Blood Legacy: The House of Alexander (5 page)

“Did you know,” the man said conversationally, “That you can kill our Kind by eating them?”

The boy’s voice was steady, but he moved his hand to the hilt of his sword. “No, I cannot say that I knew that.”

The man raised his eyes to the dark hallway and a servant scurried from the shadows. The man raised his foot to the table and kicked the body to the floor. “Take it away,” he said in a tone that indicated neither the body nor the situation was of any significance.

The man stood up and the boy inadvertently took a step backward. The man smiled a shark’s smile. “Skittish, aren’t we? Of course I could make you come to me, so you may as well put yourself at ease since you really have no choice in the matter.”

The boy felt light-headed, dizzy from the proximity to so much blood and the proximity to so powerful an Old One. Truly, this man’s power rivaled that of most he had met. Still, the boy’s voice held steady. “You seem very certain of that fact, having no idea who I am.”

The man stopped, as if this puzzled him. “Which leads me to my earlier question. How is that I have never met you?” He took a few steps toward the boy, assessing him, then turned his back, speaking over his shoulder as he gazed into the fire thoughtfully.

“You are not an Old One, but not a Young One either.” He turned to gaze at the boy. “I would guess a few hundred years old, no more.”

The boy said nothing, and the man turned to him once more, staring intently. “But there is something about you that I cannot quite place. Something that is not quite right.”

The boy felt they were heading toward dangerous ground and began guarding his thoughts. The man felt this, and it intrigued him.

“Come here.”

The boy said nothing, simply shook his head.

The man seemed pleasantly surprised at the resistance. Usually, it took but one command.

“I said, come here.”

Something flickered deep in the boy’s eyes, and again he shook his head. But this time there was a mental rebuke as well: No.

The fair-haired man was amazed and delighted at the voice in his head. The whelp was full of surprises.

“You must know that I find defiance irresistibly attractive.” The man’s voice hardened. “And utterly futile. I will not say it again. Come here.”

The boy’s voice hardened as well, and this time he spoke aloud. “It is good you will not say it again, because my answer will not change. I said no.”

The man took a step toward the boy and the boy reached for his sword, but both froze as if suddenly locked in time.

Perhaps it was because they now stood but a few feet apart, or perhaps it was because their anger had moved them beyond their defenses, but in that instant, they were totally revealed to one another.

The man gazed down at the boy in astonishment. He had known that the boy was a girl even from a great distance off. It did not surprise him nor did it matter; he dismissed it. What was staggering was the amount of power the “boy” possessed. It ran through the child like a raging torrent, uncontrolled, bottomless, and largely untapped.

Had the boy not been frozen in place, he would have staggered backward from the mental blow of the man’s presence. He had grossly underestimated this One’s power, sensing a force he had felt in only one other, his mentor.

The man slowly looked the boy up and down, marveling at the sensations he was now perceiving. His hunger was returning. “Who has made you?” he whispered in wonder.

The boy did not respond, then tried to hide from the sudden invasion of his mind. But the man’s power was too great and the boy felt a sharp pain in his head as the man found the name he sought.

The ice-blue eyes shifted through a myriad of emotions: disbelief, amazement, and then slowly dawning delight.

“That is not possible,” the man said. “It is not possible that Victor could have Changed you.”

The boy spoke with a bravado he did not feel. “And yet here I am.”

“Yes,” the man said contemplatively. “Here you are.” He paused, his perusal of the boy’s form continuing. “And what is your name?”

The boy no longer tried to hide his thoughts, knowing it was futile. “My name is Rhian.”

The man smiled his shark’s smile. “My name is Aeron.”

Before the boy was even aware of movement, the man was at his side, his hand covering his own on the hilt of the sword. “You will not need this,” he said, removing the sword from the boy’s side.

The boy was furious at himself. The anger helped clear some of the stupor that was falling over him. But the man would have none of it, moving closer to him and speaking in his hypnotic voice.

“Won’t you come and rest with me for a moment?”

The boy shook his head, but could not resist when the man led him by the arm to a nearby settee. He felt light-headed and slightly nauseous, knowing the man was exerting tremendous power to influence him. His skull felt like it was going to explode.

The man sat, but the boy resisted his attempt to pull him downward. Aeron sat back comfortably, amused at the boy’s continued resistance. The boy might not sit, but he was not going anywhere.

“So I see we are at an impasse,” he said conversationally, playing with the edge of the boy’s leather jerkin. “I am not used to being told no. It is somewhat stimulating.”

His voice hardened. “But all games must come to an end.”

His ice-blue eyes locked with those of the boy’s. “Come here,” he said softly.

The boy closed his eyes, as if he could shut the man out. But truly it was too late for that. And although he did not obey, nor did he resist when the man pulled him gently but firmly onto the couch.

He was sitting next to the man, his head on the man’s shoulder, the man’s arm draped around him. The man toyed with his blond hair, and the sensation made him shudder.

Aeron, for his part, was enamored with the boy. Normally, he would not dally like this, given only to the passion of killing. Nothing satiated him, so there was no anticipation, no expectation of gratification. Only the truly ancient among their Kind could come close to satisfying his desires, and even those rare unions left him unfulfilled.

But glancing down at the boy, he was experiencing a pleasure that was unknown to him. Perhaps it was the thought that he was going to kill Victor’s child. Or perhaps it was the thought that the power coursing through the slender body next to him would soon be coursing through his. Or perhaps it was simply the expectation that the boy would fight to the end.

No matter. It would end as all the others.

The boy struggled to concentrate, momentarily regaining lost ground when he pushed the man from his mind. In that instance he steeled himself, focusing all his power on resisting seduction. He realized he most likely would not escape, but he would not go willingly.

Aeron was impressed with the boy’s fortitude. His mental discipline was as great as many twice his age, and it was the mental gifts of their Kind that separated those who would otherwise be equals. It separated the mediocre from the extraordinary when all else was the same.

And this One was truly extraordinary. Aeron glanced down at the beautiful creature in his arms. His grip began to slowly tighten.

The boy fought the pressure, holding his arms stiffly. He felt as if he were being crushed. If he had needed to breathe, he would have been unable. Worse, he felt his arms began to weaken, as if they no longer had the will or strength to push this man away.

If that was the case, that was not Aeron’s impression at all. He was astonished at the boy’s strength, and found himself actually straining to physically overcome him.

“I will not yield to you,” the boy whispered defiantly through clenched teeth.

Aeron was now close enough to the boy’s throat that his lips brushed the throbbing jugular vein. “You realize that changes nothing,” he replied.

And with that, his razor sharp teeth brushed the skin, easily slicing through a surface that was impenetrable to most steel.

The shock was immediate and profound. As the blood flowed into his body, Aeron was stunned to feel his heart stumble within his chest, expanding to accommodate the force that surged through it. The boy’s Memories were instantaneous and unbearably intense. They flew at him so quickly he could not place them in any coherent context. He saw Victor, and fire, and a blond woman, and thousands of soldiers, but he could sort none of it. These were not the normal Memories of their Kind, that ebbed and flowed lazily toward him as he Shared, that settled into mediocrity as he killed his prey.

These were the Memories of One whose veins flowed with fire.

Aeron was fascinated.

The boy felt the shock as well as he connected with the man. It was one of his peculiarities, the ability to join with the one who fed upon him, as opposed to merely the one he fed upon. Aeron sensed this and was incredulous. He realized the boy could see his Memories even though none of his blood had passed the boy’s lips. He also realized that this amazing creature had never been fed off by anyone other than Victor. And this fact astonished him more than anything that had preceded this moment.

For the boy, the man’s Memories were horrifying, and he could make no more sense of Aeron’s past than Aeron could make of his. All he saw was blood and flesh, and a hunger that could not be filled by all the death in the world. The man’s power was overwhelming, his magnetism devastating, and the boy felt himself drawn to the blackness that always waited just beyond the fire, the blackness from which none of their Kind ever returned.

Aeron felt the boy’s heart fight back, and it excited him. He felt himself on the verge of loss of control, careening toward the fire, wanting to waltz the boy into the flames so he could then fling him off the edge into the darkness.

But something else was in play as well. Aeron did not want this feeling to end, he did not want the blood to ever stop surging through his veins. For once he felt himself teetering on the edge of that cliff and contemplating the ultimate pleasure of going over it himself.

The boy felt his heart strain against the quickening pace of the man’s hunger. He felt himself begin to weaken, knowing that he was dangerously close to slipping away. The man’s hunger was immense, his pace continuing to quicken, and the boy was lost in a blood-red netherworld. The world was on fire, and there was nothing but the boy and the man and the darkness. The boy turned to the blackness and Aeron stood behind him, waiting for him to step off as they all did.

But instead, the boy turned to him. There was no desperation in his eyes, no fear, no drunken desire, no crazed longing, no begging, no pleading, nor any of the thousands of reactions Aeron had seen just prior to killing his prey.

Instead, the boy stood there, balancing playfully on the edge with a knowing look in his eyes and a slight smile on his lips. He gazed into ice-blue eyes with eyes that were now the color of fire.

“Come with me,” came the whispered, intoxicating invitation.

And then the world disappeared in flames and Aeron felt his heart explode within his chest. He was no longer in the blood-red netherworld, but back in the great room with the light from a thousand candles flickering on the unconscious boy in his arms. He stared down in stunned disbelief at the pale, prone figure.

No one had ever satisfied his demonic thirst, let alone tempted him with death itself. He searched himself. He had no urge to rip the boy’s flesh from his body and consume it, no need to devour him to fill the void that could not be filled.

He glanced down at the boy. He did want to destroy him, but that was the desire of all their Kind. He wanted to kill him in the act of Sharing, because there was no greater pleasure. But, he admitted to himself, that might very well be impossible with this One.

“But I shall enjoy trying,” Aeron murmured to himself, stroking the boy’s hair. “We did not even complete half the act. I can’t imagine what it will be like when my blood passes your lips.”

“You will never, ever, have that experience.”

Aeron’s expression darkened but he did not move. Instead his hand drifted to settle on the boy.

“Why, Victor, what an unexpected pleasure.”

Victor Alexander stepped from the shadows, his expression one of barely-contained fury. It was only the vulnerability of his unconscious prodigy that kept him from attacking and utterly destroying this man.

Aeron was wary. He had been caught off guard by Victor’s approach, so lost in the act of Sharing had he been. But he was also delighted by the situation. He moved his hand possessively to stroke the boy’s hair.