Forty-Five
My eyes are going three rounds with my heart, beating the shit out of it, pinning it in a corner and not giving it any room to fight back. To defend itself. It can’t even fucking breathe. My father’s words are burrowing into my skull, hammering fist after fist into the pit of my soul, and I surge to my feet on the last page. As that last word delivers the knockout blow.
My whole body trembling, I flip the book upside down, spread it open, and shake it. Praying something falls out. Some last scrap of paper. A wayward note to tell me if the spell he detailed worked. Nothing.
“Aleric!”
I shout as I shake the grimoire harder. But I’ve been through every page. I know there’s nothing else tucked inside it. Twisting the book around, I run my fingers along the inside of the front, then back cover, seeing if there’s a hidden pocket anywhere.
“What is it?”
Vlad demands, his voice tight, but he does not have the information I want, so I ignore him. I stride towards the door, though I’m not certain if he’ll reappear before I get there or if he’ll let me walk out of here just to see the blood bond bite me in the ass.
My feet grind to a halt, my brain finally pulling on their reins. Of course he’d let me deliberately break my oath and watch as the gods punish me. He’s Aleric.
“What. Is. It?”
Vlad demands again, his voice ice cold. He phases in front of me, his eyes turning a ruby red as the control on his rage slips.
My Craving surges forward, always lying in the pit of my stomach, a cancer spreading out. It wants to match his bloodthirst, and I take a step back, my nostrils flaring, my hands shaking. Vampires can feed on each other, and his pulse calls to me like a late night snack.
His eyes narrow. “You’ve not been feeding.”
“How well did you know Caden?”
I demand, changing the subject to something that actually matters. Vlad was around before the treaty Mother forced them all to sign; he might know something I can use.
His lips tighten, but his eyes shift back to their normal green. Not quite as radiant as Rudy’s, but darker, like the heart of a forest whose roots are awash with blood. He holds on sharper to his control for me – and for him. The Craving is a breaking of the mind, an individual’s reduction from man to beast, but it is also semi-contagious, able to spread like a mob’s mentality. Like pollen through a forest, infecting an entire vamp nest or wolf pack with its madness. Temporarily, perhaps, but the damage would be done.
“He was ruthless, and there wasn’t a line he wouldn’t cross to protect the Shadow Family… or your mother.”
He looks away, wrestling with his rage. Given Caden killed Vlad’s sister, I can guess the rest of his thoughts.
“What happened between the three of them?”
I demand, finally curious, finally needing to know so I can make sense of the book of shadows in my hands. The one that ends on a spell that’ll destroy the blood bond as if it never were.
He looks back at me, studying me. He knows I’m not asking just for midnight gossip. Breathing out heavily, his jaw tics as he says, “Caden loved your mother, but Aleric wanted her. I can’t speak on her feelings –”
“But she never squirted with your father,”
Aleric cuts in as he saunters back into the library.
The urge to hit him is almost stronger than the Craving. I clench the grimoire tight as I hold it up. “Did he do it?”
Is that why he left? Why she’s so ashamed to talk about it? He gave her everything, and all she had were regrets? Or did he do it when he came back?
Aleric shrugs a lazy shoulder, but his eyes are sharp and obsessive. “He was nauseatingly lovesick. Who knows?”
“You said you knew him well.”
“Better than anyone,”
he says easily. “Including his wife and brother.”
“Did he do it?”
I demand again.
Can I replicate it from afar? Break the bond so we have more time to save Micha?
Aleric stares at me for a long moment before he says, “I think he might’ve tried.”
“When?”
He smiles. “Come on now. Use that big brain of yours.”
My eyes narrow, but I don’t let my annoyance get in the way. “When he supposedly cursed her?”
I glance down at the book in my hand. “Breaking the blood bond requires a lot of power.” It could’ve pulled on hers, sapping her energy and making her think he’d cursed her. It could’ve pulled on his, killing him… or just making him seem dead.
“He never would’ve cursed her,”
he says simply. “Like I said, he was disgustingly obsessed with her well-being.”
But that doesn’t tell me if he succeeded. I couldn’t feel Micha when she was in the Shadow Domain and I was here. We’re not fully bonded, so maybe that’s why, or maybe –
My heart skids to a stop as my eyes snap to his. “Why do you want to go into the Plane of Monsters?”
I ask. Even if what he thinks is true, that Caden didn’t sacrifice himself to curse Mother, what can he possibly expect to find there? Either he was dead when she took him into her shadows, or he was close enough to it that the monsters would’ve made quick work of him.
Unless he failed. Unless the blood bond still runs through his veins, and Mother’s blood has kept him safe all this time.
Aleric’s grin widens, his dark-eyes growing wild. “He’s like a cockroach. I’d bet Vlad’s ballsack he’s still alive.”
“And you want to kill him,”
I breathe. Mother said he has a map of the Plane of Monsters. He knows the world. He could hunt Caden down and make sure he’ll never be able to come home and save Sau from his ‘attentions.’
Aleric breaks out in laughter. “Not at all. I want to bring him back.”
He scoffs. “Sau can’t choose me if there’s no one to choose between. Duh.”
I stare at him in disbelief, then shake my head. If he wants to believe that Mother will ever be tempted to choose him, that’s his delusion to bear. I need to focus on saving my wife.
“Do you know if he made another grimoire after this?”
I demand, getting back onto the subject of what I came here for.
He shakes his head. “That was his last one, kiddo. There’s no more notes other than what’s in there.”
Meaning there’s no way to know if what he tried even worked. This book – this hope is just another dead end.
A fucking dead. End.
My hand trembles from the agony, but I clench my fist until my knuckles turn white. Not letting it consume me.
Not letting it break me.
Because there is still one way to save her.
The blood bond won’t take her life if I give up mine.
So if the time comes where I use too much, it will not be her who dies.