimental procedure, Brenden would be it.” He paused. “Katya won’t like it.”
Makeda scoffed. “Neither of us is under Katya’s aegis at this point. As far as she’s concerned, I thought up this theory after I became vampire. She has no proprietary claim on my ideas, and she can’t prove otherwise.”
Lucien stared at her for so long she became self-conscious.
“Do you think I’m morally wrong in this?” Makeda asked. “Yes, she funded my thalassemia research, but this idea—”
“I don’t think you’re morally wrong. I was just trying to control myself. I find it incredibly arousing when you’re arrogant.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Makeda found that pleasing, and she didn’t know why. Arrogance was an unavoidable part of her personality, but she didn’t consider it a positive one. Her very traditional parents tried hard to instill humility in all their children. It just hadn’t taken well with Makeda. She wasn’t a boaster, but she remembered going through much of her childhood quietly tolerating those she felt were inferior on an intellectual level. It wasn’t an attractive trait.
Except, apparently, to Lucien.
Saba
Tobruk, Libya
Inaya lounged in Ziri’s lap, laughing as he offered her grapes. She snatched them from his fingers, at ease in the scowling presence of the old wind vampire. Two of her harem lounged nearby, blowing kisses when Inaya or Ziri glanced their way.
Saba and Kato exchanged looks, but they’d long ago accustomed themselves to Ziri’s particular appetites and frequent whims.
“Take Ziri and leave us,” Saba said to Kato. “I want to speak to Inaya alone.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to,” Saba said. “And it’s none of your business.”
Kato leaned over and breathed the words into her ear. “Don’t think I don’t see you, my queen.”
“See what?”
“The look in your eye.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kato drew back and kissed her temple. “Liar.”
The two old vampires departed, leaving Inaya with Saba and the delicately trickling fountain in the center of the courtyard.
“What did you want to talk about?” Inaya dropped her flirtatious demeanor once the males had left.
“I’m considering.”
“Considering what?”
Saba stared at the woman. In many ways, Inaya was the culmination of centuries of immortal progress and civilization. She’d been turned at the peak of her human health, chosen deliberately by a thoughtful and cultured immortal leader to be his protégée. She’d been trained in the Ottoman court of Rosetta. Progressed through the ranks of her sire’s business and political organization until she’d struck out on her own, slowly building alliances until she could conquer the corrupt leader of Libya and Egypt. She took his territory for her own and established her own modern immortal empire.
She was cultured. Educated. Civilized. Progressive.
And still her court was stricken by Elixir.
“How is your friend?” Saba asked.
Inaya’s eyes sharpened. “How is your son?”
“Progressing.”
Not fast enough.
The sentiment remained unspoken between them, for Inaya knew she was nothing to Lucien. Speaking against the last of Saba’s true offspring was a quick way to find death.
“We trust your guidance, Mother.” Inaya murmured the expected platitudes, but Saba could see rebellion in the curve of her mouth.
Saba had once ruled all the African continent, and she’d found the responsibility tiring. She recognized now that she’d been shirking her responsibilities. These were her children. All of them.
And sometimes children needed a mother’s discipline.
She cupped Inaya’s chin in her palm. “A twisted bone must break in order to mend correctly,” Saba whispered, pinching Inaya’s chin. “Do you understand, daughter?”
“I understand.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lucien listened to music when he worked. Unless he was working in a lab with myriad assistants and staff bustling around, he listened to music. Bach sometimes. Other times African artists or Latin American. Western folk musi
c. He found anything with a droning element soothing. When he needed to focus, he often turned to bagpipes.
None of those options seemed to suit Makeda.
He held up a few cassettes. “Pick something.”
She looked up from her notebooks. “Why? I don’t like to listen to music when I work. I prefer silence. Don’t you have headphones?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s my lab. Which means we listen to music.” He was only being polite giving her the option of which music to listen to. He found a cassette of Tibetan throat singers and snapped it into the player with half a smile on his face.
A few seconds later, she slammed down her notebook. “You have got to be kidding me.” Makeda marched over to the cassette player and reached for it, but Lucien grabbed her and swung her around.
He was perched on a work stool, and he pulled her between his legs, braceleting her wrist in one hand with his other hand on her hip. “Leave my music alone.”
“This is awful.”
“I find it quite soothing. There’s something about the nasal droning—”
“Let me look.” She huffed out a breath. “If you have to have music, I’ll pick something inoffensive.”
“You can’t do that.” He brushed his thumb back and forth over the inside of her wrist. “Good music should always be a little offensive. Otherwise, it’s boring.”
He wanted to lick her wrist and bite her shoulder. The night before had been highly interesting. In typical newborn fashion, Makeda had swung from excitement to confusion to anger to passion in the space of minutes. She fascinated him. He was too curious not to explore it.
“Classical music isn’t offensive,” Makeda said, still frozen between his legs. Her eyes were on the hand holding her wrist.