Power (Soul Savers) (35 page)

“Animal blood won’t do it, though. We won’t make it!” Her
voice rose in volume with her desperation. “The mage power is
gone
. I’ve burned through it already. I
can’t even feel your witch friend anymore. Norman blood would strengthen me,
but yours …”

She trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence. She
didn’t move underneath me, didn’t try to get up or throw me off of her. She
just lay there, looking up at me with big, pleading eyes. Was the fight in her
really gone? If she had any energy left, she wasn’t using it against me now
when the smell of my blood had to have been driving her crazy. Despite what I’d
said, she really had improved in showing self-control. Perhaps we’d both said
things we didn’t mean.

“A few drops of my blood gave you that strength to fight
me?” I asked, truly amazed.

She nodded her head against the ground. “But it was just a
tease, and it set me off.”

Any more than a few drops could make her formidable against
our opponents … or against me. Could I take that chance? Did I have a choice?

“I guess we can use that kind of strength,” I finally said. “But
no more fighting me, or I’ll blast your ass with electricity until you shrivel
into a pile of ashes and purple smoke. Got it?”

“Feed me, and I won’t need to fight you.”

Hoping I wasn’t about to make the worst mistake of my life,
I unzipped my leather jacket and shrugged it off, leaving my shoulders and arms
bare, only the leather bustier covering my top half. The late winter chill of
the mountains caressed my skin, probably too cold for a Norman but not
uncomfortable for me.

I held my wrist out to her.

Vanessa didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed my arm and pulled it
toward her mouth. My jaw clamped down against the cry when her fangs pierced my
skin. Then my blood gushed toward the wound as if it’d been waiting for such a
release from the confines of my veins. After a few swallows, a strange look
overcame Vanessa’s face. Her light blond brows pushed together and her eyes
showed confusion, then a spark of a thought. They locked on mine for a long
moment as she seemed to be considering me in a new light, then she shut them,
seemingly in bliss as she fed her hunger.

I couldn’t help but compare this to the one and only other
time a vampire had drank from me. In our first real fight, right before I’d
gone through the
Ang’dora
, Vanessa
had nearly killed me. Who would have ever imagined then that I’d be feeding her
purposely now? I also thought about the time when Tristan had sucked my blood.
He hadn’t done it for nourishment of course, but to clean a wound he was
helping to heal. The feeling had been erotic, nearly bringing me to an orgasm.

In fact, that’s how it
should
have felt. Solomon had confirmed the drinking of blood served as a sensual and
sexual pleasure for both vampire and
victim/donor/partner/whatever-the-situation-was. But I felt
nothing
now, and Vanessa showed no signs
either. I mean, she drew heartily and made sounds of contentment, but no more
than anyone enjoying a delicious meal. I’d been on the brink of death last
time, so I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think either of us had felt anything
then. Why not?

Although we weren’t exactly BFFs and despite the fight of a
few minutes ago, I thought we’d moved past the true hatred. Was it my Amadis
blood? Or something else?

Vanessa finally opened her eyes and pulled away. She ran the
back of her hand over her lips, wiping off any blood. “You taste … familiar.”

 
“Well, it’s not
the first time you’ve had me, remember?”

She ran her tongue over the bite marks on my wrist, and they
closed right up.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I’d thought about it that time,
too, but had dismissed it. But now …” She shook her head, then smiled lazily,
and I couldn’t help but notice how she was even more beautiful like
this—rosy cheeks, bright eyes that weren’t full of hatred, at the moment
anyway—a natural look. I swung my leg around and rolled off her, onto my
back.

I hadn’t realized I’d needed to lie down until I did. How
much blood had she taken? Of course, I hadn’t had much rest and regeneration,
and I hadn’t eaten since … well, it’d been over twenty-four hours, that was for
sure. No wonder my head felt woozy.

One moment Vanessa lay on the ground next to me, and without
so much as a blur, the next she stood over me, picking leaves and twigs out of
her ponytail. She shrugged out of her jacket and danced around me.

“I feel
fabulous
.”
She let out a hoot as she spun in a circle.

I moaned, her movements making me dizzy. “I feel like crap.”

She stopped and stared at me for a long moment. I grimaced
at her in her tight leather pants and bustier, but not out of jealousy.
Actually, I had on a nearly identical outfit and looked as good. At least, I
had before our fight. Now I probably looked as bad as I felt. I only wanted …

“Aren’t you supposed to have fed, too, by now?”

I didn’t answer her. Something on her chest had caught my
attention, momentarily making me forget how badly I felt. A fading tattoo ...
no, more like a scar that had healed yet not completely vanished. With a very
familiar design.

“Vanessa, what’s—?”

I tried to lift my hand to point, but didn’t have the
energy. She followed my gaze, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, that. It showed up
when you converted me.”

“Is it what I think it is?”

“The Amadis mark? Yeah.” She said no more.

“But how? You don’t get the Amadis mark from converting. You
have to actually have Amadis blood—oh!
Really?
”

She shrugged. “I never knew my mother, she died while giving
birth to my brother and me, but I think she was the daughter of an Amadis son.
A converted daughter, no less.”

“Your mother was
Amadis
?”

From what Mom had told me one night as we sat in Rina’s
room, Daemoni daughters were even rarer than Amadis sons. Female descendants of
Jordan only came every few generations and hardly ever survived the change.
Same with daughters of male descendants of Cassandra. This had been one of the
reasons they weren’t sure about my surviving the
Ang’dora
, since my sperm donor was a Jordan descendant. And if
Dorian had a daughter, the probability of her making it past the change was
virtually nil. Mom had said there were none of these daughters alive now, and
there hadn’t been since before her own
Ang’dora
.

“In every which way,” Vanessa said. “At least, that’s what I
think. Like I said, never knew her, and I was raised by the Daemoni.”

If this were true, why wouldn’t Mom know about Vanessa? On
the other hand, why would Vanessa lie about it? The Amadis mark was right there
on her chest, and it couldn’t be faked. She would have healed too quickly if it
hadn’t come from the inside.

“And your father?” I asked.

“No idea who he is.” Something flickered over her face that
told me she thought otherwise. “A Daemoni bastard who raped my mom and left us
with a witch to live as orphans.”

Another rape. Another pierce in the back of my mind—a
question I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Instead, I recalled Vanessa’s visions during the conversion,
and all of this explained how she’d not been Norman before becoming a vampire.
But who would turn her, if she’d already had her own powers from both sides of
her lineage?

“Then why were you turned? With the bloodline …” My voice
trailed off at her closed-off look.

“I thought you didn’t feel well. Don’t you eat more often
than this?”

She’d opened up to me about herself more than she had ever
before, but apparently she was done. Ready to change the subject.

“I
don’t
feel
well,” I said, “but we haven’t exactly had time to stop and eat.”

My stomach gurgled, as if on cue. I definitely needed to
eat, but unless I hunted down my dinner, which there wasn’t a chance in Hades
of happening, we had to move, get going, flash to the next town. But I felt too
weak to even push myself off the ground.

Vanessa squatted over me. “What do I do?”

I couldn’t help the shock of seeing her face, so kind and
concerned. For me. This day grew weirder and weirder.

“I don’t think I can even flash to the next town,” I
admitted. “Not yet anyway. Just give me a few minutes. A little rest will
help.”

I closed my eyes for what felt like a minute or two, but
when I opened them again, I could barely see in the complete darkness. While
I’d dreamt of lying in Tristan’s arms once again, night had fallen. My heart
hurt at the reality that I wasn’t with him. With the knowledge that he and my
son were so far away. I squeezed my lids shut, wishing myself to them,
conjuring the image of sitting on the beach and watching the sunset while
Dorian built a sandcastle by the water. The image came so clear, I could almost
feel Tristan’s breath on my ear as his lips nibbled my lobe.

But, of course, when I opened my eyes, I still lay on the
forest floor in the Pacific Northwest, about as far away from them that I could
be while still in the Continental U.S. And tonight, we’d be traveling in the
opposite direction of them. Soon, I wouldn’t be in the same country, and by the
end of the night, not in the same hemisphere. If everything went wrong, not
even the same world.
Let’s not let
everything go wrong.
I let out a sigh.
The
sooner we start, the better.

I blinked a couple of times against the pure darkness of
night in the middle of a forest until my vision adjusted. Vanessa was in her
jacket, leaning against a tree trunk, her arms across her chest and her eyes
moving, never stopping for long in any one place. She was keeping watch over
me.

A white paper bag sat on the ground between us. My mouth
watered at the scent, even if it was that of cold grease. I stretched my arm
out, but couldn’t reach it. She nudged it with her boot, pushing it toward me.

“I hope you’re not a vegetarian,” she said.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked as I tore open the bag and
through the wrapper around the hamburger.

“Went to town. Just over that ridge.” She nodded toward my
left. “We might have a bit of a problem. I hope that burger keeps you satisfied
for a while.”

I was too busy eating to speak.
What’s going on?

She narrowed her eyes at the sound in her head, and spoke
aloud, clearly indicating her preference. “I didn’t get the full story, but the
military is cracking down. Apparently, they’re looking for anyone not human.”

I choked on the bite I’d been trying to swallow. Vanessa had
to pound me on the back to dislodge it from my throat. I’d have bruises between
my shoulder blades in the morning. Well, even more than I probably already had
from our wrestling match.

“They know? The Normans
know
?”
I asked with disbelief.

The moonlight danced off her white-blond hair, making it
look silver as Vanessa shook her head. “I don’t think so. I eavesdropped on a
couple of guys in uniform—police, border patrol, National Guard, I don’t
know. Anyway, from what I heard, the Normans are suspicious of our existence,
but have no proof yet. There were uniforms all over the place. The guys said
the borders are lined with military.”

I stared at the ground and chewed for a moment as I
considered this new obstacle.

“This is all part of the Daemoni’s plan, you know,” Vanessa
added.

I squinted up at her.

“No, I don’t really know. Tell me,” I said before taking
another bite.

“Turning Normans against each other. Country against
country. They’ll make everyone suspicious of each other to instigate wars. Then
they turn the wounded, leaving the Norman armies weak and outnumbered, and
that’s when they’ll come out. The Daemoni. They’ll come out of hiding and take
control. They’re taking over little cities, like Key West and Savannah, getting
reading to move in on the big metros. They’ve infiltrated the governments
worldwide. It’s only a matter of time.” She watched me as I shuddered. “Of
course, they need to get rid of the Amadis first.”

“So we need to move faster, before they get to Tristan.” I
jumped to my feet, hoping it wasn’t already too late. “Let’s get going.”

“Wait, there’s more. If the military is guarding the
Canadian border so heavily—a border between
allies
—then something’s going on. Someone’s working with
them, possibly more than just planting ideas in their heads. One or both sides
of the border may be protected by a mage. Or certain towns might be. We might
not be able to flash everywhere we need to.” She peered at me in the darkness
for a long moment, then blew out a breath she’d apparently been holding. “How
far does your mind reach?”

“I don’t know. I actually haven’t tested it in quite a
while, but a couple of miles last time I checked.”

Her lips twisted in a grimace. “I can’t believe I’m saying
this, but keep it open with mine. If we try to flash into a shielded area,
we’ll bounce off and might not land in the exact same place.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” I muttered, once again wishing I
could go home, be with my men, where it was safe and …
No. It’s not safe.
You
have
to make it safe.

We flashed several times, through Canada and all the way
through Alaska, with no problems. Vanessa now easily flashed place to place,
going farther, pushing my normal limits, and with little energy drain. I barely
caught a glimpse of each place we appeared before she popped away again and I
followed her. As we made our way up the coast of the Pacific and across the
Alaskan tundra, the air became colder with each flash and the moonlight bounced
off snow and ice rather than running rivers.

We finally hit the western shore of Alaska, the Bering
Strait in front of us, and an island in the distance. In one more flash, we’d
be deep into Russia. But Vanessa sucked her breath in, and didn’t disappear
right away. I turned away from the sea and toward land, took in the scene and
echoed her gasp. Rather than a vast landscape of snow reflecting the moon,
several large, tan tents were spread in front of us, along with Hummers and
snowmobiles. Big spotlights shone down on us, making me blink several times.