Bloodchild Read online

  “May I?” he said, swallowing a sigh.

  “Yes, you may, little one,” she granted, her tone magnanimous.

  He tried to not roll his eyes at her. He hated it when she called him that. He did realize she’d lived much, much longer than he had, but the nickname still sounded patronizing. He knew it was one more way for her to get under his skin, however, so he’d decided not to show his annoyance and hope that she’d tire of this particular game.

  She rolled up her sleeve, and he drank from her wrist, the way he always did—the way he’d taken blood from Aedan. That first instant when his fangs pierced skin always reminded him of the first time his brother had let him feed from him, but the next second, when the flavor of blood coated his tongue, always dispelled the illusion.

  He’d thought animal blood tasted different because it was still warm, taken from living prey. He hadn’t tasted enough of Vivien’s blood to form a memory of what she had tasted like. But comparing Aedan’s blood and Ciara’s, he was always astonished at how different they tasted.

  Ciara’s had a strength to it that was hard to define. Bradan had been offered a sip of fifty-year-old whiskey once, and Ciara’s blood was a bit like that, with a sense of age, smooth flavors, and a kick that only came in afterward. Aedan’s on the other hand…

  Aedan had tasted familiar, like home and family; Bradan had no other word for it.

  He drank enough to silence his hunger then released Ciara’s wrist, thanking her as he started to pull back. She took hold of his shoulder and stopped him from moving away. Instead, she drew him closer and, taken aback, Bradan didn’t have time to think or even resist before she laid her mouth on his neck, above the collar of his shirt, and bit down. He jerked in surprise at the feel of fangs tearing into his skin.

  He’d expected it to hurt, but it felt… almost pleasant. And oddly sensual. She held him in place long enough to draw what felt like two large mouthfuls from him. When she lifted her head and released him, he had to fight back a sigh of loss. He took a stumbling step backward.

  “What was that?” he asked, confused and, for some odd reason, a little out of breath.

  “I just wondered if you tasted the same as Aedan,” Ciara answered after licking her lips clean.

  Do I?

  The question was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t make himself ask, although he’d have been hard pressed to say why. All he could do was stare at her and wonder if being bitten always felt like this.

  Was this what it felt like to Ciara when he fed from her? Was it what it had felt like for Aedan? What about when he’d bitten Vivien? It had gone so fast, and she’d denied he had hurt her despite proof to the contrary. Would she have fought him off at all, if Aedan hadn’t stopped him? Or would she have let him take as much as he wanted, too much, maybe, as long as it kept feeling so good?

  “Bradan? Wake up, child. This is no time for falling asleep on your feet.”

  Ciara snapped her fingers in front of Bradan’s face and startled him out of his thoughts. He blinked several times, aware that Ciara’s gaze was on him, scrutinizing.

  “What were you thinking about just now?” she asked in a deceptively mild voice.

  Bradan turned away, returning to the washing basin and picking up the wet washcloth from the stand. He dabbed at his neck with the washcloth. With no mirror, he had no way to tell if there was blood on his skin, but it gave him an excuse to keep his back to Ciara for a few seconds and compose himself.

  “I… It’s the first time anyone’s bitten me,” he said; better not to lie outright, she always seemed to know when he did. “I didn’t know what it felt like.”

  “Hmm. I didn’t realize Aedan hadn’t bitten you at all,” she said. “What a strange way to make a vampire. Come on, your neck is fine. We need to go now.”

  It dawned on him as he accompanied her down long corridors to the ballroom that anyone looking at him would be able to see the bite mark on his throat, and they would know what had happened to him moments ago.

  Vivien would see it, would guess, would think…

  What would she think? What doubts would enter her mind when she needed to be entirely focused on her duel?

  His fists closed tight, and he couldn’t quite keep the anger out of his voice when he asked, “Did Rhuinn order you to put that bite mark on me?”

  He couldn’t bear to look at Ciara in his state of anger, but from the corner of his eye, he could see her miss a step.

  “Well,” she said quietly. “Maybe you’re not as naive as I feared. And I’ve told you before. As long as you are a guest in his palace, you will show your king proper respect and call him by his title.”

  It was as good as an admission, and it only accentuated Bradan’s anger. They were trying to use him to destabilize Vivien. He’d removed himself from her presence to keep her safe, but now his choice was backfiring.

  He stopped in the middle of the hallway; Ciara turned back to give him an annoyed look.

  “I can’t do this,” he said before she could urge him forward. “I can already hear them, smell them… it’s too many people. I don’t think I can control myself yet. I should go back—”

  “Nice try,” Ciara cut in. “But not good enough. The king has demanded that you stand by the dais, so that your dame may be reassured you’ve not been mistreated. Don’t worry, I won’t let you hurt anyone.”

  With that, she took his arm and guided him toward the staff door that led into the ballroom. Bradan could either go along or get dragged in like a child having a tantrum. He walked of his own accord, trying but failing to loosen her hold on him.

  He hadn’t exaggerated when he claimed he could hear and smell the guests already assembled in the ballroom. Neither their voices nor the music playing in the background were enough to drown out the sound of their hearts; to Bradan, they sounded like the call of the mythical mermaids in the Otherworld, trying to lure men to their doom.

  The scents were worse. Beyond perfume, soap and perspiration, he was sure he could still smell blood. It might have been a trick of his mind, of knowing he was in the midst of so many humans, but his hunger, which had been sated when he’d fed from Ciara, flared again as though the blood were already in front of him.

  Ciara’s hand tightened over his arm. The pain gave him something to focus on, but even then Ciara’s whisper barely registered with his mind.

  “He ordered you here even though I told him it was too early for you to be around so many humans,” she murmured close to his ear as she guided him toward the dais. “I think he hopes that your control will snap and you will attack someone in front of the whole court. If you do it when your dame is here, it will be even better for him, of course. Then he can have you executed in front of her and under the cover of the law, and destabilize her before or during the duel. And he can have me punished for bringing you into the castle and for being the Maker of the only guard to ever betray him. That would leave him free to kill Aedan himself for treason rather than leaving that privilege to me as I requested of him.”

  “And that’s the man you call king,” Bradan railed.

  His renewed anger gave him something else to focus on, and his tenuous grip on himself firmed. It helped that they’d reached their destination, a spot by the side of the dais, and that they were immobile. At Ciara’s prompting, he turned to the dais and the throne set in the center of it and gave a courteous bow, though he was careful not to look any higher than Rhuinn’s feet.

  When he was allowed to turn away again, he kept his gaze on a spot on the floor in front of the dais, lines of metal inlaid in the stone in the shape of Rhuinn’s sigil, hoping that not looking at any humans would help.

  “That’s the man I pledged to call king,” Ciara said after a few seconds, her voice even lower than before so that Bradan wondered if she was talking to him or to herself. “Although when I took my oath, he seemed like a much different man.”

  Was it bitterness he could hear in her words? He wasn’t sure,
nor did he think he could trust himself to prod right now. He had to remain focused and cling to his anger that he was being used as a pawn, to the knowledge that, should he fail, Vivien and Ciara might both be in danger because of him, as well as Aedan. Bradan couldn’t do that to any of them. He had to be strong.

  Just as he was thinking of Aedan, the distant awareness of the bond increased a hundred fold; Aedan had Passed Through into the castle. The bond gave Bradan something else to focus on to distract himself from all the hot, warm, delicious blood pumping around him.

  At first, grim anticipation and readiness filled Aedan, but after a second shock, wariness, and even alarm rose in him. For a moment, Bradan wondered if they were being attacked on their way to the ballroom, but then he realized: he was causing Aedan’s alarm. His own feelings had to be flooding the bond with anger, hunger, fear, and the constant threat that he might let go of his control. He tried to temper what he was allowing through the bond, but he’d never mastered the trick the way Aedan had.

  Abruptly, Aedan’s side of the bond changed. The alarm that had accentuated Bradan’s fear vanished, replaced by calm and strength. Aedan had done this before, years ago. When their mother had died, he’d pushed away his own grief to comfort Bradan through the bond when words were beyond useless. He was doing it again now, pushing his feelings at Bradan to help him conquer the hunger and his instincts.

  Little by little, Bradan’s mind became quieter, until the call of the blood around him didn’t feel overwhelming anymore. When Vivien’s entrance was announced at the formal doors, he managed to lift his gaze and look toward her as she walked in with Aedan and Olric at her sides. That was where Bradan should have been, where he would be again when he learned control—and that was yet another incentive to cling on to his composure by his very nails if he had to.

  For a short moment, he looked at Aedan and met his gaze. The same strength continued to flow through the bond, with a jolt of affection when their eyes met. As best as he could, Bradan tried to send back gratitude toward his brother, to let him know that he was helping Bradan tremendously. Aedan might have understood, because a small smile tugged at his lips, and he inclined his head.

  From him, Bradan looked at Vivien. She looked self-assured and confident as she strode through the room, the focus of everyone’s attention. How confident was she, and how much of her attitude was for show? He wished he’d known, wished he’d been there to help her prepare the past couple of days, wished he could be there to help her prepare for the next duel, but he doubted he’d be ready by then.

  Her eyes had been trailing through the crowd, searching, and he knew what she’d been looking for when they stopped on him. Her expression remained the same, somewhere between stern and serene, but her eyes betrayed her, at least to Bradan.

  He could read all her love for him in them, and how much she’d missed him. He wished they could have shared a bond, too, so he could have let her know the depth of his feelings for her. As it was, all he could so was smile at her, raise a hand to press to his own heart, and hope it would be enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Duel

  Vivien had learned the ceremonial words that opened a duel, and she had practiced them both by herself and with Aedan giving the opponent’s traditional responses. She knew them as well as she knew the pledge of allegiance or the lyrics to her favorite songs. As she stepped closer to the dais, however, with Aedan and Olric on either side of her, everything she had to say, everything she had to do, fled her mind.

  Brad was there.

  He stood ahead of her, a little to the side next to the dais. He was dressed in black, although without the QuickSilver symbol over his heart—nor any other symbol, she was relieved to see. He carried no weapons but looked tense. Their eyes met across the room, and in that instant the rest of the world disappeared. All the people who had come to witness the duel, Rhuinn and his guards, even Vivien’s guards, none of them existed anymore, only Vivien and Brad.

  She would have given anything to be able to run to him, wrap her arms around him, and have him wrap his around her. Anything for a word or a kiss. But even as her universe narrowed down to him, she knew she couldn’t allow herself to forget why she was here. She’d worked too hard to give up now—even for Brad.

  Besides, he was one of the reasons why she had challenged Rhuinn in the first place. This duel was for Foh’Ran’s future, true, but it was also a tribute to Brad’s human life, taken from him on Rhuinn’s orders.

  And so, rather than running to him as she so wanted, all Vivien did was offer him a tiny smile. He returned it at once, and warmth bloomed in her heart. She’d been so afraid that his decision to remain with Ciara meant more than his desire to learn from her, but it was the same expression on his face when he looked at her as always. They might be apart, that expression said, but they were still together. She could do this, she told herself. She could beat Rhuinn.

  She had to beat him. The alternative was unthinkable.

  Focusing on her task again, she walked through the room, aware that every eye was on her. She’d dressed in black pants and boots again, because fighting while wearing a floor-length dress would have been asking for trouble, but at Aedan’s suggestion she had made some concession to Foh’Ran’s fashion with an emerald blouse embroidered in silver along the arms and collar; something else from her mother’s closet that Loree had tailored to fit her, and while she hated to be wearing something Loree had touched, Aedan had made a point she couldn’t ignore. She’d also found a cape that matched the blouse, the lush exterior dark green and the lining a gleaming silver. She felt silly wearing the garment, but Aedan had assured her it helped make her look the part.

  “Defeating Rhuinn in the duels will only be the first step,” he’d said. “If the high families see you as an usurper from the Otherworld, they won’t accept your rule. The last thing Foh’Ran needs is a war for the throne. The last one gave us Rhuinn for a leader. There are people who would be worse than him on the throne only waiting for their chance to seize it.”

  Which was well and good, but it did bring up the same old question to Vivien’s mind: what if she wasn’t a better ruler than Rhuinn in the end?

  But one thing at a time. First, she had two or three duels to go through—and win. And before the first duel could start, she had thirty-one words to deliver exactly right.

  Like the last time she’d been there, she walked up to the dais and stopped in the same place. At her feet, the metal of the knife that had taken Brad’s life gleamed, melted by her channeling and shaped by Rhuinn’s.

  Perfect silence had fallen on the ballroom, and everyone’s attention was on her. She glanced at Brad again, then to her right at Aedan; both offered her an encouraging smile. Taking a deep breath, Vivien raised her gaze toward the dais, and the man sprawled on the throne. With a glass in one nonchalant hand and a slight smirk upon his lips, he watched her as though she were something amusing but of no consequence. She would soon do her best to prove him otherwise. It was time to start.

  “I am Vivien Te Celden,” she began. “I have come for our first duel, for the Quickening and by the Quickening, for all quarrels should have a chance to be solved without bloodshed.”

  She’d scoffed the first time she’d read those words, because one way or the other, this ‘quarrel’ would end with blood, there was no way around it. How the duels and their rituals had grown and evolved through time would have been something that, as a student, she’d have enjoyed researching. Somehow, history didn’t seem so appealing when she was caught in the middle of it.

  Rhuinn set down his glass and stood, each movement unhurried and showing his awareness that he now had the attention of every single person present. He approached the edge of the dais and channeled so that every word he pronounced was magnified as he gave the appropriate answer. Vivien heard him, but the words made little sense and she suddenly worried that she should have made her voice louder, too. Had she sounded weak or—worse—afraid? Had
that been her first mistake?

  On the dais, Rhuinn had finished talking. He shrugged out of the ornate coat he wore, holding it to the side without taking his eyes off Vivien until a maid hurried to take it from him. Rather than taking the few steps down the dais, he jumped off, his boots smacking the stone floor noisily.

  Vivien’s heartbeat accelerated, and her fingers felt numb when she reached for the fastening of her cape. Aedan stepped forward to take it from her and caught her gaze. He didn’t say a word, not when they were the center of attention and even a whisper was sure to be overheard, but the look in his eyes was easy enough to interpret. He had faith in her and believed she could do this.

  All she had to do now was prove him right.

  As Aedan and Olric retreated to the side to stand with the onlookers, Vivien took a few steps back, putting some distance between herself and Rhuinn. Seizing the Quickening took only a second. The world turned gray around Vivien, except for the colors swirling around Rhuinn. He was already channeling and, from what she could see, had woven some sort of armor around himself.

  She thought of doing the same, but rejected the idea. He couldn’t draw blood from her, so armor was overkill. Actually, she suspected the armor wasn’t so much a defense against her in this particular situation as it was an habit of his. With so many people unhappy with his rule, he might have grown used to protecting himself from unexpected attacks.

  A few seconds passed as they stood face to face on the ballroom floor, both of them channeling yet neither attacking yet. Vivien had already decided what she would do first; why was she waiting? It wasn’t as though a buzzer or judge would signal the beginning of the duel, the way they had in fencing.

  Focusing the Quickening she wielded, she formed an icy wave of air that she unfurled over Rhuinn. In a duel where drawing blood was losing, mental strength would be the key between victory and defeat. She wouldn’t win by causing Rhuinn a little discomfort, but it would be one small chip in his armor.