Blood Kin (18 page)

“I’m hearing those words a lot tonight,” I said. “But I’ve yet to hear what this is and a reason.”

“I apologize again,” Adam said. “There were too many things at stake.” He made a wry face at the inadvertent pun. “When your great-great-grandmother called the summit meeting, I went as a rather reluctant representative of my father’s people: the Unseelie Court.”

I
SPRANG UP
from the couch, arms instinctively crossing, my mouth gaping open like a surprised fish. Tucker and Niko both began to sputter. Rhys, bless him, remained quiet, a thoughtful look on his face.

“No. I did not just hear that,” I said and took a step back. “You absolutely can’t be saying what I just heard.”

“How, Adam—” Niko clasped Tucker’s arm, his knuckles going even paler with the grip, voice shaking with anger. “Were you one of them, then? The ones who came in the night?”

Adam’s brow furrowed as he regarded Niko. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Niko’s breath caught as he tried to speak. “When I was a child,” he said.

Tucker closed his hand over Niko’s and gave it a squeeze. The expression on Tucker’s face reminded me of the way he’d looked when a school bully had threatened me and Bea during elementary school. He’d been acting in loco parentis then, my father having gone to London on some errand of Gigi’s. I’d been all of eight years old, still coming to terms with living Above, and often frightened of others. The bully girl had demanded our lunches, homemade tacos and desserts made by Bea’s mom. Tucker had been at the school helping to organize some fall fair or something. One look from my very big brother and Little Miss Future Gangster never bothered us again. She may even have
decided to become a nun. Tucker took the role of protector very seriously. And now, he was protecting Niko, too.

“Niko was in an orphanage as a small boy,” I explained, my voice hard as steel. “He only recently remembered having seen Sidhe come in the night to steal children.”

I was attempting to explain Niko’s emotions, but I had no idea how to even begin processing this information myself. Adam, Unseelie Sidhe? My mother’s people, the Seelie, might be unkind and uncaring, but the Unseelie had even less regard for humans—or unhumans. Not evil, but … a darker breed. What else did he hide from me and how did I not sense this before? How could I have been sleeping with—no, making love with—laying myself bare in so many ways to one of
them
? I’d suffered so much as a child in my mother’s land, living among the Seelie in the Welsh hills, underground, starved for affection, noticed only when reviled. And Adam was Unseelie, a race that made my mother’s people look sweet and benevolent. I strode over to the window, turning my back. I couldn’t look at him right now.

“You were—Niko, I—”

Reflected in the glass, I saw Adam rise and cross over to Niko to kneel at his second’s feet. He took one of Niko’s hands in his. “I am so sorry,” Adam whispered. “Nikolai, I am so …”

I turned as Adam raised a hand and cupped Niko’s face. Niko stared, eyes stony, muscles tight as he held himself utterly, perfectly still, as only the dead can. I watched in silence, holding in my own anger and feeling of betrayal.

Tucker sat nearly as still as Niko, only a twitch of his jaw disclosing the tight rein holding in his emotions, a scowl on his face as he studied Adam. We both knew that Adam and Niko had been lovers in the past, together
for many decades, even centuries. Theirs was a bond that extended beyond sex: a blood oath from vassal—from trusted advisor and second—to king. In many ways, Adam not telling Niko was more of a betrayal than him not telling me. I was only his lover. From what I understood of the vampire world, Niko was as much Adam’s heir as I was Gigi’s … closer than kin. Closer than blood, as this was voluntary.

“I never meant …” Adam dropped his eyes and whispered, “For all that you know of me, all that we’ve been to each other, I swear … on my own grave and on the blood oath between us, I never intended to hurt you. I wanted to save you.”

Niko started at Adam’s words. “You knew?” His own voice was barely above a whisper. “When you found me later on, dying in the streets. You knew who I was?”

Adam nodded. “I’d known for years. I’d seen you once or twice, but you were too young, unfinished. I recognized you, but I never remembered from where. Only that I’d seen you.”

I pressed my lips firmly together, trying to keep my reaction from becoming verbal. Adam had as much as admitted to stalking Niko in Niko’s boyhood, similar to the way he’d sort of stalked me. I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but the facts were pretty damning. This man, this vampire/Sidhe seemed to have a habit of stalking those who would become his lovers. Did he then glamour us? Was this some twisted, sick fantasy of his? How could I not have sensed any of this? I gripped my own arms in an effort to remain still, to not walk right out of this apartment and onto the next bus to somewhere else. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rhys’ hand drop onto Niko’s shoulder as Niko tried to deal with Adam’s revelation.

“You took my best friend, my only friend,” Niko whispered, anger laced with so much emotion I could nearly feel it. “And you stalked me as a boy. How could this not be bad? How could you have done this?”

I could barely see Adam’s face, but I could hear the emotion in his voice. “I, too, was but a boy, Nikolai,” he said. “So young, so … forgive me, please. I only knew to follow my father. To do as he did—I was still young myself. I never knew you were one of those boys. It wasn’t until later, until I saw you dying, that I knew I must save you.”

Niko’s eyes were wet, tears glimmering, on the verge of falling. “Yet you never told me,” he said, still whispering.

“And I shall regret it forever, love,” Adam said and with a squeeze to Niko’s hand, leaned forward and kissed his second’s forehead. A benediction, perhaps? A plea for forgiveness, most certainly. Niko, to his credit, did not flinch. He remained stoic, emotions barely leashed.

“You are my heir, Nicholas. No matter whose bed you share, nor whom you love, you will always be my second.” Adam nodded to Tucker, who, after a moment, nodded back. “I made some very regrettable decisions as a youth, and later on, when made vampire, I realized the errors and worked to correct them.” He turned his head to look at me at that last.

“So, vampire?” I finally let the question loose. “How? Wasn’t being Sidhe enough?”

Adam gave one last caress to Niko’s cheek, then rose and came to me. Involuntarily, I stepped back, arms still wound tight around myself.

Adam opened his hands, a nonverbal plea for understanding. “I was content being who I was,” he said. “My father, however, wanted to expand our territory—”

Rhys interrupted. “Your father. You said you represented his people. Who is your father, Adam?”

Thank his shapeshifting soul, my brother could have been a good trial lawyer, asking the right questions, the ones my currently befuddled brain couldn’t quite frame. My synapses weren’t snapping.

“The Unseelie king. He knew, even so many centuries ago, that the world was changing. New religions replacing old, most people no longer acknowledged us outside of plays or poems. The magick of Above was dying, becoming lost.”

“He sold you to the vampires,” Tucker said, his voice laced with an underlying growl.

Adam shook his head. “Not sold, so much as bargained with,” he said. “Like the summit I attended some decades ago, we’d all met before—several times. My first was when Elizabeth had just become queen. My father brought me as my people met with representatives of all the courts: Seelie, vampire, wer, the various fey groups, your own Clan. At the time, and after much discussion, it sounded like a good idea to marry into the vampires, to join our peoples. That meant becoming one first.” He looked at me as he finished. “I had no idea what that meant.”

“What was the point?” Rhys asked. “As far as I can remember back—and I do remember that time—nothing ever came of that so-called summit. Wasn’t the idea to try and connect all our people under one rule or a council of rulers?”

“It failed,” Tucker said. “No one wanted to make concessions.”

“But by then, I’d already been made vampire,” Adam said. “My father, angry at the outcome, then cast me out to live with the vampire tribe. I had to make my way amongst
a clan that, for all intents and purposes, despised my own.”

“You seem to have managed that fairly well,” I said, a note of sarcasm finding its way back into my voice. “You kept all of this from me because …?”

Adam regarded me with a steady gaze. “Because I knew how you felt about the Sidhe,” he said. “Despite the fact that my own Court was in no way your mother’s people, I felt I could not share this information with you. I did not want to lose you.” He looked back toward Niko, whose own expression had cleared somewhat. “Or you.

“Keira.” Adam knelt at my feet, as he’d done with Niko. “You two are the most important people in all my life. I was frightened. And until you came fully into your Talents, I did not know you would be the Kelly heir. Without the heirship, you would never need to know the … politics involved. Then there was no time …”

Everything I knew about the Sidhe warred with what I knew about Adam. I studied his face, trying to figure out which version of Adam I believed. Or was it his face at all? Perhaps it was merely a mask. He had been a consummate actor since the moment we’d met in London. His performance in Texas went beyond Academy Award level. Johnny Depp was an amateur compared to Adam. Why not? The Sidhe were lords of deception and he was their prince. And centuries of self-preserving vampiric thespianism had protected not only himself but his tribe. Fooling me so completely was probably one of the least challenging roles he’d ever played.

On the one hand, other than his humongous whopper about him not knowing my supernatural connections, he’d never outright lied to me in the time we’d been together. Obfuscated, misdirected, yes, but nothing of consequence … until now.

And—he was right. Had I known he was Sidhe-made-vampire, I’d have probably gone running.

Would I still? I didn’t know. This was Adam Walker. I cared for him. I loved him. I needed to think.

“Tucker, Rhys,” I said to my brothers, as a thought occurred to me. “You both were there, you said, at the summit. Did you meet Adam then?”

Rhys shook his head in denial, as did Tucker. “I never met him,” Rhys said. “Neither Tucker nor I were ever allowed into any of the meetings. We were there as muscle—sort of.”

I frowned. “But neither of you are Marked,” I said. “Gigi always Marks her Protectors.”

“Marked?” Niko asked, his voice calmer than I expected after all these revelations.

“Each leader selects his or own guards, Protectors with a capital P,” Rhys explained. “They are then given a special tattoo, a Mark infused with magick, binding them to that Clan chief until he or she steps down.”

Niko nodded. “Like a blood oath, then. As we do ours.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at Adam, who remained silent.

“Similar,” Tucker said. “The design is always something particular to the chief. Rhys and I weren’t officially at that summit, nor any of the others,” he explained. “Gigi always told us we’d be wasted as just muscle. We were there to simply keep an eye out.” He looked over at Adam. “I never saw any of the higher-ups. Never saw Adam. Gigi kept us out of the talks.”

Ah, my great-great-granny, always up to something. “So, now, any more revelations?” I asked the room in general. “Or have we done enough of that for the night?”

“Perhaps we should all retire early,” Adam said. “I’m
sure Niko and Tucker would like to speak alone, as I would with Keira.”

“Do you know about Daffyd, then?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to be alone with Adam yet.

Adam looked around the room. “Wait, I just realized. He is not with you.”

“Yeah, not so much.” I told him what had happened. “We’ve just given up the search and come back here.”

“Disappeared, you said?” Adam looked thoughtful. “Sounds like he was Called.”

“Called?”

“Normally, we—Sidhe—cannot just disappear. However, if another, more powerful Sidhe Calls us, it’s as if we vanish from where we are and appear in the presence of the one who did the Calling. There must be another Sidhe in Vancouver.”

“Other than you?” Tucker asked drily. “Perhaps the dark angel dressed in black that old Les saw was you?”

Adam scowled. “Who is this Les? I came directly here from the airport,” he said. “I was never in town proper.”

“Which reminds me,” I said. “How the hell
did
you get in the building? Tucker couldn’t even trigger the doors with the upgraded wards.”

“Ever since this building was warded, I have had access,” Adam said.

“Excuse me?” Yet another thing I didn’t know.

“Keira, I ap—no, I do not wish to spend the evening continuing to apologize.” Adam looked at each of us in turn. “I was given access to the wards some years ago,” he said. “Although I’ve never been here prior to tonight. Your father explained this when I spoke to him.”

I shook my head. “You know what? I’m not even going to bother asking anything else,” I said. “This is getting
to be more than ridiculous.” I filed the new information away. Next time I talked to my dad, there’d be an extremely serious conversation. What the hell else had my family been doing behind my back?

“I’d like to ask something about Daffyd’s disappearance, though,” said Rhys. “How could another Sidhe have known of Daffyd’s presence? You were all in a taxicab and Keira said he wasn’t exactly broadcasting his presence.”

“But this other Sidhe could have been,” Adam said. “The music Keira heard was probably Sidhe music, cast by the other Sidhe. It would be natural for Daffyd to have answered the Call—subconsciously perhaps, but still, it would have been a flag to the other one.”

“And he Called Daffyd?”

Adam nodded. “He did. Probably to find out who Daffyd was—in territory that he’d claimed, probably temporarily. I would have done something similar—if I still could.”

If he could? That was a curious way of putting it. “What do you mean?”