Chapter 7

"…And I don"t know what to do. She"s unresponsive. No, she has a pulse, it"s just weak and slow. Pale. Yeah. Alistair, it was the craziest thing I"ve ever seen. Fuck. Okay, yeah. No, I don"t have his number, Alistair, why would I have Andreas Burke"s phone number? Oh, she has it. Obviously. Yeah, okay. I"ll try him. I"ll let you know how she"s doing in a while."

There is only a floating dark warmth. Endlessness. Depths, fathomless and black. The voice is a singular point of substance in a universe of nothing. It is the only tie to reality. An anchor—a comforting pull. A line tying a pinprick seed of nascent awareness to fading lucidity.

Who is that speaking? His voice penetrates the darkness and the warmth, delivers freshets of concern, and winds ribbons of worry through the soaring endless nothingness.

"Shit. Locked. What"s your damn passcode, Little Sparrow?"

Who is Little Sparrow?

There"s a sensation—somewhere. Images bleed into the black emptiness—hands, small, female, familiar. A phone. Two thumbs flying over the face of the phone, tapping numerals.

"How the fuck that worked, I don"t know, but it did, thank fuck." A silent pause. "Got it. Here we go."

Another silence.

The darkness is heavy. The warmth is inviting. But something pulls, tugs, drags:

Stay—wait. Don"t go. Not yet.

"Andreas, thank god you answered. This is Caspian Taylor, Maeve"s bloodmate. You know I wouldn"t be contacting you if it wasn"t an emergency. I don"t know what to do. She won"t wake up. No, I tried that—I nicked my wrist and tried feeding her, but she didn"t respond. Vitality? Well…how do I get her to take it from me?" A pause. "Hold on, let me put you on speaker."

Another voice, a different one, equally familiar. "Hold on, hold on, Caspian. Just calm down and explain what happened."

"They caught up to us. Four trucks, fucking sixteen goddamned Elites. I"ve never encountered them, but I"ve heard of them. She went out and faced them. They…I think she could, like, feel them. Or feel their intent? I don"t know. She was…angry. Like, scary pissed. She told them to leave me out of it, but they weren"t having it. I think they were going to kill me, whether she surrendered peacefully or not. She started glowing, her hair started floating, her eyes turned into fucking…they were brighter than the damn sun, Andreas. And then she made this pushing motion. Like, get away. Like she was trying to force-push them away from us. But…Andreas, I"ve never seen anything like that in my entire life. It was like…lightning, almost. But pure white, sort of gold. Beams of light—not hot, but…I don"t know. They hit each one of the Elites in the forehead and then connected like a spiderweb. It made their armor explode. I think those explosions, their armor detonating like that, I think they all died right then. But she…she pushed again. And there was this…blast wave, I guess. It knocked over three of the four SUVs and blew out all the windows. It tossed my truck like a matchbox car, with me in it. Like, fifty feet, Andreas. The dirt on either side of the road was vaporized down to bare bedrock. The weeds growing in the cracks on the shoulder were vaporized. The fucking blacktop was vaporized." The voice sounds shaken to the core. "The people…the fae, all sixteen of them…just gone. Nothing left. Just a pink mist. And then she just collapsed and I can"t rouse her. Her heart is barely beating, she"s barely breathing, she won"t take blood, and I don"t know what to do."

"She vented, Caspian. Too much vitality with nowhere to go…it gets violent. That was…probably a pretty extreme case, but I"ve seen worse. Her mother did worse when she escaped the Council. Of course, her mother was a fae in full possession of her powers, trained in their use, and was a very skilled glamourworker. Maeve is…well, largely an unknown, in terms of what she is, what she can do, and has had no training. Honestly, it"s pretty incredible she"s still alive. But then, with her vampire side, she is probably going to be nearly impossible to kill. Luckily for us."

"Great, but what do I do? How do I help her? Will she recover on her own?"

"Given enough time, yes, but that could be days. Normal fae will recover from over-expenditure of vitality on their own over the course of days—we can"t generate our own, of course, any more than your kind can generate your own blood, but we…if we have any vitality left at all, meaning we"re still alive, our bodies will adjust—use less, allowing us to operate enough to wake up. Like a backup generator, sort of, but a too-small one that can only run the lights."

"We don"t have days."

"In her case, given the intensity of the venting, I"d say it could take closer to a week, if not more, for her to recover on her own. Of course, I'm only guessing, because there"s never been anyone like her, so there"s no way to know for sure."

"How do I get her to take vitality from me?"

"It"s dangerous, Caspian. You"re going to have to force it, basically. This is going to be a little uncomfortable for us both, but the fastest, easiest way to force her to leach from you is to kiss her. And, um, she"s going to react. Strongly. Physically, I mean. It will turn to, um…intimacy, without a doubt. But where it becomes dangerous is when she regains enough of herself to leach. It will be desperation. The danger is that she may not be able to stop. She could leach you dry. Once she comes out of vitality lock, she will be unpredictable at best."

"Vitality lock?"

"That"s the term for the state she"s in. She"s catatonic, physically. By all reports, there's a spark of awareness. Some fae have reported being able to hear and understand everything when they"re locked, others remember nothing but a kind of quasi-unconsciousness. When I said she would likely recover on her own, given enough time, I was being optimistic. Vitality lock is usually fatal, but not on its own. The lock itself doesn"t kill you, it"s the lack of vitality, and the fact that they can"t leach on their own. They have to be induced, but inducing a locked fae is in turn almost always harmful, if not always fatal, to the person trying to force him or her to leach. How it would affect a vampire is, of course, anyone"s guess, but I don"t think you want to find out."

"So I just…kiss her? Like Sleeping Beauty?"

The voice named Andreas laughs. "Exactly like Sleeping Beauty. Where do you think the story originated? A vitality-locked fae princess was put in a tower to protect her until someone was brave enough or foolhardy enough to risk their life to revive her. As far as I remember the original tale being told to me as a young fae boy around the hearth, it wasn"t a prince who rescued her, but a commoner. It actually makes the story more compelling, in my opinion. The rest is made up, largely, or simply twisted and changed over the centuries, as such things often are."

"Huh. I never knew that." The voice named Caspian is silent for a moment. "How time-sensitive is this? Like, we"re in the middle of nowhere and I"m going to have to steal one of the fae SUVs to get us out of here. My truck is totaled, and the one SUV that"s not totaled is…not in great shape."

"Get her somewhere safe. She"s not in immediate danger of death."

"Okay. Thanks, Andreas."

"No problem. Take care of our girl, yeah?" A brief pause. "I"d get rid of that SUV at the first opportunity, by the way. They"re definitely chipped and tracked. As are the Elites, by the way. This little event, unfortunately, has made a bad situation that much worse. How much do you know about Elites?"

"Next to nothing. I"ve heard of them, mainly just rumors overheard on the dance floor at our havens."

"Well, the rumors, obviously, are true. They are IRRC Elites—private security soldiers for the Immortal Reproductive Research Council. Basically, fae black ops mercenaries. Generally, they"re recruited from the best of the best, and the meanest of the mean. They"re damn near impossible to kill, typically. One Elite could wipe out an entire company of mortal soldiers. That armor is impervious to just about everything—bullets, explosives, blades, everything. The only thing that can even put a dent in it, as far as I know, is another hastaxi. Which, by the way, that word, those spears, is where the Romans got their word hastae, their word for their spears. Those hastaxI are nasty. They look awkward and unwieldy, but they"re deadly simply as a bladed weapon. The energy bolts they fire from them are even nastier. They disintegrate all organic matter and can carry for up to a mile. They"ll burn through rock, trees, buildings, flesh, everything and anything until it dissipates naturally."

A strange, strained silence. "They shot her with one."

"What?" Shock.

"Her body just…absorbed it. Like, it hit her but had no effect at all. It was this weird black, purple, fizzy, rippling…blob. It was scary as hell. The moment it touched her, those lances of light shot out of her and hit them, and their armor exploded."

"My god. Are you absolutely sure that"s what happened? In that exact order?"

"One hundred percent. Why?"

"Because it means she…well, it"s a complicated, technical glamour-casting sequence. Basically, she cast a glamour that absorbs all energy. And I mean all energy. Momentum, kinetic energy, electricity, heat, everything. It absorbs it and converts it into concussive power. You can hold it for a very short period of time—think an eyeblink or two, and then you have to redirect it. The longer you hold it, the more it builds. If you don"t redirect it, it will kill you…and everything around you. So it sounds like she somehow instinctively cast a kinesiolous, it"s called, and then directed it outward. This combined with her pent-up vitality…it"s honestly a miracle you're alive, Caspian. Kinesiolous detonations spare no one. They"re viciously hard to cast correctly—most fae don"t bother trying because you"re more likely to kill yourself and your allies than your enemies. They"re most often used as a last resort by a cornered and outnumbered warrior with nothing to lose."

"So…how am I alive, then? I was in the truck less than ten feet from her when she did it."

"The only thing I can come up with is that she somehow cast a protection bubble on you. I think she somehow can instinctively cast advanced glamours in emergencies, things she should have no way of knowing how to do. I saw it myself. I don"t know. She"s an unusual one, to say the least."

"It seemed like it just… happened."

"I don"t think she"s doing it consciously. Maybe she somehow…inherited knowledge of advanced glamourworking in utero from her mother? I don"t know. I"m only guessing. Look, I have to let you go. The council is going to send more Elites after you, me, and your coven. No one is safe. Maeve they"ll take alive if possible, but the rest of us? They won"t bother asking questions, they"ll just kill us. Especially now that twenty elites have been killed."

"Twenty?"

"I took out two, and your…Alistair…took out two."

"I thought only another…hastaxi, you called it?—could dent their armor."

"Yeah, well, disarm them, and you"ve got yourself a hastaxi. But we can"t go around indiscriminately killing Elites or Enforcers. We want to change the status quo, but not by starting a war. And this is how wars are started, Caspian."

"What was she supposed to do, Andreas?"

"I"m not blaming her. I killed two myself. I"m just saying. We have to be careful."

"Maybe they need to be careful."

"Tell that to them. We"re threatening their power, Caspian. Certainly, you"re aware of how an entrenched power structure responds to being threatened."

"Very much so."

"Get her to safety and privacy, and try to force her to leach and hope she can stop herself before she drains you. I wish I had a better answer." A pause. "Speaking as someone who tracks people down for a living, you need to shut off your cell phones and ditch them as soon as possible. Memorize any phone numbers you need and toss your phone and hers. Second, no debit or credit transactions. The Tribunal and Council are working together on this, which means you"re wanted for murder of Tribunal personnel since the Council is a recognized branch of the Tribunal. You were already marked for elimination, but you"re now going to be listed as Kill On Sight. The Tribunal is extremely well versed in not just tracking magic but in the more prosaic mortal methods of tracking cell phones and credit transactions as well as data hacking."

"Awesome." Sarcasm.

"Just ditch the phones, use cash, and do what you can to rejuvenate her. And be careful. When I tell you she"s going to be unpredictable at best, I"m not kidding."

"It"s a risk I'm willing to take. She"s worth it."

"Stay in touch."

"I will."

Silence, then. The darkness and the warmth shift. Tilts. Motion?

Sounds. A thunk. An engine. Wind.

Measureless time.

Motion and wind.

Silence.

A change, then. Comfort—a newness to the warmth, a leavening of the darkness. A sense of being enveloped, surrounded. Cocooned.

"I"ve got you, Maeve. I"m here." That voice. Caspian. "I"m here, my beautiful bloodmate."

Bloodmate.

His bloodmate.

"This is a little weird. I hope you can hear me. I"m gonna kiss you, now."

Sensation. A dampness in the warmth. A cohesiveness to the dark. The depth of the dark becomes shallower. Cooler. No longer a noiseless roaring of absence, but now a coalescing of discrete particulates into…something.

A semblance of self emerges from the dark.

Lips upon lips.

His mouth is soft, wet, warm, delicate, inviting.

"This isn"t working," he mutters under his breath. "Come on, baby. I know you"re in there. Kiss me back."

Lips again—a touch of tongue.

Something stirs down in the depths of the dark. A leviathan awakes—hunger.

Pure, elemental, primal.

A hand moves, reaches. Touches. Firm flesh, hard muscle.

A moan—not him. Female. Eager. Needy.

Me?

"That"s it, my love." His lips move against mine, his whisper felt as much as heard. "You know you want it—come and take it."

He"s warm, full of heat and blood and vitality.

Hunger blooms.

Need more.

A hand—my hand?—reaches, touches. Soft, cool hair. A firm jaw. Strong neck—hot, delicious pulse point pounding.

I smell blood. Fresh blood.

Beneath the blood…vitality. It smells of cool pools of shadow, of petrichor before a thick summer rain, of old books, of woodsmoke.

"Yes, my love," Caspian murmurs in my ear. "All yours. All for you. Take it all. I"m freshly blooded—I took some from the maid. I suppressed the pheromone response, of course. She remembers nothing, and I left her a healthy wad of cash in her apron. But you need blood, and I didn"t want to risk taking it from you."

Blood. Vitality.

Caspian.

There"s an ache at the center of me—no, not just an ache—agony. A yawning chasm. A hungry void.

It reaches—searches, yearns. For him.

His lips touch mine, slow, delicate, tender.

Not enough.

I need—him. I need more. More.

I can"t… I'm paralyzed. Aware of myself, now, to a degree, but unable to move.

His kiss sparks something. Lights a candle. Sends warmth into frozen limbs.

More.

I want to beg. Kiss me more, Caspian.

Perhaps he hears me. Perhaps he senses something.

An image prickles, burgeons, blossoms in the dark: Caspian, his dark hair messy and mussed, cheeks flushed with blood and desire, levered above me. Skin, hot and smooth. Muscles round and hard. Eyes blacked out with vampiric power and desire. Long, needle-sharp fangs ready to pierce my tender flesh and envenomate me with his lush, sensual, delicious pheromones.

I find a crumb of capacity for response: I share an image of my own: his hands stripping me of my clothes, baring my curves for his hands, his eyes, his lips, his fangs. I show him my body arching to meet his. His mouth everywhere—teasing, tasting, feasting. I show him us. Our bodies entwined.

Words are still beyond my reach, as is movement. But desperation sears me from within—hunger, savage and unrelenting. Arousal, potent, vicious and scorching. Like nothing I"ve ever felt.

I'm helpless.

I show him his mouth skating over my belly, his tongue sliding over my sex. His fingers inside me.

"If what I'm seeing is from you, Maeve, then show me something else. So I know it"s you." His lips brush my ear, his breath hot, teasing, tickling, sending heat blistering down into my sex, making me seep with need. "Show me how you want me. Show me what you want to do to me." His voice is dark with desire, thick with need, muffled by his elongated fangs. "You want me, don"t you? I know you do. I can feel you wanting me, Maeve. Wake up and show me."

I give in to imagination since action is still denied me.

I want him to taste my sex and make me come. I want his fangs in my thigh. I want him to nick my labia to loose the bright red blood from me there so he can sip from my veins as he teases me to climax.

I want him to peel his clothes away so his perfect form is bare for me. I want him to trail the weeping tip of his cock across my lips. I want to taste his precum, I want to feel him press past my lips. I want to lick his length, all salt and iron-hard flesh. I want to feel him in my mouth, slicking deep, into my throat until all I can do is swallow around him and breathe him and take his essence. I want him to fill my pussy with his hardness, plunging into me and piercing my throat with his fangs. I want to give him my blood.

I want all that.

I show it to him.

I need to sink my fangs into his vein and drink from his soul, fill the void within me with his blood and his seed and his vitality. I need his life within me.

I feel his breath against my ear. "All of that and more, my love. All of me for all of you. Take me, my love. Take my blood, take my body, take my vitality. Use me. Bleed me. Drain me. Fuck me. Love me."

The spark in my belly flickers. Surges. My frozen limbs burn with cold like icy fingers thawing. The void in my soul rages, scraping me raw from the inside out, the purest agony I've ever felt. I can"t scream, can't cry. Can"t breathe, or whimper. I can only suffer in silence, and Caspian is the only relief there can be upon this earth.

Yet, I cannot reach for him to sate my need.

Kiss me.

Kiss me and never stop.

I can"t even form the words in my mind. I"m forced to show him it in images—again, and again, and again. Him, kissing me. Breathless-unbreathing.

A vampire"s kiss.

"I hear you, my bloodmate."

I feel the most wonderful thing, then: a sharp, brief, incredible moment of physical pain as his fang pierces my lower lip, and then his mouth is upon mine, and fucking glory—I can feel his kiss. His mouth, moving. His tongue, tasting. His lips, sealing.

I feel something in my mouth, in the space behind my lips, behind my teeth, in the roots of my teeth. Like the way you stretch when you yawn, involuntary, cathartic, lengthening. Pain that is pleasure as my eyeteeth shudder into needle-points. I feel him bring his lip to my fang, and nick himself.

I taste him, then.

I taste vestiges of the maid he drew from: A long, high, hot sun; yellowing grass, rolling hills, and a glimpse of turquoise sea; straw hats, endless rows of fruit; an aching back, gnarled hands, throbbing feet; a bus, a gravestone, a bustling city…the fragments tumble and twist and fade as the blood circuits through Caspian and in so doing loses the hints of the soul once imbued in the blood.

I taste only him, then, my beloved Caspian. His mouth, his tongue, his teeth, his soul in the fresh hot sweet blood upon my tongue, and I can taste him, reach for him—my tongue laps against his lip, and I feel him respond to the venom, to my pheromones.

He growls a lupine snarl.

I rage against the invisible restraints, and succeed. My lips soar against his. My tongue twines with his.

The void within burns and screams like a dying star, and soon, the hunger will be all.

He kisses me, and he does not stop.

He licks my cut lip, and the venom boils through my blood and the spark in my belly becomes a candle flame, and my frozen limbs begin to thaw.

My eyes are first.

They flutter open.

The first thing I see is his eyes, beautiful black, cool shadows and endless midnight depths fixed on mine.

"There you are, beautiful."