Chapter 15 Supernatural Weakness
Supernatural Weakness
I had no idea what the hell Eteria meant.
What I did know, however, was that the way he spoke that word made a chill crawl up my spine, causing an ominous, foreboding feeling to pool in my gut along with a confusing, expectant thrill.
“Eteria,” I murmured, tasting the term before I made the mistake of looking at Lucien.
He was so stiff, a vein threatened to burst in his temple.
Chase and his companion—Avenor, apparently, as Lucien called him—were staring at Lucien, just as stiff as he was, before they slowly, simultaneously, turned to look at me, shock slackening their faces. Especially Chase’s; he looked at me as if it were the first time he was truly seeing me.
Whatever this Eteria was, it was obviously significant.
The first one to break the stunned silence was Avenor. “I see,” he said in a low rumble, pushing back his chair and rising to his feet before clearing his throat and adding in a sincerely apologetic tone, “Thank you for letting us know.”
Confounded, I glanced at Chase as he rose slowly to his feet, too, seeming somewhat defeated.
“You will keep it to yourself,” Lucien suddenly said, and I whipped my head toward him, seeing him shoot a warning look at the two men. It wasn’t a request. It sounded like an order.
That seemed to snap Chase out of his stupor. “We’re not stupid,” he barked in an indignant voice, though why he reacted this way, I had no idea.
Lucien stood up and stared at Chase flatly. “Make a vow, then.”
The color ran out of Chase’s face before Avenor put a hand on his shoulder and stared at Lucien.
“How about we do you one better?” he said, putting on a harmless, amicable smile that was so at odds with his earlier condescension, I was taken aback.
“Chase and I are going to erase everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours from the systems and effectively sweep this whole ordeal under the rug. Think of it as a gesture of good faith, so you could trust us to keep this crucial information to ourselves.”
Lucien folded his arms. “Make a vow,” he repeated unyieldingly.
Avenor’s smile quivered while Chase looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “A sorcerer’s vow is a little overkill, don’t you think?” Chase said quietly, attempting a friendly smile, too, though it looked more like a grimace.
Lucien’s face remained determinedly resolute, and he said nothing, simply staring at the two men.
Avenor sighed. “Fine. We’ll make a vow.” He paused, adding under his breath, “Goddamn Alphas.”
“Now,” Lucien added.
Both Avenor and Chase scowled.
I was still confused by the whole thing, but nonetheless, I followed along when we exited the dining hall and Lucien led us to one of the rooms in the hotel’s convention center.
Once there, Lucien locked the door and turned to me. “They will need to draw your blood,” he told me, scowling a little, as Chase produced a dagger seemingly out of nowhere and Avenor used an antiseptic wipe over his inner arm.
“I don’t understand anything,” I informed him with a scowl of my own, folding my arms. “I want to know what this is all about before I let even a drop of my blood touch Chase’s dagger.”
Lucien visibly stiffened, and the impassiveness in his eyes suddenly disappeared, replaced by an odd shine filled with so many layers of emotions, it made my chest tighten.
“Eteria is a word in old Myrrenic, the dead language of the Otherborne, or as you call us, the supernatural,” he said quietly, hesitantly.
“In general terms, it means that your soul is bound to me.”
I froze, frowning, trying to process what he was saying. What did it mean, my soul was bound to him? What did this entail?
He must’ve seen the questions running through my mind because he added softly, “For now, all you need to understand is that you are my greatest vulnerability, and because of that, if anyone who wishes me ill learns what you are to me, they will do everything in their power to hunt you down and kill you.”
My lips parted slightly as I repeated his words in my head over and over again. But before I had any more time, Chase’s voice cut our conversation short. “We’re ready.”
The emotions on Lucien’s face disappeared as if by magic, replaced by a flat expression. “I’ll explain the rest later,” he told me in a quick murmur before he straightened and headed to Chase and Avenor with me following him, still confused but now genuinely scared too.
While I had yet to learn what Eteria meant, I at least understood why this whole making-a-vow thing was necessary.
Lucien didn’t trust Avenor and Chase to keep their word after informing them of his biggest weakness out of pure necessity. So he wanted to magically zip their mouths closed on the matter.
“Before we start,” Chase said, glancing at me briefly, “please show me your arms.”
Lucien, Avenor, and I showed our arms.
Chase then lifted his own arm and, with one swift cut, let a few drops of his blood into a small stone bowl he’d placed on the table.
He hovered his palm over the bowl, blood still flowing out of his fresh wound, as he muttered words in a language I didn’t understand.
It resulted in a soft glow surrounding the blood at the bottom of the bowl.
Grimly, Chase turned to me and said, “First, I need the blood of the subject matter.”
I pressed my lips together, bracing myself, as I nodded.
To his credit, Chase made the cut so quickly, the pain didn’t register until after he squeezed a few drops into the bowl. Only when I lowered my arm did I wince, feeling a little lightheaded and unsteady on my own two feet.
Lucien’s free arm wrapped around my waist, causing my heart to stutter, as he nudged me to lean against his side.
“I didn’t take you for a wimp when it comes to blood,” he murmured softly while Chase held his palm over the bowl and mumbled gibberish again.
“You tended to my injury with a cool head, after all.”
A thin layer of cold perspiration crawled over my skin. “When it’s others’ blood, I don’t mind,” I murmured as my vision started to turn blurry at the edges.
“Hey, sorcerer,” Lucien said, loud now, “you don’t need Drew anymore, right?”
Chase, who’d just finished his mumblings, turned to look at Lucien with a frown. “No, but . . .” He trailed off when he saw me. “Shit, she’s pale. Lay her down on the floor and bring a chair to put her legs over.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Lucien murmured as he placed me gently on the floor.
The next few minutes, I was fighting not to pass out, not wanting to feel more humiliated than I already did. Tending to deep, bleeding wounds was no problem. Shooting other people wasn’t any trouble, apparently, either. But a little slice to my arm, and I was done.
It wasn’t like I was afraid of pain or anything—at least not any more than the average person. But my blood pressure was naturally so low, the slightest injury could make me lose consciousness, as if my body couldn’t handle that.
With everything that was going on, I had completely forgotten about this quirk of mine. And now I’d made a spectacle out of myself.
And after Lucien told you you’re his weakness, too, a little voice whispered in my head, making me feel a pang of guilt. I wasn’t weak, not by a long shot. But this current display might make Lucien lose any faith he had in me, if he even had any to begin with.
As the ritual of the vow continued, all I could do was close my eyes and focus on my breaths. Chase’s quiet murmurs sounded like they were coming from far away. They were also monotonous enough that they were almost calming, in a way.
I was still trying to calm myself down when I heard more murmurs, this time from all three men, and tried to understand what they were saying. They were speaking so quietly I could only hear certain bits and pieces, like the Society won’t let it go or the Underearth without actual context.
Some time later, a hand cupped my face, swiping my sweat with gentle fingers, and I opened my eyes to see Lucien crouching next to me, concern in his expression. “They’re gone,” he told me, searching my face. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I croaked and, with his help, took my legs off the chair and slowly sat up. “Is the vow done?”
Lucien nodded silently, his hand lingering on my cheek.
I stared at him. His auburn tousles were a mess around his head, and his arctic-blue eyes were filled with emotion I couldn’t describe.
The sight of his concern did things to my body that made me force my gaze away and swallow hard in sudden nervousness.
He let me go and stood up. He offered me his hand, and I took it, climbing to my feet as well. He didn’t let my hand go, though, even though I was no longer bleeding or feeling like I was about to faint. “I need to wipe your wound,” he said quietly. “Can you handle that?”
Pursing my lips, I nodded. “Just be gentle.”
Chase must’ve left some antiseptic wipes for him, because Lucien plucked one out, held my arm, and cleaned the wound.
My eyes went over to his own arm. It was still bleeding.
Suddenly alert, I said, “Lucien, your arm—”
“I know,” he said with a dark tone that made me clamp my mouth shut. He finished cleaning me up and threw the wipe away. “It seems that whatever antihealing Spellscript my attacker carved on my back is not restricted to just my back.”
“That’s bad,” I said, finding his gaze with my own concerned one. “We need to find a way to deactivate the Spellscript or something, if possible.”
“It is possible,” he confirmed, but his face was grim. “However, it can only happen if we know what it means. For that, I need to go back to the pack.”
The fact he said I and not we made me stiffen. “What about Chase and Avenor?”
Lucien gave me a tired, sad smile. “The vow is bound to their life. It forbids them from telling anyone about you, and if they break the vow, they will die. I also made them vow they would let the last twenty-four hours go. That means the American Supernatural Society is no longer after us.” He paused, hesitated, and said, “With you being my Eteria, they are not allowed to erase your memories anymore either.”
I heard what he was saying, and I knew I should’ve felt relief, but I could read between the lines.
His face, sad as it was, and the squeeze of his hand on mine told me what he wasn’t saying.
“So you’re going back to your pack,” I said quietly, heart fluttering in my chest like a caged hummingbird, “and I’m not coming with you. ”
He grimaced, stepping closer to me. “That’s for the best, Drew,” he said quietly, stopping an inch away, and with his free hand, he gently took hold of my chin and lifted my head up so he could lock my gaze with his.
“If others find out I’m keeping a human by my side, it would be like I was showing the world that you’re my Eteria. It will put a target on your back.
“I have many enemies, Drew. They won’t hesitate to hurt you, since they know it’s very unlikely for them to be able to hurt me.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off before I could.
“It’s for your own safety that you go back to your own life and forget about me,” he said, and I saw a flash of something akin to desperation passing in his eyes.
“I can’t promise I will see you again, but you’d be safe and sound, and that’s all that matters. ”
There were so many things I wanted to say.
For starters, would I really be safe and sound if I went back to my life and continued writing for The Hallowing Hour?
Chase had been stationed as my neighbor to keep an eye on me due to this very job, after all.
So going back to how I was before I found a bleeding wolf outside my building couldn’t exactly work.
If it was all about keeping a low profile, that wouldn’t be entirely possible, at least not on that front.
And what about me being his Eteria? I wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Had he picked me as his Eteria? And if so, why did he want to get rid of me? Was he, in some way, rejecting me?
As for his enemies not wanting to hurt him since they couldn’t, that was a blatant lie. He would’ve been dead had I not found him in time. He’d admitted himself that I saved his life. And not only that, but his own Beta betrayed him. He even had enemies within his very own pack.
But looking at Lucien now, seeing that lingering desperation, the worry, it made me swallow my words. The thought of arguing with him and making my points when he was staring at me, stripped bare, practically begging me with his own brilliant eyes to agree, was enough to do me in.
Besides, what could a mere human like me do for an Alpha werewolf like him?
Logically, there was no reason for me to remain involved with him.
Even if every fiber of my being begged to differ.
So I dropped my shoulders, defeated, and simply said, “All right.”