Blood Father (Blood Curse Series) (12 page)

To claim the other vampire’s territory as his own.

She shrank back, and then she nearly fainted as he reached out to take her, swept her up in his arms, and cradled her to his chest like a weightless child.

Before she could scream or protest, he bent his head to her neck, his thick brown locks fanning out like a preternatural veil to give them some privacy, and sank his fangs deep into her throat.

“
Damn
!
” Nachari cursed from the back of the cave.

Nathaniel dusted off his clothes, whistled low beneath his breath, and took a tentative step toward them—but he didn’t interfere.

And Marquis? He just snorted with derision and turned his back on the whole primitive scene.

And that was the last thing Arielle saw.

Swept up in the intensity of the vampire’s emotion, in his fierce, unyielding need to dominate her will, she felt her body go limp in his arms; and then a pleasure she could only describe as unconscionably erotic swept through her body like a firestorm, blazing across a dry, wild prairie. Despite the fact that she had no experience with such things, her body tingled from head to toe, like the two of them were making love.

She shuddered and grasped at his arms for purchase, afraid that she might just spiral into the cosmos, forever lost in a heightened state of unimaginable bliss.

“Gods,” she moaned inadvertently, embarrassed to her core by her carnal reaction, yet knowing all the while that the vampire was wringing it out of her, immersing her in pleasure, all in some primal need to prove that he could. When at last her body splintered in his arms, fracturing outward from her womb to her hips and thighs, traveling down her torso to her knees and then her toes, she thought she might just die of shame.

It hadn’t been an orgasm, so to speak—at least she didn’t think it had been—rather, her soul had come apart, her heart had fractured into a thousand little pieces, and her body had wept for mercy beneath the unrelenting onslaught of sensation. It had been a command, a directive, an imperious yet desperate plea.

A prayer, for lack of any other description.

And Kagen would not have stopped until it had happened.

As the vampire slowly seemed to regain his senses, Arielle held her breath. She could feel his touch—it was much more gentle now, much more controlled and deliberate—snaking through her mind, slowly reaching back in time, farther and farther, until at last, he arrived at the beginning, the memories she herself no longer had access to. And then, one by one, he slowly moved forward, absorbing each one into his own consciousness.

Finally, when Kagen had consumed all that she was—as a child, as a warrior, and now, as a woman—he withdrew his fangs and set her gently down on the earthen floor.

She immediately cowered and covered her body with her arms—she felt positively naked before him—and the look on his tortured face was one of absolute regret and utter humiliation.

“Forgive me,” he said, his voice a barren whisper. His mouth dropped open and his arms fell to his sides. “I don’t know what happened to me, Arielle. I…I…” He raised a trembling hand, ran it through his hair, and glanced up at Nathaniel. “Brother…” His voice was hoarse with regret.

Nathaniel held up both hands in question, as if to say,
Yeah, please
;
explain this one
,
if you dare.

“There are no words,” Kagen said softly. The anguish in his eyes was real. Raw. Guileless. He turned toward the back of the cave, and when his eyes met Nachari’s, he slowly shook his head. “Wizard…
Nachari
.”

“Mr. Hyde?” Nachari echoed warily. “Are you good?”

Kagen momentarily shut his eyes. “It wasn’t
that
, Nachari. I don’t know
what it was
… and yes, I’m fine now.” He turned back toward Arielle and visibly cringed. “Daughter of my father’s heart, please…don’t cover yourself like that.”

Arielle averted her eyes in humiliation and shuffled a few steps away.

“Just what the hell was that?” Marquis demanded, taking a bold stride in Kagen’s direction.

Kagen looked at Arielle and studied her closely. “Show me your arm,” he commanded, albeit in a much gentler voice. It was as if he were trying valiantly to maintain his dignity, to repair a hopelessly awkward moment.

“Pardon me?” Arielle asked, even more uncertain.

“Your wrist,” Kagen clarified. “Show it to me.”

Arielle turned her right arm over and held it up to his gaze.

He quickly shook his head. “No. Show me the other one.”

She reluctantly held it forward.

Kagen stared at the smooth, unmarred skin for what almost felt like an eternity, although just
what
he was looking for, Arielle couldn’t say. She followed his gaze as he studied her perfect flesh more closely—one line, one contour, one vein at a time—his face a mask of sweeping emotions, from expectancy to confusion…to blank resignation. And then, as if he didn’t have a clue, he simply shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “Then…I don’t know.” He seemed to be speaking primarily to Marquis. “I just…don’t know.”

Arielle averted her gaze. The contact was far too intimate, and she felt like there was something so much deeper going on… She was almost sorry she had been a part of the whole sordid episode—it was almost as if she had caused it somehow—although she couldn’t possibly imagine what she might have done wrong.

Much to her chagrin, Kagen took a cautious step forward and cupped her face in his hands. He touched her with such exquisite gentleness and care that a lump formed in her throat. “I swear to you, Arielle Nightsong,” he said in a whisper, “in a thousand years, I have never harmed or forced myself upon a woman.” He reached into his cloak and withdrew a thin, sharp dagger, the perilous blade polished to a dazzling shine, and then he placed the pommel in her hand. “If I ever do anything like that again, use this to defend yourself.”

Arielle drew back, appalled.

She shook her head adamantly, refusing to take the weapon, and her voice quivered with the strength of her resolve. “I could never do such a thing, not to one of Keitaro’s sons.” She cleared her throat and somehow found a steadier tone. “You didn’t harm me, Kagen. I’m not injured. I’m just….just so terribly embarrassed.”

He nodded, as if he truly understood, and then he pulled her into the most tender embrace she had ever felt. “Never, sweeting,” he whispered in her ear. “
Never
.” He nuzzled her hair with his chin and crooned to her in a lyrical voice, almost as if she were a child, cradled in his arms. “Arielle, I have seen your memories…
your soul
…and you are incomparably beautiful. A rare and unblemished jewel. What you have done for our father…what you have
meant
to Keitaro…” His voice faded into silence, and his eyes clouded with pressing tears, a well of emotion he would never release. “I am honored that you took my passion and returned it, and I will spend whatever short time we have here in Mhier trying to earn your forgiveness. I am
so sorry
, little warrior. I am…
so
…very sorry.”

Nachari cleared his throat and strolled cautiously forward, emerging reluctantly from the rear of the cave. “I guess no good deed goes unpunished,” he quipped, eyeing Kagen sideways. He seemed to be trying for humor, but it fell just a little bit short.

Kagen looked at him with abject apology burning in his eyes. “Nachari?”

The wizard smiled, however faintly, and then he slowly shrugged his shoulders. “That was
bizarre
, Master Healer,” he said. And then he threw up his hands. “Next time, just ask.”

Nathaniel sauntered back to his place on the other side of the fire, as if the matter were simply and indelibly closed. He turned his attention back to Marquis and the map. “Never too old to get into an old-fashioned scuffle with your twin,” he mumbled beneath his breath. It was clearly his way of dismissing the entire episode.

“Perhaps,” Marquis said circumspectly. “However, I think the healer is the one who needs therapy now.” If Arielle didn’t know better, she would have thought the rigid vampire was trying to make a joke, perhaps an inside jest, but his husky voice lacked the requisite humorous intonation; and she had no desire to ask what he meant.

Nachari and Nathaniel laughed just the same, and the sudden merriment broke some of the tension. Even Arielle tried to brush it off at this point. After all, the deed was done. Kagen had her blood—that fact was indisputable—and he also had her memories. They had much more important things to get on with now.

Still, she couldn’t help but think of the white owl and the omen that had occurred just twenty-four hours before at the ternary streams:
a
song of blood beneath the moon
.

The white owl had come for her, and whatever the omen meant, Kagen Silivasi had everything to do with it.

She had felt it as clearly as she knew her name to be Arielle.

When his soul had joined with hers.

And hers had responded in kind.

Napolean Mondragon, the ancient king of the Vampyr, strolled onto the veranda at the front of his regal manse and stared at the enchanting sky. His eyes were filled with wonder and trepidation—he could hardly believe what he was seeing—what was happening before his ancient eyes.

The canvass was as dark as pitch.

The moon was as sanguine as blood.

And the northern region of the Milky Way was a virtual cornucopia of intersecting stars and lights, each element blending into a celestial tapestry that reflected a singular, ancient constellation: Auriga, the Charioteer.

Kagen Silivasi’s ruling Blood Moon.

Napolean tried once more to reach the Master Healer with telepathy, but the communication would not go through. It was as if he were trying to push a feather through a solid brick wall—there was simply no momentum, no power behind the prod, and the realization was unsettling to say the least.

Turning his attention to the goddess of his birth, he chose to say a prayer for his faithful subject instead: “Great Andromeda, keeper of my soul, protect our native son as he travels through foreign lands. Do not let him die as a result of this Blood Moon. Do not let him perish for failing to claim something he doesn’t even know he has.”

The silence was nearly deafening in the cave as the Silivasi brothers took their respective positions on their individual bedrolls, surrounding the central fire, and Kagen, at last, shared Arielle’s memories with his brothers.

As Keitaro’s years in the slave camp finally came into full, vivid view.

As the horrors of the arena played out in real time, up close and personal.

As each of Keitaro’s sons finally understood just what life had been like for their beloved sire in Mhier, the horrors King Tyrus Thane had visited upon him out of nothing but sheer cruelty and malice.

It was odd for Kagen, to say the least, being able to
see
his father’s face after so many years—and through the exclusive, unique memories of another person, filtered through Arielle’s own distinctive and caring perspective. And it was haunting at best to realize just what this precious daughter of Keitaro’s heart had meant to him: the joy and the relief, however slight, she had brought into his endless, monotonous life.

Kagen stirred restlessly on his bedroll, eyeing the entrance to the cave for the twentieth time, watching Arielle as she stood with her face uplifted toward the moon, soaking in the lunar rays, almost as if in prayer. He still felt abominable for what had happened earlier, and he knew that she still felt ashamed, vulnerable, and exposed.

When at last the silence seemed like it would linger on forever, Marquis cleared his throat. “So, there we have it then, the truth of our father’s life. The question is: what are we going to do about it?”

Nathaniel sat forward, his elbows propped on his knees, and his coal-black eyes glistened with unconcealed anger and resolve. “We are going to kill these lycan bastards, one by one, slowly, painfully, and we are going to take Keitaro out of that damnable slave district.”

Marquis’s expression hardened, ever the unmovable one. “Yes, but the question is how.”

Nachari laid the map of Mhier out on the floor between them, illuminated by the firelight. “I think our greatest chance to get to him will be on Sunday, either right before he’s taken into the arena, or right after the games begin.”

Marquis stared pointedly at the map. “What is your reasoning, wizard?”

Nachari sighed. He pointed to the various entrances and the U-shaped stands. “There will be a lot of chaos, and Thane will be sitting here.” He pointed at the icon drawn to indicate the raised royal platform and inadvertently snarled with disdain. “With all the commotion going on, the inevitable excitement of the crowd, they won’t be expecting an invasion, for anything to go off other than as planned. And they won’t be in any position to react quickly, to marshal forces in the midst of chaos. I think it all comes down to the element of surprise.”

“And what if we are a moment too late? If we misjudge…by even five seconds?” Nathaniel asked.

“We won’t be,” Marquis said forcefully. “Your plan has merit, Nachari. I was thinking something similar myself.” He pointed at the diagram and began to expound on strategy, yet his words drifted into the ether…

“Excuse me, brothers,” Kagen said softly, rising from his bedroll. “When I return, you can impart all you’ve discussed in a psychic stream, so I’ll be instantly up to speed. But for the moment, I have some fences to mend.”

Nathaniel looked over at Arielle and nodded with quiet understanding. Now that they all knew who she was, what she had done, what her childhood in the slave camp had been like, there would be no objection to seeing to her comfort. For truly, she was the daughter Keitaro had never had, and they were forever in her debt.

“I’ll give you this indulgence, healer,” Marquis said in an authoritative tone, “but don’t take more than a half hour. Your presence is needed here, and not just to hear the briefing, but for your input as well.”

“As you wish, brother,” Kagen said, declining his head with respect. And then he headed toward the mouth of the cave where the isolated female was waiting.

As he approached, Arielle drew her blanket tighter around her shoulders and sidestepped a few feet away. She fixed her eyes on the ground.

“What can I do?” Kagen asked, not wishing to play any games.

Arielle tried to force a smile, however insincere, and then she looked out, over the ridge, at the beautiful valley below. “What is there to be done?” she finally said. “I am as good as naked before you.” Before he could protest, she shook her head and held up her hand to silence him. “And it’s not just the…physical piece…what happened. It’s the spiritual piece, the emotional exposure.” She sighed then, her unique aquamarine eyes growing cloudy with regret. “You know my deepest fears, my greatest regrets, my unvanquished demons…even my unfulfilled longings. You know everything. And I know nothing. I just feel like being alone.” She turned to meet his eyes briefly, and her soft gaze was more penetrating than a brandished sword. “If you don’t mind.”

Kagen exhaled slowly. “I do mind, Arielle. I mind because I’m the cause of it.” Strolling to her side, he leaned back against the outer arch of the cave entrance and gazed up at the stars, following her lead. “This is an oddly beautiful land, for a place of such incredible cruelty.” He let the words linger, a mere observation.

Arielle nodded, and a piece of her thick, copper-colored hair fell forward into her eyes. Without thinking, Kagen reached out to tuck it behind her ear, and Arielle flinched.

He drew back his hand and frowned. “You fear me?”

Her voice was as hushed as it was hesitant. “A little. Yes.”

He swallowed his pride and looked away. And then he crossed one ankle over the other, both arms across his chest, and leaned back, once again, against the stony wall. “Let’s see: My deepest fear is letting my family down, my people down, not being able to heal someone who needs it—letting another warrior, wizard, or healer experience what I have endured—the grief or the loss.” He angled his body to face her then. “
Right now
, my deepest fear is leaving this land without my father, knowing that I could never live with the outcome.” He thought about her words, the various points she had made, and tried to be as candid as he knew how. “And as for my deepest regret, there are two: the fact that I couldn’t save my mother on the night the lycans came to our valley, and the fact that I let my baby brother Shelby die at the hands of Valentine Nistor. It would have been so easy to have just been there for him, to have sequestered Dalia until the end of Shelby’s Blood Moon…to have prevented the whole thing by being
just a little bit
prepared for the enemy. Not a lot. Just a little.”

Now this got Arielle’s attention.

She cast a sidelong glance at him and nodded with sympathy. “I was going to ask, earlier, when I only saw the four of you, about Keitaro’s blond-haired son, about Nachari’s charming twin, but I was afraid to intrude on a matter so personal; and I figured, if he could have been here, he would have been.” She looked away and sighed. “I’m sorry, Kagen. I…I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you, Arielle,” he whispered. “So am I.”

Silence seemed to settle between them like dew on morning grass, until finally, she shook her head, raised her chin, and found the courage to continue. “Earlier…when you bit me…you weren’t really in control, were you?”

“Not at all,” he said, a bit ashamed by the admission. “Not even a little bit, and perhaps that is what scares you the most.”

She nodded. “How do I know it won’t happen again?”

Kagen looked off into the distance. How could he answer that? There were simply no words. Besides, he didn’t have the answers himself, and that brought him back to her third admission. “You know my unvanquished demons, too. You saw one tonight.”

Arielle frowned. “But I thought you said you’ve never done anything like that before,
lorded
your
p
ower
over a female.”

Kagen tried not to recoil:
lorded your power over a female
…

Damn
.

“That’s true, never over a female. But…” He tried to find the words to say what he was thinking—he felt he owed her at least that much—after all, she could not take back or hide her vulnerability: Why should he have the privilege of hiding his? “There is something dark inside of me, Arielle. Something that doesn’t belong in a healer.”

She stared at him pointedly then, urging him to continue with her eyes.

“It’s rarely a problem. In fact, it so seldom rears its head that it’s almost forgotten…until it’s not.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to collect his thoughts. “And then there are those rare, incalculable moments when it stirs, this darkness, and I know that there is just something so incredibly…broken…at my core that it frightens me.” He glanced over his shoulder instinctively. “My brothers call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this rare but terrible temper, but I just think of it as a demon. And the thing is—the really disturbing part—I don’t hate it. In fact, I nurse it.
I need it
. The reason I can function as well as I do is because I know he’s always there.”

Arielle tucked the same errant locks of hair, the ones that Kagen had almost touched earlier, behind her ear and straightened. “It can’t be as bad as all that, not if you’re aware of it. Not if you can talk about it.”

Kagen chuckled softly then and met her gaze with one of contrition. “I am just over a thousand years old, Arielle Nightsong, and you are the first person I have ever told this to.”

Arielle’s expression belied her surprise—she looked positively taken aback. “Why?” she exhaled. “I mean,
why me
?”

He took a cautious step in her direction, placed a gentle hand beneath her chin, and lifted her head so that her gaze met his. “Because you are the first person—no, the first woman—I have ever known on such an intimate level.”

She inhaled sharply. “But you don’t really know me.”

“Ah,” he mused, “but I do.” He became all at once serious. “What happened earlier…
to you
…it was an inexcusable intrusion, and I’m sorry for that. I really am. But for me, it was one of the most intimate moments of my life, and that’s not so easy to regret.” He leaned in, far too closely, but he just couldn’t help it. “I know you felt dishonored, sweeting, but I felt…
privileged
. As crazy as that sounds.”

Arielle stared at him intently, as if she could measure the truth of his words by gazing into his eyes. And then, all at once, she turned a deep shade of red, blushing from her head to her toes. “Have you never…
been
with another woman, then?”

Kagen laughed aloud. He didn’t mean to. It was just—her question caught him off guard. It was so sweet, so pure…so honest. “I’ve never
been
with you, Arielle.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “But seriously,
yes
; I have been with other women, many over the centuries”—he thought he might just fall into her eyes and get lost—“but never with anyone as lovely as you. With a soul as beautiful as yours.”

Arielle swallowed hard and turned away. She seemed positively flustered. “Just tell me that it won’t happen again, and I’ll feel a lot better.”

Kagen frowned. He wanted so badly to just say
yes
,
to tell her what she wanted to hear—and why?—he couldn’t say. Maybe it had something to do with how she had cared for Keitaro over the years, or maybe it had something to do with the purity of her heart. Either way, he just couldn’t do it. He had begun this conversation with truth, and that was how he intended to end it. “I will tell you this, Miss Nightsong: Nothing physical will happen between us again without your consent, or at least, not until you clearly express a desire…” When she practically tripped over her own two feet trying to back away from him—it wasn’t possible; there was a wall behind her—he tried to gentle his voice. “But as for some crazy, impulsive need to claim you, to taste your blood, to feel you beneath me, to mold your passion to match my own, I will try very hard to restrain it, because I don’t know where it’s coming from; and I don’t want to make your life harder than it already is, especially when there is nothing I can give to you long term.” He pushed off the cave wall and took several measured steps backward, forcing himself to give her some room to breathe. “But pray that I never meet this Walker Alencion, the human male who placed his hands on you so possessively, without your consent. This
rebel
who forces his affections on you with such callous disregard. Because
that
I would have a hard time ignoring.”

As if her throat had suddenly become dry, Arielle swallowed convulsively. “Walker isn’t a threat to anyone. He’s—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“He’s my
friend
.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But what right do you have—”

Kagen shook his head, repressing the instinct to snarl. “Arielle, it doesn’t matter if I have every right or no right at all.”

She blanched. “And how is that different from what happened with you…what Walker did?”

This time, Kagen did snarl, low in his throat, and his ire began to rise. “Because Walker has no claim to you, and I do.”

Arielle blinked so rapidly she looked like she had dust in her eyes, yet she swallowed her fear and pressed on. “How can you say that? How can you
believe
that? We only just met.”

Kagen shook his head in frustration, wishing he could articulate something he could hardly understand. Finally, when the words continued to elude him, he said the most honest thing he could. “
How
doesn’t matter.”

Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him blankly, her face a mask of confusion and alarm. “Then you will do whatever you wish, and no matter how much you desire to restrain your impulses,
that
doesn’t matter. Because
you
are not in control.”

Kagen felt utterly helpless:
N
ow that had turned out well
. Instead of mending fences, he had pretty much torn them all down. Instead of making the woman feel better, he had made matters worse. Much worse. “That’s not true, Arielle.”
How the hell did he explain
? He took a generous step forward, cupped her face in his hands, and bent his head until his mouth hovered only inches away from hers. “If I were to do whatever I wished, I would take you into my arms, carry you into the night, and make love to you beneath the moonlight, until you no longer knew your name, until you no longer cared to know your name…until you could no longer speak any name but my own. I would make you feel things and want things, need things and plead for things, you cannot even
i
magine
in your lovely innocence.” He swallowed hard and backed an inch away. “But as it stands, I will go back into the cave and join my brothers—because
I am
in control.” He bent over and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. “Do not stay out here long, Arielle. The night is dark, and there are shadows all around us. You are safe in our care—
in
my
care
—perhaps safer than you have ever been before, whether you know this to be true or not.”