30. Thirty
Thirty
Aaron
“I can’t feel my arms.” I groaned, then Dom released me from behind, and I crumbled to the floor. I didn’t know how my brothers did it. Battling in blood was the worst thing I’d ever done. My entire body was achy and weak, and add in the pain in my chest, and it felt like I was fighting the flu.
“Do you need a break?”
“Kinda.” I groaned and lay back on the mat. The room spun around me. The basement was large and full of mirrors. Like the whole house, it was a major upgrade from what we’d had in Blackheart. While the other was makeshift, this room seemed intentional by whoever built it. Underneath the mats were black concrete and a drain system that made it easy to clean up. Everything was new and wrapped in plastic like it had laid in wait for a moment like ours.
I could barely sit up to stare at myself. Black blood stained the edges of my hair and soaked my chest.
“You’re doing well. It takes practice.”
“Yippee,” I said.
Training wasn’t all of it. I needed to learn how to navigate advanced blood loss. Though it was important and I needed to learn to build on basic defense, Kilian was certain my role would be less about violence and more about getting through to my older brothers and getting them to fight on our side.
“ They may not recognize you ,” he’d said one day, and my chest hurt so much at the thought my heart skipped.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s possible She could wipe their memories of your time together. It could be some. All. It’s all unknown.”
“Are you saying they may attack me?”
“Yes. You need to be prepared for your brothers to be different when you see them. They most likely will be changed, and not for the better.”
“If She wipes their memories, how do we fix it?”
“By killing Her.”
Dom’s large hand in my face snapped me back to reality. He held out a blood bag for me to drink. The sloshing red liquid was tempting, but I knew better.
“Here.”
I hesitated. “I don’t need it.”
“You need blood.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Dom didn’t argue, clearly not caring if I chose to be miserable.
“Can you help me up?”
He pulled me up with ease, and I held onto his forearm to steady me. “I’ll let Kilian know you want to speak with him.”
Dom spent half of his time training, then the other half away doing more technical type preparation. He’d mentioned once that he had the skill to fly planes and choppers. It was the only hobby I’d found of his. I was a little jealous that he got such a cool job in the whole thing. Kilian said he was the last known pilot they had on the team.
I followed him up the steps and willed my legs to move. Like I had cinder blocks tied to my feet, I took every step slowly, and Dom waited for me with not an ounce of annoyance on his face. Being around him reminded me of Blackheart in a way that added to the collective pain in my chest. I remembered the little things. The times he picked the lint off Skylar’s clothes or the two of them whispering in the corner. The way she’d ask him if she had lipstick in her teeth and he’d answer honestly every time. He had to be in pain, but not an ounce of it showed.
“Can I ask you something?” I finally reached the top of the stairs, and we walked toward the library that unfortunately required another set of steps.
Oddly, I trusted Dom. He saved Kimberly, and that meant something to me. It was more than anyone else there had done.
He nodded.
“Why do you trust Kilian? When he locked us up, Thane mentioned something about Will being the only reason he didn’t kill you and Skylar, but I’ve been trying to figure out if he just said that to get us to turn on Kilian. But even then, why? Why follow Kilian after what happened to your sister?”
“Kilian’s true intention was apparent. We were never fearful of him. Kilian is an open book. He wants one thing. I knew he’d want something from me and he’d be hard to please if he didn’t get it. I didn’t provide much for him. My time with The Family was brief. I was changed only for service and never fully integrated like your brothers. Important enough for them to kill my mother but not enough for me to see their main operation. I was changed by a rank much lower than your brothers’.”
I nodded, thankful conversations with Dom didn’t require me to say much.
“I believe that’s the only reason Akira left me alive. He hoped that I would return. There have been many Legion lost to The Family and not by death. Akira thought of it as a game. He enjoyed turning Kilian’s men over to his own side.”
We reached the door to the library. Felix passed us in the hallway and grunted at me before I entered. Kimberly sat in an armchair with her hair pulled out of her face while she read and scribbled notes in her notebook. The tired ache in my body disappeared. She looked adorable in research mode, and I almost forgot about how stressed out it made her. She hid it well, but she was quieter in Alaska; she talked less and worried more.
“I’ll be right back,” Dom said, closing the door behind him.
Her eyes shot up to me. “Aaron. Oh my god.”
I flashed her a toothy smile. “It’s just a little blood.”
She didn’t smile. Only blinked a few times as she stood to survey me.
“What’s wrong?”
She stared with wide eyes. “It . . . I think it scares me to see you this way.”
“Oh. I’m fine, Kim. I have to learn how to deal with the blood loss. It’s good practice.”
“Are you sure? Can I help . . .?”
“That depends, do you want Kilian catching us in the library to be the way he finds out about this?”
“Aaron, you’re dripping blood on the floor.”
With a feather touch, she brushed the blood on my shoulder.
“Builds endurance,” I said, like the room wasn’t wobbly.
“Can you be quick?” Her doe eyes beckoned me, and all my blood rushed south. She wanted me to bite her, and anything Kimberly Burns asked me to do, I really wanted to do for her.
“I-I . . . Yeah.” I pressed in till her back hit the bookcase. “Can you be quiet?”
She nodded, and I took her wrist and tuned into the sound of her pulse. Getting to drink from her was a gift. A grotesque, bewildering gift. My teeth tore the flesh of her wrist—the same wrist that held the scars I’d given her as a human—as I held her eye contact, and the heat of her blood filled my mouth. Her heart beat fresh blood into my veins, and I could see more. Feel more.
A small gasp escaped her mouth, and I pressed into her again as a reminder to stay hidden. I wrapped my other hand behind her head so I could hold her while our hips crushed together. Something about the pressure of her always felt right. Like her blood did.
After a few more seconds, I licked the remnants of blood away. She hadn’t trained, so her wound closed quickly. With a quick kiss, I let her hand fall back at her side.
“You look so beautiful when your cheeks flush like that.”
Her smile was back.
“I just like this.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “I hate how much I enjoy this.”
The taste of her blood lingered on my lips. How long had I wanted this, and now I could have it? What was the consequence or reason?
She gripped at the hair on my neck. “You’re not the only one.”
The door clicked and we separated. Dom and Kilian funneled into the room.
“Ah, happy to see you both. Dom told me you want to see me. I apologize. I’ve been out at a meeting.”
“So, uh, we have something we need to talk to you about.”
Kilian and Dom shared a look.
“Do I need to leave?” Dom asked.
“No, you can stay,” Kimberly said.
“Yeah . . . sure. Stay. Um, I’m just gonna say it. Ever since we beat Akira, the thirst got worse.”
Kilian’s brow bent. “You need to feed more?”
“I thought that at first. But human blood made it worse. I fed more and it just made me feel like I was losing my mind. Until I . . . didn’t have another choice but to try another option, and I drank Kimberly’s blood.”
Dom’s and Kilian’s eyes grew wider. I didn’t think I’d ever seen that much emotion on Dom’s face.
“Is this . . . normal?”
Kilian shook his head and stood straighter. “No. I’ve never heard of such a thing happening. And Kimberly’s blood keeps you satiated?”
“Yeah, for the same amount of time human blood did.”
Kilian rubbed at his forehead in a way that showed all his wrinkles.
“Should I be worried?” I’d never seen Kilian speechless.
“I do not know. I think it’s good you’ve found a suitable solution.”
It was physically painful to tell Kilian something so personal.
“Maybe there’s a reason . . . Do you remember any texts or anything talking about this?” Kimberly asked.
“No. We’d have to look for any specifics. But it is bringing up a thought.” He rummaged on this desk some, moving stacks of books and papers.
When he didn’t find it, he went for the shelves and ran his finger over creased, cracking spines till he pulled out a little black book. It was leatherbound with worn pages strapped together. The engraving on the front was barely visible. It appeared to be a crest with two swords on either side, a harp and an owl in the middle, with four Latin words on the bottom.
“This is the coven’s crest. Not all of them have one. But Cecily was born in a time period where having family crests was common.”
“What do the words on the bottom mean?”
“That’s what interested me the most about this. At first, I believed them to be just words that The Family valued, but now I believe the four words represent a trait of each of The Guard: strength, loyalty, desire, and protector.”
“What do this have to do with my blood problem?” I said, shifting under the weight of Kilian’s gaze.
“We’ve spoken about your brothers’ issues with Her blood before. It affects you all differently. I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate why that might be. I met The Guard when we attacked long ago and they fit these roles. We surrounded the monastery with fire. I suspect Ezra must have taken the queen to safety immediately. They were accompanied by Sirius. Only Eros and Akira stayed behind to fight. My brother wanted to stay. He wasn’t going to let Eros out alive, and vice versa. The entire place went up in flames and took their mangled bodies with it. Eros . . . he was stronger than all of them . . . I wonder . . .”
“And your brother . . . What happened?”
“He was able to find a chip in that armor. We found their hideout and ambushed them. Much like now but less prepared. They didn’t have near the numbers, and we didn’t have the dagger. He locked me out of the monastery before I could go after him. By the time I escaped, they were all gone and the building was ash. Ezra stayed closest to Her—the lover, symbolizing Her desire and lust for connection. They took Sirius with them, and at first, I believed his trait to be loyalty, but after talking with the twins, it makes more sense for him to be strength. Akira was undoubtedly loyal. And that leaves Eros . . . the protector.”
“These traits would be brought out in me and my brothers, then? Since they think we’re the new Guard.”
“Yes. You’d likely be a better judge of that. If you find your role, it might help better understand what’s going on with the blood.”
“Luke is the lover,” Kimberly said, quickly writing all four words down on a piece of paper.
“Agreed.” Luke talked about the queen like he was in love with Her, so likely, that was his trait.
“Zach could be strength or loyalty or protector,” I said, staring at the remaining words. “But there’s no way I embody strength.”
“There are different types of strength,” Kimberly said.
Kilian interjected. “This particular word also could pertain to courage or bravery.”
“Definitely not.”
“That leaves strength for Presley or Zach,” she said. Kimberly was already moving the pencil and writing Loyalty under Presley’s name. “I have a feeling about this one. What do you think?”
“It fits. Then Zach is strength and I’m . . . the protector?”
“Yes, Presidium represents guardianship. Being the ultimate protector.”
We didn’t have the words in the right order. I didn’t fit into any of those roles well.
“How would drinking from Her make me a protector?”
“Something for us to contemplate, indeed.”
I thought about my brothers’ dreams again. That place was all they’d known and all they believed in. They were forced to fit into those roles. It was like there were two roads before me. Maybe I was their protector, but not as a member of The Guard. I could be the protector of our dream of freedom.