*** *** ***
Gerrod sat against the brick wall. He could barely hold his head upright. His blood starvation had reached a critical point, that place in vampires that put him on the brink of death, wobbling back and forth.
His vision pared down to the still figure on the floor, her red hair fanned over the uneven gray flagstones. Her back was to him, one arm caught beneath, her hand palm up, fingers motionless.
She breathed in light breaths, high in the chest.
She was dying, almost drained of blood.
The vampire that had dumped her on the concrete floor was in a state of ecstasy. “So much blood,” he had said, laughing as he closed the cell door, locked it and headed back up the hall.
So here they were, both dying.
An Invictus wraith had come in earlier to tell him the good news that Abigail had been captured. He’d been too weak to do more than stare at the wraith, horrified. Worse followed when the terms of life for Gerrod and Abigail were established: They were to agree to form a symbiotic pair or be terminated.
“How would we become such a pair?” Gerrod had asked. “I’ve always understood that a wraith must be part of the pair.”
The wraith then explained that for the past hundred years, a very great and wise mastyr vampire, the Great Mastyr as she called him, had been doing experiments with the unique bonding properties of wraith blood. He had also steadily created a deep organization of wraiths, hand-picked for their ability to reason and to follow orders. Hence the recent attacks and the increased number of wraith pairs.
From those experiments, the Great Mastyr had interesting success when he used a human and a vampire. Once their blood was blended in a vessel and a fair amount of wraith blood added, it was as though the couple had become power-bonded like a wraith and a chosen mate. When the Great Mastyr had been informed that the Mastyr of Merhaine himself was dating a human, the rest followed.
Abigail and Gerrod would be the first of many very public experiments.
Gerrod had answered simply, “I would rather die first.”
“We hope that isn’t your choice.”
He remembered thinking there was something odd about this. “Why wouldn’t you just force us to do it?”
The wraith rolled her eyes. “For some odd reason unless the couple consents, if the act is done against the will of either, death follows. The Great Mastyr is still working to resolve this issue.”
He had one more question, since he had never spoken with an Invictus wraith before. “Why do you kill? What is it in the Invictus bonding that creates such sadism?”
The wraith merely smiled. “Killing in this way provides a tremendous rush of exhilaration and increased power. The symbiotic relationship, in which wraith and servant feed one another in a continuous loop helps sustain that power level. The whole is very addicting and pleasurable.”
So here Gerrod was, barely able to keep himself in a sitting position against the wall, with his beloved at his feet, and the only alternative for life that presented itself was becoming a wraith-based couple.
But perhaps what hurt the most was the simple, wonderful fact that Abigail had come for him, even knowing all that had happened, that the Invictus had been making a battlefield out of Merhaine, she had come for him.
He blinked, but it almost hurt to make that much effort. His eyes were wet. So were his cheeks.
The room was an oversized prison cell with a concrete floor and a glaring fluorescent light that buzzed overhead. He turned his head slowly to look out the small window, barred with a steel grate. Why the hell couldn’t he have been more like the fictional vampires and been capable of dematerializing? There were a few who could, but his DNA was just that much closer to human than the vanishing-gifted of his world.
He had speed though, but much good that would do him here, locked in a cell, near-death.
He shifted to stare at Abigail. He missed her, he needed her, he loved her. He recalled the moment at the wedding reception when Abigail had poked two fingers into him and said, ‘You need to lighten up.’
Her light green eyes had sparkled, shining with amusement.
But this was why he had wanted her to leave, this cell and her inert body, drained of precious blood, his greatest fear made manifest, that a woman, any woman, would die because of him, because she knew him or got too close.
*** *** ***
Abigail thought she was breathing but she couldn’t be sure. Did it count as breathing if you sort of puffed your air in and out of your chest? Her ribs hurt. To draw a deep breath hurt too much and yet that wasn’t the real problem. The truth was, she didn’t have the strength to draw a deep breath and her blood felt heavy again, her heart sluggish. Gerrod must be close and in need.
Gerrod, she called out, pathing along his particular frequency.
I’m here.
Where is here?
In an Invictus prison.
Huh. A prison? They’re that organized?
It’s a new terrible night for Merhaine.
I’m so sorry. She had another question, but it just wasn’t coming to the front of her mind. What was it that she needed to know? In fact, she’d been feeling quite desperate to have this particular question answered.
Finally she found it. Are you dead?
Okay that came out wrong, but it was close to the question she wanted to ask.
Did she hear him chuckle?
No, I’m not dead. Close, though.
Oh. She felt too weak to be sad. Another question worked in her mind. Is there any way out of this mess?
Not sure. I can’t move.
Are you behind me?
Yes.
She rolled…sort of. More like scraping and pushing with a hand then her knee, maybe a foot. It was so hard to move and her ribs hurt like hell. Finally, she turned over onto her right side, but had to pant through a few more short breaths. Even then, she couldn’t see Gerrod. She couldn’t see anything. There was some kind of veil over her eyes.
With great difficulty, she lifted her hand and pushed the veil away, which turned out to be a wall made up of her hair.
Gerrod came into focus, sitting not five feet from her, and she smiled.
He was so handsome even though he looked like a bowl of cupcake flour right now, perfectly white. She chuckled, or thought she did, because he actually looked like a vampire. Gone was all that deep rich skin tone.
Okay, now she felt sad.
Gerrod. I don’t want this to be the end. We were just figuring things out.
He pathed, but a different language rippled through her mind. English, she murmured along that same amazing telepathic lane she’d learned to cruise so recently.
Chapter Seven
Gerrod closed his eyes. Looking at her felt like sharp glass cutting into his heart. She was right. They had just started figuring things out, like what a human was doing in his world, setting up a bakery in his lands, having the power to reach his personal frequency, why sex between them was earth-shattering.
But maybe the biggest question was why had he held back from her, resisted her so hard? Because in this moment nothing seemed more important than Abigail, this woman who had told him to ‘lighten up’, made him laugh, then took him to bed after the attack at the wedding when his heart was laden with all the unsolvable problems of his realm.
What a surprise she had been from the beginning. He had tried to get rid of her, for several reasons. Although this had been the main one, that she hadn’t been safe in his world.
Was this really to be the end? What would become of his people? Was it possible the Invictus were poised to dominate all the Nine North American Realms?
He opened his eyes once more. Abigail rested her head on her arm, breaths still shallow, eyes shut.
What came to him seemed to arrive on a golden stream of light, flooding his mind and helping him to understand the true state of his heart: Even if he should survive this moment, if Abigail perished, what joy would he ever know again? S
he had become this great, brilliant sun in his life, shining on everything, brightening the dullest shadow, giving ease to his heart, and great pleasure to his body. Even her blood had a special quality that…
The thought splintered and a new one was born.
Her blood.
Abigail’s blood. Her ‘blood rose’ blood. He had forgotten the unique properties of her blood, that it was impervious to wraith blood.
A plan began to form in his mind, a great deception.
Abigail, he sent.
Hunh? Barely there.
Would you do me the honor of becoming my blood rose?
A long, long pause.
Finally, Are you sure that’s what you want?
Yes. I think there is a mystery here and I intend to embrace it.
Her eyes fluttered open. He tilted his head to see her expression better. Was there a smile on her pale lips?
Would you be able to live if I agreed to become your blood rose?
I think so.
Then of course I’ll agree. But just so ya know, I was coming back, Gerrod. I had already made the decision to come back to Merhaine.
Just like that, it was settled between them, in a dank Invictus prison. Dear Goddess, just like that.
He shook his head. He understood then the greatest part of who she was and why he loved her as much as he did: She would always sacrifice herself for those she loved.
“Wraith,” he called out, but his voice was hardly more than a whisper. He took several deep breaths. “Wraith.” Stronger this time.
The wraith appeared, her red flowing gown moving about as though having a life of its own. Wraiths were always in flight and almost always barefoot. “Did you have something you wished to say, Mastyr of Merhaine?”
“I wish to complete the Invictus coupling you suggested to me earlier, with the human. I will not have her die because I am being stubborn.”
Gerrod?
Trust me.
The wraith’s eyes, all that silver, opened wide. “My mastyr will be pleased. Of course it is very experimental, but we have had profound results. One day, we will prevail.” And there it was, the truth of all this organization. A mastyr vampire had taken the Invictus in hand and now worked to build a force against all the realms.
“Don’t delay,” Gerrod said. “She will not live much longer.”
Her gaze lowered to Abigail. “The human is very weak but the coupling will heal her.”
She sped away, her robes flapping behind like great red wings.
Gerrod, are we to become Invictus?
Trust...me. His vision grew dark and as he slid down the wall, he hoped to hell the wraith took him at his word.
** *** ***
Abigail felt arms pick her up. She glanced to her left. The vampire who had taken her blood, probably joined to the wraith now hovering nearby, held her steady. She whimpered because of her ribs.
“You will grow stronger, never fear,” the wraith said, floating in front of Abigail. “Then you’ll see the true majesty of what we intend to accomplish in the realm world.”
A troll slave shuffled toward her. She bore a silver chain, threaded through iron rings that dangled from each ear. The chain was caught below her chin and clamped together and travelled inside her beige muslin shirt. Abigail didn’t want to know where it ended. The slave waited beside the wraith, her head tipped submissively down, or maybe it was the weight of the chain dragging down her ears.
“Slave, you will take the knife and open the human’s vein.”
The troll stepped close to Abigail, took her arm in her hand, then cut her wrist open, a deep wound that made Abigail cry out. She opened her eyes and saw that the wraith held a bowl beneath her arm. She watched what little blood she had left stream into the pure white vessel.
“Good. That will do.” The raspy voice of the wraith flowed down from above her.
The troll bound her arm with gauze as Abigail looked around. Gerrod lay on the floor on his side. He looked horribly still.
She gasped. Gerrod? she pathed.
But nothing returned, just a blank emptiness. She turned and looked up at the wraith. “Is he dead?”
“No. Close. But this should work.”
“He won’t be able to drink.”
The wraith smiled, her yellow fangs so strange against her dark lips. “He won’t need to drink,” the wraith said. “We have many methods for completing the symbiotic bond.”
A chill traveled over Abigail’s neck. What did she mean?
The troll moved to Gerrod and bunched his sleeve above his elbow. She then cut him deep, not at the wrist but high on his forearm. Blood pumped slowly into the bowl, as in way-too-slow, rhythmic spurts, which was the only sign Abigail had that his heart still beat. After no more than fifteen seconds, the troll slapped a bandage on the wound. She returned the bowl to the wraith.
The wraith snapped her fingers at the troll then laughed as she extended her arm down to the slave. She levitated lower so that the troll could reach her wrist. “Make the cut, but not too severe, or the next cut will be on you.”
The troll trembled as she whipped the knife over the wraith’s veins at the wrist. The wraith didn’t even flinch. She let a good portion drip into the bowl.
When she was done, the troll bandaged her wrist.
The wraith then used what looked like a single chop stick to swirl the blood together. She breathed in deeply, her thin nostrils flaring. Her very white cheeks colored up and her fangs seemed to press down on her lower lip.
“The bouquet. Like bread dipped in wine. Exquisite.”
Abigail still panted each breath, waiting.
The wraith’s fangs retreated. She called out over her shoulder. “Bring me the syringe. We must do this now. He no longer breathes.”
Abigail drew in a sharp painful breath. She glanced at Gerrod’s chest and sides. The wraith was right. “Hurry.”
The slave helped the wraith fill the syringe with half the combined blood. With her foot, she pushed Gerrod onto his back.
“Expose his chest.”
The troll dropped to her knees and used the knife to cut through the shoulder strap. She made quick cuts at both front panels of the leather coat at the shoulders then sliced up his woven shirt. Within seconds, he was stripped to the waist, his heavily muscled pecs and strong abs horribly white under the glare of the fluorescent lights.
There was nothing pretty about this moment, just horror and pain.
“Step away,” the wraith commanded.
The slave rose and moved backward in quick short steps.
The wraith dropped to her knees, her hair still wafting back and forth. She put one hand on Gerrod’s chest and felt the spacing between the ribs.
Before Abigail could take the next breath, she slammed the syringe down into Gerrod’s body. This alone caused him to jerk, which gave Abigail some hope that he wasn’t too far gone. She depressed the plunger and the combined blood flowed into his heart.
He began to twitch.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him, not even when the wraith moved close and put the bowl to Abigail’s lips. She watched Gerrod as she drank the rest of their combined blood.
One second.
Two.
Three.
Gerrod’s skin color returned but soon ran an almost fiery red.
But that was the last she saw, because Abigail threw her head back and screamed. The pain was almost unbearable. Between her ribs and what the combined blood was doing to her, now she really couldn’t breathe. She just stared up at the ugly box light fixture, panting once more in light breaths. She felt as though her blood was doing battle with the wraith’s blood. Maybe it was.
The pain pulsed through her, driving into her head, setting every joint aching like she was being pummeled. Her skin felt blistered with heat.
But even through all this pain, for a moment, her mind seized, and her life began to roll before her, of the tragic deaths of her parents, the frequent and at times
constant illness her sister endured, Abigail working nights and weekends while she finished her senior year in high school, later majoring in realm studies at Northern Arizona University but never completing her degree, of opening a bakery, of her sister’s health improving, then Megan’s wedding and the birth of her children.
But it was first seeing Gerrod that her mind grabbed, the sheer breadth of his shoulders, the fine angle of his back to a narrow waist, the fierce power of his thighs, the frequent look on his face when he would turn and stare at her, his expression so angry, as though she’d intruded on his life in order to torment him. Yet, how well she knew him now, that all that anger was a mask of deep concern for his people, the weight he bore in his soul, even his attraction to her, all that pulled his brow low and gave him a constant scowling appearance.
As the visions stopped, she realized her pain was gone and in its place was a thumping heartbeat, stronger than she’d ever known. She glanced at the wraith and something nagged at her, something that she had heard two weeks ago about wraith blood.
Enlightenment dawned as she remembered what Vojalie had said about a blood rose being impervious to wraith blood. She stared at Gerrod. He must have remembered this as well, which was why he knew neither could become the heinous symbiotic pair that enjoyed killing.
She focused within her body and felt it, her blood overcoming the wraith infection.
She sat up.
She stared at the wraith whose silver eyes glowed with a mad light. “You are now Invictus.”
Like hell I am, she thought. But all she did was dip her chin then turn to stare at Gerrod.
Her vision seemed changed, as though he had an aura around him. That aura drew her.
She rose to her feet in a fluid motion, her body completely healed. She felt better than she had ever felt in her life, except for the weight of the excess blood she had made for Gerrod. Yep, she was ready for her vampire again.
But now it all made sense, what at least one of her purposes in Gerrod’s life would be, now and forever. She crossed to him and dropped to stretch down beside him. She laid a hand on his chest.
He was breathing much better now, but the redness of his skin had faded and he was now once again very pale. She knew the cause: chronic blood starvation. Even the power latent in their combined bloods could not suddenly restore this amount of deprivation. Although as a blood rose, she’d had the opposite experience.