She shifted her gaze to him.
“You were choosing a better life for yourself, a better fit. I know how powerful you are and I also know it must have been hell for you trying to always hold back, always restrain yourself. When you ascend, you can be everything you were meant to be. Try to remember that.”
Alison stared into passionate green eyes glittering in the dim light of the Nova. “I wanted to ascend.” She put a hand to the dip between her breasts. “I have felt such a yearning here, in my heart, every day for weeks now. I know this is the right path for me, but I didn’t expect…” Her voice broke. “And Darian was my … client. I cared for him. I worried about him. All in vain, I guess.”
“Well, shit,” he muttered.
“That about sums it up.”
Alison swiped at her cheeks, straightened her shoulders, and took in a big solid breath. She unlatched her seat belt then turned toward him.
As she met his gaze, the familiar and very crazy attraction she felt for him flowed through her once more. She became painfully aware that he was only inches away from her. He was huge and more than filled his side of her way-too-small car. He shifted his gaze away from her, cleared his throat, and this time he stared out his side window.
He looked uncomfortable, though she wasn’t quite certain why.
“Okay,” she said. “So tell me everything.”
He nodded and, after drawing a deep breath, turned back to her. He spoke for a long time about the structure of immortal earth, of ascending dimensions, to which individuals received a call. In her case the dreams she’d been having as well as the sense of longing she had experienced were her calls. He gestured a lot with his hands and more than once dragged his fingers through his hair in the direction of the leather clasp, until he undid the piece, refit all his thick wavy hair, then secured the prong through the leather. She didn’t know long hair on a man could be so damn sexy.
When he fell silent, she asked, “So what’s with the vampire thing? I thought vampires were the undead.”
He smiled, a slight crooked curve of his lips. “There’s a huge difference between fictional vampirism and what exists in real-life, real-time ascending worlds.”
Apparently.
“So you weren’t always a vampire, before you ascended?”
He shook his head. He even smiled again. “No. Vampires aren’t born to Mortal Earth. Vampiric traits are given during the ascension ceremony, traits such as increased physical power, sharpened vision and hearing, sometimes new unexpected powers, as well as fangs, in order to both take blood and to release chemicals into the blood and surrounding tissues. I know this must sound barbaric to you, but the experience of taking and receiving blood is revered on Second Earth.”
She snorted. “Yeah, there was a lot of reverence going down at the Blood and Bite.”
At that, he chuckled, a deep low rumble. The vampire had an amazing voice, a soft elegant bass, warm, rich. “You’ve got me there,” he said. “I suppose it’s like sex. It can give tremendous relief in stressful situations, like before a battle. Shared between husband and wife, yeah, reverence is the right word.”
She stared at him. “Husband and wife?”
He seemed to fall inside himself as he said quietly, “My second wife and I shared blood. It was … a very fine experience.” His expression dimmed, like the memories had pulled the shades down on all the windows. He also spoke in the past, and given his drive toward her, she thought it a fairly good guess that his wife was no longer living.
He drew out of himself in slow stages. She knew better than to hurry the process.
He flicked his thumb over the steering wheel and finally said, “As you already know, given events at your office complex, the blood ritual can be profoundly abused. Mortals and immortals alike can be drunk to death and often are. The most significant sign of this act you’ve seen already, the paling out and faint bluing of the skin.”
She nodded. “He was beautiful.”
“Yes.” He shook his head. “A cruel irony.”
“Why are these kinds of monsters allowed on Earth? I mean Mortal Earth?”
“It’s not allowed. It’s illegal and we work to contain them.”
“So you, as a warrior, battle death vampires, as in, that’s your job.”
He nodded, staring straight ahead. “Yes. Myself and six other warriors. Warriors of the Blood. The problem is, the Commander—Darian Greaves, your Darian Greaves—has gone global in the last fifty years, and with the increase in Mortal Earth’s population, the number of death vampires he and his allies can create has increased exponentially.” He shook his head back and forth. “You don’t really need to know this shit.” He scowled and once more tapped the steering wheel.
Alison sat quietly, her thoughts tumbling inward. Ascension. Ascending dimensions. An entire world adjacent to Earth. Mortal Earth. Mortal Earth. Mortal. Earth.
All the vampire lore she had ever heard sped through her mind. She had read Bram Stoker’s version. She watched True Blood. But this was real and apparently something she would become if she kept going down this road.
Alison Wells. Vampire. She shivered suddenly.
“You okay?” he asked, not looking at her. His thumb again tapped the steering wheel, slower now, a dull thud in the confined space.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m sitting next to a vampire and if I follow this path to a logical conclusion, I’ll grow a pair of fangs myself.”
He glanced at her, his features solemn. “You’re doing fine.”
“You know, you have the most beautiful voice.”
His smile emerged once more.
He looked incredible in the weapons harness and black kilt. Her fingers itched to slide her hands under all that leather. She glanced at his legs and noticed the twitching of his thighs.
“You’re jumpy, too.”
“Kind of,” he said, his voice rough. “In a different way.” Once more, he looked out his side window and drew in a series of long, deep breaths.
“And if you don’t mind my saying, you have the most wonderful … scent … like cardamom.”
He nodded, yet he still wouldn’t look at her.
She laid a hand on his arm. “Thank you for getting me out of the alley.”
He jerked, stiffened, then relaxed. When she withdrew her hand, thinking she might have offended him, he caught it and pressed it back in place.
“You’re very welcome.” He took another deep breath. “But I need you to know a couple of things.”
“Okay.”
“First, I want to explain about earlier at the club. I was caught up in what is a rare experience called the breh-hedden. I was crazed when I went after you, but I wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“I know that.”
“You do?” He glanced at her, relief in his eyes.
She nodded.
“Good. And I’m going to do my best not to let it happen again.”
“Okay.” She became acutely aware of his hand covering hers and his thick muscled arm beneath her palm.
“So it’s the ‘bray’ something?”
“The breh-hedden.” He spelled it for her. “An old expression from a language no longer much in use, just the occasional term or phrase.”
“What is it exactly?”
“First, it’s rare, very rare, but presents itself as an almost impossible drive where the man feels a need to possess a woman sexually, to protect her as well as to exchange blood and to engage the mind in a very deep way, to be in the other’s mind.”
“You’re not talking about telepathy.”
“No. Something much deeper. Mind-engagement, sometimes called mind-diving.”
“Does it have to be all three?” She didn’t want to say them aloud. It all seemed so personal, so intimate: blood, sex, and the mind.
“To complete the breh-hedden, yes, all three, all at once, both parties, at the same time.”
Alison released a long breath. The thought of being so fully joi
ned to another person, to a man, possibly the man sitting next to her, made it difficult to draw the next breath. She swallowed … hard. “So, the attraction I feel for you is part of the breh-hedden.”
“Yes, but I hope you can just forget about it.”
“Kerrick,” she whispered, her face tingling, her breaths shallow, desire flowing. “I don’t think I can.”
He turned toward her and met her gaze. “Oh, God, you smell like lavender.”
“I do?”
He nodded. “Alison, listen. I’m hanging on by a thread here. This experience is powerful, like almost everything that occurs on Second.” He gently slid her hand off his arm. “So you would be really wise not to touch me again, to do what you can to resist this attraction.”
Alison felt completely and utterly trapped between a desire to move forward and an urgent need to restrain herself as she always had, to make certain she didn’t hurt the man beside her. For a split second she wanted to run home, pull the covers over her head, and stay there, like forever. On the other hand, ever since she’d thrown the hand-blast into the air, something deep inside her had shifted and changed. She would never again return to the safety of her simple, lonely, cloistered life. For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, she felt like she was coming alive.
Her breaths sat high on her chest. She needed to know something important—whether she could be with this man, this vampire, and not hurt him. The level of his powers gave her hope, but could he handle who she was?
She put her hand back on his arm and watched his lips part and his chest rise. He turned to meet her gaze. She overlaid his mind with a question. Would you do me a favor?
He didn’t hesitate, not for a second, as he sent, Anything, beautiful one.
What a perfect response.
Aloud, she asked, “Would you kiss me, Kerrick?”
A dream brought to life is more precious than gold,
But beware the price.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
CHAPTER 10
Thorne whipped his phone from the pocket of his kilt, ran his thumb over the strip, then wiped his forehead with his arm. The sweat ran. As it should. He’d been battling on and off for hours. His muscles twitched, a couple of them screaming for relief.
“Central.”
“Hey, Jeannie. We’ve got a mess for you to clean up at the Superstitions.” He stood with his back to a wall of cliffs. The land in front of him was lit by starlight and strewn with unfriendly cacti and the bodies and feathered debris of slain enemy … the usual.
Luken sat nearby, his hands planted in the dirt behind him, which enabled him to lean back. Horace tended a deep sword cut on his thigh. The warrior didn’t flinch as the healer held the wound closed and murmured soft prayer-like intonations. Jesus, that had to hurt.
“How many, duhuro?” Jeannie asked.
“Hey, what’s with you and the duhuro shit?” His hands shook and he felt like his entire chest cavity was on fire.
Jeannie chuckled. “Just showin’ the love, boss.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t used that expression in, what, the last how many years? What gives?”
“Thought it needed a comeback.”
“You know what Medichi says, don’t you?”
“About duhuro? Yeah. He says it means ‘slave’ but we know different.”
“Whatever.” But he laughed.
Jeannie’s throaty chuckle rippled through the line as well. What would they do without the women at Central?
“By the way, why are you still working?” He glanced down and kicked at a small rock.
“Carla had a date.”
“That Militia Warrior again?” His gaze scanned the horizon, ever-seeking. Dawn, unfortunately, was still a couple of hours away, and since death vamps preferred to hunt at night he’d be stuck out here for a while.
“Yeah. She’s really into him. He’s six-four, two sixty, all muscle, just like you warriors.”
“Well, you just make sure he treats her right. If he doesn’t, you know where to find me.”
He heard a very deep sigh. “Aye-aye, duhuro. So, what kind of numbers are we talkin’ about at the Superstitions right now?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Holy shit. At least you got ’em all.”
“Amen to that.” Sweat once more rolled down his face, dribbled off his nose. He folded a washcloth from his house in Sedona Two and scrubbed his face. “Luken got sliced across his left quad. I had to bring Horace in to do his healing magic.”
“Ouch. Tell him to feel better.”
Thorne just grunted. He heard a series of taps on the screen, then Jeannie came back on line. “Cover your peepers.”
Thorne called out to Luken and Horace, who both closed their eyes. A flash of light and this time a faint rumbling. Twenty-three was a big number.
When the light disappeared, Thorne looked around. All the carnage had vanished. Thank God for technology. It wasn’t so long ago he and Luken would have spent part of each night doing the large folding work themselves, which wasn’t too bad. But on-the-ground debris work was one helluva job: dropped weapons, body parts, feathers, you name it.
For some reason his knees went watery and he sat down on the ground. “Thanks, Jeannie.”
“You headed over to the Convent later?”
“What do you mean?” How does she know?
“You always do about dawn.”
“I do?” Jesus. Had he been so obvious? He needed to break up his routine, although the thought of anything preventing him from going where he needed to go tied his stomach into a double knot. A visit to the Convent had become part of his survival strategy.
“Hey. Everyone knows you’re worried about your sister. How’s she doin’?”
Oh, yeah. His sister. “She’s the same. Excessively devoted.”
“Convent,” Jeannie murmured. He could feel her shudder.
“I hear ya. Horace is just about finished. Holler if you need me.”
“Always do.”
Thorne thumbed his phone and remained sitting on the ground, his forearms resting on bent knees, his leather kilt hanging low. He reached out with his senses, but didn’t detect any shift in the airwaves or cooling of temps. He sniffed the air. Only the sharp smell of the desert returned.
He glanced at the tall, thin healer, his head bent over Luken’s thigh, his hand on the wound, his brow furrowed. A faint glow emanated from the area he worked. Luken leaned back on his palms, his expression disinterested. After a few centuries, what was one deep cut? After all, the artery hadn’t been hit.
“How you doin’, Luken?”
“What? Oh, fine. I was just thinking how beautiful the desert is at night. Just listen to the quiet, and shit, those stars are something else. You don’t see them like that near the city. And I love the smell. Like sage, I guess.”
Leave it Luken to marvel at the work of the Creator after having been flayed like a fish.
A few seconds more and Horace drew upright. Luken rose to his feet as well, shook out both legs, then stomped around. “Horace, you are a fucking genius.” He faced the healer then clamped his hands on both shoulders. “As always, thank you, my man.”
Horace looked up at him and smiled. “My pleasure.” When Luken’s arms returned to his sides, Horace bowed, an absurd sign of respect, which the warriors couldn’t seem to train him out of. He bowed to Thorne as well, lifted an arm, then vanished.
Luken moved to stand in front of Thorne. “Jefe?”
“Yeah?” Thorne looked up. Luken’s legs and shin guards were spattered with blood. He rubbed his hand along the scar by his thumb, savoring the feel of the ridges, thankful he still had all five digits intact.
Luken shook his head. “Twenty-three of those bastards and I almost bought it.”
Thorne’s throat tightened. “I know.”
“Thanks for having my back.”
Thorne just shook his head. The interior of his chest still burned li
ke a sonofabitch. He wanted his Ketel. Now.
* * *
Kerrick looked into blue eyes, which were little more than a soft glitter in the darkened car. The smell of lavender rushed at him, bathed him, worked his senses into a frenzy.
So she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to open that door.
Goddamn breh-hedden.
His vows rushed at him and his heart pitched south. Memories ripped through him, of a lost village twelve hundred years ago, of Marta, his first wife, and her torn-up, drained body. Fast-forward several centuries—Helena and their two children vaporized in an explosion. And during all those twelve hundred years, he had battled with a sword every day and every day he took life again and again. Christ. Before the sun had even set this evening he’d battled four death vamps and sent them to perdition.
“I kill, Alison. That’s what I do.”
He heard her heart rate increase. She couldn’t disguise such a reaction, and still she said, “You are a warrior.”
He nodded. “I am a warrior. I’ve also taken vows. I will not marry again.”
He heard a slight intake of breath then a slow release of air. “I never thought to marry in the course of my life.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.
He turned toward her, shifting in the too small seat. “Why not?”
“I hurt a man once. I…” She lifted her chin. “I almost killed him.”
He checked the growl forming in his throat. “Did he hurt you? Was that why?”
She shook her head then winced. “He got hurt because of who I am. When I asked you to kiss me, I wanted to know if—” She looked away.
“You’re worried you’ll hurt me.”
She nodded and her gaze fell to her lap. “I know what it is to take a vow. It’s just that it would be really nice … once … to know I could kiss a man, be with a man without hurting him.”
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” he stated.
“So you say.”
He really shouldn’t open this door. His vows spun around in his head, slamming against the inside of his skull, but she was next to him and she had said words he said to himself. They get hurt because of who I am.
Jesus. He knew exactly how she felt.