Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
LUCCA
Rikkon doesn’t flinch when I fill two bags with his blood. Humans are only able to donate one bag every sixty days or so, but being a Nightingale has its advantages. I wouldn’t have asked for more than one bag, but he insisted.
While he rolls down his sleeve, Mauricio sets a glass of orange juice in front of him. “Drink this. It will help you.”
“Thanks.”
I grab the two bags from the desk. “I should bring these to Uncle Raphael while the blood is still warm.”
Since Vivi and Miranda are currently in the kitchen, I decided to do the whole bloody business in Mauricio’s office. They’re both used to the sight of blood, but they might be eating, and I don’t want to be disrespectful.
Rikkon already drank the entire glass of juice, and he stands to follow me.
“Whoa. Where do you think you’re going?” I ask.
“You said I could wait outside your uncle’s room as backup in case things take a turn for the worst.”
“You just donated a lot of blood. You’d probably be a hindrance.”
He scowls. “Why did you say that, then? Besides, I feel fine. I’m a Nightingale. I recover fast.”
“Let him come, Luc.”
I told him he could come so Vivi would feel better about the extra precautions. But now I think it wasn’t the best idea. But hell, I can’t say no when I look at Mauricio’s banged-up face.
“All right. Let’s go before the girls return and ask to tag along too.”
“Vivi can handle herself. Don’t underestimate her,” Rikkon tells me.
“I know, but I can’t help but want to protect her at all costs. I almost lost her.”
“Do you still blame yourself for what happened?”
I nod. “Every day.”
“You were cursed, Lucca. You couldn’t control yourself,” Mauricio says.
“It doesn’t change the fact that I almost drank Vivi dry,” I grumble.
I take the stairs to the basement where my uncle’s room is located, and it feels like I’m heading to the dungeon—albeit a very luxurious dungeon.
He’s not lacking comfort, but this isn’t a way to live, locked in a room and not knowing who you are half the time.
No wonder he made me promise that when the disease progressed to the point that he couldn’t remember anymore, I had to kill him.
My chest aches whenever I think about that. My mother is gone, and Manu is lost in Ellnesari and I may never see her again, or Ronan, who’s like a brother to me. I can’t bear the thought of losing my uncle too, who has always been my father figure.
There’s a monitor just outside my uncle’s room that shows the feed from the camera. Uncle Raphael hasn’t moved from the spot on the floor. Mauricio gives Rikkon a vial. “This is vampire’s bane. If he escapes the room, throw it onto his face.”
“Will it stop him?” he asks.
“No, but it will slow him down,” I say.
“Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
Mauricio unlocks the door and insists on walking into the room first. I follow him quickly and close the door behind me.
The entire floor is covered in broken pieces of furniture and glass.
The mattress has been shredded to pieces, and tufts of foam and feathers litter the area where the bed used to be. He went on a rampage.
“My king, Lucca is here to see you,” Mauricio says.
Uncle Raphael lifts his head, and the air gets stolen from my lungs. His face is hollow, there are dark circles under his eyes, and his beard is longer than it has ever been and unkempt. He’s barely recognizable.
“You shouldn’t have come, Lucca.”
I walk round Mauricio and offer him the blood bags. “You need to feed.”
He eyes them with suspicion. “Whose blood is that?”
“It’s Rikkon’s.”
“It smells funny. It’s laced with vampire’s bane, isn’t it, boy? You want to poison me so you can steal my crown.”
His eyes flash red, but he doesn’t make a move to attack me yet.
“I don’t want your fucking crown. You know I never cared about that. I want to see you well again.”
He grimaces, then lets out a pitiful sob that I feel deep in my soul. “There’s no hope for me. I won’t get better, Lucca. My time to meet the sun has come.”
“No! Your time hasn’t come yet.” I drop into a crouch in front of him. “Now drink this.” I shove one of the blood bags into his hand.
I see the fight brewing in his eyes, but so is the hunger.
In the end, his survival instincts kick in, and he drinks from the bag.
Almost immediately, his visage improves.
The dark circles disappear, and his skin loses the sickly gray hue.
His cheeks look fuller too. The only thing Rikkon’s blood can’t improve is the state of my uncle’s beard.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Thank you, son.”
“You’re welcome.”
Uncle Raphael opens his eyes again and glances at Mauricio. “Did I do that to you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry. I don’t remember.”
“How do you feel now?” I ask.
“Much better.”
Hope surges within my chest. Maybe Nightingale blood is the key to cure my uncle.
There’s a knock on the door, and then Rikkon says, “Lucca, you need to come quickly.”
The urgency in his tone has me back on my feet and out of the room in a flash. Vivi and Miranda are with him. “What is it?”
“Vaughn just called. They were ambushed at the Nightshade Market. Jacques has Sophie.”
Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have let them go.
“Do we know where he’s taken her?”
Miranda nods. “To Bloodstone Institute. Jacques is going to try to free Madeleine Boucher.”
Son of a bitch.