Bloodchild (14 page)

As she undressed again, she
noticed a stain on the collar of her sweatshirt, red, and still fresh. It
looked like blood.

With a sudden sense of foreboding
twisting her insides, she approached the vanity desk and channeled to light the
candle set by the mirror. She tilted her head to one side, exposing her neck,
and let out a quiet gasp when she saw the drying blood staining her neck, and
the two puncture marks on her throat.

Her knees feeling suddenly very
weak, she sat down on the bench in front of the desk, keeping her eyes on her
neck in the mirror. After a few seconds, she raised a shaky hand to it and
gingerly touched the small holes. They’d stopped bleeding, but their edges were
red and puffed up. They didn’t hurt to the touch—and she didn’t remember any
pain when Brad had bit her. She thought she knew when he had. Right at the end,
when they were clinging to each other, riding the last waves of pleasure
together, he’d buried his face against her neck and she’d thought he was
kissing her, or giving her a hickey. Certainly not this.

Certainly not what Aedan had been
so worried about.

That was why he’d stormed in. That
was why he’d pulled Brad away from her. God, he was going to be insufferable
now that he had an actual proof that he’d been right. But, no, he had
overreacted. It wasn’t like Brad had hurt her. It had been just a small bite.
Not much worse than a hickey, really. Brad wouldn’t have gone further than that
and taken enough blood from her to actually hurt her.

And if she repeated it to herself
long enough, she might even start believing it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Goodbyes

The next day crawled by for Aedan.
And yet, at the same time, the hours seemed to pass far, far too quickly.

He left Bradan asleep to take
guard and be there when Dame Vivien woke up. He’d caught a glimpse of the bite
the night before, and while he was sure it hadn’t been serious enough to cause
lasting damage, he would have liked to see it better in the light of day and
make certain it would heal properly. When Dame Vivien came out, however, some
time after Doril had brought up her breakfast, she wore a light, diaphanous
scarf around her throat, and her closed-off expression did not invite questions
or requests. She barely nodded in reply to Aedan’s greeting and strode down the
corridor and staircase, all the way down to the library.

Her first words to him were delivered
in a clipped tone right as she entered the room.

“Will the new guards be coming
today?”

“In an hour or so, yes.”

“And Elver will let them Pass
Through?”

“Yes, Dame Vivien.”

“If you need to show them around
the castle or train with them or whatever else, do that. I intend to be in here
all day, and I don’t need you at my door the entire time. I already told Doril
I’ll take my meal in here.”

She never so much as glanced at
him during the exchange and closed the door after herself. They had come far from
her inviting him in only two days ago.

Regardless of what she’d said, he
remained by the library door for the next hour. He didn’t have anything else to
do yet and could just as well make plans for the rest of the day here.

When it was time, he joined Elver
in the Passing Room. Olric was first to request passage, and they only had to
wait a minute or two before Savel Passed Through as well. Each was already
dressed in black and had brought a small bag of personal effects. Aedan first
took them upstairs to the room they’d share; it was a corridor down from his
and Bradan’s room, which they passed by on the way.

Bradan was still inside, although
according to the jumbled feelings coming through the bond, he was awake. On the
way back down, Aedan stopped for a minute to tell his brother he’d be in the
armory with the new guards. As he’d hoped, Bradan joined them not long after,
and the four of them became better acquainted as they trained together.

It was hard to tell when he’d
spent little more than a couple of hours with them between their interview and
this impromptu training session, but Aedan thought he might come to like them.
They both seemed dedicated to keeping Dame Vivien safe, and her trick with the
Quickening had shown it was more than pretense. Neither seemed to have trouble
with him and Bradan being vampires or with taking orders from him. Olric was a
little over-enthusiastic about his new life as a guard, but Savel, with his
experience, seemed like a good match to temper him.

Aedan’s first hesitation came when
Savel asked about the roster of duties. Aedan had not drawn one up yet, because
he didn’t know whether to include himself in it or not. He’d tried not to think
about it so far, but as the hour came closer, it became harder and harder to
ignore.

“After noon Bradan and I will be
going to talk to the head of our clan,” he said. “It’s possible I might not
come back. If that’s the case, you will need to divide guard duties between the
two of you, and Bradan will support you as needed.”

They must have wondered why he
would not return, or why Bradan wouldn’t take his share of duties along with
them, but they didn’t ask. As for Bradan, he had not met Aedan’s gaze for more
than a second or two this morning, in what Aedan supposed was shame or embarrassment;
those were two of many emotions still bouncing through the bond. The
self-loathing was particularly hard for Aedan to bear, but he didn’t want to
say anything in front of Olric and Savel.

At lunchtime, he took them both to
the kitchen and introduced them to Doril. Leaving them in her care, he returned
to his bedroom with Bradan, and they changed into fresh uniforms.

“If I don’t come back,” Aedan
started, but Bradan interrupted him at once.

“Don’t. Don’t even think about it.
You have to come back.”

Sitting on the edge of his bed,
Aedan considered his brother, who had his back to him. He was looking through
one of his drawers, the one that contained childhood treasures and cherished
mementos, his hand brushing against them without taking them out.

“It’s not up to me,” he said
quietly. “Ciara promised to kill me, and that was before I broke the rules and
turned you. If she decides to do it right there and then—”

Bradan faced him, his eyes
flashing, his anger suddenly focused.

“Are you telling me you’ll let her
kill you? Is that what you want? To be done with all these responsibilities?
With me and Vivien?”

Aedan was on his feet before he
even realized he’d moved.

“Of course I don’t want that! But
it’s not about what I want. She’s my Maker. It’s her right to—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Bradan
said, clenching his teeth. “I want to talk to Vivien. Do you know where she
is?”

Annoyance at Bradan’s childishness
warred with alarm within Aedan.

“I don’t think that’s a good
idea.”

Bradan’s cold gaze met his without
flinching.

“I hurt her. The least I owe her
is an apology, and the chance for her to tell me she never wants me anywhere
close to her again. Should I wait to do that until after we’ve gone to the
palace and you let Ciara kill you? Would that be safer for Vivien?”

What was there to answer to that?

“Library,” Aedan said simply, and
they went down together.

With every step he took to get
there, the thought drummed through Aedan that this might very well be the last
time he ever saw his dame. The thought was as unpleasant as the idea that he
might have to leave his twin alone in the world.

* * * *

Vivien had just finished the lunch
Doril had brought her when a quiet knock on the door made her look up from the
books spread in front of her on the floor. Doril had looked scandalized when
she’d come in, and she asked without even trying to hide her reprobation
whether Vivien wouldn’t prefer to spread her research on a proper table, maybe
in the dining room, if the desk in here was too small. Vivien had declined and sent
her away.

A couple of weeks ago, maybe she’d
have felt rude to dismiss Doril like that, but she’d never asked to be treated
like royalty, like it was beneath her to do such a terrible thing as sit on the
floor. If Doril—or anyone else—couldn’t accept her as she was, they were free
to leave.

“Come in,” she called out with a
sigh, half expecting to see Doril walk back to offer another pointed
suggestion.

Instead, Brad and Aedan came in,
one after the other. They wore identical somber expressions, and she had to
look at their hands to find the QuickSilver symbol to know which one was Brad.
Even as she gave him a tentative smile, he put one knee down to the floor.

“Vivien, I—”

She couldn’t bear to let him go
any further than that, not as long as he was kneeling down.

“No,” she said, scrambling to her
feet and stepping over her assortment of books. “You don’t kneel for me. Never.
If you’re meant to follow my orders, then follow that one.”

She held her hand out to Brad to
pull him up, but rather than taking it, he looked at Aedan at his side. It
grated that he only took her hand after Aedan had given the smallest of nods,
but Vivien swallowed back her annoyance and held on to his fingers as he stood,
pulling him close to her until she could embrace him. He remained rigid against
her, doing nothing to return the hug, and while Aedan didn’t say a word Vivien
could all but sense his disapproval.

“Vivien,” Brad whispered against
her temple, “this is not a good idea. I don’t want to hurt you again.”

“You’re not going to,” she said,
sure of herself.

Very slowly, he raised one arm to
touch her neck, brushing his fingers where her scarf hid the marks he’d left on
her.

“I already did. And I am so, so
sorry about it. I never wanted to put you in danger. I didn’t even know I was
doing it until it was too late. Can you forgive me?”

She pulled back so that he’d see
her face when she said very firmly, “I’m not forgiving you because there’s
nothing to forgive at all. It didn’t even hurt, and I’m sure I’ve given more
blood in blood drives than you took. It happened; there’s no changing that.
We’ll just be more careful in the future.”

His expression turned to one of
pure shock.

“In the future?” he repeated.
“Vivien, no. We can’t—”

“Why not?” she cut in, and had to
bite her own tongue so as not to ask, “Because Aedan said so?”

If Aedan hadn’t been in the room,
she might have said it, but she had no desire to draw him into the conversation
at this point. Instead, she glanced back at the books on the floor, gesturing
toward them.

“I’ve been learning about
vampires,” she said, and again refrained from pointing out that she wouldn’t
have needed to if Aedan had told her everything she needed to know from the
start. “Small bites aren’t detrimental to humans, and they’re even an accepted
part of vampire culture as long as the human consents. If I just know you’re
going to bite me—”

Looking horror-struck, Brad took a
step back.

“No! Vivien, that’s not… I never
want to hurt you again.”

She shook her head. “But I’m
telling you, it didn’t hurt. It’s just… it’s part of who you are.”

As loath as she was to do so, she
turned to Aedan and asked him, “Isn’t that true? Aren’t the books correct?”

“It’s true,” Aedan said, “but
that’s only part of the truth. No book can explain to a human what the hunger is
like, how hard it is to resist. If I hadn’t stopped Bradan last night, I don’t
know that he could have stopped on his own before taking too much blood from
you.”

Scoffing, she crossed her arms and
prepared to argue, but one look at Brad stopped her in her tracks. He’d dropped
his head and closed his eyes tight.

“Brad?” she said, suddenly
uncertain. “I refuse to believe that.”

He opened his eyes and looked up
at her, a thin smile on his lips.

“I know you do. All I can say is,
I’ll try to do better. I’ll try to learn control. It’s all I can do at this
point.”

She couldn’t help but frown,
unsettled by the tone of his voice, both fervent and regretful.

“All right, but—”

“We’re going to the palace,” he
cut in. “To meet Ciara, like Aedan said yesterday. It shouldn’t take long,
right, Aedan?”

For a second or two, Aedan didn’t
reply. Only when Vivien looked at him did he answer, though without meeting her
eyes.

“No, not long. An hour or two, at
most.”

By now, she knew him enough to
develop a hunch that there was something else.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she
asked, her voice hardening. “You said she wouldn’t hurt Brad. You didn’t lie,
did you? Do I need to use the Quickening to get the truth out of you?”

He shook his head and looked
straight at her.

“Bradan will be fine. We’ll take
our leave now, Dame Vivien.”

He gave her the bow she expected
and started for the door, pausing to look at Brad when he didn’t move
immediately. After the way Brad had all but cringed out of her embrace, she was
surprised when he stepped forward and took her in his arms, holding her as
fiercely as she’d held him earlier.

“It’ll be fine,” he murmured.
“Everything will be fine.”

He pressed a hard but brief kiss
to her lips and let go of her, turning away and striding out of the room. Aedan
was still standing there, watching her. His mouth opened as though to say
something, but he left without another word, closing the door behind him.

Vivien wanted to go after them,
offer to open the Passing Room for them, have a few more minutes with Brad, but
watching him go would hurt too much. He’d be back soon, they’d both said so,
and that was all there was to it. She started picking up the books from the
floor and returning them to the shelves. She’d gathered as much as she could
from them. It was time to go back to her training.

* * * *

Walking away from Vivien might
have been one of the hardest things Bradan had ever done, but it was necessary,
in more ways than one. He distracted himself as he and Aedan made their way to
the Passing Room by wondering why Aedan hadn’t told Vivien he might not come
back. Had he been afraid to worry her? Would she have let them go, if she’d
known that one or both of them might not return?

He would have asked Aedan, but all
that came from him through the bond was a dark void, and when he looked at him,
Aedan pretended not to notice. He didn’t want to talk, that much was
clear—although it changed as soon as Elver had opened the way for them to Pass
Through to Rhuinn’s palace.

A majordomo was there to welcome
them, along with three armed guards, and they all escorted Aedan and Bradan
through long corridors. The guards didn’t say a word, though they all threw
dark looks at them, and Bradan remembered that, to them, Aedan was a traitor.
He was suddenly very aware that he carried no weapons, and judging from the way
Aedan’s fists closed tight, so was he.

As they walked on, Aedan stepped
closer to Bradan and whispered last minute instructions, bursts of nervousness
flashing through the bond with each admonishment.

“Don’t call her by her name. Don’t
talk to her unless she addresses you first. Bow to her when we first come in.
Don’t—”

“Stop it,” Bradan hissed, throwing
him a sideways look. “You’re making us both jumpy.”