Flesh And Blood: House of Comarre: Book Two (House of Comarre 2) (43 page)

‘My own version of SPF.’ Dominic wrenched the top off, tipped the contents back, and swallowed. ‘It will protect you from ultraviolet light for twenty-four hours. Should you wish to
end the protection sooner, which you may, you have only to drink blood.’

‘What’s the catch?’

‘For every minute of the twenty-four hours the potion is in your system, you’ll age one day. If you partake of mortal sustenance within that time, you will become irrevocably mortal. The aging, however, will continue.’ He pulled out a third vial. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I must gather Ronan and be on my way. I have no wish to age any more than necessary.’ He left, but his footsteps halted after the screen door swung shut. ‘Ronan?’

After a few seconds without a response from Ronan, Dominic yelled again. ‘Malkolm!’

Mal downed the tube’s contents and tossed it aside. He jerked his head toward Creek as he addressed Doc. ‘See to Creek, would you? I have a feeling Dominic isn’t happy about the way I left Ronan.’

‘Sure.’ Doc went to unpin Creek, but Chrysabelle went after Mal.

‘What’s the problem?’ Mal asked, pushing through the door. He held it open for Chrysabelle. Fog clung to the swamp’s surface, making the land look like the mythical home of the fae. She expected to see Mortalis or Solomon walk out of the mist at any moment.

‘Where’s Ronan?’ Dominic asked, his gaze suspiciously probing Mal.

Doc and Creek came out behind them. Creek limped slightly and looked angry enough to kill. She squeezed his hand and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring and calming smile. His wounds appeared to be healing already.

Mal shrugged. ‘Last I saw, he was getting friendly with the locals.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about.’ Dominic peered over the railing and down through the haze.

Mal, Doc, Creek, and Chrysabelle joined him. Mal pointed toward the dock where the airboats were moored. ‘He was right there.’

The fog shifted and the dock came into clearer sight. There was nothing on the boards but a streak of blood.

By the time they’d ditched Creek, who, despite his injuries wouldn’t let Mal closer to his apartment than a few blocks, dropped Doc off at the freighter, and were headed to Chrysabelle’s house, nearly three hours had passed.

The sun blazed in the amazingly blue morning sky, a sight Mal had not seen in almost five centuries. He knew in his gut that the fiery ball had not changed. It only seemed brighter. More brilliant. More frightening.

He’d found a pair of Doc’s sunglasses in the car and appropriated them. The darkness comforted him in a way that made him ache. He had been nocturnal for so long, just the warmth of the sun on his skin made him anticipate pain.

The car provided enough shade that he could almost ignore the oddness of the situation. Almost. The effects of Dominic’s potion weighed as heavily as the smell of rotting plant life clinging to him and Chrysabelle after recovering her swords from the muck.

For nearly five hundred years, he’d been ageless. Now aging a hundred eighty days in such a short span of time felt like being reborn.

And that wasn’t the half of it. Based on his body’s response, he wasn’t entirely convinced aging was the only side effect of Dominic’s SPF. Mal’s bones, muscles, and joints ached with the
sudden press of time. It reminded him of human illness. Being warm without the ingestion of blood was wrong. His stomach growled with the hunger for food, a feeling he’d not had since the night he’d been sired. Even his heart beat sluggishly, something that never happened without a draught of comarré blood.

Worst of all, he’d begun breathing.

Chrysabelle glanced at him from the passenger’s seat but turned her head away quickly when he tried to make eye contact. Her mouth quirked in a strange way.

‘What?’ He was in no mood for another argument.

She looked back at him, and he realized the strange expression was an attempt at not smiling. ‘You should see yourself.’

‘No thanks.’ If he looked as bad as he felt, he would pass.

‘Well, in case you were wondering, you’ve gotten a little … shaggy.’ She bit her lip, then laughed.

He pulled down the visor and reluctantly checked the mirror. His hair hung well past his shoulders, and a thick beard covered his face. More startling was the face under the beard.

His human face. No sign of the fanged demon that dwelled within. Come to think of it, the voices had been silent since he’d drunk Dominic’s potion.

‘Sidewalk!’ She grabbed the wheel and jerked it. ‘Pay attention, please. I’d hate to survive Tatiana just to die because you’re a bad driver.’

He nodded and tried to refocus on the road, but his eyes kept shifting to the mirror. ‘Something isn’t right.’

‘Besides your driving, you mean?’ She sighed. ‘Yes, you look like a mountain man.’

‘Besides that.’ The lack of voices, the beating heart, the breathing, seeing his human face reflected back … an eerie prickle crawled up his spine as he slowed the car at Chrysabelle’s
front gate. She held still while the facial-recognition scanner did its thing. The gates swung open. He parked the car on the inside curve of the drive and got out. He waited while she retrieved her swords from the trunk, then followed her to the door, lost in the possibility of what it all meant. Velimai opened it as they approached. She stared wide-eyed at him before looking to Chrysabelle for an explanation as to how he was daywalking.

‘One of Dominic’s potions,’ Chrysabelle said as she entered the house.

Velimai peered at him, her nostrils flaring as she inhaled. She shook her head like something about him confused her.

Mal stayed on the porch. ‘I’ll wait here, but leave the door open in case I need you.’ The plan was for Creek to join them as soon as he’d patched up his injuries; then he, Mal, and Chrysabelle would board the
Heliotrope
, where she would perform the rite necessary to get to the Aurelian.

‘It might be a while. I have to clean my sacres, get the smell of the swamp water off my body, and then dress according to the tenets of the ritual. You can wait on the boat, if you like, get a shower, whatever you want. The windows are helioglazed.’ She smiled. ‘I guess that doesn’t matter at the moment.’

‘I’ll be fine. Do what you have to do.’ He hung back until she and Velimai left. Oddly, he couldn’t hear them or sense Chrysabelle as he might have just a few hours prior. It only made him more impatient to test his theory.

When he’d given them enough time to get upstairs to Chrysabelle’s suite, he positioned himself on the edge of the threshold, took a breath, and extended his hand toward the line of invitation.

His hand passed over the threshold with ease. A shiver tripped through him. He exhaled hard and stepped through the doorway.
He stood in her foyer, almost trembling with the realization of what his entrance meant.

One more test. He slipped the knife from his belt and pulled back the sleeve of his jacket. He dropped the knife at the sight of his bare skin. His mouth hung open. Not a swirl of black, not a dot of ink, not a single name. As blank as the day he’d been born. His heart raced as he ripped off his jacket and shirt, grabbed up the knife, and ran for the mirror on the living room wall. Watching his reflection, he ran the knife’s edge across his palm.

Behind the fresh line of pain, blood welled. The wound stayed open.

Dominic’s potion hadn’t just made him immune to sunlight.

It had made him mortal.

S
omething clattered on the floor downstairs. Chrysabelle looked at Velimai, who shrugged and signed,
Stupid vampire.

‘I’ll check it out.’ Wishing Velimai would cut Mal some slack, Chrysabelle ran back down to see what the noise was. She skidded to a stop on the marble tile of her foyer. Mal stood in her living room. Bleeding. And half naked. Literally. Not a spot of ink decorated his body.

‘What are you doing? What happened? Where are your names?’ The words tumbled out of her mouth faster than she could make sense of him. ‘How are you in here?’

Bewilderment rounded his eyes as he continued to stare at himself in the mirror. He shook his head, dazed. ‘I’m mortal.’

Two words. Two impossible words. She stumbled toward him. ‘No. It’s just Dominic’s potion. You can’t be mortal.’

‘But I am. I’m in your house, uninvited. My cut hasn’t healed. The names and voices are gone. My senses are dulled. I can’t hear or smell or—’ He turned toward her. A flash of pain flickered in his gaze. He swallowed. ‘You don’t glow anymore.’

‘Dominic said you only turned mortal if you ate something.’ Mortal. Her insides twisted with the impact of what that meant. But that was foolishness, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t stay that way. Couldn’t. The aging was a death sentence. She shook her head. ‘Whatever this is, it’s only temporary. Dominic said it would wear off in twenty-four hours.’

He laughed. The sound chilled her with its recklessness. ‘Not if I eat.’ He spun, scanning the room. A bowl of apples gleamed red on the kitchen table.

‘Mal, don’t.’ Panic closed her throat. The thought of life without him – of watching him die – staggered her. ‘The aging will kill you in a few weeks. Maybe less.’

‘You don’t get it. I’ve lived long enough. The chance to be human again … ’ Liquid rimmed his lids. ‘Without these voices, this constant desire to kill.’ He threw his head back and exhaled. ‘Already I feel so clean. Reborn.’

Her hands clenched in useless fists. ‘Dominic knew you’d feel this way. This is his way of getting back at Doc. Don’t you see? By taking you away, he can go after Doc without your interference.’

‘Then Dominic wins.’ Mal shrugged and met her gaze once more. ‘You’ll be free, too. Free to do whatever you want with your life.’

He launched toward the apples, but his vampire speed was gone. She beat him easily, tackling him to the hard tile floor and pinning the warm length of him there. Every ounce of her being screamed for him to stay. ‘I don’t want to be free of you.’

He struggled to get up, but she outmuscled him now. He got one hand on the table leg. ‘Let me go, Chrysabelle.’

‘No.’ She tried to pry his grip loose, but her sweat-slicked fingers slipped. ‘I need you.’

‘No one needs the monster I am.’ He jerked the table. The bowl tipped, showering them in apples.

She batted one away. ‘I do. And I can free you of that monster. I’m going to the Aurelian tonight. You’ll have your answer.’

‘And what if she can’t help?’

‘She will. I know she will.’ Her cheeks were wet, her hands were trembling, and her heart was crying for her to do whatever she had to do to keep him from killing himself.

His hand closed around a single sphere of murderous red. ‘Let. Me. Go.’

‘I can’t let you die when we’re so close to finding an answer.’ Especially when she might love him. With no other option, she bit her lip until it bled, then leaned down and kissed him.

With only bruises left from his injuries, Creek parked his bike and climbed the gate into Chrysabelle’s estate. He knew he should have waited to be buzzed through, but he wasn’t in the mood to wait. After everything that had gone down, he wanted to be sure she was okay.

He rounded the massive fountain in the center of the circular drive and stopped. The front door stood wide open. He reached for his halm, cursing the loss of his crossbow. Telling Argent it had been stolen by a noble and turned to stone after being used against him was going to be fun. Argent would question why Creek hadn’t ashed every vampire involved. Creek would not let the KM strip him of his assignment. He couldn’t let his family down. Not after everything they’d been through. He’d find a reason for the KM to keep him.

A horrible bellow erupted from the house.

Creek had heard the sound before. It was the sound of a
vampire dying. Maybe Tatiana had come after Chrysabelle earlier than expected.

He burst into the house, following the noise to the source. He found it. Mal. Shirtless and pinned to the floor under the comarré. Apples littering the tile like land mines. The wysper vibrated in the corner. What the hell had happened, Creek could only imagine.

Mal opened his mouth for another deafening roar. Blood oozed from his pores. His muscles strained, corded and taut so that every line of sinew strung out like piano wire. The names covering his body writhed and twisted. Sunlight spilled through the kitchen’s plantation shutters, and where Chrysabelle’s body didn’t cover him, wisps of smoke curled off his skin.