Chapter Thirty
Cordon groaned as a beam of sunlight crept between curtains that hadn’t been put back perfectly into place and singed his hand. He wished he could ring for Adams, but he was too weak to shout. Nor was he able to maintain a cohesive thought for more than a few minutes, thanks to the fever.
His hip ached. He turned onto his other side with a wince.
Everything was too much. The slight aroma of onions and garlic from the kitchen.
The soft gong of church bells in the distance.
The heaviness of his own limbs cradled in the bed.
Each sensation was heightened and made it impossible to sleep.
Time passed in bursts. He would startle away, sweaty and aching all over, to find a maid adding wood to the fire or leaving a glass of blood on the table beside the bed.
Then he would drift away again, and it would feel like he were floating in water, even though he was distantly aware that days were passing.
He preferred the floating, as it took away the pain.
Was this how his maker had died? This switching between two different states was jarring. He preferred the void. It was so much easier to drift away and let it all go.
“Leave me alone,” he said as four members of his nest appeared suddenly around his bed. He didn’t want them to remember him as he was now: weak and bedbound.
Lucina’s lower lip trembled. “How could you?”
Helena tried to drape an arm over Lucina’s shoulders, but Lucina shoved her away and leaped into the bed on all fours. “Don’t you remember how much it hurt when our maker left? I can’t believe you were going to do that to us.”
“That’s enough, Lucina,” Jonathan said. He was dressed in a nightshirt with his black hair loose around his shoulders, as if he’d been roused from slumber and hadn’t time to change.
He held out a hand to Lucina. She accepted it, then ran to Helena and wrapped her arms around the taller woman’s waist and sobbed into her black-and-white-striped jacket.
Cordon buried his face in his pillow, feeling as if he were being mourned while he was still alive. The only person missing was Marcus. His brother’s absence was like a wound in his heart, even if he hadn’t wanted any of his siblings to see him in such a state.
When he looked again, most of the nest was gone. Only Seraphina remained, her eyes glowing bright blue in the darkness.
“You were to summon us if your condition worsened,” she said.
He winced. It had been easy to forget that Seraphina was older and stronger than him, second only to Marcus in the nest hierarchy. Her fury was justified, but he couldn’t summon the energy to care that he’d broken his word.
“Leave me to die in peace,” he said.
Her shoulders slumped. “Do not say that, brother. It is not yet too late.” She walked over and sat on the bed. “What about your newest human concubine?”
“I drank from her, Seraphina. Several times. It is not her.”
His sister sniffed. “You are quite certain?”
He looked at her between his fingers. “What do you mean?”
She stared at her nails. “I found another nest willing to speak to me. Every mated vampire I spoke to told a different story. Some insisted the only way to determine if a human is your fated mate is to turn them. Others claimed the mating bond formed at first bite, or even at first kiss. One even mated with a werewolf.” She shuddered.
“The only thing they all agreed about was that the bond didn’t form until they’d stopped caring if it ever would.
I suppose it is rather like waiting for a kettle to boil.
The more attention you give it, the longer it seems to take.
Why do you think Marguerite was so frustratingly vague?
It must have been terrible for her, wanting so desperately for us to succeed where she’d failed while knowing that pressuring us would make it that much more difficult. ”
The revelation, which should have been obvious, hit him with the force of a slap across the face. “Not just Marguerite. I’ve asked Dr. Rysel for help countless times, but he never told me anything useful. Now I know why.”
More importantly, this also meant there was still a chance that Kitty was his fated mate.
He both wanted it to be true and hoped it wasn’t.
The former because it would mean his salvation was in reach, the latter because the only way to prevent his demise might be to turn Kitty.
If so, she would become a night-dwelling creature, subsisting on the blood of others, unable to run a business that operated during the day, at least for several decades until she was strong enough. Unable to live a normal life.
He couldn’t do it.
Seraphina sighed. “I see you will not change your mind.” She sat on the bed. “Tell me what you wish me to do. I can, at least, fulfill your last request.”