Embrace the Dark (The Blood Rose #1)(33)
Author: Caris Roane

She pushed past Derek’s vast field of power.

Derek kept his power steady but he cried out a powerful, ‘no’, that echoed through the forest.

Abigail knew what she had to do. She squared her shoulders. “All right, which one of you bloodsuckers is giving me a lift to the wastelands.”

The tallest and most brutish Invictus vampire moved forward, dropping to stand on the ground. His smile revealed another pair of yellowed fangs. Did Invictus vampires always have yellowish fangs like their wraith-mates?

“I am here for you,” he said. “And it will be a ride you’ll never forget.” She really didn’t like the sound of that.

When Derek tried to stop her, she turned to him and pathed, This is our only hope. Protect the castle and I’ll do everything I can to bring Gerrod back.

Derek seemed to settle into himself as he nodded. “Very well.”

She slowly put her arm around the Invictus vampire’s neck and planted her foot on his left instep. He levitated. She would have buried her head, but he forced it back instead and the next moment, his fangs were buried in her neck and she was moving.

It was a very strange experience to feel the blood leaving her body, and not in a happy way, as she sped through the forest. She had to close her eyes since the sight of the ponderosa canopy whipping by made her nauseous. Or maybe it was the smell of this creature who had hold of her. Or maybe it was that he sucked her blood down with a speed that matched his flying skills.

Before she reached the wastelands, she no longer held onto the vampire. She no longer could. She no longer knew anything.

*** *** ***

Gerrod sat against the brick wall. He could barely hold his head upright. His blood starvation had reached a critical point, that place in vampires that put him on the brink of death, wobbling back and forth.

His vision pared down to the still figure on the floor, her red hair fanned over the uneven gray flagstones. Her back was to him, one arm caught beneath, her hand palm up, fingers motionless.

She breathed in light breaths, high in the chest.

She was dying, almost drained of blood.

The vampire that had dumped her on the concrete floor was in a state of ecstasy. “So much blood,” he had said, laughing as he closed the cell door, locked it and headed back up the hall.

So here they were, both dying.

An Invictus wraith had come in earlier to tell him the good news that Abigail had been captured. He’d been too weak to do more than stare at the wraith, horrified. Worse followed when the terms of life for Gerrod and Abigail were established: They were to agree to form a symbiotic pair or be terminated.

“How would we become such a pair?” Gerrod had asked. “I’ve always understood that a wraith must be part of the pair.”

The wraith then explained that for the past hundred years, a very great and wise mastyr vampire, the Great Mastyr as she called him, had been doing experiments with the unique bonding properties of wraith blood. He had also steadily created a deep organization of wraiths, hand-picked for their ability to reason and to follow orders. Hence the recent attacks and the increased number of wraith pairs.

From those experiments, the Great Mastyr had interesting success when he used a human and a vampire. Once their blood was blended in a vessel and a fair amount of wraith blood added, it was as though the couple had become power-bonded like a wraith and a chosen mate. When the Great Mastyr had been informed that the Mastyr of Merhaine himself was dating a human, the rest followed.

Abigail and Gerrod would be the first of many very public experiments.

Gerrod had answered simply, “I would rather die first.”

“We hope that isn’t your choice.”

He remembered thinking there was something odd about this. “Why wouldn’t you just force us to do it?”

The wraith rolled her eyes. “For some odd reason unless the couple consents, if the act is done against the will of either, death follows. The Great Mastyr is still working to resolve this issue.”

He had one more question, since he had never spoken with an Invictus wraith before. “Why do you kill? What is it in the Invictus bonding that creates such sadism?”

The wraith merely smiled. “Killing in this way provides a tremendous rush of exhilaration and increased power. The symbiotic relationship, in which wraith and servant feed one another in a continuous loop helps sustain that power level. The whole is very addicting and pleasurable.”

So here Gerrod was, barely able to keep himself in a sitting position against the wall, with his beloved at his feet, and the only alternative for life that presented itself was becoming a wraith-based couple.

But perhaps what hurt the most was the simple, wonderful fact that Abigail had come for him, even knowing all that had happened, that the Invictus had been making a battlefield out of Merhaine, she had come for him.

He blinked, but it almost hurt to make that much effort. His eyes were wet. So were his cheeks.

The room was an oversized prison cell with a concrete floor and a glaring fluorescent light that buzzed overhead. He turned his head slowly to look out the small window, barred with a steel grate. Why the hell couldn’t he have been more like the fictional vampires and been capable of dematerializing? There were a few who could, but his DNA was just that much closer to human than the vanishing-gifted of his world.

He had speed though, but much good that would do him here, locked in a cell, near-death.

He shifted to stare at Abigail. He missed her, he needed her, he loved her. He recalled the moment at the wedding reception when Abigail had poked two fingers into him and said, ‘You need to lighten up.’

Her light green eyes had sparkled, shining with amusement.

But this was why he had wanted her to leave, this cell and her inert body, drained of precious blood, his greatest fear made manifest, that a woman, any woman, would die because of him, because she knew him or got too close.

*** *** ***

Abigail thought she was breathing but she couldn’t be sure. Did it count as breathing if you sort of puffed your air in and out of your chest? Her ribs hurt. To draw a deep breath hurt too much and yet that wasn’t the real problem. The truth was, she didn’t have the strength to draw a deep breath and her blood felt heavy again, her heart sluggish. Gerrod must be close and in need.

Gerrod, she called out, pathing along his particular frequency.

I’m here.

Where is here?

In an Invictus prison.

Huh. A prison? They’re that organized?

It’s a new terrible night for Merhaine.

I’m so sorry. She had another question, but it just wasn’t coming to the front of her mind. What was it that she needed to know? In fact, she’d been feeling quite desperate to have this particular question answered.