Vampire Elite (22 page)

The following year was the happiest in Theores’s childhood. She finally had a family who cared about her; in addition to her father, she met her half-brother, Leon, who was three years younger and, as they later discovered, a full-blooded Sekhmi vampire. It wasn’t long before Theores and Leon became best friends.
 

But Theores’s happiness came to an abrupt end when her father did not return home one evening. She ran to the market, a place teeming with gossip, in hopes of finding news about him. There she overheard a conversation about three male bodies that had been found on a nearby beach.
 

She bolted to the shore and forced her way through the crowd that surrounded the corpses. The three bodies were totally burned and crumbling to ashes, but she recognized her father’s ring on a bony finger of the largest corpse. It was him.
 

Onlookers were whispering that it was witchery. What other force could destroy bodies like that? The man who had found the bodies was showing everyone a piece of paper that had been pinned to one of the corpses. It depicted three winged females with hair that looked like nests of writhing snakes.
 

Many years later Theores learned about the Avengers, the society of Amiti assassins whose trademark was an image of the Erinyes, the Greek goddesses of vengeance. It was common practice at that time for the Avengers to leave that image as a calling card on the bodies of their victims, a warning to all vampires. But Theores didn’t know any of that. She had not even the slightest idea of what she was; her father had died before telling her.
 

His death turned Theores’s and Leon’s lives upside down. Penniless, unable to pay for their lodging, they were evicted, forced to join the rag-tag groups of orphans who lived by begging and stealing what they could from the outdoor markets.
 

Every day for the next six years, they struggled to survive, sleeping in doorways and behind piles of garbage, often going for days with nothing to eat. Then Theores turned fifteen, and everything miraculously changed.
 

One day, while begging in front of one of the run-down inns that housed merchants and sailors from the neighboring piers, she was approached by one of the merchants. He offered to pay her a considerable fee to have “sex” with him. She’d heard from her peers that “sex” was fun, and the amount offered by the merchant was enough to house her and Leon for several days, so Theores agreed.

“Sex,” she discovered, was disgusting—but as far as she was concerned, a job was a job, and disgusting or not, the pay was impressive. The merchant must have enjoyed it, because he began hiring her regularly and recommending her to others. It wasn’t long before her services were in high demand.
 

Theores appreciated the steady income, but she hated prostituting herself. After each client, she would return to the inn and take a long bath, scrubbing herself raw. This was not the life she and Leon were destined to live.
 

They were so different than their peers. They were stronger, faster and smarter; their senses were sharper, and they were physically healthier. No matter how hard they tried to blend in, they always felt like outsiders. Theores often dreamed that out there somewhere was a tribe of powerful, confident, courageous people, and that she and Leon were their lost children. One day they would find them and become part of their tribe, their family. They would live as equals among them, with dignity and honor, happily ever after.
 

Theores’s dream came true—except for the
happily ever after
part.
 

Her new life began when she was twenty, on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood. If her profession hadn’t already made her a creature of the night, she might have noticed that she was becoming intolerant of the sun. Her other Nightwalker characteristics—accelerated motion, superhuman speed and senses, and retracting fangs—were emerging more gradually, and she hadn’t had a need for them yet. It started out as an ordinary day: she slept late into the afternoon, fixed herself something to eat, and prepared to meet her client for the evening, the captain of a merchant ship.
 

Unfortunately, this client had decided that Theores would fetch a goodly sum if sold at the Turkish slave market. He drugged her somehow, and Theores woke up to find herself chained up below deck. Horrified, she pulled desperately on the chains—and to her astonishment, they broke apart easily. She shot up the ladder, intending to throw her body against the locked door, and it smashed into smithereens. When she reached the deck, she smashed her fist into the face of the deckhand who rushed her—and watched it explode like a ripe pumpkin.
 

But then out of nowhere blades sliced across her chest and legs, and she collapsed to the deck. So this was it; this was how her life would end. She knew she was dying, but the pain was so excruciating that she only hoped death would come for her more quickly.
 

The captain kicked her in the ribs. “What a goddamned waste.” He turned to a nearby deckhand and commanded, “Drop this piece of trash overboard. Get it off my ship.”
 

The deckhand grabbed her ankles and started dragging her to the ship’s railing. She felt her back sliding across the slick trail of her own blood.
 

Then, through a thick haze, Theores heard a male voice: “Captain, I wish to buy this girl. I’ll give you three
solidi
for her.”
 

Theores still remembered the question in her fading mind:
Why would anyone want to pay so much for me?
Three solidi were what the average worker made in a month.
 

“Why do you want her, warrior? She’ll die before you can make any profit from her.”
 

“Just take the money, Captain, and I’ll take the girl.”
 

Looming over her was a huge Viking warrior, wild and intimidating. He wore a brown tunic with a wide belt supporting a long scabbard. Leather straps adorned with brass buckles crossed his chest. His knee-high leather boots were fringed and bound with thin leather strapping.
 

The warrior lifted her into his arms and carried her to a comfortable cabin on the upper deck, a cabin that only the wealthiest of passengers could afford. She lay on the bed, bleeding out, barely alive.

The pain was finally receding a little—being consumed, she thought, by the grey fog that was also taking over the edges of her vision. But then a new, unfamiliar pain rose from deep within her, taking over her entire body. It grew stronger and stronger, dwarfing the pain from her wounds, until her back arched and she began convulsing uncontrollably.
 

“Am I dying?” she gasped, clenching the warrior’s hand.
 

“No, dear love; just try to relax. You’ll be fine. You just need blood.”
 

He pressed the underside of his wrist to Theores’s mouth. The pulse throbbing there called to her, and she knew that if she did not feed from this vein, she would die. A strange, almost painful tingling assaulted her eyeteeth, and without another thought, she sank them into his vein.

What she was doing was beyond weird, but it felt amazing, and as natural to her as breathing. She drank voraciously, as if she’d never be able to satisfy her thirst.

Finally the warrior placed a cool palm on her forehead and gently removed his wrist from her mouth. “That’s enough for now.”

She protested weakly.

“What is your name?” he asked, ignoring her disappointment.

“Theores.”
 

“Ah, a name befitting the beauty of its owner. Tell me how you feel, Theores.”
 

“I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what happened to me. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you; I just lost control.”
 

“You didn’t harm me, dear love. But we’re not finished yet. You’ve a great deal of healing still to do. Your wounds have stopped bleeding, but I’m afraid you’re too young to heal yourself properly. We must take care of you now so you do not have any scars. Your features and your body are exquisite; let’s ensure that you remain that way.”
 

Without asking, the stranger lay down next to her and cradled her in his arms. Theores wanted to object and push him away, but she was overcome by a rush of warm, loving energy filling her body. The sensation defied description; it was magical. She had never experienced such nurturing from anyone; she hadn’t even known it was possible to feel that way. Her anxiety evaporated and she melted into him, as though she’d finally come home after a long, exhausting journey.
 

As she lay there with him, her pain subsided and her body seemed to pulse with vitality and strength. It was as though she had never experienced the attack on the deck. Based on her experience in male-female relationships, Theores knew what was coming next; the stranger would take advantage of her. But to her surprise he made no attempt to kiss or undress her. He simply continued holding her, gently pressing her head to his chest.
 

“Why are you hugging me?” she murmured, listening to his steady breath.
 

“I am healing you.”
 

“Healing me?” She pulled her head away from his chest to look at him suspiciously. “How can you heal me by just hugging?”
 

“Are you feeling better?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“So you see, it works.”
 

“Who
are
you?” She raised up on her elbow to study his face, but her eyes were immediately drawn to the large vein pulsing in his throat. What was wrong with her? She had never paid attention to that kind of thing before. She tried to shift her gaze, but her eyes kept returning to the pulsing vein. She stared at it, recalling how delicious his blood had tasted and how wonderful it had made her feel.
 

He traced her gaze. “You may bite me.”
 

“What?” She recoiled. Was he crazy? At the same time she felt a rush of joy for the opportunity to feed again. She wanted more of him.
 

He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, tantalizing her with his exposed throat. She felt that tingling in her teeth again.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.”
 

“Tell what?”
 

“That you like to bite. Go ahead.”
 

Theores didn’t want to talk anymore. She’d figure out what was wrong with her later. As she lowered her mouth to his neck, once again her canine teeth protruded and sharpened, drawn like a magnet to his throat.
 

It was Theores who, aroused by drinking blood, ended up making the first move. They stayed in bed for four days. For the first time in her life Theores enjoyed sex; especially when it was paired with feeding. Her savior allowed her to feed on him as often as she wanted—and she wanted to all the time. Licking the drops of blood from his chest, she realized that she had only one goal: to keep this male with her for the rest of her life.
 

“What’s your name?” she finally asked him, catching her breath after a particularly exhilarating bout of lovemaking.
 

“I’m Oberon,” he laughed.
 

“I want you to know, my precious Oberon, if you try to leave me, I’ll kill you.
Oops.
” She covered her mouth, ashamed of her wild thought, but the desire to own him felt natural.
 

A few days later, they returned to Constantinople for Leon and then the three of them went to live in Oberon’s house in Hedeby, a Viking trading settlement located in the Danish-German borderland. Theores spent three fabulous years there.

Neither she nor Leon would ever have to wonder where their next meal was coming from. Oberon was wealthy and showered her with gifts—and more importantly, with letting her feed on him whenever she wished, which was often. Theores always paired her feedings with sexual play, and Oberon responded to her passionately. As Theores experimented sexually, she found that the more erotic the act, the more he seemed to enjoy it.
 

What surprised her most was that he never questioned her bizarre addiction to blood—or if he knew what it was, he never explained it to her. Also strange was that his blood supply never seemed to diminish, regardless of the frequency of her demands. In fact, it seemed as if after each feeding, he too felt stronger and more vital.
 

It ended even more suddenly than it had begun. Theores woke up one morning to find herself in a strange place. Oberon hadn’t even said goodbye to her. He’d drugged her and Leon just like that damned ship’s captain had, and moved them while they slept.
 

She soon learned what had happened: Oberon had negotiated with the vampire King, Tor, to exchange her and Leon for three Amiti bloodstock. Oberon had taken advantage of Tor’s affection for immortal youngsters, threatening to kill her and Leon if Tor refused the bargain.
 

The pain of abandonment was unbearable. How could Oberon do this to her when they’d been so perfect together? How dare he use her like that? It was painful enough that he’d gotten rid of her; to make matters worse, he’d also opened the old wounds of her mother’s abandonment and father’s death, making them bleed all over again.
 

She’d never forgive his betrayal. She’d hunt him down and kill him, just as she’d told him she would. From that moment on, Oberon had become her worst enemy. She would not rest until his gorgeous, lying head was separated from his magnificent, deceitful body.

At Tor’s, Theores met Istara, the Queen of the Amiti and Tor’s blood-bond. She was the one who finally taught Theores what it was to be a vampire. Istara also educated Theores about the Amiti and the longstanding war between vampires and Amiti. Theores learned that not only was Oberon an Amiti; he was the Keeper of the Hidden, one of the strongest of the five Amiti Keepers. By feeding on Oberon, Theores had blood-bonded with him, and now Oberon was capable of killing her whenever he wanted. The Queen offered to break Theores’s blood-bond with Oberon by creating a new blood-bond with her—an offer that Theores eagerly accepted.