Blood Redemption (9 page)

Saber gasped in pain and flew backward, slamming into the opposite wall. His wild
hair whipped around him as if caught in a great gust of wind, and his neck popped,
twisting unnaturally, making a horrible, piteous sound, although it didn’t appear
to be broken. When at last he slumped to the ground, he simply sat there in stunned
silence, staring up at the princess with red, glowing eyes, his furious gaze locked
with hers in some elemental dance of wills.

He was still as the night.

Silent as a prayer.

Yet tumultuous as the sea.

As she called upon her magic once more to wriggle her way back through the bars, back
to a place of safety, she turned to stare at the stunned, disheveled vampire. “I am
not a child to be toyed with, Saber! You may be stronger than me, but I have magic
you can only dream of.” She licked her lips and frowned, still appalled by his animal
nature. “Do you enjoy being a monster?”

He shrugged, seemingly indifferent. “Do you enjoy being a princess?”

“I was born a princess, Mr. Alexiares!”

“And I was
born
a monster, Miss Demir.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “A fire-breathing dragon.” Turning on her heels, she headed
toward the outer door, releasing the guards’ sleeping spell on her way—the Olaru brothers
would both be awake in less than two minutes, neither remembering their repose nor
the time that had passed while they slumbered. As she depressed the handle and pushed
against the cumbersome weight of the door, she turned around to look upon the dragon
one last time: “Tell no one you saw me,” she ordered. “And I will do the same.” Squaring
her shoulders, she raised her chin and regarded him with pity. “You will be dead in
thirty days, Saber Alexiares; and the world will be a better place for it.”

She could still see the smirk of indifference on his face as she fled into the night.

Saber Alexiares drew his knees toward his chest, filled his laboring lungs with air,
and relaxed into the stone wall behind him, staring out into the space where Princess
Vanya had just stood.

Her magic was impressive to say the least.

She had mustered courage, defiance, and tenacity: all admirable traits for a being
not born to the house of Jaegar. She had even struck swiftly, sending him flying across
the room into the damnable stone wall—and didn’t that just make his back feel like
he’d been run over by a John Deere tractor ? Still, even in his weakened state, he
could have summersaulted out of the attack and launched at her before she saw him
stir. She would have never known what hit her.

He wondered if she knew just how easily he could have killed her: While she was still
summoning the words for her spell, he could have snatched her beating heart right
out of her enticing chest. While she was still spinning around to face him, he could
have snapped her slender neck with nothing more than a flick of his wrist. Before
they even made eye contact, he could have closed her beautiful eyes…forever. Did this
brave yet foolish woman truly understand that he could move faster than sound or light?
That he could have thrown her on the cot and undressed her before she realized he
was on top of her.

She was brave to be sure, but he was a soldier in the house of Jaegar, a dark male
who had eight hundred years of savage fighting stored in his repertoire; the princess
had been no match for his speed, cunning, or cruelty.

And yet, she still lived.

Why
, he wondered,
hadn’t he
punished her for her insolence
?

True, he had fed from her with calloused indifference, but if he had struck half as
hard as he could have, her collarbone would be situated two inches lower right now.
No, Saber Alexiares had exercised uncommon restraint.

Enormous control.

He rose from the floor, walked gingerly to the cot, and lowered his body to the mattress,
resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

Perhaps he was still hoping to survive…somehow. But to what end?

To buy him time until he could escape and return to the colony? After all, wasn’t
that what he really wanted? To get as far away from the light vampires as possible
and return to the life he knew and loved, return to his father and his brothers and
the house of Jaegar…if they would still have him.

Perhaps he had handled the whole situation wrong.

Perhaps he had prematurely alienated the one soul he needed in his corner most of
all: the one person who could advocate mightily for his life…and freedom. The one
person who could bend the ear of the king. Saber Alexiares had only thirty days to
live—
unless
he enlisted the princess’s cooperation. Perhaps the beautiful female could be made
into an ally. At the least, he did not need her as an enemy. Clearly, she was formidable
in her own right.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sighed, feeling suddenly weary. Well, shit,
he had totally screwed that up. What to do now?

The princess was not about to come back and visit him again—not now—not without a
great deal of persuasion. Not without a much gentler, far more diplomatic touch. And
who in this entire infernal valley of self-righteous vampires would actually advocate
for an enemy: a male who had attacked their women and plotted against their house?
It was not as if there was anyone he could turn to who suffered any love lost on his
account—

Or was there?

Staring out at Ramsey and Saxson, Saber scratched his head. He waited for the males
to catch their breath, collect their bearings, and reorient themselves to the room.
Clearly, they had no idea what had just happened, other than the fact that there had
to be an odd gap of time in their memories—well, maybe not a gap, perhaps just an
unfamiliar haze. Far be it from him to enlighten them to the truth.

When at last Ramsey sauntered toward the cell, Saber stood up slowly, careful not
to appear too antagonistic. “I have a request,” he said, trying to keep his voice
low and congenial. He couldn’t actually muster respect—never that—but he didn’t have
to be outright hostile, either.

Ramsey’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at him suspiciously. “Oh yeah,” he mumbled,
“and what’s that.” His voice was still gruff from sleep.

Saber swallowed a sarcastic retort. “The woman…Lorna.” He spoke evenly. “I would like
to see her.”

Ramsey cleared his throat as if testing it for metal. “Come again,” he snarled.

“The one who came to see me before, the female, I wasn’t…
prepared
…for her visit.”

“And now you are?” Ramsey asked, his voice revealing his distrust. “Why?”

Saber shrugged his shoulders and tried to appear as cooperative as possible, while
still remaining nonchalant. He had to make it believable. “Do I need to articulate
a reason?” he replied. “You say she’s my mother. Perhaps I just need to…be sure.”

The frail, tiny woman could not have been more than five-foot-six, one hundred ten
pounds. Her medium-length brown hair was twisted in a repetitive pattern of S-curls,
and her soft, compassionate brown eyes blended into her smooth complexion as she stepped
up to Ramsey’s desk and waited nervously for the sentinel’s instructions.

Saber watched her like a hawk, wishing he knew more acutely what was going on inside
of her head—he was almost tempted to take a look, but he didn’t want to risk a mind
probe, something that might easily be detected by the 815-year-old vampire. After
all, Lorna was, at the least, that: a human
destiny
converted to their species by her mate Rafael over 800 years ago. She might be small
and unthreatening, but she wasn’t a mere weak human, someone to take lightly or underestimate.
Not even if she thought she was his mother.

Drawing a slow, deep breath into his lungs, he watched Ramsey Olaru instead. The male
retrieved a set of iron keys from a rusted hook beside his desk and made his way directly
over to the cage door. He was just about to open it when his nostrils narrowed, and
he casually sniffed the air. His eyes shot up to Saber, and he frowned. “You’re stronger
than you were before,” he said, his face betraying his confusion…and concern. “How’s
that, Chief?”

Saber shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Don’t know,” he said. “Maybe the
males in the house of Jaegar are just stronger than the males in the house of Jadon.”

Ramsey cut his eyes derisively, the smart hazel pupils flashing amber with disdain.
He looked Saber up and down from his head to his toes and slowly licked his lips.

Saber didn’t dare move a muscle. If the male detected Vanya’s blood in his system,
then it was truly
game over
; trying to get to Lorna would be the least of his worries. After what seemed an interminable
length of time, Ramsey finally stepped forward. He reached into the deep pockets of
his cargo pants and pulled out a survival blade, with a wicked-looking curve. “Hands
through the bars, palms up.”

Saber stifled a hiss. The miserable bastard wanted to drain him, some more…
as if
. Everything in him rebelled at the thought, but what could he do? He needed to see
Lorna, to be alone with the sympathetic woman, and Ramsey wasn’t about to let that
happen if he thought Saber posed even the slightest threat. “Fine,” Saber snapped.
Without hesitation, he stuck both arms out, extended them before Ramsey, and turned
his hands palms up.

The ruthless warrior struck with lightning-quick accuracy and force, two swift, deep
slashes drawn vertically along Saber’s exposed flesh. As the dark crimson blood began
to flow in rivulets, staining Saber’s arms and dripping on the ground, he stumbled
slightly to the side and grasped at a bar with his right hand. “And what if I bleed
to death before our visit is finished?”

Ramsey shrugged with apathy. “Oh well.”

Saber shut his eyes, counted backward from ten, then reopened them. “Are we set then?”

Ramsey shook his head. “Not quite.” He held up the keys to the door in one hand and
a pair of iron manacles speckled with diamond dust in the other. “Turn around and
link your arms behind your back.”

Saber took a step away from the door and did what he was told. Again, Ramsey moved
with impressive speed, entering the cell, snapping the cuffs on Saber’s wrists, and
pushing the male forward with a harsh thrust before Saber could hope to respond in
his weakened state. And then the male did something that surprised him: He held out
an odd leather device. It looked a bit like a bridle, the kind of headgear a horse
might wear, only the metal bit was smaller, and the strap that linked behind the ears
was clearly made to fit a vampire’s head. Saber snarled angrily then. He couldn’t
help it. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Ramsey said.

“How the hell am I supposed to talk to that woman with a bit in my mouth?” Saber protested.

Ramsey sneered. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. All I care about is making
sure you don’t bite.”

Saber snorted so abruptly that he hawked up phlegm. He spit it on the ground and opened
his mouth to accept the bit, not bothering to conceal his protracting fangs. They
were what they were—an unspoken invitation:
Anytime.
Anywhere. The two of us—without all this bullshit.

“If only I could, Chief,” Ramsey mumbled, forcing the bit into Saber’s mouth in the
roughest manner possible. He over tightened the straps, making sure to catch several
locks of Saber’s hair in the buckle, just to add insult to injury. And then he looked
down at the bloody floor. Waiting about sixty more seconds, he released his incisors,
dripped some venom onto the tips of his large, calloused fingers, and smeared the
substance over Saber’s wounds. The pain began to subside, and the healing began immediately.
“Sit,” Ramsey ordered, motioning toward the cot. He exited the cell, brought a folding
chair back in, and placed it in front of the bed. “You come near this chair, or Lorna,
and I’ll rip your head off,” Ramsey said. “Got that?”

Saber’s jaw tightened and he clamped down on the bit. “Yeah,” he grunted around the
metal—the words sounding garbled. “I got it.”

“Good,” Ramsey said. With that, he waved Lorna forward and helped her into the chair.
“I’ll be right outside the door, and it won’t be locked,” he told her. “He’s weak.
I can move three times as fast, but he’s still dangerous. Keep your distance.”

Lorna nodded weakly, her eyes filling up with moisture. “Thank you, Ramsey,” she said
softly, shifting nervously in her seat. And then she turned to face Saber and smiled
faintly, clearly struggling to keep from reacting to what she saw: a monster, cut,
gagged, and humiliated in a jail cell before her. She rubbed her hands together awkwardly
and swallowed two times. “I…I was so pleased to hear that you asked for me.” Her voice
was quaking, and Saber didn’t know how to respond. Not only did the bit feel foreign
and offensive, but the woman was displaying an uncomfortable amount of emotion.

“I wanted…” His voice trailed off as he tried to work his tongue around the bit. “I
wanted to ask you some—”
Son of a bitch!
He sounded like an imbecile.

There was no way he was going to be able to pull this off with any measure of finesse.

He might as well end the visit now.

“That’s okay,” Lorna said, seeming to understand what he was feeling. She reached
out slowly and pushed the collar of his shirt away from his neck toward his shoulder.

Ramsey jumped up from his chair. “What are you doing, Lorna?”

She turned around to face him. “We need to be able to talk, Ramsey.”

The sentinel stared at her for a while and then finally nodded. “No more than an ounce,
either way,” he said.

“Of course,” Lorna agreed. With that, she released the daintiest pair of fangs Saber
had ever seen and slowly leaned forward.

Saber started to back up and frown, but he stopped himself. This woman was more like
a mosquito than a vampire. As she slowly sank her fangs into his throat, scoring him
more gently than any predator ought to, he held his breath, fighting the disgust.
He wanted her off him—away from him—back across the room, preferably, but if this
was what it took…

After swallowing a very small amount of blood, she bravely scored her own wrist and
raised it to his eye level to show him. “Just a taste,” she said.

Saber swallowed convulsively. His feeding instincts were triggered, and he wanted
to spring off the bed, pin her down to the ground, and tear her delicate throat out,
drinking to his heart’s content, but as it stood, he would have to find a way to swallow
around a metal bar. She pressed her wrist to his mouth, and his tongue snaked out
quickly to lap the blood, three times.

There you have it
, she said telepathically.
Now we can talk
.

Saber did not want to consider what he had just done. From this moment forward, he
could track Lorna Dzuna at will; and dark lords take pity, the female could track
him, too. Well, that didn’t matter: If he were ever unrestricted and free, outside
of these bars, she would hardly be a formidable enemy.

Thank you
, he said, trying to display some manners.
Now then, as I was saying
—

Oh, wait
, she interrupted, holding up her hand apologetically.
I didn’t mean to cut you off; it’s just…
She reached into her large purse and pulled out a soft object.
It’s just that Ramsey told me what you asked
,
and I wanted to show you
something
.
She set the object down in his lap, sat back in her chair, and looked up at him with
a gaze of such unrestrained longing in her eyes that it made him want to…heave.

Saber looked down at the object.

And then he froze, his own heart beating out a frantic rhythm.

His mouth became suddenly dry, and the bit felt like it had grown a couple of inches
in diameter.
Great
S’nepres, dark lord of his birth, what the…
hell?

It wasn’t possible.

It simply wasn’t true.

But there it was, in living color, lying right in his lap for the entire world to
see: a light blue and green blanket, covered in little frogs and dragons. The blanket
he had seen in his dream. The blanket his
mother
had wrapped him in after his birth.

Get it off me!
he said, forgetting to exercise decorum.
Move it out of my sight
.

Lorna snatched the blanket with harried surprise and quickly stuffed it in her purse.
I’m sorry,
she muttered quickly.
I thought
— She stopped herself short.
You asked Ramsey
about it
, so I
just assumed
…
Her voice trailed off.
I’m sorry.

Saber felt like the earth was shifting beneath him. Like nothing he had ever known
or believed held true anymore. As if he could embrace a rage so savage, so cruel…

He wanted to murder, feed, and destroy for a millennium.

But he had to pull himself together.

He had to make use of this time—and this woman.

It didn’t matter
.

Damien Alexiares was his father.

Dane Alexiares was his brother.

Diablo Alexiares was his friend.

He had grown up in the house of Jaegar, and he would return to the house of Jaegar.
If anything, this new revelation simply meant that he would be a greater asset to
his brothers of darkness than ever before. Nothing had changed, really. Damien had
always known Saber’s secret; yet he had cherished his firstborn son just the same.

So be it.

The time to think it all through—to process this new information—was later.

Much, much later.

He drew in a deep breath, pushed every thought and emotion aside, and met Lorna’s
eyes with his own purposeful glare.
Very well. Thank you for showing that to me. It answers…a lot.

Lorna nodded rapidly and waited.
I am sorry, Sabino; I know this must be—

Saber!
His psychic voice nearly vibrated with rage.
My name is Saber, and it will always be Saber.

Saber
, Lorna whispered.
Of course.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for at least several minutes before Lorna finally
dared to speak again.
Was there anothe
r reason you wished to see me?
She tried to force a smile.
Is there anything I can do for you—bring for you
?

Saber stared blankly at the woman in front of him; by all that was wicked, she was
either the most naive being that had ever walked the earth or the most charitable,
forgiving, and compassionate—how could they possibly share DNA?
There is something,
he finally said.

Her eyebrows shot up, and she leaned forward in her chair.
Of course, tell me. What is it?
She was far too eager, and it simply made him angrier.

He set it aside.

You know of the Blood Moon?

Lorna’s hand went to her heart, and she drew an anxious breath.
Of course, I couldn’t believe it
.

Dark Lords, did this female always wear her emotions on her sleeves? Thank S’nepres,
he hadn’t been raised by such weakness.
Then you’ve also heard by now that my…
destiny
…is the princess, Vanya?

Lorna smiled then, at first timidly and with apprehension, but then with tacit approval.
Yes, I think it’s…miraculous.

Of course you do, Saber thought.
Um, I’m going to need some help…getting through to
her…to Vanya
.

I’m sure if you just try…a little harder than usual…to show some chivalry, she will
be happy to sit with you and—

No
, Saber interrupted, unable to stifle his laugh—you truly couldn’t make this shit
up—
I can assure you that she wants nothing to do with me
. He tried to think of a way to tell her, without actually
telling
her.
I’ve run into
the female
before; we have a history. It
wasn’t pleasant.

Lorna blanched, unable to conceal her dismay.
And she lived
?

Saber couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
Yes…she lived.

Oh, I see
. Lorna smiled for all she was worth then.
Of course she
lived
—just like Jocelyn Silivasi lived after the incident at the cabin.
She placed her hand lightly on his knee and patted him gently.
You are my son. You are your father’s son.
No true Dark One—under any circumstances, no matter how dire—would have ever walked
away from a kill, or left his enemy with a day’s reprieve, not unless it was simple
self-preservation. You
always
had a soul.

Saber knew what Lorna was referring to, the day he and a group of dark soldiers had
run into Nathaniel, Marquis, and Nachari Silivasi in the meadow just beyond the Snake
River, the day the lycan Tristan Hart had tried to murder Nathaniel’s
destiny
. Saber had been caught off guard and captured by the vampire hunters, along with
the crazy boy Braden something-or-other, and the two of them had been bound in a shed,
awaiting their final fate. Jocelyn had stumbled across the macabre scene, Saber strapped
like a medieval prisoner to an ancient guillotine, Braden nailed like a Roman slave
to a cross, and the female had set him free in a calculated move to save her own life.