Blood Knot (37 page)

Sebastian chuckled. “Told you so,” he said complacently.

Winter could feel her heart melting. “When the second faction carved you up, you went out of your way to make sure we didn’t know we were the ‘or else’.”

Nial shook his head. “I went out of my way to extricate us all from a mess that could have no happy ending. There was no point in worrying either of you with a scenario that I had no intention of ever letting come to pass.”

Winter understood better, now, some of the ferociousness she had seen in Nial’s face when he had dealt with the faction in the shed.

Sebastian stirred. “And now you have managed it,” he said. “You’ve pulled us all out of the soup. What are you going to do with us?” Despite the dryness of his tone, he was smiling.

Nial’s mouth lifted in a smile, too. “Why don’t you ask Tera that? She’s already figured it out.”

“
I have?” Winter didn’t bother hiding her surprise.

“
You spoke about not being outside. About groups,” Nial said. “Extrapolate from there.”

Winter frowned, thinking it through. Then she suddenly understood. She began to smile. “Nial, you’re really going to be that ambitious?”

“
What
ambitious?” Sebastian complained. “Will you two stop talking in hieroglyphics?”

“
It’s not ambition that drives me,” Nial told her. “Everything I do from now on has a simple purpose.” He kissed her hand, then leaned forward and kissed Sebastian. “To preserve us.”

Sebastian shook his head. “Fine, great, wonderful. But you’re still skipping swathes of text here.”

Nial lifted his brow and looked at her. “Want to spare Sebastian a coronary? Tell him the very first step.”

“
Thank
you,” Sebastian said.

Winter picked up his hand. “First step, Sebastian? You have to marry me.”

“
Well, finally,” he complained. “A simple sentence I can understand. Consider it done.” Then he frowned. “That’s just the
first
step?”

Wawel Castle, Krakow, Poland.
Ten days later.

THE CIVIL WEDDING ceremony was small, attended by a handful of guests, and held in a grand, tapestry-lined state room.

Winter stood with Nial at her back, his arm around her and her left hand held in his, while Sebastian held her right and slipped his wedding ring onto that hand, as was the custom in Poland. The celebrant, who had been paid a great deal of money, made no protest over the odd arrangement of the wedding party.

Neither did the assembled guests, who watched the short ceremony with eagle eyes and sharp minds.

A small wedding buffet was served in the same room, but most of the guests were unable to partake although everyone took a glass of champagne, for show. Sebastian served Winter a piece of the fruitcake and a glass of champagne, along with a kiss. He did the same with Nial.

After the celebrant had congratulated them and hurried off for his next appointment, one of the guests, a man in his thirties with red hair, came up and congratulated them in a quiet voice that nevertheless put Winter on alert.

Nial smiled pleasantly at the man. “I appreciate that you were able to make it from the States, Garrett.”

“
I was in London on business,” Garrett said. “So it wasn’t the inconvenience it seems. But in truth, I would have tried to make the date even if I hadn’t been so close.”

Nial raised a brow. “Your curiosity bump was itching?”

“
Something like that,” Garrett confessed easily. “Of course, most of us on the eastern seaboard had heard you were dead, Nathanial. So you can imagine my surprise when I got your communication.”

“
I don’t die that easily,” Nial said blandly.

“
No, I don’t imagine you do after all this time,” Garrett agreed, with a small smile. He looked around the room. “So many of us in one place. This is…almost uncomfortable.”

“
I’d get used to it, if I were you,” Sebastian said.

Garrett lifted one brow, just as Nial had done. “Then this ceremony was not just personal. I thought as much.” His eyes narrowed. “Speak plainly, Nathanial. I will listen.”

“
As will I,” said one of the other guests, who had drifted up behind Garrett—a plain man with greying hair and brown eyes.

“
Bartholomew,” Nial acknowledged.

The remaining three guests ranged themselves behind Bartholomew and Garrett, silently listening.

Winter stepped in front of Nial, shielding him. Sebastian stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. They had deliberately chosen those positions beforehand, for the symbolism they would impart.

“
Organization was once an anathema to us,” Nial said. “Meeting in numbers greater than two forbidden because of the security risks. Keeping ourselves hidden from humans has driven everything we do for centuries.” He shook his head. “That is about to change.”

Garrett’s smile faded. “You jest,” he breathed.

“
An expensive jest, to bring you all this way.” Nial shook his head. “Ask the good senator behind you if I am joking. Senator Billson?”

Garrett spun around. So did the others, to face the oldest and portliest of the group facing them.

The senator cleared his throat. “He is not joking. There
was
a congressional hearing set to reveal us, most especially the Speaker. But the evidence was destroyed before the subpoenas were sent out a couple of weeks ago, so the hearing was abandoned.”

Garrett turned back to Nial. “You had something to do with that?”

“
Against my will, yes,” Nial said. “In part, that is how I ‘died’.” He held up his hand. “But you have just made my point for me, Garrett. There was a group—a whole
group
—who worked together to have that hearing dismantled.” He spread his hands. “We are no longer a species of individuals.”

Garrett considered that. “You never have been, Nathanial.”

“
No,” Nial agreed. “And I intend to embrace it, as this ceremony today should have underlined for you all. The fact of our existence will emerge amongst humans sooner or later now. It is inevitable. Too many humans who bear us ill-will already know of us and are working against us. We need to organize. We need to identify each other, learn more about how many of us there is. We need to talk amongst ourselves. And we need to meet more often face to face.”

“
It sounds like we’ve already started doing that,” the senator said. “What’s wrong with this group who got the hearing thrown out?”

“
They have their own interests at heart,” Nial replied. “They care nothing for humans. They don’t care for anyone outside their group, either. I don’t believe they intend to reveal themselves at all, even though they assured me they would eventually do so, when the time was right.”

“
And you will, Nathanial? You’re going to drop the bomb on the world?” Garrett asked.

Nial looked them in the eye, one by one. “Yes.”

The five vampires ranged before them all gasped.

“
For the love of…” Garrett began. He spread his hands. “
Why
?” he demanded.

Nial shrugged, as if it were self-evident. “So we—all of us, Garrett—can belong. So we can stop being outsiders and loners. So we can start really living again, openly and honestly, as ourselves.”

Garrett stared at him.

“
Don’t you want that, deep down in your gut, Garrett?” Sebastian asked.

“
Hell, yes,” Bartholomew growled.

Garrett grinned and thrust out his hand.

Nial gripped it. “Welcome back to real life,” he said.

Tracy Cooper-Posey is a national award-winning writer. An Australian, she brought her family with her to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1996 to marry. Tracy is a net citizen— she met her husband on the Internet, and has coordinated discussion groups and teaching on-line. She also built and maintains her own web site. She has taught creative writing both on-line and at university, and entertains students and the public with anecdotes and insights into the publishing industry.

By the end of 2010, Tracy had published 35 titles, under her own and other pennames. She has won the Emma Darcy Award, and the Sherlock Holmes Society of Western Australia’s Best Pastiche Award
.
She has been a Romantic Times Top Pick author. Her short stories and articles have appeared in various Canadian and Australian magazines and periodicals, and on the Internet.
Thief In The Night
was announced as one of RRT Review’s
Best Book of the Year
, and also selected by eCataromance for their Reviewers’ Choice Awards in February 2007. Her 2004 historical romantic suspense,
Heart Of Vengeance
, was nominated for a CAPA Award for Best Historical of 2004, a
Romantic Times
Magazine Reviewer’s Choice finalist for best medieval historical romance for 2004, and was published in Germany in February 2007. On Christmas eve 2010, she was announced as a finalist for the prestigious romance world’s CAPRA awards, in the best erotic paranormal category, and as favorite author.

So far her life has encompassed an eighteen month stint on war-ravaged Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea, and at various times she has been a secretary, office clerk, single mother, freelance writer, public speaker, columnist, law student, international traveler, writing teacher, advertising production coordinator (for a national newsmagazine), web-press production coordinator, and the first female cinematograph operator in Western Australia. She has been the editor of
WHERE Edmonton
magazine, and managing editor of the national magazine,
Canadian Cowboy Country
Magazine, and for a decade, she taught creative writing at Grant MacEwan University. She currently lives in Edmonton with her husband, a professional wrestler.

You can find her web site at
http://www.tracycooperposey.com
.