Chasing Shadows (A Shadow Chronicles Novel) (35 page)

“You don’t want us to take her because you want to kill her yourself!”

My brother was up and in front of Daniel Singleton in a blur of movement, standing nose to nose with him. “If I wanted Juliette dead,
human
, she’d be dead—I’d have
finished her off when I found her in the driveway, and been gone long before any of you arrived. In fact, I daresay I would not have called my sister to inform her that she was even here, and you’d still be out there, searching, your efforts as futile as your protests are now.”

“Lochlan, that’s my father you’re speaking to,” Mark said, a clear warning in his tone. “Back off.”

Lochlan turned his head to look at Mark. “Do not think, brother, that I will allow this man to besmirch my honor and say nothing in my own defense. You know that I do not kill humans for sustenance, but if his disrespect of me continues, I will be sorely tempted to make an exception.”

Mark’s expression darkened and he took a step toward him. I grabbed his arm to restrain him, saying, “Both of you stop it. All
your
posturing is not helping Juliette.”

I stepped between Mark and Lochlan, but focused my gaze on Mr. Singleton. “Daniel, sir, I know you are frightened for your daughter. I know that the things your wife told you seem too damn crazy to be real, and you’ve likely contemplated the possibility that she’s out of her mind. Unfortunately, I cannot assure you of that—I can only confirm that what she said is true. There are things in this world that defy explanation and test the boundaries of believability, and your ability to handle the truth that some mythical monsters are just as real as you are.”

“I… I just… I can’t believe it. I can’t! She expects me to believe that she and Juliette can turn into dogs.
That vampires
are real, and that it was a vampire that killed my Patricia. That they turned my son into some kind of freak who’s never gonna die. I can’t believe it, it’s crazy. You’re all crazy!”

I saw it now, what Juliette had been talking about. Her father was a good man, a strong man in body and spirit, but he just wasn’t capable of handling the truth. The attack on his first wife had left him just a little too unhinged in that regard.

Which meant there really was only one thing left to do.

“Lochlan,
scamall
a
áireamh.
Ní dhéanann sé is gá a mheabhrú aon cheann de seo
,” I said softly, speaking Gaelic.

My brother looked at me, and then he nodded. Speaking softly in the same ancient language I had used, he drew Daniel’s attention to him, capturing his gaze and holding it, his words in a tone that was low and soothing. Soon Daniel’s eyes went from wide-eyed and frightened to distant and unseeing. I hated to have it done to him, but I felt it was for his own good.

“What the hell did you just do to my father?” Mark demanded.

Lochlan turned to look at him. “He is beguiled. Your father will not remember the last few hours—not what he saw or what he heard.”

“You erased his memory?” Monica asked, incredulous. “Vampires can really do that?”

Lochlan did not reply. He turned around and walked back over to Juliette, kneeling to check her pulse.

“It’s not an erasure, per se,” I answered for him. “The memories are still there, but they’ve been buried deeply in his subconscious. Given his reaction, Mrs. Singleton, I thought it for the best that he not
remember
.”

She glanced across the room at her husband, who stood seemingly transfixed on something none of us could see. Tears fell silently from her eyes as she nodded. “Somehow, I’ve known all along that Dan just wasn’t strong enough. There are some things that some minds are just incapable of grasping as truth.”

She looked at Mark then. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a good man, of course.
A good father.
He’s been a marvelous husband, too.”

“Did you imprint on him?” Mark asked, tearing his gaze away from the older version of himself and settling on his stepmother. “Juliette is afraid you didn’t, that you could be forced to leave him if you ever…”

Monica looked fondly down at her daughter and cast an adoring gaze at her husband before looking once again at the son she had raised as her own.

“I love him, Mark. I truly love him,” she said.

“That’s not an answer, Monica.”

She was startled by his use of her given name, and I suspected that he’d never addressed her by it before.

I reached for Mark’s hand. “Mark, it’s the only one that matters right now,” I said.
“The only one that ever will.”

He turned to me. “But what if some guy comes along and she suddenly feels the pull of her own pair bond? She will leave my father all alone, and he will be devastated all over again!”

Monica stood and crossed over to us. “I have not left him yet, Mark. The scenario of which you fear will likely never come to pass. I gave up shifting the night you were born, and imprinting is for the young—at least among our kind. The chances of my imprinting now are practically non-existent.”

“But not impossible,” he countered.

Hesitantly, she reached up to cup his cheek in her hand. “Son, it is pointless to spend your time pondering ‘what if.’ I assure you that I am wholly committed to the vows I made to your father when I married him. Nothing is going to change that, or how I feel about him.”

“You should take your husband home, Mrs. Singleton,” Lochlan said over his shoulder. “He is in something of a trance right now, but the effect will wear off and if he wakes here it may well disrupt the memory block.”

“Oh,” she said, turning around and walking over to where her daughter lay motionless and silent. “She…she’ll be alright?”

“I’ll be honest with you—I’d prefer to draw the drugs out, but the only means of doing that right now would be for either Saphrona or myself to drink from her, and I daresay it is not something you wish for,” Lochlan said, looking up as he spoke.

Monica studied his face, looked at Juliette, and then at me. “It can be done without turning her?” she asked.

I nodded. “A vampire can drink without injecting draculin, though it requires a strong will to keep from killing. And it would create a temporary blood bond between Juliette and whichever of us drinks from her.”

She looked down at Lochlan again. “And you think this is the only way?” she asked.

“It is either that, or allowing the drugs to work their way out of her system naturally. But choosing that option means it will take longer for her to heal.”

Monica gave her options a long moment of thought, for which I commended her. She didn’t just take the easy way out, and she could have—instead, she appeared to be weighing the pros and cons of either choice.

In the end, however, she opted for door number one.

“You are a physician,” she said to Lochlan. “You have sworn to do no harm. I am holding you to that oath, vampire.”

She and Lochlan stared at one another, and after a long moment of holding each other’s gaze, my brother nodded slowly.

Leaning down to kiss her daughter’s brow, Monica then straightened and came back over to where Mark and I stood. She stretched on her toes to kiss his cheek, then turned to me and said, “I would very much have liked to meet you under better circumstances.”

I nodded. “When Juliette is well, we’ll have to have you over for dinner. The circumstances then will be much more ideal.”

Monica nodded,
then
leaned forward to kiss my cheek as well. “Take care of my children for me,” she said softly. Next she moved over to her husband and took his hand. When she started for the back door, he went automatically.

“He’s gonna be alright?” Mark asked when they had gone outside and she had shut the door behind them.

I nodded. “He’ll be fine. He might recall that she had a hard time reaching Juliette, but he won’t remember going out to look for her. I’m sure she’ll think up a plausible explanation for everything.”

He scoffed. “She’s sure had a hell of a lot of practice lying to him. What’s one more?”

“Mark, you saw your father,” I pointed out. “He was not handling the truth well at all. Beguiling him was for his own good. Best that he not remember that Juliette nearly died tonight.”

“Which of us will do it?” Lochlan asked.

I turned and walked over to the couch, kneeling beside him. “Well, the natural choice, I guess, is me, since I don’t produce draculin at all.”

“But will you be able to control yourself enough not to kill her?” Loch returned. “Mark’s the first non-animal you’ve tasted in many years, and we’ve already surmised that your control with him may be related to your bond.”

“Are you saying you think Jules will taste like an animal, and that because of that Saphrona won’t be able to stop?” Mark asked, coming to stand at my side.

I glanced up at him,
then
back at my brother. “I have no idea what she will taste like, but I am fairly certain that my doing this is less risky than Lochlan doing it.”

Loch studied my expression for a moment and then nodded. He reached under the blanket and gently pulled Juliette’s arm out, passing it over to me. I held her wrist before my mouth in much the same way I did when I drank from Mark.

“Forgive me, sister,” I whispered,
then
bit down.

*****

When Lochlan smelled that Juliette’s blood was clean, he reached over and grasped her arm tightly enough to cut off the blood flow. When it registered that I was no longer drawing blood through the bite I stopped drinking, and became gradually aware of my surroundings. And when I realized that it was Juliette that I had been feeding from, I all but threw her arm away from me, backing away from the couch on all fours.

“What have I done?” I breathed fearfully.

Mark knelt next to me. “
It’s
okay, Saphrona. You didn’t lose control of yourself—you were only drinking to get rid of the drugs in her system. Remember?”

I nodded. “Sorry. Sometimes it takes a minute.”

He frowned. “You’ve never reacted this way with me,” he said curiously.

“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but you mean more to me than she does,” I replied. “Lochlan, is she okay?”

My brother nodded. “Aye, she is well. And I believe that her body is already healing faster than it was a few minutes ago. You’ve done well, Saphrona.”

He turned to look at me then. “At risk of sounding crude, what did she taste like?”

I frowned. “Are you serious?”

“Come on, dear sister. You cannot blame me for being curious, as you denied me the privilege of aiding her recovery,” Lochlan returned.

“Loch, you’ve also aided in her recovery,” I said scooting forward again. “I’m sure you’re been very diligent in treating her wounds.”

Lochlan looked down at Juliette’s face, which, although still pale, was already getting some of its color back. “
Aye,
and I won’t lie and say it was not without difficulty to see all that blood and not take a taste of it. But I did not wish to disrespect her that way. She’d already been violated enough.”

I nodded. “Her blood was strong—animalistic. Not as domestic, for lack of a better word, as a cow or a pig, yet not as predatory as a wolf or a bear. And even though I was caught up in the feeding frenzy, I didn’t enjoy feeding on her. The drugs made her blood very bitter.”

“A shame,” Lochlan muttered,
then
he stood. “Come, sister. Let us get her cleaned up, dressed, and in a bed.”

I stood with him. “I’ll take it from here, Lochlan. You’ve already seen enough of her nudity. Imagine how horrified she’ll be when she finds that out.”

Though he seemed reluctant to acquiesce, Lochlan nodded, and then grinned. “And I simply cannot wait to tease her about it mercilessly,” he said lightly.

“Great,” Mark groaned as I reached underneath his sister’s knees and shoulders and effortlessly lifted her into my arms. He tugged on the blanket to try and cover as much of her as he could. “We’ll never hear the end of this.”

Although I grinned as well, when I looked down I noticed there was blood on the couch. Noting my gaze, Lochlan promised me he would clean it like new. I nodded, and then turned to carry Juliette up the stairs and into the bathroom.

After setting her gently in the tub, I took the blanket off, removed the few bandages Lochlan had put on, and turned on the water, bringing it to just above room
temperature. I then took a washcloth out of the linen closet and came back with it, kneeling beside the tub to get it wet and soapy so that I could clean the blood from her face and body. Juliette stirred as I wiped away the blood but did not wake. I noted that her wounds were already healing, the bruises and cuts fading gradually.

When she was clean, I lifted her from the tub and carried her to the spare bedroom, where I was met by Mark. He pulled the blanket down so that I could lay her on the bed, and then turned his gaze away as I reached to pull it back up to her chin.

“Lochlan said he gave her a shot of morphine when he first brought her into the house, because she had some broken bones he had to reset,” Mark said quietly.