Shadow Kin (51 page)

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Authors: M.J. Scott

BOOK: Shadow Kin
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He could pick up my dagger and cut my throat with it before I’d have time to react or call for help.
I had to rely on the fact that he needed me. Hope that Atherton had been right about the possibility of a Blood becoming addicted to one person’s blood to make him hungry for me. Hope my blood was doubly attractive because of the power it brought.
Pray to whatever gods might listen to one such as me for protection. Pray that Simon wouldn’t leave me to my fate. I had a charm in the pocket of my trousers to call him, but I couldn’t touch it now.
“My Lord?” I said softly after an endless minute or so. “Do not tease me, please. I . . . cannot wait much longer.”
He appeared before me. Holding my dagger in one hand. My teeth clamped down on my instinct to cry out. I needed him, as he was, solid and solidly distracted, before I could summon help. It would take Simon time to light the lamps. Only a few seconds, true, but that was more than enough time for a vampire to react unless he was lost in something.
That something would have to be me.
Lucius drew the blade up closer to my face, trailed its point against my skin. Not quite hard enough to draw blood.
“You left me, shadow,” he said softly.
We could be heard now if he spoke too loudly. I hoped that Simon couldn’t hear this. What would he think? That I was exactly as he had presumed me to be? A Nightseeking whore about to get what she wanted.
Would he believe the lies?
And if he did, would he still come when I needed him?
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Foolish of you.”
I nodded. “Yes. Will you forgive me?” I kept my eyes on his face, hoping I looked suitably terrified and penitent. It wasn’t hard to summon the emotion. I
was
terrified.
He could kill me here and now and vanish into the night before the humans could react.
“Perhaps.” He smiled and I saw his fangs gleam in the moonlight. “If you prove yourself suitably remorseful.”
I stared up at him. I had no words to describe my remorse. Remorse that I’d ever been his creature. Remorse that I was in this position. I regretted many things. But I didn’t regret what I was trying to do now. To succeed I needed him to believe me.
“I am sorry, my Lord.” I took a breath, then leaned into the blade, letting it slice my face.
Letting the blood spill.
I heard his sucked-in breath as the smell of blood suddenly rose between us. Fresh and rich and inviting. At least I hoped it smelled good to him. To me it just smelled like blood. Like the aftermath of every beating I’d ever taken. Every wound I’d ever sustained.
The blood was wet and hot against my cheek, like the tears I couldn’t shed. “Aren’t you hungry too, my Lord?”
I heard his heart skip out of its calm Blood rhythm. He was hungry. Hungry for
me
.
I leaned my head, turning the cut side of my face up as I stretched out my neck. “Your blood will taste sweeter to me if I know that you have been satisfied first.”
He stared down at me. “Ask nicely.”
“Please. Please . . . Lucius.” His name was bitter on my tongue. “Don’t make me wait.”
It happened faster than a snake strike. One minute I was kneeling and bleeding; the next he’d lifted me to my feet, pressing me back against the wall and plunged his fangs into my neck.
It hurt.
Hurt like hell.
But I made myself gasp in delight. Made myself relax into him, hold him close. Forced my revulsion and panic away as I tried to listen to his heartbeat and read him.
Not yet.
Not yet. Not now while his muscles were still tensed.
I pulled his head closer to my neck. More. He needed to take more.
But not too much.
My own heartbeat seemed to pound through me as the blood flowed out of me. Too much and I would faint or die or forget what I had to do.
But then I heard it. The same unified rhythm of his heart beating with mine and the softening of his muscles. Just like it had been in Halcyon. I had him. Fully in the grip of my blood.
Mindless.
Careless.
I felt the seductive pull of that doubled beat, the need to yield filling me as his scent surrounded me. I resisted long enough to remember the charm. I let my hand drift down. Found it as I felt my resolve shatter. Touched it gently, the metal warm against my cold skin. I spoke a single word. “Simon.”
To my ears it sounded weak and barely audible. But apparently it was enough.
The door flew open and the lamps blazed to life around me, the room suddenly bright as midday.
Lucius stumbled back from me, fangs rending as he retreated. Wetness gushed down my neck. I clapped my hand to the wound. Blood pulsed against my skin. Too much blood.
I couldn’t move, everything suddenly swimming before me. But I could watch.
Watch as Lucius swung toward Simon, shrieking against the light.
His hand connected and Simon was forced back, but he didn’t falter. He surged forward, wielding a sword as large as Guy’s again as Lucius drew a knife from beneath his jacket and attacked desperately, trying to reach the door and get away from the lamps.
I knew how much each blow Lucius landed had to hurt him. I knew exactly how strong the vampire was, how fast, even as his skin started to smoke and blister. A lesser man would be crushed, would flee.
Not Simon.
He stood against him, seeming to blaze almost as brightly as the sun he called.
And then the room went dark. Simon had let go of his power.
“No!” I screamed, I stumbled forward but my legs crumpled beneath me and I hit the floor, head spinning. More blood poured between my fingers.
I watched them, figures of gray and black, limned in moonlight that glinted off blood-damped blades.
“You want her,” Simon said in a voice like granite. “Then you have to come through me.”
Lucius hissed, fangs bared. “As you wish, sunmage.”
They came together in a clash of metal and I screamed at Simon to use the sun. He couldn’t beat a vampire. No one could. He would die.
But he didn’t.
No, instead, he fought like a man possessed, blade arcing through the darkness, faster almost than I could see, face full of a terrible intent. His blade connected with Lucius’ arm and this time it was Lucius who screamed, not me.
Screamed, then attacked, pressing Simon back with a flurry of strikes from the cruel hook of his knife.
I could smell more than Lucius’ blood now. Human blood too. He was hurt.
I tried to drag myself upright, terror closing my throat, but the room swam around me.
“Think of me, sunmage,” Lucius snarled as he pressed another attack. “Think of my fangs in her neck. Maybe that will keep you warm in hell.”
Simon didn’t reply. Just raised his sword again. For a moment I thought he looked to me, but maybe that was just a trick of the moonlight. Then he moved again, leaping toward and past Lucius, and then, before Lucius could turn, whirling to strike again.
He found his target.
His sword cut through Lucius with one blow. Lucius froze, then fell.
The room burst into light again and I saw the shocked, frozen expression on Lucius’ face before it burst into flame.
The fire was bright white, dazzling, as was the answering burst as his body followed suit.
Burning.
Ashes.
Gone.
Blood still gushed against my hand, running hotly down my neck. The stink of burning flesh filled my nose, and the vision of Simon’s face, half blackened but fiercely victorious, cut a path through the blackness as he bent over me. “Simon,” I said one last time before letting the dark take me.
Chapter Twenty-two
 
 
“Are you going to sit outside this door forever?” Bryony paused by the door to Lily’s room, looking down at me with an amused expression.
I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the door.
For nearly a day, her life had hung in the balance. She had lost far too much blood.
Not that I had been able to help her that first day. Bryony had knocked me out so that they could work on me. Once I’d awoken, I’d taken up my station here. But I hadn’t been able to cross the threshold. It had been nearly three days.
“She’s fully recovered,” Bryony said. “You can go inside.”
“I thought you’d be more disappointed about that,” I managed.
She ignored my gibe. “How long are you going to keep pretending?”
“Pretending what?”
“That you don’t care? You may as well give up, Simon. You’re in love with her.”
“I—”
“You’ve hardly left this door, except when Guy’s threatened you with bodily harm if you don’t sleep or when Atherton’s wanted you, for three days now. You snap and snarl at everyone who is caring for her. I think everyone would be happier if you would just go in and see her.”
I shook my head, ignoring her in turn. “Any word of Chrysanthe?”
Bryony’s lips thinned. “No. She has not been seen in Summerdale or the City. I fear she may be dead.”
Gods and suns. Another casualty of this mess. And now we might never know if she really was Lucius’ spy.
Bryony nodded, as if she could hear what I was thinking. Then her expression brightened. “Oh. I nearly forgot. I had a message from the Speaker this morning.”
My gut tightened. There had been turmoil in the City since Lucius had . . . vanished. I’d been waiting for the Fae to step in, to come seeking whoever might be responsible in order to restore order. “Oh?”
“Yes. He said that the Fae would not be pursuing the matter of Lucius’ disappearance. He said that no one could offer him any proof of what had happened and therefore he could not act. He expressly mentioned that I should tell you that.”
A chill crept down my spine. A message or a warning? I had no way of knowing.
Bryony smiled. “Everything is as it should be.” Then her smile grew crooked. She looked like she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying, but her eyes were gentle as she leaned down and patted my arm. “You saved this one,
m’hala
. You won. Lucius is dead. You got to kill him. She almost died to trap him so you could do just that. It’s time you forgave her for whatever it is you think she did to you.”
Then she turned and went into Lily’s room.
I leaned my head my head back against the wall. It wasn’t so simple as that. I stared into a space a moment longer, then, unable to stay still any longer, heaved myself to my feet and headed for the roof.
My breath was coming hard when I stepped out into the sunlight, but I ignored the physical discomfort. How my body felt didn’t matter.
What mattered was the feeling that I carried something dark within myself now, something no amount of sunlight seemed to ease.
I had killed deliberately. Had taken up my sword and fought.
Ended a life.
Had felt the savage triumph of it as I had done so.
Yes, I’d done it to save lives. To revenge Edwina in some convoluted way. I’d thought it would bring me peace. But there was still guilt. That was the hardest part. I’d killed a monster like Lucius and still felt remorse.
I stared out over the gleaming white marble, dazzling in the sunlight. One death had hurt me, making old wounds fresh again. What did Lily feel with so many to carry?
Did they hurt her?
I turned my face to the sun, shut my eyes, asked for light. But there were no answers.
Lily had come from darkness but she had sought the light. I needed to do the same. Learn to live with who I was now.
I shook my head. Bryony had it wrong. It wasn’t a question of whether I could forgive Lily; it was a question, as it had been for a long time, of whether I could forgive myself. And whether Lily might offer me that same absolution.

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