Blood Sacrifice (38 page)

“Most excellent!” Daffyd’s face lit up. “There is a door very close to you then.”

“Yes, I know.” Adam smiled. “At Stonehenge.”

Stonehenge? Oh, that’s just bloody wonderful.

“Then perhaps we shall see each other shortly after all,” Daffyd said.

“Perhaps so.” Adam nodded.

“May I then wish you a blessed and fruitful marriage,” he said. “I was not able to attend your Reception and your joining.”

“My thanks,” I said after I’d wrapped my head around the fact that we were going to live near Stonehenge. Yeah, like that wasn’t a hotbed of supernatural power or anything. Adam hadn’t told me, but to be fair, if I’d stopped to think for more than two minutes, I would have put two and two together and come up with ancient stone monument. I mean, where else would a vampire build an estate?

“May your union be also blessed with many children,” Daffyd continued.

“That’s not exactly possible,” I laughed. “Vampires can’t make babies.” My aunt Jane had used that line on me once, begging me to come home and make wee babies for the good of the Clan lines. I’d balked. Thank goodness.

Daffyd’s eyes narrowed. “Surely that is a fallacy,” he said. “The reason Gideon took up with Aoife in the first place was that he was deathly afraid that you and Adam would procreate, and result in Minerva and Drystan giving the rule to you both.”

“It is magick that powers me, Daffyd,” Adam explained. “I have no viable seed. I have a heart which does not beat unless I will it to.”

“No,” Daffyd insisted. “You’ve returned to yourself. You are whole again. I can feel it.”

Was he right? I’d not noticed but then again, I’d noticed little but sleep, eat, sleep these last couple of days. We’d talked in bed this morning, but had done little else. Sure, he had Sidhe magick, but… we’d even shared blood, and he’d fed as per usual. He’d needed to feed, had felt hollow, he’d said.

“Adam, if I may.” He nodded and I placed my palm against his chest. He wore cotton today, in deference to the wet weather. The soft material slid against my skin. I focused deeper. First, only the familiar flavor, the taste/scent/feel of the same man I’d shared a bed and so much else with over the past nine months. Then there it was, a flutter, vague as a butterfly’s wings or the breath of a flower petal as it touched your skin. Deep within, his energy had changed. No longer just the deep musky spice and vanilla scent of the vampire part of him, I
also sensed the green, the living energy of the Sidhe. As I discovered it, so did he. Nowhere near as strong as my own heartbeat, but there nonetheless.

“What happened?” His voice was barely audible as he placed his palm over mine and followed my awareness inside.

“A resurrection of sorts,” Daffyd said. “The living part of you is now blended with the other.”

“What does that mean?” Adam sounded bewildered. “I can feel it. Something different, but I’m still not truly alive.”

“I do not know,” Daffyd admitted. “You are the first vampire I know that began life as Sidhe. You are no doubt the first vampire that has merged his two natures.”

Adam blinked against tears that threatened to fall. I pulled him close and whispered, “It’s always something, isn’t it? At least life won’t get boring.”

He grinned and kissed me. “No, I don’t suppose it will.”

The End

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

—William Shakespeare
Hamlet
, Act 3, Scene 1