Bloodchild (20 page)

“That… kind of makes sense,” she
conceded grudgingly. “Still. Isn’t there anything at all you can tell me? At
this point any little thing might help.”

Aedan thought for a moment. He
couldn’t give her details, he decided. He couldn’t tell her that Rhuinn had
toyed with the man during the first duel before allowing him to win. He’d
allowed that much so that he’d be able to maim him in the second duel, and kill
him in the third. It had all been a display of what he could do for the rest of
the court—a warning not to challenge him.

Hearing this now might give her
second thoughts in the middle of the fight, right when she could least afford
to be distracted. Should she get the advantage—and after watching her train,
Aedan had no doubt that she could channel strongly enough and with enough
imagination to have a more than fair chance—she’d wonder if Rhuinn was letting
her win to have an excuse to kill her in the end or whether she was winning on
her own merits.

Still, if he said nothing at all
and she lost, she might blame him for keeping information from her that could
have given her a better chance.

“He’s going to toy with you,” he
said, speaking slowly and choosing each word with care. “He’ll consider it
great sport to humiliate you in front of the court like you did when you called
him a murderer in front of them. If you can help it at all, try not to cry.
You’d only give him what he wants.”

Her eyes widened, and she reached
back with one hand, seeking the armchair behind her and, once she found it,
falling back rather than sitting, as though her knees had given up on her.

“Oh my god,” she murmured, still
staring at him. “You think I’m going to lose.”

Of all possible reactions, he had
not imagined this one. He took a step forward, stopping abruptly even as he
shook his head.

“No! Dame Vivien, no, I don’t, I
just—”

“You told me not to cry,” she
interrupted, and although her voice was a whisper, it resonated through the
room as though she had shouted. “You think he’s going to beat me. You’ve seen
him fight, you’ve watched me train, and you think I don’t have a chance.”

If earlier she’d seemed nervous,
now she looked crestfallen, and Aedan hated that his words had dimmed the gleam
in her eyes. He fell down to one knee in front of her and, without thinking,
took hold of one of her hands where it gripped the arm of her chair.

“Vivien, no!” he blurted out.
“It’s true that I know him to be a cunning and skilled fighter. But as you
said, I watched you train these past few days. You just learned to use the
Quickening, but already you are as adept wielding it as channelers who have
used it since they were children. I know what you are capable of. I believe you
can defeat him, today and in the next duel. I do.”

He hoped she could see on his
face, hear in his voice that every word he had given her was nothing but the
truth, because he didn’t know what else he might say to restore her spirit.

For the longest time, she watched
him, and he could smell that bitter tinge of fear that had crept in her scent
receding again. She squeezed his hand.

“Thank you,” she offered with a
tiny smile. “It’s good to know I have someone on my side.”

“Always. I’ve always been on your
side, and I always will be. Even when you and I see things differently, you are
always my first concern.”

Her smile remained, though it
wavered, and she gently tugged her hand free of his. He’d said too much, he
realized; he’d made her uncomfortable.

“You called me Vivien again,” she
said, a fair attempt at sounding teasing. “You’re slipping.”

Pushing himself back to his feet,
Aedan took two steps back and bowed his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said very
formally, and he meant the apology for more than calling her by her given name.

“I’m sure you are,” she said with
a sigh. “But I’m not. I’ve got enough people calling me dame. I don’t mind
being just Vivien for you or for…”

She stopped herself short, but it
was easy to guess what she had been about to say.

“For Bradan,” he finished for her.

She nodded, looking away.

“Will he be there?” she murmured.

“I can’t imagine that anyone would
be able to keep him away.”

She bit her lips and didn’t quite
look up at him as she asked, “Do you think I’ll be able to talk to him before
the duel?”

What Aedan wanted to say was no,
he didn’t believe she would, but he was afraid to sap her spirit again without
meaning to, so he offered a much more circumspect answer.

“I don’t know, Dame Vivien.”

“How about after? When the duel is
over—”

“Please…” He hated to be rude and
interrupt her, but she was taking a dangerous path while thinking about this.
“You have to stay focused. If you let thoughts of Bradan distract you—”

“But how can I not let it distract
me?” she cut in, the fierceness back in her eyes and voice. “I love him. I
haven’t seen him in two days. He never said goodbye, and I don’t know what’s
happening to him. For all I know, Rhuinn has been torturing him to get
information about me.”

She didn’t mention Anabel, but her
shadow drifted across the room anyway. Rhuinn had made it very clear, very fast
that he was ready to anything to undermine Dame Vivien. Thankfully, Bradan had
a protector in the palace.

“He hasn’t,” Aedan said. “And he
won’t. Ciara wouldn’t let him hurt one of hers.”

As Dame Vivien’s head snapped up,
Aedan realized he had chosen his words poorly and hurried to amend them.

“I mean, she wouldn’t let him hurt
a member of her clan.”

“But you are a member of her
clan,” she exclaimed, “and she was ready to kill you herself!”

Aedan nodded. “Exactly. I’m sure
Rhuinn would be happy to kill me, or to have any of his guards do it for him,
but Ciara made it a point to tell me she asked him to let her do it. If anyone
kills me, it’ll be her. No one else will touch her clan. And no one but her will
touch Bradan.”

If anything, that precision seemed
to trouble her even more. Maybe it was time to change the subject to something
safer before she worried herself sick. Time to see how well she took a
suggestion about a wardrobe adjustment…

CHAPTER TWENTY

The King’s Palace

Without a knock or warning of any
kind, the door to Bradan’s room opened, and Ciara walked in, as unconcerned as
always to find him half dressed. She claimed that all vampires eventually
ceased to care about nudity, whether their own or others’, but he hadn’t yet
given up on expressing his displeasure about how casual she was about his
privacy.

“You could have knocked,” he said
coolly. “Thirty seconds earlier and you’d have walked in on me naked.”

As she crossed the room, Ciara
trailed a hand over his shoulders. Touching him whenever she pleased was
another habit she seemed unwilling to shed, although at least she hadn’t tried
to get into bed with him again.

“Pity,” she said as she sat on the
edge of the mattress, one leg balanced on top of her knee. “If I’d known, I
would have come in sooner.”

Turning his back on her, he picked
up his shirt from the dresser and slipped it on. The embroidery of the
QuickSilver symbol over the breast had been picked out by the same maid who
took care of his laundry. He’d been furious when he found out, and Ciara had
mocked him for it.

“Did you really intend to parade
through the king’s palace wearing the insignia of his declared enemy? Don’t be
ridiculous, child. I’m allowing you to wear black because you will be in the
presence of your dame, but don’t push your luck.”

Ridiculous or not, he missed the
symbol, the outward sign of what he was, what he’d wanted to be since he was
old enough to understand what the QuickSilver Guard was. At least Ciara couldn’t
remove the silver tattoo on the back of his hand and wrist—though she had
ordered him to wear a glove to cover it whenever he was out of his room.

He glanced down at his hand as he
buttoned his shirt, smiling to himself at the metallic glint.

“Are you ready to see her?” Ciara
asked.

He turned around to face her and
kept his face as neutral as he could.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked,
pitching the question toward aloof.

She considered him for a moment,
her eyes cold and unyielding. He hadn’t fooled her for a second, but then, he
hadn’t expected to.

“Let me rephrase that,” she said.
“Are you ready to see her without losing your mind to hunger?”

Not until she said the word
‘hunger’ did he realize that he was hungry again despite having fed a few hours
ago. He wasn’t sure how she could tell, seeing how she didn’t have the bond he
shared with Aedan, nor the awareness she had explained existed between a Maker
and his or her Bloodchild, similar to a twin bond. Still, regardless of how she
knew, she always seemed to guess whenever he was hungry—and always made him
realize it.

“Can we go by the feeding
kitchens?” he asked, although he already knew the answer to that. At this hour,
that kitchen would be deserted, as most vampires either fed very early or very
late during the day.

“I’m afraid not,” Ciara said
without a hint of a smile, nor any indication that she was ready to help in any
way.

Bradan had to ask. The answer
would always be yes, she’d all but promised, but he still needed to ask first.

“May I?” he said, swallowing a
sigh.

“Yes, you may, little one,” she
granted, her tone magnanimous.

He tried to not roll his eyes at
her. He hated it when she called him that. He did realize she’d lived much,
much longer than he had, but the nickname still sounded patronizing. He knew it
was one more way for her to get under his skin, however, so he’d decided not to
show his annoyance and hope that she’d tire of this particular game.

She rolled up her sleeve, and he
drank from her wrist, the way he always did—the way he’d taken blood from
Aedan. That first instant when his fangs pierced skin always reminded him of
the first time his brother had let him feed from him, but the next second, when
the flavor of blood coated his tongue, always dispelled the illusion.

He’d thought animal blood tasted
different because it was still warm, taken from living prey. He hadn’t tasted
enough of Vivien’s blood to form a memory of what she had tasted like. But
comparing Aedan’s blood and Ciara’s, he was always astonished at how different
they tasted.

Ciara’s had a strength to it that
was hard to define. Bradan had been offered a sip of fifty-year-old whiskey
once, and Ciara’s blood was a bit like that, with a sense of age, smooth
flavors, and a kick that only came in afterward. Aedan’s on the other hand…

Aedan had tasted familiar, like
home and family; Bradan had no other word for it.

He drank enough to silence his
hunger then released Ciara’s wrist, thanking her as he started to pull back.
She took hold of his shoulder and stopped him from moving away. Instead, she
drew him closer and, taken aback, Bradan didn’t have time to think or even
resist before she laid her mouth on his neck, above the collar of his shirt,
and bit down. He jerked in surprise at the feel of fangs tearing into his skin.

He’d expected it to hurt, but it
felt… almost pleasant. And oddly sensual. She held him in place long enough to
draw what felt like two large mouthfuls from him. When she lifted her head and
released him, he had to fight back a sigh of loss. He took a stumbling step
backward.

“What was that?” he asked,
confused and, for some odd reason, a little out of breath.

“I just wondered if you tasted the
same as Aedan,” Ciara answered after licking her lips clean.

Do I?

The question was on the tip of his
tongue, but he couldn’t make himself ask, although he’d have been hard pressed
to say why. All he could do was stare at her and wonder if being bitten always
felt like this.

Was this what it felt like to
Ciara when he fed from her? Was it what it had felt like for Aedan? What about
when he’d bitten Vivien? It had gone so fast, and she’d denied he had hurt her
despite proof to the contrary. Would she have fought him off at all, if Aedan
hadn’t stopped him? Or would she have let him take as much as he wanted, too
much, maybe, as long as it kept feeling so good?

“Bradan? Wake up, child. This is
no time for falling asleep on your feet.”

Ciara snapped her fingers in front
of Bradan’s face and startled him out of his thoughts. He blinked several
times, aware that Ciara’s gaze was on him, scrutinizing.

“What were you thinking about just
now?” she asked in a deceptively mild voice.

Bradan turned away, returning to
the washing basin and picking up the wet washcloth from the stand. He dabbed at
his neck with the washcloth. With no mirror, he had no way to tell if there was
blood on his skin, but it gave him an excuse to keep his back to Ciara for a
few seconds and compose himself.

“I… It’s the first time anyone’s
bitten me,” he said; better not to lie outright, she always seemed to know when
he did. “I didn’t know what it felt like.”

“Hmm. I didn’t realize Aedan
hadn’t bitten you at all,” she said. “What a strange way to make a vampire.
Come on, your neck is fine. We need to go now.”

It dawned on him as he accompanied
her down long corridors to the ballroom that anyone looking at him would be
able to see the bite mark on his throat, and they would know what had happened
to him moments ago.

Vivien would see it, would guess,
would think…

What would she think? What doubts
would enter her mind when she needed to be entirely focused on her duel?

His fists closed tight, and he
couldn’t quite keep the anger out of his voice when he asked, “Did Rhuinn order
you to put that bite mark on me?”

He couldn’t bear to look at Ciara
in his state of anger, but from the corner of his eye, he could see her miss a
step.

“Well,” she said quietly. “Maybe
you’re not as naive as I feared. And I’ve told you before. As long as you are a
guest in his palace, you will show your king proper respect and call him by his
title.”

It was as good as an admission,
and it only accentuated Bradan’s anger. They were trying to use him to
destabilize Vivien. He’d removed himself from her presence to keep her safe,
but now his choice was backfiring.

He stopped in the middle of the hallway;
Ciara turned back to give him an annoyed look.

“I can’t do this,” he said before
she could urge him forward. “I can already hear them, smell them… it’s too many
people. I don’t think I can control myself yet. I should go back—”

“Nice try,” Ciara cut in. “But not
good enough. The king has demanded that you stand by the dais, so that your
dame may be reassured you’ve not been mistreated. Don’t worry, I won’t let you
hurt anyone.”

With that, she took his arm and
guided him toward the staff door that led into the ballroom. Bradan could
either go along or get dragged in like a child having a tantrum. He walked of
his own accord, trying but failing to loosen her hold on him.

He hadn’t exaggerated when he
claimed he could hear and smell the guests already assembled in the ballroom.
Neither their voices nor the music playing in the background were enough to
drown out the sound of their hearts; to Bradan, they sounded like the call of
the mythical mermaids in the Otherworld, trying to lure men to their doom.

The scents were worse. Beyond
perfume, soap and perspiration, he was sure he could still smell blood. It
might have been a trick of his mind, of knowing he was in the midst of so many
humans, but his hunger, which had been sated when he’d fed from Ciara, flared
again as though the blood were already in front of him.

Ciara’s hand tightened over his
arm. The pain gave him something to focus on, but even then Ciara’s whisper
barely registered with his mind.

“He ordered you here even though I
told him it was too early for you to be around so many humans,” she murmured
close to his ear as she guided him toward the dais. “I think he hopes that your
control will snap and you will attack someone in front of the whole court. If
you do it when your dame is here, it will be even better for him, of course.
Then he can have you executed in front of her and under the cover of the law,
and destabilize her before or during the duel. And he can have me punished for
bringing you into the castle and for being the Maker of the only guard to ever
betray him. That would leave him free to kill Aedan himself for treason rather
than leaving that privilege to me as I requested of him.”

“And that’s the man you call
king,” Bradan railed.

His renewed anger gave him
something else to focus on, and his tenuous grip on himself firmed. It helped
that they’d reached their destination, a spot by the side of the dais, and that
they were immobile. At Ciara’s prompting, he turned to the dais and the throne
set in the center of it and gave a courteous bow, though he was careful not to
look any higher than Rhuinn’s feet.

When he was allowed to turn away
again, he kept his gaze on a spot on the floor in front of the dais, lines of
metal inlaid in the stone in the shape of Rhuinn’s sigil, hoping that not looking
at any humans would help.

“That’s the man I pledged to call
king,” Ciara said after a few seconds, her voice even lower than before so that
Bradan wondered if she was talking to him or to herself. “Although when I took
my oath, he seemed like a much different man.”

Was it bitterness he could hear in
her words? He wasn’t sure, nor did he think he could trust himself to prod
right now. He had to remain focused and cling to his anger that he was being
used as a pawn, to the knowledge that, should he fail, Vivien and Ciara might
both be in danger because of him, as well as Aedan. Bradan couldn’t do that to
any of them. He had to be strong.

Just as he was thinking of Aedan,
the distant awareness of the bond increased a hundred fold; Aedan had Passed
Through into the castle. The bond gave Bradan something else to focus on to
distract himself from all the hot, warm, delicious blood pumping around him.

At first, grim anticipation and
readiness filled Aedan, but after a second shock, wariness, and even alarm rose
in him. For a moment, Bradan wondered if they were being attacked on their way
to the ballroom, but then he realized: he was causing Aedan’s alarm. His own
feelings had to be flooding the bond with anger, hunger, fear, and the constant
threat that he might let go of his control. He tried to temper what he was
allowing through the bond, but he’d never mastered the trick the way Aedan had.

Abruptly, Aedan’s side of the bond
changed. The alarm that had accentuated Bradan’s fear vanished, replaced by
calm and strength. Aedan had done this before, years ago. When their mother had
died, he’d pushed away his own grief to comfort Bradan through the bond when
words were beyond useless. He was doing it again now, pushing his feelings at
Bradan to help him conquer the hunger and his instincts.

Little by little, Bradan’s mind
became quieter, until the call of the blood around him didn’t feel overwhelming
anymore. When Vivien’s entrance was announced at the formal doors, he managed
to lift his gaze and look toward her as she walked in with Aedan and Olric at
her sides. That was where Bradan should have been, where he would be again when
he learned control—and that was yet another incentive to cling on to his
composure by his very nails if he had to.

For a short moment, he looked at
Aedan and met his gaze. The same strength continued to flow through the bond,
with a jolt of affection when their eyes met. As best as he could, Bradan tried
to send back gratitude toward his brother, to let him know that he was helping
Bradan tremendously. Aedan might have understood, because a small smile tugged
at his lips, and he inclined his head.

From him, Bradan looked at Vivien.
She looked self-assured and confident as she strode through the room, the focus
of everyone’s attention. How confident was she, and how much of her attitude
was for show? He wished he’d known, wished he’d been there to help her prepare
the past couple of days, wished he could be there to help her prepare for the
next duel, but he doubted he’d be ready by then.