Blood Redemption (30 page)

Nachari sauntered over to Ramsey, squatted down, and began to apply copious amounts
of venom to the backs of his heels. He glanced over his shoulder to regard the headless,
heartless pile of spineless mush that was now Blaise Liska. “Looks good and dead though.”

Ramsey nodded. “Yeah, I think your boy over there had a cathartic moment.” He glanced
across the meadow. “What about Achilles? Where is he?”

Nachari spun around as if he had almost forgotten the second dark soldier and frowned.

Achilles Zahora was gone—and just how was that possible, anyhow? The male had been
one breath away from the spirit world when Saber lashed him with Blaise’s spine. “Damn,”
Nachari whispered. “That’s one tough SOB.”

Saber made his way over to the two males, not exactly sure what to say or how to act.
The whole afternoon had been so bizarre: first, his hunger getting the best of him;
then, Diablo coming, not to feed him but to kill him; and last, the fight with the
Dark Ones—the ones he used to call friends.

Family.

He kept a healthy distance from Nachari and Ramsey out of some peculiar sense of protocol…or,
perhaps, respect. Sure, they had fought together like brothers, but that didn’t make
them friends. Not by a long shot.

When, at last, it looked like Ramsey’s wounds were almost healed, and the ill-tempered
sentinel could take it from there, Nachari turned around to eye Saber. “So, what was
all this about, anyhow?”

“Excuse me?” Saber asked, all at once becoming defensive.

“This.” He waved his hand around the valley floor, indicating the battle, the Dark
Ones, and the whole grisly scene. “All this…because you refuse to
feed
?”

Saber shook his head. “That’s none of your business, Nachari.”

Nachari excreted some venom onto his own hand and placed it on the tear just above
his pelvis, where Achilles had sliced his small intestines. Breathing a sigh of relief,
he said, “I think you just made it my business.”

Saber glared at him. “If you’re waiting for me to say thank you, then fine. Thanks,
all right? I am not—”

“
You
—
are being an ass,” Nachari offered matter-of-factly.

Saber flinched, but he didn’t say anything.

“You wanna live out here in a cave? That’s your business. But when you grow so weak
that our enemies think they can confront one of us out in the open, this close to
Dark Moon Vale? That’s everybody’s business.”

“I let it go too far,” Saber said by way of explanation—it was the only one Nachari
Silivasi was going to get.

“Starvation?” Nachari asked.

Saber shrugged, refusing to say any more.

Nachari frowned. “Look, it might not be my place, but somebody’s got to say something:
You never killed before while feeding, so why do you think it’s gonna happen now?”

Saber was momentarily stunned by the vampire’s words. “What makes you assume I never—”

“Give me a break,” Nachari said. “What am I?”

Saber blanched. “I don’t know what the hell you are.” He looked him up and down suspiciously.
“Vampire…panther…King freakin’ Arthur with his beloved Excalibur—you tell me.”

Nachari smiled faintly then. “Yeah, it is one bad-ass sword, isn’t it?” He patted
his scabbard absently. “Seriously though, I’m a wizard; and you’ve never killed while
feeding.”

Saber stiffened. “I never had to,
W
izard
. In the house of Jaegar, the youngest brother feeds his family; and trust me, Dane
killed.”

“Not your karma,” Nachari said. “Besides, what about the two hundred years you spent
on this earth before Dane and Diablo were born? You hunted, you drank, but you did
not kill your prey.”

Saber looked at him in amazement, feeling more than just a little bit exposed. He
had never really thought about it: As far as he was concerned, times were different
then; populations were sparser; it wasn’t wise to leave entire villages dead in your
wake—vampires didn’t know when they might run into another viable food source. “Wasn’t
prudent,” he said brusquely.

Nachari reached out a hand to help Ramsey up, watching as the stalwart warrior tested
his weight on both legs and nodded. Turning his attention back to Saber, he said,
“Look, you already know what I went through in the Valley of Death and Shadows, and
I would say you have a pretty good idea of what I brought out of the experience.”
Both vampires knew Nachari was alluding to his advanced wizardry skills and his ability
to shape-shift into the panther. “The thing is…what you might not understand…is the
lesson behind it all.” He breathed a heavy sigh. “Sometimes it’s just easier to embrace
what you are than to expend so much energy trying to deny it.” He caught the look
of confusion on Saber’s face and added, “You’re a lot of ugly things, Saber; but you’ve
never killed your prey while feeding. Just go with it.”

Saber took the wizard’s words and filed them away in his to-be-processed-later compartment.
Eyeing Ramsey warily, he tried to come up with something appropriate to say. Maybe
something akin to
thank you
. “You killed my brother,” he barked. Okay, so that didn’t come out quite like he
intended.

Ramsey snorted. “I killed your enemy, Dark One.”

Saber nodded. “Yeah…” And then he smiled in his own fiendish kind of way. “So if they’re
all Dark Ones, and you’re still calling me
Dark One
, then what were you doing in this valley fighting this night?”

“Oh, you’re one dark son of a demon, all right,” Ramsey said, plucking a needle off
a pine tree and shoving it between his teeth. “But you’re still a descendant of
Jadon
.”

Nachari nodded in absolute solidarity. “This is
our house
, Saber. And nobody comes into our house, attacks one of our own, and expects to walk
out unscathed.” He winked then. “You, of all vampires, should know that by now.”

Saber knew Nachari was right. It was time to feed, and the little bit of blood the
wizard had brought him in the three vials was not going to last him long, no matter
how powerful Marquis Silivasi might be as an Ancient. But first, he had to make a
pit stop.

Staring at the large wooden door in front of him, the quaint cottage home on the edge
of Dark Moon Vale, just south of the eastern cliffs, he tried to gather his courage.
This could either go very well…or very badly: The prodigal son returned.

Not exactly the traditional Sunday-school story.

He plucked an errant piece of cotton off his crimson-red shirt and knocked crisply
on the door four times.

When Lorna opened it and saw him, she practically fainted. She glanced surreptitiously
over her shoulder, as if to check for Rafael, grabbed a shawl off a nearby hook, and
quickly stepped outside. “Saber,” she said softly. “I’m so surprised.” She placed
her hand absently over her heart. “So happy to see you.”

Saber read between the lines: Lorna was thrilled to see him. Rafael? Not so much.
And judging by the swift drop in the outside temperature, coupled with the way the
female had hurried out in spite of it, the adopted son of Damien Alexiares was not
welcome in Rafael Dzuna’s home.

That was cool.

Saber stepped back from the porch, suddenly feeling horribly out of place and more
than just a little awkward.

Lorna sought to bridge the silence for him. “So, what are you doing here?” She quickly
retracted the question. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Saber nodded. “It’s okay. I just…” He checked his watch: ten o’clock PM.
Great, just great.
“I was hoping…” He fidgeted and sighed. “Have you seen my son yet?”

Lorna’s face lit up with adoration. “Oh yes, he’s so beautiful.”

“Handsome?” Saber asked, hopeful.

“Yes. Yes, of course.
Handsome
.”

Saber nodded and forced a civil smile. “Then he’s well?”

“Oh, yes—growing like a weed.”

“And Vanya, the princess?”

Lorna smiled tenderly. “She, too, is well.”

He sighed heavily and forced himself to ask his next question. “What’s my son’s name?”

Lorna froze. Her body tensed, and she frowned. “Oh, Saber—”

“Please,” Saber said, waving his hand to halt her sympathy—that was the last thing
he wanted or needed. “Just—”

“His name is Lucien,” Lorna said. “Lucien
Sabino
Alexiares.”

Saber blinked in surprise. So, Vanya had named the child after him,
sort of
, by using the name his parents had given him at birth? Maybe she had done it out
of deference to Lorna and Rafael. But she had also given him Saber’s surname: a Dark
One’s surname, Alexiares. Now this truly surprised him.

“You look surprised,” Lorna commented, as if she had read his thoughts.

“Little bit,” Saber said honestly.

“I don’t think it’s that unusual,” Lorna said. “I mean, not when you really think
about it: Vanya is the sister of both Jadon and Jaegar, both light and dark. And Alexiares
is a name from her
brother’s
house. Perhaps this is her way of acknowledging all of who she is, all of who Lucien
is.” She paused then. “All of who you are.”

Saber studied her face, the subtle lines at the corners of her eyes, the full arched
brows that framed her knowing, compassionate eyes. “I think I owe you an apology,
Lorna, for being so…so obstinate…so cruel to you.”

“No, it is I who owe you an apology.”

“For what?” Saber asked, astonished.

“For not truly understanding that you are…
all
of who you are…from Jadon’s house, yes. But also from Jaegar’s house. We truly didn’t
accept that before, acknowledge just what all that meant
to
you
; and for that, I am sorry.”

“Lorna,” Saber said pointedly. “I gotta tell you, lady. You are
way
too nice. You need to get that fixed before someone seriously takes advantage of
you.”

Lorna chuckled fondly. “Oh…thank you.”

“Yeah, see; that’s exactly what I mean.” He ran his hands through his hair and simply
shook his head. “So…” He truly didn’t know what he was doing there. It wasn’t like
they had a relationship to speak of; and apparently, he didn’t have any words, either.
“How are you?”

“Oh, I’m okay. I’ve been worried about you, though.”

He raised his hand again.

“Too nice?” she said.

“Way too…” he replied.

“Okay.” She rocked back and forth on her heels nervously. “Are you eating…staying
warm?”

Saber laughed so loud the sound startled him. “Oh, man.” He met her eyes and smirked.
“I can’t do this, Lorna. I’m sorry; I thought I could.”

Before she could answer, Rafael rounded the corner, approaching the wraparound porch
from the backyard. “Of course you can’t,” he said derisively. “So, why did you come
here then? Don’t you think your mother has been through enough?”

Saber was just about to face off with the bitter warrior, challenge him male to male,
when he noticed for the first time that Rafael was not wearing a shirt. And his chest,
great lords of the spirit world
—
dark or light
—it was a virtual wasteland, littered from armpit to armpit with crisscrossed lines,
his pectoral muscles a savage map of suffering.

Saber flashed an undignified scowl. Despite himself, all he could do was gape. Was
this the pain…the suffering…the physical expression of the mental anguish this male
had felt for so many years? The outward expression of his inward guilt? “You need
to let that go,” Saber finally said, inclining his head at the scars.

Rafael scowled. He strolled up to the front door, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
Before he shut the door in Saber’s face, he called back: “I have let it go.”

Saber looked down at the ground. It was better than watching the appalled look on
Lorna’s face—talk about a tale of two parents. “All right then,” he mumbled. “Thanks
for telling me about Lucien…I should probably get going.”

Lorna sighed, clearly not knowing what to say or do. “Will you come back soon?”

Saber shook his head. “Probably not. It was a bad idea.”

No,” she argued, “it was not a bad idea. It was a wonderful idea, and I’m glad you
did it.” She stopped herself short and placed both hands neatly on her thighs. “Way
too nice,” she mumbled.

Saber licked his lips and inclined his head; and then something crossed his mind—
his heart?
—unbidden. Something he had never planned to say but now knew that he had to. And
not for himself, but for the embittered man who had retreated inside the house. “Will
you do me a favor?”

“Of course,” Lorna said. “Just name it.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?” he teased, winking before she could apologize.

Lorna seemed positively giddy, not just by the request, but by the banter. “Name it,”
she repeated.

Saber inhaled deeply before looking off into the distance. “For whatever it’s worth,
tell Rafael that I never raped a woman or killed a child.”

Lorna gasped audibly.

And then the front door opened and Rafael stepped outside. Apparently, he had been
listening all along. “Why not?” he asked, his own face showing the faintest hint of
hope.

Saber shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess I didn’t like the taste of kids’ blood—and didn’t
want to have to kill my own unborn offspring…or to be a father.” Searching for a better
explanation, he added, “In the house of Jaegar, we don’t really command pregnancies.
The moment we—the moment
they
—release their seed, the female is pregnant. If you don’t want sons, you either have
to kill the victim, refrain from…finishing, or make it so she can’t get pregnant before
you violate her. Just seemed like a lot of hassle.” Rafael stared at him blankly,
and Saber’s demeanor grew impassive. “I wish, for your sake, it was something deeper
than that, nobler than that. But, that’s really the long and short of it.”

Rafael seemed to exhale as if he had been holding his breath his entire life. The
tightness in his chest relaxed, and his harsh, unforgiving expression softened. “Maybe,
just maybe,” he whispered, “it’s time for you to entertain the possibility that you
did it because you have a heart as well as a soul—maybe you’ve always had both.”

Saber’s lip turned up in a half smile, half scowl. “Nah; it wasn’t that deep. Besides,
what does it matter now?”

“It matters,” Rafael said, “because it means that in time, and with healing, you might
still be able to love.”

Saber looked away. “I don’t…I don’t know what words like that mean.”

“You do know,” Rafael argued. “You just haven’t made the connection—between the emotion
and the word.”

“Yeah,” Saber retorted sarcastically, “
love
,
whatever that is.”

Rafael stiffened like someone had punched him in the gut. He grit his teeth and placed
an implacable fist over his chest. “This,” he snarled, indicating the brutal scars
that he carried in his own harshly masculine way. “
Th
is is
love
.”

Saber turned on his heel and stormed off into the night.

Enraged
.

He paced no less than twenty yards away before turning and stomping back. “What the
hell is wrong with you?” he growled.

Rafael stepped off the porch and met him in the yard. He reached out a firm hand and
placed it on Saber’s shoulder. “Son—”

“Don’t you say that to me!” Saber fumed, slapping Rafael’s hand away angrily. “Don’t
you ever say that word to me.” His fangs shot out of his mouth, and he had to struggle
not to bite something, destroy something, kill something.

Anything.

Love
? What the hell was this word they kept tossing around like a ball in the park?
Love
should have stayed Diablo’s hand when he came to kill him earlier.
Love
should have stopped the house of Jaegar from executing Damien and Dane.
Love
should have brought Vanya to the cave the moment she found out what had happened
with the Dark Ones!

Love!

There was no such thing as love.

“You’ve got to reach past that rage, Saber,” Rafael said. “You’ve got to tap into
what’s beneath.”

Saber swallowed a curse. “What’s beneath? There’s
nothing
beneath. Don’t you get it? There’s nothing else here!”

“Then why are you so angry?”

“Why am I so angry?”

“Yes, why are you so
angry
?”

Saber’s nostrils flared. “I don’t know. I don’t know!”

“Maybe because in eight hundred years, no one has ever loved you back. Until now.”

Saber clenched his fists. “Shut up, old man. Or I swear to the gods I’m going to hurt
you.” Rafael stepped back then, but he didn’t retreat. He simply shook his head slowly
and tapped his chest. “Worse than this?” he asked. “You can’t possibly hurt me worse
than this.”

Saber dropped his head in his hands. “Look, I’m sorry someone stole your son, that—”

“Someone stole
you
,” Rafael said forcefully. “
You
are my son.”

Saber shook his head. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning everything around them
ex
cept
Rafael’s anguished face. “No, it wasn’t me. I was never that kid.”

“You were that kid. And you were full of life and curiosity, alert and observant,
just like Lucien is now.”

Saber looked up at him and scowled. “Then why…” he whispered, unable to complete the
sentence.

“Why what?” Rafael asked.

“Why didn’t you search for me?”

Rafael stepped back, reacting as if he had just been burned. “By all the gods, Sabino…
Sab
er
…we looked for decades.”

Saber felt depleted. “Then why didn’t you…just know?”

“Just know what? Where you were? That the Dark Ones had you? How could we? It never
even occurred to us. We just…didn’t…that’s all. And I am so, so sorry.”

Saber swallowed his rage. He cleared his throat and nodded, finally bringing his emotions
under control. “Yeah…” He blew out a long breath. “Yeah, well, it’s all in the past.”

“True,” Rafael said, “but you’re here now.”

“I’m not
here
,” Saber argued, gesturing emphatically at the cottage and the forest around them.
“Not like that. I just wanted to come by and ask about Vanya…my son.”

“Okay,” Rafael said. “So maybe that’s a start.”

Beginning, middle, and end
, Saber thought, but he didn’t speak it aloud. He looked down at the ground, too tired
to argue or provoke Rafael further. “Yeah, maybe,” he conceded. “I’ve gotta go.”

Lorna joined them in the yard then. “Where will you go?” she asked. “What will you
do? How will you live?”

“Too much, Lorna,” Saber said. “This is all…way too much.”

Lorna folded her hands together as if she could capture her words between her fingers,
trying to be stoic. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Damnit,” Saber barked. “Stop apologizing.
Please
.”

Lorna clasped her hand over her mouth in an increased effort not to speak, and then
she began to cry uncontrollably.

Saber stepped back.

He had to get out of there.

Talk about your world’s worst ideas.

He was just about to turn and leave when something brought him up short. Maybe it
was the sound of Lorna’s tears, maybe it was just the pitiful nature of the whole
damn scenario; but he couldn’t leave things like this. He couldn’t leave
her
like this. Forcing himself to step toward the weeping woman, he reached out and cupped
her face in his hands. “No tears, Lorna. Not for me.”

She did her best to stifle her sobs, and after taking several deep breaths, she finally
grew quiet. “If you are ever in need, please…come home,” she whispered.

Home
.

Now that was another million-dollar word.

He wasn’t about to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

Instead, he took her small hands in his considerably larger ones and held them firmly.
“Thank you, Lorna,” he said. It was the best he could do.