Matters of the Blood (35 page)

"No.” I felt instead of heard the internal turmoil that came with that word.

"Dead too long. Can't feed."

Okay, let's try door number two. Not a choice I'd wanted to give, but it was available.

"Boris—"

"No! I will not feed from the dead."

That only left one option.

"Then you're going to feed from me."

I scooted over closer, trying to figure out how just to place myself. I didn't know if I should try to offer my neck or my wrist, or what. It wasn't as if I'd ever done this before.

"No.” Adam closed his eyes and turned his head away. “Won't."

"He won't feed from you, Keira,” Niko explained.

"I get the point, Niko,” I said in exasperation. “Damn it, he needs blood. I can't keep the sunlight away; can't stop it from rising. But I can offer this."

I touched Adam's forehead, the connection between us opening up even more. I stretched my senses, trying to reach in and touch his awareness. With that extra clarity that comes with psychic perception, I realized that my own wounds were nearly healed, surprisingly quickly, even for one of my kind. But almost as quickly, Adam was vanishing, slipping from my mental touch.

I pressed my wrist to his mouth. “Feed, damn you,” I insisted. “Adam, come on."

"Can't you just magick us out of here?” asked Adam, rousing enough to try to make a joke.

"It doesn't work that way."

"Why not?"

"You think I can just wiggle my nose like
Bewitched
and poof we're gone? Why the hell don't you just turn into a bat or mist and escape?"

"I get the point."

"The only chance we have is to have someone notice we're missing. Maybe Andrea.” I could hope. Andrea seemed strong enough. If she couldn't come herself, she could send someone. Maybe she hadn't drunk the tainted wine. Maybe my brother could run faster than a speeding bullet, save the other vampires and get back to us before Adam and Niko fried. There were a hell of a lot of maybes floating around here.

"It's too close to dawn,” Niko reminded me. “They'll all be hiding, sleeping. If they haven't been drugged into insensibility with the hemlock. John will make sure they get into their coffins."

If they're not all already permanently dead. We didn't say the words. We didn't have to.

"I though you said you preferred a bed?"

"A coffin is the only sure safety, my sweet. In an emergency, we hide below ground.” Adam gave me a weak smile.

"Then we're stuck here."

"You can leave. You should leave."

"And leave you—the two of you—to die? Not an option. Even if you scoot to the far back of this overhang and I try to cover you, we're still facing east. The sun is going to spill in here with a vengeance and you're going to become a crispy critter. I can tell how weak you are. You're fading, Adam. You've got to feed."

"I won't feed from the dead, Keira."

"I'm not talking about the bodies, Adam,” I said. “I'm not dead and I'm right here, full of blood. You can feed from me."

"No."

"This isn't a matter for discussion, Adam Walker. I am not going to let you die because of some ridiculous principle."

"Would you ask an alcoholic to drink wine? A junkie to shoot up just one time?"

"It's not the same thing,” I argued.

"Nearly enough,” he said. “Human blood is more than a drug. It took decades for me to kick the need. I am not going back now. I'll take my chances."

"I'm not asking that you shoot up a speedball, damn it! Drinking blood is what and who you are."

This nobler-than-thou attitude was going to result in his death and I wasn't about to accept that.

"Need I remind you, vampire king, that I am as much not a human as you are? The only difference between us is that I'm not the walking dead. You'll be the extremely not-walking-dead if you don't bloody well do something about it. Feed from me. I doubt that losing a little blood will hurt me. After we get out of here, if you want to go back to being a fucking vegetarian, then fine. But in the meantime, feed."

With a visible effort, he turned his face away from me.

Niko had kept silent through this exchange, watching me, lost in his own thoughts. I didn't need to ask him his opinion. Annoyingly, I realized that both he and I were of one mind on this matter. Principles be damned, survival was the key. Martyrdom was for, well, for martyrs. That particular job description held no interest for me. I preferred to be a live lion, as I was sure did Niko.

Our gazes met and held. For a brief moment, I saw the truth behind the cocky attitude—the determination to live. He had been telling the truth about his deal with the Nazis. With the perspective that can only be found after several lifetimes, he'd realized that to save his people, he had to make a bargain and had danced on the edge of a very sharp sword to keep both the vampires and the villagers alive during a hellish time. But the knowledge of failure also lurked behind those bright blue eyes, that the sword turned out to be sharper than he could ever have imagined. Niko hadn't counted on the fact that human men could commit acts of such pure evil as the Holocaust.

"You'd stay here to save me?” Niko finally asked, sounding unsure.

"I do what I have to. No matter what you did in the past,” I said. “I don't pretend to understand. All I know is that you made a terrible error in judgment and only you and your own conscience can live with that. I won't be your judge or your jury. What Adam does with you is his decision. He's your king. I'm not.” This wasn't easy. I couldn't get the images of those small children sacrificed to the Nazis, but being who I was, and who my family was, I'd grown up learning that every story has several sides. I was in no position right now to make any kind of moral decision about this. No matter what, I still had to help him.

Niko bowed his head and remained silent. Sometimes punishment was not death, but eternal life, living with the guilt of unintentionally sacrificing dozens of people to torture and evil.

The pressure increased, the day had just about arrived. The quality of the air changed, a slight breeze arose, bringing the scent of morning with it.

The first fingers of light crept over the horizon, slid across the ground, snaking closer. Threatening. I spread my body across the front of them, trying to block as much of it as possible. But the light was as inevitable as the day, and it pushed past me, almost as if to mock me, a ray catching first the body of Derek Albright, then alighting on Adam's cheek.

He winced, a gasp of fear escaping him, a hiss of pain as the light touched him. I moved to cover his face, but there was too much, light spilled over and around me as the sun rose above the edge of the quarry. I couldn't stop it.

Niko curled into a small ball, trying to cover himself. He wasn't complaining, but he was healthier, had fed recently, and could probably stand the burning for a time. Adam hunched into a fetal position, up against Niko's side.

I couldn't stand this. No matter what happened later, the recriminations, the guilt, I was not going to let Adam die. I forced my wrist against his mouth.

"Feed, damn it, feed.” His nostrils flared, I could imagine him taking in the scent of blood, of life as it pumped just below my skin. I grabbed the back of his head with my other hand, pressing his head to me.

"I can't let you die, Adam Walker."

He clenched his jaw, muscles straining, lips pressed together tighter than a reluctant virgin's legs. Fear and longing ruffled through me, a discordant riff of emotion, counterpoint to the thumping sound of my own heart, heard as if from the outside; the rush of blood pumping, the remembered taste of glory filling my taste buds. Adam's hunger surrounded me. His weakness colored the need and, below both of those emotions, I felt the buried imperative that he so desperately tried to ignore. The one that both his second-in-command and I embraced so thoroughly: the need to endure, to survive, to live, no matter the cost. If I could reach that need and force Adam to acknowledge it, maybe then he could accept my blood and the fact that it was part of his nature.

I moved away momentarily, trying to figure out how to accomplish this. A moan escaped him, and a pang of craving flavored with panic stabbed through me. The hunger flared higher, stronger, overwhelming the apprehension as the reality of another shaft of light reached in to touch his face, sapping his energy. The connection faded as I felt him lose consciousness. I reached over to Niko, thrusting my wrist in front of him.

"Do it, Niko, bring the blood."

"Do you know what you're asking?"

"Yes, now hurry."

Niko's eyes met mine as he strained his head forward, wincing in the light. His fangs extended and I pushed my wrist into his face. His jaw muscles tensed and then he struck.

The pain was instantaneous and sharp. Small needles sinking into the sensitive skin, then just as quickly, numbness. A quick sucking motion and the blood began to flow. I started to pull my wrist away, when Niko's tongue gave a quick lick.

"Couldn't help myself,” he said, a slight grin crossing his face.

Ignoring him, I moved over to Adam's side, and rubbed the bloody wrist against his too-still mouth. He wasn't breathing, but that didn't mean anything.

"Drink, damn, you,” I said, cradling his head again. “Come on, Adam, drink."

His throat convulsed, and his lips twitched, tongue flicking out briefly as he scented the blood on my wrist.

"That's it,” I encouraged. “Drink, save yourself, damn it."

Another sharp pain as Adam's own teeth took the place of Niko's. He began to swallow, mouth working, throat gulping, drinking in the only thing that could save his life ... or undeath. Sensation washed over me, searing dark longing and passion swirling with the metal heat flavor of the fresh blood filling my mouth, fighting off the burning of the sun. My own passion rose, matching the intensity of Adam's rising energy. I took a deep breath and tried to dampen down the connection enough to concentrate. He continued to drink, tongue licking my wrist like a cat's, lightly flicking, teasing, as his eyes caught mine in their gaze. I shuddered and closed my own eyes as the image of the two of us locked together, bodies straining, sweaty with—

"What are you doing with my sister?"

My brother stood just above us on the edge of the quarry, all six foot four, shrieking Viking stature of him glistening nude in the increasing light.

"Interesting choice of wardrobe,” Niko said with a bit of a leer.

"No facetious comments from the bloodsuckers,” Tucker answered, a lascivious grin splitting his face as he eyed the attractive redhead. My brother dropped down into the pit. “Come on, Sis, help me with them."

Tucker grabbed Niko under the arms and hoisted him up into a fireman's carry. Even with my wounds healing fast, I couldn't have managed that. I helped Adam stand, my arm around his waist. He threw his right arm around my shoulders. After his breakfast snack on my blood, he was strong enough to hold on and stumble with me to the far side of the quarry, out of the direct path of the sunlight.

"The ranch?” Adam asked.

"All safe and tucked into their coffins for the duration."

"You did
not
have time to go all the way to the ranch,” I accused.

Tucker shot me his trademark grin. “No, before I got too far I remembered this.” He tossed me his cell phone. “I'd been carrying it in my mouth, but dropped it when I smelled your blood.” He shrugged. “I should've thought of it before I went racing off, but hey, I remembered soon enough. Called the ranch, woke up a guy named John. They'd already found the fire starters. Someone named Andrea sniffed them out earlier in the evening."

Adam gave a weak laugh. “I should have figured."

"We can't stay here long,” I said. “They need to get into the dark.” I looked at the sky. “I think maybe an hour, no longer, bro. Then this whole pit will be in sunlight."

"Not a problem, Sis. If you all can chill here for a few, I'll see what I can do to get you all out of here. My van's not far.” He shot a smile and looked back over to Niko. “I'll pick up my clothes along the way."

"Pity.” Niko smiled back.

This was certainly interesting. Tucker might have been playing with Bea most recently, but his tastes often ran to both sides of the sexual fence, and Niko was damned pretty. Whatever,
not
something I needed to be thinking about right now, especially since my brain was finally putting two and two together and getting a very interesting answer about the nature of Adam and Niko's partnership, at least in the past. I'm not saying that it bothered me, but it was something to consider. It certainly explained a few things.

Tucker clambered up the side of the quarry and was gone before I could say anything else.

Adam was beginning to look more like his usual self now that he was out of the sunlight. I sat across from him, my legs bent at the knee, my toes touching his side ever so lightly. I half expected him to move away, to not want to touch me. I'd broken his taboo, forced him to feed from a living person.

He smiled at me, as if he could read my thought, then moved a little, scooting so he could lean against my shins, his arm wrapping around them, his chin leaning on my knees.

"You're not mad?” I asked.

"Angry at myself for falling into their trap, yes. But mad at you for doing everything you could to save us? No. I would have done the same in your place."

"But—the blood?"

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"You felt it as much as I did, Keira,” he said. “I almost died, the real thing, the forever kind, like Evan. When you gave me the chance, I think part of me realized I might do almost anything to survive and I was happy doing it. I've spent the last several decades fighting my need for blood and winning. But this, this scared me. Scared me into thinking I needed to do more thinking. Re-evaluate things. It's been a long time since I had to think about—"

"Survival?"

"Not exactly on the modern vampire's menu,” he joked. “Mostly I worry about making payroll and making sure my guests are comfortable."

He got serious. “Nearly dying changes things, even for us, for me.” His breath skittered across my legs as he sighed, eyes closed against whatever he was thinking.