The Druid Series 9: Baird (A Druid Novel) (13 page)

“
I am Faction. Which really means I am mixed, Exotic—and other.”

“
Reaper,” Baird comments. “That trait is not known amongst other species.”

“
True.” Carrig gives Titus a thoughtful look, but Titus’s eyes are all for Marquette.

“
How are you now, Druid?” Titus asks.

Marquette is boneless in Carrig’s arms. “I am well.” She smiles at Titus. “Very well.”

“And for that, I am glad.”

Carrig keeps Marquette against his body and Titus watches, a grim look on his face.

Baird frowns.

He wonders if Titus has come to terms with her eventual fate to breed a Reaper. Maybe, if circumstances were different, she could be bred by a
rogue.
There were some who were worthy, but why waste a breeder if there were no certainty of possible daywalker lineage?

“
Shall we go?” one of the other Druid females asks, her palm sweeping toward a horizon gone white with the coming dawn.

As if on cue, Carrig's skin begins to smolder.

They cannot move with vampiric speed; the Druid females could not keep up. Except for one.

Siana now stood on her own two feet.

“What say you?” Baird asks.

“
I say I will be most grateful to stop and rest.”

Siana turns toward the Reaper's lair, and they move through the woods, keeping to the shadows which linger before the coming day.

*

Baird spies the great doors of the Reaper stronghold and whistles an unusual bird call, a signal.

In response, the sliding chain moves through the circular port, beginning to pull the doors open. Baird moves quickly, leaping from shadow to shadow.

Carrig turns, his eyes light inside a face blackened like soot. “Take her!” he says in a hoarse shout and throws Marquette at Titus.

Titus catches her deftly, still running in the shrinking shadows which line the trees before the open meadow that begins to spread in a v-shape toward a great moat.

Maghnus, Imogen, and Quinn stand by the huge arched solid wood door.

Quinn and Maghnus remain slightly behind Imogen. Daylight has broken through the trees, and Baird hears Imogen gasp as the sun captures the day and the night falls away.

Carrig runs full tilt toward the open door. As he draws closer, a low broil-like smoke rises from his skin. Baird has never seen one of his kind so close to bursting into flames.

“Hurry!” she cries. “Carrig is burning!”

Baird watches the huge door split up the middle. The crack widens, early morning light entering. A wedge of sunlight grows bigger on the cobblestone floor.

Maghnus and Quinn lean back, sweat beading and sliding down their half-naked bodies. The Reapersʼ toes light up, turning black instantly.

Carrig leaps inside, rolling to the left where the shadows pool.

“Carrig!” Imogen cries.

Baird leaps in after him.

He whirls around as Siana makes the jump. He stands ready to catch her.

She fails.

Baird moves in a blur, snatching her out of the air with one hand. He grabs the dangling ropes of the bridge with the other hand.

With their combined weight, the bridge falls swiftly.

“Baird!” Siana screams.

“
I have you.”

Baird swings up, landing on the opposite side of the moat.

The bridge slaps the ground, echoing with the hard contact. He clasps Siana to him.

Sunlight hits his skin, and he grimaces.

The searing heat feels as though someone has lit a match and struck it against his flesh. Likewise, Titus tenses, running across the bridge with Marquette in his arms. The other nine Druid breeders follow.

Baird moves last, hauling Siana underneath his arm.

Even the sun cannot make him give her up.

They move through the doors, and Baird sets Siana gently on the ground.

Then he moves into the harsh morning light, his skin erupting into a smolder.

Grabbing the chain, he yanks it against the pulley and wraps it around the cleat, snaking it through the port. He uses his weight as leverage and wraps the chain around forearms that feel like melting flames. He heaves, and the bridge lifts, rope swaying as the bridge slowly makes its way up.

Finally the bridge seats in the upright position.

Baird staggers inside, and the great doors close behind him as he falls to his knees.

The last bit of sun leaves his skin, and the blessed darkness of the fortress claims the inside in a cool and tender embrace once again.

Flame is all Baird remembers.

And his love for Siana.

Siana

Siana feels as though she is dreaming.

The horrible attempt to save their lives before the sun claimed the day has turned the Reaper fortress into a mewling nightmare of two smoking Reapers.

Carrig is charred, not one piece of him unharmed by the sun's rays.

Imogen tries to find a spot she can touch. Finally, she leans over his still form. Deep healing of his body is all she can accomplish.

Biology takes over, and Carrig lunges at Imogen's throat.

Quinn and Maghnus have to pry him off her as he nearly takes every drop of blood she possesses.

“Stop!” Quinn says, driving his fist into Carrig's face.

Carrig staggers back, fangs punching, and lurches for Quinn.

“She is with child! Our child!” Quinn says.

Carrig hesitates. Imogen is in Maghnus's arms. Still and pale, she is now the one who needs healing, energy from blood loss.

“Oh goddess, no,” Carrig says.

Quinn nods. “You cannot blame yourself. You were rabid after that touch of the sun. However, she bears our young and is not a common human who can be drained and discarded.”

“Of course not,” Carrig says, moving toward Imogen.

Siana watches large patches of skin fall off him as he stands beside her. What the sun does to those who do not hold Exotic blood is a miserable reality.

“We will need to couple, and allow her to feed,” Quinn says.

Siana shakes her head. They are vampire, and biology drives their needs, Siana’s included. She watches as the two Reapers leave with Imogen cradled between them, and Siana sighs.

She knows better than to get close to Baird.

Siana stays a ways back as the second human slumps beside Baird.

Glacial eyes meet hers.

Renfields, slaves of the vampire, cart the corpses away. Baird glows and, as with Carrig, large swaths of his skin fall away like gray parchment paper. Unlike Carrig, Baird possesses enough Exotic blood to tolerate the sun. Though it still leaves the kiss of damage.

His ruined flesh scatters to the shadows, snowflakes of dead skin skittering across the ancient stone floor.

Siana takes a tentative step forward.

Marquette's hand stays her. “Sister, do you think it wise?”

Siana turns toward the shorter woman. “If he has not regained enough through the blood-letting of two humans, all is lost.”

Baird smirks, and Siana gives him a mournful smile in return. She dislikes the practice of using humans for food.

Yet it is better she and Imogen do not die at the hands of the very vampire they would breed. For that, the humans’ sacrifice seems worthy.

Maghnus comes forward, hands splayed. “What has occurred?” His eyes move through her, the ten breeders, and the Faction.

“
Why do I have a Faction inside our stronghold?” His eyes narrow. “Further, what has caused two of my finest warriors to brave the sun and true death?”

Siana looks at Titus, his life in the balance. In the corners, more Reapers wait.

He cannot hope to survive a battle against ten of them.

Titus hisses.

Siana explains quickly before they kill him, and not without some resentment, that she does so alone.

Baird hangs in the shadows, his low bed of stone beneath him, offering nothing.

*

Maghnus laughs.

Siana frowns. There is nothing remotely humorous about the last two days of her life.

“
You run off. Get captured by the reanimated dead Druid priests, then a wandering group of the Faction.” He points at her. “You should have stayed with Kael and Baird—under their protection. Yet you decide it is best to leave in secret and brave the wilds alone.”

“
I did, and my reasons were sound,” Siana replies through gritted teeth.

“
All females need the protection of the Reaper.”

“
Not all, Maghnus.”

He gives her steady eyes. “You cannot like that you were taken on the Sacred Stone, are now with child, raped by a Faction and find yourself essentially homeless. All for pride.”

Siana grimaces. “It was not rape,” Siana corrects in a low voice. Maghnus raises an eyebrow in clear disbelief.

His words ring of truth to a large extent. Yet she remembers Kael and Baird fighting over her like two dogs peeing over territory.

A would be queen shall have more choice than being torn in two different directions.

No, she would rather take her chances with the new babe than be a pawn in a greater plan.

Siana kicks up her chin. “I am Druid queen. As such, I will have the path of my choosing. I am a warrior in my own right.”

Maghnus folds his arms over his bare chest, prowling toward her with slow deliberation. She feels Baird's eyes follow his leader in tense observation.

Siana watches Maghnus approach, her hands loosening.

He pauses, taking in her ready-defensive posture. “I do not harm females.”

Siana shrugs. “Color me cautious.”

He inclines his head.  “I understand.”

“You understand nothing. But know this: the Faction—Titus, was one of the very last ones to have me. The others I killed, one by one. Some of them fell to the savagery meted by their own body parts.”

Maghnus' face darkens and she feels a flutter of triumph.

Weak female indeed.

“
Just because I can fuck, that I
have
fucked, does not mean that I have no recourse or choice.” She bares her teeth at him. “I am not displeased with the babe I carry. That it might be the offspring of Kael? Or perhaps Baird or Titus or Carrig—we will know in nine months. I am meant to be a fierce warrior, the bearer of many a daywalking babe.”

“
You know your place...” Maghnus begins, backpedaling from his dismissal of her earlier.

“
Yes, I do.”

“
And your place is beside me,” Baird says from the corner.

Siana's eyes flick to him.

Their gaze locks.

“
I cannot say what is happening between us. Kael lies rotting in a meadow.” Siana's hand moves to her still-flat belly. “I do not want Titus killed. Though he is Faction, he saved my life. He may also be the father.”

Her eyes flash to the Reapers who draw nearer to Titus.

“Titus of the Faction could have departed at any time and left us to our own devices. He did not,” Marquette says.

Siana notices Marquette glance at Titus.

Siana sees things that cannot happen between them and plows forward before others notice the tender regard the two are developing for each other.

But Maghnus's shrewd gaze moves between Titus and Marquette, noting it as Siana did. “We cannot house a Faction. We are purebred Reapers. We do not abide others.”

Siana sets her teeth at Baird's silence. He would rather have Titus gone for fucking her.

Maghnus gives a signal to the other Reapers, and they circle Titus. He loosens his hands, weaponless.

They move fast.

But not faster than Marquette.

Siana smiles, Marquette's secret unrevealed until now.

Marquette shapeshifts into a bird of prey, a six-feet tall predator of wing and claw.

Black wings unfurl like reverse water, and her shrill cry takes out the eardrums of those who stand close enough to hear the alarm.

Titus crouches, hands to ears, and his blood-red eyes find Marquette. She flies toward him. Only the bluish-green of her eyes remain.

Reapers writhe on the ground, blood leaking out of their ears.

Marquette takes the eyes of those close enough to damage Titus. They fall, sightless.

A great caw erupts as Marquette floats to the ground. Her great ebony head moves forward and back twice as her wings close around her sleek body.