Daniel couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. Could only feel, as a wave of pure warmth and love swept through him. “You’ve seen my soul? Is that even possible? I’d wondered—I’d feared—”
“You cannot reach the soul-meld with someone who has no soul,” she said, smiling, and he realized the blue-green flames in her eyes were still there. “We are bound forever now.”
The ancient words came to her, unbidden, mandating her to recite them:
“I offer my magic, my heart, and my life to protect your own.
From now until the last drop of ocean has vanished from the earth,
You are my soul.”
Shimmering silver threads, clearly visible in the predawn light in the cave, formed and curled around them both, tying them together inescapably. Forever, she’d said.
Daniel couldn’t take it all in. It was too much.
“I have a soul?”
“You do,” she confirmed. “A badly wounded soul, forced to make so many hard choices, still fighting hard to redeem itself from the dark. And now it, as well as you, belong to me.”
“Forever?” he repeated, stupidly.
“Forever.”
“Then we will make damn sure that nothing happens to you. I promise you that. Upon my life, upon my oath as a senior mage of the Nightwalker Guild, and upon my love for you, Serai, I swear to you that I will not let you die. We will find that Emperor and save your sisters, this I swear to you.”
She smiled and kissed him, and this time the world didn’t shatter and the walls didn’t fall in and the floor didn’t disappear from under him. It was just a kiss, only a kiss.
The kiss that began the rest of his life.
Chapter 27
Ivy sat on her pallet of blankets in the cave where she’d recently seen a man die horribly, and wondered if she’d brought this all on herself. She hugged her knees and watched her son sleep, knowing that it was futile to waste time on the how and the why of the past. All that mattered was how they’d get out of this situation. A fierce wave of pride and fury swept through her, leaving nothing but icy cold resolve in its wake. Nobody was going to hurt her son.
Nobody.
Dusk was a few hours away, and she needed to figure out her escape plans before the vampire rose from his day sleep.
“I have no intention of hurting him,” Nicholas said from behind her, making her jump a little. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Damn sneaky vampires. He could have ripped her guts out, too, and she wouldn’t have heard it coming.
Although, was that something you’d want to hear coming?
“Can you read my mind? If so, I can’t imagine you’re very flattered right now.” She didn’t bother to turn around and look at him. He was the last person in the world she wanted to see, now or ever. “Also, shouldn’t you be asleep? Evil vampire, and all that?”
“It doesn’t take a mind reader to see a mother’s protectiveness for her child,” he said, surprising her. “Also, I’m old enough to be awake whenever I like. Just because I can’t walk in the sun doesn’t mean I’m a slave to its passage through the sky.”
She smoothed an errant strand of hair from Ian’s face, and he stirred but didn’t wake up. She filed away the information about the vampire’s lack of need for day sleep. Just one more obstacle. She was good at overcoming obstacles.
“If you see my protectiveness, you understand why I would never let you turn him into a vampire.”
“I have no intention of turning him into a vampire,” he said. “But I thought it was easier to say yes and deal with the topic again when he actually turns twenty-one, in the unlikely event he even remembers asking or still wants it then.”
“Kids remember everything. Or at least my kid does. I can’t speak to any others. Ian, though, he’s special. Always has been. So much like his father.”
“Where is the boy’s father?” Nicholas’s voice had the slightest touch of frost in it, as if he planned to go attack Ian’s dad next. He was too late on that one.
“He’s dead. He died when Ian was very young. Murdered by vampires. Some of your kind who didn’t like the coming out parties, and wanted vampires to be the feared creatures who went bump in the night instead of the neighbor next door who could vote and pay taxes. They killed him and laughed about it. Some of your buddies?” She told the story without any anger. It had been far too long ago for anger. All she had left was cold hatred and the need for revenge.
The need to protect her son, no matter what the cost.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Nicholas said, and he was so good—so smooth—that he put actual regret in his voice.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “You don’t need to warm me up or pretend you care about the death of some random human ten years ago. You have me, you have my son. I have to do what you ask, so don’t waste both of our time by pretending otherwise.”
He stepped forward, into her line of sight, and leaned against the wall, and she was struck again by how incredibly handsome he was, at least when his eyes weren’t glowing red or somebody’s intestines weren’t draped over his arm. So many of them were attractive. Vampires. Beauty disguising evil, or designed to seduce its prey.
A flash of some indefinable emotion crossed his eyes but was gone so fast she’d probably imagined it. Or else he was trying compulsion on her, in which case he was out of luck.
“I was a random human once,” he said softly. “As were my wife and son. The memory of my family was not burned out of me by the bloodlust, even in the beginning. I know full well what you would do to protect your son from vampires, because my wife protected my son from me.”
She looked up at him, caught in spite of herself by the pain in his voice. Or the illusion of it, she reminded herself. Vampires were masters of illusion. And yet, she knew full well that she was immune to compulsion.
“How did it happen? Why did you choose to become a vampire, then, if you lost your family over it?”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Choose? Did your husband choose to be murdered? There was no choosing involved. I was happy and wealthy, and there were ones who wanted what I had. When I was lost to the bloodlust, they murdered my wife and child, too. Apparently they only wanted my land and fortune, not my family.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how you felt.”
“No, you don’t,” he replied, just as quietly. “I had the luxury of killing those who took my family. I doubt you had that.”
“No. No, I didn’t. Not that I didn’t try. Someday, though. Someday they will look up, and it will be me they see, and then they will see nothing forever after.” She shoved her hair out of her face and took a deep breath. “On the other hand, I haven’t had to mourn for centuries. How long has it been?”
His face changed, and she almost wished she hadn’t seen it. The hard lines and angles softened, and he stared at her as if she’d shocked him. He looked almost . . . human.
“No one has ever asked me that, or even spared a thought for my centuries of pain,” he said, bowing his head. “Your son is who he is because of you; your soul and spirit. His father would be very proud of him.”
She fought the burning sensation of tears, steeling herself with the absurdity of it all. Comforted by kind words from a vampire. Ridiculous. And yet—and yet he had never lifted a hand to harm her, and he’d protected Ian.
No. Foolish. What was she, an idiot with Stockholm Syndrome?
“You’ve threatened me in order to get me to help you,” she said. “Don’t pretend I’m here voluntarily, or that you respect me or want us to be buddies.”
He raised an eyebrow, and the cold, sneering haughtiness returned to his expression. “I haven’t had a buddy in over three hundred years. Why should that change now?”