Bloodspell (21 page)

This
was the legacy that Brigid had left—a living testament to her fathomless power, a part of her own
consciousness
existing forever in the amulet. The stone undulated, embracing her with familiar strength, and she felt renewed.

Victoria pulled some more of the energy into herself as she withdrew, aware of its colossal strength. She would need it for what she was about to do. She lay back in the chair and closed her eyes. Now for the hard part.

A soft noise interrupted her as Christian strode back into the room.

"Victoria, are you okay?"

"Yes. I just have one thing to do but I'm trying to figure out whether I should do it," she said, smiling at his use of her full name. His skin was flushed as if he'd been running but he looked far more human than when he'd left.

"What's that?"

"The wound. I can heal it myself from the inside out but I'm wondering what would happen if I took it into me instead." She quelled his instant look of concern with a gentle smile. "Trust me, it has been a day of discoveries. It won't hurt me."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I need to understand why it attacked me." She hesitated. "And how it died."

"Do you want me to stay?" Christian asked.

Victoria nodded and leaned forward, clasping his long fingers in her own. With his free hand, Christian removed the gauze bandage, and was shocked at the yellow and red mottled skin. Victoria wrinkled her nose at the slimy odor as she closed her eyes and concentrated on healing the area surrounding the wound.

"Curo," she murmured.

Before his very eyes, Christian watched spellbound as the skin lightened slowly and visibly cleared, the angry color dissipating as Victoria's magic compelled it. Her body shook slightly as her intense concentration created lines of tension in her face. After a minute the skin on her shoulder became unmarked but for a thin half-moon scar, where the teeth had penetrated her skin. After about ten seconds, Victoria relaxed, opened her eyes and smiled fiercely at him. Her expression was triumphant.

"Did it work?" he asked, his thumb stroking her hand.

"Yes, I learned a bit about him and a bit more about what you are." As she said the words, Christian stiffened because even though she already knew what he was, she had now just seen what a truly evil vampire was capable of, and, in truth, what Christian was capable of. She read him easily.

"Christian, stop. I know
who
you are. How I feel about you won't change because I've seen what your kind can do," she said gently. "It would be naïve for you to think that I don't know what a vampire is." She frowned. "He was different though, wasn't he? Not like a man, more like an animal."

"They are trained assassins, more fiend than vampire. They are control fed, only to keep their hunger sharp, to kill. I'm sorry I wasn't there—" Christian's face was tight.

"It doesn't matter. I'm here now with you." She paused, her words cautious. "When you say control fed, you mean starved?"

"Yes, of blood." His voice was strained.

Victoria watched him, speculative. She understood that Christian had to feed, but it was more convenient for her to equate that in her head with the natural act of eating as opposed to the unnatural act of consuming live blood.

Even earlier when he'd returned, it hadn't bothered her. Now that she'd seen into the other vampire hunger-warped consciousness, she understood all too clearly what
feeding
meant.

"You eat food though, I saw you on our date ... but you still need ... blood or you'll become like them?"

"I can still eat human food although flavors are far more overpowering now, which is why we tend not do it very often. And yes, blood is a necessity." The apology was ever present in his eyes.

"Human blood? Do you ... have to kill?"

"Any blood works really. Human blood tastes different, which mainly has to do with diet, herbivores and carnivores, that sort of thing. And no,
I
don't have to kill." Victoria noticed the emphasis he placed on saying "I" and tilted her head questioningly.

In response to her unspoken query, he explained, "We have an enzyme in our saliva that has special healing properties, so if I need to, I can take blood from someone and they would heal easily. The trick is to know when to stop. You see, a young vampire can barely control the hunger, so early on killing is a natural consequence of feeding. Over time, most learn control."

"But won't you make more vampires by killing people?" Victoria asked, curious. Christian smiled thinly.

"Myth. If that were the case, humans wouldn't exist. We have special rules, more laws actually, for that. Unfortunately there are some vampires who are far more indulgent and enjoy taking a victim's death for the pleasure of it, the thrill of it."

"Is it thrilling?" she asked in morbid fascination. Christian stared at her with those compelling silver eyes and she shivered softly. She changed direction very quickly.

"What about mirrors?" she asked, forcing a teasing note into her voice.

"I look pretty good in them most days," Christian said, rising to her attempt at light banter. Victoria smiled.
More than pretty good,
she thought.

"Can you change into a bat?" A look of involuntary disgust crossed her face and he laughed.

"Mostly myth, although very old vampires can shift forms."

"Crucifixes?"

"I died a Catholic, remember?"

"Hmmm" Victoria pursed her lips racking her brains for some of the other so-called facts she had read in books. "Sunlight's a myth too right, because you walk around in the day?" Christian shook his head.

"Correction, I walk around in the
shade.
Sunlight is actually deadly to us. Not as in incinerate in seconds to dust, but still lethal." He paused, searching for a suitable example and continued. "Imagine the pain you would feel the next day if you lay out in the sun for four hours without any protection? Well, think about that multiplied exponentially in the space of minutes. We can get fatally ill after prolonged exposure. Light clothing and sun block like zinc oxide can help but I just try to stay out of direct sunlight. The older we get, the better the tolerance, you build up immunity."

"Ah ha!" she said. "I've got a good one!" She paused dramatically and then her face fell. "Never mind, I just realized I pretty much slept in bed with you the other night, so probably no coffins, right?"

Christian burst out laughing. "Only you can make
not
sleeping in a coffin sound like a tragedy."

"Garlic?" she asked hopefully.

"Love the smell, hate the taste," he said, his lips twitching.

"Silver!"

"Wrong type of monster, sorry. Although as you know, it hurts if it gets into our blood." She stared at him in sham disappointment.

"Do the movies get
anything
right at all about you people? We have been so misled!"

"Well, we can die from being stabbed in the heart, pretty much any sharp object. We don't age, take my beautiful young effervescent self for example." He earned a punch in the leg for his vanity. Then his voice grew quiet, a sudden rough tenderness to it. "And when we fall in love, it's for forever."

She stared at him, her breath hitching in her throat. "You're falling ... for me?"

"What do you think?"

Victoria couldn't speak as the warmth in his eyes enveloped her. Her blood raced as his lips found hers. It didn't last long.

Gently disentangling her arms, Christian pulled back. His eyes were excited, his body on edge. He'd explained to her that the feelings that flooded him weren't that different from the ones that ruled him when he was hunting. He wanted her. He wanted her blood. To him, it equated to the same thing ... and that meant he couldn't be trusted.

Christian cleared his throat, searching for a distraction and his eyes fell on the music box resting beside her.

"It's a family heirloom," Victoria said, noticing his gaze.

"It's very beautiful." Christian felt a strange sense of familiarity as he saw the box. The crest on the top of the box tugged at his memory but he couldn't for the life of him place it. But why would he have a memory that was related to a family heirloom of Victoria's?

"It was my great, great, great, great grandmother's box," she said. "Her name was Brigid and she was a duchess, the Duchess of Lancaster."

As she said the name, suddenly something clicked in Christian's head and he almost flew up in astonishment.
Mon Dieu,
Lucian was right! Victoria looked at him quizzically.

"What's the matter?" she asked. Christian searched her face, looking for anything, anything at all that could show that she was deceiving him, but he could see nothing.

"How much do you know about your ancestor, the duchess?" he asked finally.

Victoria deliberated. She wanted to be honest with Christian but she didn't want to betray any family secrets that should remain in confidence. Christian saw her hesitation and understood the reason for it. So he took the plunge and went first.

"Tori, we have a prophecy in the vampire world that goes back centuries. I am talking centuries before I was even born a human. It's based on the legend of a witch, a very powerful witch with amazing, nearly mythical powers." He paused and looked at her carefully expressionless face. Her hands gripped each other so tightly that her fingers were almost bloodless.

He continued, his voice soft, compassionate. "The part of the legend that applies to vampires and other supernatural beings was that she could take away the curse of what they were, make a vampire mortal or a werewolf a man, just by willing it to be so. And she could also make anyone, either mortal or immortal, more powerful than they had ever dreamed, again just from her own power. Her magic was consummate, said to be descended from gods or demons."

Victoria sank back into her chair, her eyes wide. He grasped her hands in his and squeezed reassuringly before continuing. "You see the key to all her vast power was her blood. We call it
Le Sang Noir,
which translates in English to 'black blood.' It was unique, and perfect—the source
and
strength of her power."

"And what happened to her according to your legend?" Her voice was raspy, raw with emotion.

"She disappeared. Some say she died by her own hand because she was unkillable and invincible, but not before she obliterated hundreds of witches, wizards and warlocks who had united to kill her and take her power. She killed anyone who opposed her, including vampires," he said softly.

Christian could barely hear Victoria's voice, it was so quiet. "It was the call of the blood," she whispered. "She couldn't control it."

He could feel her anguish but pushed himself to continue. "It is said that the blood cost to her soul was so great that she gave up her humanity for it. She killed herself in the end."

Victoria stared at Christian her eyes burning, vehemence making her voice shake. "She
sacrificed
herself ... for her family ... for me! She fought the blood. She found something to believe in, and won. She
won
!"

Christian folded her in his arms; her silent sobs shaking her body. He forced himself to finish the prophecy because he knew she had to know.

"Tori, there's something else," he said, tipping her chin up. "The legend was about the duchess, but the prophecy I speak of ... well, it's about ...
you.
"

"W ... what?"

"You remember that day at my house when you were bleeding?" When she nodded, he kept going. "When I smelled the blood, I wanted it. I wanted you, Tori. The scent of it made me insane, I was delirious with it." Christian's eyes went dark with the mere recollection of it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, banishing the memory.

"It was all I could think about, and I almost took you. Almost. In the second before I went in for the kill, something stopped me. The colors in your blood were so dark and so luminous that I thought they couldn't possibly be real. And what I realized in that second was that your blood was calling me to my death. And yet, I still
wanted
it!" Christian grasped her face in his hands, his thumb brushing gently across her soft, red lips. His eyes were wild. "I think I knew it was you from that moment, but I refused to reconcile it with what I knew ... what Lucian knew," he breathed.

Victoria felt dazed. There had to be more to this whole story. She wasn't the one he spoke about! She knew she wasn't the one. She couldn't be. She was Victoria ... a loner from Millinocket, a terrible leader if there ever was one, not some fantastic witch in some mystical prophecy. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true!

She pushed Christian away and walked to the window. What he said was impossible.
Wasn't it
? Brigid's words flooded her brain ... the blood, the magic, the power ... the
blood.
Her reflection in the window stared back at her. Her face was pale but the knowledge swirling in her eyes was undeniable. Deep down, Victoria knew exactly what her legacy was.

Christian regarded her silently as she turned back toward him. It was so obvious now that he couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before. She was the descendant of the Duchess of Lancaster, and even if she didn't accept it, he saw it. It was in every curve of her body, every movement of her head ... even the air bowed in deference to her as she walked through it.

It didn't change anything, and it changed
everything.

"So what do we do now?" she asked. "Are they going to come again in search of this prophecy?"

"I don't think so, not yet," he said.

But they will.

Victoria studied him for a minute, trying to gauge if he had been honest with her all along. She believed him, she had to—otherwise it would make everything that she had lived for during the last four months, and their love, a lie. It was her turn to confess.

"When I killed the vampire," she said, "Christian, you wouldn't believe the pleasure I felt. I knew it was the blood, the Sang Noir, and the sacrifice it demanded. It was awful. And then the one that bit me ..." Her voice trailed off into revolted silence. Christian waited for her to continue.