Blood Life Seeker (39 page)

You are stronger than you appear, Nosferatin.
I think he would have said more, but then the Ambrosia decided to show his strength too and joined the party in my head.

Leave her, Nemesis, she is no longer yours to influence.
I felt the Nemesis leave, but I was certain the Ambrosia was still there, just biding his time. It was an uncomfortable feeling. Not exactly distracting, I seemed to be able to still focus on everything around me, but I felt his presence and knew he was still there and it left me feeling a little cold.

The attacking vampires were taking a hit, but then so were we. Several of the guards had turned to dust and I saw the Scribe fall. He didn't turn to dust straight away, so he was still alive, but he was on the ground and if he didn't move soon, he would be floating away on the air like the rest of the dead-dead. I couldn't leave the Champion, even if I wanted to, my body would not have obeyed my command. I obscurely thought that Nut was going to really piss me off soon if she didn't let me have free will, but I pushed that aside and concentrated on the Scribe. He had helped me, when the Champion had forced her
Sanguis Vitam
at me, he had stood against her, despite her obvious disapproval of his interference. I owed him. And I always like paying my debts.

I gathered my Light inside me and fashioned it into a spear. When a vampire went in for the kill, I threw it with all my might and watched as it sailed through the space between us and pierced him in the heart. It was as good as a stake, he burst into dust; not just the average grey dust they usually make when killed for real, but a multicoloured rainbow of dust, that under different circumstances would have been quite cool. The Scribe came to and leapt to his feet, in time to face the next vampire on his own.

Impressive.
The Ambrosia, still in my mind.
You have taught her well, Nut.

I hadn't even realised she was there, but as she was having some influence over my actions, being unable to leave the Champion's side, it didn't really surprise me. Her voice was like soothing water running over hot skin. I loved it.

Her actions are all her own, my old friend. This one is special.

I had no idea what she meant by that, but the Ambrosia spoke again, cutting into my train of thought.

The weight of our world is on her shoulders. I will assist where I can.
I felt his sadness then, it was overwhelming.

Thank you, Father,
Nut whispered and then they were both gone. I still didn't want to leave the Champion's side, but my mind was my own and it was reeling.

I didn't have time to digest that conversation further just then, because a second wave of attacking vampires stormed the room and we were well and truly swamped.

I went from one to the other, feeling my stake sink in. I wasn't immune to their strikes, I had scratches on my face and down my sides, bite marks on my forearms where I had thrown a hand in front of my face for protection, my dress was ripped, my hair torn out in chunks and still I kept finding my targets. It was as if none of what they did to me mattered. I'd heard soldiers could behave like that, as though they detached from what physical assault their bodies were receiving and operated from somewhere else. I knew I had Nut with me, so maybe I just thought she was in control, but she wasn't. It was all me. She was barely touching my mind, just watching, just waiting, but for what?

I finally realised we were losing. We'd only lost maybe one council member's life. When he had turned to dust, I felt the collective sigh from the council members and his name wash over me,
the Creator
. He was the vampire who had replaced Michel when Michel left the
Iunctio
. Despite only one loss of life so far, I knew we couldn't hold them. And I knew the Champion knew this too.

We were losing and I'd told her she would without my help, yet here I was helping and still I couldn't stop this. I felt frustration fill me up and then quickly replaced it with determination. I gritted my teeth and sent a thought to the Champion.

Help me, I need to concentrate.

She didn't ask what I was going to do, she simply sent her
Sanguis Vitam
out to surround me, to shield me, to make me almost disappear. So those vampires approaching couldn't even see me or sense me, couldn't find me to attack.

I used the time she had given me, precious that it was, as it was no doubt leaving her vulnerable, to fall quickly into the black nothingness of my void and
seek
all the vampires in the room. I separated those of ours, careful to include the dark Darkness of the Pandora and singled out the evil of those attacking. I briefly brushed on the Tempest, recognising his signature fitted with the attacking vampires, but pulled him back to our side. I'd worry about that later.

Then I gathered my Light, said a little prayer to a different God than Nut, and thrust it out of my body. It was rather like a heat seeking missile, except hundreds of them. All individual projectiles propelled from inside me and forcibly thrust out into the room. It took seconds, but within seconds every vampire who was attacking us was dust. Oh. My. God.

The silence that greeted me as I came back to my body was deafening. If silence can be that. All of the
Iunctio
members were staring at me in wonder and fear. And in the case of the Ambrosia, I think pride. I didn't know what to say or do under the weight of all those eyes, so I turned to the Champion, she was the one in charge and waited for her to speak.

Her mouth was slightly open, as though she had moments before formed an O, but she slowly closed it and a small crease appeared between her delicate brows.

It felt like an eternity, but finally she spoke.

“
It appears the
Sanguis Vitam Cupitor
is on our side, after all.” I felt she was thinking
for now anyway
, but she didn't say it in my mind and she definitely didn't say it aloud.

Michel was beside me in an instant. I hadn't even seen him move. He was dusty and a little tattered, his hair had come loose and he had some marks on his face, but he was beautiful. So beautiful. And his hand as it took mine made all my aches and the pains from my scratches seem inconsequential. He brushed my mind and I automatically lowered my shields, letting his healing power flood in, chasing away the cold and replacing everything with warmth. I don't know if he had meant to do that right then, right now, with the Champion watching so closely. But it didn't matter, it was done, like a reflex action, he couldn't help himself.

The Champion's lips curved in a slight smile and she whispered in my mind,
However will you manage with two of them at your beck and call?

I had no friggin' idea how to answer that one, so I just smiled.

She turned her attention to the rest of the council and said, “This was not a random attack, it was well planned, someone meant to challenge me.”

And then the room went dark, the Champion the only thing I could see, the only thing I wanted to see. She had risen off the floor and was levitating a few feet in the air. Some vampires, powerful master ones, can fly, but levitation is a little different. Actually managing to stay still in the air is quite something, you ask a pilot, planes need to fly forward to have enough upward thrust to maintain altitude, so do vamps. Levitation is only reserved for those vampires with real mojo.

“Who among us, challenges me?” Why she thought it was one of the council members I didn't know, maybe she already knew the answer and she wanted to make them come forward publicly, rather than strike without evidence. But, she floated there sure of herself and the vampires in the room simply buzzed
Sanguis Vitam.
Contained, but threatening to release. I was betting most of them were outraged, but one, one was angry and I could feel which one that was.

I turned slowly to that pull, so familiar, so like those of the vampires who had just attacked and I looked directly at the Tempest. The Champion and all the other vampires had seen me move, unable to sense what I sensed, but following my gaze. They all looked at the Tempest and I felt their
Sanguis Vitam
climb.

He wasn't going to go down without a fight. He laughed bitterly and I thought he'd just deny it, tell them I was mad, that I was wrong, maybe even that I was the one who had orchestrated all of this, but instead he just flew at me. The air in the room roared like a tornado had hit, dust flew around us, making it impossible to see, impossible to hear. He knew where he was going, but no one could see me or him to intervene.

But, I'd had practice at this game. The number of times I had been caught while invisible and Dream Walking recently had dented my pride, so I instinctively stepped a few paces to the right, away from where I had been standing before the storm blew up and the Tempest jumped, and crouched down low to the ground.

I felt him approach, to my left, towards where I had been. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the feel of him. I couldn't see his aura, but I could sense him. A type of
seeking,
but I wasn't even in that black nothingness now, just the darkness of the dust. It worked, because I knew exactly where he was, what position his body was in, where his heart beat and how the stake would feel when it entered his chest wall.

I simply moved my weight onto my left foot, twisted my body with my right arm, as it arced in front of me and found his heart through his back. The dust in the air, from the tornado he had created, fell to the ground, as the stake slid home and his dust joined the others on the floor.

I looked up at the Champion, still floating, and sent the thought,
Oops.

She just smiled, the kind of smile you share with a girlfriend. An intimate understanding between two friends. Not that I ever thought the Champion and I would go shopping together, but still, I think we understood each other in that moment better than we ever had before. Or probably ever would again.

Well done. I was tiring of him anyway.

The lights came back on, the Champion floated back to the ground and suddenly I was in Michel's arms.

And there was no where else I wanted to be.

We didn't stick around to celebrate. Before dawn was even a whisper on the horizon we were at Charles de Gaulle Airport, our luggage already on Michel's plane and us about to board.

The Champion had bid us farewell, but not before decreeing that the
Iunctio
would keep a close eye on my progress, for the welfare of all those concerned. Of course, I knew it was only the welfare of the Nosferatu that she was really concerned with, but as I had just protected the
Iunctio
from destruction, admitted that I would die to protect her and also managed to kill her challenger when all those around her were unable to, I was kind of in the good books for now, so I didn't make a fuss. Just accepted the reprieve and scarpered.

She had dropped one bombshell on us though. Michel as the Master of Auckland City should not also be the Master of Wellington. Even though Michel had set up a base in Wellington for several reasons, part of it had been because of the increased supernatural activity there and as a by product, the increase in human awareness, leading to a few vampire deaths, which he had been unable to explain to the council. They were concerned and felt the fact that he spent most of his time in Auckland, away from the trouble in Wellington, was not acceptable. We had expected this. So, problem solved. Michel would forfeit Wellington and they would appoint a caretaker, someone they could trust to sort the problem out and report back to them.

Of course, neither Michel nor myself had considered who they would put there, so it was difficult to keep the surprise off our faces when she announced, most pleasantly I might add, that it would be the Enforcer. I don't know if she just wanted to rub Michel's nose in it, or cause as much disruption as she possibly could to my life. Or really because she thought it was the girl-friendly thing to do, to send my
mate
across the seas to at least be in the same country as me, but whatever reason, she had succeeded in unbalancing me. If my world was confusing before and I had hoped it would settle with some distance from Gregor, it was now just about to spin back out of control.

Damn.

But, I pulled myself together, thanked her for her hospitality, even managing to keep a straight face on while I said that and we made our escape.

Just as we were about to board the plane however, a sleek black
Iunctio
car pulled up on the tarmac. Michel knew who it was before he even got out of the back of the vehicle and so he just kissed me on the cheek resignedly and boarded the plane alone, whispering, “Take your time,
ma douce
.”

I was left facing Gregor as his tall frame leaned against the car, hands in pockets, legs crossed at his ankles, a picture of casual ease. I sighed and walked toward him.

Gregor's rich voice reached me across the short distance from where he leaned casually against the
Iunctio's
car and I stood, stock still. “Were you just going to leave without saying goodbye, little Hunter?”

“We're in a bit of a hurry to beat the sun,” I managed to reply.

He glanced at the horizon, he didn't need to, he'd be able to sense the sun approaching, right down to the second it breached the dark.

“There is time, I think.”

“Goodbye then.” I really didn't want to do this. I was so confused and having him near was not helping. I desperately wanted to get back to some semblance of normal life. Not like before I moved to Auckland, that type of normality is lost to me forever, but maybe just the normal of having only one man in my life I couldn't bear to be parted from.

He smiled at me, that knowing smile they have. “You would not miss me?”

“Don't do this, Gregor.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm tired and I've had enough games for one night. And I just want to go home.”

He just watched me for a while, a long while. It was a little unnerving and time
was
marching on, so I took a breath in and asked the one question I had been stewing over since the dinner in the Great Dining Hall.

“Why did you feed from me?” After everything I had been through, that seemed to be the biggest hurdle I was currently facing in my mind. Not only the fact that Gregor had fed from me, as though it was his right and I was his property to do so from, but the fact that Michel had encouraged it. Or at the very least, done nothing to stop it. As far as manipulation goes, that was the whammy right there. And both of them had used me, had put me in that position to be used as a means to an end. I just couldn't figure out what that end was and whether it was worth being used over.

“We needed to put on a good show.”

I actually laughed out loud. “A good show?” Some show then, having me almost do the nasty with him on the Dining Hall's table.

He smiled slightly, no doubt hearing the thoughts rioting through my head. I wasn't reining it in, I was pretty damn mad actually.

“Simply declaring you were my mate would not have been enough, they needed to see your desire for me too.”

“And you just thought biting me and glazing me was the best way to achieve that? No chance of asking me to play along? Or am I only a tool that just gets used when it suits?”

His eyes flashed silver with those dangerous but enthralling flecks of platinum and his smile slipped quickly from his beautiful full lips. He was definitely not amused.

“You are my mate.” He said it, like it should have meant something to me.

“That was obviously something you said in the heat of the moment to get us out of a tight spot. Whatever the hell it means, it's nothing, it doesn't matter. The tight spot is over.”

“It matters to me. It should matter to you”

“But it doesn't. I didn't ask for it. I have no idea what it means. It's just another one of the ways for you to get what you want. To hell with what I think.”

His eyes bore into mine for what seemed like an eternity, the dark grey no longer visible at all in the silver swirling with more and more small specks of platinum. I kept forgetting that there's a lot of Dark in Gregor, but I could feel it now. And it called to me softly, drawing me in. A shiver went down my spine.

“I told you once, Lucinda, that I would die for you. I would cast away everything I possess to be near you.”

“You also said you would take only what I was willing to give and no more.”

He smiled. “You remember.”

How could I not remember? How could he forget?

“You are my mate, Lucinda, whether you want it or not. I will be with you again in New Zealand and we shall see just how much you are willing to give.”

I didn't like the tone of his voice, so sure, so confident, but I also couldn't think of a thing to say in reply. I was simply losing all cognitive thought around Gregor, operating on basic instinct alone. His Darkness had started a chain reaction. It was pulling and I was trying my best to stand my ground, but in the end, I knew who or what would win. He was dangerous, more dangerous than I had ever realised and he still wanted me. I suppressed a shudder, somewhat unsuccessfully and waited for him to say goodbye.

His smiled broadened and he took a step towards me. I wanted to raise my hand and stop him. I wanted to simply turn away, but the look in his eyes captured me and I don't think he was using his glaze.

He came to stand right in front of me, almost touching me with his body, he was so close. I had to strain my head back to look up at him. I felt Michel brush my shields then, letting me know he was there if needed, but if I couldn't handle this moment alone, then I was doomed. I took a deep breath in and put my hand against Gregor's chest to stop him coming closer. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“That's far enough,” I whispered.

“Not nearly,” he replied and pushed, ever so slightly against my hand. I took a step back and then another, until there was breathing space between us. He just smiled more.

“Unless you want to get crispy critter, I suggest you get in your car and go,” I said woodenly.

He nodded slowly, but the smile was still firmly in place.

“Until we meet again,
ma petite chasseuse
.” And he blew me a kiss, which I actually felt against his mark on the side of my neck.

I turned away before he could see the effect he had on me and almost ran up the steps to the plane.

The cabin crew guy, or whatever they are called on a private jet, sealed the door behind me and secured all the shades in place, so when the sun rose Michel would be protected.

He was sitting on the couch, relaxed, half reclined looking at me. If he had been watching out the window, it didn't show. I suddenly felt very awkward. There were other armchairs to sit in, but I had always sat on the couch with Michel when we flew. I didn't quite know what to do with myself. He didn't offer me any help, just sat observing me.

“Excuse me, miss. We're about to taxi onto the runway, you need to be seated now.” The manservant/cabin crewman said in a pleasant voice. I just jumped.

Michel smiled.

That did it. He was so sure I'd come sit with him, so I walked over to a chair opposite him and sat down, securing my seatbelt around me. The manservant hesitated, he had expected me to go to Michel too, but he recovered himself and went to sit in his little private kitchen area, out of sight. The master could handle his own battles.

Michel was still smiling, this time I think he was trying not to laugh. He really wanted me to rise to the bait didn't he? I just glared at him.

“You know, I only find you more adorable than usual when you are angry,
ma douce
.”

I didn't say anything, just blinked.

The plane began to move across the tarmac. Michel settled himself more comfortably on the couch. No seatbelt, he wouldn't survive a crash on take off probably, but then again, maybe he would.

The plane launched into the air gracefully and suddenly we were airborne on our way home to Auckland. Still several hours away, practically more than a whole day, but the anticipation, the joy of being home soon consumed me. I only felt the tug of going home and the emotions that evoked washed away any anger that had built, making me smile.

“What are you thinking,
ma douce
?”

“That we'll be home soon and this will all be over.”

“For now, yes.” He wasn't trying to put a dampener on my mood, I don't think he could have really, he was just stating the obvious. The
Iunctio
would still be watching us and we needed to behave. I didn't mind, I could be a good girl when I tried. We'd keep them happy and maybe, just maybe, our world would go back to how it was.

That made me look at Michel. He had changed quickly after the battle, as had I and was in his more casual black trousers and black shirt, sleeves rolled up, open at the neck, his deep cream skin a wonderful contrast to the black. I shook my head, he was gorgeous. But was that enough?

Sure, I was joined to him, Bonded even. We had a connection closer than most and it was for the rest of our eternal lives, but I had learnt a lot over the past few days, an awful lot. How could it not change how I viewed him, how I felt about him?

I knew I still loved him, wanted him, needed to be near him, but how could I not take into consideration all that had happened? Could I trust him? He was the master of manipulation, the consummate politician. Everything he did was planned and even if I got in the way of those plans, somehow he managed to find a way to use me. To make me fit his grand schemes. I'm not sure I wanted to fit his grand schemes. The confusion I had been feeling since meeting Gregor and having my world turned upside down was also still there and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. How to fix it, solve it, mend the break that Michel and I now had.

I did know that I couldn't live without Michel. No matter what I decided, he would have to be a part of my life. But could I stand him being just a platonic part, like Nafrini is to Nero? Could I stand to be around him every day and not be able to touch?

The answer was simple. No.

I sighed and undid my seat belt. The plane had levelled out slightly, not quite forcing you back in your seat, like it does when just taken off from the ground, so I was quite sure I could risk undoing my belt.

Michel was still watching me, no longer smiling, more a cautious hopeful look on his face. He wasn't even trying to shield. It was as though we had passed that and he wanted me to see all of him. Damn. He wasn't making this easy, or maybe he was and it was me who was making this so hard.

I got up and walked over to him. His eyes lit up with swirls of indigo, he held out a hand, no smirk, no confident smile, just his hand.

And I took it, letting him pull me into his arms, against his chest, almost sitting on his lap, but just managing to slide in beside him on the couch. His arms wrapped around me, his face buried in my hair and I felt complete for the first time in days. This wasn't the answer to all my problems I was seeking, but it felt so good and so right. Touching him was as necessary as the air that I breathed. In that instant I acknowledged that, I pushed away the doubt, the fear, the confusion, for another day and I dropped my shields, dropped everything that I had built around me and let him back in.