When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel (26 page)

“That’s because guys work different than girls,” Orion said. “A girl’s born with all the eggs she’s ever going to have. Guys make sperm all the time. So a guy gets vamped, and that batch of sperm dies. But when fresh blood flows through him, it’s like his body’s alive again,
right? And a vamp who’s recently fed can have a nice strong supply of healthy sperm.”

“All right,” said Tiberius. He looked at Caris. “Keep going.”

“That’s pretty much it. Girl vamps, no babies. Boy vamps, babies.”

“My question was about me,” Caris said.

“Well, you’re an enigma, aren’t you? You started out as a vamp, but then you got turned into a weren, too. And the thing about weren biology is that their cells repair themselves. That’s how they can change back and forth without their bodies wearing out. And it’s why they’re essentially immortal. They’re
not
immortal. But their lives are so long they might as well be.”

“So you’re saying my eggs might have regenerated.”

“I’m saying it’s possible. No way to tell for sure without taking a sample, but it wouldn’t surprise me. So, why? You guys doing a little family planning? Because, honestly, you’ve got issues to work out before you take that kind of step.”

“Orion.”

“Right. Sorry. Just going for a little levity.” He cleared his throat. “So are we done?”

“Yeah,” Caris said.

“No,” Tiberius interrupted. “Orion, Caris isn’t the only hybrid. Lihter’s found another.”

“Holy fuck.”

“That is a fair assessment, yes. I need to know if you’ve made any progress on a cure. A vaccination. Anything. If Naomi changes—if the toxin gets out—it’s going to be very bad.”

“Nothing concrete,” Orion said. From her seat, Caris was looking hard at Tiberius, her head tilted, her eyes
narrowed. He looked away, focusing on Orion’s words. “But I got ahold of some documents from the PEC in Spain. Really interesting stuff from back in the Dark Ages.”

“Tell me.”

“So the plague hits, right? And all these vamps are dying. Humans, too, right? And there’s this one human—he’s got it bad. Open sores, the whole shebang. And any minute he’s expecting he’ll drop dead.”

“Since you’re telling me this story, I assume he didn’t.”

“Right. He got turned. A vamp came along, all infected and oozing. And did the whole bite, suck routine. So our human dies, right?”

“Orion, is there a point to this story?” Caris asked.

“
Listen
. The human dies, and then he wakes up a few hours later
as a vampire
.”

“And then what?” she asked. “He went poof?”

Like humans, vampires infected with the Black Death suffered from open sores and horrible discoloration. Unlike humans, they didn’t leave stinking corpses when they died. They disintegrated into piles of dust.

“Not only did he
not
poof, but he’s the one who wrote the account.”

Tiberius sat a little straighter as Orion’s words hit home. “You’re saying that all the vamps are dying of the plague, but this newly changed one didn’t?”

“Exactly.”

Caris looked from the phone to Tiberius and shrugged. “So?”

Orion sighed, long and put upon. “He survived, Caris. For a period of time he was dead, and then he survived the plague. And what am I spending all my spare time doing?”

“Trying to find a way to cure me,” she said, though her eyes were tight on Tiberius as she spoke. “Or a way to vaccinate or cure the world.”

“Exactly.”

“And this is like a clue.”

“It’s not
like
a clue. It
is
a clue. He died, and something about that process gave him the ability to fight off the virus when he woke up. It’s awesome.”

“You’ve done a good job, Orion,” Tiberius said. “Keep working. You know how to reach me. Anytime, day or night.”

“Got it,” Orion said, then clicked off. And Tiberius was left facing Caris, who was looking at him with something akin to shock.

“You’ve been in contact with Orion?”

“He’s in your family line. I take my obligation seriously.”

“You’ve watched over humans in the family before without contacting them,” she said. “You’ve been discussing his research with him? His research about me?”

“It’s all part of looking out for you,” he said. “But to answer your specific question, no. I haven’t been discussing the research with him. I’ve been financing it for him.”

Tiberius’s words curled around her, clinging to her like a warm blanket. She wanted to draw it close, to revel in it. And yet at the same time, that warmth—that protection—went against everything she’d believed for almost twenty years. It was an uncomfortable shift in reality.

But she couldn’t deny the fact that she liked the way this new reality felt.

When she’d fought the change in the alley, she’d feared that he would be repulsed by her. By what she was. By the harsh reminder that weren blood now flowed through her, especially considering his past—how he had suffered at the hand of Claudius.

But there’d been no revulsion. Instead, he’d stepped up to help her. And when it was all over, the primary emotion on his face was pride.

It had humbled her.

“Did Gunnolf teach you that?” he’d asked in the alley.

“He did. He taught me a lot. I was lost, and he pulled me back in.” As soon as the words were spoken, she wished she could take them back. Reminding him of the time she’d spent with his enemy seemed imprudent. And yet once again, he surprised her, telling her only that he was glad she’d had someone who could help her pull through.

He was full of surprises lately. Not the least of which was the bomb he’d just dropped about Orion’s research.

“All this time?” she asked, needing to be certain that she understood. “You’ve been financing Orion’s research for all these years?”

“Did you really think the PEC was paying for it?”

“I—I never thought about it.”

“I did,” he said. “I swore an oath to protect you, Caris. As a hybrid you’re inherently in danger.”

She licked her lips, that warm blanket starting to chill. “Of course. Your oath.”

“No,” he said, reaching for her hand. She looked down at their twined fingers, then back up into his eyes.
“The oath exists, yes. And I will not break it. But even if I owed you no bond, I would have done this for you.”

“Why?” She had to force the word out through lips that seemed afraid to ask the question.

“You are the love of my life,” he said, his words like a fist around her heart. “Love can be interrupted. It can be broken. It can even be betrayed. But it cannot be erased.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead she nodded. His words moved her, there was no denying it. But she still wasn’t certain if she wanted to be moved. He’d cut her deeply when he’d banished her, and she’d nurtured that wound for years. It couldn’t suddenly disappear. She wasn’t even sure she wanted it to.

Slowly, she tugged her hand free.

He waited a beat, and then pulled his back as well.

She turned away, afraid her face would reveal too much. “How many do you think he tried before me?” she asked.

“Dozens, at least,” he said without hesitating. As always, he understood her with uncanny awareness. “Perhaps even more. It is undeniable that making a hybrid is difficult. If there was ever a body of knowledge about how it is done, it’s been long lost.”

“Bastard.”

“You’ve had your revenge,” he said. “For yourself, and for them.”

She nodded, remembering with pleasure the way Reinholt had fallen. The way he had stained the snow. She turned to face Tiberius. “I apologized in London for killing your snitch. I didn’t really mean it. I wanted him dead, and I’m glad.”

“I know,” he said, and there was a hint of a smile at his lips. He pressed his palms together, then brought his
fingers up under his chin. She’d seen him do that many times before, and she knew what it meant.

“You’re considering something. What?”

“I want you to drink from me.”

That
was not what she’d been expecting. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Caris.”

So she had. She thought of closing her mouth over his wrist. Of the intimacy of being connected like that. Of the taste of him, the scent.

She shook herself. “Why?”

“He kidnapped a hybrid. You’re a hybrid.”

“Ah, hello? Not really in a position to get kidnapped at the moment. Not to mention the fact that I think one hybrid is enough, even for an evil psycho bent on world destruction. And let’s not forget the fact that no one knows I’m a hybrid, least of all Lihter.”

“All good points,” Tiberius said. “But I didn’t get where I am today by not preparing for the worst.”

“And where exactly is that?”

“You know perfectly well.”

She leaned back. “Right. Politics.”

“You’re angry because you think I chose my political position over you.”

“You said yourself that you did.”

“So I did. But that wasn’t all of it.”

She shifted so that she could look at him more directly. “Tell me.”

“I swore to protect my people, but Caris, you were one of those people, too. I failed you.”

“No, you—”

“Please. Right or wrong, I felt as though I failed you. At the same time, I was angry—angry at you for running
off by yourself. At your attacker, for changing you. At the world. I had to make a choice. And the only information I had to go on came from the past. From the hybrids we hunted. From the plagues that swept the earth.”

“And so you banished me.”

“And so I should have killed you.” His mouth pulled into a small frown. “Do you see the irony? I banished you so that I could save my people. And yet I let you walk free. If you’d been so inclined, you could have walked right back to London and destroyed us all.”

“I would never have done that.”

“And I knew that. Even in my shock and anger, I knew that you didn’t mean to kill Giorgio. That you were horrified by what happened. And that you would find someone who could teach you control.”

He was right. He was absolutely right.

“And so I let you go. I gave you up to the world, and you found someone to help you. I’m grateful to Gunnolf, and yet I never hated him more than I did when he took you in.”

She licked her lips. “That’s quite a complicated mix of emotions.”

“You sound surprised. Are you suggesting I’m shallow?”

She laughed. “Not at all.” She tilted her head to look at him again, a new thought occurring to her. “All the time we were together, I was right there with you chasing the political ball.”

“You were. I miss that.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t ever get that back. You wouldn’t have a chance in hell of getting the vampire vote with
a traitor who supposedly slept with Gunnolf at your side.”

She could tell by his expression that she spoke the truth. A truth that left a nasty hole in her stomach. Because it
was
true. And he was a politician. A born leader. And that meant they were at a rock-solid impasse.

But she’d think about that later. Because thinking about it now would only drive her crazy.

“You were saying about politics?”

“Oh. Right. I was right there with you, and you told me the stories about your heritage and your royal blood. And I understand how you identify with the people you represent because of your years in the mine. But I just today realized the point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lihter,” she said simply. “He’s the reason the Alliance needs men like you. Men with a conscience and a code. Because without you holding the front line, he’ll creep in deeper and deeper until sooner or later the Lihters have taken over and we’re living in hell.”

“The Dark Ages, actually. It was before your time, but you’ve just very accurately described what happened. It took many centuries and many determined men to pull us out of those horrid times. As you say, men in my position are the watchmen. The first line of defense.”

She smiled. “It’s very noble.”

He met her eyes, held them, and she felt her breath hitch. “Drink,” he said. “If the worst happens, I want to be able to find you.”

“You realize you can just trace my cellphone,” she quipped. “You vampires, always living in the past. Get with technology.”

“I’ll make a note of it.”

“Can’t you already find me? I’ve drunk of you before.”

“I’ve tried,” he said. “Maybe the hematite he injected in you did something. Maybe it’s the weren part of you. But my ability to track you has been blocked.”

“You tried?” She should probably stop being surprised, but she couldn’t help it.

“Caris,” he said gently. “I never stopped loving you.”

She swallowed, his words warming her. They didn’t, however, surprise her. And that warmed her as well. “If it’s the hematite, it probably won’t even work. And I’m still weren. So there’s no point.”

“We won’t know until we try. Please,” he said, and she heard real pain in his voice. “I cannot lose you. Not like that.”

She looked into his eyes, and saw both regret and fear looking back at her. “All right,” she said, and then lifted his wrist to her mouth.

She bit down, relishing the taste of his blood, drinking deep of his essence. He moaned, and used his free hand to pull her in close. They melted together, and she knew she’d taken enough. She should stop. But she didn’t want to. Because there was truth in the blood. And in Tiberius’s there was pain and regret.